310 
rOPULAR SCIENCE REYIEW. 
dressed by Mr. W. II. Dali of tlie Wasbington Smithsonian Institute to Mr. 
Whymper. “ You can tell your scientific friends that I have settled the 
geological question by fossils which I got this last year near Topanica (Norton 
Sound) : a hue species of Flatanus, which is undoubtedly Miocene Tertiary j 
there are no older rocks below Nuclukayette (Yukon Kiver). The south 
hanks of the Alaskan range have Triassic ? and Miocene Tertiary beds.” 
American Coal Insects. — A very valuable memoir on the fossil articulata 
of some of the American coal measures has been prepared by Messrs. 
Meek, Worthen, and Scudder. It is published in the form of advance sheets 
of The Report of the Illinois State Survey. 
A curious fossil Tubularian Zoophyte — At the meeting of the Royal 
Society on June 17, Dr. Duncan described a very remarkable fossil w^hich 
seems to be intermediate between the Ilydrozoa and the Echinodermata. 
It appeared to be parasitic on a Polyzoan and measured about an inch in 
length. It had a hard skeleton like a comatula, but had not any jointed 
structure whatever. 
The Structure of Siyillaria formed the subject of a paper read before the 
Geological Society of London (March 24), by Mr. W. Carruthers. The 
author indicated the characters of the medullary rays of dicotyledonous 
stems, and stated that these stems have a vascular horizontal system con- 
nected with the axil organs, in which respect the dicotyledonous and acro- 
genous stems agree. The woody columns of Stiymaria and Siyillaria are 
destitute of medullary rays, the structures previously described as such being 
tlie vascular bundles running to the rootlets and leaves. Hence the author 
concluded that Siyillaria is a true cryptogam, a position supported by the 
characters of the organs of reproduction as described by Goldenberg. The 
paper concluded with an enumeration of the forms of fruits belonging to 
Siyillaria and its allied genera, with indications of the existing forms to which 
they most nearly approach. 
Calastrophism and Uniformitarianism. — Professor Huxley in his recent 
anniversary address, thus happily expressed the relation of these two schools: — 
“To my mind there appears to be no sort of necessary theoretical antagonism 
between Catastrophisni and Uniformitarianism. On the contrary, it is very 
conceivable that a catastrophe may be part and parcel of uniformity. 
Let me illustrate my case by analogy. The working of a clock is a model 
of uniform action ; good time-keeping means uniformity of action. But the 
striking of the clock is essentially a catastrophe j the hammer might be 
made to blow up a barrel of gunpowder, or to turn on a deluge of water; 
and, by proper arrangement the clock, instead of marking the hours, might 
strike at all sorts of irregular intervals, never twice alike in the intervals, 
force, or number of its blows. Nevertheless, all these irregular and 
apparently lawless catastrophes would bo the result of an absolutely unifor- 
mitarian action ; and we might have two schools of clock theorists, one 
studying the hammer and the other the pendulum. 
The Carboniferous Limestone of IJelyiitm. — The Bulletin of the Royal 
Academy of Sciences of llelgium contains a report of a paper by MM. 
(’ornet and P»riart on the Carboniferous Limestone of Soignies. The authors’ 
observations were made on some deposits recently opened in the course of 
public operations. The deposits in question present themselves as a bed of 
