182 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
grain of this substance from 100 grains of the feathers of the common rook, 
and found it to contain carbon 65*4, hydrogen 4*25, nitrogen 8*5, and oxy- 
gen 31*85 per cent. This chapter also furnishes much valuable information 
relative to the colouring matter of plants, such as leaf-green or chlorophyll f 
&c., as well as with regard to the more important of the coal-tar products 
employed for dyeing purposes. 
Although the present edition appears in the form of a single volume, it 
contains a much larger amount of letter-press than former issues ; and by 
judicious additions and careful revisions Professor Church has succeeded, 
not only in bringing the information down to date, but also in doing so with- 
out in any way changing the general system of the original work. 
UNITED STATES SURVEYS. 
I N our last number we published an abstract of the Report of a Committee 
of the National Academy of Sciences on the Consolidation of the Surveys 
of the United States. We do not know what action, if any, has been taken 
upon this document, but most certainly the important Geological and Geogra- 
phical Survey of the Territories over which Dr. Hayden so admirably presides 
shows no present signs of any diminution of its activity. Three stout octavo 
volumes which have reached us since our last issue seem to be anything 
rather than signs of decrepitude. 
The tenth annual report* describes the completion of the survey of Colo- 
rado and the adjacent territories, and includes treatises on the geology, 
topography, archaeology, and ethnology of that wonderful region, together 
with some notes by Prof. Lesquereux on cretaceous and tertiary fossil plants 
obtained by the survey in Colorado in 1877, and a catalogue by the same 
author of plants from the above formations in North America generally, and 
further, a report of Dr. Packard on insects affecting the cranberry and the 
pine. The catalogue of North American cretaceous and tertiary plants will 
be found especially useful. 
The geological portion of the work consists of a series of reports from the 
geologists in charge of the different districts, completing the Commentary 
on the splendid atlas of Colorado noticed in our October number. As 
usual in each report the structural geology and superficial formation of 
the district are very fully described, and the latter offers a series of the most 
extraordinary phenomena that are to be seen anywhere on the face of the 
earth. All these parts are illustrated with a great number of plates of 
maps, sections, and views. 
Of special reports under the geological head we may mention Dr. Endlich’s 
description of the eruptive rocks of Colorado, a most important contribution 
to our petrographical knowledge *, and the same author’s mineralogical report* 
which includes an alphabetical catalogue and systematic arrangement of the 
* “ Tenth Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geogra- 
? hical Survey of the Territories, embracing Colorado and parts of adjacent 
'erritories, being a Report of Progress of the Exploration for the year 1876 . ,r 
By F. V. Hayden, U.S. Geologist. 8vo. Washington : Government 
Printing Office, 1878. 
