408 Chronicles of Science. [July, 
gests that the bisulphide of iron may have been connected with the 
solvent by which the precious metal was held in solution. 
In ashort paper in the ‘ Bulletin’ of the Geological Society of 
France,* M. Gaudry announces that his researches at Pikermi have 
led him to doubt in some cases the generally received proposition, 
that if in a deposit we find the remains of vertebrata — which have 
not been derived from an older bed, the animals to which they 
belonged lived at the time that deposit was being accumulated, and 
that consequently they serve to characterize its age. 
The ‘American Journal of Science and Arts’ for March con- 
tains two papers on recent geological changes in China and Japan, 
namely, one by Mr. Albert §S. Bickmore, and one by Mr. Raphael 
Pumpelly. Both authors describe the gradual rise of the land in 
eastern China, and give more or less precise descriptions of the 
extraordinary changes that have recently taken place in the courses 
of some of the rivers, notably the Yellow River. Mr. Bickmore, 
however, believes that at Foochow and about the mouth of the river 
Min, there is an area which has for some time been slowly sub- 
siding, presenting a remarkable exception to the general rule. 
In the same number of that Journal is a paper by Mr. E. Andrews, 
on the Localities of Human Antiquities at Abbeville, Amiens, and 
Villeneuve, in which he advocates the theory that the annual rainfall 
at the period when the gravel was being deposited was immensely 
ereater than it is at present; and that the time required for the 
deposition of the gravel was proportionately short, in consequence 
of the rapidity of the accumulation. It will be seen presently that 
Mr. Tylor has, in the ‘ Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,’ 
advocated the theory of a Pluvial Period at the epoch treated of by 
Mr. Andrews. 
Professor G. Seguenza has a note in the ‘Atti della Societa 
Italiani di Scienzi Naturali’} on the Middle Cretaceous deposits of 
central Italy, in which he shows their complete correspondence with 
the Cretaceous rocks of Algeria belonging to the zone of Ammo- 
nites Rothomagensis. The geological conditions are stated to be 
precisely similar ; and in a list of forty-four species of Italian fossils, 
forty-three are indicated as occurring also in the African formation. 
Professor Seguenza, therefore, seems perfectly justified im con- 
cluding that the Middle Cretaceous sea extended from Central Italy 
to the Province of Constantine. 
The ‘Geological Magazine’ for the quarter has been charac- 
terized by many valuable papers. The contents of the March 
number include a reply to Dr. Sterry Hunt’s views on Chemical 
Geology, by Mr. David Forbes; a descriptive paper on the Geo- 
* Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. xxiv., p. 736. 
+ ‘‘Quadrupeds ” in the title. t Vol. x., fase. 2, p. 225. 
