160 General Notes. [February, 



published thirty-seven species in his Tertiary Flora, about two- 

 fifths of which are considered identical with forms from the Euro- 

 pean Tertiaries. "We have in all from ninety to a hundred spe- 

 cies of plants recognized from these Florissant beds, of which half 

 the species belong to the apetalous exogens. 



" The testimony of the few fishes to the climate of the time, is 

 not unlike that of the plants, suggesting a climate, as Professor 

 Cope informs me, like that at present found in latitude 35 ° in the 

 United States ; while the insects, from which, when they are com- 

 pletely studied, we may certainly draw more definite conclusions, 

 appear from their general ensemble to prove a somewhat warmer 

 climate. White ants are essentially a tropical family, only one or 

 two out of eighty known species occurring north of latitude 

 40 . In North America only three have been recorded north 

 of the border of the Gulf of Mexico, excepting on the 

 Pacific coast, where one or two more extend as far as San 

 Francisco. Two species, both belonging to the second sec- 

 tion, are found in the valleys below Florissant, in 39 north lati- 

 tude. Florissant itself is situated 2500 meters above the sea, and 

 the presence of so considerable a number of white ants embedded 

 in its shales, is indicative of a much warmer climate at the time 

 of their entombment than the locality now enjoys. Investigation 

 of other forms increases the weight of this evidence at every 

 step, for nearly all the species (very few, certainly, as yet) which 

 have been carefully studied, are found to be tropical or sub-tropi- 

 cal in nature. As, however, most of those studied have been 

 selected for some striking feature, too much weight should not be 

 given to this evidence." 



This subject will be discussed in a forthcoming volume of the 

 Report of the U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories of Dr. 

 Hayden. The illustrations of this work which we have seen are 

 of unusual excellence. 



The Future of Geology. — Professor Ramsey, in his address 

 before the British Association, said that in the British Islands the 

 art of geological surveying has, he believed, been carried out in a 

 more detailed manner than in any other country in Europe, a mat- 

 ter which has been rendered comparatively easy by the excellence 

 of the Ordnance Survey maps both on the i-inch and the 6-inch 

 scales. When the whole country has been mapped geologically 

 little will remain to be done in geological surveying, excepting 

 corrections here and there, especially in the earliest published 

 maps of the Southwest of England. Palaeontological detail 

 may, however, be carried to any extent, and much remains to be 

 done in miscroscopic petrology which now deservedly occupies 

 the attention of many skilled observers. 



It is difficult to deal with the future of geology. Probably in 

 many of the European formations more may be done in tracing 

 the details of subformations. The same may be said of much of 



