396 Scientific Intelligence. 



augite-microlites, for the most part rounded. The other experi- 

 ment, "in which the temperature of the fused mass during the 

 formation of the crystals was, at least at the beginning, somewhat 

 higher," gave a product consisting of a brown glassy sub- 

 stance out of which some whole and many fragmentary crystals 

 of olivine projected, which contained numerous inclusions of the 

 ground-mass." The olivine, he says, according to his experiments 

 and those of others, easily forms from liquid fusion (provided, of 

 course, the chemical composition of the magma allows) when it 

 is kept for a long time at a pretty high temperature. Besides a 

 considerable number of brown irregularly defined weakly-polariz- 

 ing and somewhat dichroic folia separate out, such as Mr. Becker 

 had obtained in a former experiment. In some of these an extinc- 

 tion angle of 2°-5° in the longer direction was observed. They 

 are, according to this experiment, new formations and not incom- 

 pletely dissolved mineral particles. He observes that similar 

 brown scales exist sometimes in natural basalts, and questions 

 whether this is so because the basaltic hornblende, which melts 

 more easily than augite, was again made liquid by additional heat 

 and then, in cooling, as in this experiment, separated into olivine 

 glass and this compound. a. g. d. 



5. An effect near Meralc, on western Java, of the Krakatoa 

 Eruption. (From a paper by the Rev. Philip Neale, late British 

 Chaplain at Batavia, in Leisure Hour.) — One of the most remark- 

 able facts concerning the inundation remains to be told. As we 

 walked or scrambled along, we were much surprised to find great 

 masses of white coral lying at the side of our path in every direc- 

 tion. Some of these were of immense size, and had been cast up 

 more than two or three miles from the seashore. It was evident, 

 as they were of coral formation, that these immense blocks of 

 solid rock had been torn up from their ocean bed in the midst of 

 the Sunda Straits, borne inland by the gigantic wave, and finally 

 left on the land several miles from the shore. Any one who had 

 not seen the sight would scarcely credit the story. The feat 

 seems almost an impossible one. How these great masses could 

 have been carried so far into the interior is a mystery, and bears 

 out what I have said in previous papers as to the height of this 

 terrible wave. Many of these rocks were from twenty to thirty 

 tons in weight, and some of the largest must have been nearly 

 double. Lloyd's agent, who was with me, agreed in thinking that 

 we could not be mistaken if we put down the largest block of 

 coral rock that we passed, as weighing not less than fifty tons. 



6. Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota for 

 1884. N. H. WnsrcHEix, State Geologist. 196 pp. 8vo. — Prof. 

 Winchell describes in this report and gives figures of the Pri- 

 mordial fossils from the red quartzyte of the Pipestone or Cat- 

 linite region of Missouri, noticed on page 316 of this volume. 

 The species described are named Lingula calumet, the shells of 

 which are distributed in great numbers through portions of the 

 rock, and Paradoxides Barberi. The specimen of the latter ha& 



