384 Scientific Intelligence. 



more Arctic fauna is known in the basin of the Danube and the 

 ,i that of the lcess ;" also that " along the northern flanks 

 of the Carpathian*, the Scandinavian drift rises to heights of 1,00.0 

 to 1,200 feet." He adopts Lyell's view, that the valley had been 

 excavated before the deposition took place. Instead of holding 

 that the supply of water from the melting ice was sufficient to 



papers that the ice accumulating aloiej; the coast and thus block- 

 ing up the drainage of the continents, dammed up the streams 

 about their mouths and so caused lakes. He says, " I was first led 

 to believe that the ice had effected this [result] in studying the 



3 I adva 



i of North America, and in 1866 I advanced the opinion 

 that •: e drainage oi the St. Lawrence had been blocked up by the 

 ice moving down from the north; and that thus a great inland 



r sea had been formed over which icebergs floated. lie 

 says further that during ;l visit to Xorth America in 1874, I found 

 many more proofs that the drainage of the northeastern part of 

 the continent was blocked by ice that flowed down the bed of the 

 Atlantic from the direction of Greenland ;" and from these and 

 other facts, came the conclusion that "the drainage of Europe 

 had been blocked up— not by Scandinavian ice, but by that which 

 "ceupied the bed of the Atlantic and had reached to our western 

 shores." Thus " the waters were raised over which floated ice- 

 bergs from the north carrying the Scandinavian drift, and into 

 this great lake the Danube "and the Rhine, or the upper portions 

 of them above its level, brought down fine mud from the glacier- 

 eapped Alps which was deposired as loess." 



There is no such damming, as far as is known, about Greenland, 

 the subglacial streams being large and flowing freely to the sea; 

 and hence the practicability of damming the fresh waters in the 

 way supposed may be doubted. The assumed amount of Atlantic 

 ice appears to be far beyond what could have existed. The 

 article does not give the facts as to uniformity of level in the lcess 

 along the whole course of the Rhine needed to prove that the 

 deposit- are of lacustrine origin. The tacts about southern New 



how that there has been no such damming by shore ice 

 as Mr. Belt suggests; for they prove that the height of the 

 ; i the river-valleys* has depended almost wholly on 

 river-floods, with only such lakes as come from damming bj ioa 

 or otherwise along their course. And it seems altogether pi onMe 

 that the height. of the lcess on the Rhine and Danube had the 

 same origin. The change of level proved for southern New Kng- 

 land does not exceed fifteen feet ; and none was needed to produce 



mg heights of the river-valley terraces. J. d. »• 



■i. Ihl.-knp.^ ,,f the fnl' <,-,,;■ r .,rk« <>f Central Pennsylvania. 

 — Mr. C. A. Ashburner, of the Geological Survey of Fein - 



-& from the top" of the 



River Coal Series down to the Trenton limestone. 



ned in his Report. The aggregate results 



are as follows: the Carboniferous from the top of the Mahoning 



