Personal and Scientific News. 335- 
are printed as state documents, under standing law, and the cost 
thereof is not chargeable to the survey funds. 
This legislature also established a School of Mines at the State 
university, appropriating $6,000 for that purpose, and $4,500 per 
year for its maintenance. 
In California $50,000 have been appropriated by the Legis- 
lature for the support of the State Mining Bureau for the next 
two years, this being just one-half the amount appropriated by the 
preceding Legislature for the same length of time. This includes 
the cost of printing its report. 
Mr. Charles R. Keyes has been appointed palaeontologist 
of the Missouri geological survey. 
Through the instrumentality of chaplain John D. Parker 
of the U. S. Army, while stationed at Fort Robinson, Neb. , ini- 
tial efforts were made in the fall of 1890 for the organization of 
the Nebraska Academy of Sciences. A largely attended meeting 
was held Jan. 1, 1891, at Lincoln which resulted in a permanent 
organization, with Dr. J. S. Kingsley, of the Nebraska State Uni- 
versity, as president, and Prof. W. E. Taylor, of Peru, as secre- 
tary. The first publication of the Academy contains the consti- 
tution and plan of organization. Chaplain Parker was largely in- 
strumental in originating the Kansas Academy of Sciences, as 
well as the Kansas City Academy of Sciences. 
Discovery of Mastodon Remains in the Shenandoah Valley, 
Virginia. While excavating a boggy depression for the purpose 
of making a fish-pond on the land of Mr. Frank, near Edom, 
Rockingham Co. , the bones of a mastodon were discovered which,, 
according to Dr. Zirkle, will make an almost complete skeleton. 
The latter gentleman has secured the remains and will present 
them to the National Museum. 
The G-ap Nickel Mine. This mine situated near Gap Station, 
Lancaster Co., Pa., and the source of most of the nickel used in 
this country is about to shut down, in fact work is now practi- 
cally suspended, only a few miners being at work in prospecting 
for new bodies of ore, and, from all appearances, with little prob- 
ability of success. The ore has gradually been thinning out for 
several years. The history of this mine is remarkable. For 
many years it was worked for copper, the nickeliferous pyrrhotite 
being thrown away as worthless until the year 1853, when its value 
was discovered. The vein is vertical and varies from four to 
thirty-five feet in width. Paying ore about fifty feet from surface ; 
the gauge is mica schist and hornblende ; formation Lower Silur- 
ian limestone. 
Prof. James Geikie, of Edinburgh, gave during March and 
the early part of April a series of ten lectures in Boston, under 
the auspices of the Lowell Institute, his theme being "Europe 
during and after the Ice Age." Among many important matters 
brought out in these lectures supplementing this author's well 
known works on the " Great Ice Age " and "Prehistoric Europe," 
