Revii'ic of Ih'fciif frcithiijiciil Tjllcfd I II re. ;iS',) 
liberated at a higiit, is divided into many parts and perhaps into spray 
before it reaches the earth? Cannot the different -'explosions" of me- 
teorites V)e all attributed to the passage of so many large masses throvigh 
the air, or to the atmospheric agitation of their impact on the lower air? 
Would it be possible to produce the detonations heard at the time of 
fall by the separation of the meteoi-ic mass into its jjarts, and at the 
same time not reduce it to powder? Would not the sudden arrest of a 
mass of matter like a meteorite produce a noise similar to that heard by 
the sudden action of the force which starts a cannon ball? Would not 
the resistance of the atmosjihere be such as to cause a compai'atively 
sudden arrest of the moticm of a meteorite? n. h. w. 
D//S ohe)-e Miiti'klevoii iScJiiclifen mit Stringocephdlits Biirtini unci 
MdeneceraH terehfdtKnii im Rlieinischeii Gebirge. By E. Hol/apfel. 
(Abhandl. der Konigl. Preuss. Geolog. Landesanst., Heft 16, piJ. 1-4:60, 
pis. 1-19, 1895.) The author, widely known for his |)revious publications 
upon the Paleozoic faunas of Germany and Bohemia, has here produced 
the most elaborate and important work of the year upon the Devon- 
ian. In a l)rief sketch it is not possible to do it justice, for it marshals 
a great array of facts, many of which, though based ujjon local mani- 
festations, are keyed up to a general significance. The detailed descrip- 
tion of the fauna, with which the work ojjens, evinces this fact in many 
places throughout the account of its 2.38 species, and is full of sugges- 
tions to the working paleontologist. 
The radical differences in the compositicm of this fauna and that oc- 
cupying the same stratigraphical position in America are more strongly 
emphasized than ever. These are not differences which lead in any way 
to doubt the present assignment of either, but rather to the conviction 
that the term is yet to be coined which expresses their individual char- 
acter or mutual relations. Thus, among the mviltitude of forms in the 
middle Devonian of America (Marcellus and Hamilton divisions) are 
species at certain horizons which, in Germany, appear at wholly differ- 
ent'planes: Agoniatitcs e.vpaiistis Vanux. (.4. /?«*o</.sffyy/.s Phillijjs, var. 
e.>'i>aiisiiN, according to Holzapfel) is preeminently a lower middle De- 
vonian sy)ecies in New York, but abounds at a higher horizon there. We 
might cite the limitation of TroitidoleptiiH to the (ierman lower Devon- 
ian, while in New York it appears first in the Hamilton group and dis- 
a])pears with the Ithaca fauna. Schizophoria Htriafidd and Lepttvna 
vlunnhoidaUs are brachiopods generally diffused through the German 
middle Devonian, but are wanting at the same horizon here. Again, a 
multitude of types of more than si)ecific value there characteristic are 
here unknown. A glance at the list of trilobites described by the author 
enforces this fact. There are ('fntcdoci'pJiolas, Lic/ms, Ari'llnisiiKi, 
HtiriJi's. forms of I'roel IIS (P. rrdssirlidcliis, P. (pidilnitiist which occur 
only in our ]ow(>r Devonian, the Gei-<(ntofi-t\\ie alone representing this 
genus in the middle division. Likewise among the cephalopods Prvli'- 
cdiiHi's cldrilohus represents a goniatite-type unkncjwn here before the 
ojK'ninii' of the u)»()er Devonian: the nautiloid genera ('n/iliiiioccrds and 
