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1876.] Geology and Palæontology. 559 
adelphia there is no other specimen of the form above described, and it 
is presumable that this weapon was one seldom fashioned in North 
America, and its occurrence seems better explained by considering it 
rather as an independent invention of its original owner, than a copy of 
the favorite arm of another people. —- C. C. Assort, M. D. 
GEOLOGY AND PALZONTOLOGY. 
ICEBERGS OFF THE Coast OF NEWFOUNDLAND. — On the coast of 
Newfoundland, icebergs generally make their appearance about the Ist 
of January. Their approach is heralded by a number of smaller pieces. 
When we reflect upon the origin of these bergs, it would appear that the 
greater number of them ought to be disengaged from their parent mass, 
the glacier, in summer-time. The semi-fluid mass of which the glacier 
is made up, creeping slowly, like a frozen river, down the valley, by the 
aid of heat, gravity, etc., has in summer-time its pace augmented by the 
Increment it receives at this season of the year. It then pushes itself 
rapidly forward into the ocean, and there, by the buoyancy of the water, 
the projecting ice-mass is detached and floated off. Why, therefore, is it 
t the bergs are not seen off the coast of Newfoundland at the close 
of the summer, or at latest in the “fall” of the year? The answer to 
this may be obtained from the inference of Sir Edward Belcher and 
other arctic navigators, who téll us that in very high latitudes the ice 
appears to be in motion much earlier than it is farther to the south. 
On the 20th of May the western side of Smith’s Sound has been found 
to be quite open for navigators in a boat, whilst Barron Strait is not 
navigable till late in August. The consequence of this would appear to 
be that whatever ice may be set free far north early in the year is de- 
tained in more southern latitudes until the fall. Another cause also op- 
rating in keeping the ice off the coast until the spring of the year may 
be the wind. Although icebergs, with regard to their motion and the 
direction of the wind, often present curious anomalies, yet these must to a 
‘light degree be influential on their wanderings. In the fall of the 
year the prevalent winds on the North American side of the Atlantic are, 
Senerally speaking, from the west, which tend to keep all bergs out at 
Sea, and thus to observers on the land they would be lost sight of; but 
n the spring of the year the winds are more or less northerly. which 
Would only aid the current in bringing the ice along shore. The most 
apparent suggestion for the detention of the ice before reaching the 
shores of Labrador and Newfoundland is of course the distance it has to 
travel ; but considering the steady rate at which this is carried on in the 
stream which bears it, the effects of wind and the delay in the breaking 
UP of the southern arctic barrier must have the precedence. — J. Milne 
m the Geological Magazine, July. 
ECENT Views IN Grotoay. — Mr. John Evans, in his late address 
: 48 president of the Geological Society of London, after giving obituary 
