262 



NA TURE 



[April 29, 1909 



pieris nicoliaemfolia in the Mungyong beds of Korea 

 marks these strata as of Triassic age. 



In the Proceedings of the United States National 

 Museum, vol. xxx\w. (1908), p. 2S1, G. H. Girty describes 

 an interesting series of sponges from the Carboniferous 

 of Kansas, tor which he is obliged to erect three new 

 genera, Heteroccelia, Ma;androstia, and Ccelocladia. The 

 specimens are now calcareous, and the first two were 

 probably calcispongiae, while Ccelocladia was a lithistid 



Mr. Girty goes on (p. 293) to describe several new 

 Carboniferous brachiopods. The brachiopods of the Cam- 

 brian are added to by C. D. VValcott (Smithsonian Miscel- 

 laneous Collections, vol. liii.. No. 1810, October, igoS) 

 In a subsequent paper (ibid.. No. 1811) the same author 

 gives a useful classification and terminology of the Cam- 

 brian Brachiopoda, in which attention is given to the 

 structure of the shell and to the terms applied to its 

 numerous details. A plate illustrates the microscopic 

 structure. ^ 



Prof. A. P. Pavlow devotes a finely illustrated folio 

 memoir to the relationships of the lamellibranch Aucella 

 with a review of all known species. An appendix deals 

 7»', .. A"':<="'n=e from the Russian Cretaceous strata 



(Nouv. Mim. Soc. imp. des Nat. de Moscou. tome xvii. 

 1907, P- I). 



Dr. L. VVaagen, as an addition and a tribute to Bittner's 

 work on_ the lamellibranchs of the Alpine Trias, has de- 

 scribed ' Die Lamellibranchiaten dcr Pachycardientuffe 

 der Seiser Aim " {Ahhandl. d. k.k. geol. Reichsanstalt Bd 

 xviii., 1907, Heft 2, folio, price 30 kronen). Material 

 gathered by Bittner before his death has been utilised and 

 compared with a series of specimens in the collections of 

 the University of Vienna. The memoir is no mere record 

 of species, but contains philosophic criticisms of the posi- 

 tion of several genera, such as Neumavr's Hemlnajas 

 (p. 140), Sowerby's Myoconcha, and King's Pleurophorus 

 (P;_I54)- ^ 



"Die Acanthicus-Schichten im Randgebirge der Wiener 

 Bucht, by Franz Toula iAbhandl. d. k.k. ecol 

 Reichsanstalt . Bd. xvi.. Heft 2, 1907), forms vet another 

 Handsome folio, and is mainly devoted to ammonites. The 

 author in 1905 found to his surprise, south-west of Vienna 

 a highly fossiliferous exposure of Upper Jurassic lime- 

 stone. Quarrying operations allowed of the collection of 

 a large amount of good material, including a new species, 

 J^hylloceras giganteum. measuring 44 cm. in diameter, 

 tight new species of Perisphinctes alone come from this 

 limited locality. The author modestly explains that he 

 has dealt with these fossils personally, since they came 

 •direct into his hands, and he felt a sort of devotion to 

 them which it might have been hard to arouse in another 

 worker Nmeteen exceptionally fine photographic plates 

 place the features of the actual specimens before the critics 

 whose comment is invited by the author. 



An important stratigraphical and zonal paper, by N. T 

 Karakasch, on the Lower Cretaceous of the Crimea 

 appears in the Travaux de la Societe impiriale des 

 Naturahstes de St. Petersbourg, vol. xxxii. 1907. 

 Numerous new species of cephalopods, among other fossils 

 are described and figured. Hoplites, it is noted, disappears 

 in the Crimea before the Aptian epoch, though it occurs 

 in higher series in other parts of Russia and in the 

 t-aucasus. The paper is accompanied by an abstract in 

 French. 



Dr. Kitchin's memoir on the invertebrate fauna and 

 pateontolog)cal relations of the Uitenhage series (Ann. 

 South African Museum, vol. vii., part ii., 1908) is also 

 mainly concerned with molluscs. Bivalves are here 

 prominent, but the ammonites furnish new species of 

 Holcostephanus, which are shown among the beautiful 

 figures drawn by Mr. T. A. Brock. The author strongly 

 confirms the opinion, which has been gradually spre.iding, 

 that these interesting beds in Cape Colony are of Lower 

 Cretaceous and not of Jurassic age. 



In "New Cretaceous and Tertiary Fossils from the Santa 

 truz Mountains, California," by R. Arnold, of the U.S. 

 Geological Survey (Proc. U.S. National Museum, vol. 

 XXXIV., 1908, p. 345), a number of new molluscan species 

 are figured from strata ranging from the Cretaceous to 

 the Pliocene. Dr. Otto Wilckens issues a paper of faun- 

 istic importance on " Die Lamellibranchiaten, Gastro- 

 NO. 2061, VOL. 80] 



poden, ic, der oberen Kreide Siidpatagoniens " {fier. d. 

 naturforsch. Geseil. zu Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Bd. xv., 



1907, p. 97). The material collected by Prof. Hauthal 

 and sent to Prof. Steinmann was not in a good state of 

 preservation, owing to earth-pressures and weathering 

 processes, but a great deal that is new among molluscan 

 species has come to light. Dr. Paulcke follows (p. 167) 

 with an account of the cephalopods from the same strata, 

 including several new species of Hoplites. On p. S3 Dr.' 

 Wilckens, in a sketch of the geology of south Patagonia, 

 places these fossiliferous beds as Upper Senonian. 



.\linost simultaneously, the seventh volume of the Anales 

 del Museo Nacional appeared in Buenos Aires, consisting 

 of H. von Ihering's memoir of 600 pages on " Les 

 Mollusques fossiles du Tertiaire et du Criitac^ sup^rieur 

 de I'Argentine." Dr. von Ihering places himself in 

 accord with Dr. Florentino Ameghino and against Dr. 

 Wilckens on the question of the " Pan-Patagonian " 

 system, which he consequently regards as Eocene. With 

 some justice, he claims that the Tertiary beds of South 

 America are to be judged by their own inter-relations, and 

 not by the sequence in North America or Europe. He 

 believes that a continental barrier, required also on zoo- 

 logical grounds, united southern Brazil and Africa in 

 Eocene times. The characters of the Eocene fauna of 

 Argentina are thus Antarctic and Indo-European rather 

 than North American. The author, in determining his 

 systems, relies on the principles of Lyell and Deshayes, 

 laying great stress on the proportion of the molluscan 

 species that are to be found in existing seas (pp. 95, 113, 

 and 419). The Pan-Patagonian system is thus regarded 

 as Eocene, the Entrerian as Miocene, and the gap between 

 these as filled by the Magellanian or Oligocene. Ame- 

 ghino, however, has placed the Entrerian as Oligocene. 

 The pebble-beds that extend along the Patagonian coast- 

 lands from Tierra del Fuego to the Rio Negro are now 

 known to contain molluscan bands, and Darwin's belief 

 that they were marine is thus confirmed (p. 391). This 

 " Araucanian " formation is classed as Pliocene. Von 

 Ihering thinks that the lower part of the much-discussed 

 Pampas system may be Pliocene, while the higher marine 

 beds proclahii the upper part as Pleistocene. In 

 southern Brazil and on the Buenos Aires coast there are 

 still younger Pleistocene deposits, representing a consider- 

 able incursion of the sea (p. 431). The section of- the 

 memoir (p. 4S2) which traces the history of the successive 

 marine faunas raises many questions that affect palae- 

 ontology, zoological distribution, and general geology. On 

 p. 545, for instance, examples are given of the influence 

 of oceanic climate in sending the littoral species of 

 temperate zones into deeper waters near the tropics, and 

 in allowing of a " bipolar " distribution of other forms, 

 since they can live at great depths over all the oceanic 

 area intervening between the poles. The criticism of so 

 extensive a memoir must be left to specialists, but it is 

 clear that its conclusions will interest geologists of very 

 different lines of study. 



In the Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field 

 Club, vol. xvi. (1908), p. 143, Mr. E. Talbot Paris describes 

 echinoids from the Lias of Worcestershire, and, with Mr. 

 L. Richardson (p. 151), writes on the stratigraphical and 

 geographical distribution of the Inferior-Oolite echinoids 

 of the west of England. The latter paper, while relying 

 in part on Wright's work, makes useful additions to it, 

 new species being introduced and figured. 



Mr. A. W. .Slocom describes several new crinoids, 

 belonging to genera already known, from the Niagara 

 Limestone of Chicago (Field Columbian Museum, Geol. 

 Series, vol. ii., 1907, p. 273). Two new species of the 

 aberrant genus Zophocrinus are included. Mr. R. Arnold, 

 whose molluscan work is above referred to, describes a 

 new species of the ophiurid Amphlura from the Upper 

 Miocene of California (Proc. U.S. National Museum, vol. 

 xxxiv., 1908. p. 403). 



Mr. C. D. Walcott, having completed his work on 

 brachiopods. promptly enters on an investigation of Cam- 

 brian trilobites (Smithsonian Miscell. Collections, vol. liii., 



1908, p. 13). The present instalment describes the new 

 genera Burlingia, Albertella, and Oryctocnra. The first- 

 named, from the Middle Cambrian, is placed with Moberg's 

 Schmalenseeia in a special family, the Burlingidae. 



