LITERARY NOTICES. 



567 



and Washington Territory " ; " Cretaceous 

 Fossils from Vancouver Island Region," in 

 which an intimate relation is shown with the 

 fauna of the Chico group ; " The Molluscan 

 Fauna of the Puget Group," unique and indi- 

 cating deposition in a large estuary; and 

 " Mesozoic Mollusca from the Southern Coast 

 of the Alaskan Peninsula," which are re- 

 garded as new. No. 52, Subaerial Decay of 

 Bocks and Origin of the Red Color of Cer- 

 tain Formations, relates studies of the sub- 

 ject by Israel Clark Russell, chiefly among 

 the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia and 

 North Carolina. The author believes that 

 changes by decay have' a wider geological 

 bearing than has generally been assigned to 

 them ; and that the red color of certain 

 sandstones is due to a coating of their par- 

 ticles with ferric oxide received during the 

 process of subaerial decay of the rocks of 

 the debris of which they are composed. The 

 last of the present series of Bulletins No. 

 53 is a study of The Geology of Nantucket, 

 by Prof. N. S. Shaler. The island is re- 

 garded, together with the accompanying 

 southern Massachusetts coast, Martha's Vine- 

 yard, Long Island, etc., as " the dissevered 

 remains of a great shelf formed of the debris 

 brought to its present position by the glacial 

 ice and by the streams of water which flowed 

 beneath it." 



The United States Department of Agri- 

 culture, Division of Entomology, publishes an 

 investigation of The Root-knot Disease of the 

 Peach, Orange, and other Plants in Florida, 

 due to the Work of Anguilhda, made under its 

 direction, in 1888, by Dr. ./. C. Neal. A large 

 number of species of plants are attacked by 

 the worms, whose depredations are marked 

 by the appearance of swellings or " knots " 

 on the roots, and threaten to be damaging. 

 The author has made studies of the nature 

 of the insect and its ravages, and has experi- 

 mented with reference to the remedies. His 

 report is illustrated with plates representing 

 attacked roots and the life-history of the 

 enemy. 



The June number of the Journal of Mor- 

 phology, Vol. Ill, No. 1 (Prof. C. 0. Whit- 

 man and Edward Phelps Allis, Jr., editors ; 

 Ginn & Co.), contains articles on " The Acti- 

 niaria of the Bahama Islands," by Dr. J. Play- 

 fair McMurrich ; " Contributions to the Com- 

 parative Osteology of the Families of North 



American Passeres," and " Notes on the 

 Anatomy of Spcotyto cunicularia hypogea^ by 

 Dr. R. W. Shufeldt ; and " Variation of the 

 Spinal Nerves in the Caudal Region of the 

 Domestic Pigeon," by James I. Peck. The 

 September number, Vol. Ill, No. 2, has 

 "The Mechanical Causes of the Develop- 

 ment of the Hard Parts of the Mammalia," 

 by E. D. Cope ; and " The Embryology of 

 Blatta germanica and Doryphora decem- 

 lincata " the cockroach and the Colorado 

 potato beetle by William M. Wheeler. 



A Bibliography of Geodesy was compiled 

 by Prof. J. Howard Gore to supply a need 

 which he felt while preparing a work on the 

 " History of Geodesy." Before proceeding 

 far in that work he found it very difficult at 

 any time to make sure that the literature re- 

 garding the operations of a given period had 

 been exhausted, and he sought to collect 

 titles as well as the works themselves. His 

 purpose extended to making the enterprise 

 useful to others. He went abroad and 

 searched through European libraries, exam- 

 ined minor libraries by proxy, and corre- 

 sponded with authors to find if they had any 

 other works than those of which he had the 

 titles. The outcome of this persevering la- 

 bor is a list filling four hundred columns of 

 references, with short remarks where the 

 title alone is not explanatory enough. Sev- 

 eral institutions, among them the Interna- 

 tional Geodetic Congress of Berlin, offered 

 to publish the book ; but the author thought 

 our Coast and Geodetic Survey was entitled 

 to the preference, and the work is therefore 

 issued under its auspices. 



Part I of the nineteenth volume of the 

 " Annals of the Observatory of Harvard Col- 

 lege" contains Meteorological Observations 

 made during the Years 1S40 to 1888 inclu- 

 sive, under the direction of the several di- 

 rectors of the observatory, Profs. W. C. and 

 G. P. Bond, Joseph Winlock, and F. C. Pick- 

 ering. Partial publications of these observa- 

 tions could already be found in the " Mem- 

 oirs " of the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences, the " American Almanac," and 

 the Patent-Office Reports, but it has seemed 

 desirable to make a collection of the monthly 

 means. The volume begins with a history 

 of the meteorological work of the observa- 

 tory ; the " monthly and annual results " 

 come next ; after which follow " Observa- 



