1890.] Geology and Paleontology. 847 
The most complete description of structure of any of the genera 
enumerated, is that of the genus Dinichthys Newb. The elements of 
the skull and shield are pointed out, and its affinity to Coccosteus Ag. 
is demonstrated. Prof. Newberry shows that the eye had an osseous 
capsule, whose intimate structure considerably resembles that of some 
existing forms, as the sword-fishes. He describes a foramen which has 
the position of the pineal foramen of some reptiles; and shows that 
the eyes were protected by a ring of large bony sclerotic plates. A 
good deal of light is thrown on the structure of the fins. Thus Prof. 
Newberry believes that pectoral spines exist. If this be true, the 
family Dinichthyide may be regarded as distinct from the Coccos- 
teidz, where Traquair shows that they are absent. Dorsal fin ele- 
ments are described from what are regarded as probably basilars. 
Their connections with the axial and vertebral elements are not known, 
but so far as they go they resemble the elements described by Von 
Koenen in Coccosteus, and indicate a wide difference from the struc- 
ture of the Siluroids or any other Actinopterygian fishes. 
The comb-like bodies found in Ohio coal measures with fishes and 
Stegocephalous Batrachia, originally described by the present critic in 
the Proceedings of the Amer. Philos. Soc., are redescribed by Prof. 
Newberry. He is not persuaded that Fritsch, who first found them in 
the Permian bed of Bohemia, has correctly referred them to the 
genitalia of the Stegocephali, but he is inclined to think them the 
teeth of fishes. 
The fifty-three plates that accompany the text greatly elucidate the 
subject. We are sorry that they could not have been better executed, 
but the fault is not Prof. Newberry’s. The method of illustration by 
phototype process has not yet attained perfection, and until it does, 
and so long as the U. S. Geological Survey insists on using it, there 
must be some scapegoats.—E. D. Cope, 
Chinese Accounts of the Mammoth.— The gradual cooling 
of the Asiatic climate may be supported by the existence of the bones 
of the mammoth in northern Siberia, This hairy elephant lived in 
that country when the air was temperate, and when abundant forests 
supplied it with the young twigs on which it lived. Since that time 
northern Siberia has become an intolerably cold desert. The ground 
there is constantly frozen to a depth of more than two feet below the 
surface, and produces only moss, with a few modest-looking flowers. 
The mammoth very early drew the attention of the Chinese. It is 
first mentioned in the Zr-ya, and next in Chuang-tse, in the third 
