234 Scientific Intelligence. 



given of the " bowlder-pavements " at Fillyside, which, have be- 

 come exposed to view through seashore action, represent the 

 bowlders as lying close together in the bowlder-clay, and having 

 their upper surfaces planed off fiat and striated in a common 

 direction. " The smaller stones that are fitted in among the others 

 have escaped striation altogether ; others rising a little higher 

 have been brushed atop ; while others, again, have been planed 

 off as flat and square-edged as a laundry-maid's iron." The 

 author mentions the common occurrence of small stones with striae 

 that were evidently derived from fluxion movement in the body 

 of the moving bowlder-clay, and of fluxion structure indicated 

 by the arrangement of the stones. The author is led to conclude 

 that in many cases at least the bowlder-clay is built up slowly 

 and under pressure, and that this pressure was that of a slow- 

 moving, heavily-dragging, wide-spreading mass. " To the theory, 

 if it must still be termed a mere theory, of confluent glaciers one 

 turns as to a really competent agent. For the fluxion-structure 

 it accounts at once. It needs only to be assumed that the drag- 

 ging ice communicated something of its own motion and structure 

 to the clay over which it passed." " The fluxion-structure is the 

 result of movement ; the pavement-bowlders are those elements 

 in the materials that, making of themselves inclined slides, could 

 best resist the movement and were striated atop in resisting." 



8. Archaiocyathus of Billings. — This Cambrian genus hitherto 

 regarded as including only fossil sponges, has been shown by Dr. 

 G. J. Hinde to comprise mainly fossil corals. He makes Archceo- 

 cyathus Miuganensis a true lithistid sponge, and names the genus 

 Archceoscyphia. Archwocyathus profundus, Billings's type of the 

 old genus, is retained still as such, but of the family of corals, 

 Archseocyathinse. A. Atlanticus is made the type of a new 

 genus, Spirocyathus. The family includes the genera Archceo- 

 cyathus of Billings, Ethmopyyllum of Meek, Coscinocyathus, 

 Anthromorpha and Protopharetea of Bornholm, together with 

 Spirocyathus. Mr. Hinde states also that Calathium and 

 Trichospongia of Billings are, like Archwoscyphia, undoubted 

 siliceous sponges. — Proc. Geol. Soc. London, Dec. 19, 1888. 



9. Analyses of waters of the Yellowstone National Park, by 

 F. A. Gooch and J. E. Whitfield. (Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. 

 47.)— These careful analyses of the geyser waters, — 43 samples in 

 all — have great interest because of the evidence they appear to 

 afford that the silica present in the silicious waters is mostly if 

 not wholly in the state of dissolved silica and not that of an 

 alkaline silicate. In the waters of the Old Faithful Geyser, the 

 silica constituted 26*54 parts of the total material in solution; in 

 the Giantess, 27*62 p. c. ; the Beehive, 25*12 p. c. ; the Grotto, 18*15 

 p. c. Of the other ingredients the analyses give 1*43 p. c, 1*75 

 and less of boric acid in 100 parts of the total solid material; 

 16*89, 26*67, 27*06, 35*39, 37*00, 39*22, etc. of chlorine; and mostly 

 15 to 28 p. c. of sodium. The memoir deserves careful study 

 by the geologist. 



