286 
‘ispatinows,’ the Cree work for a conspicu- 
ous hill. They seem to be similar to the 
‘paha’ described by McGee in Iowa. The 
prefix ‘Hyper’ is used with the name of ex- 
isting lakes, to indicate their glacial expan- 
sion to greater height and area. 
SENECA COUNTY, N.Y. 
Tur Annual Report of the State Geolo- 
gist of New York for 1894 (lately re- 
ceived) contains an account of Seneca 
county by D. F. Lincoln. The north- 
ern part of the county includes a part 
of the Ontario plain, varied chiefly by long 
narrow drumlins. Southward from the 
plain a gradual ascent is made to the up- 
land, here dissected by the deep sub-parallel 
troughs of Cayuga and Seneca lakes. Near 
the southern border, great flat hills rise 
several hundred feet above the upland, 
these being outliers of Portage strata from 
the higher Allegheny plateau further south. 
The slope from the upland into the lake 
troughs is notably smooth, being furrowed 
only by post-glacial ravines in which cliffs 
and falls are picturesquely developed; but 
in pre-glacial time the slopes must have 
been more furrowed, inasmuch as several 
side valleys now appear to be obliterated 
by drift filling. 
DRAINAGE MAP OF RHODE ISLAND. 
Tur 18th Annual Report of the Rhode 
Island Board of Health contains a contour 
map of the drainage areas on a scale of 
four miles to an inch, based on the topo- 
graphical State map and prepared by 
D. W. Hoyt. The terminal moraine near 
the south coast forms a divide by which the 
Pawcatuck and its tributaries from among 
the hills are turned westward, instead of 
flowing directly to the ocean. It is noted 
that Moshassuck valley, west of Provi- 
vidence, was probably the pre-glacial course 
of the Blackstone, which now flows east of 
the city into the head of Narragansett bay. 
The present course of the river is inter- 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. VI. No. 138. 
rupted by ledges, furnishing water power 
that is actively employed at Valley Falls 
and Pawtucket; the inferred pre-glacial 
course is obstructed by drift, in which 
driven wells are supplied with water from 
a ‘subterranean Blackstone.’ 
POPOCATAPETL AND IXTACCIHUATL. 
A series of interesting and well illus- 
trated observations on the two great Mexi- 
can mountains, by O. C. Farrington, forms 
publication 18 of the Field Columbian Mu- 
seum, of Chicago (Geol. Series, Vol. I., 
No. 2). The upper cone of Popocatapetl, 
clothed with sand and snow, has a nearly 
uniform slope; the middle portion is carved 
by numerous channels; ‘‘ the lower portion 
is involved in the tortuous folds which make 
up the Sierra.”” The summit crater is a pit, 
2,000 feet in greater diameter, 1,300 feet in 
lesser diameter, and from 800 to 1,500 feet 
deep, from whose walls of discordant lava 
beds and breccia rocks continually fall to _ 
the bottom. The cumulus clouds that fre- 
quently envelop the mountain flank in the 
afternoon are (erroneously?) ascribed to 
cooling caused by snow. Ixtaccihuatl is 
described as of more massive and uniform 
structure, and without distinct crater, as if 
the product of fissure erruption; but as 
mention is made of lava beds on its flanks, 
weathered to deep soil near the base and 
dissected into ragged spurs on the slopes, 
it seems possible that long continued ero- 
sion may be the chief cause of its unlike- 
ness to voleanoes of more ordinary form. 
The snow reservoirs near the summits sug- 
gest the same conclusion. 
WADIS OF TRIPOLI. 
FurrHer notes on the Tripoli hill range, 
by H.S. Cowper (London Geogr. Journ., 
IX., 1897, 620-638), contain, among other 
items, a number of illustrations and brief 
descriptions of the wadis that descend 
toward the Mediterranean coast. They 
dissect the hill country, emerging by gate- 
