per and third ridges in Ohio, the upper ridge being probably connected with the Chemung River outlet, and the third with the Wabash outlet.
Favoritism at Trinity House.—Prof. Tyndall published a full account, in the "Fortnightly Review" some months ago, of the transactions that led him, in 1883, to resign his position as scientific adviser to the Trinity House. The case, according to his showing, was one of the persistent exercise of personal and political favoritism by the Board of Trade in the experiments for determining what were the best lights for lighthouse purposes. In the competition between the quadriform gas-light of Mr. Wigham, a Scotch Irishman, who had the misfortune to be in trade, and the eight-wick oil-lamp of Mr. Douglass, whose brother was connected with Trinity House, the conditions were arranged so as to be more favorable to the latter. The electric light was then introduced into the competitions, and the proposition gradually assumed a form indicating a disposition to crowd Mr. Wickham out; so that Prof. Tyndall came to the conclusion that "if the treatment of the gas invention and its optical adjuncts could be regarded as a fair sample of the treatment of Ireland by England, it would be the bounden duty of every Irishman to become a Home-Ruler." The evidences of partiality becoming more and more prominent in the action of the board and its committee, Prof. Tyndall felt constrained to resign. Two months afterward the committee went to pieces. Prof. Tyndall observes that some of the parties throughout the transactions seemed to think that Ireland, and not the ships of all nations sailing to its coasts, was the chief beneficiary from the lighthouses.
Interesting Fossils of British North America.—The Cretaceous fossil plants of Port McNeill, Vancouver Island, as described by Sir William and G. M. Dawson, consist chiefly of dicotyledonous leaves, with a few fruits. Large slabs have been procured, some with perfect specimens of the leaves. There are no ferns or cycads in the collection, and conifers are rare. Among the latter are two species of Salisburia, or gingko, one of which is "a beautiful little form." The exogenous leaves are very numerous, and belong to a number of genera, with at least twenty species, giving evidence of a very rich and varied forest flora of warm temperate aspect. Sir William Dawson has made an interesting study of the Balanus hameri of the Pleistocene of Rivière Beaudette, a species which is still living in somewhat deep water on the Canadian coasts. The specimens under consideration were found farther west than any point at which the fossil had been previously observed, and are interesting from their remarkable perfection and the large masses which they form. The original attachments of the animals, so far as observed, were on pebbles on the surface of the clay, and, as these afforded space for only one or two individuals, the young were obliged to attach themselves to the old in successive generations. Most grotesque groups were thus formed, which still remain entire. Observations of peculiar varieties of the mussels Mya arenaria and Mya truncata in the modern sea and in the Pleistocene have led the same author to remark upon the interesting feature of "the companionship of these allied species in the North Atlantic throughout the Pleistocene and modern periods, and their range of varietal forms applicable to each, according to the conditions to which they have been exposed, along with their continued specific distinctness, and the preference of each for certain kinds of environment; so that in some places one and in others the other predominates, while this relative predominance, as well as the prevalence of certain varietal forms, might no doubt be reversed by change of climate or depth."
The Cretaceous Inland Sea.—In the course of two years' study of the northern and eastern terminations of the Texas Cretaceous deposits, Prof. Robert T. Hill has found that the marine sedimentation of both divisions of the formation was limited on the north by an older continental shore line, the present remnant of which extends from the Ouachita River, near Malvern and Hot Springs, Arkansas, almost due west through Indian Territory into the Panhandle of Texas. The whole Cretaceous history, including the upper and lower systems, can be summed up as two profound subsidences, separated by a land epoch, which have left in
