Maine. Here, evidently, the moraines had come down on glaciers from the Cascade Range, the source mainly perhaps from Mount Rainier, now a lofty, snow-clad cone like Mount Hood.

The former glaciers about Puget Sound were apparently a part of the series now existing in Alaska and described by Mr. W. H. Dall. Along the railroad track, within eight or ten miles of Tacoma, was a series of twelve or fifteen low, gravel ridges as level and with as regular a slope as fortifications. They run north by east and south by west, in a course generally parallel with the Cascade Range. I could not but compare them with the series of transverse ridges on the Mount Shasta moraines, and regard them as marking the steps in the retreat of a broad, thin mass of ice extending into one of the arms of Puget Sound from the neighborhood of Mount Rainier.

The shores of Puget Sound from Tacoma to Port Townsend are lined with a series of sands and gravels capping marine clays, in all respects like the cliffs of Massachusetts Bay and the Maine coast; and indeed the scenic features of Puget Sound with its many long, narrow reaches recall the lakes of Maine and Southern Norway. But at Vancouver Island, the resemblance is still more striking. Here the rocks in several localities about Victoria, on the shores. of the Straits of Fuca, are as deeply furrowed and scored as I have seen anywhere on the coast of New England or of Norway. The trap and syenite down to the water's edge are smoothed and polished, with often deep furrows several inches wide, all running north 10° west, and south 10° east. The glacier which made them must have come from the centre of Vancouver Island, which is high and mountainous. Particularly interesting was the presence of fossil quaternary shells in the clay which covered the rocks, and which in color and scenic features exactly reproduced that formation, so familiar to me on the coast of Maine.

The clays were fine, stratified, though perhaps less so than Atlantic coast clays, with bowlders, mostly angular, but some well scratched and glacier-worn. These beds graduated above into regularly stratified pebbly, or gravelly, or sandy beds capped by black mold containing Indian shell heaps. The fossil shells and barnacles occurred from two to ten feet above the sea level. The species obtained were submitted to Mr. R. E. C. Stearns of the University of California, who kindly named them for me. They are enumerated in accordance with their relative abundance, the Cardium corbis being by far the most common.

Cardium corbis Martyn. Now a common Pacific coast shell.

Leda fossa Baird. One perfect example.

The valves of an enormous barnacle (probably Balanus tintinnabulum) frequently occurred. It lives abundantly on the rocks about Victoria.

Glacial phenomena of quite a different nature were observed. in the Yosemite Valley. From a hasty examination of the valley and its surroundings from Glacier Point, as well as different localities in the valley itself, it seemed plain enough that the valley, originally due to a series of faults as described by Professor. Whitney and Mr. King, had become filled with ice continuously with the upper valley, as high up at least as the summit of Mount Starr King, which is a rounded dome; the source of the supply being the high peaks of the Sierra, such as Mounts Dana and Lyell, which are jagged and not molded by ice, all the peaks below having been rounded and worn by ice, while the sides of the valley in the more exposed places, and the North Dome and Half Dome, have been, as described by Mr. John Muir, molded and smoothed by the ice. The walls of the outlet, or lower valley, seemed also to have been molded by ice.

The history of the valley appeared to us somewhat in this wise: After its present shape had been marked out, and the mountains round about had assumed their present shape, the result of atmospheric erosion during the later tertiary period, the climate changed, the Sierra was covered with glaciers, and the Yosemite Valley was filled to overflowing with ice. It melted, and filled the bottom of the valley, which now forms a level park. The small, low, terminal moraine at the lower end of the valley, which formerly dammed the Merced, was finally cut through by the river and the park drained, and the present aspect of this wonderful cañon succeeded. This is the history of many valleys which I have seen in New England, Labrador, and Scandinavia, and the parallelism between them seems remarkably exact.

RECENT LITERATURE.

BOBRETZKY'S RESEARCHES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CEPHALOPODA.1 This is an elaborate work on the development of the cuttle-fishes belonging to the genera Loligo and Sepia. It is based on thin sections of the eggs, and has every appearance, from the plates, of being a critical and exhaustive treatise. Although the text is in Russian, an explanation of the plates is given in German. It is unfortunate for the English reader that no synopsis of the points made by the author is given either in French or German. Professor Bobretzky is also the author of a work on the embryology of the Crustacea, published at Kiew in 1873, and of later works on the same subject. Russia is rapidly taking the foremost rank in zoology. In comparative embryology she is at this moment on the whole in advance of England, the United States, or France. Such embryologists as Kowalevsky, Metznikoff, Bobretzsky, Ganin, Melnikow, and Ussow, nearly all, we believe, trained in German universities, have carried Russian biological science to high-water mark.

NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE U. S. GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES.2— This Report shows the work done by the Survey in Colorado during 1875. Dr. Hayden announces that a map of the State is nearly ready, and when finished "Colorado will have a better map than any other State in the Union, and the work will be of such a character that it will never need to be done again. Colorado will never support so dense a population that a more detailed survey will be required.”

Part

The Report forms a bulky volume of over eight hundred pages. I., Geology, contains the report of Dr. C. A. Peale, F. M. Endlich and W. H. Holmes, and B. F. Mudge. Part II., Geography and Topography, comprises the reports of A. D. Wilson, Henry Gannett, G. B. Chittenden and G. R. Bechler. Part III., Zoology, contains the History of the American Bison, by J. A. Allen, and a Report on the Rocky Mountain Locust and other Insects now injuring or likely to injure Field and Garden Crops in the Western States and Territories, by A. S. Packard, Jr.

LIST OF THE VERTEBRATED ANIMALS IN THE LONDON ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN.3 — This list forms a bulky volume, handsomely illustrated with

1 Untersuchungen über die Entwickelung der Cephalopoden. Von DR. N. BOBRETZKY aus Kiew. (Nachrichten der K. Gesellschaft der Freunde der Naturerkenntniss, Anthropologie und Ethnographie bei der Universität Moskow. Bd. xxiv. Heft 1, Moscow, 1877. 4to, pp. 73, with ten plates.

2 Ninth Annual Report of the U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, embracing Colorado and Parts of adjacent Territories. Being a Report of Progress of the Exploration for the year 1875. By F. V. HAYDEN, U. S. Geologist. Washington, 1877. 8vo, pp. 827, with seventy plates and numerous maps.

8 List of the Vertebrated Animals now or lately living in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London. Sixth edition. 1877. London. 8vo, pp. 519.

thirty wood-cuts of many rare birds and mammals, and forms a nearly complete catalogue of all the living vertebrates received by the society during the past ten years. The volume will prove of a good deal of interest to the general student of these animals.

RECENT BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS. - Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institute. Washington. 1877. Svo, pp. 488.

On the Nymph Stage of the Embida. By R. M’Lachlan. (Extracted from the Journal of the Linnean Society, Zoology, vol. xiii.) 8vo, pp. 11, 1 plate.

The Post-Tertiary Fossils procured in the Late Arctic Expedition; with Notes on some of the Recent or Living Mollusca from the Same Expedition. By J. Gwyn Jeffreys. (From the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for September, 1877.) 8vo, pp. 12.

A Catalogue of the Birds of the Vicinity of Cincinnati, with Notes. By Frank W. Langdon, Naturalist's Agency. Salem, Mass. 1877. 8vo, pp. 17.

On the Tenacity of Life of Tape-Worms and their Larval Forms in Man and Animals. By Prof. Edward Perroncito. (Annali della Reale Accademia d'Agricoltura, 1876.) 8vo, pp. 4.

Members and Correspondents of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 1877. 8vo, pp. 46.

Address to the Biological Section of the British Association, Plymouth, August, 1877. By J. Gwyn Jeffreys. London. 1877. 8vo, pp. 9.

The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks in Franklin County, New York. By Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and H. D. Minot. 8vo, pp. 4.

Paleontological Bulletin. No. 25. Verbal Communication on a New Locality of the Green River Shales, containing Fishes, Insects, and Plants in a good State of Preservation. Made by E. D. Cope, before the American Philosophical Society, July 20, 1877. 8vo, pp. 10.

Notes of a New Genus of Annelids from the Lower Silurian. By George Bird Grinnell. (From the American Journal of Science and Arts. Vol. xiv. September, 1877.) 8vo, pp. 2.

GENERAL NOTES.

BOTANY.1

POISONOUS GRASSES. In the September number of Trimen's Journal of Botany there is an interesting note by Dr. Hance on Intoxicating Grasses, which supplements a previous article on the same subject. A grass was sent by Dr. Aitchison from Kashmir which Professor Dyer determines as Stipa Sibirica Munro. Concerning this grass, Dr. Aitchison writes (date of August 4, 1875): "I have just been collecting some good specimens of a grass that is extremely common near Gulmuz. It grows in large tussocks, and is very poisonous to horses and cattle. The cattle are too knowing and will not eat it. Horses from the plains do eat it and die from its effects, but if quickly treated recover. They become comatose and lose the power of their limbs. It grows in the Scinde Valley also. Whilst there I heard of it and the cure, namely, smoking them, by making a large fire and keeping the horse's head in

1 Conducted by PROF. G. L. GOODALE.

the smoke. The nose commences to run first, and if it does so freely the beast is safe. The natives also say that if a cow eats it they give acid, unripe apricots, or any vinegar, which aids the recovery. A large number of the horses this year at Gulmuz were poisoned by it; none died, as all smoked their horses." In Dr. Hance's previous article, mention was made of a statement by a French missionary which is materially identical with the above. Professor Dyer suggests in a note to Dr. Hance that the Stipas may be only mechanically poisonous, like Hordeum pratense, but Dr. Hance adds that though it is indisputable that various grasses in Europe and Australia cause injury or death to cattle from their irritant properties, the special symptoms in the case of the Stipa and in Melica seem opposed to such a supposition. "In a recently published translation of Ptzevalsky's travels the Alashan poisonous grass is said to be a species of Lolium, and it is added that the native herds carefully avoid eating it."

In the September number of the Botanical Gazette Dr. J. T. Rothrock has a short note upon the Leguminosa poisonous to stock. These plants are Oxytropis Lamberti in Colorado, Hosackia Purshiana in Arkansas, and two or three species of Astragalus in California.

A REMARKABLY LARGE OSTRYA VIRGINICA. Mr. Robeson, of Lenox, has sent me the dimensions of a remarkable plant of Ostrya Virginica, which I found last summer growing near the roadside in West Stockbridge, Mass. I place it on record because it is more than twice as large as the specimens of this species mentioned in any of the works on American trees. Larger specimens, if they anywhere exist, should be reported, that more accurate information may be obtained on the development, under favorable conditions, of this tree. Mr. Robeson's measurements are, girt of stem at the ground 9 feet 11 inches, at 4 feet from the ground 7 feet 2 inches; height to first branches 6 feet 4 inches; spread of branches from east to west 47 feet, from north to south 45 feet; height of tree 48 feet 7 inches. C. S. SARGENT.

ALPINE PLANTS. — Mr. C. G. Pringle, of Charlotte, Vermont, offers for exchange or sale a few sets of the Alpine plants of New England, the fruit of his extensive herborizing during the past summer in the White and Green mountains. Mr. Pringle's collections contain Gentiana Amarella var. acuta (AMERICAN NATURALIST, volume ii., page 620), Anemone multifida, Astragalus Robbinsii, Gnaphalium supinum, Orchis rotundifolia, Danthonia compressa, and all or nearly all the other rare plants of his region.

HOW PLANTS GUARD AGAINST ANIMALS AND BAD WEATHER is an English title for a German work which has been lately issued as a supplement to Botanische Zeitung. Otto Kunze, the author, has brought together within small compass a vast number of most interesting facts respecting the means by which plants protect themselves against animals and unfavorable weather. He has also presented the results of some