118 s General Notes. [February, 
under the name of Prorastomus sirenoides in the Quarterly Journal of 
the Geological Society of London. 
Grotocy or New CALEDONIA. — In an article on -the metallic 
mines of New Caledonia, by Rev. W. B. Clarke, besides a notice of the 
mines of chromic iron and nickel, there is given, in La Revue Scientifique, 
a résumé of the geology of these islands. 
GEOGRAPHY AND EXPLORATION. 
Unitep States Coast AND Interoceantc Surveys. — The late 
annual report of Commodore Ammen, Chief of Bureau of Navigation, 
states that the work of' geographically determining as many points as 
are supposed necessary, in Central America and in the West Indies, was 
prosecuted last year by the United States steamer Fortune, and this 
year by the Gettysburg. The longitude of Panama, Aspinwall, Santiago 
de Cuba, and Havana have been determined by means of the telegraph. 
The work now in course of completion will include points on the Wind- 
ward Islands and the northern coast of South America. The survey of 
the outer coast of the Peninsula of Lower California, and that of the 
Gulf of California, had been concluded by Commander George Dewey, 
commanding the Narragansett. The gulf was previously unsurveyed, 
but has now been sufficiently examined and determined for the safety of 
navigation. Commander A. J. Mahan, commanding the Wasp, has made 
much-needed surveys at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. 
It is recommended that when a vessel can be spared for the purpose 
from those employed on the North Pacific Station, a running survey be 
made of the coast of Gautemala. This would render the surveys (of dif- 
ferent values) continuous from Behring’s Straits to Cape Horn. Since 
completing the lines of deep-sea soundings in the Pacific Ocean for cable 
purposes, another line has been run by the United States steamer Tus- 
carora, under the command of Commander Herber, from San Francisco 
to the Sandwich Islands, and some soundings were also made on the re- 
turn of the said vessel from the Navigator Islands to Honolulu. 
In regard to interoceanic surveys, this work, which has been carefully 
prosecuted for five seasons by two or more parties from the Isthmus of 
Tehuantepec to twenty or more miles south of the mouth of the Napipi, 
on the River Atrato, is at length satisfactorily accomplished. Since the 
last report a careful survey of the Isthmus of Panama has been made, 
the computations completed, and the whole placed before the Interoceanic 
Canal Commission. ` 
Tue Tounpras or Sreerta.— The prevalent idea that the plains of 
Siberia are frozen the year around is dispelled by Nordenskiöld in his ac- 
count of his Siberian journey, to be found in Nature. “We were yet far 
north of the Arctic Circle, and as many imagine that the region we had 
now passed through, the so little known tundra of Siberia, is a desert waste, 
