- 
1890.] Geology and Paleontology. 271 
about 1500 miles, making a grand total of about 17,000 miles of rail- 
roads in operation in South America. 
Sir F. de Winton also states that the railway mileage of Australia 
reaches 11,000. 
GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
Seeley’s Researches on the Organization, Structure, and 
Classification of the Fossil Reptilia. —The Royal Society of 
Great Britain granted Prof. H. G. Seeley a sum to be expended in 
prosecuting researches among the extinct Reptilia, and the results ob- 
tained up to the present time are embodied in the memoirs now be- 
fore us. 
The first is on that ancient form, ‘both geologically and in the litera- 
ture, the Proforosaurus spenert. From the upper Permian of Ger- 
many, no form is more worthy of investigation, but the character of 
the matrix is such as to render the elucidation of the characters of the 
skeleton difficult. Dr. Seeley concludes that the genus Protorosaurus 
has no affinity with any form of reptiles known to him. His figures 
and descriptions add much to our knowledge of its characters, and, as 
a result, its place appears to me to be nearer to other genera of Per- 
mian age of Europe and South Africa. Accordingly I have (NATUR- 
ALIST, October, 1889) placed it with them in the Theromora, to which 
location its characters distinctly point. 
The second paper describes that remarkable form Pariasaurus bom- 
bidens Owen, from the Karoo Series of South Africa, which is of Per- 
mian or Triassic age. The new investigation is based on a nearly 
i perfect skeleton in the collection ‘of the British Museum, and the infor- 
mation furnished elucidates the systematic position of the genus almost 
easily Dr. Seeley ae that it belongs to the Theromora 
‘‘Anomodontia ’’), and to a subdivision of that order which he calls 
the Pareiasauria. The ies of this suborder are as follows (p. 
292, Philos. Trans., 1889, p. 292): ‘‘ Occipital” condyle ‘‘ basioccipi- 
tal; no temporal vacuities; no median bar to interclavicle.’’? He 
saws that the ribs are single-headed, and attached to the diapophyses 
n Protorosaurus speneri Von Meyer (1887). II. On Pariasaurus bombidens 
ps (1888). III. On Theriodesmus phylarchus Seeley (1888). IV. On the E 
Reptiles and their allies (1889). All from the Philosophical Transactions of the Roy 
Society, 1887-9. 

h of Diadectes, see Proc. Amer. Philos. Society, 1883, p. 635. 
i g 
