778 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol.. n., No, 45. 



This work will be publisUed on a scale of four miles 

 to the inch, with contours two hundred feet apart 

 vertically. 



Massachusetts division. — In July a sur- 

 vey of Massachusetts was begun, under the direction 

 of Prof. H. F. Walling. In this work the triangula- 

 tion of the coast survey and the old Borden survey, 

 and the topographical work of the past, are being 

 utilized wherever practicable. The maps will be com- 

 paratively detailed, as the published scale is to be two 

 miles to the inch. It is hoped that the work may be 

 completed in about two years. Thus far, during the 

 present season, about two thousand miles have been 

 surveyed, work having been begun in the western 

 part of the state, and extended eastward from the 

 high country as cold weather began to come on. 



Eocky- mountain division. — Mr. Anton 

 Karl has surveyed part of the Elk Mountains in Colo- 

 rado, extending the map made by Hayden in 1S74, 

 and has also been engaged in re-surveying the Max- 

 well grant in northern New Mexico for the interior 

 department. 



Wingate division. — This division, in charge 

 of Prof. A. H. Thompson, has its headquarters at Fort 

 Wingate, N.M., and has been working in the plateau 

 country, principally in north-eastern Arizona. Field- 

 work was begun early in May, and is now practically 

 finished for the season. One triangulation party and 

 three topographic parties have been at work, and have 

 surveyed. twenty -two thousand square miles. The 

 region they covered is one of the most dreary and 

 desolate within the limits of the United States; and, 

 when its arid condition and the diiEculties of trans- 

 portation through it are considered, it will be seen 

 that this division has accomplished a remarkable 

 amount of work. 



California division. — Mr. Gilbert Thomp- 

 son, who is in charge of this division, began work 

 last year in northern California, and completed the 

 survey of about four thousand square miles. This 

 year the worK was extended in all directions from 

 Mount Shasta, reaching to the Coast Range on the 

 west, and into the lava-bed country on the east and 

 south-east. This region lies between the parallels 38 

 and 42, and meridians 121 and 123. Although the 

 atmosphere was smoky a large part of the time, this 

 division has had a successful season. 



Division of the Great basin. — The topo- 

 graphic surveys in the Great-basin district have been 

 confined mainly to detailed work for special maps 

 illustrating Mr. G. K. Gilbert's investigations of the 

 lake-basins of this region. The principal work done 

 has been the securing of notes for a map of the drain- 

 age area of Mono Lake, and for a number of special 

 maps of ancient moraines. 



Yellow stone- park division. — Mr. J. H. 

 Eenshawe has just come in from the field. He has 

 been engaged in work for a detailed map of the Yel- 

 lowstone national park. He began work early in 

 June, and has covered fifteen hundred square miles, 

 making plane-table sketches on a scale of two inches 

 to the mile. He also remeasured, at Bozeman, a base- 

 line laid out by Wheeler's survey in 1S77. Mr. Een- 



shawe expanded this base-line hvst season, but was 

 prevented from rcmeasuring it then by the weather. 



In California Mr. John D. Hoffman has been 

 carrying on the survey of the quicksilver-mines 

 steadily for more than a year. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Last summer, at the Zurich meeting of the stand- 

 ing committee of the International geological con- 

 gress. Professor Neuniayr of the Vienna university 

 presented, by request, a plan for the preparation 

 of a 'N'oraenclator palaeontologicus,' to be issued 

 under the auspices of the congress. His project was 

 well received, and only awaits final indorsement at 

 the meeting of the congress next year at Berlin. 

 The scheme contemplates the appointment of an 

 editor-in-cliief (for which post no better jierson than 

 Professor Neumayr himself could be selected); an 

 editing committee, under whose general supervision 

 the work will be carried on; national collaborators, 

 who are to give special assistance in the literature of 

 their own country; and speciiil compilers, to each 

 of whom a particular section of the work will be con- 

 fided, and who will be placed in special relation with 

 some one member of the editing committee. 



The work, when completed, will probably consist of 

 fourteen or more large octavo volumes. The mol- 

 lusks are expected to require at least two volumes; 

 one each will be given to cryptogams, phanerogams, 

 protozoa, coelenterates, echinoderms, worms and 

 molluscoida, arthropods, and vertebrates; two vol- 

 umes will be given to a systematic enumerator, and 

 one to an alphabetical register. 



The nomenclator proper will consist of citations of 

 all species (the nominal species in special type) pub- 

 lished in scientific works, in accordance with recog- 

 nized rules, with their synonymes; and the citations 

 will include, a, the first publication; 6, later descrip- 

 tions which have really advanced the paleontological 

 knowledge of the species, particularly such as give 

 for the first time a satisfactory illustration; c, the 

 illustrations found in the best knswn and most widely 

 circulated ' fundamental work.' 



Critical notes and newly proposed names will not 

 be admitted, and conventional signs will be avoided. 

 Abbreviations in the cit.ations will be so given as to 

 be readily understood by every one possessing some 

 knowledge of the literature; and, for serial publica- 

 tions, the use of those employed in the Eoyal society's 

 Catalogue of scientific papers is recommended. Tlie 

 geological horizon and geographical disti'ibution will 

 be indicated, the former according to the scale of the 

 congress. The language employed will be Latin. 



The plan, as presented by Professor Neumayr, is 

 excellently conceived, and, if carried out in the same 

 spirit, will be an immense boon to paleontologists. 

 But one minor criticism occurs to us: it seems a pity 

 to perpetuate the awkward abbreviations employed 

 in the Eoyal society's Catalogue, in which are too fre- 

 quently violated the two cardinal rules of proper ab- 

 breviations, — the preservation of the order of words 



