850 The American Naturalist. [September, 
large extent. The Chinese mammoth has been found in four princi- 
pal localities : in the Yellow River alluvium near Tientsin, in the loess 
formation near the centre of Shansi, in Shensi, also on the banks of 
the Yangtze River in Anhui. It was this last discovery that drew the 
attention of Tau Hung-king, who belonged to Nanking, and being a 
noted Taoist, and a writer of the school of Pao Pu-tsz, would feel the 
deepest interest in the discovery so near his home. — North China 
(Shanghai) Herald. 
MINERALOGY AND PETROGRAPHY.' 
Petrographical News.— The results of the investigation of the 
clastic, metamorphic, and eruptive rocks of the Coast Ranges of Cali- 
fornia, promised by Mr. Becker a few years ago,? have recently? ap- 
peared in an extended form. The principal conclusions of the study 
have already been referred to in these notes. The proofs which Mr. 
Becker offers for the correctness of the statements that many serpen- 
tines of the Coast Ranges are altered sediments will probably be. 
accepted by most petrographers as sufficient. His conclusion that 
typical diabases, diorites, and gabbros are likewise derived from clastic 
materials will not find such ready acceptance, as there seems to be no 
positive evidence that such rocks were originally sediments, rather 
than eruptives, which squeezed themselves into fragmental beds, and 
so caused the formation of a graded series, with sandstone at one end 
and a holocrystalline rock at the other end. 'There is no reason to 
suppose that holocrystalline * rocks may not have sometimes originated 
by metasomatic alteration of fragmentals ; but the belief that a rock 
with the peculiar structure of diabase has originated in this way will 
require stronger proof for its acceptance than that offered in Mr. 
Becker's monograph. The presentation of a few illustrations of types 
of rocks intermediate between the sandstones and the diabases (pseudo- 
diabases of Becker, metadiabases of Dana) would have aided materi- 
ally in enabling readers of the volume to draw their own conclusions 
as to the origin of the rocks in question. In the discussion of the 
massive rocks of the region, the term asperite is proposed as a general 
one to include all andesitic rocks with a rough trachytic habit. In this 
1 Edited by Dr. W. S. Bayley, Colby University, Waterville, Me. 
? AMERICAN NATURALIST, Aug. 1886, p. 724. 
3 Monographs of the U. S. Geol. Survey, Vol. XIII., pp. 56-175. 
* Cf. Van Hise. AMER. NATURALIST, 1886, p. 723. 
