NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 443 
On the surface of the Great Colorado desert the pebbles are 
finely polished by the drifting sand, or variously grooved, accord- 
ing to the hardness of their substance. Prof. J. man also 
mentions that glass windows on Cape Cod have holes worn in them 
by the drifting sands blown by the winds. ' 
It is the tendency, Dr. Kneeland remarked in conclusion, of 
modern education to pay less attention to the dead languages and 
to ancient history as a means of culture, and more to the practical 
and living issues of the day, and especially to combine a knowl- 
edge of natural phenomena with the elementary instruction of the 
schoolroom. In this particular instance it is altogether probable 
that, if the grooving of rocks by the wind-driven sands, long 
known by geologists and physicists and by them turned to no 
practical account, had been equally well known to our intelligent 
and skilful mechanics, the process here illustrated would have 
been invented years ago, and by this time have attained a high 
degree of perfection. The same reasoning will apply to other de- 
partments of natural and physical science, and goes to show the 
wisdom of those educators who are endeavoring to diffuse a knowl- 
edge of scientific principles and phenomena among the people. 
Fossi REPTILES FROM THE Rocky Mountains. — Prof. Marsh 
is continuing in the ‘American Journal of Arts and Sciences” 
his descriptions of the reptiles obtained during his recent expedi- 
tion to the Rocky Mountains. He remarks that “the specimens 
from the Cretaceous formation are of great interest as they further 
illustrate the remarkable development in this country, both in 
numbers and distinct forms, of the Mosasauroid reptiles, which ap- 
pear to have been comparatively rare in other parts of the world. 
Fortunately, moreover, some of these remains serve to clear up 
several obscure points in the structure of these reptiles, and prove 
conclusively that they had a well developed pelvic arch and pos- 
terior limbs; although up to the present time no satisfactory in- 
dication of this had been discovered, and the eminent palzontolo- 
gists who have recently made these animals an especial study, con- 
sider them probably destitute of these extremities. The remains 
found in the Tertiary deposits are also of importance, since they 
show that types of reptilian life, almost unknown hitherto from 
that formation in the West, were, in one of the ancient lake- 
basins, at least, abundantly represented during that period.” The 
