1885.] Geology and Paleontology. 495 
frequently dipping at a low angle towards the trap. Between 
the coal beds are shales apparently composed of volcanic ash, and 
beds of excellent clay. The country is covered with vegetation 
ranging from that of the Tierra fria, with pines, oaks, Liquidambar, 
Platanus, Alnus, Negundo, etc., to the moderate Tierra caliente, 
with oranges, Zamias, Cereus, etc. The fossils are only found in 
making artificial excavations.—£. D. Cope. 
Discovery oF AN EXTINCT ELK IN THE QUATERNARY OF NEw 
Jersey —Professor William B. Scott, of Princeton, made (reports 
Science) a communication on an extinct elk, a skeleton of which 
was recently found in the quaternary of New Jersey. The bones, 
which are ina state of remarkable preservation, were dug from 
a bog near Mount Hermon. ey were at first supposed to 
belong to a moose, but, on further examination, it was seen that 
the skeleton was that of a remarkable form of deer-like animal, 
between the genera Cervus and Alces, and the name Cervalces — 
the velvet, indicating that the individual probably died in Sep- 
tember. They are provided with curious scoop-shaped processes 
at the base, which, when the head was lowered, must have actually 
obscured lateral vision. The use of these processes, the presence 
diagrams, 
Tertiary Man at THeNay.—The most interesting question 
brought before the geological section of the French Association 
was the existence of man in the tertiary epoch. In 1867 the Abbé 
Bourgeois found at Thenay (Loir et Cher) some flints which he 
believed to be worked by man or split by fire. Extensive excava- 
tions were made at Thenay, which is about twenty kilometers 
from Blois, and forty members of the Association repaired tł 
to examine the locality. Comparison with the surrounding strata 
showed that the bed (of greenish clay mixed with small flints) in 
which the presumably worked flints occurred, was an upper 
