478 Chronicles of Science. [July, 



having a strike from N.W. to S.E. nearly, and corresponding in 

 direction with the line distinguished by Dana as the ' Axis of greatest 

 depression of the Pacific Ocean.' He also says that the extraordinary 

 variety of contour in the surface of the islands is explained by the 

 diversity of their rock-formations, and that the change from moun- 

 tainous to hilly, undulating, or flat country, from Alpine peaks to 

 swampy flats and elevated plateaux, is always accompanied, or, more 

 correctly, caused, by a corresponding alteration in the subsoil. 



It is long since we have met with a work so thoroughly praise- 

 worthy as this one, the more so as it is the result of a Government 

 expedition, and is brought out at Government cost ; but they manage 

 these things better in Austria, if we may be allowed to apply the 

 compliment to another country than that for which it was framed. 

 We have given only the barest skeleton (not outline) of the contents 

 of Dr. Hochstetter's book, and as for the several treatises on the 

 Palaeontology of New Zealand, though we should have liked to 

 examine some of the points in regard to the distribution of species in 

 ancient time suggested by their perusal, yet we have been obliged to 

 refrain ; for it is enough to have to digest at one sitting the character- 

 istics of a new Jupiter, without being obliged to study those of all 

 his satellites. 



Pbocebdings of the Geological Society. 



This quarter we have a very small instalment of the Society's 

 Proceedings, the greater portion of the last number of the ' Quarterly 

 Journal ' being occupied by the Annual Eeport and the President's 

 Anniversary Address. 



The Address is prefaced as usual by the Wollaston Awards, men- 

 tioned in our last Chronicle, and the obituary notices of deceased 

 Fellows, the list of whom contains many distinguished names, espe- 

 cially Mr. Leonard Horner, Dr. Hugh Falconer, Major-General Port- 

 lock, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Ilchester (better known to 

 geologists as the Hon. Mr. Strangways), Professor Hitchcock of 

 Amherst, and Professor B. Silliman, founder of the ' American Journal 

 of Science.' 



The President (W. J. Hamilton, Esq.) in the Anniversary Address 

 reviews at great length the chief geological discoveries and investiga- 

 tions made during the past year ; but as our readers have already 

 been made acquainted with their chief features, it will not be neces- 

 sary for us to follow him in this discussion. We must, however, give 

 a brief notice of his attack on the Glacier-excavation hypothesis, 

 which has been so ardently advocated by his predecessor, Professor 

 Eamsay. 



Mr. Hamilton admits, of course, the enormously greater extension 

 and thickness of the glaciers during the Glacial Period, and that their 

 eroding power was consequently very much greater than that of their 

 shrunken successors ; but he does not believe that power to have ever 

 been sufficient to excavate basins many hundred feet deep in solid 

 rock, and he doubts " whether the position of these deep excavations 



