certain that the buffalo was not in the Mississippi valley at the time of the mound builders. That people have preserved in their pottery work, or in the remains found around their sacrificial and funal fires, the images, or the bones, of all the other large animals which were found there at the time of the coming of civilized man. Nearly every mammal with which they could possibly have come in contact is represented. Even the manitre, which they could have known only by report, is very often figured by them upon their pipes and other utensils. It is hardly possible that the buffalo could have failed to be represented, if they had ever come in contact with it.

The common deer (Cervus Virginianus) seems, also, to have frequented these springs for only a few hundred years before the coming of man. It probably came some time before the buffalo, though its remains, also, are never found at such depths as would warrant one in supposing that it had been more than twice as long as the buffalo in the Ohio valley.

Beneath the levels where the remains of the Virginia deer and the buffalo abound were found numerous fragments of the horns of the caribou (Tarandas rargifer). This animal has not been found south of the State of Maine or the great lakes since the discovery of this country. The position of these remains indicates that it appeared in the Ohio valley immediately after the disappearance of the Elephas fumegerens, or mammoth. It seems, indeed, not improbable that they may have coexisted for a short time. The existence of a boreal species of mammal in this region at the time of the disappearance of the elephants makes it seem very probable that the climate, during the elephant period in this region, was much colder than is generally supposed, and that the change of temperature which accompanied, if it did not produce, the extinction of the fauna in which these animals belonged was more likely from cold to warm than from warm to cold. The fact that the representative of our American mammoth in Northern Europe and Asia was an animal as well fitted to withstand excessive cold as the polar bear, shows how unsafe it is to infer for animals of former ages the climatic restrictions which affect their living relatives.

THE TREND OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

Professor W. H. Dall read a paper at the meeting of the American Association, at Salem, "On the Trend of the Rocky Mountain Range, north latitude 60°, and its Influence on Faunal Distribution."

The paper stated that the Rocky Mountain range, between latitudes 60° and 64°, bends trending with the eastern coast; so that, instead of there being, as represented on the old maps, a straight line of mountains up to the Arctic Sea, there is an elevated plateau, only broken occasionally by a very few ranges of hills. This bend of the mountains prevented the characteristic birds of the west coast from coming north, while the eastern birds came clear to Behring's Sea, north of it, over the plateau. He also

stated that the elevation of the bottom of Behring's Straits, 180 feet, would make dry land between Asia and America, but that a deep ocean valley extended south-west from Plover Bay, just west of the Straits, along the Kamschatka coast.

REPTILIAN REMAINS. BY PROFESSOR COPE.

The fossil which Professor Cope exhibited was the almost perfect cranium of a mosasauroid reptile, the Clidastes propython. He explained various peculiarities of its structure, as the movable articulation of certain of the mandibular pieces on each other, the suspension of the os-quadratum at the extremity of a cylinder composed of the opistholic, etc., and other peculiarities. He also explained, from specimens, the characters of a large new plesiosauroid, from Kansas, discovered by William E. Webb, of Topeka, which possessed deeply biconcave vertebræ, and anchylosed neural arches, with the zygapophyses directed after the manner usual among vertebrates. The former was thus shown to belong to the true sauropterygia, and not to the streptosauria, of which Elas mosaurus was the type. Several distal caudals were anchylosed, without chevron bones, and of depressed form, while proximal caudals had anchylosed diapophyses and distinct chevron bones. The form was regarded as new, and called Polycotylusa latipinnis, from the great relative stoutness of the paddle. He also gave an account of the discovery, by Dr. Samuel Lockwood, of Keyport, of a fragment of a large dinosaur, in the clay which underlies immediately the clay marls below the lower green-sand bed in Monmouth County, N.J. The piece was the extremities of the tibia and fibula, with astragalo-calcaneum anchylosed to the former; in length, about 16 inches; distal width, 14. The confluence of the first series of tarsal bones with each other, and with the tibia, he regarded as a most interesting peculiarity, and one only met with elsewhere in the reptile compsognathus, and in birds. He therefore` referred the animal to the order symphypoda, near to compsognathus wagm. The extremity of the fibula was free from, and received into, a cavity of the astragalo-calcaneum, and demonstrated what the speaker had already asserted, that the fibula of iguanodon and hadrosaurus had been inverted by their describers. The medullary cavity was filled with open cancellous tissue. The species, which was one-half larger than the type specimen of Hadrosaurus foulkii, he named Ornthotarsus immanis. Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., xi., 117.

PAPERS READ AT THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIA

TION.

Prof. O. C. Marsh read a paper upon the "Discovery of the Remains of the Horse among the Ancient Ruins of Central America.”

The discovery of fossil human remains, accompanying the remains of the fossil horse, seems to establish the fact that the horse existed and was utilized by the aborigines of the section previous to the arrival of the Spaniards and the European horse. A number of fossil remains from that section were exhibited by Mr. McNeal.

Prof. Squires, by request, spoke in a very interesting manner upon the Migrations of Indian Tribes. He finds three centres of civilization, so called, upon this continent, and regards it as generally of local growth, and due, except in the case of Mexico, almost entirely to local influences.

Mr. N. T. True gave a paper upon "Physical Geography among the Aborigines of North America." It is a peculiarity of the Indians that they treat of generic names. Thus, an Indian has a name for his own father, but no word for fathers in general. They apply the same principle in geography, giving different names, for example, to different parts of the same river, and no one name to the whole. In answer to a question, Mr. True said that Naumkeag, the Indian name of Salem, means fish-drying place."

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Mr. W. H. Dall gave a very interesting and exhaustive paper, accompanied by a map, on the "Distribution of the Aborigines of Alaska and Adjacent Territories."

Vertebrate Remains in Nebraska. -The locality described by Prof. Marsh was the Antelope Station on the Pacific Railroad, in south-western Nebraska. While engaged in sinking a well at that place in June, 1868, a layer of bones was found by the workmen at a depth of 68 feet below the surface, which were at first pronounced to be human, but during a trip to the Rocky Mountains Prof. Marsh examined the locality and the bones, and found that the latter were the remains of tertiary animals, some of which were of great interest. The well was subsequently sunk about 10 feet deeper, and the bones obtained were secured by the professor. An examination proved that among them there were four kinds of fossil horses, one of which he described in November last as Equus parvulus. Although it was a full-grown animal, it was not more than 23 feet high. It was by far the smallest horse ever discovered. Of the other kinds of fossil horses one was of hipparion type, or the three-toed horse. Including the above the number of fossil horses discovered in this country was 17, although the horse was supposed to be a native only of the Old World, and was first introduced here by the Spaniards. Of the other remains there were two carnivorous animals, one about the size of a lynx, and the other considerably larger than a lion, ―twice as large as any extinct carnivora yet discovered in this country. Among the ruminants found in this locality was one with a double metatarsal bone, a peculiar type, only seen in the living aquatic musk deer and in the extinct anaplotherium. There were also the remains of an animal like the hog, a large rhinoceros, and two kinds of turtles. These, together forming 15 species of animals, and representing 11 genera, were all found in a space 10 feet in diameter and 6 or 8 feet in depth. It is supposed that the locality was once

the shore of a great lake, and that the animals were mired when they went down to the water to drink.

At the close of Prof. Marsh's address, Prof. Agassiz made a few interesting remarks on the possibility of determining genuine affinities from fragmentary fossil remains, after which he read a paper on the " Homologies of the Palachinidæ," partially prepared by his son, Alexander E. R. Agassiz.

Mosasauroid Reptiles. — Professor O. C. Marsh read a paper_on "Some new Mosasauroid Reptiles from the Green-sand of New Jersey." The striking difference between the reptilian fauna of the cretaceous period of Europe and the same period in America was, that in the former there were great numbers of remains of ichthyosauri and plesiosauri, while hardly a tooth or vertebra of the mosasauroids was to be found. In America, the two former kinds of reptiles appeared to be almost entirely wanting. One. or two specimens found here had been alleged to be ichthyosauri, or plesiosauri; but further examination threw strong doubts on the matter. To replace these forms, however, the mosasauroids were found in abundance. The affinities of the mosasauroids were chiefly with the serpents rather than with other reptiles, although they had certain other affinities with swarming reptiles. Professor Marsh produced some fossil remains of different specimens of mosasauroids, showing the peculiar formation of the skull. These reptiles appeared to have no hind limbs, although Cuvier thought he had detected them. The specimens found in this country, however, afforded no evidence of this. He called attention to two new forms of the family, the Macrosaurus platyspondulus and the Mosasaurus copeanus, - in which the articulation of the lower jaw was one of the most interesting features. The larger specimens of these animals showed that they must have been the monarchs of the seas of those periods, and in appearance and size not unlike the popular notion of the sea-serpent, being sometimes 75 feet long.

Professor Agassiz said that the examination of the mosasauroid remains reveals much that was new to descriptive paleontology. He was not quite satisfied that the remains showed real serpentlike affinities. The resemblances of the mosasauroids to serpents, he thought, were rather of the synthetic type than of affinity. The articulation of the lower jaw, he thought, in no way corresponded to that of serpents.

Extinct Cetacea. - Professor Cope's observations embraced a description of the characters of a very large representative of the dugong of the modern East Indian seas, which was found in a bed, either miocene or eocene, in New Jersey. It was double the size of the existing dugong, and was interesting as adding to

the series of Asiatic and African forms characteristic of American miocenes. Another type was regarded as remotely allied to squalodon; but it was indentulous, and furnished with a broad, shallow alveolus, either that left after shedding a tooth, or that adapted to a broad, obtuse tooth. It constituted a remarkable new genus, which was called Anopolonassa forcipata. It was found in postpliocene beds, near Savannah. He also exhibited

teeth of two gigantic species of chinchillas which had been discovered in the small West India island of Anguilla, which has an area of but about thirty square miles. The specimens were taken from caves, and were thought to indicate postpliocene age. With them was discovered an implement of human manufacture, -a chisel made from the lips of the shell strombusgigas. The contemporaneity of the fossils and human implements was supposed, but not ascertained. Its interest and connection with human migrations was mentioned; also the supposition of Pomel, that the submergence of the West India Islands took place since the postpliocene period.

PAPERS READ BEFORE THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT EXETER.

Report of the Committee on Ice as an Agent of Geological Change. This was a report by Mr. H. Bauerman, in which the grooving power of ice was traced, as well as its power to transport blocks to a distance, where they accumulated as mordines. He thought there was no proper means known of measuring the erosive power of glaciers, and mentioned several plans which might ultimately furnish that information, although he thought it would require national scientific co-operation.

Professor Phillips said, in reply to the latter idea, he thought a difficulty would arise in interesting nations in such a subject as cold. At the same time, unless something of the sort were done, we should know little of the glacial period. Mr. Vivian thought that the superficial action of ice had not been sufficiently taken into consideration. Devon must have been under ice during the glacial period, and he should like to see some evidences of it. Mr. Pengelly explained how certain beds had been bent on themselves, giving the idea of their having been acted upon by superficial action, along the line of least resistance. He mentioned an instance where the beds were bent against the centre of gravity. The Rev. Osmond Fisher thought the latter was in favor of ice action, instead of being opposed to it. Mr. Godwin Austen thought the report fell short of what he had expected. With regard to Mr. Vivian's theory, it had been taken into consideration by the Swiss geologists. Both Agassiz and Dr. Buckland thought that Devonshire had never been under ice, and, although that idea was perhaps premature, he could not adduce a single valley in the county whose origin could be ascribed to ice action. Without doubt Devon was under the influence of great cold, although not sufficient to support continual masses of ice. In the Chagford valley ice may once have moved. The neighborhood of Bovey also may have received a good deal of its superficial débris from ice.

Mr. George Maw, F.G.S., next read a short paper on "Insect Remains and Shells from the Lower Bagshot Leaf-Bed of Studland Bay, Dorsetshire." The author mentioned several species of insects he had met with in the above bed, as well as the shells, which have not been found before, and which are of fresh-water