5. Geological Surveys of South Carolina and Kentucky.--The geological survey of South Carolina has unfortunately been stopped by the unwise action of the legislature of that State at its last session. Dr. O. M. Lieber, late the State Geologist, is occupied in preparing his final report, which will embrace Anderson and Abbeville district, and a part of Edgerfield. Dorn's gold mine is described in it.

The geological survey of Kentucky is continued with unabated zeal.* We have received the Synoptical Report for the past year-a brochure of 50 pages-by Dr. D. D. Owen, principal, aided by S. S. Lyon and Jos. Lesley, Jr., Topographical Assistants, Leo Lesquereux, Palæontological Assistant, and Dr. Robert Peter, Chemist. Dr. Owen here expresses the opinion that "the report of Mr. Lesquereux of the last season's work (now completed), is by far the most practically useful geological report on this subject (coal), which has ever appeared, not only in the United States but in any part of Europe."

In his synopsis of this forthcoming report, Mr. Lesquereux says, “The third section of the report contains a short comparison of the distribution, geologically and geographically, of the coal strata in Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania. This comparison is of high scientific interest, as it fixes the general distribution of the coal strata in the whole extent of the coal basins of the United States, and cannot but give to the logical reports of Kentucky a great value as containing the key of the general distribution of the coal. Henceforth all the reports treating of the distribution of coal strata will naturally take their guide and standard of comparison from the section in the Kentucky coal-fields."

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6. First report of Progress of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas; by B. F. SHUMARD, M.D., State Geologist. Austin, Texas, 1859. pp. 17.-We learn from this brochure that satisfactory progress has been made in the preliminary reconnaissance of the vast territory (237,500 square miles) included within the State of Texas. Dr. Shumard states that a more complete series of the geological formations exists in Texas than in any State of the Union, ranging from the Potsdam sandstone to the latest Tertiary. He has made no less than seven lines of section extending in various directions a collective distance of 1220 miles, determining his levels by the barometer. He has found time also for minute and final surveys of eleven counties and partial surveys of several others. The coal measures cover an area not less than four thousand or five thousand square miles, with a thickness of eight or nine feet of coal in about 300 feet of coal rocks. The coal is good in quality. Extensive beds of brown coal also occur in the Tertiary rocks in the eastern and middle portions of the State.

The fossil forms of the various strata in Texas are very abundant, and Dr. Shumard informs us that his collection is already very rich.

From the head waters of the Brazos river he has been fortunate enough to obtain a fine mass of meteoric iron weighing about 320 pounds, and a smaller mass of the same kind from Denton county, specimens of which have reached us.

*Notwithstanding the cramped appropriation of money for the two years past -two-thirds of the whole sum being consumed by expenses of publication, which is an absurdity unworthy of the spirited state of Kentucky.

7. Post-pleiocene Fossils of South Carolina; by FRANCIS S. HOLMES, A.M., &c. Nos. 6 to 10 inclusive, containing plates 11 to 20 inclusive. Quarto. Charleston, S. C., 1859; Russell & Ivens.-This beautiful monograph, previously noticed,* is continued in the same excellent manner in the numbers now received. The description and figures of the mollusca end with the part containing Nos. 6 and 7, and with Nos. 8, 9, and 10 commences a "Description of Vertebrate Fossils, by Prof. Jos. LEIDY." The student will refer to this memoir with particular interest at the present moment, when so much attention is being given to the occurrence of human reliquiæ with the remains of animals heretofore judged to be extinct before the human epoch. The Eocene and Post-pleiocene beds on the Ashley River are exposed to the wash of the water, and "the fossils washed from them form part of the shingle on the shore, and here become mingled with the remains of recent indigenous and domestic animals, together with objects of human art." Of those vertebrate remains actually obtained in excavations of the Post-pleiocene and Eocene formations, more confidence is felt in determining the actual age to which they belong. Both the collections submitted to Dr. Leidy by Prof. Holmes and Capt. Bowman, contain remains of the horse, ox, sheep, hog and dog, which we feel strongly persuaded, with the exception of many of those of the first mentioned genus, are of recent date, and have become intermingled with the true fossils of the Post-pleiocene and Eocene periods on the Ashley River and its tributaries. In regard to the remains of the horse from the facts related (in this memoir) we think it must be conceded that several species of this animal inhabited the country of the United States during the Post-pleiocene period, contempora neously with the mastodon, the giant sloth, and the great broad-footed bison."-pp. 99-100.

8. Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition; by HENRY YOULE HIND, M.A., Prof. of Chemistry and Geology in Univ. of Trinity Coll., Toronto. Toronto, 1859. 4to, pp. 202, with many maps, sections aud plates. This valuable Report comes to hand at too late an hour to enable us to do more than give its title, deferring to our next an analysis of its contents.

9. Geology for Teachers, Classes, and Private Students; by SANBORN TENNEY, A.M., Lecturer on Physical Geography and Natural History in the Mass. Teachers' Institutes. 12mo, pp. 311. Philadelphia, 1860.As the scope of this little work comprises the whole range of geological phenomena, it gives necessarily a very concise account of the various departments included. The matter however seems in most cases well selected, and shows the author to be acquainted with his subject. The book is illustrated by some 200 good wood-cuts, and has one excellent feature that the illustrations are taken, whenever possible, from American objects, which cannot be said of most geological text-books previously published in this country, the authors of which have generally gone to Europe for their examples. American geology should be the main subject of American text-books, and it is pleasant to see a step taken in the right direction. Our author however is not quite up to date in some instances, as in ignoring our Permian and western Jurassic beds; in including the Lias in the Oölitic system, etc.

* This Journal, xxvii. 156.

W. S.

III. ZOOLOGY.

1. On Botanical and Zoological Nomenclature; by WM. STIMPSON.A more careful attention to the subject of nomenclature is urgently demanded of the followers of all branches of Natural History. It is a subject to which too little attention has been paid in an abstract or general sense, and too much perhaps in particular cases. A comprehensive code of rules, recognised by the authority of the greater lights of science, has been always needed. This was attempted during the last century by Linnæus and Illiger, and in 1842 "Rules of Nomenclature" were drawn up by the British Association, and ratified by the American Association in 1845. These are excellent as far as they go, but need much extension and many additions, as any one may observe who attempts to decide by them all questions which occur in his experience.

On the other hand, in particular cases of species and genera, the discussion of questions of nomenclature has reached such a pitch that it is no uncommon thing to see the greater part of a new zoological work devoted to synonymy. One author, after six pages of historical and synonymical matter, evincing great critical acumen and much bibliographical research, will arrive at what appears to him to be a certain and final conclusion that the true Orthonymus aliquis is such and such a species. The next writer who succeeds him in the same field will triumphantly prove in ten pages that it is not that species at all, but the O. neminis. And so on to the end of the chapter, if it ever will have an end, which is doubtful unless some decided action is soon taken by naturalists for the purging of their favorite science from this opprobrium. After all the which have been written upon some of these cases we seem no nearer to a settlement than at first. The difficulty increases rather than diminishes, -each succeeding author putting forth views differing from those of his predecessors. All this discussion, let us bear in mind, is merely preliminary, and for the purpose of indicating with certainty an object about which the author has perhaps not a dozen words to say.

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Now it may appear at the first glance that the application of the law of priority is exceedingly simple. The name given by the first describer of a genus or species is to be respected, and applied to that genus or species throughout all time. But as soon as we come to apply this rule, we find cases without number in which complications occur, rendering limitations of the law necessary. Genera are to be subdivided, and are subdivided with different limits by different authors; the species of one are found by another to include two or three distinct forms, and so on. Some of the limitations of the law of priority have been laid down in the "Rules" of the British Association, but not enough to enable us to decide half the cases which may arise, leaving the remainder subject to the whims or dependent upon the extent of the knowledge of the author who would follow them.

In applying the great law, the most difficult question of all immediately arises, What constitutes a description? or, When has an author so designated his species that his name for it should hold? On this subject we have every variety of opinion, from that of the German ornithologists, who consider that a simple published name, referring to a specimen

SECOND SERIES, VOL. XXIX, No. 86.—MARCH, 1860.

in a museum, is sufficient, to that of the lamented Edward Forbes, who once insisted that no name proposed should be accepted unless accompanied by a Latin description or an illustrative figure. The first opinion we believe to be scouted by nine-tenths of living naturalists; the second appears to be too stringent, as an author can of course write better in his own language than in any other, though we doubt if a description appearing in Chinese would gain the least notice from modern naturalists.

The question, "What constitutes a description," can never be decidedly answered. No rule can be proposed which is universally applicable. With regard to its length;—we may say that two words are not sufficient, an hundred are; but where shall we draw the line? The two sentences of one author may be better than the two pages of another. One writer will describe an object well except in one point, in which from defective observation, a character is represented in exact opposition to the true state of the case. Some descriptions are sufficient to enable the naturalists of one country, from their collateral knowledge, to determine a species, while those of another country or continent would be left entirely in the dark. An author may publish descriptions in a work for private distribution, which will be inaccessible to the great body of naturalists. We might fill many pages with such cases as these, and yet, were rules made out applicable to each, there would still be cases constantly arising which could be decided by none of them. How then can the matter be settled in these latter instances? We will suggest a method further on.

It will be observed that it is among the more common and earliestdescribed species that the synonymic heap is greatest. This is exceedingly embarrassing to the student, who in general has occasion to use these very species, being those most easily accessible, in the course of his studies. He may find in a dozen different books the characters, anatomical or otherwise, of what appear to him a dozen different objects, since the names used may be different, and elementary works cannot be expected to go into synonymical details. At the present day, thanks to the advance of knowledge and precision, and the international exchange of scientific works, the name of an entirely new genus or species may escape the burden to which that of older species is subjected. It is with those published in the last century that the greatest trouble occurs. Investigators among antique and forgotten books are constantly finding some obscure work or paper, perhaps scarcely known out of its immediate vicinity even at the time it was published, in which names occur which must be adopted, in the opinion of some, to the exclusion of the familiar titles which have been used for half a century. The disinterment of Klein's name Cyclas is an instance of this. How strange it must seem to a conchologist of the present day to be obliged to designate the common marine Lucina by a name which has been in use seventy years for a freshwater bivalve, while this freshwater bivalve becomes Sphærium; and to use Cyclostoma for Delphinula, Terebellum for Turritella, etc. The restoration by G. R. Gray of Boddaert's names in ornithology is another instance. By the discovery of a meagre pamphlet of the eighteenth century, only two or three copies of which now exist, we find ourselves forced to change the generic names of common birds, familiar as they are by long and constant usage.

In the discussion of these questions all personal considerations should be entirely rejected. The smallest interest or convenience to the science in general, followed as it is by a republic of thousands, is of more importance than any compliment to the feelings of a living, or the memory of a deceased naturalist. In fact our mere recognition of an author's names is not of such vast importance to his reputation. His fame must rest upon a securer foundation than this. For the custom of placing the name of an author after a species described by him is not (or should not be) done for that author's personal advantage, but simply to assist us in the recognition of that species. It is a short method of referring to the place where the description of the species may be found, or enables us to distinguish it from some other to which the same name has been by mistake applied; as, Pleurotoma violacea, Hinds, non Mighels. In this view, how ludicrous it appears, to hear, as we often do, naturalists complain that if the custom of placing after a species the name of that author who first placed it in its proper genus is adhered to, more than one-half of Linné's species will be wrested from him. Does the fame of the great Linnæus depend upon the number of species he described?

We will now mention a few points concerning which great difference of opinion exists in the minds of naturalists, and which for the good of science should be immediately settled in one way or the other. The first is: shall the same generic name be allowed to occur in different departments of zoology or botany, or even in both these, or, we may add, in other sciences. Many are of the opinion that they may be used, and should not be changed, if so occurring;-in view of the great difficulty now experienced in selecting a name which is not preoccupied, and shall be at the same time descriptive or suggestive of the object intended. But what is the object of a name? Surely, the main object is to enable us to distinguish one thing from another, and from all others, that when it is used we may know what is intended, and not be forced to decide by other aids. Is it not of vastly more importance that a name should serve this purpose, than that it should remotely indicate (which is the most generally possible) some character of the object, which it may after all hold in common with an hundred others? Greek compounds are by no means exhausted yet, and if they were, we might fall back upon euphonic names, which serve the purpose however barbarous they may appear in the eyes of some. The custom of using the same name for many diverse objects is productive of serious inconveniences. If we have stars, countries, minerals, plants, vertebrates, articulates, mollusks and radiates, all named alike, some singular anomalies might occur, since we can of course reduplicate specific appellations as often as we please in different genera. For instance, suppose a travelling naturalist "making his researches in Arizona, observed specimens of the Arizona patula (hermitcrab) inhabiting the shell of Arizona patula (univalve), creeping among the roots of Arizona patula (shrub); and upon examining it anatomically, found great numbers of the Arizona patula (infusorium) living in its gills. The Arizona patula (bird) was feeding upon these crabs with great voracity," etc.

Another point. A genus may contain a vast number of species, and yet from want of profound investigations no one may see the propriety