138 Personal and Scientific News. 
confirm the work of Dr. Hicks, in England, who has recently 
published the details of the exploration of a cave which he 
maintains is of preglacial age, and the evidence for the claim 
seems imusually good. 
In all these cases, however, the word "preglacial" is rather 
loosly employed, and should be held to mean possibly "inter- 
glacial." The fact that these relics were found beneath undis- 
turbed glacial deposits does not prove preglacial age, but only 
that the objects are not postglacial. Unless the proof is clear 
that these beds belong to the earlier portion of the ice-age, 
they should not be called preglacial. There is apparently good 
evidence that there have been two distinct advances of the ice, 
and the term "preglacial" ought to be kept strictly for use in 
reference to events that preceded the earlier of the two. 
We have as yet no evidence at all of preglacial man on Earth, 
but the evidence for the existence of iriterglacial man is yearly 
becoming stronger, and at the present rate will soon be con- 
clusive. But it must be borne in mind that the earlier the date 
at which we seek to establish man's existence, the stronger 
must be the evidence that is adduced in support of the claim. 
At the last annual meeting of the Indiana Academv of 
Sciences, held at Indianapolis, Dec. 2Sth and 29th, the follow- 
ing geological papers were read: 
The east-west diameter of the Silurian island about Cincinnati. D. W. 
Dennis. 
Erosion in Indiana. J. T. Scovell. 
A geological section of Johnson county, Indiana. D. A. Owen. 
Notes on some fossil bones found in Indiana. O. P. Haj. 
The officers for 1S88 are J. P. D. John, president; John C. 
Brunner, T. C. Mendenhall, and O. P. Hay, vice-presidents; 
Amos W. Butler, secretary; O. P.Jenkins, treasurer. 
According to Prof. Chas. W. Rolfe, of Urbana, 111., 
the gas wells at Litchfield in that state, which are the only high- 
pressure wells which have been obtained in Illinois, and which 
a year ago were supplying 800 stoves, have so diminished in 
pressure that thev now furnish but eighty. The supply of lu- 
bricating oil in that vicinity does not seem to have sensibly 
diminished. 
