Personal and Scientific News. 261 
about 80 feet. Under these stratified beds, the chief mass of 
Kolguev island is bluish gray clay, containing abundant 
stones and boulders, many of them glaciated, of all sizes to 
15 feet in diameter. From the description of this boulder-clay 
it seems to be true till, for it rarely incloses any distinct 
layers of sand and gravel, and its boulders show no tendency 
to arrangement in horizontal lines. This large island lies 
just inside the border of the area assigned to the European 
ice-sheet on Prof. James Geikie's map, and it appears to be 
mainly or wholly a great marginal deposit of that ice-sheet. 
It is separated from Russia by a depth of water nowhere 
exceeding 30 fathoms. (Q. J. G. S., vol. 52. pp. 52-65, Feb., 1896.) 
S. Sekiya, boen in 1855; died Jan. 9th, 1896. 
In the principal departments of geology to which Japan has 
largely contributed, namely, volcanism and seismology, Prof. 
S. Sekiya, whose death, at the age of forty-one years, occur- 
red on January 9th, had done highly valuable original work. 
Perhaps the topic of most general popular interest which he 
investigated, in collaboration with another Japanese, Y. Ki- 
kuchi, was the extraordinary and very destructive mud and 
dust eruption of Bandai-San on July 15th, 1888, whereby 166 
houses were totally or partially destroyed and 461 persons 
lost their lives (Trans. Seismological Society of Japan, vol. 
xin, 1890, pp. 139-222, with ten plates). Sekiya"s geologic 
publications, both in Japanese and English, were many and 
important. A brief biographic notice of him, in the March 
Geological Magazine, probably written by John Milne, con- 
cludes as follows : "The construction of a model to show the 
motion of an earth particle at the time of an earthquake is an 
indication of his originality and ingenuity. By his influence 
and persuasive power he did much towards the distribution 
of seismographs throughout his own country, and the exten- 
sion of a seismic survey which at the time of his death boasted 
of no less than 968 stations at which earth shakings are re- 
corded. One thing in which he was interested, and in which 
he took part, were experiments to determine forms of con- 
struction most suitable for earthquake districts; and al- 
though he did not live to see the ultimate results of these in- 
vestigations, he saw that earthquake effects had already been 
diminished and that in future the loss of life and property 
would be further minimized. His kindly disposition made 
him the friend of all who had the pleasure of his acquaint- 
ance, whilst the straightforward manner in which he never 
failed to express his ideas gained their admiration." 
Philadelphia Academy op Natural Sciences. 
At the meeting of Feb. 10th, Gen. Isaac J. Wistak called 
attention to the apparently capricious distribution id' iron 
