present work is a first installment toward a history of our fossil Coleoptera, or beetles, of which one hundred and ninety-three species are treated. Although it can not be supposed that more than a mere fragment of the vast host of insects entombed in the Tertiary rocks has been identified, such a variety and abundance of forms have been discovered as to make it clear that there has been but little important change in the insect fauna of the world since the beginning of the epoch to which they belong. In the earlier Tertiaries we have in profusion representatives of every one of the orders of insects; and every dominant type which exists to-day has been recognized. Even many of the families which have now but a meager representation have been discovered; and though many extinct genera have been recognized, no higher groups, with a single exception or two, have been founded on extinct forms. The parasitic groups are represented, and many of those which in the present time show peculiar modes of life.
Bulletins of the United States Geological Survey. Nos. 97 to 117. Washington: Government Printing Office.
No. 97 is a description of the Mesozoic Echinodermata of the United States, by W. B. Clark; No. 98, an Account of the Flora of the Outlying Carboniferous Basins of South-western Missouri, by David White; No. 99, a Record of North American Geology for 1891, by N. H. Darton; No. 100, a Bibliography and Index of the Publications of the Geological Survey, with the laws governing their printing and distribution, by P. C. Darton; No. 101, Insect Fauna of the Rhode Island Coal Field, by S. H. Scudder; No. 103, a Catalogue and Bibliography of North American Mesozoic Invertebrata, by C. B. Boyle; No. 103, High Temperature Work in Igneous Fusion and Ebullition, chiefly in relation to pressure, by Carl Harus; No. 104, The Glaciation of the Yellowstone Valley north of the Park, by W. H, Weed; No. 105, The Laramie and the overlying Livingston Formation in Montana, with map, by W. H. Weed (with report on Flora, by F. H. Knowlton); No. 106, The Colorado Formation and its Invertebrate Fauna, by T. W. Stanton; No. 107, The Trap Dykes of the Lake Champlain Region, by J. F. Kemp and V. H. Masters; No. 108, A Geological Reconnoissance in Central Washington, by J. C. Russell; No. 109, The Eruptive and Sedimentary Rocks at Pigeon Point, Minn., and their Contact Phenomena, by W. S. Bayley; No. 110, The Palaeozoic Section in the Vicmity of Three Forks, Montana, by G. P. Merrill; No. 111, Geology of the Big Stone Gap Coal Field of Virginia and Kentucky, by M. R. Campbell; No. 112, Earthquakes in California in 1892, by C. D. Perrine; No. 113, Report of Work done in the Division of Chemistry during the Fiscal Years 1891-'92 and 1892-'93, by F. W. Clarke; No. 114, Earthquakes in California in 1893, by C. D. Perrine; No. 115, a Geographic Dictionary of Rhode Island, by Henry Gannett; No. 116, a Geographic Dictionary of Massachusetts, by Henry Gannett; No. 117, a Geographic Dictionary of Connecticut, by Henry Gannett.
A History or the United States for Schools. By John Fiske, Litt. D., LL. D. With Topical Analysis, Suggestive Questions, and Directions for Teachers, by Frank Alpine Hill, Litt. D. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. xxi + 474. Price, $1 net.
It has been said that children's text-books should be written by the best authors, and the wisdom of the remark is evident from an examination of this treatise from the pen of the thoroughly equipped and facile author and lecturer, John Fiske. Prof. Fiske tells the story of America, from the voyages of the Norsemen down to the events of 1893, with such vividness that the pupil is not likely to neglect his history lesson (unless to read ahead), and with such regard for logical connection that he can not fail to gain from it a comprehensive view of the march of events. Indeed, the chief interest of this book from the scientific standpoint is that historical events are arranged in it so as to link them in natural sequence and to aid in teaching the great lesson that every effect has its cause and every cause must produce an effect. The illustrations are a striking and valuable feature of the book. Portraits are especially numerous; they include the bewigged and beruffled worthies of exploration and colonization times, British and American generals of the Revolution, our Presidents and other statesmen from Wash-
