122 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



cent work the more interesting and valuable to the geologist of the West. Profess- 

 or Marsh, who is among the first palsenotologists of the present day, has spent the 

 past ten years investigating this subject, much of the time in the field, associated 

 with the local scientists, many of whom, like Mudge, Snow, St. John, Williston 

 and others, have contributed all in their power to his success in searching out, 

 discovering and classifying these wonderful remains. 



The field is but comparatively unexplored, the material already discovered is 

 sufficient for years of study and several volumes of description, while the results 

 already attained, as Prof. Marsh observes, are full of promise for the future. 

 This not only applies to fossil birds, but to gigantic reptiles and vertebrata of all 

 kinds, including the first remains of Primates found in North America, also the 

 first Cheiroptera, Marsupiala and Tillodontia. 



This volume is devoted mainly to descriptions of the Toothed Fossil Birds, 

 Hesperornis, which were very large swimming birds without wings and with teeth in 

 grooves, and another group, endowed with great powers of flight and having the 

 teeth in sockets and bi-concave vertebrae, best illustrated by the genus Ichthyornis. 

 The illustrations consist of thirty-four plates and forty wood cuts, executed in the 

 finest style of the engraver's art. 



Professor Marsh has prepared a synopsis of this work with some of the most 

 striking illustrations, which we hope to secure for publication in the Review as 

 a matter of special, and comparatively local, interest to our subscribers in the re- 

 gion in which these remarkable creatures and their no less remarkable associates 

 once lived and flourished. 



Transactions OF THE Kansas Academy of Science for 1879-80; Edited by 

 the Secretary ; Vol. VII; Topeka, Kansas; Geo. W. Martin; 1881. 



This Academy maintains its work of investigating and exploring the geologi- 

 cal, meteorological, archaeological and geological conditions of its own State with 

 unusual zeal and energy. The Professors of the State University, the Agricultural 

 College, the Normal Schools and of Washburn College, Baker University and 

 other literary institutions of Kansas, have, by common consent, united in their 

 efforts to keep up the Academy and to make its work thorough and compreheu. 

 sive. In the present volume are found over thirty papers, embracing seven articles 

 upon geology and mineralogy, nine on zoology, three on meteorology, four on 

 archaeology and palaeontology, two on botany, one on color blindness, one on 

 irrigation, one on chemical apparatus, one on education, ?one memorial essay; also 

 lectures by Prof. Geo. T. Fairchild, of State Agricultural College, and Prof. J. 

 T. Love well, of Washburn College, and a description of the Aztec Ruins of the 

 Pecos Pueblo in New Mexico, by Theo. S. Case. 



The work consists of one hundred and thirty-six pages and is well arranged 

 and indexed. It will be found of decided value to all interested in the remote 

 past, as well as the present natural history of Kansas. 



