566 General Notes. [ August, 
of the area under examination consist of gneiss which is probably 
of Laurentian age, the Canadian rocks extending into Polar area. 
These are followed by unfossiliferous slates and grits, known as the 
ape Rawson beds’, which are evidently older than the fossil- 
bearing Upper Silurians. It is proved, indeed, by the recent ex- 
pedition, that Lower Silurian rocks exists in Grinnell and Hall 
Lands, thus disproving Murchson’s view that the Polar area was 
dry land during the Lower Silurian period. Sixty species of fos- 
sils have been determined by Mr. Etheridge, ranging from the 
Lower to the Upper Silurian, and including some characteristic 
forms of Llandecilo and Wenlock age. The cream-colored dolo- 
mites found in abundance by some of the previous explorers are 
believed to represent the whole of the Silurian, and perhaps part 
of the Devonian period. True marine Devonians have been dis- 
covered for the first time in Grinnell Land. Here, too, the 
carboniferous limestone was found rising to a height of 2000 feet. 
This formation extends to the most northern point yet reached, 
and probably strikes beneath the Polar Sea to Spitzbergen. About 
thirty species, chiefly Brachiopods and Polyzoa, were procured . 
from the carboniferous limestones of Cape Joseph Henry, the 
most northerly of the twenty localities from which fossils were 
collected. . 
Mr. Etheridge points out the greater resemblance of the Arctic 
palzozoic fauna to that of America than to that of Europe. No 
mesozoic rocks are known until we reach the cretaceous strata, 
which are represented in Greenland by plant-bearing beds that 
indicate by their fossils a warm climate something like that of 
Egypt at the present day. The vegetation of the miocene beds 
in the Arctic regions points to climatal conditions about thirty 
degrees warmer than those which at present prevail. The 
miocene beds of Grinnell Land contain the common fir (Pinus 
abies) the birch, poplar, and other trees similar to those which 
occur in Spitzbergen. A seam of miocene coal, thirty feet in 
thickness, was discovered by the expedition at Lady- Franklin 
. Sound.— Academy. 
GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS.! 
COLONEL PREJEVALSKY’S THIRD Journey.—This distinguished 
Russian explorer has sent, under date of August, 1877, to the Rus- 
sian Geographical Society, a report of a third journey in Central 
Asia. Translations of this report have been made by Dr. Petermann, 
_ published as a supplement to his Mittheilungen, with the original 
-~ route maps and an Uebersichts-Karte of his journeys from 1872 
to 1877; and also by Dr. R. Kiepert for the Glodus. At the 
meeting of the Berlin Geographical Society, on the 6th of April 
last, Herr Von Richthofen read a very interesting paper upon the 
sults of this journey. Colonel Prejevalsky was most fortunate 
Edited by Eus II. YARNALL, Philadelphia. 
