were necessary to Americanize the book, and adapt it to the requirements of public and private schools, as well as to home instruction in this country.
Report upon the Third International Geographical Congress and Exhibition at Venice, Italy, 1881. By Captain George M, Wheeler. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 586, with Eleven Maps and Plates.
The report embraces an account of the proceedings of the Congress and a description of the Exhibition, in which the more important nations of the world showed the results of the best work that had been done in them in geography, topography, and cartography. More than this, it draws the lessons from those results of what may be of most benefit to the United States and to individual States. Of this character is the information it contains respecting the origin, functions, history, and progress of the several governmental topographic, hydrographic, and geologic surveys. The reports on Government land and marine surveys are full, and represent twenty-five countries. Under the head of works of reference are given copious bibliographies of English, French, German, Italian, Danish, and Spanish topographic surveys, Portuguese reports, and general geologic reports. The chapter on methods of reproduction (of maps), in which the various processes are described, is supplemented by plates giving specimens of the best maps executed in Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Saxony, Java, and France, illustrating as many methods of representation, each of which has its peculiar excellences. The author was a regularly appointed commissioner of the United States to the Congress and Exhibition, and had liberal facilities afforded him for collecting information. He hopes that what he has presented here may throw some light on the extent and object of the great land and water surveys of the world, and that it may form the basis of further researches in the direction outlined.
Sechrist's Hand-Book and Railway Equipment and Mileage Guide Monthly. S. P. Sechrist, Editor. Cleveland, Ohio: J. B. Savage. Pp. 190.
This publication is designed particularly for the use of operating railroad men. It contains tables of the passenger and freight equipment of all (American) railroads, giving numbers of cars, dimensions, capacity, etc.; works and equipment of all freight-lines and private car companies; official information showing to whom cartraces should be addressed, report of carservice made, and remittances for car-mileage sent; and other information of similar character; together with lists of railroad officers and offices, connections and junctions. It is the official guide of the Car-Accountants' Association of the United States and Canada.
Brachiopoda and Lamellibranchiata of the Raritan Clays and Greensand Marls of New Jersey. By Robert P. Whitfield. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 269, with Thirty-five Plates.
This monograph was prepared for the Geological Survey of New Jersey, and is published in the series of the "Geological Survey of the United States." While the district from which the fossils described come is a limited one, it is one which, according to Professor George H. Cook, drew the attention of paleontologists earlier, and has been studied longer, "so that it is classic and typical ground for all American geologists." The boundaries of the district and its general features are carefully defined and described by Professor Cook in a preliminary note and in an accompanying map. Professor Cook also commends the author's work in bringing the fossils together and in revising and collecting imperfect descriptions, and in making new and better drawings; while the new species he has been able to add give completeness to the subject. Heretofore, many of these fossils which were described were not figured, and the descriptions were scattered in so many different works that they were practically inaccessible to most persons. Professor Whitfield has aimed to include in his report all the species of the two orders of the greensand marls and clays hitherto described and published, as well as several now made known for the first time. "It will be noticed," he observes, "that very few of the species have been recognized from localities outside of the State. It is certainly peculiar that so many local species
