238 
A nalyses of Books. 
! April, 
be exhausted ; but blue vitriol, alum, and copperas are obtained 
from the weathered shales and other refuse of the mines. All 
these products contain traces of nickel and cobalt. 
Dr. Feistmantel shows that the unconformity existing in Africa, 
India, and Victoria, between the Ekka beds, the Talchir beds, 
and the Bacchus marsh-beds and their underlying rocks, is in 
New South Wales filled in between the Hawkesbury rocks and 
the Devonian beds of the series of the Australian coal-beds. 
Mr. W. Center and Mr. H. B. Medlicott deal with the important 
question of the “ Reh ” or alkaline soils of Upper India, and the 
saline efflorescence so fatal to agriculture. 
Report of the Entomologist of the United States Department of 
Agriculture for the Year 1879. ByJ. Henry Comstock. 
Washington : Government Printing-Office. 
This treatise contains an account of a serious catalogue of ver- 
min, all of which claim for their share no small part of the fruits 
of human industry. Cotton, grain, clover, the orange tree, the 
vine, the sugar-cane, the potato, the cabbage — all have their 
special enemies. Fortunately they are to some extent kept under 
by parasites and foes of their own rank. Hence one of the most 
important duties of an agricultural entomologist is to warn the 
public against destroying their allies. 
The so-called red-bug of Florida and the West Indies (Drys- 
dereus suturellus) is very destruftive, both to the cotton and the 
orange crops. It may possibly be utilised as a dye, since with an 
alum mordant it dyes woollens and silks a rich orange-yellow. 
Geological Survey of Canada. A. R. C. Selwyn, F.R.S., Di- 
rector. Report of Progress for 1878-79. Montreal : Dawson 
Brothers. 
During the season much useful work has been done, though a 
portion of it, from lack of time, partakes of the character of a 
preliminary reconnaissance rather than of a minute survey. 
Dr. G. M. Dawson reports on the Queen Charlotte Islands, and 
enters largely into topographical details. It appears that at 
Anchor Cove an anthracite mine was opened in 1865, but was 
finally abandoned in 1872. Two distinct epochs of glaciation 
have been traced in British Columbia, the former of which was 
