Ter zonal and Scientific News. 133 
species of each j^cnus and the genera of each family will be 
placed side by side. Tables of the families and genera will be 
given with the descriptions. The work is well under way. 
The preparation of the manuscript is well advanced, and eleven 
large quarto plates that are certainly unsurpassed by anything 
heretofore published, are already finished. 
The Keokuk (Iowa) scientific society, lately organized, 
will be occupied in developing the " Keokuk beds." It includes 
among its members some whose researches have already received 
national recognition. The president is professor C. H. Gordon 
and the secretary is E.J. Unger. 
Duplicates of the flora of the Dakota group. We are 
informed by the chancellor of the University of Kansas that the 
new " Snow Hall of Natural History" is possessed of numerous 
duplicates of the flora of the Dakota group, which are offered 
for sale with the view of obtaining funds for further collections. 
We understand that the specimens are in an admirable state of 
preservation. The entire series consists of seventy-five species, 
of which thirty-five are new to science. All have been deter- 
mined by Lesquereux, and they are mostly his species. In- 
formation may be obtained of Dr. F. H. Snow, Lawrence, 
Kansas. 
A NEW JOURNAL. ThE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST is 
announced to be begun as a quarterly by the anthropological 
society of Washington. The committee of the society under 
whose direction the work will appear, are Prof. J. Howard 
Gore, Thomas Hampson, W. H. Henshaw, Prof. O. T. Mason, 
Dr. Washington Mathews, S. V. Proudfit and Col. F. A. Seely. 
The Trenton limestone as an oil formation. A re- 
cent letter from professor Edward Orton, of Columbus, Ohio, 
makes known the imjDortant point which he has lately made, 
that the Trenton limestone is an oil or gas rock only when it is 
a dolomyte; that this phase of the rock is superficial; that it 
extends through northwestern Ohio, northern Indiana and prob- 
ably through Michigan; that it is in the main filled with salt 
water, but that in favored portions oil and gas are found. The 
Trenton limestone in its normal or ordinary constitution is in no 
sense a gas rock. 
At the annual meeting of the American Society of 
Naturalists, held at New Haven Dec. 27th-29th, the following 
geological papers were read. The volcanoes of Kilauea^ by 
Prof. J. D. Dana; A simple method of measu7-ing the thickfzess 
of ifzclined strata^hy Mr. C. D. Walcott; Improved machinery 
and appliatices for cutting sections of rocks and fossils in any 
desired planes^ by professor William B. Dwight; llie educa- 
tional value of micropetrography , by professor Geo. H. Wil- 
