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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
hunting and fishing, as well as for bringing together the different species of 
shells of which the mounds are made up. 
From the various interesting facts brought together in the paper, and 
especially from the presence of fire-places, ashes, calcined shells, char- 
coal, and implements, together with the bones of edible animals, and occa- 
sionally those of man, found at various depths from top to bottom, and the 
absence of everything which might have been made by the white man, it 
seems certain that these mounds were the accumulations by, and the dwell- 
ing-places of, the earliest Indian inhabitants during the successive stages 
of their formation ; and that some of them, and perhaps all, were completed 
and had been abandoned before the white man landed on the shores of 
Florida, for the signs of their great age are to be found not only in the 
mounds being covered by dense forests, but in their partial destruction by 
the river, the growth of swamps, and the consolidation of the shells through 
the percolation of water charged with lime. 
AMERICAN GEOLOGICAL SURVEYS.* 
O F the eight papers contained in the third number of the u Bulletin,” 
two are devoted to geology, three comprise entomological subjects, one 
on a contour map of the United States, and the last on the grammatical 
structure of the Nez Perces language. Dr. Hayden’s paper, which occupies 
the largest portion, and full of interesting details, is simply intended to 
render the beautiful pictorial sections which accompany it more intelligible 
to the general reader. They represent the scenery along the valleys of the 
Lower Gallatin and Madison rivers, together with two fine illustrations of 
different portions of the Yellowstone valley. The geological structure of 
the district is described, and some important facts are stated respecting the 
channels of the rivers of the West, from which it appears they do not 
necessarily lie along any fissures, anticlinal and synclinal depressions, but 
seem to have, in the majority of cases, cut their way directly across the 
line of fracture, thus carving out deep gorges through the loftiest mountain 
ranges. The notes on the tertiary and cretaceous periods of Kansas, by Mr. 
Mudge, shows that the former rocks occupy about 9,000 square miles, and 
that the cretaceous cover more than half of the surface of the State. In the 
paper by Mr. St. John, a further account is given to that previously published 
by Dr. Hayden, of the region of the headwaters of the Canadian river, 
which for its geologic interest and scenic features is considered not to be ex- 
celled by any similar extent of country in the West ; from which it 
appears that the upper basin of the Canadian is underlaid by cretaceous 
strata, overlying which are deposits of tertiary age, including portions of the 
* “ Notes of some Geological Sections of the Country about the Head- 
waters of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers.” ByF. V. Hayden, &c. — 
“ Notes on the Geology of North-Eastern New Mexico.” By 0. St. John. — 
“ Bulletin of the Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories.” 
Vol. II., Nos. 3, 4. Washington: 1876. 
