208 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Though he points out that the result, in some particulars, is 

 based on conjecture, a careful study of the facts submitted 

 will show that in all essentials this restoration will stand. It 

 is certainly a vast improvement on that which it has replaced. 



Our knowledge of Lysorophus, the most remarkable land 

 vertebrate which has been discovered for many years, has 

 been extensively enlarged by Prof. W. J. Sollas {Phil. Trans. 

 Roy. Soc, Ser. B, vol. ccix). The nodule containing the re- 

 mains was cut into a series of sections, at intervals of 0'2 mm. ; 

 each of which was photographed under an enlargement of five 

 diameters. The photographs were then traced on to glass 

 plates, and then reconstructed in plaster. This method 

 enabled him to build up the skull and other parts of the skele- 

 ton, so that the restoration can be examined as easily as if it 

 were a recently macerated and articulated skeleton. This is 

 without doubt a laborious process, but, in the hands of Prof. 

 Sollas, it yields most wonderful results. 



Till now Lysorophus has been regarded by some as a rep- 

 tile, by others as an amphibian. Prof. Sollas is now able to 

 show definitely that it is a veritable but primitive Amphibian, 

 and a member of the primitive ancestral Urodeles. The rela- 

 tionship of the Gymnophiona to the Urodeles is but one of 

 many new facts which has been brought to light, and recorded 

 here as a result of this investigation. 



We do not, as yet, know how the Portage Sea of the Mac- 

 kenzie-Yukon region was connected with the synchronous 

 marine basin which occupied the Upper Mississippi, Wabash, 

 and New York area. But a considerable advance in this 

 direction has resulted from the Canadian Geological Survey 

 expedition to the Mackenzie River in 191 7, when a Portage fauna 

 was discovered in the Devonian shales of the Upper Mackenzie 

 Valley. Mr. E. M. Kindle, who directed this expedition, gives 

 the results thereof {Canadian Geol. Survey, Mus. Bull., No. 29, 

 Geol. Series, No. 36) in a brief but well illustrated memoir, 

 which is likely to lead to very important results. 



Some extremely valuable data have been derived by Mr. 

 R. Bullen Newton {Ann, & Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. v. No. 27) 

 from a study of some obscure fossils from Matabeleland. These 

 remains, representing freshwater mollusca resembling Vivi- 

 parus and Paludestrina, and plants of the genus Chara, were 

 embedded in a chalcedonised rock, occurring in a peneplain of 

 Upper Karoo Beds, and at the base of the Pleistocene deposits 

 known as the Kalahari Sands, which, in this region of Africa, 

 mostly cover the basalts and the other underlying formations. 

 This formation, it would seem, extending from the Zambesi 

 country to Cape Colony, may be older than Eocene, and from 

 the assemblage of the contained organisms, may be associated 



