136 Scientific Intelligence. 



borne ice as well as glaciers must be looked to, to account for the 

 known evidences of glaciation. 



In a paper on New discoveries of Carboniferous Batrachiayis, 

 the same author gave an account of the mode of preservation and 

 gradual accumulation of the remains of land animals and insects 

 in the hollow trunks of trees buried in aqueous deposits, as illus- 

 trated by the buried Carboniferous trees of the South Joggins 

 section, several new specimens of which have been recently de- 

 veloped. 



The paper by G. W. Dawson was read in his absence by the 

 president of the Society. It consisted of Geological notes on 

 some of the coasts and islands of Bearing Sea' and its vicinity, 

 made during his visit to the regions as one of the members of 

 the British Commission investigating the fur-seal problem in 1891. 



The localities visited were the Aleutian Islands, Komandorski 

 Islands, Kamtschatka, Pribyloff Islands, Nunivak Island, St. 

 Matthew Island, Plover Bay. Many of the islands are of vol- 

 canic origin, and the whole line of islands were found to be on 

 the outer border of the continental plateau, which, elevated ahove 

 its present level, once connected Asia and Alaska. The author 

 concluded, from his study of the soundings and of the Tertiary 

 formations on the edges of some of the islands, that the sub- 

 marine plateau and the western part of Alaska were under a 

 shallow sea during the later Miocene epoch, since which time the 

 region was elevated, forming land connection between the two 

 continents by which the mammoth may have reached the Priby- 

 loff Islands. This was followed by depression, and in compara- 

 tively recent times there was an elevation of 10 to 30 feet. 



The observations of Dr. Dall and others as to the absence of 

 any evidence of general glaciation in the Behring Sea region are 

 confirmed by the author's observations. 



The eastern boundary of the Connecticut Triassic. — Profs. 

 W. M. Davis and L. S. Griswold, in their paper, illustrating 

 the general structural features of the Triassic belt by a series of 

 lantern slides, maintained that the eastern boundary of the 

 formation is defined by a system of faults, whose existence is 

 proved, according to the authors' interpretation of the facts, 

 as follows: First, different members of the formation succes- 

 sively terminate along the eastern border; in passing north- 

 eastward from the Sound near East Haven, to the Connecticut 

 River near Middletown, the lower sandstones, the anterior trap 

 sheet, the anterior shales, the main trap sheet, the posterior shales 

 and sandstones, the posterior trap sheet and the upper sandstones 

 and conglomerates, gently undulating as a whole, are terminated 

 in alternating succession along the border. This cannot be ex- 

 plained as a result of variable overlap of the Triassic series un- 

 conformably upon the crystallines, for the former dip towards 

 the latter; they must be cut off abruptly along the margin of 

 their present area. The border is marked by a depression, wider 

 open when the adjacent rocks are weak, narrow when they are 

 hard. Close to the border, departures from the prevailing dip of 



