636 



PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES, RECENT. 



and from the Uinpqua valley in southern Ore- 

 gon. Flaxseed comes from northern Idaho 

 and points near thereto. Almost all the lime 

 received is from the islands up Puget Sound. 

 Hops are mostly from counties bordering on 

 Puget Sound, although some comes from Yaki- 

 ma county, and more from the middle valley 

 counties. The arrivals of wheat and flour, re- 

 duced to wheat, foot up a total equal to 212,- 

 689 short tons wheat. 



Receipts by leading transportation lines from 

 Aug. 1 to the close of 1884, as compared with 

 a like period of the last cereal year, were : 



The wholesale trade of Portland, in 1884, 

 amounted to $40,650,000, being less than in 

 1883, which was an exceptional year. 



Salmon. The salmon-canning industry has 

 not been a profitable one for the past few 

 years, and the season of 1884 was even less 



profitable than the preceding ones. This con- 

 dition of things is largely due to overproduc- 

 tion. The season's pack, exclusive of British 

 Columbia, has been stated as follows: 



Cases. 



Columbia river 629,000 



Sacramento,, spring 70,000 



Sacramento, fall 25,000 



Rogue river, spring 8,000 



Kogue river, tall 4.000 



Alaska 45,000 



Eel river 8,000 



Coquille river 7.300 



Smith river 5,000 



Umpaqua river 3 700 



Tillamookbay 4,500 



Total. 



809,500 



The British Columbia pack may be estimated 

 at 100,000 cases. The shipments from Port- 

 land are shown below : 



THE YEAR'S SHIPMENTS. cases. 



To San Francisco 115,058 



To England 303,926 



To New Tork by sea 29,656 



Eastward (rail) 153.242 



Other points 150 



Total. 



NEW SEASON'S (FROM APRIL 1) SHIPMENTS. 



Cases. 



To San Francisco 105,321 



To England 303,926 



To New York by sea. 29,656 



Eastward (.rail) 149,798 



Other points 50 



Total 588,751 



PALEONTOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES, RECEItT. 



Hitherto no remains of air-breathing OT land 

 animals had been found below the Devonian 

 series of rocks, although scorpions and other 

 air-breathers had been discovered quite abun- 

 dantly in the lowest carboniferous series. The 

 first palaeozoic scorpion which came to light 

 was described by Count Sternberg, in 1835, as 

 from the coal-formation of Chora b, Bohemia, 

 and was named by Corda Cyclophthalmus se- 

 nior. Another species was found in the same 

 place three years afterward, which Corda de- 

 scribed under the name of Microldbis. The 

 next discoveries of palaeozoic scorpions were 

 made in 1866, when Messrs. Meek and Wor- 

 then described two new genera from the coal- 

 measures of Mazon creek, Illinois, under the 

 names of Eoscorpius and Mazonia. In 1873 

 Dr. Henry Woodward determined remains of 

 scorpions referable to the genus Eoscorpius in 

 both the coal-measures of England and the 

 carboniferous limestone of Scotland. In 1881 

 Mr. Benjamin N. Peach described a considera- 

 ble number of remains of scorpions, including 

 some species of Eoscorpius, which had been 

 obtained by the officers of the Geological Sur- 

 vey of Scotland from the lowest carboniferous 

 recks of the Scottish border. In the summer 

 of 1884 Prof. Gustav Lindstrom, of Stockholm, 



obtained a fossil scorpion of much greater geo- 

 logical age than any of these, from the Upper 

 Silurian strata of Wisby, in the island of Goth- 

 land, Sweden. In a letter to M. Alphonse 

 Milne-Edwards of Nov.. 24, 1884, Prof. Lind- 

 strom says, describing his fossil : " The speci- 

 men is in sufficiently good preservation, and 

 shows the chitinous brown or yellowish brown 

 cuticle, very thin, compressed, and corrugated 

 by the pressure of the superposed layers. We 

 can distinguish the cephalo-thorax, the abdo- 

 men, with seven dorsal lamina?, and the tail, 

 consisting of six segments or wings, the last 

 narrowing and sharpening into the venomous 

 dart. The sculpture of the surface, consisting 

 of tubercles and longitudinal keels, entirely 

 corresponds with that of recent scorpions. 

 One of the stigmata on the right is visible, and 

 clearly demonstrates that it must have be- 

 longed to an air-breathing animal, and the 

 whole organization indicates that it lived on 

 dry land. In this scorpion, then, which we 

 have named Palceophoneus nuncius, we see the 

 most ancient of land-animals. In the confor- 

 mation of this scorpion there is one feature of 

 great importance, namely, four pairs of thoracic 

 feet, large and pointed, resembling the feet 01 

 the embryos of several other tracheates and ani- 

 mals like the Campodea. This form of feet no 



