Geological Gleanings, 125 



Elephant. Eulephas includes the semi-Arctic mammoth, and 

 several other species of Post Pliocene, Pliocene, and Miocene date, 

 as well as the existing Indian Elephant. Dr. Falconer will follow 

 up this subject by descriptions of all the species occurring in Great 

 Britain. 



Prof. HalVs New Volume on the Palaeontology of New York, 

 — Silliman's Journal. — " We have received some sheets of Prof. 

 James Hall's forthcoming (third) volume on the Palaeontology 

 of New York ; and learn that it is making rapid progress 

 towards completion. The volume will include the fossils of the 

 Lower Helderberg Rocks or the upper part of the Upper Silurian, 

 and the Onskany Sandstone, generally regarded as Devonian. 

 The author remarks that the sub-divisions of the Lower Helder- 

 berg beds (into Upper Pentamerus limestone and Tentaculite or 

 water limestone) are distinguishable only for a short distance, 

 while the formation as a-whole reaches widely from the north-east 

 to the south-west. The Oriskany Sandstone appears in some places 

 to pass into the Helderberg rocks below, and in Maryland some of 

 the fossils of the latter beds occur in it ; and they may yet prove 

 to blend intimately. But the separation of them in successive 

 groups, is fully justified by their physical condition in the State 

 of New York. 



''In the south-west, the Oriskany sandstone contains many Cri- 

 noids similar in genera to those of the Lower Helderberg lime- 

 stones. Among the peculiar forms in both, is the genus Edriocri- 

 nus (Hall) — a crinoid which is sessile in its young state and' 

 firmly attached to other bodies by the base of its cup, but becomes 

 free as it advances and gradually loses all evidence of a cicatrix ; 

 the base becoming rounded and smooth, or very rarely preserving 

 a depression or pit near the centre, which marks the original point 

 of attachment." 



Wollaston Medals. — At the Annual Meeting of the Geological 

 Society, a Wollaston medal was awarded to the veteran Palaeon- 

 tologist, Herman Von Meyer, of Frankfort-on-Maine, and a se- 

 cond, with the balance of the fund, to Prof. James Hall, State 

 Geologist of New York. We have much pleasure in recording 

 this deserved recognition of Prof. Hall's long, able, and to a great 

 extent unrequited labours, in American geology and palaeonto- 

 logy- 



Distribution of Animals in Australasia. — Many facts in the 

 distribution of animals and plants, point to ancient differences of 



