■ 



280 Scientific Intelligence. 



of tlie adjacent countiy, having dykes scarcely adequate to sustain their 

 normal pressure ? Yet no change is recorded in the condition of the 

 streams entering into the Gulf of Pechele ; — no floods ; — it seems as if 

 "Chinese sorrow" were assuaged by some wand unseen. There is con- 

 fessedly much about that river which we do not know. We do know 

 however that in bye-gone centuries it was a sad vagrant, and that ever 

 since the palmy days of the Patriarchal emperor Yb, (the first, if not 

 the greatest of civil engineers) it has been an unconscionable spendthrift 

 No good therefore could be expected to come of it ; yet for it to terminate 

 so mysteriously that to find its end, one is obliged to rush into print, is 

 what we never expected. Has the earth opened and swallowed up this 

 trouble of China, that is to say, did the earthquake which appears to 

 have elevated the seaward part of its bed, leave parallel chasms into 

 which the waters descended through the alluvial bottom ? If so, what 

 was thence their course ? — JVorth China HeralcL ' 



Ningpo, TTovember 1st, 1856. 



\^> A Sketch of the Geology of Tennessee^ embracing a description of 

 its minerals and ores, their variety and quality, modes of assaying and 

 value, with a description of its soils and productions and pala)ontology ; 

 by Richard 0. Currev, M.D,, late Professor of Chemistry and Geology 

 in the East Tennessee University. 128 pp., 8vo, with a map. — This 

 small wx)rk gives a brief description of the rocks of the State, and con- 

 tains a large engraved geological map from the report of Professor Saf- 

 ford, the State Geologist, noticed in a former vokime of this Journal. The 

 pages vf(dr^ written as a popular account of the mineral resources of the 

 State, and first published to a considerable extent in the news2>apers and 

 a medical journal of Tennessee. The material has been rearranged in 

 the preparation of the volume. The author often accompanied Dr. Troost 

 in his excursioiis and dedicates his work to this distinguished geologist. 

 In 1854 he published a geological map of the State, and he announces 

 in his preface that he is engaged on a general work entitled "The Geol- 

 ogj of the Southern States." 



18. Devonian Trees. — Fossil wood is announced by J. W. Dawsoj^ 

 (Proceedings Amer. Assoc, 10th meeting, p. 174) as occurring in the De- 

 vonian sandstones of Gaspe. The wood was black and silicified, being a 

 trunk four feet long, and seven to nine and a half inches in diameter. 

 A cross section exhibited a distinct cellular tissue, with circular, not 

 crowded, cells; and there were well-defined rings of growth, averaging 

 about a line in breadth. In a vertical section, the cells were seen to be 

 elongated and to terminate in conical points; they showed traces of trans- 



. verso and diagonal fibres, sometimes decussating, but no medullary rays 

 or disc structures were visible. The tree was referred to the Conifers, 

 but stated t^ differ materiallv from anv previously observed form. The 

 author adds that it may be related to fossil trees of the Devonian *'Cyp- 

 ridina schists" of Saalfield in Meininiren, described by Professor Unger 

 as of very singular organization as if the prototypes of the " Gymnos- 

 perras." 



19, Crinoids.—An important paper on the Devonian Crinoids from the 

 vicinity of Coblentz on the Rhine, by F. Zeiler and Ph. Wirtgen, and 

 illustrated by 12 plates is contained in the Verhandlungcn des naturhis- 

 torischen Vereins- Bonn. IR^^ i^ fr a^A Yq 



