318 Scientific Intelligence. 



is being bored at Pesth, and has already a depth of 951 meters- 

 The work is undertaken by the brothers Zsigmondy, partially at 

 the expense of the city which has granted £40,000 for the purpose,, 

 with the intention of obtaining an unlimited supply of warm water 

 for the municipal establishments and public baths." The present 

 temperature is 161° F. ; and it will be prosecuted until water of 

 1*78° is obtained. About 175,000 gallons of warm water stream 

 out daily, rising to a height of 35 feet. "It needs no seer to 

 pierce the not-distant future when we shall be driven to every 

 expedient to discover modes of obtaining heat without the com- 

 bustion of fuel, and the perhaps far more remote future when we 

 shall bore shafts down to the liquid layer and conduct our smelt- 

 ing operations at the pit's mouth." 



8. A gigantic bird of the Lower Eocene of Croydon, Gastor- 

 nis Klaassenii ; E. T. Newton. (Geol. Mag., August, 1885.) — 

 The remains of this bird indicate a species as large as the New 

 Zealand Dinornis. The most perfect tibiotarsus when complete 

 must have had a length at least of 20 inches, and its trochlear 

 extremity is 3-^ inches wide; while in another specimen the latter 

 is 4 inches wide. The remains are from the "Blue Clay" and 

 lignite patches of the Woolwich beds. The original specimen of 

 Gastornis — G. Parisiensis — was from the Lower Eocene beds of 

 Meudon, near Paris. The Anserine affinities of Gastornis, as 

 regards the tibiotarsus, held by some writers, are confirmed by 

 the detailed comparison of the Croydon bones with recent forms. 

 In other parts of its organization the genus is regarded by Dr. 

 Victor Lemoine as having affinities with the Ratitse. 



4. Comstock Mining and Miners; by Eliot Lord. IT. S.. 

 Geol. Survey, Clarence King, Director. 452 pp. 4to. Washing- 

 ton, 1883. (Recently issued; bearing the date of March 1, 1882, 

 in the letter of transmittal.) — This report is a history of the 

 development of the Comstock mines to the close of the year 1880, 

 and, as the preface observes, it is the story of the birth of the 

 silver-mining industry in this country as well as of its vigorous 

 growth. On account of the great productiveness of the lode, the 

 rapid movement in population it occasioned, the quick succession 

 of events, and the later decline and depopulation, the history has 

 unusual social and political interest. It is full of surprising inci- 

 dents, and of vivid descriptions of scenes and occurrences, and 

 contains much in the Avay of social and mining statistics. The 

 interesting volume is illustrated by three excellent maps. 



5. Materialien zur Mineralogie Rnsslands von N. von Kok- 

 schaeow. Vol. ix, pp. 81-272. St. Petersburg, 1885. — A contin- 

 uation of Kokscharow's great work on Russian Mineralogy is 

 always a welcome and valuable addition to mineralogical litera- 

 ture. The species discussed at length in this part of the 9th 

 volume are turquois, wulfenite, topaz, vesuvianite, nepheline, 

 sanidine, linarite. 



