Persofuil mid Scie?itijic News. 67 
Williams, H. S. 
The classification of stratified rocks. (Jour. GeoL, vol. 6, pp. 671- 
6,8, Oct.-Nov. 1898.) 
Winchell, N. H. 
Thomsonite and lintonite from the north shore of lake Superior. 
(Am. GeoL, vol. 22, pp. 347-349, Dec. 1898.) 
PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
The Regents of the University of the State of New 
York have decided to divide the work in ideology and pale- 
ontology which was for so man}' }ears in charge of the late 
professor James Hall, and in so doing have erected two co- 
ordinate departments, one of paleontology andstratigraphic 
geology and the other of "pure geology," the latter to cover 
dynamic and physical geology, the cr)'stalline rocks, surficial 
geolog}', etc. They have appointed to the charge of the 
former, professor John M. Clarke, with the title of state pa- 
leontologist and to the latter, Dr. F.J. H. Merrill with the 
title of state geologist. 
They have also appointed Dr. E. P. Felt to the position 
of state entomologist as successor to the late Dr. J. A. Lint- 
ner. 
Dr. C. Willard Hayes and Mr. Arthur W. Davis, who 
have been absent for over a ^-ear in connection with geologi- 
cal and hydrographical work for the Nicaragua Canal Com- 
mission, have returned to Washington. 
Geological Society of Washington. At the meeting 
of Dec. 7 the following papers were presented: Mesozoic 
stratigraphy of the southern Black hills, N. M. Darton; 
Ripple marks and cross-bedding, G. K. Gilbert; The glaci- 
ated region of the Sierra Nevada, H. W. Turner. 
Prof. G. Frederick Wright, of Oberlin College, has 
made plans for a trip around the world in 1900, for the pur- 
pose of studying geological phenomena. He will visit Ha- 
waii, Japan, cross Asia, following the line of the new Siberi- 
an railroad, studying especiall)- the Siberian glacial drift, a 
field as yet untouched; thence, after a stud)' of the region 
around the Caspian sea, he will return to the United States, 
the whole trip occupying about nine months. (Sci^^nci'.) 
The American IMaturalist for December announces 
that the present editor-in-chief. Dr. Robert P. Bigelow, of 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog}-, finds it impossi- 
ble to continue to devote to that magazine the time required 
for its management and so relinquishes his charge of the 
