SCO 



HARDWICKE'S S CI E N C E- GOSSIP. 



GEOLOGY. 



The Pacific Deep Sea Exploration.— The 

 latest despatch from Professor Agassiz to Professor 

 Pierce, of the United States Coast Survey, is of 

 great scientific interest. It was written on the 

 voyage from Panama to Acapulco, and records the 

 impressions of the author gathered on the Pacific 

 coast, and during a land journey of nearly 300 

 miles in the Valley of Chilian, between the coast 

 range and the Audian chain from Concepcion, at the 

 mouth of the river Bio Bio, northward to the 

 capital of Chile. Tliis valley, which, commencing 

 at the Gulf of Ancud, extends over 1,500 miles 

 to the north, he finds to be the bed of a vast 

 glacier, whose ice-slide to the north has ground and 

 polished the rocks of its east and west boundaries, 

 the Andes, and the coast-range, so that while they 

 stand they will tell to students the history of one of 

 those wonderful changes which have marked and 

 shaped the earth's surface. At one point, a little 

 south of Santiago, he finds the track of a more 

 recent glacier which, moving laterally from the 

 Andes towards the west, across the drift of the 

 great glacier, has left in its course volcanic boulders 

 in the direction of the coast-range, which stayed its 

 progress. A gradual recession of the ice boundary 

 towards the South Pole, which was accompanied 

 ■with an ascending temperature, was followed by the 

 formation of successive lakes, whose deposits now 

 form a series of terraces of various levels through 

 the whole length of this interesting valley. An ex- 

 amination of the group of islands called the Gala- 

 pagos has afforded an opportunity for a study 

 of the land. This archipelago, situated near the 

 equator, 700 miles west of the coast of Ecuador, 

 is evidently of recent volcanic origin. The 

 animals and plants are some of them of types found 

 nowhere else on the known globe, and naturally 

 seem special creations for that locality, or strange 

 instances of the almost creative power of trans- 

 formation in nature. Evidently the professor in- 

 clines to think there has been a direct creation 

 of organized beings for those distant new islands in 

 the wide Pacific, and he confesses that as yet 

 science is unable to answer questions of the origin 

 of organized beings. Small difference is noted in 

 the vegetable products of the Atlantic and Pacific 

 coasts in the neighbourhood of Panama, but in 

 marine animals a decided variation was discovered, 

 while all classes of animal life on both sides bear 

 decided American characteristics. During the long 

 and busy voyage, the party of which A gassiz is the 

 chief have made careful observations of a large class 

 of subjects, and accumulated such a store of speci- 

 mens as will, in his able hands, make most valuable 

 additions to our knowledge in the sciences of 

 geology and zoology. The exploring party have ob- 



tained large numbers of specimens of plants and 

 animals; and Professor Agassiz has already sent 

 home 137 barrels, boxes, and cases filled with spe- 

 cimens. 



Geology of Noktu Hampshire. — A capitally- 

 written paper on this subject, by Dr. Joseph 

 Stevens, appears in the " Transactions of the New- 

 bury District Field-Club," which, by the way, has 

 got up its little volume in a most commendable 

 manner. Dr. Stevens's paper includes the ex- 

 tension of the chalk, with an enumeration of its 

 fossils, and, what is still more valuable, a gopd de- 

 scription of the drift strata, and of the formation of 

 " Pot-holes," &c. The valley gravels occupy a pro- 

 minent place, as might be expected from so ardent 

 an implement-hunter as the author, whose paper on 

 the " Flint Works at Cissbury," extracted from the 

 Sussex Arclipeological Society's Collection, just 

 published, will not fail to impress archffiologists in 

 favour of Dr. Stevens's knowledge of his subject. 



Kew Dendkoid Graptolite. — Mr. John Hop- 

 kinson, F.G.S., has just described a new Dendroid 

 Graptolite, from the Arenig rocks, Kamsey Island, 

 South Wales, under the name of Callojniptus radi- 

 c'ans. He thinks this group may have attached them- 

 selves to other objects, whereas the true graptolites 

 (grouped by Professor Allmann as Rhabdophord) 

 were free. The former, therefore, more nearly re- 

 sembled the recent sertularians, not only in their 

 mode of growth, but also in their general form, and 

 even in their structure. 



Coal. — In a paper read before the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, by 

 Professor Andrews, he stated there were three 

 leading varieties of bituminous coal, — the ordinary 

 resinous or caking coal, the splint, and the cannel 

 coal. These pass into each other by almost imper- 

 ceptible gradations. The resinous coal seems to be 

 the normal condition which the buried vegetation 

 first assumes ; the splint and cannel are modified 

 forms, the cannel coal having lost all trace of struc- 

 ture, and containing no organized forms except 

 Stigmarla, which is very abundant. The ash of 

 coals is the original inorganic matter of vegetation, 

 often increased by sedimentary matter in the marsh 

 during the formation of coal. 



A New xiiiACiiNit). — Mr, Henry Woodward, of 

 the British Museum, has given a description of a 

 new species of arachnid, which he names ArchiUtrbus 

 snbovcdis, from the ironstone nodules of the Lanca- 

 shire coal-measures. It is remarkable on account 

 of its close relationship to a North American fossil 

 species. One cannot but note how many of the 

 old forms from the carboniferous formation of 

 North America are common in the same strata in 

 England, under similar conditions of fossilization. 



