Personal and Setentific News. 281 
in the gravel deposits formed by streams which brought this mod- 
ified drift from the ice in which it had been enclosed as englacial 
drift. Under the lavas of Table mountain, California, and of 
Nampa, Idaho, the implements and other relics of men, and even 
their bones, including the famous Calaveras skull, have been 
found and assigned to a vast antiquity, but they may probably be 
no older than the latest general glaciation. The last great local 
accumulation of glaciers and ice-sheets on the Sierra Nevada and 
more northern parts of the Cordilleran mountain belt to Alaska 
is referred by Wright, as by Russell and Becker, to a subsequent 
time, during the Recent epoch. No proof of man’s existence 
during even the later part of the Tertiary era has been obtained, 
and Prof. Wright believes that the evolution of the human race 
has been comprised wholly within the Quaternary era, probably 
occupying no more than 50,000 or 100,000 years. The substance 
of these lectures will be mainly included in a book entitled ‘Man 
and the Glacial Period,” soon to be issued in the International 
Scientific Series, supplementing the author’s previous work on 
“The [ce Age in North America.” 
Pror. Epwin J. Ponp, oF tHE U. 8. Coast AND GEODETIC 
Survey, died in Washington in February, of scarlet fever. He 
was a young man of sturdy habits and a most earnest student of 
natural science, known to but a small circle of scientific people, 
owing to his modest demeanor, and his long residence in mission- 
ary labors in the education of colored youth in the remote south, 
An ardent student of geology and botany, he was a constant col- 
lector and contributor of data to others who published them. 
Although having resided in Washington but a short time, he had 
made many interesting discoveries in local geology. The writer 
first knew him in Texas, where, with his class of students, Prof. 
Pond discovered and collected the remarkable and as yet unpub- 
lished fauna of the Shoal Creek limestone, which he deposited in 
the National Museum. He published several short papers in Sci 
ence on Texas geology. eee ad 2 
Tue Swiss ComMITTEE OF ORGANIZATION for the sixth session 
of the International Congress of Geologists has been constituted 
definitely as follows: K. Renevier, president; Alb. Heim, vice 
president; H. Golliez, secretary, and ©. Kscher-Hess, cashier; 
Dr. A. Baltzer, Dr. Ed. Brueckner, L. Dupare, Dr. K. Du Pas- 
quier, Dr. Kdm. v.-Fellenberg, Dr. F. A. Forel, Dr. H. Frey, 
Dr. J. Frueh, Dr. U. Grubenmann, Dr. A. Gutzwiller, Dr. A. 
Jaccard, Dr. E. Kissling, Dr. Fr. Koby, Dr. F. R. Lang, P. 
deLoriol, G. Mariani, Dr. F. Muehlberg, IL. Rollier, Dr. H. 
Schardt, Dr. C. Schmidt. 
At a meeting held 28 Dec., 1891, this committee decided that 
the next session of the Congress will be held at Zurich, near the 
end of August or the commencement of September. The length 
of the session can be reduced to four days. One of these days, 
