( 2§2 ) 
April, 
SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 
Geology, Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. — We have from 
time to time felt it our duty to draw attention to the services rendered 
to science by the American Government by means of the admirable 
Geological Survey of the Territories now being carried on at its 
expense and under its direction. It is therefore the more satisfactory 
that the British Emp;re is not behind the labours of a similar class. 
The Geological Survey of India may not include any notice of the living 
flora and fauna of that country, so rich in both departments of organic life, 
but the account of the fossil remains is given on a most magnificent scale. 
This will be at once apparent, when we mention that the issues before us, 
comprehending sixty large and well-executed plates, with the accompanying 
descriptions, is entirely devoted to one nook of the country, the province of 
Kutch, and to one group of Mollusca, the Cephalopoda, formerly known as 
ammonites. The value of documents, so full and so trustworthy, cannot be 
easily over-estimated. Our readers will regret to learn that Dr. Waagen, on 
whom has devolved the task of determining, classifying, and describing the 
specimens discovered, has been compelled, by ill-health, to give in his resig- 
nation, and return to Europe. 
Dr. E. A. Smith’s “ Report of Progress for 1875 of the Geological Survey of 
Alabama ” contains a general outline of the geological formation in the State, a 
history of coal-mining in Alabama since 1853, with notices of the features of 
the fields, of the character of the coals, and of the fossil vegetation. 
Copper ore exists in the metamorphic region, and is worked to a small extent. 
The ores are yellow sulphide, averaging some 10 per cent, of metal, also 
azurite and malachite. There is also a preliminary notice on the cotton-worm, 
the larva of Aletia argillacca , a small moth belonging to the NoCtuidae. The 
use of the arsenical compounds of copper is proposed for its destruction, — a 
method, as it appears to us, questionable on grounds of public health. 
An account of the fossil organic remains discovered during the Geological 
Survey of the Province of Victoria, and used for the determination of the ages 
of the different geological formations of the region, is being issued in numbers 
of ten plates each, with corresponding descriptions, on the plan of the decades 
of the Geological Surveys of England, Canada, India, &c. The first plate is 
devoted to the skull of Thylacoleo carnifex (Owen). Much interest attaches 
to this extinCt species from the controversies which have been waged 
concerning its nature and habits. Prof. Owen named it the Marsupial Lion, 
from the general resemblance of its teeth to those of the lion, indicating, in his 
opinion, its decidedly predaceous character. Dr. Falconer, Mr. Flower, and 
others, took a different view, and considered it as a harmless plant-eater, since 
a praemolar of a sharp-edged compressed form, like the carnassial of Thylacoleo 
is found in the still existing rat-kangaroos (Hyp si-pry minis). As Mr. F. 
McCoy, however, points out, they overlooked the faCt that the Hypsi-prymni have 
behind the compressed prasmolar a series of grinders of the ordinary vegetarian 
type, whilst in the marsupial lion all the teeth are of the true carnivorous 
type. Mr. McCoy considers that his Victorian specimen presents important 
differences from the New South Wales examples described by Prof. Owen, and 
that the species of the two provinces are really distinCt. He would retain for 
the Victorian animal the name of Thylacoleo carnifex , and proposes that of 
T. Oweni for the New South Wales species. 
The third report, since the re-modelling of the Mining Department of 
he Geological Survey of Victoria, has been issued. It forms a quarto 
