• I Scientific Intellig* nee. 



Corniferous fauna from the Ohioan region." This volume leads 

 the way to a better understanding of the greater western fauna 

 extending from Iowa to California, and from Arizona north into 

 the Mackenzie country. c. s. 



10. Cambrian Geology and Paleontology, II- — JVo. 2, Middle 

 Cambrian Merostomata y by Chabkes I). Walcott. Smithso- 

 nian Misc. Coll., 57, pages 17-32 and 6 plates. 1911. — This is the 

 first paper of a series in which the Secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution will give his preliminary studies of those wonderfully 

 well-preserved Middle Cambrian fossils discovered by him near 

 Mount Stephen, British Columbia. In the present part are de- 

 scribed two new merostomes as Sidneyia inexpectans and Amiella 

 ornata. It is the former only that is well preserved. 



Walcott erects the new suborder Limulava for these eurypterid- 

 like animals, but as they differ widely from the Eurypterida it 

 will be better to raise it to an order. Sidneyia is a swimming 

 merostome with well-developed antennas, a lobster-like tail, and 

 eleven body segments, two of which are annular and the other 

 nine are said to bear leaf-like branchial appendages. The illus- 

 tration shows no branchiae on the two anterior segments, the third 

 has them rudimentary, while on the other six each pair of bran- 

 chiae seems to be common to two body segments. If the illus- 

 tration is correct, then Sidneyia has but six segments with branchiae 

 as in the Eurypterida, and the anterior non-branchiate segments 

 may represent parts of the thorax that are united with the ceph- 

 alon in the Eurypterida and Limulus. Furthermore, these two 

 anterior thoracic segments bear limbs that in the Eurypterida are 

 a part of the cephalo-thorax. Sidneyia when viewed from the 

 ventral side is seen to have five pairs of appendages, but one does 

 not see here that the cephalo-thorax is made up of three parts, the 

 cephalon and two anterior segments, as is shown to be the case 

 when viewed from the dorsal side. The eyes are on the edge of 

 the cephalon, a very primitive condition in the light of trilobite 

 ontogeny. 



The discovery of these merostomes makes it the plainer that a 

 greater amount of invertebrate evolution has taken place before 

 the Cambrian than subsequently. c. s. 



11. Contributions to the Carboniferous Flora of Nortli,-Eastcr>i, 

 Greenland ; by A. G. Nathorst. Danmark-Eksped. til Gron- 

 lands Nordostkyst 1906-1908, Bd. Ill, No. 12, pages 339-346, 2 

 plates, 1911. — The small flora here described is the most northerly 

 one known, being from north of 80° latitude on the east coast of 

 Greenland. Over the granite there lies a great thickness of black 

 shale, thought to be not less than 300 to 400 meters thick, and 

 this has yielded in the upper part the plants here described. On 

 this rests a red conglomerate (100 m ), with well-rounded pebbles 

 about the size of a hazelnut passing upward into variously colored 

 sandstones (75 m ), that in the upper 100 feet have an abundance of 

 fossils, especially brachiopods. Higher is a dense limestone rich 

 in corals, that is estimated to have a thickness of at least 700 

 meters. 



