248 Scientific Intelligence, 



be very useful to the student of physical chemistry. From the 

 pedagogical point of view, one could wish that the author had 

 not confined himself so strictly to analytical methods and that 

 more diagrams and geometrical illustrations had been employed ; 

 but after all this is largely a question of taste. n. a. b. 



II. Geology. 



1. The Coral Reefs of the Maldives ; by Alexander Agassiz. 

 Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard College. Pp. i-xxv, 1-168, 82 

 pis. One volume text. One volume plates. — Parts of December, 



1901, and January, 1902, was spent by Professor Agassiz* in 

 exploring the Maldives (for sketch of the work of this expedition 

 see this Journal, xiii, 29*7). All of the important atolls were 

 examined and more than eighty soundings were taken. The 

 variety exhibited by the "small islands points "to the uselessness 

 of our present definition of atolls. There is every possible gra- 

 dation between a curved crescent-shaped open bank of greater or 

 less size and an absolutely closed ring of land surrounding a 

 lagoon without direct communication with the sea. The evi- 

 dence . . . shows that reef corals will grow upon any foundation 

 where they find the proper depth and that local conditions will 

 determine their existence as fringing reefs, barrier reefs or atolls." 

 In most particulars the work of Gardiner is substantiated (this 

 Journal, xvi, 203), but the soundings reveal considerable irregu- 

 larity in the depth of the plateau, and the conclusions drawn by 

 Gardiner from the supposed existence of a great level central 

 plateau «may need revision. The soundings show also that Dar- 

 win's suggestion that the Maldive Archipelago originally existed 

 as a barrier reef of nearly the same dimensions as that of New 

 Caledonia, is not borne out. 



This is the last of a series of monographs on Coral Reefs, but 

 Professor Agassiz promises a resume of results obtained from 

 study of all the important coral regions of the Atlantic, Pacific 

 and Indian Oceans. 



2. Note on the Classification of the Carboniferous formation 

 of Kansas ; by Henry S. Williams. (Communicated.) — In 

 the brief review of Bulletin 211 of the U. S. Geological Survey 

 (this Journal, xvii, 1*75), a few facts were not given which per- 

 haps should be stated in order to give credit where credit is due, 

 and the quotation on p. 176 is by its incompleteness somewhat 

 misleading, hence the following statement : 



A further examination of Bulletin No. 211 of the United 

 States Geological Survey shows that the following formations, viz : 

 Elmdale, Neva, Eskridge, Garrison, Matfield, and Doyle had 

 previously been given these names by Prosser and Beede and 

 were more fully described by Prosser. Their description was 

 published by Prosser in the Journal of Geology, vol. x, pp. 708- 

 715, which number appeared during the first week of December, 



1902, eleven months before the publication of Bulletin No. 211. 

 Mr. Girty stated that " the evolution of the latest from the 



