310 General Notes. (March, : 
fossils, more than one hundred species having been obtained upt | | 
1879. More than half the species are identical with those of the 
Western United States. During the Paleozic periods enormous 
At Ereré they are only three hundred feet thick. Towards the 
close of the Cretaceous period the great ranges and plateaux of 
the Andes were elevated, closing the mouth of the western gii 
. the Upper or Marañon basin, as observed at Pebas Equador, we 
of Laramie or Upper Cretaceous age, and contain the invertebrate 
genera characteristic of the Bear River group of North Am re 
The immediate valley of the Amazon is filled by a fvit 
posit, the “ varzea,” which undergoes constant changes, dena 
movements of the river and its tributaries. i a 
Plutonic phenomena were especially frequent during the ph 
zoic periods. This is attested by numerous masses of diont = 
trap which traverse those beds, and by the elevation of the wr 
tains of Ereré, in the lower Amazonas, already mentioned. 
Journal of Science, J. W. Dawson notes recent discoveries in! : 
Devonian Flora of the United States, discusses the nature a 
finities of Psilophyton, a lycopodiaceous genus, and meni” i 
occurrence of five species of conifers in the Middle Devonian: , 
In the same number W. Earl Hidden contributes notes 0n aa : 
ous North Carolina minerals, and Professor Silliman writes A De 
the Martite of the Cerro do Mercado, or Iron mountain, ° k | 
a 
tions are that the deposit extends far beneath the plain rai maid 
it projects. The near approach of the railway system ©’ ice 
promises to give this mass of ore a commercial imp% 
