330 Scientific Intelligence. 



4. Geological Survey of Alabama ; E. A. Smith, State Geolo- 

 gist. — The Survey of this State has recently issued a Report of 

 190 pages, on the Cahaba Coal-fields, by Joseph Squire, with an 

 appendix on the geology of the valley region adjacent by Dr. 

 Smith. This RejDort is illustrated by figures in the text, seven 

 plates and a map of the region. 



5. Catalogues of the British Museum / Part IV, on the Fos- 

 sil Reptilia and Amphibia in the British Museum, by Richard 

 Lydekker, published in the summer of 1890, treats of the orders 

 Anomodontia, Ecaudata, Caudata and Labyrinthodontia. Part 

 IT, on Fossil Fishes, a volume of 568 pages and 16 plates issued 

 the present year, contains the Acanthodii of the Elasmobranchii, 

 the Holocephali, Astracodermi and part of the Teleostomi. Part 

 I on Fossil Fishes appeared in 1889. 



6. The Fossil Insects of North America ; by Dr. Samuel H. 

 Scudder, of Cambridge, Mass. — This great work has just been 

 published by Macmillan & Co., in two quarto volumes. Volume 



I, treats of the Pre-tertiary Insects and contains 35 plates, volume 



II, of the Tertiary Insects and contains 28 plates. Only one 

 hundred copies are issued, and half of these are already sold. 

 Over eight hundred and fifty species are described and most of 

 them are figured on the lithographic plates. 



The descriptions include, with two or three exceptions, all 

 the fossil insects which have ever been described from North 

 America. 



7. Handbuch der Palazontologie hera.usgegeben von Karl A. 

 Zittel. II. Abtheilung, Palaeophy tologie ; bearbeitet von Prof. 

 W. Ph. Schimper und Dr. A. Schenk. Mtinchen und Leipzig, 

 1879-1890. — The 9th and last number of this important volume 

 of ZittePs Handbuch appeared in November, 1890, completing 

 one of the leading contributions of the time to the science of 

 fossil plants. Begun by Schimper in 1879 and continued by 

 Schenk after Schimper's death in 1884, this work presents the 

 best results of scientific research in this difficult branch of pale- 

 ontology. The arrangement of the work is systematic, not 

 geological, so that it is a botanical rather than a geological 

 treatise, and loses, it must be admitted, much of its value from 

 the latter point of view. Still, horizons are carefully given when 

 known for the forms treated. The plan has been to discuss and 

 illustrate, in the ascending order of the development of plant life, 

 the principal vegetable types that are sufficiently well authenti- 

 cated to warrant the assumption that they actually lived at the 

 epochs recorded, and thus, by excluding all doubtful forms, to 

 present a solid body of reliable facts bearing upon the past vege- 

 tation of the earth. It is gratifying to note that American dis- 

 coveries have been carefully considered. l. e. w. 



8. Monographic der baltischen Bernsteinbaume ; von H. 

 Conwentz. Danzig, 1890. 4°. 151 pp., 18 colored plates. — 

 This handsome volume has the same form and typography as the 

 preceding two on the amber flora, the first elaborated by Goppert 



