Review of Recent Geological Literature. 1 IS) 
group them. The various methods of making chemical examination of 
inks used in writing, for the purpose <>i' comparing a genuine with a 
spurious signature, are given in detail. Then follows a digest of the 
laws and judicial opinions bearing on the use of experl testimony on 
handwriting. 
Altogether this little manual will be of use in legal and financial cir- 
cles where the critical examination of all signatures is a necessity. Ii 
brings into small compass for the first time just the information often 
wanted by penmen and experts, which usually is scattered and difficult 
1o use. x. h. W. 
Du Fauna des unteren Devonam Ostabhange des Ural. BvTh. Tscher- 
xyschew. (Memoires du Comite Geologique, Vol. IV, No. 3, pp. 1-221, 
pis. I-XIV, 1893.) 
This is a work of more than local interest. The author, especially 
distinguished for his researches upon the Devonian of the Russian Em- 
pire, has described in detail a somewhat peculiar faiinal assemblage 
from neighboring limestones on the Asiatic slopes of the Urals, which 
are treated of as a whole and as of common aye. 
The American student of paleozoic faunas, after a diligent scrutiny 
of the fourteen finely executed plates of fossils and of their descripl ions. 
can hardly fail of being impressed with the conspicuous predominance 
of normal Silurian (Niagara) types in this fauna, here regarded as of 
lower Devonian (Hercynian) age; and in such a mind the query at oner 
arises: 1>\ what construction is a fauna, so constituted to be referred to 
the Devonian? The leading elements of the fauna discussed, briefly 
stated, are as follows: Among the Trilobites, Ybvngia, a ceraurid like 
Pseudogphcerejtsochus, and of which the only other known species is from 
the Silurian: Calymene (fragment), Aristozoe (A. regina, Barrande, A. 
hercynica, now) <>f the gastropods, Platyceras (] species). Orthonychiu 
elongata Hall, 0. cultellus, now. Pleurotomaria lindstrcsmi, a pauci-spi- 
raled shell with large, ventricose body-whorl: P. ventrieoaa, with angular 
whorls, high spiral and contracted body-whorl; large Murchisonias with 
high spirals; large broadly umbilicated Bellerophons (cf. Trematonotus, 
Hall; Salpingostoma V. Roemer), sharply carinated species (Oxydiseus) 
and small, non-umbilicated forms of typical structure: well defined 
Subulites {8. aralicua, now) The leading element of the fauna is the 
brachiopod, which includes spirifers of the type of S, radiatwa (8. tur- 
genaia, nov., 8. robuatua, Barrande) and 8. plicatellua (S. indifferena, var. 
tranaiena, Barrande); multiplicate lineate species like < s '. niagarenaia i 8. 
tiro, Barrande), dupliciplicate radiate forms represented b\ *. nobilia, 
Ba rr. var. arbitenaia, nov. Species of the unicispinate fimbriate i j pe {8, 
orbitatvs Barr., ^ vogulicua, now, S. pentameriformia, 8. kuachvenaia). Of 
t he considerable number of species referred to Meruta and MeriaU lla, i he 
critical generic characters are demonstrated in none. Compared with 
similar shells in American faunas ii may safely be said thai these bear 
in respeel to form, size and general external expression, a far more pro- 
nounced similarity to species of Whitfieldella and Meristina of the Silur- 
