252 Scientific Intelligence. 



of nitrogen and oxygen on its surface. Moreover he has ob- 

 served that nitrites are formed where air is passed over finely di- 

 vided iron at about '200° ; and that the resulting oxide when 

 washed, yields these nitrites in appreciable quantity. — Bull. Soc. 

 Chem. Ill, ii, 734, Dec, 1S89. g. f. b. 



II. Geology and Mineralogy. 



1 . Clinton Group fossils with special reference to Collections 

 from Indiana, Tennessee and Georgia; by A. F. Foerste. — 

 This report contains descriptions of a large number of species, 

 many of them new, from localities in the States mentioned in the 

 title, and comparisons with the distribution of the species in more 

 eastern localities, with special reference to the condition at the 

 time of the Cincinnati anticlinal axis. We have in it the first 

 paleontological identification of the Clinton formation in Indiana 

 on the west side of this axis. 



After the descriptions the author makes a comparison of the 

 Clinton fossils with regard to their distribution and states the fol- 

 lowing facts as to species absent from the anticlinal. These in- 

 clude leptocoelia hemispherica, which is common east of the 

 anticlinal from Anticosti to Tennessee and Alabama; S. obscura, 

 from New York and Tennessee ; Cornulites Clintoni, from New 

 York to Alabama ; Illcenus loxus, from New York and doubt- 

 fully Alabama, yet known from the Niagara of Indiana and Wis- 

 consin ; Ceraurus insignis, from New York, and the Niagara of 

 Wisconsin ; Homalonotus delphinocephalus, from New York and 

 Pennsylvania, and the Niagara of Indiana ; Dalmanites limulurus, 

 from New York and Pennsylvania, and in the Niagara of Ohio ; 

 Calymene rostrata, from New York and Georgia, and the Niag- 

 ara of Indiana as C. nasuta y Atrypa reticularis, from Anticosti 

 to Alabama, and the Niagara of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wis- 

 consin ; and so with several other species not found on the anti- 

 clinal. In the remarks on these facts the author observes : 



" Two suggestions may be offered as to the peculiar distribution 

 of these forms in the Clinton. The first is that the fossils in 

 question favored certain localities in the sea possibly those nearer 

 the shore, and that these shore conditions did not occur at the 

 anticlinal until at a later period. The extreme variability of 

 shore conditions, however, implied by the character of the rocks 

 farther eastward and the probability that parts of the anticlinal 

 showed more shore action during the Clinton than did at least 

 Anticosti, leaves, however, scarcely any margin for such a suppo- 

 sition. 



The second is that the species in question may have been mi- 

 grating toward the west at the time in question after the close 

 of the break of the paleontological record, between the Upper 

 and Lower Silurian periods, and that they did not reach the anti- 

 clinal until after the close of the Clinton period of that region. If 

 this could be established by further observations it would be an 



