OCTOBEK 14, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



503 



of this beautiful mineral. The fissure was 

 penetrated in digging a well seventeen feet 

 below the surface, and is large enough to 

 permit the entrance of ten or twelve people 

 at a time. It is not an ordinary cavern, 

 but apparently is the interior of an im- 

 mense ' geode' lined with celestite crj'stals. 

 The geological formation in which it occurs 

 is the Waterlime of the Lower Helderberg. 

 Large deposits of gypsum occur in the vi- 

 cinity. 



17. Geography and Resources of the Siberian 

 Island of Sakhalin. By Professor Benja- 

 min Howard, London, England. Sakhalin 

 has a length of about 670 miles and a 

 breadth of 20 to 150 miles. The features 

 which the author observed during his visits 

 to this island in 1890 and 1896, as here de- 

 scribed, are (1) the absence of natural har- 

 bors and reliable anchorages around its 

 entire 1,500 miles of coast, and the reasons 

 for it; (2) the contrast which this island, 

 having no volcanoes, exhibits as compared 

 with the volcanic chain of the whole Japa- 

 nese group and its continuation in the vol- 

 canoes of Kamtchatka; (3) the contradic- 

 tion which Sakhalin, possessing an almost 

 subarctic climate, affords to the popular 

 belief that latitude is the dominant factor 

 in the determination of climates ; (4) its 

 mineral resources, especially coal and iron ; 

 (5) the immensity and density of the fish 

 shoals in the neighboring waters ; (6) the 

 absence of navigable rivers; (7) the per- 

 sistence of unadulterated life and manners 

 in the aboriginal Ainos there as when de- 

 scribed nearly three thousand years ago by 

 the oldest Japanese historian ; (8) the vast 

 numbers of medusae (jelly-fish) along the 

 southern coast, and the marvelous phospho- 

 rescence of the sea as witnessed by the au- 

 thor ; (9) the strategic value of the island 

 to Russia; (10) the completeness of its 

 adaptation to its present use as a penal 

 stronghold ; (11) the present development 

 of its agricultural and mineral resources. 



and its prospective self-maintenance chiefly 

 from its future fishing industries ; and (12) 

 the expediency of maintaining the spelling 

 of the name Sakhalin, as here used. 



18. Evidence of Recent Great Elevation of 

 Neiv England. By J. W. Spencer, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. This paper was a description 

 of the valley terraces in mountainous parts 

 of New England, illustrated by sections 

 showing that the declivities of the valleys 

 are not by even slopes, but by a succession 

 of steps, the plains of which become ter- 

 races farther down the valley. These 

 steps are regarded as gradation plains in the 

 changes of the baselevel of erosion, and 

 many of the corresponding terraces are 

 hundreds of feet above the floors of the 

 valleys. From these features it is inferred 

 that the recent rise of the mountainous 

 region can be approximately measured by 

 the sum of the heights of the steps. Yet 

 it is not inferred that the elevation need to 

 have been from below the sea level ; and 

 consequently the gravels are not claimed 

 to have been necessarily of marine origin. 



19. The Oldest Palmozoio Fauna. By G. F. 

 Matthew, St. John, N. B. This fauna is 

 contained in a series of beds unconformably 

 underlying the Cambrian system in eastern 

 Canada and Newfoundland. The base of 

 the Cambrian in the former country is 

 marked by a barren sandstone, and in the 

 latter by conglomerates. Erosion of the 

 lower terrane continued up to and included 

 the time of the Paradoxides fauna. The 

 relation of these two terranes is comparable 

 to that of the Upper and Lower Silurian in 

 New York, or the Carboniferous and Sub- 

 carboniferous in eastern Canada. The 

 fauna known consists of about twenty 

 species. It contains no trilobites either in 

 eastern Canada or Newfoundland. Vari- 

 ous forms of the family Hyolithidse are the 

 dominant types. Other gastropods allied 

 to Capulus and Platyceras occur ; also 

 brachiopods ; remains of echinoderms (cys- 



