154 Scientific Intelligence. 



Part III consists of the Report of Mr. Frank A. Hill on the 

 Anthracite Coal Regions. 



3. Geological and Scientific Bulletin. Published by the Texas 

 State Geological and Scientific Association, at Houston, Texas. 

 (Fifty cents per annum). — No. 2 of this new Geological publica- 

 tion bearing the date of June 2, ] 888, is a four-paged folio. It con- 

 tains geo'logical communications on Texas and Arkansas by Mr. 

 R. T. Hill and others, besides papers bearing on the mining in- 

 dustry of Texas. The region is to be surveyed under State 

 auspices, and the paper will announce results as they may be 

 developed and also report on observations in other departments of 

 science. The survey has been put under the direction of the 

 Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics and History, and by him 

 the geologists will be appointed. An appropriation of $15,000 

 has been already made. 



4.. The Genealogical Tree. — Prof. J. W. Judd, in his excellent 

 Anniversary Address of February last before the Geological Soci- 

 ety of London, has the following wise remark: "One of the most 

 mischievous weeds that have accompanied the evolutionist in his 

 incursions into various parts of the biological field is the prepos- 

 terous ' genealogical tree.' We can scarcely turn over the leaves 

 of a modern systematic work without finding it flourishing in full 

 luxuriance. No sooner has the student of a particular group ar- 

 ranged his families, genera, and species, than he thinks it incum- 

 bent upon him to show their genetic relations. Very admirably 

 has Professor Alexander Agassiz pointed out the utter fatuity of 

 such a proceeding. As Lyell used to say, in speaking of such 

 proceedings, the imagination of the systematist, untramelled by 

 an acquaintance with the past history of the group, ' revels with 

 all the freedom characteristic of motion in vacuo.' If for 

 no other reason, zoologists and botanists ought to study fossil 

 forms in order that, by encountering a few hard facts in the shape 

 of fossils, they may be saved from these unprofitable flights of 

 the imagination." 



5. JEstudo sobre os JBilobiies e outros Fosseis das Quartzites da 

 Base do sy sterna Silurico de Portugal. Supplement : by J. F. N. 

 Delgado, Director of the Geological Survey of Portugal. 76 pp. 

 4to, with 9 plates. — This supplementary report by Prof. Delgado 

 consists largely of a reply to the criticisms of M. Nathorst in his 

 report on the same subject of 1887, but contains also descriptions 

 and figures of new kinds. The plates are phototypes, and repre- 

 sent some remarkably fine and large forms ; they appear to sus- 

 tain the author's conclusions as to their vegetable origin. The 

 last two plates represent large species having the markings 

 of Arthrophycus Harlani of Hall, making this genus (if not the 

 species) of much earlier date than known from the American 

 rocks. Prof. Delgado names them A. Harlani, although much 

 larger than the American species. 



6. British Petrography with special reference to the Igneous 

 Bocks; by J. J. Harris Teall, M.A., F.G.S. 451 pp. 4to, with 



