3 2o SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



increased, so that the extent of chemical change would 

 decrease as the distance increased ". 



Several papers on Carboniferous Palaeontology remain 

 to be noticed. Treating of fossil plants, we find a paper 

 by Kidston (16) in which a new genus Plumatopteris is 

 described. It is a fern which finds its nearest allies in 

 certain species of Arckceopteris. Six new species of plant 

 are also described in the paper. Count Solms-Laubach 

 (17) also contributes to our knowledge of paleobotany. 

 Turning to Pakeozoology, we may refer to the publication 

 of Brongniart's work on fossil insects of the Palaeozoic 

 rocks, though this was published in 1893 (18), but as this 

 beautiful work has been noticed elsewhere, it will be 

 sufficient to quote the title. Dr. H. Woodward ( 19) de- 

 scribes two new Phillipsicc from the "shales with lime- 

 stones'' referred by Tiddeman to the upper part of the 

 Mountain Limestone series from the banks of the river 

 H odder, occurring in the disturbed tract of Carboniferous 

 strata lying south of the Craven Fault. Thanks to this 

 author's work on the trilobites of the British Carboniferous 

 strata, this group of organisms will probably be of consider- 

 able value in the immediate future in classifying the Car- 

 boniferous strata, as it has already been found in separating 

 the various members of the Lower Palaeozoic Strata. 



The last work to notice is the commencement of a 

 Monograph on Carbo?iicola, Anthracomya, and Naiadites 

 by Dr. Wheelton Hind (20). Professor Hull has spoken 

 of this group of shells as having been "a bane to palaeon- 

 tologists," and there has certainly been great confusion both 

 with regard to the synonymy of the group, and the habitat 

 of the forms belonging to it. 



This confusion, thanks to the author of the Monograph 

 under consideration, seems likely to be removed. He has 

 " been reluctantly obliged to acknowledge that in two, at 

 least, of the three genera to be described in this Monograph 

 the names now in use must be abandoned for others which 

 have the priority. M 'Coy's name of Carbonicola, though 

 accompanied by a partly erroneous diagnosis, is undoubtedly 

 a few months older than King's Anthracosia, in which, too, 

 the hinge characters described belong to a species and not 



