1^2 The Ottawa Naturalist. [October 



Dr. Whiteaves in the early pages of his work adverts to the 

 faunistic regions indicated by the distribution of species included 

 in the catalogue. We know too little of the local disposition of 

 the marine vertebrate and invertebrate lite ot our Atlantic waters 

 to arrive at any satisfactory solution of this interesting problem 

 as yet. The influence of the Gulf stream on the one hand, and of 

 Arctic currents bearing their annual burden of icebergs, on the 

 other, complicates the problem greatly. The occurrence of Clio 

 limacina within the Gulf and the capture in the Gut of Canso of 

 Sconiberoids and other fish belonging to a southern range almost 

 Mexican in its limits, suflficienth^ indicates the complexity of the 

 conditions presented. 



It is however the difficulty and complexity of the problems to 

 be solved which stimulate scientific inquiry, and within the next 

 decade more will he done in marine biological research in Canada 

 than has been done for half a century. The scientists who will 

 carry on valuable and luminous work and who will reveal to us 

 more and more fully the marvels of life in our Canadian seas will 

 have no basis so ample and trustworthy — none so indispensable as 

 Dr. Whiteaves' Catalogue of the Marine Invertebrata ot Eastern 

 Canada. It is a work in Canadian Zoology worthy to mark the 

 first year of a new century. 



E. E. P. 



A Chapter on the Pleistocene Geology of Northern Asia. 

 Recent Geological changes in Northern and Central 

 Asia. By G. Frederick Wright. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 

 London, Vol. 57, pp. 244-250. 1901. 



This paper is the result of an examination of " those portions 

 of the Asiatic continent which most nearly correspond in general 

 superficial conditions to the glaciated portions of America. " Prof. 

 Wright has ascertained that the actual agency of wind in the 

 deposition of the loess is evident throughout the mountainous 

 track to the east of the border of the high plateau ; further, that 

 there were other ^reas pf loess so large and so level that wind 



