Geology and Natural History. 83 



west of New Haven, Connecticut, and in a less restricted area, in 

 the Taconic range of Massachusetts. At the India locality the 

 gneiss graduates into porphyritic gneiss and granite; so, west of 

 New Haven, the gneiss becomes a coarse porphyritic gneiss with 

 crystals of orthoclase as large as the thumb ; and at the junction of 

 the mica schist and gneiss several alterations of the two occur, be- 

 coming coarser and coarser, before the passage is complete into the 

 porphyritic gneiss. In the gneiss a mile west of the junction, large 

 masses of porphyritic granite occur with the layers of the micaceous 

 gneiss broken and involved in it ; which has appeared to indicate 

 that part of the rock material of the porphyritic gneiss had been 

 reduced by the heat to a pasty condition, and in that state had 

 been forced up through the fractured schist. J. b. d. 



4. Mission Scientvfique du Cap Horn, 1882-1883 ; par le Dr. 

 Htades. Published under the auspices of the "Ministeres de la 

 Marine et de l'Instruction Publique." Tome iv, Geologie. 242 

 pp., 4to, with 30 plates and 3 maps. Paris, 1887. (Gauthier- 

 Villars.) — In this volume on the geology of the region about 

 Cape Horn, after a brief notice of other explorations, the author 

 describes the various rocks about Orange Bay and other lands in 

 its vicinity, and gives fine figures of many microscopic sections on 

 ten of the plates. The rocks are mainly crystalline, and include 

 diorytes, andesytes, diabase, trachyte, hornblende schist, granu- 

 lyte, quartzyte, quartz-syenyte, and others. Several of the plates 

 give excellent views of columnar rocks and of the scenery of the 

 rugged region, and the maps show well the wonderful Fuegian 

 archipelago. An appendix contains descriptions of other speci- 

 mens collected in 1882 by Professor Lovisato of the University at 

 Cagliari, and among them, in the vicinity of Cape Conway, a 

 limestone in schist and a marly slate each containing fossils, that 

 of the limestone a coral near Coseinocyathus calathus Borne- 

 mann, a Silurian fossil. 



Among the interesting facts cited from Darwin, in the intro- 

 ductory historical notes, is his discovery of Cretaceous fossils in 

 an argillaceous schist or slate on the summit of Mount Tarn 

 Ancyloceras simplex and a Natica and Pentacrinus, and near 

 Port Famine specimens referred to Hamites elatior, Lucina eccen- 

 trica, and a Venus and Turbinolia. 



The author refers also to Wilkes's " Narrative," and cites a few 

 sentences. He makes no mention of the winter's report on the 

 vicinity of Orange Harbor, in which is mentioned, besides other 

 facts, the discovery on the shores to the north of the harbor, in a 

 slate, where passing into argillaceous sandstone, of a species of 

 Belemnite. It was February, 1839; an opportunity for only one 

 day's excursion over the region was allowed. Accompanied by 

 one of the sailors of the vessel, the walk was continued for some 

 hours over the bleak hills, and then along the sea-shore with the 

 intention of returning by the shore to the harbor where the ves- 

 sels of the expedition were at anchor; and on this coast part of 

 the excursion, about halt way between the harbor and the head of 



