970 General Notes, [September, | | 
the brain casts of tertiary mammals, by A. T. Bruce. Megenceph- 
alon primevus had a comparatively large and well-convoluted : 
cerebrum, apparently covering most of the cerebellum. On the 
whole, the casts proved that the brains of tertiary mammals were 
smaller and less convoluted than those of existing mammals. 
The last paper in the bulletin is by Professor Scott, upon Desma- — 
totherium guyoti, a Lophiodont from the Bridger Eocene, closely _ 
allied to Hyrachyus; and Dilophodon minusculus, one of the 
smallest known Lophiodonts, and also closely allied to Hyra- 
chyus. R. Lydekker has defined the family Camelopardalide 
so as to include six fossil genera, commencing with the existing 
giraffe, and proceeding through the forms Orasius, Vishnuther- 
ium, Helladotherium, Hydaspitherium and Bramatherium, to 
Sivatherium, the length of the limbs and neck, on the whole, . 
diminishing downward. This view differs from that of Mivart, 
who places Sivatherium near the prong-buck and Saiga. The — 
long-limbed Camelopardalis sivalensis was a contemporary of the — 
short-limbed Sivathere, so that the evolution of the long-limbed 
form must have been in an earlier epoch. 
Post-tertiary—Professor H. C. Lewis has published an abstract 
of a lecture on “ The great Ice age in Pennsylvania.” In it he 
states that “ there is every proof that, ages ago, z p 
great Greenland glacier crept down so as to overspread the north- 
eastern part of America and the north-western part of Europe. 
He treats of this northern glacier as a sheet reaching from ee 
land to St. Louis, and from Alaska to New Jersey, so thick asto 
overtop Mt. Washington,” estimates its thickness in New = 7 
land at 5000 feet, and gives reasons for supposing that the mett- 
ing of the glacier need not be longer than from 10,000 to KA : 
years ago. Ina lecture upon the geology of the neighbors lay, 
Philadelphia, he defines the alluvium, Trenton gravel, brick clay) 
red and yellow gravels, etc., and traces their history. 
BOTANY. 7 
Tue Growrn oF PLants IN Acın Sorutions. I.—The wes | 
ing of plants with alkaline solutions, soluble phosphates, an 7 
ganic extracts has been very extensively and variously w - 
mented upon, but any comparative examination of a sé 
oS ie aaa = 
by the mi ma 4 
destruction of trees through acid precipitation from manufactur 
1 Edited by Pror. C. E, Bessey, Ames, Iowa. 
