270 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCO VEEY. 



that its source or vein was not far distant, search was made, and 

 resulted in the discovery, about forty feet distant, of a vein of metal- 

 lic copper of huge dimensions. At last accounts, this new wonder 

 had been stripped some five feet in breadth for a length of twelve 

 feet, and three thick, with no indication of growing less at any point. 



Canadian Pleistocene Fossils and Climate. Prof. Dawson, in a 

 paper recently published in the Canadian Naturalist, gives a more 

 complete list of the fossils of the drift in Maine, Canada, Labrador, 

 etc., than has been before presented, and makes some interesting 

 deductions from them in regard to the physical geography, climate, 

 etc., of that part of the North American continent during that period. 



From facts now given, and others before reported, the conclusion is 

 unavoidable, that a far greater degree of cold prevailed during the 

 Pleistocene epoch than at present. The causes of this difference of 

 climate Prof. Dawson finds in great recorded changes of level, and in 

 the different distribution of land and water ; during the cold period 

 as he infers the relative proportion of dry land surface in the arctic 

 regions to that in the temperate zone having been considerably great- 

 er than now. 



Fossil Fishes of North America. Dr. Newberry, in a, communica- 

 tion to Silliman's Journal, on the above subject, states that, up to the 

 present time, we have no evidence that many of the most character- 

 istic genera of fishes of the Devonian rocks of the Old World, such 

 as the Asterolepis, Coceosteus, Cephalaspis, Osteolepis, Acanthodes, 

 Cherolepis, etc., ever had any existence in America. 



The evidence on this point is of course as yet only negative, and 

 may all be soon reversed, but it is nevertheless rather remarkable that 

 while most of the Devonian molluscous genera and many species are 

 common to the two continents, the fishes, so far as known, are all 

 specifically distinct, and the larger part of them generically different. 



Land Animals in the Coal Measures of Nova Scotia. Dr. Dawson, 

 in a communication to the Journal of the Geological Society, London, 

 states that he has recently obtained numerous additional animal re- 

 mains from the cliffs of the South Joggins, Nova Scotia, among them 

 some reptilian skeletons, one of which, the Dendrerpeton acadlanum, 

 he considers the most perfect carboniferous reptile hitherto discov- 

 ered. These were obtained from a tree trunk fossilized in situ, and it 

 also contained, amongst other treasures, many remains of insects, the 

 most interesting being a compound eye, with the facets perfectly 

 preserved. 



Interesting Fossils. The recent fall of a cliff near Hastings, Eng- 

 land, has brought to light an interesting slab of stone, bearing on its 

 surface the clear impression of the foot of a gigantic bird. Ib has 

 three toes, each of which is about nine inches long in the tread, with 

 a claw at the end, of perhaps two inches in length. The back of the 

 foot, where the three toes meet as in a centre, does not appear ; that 

 part of the foot did not reach the ground. But still further back is 

 the mark made by the point of the spur, or fourth toe. From the 

 point of the middle claw to this mark of the spur it measures twenty- 

 four inches, and in width twenty inches. The whole of the slab is 

 covered with the lines of ripple made by the waves upon soft mud ; 

 and there are numerous other impressions, more or less perfect, of the 



