IfOVEMBEE 20, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



757 



bility that Evotomys would cease to exist within 

 the limits of Barnstaple county. 



Glasgow, having a majority of 234 votes over 

 his opponent, Mr. Augustine Birrell. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



The corner stones of the Havemeyer Hall of 

 Chemistry and of the Engineering Building of 

 Columbia University have been informally laid. 

 The buildings are already further advanced 

 than might be supposed from the fact that the 

 corner stones have just been laid, and it is 

 hoped that these, as well as the Library, Scher- 

 merhorn Hall for the Natural Sciences and the 

 Physical Building, will be ready for occupancy 

 in the summer of 1897. The excavations, 

 which are the most extensive hitherto under- 

 taken in New York, for the University Hall are 

 nearly completed. This building will contain 

 the Academic Theatre, the Gymnasium and the 

 Dining Hall. 



The Yale Alumni Association of California, 

 following the example of the Harvard Al- 

 umni of the same State, has established a grad- 

 uate scholarship at Yale University, yielding an 

 income of $300, to be awarded to a graduate of 

 one of the California colleges on nomination by 

 the Association. 



The present registration at the University of 

 Pennsylvania now amounts to 2,752, which is a 

 gain of 130 over last year, although the require- 

 ments for admission have been raised. 



The number of students in German universi- 

 ties last summer is reported to have been 29,- 

 802 ; in 1895 it was 28,709, so that the numeri- 

 cal increase for the present year is 993, or 3.5 

 per cent. The distribution of the students 

 among the various universities was as follows : 

 4,649 in Berlin, 3,777 in Munich, 2,876 in 

 Leipzig, 1,863 in Bonn, 1,425 in Breslau, 1,415 

 in Halle, 1,379 in Freiburg, 1,339 in Wiirzburg, 

 1,172 in Tubingen, 1,164 in Heidelberg, 1,138 

 in Erlangen, 1,007 in Gottingen, 965 in Mar- 

 burg, 948 in Greifswald, 938 in Strassburg, 761 

 in Jena, 708 in Kiel, 700 in Konigsberg, 630 in 

 Giessen, 500 in Eostock, and 420 in Miinster. 

 The number of students at Vienna was 2, 228, but 

 only 1,370 of these were regular students. 



The Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain has 

 been elected Lord Rector of the University of 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

 AGE OF THE ISLAND SERIES. 



In my paper on ' The Potomac Formation ' in 

 the Fifteenth Annual Report of the United 

 States Geological Survey, describing the section 

 along the Raritan River, I remarked (pp. 335- 

 336) that "from Morgan, the most easterly 

 point, the formation may be traced northward 

 across Staten Island and the northern shore of 

 Long Island, and it reappears on Martha's 

 Vineyard in the celebrated cliffs of Gay Head, 

 * * * Along this most eastern line a new 

 phase is seen, viz., the occurrence of concre- 

 tions in the variegated clays, in the form of 

 hard ironstones, which, when broken open, are 

 found to contain vegetable remains in an ad- 

 mirable state of preservation. I am, therefore, 

 disposed to regard these ferruginous, concre- 

 tionary beds, extending from Staten Island to 

 Martha's Vineyard, as the very latest phase of 

 the Potomac formation, which I shall call the 

 Island Series, although, from the similarity in 

 the flora, I am disposed to include them, along 

 with the Raritan and Amboy Clays, in the 

 Albirupean Series," 



Later in the same paper (pp, 373-382) the 

 nature of the flora of this series was set forth, 

 and it was shown that, so far as known at the 

 time that paper was written, it consisted of 133 

 species, 52 of which were also found in the 

 Amboy Clays, and the great preponderance 

 of which were well developed dicotyledonous 

 forms. The nearest aflfi^nities to these plants 

 are afforded by the Atane beds of Greenland, 

 which have always been correlated with the 

 Cenomanian of Europe, Dr, Newberry re- 

 garded the Amboy Clays as representing that 

 age and therefore as belonging to the Upper 

 Cretaceous. In his monograph of the ' Flora 

 of the Amboy Clays,' soon to appear posthum- 

 ously, he gives his argument in full. He 

 thought them of about the age of the Dakota 

 Group, My opinion that they were somewhat 

 lower, and should be placed at the summit of 

 the Lower Cretaceous, having been called in 

 question, I defended it in the paper referred to 

 (pp. 373-374), as I think successfully. I had 



