850 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. YOL. VII. No. 182. 



Professor Farrington, Curator of the Geo- 

 logical Department, accompanied by Mr. E. 

 S. Eiggs, of Princeton University, is con- 

 ducting an expedition in the Bad Lands of 

 South Dakota for the purpose of collecting 

 vertebrates from the "White Kiver beds. 

 Gratifying success has attended the work 

 of the expedition thus far. There have 

 been secured one nearly complete small 

 Tifanotherium skeleton, four well preserved 

 skulls and manj^ miscellaneous bones of 

 other individuals of the same genus. Croc- 

 odUe and Aceratlierium remains have been 

 found in the same beds. The party will 

 later seek to secure specimens of Dcemone- 

 lix from northwestern Nebraska and close 

 the season with a visit to some newly dis- 

 covered Equus beds in Montana. 



President Ayer has just returned from 

 his annual trip to Europe and Africa, and 

 has brought back an even richer harvest 

 for the Museum than on former occasions. 

 Among the most interesting may be men- 

 tioned a sitting mummy of great antiquity 

 and in a splendid state of preservation, several 

 figure heads and busts carved in stone, and 

 a collection of Egyptian and Etruscan 

 jewelry. In Rome he secured two very 

 curious incinerating tomb boxes, made from 

 tufa in the general shape of temples, the 

 largest being six feet long, three feet wide 

 and two feet high, both highly decorated 

 in archaic drawings of griflBns, dogs, geese, 

 lotus flowers and scrolls. They are thought 

 to be of Etruscan origin and date back to 

 from 700 to 900 B. C. The new accession 

 will certainly prove a valuable addition to 

 the already very respectable collections 

 representing Italian and Egyptian archae- 

 ology. n. 



CUBBENT NOTES ON PHT8I0GRAPHY. 

 TUKON GOLD DISTRICT. 



A EEPOET on the Alaskan expedition of 

 Messrs. Spurr, Goodrich and Shrader in the 

 summer of 1896, written chiefly by Spurr, is 



lately published (18th Ann. Eept. U. S. G. 

 S., 101-392). The most important physio- 

 graphic contributions are in Chapter IV., 

 by Spurr and Goodrich, in which crustal 

 movements are inferred from the topo- 

 graphic forms and drainage features. Ex- 

 tensive pre-Neocene denudation wore down 

 the older rocks to gentle slopes, between 

 which the rivers meandered in broad and 

 shallow valleys. Ifow elevated, this de- 

 nuded region forms the ' Interior Plateau,' 

 which, when seen from an elevated point, 

 appears like a gently undulating plain, 

 above which hUls and mountains rise to 

 moderate height, and beneath which the 

 deep valleys are incised. The region about 

 Forty-mile creek exhibits these features 

 with remarkable distinctness ; the steep- 

 sided valley, several hundred feet deep, 

 curves about as if incised from a meander- 

 ing stream on the former valley floor ; the 

 sharp turns of the stream being known to 

 the prospectors by the suggestive name of 

 ' kinks.' The elevation by which the 

 present cycle of denudation was introduced 

 is thought to have taken the form of broad, 

 flat folds, accelerating some streams and 

 retarding others. 



Additional information on Alaska is 

 found in a ' Map of Alaska,' with text pre- 

 pared under the direction of S. F. Emmons, 

 published by the U. S. Geological Survej' ; 

 and in Bulletin No. 16, Department of 

 Labor, chiefly occupied with an account of 

 a tour in Alaska by S. C. Dunham. 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF WORCESTER, MASS. 



The Physical Geography of "Worcester, 

 Massachusetts, by J. H. Perry, with illus- 

 trations bj' J. C. Lyford (published by the 

 "^'"orcester Natural History Society, 1898), 

 is one of a class of essays that are rarer 

 than they should be in the best interests of 

 home study. Here we find a good explana- 

 tory account of the dissected uplands of 

 southern New England and their glacial 



