168, General Notes, [February, 
Zertiary—Sr. Lotti (Boll. Com. Geol. d'Italia, 1884) gives a 
summary of his investigations into the age and structure of the 
granites of Elba and the surrounding districts. These granites 
show two principal types, granite and quartzose porphyry; the 
latter traverses and is involved with the sedimentary rocks of the 
Apennines in such a way that geologists have been compelled to 
pronounce it Eocene. As it is against the usual idea to refer 
granites to so recent an epoch, an effort has been made to finda 
separation between the granite and the quartzose porphyry into 
which it passes. This Sr. Lotti declares to be thoroughly inad- 
missible, and at direct issue with the facts. The feldspathic rocks 
graduate from a normal or tourmaliferous granite to a quartzose 
porphyry through varieties with or without tourmaline, but the 
Pre-silurian gneissic schists of the eastern part of the Elba show 
a gradual passage toward granite, and are traversed by granite 
seams. Sr. Lotti concludes that not only are the porphyry, gran- 
ite and intermediate varieties of the same age, but that all were 
formed at the expense of the gneissic schists in the Eocene epoch, 
while the Eocene strata were contorted and dislocated, and frag- 
ments embedded in the erupted mass. 
Quaternary.—M. A. Favre has presented the Paris Academy of 
Sciences with a map of the ancient glaciers of the northern slope 
of the Swiss Alps and of the chain of Mt. Blanc. This map in- 
dicates the development of the glaciers, and, so far as the scale 
permits, shows also the glacial deposits, erratic blocks, and mo- 
raines. Besides showing the direction and extension of the seven 
principal glaciers, M. Favre demonstrates how, on taking the. 
height of an erratic block above the neighboring valley, it is pos- 
sible fo know what was formerly the thickness of the ice over 
that point, and also how the slope of the surface of the ancient 
glacier can be determined. In this way he has determined thick- 
nesses of 1181, 1220 and 1235 meters. The author particularly 
insists upon the extension of the glacier of the Rhone, which at 
certain points reaches a height of 1650 meters, and for a length 
of 149 kilometers and a width of 45 was almost horizontal. The 
moraines of these old glaciers are numerous, Many are composed 
of clayey or marly deposits with striated pebbles and blocks of 
greater or less size, while others are almost entirely formed of 
blocks of crystalline rocks. Examples of the latter occur at 
Combloux and Césarege, in the valleys of the Arve, Rhone, etc. 
Here are blocks which contain from 700 to even 2000 cubic 
meters. l 
BOTANY.! 
THE FERTILIZATION OF PHySOSTEGIA VIRGINIANA.—[In marked 
contrast with the imperfectly proterandrous almost synacmic 
Brunella vulgaris is the closely related Physostegia. The pro- 
1 Edited by Pror. C. E. Bussey, Lincoln, Nebraska, 
