402 Scientific Intelligence. 



edge last summer when at Lebanon Springs, at the western foot 

 of the Taconic Range, in Columbia County, N. Y. In that 

 vicinity, where the schistose rocks (hydromica schists) stand at a 

 high angle, an artesian boring had been run into the hills nearly 

 horizontally for three hundred feet, and a permanent flow ob- 

 tained. A vertical boring at the same place would have been in 

 all probability without success, as in most other regions of meta- 

 morphic rocks. 



The paper on the Topographical features of Lake shores, by 

 Professor Gilbert, treats of the character and origin of these 

 features, and considers the physical questions as to the nature 

 and effects of wave and current action in erosion, transportation 

 and deposition. It takes up therefore the subject of water action 

 over the earth's surface from a fundamental point of view, omit- 

 ting the part consequent on tidal movements ; and, under the 

 action of water, that of ice, its frozen condition, is included. 

 "Littoral erosion and the origin of the sea-cliff and wave-cut 

 terrace " is first explained, then, " the process of littoral transpor- 

 tation, with its dependent features, the beach and the barrier, and 

 finally the process of littoral deposition, resulting in the embank- 

 ment with all its varied phases and the delta." Wave action 

 from winds or currents, is considered at length as a question in 

 physics, and its effects followed out as to methods, and as to 

 results in the sculpturing of the shores; and then deposition is 

 considered, its determining and modifying conditions, and results 

 in beaches, bars and deltas. The formation of terraces of differ- 

 ent kinds, and that of moraines, and other results of ice deposi- 

 tion are also considered under the head of " the discrimination 

 of shore-features," and " the recognition of ancient shores." The 

 Utah Great Salt Lake and the Lake Bonneville region has afforded 

 Professor Gilbert many of his facts, but far from all. Besides 

 plates illustrating this region, there are others giving admirable 

 views from Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Colorado, Montana 

 and Idaho. 



Mr. Ward's sketch of Paleobotany is mainly historical and 

 treats of the disco veries hitherto made. In its review of discov- 

 erers it commences with Scheuchzer, whose Herbarium Diluvia- 

 num appeared at Zurich in 1*709, and from him passes to Baron 

 von Schlotheim, whose first publication on fossil plants appeared 

 nearly a century later, in 1801 ; then speaks of Sternberg, Brong- 

 niart, Witham, Goppert, Corda, Geinitz, Binney, Unger, Schim- 

 per, Williamson, of Europe and Britain ; and then of Lesquereux 

 and Dawson, whose first publications appeared in 1845; of Heer 

 and Bunbury, who published first in 1846, of Massolongo and 

 Ettingshausen, 1850; of Newberry, 1853; Schenk of Leipsic, 

 1858; of Saporta, 1860; and of Carruthers, 1865. A review of 

 the more important publications follows, and a consideration of 

 the classification of plants, with the bearings on the subject of 

 classification of the facts made known by paleontological dis- 

 covery. The paper closes with tables giving the number of spe- 



