88 /Scientific Intelligence. 



basalts close the list. In the sedimentary rocks are found sand- 

 stones, argillites, limestones, travertine, etc. The work closes with 

 a chapter dealing with various generalizations on the results 

 obtained. It is illustrated by a large number of excellent photo- 

 gravures made from microphotographs of the thin sections 

 studied. Its value is also much enhanced by a large number of 

 excellent chemical analyses of the various rocks, which are the 

 result of much patient labor in the laboratory. 



The work is an excellent contribution to our knowledge of East 

 African petrology, and it is interesting to observe that the nature 

 of the rocks is in harmony with the general alkalic character of 

 the East African petrological province, as shown by a number of 

 investigators during the last few years. l. v. p. 



6. Carboniferous Air-breathing Vertebrates of the United 

 States National Museum ; by Roy L. Moodie. Proc. U. S. Nat. 

 Mus., vol. 37, pp. 11-28, with pis. 4-10. — This paper, the fifth of 

 Dr. Moodie's contributions to our knowledge of the early Am- 

 phibia, is a result of the study of a small collection in the National 

 Museum ; but one which is of great interest in that it contains 

 the only known examples of scaled Amphibia from North Amer- 

 ica, as well as the only known specimen of a Carboniferous reptile 

 from the Allegheny series. This reptile, Isodectes punctulatus 

 Cope, Doctor Moodie thinks, shows certain aquatic as well as ter- 

 restrial adaptations ; the former being the broad-surfaced foot, 

 such as MacGregor has described in Mesosaurus brasiliensis. 

 The affinities of Isodectes are close to the Microsauria among the 

 Amphibia ; to what group of reptiles it is related is not known. 



Of the Microsauria, Moodie describes some 17 species and 15 

 genera, of which 3 of the former and 1 of the latter are new. 

 The material comes in part from Linton, Ohio, and Cannelton, 

 Pennsylvania. r. s. l. 



7. Cenozoic Mammal horizons of Western North America, 

 by Henry Fairfield Osborn; with Faun al Lists of the Tertiary 

 of the West, by William Diller Matthew. Bull. IT. S. Geol. 

 Survey No. 361, 1909, pp. 1-138, with 15 text figs, and 3 plates. — 

 For the student of faunal paleontology as well as the stratigraph- 

 ical geologist this paper is of the utmost importance, containing 

 as it does a bibliography, a general discussion of the geologic and 

 climatic history of the Tertiary, a careful description of the 

 successive faunal phases, and most comprehensive faunal lists of 

 the Tertiary mammals. 



The principal facts established are the two great natural 

 divisions of geologic deposition and of habitat, the mountains 

 and the plains ; the progressive aridity of the climate during 

 the Cenozoic with its consequent soil denudation and deforesta- 

 tion, and the destruction of most of the larger forms of life during 

 the lower Pleistocene glacial epoch. The contrast of the moun- 

 tain and plains regions are no less striking than their resemblances. 

 In the mountain region, with some exceptions, the drainage sys- 

 tems are the same to-day as in the Tertiary, while on the plains 



