Y2 Scientific Intelligence. 



It was further Resolved, that the Secretary be authorized to 

 communicate to the editors of the American Geologist and the 

 American Journal of Science the results accomplished by the 

 Committee at the present meeting. 



And it was Resolved, that the Committee assess its members 

 five dollars each for expenses. 



2. (1) New Types of Carboniferous Cockroaches from the Car- 

 boniferous Deposits of the United States ; (2) New Carboniferous 

 Myriapoda from Illinois ; (8) Illustrations of the Carboniferous 

 Arachnida of North America, of the orders Anthracomarti and 

 Pedipalpi ; (4) The Insects of the Triassic beds at Fairplay, 

 Colorado ; by Samuel H. Scudder, Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. 

 Hist., vol. iv, No. ix, pp. 401-472, pi. xxxi-xlii, September, 1890. 

 — Few departments of paleontology have fallen so wholly into 

 the hands of a single investigator as the American fossil arach- 

 nids, myriapods, and insects. The labors of Meek, Worthen, 

 Dana and Dawson, from 1860 to 1865, really introduced the sub- 

 ject of the terrestrial arthropods in this country, and since that 

 time Professor Scudder has been nearly the sole inquirer. 



The present memoir is a continuation of previous descriptive 

 papers, and adds a number of new and important species to the 

 mylacridse and myriapods, with a summation of the known 

 American paleozoic species of the latter group. The portion 

 treating of the Carboniferous arachnids contains descriptions, 

 discussions and good figures of the Anthracomarti and Pedi- 

 palpi. The last paper of this memoir on Triassic insects of Colo- 

 rado,' possesses considerable geological interest. According to 

 the author, it is the first attempt to determine the age of a series 

 of beds from insect remains alone. From a study of the asso- 

 ciated plants, the horizon was first referred to the Permian, but 

 Professor Scudder has noted so many Mesozoic characters in the 

 insect fauna that any other time reference would be incongruous. 

 Similar paleontological contradictions have been encountered 

 several times before, between the plants, invertebrates, and verte- 

 brates, with the general result that the higher organisms are 

 taken as the chronological standard. c. e. b. 



3. Bulletin from the Laboratories of Natural History of the 

 State University of Iowa, vol. ii, No. I, pp. 1-98, pi. x-xii, 1890. 

 — The monograph of the Pselaphidse of North America by 

 Brendel and Wickham is brought to a completion, and also the 

 memoir by Shimek on the Loess and its fossils. Mr. Shimek con- 

 cludes that during the formation of these deposits the summers 

 were comparatively warm and the glaciers had retreated far to 

 the north. The sedimentation w r as apparently at or near the sur- 

 face, and pi'oduced through the agencies of numerous shallow 

 ponds and sluggish streams, thereby accounting for the fineness 

 of the material, the differences of level, and the preservation of 

 extremely delicate land and freshwater mollusca with numerous 

 local faunal differences. c. e. b. 



