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SGIENGE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 783 



exact spelling, the author, and the date and 

 place of publication, with the statement that 

 he considers the 10 names in question as the 

 correct names of the animals involved. 



I will agree to compile all the names sent 

 in, to tabulate the votes on the different names 

 (in respect to their importance and fre- 

 quency), and if possible to verify the refer- 

 ences and the nomenclatural status of the 

 names in question. I will further agree to 

 submit a list of say 100 to 300 such names to 

 the International Commission on Nomen- 

 clature and to recommend that the commission 

 report upon the list to the international con- 

 gress. 



All communications on this subject should 

 be addressed to me as follows: 



Dr. Ch. Wardell Stiles, secretary, Interna- 

 tional Commission on Zoological Nomencla- 

 ture, Hygienic Laboratory, 25th and E Streets, 

 Washington, D. C. 



Ch. Wardell Stiles 



glaolil clays op the maine coast 

 Fob a number of years these clays have been 

 greatly neglected by geologists and zoologists. 

 Mr. Frederick G. Clapp, in his recent paper,' 

 has summarized and added to the work on this 

 region. 



Mr. Clapp gives a list of the Pleistocene 

 fossils found in the clays. To this list should 

 be added the following species of ophiuroids, 

 which I found in August, 1909 : two specimens 

 of Ophiura sarsii Ltk., and one of Ophiura 

 nodosa Ltk. These three specimens were 

 found in close proximity in clay about 110 

 feet above sea level, by aneroid, and the loca- 

 tion was at the Rockland Lime Company's 

 deepest quarry, about two miles west of 

 Crockett Point, in Rockland Harbor. This 

 horizon is in the " Upper Clay " of Mr. Clapp's 

 provisional division of these clays. I am in- 

 debted to Dr. Hubert L. Clark, for the de- 

 termination of the species. 



Robert W. Sayles 



Haevabd University 



'■ " Complexity of tlie Glacial Period in North- 

 eastern New England," Bulletin of the Geological 

 Society of America, Vol. 18, pp. 505-556, 1908. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



The Natural History of Igneous Bochs. By 

 Alfred Haekee, M.A., F.R.S., Lecturer in 

 Petrology in the University of Cambridge. 

 New Tork, The Macmillan Company. 

 1909. Pp. 383, with 112 diagrams and 2 

 plates. 



This volume by Mr. Harker, which presents 

 the substance of a course of lectures delivered 

 at the University of Cambridge, is not a text- 

 book of petrography but treats in a general 

 way of igneous action and igneous rocks in 

 their relation to the structure of the earth's 

 crust, and of the constitution of igneous mag- 

 mas considered as complex solutions. In the 

 latter portion of the work an exposition is 

 given of numerous and often rather recondite 

 researches into the physico-chemical relations 

 of natural magmas and artificial slags which 

 have been carried out in recent years by Vogt 

 and others. 



With respect to the question of the ultimate 

 source of igneous action the author adopts an 

 attitude which is frankly agnostic. 



The nebular hypothesis in Laplace's form, if not 

 discredited, has at least been shown to involve 

 great difficulties to which no answer is yet forth- 

 coming; the meteoric hypothesis, resting from the 

 first on a more precarious basis, is involved prac- 

 tically in the same damaging criticism ; and the 

 planetesimal theory has as yet scarcely emerged 

 from the tentative stage. 



After considering the relation of igneous 

 action to crustal movements and pointing out 

 that while there has been a rough periodicity 

 in times of activity and repose, there is noth- 

 ing to support the opinion that there has been 

 a secular waning of igneous action, the geo- 

 graphical distribution of the younger igneous 

 rocks and the question of cycles of igneous ac- 

 tivity are discussed. It is shown that the dif- 

 ferences in composition of the lavas emitted 

 from neighboring vents, as well as the very 

 unequal heights to which such lavas rise, prove 

 that they can not draw directly from a com- 

 mon source. Each volcanic center must pos- 

 sess its own proper reservoir of lava, but we 



