156 Scientific Intelligence. 



in this and other respects the development was ranch like that of 

 the newt. Mr. W. E. Abbott discusses the subject of the water 

 supply of the dry Interior plains of New South Wales. He 

 speaks of this region as really a water shed, and of the amount 

 of precipitation over this great water shed of Darling River as 30 

 inches a year in the mountains to the eastward and less than 10 

 inches to the westward. The plains are regarded as having been 

 in comparatively recent geological time " covei'ed by a sea," and 

 as thus having derived its nearly level surface. — On the western 

 side along the railroad it is 349 feet above the sea and 865 feet on 

 the eastern, making the mean slope between about 2 feet a mile. 

 The soil of two-thirds of the surface is a red clay with a slight ad- 

 mixture of fine sand without organisms, and of the rest, a grayish- 

 black earth overlying the red along the water courses. Water 

 is reached at a small depth ; but five out of six of all wells sunk 

 afford brackish water and there are many salt springs. The 

 country is called the Salt bush country ; the native plants have 30 

 to 43 per cent of the ash consisting of soda or sodium chloride. 

 Gypsum nodules also are common, pointing, like the salt, to former 

 marine conditions. The author supposes, with Mr. H. C. Russell 

 of the Observatory, that the water of the River Darling becomes 

 largely subterranean water and may be reached by artesian bor- 

 ing. But in view of th© cost of such borings he recommends 

 rather the construction of reservoirs for storing the surface water 

 ofj^ie streams, and for collecting the water of rains on the slopes. 



4. Fossil Insects of the " Primary " [Paleozoic) rocks, by 

 Charles Brongniart. 20 pp. 8vo, with five plates (Bull. Soc. 

 Sci. Nat., Rouen, 1885^-'This valuable paper, illustrated by fine 

 heliographic plates, reviews the facts with respect to Paleozoic in- 

 sects and gives criticisms on the work of other authors. The 

 discovery of the Carboniferous locality of Commentiy, which since 

 1878, has furnished 1300 specimens of insects mostly "admirably 

 preserved," gives great weight to his opinions. 



5. The Determination of Rock-forming Minerals, by Dr. Eu- 

 gen Htjssak ; translated from the German by Dr. Erastus G. 

 Smith. 233 pp. 8vo, with 103 wood-cuts. New York, 1885, (J. 

 Wiley & Sons). — The work by Dr. Hussak on the determination 

 of the minerals which enter into the composition of rocks has been 

 well received abroad, and now that it has been translated it will 

 doubtless be as well known and appreciated among the English- 

 reading public. The work gives, much more fully than has been at- 

 tempted before in any single volume, the methods employed in the 

 mineralogical study of rocks, optical, chemical and mechanical. 

 A second part consists of tables for the determination of the rock- 

 forming minerals ; these give in condensed form a large amount of 

 information about the individual species, which the student of 

 microscopical petrography should make himself familiar with. The 

 translation of such a woi'k is a difficult matter and it is not strange 

 that there are numerous points open to criticism. The reader 

 will probably think that the translator has attempted to follow 



