Miscellaneous Intelligence. 243 



including mollusks and 

 } also recent lavas. 

 The second paper contains, besides geographical and hydro- 

 graphical observations, tables of magnetic declinations at positions 

 among the Aleutian Islands, according to different observers, in- 

 cluding new results obtained by the Coast Survey. From them it 

 appears that there is a decrease of the easterly variation at the 

 stations where observations have been taken, when the results 

 are compared with those heretofore published. The following are 

 some of the results obtained : 

 At Amehitka Island, Constantine Harbor, 51° 23-' 32"-9 K, 179° 12' 12''-2 E., 



variation 7° 15' 33" E. 

 At ChichagofE Harbor, Attn Island, 52° 55' 57"-23 N., 173° 12' 22"-2 E., varia- 

 tion 7° 44' 36" E. 



At Unalaska Island, Hiuliuk village, 53° 52' 37"-7 N., 166° 31' 36" W., varia- 

 tioD 18° 59' 44" E. 



At Shumagin Island, Popoff Straits, 55° 19' 16"-7 N., 160° 31' 14"-1 W., varia- 

 tion 20° 29' 23"-7 E. 



3. Memoirs of the Peabody Academy of Science , Vol. I, No. 4. 

 94 pp. Roy. 8vo, with plates. Salem, Mass., Dec. 1 875.— This fourth 

 number of the " Memoirs " is occupied with a paper by the late 

 Dr. Jeffries Wyman, on the Fresh-water Shell Mounds of the St. 

 John's River, Florida.— The facts published by Dr. Wyman in for- 

 mer articles are here brought together along with the results of 

 new observations by him, and they are presented with the usual 

 thorough and cautious method of the author. The mounds are often 

 five or six hundred feet in length, and vary from a few feet to 

 eighteen or twenty in height. Dr. Wyman, after a full description 

 of them, states as his conclusions, that, at the least, two or three 

 hundred years, and probably more, have passed since they were 

 finished ; that the fact that the human bones are broken in the same 

 manner as the bones of edible animals proves the makers to have 



probably been cannibals ; that fragments of pottery, while 



in the later mounds, are not found in the older ; that stone impic 



ments are few in the older mounds and rudely made ; that the sheJ 



heaps contain fragments of the Mastodon, Elephant, Horse, Ox, 

 and some other extinct animals, but that these show by the changes 

 they have undergone, that the animals were not cotemporanes of 

 the mound-builders ; that the only skull found differs from the skulls 

 of the Indian burial mounds of the country, in being longer, with 

 the ndges and processes more pronounced, and that among the 

 bones of two other individuals the tibia was flattened; that, while 

 It is uncertain whether the makers of the mounds were the same 

 people that were found there by the Spaniards and French, the 

 absence of pipes and pottery, and the rarity of ornaments, are 

 consistent with the conclusion that they wei-e a different people. 



4. Annual Meport of the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary 

 of War for the year \%15. Part I, 990 pp. 8vo. Part II, 1254 



