PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
Hamj-ine University at Hamline Minnesota has re- 
cently erected and occupied a "Science Hall." The building is 
of red brick with brown stone trimmings and consists of a main 
portion in front about fifty feet by thirty, three stories high, and 
a rear extension one story high. The main or front building is 
divided into two parts by a central hall and each of these divided 
furnishes four large rooms on the first and second floors. The 
east side of the second floor and the entire third floor are devoted 
to the department of biology and geology. The rooms thus 
furnished are a large lecture room, a large well-lighted labora- 
tory, a small preparation room on the second floor, and a large 
museum room on the third floor for present occupation, with 
additional space on the west half of the second floor when re- 
(piired. The extension, one story high, completely shut off 
from the main part by solid brick walls and sheet iron doors, 
is entirely given up to the departments of physics and chemis- 
try. It is divided into lecture room, preparation room and 
private laboratory, apparatus room, general laboratory and bal- 
ance room. Beneath the first floor, under the extension, there 
is a high basement finished in a nvmiber of small rooms for the 
use of the physical department as required; and under the front 
part a large gymnasium. 
Prof. J. W. Spencer, late of the University of Mis- 
souri, is engaged in an independent investigation of the beaches 
and basins of the great lakes. His address is Ann Arbor, Mich. 
Dr. C. T. Lindley, Davenport, Iowa, whose valuable 
cabinet of natural history was destroyed by fire Nov. 9th, last, 
is trying to renew it, and solicits duplicates from such geologists 
and naturalists as have them to spare. The great collection was 
deposited in the state orphan's home at Davenport, and the 
building was fired by a stroke of lightening. 
Prof. Alleyne Nicholson describes in the London Geol. 
Mag.certain indistinct forms not at present referable to any geol- 
ogical group, but contributing largely to the building up of some 
of the pakeozoic limestones. They belong to the genera Alitch- 
eldeania of Wethered Solenopora of Dybowski, and Girvafiella 
of Etheridge and Salter. To each of the first and third a single 
new species is allotted, and under the second are described two. 
But as the figures are necessaj' for a full comprehension of the 
paper, the reader is referred for further detail to the original. 
Mr. T. M. Reade also calls attention to the permanent elonga- 
tion of terra cotta, under changes of temperature. This elon- 
gation has the effect he says of raising a coping into a long, low 
anticline if the ends are secured, or of thrusting out and cracking 
the piers, if their stability is unequal to the pressure. He sug- 
gests its practical bearing on the subject of mountain building. 
