Review of Recent Geological Literature. 189 
are concerned the millions of years of geological time throw no light 
upon the way by which they came about." 
The remaining chapters of the book are devoted to the evolution of 
organisms. The first group of animals taken illustrating this law is the 
Brachiopoda. First, the time range of the several groups of these or- 
ganisms is stated. Id this manner the geological range of the class, or- 
dinal, and generic characters is demonstrated. Next a species is studied 
in detail and the time of appearance of its class, ordinal, and subordinal 
characters pointed out. A chapter is devoted to the life history of gen- 
era, as shown in the spire-bearing brachiopods. Other chapters are 
given to a study of cephalopods and ammonoids as illustrating laws of 
phylogeny. The conclusion is reached that the more important char- 
acters of organisms, such as distinguish classes, orders and genera, at- 
tain a comparatively rapid development: while the less important char- 
acters, such as distinguish species, develop more slowly. J. a. b. 
Canadian Fossil Insects. By S. H. Scudder. (Geol. Sur. Canada, 
Contributions to Canadian Palaeontology, vol. 2, pt. 1, 66 pp., 5 pis., 
1895.) Mr. Scudder describes the Tertiary Hemiptera of British 
Columbia found by Dr. G. M. Dawson, at three places. — Quesnel on 
the Fraser river, the north fork of the Similkameen, and Nine-Mile 
creek, another branch of the same. Nineteen species are described, 
almost all being homopterous. Every specimen, moreover, is assigned 
to a different species and only in one case are two species referred to 
the same genus. The insects are also of large size for the most part, 
some of the Fulgoridae and Cercopidse measuring four fifths of an inch 
in length. The illustrations are made from drawings in India ink by 
Mrs. Katherine P. Ramsay. 
The second part of this work treats of the Coleoptera hitherto found 
fossil in Canada, which have been obtained from seven distinct locali- 
ties in post Pliocene, lower Tertiary and Cretaceous strata. The last 
has yielded but a single species, — a curculionid from Manitoba. 
The myriapods and arachnids, though not strictly insects, are inclu- 
ded in the third part. These, which were first brought to light by Sir. 
Win. Dawson thirty years ago, have been chiefly obtained from the 
stumps of sigillarian trees in Nova Scotia, as described in " Acadian 
Geology." As an illustration of the care and minuteness with which 
Sir Wm. Dawson has carried on his investigation Mr. Scudder says, 
" In his examination of the reptilian coprolites of these sigillarian 
stumps [he] has extracted the fragment of a facetted eye about three- 
quarters of a millimetre square and containing from one to two hundred 
perfectly regular hexagonal facets." The illustrations are by Mrs. 
Ramsay and Mr. Blake. E. w. c. 
The Quarries in the Lava Beds at Meriden, Conn. By W. M. Davis. 
(Amer. Jour, Sci., 4, vol. 1, pp. 1-13, Jan., 1896.) In this paper Prof. 
Davis makes another contribution to the geology of the Triassic trap 
ridges of the Connecticut valley. The special point made is the occur- 
