306 General Notes. [ April, 
rounded masses of stone of no great magnitude, which in their 
advance fall into the crevasses. 
The exposed rocks along the coast and in the islets which rise 
above the great ice-sheet are found to be mostly composed of 
gneiss, with some mica, talc and hornblende-schists, and occa- 
sional patches of granite 
New proofs are furnished of the gradual elevation in past periods 
of the west coast. “Five sets of raised beaches are described oc- 
curring at heights of 28, 57, 94, 192 and 326 feet above the sea- 
level respectively. On the other hand there is clear evidence 
that the land is, at the present time, slowly subsiding, the extent 
of this movement being shown to have been at Lichtenfels from 
six to eight feet since the year 1789.” 
Finscu’s EXPEDITION TO THE NortH Paciric.—Dr. Otto Finsch, 
a naturalist of wide reputation, having recently completed an 
account of his last journey through Western Siberia, has now 
Pacific. He reached Honolulu in July last. He sends home an 
interesting account of the effect of the introduction of new spe- 
cies of plants and birds upon the native species. Large numbers 
of mainas, a kind of starling (Acridotheres tristis) have been 
imported from China, and by driving away the pigeons and fowls, 
and destroying the ngsts and eggs of the domestic birds, have 
become a great nuisance to the inhabitants. The mainas are very 
active and vociferous, and when gathering by hundreds at their 
roosting places, the noise is indescribable. The European house- 
sparrow has also reached the: Sandwich islands, and are only 
second in numbers to the mainas. Another introduced species is 
the turtle-dove, brought also from China. To find the native 
birds it was necessary for Dr. Finsch to travel into the interior. 
.Even here they were scarce, and he complains that both the 
native forests and birds are rapidly being destroyed. On August 
21st, Dr. Finsch arrived at the Marshall islands, landing on 
“ Jaluit,” or Bonham island. This island being much vis.ted by 
the natives of the other neighboring and little known islands, 
afforded him excellent opportunities for his ethnographic studies. 
GEOGRAPHICAL News.—A valuable paper, “ Observations on the 
Physical Geography and Geology of Madagascar,” accompanied 
by a physical sketch map, by James Sibree, Jr., was given in 
Nature for August 14, 1879. It contains much new and valuable 
information about this great island which is the third in size in 
the world, and nearly four times larger than England and Wales. 
Nature notices an amusing mistake in a German scien- 
tific work, ` ia Das Leben der Hauskatze und ihrer Verwandten,” 
where the foll “ Die schwanz- 
lose Katze von der Insel Man im stillen Ocean wenn nicht das 
Kap Man S Borneo darunter zu verstehen,” etc., thus first placing 
