70 Scientific Intelligence. ' 



A third submarine valley exists between Point Gorda and Cape 

 Mendocino; five miles southwest of the Cape. The depth of 450 

 fathoms occurs 6^- miles S.W. by S. of the cape, and 100 fathoms 

 at the usual position of the 25-fathom line. 



The valleys take in the cold water that come down the coast, 

 outside of the inshore northward-flowing eddy current, and a cold 

 water fauna. They are places where vessels may misjudge as to 

 their position from failing to find bottom at the usual depth ; and 

 one steamer was thus lost. 



3. Triassic Mammals, Dromatherium and Microconodon. — Prof. 

 H. F. Osborn has a paper, in the Proceedings of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for 1886, p. 359, giving the re- 

 sults of a study of the two existing specimens of jaws of upper 

 Triassic Mammals from the Chatham coal-fields of North Carolina, 

 one of them in the collection of Williams College, and the other 

 at the Philadelphia Academy. He shows that the figures pub- 

 lished by Prof. Emmons are not correct and apparently because 

 made from the two specimens which were wrongly referred to one 

 genus by Emmons. He gives a new figure of the jaw of Droma- 

 therium sylvestre, with a description, and names the other species 

 Microconodon tenuirostris, which he also figures and describes. 



4. Artesian well at St. Augustine, Florida. — A brief report 

 on this artesian well by Mr. Kennish, states that the boring, 

 below 50 feet of sand and shells, passed through about 45 feet of 

 coquina or shell-rock, and indurated clay and sand ; 7*5 of blue 

 clay affording sulphurous water ; fossilif erous limestone afford- 

 ing corals, shells, etc., to 600 feet below the surface, affording 

 3,000,000 gallons of pure water free from sulphur at 400 to 450 

 feet below the surface, 7,000,000 per day, at 500 to 550. Below 

 770 feet to 1120 feet, hard limestone, with increase in the amount 

 of water; below, to 1225, sandstone with flint; below 1290 in 

 fossiliferous limestone to 1400 feet. The supply of water obtained 

 is stated to be 8,000,000 gallons per day, which is twenty-eight 

 times that from the longest well at Charleston, S. C. ; and the 

 power secured, 75 horse power. The increase of temperature 

 downward was about one degree Fahrenheit in every 50 feet of 

 depth, the temperature at bottom being 86° F. ; but what care 

 was used in obtaining the temperature is not stated. The well 

 w r as bored for the Ponce de Leon Hotel, under the charge of 

 Mr. H. M. Flagler. 



5. Formation of the cone in the ITalema^umaht basin. — On 

 page 239 of the last volume, a view is given of the cone in the 

 Halema'uma'u basin, Kilauea, and a letter received from Mr. Frank 

 E. Dodge, of the Hawaiian Government Survey, dated January 

 14, 1887, is cited from. The same letter says further with refer- 

 ence to the formation of the cone : " I think it first appeared as a 

 ridge extending east and west in the northern half of the pit, and 

 other portions appeared successively until the whole circuit was 

 completed — all rising slowly as though floating on the surface of 

 the new lava lake. The central depression (of the cone) occupies 



