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1883.] Geology and Paleontology. 305 
by degrees” and finally “swallowing up,” yet shows a high 
appreciation of English rule in India———Dr. Arthur Krause has 
returned to Germany from a journey to the Chukchi Peninsula 
and Alaska. ——The ordnance survey of Scotland is completed. 
——Easter Island is now almost entirely owned by the “ Maison 
Brander” of Tahiti. It is a large grazing farm, and there are now 
about 10,000 sheep and 400 cattle upon it. Half wild poultry 
are abundant, and potatoes, bananas, and plantains grow readily. 
The natives left are only about 150 in number, as 500 were 
shipped to Tahiti about eight years ago, and the missionaries re- 
moved 300. The few left are thieves, without any religion. 
The extinct crater Te Kama Kao contains a lake covered with a 
carpet of decayed vegetation, and with no bottom at 50 fathoms 
in the centre, 
GEOLOGY AND PALAIONTOLOGY. 
PHYSICAL AND GEOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF THE SEA-BOTTOM 
UNDER THE GULF StreamM.—The longest and most interesting 
paper read at the late meeting of the National Academy of Sci- 
ences, was by Professor A. E. Verrill, discussing the physical and 
geological character of the sea-bottom off our coast, especially 
beneath the Gulf stream. 
_ The paper embodied the general results of observations cover- 
ing a period of eleven years, including dredgings by the United 
- States Fish Commission, taken from over 2000 stations between 
Chesapeake bay and Labrador, and out as far as 150 to 200 miles 
offshore. Professor Verrill and his associates of the commission 
found in these observations that from the shore to a point about 
sixty miles out the water is inhabited by animals representing 
arctic life, similar to those found off the coast of Greenland, Spitz- 
bergen and Siberia. Beyond this lies a warm belt of water 
which is inhabited by tropical or sub-tropical animals. This 
warm belt varies with the shore-line of the coast, and while its 
fastern edge is within sixty miles of Nantucket and Martha’s 
Vineyard, it is much further off from the coast of Massachusetts 
and Maine; as what is known as the Gulf of Maine is a cold body 
of water, outside of which lies the warm belt, This warm belt is 
about twenty-five miles in width. In this the temperature from a 
depth of 65 fathoms out to the limits where the soundings show 
a depth of 1000 fathoms, is from 46° to 52° Fahrenheit near the 
Surface, decreasing in temperature in the lower soundings, until 
at 700 fathoms it is 39°. In the cold belt the temperature of the 
Pater ranges from 35° to 45° in August below the surface water, 
which is in the autumn warmer than that underneath. The tem- 
Eare at 40 fathoms in the cold belt averages from 35° to 37°. 
the warm belt the temperature at 65 fathoms is 46°; at 100 
aon nS, 50° to 52°; at 200 fathoms, 48°; at 300, 40°; and at 
799, 39°. As a result of the soundings, measurement of tempera- 
