310 THE AMKRICAX Ml'SKIM JOIJiXAL 



for the Department of Invertebrate Zoology. Tliis region is pariiculaily 

 interesting on account of its close similarity to northern South Anu-rica 

 and l)ecause it is essentially difierent in ecological respects from northern 

 Florida. 



Last summer the attention of Dr. E. O. Hovey was called to the exist- 

 ence in the town of Russell, St. Lawrence Co., New York, of a perfect 

 glacial pot hole two feet in diameter and four feet in depth. Pot holes are 

 pot-shaped cavities carved in tlic rock of a stream bed by the swirling of 

 water carrying stones, a "glacial" pot hole being one formed l)eneath a 

 glacier. They are common enough in nature, but it is rather seldom that 

 good ones can be collected and brought to a museum. 



The present specimen was in a ledge beside a road where the rock con- 

 taining it could be rjuarried. The rock is crystalline limestone of Archa?an 

 age, containing much flint. Arrangements for cutting out the block were 

 made with the Gouverneur Marble Company and the company sent a 

 channeler and a gadder from Gouverneur to the pot hole, a distance of 

 about twenty miles, together witii a crew of their best men to do the work. 

 It was found necessary to cut out a l)lock six feet square and six feet high. 

 After three weeks of hard work this was accomplished and now the block, 

 crated and ready for transportation and weighing al)out ten tons, stands 

 beside the road, waiting for winter to come and render the use of a sled 

 practicable for transferring the specimen to the railway station, five miles 

 away. 



The Panama Canal project is illustrated at the north end of the Hall of 

 Geology by means of a relief map of the Isthmus, a collection of specimens 

 of earth and rock from the most interesting places along the canal, and a 

 series of photographs to show the ])rocess of excavation and construction. 



Mr. Ekxkst Volk of Trenton, X. J., has just rearranged the Museum's 

 exhibit of evidences of the antiquity of man in Xew Jersey. For twenty- 

 five years Mr. Volk under the direction of Professor F. W. Putnam has 

 carefully searched the glacial gravels and the upper strata for signs of man, 

 and deposited the earlier collections in this Museum. The exhibit shows 

 human bones from the glacial gravels that probably represent the oldest 

 known human being in America and also skeletons and stone implements 

 from undisturbed portions of the layer of yellow soil above the gravels. 

 While it is not claimed that the remains are as old as any so far found in 

 Europe, it cannot be denied that they are as old as the strata in which they 

 occur. The exhibit is installed in the South American Archseological Hall, 

 second floor west. 



