a 
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slg 
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28 —_—B, As@ould, Irjion'the Orbite-of' the Asteroids. 
cretaceous deposits.in New Jersey and in other localities on the 
tic coast, but exhibiting a striking analogy with some of the 
eretaceous deposits in the south of Europe around the Mediter- 
ranean, in the same degree as those of the Atlantic coast:are sim- 
ilar to the cretaceous deposits of England and northern 
Germany. 
eae by these cretaceous deposits, there exists between 
e Piedernales and San Saba rivers, a belt of granitic rocks and 
of paleozoic strata. The latter are characterized by their fossils 
as Silurian strata and carboniferous limestone, both are different 
in their organic characters from the corresponding formations in 
the Mississippi valley, as might be expected consifering the he 
distance and difference of latitude.  , 
As a fact bearing on the geography -of the western part of 
Texas, I will mention before concluding this paper, that» the 
mountains, is laid. down on some maps, does not exist. On either 
of the 
an Saba river no elevation of ay importance ‘is 
seen above the general level of the table land.. 
The detail of my geological researches in Gidcas will. be given 
in a more elaborate work. The = of which will take 
place with the least odie delay. 
Berlin, nies 1847, 
Arr. II]l.—On the Orbits of the Ashi ; by 
B. A. Goutn, Jr., A.A.S. 
Tue recent discoveries of Hencke and of Hint, by which the 
number of small planets known to us between the orbits of Mars 
and Jupiter has been doubled, have directed the attention and in- 
terest of astronomers in a still higher degree to the group “ these 
remarkable bodies. 
By the common consent of astronomers, they have reietieohe 
the name of “asteroids,” a name ‘proposed by the elder Herschel, 
in consequence of a theory of his own. The word asteroid, in 
its present signification, may be defined as ‘a small planetary bo- 
dy, which revolves around, the ice between the orbits of Mars 
and of Jupiter. ae 
Immediately upon the. asarerraiis Pallas, the caltidations ot 
Gauss showed that the orbits of Ceres and Pallas approach very 
near to one another in the descending node of Pallas upon the 
Ceres-orbit. 
Upon this fact Olbers grounded his well known and not un 
natural hypothesis, that these two extremely small bodies, ‘rhea 
orbits approach one another’so nearly in the node, were merely 
the fragments of a larger planet, which by some force wn 
to us, had.exploded or been. shattered» by some 
