Personal and Scientific Nczvs. 399 
Tehauntepec. The gravel plain of the floor is now raised up 
800 feet. This canal is a mile long, 150 feet deep, and narrow, 
with its floor covered with rounded gravel, which merges into 
a terrace on the gulf side. 
An Interesting Intercollegiate Excursion of teachers 
and advanced students, under the guidance of professor W. M. 
Davis, of Harvard University, was made on October 19th to 
the river terraces in the Westfield river valley, in Massachu- 
setts. The particular aim was to work out the control of rock 
ledges upon the distribution and topography of the terraces. 
Forty-six persons were present, representing twelve institu- 
tions. The success of the trip has encouraged its promoters 
to hope for others in 1902, to bring together members of the 
varioois higher institutions of learning in New England. 
The Field Work of the First Year Rese.a.rch Colrse 
in geology at Harvard University, for this year, is an elabora- 
tion of that begun two years ago. At present eighteen men are 
engaged in a geological survey of the metropolitan district of 
Boston, including the Bostcu Basin and its surrounding igne-, 
ous and sedimentary rocks. The members are acting as volun- 
teer assistants on the U. S. Geological Survey, under Dr. T. A. 
Jagger, Jr., as a regular office of the survey; and the work, 
which is based upon recent detailed topographic mapping of the 
survey, is submitted with a view to ultimate publication by that 
organization, as folios or reports. The nine field parties cover 
territory stretching from Marblehead on the north to Nantasket 
on the south, and from the ocean west to Bedford and Dover. 
Geological Explorations near Athens. The British 
Museum during the past summer has obtained some important 
fossils of tertiary mammals at Pikermi, near the Marathon road, 
about twelve miles from Athens. The specimens were found at 
a considerable depth below the bed of a mountain torrent, and 
were so jammed together that evidently the animals were 
buried alive, probably by torrential action. About fifty years 
ago Dr. Albert Gaudry in this locality obtained a great number 
of fossils for the Paris museum. Since then the Vienna acad- 
emy has made a similar collection ; but until the present year the 
British museum had sent no expedition to this field. Among 
the principal finds were numerous bones of Hipparion, the 
three-toed predecessor of the horse ; Helladothcrinm, a short- 
necked girafife allied to the Okapi, the new mammal recently 
discovered by Sir Henry Johnston in the forests of the Kongo 
state ; several skulls of Mastodon, and skulls, teeth and bones 
of the great saber-toothed tiger Machaerodus, specimens of 
which have been found in England. One of the prizes was the 
remains of perhaps the largest tortoise ever found in Europe. 
Very few bones of rodents or of birds were found, but a con- 
siderable collection of land shells was obtained. Dr. A. S. 
