1880. ] the United States for the year 1879. 259 
few described species from strata of the western half of our 
country that will not have been illustrated. 
Besides the foregoing, the writer has also in press, for the Pro- 
" ceedings of the U. S. National Museum the following articles and 
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notes: “ Descriptions of new species of Carboniferous Inverte- 
brate Fossils ;” “ Descriptions of new species of Cretaceous Fos- 
sils from Kansas and Texas ;” “ Note on the occurrence of Pro- 
ductus giganteus Martin, in California,” and “ Note on Criocardium 
and Ethmocardium.” The three first-named papers are illustrated 
by seven plates of figures. In the first paper is proposed the new 
Crinoid genus Lecythiocrinus, from the Upper Coal measures of 
Kansas. In the second, two species are described from the Da- 
kota beds of Kansas, collected by the’ late Prof. Mudge, adding 
to our knowledge of the fauna there, which links the lower 
American Cretaceous with the upper much more closely than 
was formerly supposed. The discovery of that huge brachiopod, 
Productus giganteus, in the western part of the continent, where it 
has hitherto been unknown within its limits, is an interesting 
fact. The sub-genus Erhmocaraium is proposed in the last-named 
paper for a Cardium (C. speciosum Meek and Hayden), which is 
without spinules, and has rows of cleanly-cut holes through the 
entire thickness of the test, which occupy the a amis between the 
ribs of the middle portion of the shell. 
Among the many important facts brought out in the “ Contri- 
butions,” it is there shown that many of the types by which the 
living North American land. and fresh-water molluscan fauna is 
characterized, have descended to us almost entirely unchanged 
from the Laramie period and, in some cases at least, from the 
still earlier Cretaceous epochs. Even some of the sub-divisions 
of genera, made by different authors, and which some others 
have been slow to accept, as insufficiently founded, are found to 
have become established in those early times, and to have main- _ 
tained their slightly differentiated status intact during the inter- 
vening epochs. It also appears that the nearest relatives, and- 
doubtless the lineal descendants of the Laramie and Tertiary 
fresh-water and land mollusca are found living in the fluvatile 
waters and drainage areas of the Mexican gulf and Arctic ocean, 
and not upon the Pacific slope. Some Po Beno 
zoological questions are thus suggested. — 
No investigation of a forms. ias a more direct bearing 
