Thus the seismic efforts of 1883 may be seen to have expended their force partly along the great backbone of the S. and N. American Cordillera, but more especially from the center of land E. and W. along its prime vertical from Sunda to Quito, also southwesterly by the E. coast of Spain, as well as due S. through Algeria, and S. 30° E. through Rome, Naples, Sicily, etc. Finally, the autumnal catastrophes at and near Scios, Anatolia, etc., seem to have been caused by a seismic wave, propagated along the great circle, which often agitates Janina, and produces earthquakes at Agram, where this great circle crosses the prime vertical. RICHARD OWEN. New Harmony, Ind., 27 Feb., 1884. * * * * * THE IRON INDUSTRY IN BRAZIL (PROVINCE OF MINAS GERAES.) By Prof. P. FERRAND. Up to the present time, the methods employed in the province of Minas Geraes (Brazil) for obtaining iron permit of manufacturing it direct from the ore without the intervening process of casting. These methods are two in number: 1. The _method by cadinhes_ (crucibles), which is the simpler and requires but little manipulation, but permits of the production of but a small quantity of metal at a time. 2. The _Italian method_, a variation of the Catalan, which requires more skill on the part of the workmen and yields more iron than the preceding. As these methods seem to me of interest, from the standpoint of their simplicity and easy installation, I propose to describe them briefly, in order to give as faithful and general an _aperçu_ as possible of their application. At present I shall deal with the first one only, the one called the method by _Cadinhes_. STUDY OF THE METHOD BY CADINHES. The province of Minas Geraes ocupies a vast extent in the empire of Brazil, its superficies being about 900,000 square kilometers, representing nearly a third of the total surface. The population is relatively small and is disseminated throughout a much broken country, where the means of communication are very few. So it is necessary to succeed in producing what iron is needed by means that are simple and that require but quickly erected works built of such material as may be at hand. The iron ore is found in very great abundance in this region and is very easily mined. In the center of a mass of quartzites that seem lo constitute the upper level of the eruptive grounds of the province, there are found strata of an ore of iron designated as _itabirite_--a mixture of oxide of iron and quartz. These strata are of great thickness, and have numerous outcrops that permit of their being worked by quarrying.