560 General Notes. [ September, 
notices of Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Scrope, Deshayes, and others, discusses 
recent phases of geological thought, and after speaking of the bearings of 
solar physics on the early history of our planet, refers to the glacial 
epoch, for the production of which he insists on a change in the geograph- 
ical position of the earth’s axis, and claims that it is premature to invoke 
intense glacial periods to account for all the glacial phenomena which 
may be observed. “Much as we must esteem the labors of M. Ahémar 
and Mr. Croll, and others who have gone so deeply into the question of 
glaciation, — enormous as have been the effects of ice in this and other 
countries, — there are many who cannot but feel that the ice-caps invoked 
almost transcend our powers of belief, and who will be grateful to any 
astronomer or mathematician who will bring the pole round which they 
were generated somewhat nearer to our doors.” 
e prophesies that “the great work of future paleontologists will 
rather lie in still further developing the affinities of genera, than in 
merely recording the minute distinctions of species. The discoveries 
which have of late been made have a tendency to fill in the missing links 
in the chain of organic nature, and to lead to the adoption of some form 
of that great doctrine of evolution which has received so large an amount 
of support from a former occupant of this chair, to whom we have this 
day presented the Wollaston Medal, Professor Huxley. It is highly 
probable that much more will be done in the same direction. In addi- 
tion to what has been effected by Mons. Albert Gaudry in his researches 
on the fossils of Pikermi and Mont Léberon, and by Dr. W. Kowalevsky 
in his investigations of the osteology of the Hyopotamide, the discov- 
eries of Professors Marsh and Leidy in America are doing much toward 
illustrating the line of descent of many of the higher mammalia.” 
ARNIVOROUS REPTILE ABOUT THE SIZE OF A LION. — Professor 
Owen describes and figures in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 
Society, the remains of a carnivorous reptile from the Karoo Lake deposits 
of South Africa. It is called Cynodraco major, and for this type, with a 
number of other extinct carnivorous saurians, he forms a distinct order of 
reptiles under the name Theriodontia. In concluding his paper, Pro- 
fessor Owen inquires whether the transference of structures from t 
reptilian to the mammalian type has been “a seeming one, delusive, 
to accidental coincidence in animal species independently (thaumato- 
genously) created, or was the transference real, consequent on nomogeny 
or the incoming of species by secondary law, the mode of operati 
which we have still to learn? Certain it is that the lost reptilian struct- 
ures dealt with in the present paper are now manifested by quadrupeds 
with a higher condition of cerebral, circulatory, respiratory and Ey 
mentary systems, the acquisition of which is not intelligible to the me 
on either the Lamarckian or the Darwinian hypothesis.” fo i 
GEOLOGICAL Survey or Canapa.— The Report of Progress 
1874-75, besides the introductory report by Mr. Selwyn, the directot 
