2i4 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



pp. ; each with many maps and illustrations. — The Annual Report 

 of the Engmeering Department is of high importance in a scien- 

 tific point of view. Besides details as to work done in the improve- 



of harbors and rivers, and discussions of the i 

 carrying on such improvements, it contains a great amount of 

 new information, on the geography, resources and trades of the 

 regions examined, results of hydraulic investigations, discussions 

 of the modes of wear, transportation and deposition by rivers, 

 the topography, and on the productions and resources of the 

 territories, besides facts and views on other topics. 



Among the articles in the Report for 1875, the following are 

 especially noteworthy: :Major Warren's Report on the Minnesota 

 River, which is both historical, descriptive and geological, and 

 contains a map showing the Mississippi when Lake Winnipeg 

 was its head (this Journ., ix, p. 313) ; Commissioner H. L. Abbot's 

 analysis of the Mississippi floods; Gen. T. G. Ellis's Report on 

 the Connecticut River, in which the amount of discharge of the 

 river at Hartford is given for each day, from Feb. 1, i 871, to Dec. 

 31, 1874, and, as an incidental result, the parabolic form of the 

 curve of subsurface velocities in a river, as made known by Hum- 

 phreys and Abbot (in their Report on the Physics and Hydraulics 

 of the Mississippi), is fully confirmed by observations at Thomp- 

 son ville ; Col. Gilmore's Report on the compressive strength a"-' 

 specific gravity of the building stones in the United States m 

 most general use ; Report of Clarence King with reference to the 

 geological exploration of the 40th parallel; Report of Lieut. G. 

 M. Wheeler, on geographical explorations and surveys west oi 



OOtl ■"■ ^ , ^ ,, , T^ . «^ 



the expei 

 5. An: 



Surveys west of the lOO^A Meridian /hj Geoege M. Wheeler, 

 1st Lieut, of Engineers U. S. A. 196 pp. 8vo. Washingtor 

 1875.— This report is included in the Annual Report of the Chi^ 

 of Engineers for 1875, as above mentioned. Besides the Report 

 on the Geographical, Geodetic, Hypsometrical, Astronomical and 

 Meteorological work of the survey, this volume contains the fol- 

 lowing: a discussion on Aneroid barometers; a Report on the 

 Geology of part of northwestern New Mexico examined in 1874, 

 by E. D. Cope, containing, besides geological observations, descrip- 

 tions of fossil vertebrates of the Santa F6 Marls, on the Ti/pothorax 

 coccinarum Cope, from beds supposed to be Triassic (already n(^ 

 ticed in this Journal, III, vol. x, p. 153), on the Eocene plateau, and 

 a list of fossil vertebrates from beds of the horizon of the Green 

 River horizon ; Geological and Mineralogical Report, by O. Loew, 

 on portions of Colorado and New Mexico ; Preliminary Botanical 

 Report, by Dr. J. T. Rothrock; Report upon the Agricultural 

 resources of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, by Vt. 

 O. Loew, in which several analvses of soils, plants, etc , are given ; 

 ' '^ I H. C. Yarrow ; Ornithological notes, 



" " .Aiken; Report on the 



