404 NATURAL SCIENCE. august. 



Newspaper Science. 



In our first number we had occasion to protest against the 

 feebleness of most of the stuff that usually passes in the daily 

 journals for " Science." We are therefore glad to be able to 

 congratulate the Daily Chronicle on not only maintaining 

 a weekly column of " Science Notes," but on not leaving 

 the office boy to write them. In the notes, however, of June 30, 

 there is a paragraph on the origin of the Great Lakes of North 

 America, in which Dr. Spencer's observations on the directions of 

 the ice scratches are said to put the glacial theory out of the field. 

 But this is hardly fair to Professor Newberry who knew all these 

 facts, and whose hypothesis was based to a large extent upon them. 

 He maintained that the lake basins were old river channels broadened 

 out by the ice crossing them and constantly wearing back the 

 southern bank against which it was piled up. 



The Laws of Hybridism. 



Professor Romanes explained, at a recent meeting of the Zoo- 

 logical Society, that speculations on heredity were in inverse ratio to 

 the experiments. A comparison of the following extracts from the last 

 number of Natural Science shows that, however few those experi- 

 ments may be, the knowledge of them appears to be in the inverse 

 ratio squared : — 



Professor Romanes. Professor Giard. 



Natural Science, July, p. 398. Natural Science, July, p. 358. 



The experiments made "prove the "As all biologists know, the progeny 

 error of those writers who assume that an obtained by the union of two races can- 

 act of fertilisation consists in the male not be intermediate between the two 

 and female elements intimately blending progenitors, but resemble closely one or 

 together, after the manner of a mere the other. For instance, in a union 

 mechanical mixture, so that the off- between a female white mouse and a 

 spring always presents characters more wild gray male, one constantly obtains 

 or less intermediate between those of its young, and some of whom are completely 

 parents." gray others completely white." 



Texan Geology. 



In a paper on " The Cretaceous Covering of the Texas 

 Palaeozoic" {American Geologist, March, 1892), Mr. Ralph S. Tarr 

 discusses the question whether the central Palaeozoic and pre- 

 Palaeozoic region of Texas was completely covered by Cretaceous 

 Rocks. His studies lead him to maintain that this was the case, and 

 his conclusions thus agree with views expressed by Professor 

 R. T. Hill. 



From early Carboniferous times until the Cretaceous period, the 

 ancient Palaeozoic core of Texas has been subject to denudation. This 

 is shown by the character of the Carboniferous conglomerates and 



