62 Personal and Scientifc News. 
in the Iowa City high school, has been appointed to the position 
of instructor in zoology in the state university of Nebraska. 
Dr. C. Rominger devoted some weeks during the past au- 
tumn to the study of the geology along both shores of lake 
Champlain. He is now occupied in the search for ores of zinc 
in southern Misssouri. 
The Committee of Organization of the American Geologi- 
cal Society have called the first meeting for Thursday, Decem- 
ber 27, 1888 at a. m. in the botanical lecture room of Cornell 
University at Ithaca, N. Y. 
The Geological Survey of Texas has been organized by 
the appointment of E. T. Dunible as state geologist, and pro- 
fessor W. H. Streeruwitz and W. F. Cummins as assistants. 
The parties have already entered the field. Mr. J. H. Hernden 
was appointed chemist to the survey, with Messrs. Smith and 
R. B. Hadley assistants. 
Number I, volume I, of the bulletins from the laboratories 
of Natural Science in the State University of Iowa, is now in 
press and will soon be ready for distribution. It will contain 
articles on geology and palaeontology by S. Calvin; on Sapro- 
phytic fungi by T. H. McBride; on parasitic fungi by A. S. 
Hitchcock; on Iowa mollusca by B. Shimek, and on local 
coleoptera by H. F. Wickham. 
Coal Mines in China. The output and consumption of 
coal from the Tong colliery, Kaiping, amounted in 1887, to 
nearly 200,000 tons, and is expected to reach 270,000 tons for 
1888. This colliery is in the province of Chi-li, about 90 miles 
from Tientsin. The railway connecting Kaiping with Tient- 
sin is now completed. Extensions are planned toward the 
north and the south, and Kaiping coal will before long be de- 
livered from Pekin to the regions beyond the Great Wall. 
Coal Mines of British Columbia. In another quarter of 
the world new developments in coal production are attaining 
great magnitude. During September the foreign shipments 
from the Nanaimo and Comox coal mines amounted to 43,908 
tons. For customs purposes this is valued at $4 a ton. The 
greater portion was shipped to San Francisco. 
The town of Florence, between Pueblo and Canon City, 
Colorado, is enjoying a "boom" on account of the recent dis- 
covery of coal oil of excellent quality and in paying quantities 
in its immediate vicinity. About twenty wells have been bored 
apparently within a space not exceeding two or three hundred 
acres, and those that are pumping yield on an average about 70 
barrels a day. According to Prof. Newberry the wells are 
bored in a dark Carbcmaceous shale of the age of the middle 
Cretaceous. This shale is found over a comparatively large 
area, and the oil production of the region therefore is capable 
of practically indefinite extension. 
