33^ Personal and Scientific J^ews. 
Prof. E. Hull reviews in the Geological Magazine for 
March, the variotis opinions that have been put forw^ard re- 
garding the effect of continental lands in raising by attraction 
the level of adjacent oceans. Suess and Fischer, basing their 
calculations on Airy's observations of the variation in the 
number of beats of the seconds pendulum, on oceanic islands and 
at coast stations, made the difference of oceanic level between 
California and the Sandwich islands equal to 4520 feet — a re- 
sult scarcely credible. 
The author with the assistance of Prof. G. C. Stokes has 
tried to calculate the effect of the attraction of the continental 
masses on the oceanic waters, and states the following results as 
the elevation above geodetic level: 
For the coast of Mexico 780 feet. 
Bolivia 2,159 " 
" Chili 1,582 " 
In the Quarterly Journal of the London geologi- 
cal SOCIETY for February Dr. Lyddeker discusses at length 
the various genera of Sauropoda founded on separate bones, and 
gives his reason for uniting several of them in the single genus Or- 
fiithofsis^ and concludes, after a few remarks on the Theropoda, 
with a note pointing out the extremely unsatisfactory condition 
of our knowledge of these reptiles, and reflects on the practice 
of setting up new genera for every new bone discovered, or 
*'even a fragment of a single bone." "It is the easiest thing in 
the world to apply a new name to any specimen that turns up, 
but when we find one genus founded on a humerus, another on 
a cervical vertebra, a third on a caudal vertebra, and a fourth 
on the cast of a sacrum, the evil results of such a system are 
self-apparent." " It would be advantageous if \ve \vere begin- 
ning de novo to take one particular part of the skeleton and say 
that on the evidence of that part alone generic terms should be 
made, but such a rule would be of little use now." Still it is a 
necessary evil, incident to our imperfect knowledge, that the 
femur of an animal bears one name and the humerus another, 
while in some cases possibly several bones from the same 
skeleton are figin-ing before the palaeontologist as real beings. 
In days to come it will be picturesque to see the wdiole skeleton 
restoi'ed, each bone bearing a separate specific and possibly 
generic designation. 
On nearly the same lines Prof. H. G. Seeley describes from 
a part of a vertebra a species which he has named Thecospon- 
dyhis daviesi and on this small foundation attempts to build 
up the vertebra and then the animal with "an elongated head 
and long slender jaws and neck" "so that the measurement from 
the tip of the snout to the extremity of the tail may have been 
under ten feet; of active habits, ^vith long limbs and specialized 
extremities." 
