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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
namely, Amphiarctos and Sivalarctos. This fortunate fossil had thus at least 
three generic names appropriated to it ; but this was not enough. At some 
later but uncertain date the original describers of the species proposed for it 
the name of Hycenarctos, which has been adopted to the exclusion of all the 
others. Of late years examples of the genus have been found far from the 
original habitat, namely, in the Pliocene marine sands of Montpellier 
(Hycenarctos insignis) , and in Miocene deposits at Sansans ( H , hemicyoh), and 
at Alcoy, in Spain. The range of this Sewalik form is now shown to be 
still wider by the discovery of two upper molar teeth, which are undistin- 
guishable from the corresponding teeth of Hycenarctos sivalends , in the Red 
Crag deposits of Waldringfield, Suffolk. These were lately described by 
Professor Flower, in a paper read to the Geological Society. 
Ichthyosauri in the Bhcetic Beds of the Saone-et-Loire. — M. H. E. Sauvage 
notices the occurrence of remains of animals of the genus Ichthyosaurus in 
the Rhaetic beds of Antilly and le Coudre, in the department of the Saone- 
et-Loire. He refers the specimens found to two species, which he names 
Ichthyosaurus rheticus and I. carinatus. In the former the vertebrae of the 
middle portion of the dorsal region are strongly biconcave ; their longitudinal 
diameter is two-fifths of the transverse or vertical diameter, and their lower 
surface is flattened. The dorsal vertebrae of I. carinatus are more disclike 
their longitudinal diameter being only two-sevenths of their transverse dia- 
meter ; and the lower surface has a median keel, on each side of which there 
is a deep impression. M. Sauvage gives no indication of the size of these 
vertebrae. — Ann. Sci. Geol., tome vii. 
Veins of Bitumen in Granite . — M . A. Julien records the occurrence, in the 
granite of the neighbourhood of Clermont-Ferrand, of distinct bituminous 
veins. They are found in a railway cutting between Royat-les-Bains and 
Votrie, where they form a sort of network. The bituminous substance is 
sometimes black and soft. In other places it is a solid, brilliant asphalte, 
with a resinous lustre, a conchoidal fracture, and a brownish or blackish- 
brown colour, and forms veins varying in thickness from two or three lines 
to two or three centimetres. At the first glance it might be taken for brown 
flint, but it fuses at the temperature of boiling water, and burns with a clear 
flame, producing a strong and characteristic odour. — Comptes rendus, April 9, 
1877. 
Diffusion of Strontian in Nature . — M. Dieulafait , in a memoir presented 
to the French Academy of Sciences (“ Comptes Rendus, June, 1877), gives 
the results of his investigations upon this subject, which are of interest in 
themselves and as bearing upon the general question of the mode of occur- 
rence in nature of comparatively rare substances. His experiments appear 
to have been carried on chiefly by means of the spectroscope. 
M. Dieulafait finds that strontian exists in sea-water as carbonate and 
sulphate. In the former state it may be recognized in 100, in the latter in 4 
cubic centimetres of water. The gypsum formed in salt marshes before the 
deposition of salt contains strontian in such quantity th at .1 milligramme of 
the substance distinctly gives its spectrum ; and as in the evaporation of 
s^a- water the strontian is always thrown down in the precipitates of car- 
bonate and sulphate of lime which are first produced, it is naturally missing 
in the sodium chloride and other salts afterwards produced. As strontian 
is always associated with the carbonate and sulphate of lime dissolved in 
