Personal and Scientific Xen-s. 291 
PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
An Arctic expedition for the exploration of the unknown 
western part of Ellesmere land, in latitude 76° to 78°, is to be 
led by Mr. Robert Stein of the U. S. Geological Survey, starting 
from St. John's, Newfoundland, on a whaling steamer in May; 
It has been suggested that the Arizona petrified forest, 
occupying about 10,000 acres in the eastern portion of central 
Arizona, near Holbrook, on the Atlantic and Pacific railroad, 
should be set aside as a national park. The ground is strewn 
with trunks and limbs of petrified trees, some of the logs be- 
ing six feet in diameter. (Bulletin, Am. Geographical Society, 
Dec. 31, 1893. ) 
The topographic work ok the U. S. Geological Sikyky 
during 1893 comprised the mapping of about 33,500 square 
miles. Thirty-three surveying parties were engaged in the 
field-work, and 131 sheets of the United States topographic 
map were surve} r ed. Of these, 118 are on a scale of 1 : 62,500, 
or very nearly one mile to an inch, each being bounded by 
sides of a quarter of a degree in latitude and longitude; and 
the remaining 16 are on the scale of 1 : 125,000, or about two 
miles to an inch, with half degree sides. In New York, where 
the state appropriated $21,000 for co-operation with the 
national survey, 27 sheets have been completed, covering 5,000 
square miles. In North Dakota, 11 sheets were surveyed; in 
South Dakota, 13 sheets, including the completion of the 
Black Hills area; in Nebraska, 37 sheets; in Kansas, four 
sheets, finishing the part of the state east of the 100th merid- 
ian ; in Oklahoma, eleven sheets; in Montana, two sheets on 
the two mile scale, embracing the region recently set off as a 
timber reserve, east of the Yellowstone National Park ; in 
Idaho, about 1,000 square miles in the Salmon River moun- 
tains; and in California, four sheets about the bay of San 
Francisco, and three sheets in the neighborhood of Los Ange 
les. The surveys of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecti- 
cut, "and New Jersey have been completed and published. 
The department of geology at Cornell University lias 
been reorganized, Mr. G. I). Harris being appointed assistant 
professor of Paleontology, Dr. A. C. Gill assistant professor of 
mineralogy and petrography, and Mr. R. S. Tarr assistant pro- 
fessor of dynamical geology and physical geography. Mr. Tarr 
has been connected with the University for the past two years, 
but the others are new men. Mr. Harris is a graduate of < or- 
nell, and has been connected with the Smithsonian Institution 
and the geological surveys of Arkansas and Texas, since his 
graduation in 1886. Dr. Gill graduated from Amherst in 
1881, and since then has been live years at , Johns Hopkins, 
Leipzig, and Munich, where, in L893, he took the degree Ph.D. 
