Personal and Scientific Nezvs. 333 
mining- exhibit of the State of Montana at the Louisiana Pur- 
chase Exposition. 
The new Paciiic Society of Mining Enc.inekks, lately 
org-anized at Seattle, has for its first officers Chester F. Lee, 
president ; Milnor Roberts, vice-president ; F. C. Newton, re- 
cording secretary ; P. C. Stoess, corresponding secretary ; and 
C. E. Bog-ardus, treasurer. These constitute the managing 
board. 
The Newberry Collection of fossil fishes, deposited 
for many years in the Museum of the Columbia College School 
of Mines, has been transferred to the American Museum of 
Natural History, New York, and a special curatorship for 
fossil fishes has been established, to which Dr. Bashford Dean 
has been appointed. 
Dr. Louis Beushausen, of the Landesanstalt, Berlin, and 
professor of geology in the Bergakademie at that place, died 
February 21, at the age of 48 years. Professor Beushausen's 
work on paleontology, stratigraphy and tectonics of the Hartz 
mountains was distinguished for its precision and to paleon- 
tologists his fine monograph of the Devonic Pelecypoda of 
Germany is well known. 
More oil wells were compleieo ix 1903. says the Oil 
City Derrick, than during any previous year in the history of 
the petroleum industry. The total for the Pennsylvania and 
Trenton rock fields was 16.232, which includes 2,889 which 
were classed as dusters or dry holes. In the two states pro- 
ducing Lima oil 7,758 wells were completed, and of these only 
675, or only about per cent, got into the duster list. The in- 
crease in wells completed as compared with the record for 1902 
was 2,050. or nearly 14 per cent. In addition to the develop- 
ments in the eastern oil fields, considerable activity has pre- 
vailed in the petroleum regions of Kentucky and Kansas. Es- 
jimating 500 for the wells completed during the year in the 
former state and 1.500 in the latter, will give a grand total of 
18.232. \\'hen the operations in California, Texas and other 
states are considered it will be seen that the search for oil is 
being conducted on an unprecedented scale and that the petro- 
leum industry is contributing a very large share to the genend 
prosperity of the country. 
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SUR\ EV. 
Among the recentlv issued topographic maps is that of 
Blue I J ill! Maine. 
"Contributions to economic geology, 1903." is the lillc ci 
Bulletin No. 225. which is now ready for distribution. This 
jjublication has the same object as Bulletin Xo. 213, envitled 
"Contributions to economic geology, 1902," which met with 
such a hearty reception both from mining men and from geol- 
oirists. 
