GLEANINGS. 103 
Gleanings. 
a - 
Tur Mintann Unton.—We have pleasure in stating that the Notting- 
ham High School Natural History Society has joined the Union. 
Pre-Camprian Rocxs.—The sum of £50 from the Government Fund 
for the Endowment of Scientific Research has been granted, on the 
recommendation of the Royal Society, to Dr. C. Callaway, M.A., F.G.S., 
of Wellington, Salop, in aid of his researches into the relations of the 
pre-Cambrian rocks. 
AMERICAN QuartERLY Microscopican JouRNAL.—We have received 
Nos. 1 and 2 of this excellent periodical, which publishes the transac- 
tions of the New York Microscopical Society. The articles are varied, 
many of them beiug of great value; the illustrations are truly excellent, 
and the paper and printing as good as can be desired. All the societies 
in our Midland Union interested in microscopy should subscribe for 
this journal. It is published by Messrs. Hitchcock and Wall, 150, Nassau 
Street, New York, and the subscription, post free, is 13s. 6d. per annum. 
Freperick Suirz, F.L.S., Assistant-keeper of the Zoological Depart- 
ment of the British Museum, died on the 16th February last, aged 73. 
He was not better known than appreciated by every entomologist engaged 
in the study of the British Hymenoptera. His loss will be most deeply 
felt, and a wide gap has been made in the ranks of true entomologists 
which it will be almost impossible to fill up. All who have been in the 
habit of submitting their captures of Bees and Wasps to Mr. Smith for 
identification will feel their loss more and more as their collections 
increase, for his valuable services in the arduous work of naming speci- 
mens were always most willingly rendered, and he did in a few hours 
what to most others would have been an endless if not impossible task. 
His work on the British Apide is full of original observations. All who 
attended the late Entomological Exhibition at the Royal Aquarium will 
remember how willingly he worked to ensure a successful meeting, and 
how he lent his magnificent and unique collection of British Bees and 
Wasps, ‘‘the work of forty years’ patient collecting and study.” Though 
we shall never meet him again, either in our rambles at Hampstead 
Heath, or in his place at the Museum, (where he had been twenty-seven 
years,) his name and works, and his prompt willingness to help the 
young entomologist will never be forgotten by ‘‘ one who loves to hear 
the music of the Wild Bee.”—F.E. 
THICKNESS oF THE Antarctic Icr.—Dr. Croll has sent us a reprint of 
his paper on this subject, which appeared in the ‘‘Journal of Science” 
for January last. The Southern Pole is enveloped by an ice-cap, which 
reachesto lat. 70°, and has an average diameter of 2,800 miles, the edge 
of the ice-cap at any point being thus about 1,400 miles from the South 
Pole. Its thickness at the edge, where it enters the sea, may be taken at 
not less than 1,400ft., for icebergs, whose total thickness would several 
times exceed this amount, have frequeutly been scen floating from it 
northwards. From the edge the thickness must gradually increase to 
the South Pole. A slope of half a degree would give a thickness of 
. twelve miles of ice at the Pole, which is probably a very low estimate. 
Dr. Croll then applies these facts to'the consideration of the last glacial 
epoch in the northern hemisphere, insisting that the magnitude of the 
ice-sheet which then enveloped Scandinavia and the British Isles has 
been much underrated. In an appended note he states that two of the 
officers of the Scotch Geological Survey, Messrs. B. N. Peach and 
J. Horne have lately found unmistakable proofs that the Shetland Isles 
were glaciated by land-ice from Scandinavia. 
