Personal and Scientific News. 
IE "Western Society of Naturalists" was organ- 
at Indianapolis, December 29, 1887. This is an association 
otanists, zoologists and geologists, the objects of which are 
discussion of methods of instruction and of research, as well 
details of museum administration. The constitution adopted 
essentially the same as that of the eastern "American Society 
c Naturalists." The officers for the following year are, 
president. Dr. S. A. Forbes of Champaign, 111.; vice-presidents, 
Prof. W. J. Beal of Agricultural College, Mich., Pres. T. C. 
Chamberlin of Madison, Wis., and Prof. Henry L. Osborn of 
Hamline, Minn.; secretary. Dr. J. S. Kingsley of Bloomington, 
Ind.; and treasurer, Dr. John M. Coulter of Crawfordsville^ 
Ind. It Avas voted to hold the annual meetings in October, the 
next one at Champaign, 111. About forty naturalists have been 
enrolled as members. 
Professor L. E. Hicks reports the occurrence of diatoma- 
ceous earth near the base of a bluff seventy-five feet in hight on 
the North Loup river in Nebraska. The bed is twenty feet in 
thickness; and while the diatoms are numerous, they make up 
after all only a small proportion of the whole mass. 
Professor O. C Marsh describes some interesting Mesozoic 
and Tertiary fossils in the January number of the A?ne!'ican 
jfournal of Science. For some time geologists have been puz- 
zling over certain clays of undetermined age, outcropping 
between Baltimore and Washington. By direction of professor 
Marsh, Mr. J. B. Hatcher instituted a search in the clays for 
vertebrate fossils, and he was rewarded beyond all expectation 
by finding a rich fauna belonging to types characteristic of the 
Upper Jurassic. The forms brought to light by Mr. Hatcher 
and described by Marsh, consist almost wholly of the remains 
of Dinosaurs. The clays in question have been called by mem- 
bers of the United States geological survey, the Potomac 
formation. The formation evidently overlies the Triassic 
sandstones and seems to pass into clays which underlie the Cre- 
taceous marls of New Jersey.- It will be seen therefore, that 
the pakeontological evidence and stratigraphical inferences are 
in harmony. 
The Tertiary fossils described by ]Marsh in the same Journal 
consist of a series of teeth belonging to a peculiar Sirenian whose 
nearest living relatives are found among the dugongs, — belated 
creatures that seem very much out of place in our modern 
faunas. The teeth were found in California associated with a 
mastodon, camel, extinct horse and other species indicating the 
horizon of the Pliocene. 
The University of Nebraska is doing good work in 
geology and mineralogy'. One of the recent accessions to the 
