124 The A mericon Geologist. August, i896 
(liolarians probably and the sponge spicules at any rate) only 
mineral aggregates. So it has become evident that the deter- 
minations of the paleontologist in this field will no longer pass 
muster until reviewed by the petrographer. 
Of another sort than these claimed and discredited evi- 
dences of life are the supposed annelid trails on theHuronian 
iron ores of Iron Mountain, Mich., recently described in Sci- 
ence by W. S. Gresley and the prol>abIe organic origin of some 
of which has received the endorsement of such excellent pale- 
ontologists as Dr. Walcott and Mr. Schuchert. The petrogra- 
pher has not yet had his say in regard to these things, and 
though the rock specimens may show no structural characters 
which will serve to either affirm or deny the organic origin of 
these impressions, they will not be admitted as a demonstra- 
tion of Archean life without a many-sided scrutiny; the 
more, as all other similar claims seem to be so rapidly crumb- 
ling, and since the Taconic and Archean ores occur in close 
proximity in the region mentioned. 
REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL 
LITERATURE. 
Die LavieUibranchidteii den rheininclieu Devon, viit Ausschlnss der 
Avieidlden. By L. Beushausen. Pp. 1-514, pis. 1-38, 1895. (Abhandl. 
der Konigl. Preuss. geolog. Landesanst., Heft 17.) While the author 
of this fine work was engaged, some twelve years ago, u]X)n the investi- 
gation of the fauna of the Spiriferen-sandstein of the Hartz mountains, 
the paucity of knowledge of the lamellibranchs in the German Devo- 
nian, notwithstanding a wealth of material in collections, made itself so 
apparent that the influences of the land survey were directly thereafter 
interested to bring about a thorough study of these fossils. The scope 
of the work at first contemplated only the lamellibranchs of the lower 
Devonian, then, according to the author's prefatory statement, it was 
broadened to cover the species of the entire German Devonian and the 
work so divided that one part of it was assigned to Dr. F. Freeh, the 
other groups to Beushausen. Freeh's monograph, covering all the 
Aviculidae of these rocks, was published in 1891. That on the remain- 
ing groups became so extensive an undertaking that the author has felt 
the necessity of restricting it to the species of the Rhiueland and West- 
phalia. The 315 species here dealt with are a sufficient evidence of this 
necessity. 
One feature of this work is so distinctly novel as to invite remark. It 
contains no phylogenies, no family trees, no schemes of classification. 
