1877.] Scientific News. 381 
Jr. M. D. On some Artesian Borings along the Line of the Union 
Pacific Railroad in Wyoming Territory, by F. V. Hayden. (Plate 26.) 
— One of the best:organized and probably the most active geological 
surveys in Europe is the Imperial Geological Institute at Vienna. 
From recent letters received from Count Marschall by Professor F. V. 
Hayden we glean the following items of interest: During 1876 great 
progress was made in the field operations in Austria and Bohemia, as 
well as in Southern Tyrol, Eastern Galicia, the southernmost region 
of the Carpathian Mountains of Galicia, and in the Triassic and Jurassic 
regions of the eastern Alps. Different members of the survey have 
made excursions to Denmark, Sweden, Northern Italy, Southern Russia 
(Odessa), Sicily, European Turkey, and Greece and Egypt, aided by 
subsidies from the government, which has most liberally encouraged the 
comparative study of the geology of its own empire by researches in 
other lands. 
— The Army Signal Office has for some time past been publishing a 
‘Monthly Weather Review, in which are collected together many facts 
relating to the climate of the United States, which have a direct bearing 
upon the distribution of animal and vegetable life. We purpose from 
month to month to extract some of the interesting items given in this 
review, but must refer our readers for full information to the original 
which is published about the middle of each month, and quite freely dis- 
tributed by the Weather Bureau at Washington. 
During March, twelve areas of high pressure and twelve of low 
have passed over the country ; all of the latter were accompanied by rain, 
and most of them by high winds; the most severe storm of the month was 
that which began on the 21st, west of the Missouri River, and disap- 
peared on the 31st, east of Newfoundland. The month has been warmer 
than usual throughout the Atlantic and Pacific States, but was slightly 
cooler in the St. Lawrence Valley, the Lake region, Ohio, and the north 
west. A large excess of rain and snow fell in the lower Lake region, 
the St. Lawrence Valley and New England, as compared with the aver- 
age for many years; a deficiency was reported from the western Gulf 
States, and the northwest. The temperature of the water is observed in 
numerous rivers and harbors, and appears to have been quite generally 
lower than in March of last year for the Mississippi and its tributaries, 
but higher along the middle and east Atlantic coasts. The chapter on 
Miscellaneous Phenomena contains a large number of zoological and 
botanical notes relating to the advent of spring and the birds and insects 
of the season. The migrations of birds are carefully reported ; 
hoppers are reported as destructive in Texas, hatching in Florida, and — 
beginning to hatch in Ohio and Kansas. 
— Brehm’s well-known Thierleben, a large, beautifully illustrated 
Popular work on animals, which for many years has been the leading 
Work of the kind in Germany, is now passing through a new edition, 
