1895.] Geology and Paleontology. 1005 
these characters have been good, including the principal collections of 
European Museums and those of this country. I have at hand crania 
of all but one or two of the North American genera of Lacertilia, and 
the principal ones of all other countries, and I maintain that the dif- 
ference between them and the Pythonomorpha is universal. I main- 
tain, contrary to Dr. Baur’s statement, that in all Lacertilia the exoc- 
cipital supports the quadrate, and that in the Pythonomorpha and 
the Ophidia the exoecipital does not support it or generally touch it. 
I also maintain that the paroccipital (squamosal Baur) does sup- 
port the quadrate in the Ophidia, whileit is only in contact with a very 
small part of it in the Lacertilia. This assertion is true of the Iguani- 
dae as well as of all other Lacertilia. Of this family I have many 
crania. These do not include Conolophus, to which Dr, Baur refers, 
but I have the nearly allied genus Cyclura, which has the character of 
other Lacertilia in this respect. Steindachner’s figures of Conolophus 
show that it closely resembles Cyclura in the point in question, and I 
have no doubt that if Dr. Baur will take to pieces the proximal 
articulation of the quadrate of Conolophus as I have done in Cyclura, 
he will find an articular facet on the exoccipital and none on the par- 
occipital (squamosal). In fact the quadrate extremity of the parocci- 
pital in Lacertilia is so insignificant, and the proximal end of the 
quadrate is so considerable, that the support of the latter by the former 
is a mechanical impossibility. Since the articulation of the quadrate 
in Pythonomorpha, of which I have seen all the American genera, is 
exclusively with the paroccipital, it is clear that the distal as well as 
the proximal relations of that element are different from those of the 
Lacertilia. On the other hand the relations to the quadrate are the 
same in the Pythonomorpha as in the snakes, and the proximal articu- 
lar characters are approached by the Tortricid snakes more nearly 
than by any lizard. In the distal articulation of the paroccipital 
with the supratemporal, the Pythonomorpha and lizards agree, as was 
long since pointed out by authors.—E. D. Cope. 
Recent Elevation of New England.”—I submitted some con- 
clusions to the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science in advance of the preparation of a detailed paper upon this 
subject. Indeed in a discussion of a paper by Prof. C. H. Hitchcock 
before the Baltimore meeting of the Geological Society of America 
(December 1894) the present writer called attention for the first time 
to certain terrace phenomena which might be used as a yard stick in 
12 Read by J. W. Spencer at the Springfield meeting of the Am. Ass. Adv. Sci. 
