4o8 NATURAL SCIENCE. dec, 



Geological Survey of Queensland. 



The annual progress of the Geological Survey in this vast terri- 

 tory is not to be estimated by the number of square miles mapped ; 

 it must be judged by the separate detailed reports on areas of special 

 economic interest. The work, which is under the superintendence of 

 Mr. Robert L. Jack, Government Geologist, is well organised. The 

 headquarters of the Survey have been removed from Townsville to 

 Brisbane, and there is placed the collection of minerals, rocks, and 

 fossils. There the officers, when not engaged in field-duties, are em- 

 ployed in writing reports, in preparing geological maps, in laboratory 

 work, and in affording information to miners and others. Plans of 

 old mines, wherever possible, are preserved. In some cases it is 

 difficult to find out anything about the earlier gold workings ; no plans 

 have been kept ; and yet, in certain instances, the workings, not rich 

 enough to pay formerly, may be again approached when cheaper 

 processes for treating the ore come into use. A most important 

 work will thus be done by keeping a permanent record of mining 

 operations. 



Among the Reports which we have received are the follow- 

 ing : — The Kangaroo Hills Silver and Tin Mines, by Mr. Jack ; Geo- 

 logical Observations in the Cooktown District, by Mr. W. H. Rands, 

 with accounts of Coal, Gold, Antimony, and Tin ; and Grass-tree 

 Gold Field, near Mackay, by Mr. Jack. These Reports and the 

 Maps can now be obtained in London at the Office of the British 

 Australasian, 31 Fleet Street. 



The Inheritance of Acquired Characters, 

 Owing to their coiling, the shells of Ammonoidea and Nautiloidea 

 have furnished biologists with much evidence bearing on theories of 

 evolution, and now Professor A. Hyatt has discovered yet another point, 

 which, he claims, proves that acquired characters have been inherited 

 (^American Naturalist, vol. xxvii., p. 865). Coiled Nautiloidea have, as 

 everyone admits, been gradually derived from straight forms, such as 

 Orthoceras. The cross-section of an Orthoceran, or even of a slightly- 

 curved Cyrtoceran, or loosely-coiled form, is circular or elliptical; 

 but the section of a close-coiled form, like Nautilus, shows an impres- 

 sion of that part which comes in contact with the preceding whorl, so 

 that there is a re-entrant curve. In old age, however, when the shells 

 again uncoil, this impressed zone disappears, and the section becomes 

 circular again, a fact which seems to show that the feature is directly 

 due to pressure, and is, therefore, an acquired character. As such it 

 is not found in the early, uncoiled stages of those Nautiloidea that are 

 close-coiled in the adult ; at least, it is not so found in any of the 

 Silurian or Devonian species. But at last, in the Carboniferous, Pro- 

 fessor Hyatt has found a species that seems to prove his point ; for, 

 in Coloceras glohatum, which is in many respects a highly-specialised 



