Geology and Natural History. 243 



The Report of Mr. Hugh Fletcher on the Geology of 

 Northern Cape Breton gives interesting facts with regard to the 

 relations of the Carboniferous beds to the associated pre- Cam- 

 brian rocks. The volume is accompanied by a series of colored 

 maps of the Province of Nova Scotia to illustrate a report by Mr. 

 Fletcher of 1879 to 1884. 



The Reports of Mr. G. M. Dawson on the region of Bow and 

 Belly Rivers, and of Mr. Hoffmann on the coals and lignites of 

 the northwest have already been noticed in this Journal. 



2. Aralo- Caspian and Mediterranean Basins. — A paper on 

 the Inland Seas and Salt Lakes of the Glacial period, by Mr. T. 

 P. Jamieson - , is contained in the Geological Magazine for last 

 May (III, ii, 193). It illustrates the great extension of such 

 seas during the progress and decline of the era of ice by a review 

 of the facts connected with the Great Salt Lake of Utah, the 

 Dead Sea, the Aralo-Caspian Basin, the Pangong Lake and the 

 Mediterranean Basin. 



Speaking of the Aralo-'Caspian Basin it states that the Cas- 

 pian is 84 feet below the Black Sea, and that a rise of 107 feet 

 would cause its waters to flow westward into that sea ; that a 

 rise of 220 feet would make the Caspian waters to flow north- 

 ward into the Tobolsk and down the Obi into the Arctic Ocean. 

 Its former recent connection with that ocean is sustained by the 

 existence in its region of mollusks, crustaceans, fishes, the Beluga 

 and seals, some of the species closely like or identical with Arctic 

 kinds. The seal, Phoca caspica, is by some made a variety of the 

 Arctic P. vitiilina. The fishes include the sturgeon, herring, 

 sterlet and salmon ; the crustaceans, Idotea entomon and Mysis 

 relicta, both Arctic species. 



With regard to the Mediterranean, Mr. Jamieson, after referring 

 to the opinion that a land communication must have existed be- 

 tween Spain and Africa during some part of the Quaternary, and 

 that this would become a fact by a rise of a thousand feet, since 

 a ridge crosses from Cape Spartel to Cape Trafalgar with no 

 greater depth above it than 167 fathoms, urges that not only 

 migrations across from Africa to Spain and the rest of Europe 

 would thus have become possible, but also, in his view, migra- 

 tions to Malta, Sicily and other islands within the Mediterranean 

 Basin. He argues that the sea without an outlet would lose its 

 water by evaporation, inasmuch as the average rainfall within 

 the watershed is but 30 inches, while the evaporation is stated 

 (Encyl. Brit., Art. Mediterranean) to exceed 60 inches, until an 

 equilibrium was established between the loss and the supply, 

 and that in this way the sea would be reduced to two or more 

 lakes. He speaks of a dry climate intervening between the two 

 Glacial eras of Europe, and favoring such a result. Thus there 

 would have been made a dry path over to Sicily for African ele- 

 phants of two species, two also of hippotamus, and other species, 

 and for a similar migration to Malta ; a dry way also, for foxes 

 to Minorca, and hares, martens, deer, foxes, etc., to Corsica and 



