138 GEOLOGY. 



are covered by a tangled mass of aquatic plants, whose roots entwine 

 to form a floating covering so close and tough in places as to permit 

 depasturage by horses and cattle. G. H. K. 



Mayne-Reid, Capt. Mexican Lake Tezcoco. Land and Water^ 

 April 22, p. 307. 



The country about the lake is covered with a saline efflorescence, the 

 lake having shrunk since the time of Cortez. An analysis of the water 

 by M. Berthier is given, from which we learn that, although saline, yet 

 it difi*ers from that of the ocean, as it contains scarcely any common 

 salt, the chief salt being seequicarbonate of soda. G. H. K. 



Morgan, C. L. On the Drift of Brazil. Quart. Joiirn. Geol. Soc. 

 vol. xxxii. Proceedings, pp. 129, 130, abstract. 



Boulders occur at high levels ; but neither they nor the underlying 

 rock-surfaces show glacial scratches. If ice-borne, the drift is probably 

 due to a continental ice-sheet. W. H. D. 



Mudge, B. F. Notes on tbe Tertiary and Cretaceous Periods of 

 Kansas. Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv. Territories, vol. ii. no. 3, pp. 211- 

 221. 



The general dip throughout the State is N.W., about 5 feet in a mile. 

 The Pliocene beds are freshwater sandstones, about 400 feet thick, with 

 silicified mammalian bones, one of which, from the base of the series, 

 suggests a Miocene date. They rest conformably on the Cretaceous. 

 The latter series is 960 feet thick, divided into Niobrara and Dakota 

 Beds. The Niobrara proper is calcareous shale with beds of flintless 

 chalk, 75 to 200 feet thick, abounding in fish, sauria, and birds, in- 

 cluding several new genera and species. Analyses of Saurian coprolite 

 and prairie-soil are given. The Fort Hays (L. Niobrara) beds are 260 

 feet thick ; generally massive limestone based on shale and sandstone. 

 The lower part may represent the Benton series. The Dakota group 

 is sandstone 500 feet thick, conformable to the Fort Hays division. 

 Fossil leaves are abundant (see Lesquereux, post, under Plants). A few 

 seams of poor lignite are worked in this group, which includes Nos. 2 

 and 3 of Swallow's " Triassic " series, the rest of which are Permo- 

 Carboniferous. "W. H. D. 



Miiller, Fritz. On Brazil Kitchen Middens. Nature, vol. xiii. pp. 

 301, 305. 



Describes the " Sambaquis " or " Casqueiros " — hillocks of shells 

 accumulated by the ancient inhabitants of the west, from which the sea 

 has now retreated some miles. Those containing an extinct Corbula 

 were associated with fragments of very thick human skulls. C. E. D. 



Newberry, Prof. J. S. The Geology in Capt. J. N. Macomb's Eeport 

 of the exploring expedition from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the 

 junction of the Grand and Green Eivers of the Great Colorado of 

 the West, in 1859. Pp. 152.; maps. Engineering Dept. U.S. Army, 

 4to. Wasldngton. 



