124 The American Geologist. February, 1894 
the work of recent geologists and paleontologists, and is numerously 
illustrated with figures of fossils and of geological sections, as well as 
landscape scenes. The former are very good but the latter are not first- 
class. The easy, clear style, adapts the work to a wide class of non- 
scientific readers, and the volume will serve a good purpose successfully 
of popularizing, without lowering, the science of geology. The pub- 
lishers send specimens of 32 pages on receipt of 15 cents. We notice 
the prevalence, throughout, of that peculiarity of French geologists in 
the use of the term schistes alike for shales, slates, and schists. The 
English geologist fortunately has distinct terms for indicating those 
three structures. 
A contribution to the invertebrate paleontology of the Texas Creta- 
ceous. F. W. Cragin. (Geological Survey of Texas. From the fourth 
annual report.) pp. 141-24(>; 23 plates of fossils; published June, 18 ( J3, 
Austin. 
This important addition to the exact knowledge of the "Texas Creta- 
ceous*' corrects some former errors in determinations and carries the 
identification of species a long march in advance of its former position. 
Probably since the classic work of Roemer on the paleontology of the 
state no greater addition has been made to its paleontology. The 
species described are many of them new, and they have been derived 
largely from the Comanche series, and from the "Alternating beds.'" 
However, a number are also from higher beds. The Goniolina, so-called, 
of the Comanche series was considered by Dr. Roemer, with some 
doubt, as a species of Parkeria, but Prof. Cragin describes it as a 
bryozoan, Porocystis pruniformits. "As ordinarily preserved the fossil 
resembles a plum or a nutmeg, in form, the surface sculpture not in- 
frequently recalling that of a strawberry.'' 
The species described or identified with other species, are distributed 
among Codenterata, Echinodermata, Bryozoa, Brachiopoda, Lamelli- 
branchiata, Gasteropoda and Cephalopoda. 
Republication of Descriptions of Lower Carboniferous Crinoideafrom 
the Hall Collection now in the American Museum of Natural History, 
with illustrations of the original type specimens not heretofore figured; 
by R. P. Whitfield. (Memoirs Amer. Museum Nat. Hist., Vol. i; pt. 1, 
pp. 1-37, pis. 1-3,1893.) 
This is the first instalment of a new series of publications by the 
American Museum and its elegant proportions (large quarto), high 
grade paper and press work, and lithographic plates by Ast, indicate 
that typographic and artistic excellence are to be paramount considera- 
tions in the make-up of the work. In the preparation of the present 
paper the author is carrying out a plan already begun in one of the 
Bulletins of the Museum, to illustrate all type specimens in the collec- 
tions, not heretofore figured. The Crinoidea discussed were for the 
most part described by Hall in 1861, in a pamphlet entitled, "Descrip- 
tions of New Species of Crinoidea from the Carboniferous Rocks of the 
Mississippi Valley, "and also published in the Journal of the Boston Soc. 
