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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
discoverer, and that it should be Rhynoholu^. On the other hand, Mr. E. 
Billings, in the same Journal for November, says, that -with regard to publi- 
cation, he holds it to be the duty of an author who describes new fossils to 
make his work accessible to the public. If he fail to do this he cannot 
claim priority over one who has published in the regular way. Ilis work 
may be adopted as a matter of courtesy, but not to take precedence over 
fair publication. Professor Hall’s pamphlet was not accessible to the public 
at the time my paper was published, and therefore his genus Rhynoholus 
cannot take priority over my genus Obolellinay Meantime, who shall decide ? 
The Volcano of Mokuaioeoweo. — This mountain, which we believe is in 
Hawaii, has lately been in a magnificent condition of explosive activity. A 
writer in the “ Pacific Commercial Advertiser” thus describes his observa- 
tions, which, for lack of better ones — though they are exceedingly graphic 
— we give our readers. On ascending the mountain he watched steadily 
the grand fountain playing before him, and called frequently to his com- 
panions to note when some tall jet, rising far above the head of the main 
stream, would carry with it immense masses of white-hot glowing rock, 
which, as they fell and struck upon the black surface of the cooling lava, 
burst like meteors in a summer sky. As soon as he had reached the summit 
level of the mountain, he heard the muffled roar of the long pent-up gases 
as they rushed out of the opening which their force had rent in the basin’s 
solid bed. And now that he was in full view of the grand display, his ears 
were filled with the mighty sound as of a heavy surf booming in upon a 
level shore, while ever and anon a mingled crash and break of sound would 
call to mind the heavy rush of ponderous waves against the rocky cliffs that 
girt Hawaii. At night the jet looked loftier, and gazing intently into the 
fi.ery column with a good glass that he had, he could see the limpid spark- 
ling upward jet rising with tremendous force from out an incandescent lake. 
Following up the glowing stream, he saw it arch itself and pour over as it 
were in one broad beautiful cascade. While the ascending stream was 
almost silvery in its intense brightness, the falling sheet was slightly dulled 
by cooling, and thus the two were ever rising, falling, shooting up in bril- 
liant jets, and showering down with mingled dashes of bright light and 
shooting spray, while in the lake out of which rose the fountain, and into 
which fell the fiery masses, danced and played a thousand mimic waves, and 
fiery foam swirled round and round. Upon its surface danced myriad jets 
and bubbles, and from its edge flowed out the rivulets of lava, that in a 
tangled maze of lines covered all the lake. 
The term Cambrian should he used instead of Rrimcrdial in America. — Pro- 
fessor S. Sterry Hunt, F.R.S., writing in “ Silliman’s American Journal,” 
November, asks why this is not done. The term Silurian, as used in Great 
Britain, has, he considers, included a wide range of formations, from the 
Lingula Flags to the top of the Ludlow group, and all this in spite of a 
wide range in the tribes of fossil species, and notwithstanding the uncon- 
formability between the Upper and Lower Silurian. Now the Lingula 
Flags pass into the Cambrian without break or unconformability, and with 
but a small change in the life. What good scientific reason is there for cut- 
ting off this comprehensive division of geological time, the Silurian, at a 
point both stratigraphically and paleontologically unimportant ? Why should 
