~ te Batwin ne + 
cst Siieeacs seca 
tetitmtwhehede’ 


oy 
babener nae 
reat ast: 


nites, 


ICBL TS Nt 


@E0LOGS 


GEOLOGY LIBRARY 
Return this book on or before the 
Latest Date stamped below. 


University of Illinois Library 


AUG 2 1) 1975 


L161—H41 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 


htto://www.archive.org/details/oanamericangeolo51890desm 


ALLIED SCIENCES. 


EDITORS AND PROPRIETORS. 


SAMUEL CABvIN, Jowa City, Lowa. 

EDWARD W. CLAYPOLE, Akron, Ohio. 

Joun Everman, aston, Pa. 
PERSIFOR FRAZER, Philadelphia, yeu ARTHUR LAKES, Golden, Colo. 
Rogsert Hay, Function City, Kansas. ANDREW C. LAWSON, Oftawa, Ont. 
CLARENCE L. HERRICK, Cincinnati, O. EDWARD O. ULRICH, Mewport, Ky. 

ISRAEL C. Wuite, Morgantown, W. Va. 

ALEXANDER WINCHELL, Ann Arbor, Mich. 

Newton H. WINCHELL, Minneapolis, Minn. 


VOLUME V. 


Faas JANUARY TO JUNE 1890. 


MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 


1890. 


THE SWINBURNE PRINTING COMPANY. ‘ 


Til 


CONTENTS. 
JANUARY NUMBER. 
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. [Portrait.]................ 1 
Classification and origin of the chief geographic features 
of the Texas region. [Map| Roperr T. HILL...... 9 
On Laurentian as applied to a quaternary terrane. 
ree TAMURA se Ary ciate Sh loa, Mae 29 
Casts of Scolithus flattened by pressure. [ Illustrated. ] 
MISE OW OAH (hoor ct) Minis todeete se biess el oe.d pba ou 
Extinct volcanoes in Colorado. [Illustrated.] ArrHuR 
ORR too Veh veh tty, Ms call all aya hark naa ad vo 38 


Notes on the geology and scenery of the islands form- 
ing the southerly line of the Santa Barbara chan- 
nel. | Liustraped. |." Lorenze-GiyY ares 02 o0s%5. 43 


Review of recent geological literature.—North American geology and pal- 
eontology, 8. A. Miitier, 52.—A dictionary of the fossils of Penn- 
sylvania, J. P. Lestey, 53.—Report on the lands of the Buena 
Vista company, W. H. Rurrner, 53.—Development of some Si- 
lurian brachiopoda, BrrcHer and Cuiarxk, 54.—Report on the 
geology of the Rainy lake region, A. C. Lawson, 55.—Metamor- 
phism of rocks, A. Irvine, 56.—Geology of Colorado ore deposits, 
A. Laxes, 57.—New fossils from Manitoba, J. F. WuHiTraveEs, 58. 
—Geological survey of Minnesota, 17th report, N. H. Wrncue.Lt, 
58.—The rivers and valleys of Pennsylvania, W. M. Davis, 60— 
The structure of drumlins, WARREN UpHam, 61. 


Recent Publications. 61. 


Correspondence.—Letter from M. A. Levy, 62.—The fossils of the Trin- 
ity beds, Rost. T. Hix, 62. 
Personal and Scientific News, 62. 


FEBRUARY NUMBER. 
Notes on a Kansas salt mine. [Illustrated.] Roprrt 


LUT AN GES BAC Gn SDS ALE SASF eG UME IUNEMSM PL ANS GO fh 65 
Classification and origin of the chief geographic features 

ofthe Texas region) [11.| Rost. T. Hinn.... 2... ,. 68 
On the Silurian system of rocks. [Illustrated.] RopEr- 

ae PREPS VET ROEILSON 00) )0 sin Sy al, we ows see belay eee 80 
Illustration of the “level of no strain” in the crust of 

the earth. [Illustrated.] E. W.CuaypoLe......... 83 
The origin of the present outlines of the Bermudas. J. 

pias Bad Dal Teo le eid AD: Sra eve a 88 
On some of the causes of extinction of species. J. M. 

BL ofa Gi LM nal a a a ae eR PA Pe 100 
An attempt to explain glacial lunoid furrows. A..S. 

ER) So 0 OE GM GATED A Ree toatl: Se aa a HOA A 104 


Editorial Comment.—The Azoic system. 106. 


Review of recent geological literature.—Contributions to the micro- 
paleontology of Canada, E. O. Uxricn, 107—Kentucky fossil 


ans es OL 


“IV ; Contents. 


shells, from the Silurian and Devonian, H. Merrierotrn, 107.— 
Contributions to Canadian Paleontology, J. F. Wurreaves, 108— 
On the form and position of the sea level, with special reference to 
its dependence on superficial masses symmetrically disposed 
about a normal to the earth’s surface, R. 8. Woopwarp, 109.— 
On invertebrate fossils from the Pacific coast, C. A. Wuirr, 109.— 
Subaérial decay of rocks and the origin of the red color of certain 
formations, I. C. Russet, 110.—The geology of Nantucket, N.S. 
SHALER, 111. 
Recent Publications, 114. 


Personal and Scientific News.—Winter meeting of the Geological Socie- 
ty of America, 117,—Boston Society of Natural History, 122.—Mis- 
cellaneous personal and scientific news, 124. 


MARCH NUMBER. 


On the dikes near Kennebunkport, Maine. [Illustrated. | 
AROS RC TEND cre WN IRAUNun aR RUE Ain LOCA CII: Nadi i) nia ee 129 
Triassic traps of Nova Scotia, with notes on other in- 
trusives of Pictou and Antigonish counties, N.S., 


oy AINA NLP: TSU UO) 2 aaa aS REL TU RR ASP Mt ey ea PC 140 
Batocrinus caivini, a new Burlington crinoid. [Illustrat- 

Se AR SMO WRENS at cup ee tcoun ez eieccy ae eet ei al sta 146 
The training of a geologist. JoHn C. BRANNER.......- 147 
The Triassic flora of Richmond, Virginia. JuLES MaArR- 

SU cise cs Ue ese tees tue Aine adh a rah ea a a 160 


Note on the occurrence of native copper in the Animi- 
kie rocks of Thunder bay. ANDREW C. Lawson... 174 


Review of recent geological literature. Geology of the quicksilver depos- 
its of the Pacific slope. Gro. F. Becker, 178.—On new plants 
from the Erian and Carboniferous, and on the characters and 
affinities of paleozoic gymnosperms. Sir J. Witziiam Dawson 
180.—Cretaceous reptiles from the western states. O.C. Marsn 
181,—Untersuchungen ueber Gesteine und Mineralien aus West 
Indien. J. H. Kioos, 183—A catalogue of North American Crus- 
tacea confined to the non-trilobitic genera. ANnrHony W. VoGDEsS. 
183.—Note on the discovery of trilobites in the Neobolus beds of 
the Salt Range. Wriam Kina, 183.—-Elemente der Palzeontolo- 
gie. SrermsMANN und Daperriery, 183.—Devonian plants from 
Ohio. J. S. Newsperry, 184.—Economic geologic survey in 
Georgia and Alabama. J. W. Spencer, 185. 


Correspondence.—Sketch of Dr. David Honeyman, 185.—Pre-glacial 
channels at the falls of the Ohio. Bryson, 186.—Mr. H. T. Cres- 
son and the Delaware river dwellings. SrrepHen D. Pept, 188.— 
The level of no strain, W. M. Davis, 190, 

Personal and Scientific News.—The South African Gold Fields, 191.— 
Mud eruptions in Asia, 191.—Discovery of Phosphate in Florida, 
192.—Seientific expedition to Yucatan and Mexico, 192.—Geology 
at the University of Alabama, 192. 


APRIL NUMBER. 


Certain forms of Straparollus from southeastern Iowa. 
(iliwstrated.|) \CHARLES, BR. KIEVES hoch a ae «alae 193 

The use of the terms Laurentian and Newark in geolog- 
icalipreatises.<\)'C. bb PITCHCOUR.) oo) ae eie wohl 197 


ie Contents. V 
The glacial geology of the Irondequoit region. [ Illus- 


Semen Ne TAREE 1. DRYER Gs. ¢ 6 Bielele cemuteden lb Aut 202 
Note on a specimen of Oonularia missouriensis Swal- 
PPS CSUN | encuee gl ak ada SN 207 
The session of the International Geological Congress 
in Philadelphia. Prrstror FRAZER... ..-........006. 208 
The geological history of the Quebec group. TT. STERRY 
MTOM Mat Stes 6585) nr) Bhd Bsn eiie Mha gs ds folate da 212 
The making of Pennsylvania. E. W.CLAYPOLE....... 225 


Editorial Comment.—Award of the Hayden memorial medal to Prof. 
James Hall, 236. 

Review of Recent Geological Literature.—The geology of Ontario with 
special reference to economic minerals, Ropgert Bein, 237.— 
Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada: annual report 
for 1887-88, A. R. C. Setwyn, director, 240.—On the fossil plants 
in the Ravenhead collection, Ropert Krpston, 249.—Transactions 
of the twentieth and twenty-first annual meetings of the Kansas 
Academy of Science, 249.—Application of descriptive geometry to 
problems in locating faulted beds or veins, 250.—Bibliography of 
vertebrate paleontology for 1889, Joun EyERMAN, 250. 

Correspondence.—Additions and corrections to Miller’s North American 
Paleontology, C. L. Herrick, 253. 


Personal and Scientific News, 255. 
MAY NUMBER. 
Observations onthe Keokuk species of Agaricocrinus. 
Piliiserated.| iC. ELS GORDON i 5 dees Sine 257 
Drainage systems of New Mexico. RatpoS. Tarr.... 261 
New Lamellibranchiata. [Illustrated.] E.O. Unricw... 270 


Leo Lesquereux. [Portrait.]| Epwarp OrTon......... 284 
Artesian wells in Kansas and causes of their flow. [TIllus- 
eNO IRD EDA) Sk PA MEUM Ue ge tal he ty 296 
Srvaralogvenesis, 1. FENSOLDT. 00 eG ihe ie als © 301 
The Brenham, Kiowa county, Kansas, meteorites. N. H. 
WiINCHELL and Jamus A. Dopem..... ey.) es 309 


Review of Recent Geological Literature.—Report of the School of Mines 
of Colorado, Laxss, 312.—The evolution of climate, James GEIKIE, 
315.—Mammalian remains from the southern states, Josep 
Leipy, 314.—Eighth annual report of the U. S. Geological Survey, 
314.—The Potomac or younger Mesozoic flora, W. M. Fonrarnr, 
315. 

Correspondence.—The genus Terebellum in American Tertiaries, Gin- 
BERT D. Harris, 315.—The American Neocomian and the Gryphea 
pitcheri, Jutes Marcovu, 315. 

List of Recent Publications.—317. 

Personal and Scientific News.—Coal in the south of England, 318.—The 
general organizing committee for the Philadelphia meeting of the 
International Congress of Geologists, 319. 


Span 


VI Contents 


JUNE NUMBER. 
A geological survey of the Concho country [map]. W. F. 
OumMING and OTTO LERCH? 34.50. wet cole eats eee 


On the Maquoketa shales, and their pourelabibn with 
the Cincinnati group of southwestern Ohio. Bae 


trated]. JosEPH F. JAMES...0...4..5.. mAb 2 335 
The Lower and Middle Taconic of Europe and North 
America. [Illustrated]. Junes Marcou........... mcr 
Crystallogenesis. [11]. H. Hensoupr............ Ren) hie Fil5 


Editorial Comments—The Philadelphia meeting of the International 
Congress of Geologists, 379 


Correspondence—Postscript to the article on the Maquoketa shales, 
Jos. F. James, 394. 

Review of recent Geological literature—The Trenton limestone as a 
source of petroleum and inflammable gas, EpwArp ORTON, 388 


List of Recent publications, 391 


Personal and scientific news 394 


Copyright, N. H. Winchell, 1889. 


s 


THE 


AMERICAN GEOLOGIST — 


Vou. V. JANUARY, 1890. No. 1. 


HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT. 


From observations and researches by J. V. Brower, Commissioner in charge of an 
expeditionary examination of the Itasca Basin, on behalf of the Minnesota Histor- 
ical Society, and manuscript prepared by Mrs. Jane S. Howard, only surviving 
member of deceased’s family.* 

The Peace of Utrecht, 1713, controlled the destinies of an 
English gentleman of education and refinement, who came to 
America during the reign of Queen Anne. Le settled in 
Albany county, New York, opening an English school, and his 
descendants continued their residence there for a hundred 
years. One of the descendants of this family was Col. Law- 
rence Schoolcraft, a revolutionary soldier, commanding in the 
war of 1812 the first regiment contributed by his locality. He 
married Miss Barbara Rowe, of noble character and German- 
parentage. 

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the subject of this brief sketch, 
was the seventh of a large family, the issue of this union, enjoy- 
ing the advantages of an early education. He pursued an 
advanced course at Union college, Schenectady, and at Middle- 


*There is a biographical sketch of Mr. Schoolcraft in his Personal 
Memoirs, with a portrait, and another in the National Mugazine, vol. v1 
(1855), accompanied by a portrait. There is a sketch also in the 
Annals of Iowa, July, 1865. Rey. W. T. Boutwell has also a sketch of 
his expedition of 1832 in the Minn. Hist, Col. vol. 1, p. 153. The remarks 
of Dr. G. W. Samson, president of Columbia College, at Schooleraft’s 
funeral, have also been published in pamphlet form.—[ Ep. } 


2 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


bury, Vermont. When the attention of this country was 
drawn to the resources of the Mississippi valley, he accepted 
the offer of DeWitt Clinton, at the age of twenty-four, to 
engage in an exploration of the country west of the “Great 
River,” spending two years in the territory now comprising 
the states of Missouri and Arkansas, publishing on his return 
two treatises which brought his capabilities as a geologist and 
geographer before the public; and his services were called for 
as geologist and mineralogist to the expedition of Lewis Cass 
from Detroit, Mich., 1820, to the sources of the Mississippi. 

Leaving New York city by stage March 5th, 1820, visiting 
Niagara from Buffalo with a horse and buggy, embarking for. 
Detroit on the steamer Walk-in-the-Water, he arrived at his 
destination on May 8th. The Cass expedition, with School- 
craft as a scientific attaché, left Detroit May 24th, 1820, and 
by an extraordinary canoe voyage, memorable in the history 
of the Northwest, proceeded through the great lakes to the 
west end of lake Superior, up the St. Louis river, portaging to 
the Mississippi, and up the great river to Cass lake, thence 
down the river by way of Fort Snelling, visiting Carver’s cave, 
proceeding to Prairie du Chien, across the territory of Wiscon- 
sin, arriving at Detroit September 2ord. 

During this extraordinary canoe voyage, Mr. Schoolcraft 
made daily observations of geologic formations and mine- 
ralogic deposits through the entire region traversed, including 
the copper mines of lake Superior, the lead mines at Galena 
and the clay deposits at Milwaukee, making a detailed report 
to the secretary of war, accompanied by charts of all his obser- 
vations. 

The Cass expedition failed to discover the great basin at the 
headwaters of the Mississippi. However, the peculiar capabil- 
ities of Mr. Schoolcraft, indicated by his scientific report to 
the authorities at Washington, placed his services in demand, 
and in 1830, as United States superintendent of Indian affairs 

ant for Michigan, residing at Sault De Ste. Marie, he received in- 
structions from the Department at Washington to visit the 
Northwest in charge of an expedition ostensibly for confer- 
ences with the Indians, but in reality to determine the true 
source of the Mississippi. 

Not until 1832 did the Schoolcraft expedition make its final 
and successful start accompanied by the Rev. W. T. Boutwell, 


PORN E ER HORAN e y © Lot oLUe eemee eS ee | Fan 
: ann \y aie “ony i site " ues 1 


} Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.— Howard. 3 


representing the board of commissioners for foreign missions. 

The Lac La Biche was known to exist, and Mr. Schoolcraft 
was determined to reach it, earrying out his other objects of 
observation while enroute by canoe vovage through lake 
Superior. Messrs. Schoolcraft and Boutwell were personal 
associates, voyaging in the same canoe through lake Superior, 
and while conversing on their travels along the south shore of 
the great lake, the name “Itasca” was selected in the following 
manner, in advance of its discovery by Schoolcraft’s party : 

Mr. Schoolcraft, having uppermost in his mind the source 
of the river, expecting and determined to reach it, suddenly 
turned and asked Mr. Boutwell for the Greek and Latin def- 
inition of the headwaters or true source of ariver. Mr. Bout- 
well, after much thought, could not rally his memory of Greek 
sufficiently to designate the phrase, but in Latin selected the 
strongest and most pointed expression— Veritas Caput. 

This was written on a slip of paper and Schoolcraft struck 
out the first three and last three letters and announced to Mr. 
Boutwell' that ‘Itasca shall be the name.” However, Mr. 
Schoolcraft says: ‘Having previously got an inkling of some 
oftheir (Indian) mythological and necromantic notions of the 
origin and mutations of the country, which permitted the use 
of a female name for it, I denominated it Itasca.” 

The party passed over nearly the identical route traversed 
by the Cass expedition, reaching Cass lake July 10th, 1832, 
and upon the advice, information and guidance of Ozawindib, 
a Chippewa chief, in birch canoes proceeded up the main trib- 
utary of Cass lake, up the smaller or Schoolcraft fork of the 
Mississippi, thence by portage to the east shore of the east 
arm of Itasca lake, and to camp on Schoolcraft island. Dur- 
ing the day Mr. Schoolcraft traversed the entire shores of 
Itasca, erecting the Stars and Stripes on the island; he 
then returned to Cass lake, thence to Leech lake, down the 
Crow Wing river, and to his home and family. 

For nearly fifty years Mr. Schoolcraft was in the service of 
the government of the United States as a geologist, mineralo- 
gist and geographer, and his reports and communications are 
voluminous, and, for the period of time during which his 
observations were made, were considered highly valuable and 


'T have a vivid description of the time, place and manner of select- 
ing this name, from Mr. Boutwell in person.—J. V. B. 


CCAD RETR CLSTYOR AN ek an Uo age a 


} 


4 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


creditable as well to himself as to the authority he fearlessly 
represented. 3 

His six quarto volumes, “Archives of Aboriginal Knowl- 
edge,” comprising antiquities, languages, ethnology and gen- 
eral history of the Indian tribes of North America, attracted 
much attention at the time as a valuable addition to Indian 
archeology and history, and Mr. Schoolcraft received numer- 
ous tokens of appreciation not only in this country, but from 
many scientific and historical associations in foreign lands. 
At the time ofits publication a scholar writing to the “Phila- 
delphia Bulletin” said: ‘“‘The ethnological researches re- 
specting the red men of America by Henry R. Schoolcraft,’ is 
a monument of genius, reflecting honor on the country, and 
placing its author among the very highest scholars of the age 
and of the world. Init we find accumulated with a research 
which defies appreciation, an industry which is incredible, and 
a quick piercing genius which reads the value of every fact at 
a glance, a mass of material which will in future ages reveal 
to the scholar facts which we are as yet far from being able to 
develop. We know that the work and the author have been 
praised ere now, but we have never yet heard the one or the 
other estimated as they deserve; for certain we are that Ger- 
many has no better reason to boast of Hammer, Purgstall, 
Kaiser or Grimm; France of Michelet or Lajard; or England 
of any of her long array of antiquarians from Leland to Pals- 
grave, than we have to boast of Schoolcraft, as shown in the 
great work in question.” 

In 1823, while at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, he became 
acquainted with John Johnston/Esq., and his attractive fam- 
ily. Mr. Johnston was an§Irish gentleman—in fact, an aristo- 
crat—of superior education and courtly manners, who claimed 
among his kinsmen the bishop of Dromore and Mr. Saurin, 
attorney general of Ireland. Mr. Johnston was attracted by 
the beautiful daughter of the,renowned {Indian chief of the 
Chippewa nation, Waubojeeg, and married her. Their eldest 
daughter Jane, was sent in her} early childhood to Dublin to 
be educated under the supervision of Mr. Johnston’s kindred 
there. Mr. Johnston’s means enabled him to dispense a hos- 
pitality almost princely, and Mr.!Schoolcraft was among those 
who shared in it; and when Miss Jane Johnston returned 
home Mr. Schoolcraft wast immediately captivated, not only 


fi Henry Rowe Schoolcratt— Howard. 5 


by her personal attractions, but by the grace and culture of a 
mind that added to the advantages of education and accom- 
plishment, the beautiful refinement of a poetic nature. 

After her marriage to Mr. Schoolcraft she was a true sym- 
pathizer in all his pursuits and a valuable helper. The 
romantic pride which she felt because of her descent on the 
mother’s side from one of the native kings of the country, 
induced her to perfect herself in the Indian language and thus 
she became of eminent service in promoting her husband’s 
knowledge of, and influence among, the tribes. 

Mr. Schoolcraft was retained in government service at Sault 
Ste. Marie for some ten years, when he was assigned to the 
“Agency” at Mackinac, where his home was a social center, 
and where many travelers of distinction found a generous 
hospitality under his roof. About the year 1840 he returned 
to his native state and located in the city of New York. In 
1842 he made his long desired visit to England, and while he 
was absent his wife died. 

Of his four children who were born at Sault Ste. Marie, two 
died in early childhood, one son and a daughter reaching 
maturity. During the war between the States, the son, as a 
member of a volunteer company from New York, served under 
Gen. McClellan and was in the seven days battles around 
Richmond. He succumbed to the hardships of a soldier’s 
life and died in the hospital at Elmira, N. Y., in April, 1865. 
His daughter married Mr. B.S. Howard of Beaufort county, 
South Carolina. Mr. Howard having office under the Confed- 
erate government naturally made his home at Richmond, Va., 
where he and his wife still reside. 

About five years after the death of his wife, Mr. Schoolcraft 
married Miss Mary Howard, an estimable lady from South 
Carolina, who was in his last years (when paralysis had made 
it necessary that much of the labor of his pen should be done 
through others) his faithful amanuensis. 

For many years he had been a sufferer as the result of his 
exposures as an explorer in the wilds of the then un- 
known West. He was crippled by rheumatic affections, and 
for several years he could only move with the help of crutches, 
and though not able to go out as usual, he loved to gather his 
friends about him. His society was much sought by those 
who never suspected his infirmities and pains as he sat and 


ye Te het PAP en eee el a” 7 ee PS ha 
PDT Rae MUD OY, nan ae 


6 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


filled up the moments with vivacious and fascinating conver- 
sation, so completely did his spirit rise above his physical 
condition. 

Mr. Schoolcraft was a large-hearted Christian man, a kind 
father and a true friend, ever ready to extend a helping hand 
to those who needed it. He was of a deep religious spirit and 
a rich Christian experience. For many years he was an elder 
in the Presbyterian church. At the time of his death he was 
a member of the “New York Avenue Church” in Washington, 
D.C. He believed the Bible from end to end to be the truth 
—“the word of God.” Unlike many professional and contro- 
versional defenders of the truth, he had a profound convic- 
tion of the authenticity and inspiration of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures and spoke as one, every power of whose mind had been 
mastered and bowed in reverent subjection before a teacher 
manifestly divine. 

On the Sabbath before his death, conversing with his friend 
Dr. Samson, of Columbia College, who had called to see him, 
he went overin a calm and delightful review his whole course 
as a christian man. When allusion was made to the services 
he had rendered to science by his laborious and sacrificing 
life, he exclaimed with earnestness, “that is nothing, nothing 
compared with my interest in Jesus Christ as my Redeemer.” 
He died on the 10th of December, 1864. His noble mind 
triumphed till the end; calm, clear and thoughtful as when 
he sat with his pen at his literary toil, until he breathed his 
last. 

The funeral services were conducted by Rev. Dr. Gurley of 
the Presbyterian church, Rev. Dr. Hall of the Episcopal and 
Rev. Dr. Samson, president of Columbia College; and his 
remains were laid in the congressional cemetery in Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

We must judge of Mr. Schoolcraft as of the times in which 
he lived—geology then being in its infancy in the western 
country. 

As an explorer and discoverer he knew no failure, and his 
portly physical manhood permitted him to overcome almost 
insurmountable obstacles. He has been very generally accred- 
ited with the discovery of the true source of the Mississippi, 
although in late years, the fact that Wm. Morrison had 


Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.— Howard. 7 


reached the great basin in 1803 has caused some detraction 
from that claim. 

The memory of the subject of this brief memorial will live in 
the history of the West until time shall turn all things to 
eternity. 


LIST OF SCHOOLCRAFT’S PUBLICATIONS. 


Scenes and adventures amid the semi-Alpine country of the Ozark 
mountains of Missouri and Arkansas with a view of the lead mines of 
Missouri, New York, 1819; Philadelphia, Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 
1 vol. 8vo, pp. 256. 1853. 

View of the lead mines of Missouri; including observations on Mis- 
souri and Arkansas; New York, 1819, 8vo. 

Journal of a tour into the interior of Missouri and Arkansas, per- 
formed in the years 1818-19, map, London, 1821, 8vo, pp. 102. (In 
Phillips New voyages and Travels, vol. Iv). 

Narrative journal of travels from Detroit, through the great lakes to 
the sources of the Mississippi river in 1820; Albany, 1821. 8vo. 

Remarks on the prints of human feet observed in the secondary 
limestone of the Mississippi valley. Am. Jour. Sci. vol. v, p. 223; 
Ibid, vol. xiv, p. 22. 

Remarkable fossil tree found about 50 miles southwest of lake 
Michigan by his excellency Goy. Lewis Cass and Mr. Henry R. School- 
craft in August, 1821, on the river Des Plaines in the N. E. angle of the 
state of Ilinois—extracted from a paper presented by Mr, Schoolcraft 
Dh American Geological Society. Am. Jour. Sci. vol. iv, p. 285, 

Account of the native copper on the southern shore of lake Superior, 
with historical citations and miscellaneous remarks, in a report to the 
Department of War. Am. Jour. Sci. vol. v, (1822) p. 201. 

Notice of a recently discovered copper mine on lake Superior, with 
ee other localities of minerals. Am. Jour. Sci. vol. vir, (1823 
p. 43. 

Travels in the central portions of the Mississippi valley, (1821); 
New York, 1825, 8vo. 

On the existence of lunar tides in the waters of the great North 
American lakes. (Letter to major Henry Whiting). Am. Jour. Sci. 
vol. xx, (1831) p. 213.) 

Discourse delivered before the Historical Society of Michigan, 
Detroit. (Noticed in Am. Jour. Sci. vol. xx, 1831, p. 166. Another 
address on the condition of the North American Indians; May, 1832, is 
noticed in vol. xxrv, p. 190). 

Narrative of an expedition through the upper Mississippi to Itasca 
lake, the actual source of this river, embracing an exploratory trip 
through the St. Croix and Burntwood (Brulé) rivers in 1832, under the 
direction of Henry R. Schoolcraft. Harper Brothers, New York, pp. 
307, 8vo, 1833. (Besides the narrative this work embraces the follow- 
ing by Mr. Schoolcraft: Localities of minerals observed in 1831 and 
1832 in the northwest; Indian languages, part of a course of lectures 
delivered before the St. Mary’s committee of the Algic society). 

Discourse on the origin and character of the North American In- 
dians. Mich. Hist. Soc. Sketches, 1834; small, 12mo, p. 51. 

Algic researches, comprising inquiries respecting the mental char- 
acteristics of the North American Indians; Harper Brothers, New 
York, 2 vols. 12 mo. 

On the action of the North American lakes; (noticed in Am. Jour. 
Sci. vol. xxiv, 1842, p. 368 


8 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


Observations respecting the Grave Creek mound in western Virginia. 
Am. Eth. Soc. Trans. vol. 1, p. 367, 1845. 

Oneota; characteristics of the red race of America; New York and 
London, 1845, 8vo. 

Incentives to the study of the ancient period of American history. 
Address before the New York Historical Society, 17 Noy. 1846. WN. Y. 
Hist. Soc. Proc. 1846. 

Notes on the Iroquois, Albany, 1847, 8vo, pp. 498. 

The Indian in his wigwam, Buffalo and: Auburn, 1848, 8vo. 

Personal memoirs of a residence of thirty years with the Indian 
tribes on the American frontiers, 1812-1842; Lippincott, Philadelphia, 
1851. [Portrait of the author]. 

Summary narrative of an exploratory expedition to the sources of 
the Mississippi river in 1820, resumed and completed by the discovery 
of its origin in Itasca lake in 1832, Philadelphia, Lippincott, Grambo 
& Co., 1854. (Besides the narrative the following of Mr. Schoolcraft’s 
papers are included in the appendix: Report on the copper mines of 
Jake Superior; Observations on the mineralogy and geology of the 
country embracing the sources of the Mississippi river and the great 
lake basins; Report on the value and extent of the mineral lands of 
lake Superior, in reply to a resolution of the United States congress ; 
Rapid glances at the geology of western New York beyond the Rome 
summit, in 120; A memoir on the geological position of a fossil tree 
in the secondary rocks of Illinois, 1822; A letter embracing notices of 
the zoology of the northwest, addressed to Dr. Mitchell on the return 
of the expedition; Memoranda of climate, phenomena, and the distri- 
bution of solar heat, in 1820; Limits and range of the Cervus sylvestris 
in the northwestern parts of the United States; Remarks on the occur- 
rence of native silver and ores of silver in the stratification of the 
basins of lakes Huron and Superior; A general summary of the 
localities of minerals observed in the northwest; Geological outlines 
of the valley of the Takwymenon, in the basin of lake Superior; Sug- 
gestions respecting the geological epoch of the deposit of the red sand- 
stones of the St. Mary’s falls, of Michigan). 

A curt history of the United States (In the Hebraic manner). 
Knickerbocker Gallery, 1855. Has a portrait of Schoolerait. 

Archives of aboriginal knowledge; original papers laid before con- 
gress respecting the history, antiquities, language, etc., of the Indian 
tribes of the United States. The title of this work as published (2nd 
edition) by Lippincott, Grambo & Co., Philadelphia, is as follows: 
Information respecting the history, condition and prospects of the 
Indian tribes of the United States, collected and prepared under the 
direction of the bureau of Indian affairs, per act of Congress of March 
3rd, 1847, by Henry R. Schoolcraft, LL.D. Dllustrated by S. Eastman, 
captain U.S. army, 6 vols. 4to, 1852-1855. Volume vi has a portrait 
of the author as frontispiece. The second edition was much corrected 
and improved. 

Discovery of a coal basin on the western borders of the Lake of 
the Woods, Am. Jour. Sct. (2) vol. xrx, (1855) p. 232. 

Memoir on the history and physical geography of Minnesota, Minne- 
sota Historical Collections, vol. 1, p. 108. 

Myth of Hiawatha and other oral legends mythologic and allegoric, 
of the North American Indians, 12mo, 1856, Philadelphia, Lippincott, 
(and London). 

In 1844 Mr. Schoolcraft made a report to the New York Historical 
Society on the aboriginal names and geographical terminology of the 
state of New York. The next year he read a paper before the same 
society entitled ‘‘ Historical considerations on the siege and defence of 
fort Stanwix in 1777.’’ Healso submitted to the Smithsonian Insti- 


\\t 


ae coloaawo eS 


S 1 if 


AN APPROXIMATE MAP 


Ny; mas : FI Bi OF THE 


\F- 


Se TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY. 


STARR / \ 
/ OF THE 


TEXAS REGION. 


BY 


HIDALGO 


ROBERT T. HILL. 


Teh ee er 
Daltaw ~ 1 sherman | wawsroné | bcuiutRee 


 NGR IH. | ie 


PLAINS, 
| | 


DEAF Su rn 


PARMER | CASTRO 


s 
BAYLtY j 


= 


COCHRAN | HOCKLEY 


awsan Borden)! I 


Sup 
ios 


Geographic Features of Texas — Hill. 9 


tution a plan for the investigation of American ethnology, and con- 
tributed to the Danish Society of Northern Antiquaries archeological 
investigations on western Virginia, Ohio and Canada. 

“He wrote also: The rise of the west! ora prospect of the Mississippi 
valley, a poem; Gehale, an Indian lament; Indian melodies; The 
man of bronze; Iosco, orthe vale of Norma: Talladega, a tale of the 
Creek war; Helderbergia, an apotheosis of the anti-rent war (anony- 
mous) ;’’ [Annals of Iowa]. - An allegorical poem of his also appears in 
his ‘‘Journal of a tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansas,’’ 
published in Phillips’ ‘‘New voyages and travels,’’ vol. rv, entitled 
‘*Transallegania, or the groans of Missouri.’’ 


CLASSIFICATION AND ORIGIN OF THE CHIEF GEOGRAPHIC 
FEATURES OF THE TEXAS REGION.! 


By Rogert T. HILL, Austin, Texas. 
I. 

In this paper it is proposed to give a brief classification of 
the topographic and geologic features of the extensive area of 
Texas. Evidently so brief a mention of this vast region will 
be neither exhaustive nor detailed; it is a preliminary state- 
ment of some of the great features which will be more accu- 
rately delineated by those who with better facilities will here- 
after conduct accurate surveys of this region, which has as yet 
been only partially reconnoitered.’ 

The size of Texas can best be appreciated by remembering 
that it constitues in area one-twelfth of the Union, and pos- 
sesses nearly every topographic and geologic condition found 
in the states south of the glacial region. It reaches one-half 
the distance from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico to those 
of the Pacific, and its longitude is proportionally great. A 
general idea of the diversity of its natural features can be 
obtained by brief comparison with the more familiar condi- 
tions of the adjacent states. The northeastern corner of the 
state is a continuation of the forest covered sands and clays of 
the low southern cotton belt with its characteristic natural 
and cultural aspects; the southwestern corner, west of the 
Pecos river is a prolongation of the Rocky mountain and basin 

1 For a statement of the previous classification of the topography of 


Texas, see bulletin 45, U. 8. Geological Survey, entitled ‘‘The present 
condition of geologic knowledge of Texas,”’ pp. 52-53. 


* The Texas state survey, under the vigorous administration of Mr. 
E. T. Dumble, is now prosecuting a survey of this interesting portion 
of the United States, which has so long been neglected, and to which 
I have endeavored to attract scientific investigation. This paper is 
not intended to forestall any results of the survey, but to place at its 
disposal the matter herein contained. 


10 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


topography, with its unique geology and is radically different 
from the section first mentioned; the extreme northwestern 
corner, or the Panhandle, is the southern end of the great 
plains, familiar to us in their northern extent through Col- 
orado, Kansas and Nebraska. Bétween these diverse regions 
—the cotton belt, the Rocky mountains and the Great Plains— 
and entirely surrounded by them, lies the main portion of the 
state, exceeding all others in area, and so incomparable to 
any other portion of the United States that it is peculiarly 
worthy to be called Texan. It possesses almost as great a 
diversity of geologic and topographic features as all the others. 
To scientifically differentiate and define this Texan region 
and establish for it a proper appreciation in the minds of our 
geographers and geologists is the object of this paper. 

Topographically the Texas region consists of a series of 
extensive, elongated parallel benches and plateaus, extending 
approximately in a north and south direction, and abruptly 
terminated at each end by great mountain systems extending 
at right angles to them—an arrangement comparable to a wide 
stairway, in which the plains are represented by the steps, 
and the mountains by the enclosing walls. This analogy can 
not be carried far, for great irregularities and depressions 
will be found in the width and tread of the steps, and the 
structure of the mountains, which represent the enclosing 
walls, is of two entirely different schools and periods of arch- 
itecture. The wear and tear of time has scarred and disfig- 
ured the region, leaving footprints where the drainage or other 
erosion has crossed the plains and worn the mountain walls. 

In this paper it is proposed to classify these features in the 
sequence of topographic origin, as follows: (1) Plains. (2) 
Valleys, or depressed areas produced by the erosion of plains. 
(3) Mountains, which may be considered disturbed and 
crumpled plains. 

(1). Lhe Plains of Texas. 

The steps, or plains, with one exception, are treeless, and 
upon close examination, prove to be aseries of ancient base 
levels, which have been elevated more or less rapidly and in- 
termittently in post Cretaceous times. These increase gradu- 
ally in altitude towards the interior, varying in hight from 
sea level to more than three thousand feet. Beginning at the 
coast these may be temporarily classified as follows: (1) 


Geographic Features of Texas.— Hill. 11 


- The Coast Prairie region. (2) The Sandy, Forest, or Lignitic 
region. (8) The Grand Prairie region. (4) The Staked 


Plains. 
The Coast Prairies. 


The coastal portion of the main land of Texas, from the 
Louisianian to the Mexican border, extending inland from 
fifty to one hundred miles, consists of a perfectly flat, usually 
timberless plain, elevated not over two hundred feet above the 
gulf at its interior margin, and dipping so imperceptibly 
eastward that it appears to be a landward continuation of the 
great submarine bench of the gulf of Mexico. From the 
deficient drainage and the inconspicuousness of its waterways, 
and its absolute uniformity of surface, it is evident that this 
plain is a newly developed surface feature which has not long 
been reclaimed from inundation—a fact which is further 
attested by its unconsolidated sub-structure and the occur- 
rence among its fossil remains of the species still existing in 
the adjacent waters of the gulf. Although but a fraction of 
the total area of the state of Texas, this prairie is an extensive 
formation, occupying many hundred square miles. It is, 
perhaps, the best example of a newly born topographic plain 
in this country and approximates to an ideal, present base 
level. This feature can be studied along the lines of the 
Southern Pacific and Texas Central railways, between the 
Sabine and Hempstead, Texas. Stratigraphically, this forma- 
tion has been but little studied. The absence of timber is due 
to poor drainage, and the salinity and compactness of the 
structure. Concerning its evolution and history more will be 
said in the conclusions of this paper. Its interior margin is 
rolling and its transition into the next feature is abrupt. Its 
structure and age have never been defined or delineated with 
any satisfaction, and are a fertile field for investigation. 

(2). The Sandy Lignitic, or Forest Area. 

The western, or interior border of the Coast Prairie region, 
becomes slightly undulating, and is immediately succeeded by 
a radically different topographic and geologic aspect. The 
altitude perceptibly increases, and a more or less continuous 
forest succeeds the prairies. The soil presents the red and 
white aspects peculiar to the sands and clays of the Tertiary 
and Quaternary formations of the Gulf States. This is the 
southwestern termination of the great Atlantic timber belt, 


' \ | 
: i M (| 


12 The American Geologist. Jan. 1990 


which covers with its mantle of a continuous flora the whole 
ofthe Atlantic slope (except the Coast Prairie) and the 
Appalachian region. This penetrates the northeastern portion 
of the state and continues southward across it toward the Rio 
Grande,but becomes less conspicuous, and almost obsolete south 
of the Colorado river, where the climatic conditions are more 
arid. Its western border terminates abruptly, as if there were, 
though there is not, some great topographic barrier, as a lake 
or adesert. To the ordinary observer there is no reason why 
the forest should end so abruptly, but to the geologist it is 
readily explicable when he perceives the radical change in 
structure and composition of the underlying formations, the 
western border of the forest coinciding almost exactly with 
the western border of the previous soils of the arenaceous, 
non-caleareous, post-Cretaceous formations, and that of the 
compact, super-calcareous marls of the Cretaceous. The post- 
Tertiary subsidence has reduced the parting of the Upper 
Cretaceous and Tertiary formations to a common level. AlI- 
most concealed by this forest covered area of northeastern 
Texas, is a most interesting topography. In riding over it, 
with the view obscured by the dense timber, it at first glance 
appears to bea succession of rounded hills, but an occasional 
flat-topped divide is reached, which, upon comparison with 
others, proves that the whole country is the remnant of a 
greatly degraded but still distinguishable plain and that the 
inequalities are those of the drainage slopes. These drainage 
basins, owing to the readiness with which the unconsolidated 
structure yields to erosion, now occupy a far greater area than 
the remnants of the ancient plain in which they are carved. 
The present level of the rather sluggish streams is from 100 
to 200 feet beneath the divides, and very little above tide 
water. Their flood-plains are wide and somewhat unstable. 
a few feet above these are the inevitable accompaniments of 
all the major streams of the southern planting region, known 
as second bottoms, often a mile or more in width, while still 
above and beyond these, marking the edges of the valley, may 
be one or more benches, which are usually inconspicuous, 
because of the unstable condition of the unconsolidated struc- 
ture and the resemblance between the transported terrace 
material and that of the underlying beds. The flat-topped 
divides and wide valleys characterize the whole extent of the 


Geographic Features of Texas.— Hill. 13 


region, which is an ancient plain, whose individuality has 
nearly been destroyed in the process of its reduction to mod- 
ern base level, and by the elevation and subsidences which it 
has undergone in post-Tertiary times, of which more will be 
said later on. Within this timbered area there is a great 
diversity of minor topographic and geologic features similar 
to those mentioned in my Arkansas report, which can not be 
described here. The most conspicuous of these are (1) minor 
prairies of late Quaternary origin, and (2) a great deposit of 
gravelly debris extending from Arkansas to the Rio Grande. 
These late Quaternary prairie formations are of two kinds of 
sediments and possibly of two epochs. In north Texas, as at 
New Boston, and in Arkansas, they are composed of sterile 
clay derived from the Ouachita system and are of no agri- 
cultural value. South of the Trinity, extending to the Rio 
Grande, they are known as “black prairies,” and are often con- 
founded with the true Black Prairie region, described later, 
for their structure is the debris of the chalky formations of 
the latter, degraded, transported and redeposited in later 
times—one of the numerous examples of redeposition so 
abundant throughout the cotton belt. These prairies are of 
varying extent and distribution. I tentatively consider these 
of later origin than the gravel. The gravel marks the line of 
sea level at the epoch of the deposition of the Plateau Gravel 
of Arkansas, which was early Quaternary, of which it is the 
direct southern continuation, the general trend of that forma- 
tion changing after crossing the Red river, from west 
to west of south, and leaving the mountain system to the 
north. The average altitude of this great gravel deposit is 
from four to five hundred feet, and its width seldom exceeds 
fifty miles, yet it extends intermittently from the Ouachita to 
the Rio Grande, and doubtless it will some day be correlated 
with the Mississippi and Maryland deposits of a similar 
nature and the intimate relation of the time of its marine 
deposition to the entirely different, glacial phenomena of the 
northern states, fully deciphered. The material of this great 
gravel deposit varies with the character of the formation of 
the interior from which it was derived, and has not been trans 
ported from the north. In Arkansas it is clearly the debris of 
the Ouachita system against which it was deposited. In the 
central part of its extent in Texas it is composed of the debris 


14 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


of the granitic and older limestones (paleozoic) of central 
Texas. Southwest of the Colorado it is made up of flint, the 
quantity of which is so great that it exceeds the power of one’s 
imagination, to consider the enormous amounts of chalk 
deposits of the Lower Cretaceous which must have been 
destroyed during its deposition. Another problem awaiting 
future solution concerning the Lignitic area is whether the 
ancient base level which the gravel represents did not also 
include the Black Prairie region next to be described. There 
is also some evidence that while the eastern border of it was 
thus included, the main portion of the black waxy area was a 
nearly allied, but slightly earlier epoch. The chief and pre- 
valent structure of the Lignitic area, however, is that of alter- 
nations of unconsolidated sands and clay of a thousand or 
more feet of thickness of the extensive formation known as 
the Eo-Lignitic, or basal Tertiary. These sands contain 
minute black specks of glauconite or limonite, which, owing 
to the porosity of the formation, quickly undergo hydrous 
oxidation, lixiviation and segregation, giving the country its 
red color and causing the stratified beds of workable iron 
ores. Topographically and historically then it may be con- 
sidered the remnant of an ancient plain which has been much 
degraded by atmospheric agencies and alternations of post- 
Tertiary subsidences and elevations. 
The Black Prairie Region. 

Immediately interior of the Sandy Lignitic area, radically 
different, lies the Black Prairie, the richest and largest con- 
tinuous body of agricultural land in Texas, and hence the 
most important from a cultural as well as scientific aspect. 
It extends in an unbroken body across the state from Indian 
territory to Mexico. The narrowest portion of its area is about 
twenty miles in width west of Austin where the Colorado 
transects it. From that point, however, it widens in both 
directions until its broadest margins—over one hundred miles 
in width—rest upon the Red and Rio Grande respectively. 
The topography of the area was well defined by Dr. Ferdi- 
nand Roemer, some forty years ago, as the ‘“Sanftwellige 
hiigle land,” or gently undulating region. When viewed from 
a distance it is apparently level, but upon closer inspection it 
is found to consist of many gentle undulations, which seem to 
differentiate it throughout its extent from the topography of 


Geographic Features of Texas.— All. 15 


other prairies. The soilis very black and sticky when wet 
and has the tenacity of wax, from which fact is derived its 
name. It is the residuum of the thousand feet of chalky clays 
(marls, in the English sense). The black color, which is 
superficial, is caused by the reaction between the excess of 
lime and the roots and debris of the surface vegetation. The 
average altitude of this prairie is from 500 to 800 feet through- 
out its extent and constitutes a uniform bench or plain slop- 
ing gently to the southeast. As above stated there is no per- 
ceptible scarp or other topographic line of demarcation 
between itseastern border and the timbered region, except the 
cessation of timber growth, but its western border is every- 
where most conspicuous from strong escarpments. The 
nature and origin of these scarps, however, are radically differ- 
ent north and south of the center of the state. From the Red 
river to the Colorado the western border is marked by the 
scarp of white chalky rock (the westernmost outcrop of the 
Austin Dallas chalk, Niobrara) surmounting blue clay 
shales (Eagle Ford shales). This escarpment is continuous 
except where cut by rivers, from Austin to Denison, 200 miles 
above the depression occupied by the Cross Timbers to the 
west. In common with every other inequality of the earth’s 
surface in Texas, this scarp is locally called “mountains.” ’ 
The chalk is likewise known as “white rock,” and hence I pro- 
pose for it the name of the White Rock scarp. It can be dis- 
tinguished even upon ordinary maps by the small fringe work 
of minor streams which drain its summit to the eastward, and 
the streams which are deflected along the strike of its base. 
The chalk or white rock forming the summit of this scarp is 
the immediate geologic antecedent of the marly clays under- 
lying the main black waxy area, and I classify it as a sub- 
division of the black prairie region. It marks the western 
border of that region throughout its extent, but seldom has an 
areal outcrop of more than a mile or two. Its topography is 
slightly different from the main prairie, in that it is a little 
more undulating and usually covered with a sparse growth of 
handsome live oaks. In general appearance it is always con- 
trasted with the Downs of England by those who have seen 
both regions. Immediately beneath the chalk there is another 
horizon of clays (the Eagle Ford shales) which, especially 
north of the Colorado, makes another black waxy strip of a 


16 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


few miles in width. The sixth ward of Austinis typical of this 
subdivision of the Black Prairie. This is especially conspic- 
uous in Hill, Dallas and adjoining counties. It is usually flat, 
or possesses undulations of the diminutive character known 
as hog-wallows, caused by theshrinkage, cracking and erosion 
of the calcareous marls under the alternating conditions of 
extremes of moisture and drouth. For this subdivision which 
has not hitherto been differentiated, I propose the name of the 
Minor Black Waxy, or Eagle Ford prairies. 

This escarpment and its accompanying valley are like those 
in the middle districts in Britain running from Yorkshire 
towards Dorsetshire, between the Chalk range of the North 
Downs and the parallel ridge of the Lower Greensands, and 
described by Phillips* as valleys of stratification, “which are 
chiefly alternations of clays and limestone resting successively 
upon each other and tilted up at an angle so that the several 
beds dip to the southeast,” exactly as in the case of White 
Rock scarp, the Washita or Fort Worth limestone represent- 
ing the harder over and underlying limestones, and the Eagle 
Ford clays and the Lower Cross Timber sands the softer in- 
cluded layers. “The clay being formed of impalpable mud, has 
its surface particles loosened year by year under the influence 
of atmospheric agencies, etc. Thus, in time, the clay becomes 
hollowed out into a valley more or less deep and broad, while 
the limestone, which is less easily broken up by the frost and 
has few loose particles which can be carried away by 
water and is only slowly dissolved by the carbonic acid, 
ae et Roe Rbes Tess imap idly eC ates Mt einai eee 
hence stands up as a terrace margining the valley hol- 
lowed out in the clay below it.” And such is the origin of 
the White Rock scarp and the lower Cross Timber valley. It 
should also be remembered that such valleys and scarps of 
stratification are receding in the direction of the inclination of 
the rock sheets, and later a question will arise, how far has 
the White Rock scarp in the past traveled eastward across the 
state of Texas? In other words, what was the former extent 
of the white rock? Other conspicuous scarps of stratification 
in Texas are those of the Staked Plains and Grand Prairie 
to be mentioned later. 

The Balcones next to be described, upon the other hand, 


3 Physical Geography and Paleontology, Seeley, p. 


Geographic Features of Texas.— Hill. Ty 


are scarps of elevation and faulting produced by the pushing 
up or falling down of the country upon one side or the other. 
It should not be forgotten, however, that every scarp and val- 
ley of stratification is necessarily the consequence of the ante- 
cedent disturbance or elevation of the earth’s crust which 
raised the accompanying’ strata to their present inclined 
position, and the line of this original disturbance is an im- 
portant bearing upon the origin and evolution of the 
topographic features under discussion. South of the Colorado 
the western border of the Black Prairie is no longer a decliv- 
ity, but ends against an elevation—not of its own area, but of 
the region against which it abuts. 
The Balcones. 

This scarp, although apparently a continuation of the fore- 
going, is not related to it by origin or by direct connection. 
It is an important and conspicuous topographic feature in 
Texas. This feature has frequently been referred to by the 
writer as the Austin-New Braunfels non-conformity, for it is 
along its line south of the Colorado, that the rocks of the 
lower Cretaceous series which form the highlands of the Grand 
Prairie, dip so unconformably between those of the Black 
Prairie, or upper Cretaceous region, accompanied by faulting 
of several hundred feet. 

In traveling across the Black Prairie, the western border is 
terminated by what is apparently a low mountain system 
rising two or three hundred feet above it. Upon ascending 
this it is found to be surmounted by a level plateau—the 
scarp being the eastern face of a great monocline which marks 
the border of the Grand Prairie next to be described. The 
International railroad follows the foot of thisescarpment from 
Austin to San Antonio, and the Southern Pacific follows it 
from that city westward to the Rio Grande. The topography 
of this feature was partially represented upon some of the 
earlier maps of Texas as a mountain system, especially on 
the geological map published by Dr. Ferd. Roemer in the year 
1842. The Spanish speaking people—ever ready with an ap- 
propriate descriptive geographical name—have called this 
scarp west of San Antonio “E] Balcones.” 

Why the Grand Prairie south of the Colorado should thus 
terminate in an eastwardly facing scarp, while the one north 
of that stream faces in a direction apparently opposite to it 


18 The American Geologist. Jan, 1890 


has long puzzled the writer,and only lately has the reason 
been discovered. The line of the Balcones is a fracture 
extending across Texas from Mexico to Arkansas. North of 
the Colorado, however, it is concealed by the overlap of the 
Black Prairie, beneath which it extends onward to the 
Ouachita mountains. South of the Colorado it elevates the 
eastern edge of the Grand Prairie, north of that stream it 
elevates the western edge of the Black Prairie. 

The Grand Prairie, whose rocks before the culmination of 
this disturbance dipped sharply eastward, were elevated west 
ofit to an almost horizontal position, while the southern 
division of the Black Prairie, at least in places, was lowered 
after the manner of the downthrow of a fault. This line of 
disturbance continues six to ten miles north of Austin, crosses 
into the northern division of the Black Prairie region, which it 
traverses in a direction a little east of north, and slightly 
oblique to the strike, thereby elevating its western edge. 

This disturbance is marked by two conspicuous and prob- 
ably associated phenomena. The first and most intimately 
connected of these is a line of springs which find their way to 
the surface through the fault and joints overhanging the line 
of disturbance. The most conspicuous of these are the springs 
of the Leona, the San Pedro springs at San Antonio, which 
are the immediate source of the San Antonio river; the springs 
at New Braunfels, and the springs of San Marcos. Near Aus- 
tin, the Barton, Mormon, Sieders, and a group of magnificent 
unnamed spring in the bluffs of the river, immediately west 
of the city, mark the line. North of the Colorado the springs 
of Round Rock, Georgetown, Salado, and those southwest of 
Dallas, mark the line. All of these are great gushing streams 
of water bursting suddenly from the rocks, and flowing off in 
large streams, discharging thousands of gallons per hour. 
They, are natural artesian wells made by rents in the rock. 

It is an interesting economic fact that anywhere within a 
few miles of these natural wells, artificial ones can be obtained 
by boring, as has been done at San Antonio, Fort Worth, 
Austin and Waco. 

The Shumarad Knobs. 

The second interesting phenomenon intimately connected 
with this disturbance is a number of laccolitic, possibly vol- 
canic, outcrops, which extend across the state in a line almost 


Geographic Features of Texas.— Hill. 19 


coincident with the Balcones. These have partially been 
described in previous papers; the most conspicuous exam- 
ples are old Fort Inge, near the present town of Uvalde, and 
Pilot Knob, south of Austin. The dikes reported at Rock- 
wall, some two hundred miles north of the last mentioned 
locality, and the peridotite outcrops of Pike county, Arkansas, 
recently described by Branner, are directly in the trend of the 
disturbance. A more intimate connection will no doubt be 
shown when the intervening region is explored. For these 
hills I have proposed the name of Shumard Knobs, in honor 
of the brothers, G. G. and Dr. B. F. Shumard, the first state 
geologists. These knobs and their origin will be discussed 
later in a paper by Mr. Dumble and the writer. 
The Grand Prairie. 

This conspicuous plain lies immediately west of the Black 
Prairie region and extends across the state parallel with it. 
After crossing the lower Cross Timber, as the valley which 
accompanies the base of the White Rock scarp is termed, or 
ascending thejscarp of the Balcones south of Austin, the 
extensive plateau of this region is reached. As shown on the 
map it extends across the geographic center of the state in 
irregular outline from the Ouachita mountains, north of Red 
river, against which it abuts, to the Trans-Pecos and Mexican 
mountains, which have uplifted and destroyed its southern 
end. Its eastern margin is regular, coinciding with the west- 
ern margin of the Black Prairie just described. The western 
border, however, is more irregular and broken in outline. 
Lake the Black Prairie this region is almost divided by 
destructive erosion of the Colorado into two conspicuous 
areas, north and south of that stream. The northern area is 
the elongated plateau lying between and elevated above the 
two vallays of the upper and lower Cross Timbers, as seen 
between Fort Worth and Weatherford, Waco and DeLeon, 
Gainesville and Henrietta, or along the line of any other 
transecting railway. The southern portion is similar in gen- 
eral aspects and structure, except that it is wider and deflects 
westward into the truly arid region. Although a very unique 
area in Texas, there is no local name given to this southern 
division, except that universal and meaningless term “the 
mountains,” which is applied to its eastern and western mar- 
gins—the Balcones and buttes respectively. Nine-tenths of 


20 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


the whole area, however, is a level plateau, which could be 
considered a mesa were it not for the continuity beneath the 
Staked Plains of a small portion along the drainage divide of 
the Colorado and Pecos. The central portion of the northern 
area is prolonged westward up the drainage divide of the 
Brazos and Colorado, for nearly two hundred miles, approx- 
imately following the 32nd parallel, in a narrowirregular strip 
of flat topped buttes and mesas. 

The stratification of the Grand Prairie is almost horizontal, 
except along the southeastern border in the disturbed region 
of the Balcones, it approximately corresponds in inclination 
with the plateau. In color, composition, and scenic aspects 
these rocks and their stratification resemble no other region 
of North America, but I am informed by many reliable gen- 
tlemen of culture who have migrated into the region from 
western France and Switzerland that they are almost identi- 
cal in aspect to the Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks of their 
native lands, a coincidence which is here given for what it is 
worth, To this structure and its method of disintegration is 
due the individuality ofthe topography of the Grand Prairie, 
and their extent is coincident. 

The western border of the Grand Prairie is especially inter- 
esting and unique. Like that of the Black Prairie it is a 
scarp of stratification, but it would take the pen of a Dutton, 
or the brush of a Holmes to picture the superb carving and 
stratification of its beautiful topography. The edge of the 
surmounting plateau is from three to five hundred feet above 
its base, and everywhere overlooks the lower and different 
region upon which it borders. Owing to the innumerable 
alternations of hard and softer layers it presents a series of 
persistent benches and terraces of stratification which are 
uniform in contour and extent, and an imitation of water- 
made terraces.’ 

The line of this escarpment is very irregular, forming innu-+ 
merable curves and points. Sometimes it follows the trans 
secting rivers until almost the eastern margin of the regionis 


5 This topography is fairly represented upon the topographic sheets 
of the U. §. Geological Survey, especially the Gatesville and Burnet 
sheets. The principles of its formation are described in chapter nr of 
that admirable treatise ‘‘Les Formes du Terrain,’’ by De la Noe and 
De Margerie, while the illustration of the valley of the Bienne, in 
Jura, on plate v1, is a perfect picture of the feature under discussion. 


Geographic Features of Tewas.— Hill. 21 


reached, as at the valley of the Colorado near Austin. The 
entire length of this scarp with its principal meanderings 
across the state of Texas can be little less than 1,000 miles. 
Accompanying the scarp are innumerable circular flat-topped 
outliers of the main plateau which have been completely 
separated from it by this fantastie atmospheric erosion, and 
which fringe the margin throughout its extent. These are 
typical “‘buttes,” the level mesas or tops of which are capped 
with the identical stratum and geological horizon which sur- 
mounts the main plateau of the Grand Prairie. In symmetry 
of proportion and horizontality of the composing strata; 
and in clearness of every detail of structure, there are no 
grander or more unique examples of atmospheric erosion in 
our country. Often these buttes are forty to one hundred 
miles from the main area of the Grand Prairie, and are inval- 
uable landmarks in tracing the history of its degradation. In 
a previous paper I gave the central paleozoic area the name of 
the Butte or denuded region, from the distribution of these 
features over it. Among the most characteristic and typical 
of these buttes are Comanche peak, Hood county, Johnson’s 
peak, Round mountain, Santa Anna mountain, Church moun- 
tain, Castle mountains, ‘Pilot Knob,” Williamson county, 
the Two Star mountain in Hamilton and Comanche counties, 
Post mountain, Burnett county.° 

The altitude of the Grand Prairie gradually increases from 
1,000 feet at its eastern edge to 2,000 feet along its westermost 
border, where it is covered by the Staked Plains formation. 
There is little or no disturbance throughout its area. 

The major rivers have cut deeply through the Grand 
Prairie and their valleys present the same atmospheric 
terracing of the western border.’ In places theseriver valleys 
assume the aspect of vertical cafions, as in the Colorado, 
Pecos, Rio Grande and Red rivers. The depth of these val- 
leys below the level of the plain increases southwestward from 
200 to 700 feet. Another set of rivers are wearing their way 
by backward erosion across the Grand Prairie from its east- 


6 In a previous list, by slip of pen, the writer included Packsaddle 
mountain, Burnett county, in this category. This is entirely a distinct 
type of geologic and geographic structure. See Walcott, Am. Jour. 
Sci., 1885. 

’The drainage of the entire region will be discussed in the second 
part of this paper. 


Be en ee ete 
Toy aie ag chad ote ie HT ah 


22 The American Geologist. Jan. 190 


ern edge. These have their origin in the springs on the east 
arising along the great fault line at the foot of the Baleonades. 
The Nueces, the San Marcos, Guadalupe, San Gabriel and 
Trinity belong to this class. The last two have completed 
their journey across the plain and now head in the Central 
region. 

Although the Grand Prairie is deeply scored by the tran- 
secting streams, and its western border fantastically carved 
by atmospheric erosion, it is nevertheless a continuous and 
uniform level plain, and a unique geographic unit. The plat- 
eau is treeless and contains many characteristic species which 
justify its separation into a floral province, intermixed with 
species from the arid region. After each season of rainfall 
its ordinary hue of dry-grass brown is succeeded by varied 
flowers of indescribable beauty in their changing colors. The 
soil is usually shallow, andis the residuum of the chalky sub- 
structure, which is of varying degrees of induration. Its pre- 
valent color is dark chocolate, which readily distinguishes it R 
from other limestone soils in the state. Although differing in 
altitude, topography and structure from the Black Prairie 
region, this section has never been clearly differentiated. 
Owing to the shallowness of the soil and the different condi- 
tions of rainfall, but few small areas of the Grand Prairie are 
adapted to agriculture, while nearly every acre of the Black 
Prairie is utilized. The underlying structure of the Grand 
Prairie is that of the Comanche series,’ consisting of alterna- 
tions of chalky limestones and marls of varying degrees of 
induration and thickness. These rocks are so much harder 
than the upper Cretaceous sediments underlying the Black 
Prairie region that the region has been appropriately called 
the hard lime-rock region.” This name can not be retained, 
however, owing to the fact that the chalky rocks of the Grand 
Prairie are soft in comparison to the extensive areas of hard 
metamorphosed limestone in the older rock regions. The 
Grand Prairie, in view of these facts, may now be considered 
a plateau, with one exception, everywhere standing above the 
surrounding region. Its eastern edge suddenly bends beneath 


7 See ‘‘Topography and Geology of the Cross Timbers of Texas,”’ 
Am, Journal of Science, April, 1887, Am. Naturalist, Feb. 1887, Proc. 
Philosophical Society of Washington, Feb. 1887. 

5 See ‘‘A Description of Future Texas,’’ by Gov. O. M. Roberts, St. 
Louis, 1881. 


Geographic Features of Teras.— Hill. ys 


the black Prairie, while the eroded and scarped western edge 
is rapidly receding eastward. That it once covered continu- 
ously the next region to be described is evident, the present 
extent representing about one-half its former extent. 

The next and most conspicuous plain of Texas is the Staked 
Plains. Before it can be properly described, however, it is 
necessary to consider a great depressed area, which, except at 
its southeast corner, everywhere intervenes between it and the 
Grand Prairie. 


The Central Denuded Region. : 

In a brief article published in the American Journal of 
Science for April, 1887, the writer included all the vast region 
of the northern half of Texas, lying between the eastwardly 
receding White Rock scarp and the westwardly receding scarp 
of the Staked Plains under the generic term of the Central 
Denuded or Butte region, since all the included topography 
(except that of the Grand Prairie, which in this paper is 
removed from the classification ) is the result of erosion accom- 
panying the recession of these scarps. This classification, 
being more structural than topographic, however, can only be 
used temporarily for present convenience.’ The area em- 
braces great diversity of geologic substructure, mostly of pre- 
Cretaceous age accompanied by avariety of topography, which 
may be provisionally divided as follows: (1) Zhe Old Rock 
regions, embracing (a) the Palo Pinto or Coal country, and 
(b) the Llano, or Marble, Granite and Iron country; and (2) 
The Led Beds, including (a) the Abilene country, and (b) 
the Gypsum country. 

Viewed from any point upon the scarps of the Grand Prairie or 
Staked Plains which surround it, this region is seen to occupy 
what is apparently a depression from 500 to 1,000 feet below 
them and extending from the 98th to the 101st meridians, 
north of the 32nd parallel, into southern Kansas. 

The older rock portion occupies the eastern third of the 
region, while the more extensive Red beds occupy the remain- 
der. 

Older Rock Regions. 

From the margin of the Grand Prairie the extent of the 

lower, more rugged, and timber-covered areas of the central 


® This Central Denuded region is an illustration of an ancient anti- 
clinal elevation, which has been reduced to a depression by subsequent 
erosion. (See Part 11). 


MDa eaerW Nn ey 0 


24 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


paleeozoic, or older rock regions, can be seen for many miles. 
These are two sub-oval areas extending north and south in the 
geographic center of the state from near Red river to the Col- 
orado, between the 98th and the 99th meridians, and separated 
by the narrow strip of the Grand Prairie beneath which they 
are no doubt continuous. Lithologically this northern region 
is composed of the older and more consolidated sandstones, 
limestones and clays of the Coal Measures with the same 
aspect of soil and flora, much stunted by drouth, and general 
sterility of cultural aspects like the Coal Measures of the 
Appalachian and Ouachita regions. The southern area, in 
addition to these Carboniferous rocks, possesses still older and 
harder rocks, consisting of limestones, sandstones and schists 
of the Silurian (San Saba formation), the Potsdam (Packsad- 
dle formation) and the Cambrian (Llano formation) respect- 
ively, accompanied by some remarkable granitic upthrusts 
and domes, some of which, as I have previously shown in this 
journal," as late as post Carboniferous. For the northermost 
of these areas I propose the name of the Palo Pinto country or 
Coal Region, and for the southernmost, the Llano country, or 
Granite region. 5 

The detailed stratigraphy and structure of these important 
regions are unrecorded in geologic literature. But it is evi- 
dent from the few cursory examinations [| have been able to 
give it that it is what was once a region of much disturbance, 
but not so excessive as the folding of the Ouachitas or Appala- 
chians. While the latter have remained above oceanic inun- 
dation since Carboniforous time, their Texas counterparts were 
buried probably beneath thousands of feet of sediments during 
the lower and upper Cretaceous subsidences. It is also quite 
evident that this Older Rock region was the vicinity of the 
continental divide which from late Cretaceous to early Quat- 
ernary time separated the waters of the Atlantic from the 
interior lakes. That they are at present exposed through the 
erosion of the thousands of feet of Cretaceous strata that once 
covered them isevident. Their former extent and their rela- 
tionship to the Ouachita system on the one hand, and the 
Rocky mountains on the other, are still concealed by the over- 
lying Cretaceous rocks. 


10 See a portion of the geologic story of the Colorado, AMERICAN 
GeroLoaist, May, 1889. 


Geographic Features of Texas.— Hill. 25 


The Red Beds. 

North of the Colorado region and west of the Coal region 
the denudation of the Cretaceous strata is more complete, and 
there is exposed between the 99th and 101st meridian, extend- 
ing north into Kansas, a large area of country for which, from 
the prevalent color of its surface and its affinity to similar 
formations in the west, to which the name has been given, I 
propose the name of the Red Beds. This region is included 
between the scarp of the Staked Plains upon the west, the 
scarp of the western prolongations of the Grand Prairie upon 
the south, and the Palo Pinto or Coal Measures upon the east. 
Topographically it consists of rolling treeless plains becoming 
more broken toward the Staked Plains by the valleys of the 
numerous arroyos and wide flood plains of the few rivers that 
transect it. Its florais that of the arid region. The soil is 
marly and void of much humus, and usually of a vermilion 
color. Unprotected by turf and exposed to driving rains after 
long intervals of drouth, the region readily yields to disinte- 
gration and denudation, producing deeply cafioned arroyos, 
the depth of which increases in proportion to the proximity 
of the plains, forming large areas known as the “breaks of 
the plains,” making typical exposures of bad lands, similar to 
those of the other portions of the arid region. 

The few rivers which transect the region, as the Red, the 
Canadian, the Brazos and the Colorado, of the second class," 
and the Pease and Wichita of the third, possess exceedingly 
wide and deep valleys, with low and inconspicuous scarps and 
are especially marked by very wide flood-plains, filled with 
quicksands and out of all proportion to the small volume of 
water which ordinarily fills them. Those who have seen the 
valleys of the Platte, the Cimmaron or the Arkansas between 
the same meridians will readily recognize the type of streams 
to which they belong. 

Structurally the region is composed of almost horizontal 
westwardly dipping ” strata of unconsolidated clays, loosely 
segregated red-brown and mottled sandstones, and massive 
beds of gypsum which collectively compose the as yet un- 


"' For classification of rivers of the Texas region, see vol. 11, Annual 
Report of the state geologist of Arkansas, 1888. 


The Red Beds represent the western inclination of the anticline 
of the Central Denuded region. 


DR NR CUS HULLY ERM b NE a AVR MIR cd a NT) hoe lig 
f i *) iN « Ys! arte ea Nie) Me in basis Perey ity ea Ps 
} ASM hah Av aMina MAN RAM Daa NAb Bes 

o f if {i { 


y 


26 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 $ 


measured thousands of feet of strata of post Carboniferous 
and pre-Cretaceous strata which have been ascribed to the 
“Permian,” “Triassic,” “Jura Trias” and other ages, notwith- 
standing the fact that no stratigraphic section of the region 
has as yet been made. That the present plateau of the Staked 
Plains once extended eastward across this area, meeting and 
overlapping the Grand Prairie, is everywhere evident from the 
destructive denudation now going on, and the fact that this 
condition still exists in the region preserved from denudation 
south of the Concho. 

This region is divisible longitudinally into two distinct sub- 
areas, the easternmost of which has’ the local name 
of the Abilene country, after the name of its principal city, 

,and the westernmost, the name of the Gypsum country, 
owing to the preponderance of that mineral in its strata. 
The Albilene Country. 

The eastern half of the Red Beds extending along the west- 
ern Red Beds border of the Palo Pinto or Coal Measure coun- 
try is comparatively more level than the western half or Gyp- 
sum country. Its waters and soils are less impregnated with 
gypsum, and the latter are susceptible of a more profitable 
agriculture. In fact much of the region consists of beautiful 
level plains distinguishable from other prairie regions of the 
state by its vermilion colored soil. The lands around the 
towns of Abilene and Wichita Falls, and some of the so-called 
Concho country are characteristic of this division. Its sub- 
structure is different from that of the Gypsum country, in that 
it embraces the lower or “Permian” portion of the Red Bed sec- 
tion which is composed of rocks of a darker brown or mottled 
greenish color with very little gypsum. Within the past few 
years this region of Texas has become well settled by immi- 
gration and is now one of the thrifty portions of the state. 
Conspicuous features of this country are the numerous minor 
scarps striking north and south giving the country a ter- 


raced appearance. 
The Gypsum Country.” 


This is the western half of the Red Bed region. It is more 
broken than the Abilene country and accompanied by many 
buttes and cafions. Owing to the stratified beds of massive 


gypsum everywhere predominant that mineral gives the coun- 
try its chief characteristic, producing variety in color of land- 


18 Good views of typical Gypsum country topograpy are given in 
Marcy’s Exploration of the Red river. 


Geographic Features of Texas.— Hill. 27 


scape, and impregnating its soil and waters with excessive 
proportions. It increases in ruggedness as the foot of the 
Plains is approached, forming in places the bad lands above 
mentioned. 

The Red Beds underlie the Plains, although they are not 
their surface formation, and are often cut down to by the val- 
leys of the rivers which indent or cross them, as the Pecos and 
the Canadian. 

It is probable that the Red Beds never extended across the 
central paleeozoic area, and that they were laid down inan 
interior sea whose eastern shore was limited by that feature. 
More investigation is needed upon this subject and the state- 
ment is only tentative. 

The Liano Estacado or Staked Plains." 

Within the past few years the newly constructed railways of 
Texas and New Mexico have placed within easy reach of the 
geologist this the greatest of all Texas plains, which formerly 
was almost unapproachable from lack of facilities for trans- 
portation. By their aid it was possibleto make a preliminary 
reconnoissance of what is, perhaps, areally the greatest con- 
tinuous and least denuded plateau of our country. Geograph- 
ically the Staked Plains of Texas and New Mexico include the 
quadrangular region south of the Canadian, east of the Pecos 
and west of the 101st meridian. Topographically this region 
is a single plain, or mesa, terminated except at its extreme 
northwest and southeast corners by vertical precipices every- 
where standing in grand contrast above the surrounding and 
lower region. The surface of this plain is smooth and un- 
broken, except at its edges. Its surface, as a whole, slopes to 
the eastward, its greatest elevation is at the northwest corner. 
Hydrographically the whole surface is void of running streams, 
and could be classified after G. DeLa Noe as “Regions sans 
ecoulement,” i.e., in which there are no streams, and the 


“The name of these plains has been attributed by those of an imag- 
inative turn of mind to a supposed row of stakes, alleged to have been 
set up by ancient Mexican travelers for the purpose of guide posts. It 
is well known however that Indian trails have existed across the Plains 
since they were first known, and besides the frontiersmen would not 
resort to such devices even if they possessed the timber for the pur- 
pose, which in the present instance it would have been impossible to 
secure. The term Llano estacado alludes to the great scarp or step of 
its borders. 


28 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


small amount of surface water which is not imbibed by the 
soil, is found in a few and widely distributed ponds. Its 
eastern and northern edges are incised by deep and vertical 
cafions of streams which are cutting by backward or head- 
water erosion. Two streams flow across or around the plains, 
but in origin they are probably antecedent thereto, as will be 
shown later. These are the Canadian and the Pecos. Neither 
of them receives any of the surface drainage of the plain. The 
rainfall, principally from June to September, is from 20 to 25 
inches (estimated). 

The surface of the plain is everywhere composed of the rich 
transported sedimentary soil which I have recently described 
as the Staked Plains formation,'® and which is from 100 to 
300 feet deep. From its structure and composition it is 
evident that it is either a lacustral or alluvial deposit, laid 
down in late Tertiary or early Quaternary times. The forma- 
tion and its resultant soil differs from all others in Texas, and 
notwithstanding the deficient rainfall, the plains are rapidly 
being settled by an industrious population. 

Uponevery side, with the slight exceptions above mentioned, 
the plain is surrounded by majestic scarps, which afford splen- 
did vertical sections of the structure and the stratigraphy. 
These scarps are very irregular upon the eastern edge, and are 
marked by many deep, almost vertical cafions,"® such as Canon 
Blanco, which is about nine hundred feet in depth. Eastward 
prolongations of these plains extend down the principal drain- 
age divides, and probably were once continuous across the 
present denuded region to the Grand Prairie, as is still the 
case with the divide of the Pecos and the Colorado. The 
northern and western scarps—those of the Canadian and the 
Pecos respectively—are more regular and less jagged. It is 
not appropriate at the present time to enter into a discussion 
of the age or detail of this structure, but it is sufficient to say 
that in these scarps at various places can be seen a grand 
sequence or strata, from the paleeozoic rocks at the base ofits 
southwestern corner, the Red Beds formations above them, the 
Grand Prairie formations above these, and surmounting the 
whole, the peculiar formation of transported loam, gravel and 
other soil which constitutes everywhere the summit of the 


PPESEW nC Ve vd UNC ALPE GIDEA YATTON 
15 American Ass. Adv. of Science, Toronto meeting, 1889. 


On Laurentian, etc.—James. 29 


plain, and for which I propose the name of the Staked Plains 
formation. In addition to these are several horizons at the 
northwestern (and perhaps along the western) border which I 
have not studied, one of which is the long-disputed Jurassic 
horizon of Marcou, for which I here propose the name of the 
Tucumcari formation, for convenience of reference. 

The extreme precipitousness of the scarps, and cafions"’, the 
poorly developed surface drainage, all indicate that these 
plains are a new topographic feature, but that several impor- 
tant events have taken place since its reclamation, as will be 
shown later. There is also little doubt that the plain once 
extended eastward across the Gypsum and Abilene regions, as 
is shown by the remnants still preserved in places. It is like- 
wise evident that this plain has been elevated at its northwest 


corner, and its surface tilted to the southeast. 
[To BE CONTINUED. ] 


ON LAURENTIAN AS APPLIED TO A QUATERNARY 
TERRANE. 
By JOSEPH F. JAMES, M. Sc., Washington. 
U.S. Geological Survey. 


The difficulty of eradicating error when it has once crept 
into literature is the same as truth overtaking a lie, which will, 
as the old adage tells us, “travel around the world while truth 
is putting on its boots.” This same kind of difficulty is 
exemplified every day in work of all sorts, and it behooves 
every one who notes an error to try tocorrect it. I have noted 
one of these errors which has been most persistently repeated, 
and its recurrence in an important and recent geological 
paper ' has induced me to send the following note in the hope 
that the error may finally be eliminated. Reference here is 
made to the statement in the above paper that E. Desor had 
applied the term “Lawrencian” to certain drift deposits of the 
St. Lawrence valley, and to which same deposits Prof. Hitch- 
cock in 1861 gave the name of Champlain. A history of 
Desor’s use of the term Zawrentian and its later application 
by Logan, as well as the erroneous references which have been 
made to it, are herewith given. 


% Some fine illustrations of these incised canons are given in 
‘‘Marcy’s exploration of Red river.’’ 

‘Report of the (American) Sub-Committee on the Quaternary and 
Recent, by C. H. Hitchcock, Reporter. Am. GEou. vol. 11, p. 303. 


TEN Eee aOR PRY ge One ae 


30 The American Geologist. Jan 1890 


The first introduction of the term Laurentian into geologic 
nomenclature seems to have been about the beginning of the 
year 1851, when Edward Desor, who had been employed on 
the survey of lake Superior by Foster and Whitney, applied it 
to deposits of marine drift which were observed at various 
points in the St. Lawrence valley. We find that at a 
meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History on February 
19. 1851, and again on March 5, 1851, Desor spoke of the 
Laurentian and applied this term to drift of marine origin 
about Montreal.’ 

Later in the year, September 28, 1851, he addressed a letter 
to a friend, Monsieur E. Collomb in which he again applied 
the term in the same sense. This letter was printed in the 
Bulletin of the Geological Society of France,’ and the essen- 
tial parts, or those referring to this term, are as follows: 

After mentioning the action of glaciers in transporting 
erratic blocks, he says: ‘‘Here a new phase opens up in the 
history of the quaternary deposits; I mean the distinction 
between the marine drift and the fresh water drift. This is a 
point that I have mentioned in one of my last letters to our 
friend Martins, and who has since confirmed it. I have pro- 
posed to designate the marine drift under the name of Lau- 
rentian, a name which is adopted by the greater part of Amer- 
ican geologists, and which you will find among the geological 
divisions used by schools. 

This terrane extends all along the St. Lawrence and its 
tributaries as far as the foot of lake Ontario; but it would 
appear that no part has a greater elevation than five hundred 
feet. Beyond, along the shores of lakes Erie, Huron and 
Superior extends a vast deposit in which no one as yet has 
discovered any fossils whatever, and which I have, for this 
reason, described (on lake Superior) under the name of drift 
simply. 

‘During the preparation of my report, fossils were found at 
various points along lake Erie, on the borders of the upper 
Mississippi, at 160 feet above the level of the water, and on 
the shores of the Ohio and its tributaries. And, strange to 
say, these fossils are all, without exception, fresh water shells, 
and the remains of plants similar to those that grow on the 


2 Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist. Proc. vol. iv, pp. 29, 35, 1859. 
32nd Series, vol. 1x, pp. 94-96. 


i Hse On Laurentian, etc.—James. ok 
shores of these same lakes in our own day. M. Lesquereux 
has recognized a quantity of leaves of pines, and many marsh 
plants. Imagine then a fresh-water deposit, extending from 
the sources of the Mississippi as far as the mouth of the Ohio, 
and from lake Superior to the falls of Niagara. Certainly we 
have nothing resembling this in the old continent, unless it 
be in some corner of Scotland where we are assured that 
certain deposits of lower ¢2// with the marine ¢7// are of lacus- 
trine origin. The immense extent of this fresh water basin 
has not a parallel in geological history, not even in that- of 
coal, especially when I consider that these same deposits 
extend without interruption to a level of 1200 and 1500 feet 
between lake Superior and lake Michigan; a thing that proves 
absolutely that at the epoch of their deposition the relative 
levels of the continent must have been different from those 
of our own day. I have proposed to designate this vast 
deposit under the nameof Algonquin terrane, after the name 
of a tribe of Indians who were formerly spread over the greater 
part of this territory. To see this deposit in certain localities 
as on the southern shore of lake Erie, one would say that it 
is identical with your loess of the Rhine; but when we follow 
it over thousands of square miles, one soon abandons all idea 
of anidentity of origin. I have been and I am yet uncertain 
as to the age of this Algonquin terrane. Before knowing its 
vast dimensions I was inclined to view it as contemporary with 
the Laurentian; but I have lately given up this idea, and I 
am tempted to consider it as anterior. I should be much 
obliged if you will give me your opinion on this subject.” 

In a second communication presented on April 5th, 1852, 
M. Desor refers again to the Laurentian, applying the term in 
the same way as the “Marine drift or terrane Laurentian.” 
The marine drift, formerly described under the name of Ter- 
tiary terrane by American geologists includes the stratified 
deposits of clay, of sand and of gravel with marine shells. As 
the deposits of this kind are most developed in the valleys of 
the littoral Atlantic, and particularly ih the valley of the St. 
Lawrence and of its affluents, I have proposed to designate it 
under the name of Laurentian terrane to distinguish it from 
deposits containing fresh water fossils.” He then proceeds 
to describe the fresh water deposits in detail, and this other 

*Soc. Geol. de France Bull. 2nd ser., vol. 19, pp. 281-285. 


AMO OEE TD UE MWR ORHAN CAM NT IY A AMOR Ua REO Re Dero rR 
5 i i s be 


32 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


but similar deposit he again describes under the name of the 


Algonquin terrane. 
In a paper published in the American Journal of Science, 


2nd series, vol. 14, pp. 49-52, 1852, Desor correlated his Laur- 
entian with the post-Pliocene deposits of the southern states. 

In the ‘‘Neues Jahrbuch” for 1853, pp. 495-496, is a notice 
of apaper by Desor upon Drift phenomena in the north of 
Europe and America (published in Bull. Univ. 1852, Arch. 
Phys. cxxi, pp. 180-184). In this reference is again made to 
the term Laurentian as having been appled by Desor to drift 
deposits on the St. Lawrence and other places. 

The next reference we find to the use of this term for the 
drift is in the appendix to Zadock Thompson’s Natural His- 
tory of Vermont, published in 1858, p. 54. (Here, however, 
the term is spelled “Lawrencian’’). From this time up to 
1882, the term seems to have lost its original signification. In 
this year Prof. J. P. Lesley in an obituary notice of Desor 
says (in a foot note’): ‘“Histerm Laurentian for the recent 
deposits along the St. Lawrence and the lakes has not been 
accepted by geologists because of its subsequent application 
to the fundamental gneiss of the mountains of Cana- 
da.” In the next year, 1883, Mr. M. E. Wadsworth in a paper 
entitled “The appropriation of the name Laurentian by the 
Canadian geologists,’ published in the proceedings of the 
Boston Society of Nat. Hist.. vol. 21, pp. 121, 122, notes the 
term as originally applied by Desor, and calls attention to its 
use by Logan and the Canadian survey for a series of non- 
fossiliferous rocks exposed very extensively in Canada. Again 
the matter was dropped until in 1887 Sir J. W. Dawson in an 
article upon “Some points in which American geological 
science is indebted to Canada,” published in the Trans. and 
Proc. of the Royal Soc. of Canada vol. 4, sec. 4, pp. 1-8, after 
a résumé of the work of Logan in Canada, takes up the subject 
after referring to Logan’s work on Laurentian rocks by say- 
ing: “Before leaving this subject, I may mention an attack 
which has been madé on Sir Wm. Logan by an American 
writer on the ground that the word “Laurentian” had been 
occupied by Desor. It seems that the latter had used the 
word “Lawrencian” toexpress the Pleistocene deposits of the 
St. Lawrence valley, but the name never gained any currency 


5 Am. Phil. Soc. Proc. vol. 20, 1882, p. 528. 


On Laurentian, etc.—James. 30 


and Logan’s use of the term “Laurentian” for the old crystal- 
line series was only a little later, Logan having applied the 
name in 1854, while Desor’s use of the similar name “Lawren- 
tian” had occurred in 1851. Logan and Hunt, who codper- 
ated in the matter, based the name not on St. Lawrence river, 
but on the old name “Laurentides” applied by Garneau to the 

mountain range composed of these rocks. In point of fact 
the name “Laurentian” was based on the mountains composed 
of these rocks and the name “Lawrencian” on the river itself, 
and the latter fell to the ground as useless and inappro- 
priate.” 

It is obvious that Dr. Dawson is incorrect in the statement 
as to the spelling of Laurentian by Desor. But it is not the 
purpose to discuss now the reasons given for the abandonment 
ofthe term. It is sufficient to say that if “priority of defini- 
tion” and “accuracy of the original observations’® isto be a 
cardinal principle of geologic nomenclature, then justice 
demands the use of Desor’s term Laurentian for a quaternary 
terrane and the substitution of some other term for the 
Laurentian rocks of Logan. 

Since writing the foregoing I have found another article by 
Desor upon the same subject. It is a letter dated Feb. 12, 
1851, from Boston and addressed to M. Ch. Martins, published 
in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of France, 2nd series, 
vol. 8, pp. 420-423. The substance of this letter as far as it 
relates to the Laurentian, together with a copy of the figure 
given by Desor, is presented here. 

The title of the letter is “Note on the existence of marine 
shells of the present time in the basin of lake Ontario (Can- 
ada) at an altitude of 310 feet.” After referring to the occur- 
rence of Tellina grenlandica in a stratum above lake Cham- 
plain and to the difference between the drift of the Erie and of 
the St. Lawrence basins he proceeds. “The cut given below 


ts LAKE ONTARIO LE 
RAE eee — re aa 
Sy es — =ce == == 

Ys !) 


34 The American Geologist. Jan, 1890, 


represents approximately the position of the two terranes, and 
consequently the relative levels of the fresh and of the salt 
water. Fora long time American geologists recognized that 
the deposits of marine shells are more recent than the drift of 
the upper lakes, and many of them for this reason have desig- 
nated them under the name of the second drift. On the other 
hand it is evident that these deposits differ in many respects. 
from the modern alluvium; and as they belong to a period ; 
when the distribution of land and water was very different 
from that in our time, I propose to designate them in the 
future under a particular name; and considering that they 
are especially developed in the basin of the St. Lawrence, we 
have adopted the name of Laurentian or Laurentian terrane. 
I shall consider myself fortunate if this name, which has been 
approved by the greater number of geologists of this country, 
obtains the sanction of the Geological Society of France. In 
one of my preceding communications I added some remarks 
upon the parallelism of this terrane with the Quaternary 
deposits of Europe. 

“Since then Iam advised that the deposits of Norway, in 
which one finds these shells are as much as 1,000 feet high, 
according to Keilhau; also that those of Sweden, with their 
Azar, are the analogues of our American Laurentian. There 
remain doubts to my mind with regard to the till of Scotland, 
because of its unstratified structure, and because no one has 
described any fossils from this epoch. But having learned 
from the papers of Mr. Smith of Jordan Hill, that it contains 
shells of recent species,’ and that the same species are found 
in the deposits of clay under the till, I no longer doubt that 
this is the same horizon, the coarse till with its flints and 
striated pebbles embedded in the mud being according to all 
appearance the same deposits as those near Brooklyn near 
New York, that of a local form of the Laurentian. The depos- 
its of the north of Germany that are distinctly stratified and 
contain the shells, must for a very strong reason be entered in 
the category of the Laurentian deposits. It remains now to 


7 “The shells of the till or Boulder clay are arctic species which for the 
most part are not living at present in the seas of Scotland; they are 
in general placed above the boulder clay in the beds of laminated clay 
The modern shells actually living in the neighboring seas one finds 
upon the terraces and in the banks of sand above the clay that con- 
tains the arctic species.’’ 


Casts of Scolithus, ete— Wanner. 35 


be settled if there existed in some part of Europe an anal- 
ogous deposit to our drift properly so called, or ancient drift, 
such as is found on the shores of lake Superior and in the 
plains of the West, and in which no one has as yet found any 
trace of fossils.” . 

I likewise find that professor J. D. Whitney in 1857° referred 
to the use of Laurentian by Logan and stated that this term 
had been adopted by “Mr. Desor and the geologists of the lake 
Superior survey for the post-tertiary deposits, containing 
marine fossils, which are found in the valley of the St. Law- 
rence and elsewhere, and which has been called “Second 
drift” by some geologists. The use of the same term to des- 
ignate a group or system at the other extremity of the geo- 
logical scale seems likely to lead to confusion, and we hope 
that it will be dropped for the lower system, and retained for 
the deposits to which it was at first apphed.” 

It appears that Whitney and Wadsworth’ regarded the 
Laurentian of Logan as a synonym for the Azoic of Foster 
and Whitney proposed in 1850, or four years previous to the 
publication of Logan’s name. 

The paper of professor Whitney above alluded to was 
noticed by E. J. Chapman, the editor of the Canadian Jour- 
nal,° in the following words: ‘‘With regard to the term 
Laurentian as applied to some of these Canadian rocks, 
we would observe, that even if the term were previously 
applied to patches of post-Tertiary strata alluded to above, its 
peculiar fitness for the gneissoid rocks of the Laurentian 
range and connected country would fully warrant its reten- 
tion.” 

Washington, D. C., Dec. 6, 1889. 


CASTS OF SCOLITHUS FLATTENED BY PRESSURE. 
By ATREUS WANNER, York, Penn. 
[Read at the Toronto meeting*A.A.A.S. 1889. ] 

The Hellam Quartzite,in York county, Pa., is filled with 
Scolithus linearis. Chickis rock, of Lancaster county, Pa., in 
which Prof. Haldeman first found the fossil, is an extension 

*Am. Jour. Sci., 2nd ser. vol. 23, p. 314; ‘‘Remarks on the Huronian 
and Laurentian systems of the Canada Geological Survey.’’ 


*“The Azoic system and its proposed subdivisions ;’’ Mus. Comp. 
Zoology of Cambridge, Bull., vol. 7, p. 340, 1884. 


10 92nd series, vol. 2, p. 302, 1857. 


Re NUON OT POOR IS 
mie Taam Wate) neat) ee 


36 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890. 


of the same formation. In different places good exposures of 
the quartzite, in situ, afford excellent opportunities for the 
study of the included Scolithus. 

‘iy) The writer has been 
for several years care- 
fully examining such 
exposures in the hope 
of discovering the 
exact nature of the 
fossil. Though fail- 
ing in the main ob- 
ject, he has noticed 
that all casts,in every 
exposure thus far ex- 
amined,are flattened. 

Fig. 1 represents 
two average spec- 
imens, with sections 
of the same showing 
the extent to which 
both are compressed. 

Fig. 2 is a section 
of the most circular 

Hie a of a hundred casts 
picked up at random; Fig. 3, a section of the most flattened 
of the same lot. 

Fig. 4. represents a cast to which part of the enclosing 
quartzite adheres, in the form of thin wings—a very common 
occurrence in those specimens most compressed. 

The significant feature in connec- 
nection with these flattened cylin- 
ders is the fact that they are all 
elongated, in situ, in the same direc- 
tion; and further, that the longer 
axes of their sections are parallel to 
each other and parallel to the direc- 
tion of the strike of the quartzite. Ae 

In Fig. 5 we have represented a 4 
typical exposure of the iakioite > 
The dip of the strata is S. 30°, E. 35°. Fig. 2. Fig. 4. Fig. 3. 

The area represented is a very conchoidal and irregular 


Ny 


> 
a atu: 
mT YEN s . . 
Sar POAC M, (wiv ia))) 
, Ease . ; teed ple toed 


is 
WAY 
\\ 


\ 
4 
nhs"! 


Ai ie RS CAN i a 


Casts of Scolithus, etc.— Wanner. 37 


surface of fracture, at right angles to the plane of bedding, 
that being the direction in which the rock easiest breaks. 


Fig. 5. 


This whole surface is lined with Scolithus, extending at right 
angles to the plane of bedding, and displaying the invariable 
parallelism of the casts. In this exposure the average dis- 


38 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890. 


tance apart of the fossils is only three-fourths of an inch. 

All of the cylindrical casts in this exposure are flattened as 
stated; nor have I found in the thousands of fossils exam- 
ined in the matrix, in different exposures, a single exception. 

From these facts we must conclude that the cylindrical 
casts of Scolithus, in the original horizontal sand beds, were 
flattened by enormous pressure, exerted in a direction at right 
angles to the trend of the strata, prior to the uplifting of the 
formation. No other supposition is tenable, no matter what 
we infer the original shape of Scolithus cavities and casts to 
have been, whilst this partially explains the present density of 
the quartzite and at the same time fully accounts for the 
observed fact that the elongation is uniformly in the direction 
of the strike of the upturned strata. 

Of course other conclusive proof of the direction and extent 
of such pressure has long been given, but I do not think that 
any one, prior to this, has called attention to the striking 
testimony of Scolithus. At any rate, if any one else 
observed it, I have failed to find any account of such discovery. 

It may be well to state, in conclusion, that the writer’s ob- 
servations have not extended any further than to.the quartzite 
of York county, Pa. 


EXTINCT VOLCANOES IN COLORADO. 
By ARTHUR LAKEs, Golden, Col. 
Although we have abundant signs of voleanic activity in 
past ages in Colorado on a grand scale, the general absence of 
true volcanic craters has been frequently noticed by those famil- 


iar with the geology of the state. Most of our igneous rocks © 


belong to the class that have been erupted through fissures, 
from which in some cases lava has poured over the surface, 
the vents being filled by dykes. If craters ever existed on the 
surface line of these fissures, all traces of them have for the 
most part long ago been removed by erosion. The dyke at 
Valmont and the basaltic cap of the Table mountains at 
Golden and of the Raton mesas at Trinidad are examples. 
These surface eruptions are mostly confined to the more re- 
cent forms of lava, such as basalt and dolerite. Another and 
larger class embracing the older eruptions of porphyry and 
diorite, appear to have come up through fissures, but never to 


ee 


Efxtinet Volcanoes an Colorado.—Lakes. 39 


have reached the surface. These have sent off from the main 
dykes, intrusive sheets between lines of weakness in the strat- 
ification. Of this type are the pophyries of the Leadville and 
South Park region. A third class closely related to the last, 
have not only sent out intrusive sheets, but have arched up the 
overlying strata into oven-shaped cavities, which they have filled 
with massive lava, forming “laccolites” sometimes several 
thousand feet in thickness. When afterwards the arched 
strata overlying these laccolites have been removed by erosion, 
these great lava reservoirs have been exposed, and now form 
noted mountain peaks such as the Spanish Peaks near Trini- 
dad and Sopris, Gothic and Crested Butte mountains of the 
Elk range. In all these cases no evidence remains of the 
former existence of true volcanic craters. 

Amongst the summits of our mountains, we often notice 
deep punch-bowls or “cirques” simulating the form of volcanic 
craters. These are the work of erosion by water or glaciers, 
and are not of igneous origin. 

In New Mexico, amongst the basaltic table-lands, some true 
voleanic craters occur. 

Near Albuquerque in New Mexico and along the line of the 
Santa Fe railroad in Arizona, the traveler may observe flows 
of black, slaggy lava, in ropy coils, of exceedingly recent ap- 
pearance, with little or no vegetation growing over them. 
These flows occupy the modern valleys and dry river courses. 
They are evidently of comparatively recent origin, and might 
possibly be traced to extinct craters further back in the moun- 
tains. In the Costilla range on San Luis park some small 
craters are said to exist. About four miles to the west of the 
little town of Antonito, on the line of the Rio Grande railway 
in San Luis park, just on the edge of the Conejos mountains 
(a range composed of enormous masses of volcanic breccia 
and lava flows resting upon granite) a small conical shaped 
mountain may be seen resting on a plateau. The Conejos 
river cuts through this plateau, and shows its structure to 
consist of successive flows of black, basaltic lava. The pecu- 
har shape of the mountain, a low cone, with a very broad base 
(the angle of convergence towards the cone being about five or 
more degrees) suggests a central vent, from which lava flows 
have poured down for some miles over the surrounding flat 
country. The banks of the railway track are covered with 


40 The American Geologist. Jan. 1880. 


large boulders, of a black vesicular basalt or scoria. The cavi- 
ties or vesicles in this scoria, are sometimes several inches in 
diameter, and are frequently lined with white zeolitic crystals. 
The railway depot at Antonito is built of this black scoria. 
The ranchmen of the park told me there was a crater-like de- 
pression in the mountain. The cone is in full view from the 
railroad station at Antonito. 
The Dotsero Volcano. 

Whilst spending a few days at Glenwood Springs, Garfield 
county, I heard accounts of a crater and very recent-looking 
flow of lava being near Dotsero station, not far from the junc- 
tion of the Grand and Eagle rivers, about sixteen miles east 
of Glenwood on the Denver and Rio Grande railroad. 

I started by a freight train for the locality. Our course for 
some twelve or fourteen miles lay through a canon in the Cot- 
ton-wood range. This range is formed of Cambrian, Silurian 
and Carboniferous strata, folded up in a faulted arch over a 
granite axis. 

At Glenwood are the noted Hot Springs, which issue proba- 
bly from deep-seated fissures, formed at a point near the com- 
mencement of the range and the entrance of the canon, where 
the Triassic and upper Carboniferous strata are bent into a 
sharp synclinal fold. At this point of extreme compression, 
fissures were probably formed, which descended to sufficient 
depths to give rise to the heated and chemical waters of these 
wonderful springs. Hot springs also occur in much the same 
relation on the opposite side of the range. 

As we emerge from the Cotton-wood cafion to the east, the 
country becomes more open. Upon the Paleozoic rocks, rests 
the Mesozoic series. The hills on either side of the Eagle, con- 
sist of the soft gypsiferous beds of the upper Carboniferous 
and above them in due order the red and variegated strata of 
the Triassic and Jurassic series. 

The valley of the Eagle between the hills is from one to two 
miles in width. About a mile from Dotsero station the river 
hugs the south edge of the steep face of the hills. Just at 
this point a very black looking rock covers the meadow of the 
valley, spreading out like a large pancake, over an area of avout 
a square mile. The edge of the cake ends abrubtly at the 
river side near the base of the cliff forming the south bank of 
the stream, the river separating it from the cliff beyond. As 


pe Sf, 
Jo Z 
(oD Z 
l = a ee ia 
= Mars op Eagle EE ee ‘ 
ZF. Zs, 
=e, J _ 


Sees: Zs LPFT, 
——_ Lb 
i \ Z vA is 


5 


5 ere 
DAM STE RO, (iz ATIER afclec 

D Breccia SceCoue 
CILARADO 


R Red Sundslone 
§ Stora 


Tp .£agléRkwer.——-.0- Dverys 
( On mr6a hou 


tae 
iy aden 
q 
+ 


or) pan 


Fixtinct Volcanoes in Colorado.— Lakes. 4] 


there was no bridge, I waded the stream and ascended the 
opposite bank. The bank proved to be a rugged cake of lava 
from fifty to one hundred feet thick. The central portion was 
of hard, massive, dark grey basalt showing a fluidal structure 
and a few small steam holes. Above this were masses of 
scoria piled up or tumbled along in chaotic confusion like the 
clinkers of a slag furnace. Underneath also, the lava was 
scoriaceous. It resembled pictures of the recent lava fields of 
Mauna Loa, or Vesuvius. The blocks of scoria were highly 
vesicular like honey-combs. The edges of the little circular 
steam holes were as fresh and sharpas if the flow had occurred 
but a week ago, and were not filled by zeolites and amygda- 
_ loids as is the case generally we believe with basaltic flows of 
an older date. The surface of a greater part of the flow is 
destitute of vegetation, a black rugged mass of slag and clink- 
ers. Towards the opposite side of the valley, decomposition 
of the lava allowed a sparse covering of grass and sage-brush. 

I had no difficulty in tracing the flow across the valley to 
the entrance of a narrow ravine in the hills. Great rugged 
masses of scoria were adhering to the sides of the ravine, as if 
a furnace had poured molten iron down it. Erosion had re- 
moved the lower portion of the lava, and bitten into the sand- 
stone forming the bottom of the ravine. Following up the 
ravine for about a mile into the hills, the lava stream became 
more continuous, and appeared eventually to issue in a huge 
semicircular, bulging mass, from the top of a hill of very steep, 
smooth outlines. This hill, with all the surrounding hilltops 
at this level, for a circular area of about a mile in diameter, is 
composed of, or covered with grey “lapilli,” little pebbles of 
scoria mixed with fragments of shale and red sandstone, from 
the size of a pea to that of a hen’s egg, shot up by the explo- 
sive steam from the throat of the volcanic vent. These beds 
of “lapilli” appear to be of considerable thickness. At the top 
of the hill they seem to have been consolidated into a coarse 
stratified breccia, tipped up at an angle of 5 or 10 degrees on 
either side of the great mass of lava, as if the lava had broken 
through this portion of the crater and tilted up the brecciated 
sandstone in its exit. 

Climbing over the lava mass, I stood on the top of the hill, 
and look down into a perfect oval-shaped crater, the bottom of 
which lay upward of 600 feet below me. The walls of the cra- 


_- 7 FS - Pe ae ey tl eA Ay Pe Ee ea Se A a eee ee we i A ts PAT » a ‘I % 

Ram it Cie Ps SAD RID RIE ANDO TR MATA HEROES AE ICO BPH PRD Oa Ra a 

i { y hy , Wan en SAYS, f Wee Lat 

Weta) ira iy that RETA oie . nerd aoa 
ins ; 7 yh \ 


42 The American Geologist. Jan, 1890. 


ter are of red Triassic sandstone, averaging 400 to 600 feet in 
the steeper part, whilst from the top of the lapilli-covered hills 
sloping gradually down into the steep throat of the crater, the 
hight was over a thousand feet. The crater may thus be said 
to be about one thousand feet deep. The bottom of the crat- 
er is oval and comparatively flat, dipping, however some five 
or more degrees to the south, that is, toward the side where the 
lava seems to have broken through and poured out. The diam- 
eter of the bottom is between 200 and 300 yards, the surface is 
covered with debris and sage-brush, doubtless overlying a sol- 
id plug of congealed lava. The width of the crater at its steep- 
er portion, is between 500 and 800 yards. The sides are quite 
steep, having an inclination of from 45 to 75 degrees, and 
would be rather difficult to climb up or down. I did not make 
the attempt from lack of time. There is no natural exit or en- 
trance to the crater. It is a complete cup. The red sandstone 
strata forming the throat dipped inwards at an angle of 
from 30 to 40 degrees, and appeared to converge toward the 
centre of the crater. Time only allowed me to make some 
rapid sketches and hurried observations, but from what I saw 
I think the following may be the history of this undoubtedly 
true crater and volcanic vent. 

At some time, probably within the human period, eruptive 
forces found a vent at this point, and explosions of steam blew 
out acrater hole in the upper Carboniferous and Triassic 
strata. That the action was explosive. I judge from the great 
quantities of lapilli and comminuted fragments of shale and 
sandstone covering the surrounding the hills. The steam de- 
scending as water worked up some of the lapilli into a strati- 
fied breccia around the rim of the crater. When the explo- 
sive energies, that had filled the sky with steam and lapilli, de- 
scending in showers upon the surrounding hills, had subsided, 
a volume of lava arose in the throat ofthe crater, and poured 
out over the lip on the south side, partly breaking through the 
crust of breccia, and tilting it upas it passed through it. From 
the lip of the crater it poured rapidly down the steep face 
of the hill, and thence down the narrow ravine into the open 
valley, where it spread out as a cake of lava over the meadows 
and onto the river which it may have temporarily dammed 
back. The course of the lava was finally checked by coming 
against the abrupt cliff forming the south bank of the Eagle, 


Santa Barbara Channel, etc.— Yates. 43 


or the water of the stream may have checked the progress of 
the lava by congealing it. The character of the lava sheet, 
scoriaceous and vesicular above and below, massive and com- 
pact in the middle, corresponds to what is observed in modern 
lava flows. The surface of lava in contact with the air or 
water, gives off its imprisoned steam through multitudes of 
little steam holes. This reduces the surface of the sheet to a 
rough, spongy, vesicular mass, whilst the liquid lava flows on 
below. The same occurs with the under surface in contact 
with the coolor damp ground. Portions also of the scoriaceous 
top surface fall off the end of the advancing sheet and are 
rolled underneath it. As the molten stream advances, the 
spongy or scoriaceous surface is broken up into clinkers which 
are rolled along on the topof the liquid stream, and become 
piled up in confused masses where there is any check or ob- 
stacle to the flow, such as the cliff and river in the present in- 
stance. 

How comparatively old, or recent, may be the date of this 
eruption, it is not easy to determine. There are tall fir-trees 
growing in the throat of the crater. I did not see any sign of 
hot springs or gas emanations in the vicinity, such as are 
common in recently extinguished volcanoes, nor are volcanic 
rocks particularly abundant in the immediate ant 
This occurence seems to be an isolated one. 

This interesting locality is accessible by the morning train 
of the Rio Grande railroad between Leadville and Glenwood. 
The lava flow is close by the track, but the crater is between 
three and four miles back to the north, inthe hills. The blue 
grey color of the lapilli capping the hills can be distinctly 
seen from the train, and marks the locality of the voleano. A 
resort called Siloam Hot Springs has recently been establish- 
ed not far from this spot and would make a good stopping 
place for some geologist to more leisurely and thoroughly ex- 
amine this interesting locality. 


NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY AND SCENERY OF THE ISLANDS 
FORMING THE SOUTHERLY LINE OF THE 
SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL. 


By DR, LORENZO GORDIN YATES, Santa Barbara, Cal. 


The entire group or series of islands, forming the southern 
line of the Santa Barbara channel off the coast of southern 


RYT Ry 


Santa Barbara Channel, etce.— Yates. 45 


California, from the San Miguel off point Conception to the 
eastern extremity of the Anacapas, is composed of a founda- 
tion of black vesicular basalt, upon which rest the later forma- 
tions of trachyte and other varieties of volcanic rocks. 

In many places the older flow of lava has evidently been 
broken up into irregular fragments, and cemented by the sub- 
sequent flow of intrusive lava, which formed a softer rock than 


the older basaltic formation; hence where this volcanic breccia . 


is exposed to the action of the atmosphere, the intruded ce- 
ment has disintegrated more rapidly, than the included frag- 
ments of the older formation, thus freeing the enclosed frag- 
ments which form the debris at the bases of the perpendicular 
cliffs along the shores oftheislands. At other points;(for exam- 
ple see sketch No. 1 on north side of the middle Anacapas) 
we see the black basalts forming the foundation of the inlet 
up to about 20 feet above the surface of the water; the soft 
trachytic rock which formerly covered the basalt, Fas been 
eroded, leaving only a rounded elevation in the centre. A 
short Eeianite from this islet the foundation is capped by a 
variety of irregularly stratified rocks; First, by a gray basalt ; 
then by alighter gray; then a dark line of much weathered 
trachyte, finally, by a light colored greenish gray stratified de- 
posit which forms the present surface of the island. 

This formation is shown in sketch No 2, where is also shown 
a wall of intrusive rock of a dark rusty color, capped by a 
warm grayish brown. This interesting exposure can be 
favorably studied from point Lookout, (A.sketch No. 1); 
which point may be reached by following a well made trail 
starting at the settlement and following an easterly direction, 
skirting the northerly line of the uplands, gradually tending 
downwards until a point is reached from which an excellent 
view of the west island may be had, also of the natural arches 
and entrances to the caves,—and higher up in the bluffs of the 
small wind-worn caves, the varied points and irregularities of 
outline, the wealth of coloring of rocks, plants, ocean, sky, 
and even the sea-weeds adding no unimportant item to the 
panorama. 

As seen from this elevation the colors of the clear, calm 
water of the ocean shade off from bright yellowish brown and 
brilliant green at the surface, to the depths where the darker 
hues of brown and green are blended. Even the molluscs 


EEN Ne AI 
BR 


Uy aL ig 


ig y 


46 The American Geologist. Jan. 1860. 


Trochiscus norrissii on the kelp, seem to cateh and intensify 
the colors of their surroundings. Almost directly under us 
les the small islet shown in sketch No. 1. 

Following the trail a short distance farther we round the 
point where the north side of the eastern island comes into 
view, presenting with the eastern portion of the middle 
island an entire change of color and outline. The shore line 
is of all shades of brown and green. The black basaltic base, 
with its overlying masses of trachytic rock of various colors, 
is weathered out into innumerable cavities and miniature 
caves. The outlying islets are viewed at an altitude of per- 
haps 200 feet above the ocean, which les almost directly 
under our feet. The barking sea-lions and seals impress us 
with the idea of distant voices of human beings. The scene 
has a beauty and grandeur impossible to describe or imagine, 
and well worth the trouble it costs to reach the locality. 

Retracing our steps we regain the higher ground and reach 
a point on the top of the greenish gray sedimentary deposit 
shown in sketch No. 2 at A. From this point we see the entire 
length of the eastern island, and the sinuosities of its south- 
ern side; the whole length of the southern exposure shows 
perpendicular cliffs from the shore to the top of the 
island some three or four hundred feet high, with the 
eastern end of middle island and the gray deposit before 
mentioned in the foreground, and over which at a low point 
marked ‘‘B” in sketch No. 2, we see the shore line of the east- 
ern island, the peculiar form of which resembles the rim of an 
immense crater, a greater portion of whose circumference has 
been destroyed by the ocean which is continually battering at 
both sides of the remainder, which must, at a time not far 
distant, succumb to the forces of nature which are rapidly 
disintegrating the remains of what once formed a large extent 
of country. 

The Caves. 

Many of the caves on these islands are interesting, one of 
them which we called Freshwater or Indian cave, shows 
evidence of having been inhabited by the aborigines for a 
long period. At the mouth of this cave is a spring of good 
water seeping from the rocks into basin-shaped cavities which 
are evidently artificial. One of these fills up at the rate of 
70 gallons every 24 hours. Among the refuse matter deposited 


Santa Barbara Channel, ete.— Yates. A7 


in this cave by the Indians we found but little except some 
fragments of ropes made of sea-grass. Some of these ropes 
were braided with three strands,the others twisted like ordinary 
rope used atthe present day. We found also bones of a 
variety of animals which had been used as food. 

The largest cave on the Anacapas into which we rowed our 
boat consists of a chamber of about 400 feet in width, run- 
ning back about 150 feet from the arched entrance, with a 
dome-shaped roof perhaps 100 feet high, rising from the cir- 
cumference in a regular curve to the center. The floor of this 
cave is covered by water, and edged by a pebbly beach which 
extends around the interior, upon which we landed. Another 
which we called the Dark cave, is in the shape of a long gallery 
just about large enough to admit a small row-boat, but ex- 
tends for some distance. It is divided into three distinct 
chambers, the openings between being so small that -we 
had to bend over in order to pass through. The interior 
was so dark that, although we had two candles burning we 
could only tell where the walls were by alternately bumping 
our heads and elbows against them. 

In passing along the bluffs in which the caves are situated, 
they present a panorama of unique and beautiful scenery, 
where the richness of color and peculiarity of outline are 
unequaled at any other point, the water for a great portion of 
the distance being perfectly calm, and so transparent that the 
flora and fauna of its depths may be as easily studied as upon 
the surface; bright orange-colored fishes darting in and out 
among the dark green sea-weeds, the shells, corallines and 
other inhabitants of the deep can there be studied in their 
native element. 

The passing of every point opens up a new view in kaleido- 
scopic succession of picturesque beauty ; steep weather-worn 
faces of perpendicular bluffs; deep fissures and wierd, myste- 
rious caverns, from the tide-worn recesses of which issue the 
loud and continuous barking of seals; the undulating lines 
of flying flocks of brown pelicans; the ever changing colors of 
sea and shore, keep one continually on the lookout, that no 
portion of the interesting panorama be missed. 

The interest increases until it culminates on reaching the 
Grand Arch at the eastern extremity of the group (see sketch 


Ay oO Wane e Moen GTA Ae ANY Ae Ur MC ay vin i oid 
CALA Er Ree Re Oe ; Dg a hi" 


48 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


No. 3), where from a distance we may study the manner in 
which the islands have been encroached upon by the ocean. 

The line of the surface of the eastern extremity of the group, 
and the tops of the outlying rocks, evidently formed portions 
of the same original slope, through which the sea made open- 
ings or passages which in time caved in from the top and 
formed distinct islands and outlying rocks still projecting 
above the surface of the water. 

In this manner the islands have been broken through at 
the weakest points, thus dividing the Anacapas into three 
distinct islands; and the channels between the principal 
islands of the chain have doubtless been formed in the same 
manner. 

The middle and eastern Anacapas are composed entirely of 
volcanic rocks with the exception of a superficial deposit of 
water-worn pebbles and fragments of quartzose and metamor- 
phic rocks extending diagonally across the top of the middle 
island near its southeasterly corner, and from which the 
aborigines selected material for the manufacture of their 
weapons. Many of these fragments show evidence of having 
been broken and flaked off by the hand of man. 

At a point on the south side of the island there is a deposit 
of limestone a few feet below the surface. Another deposit of 
drift occurs at the easterly end of the westisland; a vein of 
milky chalcedonic quartz of about 10 inches in thickness is 
seen some 15 or 20 feet below the drift near the arched passage 
or “Natural Bridge” near the east end of the west island. 

Westerly from the latter point this stratified uplifted rock 
rises abruptly untilit attains a hight of almost 1,000 feet, 
with adip of 45 degrees toward thé north. This portion of 
the island was not explored to any extent, except as we rowed 
or sailed along the channel side where the bluffs rise perpen- 
dicularly from the water. At the beach near the “Natural 
Bridge” the prevailing rock is an amygdaloid and vesicular 
basalt containing spherules of zeolites. 

The basaltic base of the middle island is composed largely 
of black vesicular basalt, containing spheroid and amygdaloid 
pebbles of chalcedony, which weather out and roll down the 
banksin the form of marbles. Some of these are solid, others 
are hollow and lined with drusy quartz. 


Santa Barbara Channel, etc.— Yates. 49 


Santa Cruz. 

I had intended to make an examination of the island of 
Santa Cruz, but was refused permission to Jand for that pur- 
pose, by the Santa Cruz island company, so that I can only 
give notes on some widely separated localities; but as Prof. 
Goodyear of the state survey spent some time on that island 
last spring, we shall learn something of its geology from the 
published reports of the survey. 

At Smugglers’ harbor, near the southeasterly extremity of 
the island we found an interesting exposure, where the basalt, 
volcanic breccia and white bituminous shale may be seen in 
juxta position, the shale twisted and contorted by uplift of the 
underlying rock ; the breccia composed of irregular fragments 
of vericular basalt cemented by trachytic cement. 

Twenty-five miles from Smugglers’ harbor, at the northwest- 
erly extremity of Santa Cruz, Forney’s cove affords a safe and 
convenient harbor, protected by a narrow neck of basaltic rock 
extending southerly from the main island. 

From Forney’s cove we follow the coast of the island, com- 
posed of perpendicular basaltic rocks similar to those of the 
Anacapas, to Lady harbor; just before reaching which we visit 
a beautiful cave with three openings, one towards the west, 
one towards the south into which the water of the ocean ex- 
tends some distance affording a good landing on its pebbly 
beach} the other opening towards the east at the mouth of a 
wooded cafion which from this point rises rapidly towards the 
high mountains which are here but a short distance from the 
north shore. The westerly opening ofthis cave is exquisitely 
beautiful, the large arch and roof showing the minute details 
of the conglomerates, the irregular | fragments of which lie 
scattered about, and project from the cementing material from 
which they are continually weathering out, leaving a ragged 
surface among the projecting points of which Polypodiums, 
Penstamons, and other interesting plants flourish in the 
greatest luxuriance. I have never seen such a magnifi- 
cent growth of Polypodiums elsewhere as I saw fringing the 
mouth of this beautiful cave. 

Santa Rosa. 

The longer axis of Santa Rosa island, as also of the other 
Channel islands is parellel with the coast and the Santa Ynez 
range of mountains. 


e 


50 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890. 


Its general outline is in the form of a parallelogram, its great- 
est length about 18 miles, and greatest width about 12 miles, 
with a shore line of arly 45 miles. 

On the northeastern side of the island and midway between 
the north and west points a reef extends out to a distance of 
one and a quarter miles. 

The channels between this island and Santa Cruz on the 
east, and San Miguel on the west are respectively six miles 
and four miles in width. 

The outline of the island is bold and no harbors exist 
around its shore, but there are several good landing places, 
and a wharf has been built about the centre of Five-mile 
bight, where vessels can load and unload in safety. 

This island had been described as composed of sandstone, 
but the first thing noticeable on landing at the ‘west end of the 
island was the voleanic character of the rocks. 

At the wharf we found a good exposure of strata forming 
clifis about 30 feet in hight, the lower portion, for 15 feet above 
the sand of the beach, composed of stratified sandstone, fine 
erained and destitute of fossils, with an occasional stratum of 
breccia or conglomerate. These strata have a dip of about 12 
degrees southeast. The upper portion of the cliffs consists of 
a horizontal deposit of fragments of rhyolite, trachyte, vesicu- 
lar basalt, and white bituminuos shale. The fragments grad- 
ually decrease in size from the bottom where they are cement- 
ed together by volcanic sand ; this is covered by deep and ap- 
parently good soil. 

In some places the rock fragments of the upper half of the 
cliffs have been water-worn and form conglomerate. 

This character of rock extends from the wharf southeasterly 
to near the sand point at the southeastern extremity of the 
island, where it culminates in a hill of voleanic rock 175 feet 
high, which is exposed for some distance in a southeasterly 


direction from the beach on the north side of the point. 


The rocks have a marked tendency to weather into fantas- 
tic forms, the angular rocks becoming rounded by disintegra* 
tion, with irregular cavities and caves worn by the winds 
which have been used as dwellings by the aborigines as is indi- 
cated by fragments of shells and other debris in large quan- 
tities. 

At the northeastern extremity of the island is found a coarse 


NARA Ud Se Us ec ctisacis: 3 es 


Livtk, naw 


Santa Barbara Channel, etc.— Yates. 51 


volcanic breccia, composed of porphyritic and trappean rocks, 
‘haying a distinct stratification with a dip of 30° southeast. 

Several spurs extend out some distance from the shore line 
and others have been worn away by the surf until they form 
‘small rocky islets, while the porphyritic rocks, which have 
weathered out of the breccia, lie as smooth bowlders at the 
base of the cliffs. 

From this point the hills rise sharply to a hight of from 250 
to 300 feet, and run southeasterly to the main backbone of the 
island which lies on the line of its longest axis. 

The highest points on this range were visited, and the alti- 

tude was found to approximate 1,400 feet. 

' Several high peaks are grouped together about five miles 
south from the wharf, being on the northern side of the line 
of the long axis of the island. 

Three of these high peaks lying within a mile circuit were 
measured, the first, Black mountain, indicated a hight of 1,325 
feet ; crossing from this peak over a depression of 350 feet be- 
low the first summit we find rhyolite and white bituminous 
shale. The next peak south, (Saddle mountain) is about 100 
feet higher than Black mountain. 

Between this point and the hills on the southeastern side of 
the Cafiada de la Cruz (Cafion of the Cross), we found lime- 
stone in the bed of the creek, together with fossil oysters (Os- 
trea titans) and other Miocene fossils. Southeasterly from 
Saddle mountain, and lying between Cafiada de la Cruz and 
the ocean there is an intrusion of syenite, the extent of which 
has not been ascertained, nor did I discover the line of junc- 
tion between the Miocene and Pliocene. 

On the north side of the island, about ten miles from the 
wharf, near the mouth of Saledad Cafion, we found an excel- 
lent exposure of strata, consisting of about 90 feet of Post 
Pliocene deposit, containing fossil bones of vertebrates, and at 
one place, fossil Physas, (P. d’orbigniana), at a depth of some 
75 feet below the surface. 

This deposit is horizontal and overlies strata of older rocks, 
probably Pliocene, which dip 13° N. E. and contain Pecten, 
Turbinella cestrum, and Hinnites gigeantea in abundance, 
and in an excellent state of preservation. 

From this point to the southwestern extremity and around 
the west end of theisland to the point where the main range of 


52 The American Geologist. | Jan, 1890. 


mountains meets the ocean, the shifting sands have covered the 
rocks. There is no indication of drift on Santa Rosa island, hence 
we cannot account for the presence ofthe fossil elephant on the 
theory of its having been brought by floating ice, as advanced 
by some writers. It will be observed that the Anacapas San- 
ta Cruz; Santa Rosa and San Miguel islands are on a line 
with point Dumas on the east and are parallel with the Santa 
Ynez mountains as before stated; at this point the islands 
were doubtless once connected with the main land,and what is 
now the Santa Barbara channel was then a gulf or arm of the 
sea, beginning at point Conception and running in a southeast- 
erly direction for, say 150 miles. 

When these islands were thus connected with the mainland, 
it was easy for them to become inhabited by the larger verte- 
brates. 

It is also probable that this chain ofislands is a portion of 
the same outflow of lava which formed the volcanic ridges and 
peaks on the mainland east of them. 


REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 


North American Geology and Paleontology. S. A. Mituer, Cincinnati. 
The author, pp. 664. This work was announced in this journal, vol. 
Iv,p. 255. Its figures, illustrative of fossil species, number 1194. They 
are distributed alphabetically through the paleontological portion of 
the book. In brief the work is a dictionary of North American pale- 
ozoic paleontology, giving the names of all genera and species, their 
formations, authors, dates and where published, with illustrations 
when necessary or when available. It is a work which no paleontol- 
ogist can well be without, and displays a vast amount of patient and 
careful labor. Itis introduced by a brief discussion and definition 
of the laws of geology and geologic nomenclature, specially describing 
the systems and groups to which the author makes assignment of 
paleozoic fossils, and it is finished by a glossary of specific names in 
use in North American paleontology, giving their signification, and by 
an index of genera. 

Some peculiarities appear in the opening geological chapters. 1. The 
author has positive opinions and is fearless in the statement of them. 
2. The term Cambrian is not employed, but the term Silurian is made 
to cover the interval where Cambrian was placed by Sedgwick. 3. The 
term Taconic is made to embrace the most of the primordial zone, 
omitting only the Dikelocephalus horizon. 4. The Quebec group he 
considers ‘‘very doubtful.’? He makes the Oriskany the base of the 


Ay 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 53 


Devonian, and a coarsely fragmental sandstone or conglomerate the 
base of each of larger sub-divisions, after the plan of Dr. J. S. New- 
berry. 5. He does not classify the Comanche series as the base of the 
Cretaceous nor mention it at all. 6. He scouts the idea of a glacial 
epoch, saying ‘‘Indeed there is no evidence a glacial sheet ever 
existed on any part of the continent; none that gives any warrant to 
the hypothesis of a glacial period. * * * * The scratches and 
furrows are readily accounted for without the hypothesis of a glacial 
period. * * * The glacial epoch is a theoretical blunder, not sup- 
ported by scientific facts or intelligent reasoning, and contrary to all 
geographical, geological and paleontological information. There is 
no such geological period, and no gap into which it can possibly be 
injected.” 

A dictionary of the fossils of Pennsylvania. Compiled by J. P. Lestry, 
state geologist. Harrisburg, 1889. Report P*. A to M. 

Prof. Lesley has been able, after an almost unlimited amount of 
work, to present to the public a really good dictionary of fossils, which 
will be highly appreciated, not only by the “‘quarrymen, prospectors, 
etc.,’’ebut by the scientific reader. 

The fossils are arranged alphabetically, which, although useful to 
the more scientific reader, is not readily available for the general 
public; while Prof. Lesley’s method is undoubtedly the best one, 
still for the benefit of the general public it seems to me that it would 
have been better to have added a list of counties, then the localities in 
each county, giving only the name of the fossils there found with the 
proper page reference to the more descriptive alphabetical list, there- 
by making the book more readable to this latter class. The book is 
profusely, though not at all times well illustrated, some of the cuts 
being rather coarse. 

Not only has Prof. Lesley given the Pennsylvania fossils, but those 
also from the same horizons in the neighboring states, thereby making 
the book all the more valuable. 

In his letter of transmittal to the governor, Prof. Lesley attacks 
(mildly to be sure) the theory of the evolution of forms by saying— 
‘“that they (the readers) can not find a single proof, however slight, 
for the actual hereditary descent of living creatures of our age from 
those of preceding ages’’—this, however, applied to this portion of the 
work is fairly satisfactory from the fact that the book deals mainly 
with the invertebrates and the evolutionists strongest proofs are as yet 
in the vertebrata. Nor do the evolutionists claim an unbroken suc- 
cession of life. 

With the exception of the few bad wood-cuts, the work is up to the 
standard of the former publications of the Geological Survey and it is 
to be hoped that Prof. Lesley will be able to complete the second 
part without being delayed (as he was with the first Parl) by the print- 

ng of valueless legislative documents. 

Report on the landed property of the Buena Vista company. By W. H. 
RuFrFnNeER. 8vo, one map, pp. 104. 


54 - The American Geologist. Jan. 1890. 


“Buena Vista is in the great valley which extends from Canada to 
Alabama, and which is noted for its limestone lands, iron beds, clear 
streams, healthful climate, picturesque scenery, the number of its 
towns and its substantial population. The valley is known in Penn- 
sylvania as the Lehigh, Cumberland, etc., where it abounds in natural 
resources and acquired wealth. In northern Virginia it is the Shenan- 
doah valley. In the middle it originates the James and the Roanoke 
rivers. Southwardtit is known as southwest Virginia, where now is in 
progress a remarkable scene of industrial development.’’ 

While this is essentially an economic report, its descriptions, based 
on a comprehensive knowledge of the geology of the region, give an 
accurate and valuable account of its iron ore beds, clays, ochres and 
sands, and of its limestones, cements, water power and general agri- 
cultural capabilities. For its scope it is a model popular geological 
report. 

Development of some Silurian Brachiopoda. Cuas. E. Breecuer AND 
Joun M. Crarx, Albany. Mem. N. Y. State Museum, vol. 1, No.1, 4to, 
8 plates, pp. 95. 

This is a valuable addition to the science of the brachiopoda. It indi- 
cates the developmental changes in the life-histories of twenty-five 
species, some of them with great fulness, and makes known the 
dangers that surround the paleontologist who publishes new names for 
small variations inform. The plates are very instructive, and ought 
to be imitated in the treatment of other genera. 

The authors have made use of the very abundant material afforded 
by collections from Waldron, Indiana, to trace the individual develop- 
ment of all the species of brachiopods known from the Niagara shales 
in that interesting locality. 

To give some conception of the amount of material at their command 
itis stated that the collections when received weighed about seven 
tons. After specifically separating the mature specimens and all that 
were approximately mature, some fifty thousand immature individuals 
for the most part less than five millimeters in length, were gathered 
from the washings of the slabs. The result is that for a large propor- 
tion of the brachiopod species the authors are able to show a series of 
individuals beginning with forms in some instances less than a milli- 
meter in length and including every stage of growth up to the aged 
adult with its greatly thickened margin and crowded lines of growth. 
Some of the rarer species have afforded no young specimens, while 
among the really common forms, Rhynchonella stricklandia and Whitjieldia 
(Meristina) maria are particularly remarkable for the absence, or al- 
most entire absence, of immature individuals. 

“The method of illustration which has been adopted is one which 
seems most readily to furnish a means for comparison of characters. 
The embryonic shells are represented as enlarged, usually to the size 
of an adult, and accompanying the enlargement are natural size pre- 
resentations of the final result of normal growth. Where the mature 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 55 


forms have been too minute to show satisfactorily the details of struc- 
ture, both the developmental stages and full grown shell have been 
enlarged to a conyenient size. Thus the incipient stages and mature 
specific forms are presented together.”’ 

Among its facts of interest brought out by the investigation here re- 
ferred to is that the initial stages of very distinct species, and even of 
very distinct groups, are so much alike, that it is often impossible to 
say whether agiven embryo is the young of Spirifer, Athyris, Rhynchon- 
ella, Anastrophia, Meristina or Nucleospira. The conclusions of the 
authors,however,do not admit of any condensed statement and persons 
interested in the subject are referred to the original paper. 

Report on the geology of the Rainy lake region. By ANDREW C, LAwson, 
Ph. D. (Part F of the Annual Report of the Geological and Natural 
History Survey of Canada for 1887.) pp. 190, with two maps, 7 sections, 
7 plates from photographs, and 15 cuts in the text illustrating the 
microscopic features of thin sections of rocks. Montreal, 1888. 

In this approximately plain or moderately hilly Archean region, so 
thinly covered by the glacial drift that often the bed-rocks are exposed 
to view almost continuously along distances of many miles, exception- 
ally favorable opportunity is afforded for their study. But the unin- 
habited condition of the country (forest and swamp, without roads) 
permits extensive travel only by canoes and by portages across the 
narrow divides between lakes at the head of the stream-courses. 

The Archean group there is found to be divisible into two systems, 
the lower being the granitoid gneisses, to which the name Laurentian 
is restricted by Dr. Lawson, and the upper being chiefly schists, which 
are again divided into two series. The older of these, consisting of 
mica schists and granitic gneisses, with a measured maximum thick- 
ness of four or five miles, is named by Lawson the Coutchiching series, 
well developed about Rainy lake; and the newer, including metamor- 
phosed volcanic rocks, with schists, greywackes, quartzytes and slates, 
he has called the Keewatin series in a former report on the region 
about the Lake of the Woods. The present report gives very abundant 
and interesting observations of these formations, and ably discusses 
their origin and age, the history of their metamorphism, and their 
present structure and relationship. 

The author’s studies lead him to believe that after the deposition of 
the stratified formations which constitute the upper part of the 
Archzean in these districts, the whole group comprising a vast thick- 
ness of sedimentary and volcanic rocks and perhaps below including a 
part of the first formed crust of the globe, was subjected to metamor- 
phism from the heat of the earth’s interior, whereby the basal Lauren- 
tian rocks were so fused that portions of them were extravasated 
through the overlying Coutchiching and Keewatin series. The Lauren- 
tian system can there be classified only on a petrographical basis, as 
its distinctions of stratigraphical sequence and relationships, if any 
such ever existed, have been obliterated. All the characters of these 


fa 

F- 

a 

ie 

aS 
SAGoT 


56 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 


gneisses indicate, according to Dr. Lawson, that they are plutonic 
rocks which have crystallized slowly, probably under an extremely 
gradual diminition of temperature, from a thickly viscid, coherent or 
tongh, hydrothermal magma. Up to the time of its final solidification, 
when it became approximately rigid, it appears to have been subjected 
to differential pressures, which, by causing a yielding or deformation, 
induced a flow in the mass, with the results of its foliation as gneiss 
and the parallel alignment of inclusions of foreign rock imbedded init. 

Parts of the overlying Coutchiching or Keewatin series may also 
have been involved in the fusion of the Laurentian floor, becoming 
thus indistinguishable from it. Above the upper limit of fusion these 
overlying beds are supposed to have retained their stratification and 
to have rested as a crust of hard and brittle rocks upon the magma, 
subject to its metamorphosing influences. Fragments of the upper 
Archean schists sank into the molten Laurentian, often to great dis-’ 
tances from the contact, and the fissures and crevices of the schists 
were filled with injections of this magma, which crystallized eventu- 
ally as the Laurentian gneisses, attaining its present rock structure 
later than the overlying series. In mapping these systems, it is dis- 
covered that the Laurentian gneisses and granite occupy large round- 
ish areas, isolated by encircling belts of the upper schists, much as the 
Archean rocks of New Hampshire were mapped by Prof. C. H. Hitch- 
cock in the geological survey of that state. 

Drift is spread thickly over the country southwest of the Lake of the 
Woods and Rainy lake, but on the north and northeast it is scanty, 
and the bed-rocks have been everywhere rounded, grooved and pol- 
ished by the ice-sheet, the average direction of its movement being 
S. 49° W. The distribution and character of the drift deposits are 
explained in part by the former presence of the glacial lake Agassiz, 
held in on its northeast side by the barrier of the receding ice. 
Abundant rock-outcrops and intervening swamps render the greater 
part of the region unfit for agriculture, excepting a tract about fifteen 
miles wide along the Rainy river. 

Metamorphism of rocks. A. Irvine. Longmans, Green «& Co., Lon- 
don and New York. 8vo. pp. 137. 1889. 

In this decidedly technical and learned treatise the author starts out 
by stating the exact points to be investigated, the difficulties of present 
theories and the inadequacy of the term ‘‘metamorphism’’ to convey 
a definite idea of any particular change in rocks. He uses the term 
metamorphism to indicate ‘‘only changes in the internal structure of 
rock-masses (i.e., in their morphology),’’ while changes in the exter- 
nal form and chemical changes, are denoted by the terms, Metatropy, 
Paramorphism and Metataxis. He defines them as follows: ‘1. Par- 
amorphism, including all those changes within a rock-mass, essentially 
of the nature of chemical changes in which the original minerals have 
had their chemical composition more or less altered, while new miner- 


als are formed within the mass. 2. Metatropy, or changes in the 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 57 


physical characters of rock-masses, while there is no essential chem- 
cal change either in the rock-mass orinits constituents. 3. Metataxis, 
or changes of order of the constituents of the rock-mass, of which the 
phenomenon of slaty cleavage may be taken as a typical instance.’’ 

The author concludes that the Archzean rocks ‘‘represent upon the 
whole the primordial (first formed) earth’s crust, from which the 
siliceous materials of the sedimentary rocks have been for the most 
part derived.’’ But he does not consider these ancient crystalline 
rocks to be the first sediments and crystallized by hydro-thermal 
agencies. He believes there was a pre-oceanic stage during which a 
erust was formed which would theoretically consist of quartz and 
orthoclase as the Laurentian granites really do. This, he says, leads 
to the further conclusion that the process by which the Archzean 
eneisses and schists were formed (so far as their essential mineral 
characters are concerned) was essentially ‘diagenetic’ rather than 
‘metamorphic.’ If this be admitted such phrases as ‘the highly met- 
amorphosed Archean gneisses and schists’ must be relegated to an 
obsolete nomenclature of geologic science.’’ 

The various phenomena of regional and contact-metamorphism are 
discussed and some of the causes assigned or suggested as possible 
explanations of them are interesting to say the least. An instance is 
in regard to foliation. He says, ‘‘we may come ultimately to associate 
the feeble foliation of tne fundamental gneiss where it has not been 
interfered with by mountain building processes with the earlier solar 
tidal waves and the more pronounced foliation of the Archean schists 
with the subsequent /unar tidal waves of the magma.” 

Although we may not agree with Mr. Irving in his conclusions we 
can not fail to read with interest his reflections upon ‘“‘metamorphism,’’ 
which interest is heightened by the suggestiveness of many of his 
undeveloped ideas. 

Geology of Colorado ore deposits. By Pror. A. Lakes. The scope 
and purpose of this little volume of about 150 pages can be best 
expressed in the language of the author, ‘‘This treatise contains the 
substance of a series of elementary lectures delivered by the author 
to the students of the Colorado State School of Mines. It is published 
with a view of meeting some of the needs of the general public, of the 
ordinary miner, and of the unscientific many, rather than with any 
idea of offering original matter for the discussion of the scientific few.” 

In carrying out the purpose as above set forth, Prof. Lakes gives a 
succinct account of the successive geological formations, illustrating 
this part of the subject when practicable by references to outcrops 
and exposures of the successive strata within the limits of Colorado. 

The most valuable part of the work deals with the distribution and 
modes of occurrence of Colorado ores. The lithological characters and 
geological age of the rocks in which ores are found are very fully 
discussed. The intelligent miner will find much valuable in- 
formation respecting the characteristics and origin of placers, 


58 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890. 


the origin of veins, lines of contact where minerals may be 
looked for with probable success, and other matters such as 
faults, dykes, etc., of equal interest and importance. There is reason 
to believe that mines and mining are regarded with more favor in 
Colorado than researches in paleontology. At all events the refer- 
ences to fossil faunas are not always happy. For example, in speak- 
ing of the well known Carboniferous brachiopod, Spirifera rocky- 
montana Marcou, there seems to be an unnecessary concession to 
unscientific readers at the expense of scientific accuracy when it is 
described as ‘‘a sort of pectifiated cockle-shell with a groove down the 
middle of the shell; this is called a Spirifer (Spirifer Rocky-Mon- 
tana).’’ Pleuwrotomaria is in one place transformed into Pleuroto- 
Maria, while a little farther on, as if in expiation of previous reckless 
waste of capitals, the genus /noceramus is written with a small i. 

_ On the whole, however, the work is a valuable one, and Prof. Lakes 

has rendered his fellow-citizens an abiding service in giving them a 
guide to the geological structure of Colorado and the distribution of its 
important mineral deposits at once so clear, so thorough and so 
reliable. Even the ‘‘scientific few’’ will find in it much to interest 
them. The work is finely illustrated with views; sections, etc., from 
the facile pencil of the author. 

Description of eight new species of fossils from the Cambro-Silurian. 
rocks of Manitoba. By J. F. Wuitraves. This paper constitutes a 
part of Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, vol. vu, Section 
tv, 1889. Of the eight species here described, one is a gastropod, 
Maclurea manitobensis. The other seven species are Cephalopods. 
The Maclurea is one of the finest examples of the genus, some individ- 
uals attaining a diameter of eight and a half inches. Although the 
exact stratigraphical relations of the rocks from which the fossils were 
obtained have not been determined, they are yet on purely paleonto- 
logical grounds referred in part to the horizon of the Trenton lime- 
stone and in part to the Hudson River group. The Cephalopods 
taken by themselves, however, would certainly indicate a later period 
than any to which the species in question have been referred. Parallel 
generic differentiation did not occur among Cephalopods in the 
Mississippi valley until the late Silurian or early Devonian. Six 
plates illustrate the paper. 

The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, Seventeenth 
Annual Report, for the year 1888. N. H. W1INCHELL, State Geologist, pp. 
vit and 270. The main body of this report is divided about equally 
into three parts, the first being a discussion of the stratigraphy of the 
Archean and primordial formations by the state geologist, the second a 
report of field-work in the Archean iron producing district of northern 
Minnesota by Mr. H. V. Winchell, and the third a report of field-work 
on the Archean of northeastern Minnesota by Mr. Uly. S. Grant. 
There followsa bibliography of American publications since 1872 relat- 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 59 


ing to the crystalline rocks of the Northwest, occupying thirty-three- 
pages. 

Professor Winchell reviews the development of knowledge of the 
erystalline rocks of the state during the progress of the present survey, 
and points out some of the problems that need further investigation. 
He notes that the Archean group has been subdivided, sometimes in- 
to only two parts, but more frequently into three or more, which are 
accepted not only by the geologists of the Northwest, but by geologists 
who are at work on this group of rocks throughout America and Ku- 
rope. In Minnesota six members of the group, if this Huronian be in- 
cluded in it, maintain a constancy of character and stratigraphic posi- 
tion extending into Wisconsin, Michigan and Canada, such that they 
require separate descriptions. But Prof. Winchell regards the Huron- 
ian as the equivalent of the Lower Cambrian of Sedgwick, instead of 
which, however, he would adopt the name Taconic, proposed for these 
rocks in New York by Emmons, referring to this series the Animike 
slates north of lake Superior. 

The Laurentian rocks of the Canadian geologists are divisible, as 
shown by Prof. Winchell’s observations in the Minnesota survey, into 
three parts, having different genesis and age. They are here describ- 
ed as ‘‘partly the result of change in situ from old sedimentary strata 
of Laurentian age, and partly the result of eruptive forces which have 
caused an extrusion and partial overflow over later sedimentary strata 
of some of the fused materials of the same old strata. Such extrusion 
has taken place at least at two epochs. * * * ” Under this view 
the name Laurentian ought to be applied only to the first of these 
parts, which is the fundamental gneiss; and the eruptive masses ori- 
ginating from it are of subsequent age, as Vermilion, Keewatin, Ani- 
mike, or later, to be determined by their relationship with these series 
overlying the true Laurentian. 

Next above the gneiss is the great series of crystalline schists named 
Vermilion by Winchell in 1886 and Coutchiching by Lawson. 
The former shows in this report that the Laurentian sedimentary age 
probably ended with a characteristically eruptive era, producing in 
some places an unconformable and elsewhere a conformable transi- 
tion, such as have been observed, from the Laurentian gneiss to the 
Vermilion schists. There is again a gradual and conformable transi- 
tion from the Vermilion to the Keewatin series,the latter having near- 
ly the same characters as about the Lake of the Woods, where it was 
studied and named by Dr. Lawson, and the Keewatin period, accord- 
ing to Prof. Winchell, ‘‘closed by a renewal of active eruption as pro- 
found in its energy and its effect on the pre-existing strata as that 
which marked the close of the Laurentian.’’ The vast deposits of iron 
ores, chiefly jaspilyte, which are mined at Vermilion lake, are includ- 
ed in the Keewatin series, but whether the jaspilyte was sedimentary 
or eruptive remains an unsettled question. 

Much diversity of opinions has prevailed concerning the correlation 


60 The American Geologist. Jan, 1890. 


of the primordial formations in Minnesota and the Northwest with 
those of the northeastern states. Professor Winchell denominates the 
lower three Northwestern divisions of this group in ascending or- 
der the Taconic, Potsdam, and Saint Croix series, referring the 
Keweenawan series of Irving to the Potsdam epoch. At the base of 
the Taconic a wide-spread unconformity is recognized, separating the 
Keewatin series, the uppermost of the Archean, from the Animike 
(Taconic) formation. 4 

The Rivers and Valleys of Pennsylvania. By Wiii1AM Morris Davis. 
pp- 71. (Lecture delivered before the National Geographic Society 
at Washington, Feb. 8, 1889, and published in the National Geographic 
Magazine, vol. 1, No. 3). The investigation presented in this essay 
was attempted with the hope of unfolding a teachable sequence of 
facts that would serve to relieve the usual routine of statistical and 
descriptive geography; but the author finds, after thorough study 
and analysis of the well determined geologic and geographic features 
of Pennsylvania, that the history of the Susquehanna, the Juniata, or 
the Schuylkill is too involved with complex changes, if not enshrouded 
in mystery to become intelligible to any but advanced students. To 
such the essay will be found very suggestive, opening a new field of 
geologic observation and induction. The single course of an ancient 
stream is now broken into several independent parts, and conversely 
the present rivers are often made up of parts that were formerly sep- 

arated by watersheds. For example, the Juniata of to-day comprises 
headwaters acquired from Ohio streams, and the lake in which the 
river once gathered its upper branches has become a mountain-top, so 
that the streams now flow around the margin of the lake, not across 
its basin. 

Preliminary to the special discussion of the development of 
the rivers of Pennsylvania, the author sets forth the gen- 
eral history which a river would, pass through in its cycle 
of youth, adolescence, maturity and old age, on the _ sup- 
position that a continental area were uplifted from the ocean 
and were then allowed to remain undisturbed through this period. 
But it may be doubted whether so long repose has ever been granted to 
any river basin; and manifold changes in the course and character of 
streams have been caused by movements of elevation, depression, and 
mountain-building. 

Professor Davis finds evidence that the Appalachian mountain sys- 
tem as it was originally upheaved in the Permian era has been greatly 
reduced and indeed finally worn away, while the ridges of to-day are 
merely the relief left by the etching of Tertiary valleys in a Cretaceous 
base-leveled lowland. He therefore concludes with Powell, that 
‘‘mountains can not remain long as mountains; they are ephemeral 
topographic forms.”’ 

The most conspicuous proof of differential elevation or subsidence 
during the Tertiary era are the wind-gaps in the long mountain ridges; 


TT a A 


Recent Publications. 61 


of which the one best known is the Delaware wind-gap between the 


‘Lehigh and Delaware water-gaps in Blue mountain. This wind-gap 


marks the unfinished notch cut by some stream whose headwaters 
have since been diverted, probably to the Lehigh. 

The Structure of Drumlins. By Warren Upnam. (From Proceedings 
of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. xxiv, 1889, pp. 228-242). 
The most important part of this paper describes sections of the drum- 
lins that form Third and Fourth cliffs on the coast of Scituate, Mass., 
about twenty-five miles southeast of Boston, consisting of till on the 
surface and to a depth of 15 to 25 feet or more and a central mass of 


‘modified drift, beds of gravel, sand and clay, with arched stratification. 


The bedding of the modified drift, and the obscure lamination which 
is commonly a characteristic of the till and is distinctly seen there, 
are parallel with each other and conformable with the line of division. 
No evidence of erosion, nor of tumultuous pushing forward, was 
observed ; but instead these sections appear to represent continuous 
deposition. The author believes that these drumlins, and probably 
the other drumlins so well developed upon many areas in the vicinity 
of Boston, were accumulated rapidly beneath the ice-sheet and near 
its receding margin at the close of the glacial period. 


RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 


1. State and Government reporis. 


On the form and position of the sea-level. R.S. Woodward. Bul. 
No. 48, U. S. Geol. Sur. 

Latitude and longitude of certain points in Missouri, Kansas and 
New Mexico. R.S. Woodward. Bul. No. 49, U.S. Geol. Sur. 

Formulas and tables to facilitate the construction and use of maps. 
R.S. Woodward. Bul. No..50, U.S. Geol. Sur. 

On invertebrate fossils from the Pacific coast. Charles A. White. 
Bul. No. 51, U. S. Geol. Sur. 

Subaérial decay of rocks and origin of the red color of certain forma- 
tions. Israel C. Russell. Bul. No. 52, U.S. Geol. Sur. 

The geology of Nantucket. N.S. Shaler. Bul. No. 53, U.S. Geol. 
Sur. 

3. Papers in scientific journals. 

Am. Jour. Sci. Dec. No. The lower Cretaceous of the southwest and 
its relation to the underlying and overlying formations. Chas. A. 
White. Hinge of the pelecypods and its development, with an attempt 
toward a better subdivision of the group. Wm. H. Dall. Relation of 
the uppermost Cretaceous beds of the eastern and southern United 
States. Robert T. Hill. Tertiary-Cretaceous parting of Arkansas and 
Texas. Robt. T. HillandR. A. F. Penrose, Jr. <A description of sev- 
eral Yttria and Thoria minerals from Llano county, Texas, W. EF. 
Hidden and J. B. Mackintosh. 


a OY 


bts a MA Si tate ita ste a Mal Aart 
PETA SOL KOA OREN STN NRE 


62 The American Geologist. Jan. 1890 ; 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


Lerrer rrom M. A. Micuet Livy. Monsieur: Je viens de récevoir 
votre aimable envoi, et je m’ empresse de vous en remercier cordial- 
ement. 

Je vous suis reconnaissant d’avoir fait connaitre au grand public qui 
s’ interresse, en Amérique, aux choses scientifiques, que la science 
allemande n’ existe pas seule, en matitre de travaux pétrographiques. 
J’appelle de mes voeux le moment Ou le langage pétrographique 
pourra ¢tre unifié, grace a des concessions réciproques, et en cherchant 
un appui stir des faits contingents, indépendants de toute hypothése. 
A ce point de vue, je pense que vous avez rendu service a la science en 
faissant connditre mes objections 4 la classification par trop théorique, 
adopté par Rosenbusch, et suivie actuellement par les nombreux 
adeptes de la puissante ¢cole. 

Croyez, cher monsieur 2 mes sentiments reconnaissants et deyoués. 

Paris le 16 Novembre, 1889. A. Micuen Livy, 
Monsieur ALEXANDER WINCHELL. 26 rue Spontini 4 Paris. 

THE FOSSILS OF THE TRINITY BEDS. Pardon me “for entering a mild 
protest against the revision of the species from the Trinity beds of 
Arkansas, published in your last issue from the pen of my esteemed 
friend Mr. Jules Marcou. The Pleurocera is neither a Nerinea nor a 
Cerithium, nor have any of the numerous specimens shown ‘‘the 
opening with a fold so common to the Nerinea,’’? but upon careful 
examination of many specimens no such folds are apparent. What Mr. 
Marcou mistakes for a fold is a fragment of stone. Neither is the 
Vivipara a Natica as shown in the excellent illustrations. I fear that 
Mr. Marcou has been a little hasty, as he will no doubt confess, if he Ki 
examines the specimens. The fauna is estuarine and brackish, 
accompanied by sharp sands, lignites, clays, cross-bedding, verte- 
brates, etc. 

Very respectfully, 
Austin, Dec. 5, 1889. Rost. T. Hii. 


PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 


.Pror. C. L. Herrick, GRANVILLE, O. HAS BEEN APPOINTED 
professor of biology and geology in the University of Cincin- 
nati, at Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Pror. E. D. Cope HAS BEEN ELECTED BY THE TRUSTEES of the 
University of Pennsylvania to fill the chair of geology in the 
auxiliary course of medicine in that institution. 

Tar DEEPEST Bore in THE WoRLD, claimed at different 
times for a number of places is, according to the latest 
accounts, at Schladebach, a small German village near Leipsic. 
It measures 17,484 metres, or about 5,735 feet. The time ex- 


Personal and Scientitic News. 63 


pended in boring to this depth amounted to six years, at a 
cost of $52,500. A peculiar experience encountered in connec- 
tion with this and other deep holes in different parts of Ger- 
many is, according to Unland’s Wochenshritt, that the 
observed temperatures, while steadily increasing with the 
depths, show a smaller ratio of increase in the lower strata. 

THE TESTIMONY OF PROFESSOR ORTON, THE STATE GEOLOGIST 
oF OHIO, given in a natural-gas case at Toledo, is not calcula- 
ted to pull natural gas very far out of the slump in which it is. 
Natural gas, he said, is now a fixed quantity, its manufacture 
having ceased long ago. Hence the more that is taken out of 
the earth the less that remains to be taken out. With care 
and economy the northwestern Ohio field with the present 
draft upon it will last for from five to eight years, but not for 
ten, he thinks. Three years he gives as the average life of a 
gas well.— Prttsburgh Commercial Gazette. 

Dr. C. E. BEssry,A WELL KNown Boranist, is acting chancel- 
lor of Nebraska State University, Lincoln; Dr. S. H. Peabody a 
zoologist, is chancellor of Illinois Industrial University, Cham- 
paign. These should be added to the list of scientists at the 
head of state universities given on p. 320 vol. iv of the GEoLo- 
GIST. 

Pror. FRANKLIN R. CARPENTER RESIGNED THE PosrtTion of 
Dean of the Dakota School of Mines, at Rapid City, in Novem- 
ber, and is engaged in some experiments in pyritic smelting, 
with an iron matte, which are said to promise important ad- 
vantages to the mines in the Black Hills. The position vaca- 
ted by Prof. Carpenter was filled by the appointment of Mr. 
Geo. F. Duck M. E., of Bethlehem, Pa. 

Mr. W. P. Buake, Descripes IN THE Lng. and Min. Jour. 
Dec. 21, another new bituminous mineral, and names it (from 
Dr. Henry Wurtz of New York) Wurtzilite It is from 
Wasatch county, Utah, not far from the source of the Uintah- 
ite, now an article of commerce. 

“The new substance differs essentially from any hitherto 
described. It is a firm, black solid, a little heavier than water, 
and breaks with a brilliant conchoidal fracture, and has a gen- 
eral resemblance to jet or some of the cannel coals. It is sec- 
tile, cutting like horn or whalebone. The shavings and thin 
flakes, or fragments, have a degree of elasticity. These char- 
acters led, at first, in Salt Lake to the supposition and the re- 
port that the substance was allied to caoutchouc, or vulcanized 
rubber. But it was soon found to be without the essential 
qualities of rubber, not having tensile elasticity, and being very 
difficult of solution. It was then for a time referred to the 
species elaterite, the only elastic bitumen described in Dana’s 
mineralogy. But a comparison of the subtance with the des- 
cription of the assemblage of dissimilar substances classed 
under the name elaterite shows that it differs from either of 


64 The American Geologist. oe eee 


them, and that it has much better defined characteristics, 
which permit a specific description and entitle it to a distinct- 
ive name. 

Wurtzilite occurs in large, homogeneous masses, free from 
mechanical admixture and without any evidence of formation 
in layers, or of fusion. It is amorphous, and when cold, or at 
ordinary temperature, it is brittle and breaks with a large con- 
choidal fracture, giving very brilliant, glossy surfaces with a 
vitreous lustre like uintahite, and resembling in appearance 
the splendent conchoidal surfaces of newly-broken obsidian. 
It has, however, a degree of toughness which increases with an 
elevation of temperature, and it requires a quick, sharp blow 
to detach a flake and secure a good fracture. 

Elasticity is observable in thin flakes, but this elasticity may 
be compared to that of glass or mica rather than tothe yielding 
tensile elasticity of “rubber.” If the flake is bent too far, or 
suddenly, it snaps like glass. The substance is also flexible 
and when slowly pressed and warmed a flake may be bent 
nearly double. 

Color—The extremely thin edges of the flakes obtained by 
fracture are garnet red by transmitted light, and are often bril- 
liant. It would thus appear to be transparent in very thin 
plates, and to be deep red in color. The color of the mass by 
reflected light is a jet black. 

Hardness —The hardness is such that it is not impressed 
by the nail at ordinary temperature. It scratches gypsum, 
and does not scratch rock salt. It is thus between two and 
three in the scale of Mohs. 

Specitic Gravity,—at 60 degrees F., 1.030. 

Fusibility—Does not fuse in boiling water, but becomes 
softer and tougher, and is more plastic, but is not viscid or 
sticky, and fragments are not adherent. It melts in the 
flame of a candle, takes fire, and’ burns with a_ bright, 
luminous flame, with a slight crepitation and _ little 
smoke, giving off a strong bituminous odor. Fused in a 
glass tube it gives off a dense cloud of white and yellow 
smoke and distils over a thick, brown, tarry oil with a strong 
odor, and leaves a small residue of fixed carbon. Fragments 
warmed in the hand emit a strong odor like that of some of 
the crude petroleums, which is rather offensive. 

Electrical Characters—Ilt is a good electric. Negative 
electricity is easily developed by friction. It will be found 
useful as an insulating material and for other purposes in the 
arts. 

Insolubility—It is not easily dissolved. It resists the 
usual solvents of bitumen, but experiments are in progress 
which will probably lead to a process by which it can be suc- 
cessfully worked in combination with other substances.” 


“SVSNVM ‘ALNONOO AGVAW NI 100d LIV 


Oe erica 


ee 
— 


ae ren ea 


ae. 5k 


THE 


PoteriCAN ‘GEOLOGIST 


Vou. V. FEBRUARY, 1890. No. 2. 


NOTES ON A KANSAS SALT MINE. 
By Rost. Hay, F.G.S.A.. Junction City, Kan. 
The substance of a paper read at the Toronto meeting of the A.A.A.S.,1889. 

In 1886 and 1887 there was much speculative boring in 
Kansas. Rock gas and some oil having been found in the 
eastern counties of the state, the people of the middle and 
west tried their luck withthe drill. In August, 1888, it was an- 
nounced that rock salt had been struck at Ellsworth, on the 
Smoky Hill river, west of the 98th meridian, and at Kingman, 
75 miles south, just east of the same meridian.- Which place 
struck it first is now a matter of dispute. At Kingman, Tri- 
assic ‘redbeds’ are on the surface, and the salt was found be- 
low them. At Ellsworth, the Dakotah formations are on top 
but the drill showed what had not been before suspected, that 
the redbeds there underlie the Dacotah. At several places be- 
tween these, and also further south and west, and one place east, 
the rock salt was found and is now being manufactured by the 
various methods of evaporation. 

At Kingman, however, through the indefatigable exertions 
of Mr. W. H. Child. a shaft was commenced on the 2nd of 
April, 1888, with a view of mining the solid salt. The shaft 
is 8ft. 2in.x 4ft. 2in., inside the casing. Early in April, 1889, 
salt was reached in the shaft. The first bed was reached at a 
depth of 782 ft. This seam was two feet thick. Then followed 
shale with vertical and other irregular seams of salt from 1 to 


66 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


3 inches thick and then other salt beds, alternating with sim- 
ilar shales. One bed of 11ft. has been reached and the end is 
not yet. 

The section of the shaft is of course of more value than the 
drill record, and we give it here as far as it has progressed : 


SECTION OF KINGMAN SALT SHAFT TO THE DEPTH OF 820 FEET. 


and clay shales with thin streaks of gray shales and bands 


“‘Red-beds’’—Red arenaceons, limestones, ferruginous clays, 
450 ft 
of gypsum as satin spar. 


Gray or bluish ‘‘slate,” with 2 ft. of limestone at 500 ft. 140 ft. 
Red clay shale 4 ft. 
Gray ‘‘slate,’’ with occasional streaks of limestone, 2 to 8 in. 
thick, and some salt partings and satin spar with fer | 78 ft. 
ginous stain. 
Frest Rock Sat, pure white, 2rits 
Shale and “‘slate,’’ bluish, with vertical and other seams of) 26 ft 
salt, from one to three inches thick, vote a's" 
Rock SAut, 4 ft. 
Shales, with Salt, EG 
Rock SAutT, Thai 
Shale, Baile 
Rock SALT, Silt 
Salt and shale, alternate thin seams, 62 ft. 
Rock Satrt, 11 ft. 
Shale, ite 2 hime 
Rock sat, 5 ft. 
Shales and limestone, 8 ft. 
Rock Sat, bottom of it not reached, bitte 
820 ft. 


The shaft makes clear a division that the borings with a 
churn drill, left in doubt, viz: That there are gray beds below 
the red beds. The salt is at the bottom of the gray beds. 
The Quaternary and some Tertiary deposits hide the outcrop 
of the red beds to the east to a great extent, but in several 
places in Sumner county,the lowest ofthe red beds are seen rest- 
ing on gray beds, which at one time the writer took to be Per- 
mo-Carboniferous. At Wellington, however, near the east mar- 
gin of these gray beds, the salt is found in thinner veins near 
the bottom and this with the total absence of fossils, leads 
me to call the gray beds, at least temporarily the Saliferous 
horizon, and class them with the red-beds as Triassic. I have pre- 
viously stated my opinion that the Saliferous horizonis contin- 
uous without break, upward from the Permo-Carboniferous 
strata, which are well developed further east. The evidence of 


| 
ik +e 
4) ce 
ie Ce hy 


American Geologist, Vol. V 


eng 


GREAT SPIRIT SPRING IN MITCHELL CO., KANSAS. 


ei a a a a oe 
RN x) 
HEYENNE! SR) 
F | RAWLINS DECATUR: 'vorTow PHILLIPS! Sune ‘JEWELS * S 
Dts a fea Se OI ee rk eS A . 
| IGRAHAM, losporne’ 2,1 coun | Fae Ces desea 
HOMAS , ' fy 
[svenwan: THOMAS SHERIDAN’ | ROOKS | oe ---=- aE | Oplerren 
Secigic Guk- wee weenie oes teemee a7 1 OTTAWA, ~~ UG om 
Veg ag aR EN eal JDICKINSS7 TOPERAS SI 
' Ss ! 
juniace ST. rReGo ;ELL! pu Ses FOAVIS|WABAUN-|---=-1 4 JOHN- 
! SEE_+ DOUGLAS. SON? 
T_IMORRIS| — }0SAGE! WS 
“Weosol YO Ng {MIAMI 
| MARION - ; i Uae 
'CHASE! ____ Vi S& ILINN 
| iwooo-} ae 
| SON 
| PRATT | so) BUTLER ih 
| oe aac 2 Kiowa | TKINGMAN | OC ——"witsonNe0 dcraw-| 
Wag aioli ae as a oe a ee tC aie PELK (tS eOnD 
i ay Sir d! * GGWILY Ree 1S UC caer. 
| BOS wood CLARK | eS) | BARBER angpen’ SUMNER \ COWLEY CHAUTAULSSS Coe 
SOI a Sa SN 22g Ne SPS 


MAP OF KANSAS 


Kansas Salt Mine.— Hay. 67 


this will be discussed fully at some future time. One fact in 
this connection may however be noted here. It is, that near 
the top of the Permo-Carboniferous, there is a massive deposit 
of gypsum of great extent. This is not far below the salt de- 
posits. Near the top of the red-beds, about a thousand feet 
above the salt, in several counties sonthwest of Kingman, there 
is another extensive deposit of massive saccharodial gypsum. 
Still further to the west and southwest are the Salt 
plains of the Cimarron and the Meade county salt pool, 
which seems to indicate another salt horizon in the same rela- 
tion to the gypsum as the rock salt beds are to the gypsum at 
the top ofthe Permo-Carboniferous. The Meade county pool 
was formed by asinking of the prairie in 1878, and though it 
has somewhat silted up since then, this year the southern 
side has sunk four or five feet more. The photograph from 
which the plate was made, was taken in the spring of 1888. 

The relation of certain salt marshes in northern Kansas and 
the salt pool—a natural artesian flow—called the Great Spirit 
spring in the same region, to the other salt horizons, has 
not yet been clearly made out because opportunity for investi- 
gation has not been had, but it is believed that this relation 
will easily be determined. 

Returning to the Kingman mine, there are one or two points 
of mineralogical interest. There are in the “red beds,” seams 
of gypsum in the form of satin spar, much of it pure white, 
some of it stained with the prevailing ruddy hue. In the 
gray beds there are vertical seams of the same form hardened 
to alabaster and taking a fine polish, but mostly stained red. 
Between the beds of rock salt, the gray shales have seams 
of salt, vertical, diagonal and horizontal, some purely white, 
others stained red, and some of the form of satin spar, the 
fibers as usual, at right angles to the direction of the seam. 
It is suggested that this halite is a pseudomorph of fibrous 
selenite. 


[Note—The illustrations used in this paper are by the kind permis. 
siou of Hon. M. Mohler, secretary of the Kansas State Board of Agri- 
culture. | 


68 The American Geologist. Feb. 1390 


CLASSIFICATION AND ORIGIN OF THE CHIEF GEOGRAPHIC 
FEATURES OF THE TEXAS REGION. 
By Rost, T. HiLu, Austin, Texas. 
II. 


THE VALLEYS OF EROSION.* 

The drainage accompanying the elevation of every plain is 
a record of its decay and destruction. Ina previous paper I 
have classified the drainage systems of the Texas region into 
four great classes: (1). Those rivers which rise in the Rocky 
mountains and traverse the whole system of topographic 
plains, suchas the Arkansas and the Rio Grande, with their 
principle tributaries, the Canadian and Pecos., (2). Those 
which rise in the eastern border of the Staked plain and which 
are gradually destroying it by headwater erosion, including the 
Red, Brazos and Colorado. (3). Those which rise in the nat- 
ural springs along the great Balcones fracture, and (4) the 
tidal and incipient drainage of the coastal prairies and Ko- 
Lignitic region. The drainage topography of each river sys- 
tem is different in each plain, and resulting therefrom is a 
diversity of basins and valleys, only the chief features of 
which will be mentioned, leaving to others and future investi- 
tion the more detailed interpretation. 

In addition to the valleys clearly attributable to the present 
drainage, there are more ancient and extensive grooves, which 
are radically different, and in some cases probably antecedent 
to the present streams, and which can not be interpreted by 
them. The most conspicuous of these ancient features are: 
(1). The great valley of the Canadian through the Staked 
plain. (2). The trans-Pecos basins. (3). The older valley 
of Red river. (4). The Plateau gravel depression of south- 
west Arkansas. (5). The older terraced valleys of the Grand 
Prairie and coastward regions. 


The Older Valley of the Canadian. 


The Staked plain is no doubt a remnant of the great plains 
of eastern Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, but it has long 
since been separated therefrom geographically by a great val- 
ley of erosion, which for convenience I here termed the Older 
valley of the Canadian. Itisin the topography and structure 
of this and similar valleys that we must look for the history 
of the plain. 


*See the illustrative map of Texas in the January number of the GEOLOGIST. 


Geographic Features of the Texas Region.— Hill. 69 


This valley is from twenty to sixty miles in width, and about 
800 feet below the level of the plain. It transects its entire 
_ width from the 100th to the 105th meridian. Its walls, espec- 
ially the south one, are very steep and apparently perpendicular 
when viewed from below, forming a grand and beautiful feature 
in the landscape. The bottom of the valley is but slightly con- 
cave, almost a plain itself, and covered with an extensive 
detrital formation of calcareous pan, accompanied by siliceous 
pebbles, much worn and rounded. For this formation I have 
proposed the name Terra-Blanca, used by the Mexican inhab- 
itants of the valley. 

Within this valley and running through it is developed the 
modern drainage system of the Canadian, a mere pin-scratch 
in proportion to the larger chasm. This cuts through the 
Terra-Blanca formation into the Red Beds and its flood-plain 
has the general aspect of the drainage of the Red Bed region. 
The Canadian of to-day, with its laterals, is newer and subse- 
quent to the ancient valley. The writer has traversed only 
two hundred miles of this valley, and then so hastily that he 
must leave it to others to work out its detailed structure and 
history. The investigator who will take up the study of this 
ancient chasm, and ascertain its origin and that of the Terra- 
Blanga formation which fills it, will find in it the key to the 
later geologic history of the western United States. 

The Older Valley of Red river. 

A somewhat analogous valley to that of the Canadian is to 
be found on the Indian Territory side of Red river between the 
98th and 96th meridians, as transected by the Missouri, Kan- 
sas and Texas and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe rail- 
ways. Here the modern Red river flows through an ancient 
alluvial deposit of from twenty to forty miles in width, filled 
mostly with the debris of the Red Beds, and far above the 
altitude of the present stream. Too little is known of this 
valley to discuss it here, except to say that its direction sug- 
gests a continuation with the Canadian valley on the west and 
the Little Missouri valley on the east. Nearly allof the Grand 
Prairie north of Red river has been destroyed by this erosion. 


THE RIVER TERRACES OF THE BLACK PRAIRIE AND EO-LIGNITIC 
REGIONS. 
All the rivers of the first class occupy wide and deeply ter- 


70 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


raced basins as they cross the Black Prairie and Ko-Lignitic 
regions, and in places these extend westward to the eastern 
edge of the Grand Prairie. These terraces, at Austin,® upon 
the western edge of the Black Prairie,extend two and one- 
half miles inland from the present flood-plain, and attain an 
elevation of two hundred and fifty feet. They are especially 
common in the Eo-Lignitic region where the ancient drainage 
has nearly destroyed the continuity of the plain. Bones of 
the mastodon and elephant are found in most of these de- 
posits. 
THE LAKE BASINS OF THE TRANS-PECOS MOUNTAIN REGION. 

Other important valleys of erosion and sedimentation are 
the recently drained lake-basins of the Trans-Pecos mountain 
region. These are extensive flats, as they are locally termed, 
which occupy nearly all of the intervening space between the 
peculiar and apparently unsystematic mountain groups west 
of the Pecos. ‘Eagle flat” near the junction of the Southern 
and Texas Pacific railways, is a fair illustration of this struc 
true Here the lake structure is very apparent, and so well 
preserved that it is not difficult to imagine that the waters 
have only been recently drained. In other places in Texas 
and in Mexico these basins are still occupied by saline lakes. 
The present valley of the Rio Grande east of Ysleta is cut out 
through one of these basins. More will be said of these basins 
later. / 

MOUNTAINOUS AND DISTURBED REGIONS. 

Having classified the plains and valleys of the Texas region 
let us turn to the mountains or other records of disturbance 
and elevation. The whole region is included in the apex of 
an angle between two great and important mountain systems, 
upon the north and southwest respectively, while within the 
heart of the state is a little known area which has once been 
the scene of much disturbance. In addition to these the great 
fracture of the Balcones, has extended across the state from 
one great mountain system to the other. In these systems 
are to be found the history of the limitation and elevation of 
the plains, and other important bearings upon their origin. 


The Ouachita Mountains. 
South of the Arkansas and Canadian rivers and north of 


6 See this journal, May, 1889. 


Geographic Features of the Texas Region.—Hill. 71 


the Red river, extending from the vicinity of Hot Springs, 
Arkansas, through Indian Territory to the 100th meridian in 
Texas, is one of the most important, but least appreciated 
orographic systems in the United States and especially im- 
portant to the Texas region, inasmuch as it is the northern 
limit of most of its peculiar geologic features, and the great 
barrier which differentiates it in every natural aspect from 
the Missouri-Kansas country. In a previous paper I have 
spoken of this as the Ouachita system—a name proposed by 
Dr. John C. Branner, of the Arkansas survey, who, we expect, 
will bring out its details as a result of the careful survey now 
being conducted by him. 

In Arkansas the different parts of this system are known as 
the Rich, the Poteau, the Black Fork, Round Mountain, ete. 
West of that state it includes in its trend the groups locally 
known as the Seven Devils, the Shawnee hills, the Kimishis, 
the Tishomingo, Potato hills, the Arbuckle and Delaware 
mountains, the Witchitas, and the Navajoes—the last near 
the line of the 100th meridian. 

This system consists of several kinds of topography. This 
may be (a) narrow, elevated parallel ridges, with deep interven- 
ing valleys,as seen along theold military road from fort Smith to 
fort Washita, (b) of exceedingly irregular masses, separated 
from each other as in western Arkansas and eastern Indian Ter- 
ritory, and possessing the most erratic outline and extent, as 
beautifully shown upon the contour maps of the United 
States geological survey, or (c) of low knolls or hills, which 
are so inconspicuous as to be no longer worthy of the name of 
mountains, except from a structural standpoint. The last are 
characteristic of the central portion of the system, in the 
Chickasaw Nation, Indian. Territory, near Stringtown and 
Tishomingo where they are known as Potato hills. Again, the 
apparent continuity of the whole system is broken for many 
miles by intervening plains, as between the Arbuckle and 
Witchita mountains. The former eastward continuity of this 
system has beeen destroyed by the erosion of the Mississippi 
embayment—the western end is buried beneath later sedimen- 
tation of the Staked Plain. The eastern and western extremes 
of the system present the most conspicuous elevations. In the 
Arkansas portion the tops of the ridges stand as high as two 


ais Uh Ue aaah hater Lib Baddees Rae | Pee MEL Ee VA UKE 
By ay : : Ba We AMY ES 


iM 


OP Ova), il y } Aga 
Hea i lA i? 


72 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


thousand feet above the adjacent low plain of the Red river 
drainage, and can be seen from a distance of sixty miles or 
more, provided one can secure a view unbroken by the dense 
timber of the region. The western end, as seen in the Witchita 
mountains of the Comanche and Kiowa reservations, also 
consists of bold and conspicuous elevations, resembling some- 
what the topography of the Arkansas end. 

According to captain Randolph B. Marcy, who describes 
the Witchitas in his report upon the “Exploration of Red 
river,” they are made up of three distinct ranges running from 
northeast to southwest. ‘They appear to bein groups, or in 
clusters of detached peaks, of a conical form, indicating a vol- 
canic (igneous?) origin, with smooth, level glades intervening ; 
and rising, as they do, perfectly isolated from all surrounding 
eminences upon the plateau of the great prairies, their rugged 
and precipitous granite sides almost denuded of vegetation, 
they present a very peculiar and imposing feature in the topo- 
graphical aspect of the country.” “The numerous peaks rise 
from eight hundred to nine hundred feet above the river. 
Mount Webster, one of the most conspicuous, was found to be 
783 feet above the plain, by the barometer. Twelve of these 
elevations were found to be composed of granite, which in 
many places is undergoing rapid disintegration.” Of one of 
these Marcy says: 

“We are at this place directly at the base of one of the most 
lofty and rugged mountains of the range. Its bare and naked 
sides are almost destitute of anything in the shape of a tree 
or plant, and it is only here or there that a small patch of 
green can be discerned. Huge masses of flesh-colored granite, 
standing out in jagged crags from the lofty acclivities every- 
where present themselves to the eye, and the scenery is most 
picturesque, grand and imposing.’”’ 

The principal sedimentary material composing the Ouachita 
mountains are shales, sandstones and firm limestones of the 
Coal Measures of the Carboniferous period. In Arkansas the 
sandstones have been intensely hardened into a kind of 
quartzyte and are known as “mountain rock.” At Limestone 
gap and other places in central Indian Territory, the blue 


1 Dr. Edward Hitchcock in Marcy’s exploration of Red river, p. 147. 
2 Ibid, p. 68. 


Geographic Features of the Texas Region— Hill. 73 


limestones predominate. Accompanying these greatly dis- 
turbed and metamorphosed sedimentary rocks are many out- 
crops of both plutonic and eruptive material, such as the 
peridotytes and granites of Arkansas, the granite bosses of 
Tishomingo and the red granites, basalts, porphyrytes and 
eruptives of the Witchitas. Concerning the latter no more is 
now known than was expressed as follows by Dr. Edward 
Hitchcock some years ago: 

“The rocks of these mountains are traversed by veins of 
greenstone and quartz. The latter is often porous and col- 
ored by the oxide of iron. The greenstone is the most recent 
of the unstratified rocks among my specimens, save a single 
vesicular mass, broken probably from a boulder, which has 
all the external marks of lava. It looks more like recent lava 
than any specimens I have ever met among greenstones or 
basalt. It was collected west of the great gypsum deposit, 
though in a region abounding in sandstone, and near the 
bluffs that form the border of the Llano Estacado. Dr. 
Shumard found in the bed of Red river near the same place, 
what he calls greenstone porphyry and trachyte. The spec- 
imen to which I have referred is rather augitic than trachytic. 
He says also that he found there a ‘black scoria and other 
specimens of volcanic rock.’ Again, on approaching the 
Witchita mountains on the return trip he describes one as a 
truncated cone with a basin-shaped depression in the summit ; 
of which he seems to have judged by looking at the mountain 
from a distance. But taking all the facts into account I can 
not but feel that there is reason to presume that volcanic 
agency has been active in that region more recently than the 
trap dykes.’’’ 

The structure of the system has not been studied as a whole. 
For the most part, however, it consists of almost vertical folds 
of the composing stratified rocks,as shown in the section 
along the Arkansas-Choctaw line,‘ at and in the beautiful 
water gap of the Washita, along the line of the Santa Fe rail- 
road, in the Chickasaw Nation. Accompanying these are 
dykes and veins of igneous material as well as great masses of 
granite. The general trend of these folds and ridges, as seen at 


*Dr. Edward Hitchcock, pp. 146-147 of Marcy’s report on Red river. 
*See Am. Jour. Sci. April, 1889. 


74 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


the extremes both in Arkansas and in Indian Territory, is 
about 10° south of west—a fact which has considerable bearing 
upon the subsequent topographic development of the region- 

The importance of this mountain system and its relation to 
the climate, the structure and the cultural conditions of the 
Southwest have never been defined. It is the presence of this 
elevated barrier in Arkansas that protects the sub-tropical 
Louisiana region from the cold “northers” which blow through 
the central gaps and lowlands of equal latitude in Texas mak- 
ing that state so much colder. It is this mountain barrier 
that condenses the moisture from the gulf of Mexico and pre- 
cipitates in the southwestern Arkansas region fifty inches of 
rainfall annually, while along its almost destroyed central 
course the country is nearly arid. To these mountains are 
attributable the wildness of the country of western Arkansas 
and central Indian Territory, which are perhaps still the most 
impenetrable fastnesses of ourcountry. The present bearing 
of these mountains upon the Texas region, however, is incon- 
spicuous in comparison with the grand part they have played 
in the past; for from all the evidence it is apparent that the 
present elevations of this system are merely remnants of an 
ancient and once magnificent system between the Appalachian 
and Rocky mountain systems, as the Uintas now connect the 
Rockies and the Wasatch. They were elevated after the close 
of the Carboniferous, as shown in the almost vertical fold of 
the rocks of that period which compose by far their greater 
portion. It is also probable that this elevation was prior to the 
deposition of that little studied series of early Mesozoic rocks 
spoken of in this paper as the Red beds, for which Dr. Hitch- 
cock long since applied the name of the “Red Clay formation.” 
More evidence is needed to elucidate this point however. That 
the greater portion of the system remained dry land during 
the Lower Cretaceous, the Upper Cretaceous, the Tertiary and 
the Quaternary epochs of subsidence is also evident from the 
absolute non-conformity with which the sediments of those 
periods are laid down against them. There were gaps, how- 
ever,even in Lower Cretaceous time, when these earlier seas 
washed through these mountains and deposited their sedi- 
ments as far north as Kansas, sediments that underlie most of 
the great plains of Texas (except the Staked Plains and the 
Coast Prairies) such as the Grand, the Black the Ho-Lignitic 


a) 
yi 


Aye i hay as len? eA EAL OM Oe he a 
PAU STURN RN AU NE Ian Got 
ye 0) V5) VAL alli 

‘a Vs 


i 


Geograghic Features of the Texas Region—Hill. 75 


and the Plateau Gravel respectively—and prevented their 
extent northward into Kansas, thereby differentiating the 
Texas region from all the rest of the United States. 

The main portion of the system, however, has remained dry 
land throughout the incalculable period of time which has 
elapsed since its uplift, in common, we will assume, with the 
Appalachian uplift, gradually yielding to the wear and tear of 
atmospheric erosion, including the numerous climatic changes. 
When we consider the enormous denuding effect of these 
agencies acting through even short periods of time, it is justly a 
subject of wonder that any portion of theOuachita system should 
have survived it. The atmosphere, however, has not been the 
only agent in accomplishing the obliteration of this once con- 
spicuous mountain system, for,as above mentioned, it has 
been the shore line, during all this time, of numerous oceanic 

‘invasions, accompanying the subsidences and elevations, as 
recorded in the sediments deposited against it. The evidence 
of the excessive destruction of the southern front of the sys- 
tem from shore action is plainly recorded. In a previous 
paper*® I have shown beneath the Tertiary or Quaternary 
overlap near the Arkansas-Choctaw line, the record of many 
miles of this planing away of the mountain folds by shore 
action, and if I may be excused for advancing a hypothesis, 
I will state that it is my belief, founded upon reasonable 
evidence, that in the Eo-Lignitic epoch, the whole eastward 
continuation of the system was destroyed by combined atmos- 
pheric and shore action, producing the topographic area now 
known to geologists as the Mississippi embayment. 

The chief agent, however, in destroying the topographic integ- 
rity of the original Ouachita system has been neither erosion 
nor shore action, but subsidence, for alarge and important south- 
western extension of the system, occupying the central por- 
tion of Texas was virtually buried beneath the profound sub- 
sidences of early Mesozoic time, and especially during that 
important epoch of the Comanche series which has been so 
little appreciated in American geology. Evidence of this 
burial is afforded in the Central Denuded region of Texas, 
where the imbedding strata have been sufliciently destroyed 
to afford some testimony upon the subject as will be shown 
later. 


° See American Journal of Science, April, 1887. 


76 The American Geologist. Feb, 1390 


The mountains of the Trans-Pecos country. 

Entirely distinct in every characteristic of age and structure 
are the mountains constituting the southern margin of the 
Texas region. These can be briefly defined as occupying the 
country west of the Pecos in Texas and New Mexico, and their 
continuation into the republic of Mexico, their northern 
margin approximately coinciding with the Rio Grande, east of 
the mouth of the Pecos. No attempt has been made to study 
and classify them, and to-day almost nothing is published con- 
cerning the details of their structure, history and relations to 
each other. So far as known they consist of numerous peaks, 
mesas and ridges—isolated or in groups—to the individuals of 
which over thirty distinct names have been applied in Texas 
alone. Some of these, as has been recorded, may possess 
granitic axes. Others are highly disturbed sediments of all 
ages from the Silurian to Post-Laramie, sometimes capped 
with lava, as seenin the Kagle mountains. Concerning their 
minute stratigraphy little has been published of a reliable 
nature. In crossing the region several times, however, I have 
been able to see that the whole system has been clovared 
through the characteristic topography androcks of the Grand 
and Black Prairie regions, 1. e., the lower and upper Cretaceous 
respectively. This is readily seen by transecting them from 
east to west, along the line of the Southern Pacific railway. 
The first intimation of the mountain disturbance west of the 
Pecos is the increased dip in the eastward inclination of the 
rocks of all the Black and Grand Prairie region or the upper 
and lower Cretaceous systems respectively. This eastward 
dip gradually increases as we go westward, and mountain 
peaks soon succeed the rugged edges of the plains, and the 
eastwardly dipping Cee limestones are seen to rest on 
the almost vertical rocks of presumably paleozoic schists. 
Continuing westward to the apparent heart of the region, near 
Eagle Springs, the Cretaceous rocks become highly metamor- 
phosed, and are crumpledin various directions, and overlain by 
great eruptive sheets. Still continuing westward in the vicin- 
ity of El Paso there is an appearance of faulting on an exten- 
sive scale, as seen along the south side of the Rio Grande for 
a hundred miles below that city. The main questions of 
mountain structure and relation, however, as before stated, 
still remain unsolved. Between the individuals or 


Geographic Features of the Texas Region. — Hill. ae 


groups that compose this unclassified system, are the 
extensive flats, composed of the lacustral sediments of 
the post-Tertiary waters that once covered the region. 
The importance of these flats or basins has usually been over- 
looked. They probably constitute two-thirds of the whole 
region and in the study of their structure and origin will be 
found the key to the late history of the region. In fact it 
may ultimately be shown that the mountains of the trans- 
Pecos region are simply concealed beneath the lacustral sed- 
iments of the lakes which once converted them into islands 
and shore lines. 

Little has been added to the knowledge of these mountains 
since the report of the United States and Mexican Boundary 
survey, in which many fine illustrations and descriptions of 
their topography are given and wherein it is said that “the 
succession of basins form a prominent feature in the geography 
of North America, extending two-thirds its length and quite 
one-third its breadth. They belong to what has been appro- 
priately designated as the Basin system of North America.’” 

The chief bearing of these mountains upon the geography of 
the region, however, is that they were elevated through the 
great plains of the state, with the exception of the coast 
prairie and perhaps the Eo-Lignitic region, and are in a large 
part composed of the stratigraphic remains thereof, thus 
forming a natural limit to the whole of the Texas region under 
discussion. 

The possibilities which may result from future investigation 
in the mountain structure of the region are most inviting, as 
well as the temptation to yield to speculation concerning 
them. 

Within the triangle formed by the projected axes of the 
Ouachita, and the trans-Pecos mountain systems and the 
Balcones fault, however, will be found.the most important 
light that can be thrown upon the stratigraphic, orographic 
and topographic history of our southwestern country. Where 
the axes of the trans-Pecos and Ouachita systems meet in 
northwestern New Mexico is the great Rocky mountain eleva- 
tion, which brought all of the Texas plains to their present 
altitudes, and produced the present coastward inclination. 


‘Report on the U. 8S. and Mexican Boundary survey, vol. 1, p. 46. 


78 


Feb. 1890 


The American Geologist. 


The Balcones fracture, extending from system to system at 
right angles to this resultant of general elevation, with its 
ancient volcanoes and faulting, is pregnant with sugges- 
tions of a long continued line of structural weakness, sub- 
tending ancient coastal plains, while the little known disturb- 
ances of the granite region, are sufficiently near it to suggest 
an ancestry and lineage of sedimentary disturbance along this 
line, more complete in its record than any other fracture in 
our land. 

Having now outlined the great plains and mountains of the 
Texas region, Part 11 of this paper will be devoted to a study 
of its topographic history as interpreted in its ancient shore 


lines, subsidences and river systems. 


EPITOME OF THE CHIEF TOPOGRAPHIC AREAS OF THE TEXAS REGION. 


Explanatory of the accompanying map. See p. 9. 


JT. PLAINS AND VALLEYS 
IN PLAINS. 


ALTITUDE. 


CHARACTER AND AGE 
OF SUBSTRUCTURE. 


AGE OF TOPOGRAPHY. 


A. Valleys of erosion.}| — — — —- 
1. Terraces of the riy-|200(above pres-[Transported upjPost-Tertiary depos- 
ers of east Texas.| ent flood-|] stream debris. its, the history un- 
plains.) solved. 
2. Trans-Pecos Lake 2000. Lacustral loam and|LatestQuaternary and 
Basins. debris. recent; little studied. 
Great Basin epoch. 

3. Great Valley of the} 2000—3000. ‘Alluvial calcareous/Early Quaternary. 
Canadian. debris or ‘‘Terra| Later than Staked 
Blanca,” deposited] Plains. Newer than 


4, River Systems. 
(a) Rivers of the 
RioGrande-Arkan- 
sas System. 


(b) Rivers of the 
Red, Brazos and 
Colorado System. 


(c) Rivers of the 
Nueces, San Anto- 
nio and Guadalupe 
System. 


(d) Rivers of the 
Coastal and Mis- 
sissippi-lateral 
System. 


upon the Red Beds. 


present drainage. 
Grand canon epoch, 
or ‘‘MiddleTertiary”’ 
of Dutton. 


Antecedent to Staked 
Plains formation, or 
Pre-Tertiary. 


Subsequent to Staked 
Plains and Grand 
Plateau epochs. Ear- 
ly Quaternary?? 


Subsequent to Bal- 
cones epoch. 


Post-Tertiary and re- 
cent. 


Geographic Features of the Texas Region—Hill. 79 


5. Depressions pro- 
duced by Denuded 
Anticlinals. The 
Central Denuded 
Region. 


(a) The Upper 
Cross Timbers. 


(b) The Older Rock 
-(Paleozoic) Areas. 
b/ The Palo Pinto 
or Coal Measure 
Area. 


b// The San Saba, 
or Granite Area. 
(ec) The Red Beds. 


ce! The Abilene 
country. 


e/! The Gypsum 
country. 


750—2000. 


1000. 


1000—2000. 


1000—2000, 


2000. 


2000. 


Jointed, folded and/jAncient disturbed 


other disturbed, 
sandstones, clays, 
limestones, gran- 
ites, ete., of Pre-Cre- 
taceous age. 


The basal sands of the 
Comanche Series 
known as Pock 
Sands. 


Sandstones, lime- 
stones, clays and 
coals of upper Car- 
boniferous. 


Older limestones, 
schists, etc., with 
above and later 
granites. 


Dark red marly clays 
and sandstones. 


Light red marly clays 
and sandstones with 


much gypsum. 


areas, probably part 
of the Ouachita ie 
turbance, which 
have alternately 
served as the conti- 
nental divide be- 
tween the interior 
basins and the At- 
lantic. It was bur- 
ied in Lower Creta- 
ceous times, but was 
land in the Jura- 
Trias and Laramie- 
Eocene epochs. 

Since the greater 
elevation of the 
western region, It 
has rapidly suc- 
cumbed to erosion, 

and isnow a depres- 
sion in the centre of 
the state. 


3. The Black Prairie 
Region. 


Subdivisions. 
(a) Main Black 
Prairie. 


(b) Chalky Divi- 


B. Plains. 

1, The Coast Prairie 
Region. 

2. The Eo-Lignitic, or 
Sandy Region. 
sion. 


Timber Division. 


4, The Grand Prairie 
Region, 


5 The Staked Plains 


(ec) Minor Black 
Prairie Division. 
(d) Lower Cross 
Region. 


0—20: 


200—500. 


500—750. 


750—2000. 


2000—4000. 


Shallow marine and 
littoral sediments of 
PortHudson epoch of 
Hilgard and Lough- 
ridge. 


Marine littoral clays, 
sands and lignites, 
of Eocene and Mi- 
ocene(‘‘GrandGulf’’) 
epochs. 


Marine sediments of 
Upper Cretaceous 
(Meek and Hayden) 
section. 


Infra - littoral clays, 
(Ponderosa marls, 
Pierre etage.) 


Infra-littoral chalks. 
(Niobrara etage). 
Austin chalks, 


Infra-littoral clay. 
Benton etage. Eagle 
Ford shales. 


‘| Littoral sands. Dako- 


ta etage. 


Marine sediment, 
chalk, clays, oolite, 
yellow marls and 
basal sands of Com- 
anche series. 


Surface, lacustral sed- 
iments of Tertiary 
origin. Foundation, 
marine sediments of 
Mesozoic epochs, 


Latest Quaternary. 


Early Quaternary. 


Plateau Gravel 
epoch, 


Intimately connected 


with the above, its 
western margin 
probably being old- 
er, or the first por- 
tion of the plain 
made during the 
Plateau Gravel 
epoch. 


Probable remnant of a 


»lain that existed 
rom early Tertiary 
time to the present. 
Lignitie epoch. 


Probably a great lake 


region in the Mi- 
ocene or the Pli- 
ocene, antecedent to 
IAS, and elevated to 
its present altitude 
in Post-Tertiary 
time, probably syn- 
chronous with Zuni 
Plateau. 


80 


Il. MOUNTAINS, FRAC- 
TURES AND ERUP- 
TIVE AREAS. 


1.The Ouachita 
mountains. 


2. The Rocky Trans- 
Pecos mountains. 


38. The Shumard 
Knobs and Bial- 
cones Fracture. 


The American Geologist. 


Feb. 1890 


Disturbed and Pale- 
ozoie sediments and 
igneous material, 
Granites and erup- 
tive. 


Pre-Tertiary sed- 
iments. Eruptives, 
etc. 


Lower Cretaceous and 
later sediments. 
Basaltic, and other 
eruptives. 


Elevated very soon 
after the close of 
the Paleozoic. Erup- 
tive and slight 
movements at vari- 
ous epochs since. 
Appalachian epoch. 


Greatest elevation and 
disturbances in post- 
Upper- Cretaceous 
time. Tertiary and 
later. 


Post-Tertiary, proba- 
bly coincident with 
the latest disturb- 
ances in the Rocky 


mountain region. 
Balcones epoch. 


[T0 BE CONTINUED. ] 


ON THE SILURIAN SYSTEM OF ROCKS. 
By RopERIcCK IMPEY MURCHISON, F.R.S., 


Vice-President of the Geological and Royal Geographical Societies,* &c., &e. 


Geologists have long felt that the older sedimentary deposits 
required a systematic examination. I have devoted the last five years 
to the study of this class of rocks, hoping thereby to fill up certain 
pages which were wanting in the chronology of the science. (See 
Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag. 1832 to 1835, in the Proc. of the Geol. 
Soc.] A table published last year was the first attempt to convey to 
the geological student a correct view of the thickness, variety of strata, 
and fossil organic contents of a vast system, which, though arranged 
by nature in the most lucid order of succession, had not previously 
been pointed out. These rocks rising from beneath the old red sand- 
stone in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Radnorshire, Brecknockshire, 
Monmouthshire, and Czermarthenshire, and each distinguished by 
separate and peculiar organic remains, were respectively named after 
those localities where each of them could be best studied, and their 
places in the series most clearly established. I have no change to 
announce in the order detailed in that table [see Lond. and Edinb. 
Phil. Mag., vol. rv, p. 370], but I wish to simplify it by the abandon- 
ment of double names, as applied to any one formation, and by the 
adoption of the names of those places only where the respective rocky 
masses lie in juxtaposition. 

The names finally adopted and which will be incorporated in a work 
now in preparation on this subject, are, 

1. Ludlow rocks, divided into upper and lower Ludlow rocks, with a 
central zone of limestone: in this formation no change of name is pro- 
posed. 


*Prom the London and Edinberg Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, 
3rd series, July 1835, page 46, [This is the original announcement and description 
of the Silurian system.—ED. 


Silurian System of Rocks.— Murchison. 81 


2. Wenlock limestone and shale [equivalent, Dudley]. 

3. Caradoc sandstones. This name, supplying the place of the 
Horderley and May Hillrocks, has been derived from the striking and 
well known ridge of Caer Caradoc, on the eastern flanks of which, and 
lying between it and the Wenlock Edge, are exhibited those peculiar 
strata which are the equivalents of the shelly sandstones of Tortworth. 

4. Llandeilo flags [preferred to ‘‘Builth and Llandeilo’’]. When 
this table is reprinted, there will be found many additions to the 
organic remains, some identifications of British with foreign, and 
numerous corrections. 


Notwithstanding the adoption of these names, there was still required 
a comprehensive term by which the whole group could be designated, 
and at once distinguished from the old red sandstone above, and the 
slaty rocks below. Without such a collective name for the group I 
found it impracticable to proceed with the work which I had engaged 
to complete, it being essential to the clear exposition of the subject, 
no longer to speak of these deposits as ‘‘transition rocks’’ or ‘‘fossilif- 
erous grauwacke.”’ The term ‘“‘transition’’ might indeed, have been 
retained, if for no other reason than to impress upon foreign geologists, 
[the Germans particularly] how vast a difference exists between the 
geological horizon of the mountain or carboniferous limestone and that 
of the limestones of Dudley and Wenlock, which are not only separated 
by many thousand feet of strata from the limestone of the carbonifer- 
ous system, but further, contain an entirely distinct class of organic 
remains. It was, however, utterly hopeless to use the word ‘‘transi- 
tion’’ in any definite sense as applied to these lower deposits, seeing 
the extent to which it had been abused. By some it was confined to 
those older rocksin which the earliest traces of organic remains were 
supposed to be observed, whilst others had more recently so expanded 
the meaning as to comprehend init the whole of the carboniferous series ! 
Thus at a period when, from the rapid advances of the science, it had 
become indispensable to define the boundaries of groups naturally 
distinct from each other, dissimilar things were still confounded under 
one common name! and hence every geologist with whom I am 
acquainted had been for some time agreed upon the expediency of 
obliterating the term. The name “‘transition’”’ is in truth, not applica- 
ble to any one class of stratified deposits in’ preference to another. 
Thus, forexample, within the area of a map now preparing for publi- 
cation and embracing parts of ten counties only, I shall be able to 
show transitions into every formation, beginning with the inferior 
oolite and terminating in descending order with the Llandeilo flags, 
many thousand feet below the old red sandstone; whilst the latter 
overlie other fossiliferous masses, the relative ages of which yetremain 
to be worked out! In various memoirs read before the Geological 
Society I have described these rocks as ‘‘fossiliferous grauwacké,’’ but 
this term isin reality a misnomer, as the group contains few if any 


ty Oe a 
UE SM ee, eee 


i) 


fs 
P| 


The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


strata of thet rue grauwacké of German min- 
eralogists. But whilst this system contains 
no such beds, it is underlaid and sometimes 
indiscordant stratificatton, by a vast series of 
slaty rocks, in which much genuine grauwacké 
is exhibited. It is therefore manifest that if 
used at all in geological nomenclature,the term 
“‘orauwacké’’ must be ejected as inapplicable 
to the first great system below the old red 
sandstone, and restricted to rocks which 
were now proved to be of much higher anti- 
quity. My friend Professor Sedgwick will 
doubtless soon dispel the obscurity which 
hangs over these grauwacké rocks, with 
which his labors in Wales and Cumberland 
have so well enabled him to grapple. 

To return, however, to the system under re- 
view, I was urged by leading geologists both 
at home and abroad to propound an entirely 
new name for it. In consonence, therefore, 
with those views which have rendered the 
names used by English geologists so current 
throughout the world, I venture to suggest, 
that as the great mass of rocks in question, 
trending from southwest to northeast, travers- 
es the kingdom of our ancestors the Silures, 
the term ‘‘Silurian system’’ should be adopted 
as expressive of the deposits which lie between 
the old red sandstone and the slaty rocks of 
Wales, including, as above detailed, the Lud- 
low, Wenlock, Caradoc aud Llandeilo forma- 
cy tions. One of the largest of these formations, 
ce to which, indeed, the Llandeilo flags are fre- 
quently subordinate, has been named after 
the bold and picturesque ridge of Caer Caradoe 
in Shropshire. 

I further propose that the system be sub- 
divided into ‘‘Upper’’ and ‘‘Lower Silurian 


SSS 


Llunaie . 


er 


Upp 


SYSTEM. 


[phe 
a y rocks,’’? the former embracing the deposits of 
<3 “Tudlow’’ and ‘‘Wenlock,’’ the latter those of 
ye _“Caradoc”’ and ‘‘Llandeilo.’’ By this arrange- 


2 “ment the observer will not be embarrassed 
~ when he finds that certain typical strata have 
disappeared. Thus, for instance, when the 
zones of limestone thin out, by which the 
formation of Ludlow and Wenlock are sub- 
divided, itis no longer practicable to mark 
lines of separation between them. Under 
such circumstances the united mass will sim- 
ply be described as ‘‘Upper Siluran rocks,’ 
whilst wherever similar causes prevent the 


T Seluna 


At 


Reever 
Lew 


separation of the ‘‘Caradoc sandstones’ from _ 


“Level of no Strain.”—Claypole. 83 


the ‘‘Llandeilo flags,’’ the two will be termed ‘‘ Lower Silurian rocks.’’ 

A wood cut is annexed, explanatory of the manner in which these 
deposits are connected with the old red sandstone above them, with 
each other, and with the slaty grauwacké rocks beneath them. 
Although the lower Silurian rocks are frequently unconformable to 
the schistose grauwacké, as represented in the wood-cut, there are 
situations in which a passage from one to the other may be detected. 

Having alluded to a work which is in preparation upon the geology 
of the country of the Silures, and of several of the surrounding count- 
ies, I may take this opportunity of acquainting those friends who 
have fostered the undertaking, that the author is unceasingly occupied 
in promoting its completion. Geologists are not, I am sure, among 
those who feel surprise at the delay; for they well know that solarge 
an area of country, and one so little previously examined, could not 
have been adequately described without several years of hard labor. 
In the mean time I may state that a man is now constructing, being a 
precise reduction of the Ordnance Maps, extending over the greater 
part of ten counties, all of which have been geologically colored in the 
field; together with about twenty plates of engravings of fossils, many 
of which are of new species, and a vast number of colored sections, 
vignettes, &c., all of which will, I trust, be completed so as to enable 
me to lay the work before the public in a few months. 

P.S. Authorities differ in opinion concerning the exact geographical 
boundaries of the kingdom of the Silures, &c., &c., &e. 


ILLUSTRATION OF THE “LEVEL OF NO STRAIN” IN THE 
CRUST OF THE EARTH, 


E. W. CLAYPOLE, Akron, O. 


Investigations regarding the condition of the interior of the 
Earth have been recently stimulated and directed in no slight 
degree by the publication of various papers by Messrs. Read, 
Davison, Darwin and Fisher. These workers on the physico- 
mathematical side of the subject have introduced to the notice 
of geologists a condition previously, overlooked, but never- 
theless of very great importance. As a deduction from the 
physical laws that govern the constitution and condition of the 
deeper parts of the globe, lying beyond the reach of direct 
observation, this inference commands attention. Whether it 
finally proves to be exactly as its investigators claim or not, 
the investigation itself will be of very great advantage to the 
science by clearing and sharpening our conceptions upon a 
_ very difficult topic. 

A short summary of the progress that has been made in 


PhAgteyes 


Oye 


Me ACh 


84 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


this direction was contributed by the writer to the pages of 
Tue AMERICAN GEOLOGIST in June and July,1888. The present 
paper does not record any new advance, but is merely intended 
to present the matter inaslightly different aspect, and without 
entering into much detail, to show to a non-mathematical reader 
the position taken by the mathematicians. Only the two princi- 
pal data will therefore here be introduced. These are (1) the 
amount of contraction suffered by each cooling shell of the 
Earth, and (2) the diminution of the space occupied by each 
in descending to a lower level. The whole problem is merely 
the investigation of the relation which these bear to each 
other. 

The Earth being a cooling globe, every layer of it from the 
eenter outward is gradually falling in temperature. But evi- 
dently at the surface and at the center the chilling process 
- 4s reduced almost to zero, because in the one case the surface 
is already cold and in the other the center is so deeply coy- 
ered that the escape of heat is inappreciable. Physicists tell 
us that at so slight a depth as four hundred miles the cooling 
is infinitesimally small, and may be neglected. AI] the inves- 
tigations, therefore, may be confined to a superficial shell four 
hundred miles in thickness. Below this is a nucleus or core 
practically unchanging in temperature and size from century 
to century. 

Between these two zero limits is contained at present the 
cooling shell of the Earth. In this layer there must obviously 
be a level where the cooling reaches maximum. A moment’s 
thought will render this clear toeveryone. Itis a consequence 
of the elementary laws of heat, and is as true of an iron 
cannon ball as of a planet. This layer of greatest cooling is 
placed by the physicists, at the present time, at between 
seventy and eighty miles deep, or at about one-tifth of the 
thickness of the cooling shell. 

Obviously this layer of maximum cooling must nearly, if 
not exactly, coincide with that of greatest contraction. Every 
cooling shell shrinks in three dimensions. It becomes shorter 
in circumference along two great circles at right angles to each 
other and it becomes thinner. The shell of greatest cooling 
will therefore show most diminution in thickness, and at the 
same time will tend to crack and leave open spaces in conse- 
quence of its shortening along the two great circles. 


“Level of no Strain.” — Claypole. 85 


-, But under so great a pressure as that which must exist at 


the depth indicated the formation of open spaces is impossi- 


ble. The material there existing, whatever its nature, must 
be plastic under a weight so enormous and at a temperature 
so high, Every space must be filled up almost before it is 
opened. The contraction in three dimensions is consequently 
reduced to shrinkage in one—the vertical—which becomes 
three times as great as it would otherwise be, the horizontal 
shrinkage in the other two directions entirely vanishing. This 
is the region of “stretching” of Mr. Davidson which might 
perhaps with greater propriety be called the region of “squeez- 
ing” when we consider the manner in which the forces act. 

In the annexed figure (1) the outer curve is intended to rep- 
resent the amount of contraction suffered by every thin shell 
of this crust between a depth of 400 miles and the surface. 
Beginning atthe former with a slight 
curvature and very close to the radius to 
indicate smallamount and slight increase, 
it gradually diverges as the cooling of 
the shells and consequently their con- 
traction increases until it reaches its 
maximum at the depth as already men- 
tioned of 70 or 80 miles. Returning 
from this point the curve rapidly ap- 
proaches the axis as the cooling and con- 
traction again diminish until at the sur- 
face where both become zero the two 
ABC--curve of shell con- es suet 
ree ie, fae This curve then represents to the eye 

by descent. the contraction of every shell of the 
B—level of greatest cooling. e Merrie Z 
D—level of no strain. sphere between the limits named and in- 
A—depth of 400 miles. . man , 

x dicates a slow increase of the contraction 
in the lower layers, becoming more rapid as the maximum is 
approached and falling with greater rapidity, after this point 
is passed, to zero at the surface. Such is, without claiming 
too great accuracy, the actual condition of the region in ques- 
tion. 

Passing now to the second datum of the problem it is easy to 
see that owing to the contraction of every shell there must en- 
sue a regular and increasing descent of all except the lowest. 


Fig. 1. 


1 IO ae 
Bat i Ys 


86 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


Indeed the upper surface of the lowest descends as shown above, 
three times as far as the shrinkage in any one direction re- 
quires. But the upper surface of the second shell must sink 
by about the same amount in consequence of its own contrac- 
tion and must also settle down on the sunken surface of the 
first. Were their contractions equal, which is not the case, the 
settlement of the second shell would be double that of the first 
but as the cooling increases upward its actual descent is rather 
more than this. 

Evidently this settlement steadily and incessantly increas- 
es upward, its sum rising faster and faster until the layer of 
maximum cooling is reached and then more and more slowly 
to the surface. The increase does not in this case as in the 
former pass into a decrease at any point. Consequently its 
total amount is greatest at the surface though its increase is 
very small indeed through the superficial layers. That is to 
say, in other words, that the fall of each shell in consequence 
of the contraction of those beneath it commences practically 
at the depth of 400 miles and becomes greater up to the super- 
ficial shell which falls most, the maximum increase being at 
or near the shell of greatest cooling. 

It is almost needless to point out that in consequence of the 
spherical form the fall of the different shells is accompanied 
by a narrowing of the space which they must occupy. The 
nearer to the centre they fall the narrower this space will be. 
did every shell descend equally the change of space might be 
represented by a straight line diverging from the axis to the 
surface, every step of fall being represented by an equal dimi- 
nution of space. But as shown above their descent is not 
equal. Consequently the successive positions must be repre- 
sented by a curve, similar in general form to that in fig. 1. 
Starting with the other from zero, at a depth of 400 miles, it 
diverges from the axis more rapidly as it rises until the level 
of maximum cooling is passed, when the previous rate of in- 
crease as shown above, becomes less and less as the surface is 
neared. 

Investigation shows that in the deeper part of that portion 
of the sphere with which we are now concerned the shrinkage 
from cooling exceeds the loss of space due to descent. The 


curve representing the latter will therefore lie nearer the axis 
than the other. 


“Level of no Strain,” — Claypole. 87 


Both diverge upward until they reach the shell of maximum 
cooling. Bat above this level the former returns toward the 
axis as contraction diminishes while the latter continues to di- 
verge to the surface. It follows therefore of necessity that at 
some point these curves must intersect each other. This means 
that at the point where this intersection occurs the values 
which they represent are equal, or that the contraction in con- 
sequence of the cooling of the shell occupying that level exact- 
tly equals the loss of space to which it is compelled to submit 
on account of its descent to a position nearer to the centre of 
the sphere. 

This is “the level of no strain” of the authors named at the 
beginning of this paper. By this term Messrs. Read and 


Davison, to whom the conception is due, imply that the 


layer in the Earth’s crust occupying this position is neither 
squeezed out to fill nascent empty spaces as in the lower part 
of the 400-mile shell, nor crushed by compression owing to 
the descent of layers already cool and therefore incapable of 
much further contraction to a level in the sphere too narrow 
to receive them without folding or crushing. Itis a peaceful 
zone in acrust constantly troubled, a resting layer in an ever 
restless mass. 

In the two papers already alluded to published in this maga- 
zine in June and July, 1888, I pointed out sundry geological 
reasons for suspecting that the “level of no strain” had been 
set too high by its discoverers and inyestiga- 
tors. These need not be repeated here but it 
may not be uninteresting in conclusion to 
point out a few of the changes through which 
this zone has passed since the consolidation of 
the Earth took place. As the authors have re- 
marked it has descended with time to, deeper 
and deeper positions. Forexample at the mo- 
ment ofconsolidation no such layer existed. 
The temperature increased from the surface 

Fig. 2. down perhaps to the centre though not at a 
constant rate. The superficial shell was that of greatest 
cooling and contraction. The two curves described in this 
paper were then as shown in fig. 2 and both reached zero ata 
small depth. But after the consolidation had taken place and 
the superficial layer had grown cooler but still was cooling 


88 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


somewhat rapidly these two curves took the arrangement 
shown in fig.3. The zone of greatest cooling is now below 
the surface but that surface is not cool 
enough to allow the curve of contraction to 
return to the axis. Consequently there 
was then no “layer of no strain.” But 
at later date when the surface had grown so 

cool as to cease to give off 


— any perceptible degree of 
heat the state of things repre- 
8 sented in fig. 4ensued where 
the curve of contraction re- 
urns to the axis or so nearly Fig. 3. 
is to it that intersection takes place and the 
“layer of no strain” appears. 
From that time to the present this layer has 
descended lower and lower accompanying 
i at a certain distance the level of greatest 
ig. 4, 


contraction and will continue to sink deeper 
and deeper until the cooling of the sphere is complete. 
“ 
THE ORIGIN OF THE PRESENT OUTLINES OF THE 
BERMUDAS. 
By J. WALTER FEWKEs, Boston, Mass. 

The Bermudas consist of a number of coral islands 
which exhibit curved and erescentic outlines. The 
“Main Land,” the largest of these islands, presents a marked 
feature in the partial or complete enclosure of at least three 
basins of water called sounds, which are irregularly oval in 
outline and more or less completely surrounded by land. The 
present islands are for the most part strung along in an 
extended arc of an oval which skirts the platform upon which 
they are situated. 

Two theories have been suggested to explain the position 
and contour of these islands, the existence of the sounds and 
their relation to the platform from which the lands rise. These 
theories may be known as the “subsidence theory” and the 
“erosion theory.” The latter has also been called, not inap- 
propriately, the “cave theory,” for reasons which will, it is 
hoped, appear as we go on. 


Outlines of the Bermudas.—Fewkes. 89 


The general form of the component members of the Bermu- 
da islands is such that one is immediately reminded, when 
studying a map of- them, of the characteristic ring-shaped 
coral formations of the Pacite ocean, which are known as 
atolls. Although the group has been regarded as comparable 
with a compound atoll, or a large ring-shaped coral island . 
with smaller circular lagoons along its rim, it has at least two 
marked differences from a typical coral atoll which appear 
even on a superficial study. These differences are as follows: 

1st. While very similar to an atoll in contour the land of 
Bermuda is much more elevated than that of the coral atolls 
in the Pacific. 

2nd. While ordinary atolls are rarely if ever greatly mod- 
ified by erosion everyone admits that the Bermudas have 
had their outlines very much changed by this means. 

The submarine platform of the islands isan oval bank along 
the southeastern edge of which the present land masses extend 
in a crescentic form. With the exception of the North Rocks, 
isolated elevated pinnacles on the northern boundary of the 
platform, all the land is confined to the southern and eastern 
rim. Theinhabited islandsencloseanumber of open bodies of 
water, or sounds as they are locally called, which represent 
the lagoons of the supposed compound atoll. 

Historically the first interpretation of the cause of shape of 
these peculiar lagoons was that their form is due to the grad- 
ual subsidence of the platform upon which the islands rest. 
It was thought that they illustrate in the Atlantic ocean the 
Darwinian theory of subsidence to account for the ring-shaped 
islands in the Pacific ocean. This application of the theory 
has not commended itself to one or two geologists to whom it 
seems insufficient to account for the form of these islands. 
The facts which were thought to indicate subsidence and the 
undoubted evidence of erosion has led still other naturalists 
to a consolidation of the two theories, or rather the engrafting 
of one on the other, so that the workings of both are looked 
upon as indicated in the present contour of the islands. The 
present outlines of the Bermuda are thus regarded by them as 
due to subsidence assisted by erosion.' 


* Darwin stated the difficulties in interpreting the Bermudas as a 
compound atoll, which have never, in the opinion of the author, been 
satisfactorily answered. This paper does not discuss the literature of 
the subject. 


90 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


The study of the tremendous erosion produced by the water, 
ina mechanical way or as a solvent, on the soft rock which com- 
poses the islands leads to a belief that the outlines of the lagoons 
or sounds are due to an erosion of the same by inroads of the 
sea. It would seem to a superficial student of the geology of 
Bermuda that the erosive power of the sea must have been a 
great factor in the production of the present form of the Ber- 
mudas, but it does not seem wholly necessary to combine with 
that cause subsidence of the ocean bed. Several advocates of 
the theory of subsidence as applied to these islands admit that 
erosion has been instrumental in the formation of the contour 
of the islands, but still hold that subsidence is also an im- 
portant cause. To the writer, however, it seems more in 
accord with evidence that the present outlines of the Bermudas 
are almost wholly due to erosion and that subsidence of the 
sea floor is secondary in the formation of the present top- 
ography. It would be possible even to go farther and say that 
erosion is almost the only cause of the present diversified 
coast line of the islands. 

This agent is believed to have led to secondary modifica- 
tions in the geographical contour of such a kind as to impart 
to the islands a distant resemblance to a compound atoll, but 
in so doing has rendered evidence drawn from them as to 
causes as compared with Pacific island atolls somewhat ques- 
tionable. The factor of erosion which all admit exists in the 
Bermudas has modified the outlines, imparting to them con- 
tours similar to those of atolls of the Pacific where erosion 
has not exerted its great influence. Arguments, therefore, 
drawn from similarity of outline must take cognizance of this 
fact. The present form of the Bermudas and that of the com- 
pound atolls may be similar, but that similarity may or 
may not be due to the same cause. The fact that there is 
another cause which is amply sufficient, which is present in 
one case and absent in the other, lends color to the belief that 
to say that both are results of the same agent is after the 
nature of anassumption. Similarity of contour does not nec- 
essarily mean similarity of cause for those contours, especially 

* Local subsidence due to falling in of undermined land masses may 
have occurred and eyen the whole platform may have subsided—a sup- 


position yet to be demonstrated—both of these undoubtedly would 
affect the form of the island, but the immediate cause is erosion. 


Outlines of the Bermudas.— Fewkes. 91 


when we remember that an active modifying agent has exerted 
its influence in one case and notin the other. 

But the evidences claimed to account for the outlines of the 
Bermudas do not rest wholly on their resemblance to those of 
compound atolls. It is held that we have in the Bermudas 
direct evidences of the subsidence of the base. This evidence, 
which is mainly derived from sunken Cedar trees and 
submerged cave stalagmites, wili be considered presently. 

There seems evidence to jead to the belief that ring-shaped 
coral islands are not all formed in the same way. Prof. Heilprin 
strongly insists that the Florida reefs are on areas of eleva- 
tion to which I have no desire to object, but if one regards the 
Florida reefs as an area of elevation and an atoll as an indi- 
cation of subsidence how are we to explain the ring-shaped 
Marquesas‘ islands? Here certainly we have a ring-shaped 
coral-island in an area which the last mentioned author 
regards as one of elevation, but there is a danger in supposing 
that one ring-shaped coral island is necessarily formed the 
same as another of the same shape because its outlines are 
similar. My belief isthat the outlines of the Florida reefs are 
determined by ocean currents independent either of elevation 
or subsidence. There are illustrations which might be 
used to support the theory that circular reefs may not 
always be formed in the same way. I think possibly the Ber- 
mudas and the Marquesas are such examples. It is 
possible that some naturalists have found ring-shaped 
reefs in areas which they regard areas of elevation, 
others atolls in areas of subsidence, while still a third 
where there is no evidence of either elevation or subsidence. 
The causes which might theoretically lead to the formation of 
ring-shaped islands are certainly not so meagre that each, 
possibly all, may be right in regard to the islands which they 
have studied. 

The most important evidences of subsidence in the Bermu- 
das which have been advanced are: Ist. The finding of cedar 
trunks in upright position in submarine excavations, or depos- 
its of “peat” and redsoil in the same or similar excavations. 
To which may be added the fact that ships in Great Harbor, 
one of the sounds, have drawn up with their anchors frag- 
ments of cedar trunks and roots. 2nd. The existence, accord- 


92 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


ing to Thompson, of submarine stalagmites standing in water 
in caves below the level of the sea. 

The finding of cedar trunks and roots under the sea does 
not in itself seem the most conclusive evidence of subsidence 
in these islands, especially when we take into account that we 
are studying islands where erosive action is wide-spread and 
enormous. In point of fact one is tempted to ask if the exist- 
ence of trees or terrestrial organic deposits under the ocean is 
not exactly what would be expected where the evidences of 
erosion of the neighboring land are so great. Why can not 
we suppose that these objects have simply fallen to the sub- 
marine floor of sounds by the erosion of the rock above which 
they formerly grew, or have been transported to this position? 
Is there anything illogical in supposing that the cedar trees 
have simply fallen or been carried as debris to their present 
position, rather than to bring in the theory of subsidence to 
account for their position. 

The evidence furnished, contributed by the half-submerged 
stalagmites, would seem strong proof to instance in favor of 
subsidence. I have examined many of the Bermuda caves and 
have not been able to convince myself that any of them have 
submerged stalagmites which were formed above the pres- 
ent sea level, and consequently as far as the fact of their exist- 
ence goes I must rely on the observations of others. While not 
sure that the individual stalagmite mentioned by the natural- 
ist of the “Challenger Expedition” was formed as stalagmites 

generally, it may be evident that such is the case when we are 
to learn more of its position, and amount of submergence. 
Moreover the fact that a stalagmite is now under water does 
not necessarily mean that sea water penetrated the cave prior 
to the time when it was formed, although the porous nature 
of the rock might seem to indicate that fact. A stalagmite of 
the general character of one in Joyce’s cave may have formed 
before the floor of the cave was as deeply eroded as at present. 
If the roof of the cave settles what is to prevent the stalag- 
mite being forced under the water. The observations of 
evidence of subsidence in the whole platform of the Bermudas 
adduced by observation is not sufficient to prove the theory. 
What is most needed is more observations and better inter- 
pretation of the supposed facts which have been adduced in 
its support. 


Outlines of the Bermudas.— Fewkes. 93 


While in the opinion of the author the evidence yet adduced 
is not sufficient to prove that general subsidence of the Ber- 
muda platform has taken place it is certainly not possible to 
prove the contrary. I feel that our facts shed no light on either 
theory. There is reason to believe that the water once stood 
higher around the island than now, but the evidence of subsi- 
dence of the land, although accepted by most of those who 
have studied these islands, is not wholly conclusive. 

The Bermuda islands belong to that group of coral islands 
in which the most important agent at work is the erosion of 
the sea. Of great erosion there is evidence which no one can 
question, and the islands are in the process of destruction 
not construction.* , 

The amount of erosion which is indicated there is stupend- 
ous and such as belittles all our ideas of the erosion of the sea 
on rock derived from a knowledge of the results of these 
forces on our own coast. The amount of red soil, which I 
regard as wholly the product of erosion, is in a measure an 
index of the amount of denudation which has taken place. 

The level floor of Harrington sound has been adduced as a 
proof that no falling in of the roof of caves has taken place, 
yet the argument is not wholly conclusive. It would seem as 
if the erosion and scouring of the fallen fragments by the water 
would level the floor except at the islands in the sound where 
vestiges of the former land still remain projecting above the 
water. 

It might be pertinent to ask whence came the islands in 
Harrington sound? Are they not remnants of elevations once 
much more lofty than they now are, and have they not an im- 
portant bearing on the problem we are considering? Their 
eroded sides tell of the inroads of the sea and their summits 
indicate considerable aerial denudation. Their very existence 
seems to show that the floor of the sound is not level, although 
in themselves they do not deny the theory of subsidence. 
They are believed to show that the caves which formed about 
them were limited to their periphery, no more, no less. I would 
not interpret them as the roof of a fallen cave, but as rem- 
nants of the originally solid land which before erosion has 


*j have already pointed out the difference between these two groups 
of islands. See Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. vol. xxi, also Standard 
Natural History. 


94 The American Geologist. ; Feb. 1890 


reached its present amount formerly filled the space now 
occupied by water. 

The forces of undermining and falling in of overhanging 
cliffs can now be seen in operation, and the sea carries off the 
¢atritus asit did when Harrington sound was first formed. 
One can see to-day in the power of active erosion abundant 
cause for the excavation of Harrington sound without calling 
to its help a subsidence of the platform on which the islands 
rest. It may be said that the narrow entrance is not large enough 
to serve as a channel of exit, but we may conclude that the 
amount of water which enters Harrington sound is but a part 
of that which daily flows into that basin. There are subter- 
ranean water courses, notably those near Paynter’s vale, 
through which water passes in great quantities. These are 
possibly agents of erosion as well as of transportation of mat- 
ter which has been eroded. It is said that the entrance to 
Harrington sound at “the Flats” is slowly filling, but it is not 
impossible that the amount of detritus conveyed through this 
channel is greatly in excess of that left in the passage. 

The ‘“‘cave theory” of the formation of the present outlines 
of the Bermudas may be stated as follows: 

The modification of the coast line of the islands and the for- 
mation of the sounds is due to erosion by rain or by the 
sea. The sea is the most active agent, undermining the cliffs, 
forming caves or grottos, the roofs of which fall in from time 
to time, while the debris is in part carried off in solution or 
mechanical suspension by tides or currents. 

In support of this theory there may be instanced observa- > 
tion of the erosion indicated at the bases of the high abrupt 
cliffs andthe caves found everywhere in the existing islands. 

The depth of Harrington sound is adduced as an evidence 
of subsidence. Itis asked if the sea could excavate the floor at a 
depth of fifty feet below its present level. [am not sure thatit can 
not or. that instances of eroded caves in harder rock than coral 
limestone of an equal depth might be adduced. But even this 
depth does not disprove erosion or prove subsidence. I am 
not unwilling to believe that there were depressions in the 
great Bermuda which were never filled by rock, or sand before 
it hardened into rock. The nucleus of Harrington sound 
when erosion began may have been one of those. Indeed my 


. Ocul of the Bermudas.—Fewkes. 


whole conception of the manner of the «olion coral rock forms 
is that the highest elevations of the old Bermuda were con- 
tiguous to the active surface. Depressions at a distance from 
the beach or even near it may not even have had their floors 
above the sea, and yet the enlargements of these depressions 
may have resulted as the “cave theory” demands. 

An opinion expressed by one of those who accepts the sub- 
mergence theory is that nothing remains at present of the old 
atoll of Bermuda except the position, so greatly modified are 
the contours. I think heis quiteright. There is, it seems to 
me, no necessity even for the use of the term atoll in connec- 
tion with these islands except to indicate a circular reef with 
enclosed lagoons. Why is it not better to restrict the term 
atoll to islands with a different character. 

The original island from which the present fragments were 
derived possibly had a form like many of the Bahamas in 
which the atoll structure is next to impossible to discover. 
As an advocate of the “cave theory” it is thought consistent 
to suppose the proposition that the island on the Bermuda 
platform in its formation and original condition had the ring- 
shaped form. 

It can be said that the belief that erosion has been the most 
important factor in the sculpturing of the contour of the Ber- 
mudas, imparting to them their present outlines, does not 
necessarily commit one to the belief or disbelief in a theory of 
subsidence of the Bermuda platform. The effects of erosion 
are amply sufficient to explain what we now see in their con- 
tours, and their is no reason to look beyond it for the expla- 
nation of the lagoons and the parts of Bermuda between 
North Rock and the existing islands. 

While we see everywhere in the islands the formation of 
caves and miniature examples of what has been carried on 
with grand results in the past, it must not be supposed that 
this erosion had any more of a cataclysmal nature than at 
present. The slow process of undermining of the soft coral 
limestone by inroads of the sea, and the formation of grottoes 
and of subterranean waterways honeycombed the land which 
formerly occupied the place now filled by the sounds, and 
little by little the roofs fell in to be transported away by an 
ever-present carrier—the sea. Every rain from the sky played 


— 


96 - The American Geologist. "Feb, 1890 


its part in this destruction until under these denudation agen- 
cies the great mass of the island disappeared. 

The elevation of the island of which geologists think they 
find evidences could not make up for the losses from the 
remorseless sea combining with the rains in leveling the soft 
rock. I have no new observation to add to those advanced by 
others to prove the theory of an elevation of the Bermuda 
platform. There may have been an oscillation, elevation and 
subsidence, but the main cause of the present outlines of the 
coast is neither one nor the other, but enormous erosion. 

If there were no other forces at work an elevation of the 
platform of Bermuda fifty feet would profoundly affect 
the general contours of the islands. It seems equally 
possible that subsidence, if it happened likewise under 
the same conditions, would change the outline to a 
marked extent. But in studying the Bermuda of to-day we 
are studying the membra dejecta of a large island whose form 
we are obliged to surmise from its fragments. We know that 
those fragments le on the periphery of an oval ring, but this 
is only a hint of the former shape of the island. It may have 
been a compact island covering the whole platform with its 
greatest elevation where the existing islands now are, yet it does 
not seem impossible that the original Bermuda was a ring- 
shaped island. With pronounced evidences, according to 
geologists, of elevation and of great erosion, the evidence of 
subsidence are more or less marked. Elevation and subsi- 
dence imply oscillation of the platform. Suppose for. argu- 
ment the island was originally formed by slow subsidence as 
Darwin requires, and at the end of that period elevation occurs 
by which beach rock is raised above the level of the sea. This 
would seem evident from the submerged cedars of Ireland 
island must have been submerged before the elevation of the 
beach rock, for if not they would be lifted out of water. They 
were then, if submerged, sunken before the beach rock formed. 
If beach rock forms it would have been above them, for it 
seems not to have formed over the submerged cedars which 
“vessels bring up with their anchors from the Great Sound.” 

We have then this rather astounding condition, an island 
with cedar trees growing upon it is slowly submerged until the 
trees are under water. On the same island [i.e. platform] 


Outlines of the Bermudas.—Fewkes. 97 


there is beach rock, confessedly formed under water, elevated 
above the sea. This beach rock was elevated before the sub- 
mergence. It is impossible to be elevated after the sub- 
mergence since it was formed under water, when the trees 
were above. Elevation after submergence would mean, if no 
other agent was present, bringing the trees to the surface 
again. It would have to be elevated before submergence if 
the movement was not local. The beach rock was therefore 
elevated before the submergence indicated by the trees. It 
must, at its highest point, have been much more elevated 
than the land on which trees stood, because although the 
submergence of the trees took place, the beach rock still 
remains in part above water. 

Add now the depth at which trees are found to the hight of 
the beach rock above the sea level and we would have at least 
a part of the amount of elevation of the top of the beach rock. 
If the elevation was equal throughout the whole area of the 
platform it would be high enough to raise the platform out of 
the water completely before its submergence. Reasoning 
from these data there would seem evidence to conclude that 
even without its capping of eolian coral ihmestone Bermuda 
was once practically a continuous island from North Rocks to 
the present inhabited islands. But these remarks offer no 
proof of a subsidence of the platform before the elevation. 

The submerged cedars if they prove subsidence can only 
be interpreted as indicating a subsidence after the eleva- 
elevation but not before. We are, it seems to me, obliged to 
rely on purely theoretical grounds for a preceding subsidence, 
provided the data for elevation are correct. 

There is no difficulty in accepting the theory of erosion to 
account for the disappearance of the old Bermuda on the 
ground of the great quantity of eroded material. A parallel 
can be found in our western cafions and eroded table moun- 
tains where, although conditions are very different, water has 
played such a tremendous part in a somewhat like process. 
The depths of the Atlantic contiguous to the island could well 
be the dumping place for the eroded material carved out of the 
old island. 

The depth of Harrington sound at certain points does not 
seem a fatal objection to the erosion theory unless it can be 
shown that the erosive power of water is limited to a shallow 


98 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890. 


sounding. The water in submarine grottoes in the face of 
. cliffs is often very deep, even when they, the grottoes, are 
undoubtedly due to erosion. 

The narrow entrance to Harrington sound at “the Flatts” 
is said to be slowly becoming shallower which fact would 
seem to indicate that either the bottom was rising or that silt 
was being deposited. I think the latter explanation is the 
true one and that here we have something akin to the clogging 
of the mouths of rivers by the detritus which they bring down 
from their valleys. Whence came that detritus at “the 
Flatts”? Manifestly it is the result of erosion. But while a 
portion of the products of erosion is thus dropped in the 
course to the ocean, a still larger amount manifestly is washed 
into the ocean. The amount of ground up coral sand that 
can be transplanted by ocean currents can only be justly 
appreciated by one who remembers the miles and miles of 
white water which are often seen in the vicinity of coral 
islands. 

The problem which we are considering deals with the pres- 
ent configuration of the islands of the Bermudas and this out- 
line may or may not correspond with that which they had in 
former times. Roughly speaking it may be said that in agen- 
eral way the contour of the old Bermuda before the sea had 
eaten out the lagoons, was that of an oval island. This island 
may have been in the process of elevation or of subsidence, 

and if the latter, depressions in it may have been a beginning 
from which the sound begins to form. Hven granting the 
possibilty of submergence, bringing this depression beneath 
the ocean level does not mean either that we accept the theory 
that the contour of the present sounds are due to submerg- 
ence, except in a very general way.* The immediate cause of 
the circular lagoons is what we are after, and that cause is 
thought to be erosion, even if subsidence, local or general, has 
taken place. With those who hold that subsidence has taken 
place in the Bermudas I have no important difference of opin- 
ion. It is only with those who adduce from that the propo- 
sition that the present contour of the islands is the result of 


& 


‘It would seem to the author that if we accept the proposition that 
the sea has by erosion made the great inroads into the land that some 
advocates of the subsidence theory admit, that they have practically 
abandoned a comparison .between the Bermudas and the low ring- 
shaped atolls of the Pacific and Indian oceans. 


a Outlines of the Bermudas.—Fewkes. 99 


subsidence and formed as are the Pacific atolls that I find 
myself holding a different view. 

How much the Bermuda platform under the sea has been | 
lifted up by elevation of a mechanical nature we can probably 
never know, but the amount of growth of the land above the 
ocean, formed by upheaval and by other forces we can dis- 
cover. The thickness of the wolian limestones, due to wind 
action upon finely triturated sand, is much greater than the 
highest estimate of upheaval as indicated by elevated beach 
rock. Roughly speaking it may be said to be over three times 
as great, as far as has been at present observed. It is but 
natural to conclude that these wind-blown sands and the rocks 
formed from them have played their share, which is not small, 
in the formation of the island. They have done more than 
elevation to determine subordinate features of the configura- 
tion. Molian rocks can not form under water, and yet there 
are high wind-blown rocks in perpendicular cliffs in at least 
one point on Harrington sound. When these rocks were first 
formed their sides were not as precipitant as at present, when 
they show evidences of tremendous erosion. 

This soft rock occupying now, after great denudation, three 
times the thickness of all the rock above water, has suffered 
most in denudation, since itis one of the softest known rocks. 
What must have been its proportion of loss since the erosion be- 
gan? Enough I fancy to impart the shape to the land above water 
‘on the oval platform, irrespective of any atoll shape which the 
up heaved rock may originally have had. It practically has 
modified the old form of the island. Then, when denudation 
combined with this under the form of a new mask, obscured 
the outlines derived from elevation and subsidence, this was 
the rock which suffered the most, and which, even in the 
destruction of its character as rock has the greatest influence 
in determining the outlines of the coast. A capping of rock 
so soft as to feel every imprint of eroding forces, now in the 
form of sandstones, now as a moving glacier carried by the 
wind, transported by water, is the formation to which Bermu- 
da owes its outlines. Its influence in the modification of 
coast lines of Rermuda is greater than subsidence, which in a 
measure it neutralizes. 

Some of the conclusions arrived atin my study of the origin 


100 The American Geologist. Feb, 1890. 


of the coast lines of the Bermudas have a general application 
to a classification of ring-shaped coral islands. 

While it is customary to call all ring-shaped coral islands 
atolls, it seems to the author that the practice has led to a 
misconception in assigning the same causes for their similar 
shapes. Ring-shaped coral islands may be true atolls, as 
those of the Pacific, or ring-shaped like the Marquesas group 
of the Florida Keys. Still others may be typified in ring- 
shaped islands derived from previously existing coral islands 
by erosion. Of these Bermuda is a type and an excellent 
illustration. What its original form was when it emerged from 
the sea we do not know. Speculation and comparison with 
other coral islands would lead us to regard it as circular. But 
since the appearance above the surface of the sea it has been 
profoundly affected by other forces which have greatly mod- 
ified it and changed its contours. The island has passed 
through a geographic development or a life-history in which 
the work of erosion fills much of the last chapter, for coral 
islands have an initial form characteristic of growth and a 
final form resulting from erosion. The former are coral 
islands in the process of active development; the latter of | 
denudation or decay. . 


NOTE ON SOME OF THE CAUSES OF EXTINCTION OF 
SPECIES. 


J. M. McCrerERy, Akron, O.* 


Facts concerning the life history of the various forms of life 
whose fossil remains are found in every stratum of the more 
than 5,000 feet of limestones, shales and sandstones that make 
up the geological column as exposed in Ohio, are always of 
interest to students of Ohio geology. | 

Some species made their appearance and continued to exist 
while hundreds of feet of sediment were deposited. Other 
species seem to haye come abruptly upon the scene and aftera 
brief existence—geologically speaking—but which represents 
vast cycles of time as men reckon years—disappeared, and were 
replaced by later forms. The list of American paleozoic 
fossils now numbers not less than 10,000 species and is being 


* This paper is extracted from an address delivered before the Akron 
Scientific Club on Jan. 8, 1890, on ‘‘Losers in Life’s Race.’’ 


Extinction of Species.— Me Creery. 101 


added to every year, yet not a-single one of these species is 
living to-day. 

Between 250 and 300 fossil forms have been recognized in 
the 800 feet of limestone and shales known under the general 


“name of the “Cincinnati group” and by following “the testi- 


mony of the rocks” we may learn something of the life history 
of at least a few of this long array of species. 

In the Trenton limestone, the lowest rock exposed in Ohio 
and the formation in which natural gas is obtained, there is 
found a fossil brachiopod shell, Orthis biforata. It occurs 
very sparingly in the fifty feet exposed at Pt. Pleasant, 
Clermont county, and is seldom or never met with in the lower 
portion of the next higher deposit, the Cincinnati beds. But 
in the upper portiony at the hight of 800 feet above low 
water mark of the Ohio river, this fossil becomes quite com- 
mon. It is, however, a smaller shell and so different from 
the typical form that it is classed as a variety of O. biforata 
under the name of var: dentata. About 50 feet higher or 850 
feet above low water, it has reached the full size of the typical 
O. biforata but does not show all its peculiarities andis known 
to science as var: lynw. At the hight of 425 feet it assumes 
all the characteristics of the typical American form of O. btfor- 
ata and becomes so numerous that a stratum from 2 to 10 feet _ 
in thickness and spreading over miles and miles of extent is 
made up almost entirely of the full grown shells of this fossil, 
and so certain is this layer to be found where the prope? 
hight is reached that it is regarded by geologists as a most 
reliable land-mark. When the “0. biforata stratum” is found 
the geologist knows that he is near the top of fhe Cincinnati 
beds. 

O. biforata did not die out after thus becoming so numerous, 
but continued in diminished numbers through the Lebanon 
beds, the uppermost member of the Cincinnati group and on 
up through both the Clinton and Niagara groups—the former 
with a thickness of 50 and the latter with a thickness of 350 
feet, or a combined thickness of 400 feet. This added to the 
300 feet which constitute the Lebanon beds, the 425 feet of 
Cincinnati beds, and the 50 feet of Pt. Pleasant beds (now rec- 
ognized as Trenton) gives usa total combined thickness of over 
1200 feet of limestone and shale, and during the vast ages in 


102 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890. 


which it was being deposited this particular species continued 
to exist. 

As a contrast to the life history just given is that of the fossil 
Strophomena plano-convexa, also found in the Cincinnati group 
at Cincinnati,' at an elevation of 300 feet above low water. 
While this species lived long enough to spread itself over the 
entire bottom of the sea in which the Cincinnati group was 
deposited, it is only found through a few feet in thickness of 
the 800 feet of limestone and shale that are included under 
this general name. Orthis retrorsa is another fossil brachiopod 
that makes its appearance in the same limestone at the hight 
of 475 feet above low water, but is only found for a foot in 
thickness—when, so far as known, it disappears entirely. Yet, 
judging from the character of the roék or the other fossils 
associated with this, there was no physical change of any 
kind that marked its appearance or disappearance. 

The trilobites furnish us with a stranger story of life and 
death—death not only of the species but of the whole family, 
so that to-day they have not a living representative in the 
world. They made their appearance in the Primordial period, 
increased in the Lower Silurian, were most numerous in the 
Upper Silurian and “after there had been, under a succession 
of genera, more than 1700 species, came nearly to an end 
with the Devonian—the old genera being all extinct and only 
three new ones appearing in the Carboniferous to close off this 
prominent Paleozoic type.” (Dana’s manual of geology, page 
289). Although these lingering forms carry the life history of 
the trilobites to the close of Paleozoic time, yet the fact 
remains that the end of the Carboniferous age saw their final 
extinction. 

The question naturally presents itself, What caused the 
extinction of species in past geological ages? Let me say 
here that no one great cause need be sought, but rather a vast 
number of slight and almost imperceptible ones. A case once 
came under my own observation that well illustrates to what 
slight changes we must look for information on this subject 
Ten years ago I made a trip to the Tuscarawas river four 
miles south of this city, (Akron, O.) for the purpose of obtain- 
ing some specimens of a river mussel, Unio clavus, not found 


*“The Cincinnati Group,’’ Prof. Orton Geological Survey of Ohio, 
vol. 1, page 393. 


“, ein mat a 
Wl NSA SU a | NB Sie lark et ad 


Fixtinetion of Species.—McCreery. 103 


in streams flowing north into lake Erie. There had been a 
summer freshet some days before, but the water was then low. 
I found thousands of dead shells but not a single live one in 
four miles walking in the bed of the stream. The fresh water 
mussels bury themselves with one end of the shell just pro- 
jecting above the sand and gravel, and the end in which the 
openings are located directed up stream. The valves are 
usually slightly parted so that the water may enter through 
one siphon and after the animalcules, etc., contained in the 
water have been strained out by the gills of the mussel, the 
water is forced out through the outlet siphon. But the sum- 
mer freshet had washed so much sand into the opening of the 
shells that the mussel was unable to close the valves, and so 
an animal that spendsits whole life in the water was drowned 
inits native element. Visits to the locality several times since 
show that they have not yet recovered their former abundance, 
and nothing would be necessary to totally extinguish all the 
species of Unio in northern Ohio but frequent summer fresh- 
ets continued from year to year. 

A few years ago about three miles south of this city there 
was a swamp in which a particular species of snail Helix 
mitchelliana, was found. It has not been found elsewhere in 
northern Ohio up to this time so faras known. ‘To say that 
it was plentiful gives but a faint idea of its abundance. Per- 
haps the fact that at one visit of a couple of hours I collected 
more than a quart may give an idea of the numbers. Three 
years after the discovery of this interesting colony a ditch was 
dug round the swamp which drained the surface of the field 
and cut off the supply of water from the water-loving plants 
which covered its surface, causing the death of the swamp 
vegetation. As this snail is a vegetarian, the disappearance of 
the swamp vegetation may have destroyed its supply of food, 
or the lack of proper shelter, or more likely a combination of 
many slight causes may have exterminated it; at any rate the 
snails totally disappeared and the most careful search all 
round the vicinity has failed to find a single specimen since. 

Five or six years ago in one of the lumber yards of this city 
there was a minute species of snail, Pupa corticariea, not yet 
elsewhere reported in this vicinity. It had probably been in- 
troduced here attached to pine lumber from Michigan where 
this species is common. The surface of the lumber yard was 


104 The American Geologist. Feb, 1890. 


filled in with refuse two years ago and the snails were buried 
and are now only known to have ever occurred here from the 
specimens in the various cabinets in this city. 

In both the latter cases man’s agency was at work in the 
extinction of species, but in the case of the shells in the 
Tuscarawas river man played no part. 

These instances may serve to remind us that in paleontol- 
ogy as at present we need not look for cataclysms and convul- 


‘sions to account for the extinction of species, but must often 


5 


attribute them to local changes, slight but sufficient, in the 
keen struggle for existence, to handicap the losers in the race. 


AN ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN GLACIAL LUNOID FURROWS. 
By A. S. PACKARD, Providence, R. I. 

In hisadmirable report on ‘tthe rock-scorings of the great 
ice invasions” in the seventh report of the U. 8. geological sur- 
vey Prof. T.C. Chamberlin draws attention to the subject 
of lunoid furrows, and rejects my explanation of the cause. It 
may be said that the first observer to call attention to these 
crescentic ice-engravings was Dr. John Delaski, of Maine, (I 
think Falmouth or Yarmouth) who saw them on Mt. Desert, 
and described them in the American Journal of Science for 
Sept., 1863, (2d Ser. xxxvi. 275). 

Having observed these ice-marks,at various places in Switz- 
erland the past summer, and not having been satisfied with 
my former explanation, I venture to suggest what may seem 
to be a more reasonable one. It also appears that the lunoid 
furrows are apparently the same as Prof. Chamberlin’s “cres- 
centic gouges.” 

I first observed them at the Gletschergarten of Lucerne, 
where they are not, however, very well marked, as the rock is 
a limestone, and not favorable for their best development. 
The photograph which I obtained quite closely resembles Prof. 
Chamberling’ fig. 83 of the disruptive gouges in sandstone, 
at Amherst, Ohio. Besides the gouges or true lunoid furrows, 
the limestone rock at Lucerne was in places more or less 
scaled off irregularly, as if the result of pressure. The surface 
was inclined, the ice having been apparently forced locally 
uphill. Afterwards in walking up the Grimsel Pass, these 
lunoid gouges were observed in abundance on the granite spur 


> ea Hs 45 why 


Glacial Lunoid Furrows.— Packard. 105 


or shoulder near the head of the pass, where steps are cut into 
the smooth, polished and glaciated surface. This is one of a 
series of spurs which extend out into the valley, from Handeck 
to the Grimsel Hotel, and judging from their highly glaciated 
surface, they must have been subjected to tremendous pres- 
sure. Moreover at this point the granite showed a strong ten- 
dency to exfoliate, leaving more or less crescentic hollows. 
But on the next day when going and returning from the Aar 
glacier and passing a glacially smoothed and polished nubble of 
granite which stood directly in the former path of the glacier, 
about half an hour’s walk from the hotel, the probable cause of 
the numerous lunoid gouges so well developed there, occurred 
tome. It seemed quite plain to the minds of myself and my son, 
who accompanied me, that the transverse gouges were due to 
great pressure,causing the granite surface to exfoliate,while the 
quite regular shape of the gouges was due to the presence of 
rounded subglacial boulders of different sizes which were 
forced along between the ice and the surface of the rock. The 
gouges were on the stoss or glacial inclination of the nubble, 
the ice locally moving uphill. My former attempt at explain- 
ing the process by local back-and-forth motion of the ice, soas 
to cause the stones to turn over I was led on the spot to 
abandon. The marks both above Handeck, and in the Aar 
valley were identical with those I had many years previously 
noticed on the coast of Labrador, and near the summits of Mt. 
Baldface and Speckled mountain, and at another point near 
Goodrich’s falls on the Ellis river in the White mountains. 
The gouges there, appear usually to occur on surfaces which 
presented unusual obstacles to the passage of the ice, and are 
best developed on granite rock-surfaces, which have a ten- 
dency to exfoliate, and they seem to becaused by the presence 
of one or several boulders. The curved and crescentic or 
gouge-shape of the mark appears to be due to the fact (1) 
that the glacier carried or pushed amore orless angular boulder 
over a granitenubble or spur, so that the pressure was greater 
than at other points in the valley; (2) the more or less round- 
ed boulder, with its lower or under side perhaps somewhat flat, 
and so situated that the ice rested only on the top, occasioned 
greater local pressure than where no boulders were present ; 
(3) the boulder meeting with a slight obstacle suddenly 
stopped, and the ice pushing it from behind caused it to 


oa 


- 


106 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890, 


slightly tip, so that an immense pressure was brought to bear 
on the small surface, causing the formation of a gouge- 
like crescentice hollow, with the concavity towards the origin 
of the motion, i.e., facing up the valley. 

In making my first explanation I wrongly inferred that 
there might be an “advancing and receding motion of the gla- 
cier,” so as to cause the stone to turn over. 

In some way,then, due both to the striking or pushing force 
of the glacier, and to the local pressure resulting from the pres- 
ence of a boulder between the ice and the rock surface, the 
boulder was not as with the rest of the ground-moraine push- 
ed gradually and slowly onward, but hitched, thus causing it 
to break off the lunoid fragment ona surface peculiarly liable, 
under great local pressure, to exfoliate. 

Prof. Chamberlin remarks that he has not seen any “lun- 
oid furrows.” What,however,we call lunoid furrows are apparent- 
ly identical with his “crescentic gouges” or “disruptive gouges” 
such as are represented by his fig. 34. In fact my photograph 
of the glacier garden at Lucerne, with the crescentic gougesis 
almost identical in appearance with his fig. 74. 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


THE AZOIC SYSTEM. 
The following is quoted from the new Century dictionary : 


The ‘‘Azoic system’’ or series of Foster and Whitney includes the 
stratified rocks, together with the associated unstratified ones which 
underlie unconformably, or are otherwise shown to be older than the 
Potsdam sandstone, or the lowest group of rocks which has up to the 
present time been proved to contain traces of a former organic life. 


The following is quoted from Foster and Vee report 
on the lake Superior land district, 1851, Part m1, p. 8 


Below all the fossiliferous groups of this region there is a class of 
rocks, consisting of various crystalline schists, beds of quartz, and 
saccharoidal marble, more or less metamorphosed, which we denom- 
inate the Azorc system. This term was first applied by Murchison 
and Verneuil to designate those crystalline masses which preceded the 
paleozoic strata. In it they include not only gneiss, but the granitic 
and Plutonic rocks by which it has been invaded. We adopt the term, 
but limit its signification to those rocks which are detrital in their 
origin, and were supposed to have been formed before the dawn of 
organized existence. 


The definition from the dictionary is seriously defective. It 
will be noticed that it includes the unstratified rocks, in the 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 107 


same manner as Murchison and Verneuil, but that by Foster 
and Whitney these are specially exempted. The Azotc sys- 
tem, as defined by Foster and Whitney, would be the equiy- 


alent, nearly, of the recently named Keewatin and Vermilion | 


groups, and, until fossil remains have been found in the 
‘Animike (Huronian), it would also be considered to embrace 
that. Ifthe Animike be finally shown, as suspected, to be the 
equivalent of the “Olenellus beds” of the Taconic, it would 
have to be excluded from the Azorc. There is a pliability con- 
sistent with possible future discovery, in the definition of the 
Azoic by Foster and Whitney. But this is wanting in the 
Century definition. According to it the Azorc rises to the 
Potsdam sandstone; and the remarkable statement is made 
that it (we understand the Potsdam sandstone) is “the lowest 
group of rocks which has up to the present time been proved 
to contain traces of a former organic life.” Shades of 
Emmons and Barrande! What can now be done with the 
“Olenellus beds?” Where shall Linnarson and Brégger, and 
Nathorst, and Salter, and Hicks, and Walcott, and Ford, and 
Matthew now assign the great fauna that they have discovered 
in strata below the Potsdam. 


REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL LITERATURE 


Contributions to the micropaleontology of the Cambro-Silurian rocks of 
Canada, Part. E.O. Unricu. Geol. Sur. of Canada, 1889. 

The paper describes specially some polyzoa (bryozoa) and Ostracoda 
from Manitoba, the new forms being Monticulipora parasitica var. 
plana, Diplotrypa westoni, Batostoma manitobensis, Petigopora 
scabiosa, Bythopora striata, Fistulipora? laxata, Gomotrypa bilateralis, 
Pachydictya bexagonalis, and P. magnipora, Ptilodictya whiteavesi, 
Leperditia subcylindrica, Primitia lativia, Primitia (? Beyrichia) 
parallela, Eurychilina reticulata, and E. manitobensis, Strepula luna- 
tifera. The forms are illustrated by two plates. 

The fossils from Stony mountain indicate the upper part of the Hud- 
son River group. Those from St. Andrews indicate the Trenton. 


Kentucky fossil shells, from the Silurian and Devonian rocks of Ken- 
tucky. By Henry Nerrterotn. Kentucky Geological Survey. J. R. 
Proctor, director, 4to, pp. 295, and 86 plates of fossils, $5.00. Robert 
Clarke & Co., Cincinnati,O., and John P. Morton & Co. Louisville, Ky. 

This monograph contains a short sketch of geology and paleontology, 
giving the outlines of both sciences, explaining the principles upon 


108 The American Geologist. Feb. 1800. 


which they rest, and forming a short introduction to both subjects. 
It is written in a simple manner, free from abstract technical terms, 
and well supplies the want of the general reader interested in science. 
The descriptions and figures of the mollusca, from the region of the 
Ohio falls, are scattered in various publications and almost out of. 
reach of the paleontologist. The author has gathered this widely 
dispersed material, and, with but few exceptions, redrawn all figures 
from the numerous and finely preserved fossils of his cabinet. To this 
he has added the new material obtained during long years of collecting, 
making the volume amonograph of exceeding value. It is illustrated 
by 36 lithographic plates, containing 220 species, of which 43 are new. 


Contributions to Canadian Palxontology, Vol. 1, Partn. J. F. Wurt- 
EAVES. Montreal, W.F. Brown & Co., 1889. 

In this part Mr. Whiteaves continues his investigations upon the 
Canadian (almost exclusively invertebrate) paleontology. In article 

*-On some fossils from the Hamilton of Ontario, etc.’’ there are 


_described the following new species—two crinoids, Homocrinus crassus, 


and Dolatocrinus canadensis and one doubtful Megisiocrinus species, 
one doubtful blastoid Pentremitidea filosa, two brachiopods Lingula 
thedfordensis and Spirifera subdecussata, one gasteropod Platyostoma 
plicatum, A list is also given of all the known species from the Onta- 
rio Hamilton as follows 


Spongiae g. 1.s. 1. Brachiopoda g. 16. s. 41. 
Anthozoa (Aleyonaria) g. 2.s. 5. Lamellibranchiata fea sehe 4 

(Zoantharia) g. 14.8. 31. Gasteropoda PSs see 
Hydromedusae g. 2.8. 3. Pteropoda Or eee 
Crinoidea g. 7.s. 9. Cephalopoda Focies Been 
Blastoidea g. 5.s. 5., Crustacea (Ostracoda) g. 1.8. 1. 
Vermes SoG suites (Brilobitay yor v2asaaor 
Polyzoa g.12.s. 21. Pisces or tls ils 


In article 3, ‘‘Fossils of the Triassic Rocks of B. C.,’’ nine new 
species are described, two brachiopods, Spiriferina borealis, Terebratula 
liardensis; three lamellibranchs, Monotis ovalis, Halobia occidentalis, 
Trigonodus (?) productus; one gasteropod, Margarita triassica, four 
cephalopods, Nautilus liardensis, Popanoccras meconnelli, Acro- 
chordiceras (?) carlottense, Trachyceras canadense; Hyatt’s new genus 
(Arniotites) is described at length. 

In article 4, ‘On some Cretaceous fossils from B. C. the N. W. Ter- 
ritory and Manitoba’’ one new lamellibranch, Astarle carlottensis is 
described from B. C., two brachiopods, Discina pileolus, Terebratula 
robusta; two lamellibranchs, Cyprina yukonensis, Lima perobliqua; 
three cephalopods, Schloenbachia borealis (?), S. gracilis, Placenticeras 
glabrum; one phyllopod, Estheria bellula, from the N. W. Ter. and 
Serpula semicoalita (Vermes) Modiola tenuisculpta,' Belemnitella man- 


1 According to Mr. Whiteaves this species appears to be closely 
related to Volsella multilinigera, Meek, from the Cretaceous of Utah, 
the umbonal slopes in the former being more broadly rounded and the 
anterior extremity more greatly prolonged beyond the beaks. 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 109 


itobensis, Loricula canadense (cirripede) and two selachian fishes 
Ptychodus parvulus, Lamna manitobensis. 

The work is beautifully illustrated with fifteen plates of sixty-three 
species. 


On the form and position of the sea level, with special reference to its 
dependence on superficial masses symetrically disposed about a normal to 
the earth’s surface. By Ropert Sroirson Woopwarp. pp. 88. (Bulle- 
tin of the U. S. Geological Survey, No. 48, 1888). The mathematical 
investigation here reported deals with the influence on the level of the 
sea or of lakes exerted through gravitation by such masses as the ice- 
sheet of the Glacial period, or in a lake basin by the water itself. Its 
application in the present work of the national survey is to determine 
the amount of displacement or variation from the present level which 
would be thus accounted for in the shore lines of the Quaternary lakes 
Bonneville and Lahontan of the glacial lake Agassiz and the higher 
stages of the Laurentian lakes, held in on the north and northeast by 
the recedipg ice-sheet, and of the ocean, which submerged the north- 
ern borders of this continent and of Europe at the close of the Glacial 
period. The previous discussions of this subject by Pratt, Heath and 
Thomson are reviewed; and the formulas deduced for ice attraction are 
employed in a consideration of the variations in sea level attributable 
to continental masses. 

The next two in this series of bulletins are by the same author: No. 
49. Latitudes and longitudes of certain points in Missouri, Kansas and 
New Mexico, (pp. 133, 1889), consisting chiefly of instrumental obser- 
vations and their computation; and No. 50. Formulas and tables to 
facilitate the construction and use of maps (pp. 124, 1889). 


On invertebrate fossils from the Pacific Coast. By Cuartes A. WHITE. 
pp. 102; plates 14. (Bulletin of the U. S. Geol. Survey, No. 51, 1889). 
Part 1 of this memoir describes nineteen new species and one new 
genus of fossil mollusca from the Chico-Téjon series of California. 
This series, which comprises the Chico, Martinez, and Téjon groups 
of the California Geological Survey, is found to be one great continu- 
ous succession of marine strata, unbroken from base to top, though 
representing both the closing epoch of the Cretaceous period and the 
opening one of the Tertiary. ‘‘During this time,’’? writes Dr. White, 
‘“‘attendant physical conditions produced no sudden changes in the 
aqueous life of the waters in which the deposits occurred. * * * * 
The Cretaceous characteristics gradually disappear upward leaving 
the surrounding fauna, with its later accessions, without any com- 
mingling of Cretaceous types.’? These features present a marked 
contrast with the probably contemporaneous brackish and fresh-water 
Laramie formation of the interior of the continent, which, although 
doubtless continuously deposited from the marine Cretaceous beneath 
it, and into the fresh-water Tertiary deposits above it, yet exhibits, 
because of surrounding physical changes, an abrupt accession of its 


CURE , 
OE a ee ae 


110 The American Geologist. Feb, 1990. 


peculiar aqueous fauna at its base and almost as abrupt an extinciont 
of it at the top. 

Part 1 notes the occurrence of equivalents of the Chico-Téjon series 
in Oregon and Washington. These represent both the lower or Chico 
portion of the series and the upper or Téjon portion. Only the former, 
however, is identified in southern Oregon and northérn California. 

Part mr discusses the fauna of the Vancouver group, describing 
three new species. This formation is shown to be paleontologically 
equivalent, at least in large part, with the Chico strata. 

A small, unique fauna, collected by professor Newberry from the 
coal-bearing formation of the Puget Sound basin, is reported in Part 
Iv, indicating deposition in a very large estuary, which was probably 
contemporaneous with the Laramie sea. 

The closing article, Part v, notices a small collection of Mesozoic 
fossils from Alaska, all of which are regarded as new, and as probably 
belonging to strata somewhat older than the Aucella-bearing strata of 
Alaska. 


Subaerial decay of rocks and the origin of the red color of certain forma- 
tions. By IsranL Cook RussELL. pp. 65; plates 5. (Bulletin of the 
U.S. Geol. Survey, No. 52, 1889). In the study of the origin of the 
prevailingly red color of the Mesozoic sandstones and shales of our 
Atlantic border on the bay of Fundy and from the Connecticut valley 
to South Carolina, named the Newark system,’ Mr. Russell has 
examined the areas of deeply decayed rocks, covered with red soils, 
in the southern states, and compares them with similar rock decompo- 
sition and residual soils of other parts of the world. 

The mica schists and allied rocks in Pennsylvania and Maryland are 
decayed to the depth of only a few feet, but are frequently disintre- 
grated, that they may be removed with a pick and shovel, to fifteen or 
thirty feet, and occassionally fifty feet, below the surface. Nearly the 
entire area underlaid by crystalline rocks in Virginia and the Caro- 
linas east of the Blue Ridge has a soil of red clay, which is a residual 
deposit produced by the subaérial alteration of the rocks on which it 
rests. This alteration generally reaches more than a hundred feet, 
below the surface, but, owing to lack of exposures, its full extent is 
seldom seen. 

On washing the residual deposits so as to collect separately their 
grains of quartz and feldspar, scales of mica, and particles of other 
minerals, each of these sand grains, especially where the decomposi- 
tion is well advanced, has been found to be coated with a thin shell 
having a brownish or red color. Prolonged washing fails to remove 
this coating, a fact which is well illustrated by the red sands now be- 
ing deposited by the streams of Virginia and the Carolinas in the re- 
gions underlaid by crystalline rocks. Chemical analyses show that 
the incrustation is rich in both ferric oxide and alumina, being a 
ferruginous clay formed around the individual grains during the dis- 
integration and decomposition of the parent rocks. 

1See this journal, vol. 11, pp. 178-182, March, 1889, 


view of Recent Geological Literature. 111 


Warm, moist climates are most favorable to rock decay, which is 
found more general and extending to greater depths as one travels 
from north to south along the crystalline Piedmont belt of Archzean 
age or in the great Appalachian valley of Paleeozoic strata. Along the 
Shenandoah, James and New rivers in Virginia the decay of limestone 
has yielded a red clay sometimes fifty feet deep; but in the colder and 
somewhat less humid climate of the driftless area in Wisconsin the 
average thickness of the residual deposits is only seven feet. Little 
decomposition of the rocks is observable in the arid region of the Rocky 
mountains and the Great Basin, and the colors of the soils there are 
gray and light brown; but on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada, 
which has plentiful rains and temperature nearly like that of the 
southern part of the Appalachian belt, deep rock decay has taken 
place and the soil is red. In Nicaragua, the West Indies, Brazil and 
southern Europe and Asia, extensive rock decomposition and red soils 
prevail. The red earth of Bermuda, the ‘‘terra rossa’’ of southeastern 
Europe and the ‘“‘laterite’’ of India are apparently identical, both in 
composition and in method of accumulation, with the red residual 
soil of the south part of the Appalachian valley. 

Turning to the rock formations of previous eras, we find that the 
red and brown colors of the Newark sandstones, and of many other 
sandstones, as on lake Superior, are due to incrustations of ferric 
oxide which coat the surfaces of the grains of quartz and feldspar 
forming the strata and cement them together. The author therefore 
concludes that these beds consist of the débris of lands that had long 
been exposed to the action of a warm, moist atmosphere. Previous 
hypotheses of Ramsay, Dawson, Dana, Cook, Newberry, Newton, 
Green and others, are discussed ; and there is appended a bibliography 
of papers relating to the subaétrial decay of rocks. 


The geology of Nantucket. By NaTHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER. pp. 54; 
with ten plates and 16 figures in the text. (Bulletin of the U. S. Geol. 
Survey, No. 53, 1889). Glacial and recent deposits form the entire 
island of Nantucket. Through its central part there extends from 
west to east a series of low but extremely numerous and irregularly 
shaped hills of glacial drift (gravel and sand with boulders), culmi- 
nating in Shawkemo, Altar rock, and Foulger’s hills, and Sankaty 
Head, 75 to 100 feet above the sea. On the southern half of this 
island this line of low drift hills, which is shown by its topographic 
features and material to be a terminal moraine of the continental ice- 
sheet, is bordered by a plain of gravel and sand which descends with 
agentle slope from the hills to the sea and terminates in low bluffs 
rarely more than 20 feet high. 

The lowest deposit exposed on Nantucket is a bed of clay, generally 
blue and compact, scantily intermingled with pebbles and sand. 
Though exhibiting an obscure stratification, it is probably to be classed 
as till or boulder clay. Its pebbles are occasionally scratched, and 
throughout they have the angular or faceted character common to 


Pe] 
112 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890. 


glacial pebbles. When considerable sections are exposed, as is the 
case at two or three points, the upper part of the deposit for 15 or 20 
feet is seen to be altered toa yellowish orgrayishcolor, while the mass 
below is of the characteristic blue color of such clays. This formation 
does not rise above the level of the sea save in a small portion of the 
surface of the island. Its highest point seen is in an excavation for 
road material in the west part of the village of Nantucket, where it 
rises about 30 feet above the sea. 

Upon the undulating surface of the lower clay lies a mass of irreg- 
ularly stratified sand and gravel, shaped in the hillocks and short, 
tumultuously grouped ridges called kames, with prevailing trends east 
and west and enclosing occasional ponds or swamps in the intervening 
hollows. Where the hills are steepest, often having slopes of 20° to 
30°, they usually are very stony, large angular biocks being scattered 
ever their surfaces, which, with the peculiar contour, show clearly that 
this belt is part ofa frontal moraine. 

The most peculiar feature of the southern plain is found in broad 
channels extending from the moraine to the ocean shore. These chan- 
nels are digitate, two or more often uniting in their southward course. 
They range from 5 to 20 feet in depth, and have flat bottoms from 200 
to 800 feet wide, sloping toward the sea with an irregular descent of 
about five feet ina mile. Their seaward extremities are in all cases 
below the level of ,the ocean and contain lagoons or ponds which are 
barred from the ocean by beaches of sand. 

Evidences of decay are observable in the pebbles of these driit 
deposits, by the crumbling of many of the varieties of crystalline and 
fragmental rocks, by the dissolved look of the surface of the rocks 
which resist interstitial decay, and by the development of joint planes 
in the pebbles, so that, though they may be but little decayed, they 
often split into fragments on being removed from their bed. Professor 
Shaler believes these changes to be twice or three times greater than 
in more northern localities, as abotit Fall River, Mass., or on the coast 
at Boston and northward. But the suggestion that the drift of Nan- 
tucket has been proportionately longer exposed to subatrial weather- 
ing, and that the recession of the ice-sheet from Nantucket was twice 
or thrice as long ago as from northern New England, seems unwar- 
ranted; for the outer portion of the drift would contain a large inter- 
mixture of preglacial gravel from stream beds and the sea shore, and 
of other superficial deposits that covered the country before the ice 
age, all of which had already been long subjected to weathering, so 
that these characters of the pebbles may have been acquired then. On 
the other hand, the drift farther north, where glacial erosion and 
transportation were more efficient, would scarcely include any peb- 
bles formed by preglacial weathering, and stream and sea erosion, 
and its rock fragments, derived by glacial planation and plucking 
from the bed-rock, would exhibit only that slight weathering and 
chemical change which they have received during post-glacial time. 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 113 
The same consideration may also explain much of the difference in 
these respects between the outer part of the drift along all the glaciated 
area of the United States and that lying farther inside the glacial 

_ boundary, as within the terminal moraines of the upper Mississippi 
region. te ; 

In all the pebble-drift sections of Nantucket, Prof. Shaler finds plen- 
tiful subangular rock fragments, with the fractured edges only slightly 
worn, some of which closely resemble paleolithic implements. He 
regards these as indicative of a long interval between two ice incur- 
sions, the earlier bringing boulders and pebbles in which joints and 
cracks were subsequently developed, and the later ice-sheet breaking 
these masses and strewing their subangular parts in its drift. Another 
explanation, however, seems to be afforded by the probable occur- 
rence of such joints and cracks in preglacial gravel or shingle and in 
masses left during the disintegration of ledges, so that there may have 
been only a single glacial advance to Nautucket. 


The richly fossiliferous post-Pliocene beds in the lower part of the 


section of Sankaty Head, on the east shore of the island, were first 
examined by Messrs. Desor and Cabot. Afterward more full collec- 
tions, and the discrimination of two shell-beds separated by a Serpula 
layer, were made by Messrs. S. H. Scudder and Richard Rathbun, 
the species being determined by Prof. A. E. Verrill, whose list and 
notes are here copied in full. The lower shell-bed contains about 
thirty-five species which make up a faunal group of distinctly southern 
character, all of them being now found living on the southern shores 
of New England, but several having their northern limit at Cape Cod. 
The species of Serpula is also of southern range, reaching from this 
limit to North Carolina. The upper shell-bed has about the same 
number Of species as the lower, but only thirteen are common to both. 
‘The new species brought in by the upper bed are mostly of northern 
range; thongh all of these are found as far south as Massachusetts 
bay, several of them have their southern limit here or on the south 
coast of New England. The differences, however, according to Prof. 
Verrill, may not be due to any general climatic change in the tem- 
perature of water or of air, but rather to geographic modificatious of 
the low shores and shallow sea in this vicinity, by which this place, 
for a time sheltered, became later exposed to cold marine currents and 
the surf of northeast storms. The only similar preglacial or intergla- 
cial fossiliferous section along the whole drift-bearing portion of our 
Atlantic coast is on the shore of Gardiner’s island, about sixty miles 
distant to the west. 

Professor Shaler believes that during the formation of the terminal 
moraine on Nantucket this area was submerged so that its hill tops 
were some 200 feet below the level of the sea. This he thinks to be 
shown by the boulders strown over the morainic kame deposits, which 
he supposes to have been dropped from icebergs, and by the contour of 
these deposits, which are not only destitute of lines of shore erosion 


we ed TP eg a 


Ax Y} <4 oh 


Labo id) 


114 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890. 


or of beach accumulations, but were submerged so deeply, if this 
hypothesis be true, that their outlines, as heaped under the sea along 
the edge of the ice-sheet, were not remodeled by the waves of great 
storms. After the departure of the ice, thisisland was uplifted accord- 
ing to Prof. Shaler, not less than 300 feet, that is, to its present level or 
higher, with paroxysmal suddenness, the time occupied in this move- 
ment being surely not so long as even a few days, else the moraine and 
its frontal terrace plain would be marked by unmistakable shore lines. 
The channels extending across the plain from the moraine to the 
sea, with their bottoms running below the sea level, are thought by 
this author to have been cut by submarine streams out-flowing from 
beneath the ice-sheet. 

An alternative hypothesis, which should be compared with the fore- 
going, is held by Mr. Warren Upham, who some ten years ago studied 
the geology of this island, publishing his results in the American 
Naturalist for August and the American Journal of Science for Septem- 
ber, 1879. He thinks that this moraine, while it was accumulating 
along the ice-border, was even higher above the sea than now, and 
that the channels extending from it southward and passing beneath 
the ocean level were then eroded by the floods discharged during the 
summer melting from the surface of the ice and thence flowing down 
to the sea. According to this view also, Martha’s Vineyard and 
Long Island, which show similar stream-courses crossing their south- 
ern plains from the terminal moraine to the sea, stood likewise higher 
when their drift deposits were formed. Furthermore the absence of 
shore lines and of fossiliferous marine beds overlying the glacial drift 
indicates that no portion of these areas has been submerged and 
re-elevated since the retreat of the ice. 

At the present time there is known to be a slow depression of the 
land in progress along the greater part of the coast from New Jersey 
to Cape Breton island. Professor Shaler in this memoir shows, by 
submerged beds of peat and the stump of a tree rooted where it grew, 
that this recent depression in Nantucket has amounted at least to five 
or six feet. It appears, however to be more than this, from the fol- 
lowing statement in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 
London, vol. xvi1, 1861, p. 382: ‘‘In the harbour of Nantucket there 
is a submarine forest. In dredging the estuary, Lieutenant Prescott 
found trunks and roots of the cedar, oak, maple and beach, some of 
them standing upright and still attached to the soil on which they 
flourished. The trees * * * * are eight feet below the level of 
the lowest tide.’’ 


RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 


1. State and Government reports. 
Bulletin of the University of Texas. Roads and material for their 
construction in the Black Prairie region of Texas. Robt. T. Hill. 


sey 
J be 


Recent Publications. 115 


Bulletin of the Museum of Comp. Zoology. The intrusive and ex- 
trusive Triassic trap sheets of the Connecticut valley. William M. 
Davis and Chas. Livy Whittle. 

Bulletin of Wash. College Laboratory. Contributions to the paleon- 
tology of the plains. No.1. F. W. Cragin. 

Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Genesis of the Arietide. 
Alpheus Hyatt. 

2. Proceedings of scientific societies. 

Acad. Nat. Sci. May-Sept. 1889, contains: Gadolinite from Llano 
county, Texas. E. Goldsmith. Description of new species of fossil 
Crustacea from the Lower Silurian of Tennessee, with remarks on 
others not well known. J.M. Safford and A. W. Vogdes. Chloanthite, 
Necolite, DeSaulesite, Annabergite, Tephrowillemite, Fluorite and 
Apatite, from Franklin, N. J. Geo. A. Koenig. Lower Carbonic 
gasteropoda, from Burlington, Iowa. C.R. Keyes. The American 
species of Polyphemopsis. C. R. Keyes. Spherodoma, a genus of 
fossil gasteropods. C.R. Keyes. 

Proe. Can. Inst. The central basin of Tennessee, a study of erosion. 
William Kennedy. 

Bulletin of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Science, Vol. 11, 
No. 4, contains: Changes in the currents of the ice of the last glacial 
epoch in eastern Minnesota, Warren Upham; The topography and 
altitude of Minnesota (abstract). Warren Upham; Notes on the local 
geology of Mankato, A. F. Bechdolt; Evidences of early man in north- 
eastern Minnesota, Geo. R. Stuntz; Some analvses of northwestern 
coals, James A. Dodge; Notice of the discovery of Lingula and Para- 
doxides in the red quartzytes of Minnesota, N. H. Winchell; Brief 
history of copper-mining in Minnesota, C. W. Hall; The lithological 
character of the Trenton limestone of Minneapolis and St. Paul, with 


_a note on the boring of the West hotel artesian well, C. W. Hall; The 


geological conditions which control artesian well boring in southeast- 

ern Minnesota, C. W. Hall; Some notes upon the more recent fossil 

flora of North Dakota, and an inquiry into the causes that have led to 

the development of the treeless areas of the Northwest, John Leiberg ; 

Description of maps showing the climate, geography and geology of 

Minnesota, Warren Upham. These were read between 1883 and 1886. 
3. Papers in scientific journals, 

Am. Nat. July No. The paleontological evidence for the transmis- 
sion of acquired characters, Henry S. Osborn, August No. The 
Edentata of North America, E. D. Cope. 

Can. Record of Science. On the occurrence of Leptoplastus in the 
Acadian Cambrian rocks, G. F. Matthew. Additional notes on Gon- 
iograptus thureani McCoy, Henry M. Ami. 

Am. Jour. Sci. Jan. No. Devonian system of North and South 
Devonshire, H. S. Williams. Zinciferous clays of southwest Missouri, 
and a theory 4s to the growth of the calamine of that section, W. H. 
Seamon. Minium of Leadville, J. D. Hawkins. Mineralogical notes, 
W.P. Blake. Contributions to mineralogy, F. A. Genth. Origin of 


116 The American Geologist. rep. 1890 


normal faults, T. M. Reade. A new stone meteorite, L. G. Eakins. 
On the barium-sulphate from Perkins’ Mill, Templeton, Province of 
Quebec, E. 8S. Dana. 


4. Excerpts and individual publications. 
An obsidian implement from Pleistocene deposits in Nevada. W. J. 


McGee. Am. Anthropologist. Vol. 11, No. 4. 1889. 


The world’ssupply of fuel. W.J. McGee. Forum. Vol. vu. July, ‘ 
1889. . 

Artesian wells in relation to irrigation in western Kansas. By Rob- 
ert Hay. Kansas State Board of Agriculture. Aug. and Sept., 1889. 

The preparation of Bernice anthracite coal. By Clarence R. Clag- 
horn. (From yol. 3, Ark. Geol. Survey for 1888). 

Notes on the Bernice anthracite coal-basin, Sullivan county, Pa. 
By Clarence R. Claghorn. (rans. Am. Inst. Mining Engineers). 

Indian potholes or giant’s kettles of foreign writers. T.T. Bouvé. 
(Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist. vol. xxiv). 

Description of a new genus and species of inarticulate brachiopod 
efrom the Trenton limestone. C.D. Walcott. Proc. Nat. Mus. vol. xu, ® 
No. 775, advance sheet, Dec. 10, 1889. 

A fossil Lingula preserving the cast of the peduncle. C. D. Walcott. 
Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1888, p. 480. 

Description of new genera and species of fossils from the middle 
Cambrian. C. D. Walcott. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1888, p. 441. 

A simple method of measuring the thickness of thclined strata. 
C.D. Walcott. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1888, p. 447. 

5. Foreign publications. 

Sur le developpement des premiers trilobites. Par G. F. Matthew. 
(Ext. des annales de la Soc. Roy, Mal. de Belgique. Tome xxttr, 1888). 

Contributions 4 l’étude des gneiss & pyroxtne et des roches a wer- 
nérite. Par Alfred LaCroix. Paris. 1889. Octavo. 280 pp., 2 plates 
and text figures. 

Subaérial deposits of North America. I. C. Russell. From the Geol. 
Mag., July and August, 1889. 

On the scratched and facetted stones of the Salt Range, India. Geol. 
Mag., Sept, 1889. 

Biblioth¢que géologique de Ja Russie. 1888. Composée sous la 
rédaction de S. Nikitin. Sup. to vol. vim, des Bul. du Comité géol- 
ogique. 

Bulletins du Comité géologique. St. Petersbourg. Vol. vu. Nos. 7, 
B90 woly VIE Nosh) 2yco,4 ot 

Ueber die russischen Aucellen. Von J. Lahusen (mit 5 Tafeln). 
Vol. vut. No.1. Memoires du Comité géologique. St. Petersbourg. 
1888. 

Allgemeine géologische Karte yon Russland. Blatt 139. Beschreibung 
des Central-Urals und des Westabhanges. Von Th. Tschernyschew. 
(mit 7 Tafeln und 61 Holzschnitten im Text). Vol. ur, No. 4. Mémoires 
du Comité géologique. St. Petersbourg. 1889. 


Personal und Scientific News. ~ 117 


Glaciation of high points in the southern interior of British Colum- 
bia. Geo. M. Dawson. Geol. Mag. August, 1889. 

Descriptions of eight new species of fossils from the Cambro-Silu- 
rian rocks of Manitoba. J. F. Whiteaves. Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 
vol. vi, Sec. iv, 1889. 

On tachylyte from Victoria park, Whiteinch, near Glasgow. By 
Frank Rutley. Quart. Jour. Geol, Soc. November, 1889, vol. xiy. 

The Foldtani Kozlény (Sept.-Oct. 1889) contains: Sur le progress 
des récherches géologiques en Roumanie. Par. Bela de Inkey. Petro- 
graphische und géologische Verhaltnisse des centralen Theiles der 
Tokaj-Eperjeser Gebirgskette in der Umgebung von Pusztafalu, von 
Dr. Jul. Szadeczky. Zur Géologie Egyptens, von Joh. Janko jun. 

On the sub-divisions of the Speeton clay. G. W. Lamplugh. Quart. 
Jour. Geol. Soc., November, 1889. 

Die Hermannshéle bei Riibeland; geologisch bearbeitet von Dr. 
J. H. Kloos; photographisch aufgenommen von Dr. Max Miller; 
herausgegeben von der hertzoglich technischen Hochschule zu 
Braunschweig. Text und Tafeln. 

Entstehung und Bau der Gebirge, erlautert am geologischen Bau 
des Harzes, von Dr. J. H. Kloos, pp. 90, 21 Figuren und 7 Tafeln, 
Braunschweig. ; 

Bul. Soc. Imp. Naturalistes de Moscow. 1889. No. 1 contains: Etudes 
sur les couches jurassiques et cretacées de la Russie.—l. Jurassique 
supérieur et cretacée inférieur de la Russie et de 1’ Angleterre (Pl. 11, 
WI, Iv); with a supplementary communication Sur les couches 
néocomiennes et jurassiques supérieures de la Russie et de 
Angleterre. A. Pavlow. Also Note sur le néocomien de la Crimée. 

On fossil plants from the Mackenzie and Bow rivers. Sir J. Wil- 
_ liam Dawson. 2 plates. From Trans. Roy. Soc. Can. vol. vit. 

New species of fossil sponges from the Siluro-Cambrian at Little 
Metis, on the lower St. Lawrence. Sir J. William Dawson. 27 figs. 
and one plate. Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., vol. vii. 

Notes on Devonian plants. D. P.Penhallow. 1 plate. Trans. Roy. 
Soc. Can. vol. vit. i 


PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 


Winter MeEetine or THE GEOLOGICAL Society or America. The 
first annual meeting of the Geological Society of America con- 
vened inthe great hall ofthe American Museum at 10 A. M., December 
26, and continued three days. There was a large attendance of fellows. 
The meeting was welcomed in a few words by Morris K. Jessup, Ksq., 
president of the Museum, by whose invitation the Society had selected 
its place of meeting. President James Hall responded in some appro- 
priate sentences. The reports of the secretary and treasurer showed 
that the Society consists of 175 fellows. Elections now announced 
raise the number to 190. About $1,750 are in the treasury, after pay- 
ing all current expenses. Elections announced for 1890 are as follows: 


118 _ The American Geologist. Ro): 


MBresidenty. iis ys DUA US A TAS prs cehecrea Bag escent 
f : _(Joun S. NEweerry. 
WiTee TERI CEI TS PUM MU MONi InN me ML ne albeaRe JArexanpeR WincHman, 
20S ELSES A MRE AR U4 RARE RRM oP 415 ea neeEat J. J. STEVENSON. 
TRV ASPE TWD Weten gu Alice ie EE Al UCN A RR GAL AS H. S. WiLiiaMs. 
J) W: PowxrELu. 
Gor CLILOMS VAM a UA CRU Get aU UH NG TINGE RE GEORGE M. Dawson. 


C. H. Hirencock. 


Three fellows have deceased during the past year.—Prof. Geo. H. 
Cook, Rev. Prof. David Honeyman, and Chas. A. Ashburner, of whom 
the secretary read brief biographical sketches. 

The first memoir presented was by president T. C. Chamberlin, 
on ‘‘Additional evidences bearing on the intervals between the leading 
glacial epochs.’’ The so-called ‘Orange Sand’’ rests on the Tertiary. 
This contains no glacial pebbles, but only cherts derived chiefly from 
the Carboniferous. The pebbles are not Champlain, but preglacial. 
The lowest glacial member recognized he describes as the silts overly- 
ing the pebble beds, commonly known as léss. They are made up of 
particles of glacial products. They were originally horizontal and 
have received their undulatory configuration by the ‘‘creeping”’ of the 
materials of the hills which they mantle. The event was the great 
erosion of the Mississippi valley and of the river valleys tributary to it. 
The paper was discussed by McGee, Proctor, Morrill, I. C. White and 
Chamberlin. 

The second communication was by professor Shaler, on ‘‘Tertiary 
deposits of eastern Massachusetts.’’ He showed that since Miccone 
time there has been a great amount of mountain-building action in the 


‘district considered; and also that a part of the deposits which occupy 


the surface are not of glacial origin, but date back to the later Creta- 
ceous. He discussed the complex structure of Gay Head’ and pro- 
nounced most of the deposits Cretaceous. The paper was (brieily) 
discussed by G. K. Gilbert. 

Dr. Newberry presented an oral communication on ‘‘The Laramie 
Group.’’ He stated that the Laramie proper, as defined by King, is 
demonstrably Cretaceous—neither Tertiary nor formed of beds of pas- 
sage. The Fort Union beds do not belong to it, but to the Tertiary. 
The proper Laramie does not, indeed, contain Tertiary plants, but 
forms analogous to those of European Cretaceous. The testimony of 
the plants and vertebrates is entirely harmonious; and that of the ma- 
rine molluses is quite in accord. The plants no one is authorized to 
pronounce positively Cretaceous or Tertiary ; but nothing prevents our 
regarding them Cretaceous; the other evidences, however, are conclu- 
sive. The communication was discussed by Cope, Heilprin, Tyrrell, 
Ward and Stevenson. Cope stated that not only is the Laramie Cre- 
taceous, but he is inclined to entertain the same opinion of the ‘‘Puerco’’ 
which lies above and contains 100 mammalian species. Thus the 
‘‘Wasatch’’? would be the bottom member of the Tertiary. 

Mr.S. F.Emmons read a lengthy and valuable memoir on ‘‘Orographie 
movements in the Rocky mountains ;’’ but the reading, unfortunately, 
was mostly unintelligible to the audience. 

Professor G. H. Williams presented some new facts proving the ser- 
pentine of Syracuse to be eruptive in origin. The evidences are: 1. It 
occurs as a dike cutting the Onondaga limestone, and slightly disturb- 
ing the contiguous strata; 2. Itsinclusions are,(a) limestone fragments, 
(b) dark or black shale, probably of the Utica shale, a thousand feet 
below, (c) granite or gneiss; 3. The limestone inclosures are altered 
in zones parallel to the edges of the fragments. Discussed by Kemp, 
who stated that similar evidences of eruptive action occur near Ithaca, 

Mr. I. C. Russell presented a paper on the ‘‘Surface Geology of 


* 


Alaska.’’ He described the formation of the tundra and remarked the 
absence of residual clays, and other evidences of rock decay, as also 
the absence of glacial records along the Yukon and Porcupine rivers. 
No evidences of glaciation exist between the Yukon and the Arctic 
ocean. From the head waters of the Yukon the movement of glaciers 
has been northward and southward. Incidentally he made a striking 
suggestion that the great mossy tundra if inundated would on the dis- 
solution of its ice, leave a thick vegetable deposit comparable with a 
bed of coal. Discussed by Shaler, Chamberlin, Newberry and Lawson. 

State geologist, Edward Orton, read a paper’on the ‘‘Origin of the 
rock-pressure of Natural Gas in the Trenton limestone of Ohio and In- 
diana.’’ He showed that the pressure decreases westward, and adduc- 
ed convincing facts supporting the theory of hyrostatic origin. The 
facts show the pressure to be directly proportional to the depression 
of the oil and gas bearing stratum beneath the level of lake Superior. 
Adyerting to the question of duration of the gas supply, he expressed 
the positive conviction that it is destined to last but few years. The 
paper was discussed by I. C. White, Lawson and McGee. 

Professor W. B. Clark read a paper ‘‘On the Tertiary Deposits of the 
Cape Fear river region.’? The post-Cretaceous erosion left an irregu- 
lar surface over which the older Tertiary deposits were spread. Post- 
Kocene erosion approximately base-leveled this surface, leaving the 
early tertiary sediments preserved in the deeper post-Cretaceous de- 
pressions. Upon this surface the Miocene strata were laid down. 
From this history has resulted an intermingling of Cretaceous and 
Eocene forms in several places, and even of Cretaceous and Miocene 
types. 

Dr. A. C. Lawson, of Canada, read a ‘‘Note on the pre-Palzozoie 
surface of the Archeean terranes of Canada.’’ He showed that along 
the northern limit of the paleeozoic rocks the surface of the Archean 
was, at the time of the deposition of the Cambrian, or earlier forma- 
tions, to a large extent, as hummocky and worn as it is to-day. Hence 
the feature known as roches moutonnés cannot, as is generally supposed 
be due to conditions of the glacial epoch, except to a very limited 
extent. There has been but slight reduction of the Archean surface 
since early palzeozoic time ; but the previous denudation was enormous. 
Discussed by Dr. Spencer. 

Mr. R. G. McConnell, of Canada, described the ‘‘Glacial features of 
parts of the Yukon and Mackenzie basins.’’ Read by J. B. Tyrrell of 
Canada. The paper embraced notes on the silting up of a southern arm 
of Great Slave lake, on the hight of erratics along the eastern flanks 
of the Rocky mountains, on the absence of bowlder-clay from the val- 
leys of the Porcupine and the Yukon, and on the former existence of a 
great lake at the confluence of these two streams. Discussed by Davis, 
Russell and Gilbert. 

Mr. J. B. Tyrrell read amomoir on ‘‘Post-Tertiary deposits of Manito- 
ba and adjoining territories of Canada.’’ The area between the Ar- 
cheean nucleus in eastern Manitoba and the foot of the Rocky moun- 
tains, has had in preglacial times, a very irregular surface. This was 
planed by the continental glaciers—the irregularities being often filled 
to great depth with the unstratified till. The till or ground moraine, 
occupies the surface over large districts, but iscovered in many places 
by stratified sands, silts and gravels deposited in the beds of larger or 
smaller fresh-water lakes. The author presented evidences of a recur- 
rence of glacial conditions ; and gave the positions of a number of lakes 
in which the subsequent glacial deposits were laid down. Discussed 
by Chamberlin, Shaler, McGee, Spencer and Tyrrell. 

A communication by professor G. F. Wright was read in abstract, in 
the author’s absence, by professor C. H. Hitchcock. It was entitled 


120 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


‘“‘A moraine of Retrocession in Ontario,’’ and it aimed to demonstrate 
the morainic character of the belt of loose (‘‘Artemisia’’) gravel extend- 
ing from Owen sound to Brantford, and thence stretching about mid- 
way between lakes Ontario and Simcoe. The paper was briefly 
discussed by Dr. Spencer. 

Mr. W. J. McGee presented a communication on ‘‘The southern 
extension of the Appomattox formation.’’ ThfS term was applied in 
1888 to a deposit of orange-colored sands and clays, with occasional in- 
tercalations of gravel, developed on and between the rivers of eastern 
Virginia, and widening southward. The writer had recently traced 
the formation, as the prevailing surface deposit, through the Carolinas, 
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is a marine or brackish-water 
deposit, yielding no fossils save fragmentary cones and bits of lignite. 
Much of the ‘‘Orange Sand’’ of Hilgard belongs here. It rests uncon- 
formably on the Grand Gulf strata and the fossiliferous Miocene of the 
Atlantic coast. It is overlaid by Pleistocene deposits. None of its 
fossils are characteristic. 

Mr. Charles D. Walcott presented a communication on ‘“The value 
of the term ‘Hudson River group’ in geologic nomenclature.’? Com- 
parison of the Hudson River section with that in Lorraine, Jefferson 
county, N. Y., and the Cincinnati section in southern Ohio, proves 
that the essential paleeontologic features of the Hudson River group, 
ae originaliy defined, are presented in all. Discussed by president 

all. ( 

A paper was presented by professor H. M. Seely in behalf of himself 
and president Brainerd, entitled ‘‘The Calciferous formation in the 
Champlain valley.’? The result of the authors’ studies made vast ad- 
ditions to the thickness of the Calciferous, demonstrated the imaginary 
character of the so-called ‘‘Quebee group,’’ and necessitated serious 
modifications of prevailing views of that portion of Vermont. Discussed 
by Walcott and Hitchcock. 

Closely connected with this was the paper by Mr. R. P. Whitfield 
on ‘The Fort Cassin rocks and their fauna,’’ the tendency of which 
was to afford palzeontologic confirmation of the stratigraphic conclusions 
of the preceding paper. . 

An abstract of a paper by Mr. R. W. Ells, of Canada. was presented 
by Mr. Walcott, entitled ‘‘The Stratigraphy of the Quebec Group.” 
From this it resulted that this group is by latest determinations, en- 
tirely eliminated from the science of geology. 

Professor H. S. Williams presented a communication on ‘The Cuboi- 
des Zone and its fauna—a discussion of methods of correlation.’? The 
author concluded that the fauna of the Tully limestone of New York is 
the representative of the fauna’ of the Cuboides Zone of Europe homo- 
taxially ; that the relations of the two faunas may be best explained by 
the hypothesis that the fauna of the Tully limestone is not a direct 
sequent of the underlying Hamilton fauna alone, but, in its charac- 
teristic species shows evidence of community with European faunas to 
be explained by migrations. A comparison of all the related faunas at 
present known leads to the conclusion that the Cuboides and Tully 
faunas are not only homotaxial but relatively contemporaneous. Dis- 
cussed briefly by Walcott. 

Professor Geo. H. Williams made a communication on ‘‘Geological 
and Petrographical observations in southern and western Norway.”’ 
The regions studied in southern Norway are areas of typical contact 
metamorphism, while those in western Norway have been subjected 
to extensive regional metamorphism. The two main points illustrated 
were (1.) The similarity of effects produced in the same original mate- 
rial by the contact action of eruptive rocks and by orographic distur- 
bances. (2.) The power of orographic forces (regional metamorphism) 


Personal and Scientitic News. 121 


to produce the same product from rocks originally the most diverse in 
origin and structure. Illustrated by maps, diagrams and specimens, 
both macroscopic and microscopic. The subject was discussed by 
Newberry, Emerson, Lawson, Gilbert and G. H. Williams. Professor 
Emerson stated that the so-called Munson granite, extensively used 
for building, everywhere contains some pebbles. It stretches across 
the state of Massachusetts and wraps around the Archean nuclei. * 

Mr. C. D. White read a paper on ‘‘Cretaceous plants from Martha’s 
Vineyard.’’ A very good collection having been obtained, they seemed 
clearly to establish the Cretaceous age of the formation. Dr. Newberry 
thought them of nearly the same age as the plants of the Amboy clay, 
which are middle Cretaceous. Concurrent views were expressed by 
Ward, F. J. H. Merrill and Heilprin. 

Mr. J. S. Diller made a communication on ‘“The Sandstone Dikes of 
the Forks of Cottonwood creek in Tehama and Shasta counties, Cali- 
fornia.’”’ This was well illustrated by diagrams on a large screen. 
The dikes do not generally reach the surface. They are transversely 
bedded, and in other features of their mode of occurrance, not less 
than in their petrographic character, differ from proper dikes. The 
author suggested that the fissures were the result of seismic move- 
ments, and that the sand was squeezed in from below. 

Mr. A. S. Biekmore, superintendent of the Museum, presented on 
the screen some ‘‘Illustrations of the glaciers in the Selkirk mountains 
and Alaska.’? These were magnificent and novel views. 

Dr. Alexander Winchell! presented a condensed oral abstract of a 
memoir on ‘‘Some results of Archzean Studies.’’ The district to which 
attention was chiefly directed was northern Minnesota and contiguous 
regions in Canada, but he brought to bear on the discussion, the re- 
sults of studies in the original Huronian region of Canada, in Michi- 
gan and in Wisconsin. He recognized four series of older rocks in 
chronological succession. 1. The granitoid rocks. 2. The gneissoid 
rocks (only less altered than the granitoid). 3. The crystalline schists 
(Vermilian series). 4. The semi-crystaline schists (Kewatin series). 
5. The uncrystalline schists (Animike). The Archzean regions de- 
scribed are divided into oval or elongated granitoid areas bounded by 
quaquaversally dipping schists of the various ages, synclinally folded 
along the belts separating the areas. Accompanied by numerous il- 
lustrations, Discussed by Van Hise and A. Winchell. 

Professor C. H. Hitchcock made a communication on the ‘‘Signifi- 
cance of granitoid areas in the Laurentian,’’? in which he described 
several occurrences in New England quite similar to those described 
from Minnesota and Canada, and seemed to conyey the idea that these 
rocks presented only a case of greater or less degrees of metamorphism. 
Professor G. H. Williams stated that the same facts produced an oppo- 
site impression on his mind. The granites and gneisses seemed 
unquestionably eruptive. 

Professor B. K. Emerson made a communication on ‘‘Porphyritic 
Granite,’’ and Dr. Lawson one on ‘‘The internal relations and taxono- 
my of the Archzean of central Canada.’’ He recognized two great 
systems in the Archean. The Lower (or Laurentian) is composed of 
plutonic, igneous rocks; the Upper, of indubitably normal surface 
rocks, variously altered. The lower he regarded as of younger age. 

A memoir by Sir William Dawson and D. P. Penhallow,of Canada,was 
read in condensed abstract,‘‘On the Pleistocene Flora of Canada,’’ and 
Mr. W. Upham read a paper ‘‘On the fiords and great lake basins of 
North America considered as evidences of preglacial continental eleva- 
tions and of depression during the glacial period;’? and Dr. James 
Hall made a communication ‘‘On the genus Spirifera and its inter- 
relations with the genera Spiriferina, Syringothyris, Cyrtia and Cyrtina. 


122 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


This was a mere abstract, the purport of which was to show that 
structural features, even those of generic importance, proceed from 
incipiency, along different affiliated lines to states of full development. 
The facts tended to show first, the prevalence of variability among the 
forms of the extinct world, and second, to demonstrate such interrela- 
tionships as imply a genetic evolution. 

The last paper read was by Mr. F. J. H. Merrill, ‘‘On the metamor- 
phic rocks of southeastern New York.”’ c 

a following papers, on suggestion of their authors, were read by 
title: 


On Glacial Phenomenain Canada. By Robert Bell, Canada. 

The structure and origin of glacial sand plains. By Wm. M. Davis, Cambridge. 

On certain peculiar structural features in the foot hill region of the Rocky moun- 
tains near Denver, Colorado. By Geo. H. Eldridge, Washington. r 

On the relation between the mineral composition and the geological occurence of 
the igneous rocks at Electric Peak and Sepulchre mountain, Yellowstone National 
Park. By Jos. P. Iddings, Washington. 

The crystalline schists of the Black Hills, Dakota. By C. R. Van Hise, Madison, 
Wisconsin. 

On the intrusive origin of the Triassic traps of New Jersey; with special reference 
to the Watchung mountains. By Frank L. Nason, New Brunswicek, N, J. 

The geology of the Crazy mountains, Montana. By J. E. Wolff. Cambridge. 

On some ancient shore-lines and their history. By F. J. H. Merrill, New York. 

Geology of the Boston basin. By W. O. Crosby. 

On the collection and preservation of geological photographs by the American 
Geological Society, and the facilitation of their exchange among its members. By 
J. F. Kemp, Ithaca, N. Y. 

Experiments with eave air for cooling and ventilating rooms. By M. H. Crump, 
Bowling Green, Ky. t : 

On some porphyries of the Plain of Mexico. By Persifor Frazer, Philadelphia. 

On the Horned Dinosauria of the Laramie. By E. D. Cope, Philadelphia. 

On pot-holes north of lake Superior unconnected with existing streams. By 
Peter McKellar, Fort William, Oxtarlo. 

The total number of memoirs presented was 43. Of these 28 were read 
either in full or in abstraet. With a view to completing the business, 
a meeting was held on Friday evening, and the last meeting was pro- 
longed from hali-past four to six Saturday evening. The wealth of 
communications was an embarrassment tothe Council. It had been 
determined to allow full discussion on each and reporters were 
on hand to record the discussions. The plan was impossibie of com- 
plete execution, for two reasons: Many of the papers greatly over- 
ran the estimates of time made by their authors; and not afew were 
handed in too late to be announced among the abstracts published. 
Three days were therefore too short atime. Very many of the later 
memoirs could enly be readin abstract, and many others were only 
read by title. It is expected, however, that all will appear in the 
BULLETIN. On future occasions it will perhaps be necessary to meet in 
two sections, or to prolong the session so as to include the Sunday be- 
tween Christmas and New Year’s day. 

It is evident that the success of the Society is greater than could 
have been anticipated. The scientific contributions have not only 
been numerous, but the subject matter has generally been weighty. 
Several of the memoirs mark positive and considerable advances in 
our knowledge of the geology of North America—from the gulf of Mex- 
ico to the Arctic ocean. In the work of the Society the Canadian geol- 
ogists appear to be hearty and unrestrained participants, and this 
sympathatic relation, it is to be hoped, affords as great satisfaction to 
them as to the geologists on the south of the international boundary. 

The work of printing the BuLLETIN is commenced, with W. F. McGee 
of Washington, as provisional editor. 

THE TWO REGULAR MEETINGS OF THE Boston Society or NATURAL 
History on the evenings of Jan. Ist and 15th were occupied in a gener- 
al discussion of the climatic conditions of the glacial period, by Prof. 


F. W. Putnam, G. F. Wright, W. O. Crosby, N.S. Shaler and W. M. 


i Personal and Scientific News. 123 


Davis, and Messrs. T. T. Bouvé. Warren Upham, Frank Leverett, and 
others. ‘ 

__ In opening the discussion Mr. Upham outlined the geologic proofs of 
the former existence, within the Quaternary era, of ice-sheets on the 
northern half of North America and on northwestern Europe, as shown 
by transportation of drift and the formation of terminal moraines. The 
maximum thickness of the ice-sheet of the northeast part of this conti- 
nent was about two miles, according to Dana, and.in British Columbia 
Dr. G. M. Dawson’s observations show that country to have been cov- 
ered by an ice-sheet whose central portion was a mile thick; but the 
Rocky mountains had only local glaciers, which probably became 
confluent with the ice-sheets on each side. Toward the northwest the 
extent of the ice has been defined by the explorations of Russell and 
McConnell, who find that southern Alaska and the whole course of the 
MacKenzie bear marks of glaciation, while these are absent along 
the Yukon excepting near its sources. The climate most fave rable for 
the accumulation of ice in such thickness upon the land would be dis- 
tinguished from the present by plentiful snowfall during more of the 
year than now, the surplus above the amount meited in summer being 
slowly gathered during thousands of ) ears to form the ice-sheets. The 
departure of the ice and incoming of the present climatic conditions 
was rapid, as is inferred from the scanty erosion by wave-action and 
accompanying formation of small beach deposits on the shores of the 
glacial lake Agassiz, in comparison with the high cliffs eroded in till. 
and the extensive resultant deposits of dune sand on the borders of 
lake Michigan. The latter have been in process of formation during 
the whole post-glacial epoch, but its duration, as measured by the re- 
cession of Niagara and St. Anthony’s falls and by the present rate of the 
drifting of sand along the lake shore at Chicago, seems to have been 
not more than 7,000 to 10.000 years. Lake Agassiz, caused by the 
barrier of the receding ice-sheet, could not have existed so long as this; 
and therefore the glacial retreat along the Red river valley and by 
lake Winnipeg to Hudson bay is known to have been geologically sud- 
den. It was, however, attended by the accumulation of numerous 
morainic belts which denote halts or stages of some re-advance, inter- 
rupting the general recession of the ice. 

Professor Wright spoke of the Quaternary lava outflows of California, 
Oregon, Washington and Idaho, one of the lava sheets being penetrat- 
ed in the upper part of the section overlying the Nampa image; and 
he inquired whether the voleanic action may have been one of the 
causes of the amelioration of climate at the end of the ice age. 

Professor Putnam referred to the traces of man’s presence at the 
time of both the later and the earlier drift deposits of this country, 
and the contemporaneous existence of the mammoth and mastodon 
during the glacial period in the region south ofthe ice-sheet and their 
return northward when temperate conditions were restored. 

Mr. Leverett stated that the forest bed between deposits of till in 
Indiana and Illinois proves an interglacial epoch between the maxi- 
mum extension of the ice-sheet in the Mississippi basin and its ineur- 
sion when the moraines of that area were formed, the intervening 
recessions of the ice being to a distance at least two-hundred miles 
north of the outer moraine. The climatic conditions of the period are 
thus known to have swayed from severity to mildness repeatedly. 

Professor Crosby gave some results of his recent inyestigations as to 
the state of mechanical division of the fine portions of the till and its 
comparatively small ingredient of true clay. His inference is that the 
proportion of the drift supplied from preglacial rock-decay is much less 
than that derived from the bed-rocks by glacial erosion; and that the 
decomposition of the rocks there had been less profound than in the 


124 The American Geologist. Feb, 1890 


southern states. where a climate both humid and warm acts more efli- 
ciently, as pointed out by Russell, to extend this change to consider- 
able depths. 

Professor Shaler aflirmed his belief that no lowering of the mean 
temperature is needed to cause the beginning of ice accumulations, 
which he thinks would result from increase in the evaporation of mois- 
ture from the ocean and its transfer by storms spreading over the land. 
In any attempt to describe the glacial climate, account should be taken 
of the fact that the ice-sheet advanced, apparently by a forced march, 
to latitudes far south of the normal snow-plane. Though the ice push- 
ed across the Ohio river at Cincinnati, no trace of local glaciers can be 
found on the mountains of North Carolina only about two-hundred 
miles distant to the south; yet they rise more than 5,000 feet higher, 
and wou!d be mainly above the plane of perpetual show, provided this 
was represented by the ice-sheet. The final melting of the ice was 
greatly accelerated, according to professor Shaler, by depression of the 
aoe below its present level and the breaking up of the ice-sheet into 

ergs. 

He regards the great conglomerate formations of earlier geologic 
eras, notably the Carboniferous and Permian, as drift deposits, prov- 
ing the general prevalence in so remote times of climatic conditions 
favoring glaciation. To this Mr. Bouvé objected, ascribing the origin 
of conglomerates to wave action on seashores and cliffs, often working 
over rock material which had become separated as boulders by subae- 
rial disintegration. 

Professor Davis considered the action of the great cyclonic storms, 
producing snow in the upper cloud strata, which in falling beneath the 
thermal plane of 32° Fahrenheit becomes rain. He thinks that te start 
a glacial epoch refrigeration of the portion of the year when the pre- 
cipitation now is rain would be necessary, keeping it generally during 
more months in the form of snow until it reaches the ground. Dr. 
Croll’s theory seems inadequate to account for such climatic changes, 
and the restriction of large glaciated areas to the parts of the globe 
adjacent to the North Atlantic ocean suggests that the causes of ice 
accumulation were terrestrial instead of cosmic. But no satisfactory 
explanation of the origin of the glacial climate is yet found. Serious 
objections appear against the view recently urged by Upham with 
some modification from the opinions long before advanced by Lyell 
and Dana, that the glaciated areas became covered by snow and ice 
because of their being greatly uplifted for a geological short time as 
continental plateaus, giving cool climate throughout the year; and the 
suggestion of Chamberlin that the position of the earth’s axis may 
have so changed as to bring these areas within the Arctic circle, is per- 
haps not less difficult for our acceptance. 

Mr. A. S. Tirrany, or Davenport, IowA, SENDS THE FOL- 
LOWING RECORD of a deep well recently drilled at Dixon, Ilh- 
nois. The well has a flow of 400 gallons of water per minute. 
Drift, 150 feet; Yellow magnesian limestone, 40 feet; White 
sandstone, 410 feet; Red argillaceous shale, 50 feet; Red aren- 
aceous shale, 25 feet; Ash colored shale, 225 feet; White sand- 
stone, 135 feet; Drab colored magnesian limestone, 165 feet ; 
Dark gray sand, 100 feet; Light gray sand, 150 feet; White 
sand, 300 feet. Total depth, 1750 feet. 

Accorpine To Pror. J. E. Topp a deep well is being bored at 
Le Mars, Iowa, in pursuit of oil. The record of the boring has 
been neglected, the operators having no faith in “geological 
theories,” but full confidence in the “dictum of the drill.” 


Personal and Scientific News. 


| Basted sent by Prof. Todd from a depth of 1400 feet are of a 
normal gray granite, and are said to fairly illustrate the rock 
below 1060 leet. The red quartzyte of the region seems to have 
been struck at about 900 feet, but was not firmly consolidated. 
The drill is making good progress daily in eager pursuit of the 
coveted oil, regardless of the fact that never was oil found in 
strata within ten thousand feet above the rock in which it is 
now at work, and at no place below it. 

THE GrorerA LuGISLATURE HAS MADE APPROPRIATIONS for a 
geological survey, under Prof. J. W. Spencer, of Athens. Work 
will begin in the summer. eS ie will be two full assistants in 
the field. 

Pror. Rost. T. Hitt HAS RESIGNED the position of assistant 
professor of geology in the University of Texas. 

Pror. THEO. B. ComstocK HAS RESIGNED HIS POSITION at the 
University of Illinois, and has been appointed by state geol- 
ogist Dumble, an assistant on the Texas survey, having spec- 
ially in charge the region of central Texas, embracing strata 
that are pre-Carboniferous, and including the supposed 
Archean of that state. Prof. Comstock has been in the field 
from June to December and has made a very interesting lot 
of observations, illustrated by ample collections. 

A MEETING OF THE AMERICAN CoMMITTEE of the International 
Congress of Geologists was held in the Park Avenue hotel, 
New York city, on the evening of December 26, 1889, at 8 p. m. 
Prof James Hall in the chair. Present, James Hall, T. Sterry 
Hunt, C. H. Hitchcock, E. D. Cope, H. 8. Williams, "J.J. Stev- 
enson, E. A. Smith, and Persifor Frazer. 

A letter to Director Hauchecorne relating to the distribution 
of the geological map of Europe to the American subscribers 
was adopted and signed ky those present. 

Prof. Wm. B. Scott, Mr. C. D. Walcott, and Dr. Robt. Bell 
were elected members of the committee to take the places re- 
spectively of Prof. G. H. Cook (deceased); Maj. J. W. Powell 
(resigned); and Sir J. William Dawson (resigned). 

Dr. Persifor Frazer resigned the office of reporter of the 
Archean and Prof. C. H. Hitchcock was elected to that office. 
Mr. Walcott was elected a member of the sub-committee on the 
Lower-Paleozoic, and Dr. Robt. Bell of the sub-committees on 
the Archean and the Quaternary, and reporter on the latter. 
Prof. Wm. B. Scott was elected a member of the sub-committee 
on the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, and reporter for the former. 

Prof. H. 8. Williams and J. J. Stevenson resigned as report- 
ers respectively of the Devonic and the Carbonic, and Dr. J. 8. 
Newberry waselected in place of both of them reporter on the 
Upper Paleozoic. 

Prof. W. B. Clark, Johns Hopkins University, was elected an 
associate member of the sub-committee on the Cenozoic. 


126 The American Geologist. Feb, 1390 


Prof. C. H. Hitchcock was elected treasurer of the American 
Committee, vice Prof. H. 8. Williams resigned. 

Iv Is NoT GENERALLY KNOWN THAT THE LARGEST GOLD MINE in 
the world is in Alaska. Itis lighted throughout by electricity 
and worked day and night. An offer of sixteen millions of 
dollars for this mine has been refused. 

DuRING THE PAST YEAR over 7,000,000 gross tons of iron ore 
were mined in the lake Superior region. This isa gain of over 
two million tons over last year, and a corresponding increase 
in the output is expected for the year to come. The largest 
production from any single mine was from the Norrie in Wis- 
consin, and the second largest from the Minnesota mine at 
Tower, Minn. The combined production of these two mines 
was considerably over a million tons. | 

THE FOLLOWING GENTLEMEN HAVE BEEN APPOINTED by the 
President as commissioners to test and examine the weightand 
fineness of the coins reserved at the several mints during the 
calendar year 1889: John P. Jones, United States Senate; EH. 
H. Conger, House of Representatives; H. L. Dodge, San Fran- 
cisco; William A. Sackett, Saratoga Springs, N. Y.; William 
Lilly, Mauch Chunk, Pa.; Prof. William W. Folwell, Univer- 
sity of Minnesota; Francis A. Walker, president of the Massa- 
chusets Institute of Technology; Daniel W. Fisher, president 
of Hanover College, Hanover, Ind.; Austin Blair, Jackson, 
Mich., Byron Reed, Omaha; Thomas Price, San Francisco ; 
John Jay Knox, New York; W. D. Wheeler, Montana; Prof. 
George F. Barker, University of Pennsylvania; Prof. T. C. 
Mendenhall, Washington; Eliot C. Jewett, St. Louis. 

THE PRODUCTION OF GOLD AND SILVER IN 1889 was distributed as 
follows among the states and territories west of the Missouri 
river, according to Mr. J. Valentine, general manager of Wells, 
Fargo & Company, viz: California, $12,842,757 ; Nevada, $11, 
908,961; Oregon, $785,361; Washington, $217,000; Alaska, 
$845,000 ; Idaho, $17,344,600 ; Montana, $31,726,923 ; Utah, $9,- 
830,013 ; Colorado, $28,074,888 ; New Mexico, $3,937,677 ; Ari- 
zona, $5,803,027; Dakota, $3,407,177; West coast of Mexico, 
(by steamer), $512,288; British Columbia, $442,164; Total, 
$127,677,836. 

The separate production of each is as follows ; Gold, (25.83), 
$32,974,643; Silver (51.15), $65,316,107 ; Copper (11.59), $14,- 
793,763; Lead (11.43), $14,593,323, 

The commercial value at which the several metals named 
herein have been estimated, is; Silver, 94 cents per ounce, 
Copper, 10 cents per pound, and Lead, $3.80 per hundred 
pounds. 

For the year 1889 the export of gold from the United States 
exceeded the import by $49,661,101. 

Rustiess Iron A Rearrry.—Saysa Pittsburg paper of recent 
date: The rustless process, which has been until recently an 
experiment, has now demonstrated that great economy can be 


ee Personal and Scientific News. 127 


used, not only in iron pipes, but in every article where iron is 
used. In the past year over 2,000,000 kettles have been sub- 
jected to this process in Pittsburgh. The method is very pe- 
euliar. After the article is made it is put into a furnace about 
34 feet high, 15 feet long,and 8 feet broad. The furnace is | 
made in an oval shape, air tight. After the iron has been in 
the furnace for two hours, and it has attained almost a white 
heat, the air that comes through the refrigerators and air valves 
is shut securely off, and the furnace is made air-tight. After 
the air has been shut off the superheater, which is located in 
the combustion chamber at the rear of the furnace, and at 
right angles from the air-valves, is opened. and the furnace is 
filled with steam and kept in this condition for eight hours. 
At short intervals a small valve is opened, so as to allow an 
exodus of steam in the furnace. When the articles have been 
ten hours in the furnace there has been accomplished the for- 
mation of magnetic oxide upon the iron surface. They are 
then put into an acid well, which is the last treatment. 

AMERICAN Society oF Civit ENGInEERs.—This society has a 
total membership of 1335. The total receipts of the treasury 
for 1889, including a balance on hand Jan. 1, 1889, reached 
$39,799.91. The expenses for the same year were $28,875.46, 
leaving a balance on hand Jan. 1, 1890, of $10,924.45. 

ConsuL Burke, of Bahia, reports the discovery in that 
province of a mineral which has been called turfa or brazolina, 
and which furnishes an oil akin to petroleum, a parafine suit- 
able for the manufacture of candles, and a good lubricating 
oil. It was originally discovered by an English clergyman 
named Wilson, but a company has recently been formed, 
which has bought the concession, and is now engaged in the 
development of the property. Petroleum extracted from it has 
already been placed on the market, and has been favorably 
received. 

ACCORDING TO THE ENGINEERING AND Mrintna JourNAL there 
is a notable falling off in the production of Pennsylvania pe- 
troleum compared with the consumption. During past years 
there has been an accumulated surplus, which is now being 
exhausted at the rate of 20,000 or 30,000 barrels per day, that 
being the excess over production. Prospecting for new oil 
territory in Pennsylvania is very active, there having been 
5,700 wells completed in 1889, against 1,700 in 1888, and 1,800 
in 1887. But the probability that there will be any permanent 
and considerable increase in the supply is slight. In this con- 
dition of the petroleum industry it 1s plain that very shortly 
we shall reach an oil famine, when the use of the oil in certain 
cases will bea luxury instead ofa necessity. This will be regulat- 
ed by acurtailment of the demand throuchincreased cost, tend- 
ing to equalize the supply and demand. There has been a decline 
in the shipments of American petroleum to Great Britain dur- 


128 The American Geologist. Feb, 1890 


ing the past years ending 1888, and an increase of Russian 
petroleum imported into that country. American imports 
to Great Britain have decreased from 1,367,720 barrels in 1885, 
to 1,286,148 barrels in 1888. Russian import increased, in the 
same period, from 70,149 barrels to 549,126 barrels. 

THE GAS EXPLORATION AT FREEBORN, MINN., has been aban- 
doned. It was continued, after the first well had penetrated 
through the Trenton without finding gas, into much deeper 
strata, contrary to the advice of State Geologist Winchell. 
Then a second well was begun near the former, and that was 
also carried down to the St. Peter sandstone. Still no certain 
evidences of gas were found below the depth of 75 feet, whence 
has issued all the time, in the drift, a small amount of burning 
gas. Every well that has been drilled within the limits of 
Minnesota, in search of burning-gas, except the first one at 
Freeborn, has been done against the advice of the state geolo- 
gist—about fifteen in number. Not one has produced gas nor 
petroleum, Yet there be men who will drill even in granite 
and gabbro rock in search of gas,.in confidence that ‘‘geolog- 
ical theories” are of no value. One false judgement by a geol- 
ogist weighs more against geological evidence, in the opinion 
of the men who drill, than a thousand correct ones. 

Mr. Cuas. A. ASHBURNER, WELL KNOWN AS A PENNSYLVANIA 
GEOLOGIST, died Dec. 23, 1889, at Pittsburg, Pa., after a short 
illness. In a future number a suitable sketch of his hfe and 
work will be given. 

ARTESIAN WELL WATER-POWER.—At Keokuk, Mr. J. C. 
Hubinger has recently completed two artesian wells, one of 
935 feet and the other 1,805 feet deep. The two wells furnish 
1,800 gallons per minute. The two wells run two dynamos, 
for furnishing electric light for the city. The third well is 
being sunk to increase the power. The Kimball house well at 
a depth of 735 feet, flows 600 gallons per minute. It is above 
low water mark in the Mississippi, 40 feet. This gives 192,000 
foot pound per minute, nearly six horse power. 

It is not at present known how high this water wouldascend. 
We will estimate thirty feet, and substract seven feet per aver- 
age on account of the rise of water in the river, which gives an 
average fall of 63 feet. This year 302,400 foot pounds per 
minute, more than a nine horse power, without coal, engineer 
or fireman. When the St. Peter’s sand rock is perforated one 
hundred feet, which will be when the well has attained a depth 
of about 1,050 feet, the flow will be largely augumented and 
will attain an altitude in a stand pipe of nearly 100 feet. The 
expense of such a well will not much exceed $2,200. 

Thus, it may be seen, that we have a water power beneath 
our feet vastly cheaper than steam and cheaper than water 
power from the river can be made available—A. S. Tiffany, 
in the Davenport Tribune. 


'ifte mA , 
> Mint? 
aa ' 


AMERICAN GEOLOGIST 


ON THE DIKES NEAR KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE. 
By J. F. Kemp, Ithaca, N. Y. 


The southern coast of Maine is very generally seamed with 
dikes. Localities extending quite from the western to the 
eastern boundaries of the state are cited in Prof. Hitchcock’s 
reports for 1861 and 1862. Only at Thomaston, however, 
which is about the middle of the state’s sea coast, and at 
Bald Cliff, which is in the extreme southwest, do the dikes 
receive more than passing mention, and in these places 
scarcely more than a paragraph. Dikes belonging to the 
same general series are knownin New Hampshire in the neigh- 
borhood of Portsmouth, and are briefly referred to in the New 
Hampshire reports. But here, also, beyond the simple men- 
tion of their existence, little is said. This is not surprising, 
for without the use of the microscope little can be said of these 
dense black rocks, and at the date of the reports the use of 
the microscope in geological work was not general. 

In Massachusetts the eruptive rocks of the coast have 
received more attention,and, as dikes: similar to those referred 
to above are known sometimes of great size, we have much 
more detailed descriptions of them. Prof. W. O. Crosby 
mentions them in his Geology of Eastern Massachusetts ; 
Prof. Wadsworth has published some microscopical studies of 
them in the Proc. of the Boston Society of Natural History, 


130 The American Geologist. March 1990. 


and Dr. Hobbs has gone into considerable detail in his recent- 
ly published paper in the Harvard bulletins on the Great 
Somerville Dike. 

It will be seen from this that there is considerable material 
for petrographical work in this region, and some interesting 
geological phenomena which have, as yet, scarcely been 
touched. In the present contribution it is the writer’s pur- 
pose to show by the aid of the accompanying map, how 
abundant the dykes are in one limited area which he has 
worked up, and to give an idea of the detailed geology of a_ 
region by no means too well known.' 

Kennebunkport is some twenty or twenty-five miles 
beyond the New Hampshire line. The coast is formed 
by bold, rocky headlands and cliffs, between which are found 
long stretches of white sandy beach. At the water’s edge 
most excellent exposures are afforded, running sometimes a 
short distance back before the rocks are covered by vegeta- 
tion.. They consist of very finely stratified quartzytes, slates 
and jaspery layers, with vertical dip and a somewhat 
variable strike, which is indicated.on the map. At Kenne- 
bunkport it varies from N. 40 E. to N. 40 W., while fifteen 
miles south on the coast, at Bald Cliff, it is N. 75 to 80 E. 
The strata belong to the Merrimack group of the New Hamp- 
shire survey and are there assigned a position at the close of 
the Archean. These strata are undoubtedly old sedimentary 
beds, whose composition has varied from sandstones to 
shales, as we almost invariably find them in the undisturbed 
sedimentary series, as for instance, the Devonian above 
Ithaca. The sandstone layers are now changed to compact 
quartzytes, while the shales are of pronounced slaty structure. 
Sometimes the slaty cleavage runs obliquely across the bed, 
even when but a few inches thick and between two quartzyte 
layers, showing that the pressure causing it has not been quite 
normal to the bedding planes. 

Very generally above Kennebunkport, great irregular masses 
or bosses of granite are found in these metamorphic rocks. 
They are quite coarsely crystalline, have no regularity of 
form and are often of considerable size. The granite also runs 
off at times into narrow dikes which extend considerable 


'The legend of the accompanying map does not allow for the reduc- 
tion of the original in the engraving. It should read 44 in.=150 yds. 


131 


_ Dikes near Kennebunkport, Maine —Kemp. 


A SKETCH MAP OF BY 

ioe aA bikes 8 See RE Vita 
AT KENNEBUNKPORT, ME. | 

LAQY Quartaite Slote.ete.. 


Ke] Grote. 
x 
Scale [w= 150 yds, 


\ 5) 50 


: a 
ely 


ae Wee Aa Tide Le) a # thy! wh A ane Gb LF Le 
TS VAN PEANE RSI IU aA 12s LOD Malet hs ae Raa te Ud 
‘ Y Pia ote TUPAC lea vit Uy RT 
: ’ +)4u ° iy WL ay a 
: } ane ¥ ¥, 


12, The American Geologist. March, 1890 


distances. They are nevertheless well crystallized, and seem 
to exhibit no amorphous structure, indicative of quick solid- 
ification, whatsoever. Prof. Hitchcock refers the coast gran- 
ite of Maine, when found in such situations as this, to an 
aqueo-igneous fusion of the sedimentary rocks, and it is, con- 
sidering their surroundings, a very natural explanation. The 
narrow dikes seem to indicate in instances a very complete 
fluidity and some injective action. No one could be severely 
criticized, perhaps, for considering the parent masses also 
injected, but as the question is largely speculative, it is not 
one on which demonstrated truth can be expected. Judged 
by the latest petrographic light, we must consider the granite 
to have cooled and crystallized slowly, doubtless under great 
pressure, it being so perfectly holo-crystalline. 

Subsequently to the granite the so- 
called trap dykes were intruded. They 
cut both the stratified rocks and the 
granite indifferently, and sometimes 
cross one another. From these in- 
ersections Prof. Hitchcock has traced 
at Bald Cliff three different intrusions 
in time, to quote his words,—The 
eldest is a porphyritic trap developed 
in very large dykes in the slates and 
running N.55 E. The second series 
of dikes cut across the porphyritic 
dikes, and have frequently greatly dis- 
placed them. These run northeasterly 
and are the most common of all the 
dikes in Maine. The third series is a 
brown scoriaceous trap cutting across 
the common trap.” Parallelism of 
direction is cited as an indication of 
unity of age, equally with similar 
mineral composition. While this last may be true for Bald 
Cliff, it hardly holds at Kennebunkport, for while in the case 
of the dikes in the stratified rocks there is some parallelism, 
when in the granite they run in all,directions. Also in the 
former case they branch, fork, and anastomose in great va- 
riety. My own observations at Blad Cliff confirm Prof. 
Hitchcock’s three epochs and kinds of intrusion perfectly. At 


Dikes near Kennebunkport, Maine.— Kemp. 133 


Kennebunkport the evidence of three epochs from the in- 
tersection of the dikes is less abundant. The porphyritic 
type,—-Prof. Hitchcock’s first class,—is represented, but a case 
of faulting by the latter ones I can not cite. The second 
series are the ones most developed, and even here their 
general northeasterly direction can be remarked on the map. 
The third brown scoriaceous variety is also often seen and 
evidently faults the others. 

At Kennebunkport the dikes are not of great width, aver- 
aging generally five feet and less. Only one or two'run as 
high as twenty. But their persistence for their small width is 
remarkable. One may be seen on the map to start from the 
point called Spouting Cave, and run along the east side of 
cape Arundel nearly half a mile, yet nowhere above eight or 
ten feet in width, and frequently less. It then runs under the 
water, and may go farther. Dikes not more than a foot wide 
frequently run several hundred feet, as on the eastern side of 
Damon’s point, and small stringers but a few inches run forty 
or fifty feet and pinch out very gradually to a feather edge. It 
seems remarkable that they were able to preserve their liquid- 
ity for any such distance, but it is easily noticeable macro- 
scopically, that where such is the case the dike is very com- 
pact, well nigh glassy in structure. 

Sometimes a tendency is exhibited to separate into rude | 
basaltic columns across the dike, but in general they are quite 
solid masses. Rarely spheroidal weathering is seen, chiefly 
in the dikes of the third epoch. They then break up into 
rounded masses, six inches and less in diameter, but always 
in the middle part. In the larger dikes there are frequently 
to be seen smaller dike-like masses running through them, as 
if the yet molten interior had oozed through cracks in the 
outer hardened crust, as is frequently to be seen in our mod- 
ern lava flows from active volcanoes. 

The rocks will be treated in reference to their microscopic 
structure in the order of their formation. The granites are the 
oldest. The rock occurs both as bosses or knobs and as dikes, 
which are undoubtedly off-shoots from the larger bosses, even 
when the connection is not visible. On the map, dikes 2, 9, 
16 and 28 are granite. They are about one or two feet wide, 
and often extend two or three hundred feet. They consist of 
quartz, microcline, orthoclase, plagioclase, and biotite, but the 


134 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


last-named is very subordinate, and by no means as abundant 
as in the bosses. The dikes are therefore relatively acidic; 
and if that implies, as is doubtless true, that they were rel- 
atively fluid when molten, we can the more readily understand 
the distance to which these narrow bodies have penetrated 
from the parent mass. The minerals afford nothing notable 
themselves. An occasional apatite inclusion is about the 
only additional component that catches the eye. There is no 
glassy material whatever. The average crystals are from one 
to fivem.m. But with them are to beseen larger crystals of 
orthoclase, as much as five c.m. in length by one c. m. broad, 
—which give the dike somewhat the aspect of a granite- 
porphyry. The phenomena cited above agree in all essen- 
tials with those mentioned by Rosenbusch in describing granite 
dikes, (Mikros. Phys. vol. 1. p. 279) and from this reference we 
may see that similar phenomena are known at Killiney in 
Treland, and in the tin district of Saxony. 

The granite dikes and the bosses not infrequently include 
in their mass fragments of the country rock. This consists of 
rather thin-bedded mica schist and quartzite, and the included 
fragments give usone of the surest indications of the intrusive 
character of the granite. The walls on the contact with the 
dikes and the included masses are very generally finely crys- 
talline aggregates of biotite and quartz. The individuals are 
only 1-20 mm. in breadth, by 1-5 mm. long, and lie with axes 
parallel to the contact, as if a great pressure had forced them 
to take such a position. They seem to correspond with the 
commonest contact minerals present on the edges of the 
Cortlandt series,’ on the east side of the Hudson, and slides in 
the writer’s possession from the contact schist on Stony Point 
on the west side, are very similar. 

On the eastern side of cape Arundel, near dikes 34 and 35, 
the schists have been much shattered and fissured. The cracks 
have been subsequently filled with vein matter which closely 
resembles a granite. It consists of quartz, orthoclase, silvery 
muscovite, and tourmaline. The resemblance to the small 
tin veins of Cornwall and Saxony, Virginia and Maine,’ is 


3C.T. Jackson, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. vol. x11, p. 267. 1869. 

TS) Hunt, Imest. Mims knee! svollh nip. 373. 

W. P. Blake, Mineral Resources, 1883-84, p. 597. The figure of the 
tin veins at Winslow, Me., given by Blake on p. 598 is a perfect repro- 
duction of the veins here, substituting tourmaline for cassiterite. 

7G. H. Williams, Am. Jour. xxxvi, p. 256. 


. striking, but a careful search failed to discover any cassiterite. 
These veins were undoubtedly occasioned by the active cireu- 


lation due to the intrusion of the granite, accompanied per-. 


haps by boracic and fluoric fumerole action. 

The remaining dikes are in most cases forms of the olivine- 
diabase type, but of a somewhat varying structure, owing in 
part at least to their varying width. They are most frequently 
holocrystalline, yet porphyritic ones are also present, and the 
ground mass is somewhat glassy. I have selected as the type, 
the holocrystalline form, and will consider the others as struc- 
tural deviations from it. This is shown in dikes 11, 13, 15, 17, 
19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 29, 30, 34, 35, 48, 51, 55, 56, 60, 61, 63, 67, 75, 
76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 89, 91. Of these 48 and 56 are 
the best. They consist of augite, plagioclase, olivine, and 
magnetite as essentials. With these is found very often (dikes 
11, 22, 34, 48, 55, 56, 60, 68, 81) brown basaltic hornblende, 
both as an undoubted idiomorphic component, and as an 
equally indubitable paramorph from the augite. Biotite was 
noted in but three, and then in a very subordinate capacity. 
Dike 91 alone contains any great amount. Pyrite also is 
present. 

The augite is of the usual rose tint, and resembles very 
closely the augite of certain New Jersey triassic diabases and 
the Campton Falls olivine diabase of Hawes. No pleochroism 
could be detected. It shows the usual cleavages, but often in 
addition other partings parallel with the pinacoids. It occurs 
in two generations: the older and rather exceptional shows 
the eight-sided cross-section of oP, oPo and wPo andis 1-2 
mm. across; the latteris most frequently seen, and appears 
as irregular masses, about 0.2-0.83X 0.5m m., forming the 
largest part of the rock. Twinninig is rare, but sometimes is 
often repeated on the same crystal. In dike 75 twins were 
noted parallel with oP and twenty differently oriented layers 
were counted within0.5mm. Theaugite frequently alters to 
a feebly pleochroic chlorite. 

The plagioclase is in the usual lath-shaped crystals of quite 
irregular outline, being in the more coarsely crystalline speci- 
mens stocky and broad,—in the more finely crystalline, in 
very slender rods. It falls an easy prey to alteration, which 
has often proceeded so far as to reduce the feldspar to a kaol- 
inized mass. Sometimes a dark green nucleus appears with- 


Dikes near Kennebunkport, Maine — Kemp. 135 


1) MRL fe vi Det ie 
iy # An 


ne Rai Keshia in , 
Sh Pit i tare 


136 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


in which high powers show to be made up of dusty material 
segregated there. (83) The olivine is in relatively large idio- 
morphic crystals, and is in size the largest of the rock com- 
ponents, running from 1-4mm. A number of measurements 
indicated 2P% and oPco as the most common faces in sec- 
tions. As a matter of course, it always shows strong begin- 
nings of alteration to serpentine, and more often than not, the 
serpentine alone remains. This alteration product affords at 
times the interference crosses of radial aggregates (No.15). 
The last stage leaves a core of calcite surrounded by a radiat- 
ing rim of serpentine. The olivine preceded all the others ex- 
cept the magnetite in formation. The magnetite is in grains, 
often showing octahedral outlines, and at times clearly titan- 
iferous. The most interesting of all is the hornblende. As 
noted above, it appears in not a few of the dikes. It is some- 
times idiomorphic, exhibiting oP and oPoo with all the char- 
acteristic pleochroism usual to the brown basaltic variety. 
When this is present in abundance the dike approximates the 

' typical camptonites very closely. Dike 22 could hardly be dis- 
tinguished in the slides from Hawes’ olivine-diabase from 
Campton Falls. Again the hornblende surrounds the augite, 
or is such a close part of it that a paramorphic origin from the 
augite is an irresistible conclusion. The widening applica- 
tion of microscopic study has shown this to be a not uncom- 
mon phenomenon, and in American dikes has it been noted by 
those mentioned below.’ 

The porphyritic types of structure occur under two widely 
differing relations. The exceedingly narrow dikes, either 
those that taper out to an edge in the country rock, or those that 
have oozed into cracks in larger and partly cooled dikes, al- 
ways show aporphyritic structure, which is easily attributable 
to their quick cooling. But strangely enough, the broadest 
dike of all (92) and others of no inconsiderable width, are 
likewise porphyritic. The greater number must be classed as 
belonging to the melaphyre type (Nos. 10, 12, 32, 50, 66, 79, 84, 

1G. W. Hawes, N. H. Surv. Vol. III, pp. 57-206, Pl. VII, fig. 1. 

Wee Hobbs, Ball. Mus. Comp. Zool., Vol. XV. No. 1. p. 10, Som- 
erville, Mass. 

Caw son, Proc. Can. Inst. Apr, 1888. Vol. 23, p. 173. Rainy 
Lake Region, 

E. Haw vorth, Amer. GwoLtocisT, May and June, 1888. Missouri. 


In larger rock bodies it is a well known association. See references 
in Hobbs’ paper. 


Dikes near Kennebunkport, Maine — Kemp. 137 


88), while in a few the olivine seems to fail, and their charac- 
ters are more of the augite porphyrites (Nos. 33,90, 92). In 
one the basaltic hornblende is the most notable of all the con- 
stituents, and of itself the dike would be a hornblende porphy- 
rite (No. 25), such asin the writer’s estimation would place it 
in the series of typicalcamptonites. This is the most inter- 
esting, as showing here such a close parallel to the original 
camptonites of Hawes, at Livermore Falls, N.H. (Amer. 
Journ. Feb. 1879). There, as wellas here, diabase and olivine 
diabase occur with the dioritic rock in parallel dikes, but 
while hornblende is there the rule, here it is the exception. 
Rosenbusch, in a review of Hawes’ paper (Mikros. Phys. B. I. 
p. 333) groups all of the Campton dikes under the one name 
Camptonite, considering the variations in mineral composition 
not sufficient to separate them sharply. While that is a just 
and fair view, the abundance of the small basaltic hornblende 
crystals in the Campton dykes, and in the various others 
which have come to light since,’ should make z¢s presence the 
chief diagnostic feature of a camptonite. The writer would 
not consider these normal olivine diabases of Kennebunkport 
as true camptonites, but rather, that from some exceptional 
circumstances of composition or cooling, one or two of the 
dikes had crystallized as such and several had approximated 


it. 
The idiomorphic minerals of these porphyrites do not es- 


sentially differ from those described in the holocrystalline ex- 
amples. The ground mass in the very narrow forms is glassy 
but not very transparent, on account of multitudes of in- 
clusions. In the broader ones, and especially 92, the base is 
microcrystalline, and mostly made up of very minute plagio- 
clase rods. Suchrodsappearin all these latter dikes, often 
distributed through a relatively abundant ground-mass. The 
glassy structure is sometimes developed in the edges of dikes 
whose centre and largest part is holocrystalline. A slide from 
dike 27 exhibits the wall as a mass of quartz and pyrite,—then 
a porphyritic strip 5 mm.wide,-then avery finely crystallinein- 
terior. The borders are in each case sharply marked. This 
may be explained by the partial fusion and involution of the 
wall, ‘and by quick cooling, but when dikes one and two feet 


1B. J. Harrington, Geol. Surv. Canada,—1877-78, p. 439. 
J. ¥. Kemp, Amer. Jour. Apr. 1888. Amer. Naturalist, Aug. 1888; 
the same, and V. F. Marsters, Amer. Grou. Aug. 1889. 


138 The American Geologist. March, veoh ee 


wide are holocryslalline, and another, forty feet, is porphyritic 
some other structural factor must have entered. In the por- 
phyrites, the olivine, when present, is the most striking min- 
eral. Its size, even in the very narrow glassy examples, is 
hardly les than in the large dikes. Its crystallization must 
have occurred at a relatively early period,—and itself was well 
developed while all the others except magnetite were still un- 
differentiated in the magma. 

On account of lack of opportunities and time, the chemical 
examination of these dikes has not kept pace with the micro- 
scopic, much to the writer’s regret. One analysis of the large 
augite-prophyrite (No. 92.) has been kindly made by Mr. H. 
A. Flint in the laboratories of the University, and is here apy 
pended: 


Loss on ignition 0.69 0.68 
Si Oz in yl ey 
Alz Os 18.13 is 
Fez Os 8.925 iene 
CaO 9.82 9.95 
Me O 5.30 5:31 
Naz O 4.34 4.35 
K20O 1.42 1.46 


It would appear from this that the feldspar is probably an 
oligoclase. The rock is certainly more acidic than the general 
run of the dikes. 

The writer was much assisted while in the field by Mr. Har- 
ris Kennedy, of Roxbury, Mass., and after he had been com- 
pelled to leave the region, Mr. Kennedy continued the work in 
some neighboring localities. The dikes are found on cape 
Porpoise, two miles north of the limits of the map, and at the 
mouth of York river, eight or ten miles south of Bald Cliff. 


‘The olivine-diabase at Lewiston, inland and to the north, the 


so-called black granite (determined to be olivine-diabase by 
G. P. Merrill,—10th Census, Rep’t on Building Stones, p. 24) 
at Addison point, away along the eastern coast, and the peri- 
dotite at Little Deer Isle, (G. P. Merrill, Amer. Jour. June, 
1888.) are other allied rocks which have already been noted in 
the state. 

It appears that the commonest type of dike rock elsewhere 
noted, is an olivine diabase, or simply a diabase without oli- 
vine. Haworth! found such in the Archean of Missouri; 
Hobbs,? the same in Massachusetts; Lawson,’ in the Prov- 
inces north of Minnesota; Herrick’ and others, at Michipico- 


ikes near Kennebunkport, Maine — Kemp. 


ten bay; G. F. Richards,’ in South Carolina; and the writer 
in certain undescribed specimens from the Adirondacks. It 
seems as if Archean dikes especially favored this mineralogi- 
cal aggregate. 


aoe Os=19" 
BLE 8’ 
38. {Sy 
39. 4’ 
41. as 
43. 4! 
44, 10’ 
45. ali 
46. 6'- 8' 
48. 8'-10’ 
49. oA 

In the 


TABULATION OF DIKES. 
No.on 


No. on 

Map. Width. Character. 
ie RP! Granite. 
De 1’ Not determined. 
8. —  Olivine-diabase. 
9. Is Granite. 

10. 18" Melaphyre. 

11. 10'-15' = Olivine-diabase, 

Hobbs. 

12.. I’- 2' |Melaphyre. 

Lae — Olivine-diabase. 

14. — Included schist. 

AUS) 2s eyruagee Olivine-diabase. 

lies 9 OS 4 t sO ¢ ce 

18. 18" Not determined. 

19. 4' Olivine-diabase. 

21. : 9! “cc 6c 

22: WH 4 “* Hobbs. 

93. D ' ce a4 

94. ak ce oe 

25. '  Camptonite. 

26. 8'-10’ Olivine-diabase. 

28. — Granite. 

30. f Olivine-diabase. 

; . Melaphyre. 


Not on map—-Augite- 
porphyrite. 
Olivine-diabase, 
Hobbs. 
ec ‘ 
Not determined. 
ee ce 
ce ce 
ce sé 
be ce 
ce a4 


Olivine-diabase, 
Type-Hobbs. 
Not determined. 


Map Width. 
50. 


aly? 


6' and 20' Porphyritic, 


Character. 
Melaphyre. 
Olivine-diabase. 


Not 
determined. 
Not determined. 
Olivine-diabase, 
Hobbs. 
“cc cé 
Type-Hobbs. 
Olivine-diabase, 
Hobbs. 
Olivine-diabase. 
Not determined. 
Olivine-diabase, 
Hobbs. 
Not determined. 
Melaphyre. 
Olivine-diabas . 
Not determine . 
Olivine-diaba. 
ce ce 
ce ce 
Melaphyre. 
Olivine-diabase. 
ns ‘* Hobbs. 


ce ce 


ce 


Melaphyre. 
Olivine-diabase. 
ce ia 


Melaphyre. 
Olivine-diabase. 
Augite-porphyrite. 
Olivine-diabase. 


51. SMe 
59. 2 branches. 
54, 10' 
55. 7'-10’ 
56. 20’ 
60. 10'-12' 
61. pee 
62. 6! 
3. 6' 
64. 2'- 4’ 
66. uy 
67. 30’ 
68. 67- 8’ 
(haven Pas oa tay 
AO minut atey 
TACT ea coe 
78. 15" 
79, 1'-18' 
80. 6! 
81 — 
SQ) fate 
83. 5! 
84. 1’-4' 
Soe isy24 
Seta 
88. ay 
89. ab 
90. 5! 
91. 20" 
92 40’ 


Augite-porph 


case of the Kennebunkport dikes, it is very remark- 
able that nowhere any very great parent mass shows itself, for 


’ we would naturally regard these narrow dikes as simple off- 
shoots from some large body at no great distance, which have 


‘Haworth, Amer. GroLtoaist, May, June, 1888. 


*Hobbs, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Vol. XVI, No. 1. 
*Lawson, Proc. Can. Inst. Apr. 1888. 

*Herrick, Tight, and Jones, Bull. Denison Univ. Vol. II p. 119. 
*Richards idem, Vol. IV, p. 5. 


PHB ia Ye Tia bi atk ee 
A iva a A i 
} i iy Hy 


140 The American Geologist. March 1990 


been intruded along lines of weakness, cracks, etc. Ifthey have 
come from great depths, along so extended a coast line, and of 
such narrow widths, it is certainly a striking phenomenon. 
Or if there is a parent mass at no great depth, which, however, 
has in this same extended area failed in any greater amount to 
show itself, it is not less striking. It may be that the parent 
mass, if there is one, is now covered by the sea. The prevail- 
ing northeasterly trend of the dikes is parallel to the general 
axis of folding along the eastern coast, and they may some- 
how.be connected with it. Dr. Hobbs, in speaking of the 
Somerville dike further south, mentions that it (we may add, 
and perhaps these to the north) have some connections with 
the extended intrusions of Triassic diabase, so frequent from 
Nova Scotia to the Carolinas. The particular time and source 
of the dikes, however, must with our present knowledge be al- 
most entirely a matter of speculation. 

Geological Laboratory, Cornell University. 


TRIASSIC TRAPS OF NOVA SCOTIA, WITH NOTES ON 
OTHER “INTRUSIVES” OF PICTOU AND ANTI- 
GONISH COUNTIES, N. S. 

By V. F. MARSTERS, Ithaca, N. Y. 


Of the numerous trap ridges and knobs which occur in Nova 
Scotia, perhaps the largest and most prominent is that 
known as the North mountains, on the southeast of the bay 
of Fundy. This ridge, extending with two or three exceptions 
in a nearly unbroken line from cape Split on the northern to 
Briar island on the southern extremity, rests upon Triassic 
sandstones. It has a length approximating 120 miles and a 
breadth, from the brow of the mountain to the water’s edge, 
varying from one to five miles. While cape Blomidon attains 
an altitude of only 400 feet, the extreme hight of the range, 
which occurs in the section known as Marsters’ mountain, is 
about 450 feet. The southeastern edge of the superimposed 
trap is quite thin, but it attains a considerable thickness 
toward the rock-bound coast as shown by the hight of the 
jagged trappean cliffs alongthe shore. The dip is about N. 

° W.' The outliers occurring in the bay of Fundy and 
along the coast of Cumberland Co. are Partridge island, Five 
islands, cape Sharpe, and Haute island. All these, like the 
main deposit, overlie Triassic sandstone. The Triassic sand- 


‘See Acadian Geology. 


er Peay ea Ben 'F Cr Cun meow er reintege Y 
us wy ea al : 


Triassic Traps of Nova Scotia, etc— Marsters. 141 


stone also dips in the same direction and at the same an- 
gle. Hence it results that the abrupt termination of the 
southeastern edge of the trappean area, gives a monoclinal 
form to the valley on the south of the mountain. The depth 
of the valley has undoubtedly been increased, by the erosion 
of the sandstones, a fact of which there is abundant evidence. 
This agent was probably the chief means in reducing also the 
thickness of the trap on the brow of the mountain. The sand- 
stone area, which is severed into two distinct parts by the in- 
terruption of Minas basin and Avon river, extends on the 
southwest through Kings, Annapolis and Digby counties. In 
the eastern part of Horton township it overlies highly inclined 
and partially metamorphosed slates and shales of Carbonifer- 
ousage. The Carboniferous series is admirably exposed on 
the Avon river and is generally known as the “Horton Bluff” 
series.*. The eastern part of the Triassic area can be traced in 
irregular patches along the shores of Minas basin and Cobe- 
quid bay as far east as Onslow and Truro, where it was ob- 
served to rest unconformably upon limestones and shales ex- 
hibited in the hills of Osnlow and along North river. 
It attains its greatest width (18 miles) in Kings county, and 
gradually decreases towards each extremity. 

The general geological features of this trappean ridge sug- 
gest that it was formed by a true submarine volcanic erup- 
tion. Thisconclusion is strengthened by the fact that the 
formation is composed of two definite layers, the lower strat- 
um being composed of scoriz and volcanic ashes, the upper 
stratum of much denser, firmer and often columnar trap, a 
phenomenon which is known to exist in almost all volcanic 
regions. 

In comparing this deposit with similar ones in the United 
States, I notice a striking resemblance between them. In one 
or two particulars, however, some different features occur 
which are worthy of note. The Triassic traps of the eastern 
states have received considerable attention from Prof. W. M. 
Davis, who considers all trappean deposits whose upper strat- 
um presents an amygdaloidal or vesicular structure as eyi- 
dence of an “overflow,” which has cooled without subjection 
to overlying pressure. Hence wherever the deposit has at- 


* The ‘‘Horton Bluff’’ series has been well described by Sir Wm. 
Dawson in his ‘‘Acadian Geology,’’ p. 92 and p. 252. 


VUARING Soo OS ERS RIM Taree et 
AVEUAN CNA uN AP Nee Aa 


142 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


tained a considerable thickness, the lower part would necessar- 
ily become more compact and firm. Such conditions sug- 
gesting an “overflow” are reversed at cape Blomidon. The 
scoriaceous vesicular material forms the lower stratum while 
the more dense variety is superimposed. On the other hand 
if the ridge was a typical “intrusive” its metamorphosing ef- 
fect along the line of contact with the underlying sandstones 
would be more marked than was observed by the writer. 
These apparently reversed features, however, may prove on 
further examination to be only a local variation. 

Little substantial evidence can at present be found of a vol- 
canic vent, which, if it ever did exist, was subsequently worn 
away by the denuding forces of the Drift period. Yet the 
physical features of the deposit suggest that such may have 
existed contemporaneously with its formation. There is also 
at cape Blomidon some local evidence of the formation of its 
northern extremity by a limited overflow of an immense dyke 
extending from the vicinity of Amethyst beach, towards 
cape Split. 

This trappean mountain received the attention of geolo- 
gists as early as 1836 when we find it quite accurately de- 
scribed by Dr. Gesner in his “Geology and Mineralogy of 
Nova Scotia,” and later (1868) much more fully treated by 
Sir William Dawson in his Acadian Geology.’ 

The more compact columnar trap is light grey in color, of a 
somewhat gritty texture, and having a specific gravity of 2.98. 
The lower stratum consisting of volcanic ashes and scoriz is 
bronzy reddish-brown in color and full of small cavities in 
which are found minerals belonging mainly to the Zeolite 
group. Some ofthe most common ones occuring in this re- 
gion are, analeite, chabazite, acadialite, natrolite, stilbite, 
heulandite, apophyllite, prehnite, agate and amethyst. In fact 
cape Blomidon and its outliers have long been noted for the 
great variety and beauty of their mineral productions, as well 
as for the unique character of their scenery. The bold prom- 
ontory of ‘“Blomidon” as seen from the classic “Hill of Aca- 
dia,” isa scene not to be easily forgotten even by the most 
casual observer. 

’ For a minute and full description of the extent and geological fea- 


tures of this obscure formation the reader is referred to the above 
works. 


Triassic Traps of Nova Scotia, ete—Marsters. 143 


» 


So far as the writer is acquainted no microscopic descrip- 
tions of the Triassic traps of the North mountains or of any 
of the intrusive rocks of Nova Scotia have been published. 

Although I find in the “Canadian Reports of Progress” nu- 
merous references to dykes, granitic bosses, and trappean 
areas, yet seldom more than avery general macroscopic de- 
scription, and occasionally only the location is given. Hence 
extended examination of this province would undoubtedly 
furnish much interesting material for microscopic investiga- 
tion. The writer therefore hopes that in the near future he 
may be able to makea closer study not only of the Triassic 
traps but also of other known eruptive rocks in this region. 

The trap, like all those from similar deposits in the United 
States, is a typical diabase. Under the microscope it proves 
to be composed chiefly of plagioclase with generally irregular 
and scattered masses of augite, magnetite, sometimes showing 
perfect octahedral forms but in the main massive, and a brown- 
ish mineral probably resulting from the decomposition of the 
augite. The plagioclase which presents little evidence of de- 
composition consists of lath-shaped crystals exhibiting very 
good crystallographic terminations, They are almost uni- 
versally twinned but seldom exhibit marked zonal structure. 
These sections, approaching the zone of the axis of symmetry 
show a decided fracturing as ifsubjected to great pressure or 
some mechanical disturbance subsequent to the completion 
of their crystalline form. Jt makes up the most prominent 
component of the rock. Augite exhibits irregular small 
masses with brightly polarizing centers and muddy, dark- 
brown peripheries. The brownish product, which is of sec- 
ondary origin extends along the cracks so universally pres- 
ent in augite, presenting a net-like appearance. Whenever a 
crystal occurred sufficiently fresh and regular in form for 
orientation, it proved to be twinned on the orthopinacoid. 
Magnetite occurs for the greater part in irregular aggregates 
which may be of secondary origin, but not presenting a titan- 
iferous aspect. The perfect octahedra are undoubtedly pri- 
mary and were probably the first to form during the cooling 
of the fused mass. Compared with sections of Triassic traps 
from New Jersey, kindly loaned me by Prof. J. F. Kemp,’ I 

* The writer is highly indebted to Prof. J. F. Kemp for many sug- 


gestions and references to published matter dealing with similar for- 
mations in U.S. 


144 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


find a marked resemblance both as regards the optical char- 
acteristics of the individual minerals and the relative quanti- 
ties of each component. 

While making a hasty review of the “Report of Progress 
(1886) of the Canadian Geol. Survey” numerous references to 
intrusive rocks were noted in an article by Hugh Fletcher 
Esq. on the geology of the eastern counties of Nova Scotia. 
During a short visit to my native province I made a hasty 
trip over parts of Pictou and Antigonish counties, so well 
described by Mr. Fletcher, with the intention of finding a few 
of the “intrusives” referred to. Owing to the short time at 
my disposal I succeeded in finding but two eruptive masses. 

On Arisaig coast at the mouth of McAra’s brook, was 
found amygdaloidal trap interstratified with lower Carbonif- 
erous conglomerates, and at many places breaking through 
the bedding of the conglomerate in a very irregular and com- 
plicated manner. A short distance northeast of this point 
another trappean mass was found presenting similar condi- 
tions. The conglomerate is but slightly altered at the point 
of contact. So irregular was the mass that it was impossible 
to obtain any definite information concerning its dip or actual 
thickness. Whether, the ejection of this rock was contem- 
poraneous with that of the numerous Triassic patches to the 
west, there does not at present appear any evidence; but fur- 
ther examination may prove that such is the case. In its 
macroscopic characters the rock resembles very closely the 
vesicular traps of cape Blomidon. Its lower specific gravity, 
however, (2.748) proves it to be much less basic. 

Under the microscope the rock proved to be composed 
mainly of feldspar, with irregular patches of augite and a whit- 
ish mass, a secondary product probably derived from the feld- 
spar. The feldspar which is probably plagioclase, is too much 
decomposed to show any very decided optical properties. Their 
typical lath-shaped or rod-like form, however, is fairly well 
exhibited. The augite is scattered through the rock-mass in 
small, irregular patches, presenting no crystalline form, but 
in a few cases sufficiently fresh, and presenting cleavage 
cracks, and optical properties sufficient for orientation. No 
magnetite was observed in any of the sections from this local- 
ity. While the rock is made up of the same mineral constit- 


yp | ; 
' Triassic Traps of Nova Scotia, etc—Marsters. 145 


uents as the diabase from “Blomidon” it does not present the 
same facies of the typical diabase as described above. 

The second eruptive mass referred to was found high up the 
west branch of Barney’s river. The dike, so far as could be 
seen in the river bed has attained a width of some fifty or sixty 
feet. On either bank, however, it presents the appearance of 
an overflow. The greenish argillaceous slates in which the 
dike is situated are thought by Mr. Fletcher*® to be upper 
Clinton. At the point of contact with the dike the slates were 
considerably altered but so far as could be observed were not 
disturbed to any great degree. Onaccount ofthe dense forest 
on either side of the stream I was unable to trace it beyond 
the banks of the picturesque gorge. 

A microscopic examination proves the rock to be a feldspar 
porphyry containing also well developed crystals of augite 
and magnetite. The phenocrysts of plagioclase which are 
mainly idiomorphic are considerably altered, but not to such 
a degree as to obliterate under polarized light their twinning 
and apparently zonal structure. Much fine dust, probably 
* magnetite, is included in the plagioclase in much larger quan- 
tities in the central part than in the periphery of the individ- 
ual crystal. The augite which is also idiomorphically devel- 
oped shows occasional corroding effects and nearly complete 
alteration to a brownish isomorphous product. The average 
size of the individual is about 2.5 m.m. in length by 2m.m.in 
width. In one individual a peculiar instance of twinning 
apparently on the clino-pinacoid was exhibited, but sufficient 
data could not be obtained to prove beyond doubt the accuracy 
of the above statement. In addition to the fine magnetic dust 
already mentioned there was also shown almost perfect 
octahedra a few of which were included within the pheno- 
crysts of augite. 

At present the writer is unable to connect this dike with 
any parent eruptive body. He is of the opinion that an 
extended search will prove that it, together with other numer- 
ous eruptive rocks described by Mr. Fletcher, may have some 
connection with a parent body which was the central point of 
eruptive and intrusive action. 

Geological Laboratory, Cornell University, Dec. 4th, 1889. 


* Report of progress 1886. p. 45, P. Canad. Geol. Survey. 


eu bat ‘ye ee Ae oY 
SMG NAN Booey tel) 
ate bh hen tae mea be rine 
t 


146 The American. Geologist. March, 1890 


BATOCRINUS CALVINI. 
Description of a New Species of Burlington Crinoid. 
By R. R. Row.ey, Curryville, Mo. 


BATOCRINUS CALVINI. nN. Sp. 

Body dep ressed, nearly twice as broad as deep ; calyx saucer 
shape; plates rather thick and those in the calyx smooth and 
without any apparent convexity, while those in the vault are 
tuberculate ; basal plates elongate and without a rim, being 
merely excavated for the reception of the column. Excava- 
tion indicates a comparatively small round column; colum- 
nar perforation but little larger than a needle point. 

The long upper side of the basals support the first radial 
plates which are hexagonal, and once and a half as wide as 
deep. Second radials small, twice as broad as long, quadran- 
gular. Third radials, or primary bifurcating plates, penta- 
gonal, twice as wide as long and but little larger than the 
second radials, supporting on their upper sloping sides a 
quadrangular piece on the right and a pentagonal plate on 
the left. Each of these latter pieces supports a large second- 
ary bifurcating plate, over three times as wide as long and 
the largest piece in the ray except the first radial. The sec- 
ondary bifurcating plates support on the left, above, a penta- 
gonal and on the right a hexagonal piece, each of which, in 
turn, supports an arm-bearing plate. 

First interradials large, width and depth about equal, hep- 
tagonal and nearly as large as the first radials. Above the 
first interradial is a much smaller hexagonal piece, about as 
long as wide. A minute plate lies to the right of the line of 
division between these interradials. 

The first plate of the anal series is quite as large as the first 
radials and, like them, is hexagonal and rests on the upper 
side of a basal. A second hexagonal piece, two-thirds as 
large as the first, rests upon the upper side of the latter. 
Width and depth about equal as in the first anal plate. Above 
the second anal piece is a long third piece, heptagonal in out- 
line and nearly twice as long as wide. Four other plates of 
the anal area rest on the upper and lower lateral edges of the 


nw 


The Training of a Geologist.—Branner. 147 
“a 
second anal piece and are but little smaller than that plate, 
being as long as wide and all hexagonal. 
Arm openings 18 in number and directed upward, 


The calyx meets the vault in a sharp rim. Vault or dome 


but slightly convex, with plates strongly nodose, almost spi- 
niferous; base of anal tube strong; column and arms un- 
known; width of body nearly one inch; depth little more than 
» half an inch. 

The peculiar depressed shape of the body of this crinoid, 
its smooth calyx and tuberculate vault plates, sharp rim at 
the arm bases and the simple excavation for the column,read- 
ily distinguish it from any other already noticed Burlington 
Batocrinus. 

Described from two perfect bodies, found at the very base of 
the Lower Burlington limestone, at Louisiana, Mo. 


The specific name is given in honor of Prof. Samuel Calvin 


of the lowa State University. 


THE TRAINING OF A GEOLOGIST.* 
By JOHN C. BRANNER, Ph. D. 

The fitting of a young man for his work in life is worthy of 
our serious study and consideration, and while much that I 
may say is equally applicable to men in any calling, I can only 
undertake to speak of some of the demands that the times are 
placing upon geologists. 

Itis te be expected, of course, that there are plenty of per- 
sons of intelligence in the world who have no conception what- 
ever of a geologist’s duties, those who imagine that geology as a 
profession can be picked up just as the duties of certain civil 
offices, or of clerical positions, may be readily learned and 
performed by any man of ordinary intelligence. Among the 
applications I have received for employment one man gave as 
a reason why he should be employed that he was a consistent 
member of the Presbyterian church; another that he was a 
graduate of a famous military school; another was interested 
in geology and had read many books upon the subject, among 
which he cited some of the vaporings of Ignatius Donnelly; 
still another used to be acquainted with professor Winchell, 
and another was in poor health and thought field work would 


* Presidential address before the Indiana Academy of Sciences, 
Indianapolis, Dec., 30th, 1889. 


ai mehr a) bre yee ON gl Oe ve 
i a Te ac aia aetaaRl 


"x 


5 
ny is 


Li ats). 7.07) ue Coity clle, (eae beeen D iM * ni DON i Ate ee 
VA ON ROLE MASA CREAT ARE eRe 
iy, Spat wp ty nh OV Oe > s ; iN od p 
; % TC ET AUB SU Aea ee Say ae 
Nek LHS ee) ARS TO 


1 


150 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


Besides laboratory work there is perhaps no branch of nat- 
ural history which more emphatically demands field work for 
its students than does geology. This is due largely to the 
fact that the little indoor or laboratory work the geological 
student can do is directly and entirely dependent upon his 
field work: Then, too, in other studies we can have and do 
have our laboratories in which nearly allthe student’s obser- 
vations are made. In botany and in zoology, in histologic 
studies and in chemistry and physics, the materials may be 
successfully studied in the laboratory, but the geologist, whose 
studies are often valuable in proportion to the range of his 
direct observations, can not take his stratigraphy and his 
_ topography into a laboratory. His laboratory, except in cer- 
tain parts of petrographic and biologic studies and in the 
office work on his maps, is out of doors. 

In its professional bearing the most essential part of a geol- 
ogist’s training should be to the end that he observe well, and 
that in his deductions he properly subordinate his facts. His 
preliminary technical training should therefore be for the 
purpose of teaching him accuracy and detail. The necessity 
of accuracy should be so deeply impressed upon his mind that 
accuracy will become a part of his nature. After this lesson 
is learned he must be taught speed, without sacrificing in the 
least his accuracy. 

I believe Dr. Chamberlin, president of the University of 
Wisconsin, recently delivered an address before the Western 
. Society of Naturalists upon multiple working hypotheses. I 
have not seen this address, but I can readily imagine that he 
presented in detail the advantages of this method of scientific in- 
vestigation, in the use of which I am, myself, greatly Dr. Cham- 
berlin’s debtor. In my own experience I have found it of the great- 
est value and I know of no better way of developing the reason- 
ing powers or of anticipating difficulties, or of reaching 
right conclusions than by the proper use of hypotheses. 
As the whole professional training of the geologist is for the 
purpose of enabling him to reach correct conclusions, he 
should be trained in the use of every method of investigation 
that will aid him, and among these aids I count as of great 
importance that of multiple working hypotheses. 

Besides having a broad general culture, a geologist must be 
par excellence a geologist, and besides being a geologist he 


The Training of a Geologist.— Branner. 151 


ought to know more about some particular branch of geology 
than anyone else. The material progress of our times is due 
largely to the division of labor which enables each individual 
to perfect his skill. Progress in science is due in no small 
degree to a similar division in scientific work. Though I can 


not dispense with a knowledge of chemistry, specialization by . 


my neighbor who devotes himself to chemistry relieves me of 
the necessity of devoting a large part of my time to chemistry ; 
the devotion of another to physics gives me my time for 
geologic work proper, which, without the specialist in physics, 
I should be obliged to devote to physical studies. The 
astronomer hands me the results of his special investigations 
and saves me my time for geology, which, without his help I 
should be obliged to give to astronomy. And so it is all 
around. On the other hand I trust that my attention to 
geology will, in its turn, come to the aid of the chemist, the 
physicist and the astronomer. 

In saying a word for specialties I am fully aware of all that 
has been urged against this kind of scholarship. President 
White of Cornell University said to me in a private conversa- 
tion a few years ago, that he had his doubts and fears about 
the outcome of this modern tendency among scientific men to 
specialization. Said he: “If this thing goes on, weshall have, 
after a while, a man who will know all about the stripes on a 
trilobite’s tail, but he won’t know anything else.” It is very 
easy to ridicule a specialist, especially if the aims of his 
studies are not comprehended. Galvani studying the twitch- 
ing of a frog’s legs, Darwin breeding pigeons, and Agassiz 
planting sticks on a glacier, are inspiring or ridiculous in 
proportion as we comprehend the bearing or end of their 
studies. Whether studying the twitching of a frog’s legs or 
the stripes on a trilobite’s tail is an unworthy and contempt- 
ible occupation for an intelligent man depends, therefore, 
upon the ultimate objects of the study. And in regard to 
special work by those who aspire to broad culture in science I 
can only repeat what I have always held upon this sub- 
ject: that a man who is incapable of doing and has not 
done special investigation is not capable of taking a broad 
view of science in any of its relations. Mr. Darwin has done 
some of the best generalizing of our age, but before he did it 
he had done some of the best of specializing, and that too on 


VS SAR PS kd b's EAP RN he OO) ea al alt : We 
He aie ye DE DAAHEL WONG po UTR Nr gcd UR Ann fea eee 


150 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


Besides laboratory work there is perhaps no branch of nat- 
ural history which more emphatically demands field work for 
its students than does geology. This is due largely to the 
fact that the little indoor or laboratory work the geological 
student can do is directly and entirely dependent upon his 
field work. Then, too, in other studies we can have and do 
have our laboratories in which nearly allthe student’s obser- 
vations are made. In botany and in zoology, in histologic 
studies and in chemistry and physics, the materials may be 
successfully studied in the laboratory, but the geologist, whose 
studies are often valuable in proportion to the range of his 
direct observations, can not take his stratigraphy and his 

- topography into a laboratory. His laboratory, except in cer- 
tain parts of petrographic and biologic studies and in the 
office work on his maps, is out of doors. 

In its professional bearing the most essential part of a geol- 
ogist’s training should be to the end that he observe well, and 
that in his deductions he properly subordinate his facts. His 
preliminary technical training should therefore be for the 
purpose of teaching him accuracy and detail. The necessity 
of accuracy should be so deeply impressed upon his mind that 
accuracy will become a part of his nature. After this lesson 
is learned he must be taught speed, without sacrificing in the 
least his accuracy. 

I believe Dr. Chamberlin, president of the University of 
Wisconsin, recently delivered an address before the Western 

. Society of Naturalists upon multiple working hypotheses. I 
have not seen this address, but I can readily imagine that he 
presented in detail the advantages of this method of scientific in- 
vestigation, in the use of which I am, myself, greatly Dr. Cham- 
berlin’s debtor. In my own experience I have found it of the great- 
est value andI know of no better way of developing the reason- 
ing powers or of anticipating difficulties, or of reaching 
right conclusions than by the proper use of hypotheses. 
As the whole professional training of the geologist is for the 
purpose of enabling him to reach correct conclusions, he 
should be trained in the use of every method of investigation 
that will aid him, and among these aids I count as of great 
importance that of multiple working hypotheses. 

Besides having a broad general culture, a geologist must be 
par excellence a geologist, and besides being a geologist he 


The Training of a Geologist.— Branner. 151 


ought to know more about some particular branch of geology 
than anyone else. The material progress of our times is due 
largely to the division of labor which enables each individual 
to perfect his skill. Progress in science is due in no small 
degree to a similar division in scientific work. Though I can 
not dispense with a knowledge of chemistry, specialization by . 
my neighbor who devotes himself to chemistry relieves me of 
the necessity of devoting a large part of my time to chemistry ; 
the devotion of another to physics gives me my time for 
geologic work proper, which, without the specialist in physics, 
I should be obliged to devote to physical studies. The 
astronomer hands me the results of his special investigations 
and saves me my time for geology, which, without his help I 
should be obliged to give to astronomy. And so it is all 
around. On the other hand I trust that my attention to 
geology will, in its turn, come to the aid of the chemist, the 
physicist and the astronomer. 

In saying a word for specialties I am fully aware of all that 
has been urged against this kind of scholarship. President 
White of Cornell University said to me in a private conversa- 
tion a few years ago, that he had his doubts and fears about 
the outcome of this modern tendency among scientific men to 
specialization. Said he: “If this thing goes on, weshall have, 
after a while, a man who will know all about the stripes on a 
trilobite’s tail, but he won’t know anything else.” It is very 
easy to ridicule a specialist, especially if the aims of his 
studies are not comprehended. Galvani studying the twitch- 
ing of a frog’s legs, Darwin breeding pigeons, and Agassiz 
planting sticks on a glacier, are inspiring or ridiculous in 
proportion as we comprehend the bearing or end of their 
studies. Whether studying the twitching of a frog’s legs or 
the stripes on a trilobite’s tail is an unworthy and contempt- 
ible occupation for an intelligent man depends, therefore, 
upon the ultimate objects of the study. And in regard to 
special work by those who aspire to broad culture in science I 
can only repeat what I have always held upon this sub- 
ject: that a man who is incapable of doing and has not 
done special investigation is not capable of taking a broad 
view of science in any of its relations. Mr. Darwin has done 
some of the best generalizing of our age, but before he did it 
he had done some of the best of specializing, and that too on 


152 The American Geologist. — Maton 18 


such unpractical, uninteresting and useless animals as the 
barnacles. 

A lofty structure can not be built upon a narrow founda- 
tion, neither can a man be great in science who hasn’t broad 
eulture. And as only close attention to minor details in the 
material used can secure a great building against calamity, so 


care and skill in special investigations—in little things as it 


were—are essential to a great and broad-minded man ef science. 

You will probably exclaim that the requirements of which 
I speak and which I find essential are entirely too many to 
be complied with; that life is too short to allow one to under- 


take so much purely preliminary work. It can not be denied 


that to become a good geologist is a serious undertaking, and 
all I have to reply is that this is the kind of geologist I have 
been seeking and am still seeking. How many have you 
found? you will ask. Not many, I must confess. Indeed 
men with such preparations are few, and when one finds them, 
he dosen’t find them “looking for a job;” their services are 
always in demand. I may say, however, that it is not to be 
expected that the student should get all this training as 
undergraduate work. College men going into law, medicine 
and theology, if they get the technical training required by 
their professions, spend two or three years in law, medical or 
theological schools. The geologist must do what amounts to 
the same thing—that is, he must, beyond his general training, 
qualify himself specially for geologic work. When our geol- 
ogists are so trained we shall have. a better science, better 
geologists and better results all round. 

The demands that are made upon a geologist require no 
particular kind of an intellect, save, of course, that it be a good 
one, but broad culture and broad mental grasp are essential to 
the pronounced success of any man.in any calling. Amanis 
wanted not to work up this or that deposit as it may occur in 
some limited area, or this or that formation, and much less 
some county or other artificial area, but who, in work- 
ing up a topic, can and will take up the problem as a whole, 
and ‘study it as a whole, not in one locality, but wherever it 
may be found in the world, who can work up the bibliography 
of his subject, and who can sift and put to good use the facts 
gathered by others in his deductions, and whose knowledge of 
allied sciences will enable him to draw proper conclusions 


. 


4 
t 
wal! 


The Training of a Geologist—Branner. 153 
from his facts, while his knowledge of affairs will render his 
judgment upon economic questions of the greatest value. 

But it is not my purpose to confine my remarks to the 
technical training of the geologist, but to refer also to certain 
general and ethical features of his work which call for a train- 
ing or fitness to which educators give too little attention. I 
hardly know whether any instructor ever troubles himself to 
impress his students with the ordinary requirements of pro- 
fessional etiquette; I don’t remember ever having heard the 
subject mentioned in a class-room. We seem to have 
depended upon men’s instincts as gentlemen for shaping their 
professional conduct. 

To be a successful geologist one must be a geologist very 
largely because he can’t help it—because he can’t keep out of 
it. I mean, of course, that the science must so fill the 
demands of his mind, his temperament, and his health, that 
in any other occupation he feels 'that he is not where he can 
make the most of himself and of his energies. Such men will 
have that professional pride without which everyone is doomed 
to a fatal mediocrity. The man who goes into geology because 
there is money in it, will, in nine cases out of ten, make a total 
failure of it. _To be sure a living must be had, but he who has 
the right training, and the right interest in his work, will 
never, lack for lucrative employment for any considerable 
length of time. It may sometimes happen, however, that a 
geologist is without such employment for a while, but it 
should be distinctly understood that such times are not to be 
given over to demoralizing idleness. The world is too full of 
problems of scientific interest for any man having a scientific 
spirit to stand idle for a single day or a single hour, and no 
one haying such a spirit will stand idle. 

In the balancing of the essentials and the non-essentials in 
the training of a geologist certain economic considerations 
have, almost without exception, to be faced. Those of us 
who devote ourselves to pure science are constantly being 
wearied with that most tiresome of all questions about the 
practical value of what a man reads about, thinks about, or 
does. So long as the young see around them examples of 
men who have become wealthy by the successful application 
of some law in science, by the invention or discovery of some- 
thing that people are willing to pay handsomely for, just so 


JOON, AAAS ORE ORR EM Hah See M NR RU NAA 
pny pyc WIE iinet ests NY So y Ve - 
SH) PRA RNR OPS SA TREE! RL ed One pe 
ung RonF yy Wits Ane 
POUR UEP a yy 


AM Picere 
w ap 8) 


‘ 


Ta ad pagan Ay 
i] Dey Pa eal Peale et ta rg 
‘| ee st 
iain hy) PRET Ahly ee 
WAL ye A ye 


154 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


long shall we have these young men asking how this and that 
study, this and that bit of training are going to be of any use 
to them. As men who love science for its own sake, we get 
weary of such questions, and some of us feel driven, in order 
to emphasize our warnings, to avoid the useful altogether. 
Thus we occasionally have, on the one hand, men who have a 
horror of doing anything that is liable to be of practical value, 
and on the other, men who have no patience with an investi- 
gation which does not promise some tangible, material reward 
for their pains. My opinion is that there is little to choose 
between in these two types. One of them is just as far wrong 
as the other. 

There are many pitfalls in the pathway of the geologist— 
many inducements for him to profit just a little too much by 
his experience. His duties are often of a very delicate nature. 
He is called upon to examine and report upon properties 
where large sums of money are involved, and where the infor- 
mation obtained in his professional work might be used by 
him for his personal advantage. The importance of a right 
way of thinking and acting in this connection is of the utmost 
importance, for if one does not conduct himself properly just 
here he is liable to gain a good share of the whole world “but 
to lose his own soul.” J am reminded to quote the man who 
advised his son to avoid the appearance of evil: ‘Never mind 
the evil itself, but avoid the appearance of evil.” This is, of 
course, a perversion of good advice. “Avoid the very appear- 
ance of evil and evil will avoid you,” is good advise for the 
geologist, as well as for other folks. 

I may say briefly that a professional geologist, especially if 
he isin a public place, such as state geologist, or is in any 
way connected with a state or national survey, has no moral 
right to have a personal interest in any mining property, or in 
any other property a knowledge of the value of which might 
come to him through his knowledge of geology. Abstaining 
from such interests is a duty the geologist in public employ 
owes to himself as well as to the public, and the public has 
the right both to expect and to demand that its employés 
shall not walk off with the profits of its investments, just as a 
manufacturer has the right to demand that his employés shall 
not appropriate the articles they make. The geologist not in 
public employ who becomes personally interested in mining 


The Training of a Geologist.— Branner. 155 


operations, even when he does it in the frankest, most open, 
and most upright manner, and with no idea of doing other- 
wise than as any citizen may honorably do, does nothing 
wrong in itself, but he must remember that he does so at the 
risk of his reputation and standing as a consulting geologist. 

The man who is not willing—does not try—to save his ener- 
gies, may be relied upon to not give the world the benefit of 
his best services. How often we see men who had an idea 
that there is some virtue in doing a thing the hard way, who, 
when suggestions are made for the purpose of saving their 
energies, assure us that that is all right, that they'll get it 
done, and if their way is a little harder, they are the losers 
by it. 

A certain engineer has a three-sided scale in his drafting 
room. There are six different scales cut upon it. A person 
using this scale is liable in taking it up to turn the wrong 
division upon his line, and, in order to avoid this risk, and to 
save the time and thought that must be used in watching to 
see that one doesn’t get the wrong side, a simple piece of 
metal has been devised to clasp it in such a way that it is 
impossible to use the wrong side. Some of his assistants 
remove this safety attachment, because they are not “‘used to 
it” and insist on running the risk of making mistakes and of 
using up the time they are paid to work, in examining their 
scale to see whether they have turned it over. Another man 
doing topographic work doesn’t want to signal to his assistant, 
preferring to call out his directions to him at long distances, 
often more than a quarter of a mile, so that at the end of the 
day he has done three-quarters of a day’s work on the 
topography, and the other quarter in yelling—a bit of labor 
the geologist can not utilize. These mistakes are unpardon- 
able errors of judgment, and young men should be warned 
against such. If we spend our time and energy in unnecessary 
work we shall have just so much the less energy for the essen- 
tial. There may be some excuse for the man who isn’t able to 
discriminate between the essential and the non-essential, but 
in such cases as those referred to, and indeed in the majority 
of cases that arise, there can be no such question. In his 
methods the geologist must always be willing to profit by the 
experience of others. Methods and appliances of research 
are constantly being improved, but these improvements are 


156 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


made, not by disregarding the experience of others, but by 
making every possible use of it. 

_ There is sometimes a tendency among the newly fledged to 
imagine that those who have gone before them have not taken 
the greatest pains in their work, that their conclusions have 
not been warranted. They therefore begin with the idea that 
by the application of superior, or at any rate, new methods of 
investigation, they are going to upset everything done before 
they began. Such persons often succeed in making asses 
of themselves, and end their careers before they begin them— 
that is, they make careers impossible. 

I had occasion recently to go over the work of one of our 
older geologists—work done under the most adverse circum- 
stances. This work had but a short time before been 
very sharply criticised by an aspiring young geologist, and 
I was prepared to find either one of them right. I not only 
found the work of the older geologist well done, but I was 
astonished at the clearness of his perceptions and the general 
reliability of his conclusions. The young man had committed 
a blunder from which his reputation can never recover. 

The necessity of caution on the part of the young geologist 
in publishing conclusions that one feels to be open to crit- 
icism, or when he sees that important facts may be overlooked, 
can not be too strongly emphasized. The publication of facts 
is generally most useful, but deductions can afford to wait 
until they are properly matured. A most valuable piece of 
advice once given me was to the effect, that young people 
would better not begin pumping out of their intellectual 
reservoirs before something has been pumped into them. Life 
is too short, and progress all along the line is too slow for us 
to cumber the march of science with verbose discussions 
which help toward strife and contention instead of towards 
truth and union. To be sure “ignorance is no reason with a 
fool for holding his tongue,’ but my advice is not intended 
for fools, who will be fools in spite of everybody and every- 
thing, but for those who, having sound sense, desire not to 
appear fools or to bring discredit upon themselves or upon 
the science to which they are devoted. 

Science is not infrequently charged with vacillation. Apro- 
pos of this, one of our humorists has the following: ‘Science 
says—but no matter what science says, for the next time she 


The Training of a Geologist— Branner. 157 


says anything she’ll say just the opposite.” We cannot deny 
the justice of the criticism, but this bad repute is to be at- 
tributed entirely to premature utterances, We have some sad 
examples in this country of poor geologists whose premature 
conclusions, drawn from too hasty or incomplete work, have 
kept half a dozen good geologists busy for years in correcting 
their mistakes and in putting the truth before the world. 
Their excursions into geologic fields are like the inroads of 
lawless and unclean animals that require a score of persons to 
clean up and put things straight after them. These busy- 
bodies have, almost without exception, an itching for noto- 
riety that leads them to seek some scientific short-cut by which 
to arrive at distinction, but if there is a balancing of accounts 
either here or hereafter, these men are destined to have a dis- 
tinction in the scientific world of quite another sort from that 
for which they are pining. They are usually men of good 
enough intentions,but, as one of my preceptors once reminded 
me: ‘‘we have aright to expect something more than good 
intentions of men.” All people mean well; it is our busi- 
ness to do well. 

Sensationalism has done and is doing great injury not only 
to geology but to other branches of science. There are cer- 
tain features about every science that impress the ignorant 
with their novelty, and there are certain persons who are al- 
ways ready to make capital out of them. This gives rise to a 
sort of “O my!” class of men and to an “Omy!” kind of 
science. They delight in the startling. None of the more 
radical theories of science, theories put forward by the right 
thinking with great caution, stagger them. Man’s descending 
from a monkey never troubled them; they always thought so, 
and can point out cases of descent that would make Mr. Dar- 
win or Mr. Wallace catch his breath. This skimming the sur- 
face, this dilettanteism is strong in our times. In the geolo- 
gist’s training the less we have of the sensational the better it 
will be for the science and for the man. 

It is not a pleasant thing to be obliged to destroy the delu- 
sions which people hold so lovingly close to their hearts, but 
the conscientious geologist has a good deal of this disenchant- 
ing todo. And nobody even thanks him for it. The very 
persons he may hope to serve in telling them the truth, will, 
in all probability, never believe him and never forgive him. 


Di ais das AAS Oyo POLAT RITAYA ge REY re 
\ W VAT OH nara 


158 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


But a geologist has to face a great many disagreeable duties, 
and if he hasn’t the moralcourage to tell the plain, unvarnished 
truth, and to take the consequences, when a white le would 
smooth matters over all round, he will find his troubles in- 
creasing as time goeson. One le, whether itis a white one or 
a black one, only makes room for two others, and the man who 
makes two lies grow where but one grew before deserves no 
good of mankind. 

Those who are at once workers in science and teachers of 
science know how difficult it sometimes is to draw a sharp 
line between what we know and what we simply believe, but 
as far as possible this distinction should always be kept before 
the minds of students, and no effort should be spared to pre- 
vent that dazzling of their minds which prevents them from 
weighing evidence and from distinguishing between simple 
truth and simple figments of the imagination. 

And now just a word about our responsibilities to our own 
intellects. Intellect is the tool with which the geologist has 
to do hiswork. Ifthat toolis bent out of shape or dulled by 
improper use it cannot perform its functions properly. It is 
highly essential therefore that he keep his intellect unim- 
paired. He should strive to keep his mind free from those tricks 
of logic, rhetoric and sentiment by which so many of us allow 
ourselves to be imposed upon. Those of us who are natural- 
ists and investigators at heart, as well as by profession, are 
not satisfied with declaring, like the humorist, that we are 
‘open to conviction,” while parenthetically we add, “but we’d 
just like to see the man who can convince us.” We are bound 
by every sentiment of honesty to go where our evidence leads 
us, whether it takes us to a pleasant place or not. Truth 
must be our companion whether she be an agreeable or a dis- 
agreeable one—a handsome or an ugly one. We cannot hon- 
estly say to reason, “thus far shalt thou go, but no farther.” 
We can’t reasonably follow the science of geology to a certain 
point and then abandon it for the divining rod or spiritualis- 
tic seances or clap-trap appliances of any kind. The man who 
has no notion of accepting the results of his reasoning would 
just as well not reason at all, while the man who undertakes 
to reason within certain limits insults his intelligence. All 
honest men are seeking the truth; and is it not our duty to 
help others in this search when we can? We may be sure 


The Training of a Geologist.— Branner. 159 


that if we wait till all the world thinks alike, the world will 
never care what we think. 

I have said that the profession of a geologist requires cer- 
tain proficiencies that are common to successful men in any 
and all occupations in life. Good judgment, clear insight, 
business habits of thought, and promptness of decision and 
action are as essential in geology as anywhere else, and it has 
often seemed to me to be even vastly more so. Itis not enough 
that one should plod faithfully ahead with a task—though faith- 
ful plodding is not to be underestimated at all. The man who 
grasps a subject in all its bearings, takes hold of it with judg- 
ment and solves its problems with courage and logic is the one 
who really advances the cause of truth, the cause of science 
and the cause of humanity. 

Once upon a time a business house employed a young man 
whose energy and grasp of the business of the firm induced 
the head of the house to promote him more rapidly than an 
old and faithful employe. The old employe felt deeply hurt 
that this dapper young fellow, who parted his hair in the mid- 
dle and wore eye-glasses, should be advanced over him, and he 
took occasion to complain of it to the senior partner. The 
senior partner felt it to be a case that he couldn’t very well 
argue with so faithful and tried a servant. There happened 
to be a lot of wagons passing the door of their building at the 
moment, and, as if changing the topic for a minute, he asked 
the old clerk what was making all that noise. He went for- 
ward and returning told the partner that it was a lot of wagons 
going by. He then asked the clerk what the wagons were 
loaded with. He went out again and returned and reported 
that they carried wheat. He sent him again to know how 
many there were of them. He returned with the reply that 
there were 16. Again he sent him to ascertain whence they 
came, and he returned saying they were from the city of Blank. 
The senior partner then asked the clerk to be seated, and send- 
ing for the young man complained of said: ‘Will you see 
what the meaning is of that rumbling noise in front.” The 
young man replied: “It will not be necessary, for I have 
already ascertained. It is caused by some wagons—36 in all— 
16 in this lot, but 20 more to pass to-morrow. They belong 
to Pinto & Rosa of the city of Blank and are loaded with 
wheat. They are on the way from Blank to Zee where the 


160 The American Geologist. March 1890 


supply of wheat is short, and is now fetching $1.15 a bushel, 
while it costs but 90 cents at Blank. The wagons get 15 cents 
a bushel for hauling it, and each one carries 100 bushels.” 
The young man was then dismissed and the senior partner 
turning to the old clerk said: “My friend, you see now why 
Mr. So-and-so has been promoted over you.” 

This illustrates the demands, not of business men alone, but 
of geologists, and of everyone who employs others, either 
directly or indirectly, or who associates others with himself in 
his work. We all want men who can not only do the very 
best and most comprehensive scientific work, but who com- 
prehend their duties in all their relations, meet emergencies 
with prompt and clear judgment, and save us and our ener- 
gies for other affairs. And we don’t want to be obliged,in 
order to get out of a man what there is in him, to stand over 
him constantly and to direct his every effort. 


THE TRIASSIC FLORA OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 
By JULES MARcou, Cambridge, Mass. 

The publication of four papers, lately issued by Messrs. 
Fontaine, Zeiller, Stur and Newberry,’ has brought back to 
my memory reminiscences and facts which may interest his- 
torically and critically those who may study more closely than 
has been done until now, the coal formation in the vicinity of 
Richmond and in general the whole Trias of North America. 

First PERIOD, 1834-1848.—In 1834 the learned English geol- 
ogist and mining engineer R. C. Taylor, an old pupil of the 
celebrated Strata Smith, the father of English geology, referred 
the coal series of Richmond—with some doubt however—to 
the old Coal Measures of the Carboniferous system of England 
and Wales. ( Zrans. Geol. Soc. Pennsylvania, vol. 1, p. 275.) 


' Contributions to the knowledge of the older Mesozoic flora of Virginia, 
by’ William M. Fontaine, 4to, Washington, 1883, issued only in Feb- 
ruary, 1885, U.S. Geol. Sur. Monographs v1. 

Sur. la présence, dans le grés bigarré, des vorges, de lV Acrostichides 
rhombifolius, Fontaine, par René Zeiller, Bulletin Soc. Geol. France, | 
3e série, vol. xvi, p. 693, Paris, 1888. 

Die Lunzer-(Lettenkohiens)-Flora in den ‘‘Older Mesozoic beds of the 
coal field of eastern Virginia,’? by Diomys Stur, separatabdruck der 
Verhandlungen der k. k. geologischen Reichsanstalt, No. 10, 1888, 
Vieana. 

Fossil fishes and fossil plants of the Triassic rocks of New Jersey and the 
Connecticut valley, by John S. Newberry, 4to, Washington, 1888, 
issued in October, 1889. U.S. Geol. Sur. Monographs, xIv. 


Triassic Flora of Richmond:-—Marcou. 161 


Dr. Newberry in his review of “Geological equivalents of our 
Triassic rocks,” (Mon. cit. p. 8) says: “A single one of the 
abundant fossil plants which occur in the Richmond coal 
basin would, however, have been sufficient to show the error of 
this opinion.” This remark is unjust, and at the same time a 
gross exaggeration of what was then the status of our knowl- 
edge of paleophytology. No one was more anxious to make 
application of the test of organic remains, in determining the 

age of the rocks than Taylor, “an original disciple of William 
Smith,” as he calls himself in his very remarkable book, 
Statistics of Coal, p. 46, Philadelphia, 1848. Adolphe 
Brongniart, the true founder of paleophytology, in his 
Végétawz fossils, in course of publication, 1828-1837, had 
referred a fossil plant from Richmond to the Calamites 
suckowit, a characteristic species of the Coal Measures of 
England, Wales and Pennsylvania, only he made a variety of 
it, and it was not until many years afterward that it was 
proved to be a new species and even a new genus, Schizoneura 

Schimper (Sch. planicostata),instead of being only a variety of 
Calamites suckowit. Nuttal many years before, 1820, in the 
“Journal Acad. Nat. Sciences,” Philadelphia, vol. 11, part 1, 
p. 36 of his excellent paper, Observations on the geological 
structure of the valley of the Mississippi, had recognized 
Zamia or Cycas, Equiseta and Scitaminew from the coal basin 
of Richmond, as well asremains of fossil fishes ; at atime when 
the significance of paleontological characters was in its infancy, 
and before the material possibility of appreciating it existed ; 
for we must remember that in 1816, when Nuttal made his 
observations round Richmond, we possessed neither of the 
fundamental works of Adolphe Brongniart,and Louis Agassiz. 
And if to-day it is easy, with a single plant of Richmond to 
show the error of the opinions expressed in 1834 by Taylor, it 
is due to the studies of two and even three generations of 
paleotophylogists. Even with our present knowledge it is not. 
always easy to determine with accuracy the age of a coal bed, 
with only one and even seven species of plants, as is amply 
proved by the ‘Jurassic florula” of Dr. Newberry, found by 
him at the Moquis Pueblo in 1858, which he referred first to 
the Jura, then to the Trias, and now passed over without any 
notice, in Mon. cit.,as if it did not exist, showing plainly 
enough that Dr. Newberry does not know what to do with it 


hs ewe I Hd Ay LV Uist Rerenas) VAA MLAS 


4 ; 
162 The American Geologist. March, 1890. 


and that seven, not a single one, of the abundant fossil plants 
occurring in the coal of Moquis, do not suffice to Dr. Newberry 
himself, notwithstanding his stricture on Taylor’s view. . 

In 1843 William B. Rogers referred the “coal of eastern 
Virginia to a place in the Oodlite system on the same general 
parallel with the Carboniferous beds of Whitby and Brora— 
that is, in the lower part of the Odlite group.” (On the age of 
the coal rocks of eastern Virginia, in “Trans. Assoc. Amer. 
Geologists,” vol. 1, p. 8300, Boston, 1848). He based his views 
more especially on the Aguisetum columnare, Brong., 
Jeniopteris whitbiensis and some Zamites. 

Charles Lyell, in 1847,in a paper entitled: On the struc- 
ture and probable age of the coal field of the James river near 
Richmond, Virginia. (Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London,” vol. 
III, p. 261) arrived at the same conclusion as William B. 
Rogers, adding: “If future researches should require any 
modification of this opinion, we may then expect that the 
Trias will be the group to which the American formation will 
be referable.” Three fossil fishes collected by Lyell in Decem- 
ber, 1845, were referred by Agassiz to the age of the Lias. And 
C. J. F. Bunbury regarded the geological evidence afforded by 
the fossil plants as to a certain degree ambiguous. “On the 
whole,” he says, “we may say with tolerable confidence that 
the Richmond coal field belongs either to the Triassic or to 
the Jurassic series.” (“Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London,” vol. 
Ill, p. 288). 

Henry D. Rogers, in 1848, read a paper before the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, in which he 
maintained the Jurassic age of the Richmond coal field, re- 
ferring it to the Inferior Oodlite and even to the Great Oolite. 

Professor Newberry in his “Geological equivalents” p. 9 of 
the Mon. cit. says: ‘Profs. W. B. Rogers and H. D. Rogers 
were led by the general resemblance of the ferns and cycads 
of the Richmond basin to those of the Lias of Whitby, 
England, to consider these rocks Liassic, that is, Lower Juras- 
sic.” The whole is incorrect, for the coal of Whitby has never 
been considered as belonging to the Lias, and was not called 
Liassic by the brothers-Rogers, who did not refer the rocks of 
the Richmond basin to the Lias, but to the Lower Oodlite and 
eyen to the Great Odlite. 

Such was our knowledge of the age of the eastern Virginia 


Triassic Flora of Richmond.—Marcou. 163 


coal field in 1848. Taylor thought, with some doubt, that they 
belonged to the Coal Measures, in his first paper of 1834, and 
in his Statistics of coal of 1848 he seems to adopt Lyell and 
Bunbury’s reference to the Jurassic series; and the brothers 
Rogers and Lyell regarded them as the equivalent of the 
Lower Odlite coal of Whitby in Yorkshire, and Brora in 
Scotland. 

SEcOND PERIOD, 1849-1882.—In April, 1849, I made a careful 
exploration of a part of the Richmond coal field, round the 
mines of Gowrie, Mid-lothian and Blackheath pits, collecting 
a great number of fossil plants, and a few fossil fishes. When 


there my impression was that the series of strata belonged to — 
the Trias. The upper portion of the series, more especially on 


account of the great quantity Hguisetum related to Ey. 
columnare and of a Calamites related to Cal. arenaceus, re- 
minded me in the most striking way of the coal field of the 
Keuper of Franche-Comté, and of the Basel canton (Swit- 
zerland), and ofthe Schilfsandsteine (Reed-cane sandstone) 
of the vicinity of Stuttgart and Tubingen. 

After my researches in the field, I visited at Philadelphia, 
in company with professor Louis Agassiz—who was then 
delivering a course of lectures there—Mr. Richard C. Taylor, 
who asked my opinion upon the age of the Richmond coal 
field, I said that it was Triassic, and the upper part of the 
series of strata, just at the opening of the Mid-lothian coal 
pit, was certainly Keuperian. Taylor seemed to agree with 
me, saying that he had abandoned the idea that it was the 
Coal Measures; but that it seemed to him older than the 
Whitby formation of Yorkshire, well known to him. Agassiz 
was very sure that the fossil fishes belonged to forms indi- 
cating the Liassic age, but not more recent at all events. 

I wrote then a paper entitled: Note sur la homille du 
comté de Chesterfield pres de Richmond,which was published 
in the “Bulletin Soc. Geol. France,” vol. v1, Juin, 1849, con- 
taining the following conclusions: “I am inclined to think 
that the coal formation of the vicinity of Richmond is older 
than the Lower Odlite, and belongs either to the Keuper or 
the Lias, with a greater probability in favor of the Lias, on 
account of the fossil fishes.” 

As a practical geologist, my opinion was that the coal for- 
mation of Richmond was the equivalent of the European Trias. 


164 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


But being a young man, and knowing the great leaning toward 
the complete uniformity of paleontological rules, which pre- 
vailed in geology since 1836, I reluctantly accepted, as a com- 
promise, the Lias age as the probable one. Having lived in 
the intimacy of Alcide d’Orbigny, Louis Agassiz, de Verneuil, 
and de Koninck, all of whom then thought and professed 
that the same forms of fossils extended at the same time all 
over the world, disappeared all at the same moment, and were 
replaced directly by a special creation of new forms; it was 
too much for me to oppose their views, although some facts 
had come already to my knowledge during my researches in 
the field in Europe and in America, which were contrary to 
that easy and sweeping doctrine; and it was not until 
Barrande had demonstrated the existence of colonies, and 
Deshayes had maintained with more proofs, his old opinion, 
that forms, and sometimes even species, pass from one group 
to another, and even from one system to another, that I had 
the courage to state my views and observations, without being 
influenced any more by the uniformist theory. 

In my Geological map of the United States and the British 
provinces of North America, with an explanatory text, etc., 
published in Boston, June, 1853, I represented the coal field of 
Richmond as Liassic. 

But during my exploration of the 35th parallel of latitude 
across the whole continent, I met the Trias and studied it on 
such a vast surface that I had no more hesitation; and from 
that date, 1853-1854, I have classified the coal series of Rich- 
mond with the Trias, as the equivalent and homotaxis of the 
European Keuper, (Résumé of a geological reminiscence ex- 
tending from Napoleon at the junction of the Arkansas with 
the Mississippi to the Pueblo de Los Angeles in California, 
House Documents, 129, pp. 40-48, Washington, 1855; and 
Résumé explicatif @une carte géologique des Htats- Unis, etc., 
in “Bulletin Soc. Geol. France,” vol. x11, pp. 871-872, Mai, 
1855, Paris). 

About the same time Dr. E. Emmons was studying the coal 
series of North Carolina, and in his First Report of the 
geological survey of North Carolina, Raleigh, 1852, at p. 148, 
he says that the coal rocks of North Carolina (Deep river coal) 
belong to the “Upper New Red sandstone,” which is the 
Keuper. Misled by the erroneous classification of Murchison 


j xi y 5 | vie rel "9 ans Pera yal 
7 dy “7 ‘a 5% 


eS 
meu 
Vu 1 


Triassic Flora of Richmond.—Marcou. v 165 


for the Trias and Dyas of Russia, confounded and placed into 
a single system, under the name Permian, Emmons, at p. 159, 
(loc. cit.) inclines to adopt the view that “the coals of Deep and 
Dan rivers are Permian.” 

I was not aware of the existence of that report until 1860, 
when Dr. Emmons wrote me from Raleigh in November: “I 
sent the other day my report for 1852, which is so shabby that 
I hated to send it to decent men,” on account of bad printing. 

I took advantage of my stay in Zurich to submit to my 
friend and colleague at the federal Polytechnic School, Oswald 
Heer, some of my specimens of fossil plants from Richmond 
and asked his opinion. Heer studied carefully a few—only 
three—of my specimens, and all the plates published by W.B. 
Rogers, Bunbury and Emmons; and his conclusions were 
that the coal flora of Richmond is contemporaneous with the 
flora of the Keuper of Wtirtemberg, Switzerland and Bavaria, 
agreeing entirely with my view published twice before in 1854 
and 1855 at Washington and in Paris. Heer wrote me an 
open letter on the subject, dated Zurich, July 25th, 1857, which 
I have published in my Geology of North America, at p. 16, 
4to, Ziirich, 1858. Dr. Emmons, having asked me as a favor 
to send him a copy of that letter—before the issue of my book 
then already going through the press—I complied with his 
request, and he communicated it to his old friend and prede- 
cessor at Williams college, professor C. Dewey. Without ask- 
ing my permission Dewey arranged with Mr. James D. Dana, 
a publication of that letter, using at the same time my own 
letter to Emmons, and the whole appeared in the “Amer. 
Jour. Sci.” vol xxiv, p. 428, 1857, under the initials C. D., with 
Additional remarks by J. D. Dana. My name is struck out 
from the letter of Heer, addressed to me, and instead it is said 
that Heer examined professor Emmons’ specimens from 
North Carolina and forwarded his conclusions to him, two 
errors absolutely inexcusable, for Messrs. Dewey and Dana 
had in their hands, first, my letter to Emmons, from which 
they made quotations, and second, the copy of the letter from 
Heer to me, with my address on it. 

Dr. Emmons wrote me, Oct. 24, 1857, from Raleigh: “TI 
have been extremely gratified at what has ultimately taken 
place (in regard to Lyell accepting the age of the Richmond 
coal field as Keuper), and which yourself and professor Heer 


166 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


have been instrumental in bringing about. It will do much 
to settle our geology on a true basis.” In another letter, 
dated Albany, August 29,1860: “It seems something wrong 
took place in the publication of professor Heer’s letter to you 
in Sillman’s Journal. Ithought that professor Dewey would 
state exactly how that letter came into my hands, for I gave 
him your letter also”. Finally in another letter dated March 
12,1859, Dr. Emmons says: “I am much obliged to you for 
your work on the Geology of North America. It was of great 
service to me as I availed myself of all the kind expressions 
relative tome. It saved, I think, the survey of North Car- 
olina from going by the board. * * * * Shall we, in 
this country, have the fortune to be reinforced by your 
future residence here? We are sadly off for men of the true 
stamp. I have heard professor Henry express his regrets at 
what has taken place here in regard to yourself, who I know 
entertains for you the highest respect.” 

In résumé, in 1849, when on the field near Richmond, I 
parallelized the coal beds there, with the Keuperian coal of 
eastern France, Switzerland and Wurtemberg; regarding the 
upper part of the series of Richmond as the equivalent and 
homotaxis of the whole Keuper or Upper Trias. After my 
two notices of 1849 and 18538,in which I hesitated to refer 
those rocks to the Keuper or the Lias, on account of fossil 
fishes considered as Liassic by Agassiz, I took a definite con- 
clusion in 1854, after my return from my exploration by the 
35th parallel of latitude, and placed them as the upper part of 
the Trias, or American Keuper of the Atlantic states. 

Without knowing my researches, nor publications, Dr. 
Emmons, first in 1852, and- afterward in 1857, came to the 
same conclusion, referring the coal formation of Richmond 
and North Carolina to the Dyas and Trias. He found two 
series of strata, the Chatham series and the coal of Dan river, 
5,000 feet of thickness in North Carolina, containing fossil 
animals and plants indicating great lacustrine and brackish 
water deposits, analogous and of the same age as the upper 
Dyas and the whole Trias of Germany, England, France and 
Russia, 

In comparing our publications in 1860, we agreed on the age 
of the series of strata of the coal formations of the vicinity of 
Richmond and North Carolina, regarding them as the equiva- 


eh a 


Triassic Flora of Richmond.—Marcou. 167 


lent of the whole Trias of Europe, and the upper part of the 
Dyas at least, perhaps the whole Dyas. Emmons and I 
walked hand in hand on that question, as we shortly after 
harmonized entirely on the primordial fauna and the Taconic 
question. The disappearance and death of my friend Emmons, 
during the great civil war, has left me alone to maintain our 
views and observations. I have done all that was in my 
limited power to sustain the correctness of our observations, 
and have tried to give an exact chronological order of Amer- 
ican stratigraphy, a primary want, without which all is confu- 
sion and chaotic. To be sure I have also tried to have our 
right of priority on all difficult questions on which we have 
made most important discoveries, recognized ; and so far [am 
satisfied of the great progress made since 1885. Emmons’ 
great discovery of the Taconic system,of the Primordial fauna, 
of the Trias of North Carolina and of the upper Dyas (Chat- 
ham series) are in a fair way of being accepted and used by 
the majority of geologists. As to my own discoveries, I feel 
sure also that they will be,in time, admitted and referred 
rightly ; for after all, truth and honesty get always the upper 
hand, notwithstanding all opposition and unfair dealing of 
not over scrupulous adversaries. 

To that second period belong the two editions of my Geolog- 
ical map of the world, 1861 and 1875, in which I have colored 
the coal basins of Richmond and North Carolina as belonging 
to the New Red sandstone (Dyas and Trias) epoch; and in 
my EHrplication dune second édition dela carte géologique 
de la Terre, Zurich, 1875, 4to, pp. 43-49, I have maintained 
the age of the Dyas and Trias, as observed and determined by 
Emmons, Heer and myself. 

THIRD PERIOD, 1883-1889.—Lately the United States Geolog- 
ical Survey has issued two monographs by Messrs. W. M. 
Fontaine and J. S. Newberry, on the coal series of the vicinity 
of Richmond, which so far as practical geology and American 
classification are concerned, are a step backward and ina 
wrong direction. 

Professor Fontaine’s memoir is entitled: Older Mesozoic 
Hora of Virginia, Washington, 4to, 1888, only issued in Feb- 
ruary, 1885; forty-two plants from Virginia are described and 
figured. Probably the original drawings were good, but the 
plates are poorly executed, and on the whole the illustrations 


168 The American Geologist. March, 1890 _ 


of that Virginian flora do not render justice to the beautiful 
specimens of those fossil plants. The descriptions are gen- 
erally good; only the reference to species and even to genera 
may be improved, as has been shown by professor Zeiller of 
the School of Mines, of Paris, and by Mr. D. Stur, the director 
of the geological survey of Austro-Hungary. 

The paper of director Stur (loc. cit.) is a very important 
and just review and criticism of professor Fontaine’s mono- 
graph. Without entering into details, I shall only remark, 
that to my great satisfaction, director Stur refers the very 
common Fguisetum of Virginia to the Hy. arenaceum of the 
vicinity of Stuttgart, as I did in 1849; and also the very 
abundant and characteristic Calamites to Cal. meriani of 
the Swiss Keuper. According to Mr. Stur’s careful determi- 
nation of the specimens of Virginia put into his hands by the 
director of the United States geological survey, several of the 
species named by professor Fontaine pass into synonymy, 
having been described by Brongniart, Jaeger, Kurr, Heer and 
Stur. From the tables published by Messrs. Fontaine and 
Stur, showing the names of the Virginia plants and their 
affinities, it is certain that we have there a Keuper flora, well 
characterized, representing and the equivalent of the Letten- 
kohl flora of Lunz and Raibl. As the plants in Virginia range 
and are distributed all over the one thousand feet thickness 
of the upper strata, being more concentrated, however, at 
about seven hundred feet below the superior sandstone, just 
as in southern Tyrol, we can say, without the least doubt, that 
the coal fields of eastern Virginia are the equivalent of the 
whole Keuper of Europe, and that the flora represents the 
flora of the Lettenkohl of Germany, as Emmons said as far 
back as 1852, using exactly the same name of LettenkoAl in 
his first report of the geological survey of North Carolina. 
Professor Fontaine thinks the Virginia flora is not older than 
Rheetic. That is to say, that the coal series of Richmond 
belong and are the equivalent of the Rhetic formation of 
Europe. The Rhetic is simply the “Avicula contorta zone,” 
or Infra-Lias, or third division of my superior stage of the 
Keuper of the “Jura Salinois;” the color and uppermost type 
of the Trias; an extremely limited subdivision of the fifth 
order, whose average thickness in central Europe is only 
twenty to thirty feet, while in Virginia and North Carolina the 


Triassic Flora of Richmond.—Marcou. 169 


series of strata forming the coal field are four or five thousand 
feet thick; that is to say, a formation of the first order or 
system, with fossil plants and fossil animals scattered at 
different elevations, belonging to forms which in Europe 
range from the Dyas to the Rhetic. Such a narrow inter- 
pretation of paleophytology, according to proportion of a few 
species—even not very reliable as to their exact determina- 
tion and affinity—if accepted in classification will nullify 
practical geology and stratigraphic researches. For, then, our 
table of classification and nomenclature will have to depend 
only on the present status of a certain class of paleontologists, 
and of fossil-finders in some places, only imperfectly explored. 
Twenty-five feet of a standard typical sub-group of western 
Europe can not be extended into five thousand feet in another 
part of the world, with the suppression at the same time of all 
the rest of the system in which the small sub-group of twenty- 
five feet is enclosed. For such is the true meaning of profes- 
sor Fontaine’s classification in referring the five thousand feet 
of all the older Mesozoic strata of Virginia and North Carolina 
to the Rhetic only, and not to the whole Trias. With such 
principles comparative stratigraphy between Europe and 
other parts of the world will be absolutely useless. In fact it 
will be the abandonment of all the rules used in geology, and 
with which that science has been built up from the days of 
Werner, Smith, Brongniart,to those of Berrande and Emmons. 

In his monograph professor Fontaine has given almost 
verbatim the descriptions of Emmons’ coal plants of North 
Carolina, from page 97 to page 128; reproducing also all 
Emmons’ figures, copied from American geology, Part v1. 
He accepts forty species of Emmons and concludes, even with 
more force than for Virginia, that the flora of North Carolina 
“can not be older than Rheetic;” adding: “We are then, I 
think, entitled to consider that the older Mesozoic flora of 
North Carolina and Virginia is most probably Rheetic in age, 
and certainly not older. Some authors hold that the Rhetic 
beds form the uppermost of the Triassic strata. Others think 
that they are transition beds, having more affinity with the 
Lower Lias. The latter view will, I think, be justified by a 
study of the flora, and I haye,in this memoir, assumed its 
correctness. (Loe. cvt. p. 128.) 

It is simply an attempt to return, as far as it is possible to 


170 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


do, without nullifying almost all the paleophytologic charac- 
ters, to the Jurassic opinion expressed by William B. Rogers 
and defended by Henry D. Rogers and James Hall.’ The papers 
by professor Zeiller and director Stur sufficiently repel this 
move backward toward an error given up, by Lyell, as far 
back as 1857, when on a visit to me at Zurich. (Geology of 
North America, etc. p. 16.) 

The monograph of Dr. Newberry entitled: Fossil fishes 
and fossil plants of the Triassic rocks of New Jersey and the 
Connecticut valley, 4to, Washington, 1888, received lately, 
November, 1889, although confined in the title to Connecticut 
and New Jersey, treats also in a special chapter, “Geological 
sketch,” of the age of the coal beds of Richmond and North 
Carolina. As it was to be expected, Dr. Newberry tries to 
enforce as much as he can the conclusions and researches of 
professor Fontaine, and at the same time to diminish the 
value of the researches and conclusions arrivedat by Emmons 
and myself. However, he goes too far when he says: “Many 
figures and descriptions of the remains of both plants and 
animals were also published by Prof. Ebenezer Emmons in 
his geological report of the midland counties of North Car- 
olina in 1856, but, though deservedly eminent as a geologist, 
professor Emmons had little acquaintance with paleontology, 
and this contribution rather increased than satisfied the desire 
for more thorough knowiedge of the life of the Atlantic coast 
in Mesozoic times. No systematic collection nor thorough 
study of the fauna or flora of the formation as a whole was 
attempted until about 1880, when Prof. W.M. Fontaine, of the 
University of Virginia, began a careful review of the fossil 
plants of the Virginia and North Carolina Mesozoic coal basins. 
His results were published in a memoir on “The older 
Mesozoic flora of Virginia, which was issued in 1888, as vol- 
ume 4 of the monographs of the U.S. geological survey. This 
threw a food of light upon the vegetation of the Atlantic 
coast in the Mesozoic ages and established beyond question 
the parallelism of our New Red sandstone with the Keuper of 
Europe; a matter which has been much debated with some- 


> Red sandstone of the Connecticut river valley, and the proof of its 
Oélitic or Liassic age. (‘‘Proceed. Amer. Ass. Ad. Science,’’? Washing- 
ton, 1854, p. 290. The paper was not printed and has remained in 
manuscript to this day, which is very regretable, for in it we might 
have found a ‘‘flood of light.’’ 


Triassic Flora of Richmond.—Marcou. 171 


what discordant conclusions, by Hitchcock, the brothers 
Rogers, Lyell, Marcou and Emmons.” (Zoe. cit. pp. x1 and 
Kit.) 

First, Dr. Newberry thinks that “professor Emmons had 
little acquaintance with paleontology,” the most extraordi- 
narily incorrect statement ever made against numerous and 
plain facts. I shall only say that Emmons created the Prim- 
ordial fauna, as a special fauna, in which all his determina- 
tions and descriptions of species and genera are good and 
recognized as such by the two best paleontologic experts for 
palzozoic animals, Joachinn Barrande and J.W. Salter; while 
all his adversaries, even to this day, have blundered con- 
stantly and made the most glaring and unexcusable mistakes 
in their attempt at determining Taconic fossils. Dr. Emmons’ 
description of the oldest mammalia yet found in the world, 
the Dromatherium sylvestre, used and aecepted by all paleon- 
tologists, is another instance of his great acquaintance and 
thorough knowledge of paleontology. Finally his descrip 
tion of fossil plants of North Carolina, copied verbatim by 
professor Fontaine, and quoted by all paleophytologists in 
the world, have inscribed forever Dr. Emmons’ name among 
the pioneers and good describers of fossil plants. 

Second, to say that “no systematic collection nor thorough 
study of the fauna or flora of the formation as a whole was 
attempted until about 1880, when Prof. W. M. Fontaine, of 
the University of Virginia, began a careful review of the fossil 
plants of the Virginia and North Carolina Mesozoic coal 
basins,” is an unjustifiable attempt to pass over the careful 
researches of all those who have preceded Prof. Fontaine. 
Not only W. B. Rogers made “systematic collection and 
thorough study of the fauna and flora” of that formation, 
but also Lyell did it, Marcou did it, and Emmons did it, and 
our collections, put together, are far above and much better 
than the one made by Prof. Fontaine, for the very simple 
reason that we were the first collectors, and that some coal 
pits, very rich in fossil plants and fossil fishes, like Gowrie 
and Blackheath, were abandoned long before Prof. Fontaine’s 
explorations, and he found there only the remaining broken 
and poor specimens among the rubbish and debris. 

My large collection, sent in 1849 to the Jardin des Plantes 
of Paris, was never published. Adolphe Brongniart scattered 


Deeley ters Ye En i) Wate Fe aint 
4 Pos Ww t PALS Hie inbin i 


PRU SM oe IVS a ek 9 6 
ti Mia, i * tg wy ay ae PAI f 


Fant 


172 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


a part of it among the general andimmense collection of fossil 
plants of the national museum of natural history according 
to genera, giving them names, which have remained unpub- 
lished; but which may be found there and perhaps utilized 
in the future. Ofcourse all the new species found by me in 
1849, and only named by Ad. Brongniart. have been described 
and figured since by Emmons and Fontaine. At the laboratory 
of geology, in the Jardin des Plantes, the bulk of my collection 
has been preserved together, where it fills up ten or twelve 
draws. M. R. Zeiller, professor of paleophytology at the 
School of Mines, in Paris, has lately studied my collection and 
he wrote me: 
Paris, 24 February, 1889. 

Dear Sir anp CottEaGuE. * * * * ‘‘T have studied with great 
pleasure and interest your collection preserved in the gallery of 
geology. The assistant of M. Daubrée, to whom I made an applica- 
tion, placed directly before me all the drawers containing your collec- 
tion of fossil plants of the coal basin of Richmond. But all the 
species have been described already by Rogers, Emmons or Fontaine. 
Here is the list: 

Equisetum rogersi Schimp. or Eq. arenaceum Jaeg. 

Macroteniopteris magnifolia Rogers. 

Acrostichides linnexfolius Bunbury. 

Acrost. rhombifolius Fontaine. 

Acrost. microphylius Fontaine var. 

Asterocarpus virginiensis Fontaine. (Splendid specimens.) 

Ast. platyrrhochys Fontaine var. 

Besides I have found a Pterophyllum with very narrow leaflets, allied 
to some of the figures published by Mr. Fontaine under the name 
Ctenophyllum braunianum, but certainly identical to a species of the 
Trias of Lunz, the Pterophyllum riegesi Stur. 

In studying the excellent figures of Emmons, very roughly repro- 
duced by Fontaine, I have been led to contest several of the attrib- 
utions and determinations of the latter, more especially about the 
Albertia, which Fontaine wants to make an Otozamites. The Albertia 
latifolia of Emmonsis certainly an Albertia related to both Alb. latifolia 
and Alb. brauni; and until now all the Albertix have been found in 
Europe in the Bunter sandstein or Lower Trias.”’ 

Very sincerely yours, 
RENE ZEILLER. 

Professor Zeiller in an excellent paper: Sur la présence, dans 
le Grés Bigarré des Vosges de  ACROSTICHIDES RHOMBIFOLIUS 
Fontaine. (Bulletin Soc. Géol. France, vol. xx1, p. 693, Paris, 
1888), shows that all the types of fossil plants of Richmond 
and North Carolina belong to the Trias, ranging from the 


Triassic Flora of Richmond.—Marcou. 173 


Bunter sandstein or Lower Trias, to the Lettenkohl or 
Upper Trias; while on the contrary all the types of plants 
special and not characteristic of the Rhetic of Europe and 
Asia, such as Dictyophyllum, Pterozamites and Nilssonia 
are completely wanting in Virginia and North Carolina. 
Prof. Zeiller does not hesitate in agreeing with Heer, Emmons 
and myself, as to the age of the Keuper for the coal series of 
Richmond and North Carolina, synchronising these rocks 
with those of Basel, Stuttgart and Lunz. 

About the same time director Dionys Stur of the geological 
survey of Austria arrived exactly at the same conclusion, in 
his important paper: “Die Lunzer—(Lettenkohlen)—Flora in 
den Older Mesozoic beds of the coal tields of eastern Virginia” 
(Verhandlungen der k. k. geologischen Reichsanstalt, Nr. 10, 
1888, Vienna. ) 

Third; the supposed “Hood of light upon the vegetation of 
the Atlantic coast in the Mesozoic ages’ thrown by Prof. 
Fontaine, and that he “established beyond question the paral- 
lelism of our New Red sandstone with the Keuper of Europe,” 
is a very partial, and on the whole, incorrect opinion, for the 
work was done thirty years before by Heer, Emmons and 
myself. But more, professor Fontaine does not parallelize 
our Virginia New Red sandstone with the European Keuper, 
but with the Rheetic, taking special care to refer the Rhetic to 
the Lower Lias or Jurassic, and not to the Keuper or Trias. 

Farther on Dr. Newberry tries to make asort of compromise 
about the age and classification of the Rheetic, saying at p. 11, 
(Loc. cit.): “The Rheetic, formerly included in the Keuper, 
is known to form beds of passage between the Trias and the 
Lias, though with a still prevailing Triassic facies.” There 
Dr. Newberry’s view conflicts with professor Fontaine’s final 
and last conclusion, to place the Rhetic in the Jurassic system. 
It is almost superfluous to add that the Rheetic is not a group 
of “beds of passage,” but that it is still included in the Keuper 
by the majority of geologists who have practically studied it 
in the field, and that as far back as 1845, many years before 
the name Rhetic was created by my friend Gtmbel, the 
director of the geological survey of Bavaria, I classified and 
described all the strata of that group in the French Keuper of 
the Jura mountains. 

At the end of his chapter, “Geological notes,” Dr. Newberry 


174 The American Geologist. March, 1890 _ 


makes a last effort to strike out my Jurassic discovery in 
New Mexico, in order to maintain his saying of 1859: 1, that 
he failed to recognize the Jurassic formation in any of the 
localities where it has been said to occur by Mr. Marcou; 
2, that he found northeast of Galisteo, dicotyledonous leaves 
in the Jurassic sandstone of Marcou; 3, that he found also 
in several places of northern and central New Mexico the 
Gryphea pitcheri of the Texas Neocomian, in places where 
Marcou referred erroneously the strata to his “supposed 
Jurassic; and 4, finally that he has ‘shown Marcou’s so-called 
Jurassic to be Cretaceous.” Dr. Newberry claims that a “set 
of beds overlying the Trias and underlying the Dakota sand- 
stones occur in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, and are proved 
by their fossils to be Jurassic. ‘But these beds wedge out 
toward the south, and I have been unable to find any traces of 
them south of Enchanted Springs, near the lower line of Col- 
orado.” (Loe. cet. p. 15.) 

After my exploration of 1853, and the explorations in 1888 
and 1889 of the Tucumcari area by professors Robert T. Hill 
and Alpheus Hyatt, confirming in every respect my discovery 
of the Jurassic system by proved fossils, more especially the 
Grypheadilatata var. Tucumcari; and the Geological map 
of Northwestern New Mexico by captain Clarence E. Dutton 
(U.S. Geol. Surv., Sixth Annual Report for 1884-85, Washing- 
ton), the reaffirmation by Dr. Newberry, that he did find no 
traces of the Jurassic in New Mexico, does not require any 
commentary ; to quote it is sufficient. 

Cambridge, Mass., December, 1889. 


NOTE ON THE OCCURRENCE OF NATIVE COPPER IN THE 
ANIMIKIE ROCKS OF THUNDER BAY. 
By ANDREW C. LAwsox, Ottawa, Ont. 

Among the rock formations of lake Superior, the Keweena- 
wan or Nipigon series has long been recognized as strongly 
characterized and differentiated from older and newer rocks, 
by the occurrence of deposits of native copper. So distinctive 
have these features appeared that a common synonym for the 
series is “The copper-bearing rocks.” No occurrence of native 
copper in the Animikie rocks has, so far as the author is aware, 
been recorded. Any facts therefore, which indicate that native 


Copper in the Animikie Rocks.—Lawson. 175 


copper is not peculiarto the Keweenawan series, but occurs un- 
dersomewhat analogous conditions in association with the Ani- 
mikie rocks, which underlie it, will be received with interest 
both by geologists and miners familiar with lake Superior. 
Such facts have come under the notice of the writer during the 
past season, and it is here proposed to give a brief account of 
them since it will be some considerable time before a system- 
atic report of the geology of the region can be published. 
Field occurrence :+-Along the west side of S. W. 4 Sec. 8. 
Con. VI. in the township of Blake, District of Thunder Bay, 
runs a north and south trending ridge which presents an 
abrupt escarpment about two hundred feet high facing the 
east. To the west of the brink of the escarpment the surface 
slopes gradually to the old Pigeon River road. The section 
exposed in the face of the escarpment is very characteristic of 
all the numerous similar escarpments of this portion of the 
country and consists of about 150 ft. of nearly flat lying 
black shales and thin gray siliceous beds of the Animikie series, 
capped by about 50 ft. of vertically columnar diabase trap, 
Near the south end of the quarter section, there is an inden- 
tation or bay in the face of the escarpment affording a steep 
slope whereby it may be ascended from the valley to the east. At 
the foot of this slope some Indian prospectors found some 
pieces of amygdaloidal trap carrying native copper, which 
were brought to my notice at Port Arthur by Mr. C. Johnson, 
who had become interested in the find. In company with Mr. 
Johnson and his Indian guide I visited the ground last October, 
and found extending up the surface of this slope adyke-like ridge 
ofcupriferous amygdaloid. Thesurface had notbeen stripped, 
but was covered with soil, forest loam, brush, tree roots and 
moss. There were, however, four or five outcrops along the ridge 
from the bottom of the slope up to an elevation of 100 ft. 
These lay in a line which, by the compass, had a bearing of N. 
EK. and 8. W., which is the strike of the deposit provided it be 
a vertical attitude ; but this question cannot be determined till 
farther stripping and exploring has been done. If the deposit 
has a dip or hade, the true strike, which is of importance as a 
guide to further exploration, would have some other direction 
than N. E.and 8..W. The outcrops show very clearly a width 
of at least 15 to 20 ft., though nowhere is the contact with the 
country rock exposed. The trap has a much more pronounced 


176 The American Geologist. March, 1890 


amygdaloidal structure at the base of the slope than higher 
up, but does not carry so much visible copper. Thewhole ap- 
pearance is that of a dyke filling a fissure in the Animikie 
strata. Whether the amygdaloidal trap cuts the diabase trap 
cap which rests on the shales, cannot at present be determined. 
It probably does not. 

There are, however, some circumstances which, in view of 
the meagerness of the exposures, render other explanations 
possible, and the conclusion that the formation is a dyke can 
only be held tentatively. These are (1) that at a level of 100 ft. 
up the slope there is asmall outcrop of afine-grained, brownish- 
red sandstone such as is common in the Keweenawan series, 
but which has nowhere been observed by the writer in the Ani- 
mikie ; (2) dykes do not usually present a highly vesicular or 
amye¢daloidal structure which is rather the characteristic of 
surface flows ; (3) the supposed dykes are much more vesicular 
and the vesicules are larger at the foot of the sloping line of 
outcrop than at the top, which is contrary to what we would ex- 
pect with reference to the formation of vesicules in any molten 
mass of rock, the mass being usually more vesicular toward the 
top where the pressureisless. The other possible explanations, 
none of which are supported by any direct field evidence, are 
(1) that the supposed dyke may be asmall piece which has been 
let down within the Animikie by faulting from the Nipigon, 
which may be supposed to have once covered the Animikie 
here as it does elsewhere; or (2) it may be the infilling of a 
fissure in the Animikie formation from above by asurface 
flow of vesicular lava which brought down with it portions of 
the Nipigon sandstone; or (3), least likely of all, it may be a 
small outlying patch of the Nipigon resting on the surface of 
a pre-existing slope of the Animikie. 

A little exploration and mining would soon set at rest these 
questions as to the precise nature of the formation. We have 
this fact at least,that it is arock of the same facies as the amygda- 
loids of the Keweenawan or Nipigon, similarly charged with 
copper, well within the Animikie slates and apparently cutting 
them. In this respect the formation differs from the amygda- 
loids of the Keweenawan which are interbedded and contem- 
poraneous with the other rocks of that age, while the forma- 
tion here discussed is apparently of later age than the Ani- 
mikie, and may very probably be of Keweenawan age, though 
associated with Animikie rocks. 


Copper in the Animikie Rocks. 177 


Character of the rock.—The rock in which the copper occurs 
is a fine-textured purplish-brown trap strongly amygdaloidal 
in some portions and only feebly so in others. The least amy- 
gdaloidal portions when examined in thin section prove to be 
typical diabase. Slender idiomorphic plagioclase crystals 
lie embedded in allotriomorphic masses of purplish to yellow- 
ish gray augite and in yellowish green masses ofchlorite which 
is doubtless the result of the alteration of the augite. Yellow- 
ish brown iron oxide partly opaque and partly translucent oc- 
curs in profusely scattered grains. 

The more amygdaloidal portions show in thin sections a 
finer texture but an equally strongly pronounced ophitic struc- 
ture. Augite is not so abundant and plagioclase is the domi- 
nant mineral. A portion of the base appears to be glass, be- 
ing colorless and isotrophic ; and the augite is probably repre- 
sented in part by the glass and in part by certain decomposi- 
tion products interstitial between the feldspars. Magnetite 
and brown ironoxide are generally distributed. The crystals of 
plagioclase are arranged tangentially to the periphery of the 
amygdaloidal cavities. The latter are filled with calcite or 
dolomite anda brightly polarizing fibrous or lamellar mineral 
doubtless a zeolite. In the thin sections examined no cop- 
per was detected, but macroscopically it may be seen scattered 
through the rock in small grains whichdo not appear to fill 
up the round vesicles, but to be more irregular in shape. 

The brown red sandstone above referred to is very fine tex- 
tured and could not be identified as a sandstone with certain- 
ty in the field. In this section it is seen to consist of an aggre- 
gate of rounded, pear-shaped and angular grains of feldspar, 
pyroxene, chlorite and quartz, all the grains having a coating 
of iron oxide. A good deal of the secondary matrix appears 
to be feldspar, probably albite and orthoclase, andit is full of 
slender colorless needle-like microlites. Twinning lamelle of 
the secondary feldspar are in some cases distinct, but for the 
most part are not apparent. Some of the rounded clastic 
grains of feldspar show feeble traces of secondary growth. 

Proportion of Copper.—A few specimens of the rock were 
collected with the view of ascertaining its average value as a 
copper ore. Four of these have been submitted to Mr. F. L. 
Sperry, chemist to the Canadian Copper Co.,at Sudbury,who 
has very kindly analyzed them. These specimens taken from 


178 The American Geologist. March 1890. 


different parts of the outcrop at an elevation of 64 feet above 
the foot of the slope, and one from the lowest outcrop gave the 
following percentages of copper: 


Rample: No.l Gtitect Levede yi Uw ir a es 1.32% Copper. 
Pe IN ODA LOWES HOWLEL OP rinlsalee si 4ld/\iee eee) 0.27% a 
HRN On oy OF LOCU LO MONG | a ee rise laslelle as Jere eee 2.88% it 
CINORAR IN Se ear: ALN REM A RARE MU 3.57% 3 


Besides this occurrence the writer was also shown other 
specimens of amygdaloidal trap carrying native copper, which 
were said to come from the township of Crooks; but although 
the locality was carefully examined the deposit could not be 
found as the services ofthe guide who knew its whereabouts 
could not be secured. Later in the season Mr. Hille, mining 
engineer of Port Arthur, secured the necessary guide and pro- 
ceeded to the place where these specimens were taken, and he 
has since informed the writer that he succeeded in locating a 
dyke-like formation of amygdaloidal trap carrying copper in 
Sec. 4, Con. II of Crooks. But enough has been advanced to 
show that the Animikie rocks of Thunder bay are worth care- 
ful prospecting for copper. 


REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 


Geology of the quicksilver deposits of the Pacific slope, with an atlas, 
By Grorce F. Becker. pp. xix and 486; with 7 plates, 20 figures in 
the text, and atlas of 14 sheets. (Monographs of the U. 8S. Geol. 
Survey, vol. XIII, 1888). 

An earlier monograph of this survey by Mr. Becker treats of the 
geology of the Comstock lode and the Washoe district ; and that inves- 
tigation was a most useful preparation for the present work. Steam- 
boat Springs, one of the most instructive localities of quicksilver mining 
described in this volume, is in the west edge of Nevada, only six miles 
northwest from the wonderfully rich Comstock lode, with which it has 
very close relationship in its geology and ore deposits. This locality 
lies close east of the great Sierra, but all the districts in California 
where quicksilver mining has been productive are in or near the Coast 
Ranges, separated from the Sierra Nevada by the Sacramento and 
San Joaquin valley. The comprehensive study of the probable origin 
and manner of formation of these quicksilver deposits has involved 
the consideration of much of the stratigraphic geology of western Cal- 
ifornia, and that of its eastern part, including the Sierra, will doubt- 
less be similarly examined in Mr. Becker’s next monograph, on the 
Gold Belt of California, which work was entered upon immediately 
after the completion of this report. 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 179 


During the thirty-six years from 1850 to 1885 inclusive, the world’s 
product of quicksilver is estimated at 101,300,000 kilograms, or about 
223,000,000 pounds, its estimated value being $146,800,000. The chief 
uses of this metal are for the amalgamation of ores and the manufac- 
ture of vermilion. As the process of amalgamation was discovered in 
Mexico more than three hundred years ago, and has ever since been 
extensively employed there in mining gold and silver, the Mexican 
government was led in 18738 to offer large bounties for the development 
of quicksilver mines. , But the first discovery of the great quicksilver 
deposits of California was made so late as 1845, at New Almaden, 
which from 1850 to 1886 yielded 853,259 flasks of 7614 pounds avoirdu- 
pois. Thetotal product of the California mines during the same 
period was 1,451,570 flasks, being about half of the total production of 
the world. The large ratio was much increased from 1875 to 1883 by 
the rapid mining of the Comstock lode, the extraction of its bullion 
being wholly by amalgamation. 

All the quicksilver mines of the world and the principal known 
localities of its occurrence are described, the greatest mine being that 
of Almaden, in Spain. Its other most important mines are at Idria, 
‘Austria, in Tuscany, in Kwei-Chau, China, and in Huancavelica, 
Peru; but the Peruvian mines have not been worked during recent 
years. The proportion of California to other countries in the produc- 
tion of this metal since 1850 is not likely to be maintained; for 
Almaden, Idria, and Kwei-Chau have far greater amounts of ore in 
sight, although the Almaden mines have been worked since 415 B. C. 
In Europe and Asia these deposits bear a relation to the great moun- 
tain belt stretching from the Pyrenees and Alps east to the Himalayas, 
called by Mr. Becker the Alpimalayan chain similar to the relation of 
the American deposits to the Cordilleran belt that forms the Pacific 
border of the whole western continent. 

Cinnabar is everywhere the principal ore of quicksilver, and it is in 
most cases demonstrable that its deposition was subsequent to some 
disturbance of the country rock. In the quicksilver mines of Califor- 
nia the usual mineral association consists of cinnabar and traces of 
native mercury, with pyrite and marcasite, silica and carbonates; but 
sulphur occurs at three mines, chalcopyrite is not very uncommon, 
stibnite is found rarely, gold or auriferous pyrite occurs in a few cases, 
millerite in a number of instances, and barite in one. A new bitumen, 
two new chromium minerals, and a red antimony sulphide have been 
detected with cinnabar in this investigation. The cinnabar occurs in 
the form of veins, sometimes cutting sedimentary rocks and some- 
times following the stratification. Connected with the veins are also 
recticulated masses and chambers of the ore, and adjoining porous 
sandstone is often impregnated with it. 

The country rock of the cinnabar deposits of the Pacific slope is of 
the most varied character, ranging from granite, probably Archzean, at 
the Steamboat Springs to modern lake beds and recent lava at Sulpbur 


180 The American Geologist. March 1890. 


Bank. The one occurs in every variety of the early Cretaceous 
(Neocomian) rocks, including unaltered sandstones, and metamorphic 
phthanite, pseudo-diabase, pseudo-diorite, glaucophane schists, and 
serpentine. The most important deposits are’found in the metamor- 
phosed rocks, but this seems to be due only to their hardness. Chico 
sandstones, the uppermost Cretaceous formation of California, contain 
cinnabar at New Idria. Elsewhere this ore is found in sandstones that 
are believed to be Miocene, in Pliocene and post-Pliocene andesite, 
and in recent basalt. 

Great similarity of all these quicksilver deposits indicates that they 
were not derived from the enclosing diverse rock formations, and that 
they have had a common history, which in two places has been con- 
tinued to the present time. The process of deposition of cinnabar from 
heated waters holding soluble double sulphides, issuing from great 
depths, is still going forward at Steamboat Springs and Sulphur Bank, 
where, as well asin the laboratory, Mr. Becker has carefully studied 
the chemical conditions of the solution and precipitation of this ore. 
He concludes that the enclosing rocks have been without effect upon 
the deposits, since they occur in nearly all the rocks of the Coast 
Ranges. The origin of the quicksilver is shown to be probably by 
leaching from the underlying granite, which the author believes to be 
the first-formed crust of the globe, still in many places exposed to 
view and forming its surface. 

Deposition of cinnabar appears to have taken place through 
the agency of hot sulphur springs, which were probably in all 
cases of volcanic origin. Basalt of Quaternary age is the lava usually 
associated with the deposits ; but at New Almadenit is a rhyolite dike, 
which is probably Quaternary or late Pliocene. The author shows 
that after the close of the Jurassic no eruptions seem to have taken 
place in the Coast Ranges until the close of the Miocene or a little 
later. Andesites were then ejected at intervals until the close of the 
Pliocene. Younger andesites, which seem to be early Quaternary, 
constitute a natural group of trachyte-like rocks, for which the name 
asperites is proposed in this report. These form Mt. Shasta and the 
surrounding country, and are extensively developed at Clear lake, 
thence southward to the bay of San Francisco, and at Steamboat 
Springs. Still later, during the Quaternary and down to very recent 
times there have been many basalt eruptions. The date of the latest 
in the vicinity of Sulphur Bank was probably within a thousand years 
or less; and in northern California there is good reason for believing 
that there has been a small basaltic eruption within forty years. From 
these records of voleanic activity it appears that the age of the cinna- 
bar deposits is limited to post-Miocene time, and there is little doubt 
that nearly all the ore has been deposited since the end of the Pliocene. 


On new plants from the Erian and Carboniferous, and on the characters 
and affinities of palzxozoic gymnosperms. By Sir J. Witiram Dawson, 
LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &e. (From the Canadian Record of Science, 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 181 


January, 1890). This paper is based on some fossil plants found by 
Mr. R. D. Lacoe in Meshoppen, Wyoming county, Pa. It describes 
Dictyo-cordaites lacoi, and Tylodendron baini. The author unites and 
compares fragmentary material from different places, published under 
different names, arriving at some condensed statements of the affin- 
ities of palzeozoic gymnosperms which tend toward the further elucida- 
tion of the history of vegetable life. He concludes as follows: 

1. That the nearest structural affinities of the palzeozoic gymnosperms 
with the higher cryptogams lead toward all the groups of acrogens, 
viz: Sigillarie, Calamitez, Lepidodendrez, and Ferns. 

2 That the present dominant groups of Conifers proper and 
Cycadaceze are absent or slenderly represented in the palzozoic. 

3. That the dominant palzeozoic families are the Neoggerathie, 
Cordaitez and Taxinez, and that these occupied a prominent and 
important place, and culminated in the palzeozoic and early Mesozoic 
periods. — ; 

4. The two former families, did they now exist, would supply con- 
necting links between the Coniferze and Cycadez, and between the 
latter and the Acrogens. 


Prof. O. C. Marsh contributes to the London Geological Magazine for 
January a description of one of the new reptilian forms recently 
announced by him from the Cretaceous strata of the western states. 
Prof. Marsh has enriched the American fossil vertebrate fauna with 
many strange forms of extinct life, but probably none of them sur- 
passes or perhaps equals this. Of all the reptiles that marked the 
Mesozoic age the group to which this fossil belongs is one of the most 
peculiar. The Ceratopside, or horned family, show us the possibili- 
ties of variation in a most remarkable manner. It seems as if 
nature at the moment when the scepter was passing away forever 
from the type of vertebrates had undertaken to try her hand at produc- 
ing a more monstrous and bizarre combination of characters than the 
age had ever seen. The last reptile sovereign of the Mesozoic empire 
was at the same time a summary of its ancestors and a prophecy of its 
successors. 

In the very highest of the Cretaceous strata of Wyoming and Mon- 
tana, ‘‘fresh water or brackish deposits which form a part of the 
so-called Laramie,’’ are found the fossils from which Prof. Marsh has 
constructed the genus Ceratops, as the type of the family. His paper 
in the Geological Magazine describes the genus Triceratops by the 
species T. flabellatus and T. horridus. The skull of this genus is the larg- 
est known among land animals recent and extinct. In the former species 
it measures six feet and in the latter eight feet in length. Seen from 
above it reminds one strongly, in general shape of the head, of a bird, 
being round behind and tapering to a sharp point in front. A side 
view suggests at the front the profile of a rhinoceros, by the massive 
nasal bones and the thick short tubercle, representing the ‘‘horn”’ of 
that animal. At the back the large rounded orbit and the two long 


182 The American Geologist. March 1890. 


horn-cores growing from the frontal bones strongly recall the head of 
the ox. In most skulls the fore maxillary bones occupy the front 
place, but here Prof. Marsh describes one anterior to those, which he 
calls the ‘‘rostral’? bone. A corresponding bone in front of the 
symphysis of the lower maxillaries is called the ‘‘dentary’’ bone. It 
is not quite clear from Prof. Marsh’s paper whether or not these 
bones exhibit the true osseous tissue. He calls them dermal ossifica- 
tions and says that they were covered by strong horny beaks like 
those of birds. In addition to these extravagances of nature in this 
singular genus of reptiles, the hinder part of the head is covered with 
enormously expanded parietal and squamosal bones all four of which 
meet the frontals and are bordered behind and outwardly by a row of 
small ossicles, ‘‘epoccipital bones,’’ like tubercles or blunt spines 
which, says Prof. Marsh, had horny coverings and in old animals were 
coossified with the adjoining plates. 

Prof. Marsh adds that these stray fossils characterize a distinct 
horizon in the so-called Laramie group of the Upper Cretaceous, which 
may be traced for 800 miles along the Rocky mountains. 

Mr. Howorth contributes a paper to the same journal on the question, 
“Did the great Siberian rivers flow southward in the Mammoth age ?’’ 
He shows that the whole area of northern Asia has long been slowly 
rising and thus tending toward'a state of things that prevailed in the 
past. He shows that no great amount of elevation would be necessary 
to prevent the northern flow of the Obi and the Yenessei, their upper 
reaches being now only 200 or 300 feet above the sea, so that an eleva- 
tion of from 40 to 50 fathoms would suffice to reverse the drainage of 
this region. 

The structure of the Asiatic continent requires as a corollary from 
this conclusion that a vast Mediterranean sea must have existed there, 
and of this Mr. Howorth offers the following evidence: 

1. The scattered lakes over this part of Asia are inhabited by the 
same animals. 

2. The intervening stretches of desert contain semi-fossil shells of 
the species still living in the lakes. 

Asa further argument Mr. Howorth points out that it has been a 
difficulty with geologists to understand how the great sea which once 
certainly filled the Aralo-Caspian depression was supplied with water. 
This difficulty he removes by the theory advanced in his paper. 

Mr. Howorth further remarks that the great rivers of European 
Russia still flow southward and that what he here maintains regard- 
ing the Obi and the Yenessei was also true of the Lena. It concludes 
by calling attention to the influence which such a change in the phys- 
ical geography must have had on the climate by rendering it milder 
and more capable of supporting the fauna whose remains are now 
found in the Tundras of Siberia. 

It is an obvious inference from Mr. Howorth’s premises that north- 
ern Asia is rapidly tending back to the former state and that in an ag 


- f b 1 
ie cyt 
PLATED vs 
n Nee » 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 183 


geologically not distant we may expect to see the course of these great 
rivers reversed and a Mediasian sea occupying southern Siberia. 


Untersuchungen ueber Gesteine und Mineralien aus West Indien, von J. 
H.Kutoos. (Samml.d. Geol. Reichs-Mus. in Leiden, 1889, p. 169). The 
former part of this work was noticed in the GroLoaist on p. 61, vol. 1. 
The rocks described in this part are from Dutch Guiana, and constitute 
a part of the collection which was made by professor Martin and depos- 
ited in the Leiden museum. The molluscan fauna was described and 
illustrated in the former part by Dr. J. Lorié and M. M. Schepman, 
and indicate a late Tertiary age for the fossiliferous rocks. Mr. Kloos 
gives detailed microscopic descriptions of the massive rocks, including 
augite-audesyte, granite (containing augite), diabase (and amphibol- 
yte), crystalline schists, chlorite schist and a peculiar veined and 
schistose rock haying a porphyritic structure; also uralitic schist and 
hornblende gneiss. The work is illustrated by eighteen figures of 
microscopic thin sections. 


A catalogue of North American Palxozoic crustacea confined to the non- 
trilobitic genera and species. By ANTHONY W. Voaprs. Author’s 
edition. (From the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 
vol. vy, No. 1, 1889). The list is annotated, and shows a careful and 
laborious search in American literature. Some of the genera are 
figured, and nearly all have author’s diagnosis republished from the 
original descriptions. 


Note on the discovery of Trilobites in the Neobolus beds of the Salt-Range. 
By Witu1am Kina. (Records of the Geological Survey of India; Vol. 
xxi, Part 3, 1889, pp. 153-157.) The importance of the discovery of 
trilobites in the Neobolus beds of India can hardly be overestimated. 
These beds have been the subject of considerable controversy among 
Indian geologists; the beds being variously called Permian, Lower 
Carboniferous and Silurian. The discovery of trilobites, which Dr. 
Waagen, the palaeontologist, says undoubtedly belong to Conocephali- 
dx and Olenidx, at last proves the true position of these beds which 
must now fall even below the Silurian to ‘‘the upper region of the 
Lower Cambrian.’’ One specimen, according to Dr. Waagen, is very 
nearly related to Conocephalites formosus Hartt. This remarkable dis- 
covery is expected to be fully treated in the forthcoming parts of Vol. 
iv of the Salt-Range fossils and we shall wait with much interest the 
publication of these results.* 

Elemente der Palxontologie. By Gustav Srrernmann and Lupwie 
Da@pERLEIN. Part1, pp. 1-336, 1889. Part 11, pp, 337-848, 1890. W. 
Engleman, Leipzig. This work is on a plan similar to Zittel’s master- 
work ‘‘Handbuch der Palzeontologie ;’* the classification differs some- 
what and the work is not so profusely illustrated as Zittel’s, there 
being 609 figures of invertebrates as against 1,667 figures in Zittel; the 
latter work also containing almost twice as many pages as the former. 
The work on the whole will form a good substitute for Zittel to those 

*Compan AMERICAN GEOLOGIST, Vol Iv, p. 60. ia 


Dt) banned oie hy BVT ee Ree ee (ath s hw’ ~ 
4 RARE Wyck s POCy Wee 
PDN PW AN) A BE Anan 
POLGRH AOR NWS NC (utp e ay? ea? : 
HN } i, 
pene yah Ny 
Da) 


184 The American Geologist. Feb. 1890 


who do not want very comprehensive information on the subject, 
otherwise there is no substitute for Zittel, nor do the authors make 
any such claim. 


Devonian Plants from Ohio. By Dr. J. 8. Newperry. (From the 
Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, Vol. xu, 1889, 
pp. 48-56, plates 4-6.) : 

This paper gives some additional information about the paleobotany 
of the Corniferous limestone of Ohio, a formation which has contribut- 
ed but little to this science. Five species are figured and described, 
four of which are from the Delaware limestone or upper division of the 
Corniferous. The remaining species, Dadoxylon newberryi Dn., occur 
in the Huron shale, and according to Prof. Orton (Rep’t Geol. Surv. 
Ohio, vol. vi, p. 30) is found free in the shale and, also, at the centre 
of concretious. It is interesting to note that in New York state the 
Genesee shale, which is at about the same geological horizon as the 
lower Huron shale, contains so-called Coniferous wood, which Sir Wil- 
liam Dawson has named Dadoxylon clarkii. This species of Dadoxy~ 
lon is not rare in a concretionary layer of the Genesee shale on 
Canandaigua lake and at other localities in Ontario county, New York. 

One of the four Corniferous species, Sphenophyllum vetustum, is new 
and, except S. primzvum Lx. from the Hudson river group of Kentuc- 
ky and Ohio, it is the most ancient species of this genus yet found in 
America. The early occurence in the Corniferous limestone of Lepido- 
dendron gaspianum Dn., or a closely allied species, which was reported 
provisionally in 1873 (Rep’t Geol. Surv. Ohio, vol1, part 1 Geology, 
p. 147), is confirmed. The tree ferns Caulopteris antigua Newb. and C. 
peregrina Newb. were first figured and described by Sir William Daw- 
son in the Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., vol. xxvu, 1871, pp. 271-272. On 
p. 269 it is stated that Dr. Newberry had named the specimens but 
allowed Dawson to compare them with the other species described in 
the paper. In the Ohio geological report for 1873 (loc. cit. p. 146), Dr. 
Newberry mentions these species but without figures or description 
and it appears that his description has been delayed until the present 
paper, which is eighteen years later than Dawson’s. 

Dr. Newberry’s statement that ‘‘the fossil plants from New York 
described by Dawson, Hall and Vanuxem are from the Chemung or 
Catskill’ is somewhat erronous. It is true that in part they are from 
these formations, but the Hamilton period has furnished a considerable 
number of species. The number of species known from the New York 
Devonian is approximately as follows: The Corniferous limestone has 
Protosalvinia huronensis Dn. and the doubtful form called Spirophyton 
candagalli (Van.) Hall; the Macellus shale, six; Hamilton, nineteen ; 
Genesee, nine; Portage, six; Chemung, twenty-four; and the Catskill, 
five. 

The material of this paper was prepared originally for a part of vol. 
ur, of the Paleontology of Ohio, but unfortunately was not published 
by the State. There are drawings and descriptions of new species of 


Correspondence. 


Coal Measure plants, yet unpublished, which the author hopes to 
make the subject of another memoir. A portion of the specimens upon 
which the present paper is based may be seen in the Columbia College 
Museum in New York. 


Economic geological survey in Georgia and Alabama throughout the belt 
traversed by the Macon and Birmingham railway. By J. W. SPENCER. 
86 pp, 8vo, with a geological map. Athens, Ga. This is a neat, con- 
cise and thorough geological description of the area designated, in non- 
technical language. The report mentions a fault at the Henryellen 
coal mine, where thé direct slipping of the earth’s crust has brought 
the Knox dolomyte and the Coal Measures sharply side by side, the 
fault amounting to 9,000 feet. The Clinton iron ores, the cause of the 
growth of Birmingham, and the basis of the late increase in iron man- 
ufacture in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, are fully described, and 
several page-plates in half-tone from photographs give much aid in 
understanding the features of the country as described. The brown 
iron ores and the coal fields are fully described, also the gold belt of 
Georgia. Graphite,asbestos, corundum and tin are enumerated among 
the economic minerals. Soils and water-powers are noted and some 
of the latter illustrated. It would be well if all the southern railways 
had a similar survey and publication. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


Dr. Davip Honeyman. Dr. Honeyman was born at Corbier Hill, 
Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1817, and died at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 
17th of October, 1889. He received his education at the University of 
St. Andrews. Having selected the church as a profession, he studied 
first at Glasgow and afterwards at Edinburgh. In 1836 he entered the 
United Secession Theological Hall, was licensed in 1841, and joined 
the Free Church immediately after the Disruption. Honeyman was 
appointed professor of Hebrew in the Free Church College of Halifax 
in 1846, and after that time he made his home in America, being suc- 
cessively minister of the Presbyterian congregation of Schubenacadie, 
afterward of Antigonish, and finally in 1862 he resigned the ministry, 
and devoted himself wholly to scientific work. During his stay at 
Antigonish he made an excellent geological memoir on that part of 
Nova Scotia, which he published in 1865, in the Proceedings and Trans- 
actions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science, vol. 1, Part iv, 
p. 105. In 1862 he was appointed superintendent of the Nova Scotian 
section of the London International Exhibiton; and also at the Paris 
exhibition of 1867. During his stay in Paris his knowledge of the 
geology of Nova Scotia attracted the attention of Barrande and 
de Verneuil, both of whom esteemed very highly his observations on 
‘the Palzeozoic rocks and fossils. From that date, Barrande ‘‘neyer 


186 The American Geologist. March 1890. 


forgot me in the distribution of his very interesting and valuable pub- 
lications,’’ as Honeyman writes in one of his letters, dated Oct. 16th, 
1884, adding: ‘‘I received your volume on The Taconic system, with 
the interesting correspondence. I read Barrande’s letters very care- 
fully. Certainly Logan and the other adversaries of the Taconic do 
not make a very creditable appearance in the correspondence.’’ * * * 
‘“‘K. de Verneuil is gone, Barrande is also gone, and only Marcou is 
left of all my intimate friends of 1867. I am very glad to find that my 
very good friend Marcou still retains his pristine vigor and that his 
pen is always ready to defend his own and others’ rights. Long may 
he continue in vigor of body and mind.”’ 

Dr. Honeyman was an original and very careful observer; and he 
defended successfully all his researches in the field of Nova Scotian 
geology and his rights whenever attacked, as was the case in his con- 
troversy with Sir J. William Dawson. He published thirty-nine 
papers on the geology of Acadia, particularly on Arisaig, Antigonish, 
the gold-bearing series of Yarmouth, and the glacial action and trans- 
portation in Nova Scotia. All his communications were made before 
the Nova Scotian Institute and published in its transactions, contrib- 
uting largely to the reputation of that institute as well in the Canada 
Dominion as abroad. 

Honeyman’s sphere of action was not limited to geology and miner- 
alogy; he extended his studies to biological subjects. Eight of his 
papers treat of new and rare fishes, echinoderms, sponges and organ- 
isms found attached to sub-marine cables. He represented Nova 
Scotia at the London Fisheries Exhibition of 1883, as well as at the 
Dublin Exhibition of 1865 and at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibi- 
tion of 1876. Appointed curator of the Provincial Museum of Nova 
Scotia, he was so successful in his management, that he is justly con- 
sidered as the creator of it, at least to a large extent; for the museum, 
under his charge, has acquired such dimensions as to demand a 
special building for the display of its collections. Dr. Honeyman 
received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from King’s College, Windsor. 
He was a member of the Geological Society of France, a fellow of the 
Geological Societies of London and of America, and of the Royal 
Society of Canada. es Be 


PRHGLACIAL CHANNELS AT THE FALLS OF THE Onto. In a previous 
letter I referred to what seemed to be evidence of a terminal moraine 
near Louisville, Ky. Subsequent observation has confirmed this 
opinion, although there are many perplexing problems yet to be 
solved connected with the drift in this locality. 

A residence of five years in Louisville with daily opportunities for 
observation has impressed upon the mind of the writer, as never 
before, the fact that very little erosion has taken place in post-glacial 
times. It has also been made evident that very little scraping out 
was done by the glacier, but a good deal of filling in, especially 
toward the southern limit of the ice-sheet. It is well known to geol- 


Correspondence. 187 


ogists that the Ohio falls at Louisville have only been in existence 
since the ice age. The old channel of the Ohio river is supposed to 
have been south of its present bed where the city of Louisville now 
stands. While this may be true, perhaps, of one branch of it, yet 
another channel, as we will notice, has been discovered on the north 
side of the river in Indiana. The plain, upon which the city of Louis- 
ville is built, is chiefly a filled-in pre-glacial valley formed by the 
Beargrass and other tributaries that joined the Ohio at this place. 
Many of the smaller streams were entirely cut off during the melting 
of the ice-sheet, and the two branches of the Beargrass, still in exist- 
ence, are only relics of their former greatness, their mouths having 
been filled in to a very great extent. At the mouth of the East branch, 
at one of the distilleries, a well was sunk to the depth of four hundred 
feet without coming to rock; yet near it, the present stream flows 
over limestone rock that comes very near the surface. At the mouth 
of the west branch of the Beargrass a sewer is being constructed to 
connect with it. For the distance of over half a mile, right in face 
of the ridge or terrace, no rock was reached at a depth of twenty-five 
feet, showing that the ancient valley must have been this wide. The 
present stream is very narrow—not more than thirty feet wide—and as 
it breaks through the ridge it flows eastward, seemingly up hill, for 
evidence of an old channel is seen running to the west where it must 
have connected with the Ohio river in preglacial times, below, not 
above the falls, as at present. The valleys of the Beargrass opened 
into the wider valley of the Ohio where a meeting of the waters takes 
place. The old channels running through this valley or plain can still 
be traced through the city of Louisville and vicinity by the numerous 
depressions between the river and the ridges. About six miles above 
the falls the Ohio river seems to haye parted in early times, as here 
the valley begins to open out on both sides of the present stream. One 
arm, if not several, came downon the Kentucky side, another stretches 
out around the city of Jeffersonville, Ind., and can be traced by a line 
of swampy depressions at the base of what is known as Walnut ridge, 
very much like the preglacial channel of the Mississippi river at 
Minneapolis and vicinity. This Indiana branch or old preglacial 
river, leaving the present channel of the Ohio below Utica, curved to 
the left—as we look up the stream—and, bending southward again, it 
joined the Kentucky branch below the falls. 

The Indiana survey, 1874, page 176in speaking of this region says :— 
“In the gravel or altered drift of this region are found mastodon 
remains at as great a depth as thirty feet, which seems to indicate the 
situation of an old river or lake bed.”’ 

The United States depot of supplies stands near the south margin of 
this depression, and the well for the engine-house is forty-four feet in 
depth, going through strata of clay, sand and gravel—coarse hard 
gravel overlying the rock to the depth of about six feet. The depres- 
sion seems to deepen towards the north as there is a difference of over 


WAN als PANOZ Me aS i he bsy MA 
SATO NVA ae 
Sty, Nats Ly at GMb v4 A 

[ hal ROA GUN 


atti 


188 The American Geologist. March 1890, 


ten feet between the south and north parts of the same building enclos- 
ure. No doubt this preglacial channel was uniform in depth to the old 
bed of the Ohio—about one hundred and fifty feet deeper than at 
present. Both on the Kentucky and Indiana sides of the river there 
are several depressions and raised beaches, and after the parting 
above the falls it would be difficult to determine which was the main 
channel of the preglacial Ohio. Probably the largest branch was on 
the Kentucky side, although the Indiana valley is the most extensive. 
This much is certain, however, that the site of the falls in preglacial 
times was an island, and must have stood up more than a hundred 
feet above the level of the surrounding waters, for as we have seen, 
the old channels are filled in at least one hundred and fifty feet. This 
island, covered doubtless with a luxuriant vegetation, the wide, pre- 
glacial valleys and countless streams, must have formed a picture 
beautiful to behold. On the Indiana side of the falls the old and new 
channels come very close together, so close in places that only a bank 
of clay or a thin edge of rock separates them. In fact, there are places 
over the falls where the present current of the riverruns in an old pre- 
glacial channel, making the bed of the present stream much deeper in 
some places than others, but for the most part the falls of the Ohio at 
Louisville consist merely of a shallow channel worn in the surface of 
the preglacial island already referred to. 

The old channels being filled in with glacial debris the river was 
forced into its present course. The amount of post-glacial erosion has 
been very slight as the present channel does not admit of the passage 
of vessels of the lightest draft except at very high water; therefore a 
canal had to be constructed to avoid the falls and permit navigation. 
From personal observation the writer, as already intimated, is con- 
vineed that most of the rock erosion took place, not during nor since 
the ice age, but in preglacial times. 

Louisville, Ky., Feb. 8, 1890. JOHN Bryson. 


Mr. H. T. Cresson AND THE DELAWARE RIVER DWELLINGS. A gener- 
al impression has been held for the last two years that there were 
river dwellings on the Atlantic coast. This impression was gained 
from a letter which was published in the American Antiquarian for 
November, 1887, entitled ‘‘River dwellings on the mud flats of the 
Delaware river.’’ This letter was written by Mr. H. T. Cresson, and 
was published exactly as it was written, title and all. The letter was 
quoted by Mr. H. W. Haynes in the ‘‘Narrative and Critical History,’’ 
with the addition of a sentence stating that he, (Mr. Cresson) has 
also kindly sent to the writer (Prof. Haynes) a small illustrative col- 
lection from each site for his study.’’ Mr. Cresson, after two years 
time, seeks to withdraw from his position about ‘‘river dwellings,”’ 
but in order to do so furnishes to Science a letter which he pretends is 
a copy of the one sent November, 1887. There are several discrepan- 
cies between the two letters, which, if you will allow me, I would be 
glad to set before your readers. They are as follows: 


PET MINIM AAS! EP OY Tie i hy Ale ae 
ssi A a ek a 
i AME ee area i 


Correspondence. 189 


In Science Feb. 14, page 116, paragraph 4, this sentence is inserted: 
“More mature deliberation, based npon hand dredging and excavation 
made since my first visit (1870) only serves to confirm my opinion that 
they were fish-weirs.’’ Nosuch sentence was written in 1887. On the 
same page, fifth paragraph, there is the following: ‘‘The results so 
far seem to indicate that the ends of piles embedded in the mud, judg- 
ing from the implements and other débris scattered around them, had 
once served as supports to structures intended for fish-weirs. These 
in all probability projecting a few feet above the water, and were no 
doubt interlaced with wattles or vines to more readily bar the passage 
of fishinto the river.’’ In 1887 this sentence read as follows: ‘‘The 
results so far seem to indicate that the ends of the piles embedded 
in the mud, judging from the implements scattered around them, once 
supported shelters of early man, that were erected a few feet above the 
water, the upper portions of the piles having disappeared in the long 
lapse of time that must have ensued since they were placed there.”’ 
Notice the phraseology: ‘‘Three different dwellings have been located, 
all that exist in the flats referred to.’’ In Science it is, ‘‘Three differ- 
ent stations were located, probably all that exist in the bed of the 
creek referred to.”” In thesame paragraph a sentence reads as follows, 
“The implements found in one of the stations are generally made of 
argillite, with a few of quartz and quartzite. Some were very rude in 
character, not unlike the paleoliths found by Dr. C. C. Abbott in the 
Trenton gravels.” In 1887 the sentence read, ‘‘The implements found 
in two of the supposed river dwelling sites are very rude in type, and 
are genarally made of dense argillite, not unlike the paleoliths found 
by my friend Dr. C. C. Abbott in the Trenton gravels.’’ The next 
sentence reads in Science, ‘‘Objects of stone and pottery, rather better 
in finish than those at station A, have been found at-the other stations, 
Band C.”’ This read in 1887, ‘‘The character of the implements from 
the other and third supposed river dwelling on the Delaware marshes, 
indicating a greater antiquity than ordinary suriace-found Indian 
relics.”’ 

~The phraseology of these paragraphs and sentences is peculiar. 
Each sentence in the original letter, written in 1887 gives the impres- 
sion that Mr. Cresson had certainly found piles which he thought 
once supported river dwellings. The sentences furnished to Science 
in Feb. 1890, give the impression that these piles were fish-weirs. 
Mr. Cresson is unwilling to bear the responsibility of his own state- 
ments, made two years and more ago,and charges the editor with‘‘garb- 
ling,’’ whereas the ‘‘atrocious garbling’’ is done by himself in 1890, 
The letter has stood in the Antiquarian, and no request for correction 
has been made. He says now, ‘‘I hope this letter, (the one in Science) 
giving a brief resume of the finds at Naaman’s creek mouth will cause 
all absurd romancing in regard to pile dwellers on the Delaware to 
cease. If they ever did exist I have certainly failed to find any traces 
of such a people, and never upheld any such nonsensical theories.”’ 


190 The American Geologist. March 1890 


The nonsensical theory appeared over Mr.’Cresson’s name, and stood 
for two years and three months. Perhaps your readers can reconcile 
these statements. The pile dwellings are evidently fish-weirs. They 
may have been made by Indians and they may not. The reliability of 
the person describing them is exceedingly doubtful. 
Respectfully yours, 
Mendon, Ills., Feb. 19, 1890. STEPHEN D. PEET. 


Tur Levet or No Srrarn.—Students of geology must thank professor 
Claypole for’ his simple presentation of the question now so actively 
discussed by certain English physical geologists regarding the ‘‘Levél 
of no Strain’’ within the earth. Teachers should also be interested in 
it, for if the discussion lead to a valid conclusion, the Contractional 
Hypothesis that is so generally taught to their classes, ought to be 
abandoned, except in teaching the history’of geology. But is not their 
conclusion—namely, that the depth of the level of no strain is only ten 
or twelve miles below the surface—only a special solution of the prob- 
lem of a cooling body? It rests, as professor Claypole shows clearly, 
on the absence of cooling below a depth of 400 miles, and this in turn 
rests on the postulate that the temperature of the earth was once uni- 
form from surface to center. Why should a highly specialized initial 
distribution of internal temperature be accepted as the only one 
worthy of discussion? I have sometimes wondered if it were not chos- 
en on account of its simplicity ; but certainly there are other conceiy- 
able and admissable initial distributions that deserve consideration. 

The uniform distribution of temperature rests on the supposition of 
eonvectional movements by which all previous inequalities of temper- 
ature were equalized. Itis very questionable whether such movement 
could continue until anything like equality of temperature was attained ; 
viscosity and friction would exceed the relatively small gravitative 
forces, on which the latter stages of convection must depend, long 
before equality of temperature within and without was reached. 

Moreover, an essential of the postulate of uniform initial distribution 
of temperature is a sub-postulate of uniform distribution of specific 
gravities, and this is altogether unlikely. The whole contractional 
hypothesis, with its various postulates, rests in turn on the nebular 
hypothesis, in which there is nothing to forbid and everything to sug- 
gest that the nuclei of the planetary masses were denser than the 
subsequent external accretions; and if we postulate such an origin for 
the mass of the earth the possibility of the convectional equalization 
of central and superficial temperature is entirely excluded. An enor- 
mous excess of temperature might remain about the center without 
causing sufficient expansion of the dense material there to produce 
convectional unstability. A crust would form and geological opera- 
tions would proceed in their recognized order while a vast store of 
heat remained imprisoned within; and the level of no strain at the 
present stage of the history of such an earth, would be much deeper 


Personal and Scientific News. 191 


than in the ideally simple earth that has been generally discussed. 
An external shell of 400 miles thickness would not then measure near- 
ly the whole depth to which cooling wou!d penetrate ; conduction and 
contraction would be operative nearly from the center to the surface. 
According to one or another of the various admissable postulates as to 
the distribution of internal temperature at the time when the perma- 
nent external cause was found, the amount of surface contraction and 
the depth of the level of no strain will vary. While the physical 
studies of Read, Davison and others in this direction are of great 
importance, it is well that students should bear in mind the fact that 
their conclusions refer to an earth, but not necessarily to the earth. 
Harvard College, Feb., 1890. W. M. Davis. 


PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 


THE SouTH AFRICAN GOLD FIELDS. The rush of population 
to the new gold fields in south Africa still continues. The 
central town of the district, Johannesburg, has sprung up like 
a mushroom from nothing two years ago to a population of 
20,000. Land then almost worthless has increased in value so. 
that central lots are selling at £2,500 an acre, while those in 
the suburbs bring £500. The matrix of the gold is all quartz, 
so that crushing is the only means of obtaining the metal. No 
alluvial washings exist. This places the new region and town 
in a very substantial position. Speculation is less uncertain. 
Capital is required and is fast flowing in. The reef is said to 
extend for 100 miles in length and to have considerable breadth. 
Johannesburg is nearly 2,000 miles from the cape of Good 
Hope and bids fair to become the centre of a large English 
community, though not at present within British territory. 

The gold-bearing deposit consists of conglomerates, a very 
unusual matrix for gold, though occurring also in Nova Scotia, 
where, however the yieldissmall. The strike of the reef, which 
is double, is nearly east and west, and its dip varies from 
45° to 80°: 

Mup Eruption 1n Asta. A remarkable eruption took place 
on Aug. 2, 1889, about 40 miles from Erzeroum in Asia Minor. 
The side of the mountain burst open and the village of 
Kantzorik, with 136 of its inhabitants was buried in a torrent 
of mud flowing from the gap. The flood was about five miles 
long by 300. yards, wide, and the solid content has been esti- 
mated at between 50,000,000 and 60,000,000 cubic yards. It 
dried and hardened on the top but remained liquid below. The 
surface became deeply crevassed as is that of a glacier. Fine 
dust caused by the fall of masses of rock caused a rumor that 
a volcanic eruption had taken place, but there is no evidence of 
anything of this kind. It was in effect a land slip on a vast 
scale. The district consists of Mesozoic rocks cut and pierced 


192 The American Geologist. March 1990. 


by granite and basalt, and the catastrophe was probably due to 
the softening of some of the beds of the former and the pres- 
sure of an overlying mass upon the softened stratum. 

DiscovERY OF PHOSPHATE IN FLoripA. Great excitement 
prevails in Citrus Co., Fla., and adjoining parts of the state, 
over recent discoveries of phosphatic deposit apparently in 
large quantity. The district lies along the Wekiva and With- 
lacoochee river and covers many thousand acres, being 100 
miles in length and 12 to 20in breadth. The phosphate is found 
at varying depths from one foot to sixty and occurs for the most 
part in “pockets” sometimes 100 acres in extent surrounded by 
“barren ground.” It is soft, and seldom requires drilling or 
blasting. Regarding its quality, reports are conflicting ; some 
giving it as very high in grade, 50 to 90 per cent. of phosphate 
and averaging 75. These figures are of course above the truth. 
South Carolina phosphatic material averages about 50, and it 
is not likely that this will be of better quality. The Canadian 
apatite does not exceed the higher figures, and this is much purer 
than any of the phosphatic marls. If worked with skill and 
judgment these beds ought to yield a good harvest to their 
owners as the market for phosphate is steady, and yearly in- 
creasing in extent. 

ScIENTIFIC EXPEDITION TO YucATAN AND Mexico. _ Prof. 
Angelo Heilprin, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phil- 
adelphia and a party of specialists left New York on February 
15th for Progreso, Yucatan, from which point they will begin an 
extensive examination into the geology, botany, and zoology 
of this little known country. After spending several months 
in the interior of this portion of Mexico, the party will embark 
for Vera Cruz to investigate the “tverra caliente’ and the 
voleanic belt, Orizaba and Colima receiving especial attention. 
The party will then proceed to the city of Mexico, where the 
lakes on the plateau around the city will be studied. The 
expedition was organized under the auspices of the Academy 
of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The specialists con- 
nected with the expedition are (in addition to the director, 
Prof. Heilprin) Mr. J. E. Ives, marine zoology, Mr. Witmer 
Stone, botany and ornithology, Mr. F. C. Baker, conchology 
and general zoology and Mr. R. LeBoutillier, photography. 
The results of this expedition into a country geologically 
almost unknown will be awaited with great interest. The 
party is expected to arrive home before midsummer. 

At tHe Unrversiry oF ALABAMA the department of chemis- 
try and geology has been divided, geology and mineralogy 
being united under Prof. Eugene A. Smith, and a new profes- 
sorship, that of chemistry and metallurgy, being created. 
This much desired enlargement will afford professor Smith 
more time to devote to the geological survey of the state, and 
with additional instruction in engineering, which has also been 
ordered by the trustees, will afford a good course in mining 
engineering and metallurgy. 


® es 


Pree a ae ee” ee — 
aT * 


ee eee ae 


* 


American Geologist. Vol. V. 


tr A Maia ks a ea SG AE) CL Se ee 


A tee A 
Ue ley bee 


AMERICAN GEOLOGIST 


Vou. V. APRIL, 1890. No. 4. 


CERTAIN FORMS OF STRAPAROLLUS FROM SOUTH- 
EASTERN IOWA. 
By CHARLES R. KEYEs. 

In the consideration of the generic characters of Straparol- 
lus certain forms from the lower Carboniferous rocks of 
southeastern Iowa present some interesting phases which illus- 
trate fully peculiarities formerly regarded of great importance 
in the separation of this genus from Euomphalus. The two 
terms are of common occurrence in the literature of American 

_ Paleontology, and have been applied indifferently both to 
planorbiform gasteropod shells having angulated whorls and 
those possessing rounded volutions. The latter features were 
originally regarded as distinctive. Yet the multiplicity of 
forms manifestly belonging to the group founded by Montfort 
has given rise to the establishment of a number of genera 
which can now be considered only as of little or no utility 
and seem best disposed of when placed in the synonymy of 
this genus. Aside from the two leading sections, however, 
these various terms require no further reference here. 

The species from the immediate vicinity of Burlington that 
have been referred to the two groups in question elucidate 
somewhat the true relations existing between Straparollus and 
Euomphalus, both as regards the structure of the shells and 
the probable optimum station of the animals when living. 


194 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


Of more than fifty species of gasteropods described from the 
locality under consideration few have ever been figured; and 
consequently much confusion has arisen regarding the proper 
identity of many of the forms. Recently, however, a very 
complete series was obtained. The majority of the species 
comprising this collection have been treated elsewhere ' with 
considerable detail and it remains now to consider more fully 
the forms of one of the most characteristic genera—Strap- 
arollus. 

The generic relations of Straparollus and Euomphalus have 
long been a subject of controversy. And, while the question 
can not at present be regarded as definitely settled, the 
evidence derived from all available sources points to the 
co-extension of the two genera. Each name was primarily 
proposed for a group seemingly quite distinct. But later 
inquiry has indicated that the alleged generic distinctions are 
actually more apparent than real; and that the two sections 
can, with great propriety, be considered under a single term. 
Some recent writers have even proposed to make the two 
genera in question identical with Solarium established by 
Lamarck? for a group of modern gasteropods. But it does not 
appear feasible, nor advisable, to extend the limits of the 
Lamarckian genus as thus suggested; while practically the 
separation of the recent and ancient forms is not difficult and, 
as a matter of fact, is very convenient to the systematist. 

Straparollus, as defined by Montfort,’ has for its type 
S. dionysit Mont.—a form with the spire somewhat elevated, 
the umbilicus broad and shallow, and the whorls regularly 
rounded. Euomphalus of Sowerby,’ represented by £. pent- 
angularis Sow., includes planorbiform shells having more or 
less distinctly angulated volutions. With the types alone 
under consideration the two groups might appear sufficiently 
well marked to warrant their generic separation. A more 
extended comparison, however, of the described species reveals 
no reliable criteria by which the two groups may be distin- 
suished. A further consideration of these resemblances and 
differences of divers individuals shows that they are so vari- 


1Keyes: Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1889, pp. 284-298. 
* Syst. Anim. sans Vert., 1801. 

* Conch. Syst., vol. 1, 1810. 

‘Min. Conch., vol. 1, 1814. 


Straparollus from Southeastern Iowa.—Keyes. 195 


able and that the gradations are so complete that the generic 
limitations heretofore usually assigned are clearly untenable. 

Briefly stated the general characters of Straparollus are: 
Shell rather thick, planorbiform, or depressed conical, broadly 
and often deeply umbilicated; whorls angular or rounded, . 
usually closely coiled, but often barely in contact; aperture 
sharply pentagonal to sub-circular; labrum generally sharp. 
The surface of the volutions is for the most part smooth, or 
showing only numerous lines of growth; but sometimes with 
one or more distinct longitudinal carine. 

Passing now to the species represented in the locality already 
mentioned it is found that they are six in number; four of 
which are from the Kinderhook beds, and one from each of 
the two divisions of the Burlington limestone. Perhaps the 
most typical form of the series is S. macromphalus Winchell, 
[figs. 4a, 4b, 4c], a shell of medium size, with about four reg- 
ularly rounded volutions and the spire more elevated than in 
any of the other five. It is of considerable interest to note the 
close relationship of this species and certain congeneric forms 
from the Devonian rocks, particularly S. cyclostomus (Hall) 
described from Iowa City, sixty miles to the northward from 
the city of Burlington and just beyond the limits of the Iowa 
Sub-Carboniferousarea. This type finds its extreme develop- 
ment in Straparollus (Huomphalus) springvalensis (White), 
from the Kinderhook beds of Humboldt county, Iowa, in 

which the spire is very much elevated, the umbilical cavity 
exceedingly deep and the volutions numerous. 

Associated with S. macromphalus is S. barrisi Winchell 
[figs. 5a, 5b, 5c]. Itis nearly of the same size as the preced- 
ing, but has the spire somewhat more depressed, the umbilicus 
smaller, and the upper portion of the body whorl slightly 
flattened giving rise to an obtuse but noticeable angularity 
near the sutural line. A much smaller species also found at 
this locality is 8. ammon (White and Whitfield), which is very 
similar to the Spergen Hill, Indiana, form—S. (Huomphalus) 
spergenensis (Hall). 

In the odlitic band of the Kinderhook the large S. obtwsus 
(Hall) [figs. 2a, 2b, 2c] occurs, but is notcommon. The shell 
is composed of about six volutions, the upper surfaces of which 
are in the same plane, as shown in fig. 2c. The umbilicus is 


196 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


consequently exceedingly broad and shallow. The whorls are 
regularly rounded especially in the younger examples, but the 
larger individuals often show a decided tendency to become 
subangular. In most of the specimens the turns are barely in 
contact and in many cases even separated towards the aper- 
ture so that there is, especially in internal casts, a striking 
resemblance to those evolute planorbicular forms for which 
Sowerby proposed the term Phanerotinus. 

The two remaining forms to be mentioned are both from the 
beds of the Burlington limestone—the one occurring only in 
the lower part, and the other only inthe upper. The first is 
S. latus (Hall) [figs. la, 1b] and is by far the largest species 
known from the locality, frequently having a diametric meas- 
urement of more than eight centimeters. The whorls above 
are nearly on a level and are sharply angular towards the 
sutural line and also just above the periphery, making the 
upper surface transversely flat or slightly concave. The 
carinz are manifestly thickeningsin the shell as exhibited in a 
cross section [fig. lb] and as also shown by the regularly 
rounded natural casts of the interior of the shell. The volu- 
tions may also have an obtuse angularity below. 

In S. roberti (White) [figs. 38a, 3b] the apical parts are 
depressed below the upper surface of the outer whorl, thus 
giving additional prominence to the carin ; while the umbil- 
icus is correspondingly more shallow. 

It has been suggested that the latter form was the genetic 
successor of S. latws, and this is probably the case since the 
stratigraphy of the locality indicates that the various layers 
were laid down under practically the same physical conditions ; 
and the testimony furnished by the exceedingly rich and 
varied fauna of the-area amply corroborates the same conclu- 
sion. This would rather point to the assumption that the 
faunee of the so-called Upper and Lower divisions of the Bur- 
lington limestone, and perhaps also even of the Keokuk in 
the immediate neighborhood, were closely related biologically 
and that they were not merely occupants migrating to the 
district at different times from divers localities which belonged 
to faunal regions having no actual relations. 


EXPLANATION OF PLATE. 
Fig. 1. Straparollus latus (Hall). Ja. View of an average specimen 


Use of the Terms Laurentian and Newark.—Hitchcock 197 


(from above). 1b. Transverse section of same. Lower 
Burlington limestone. 


Fig. 2. Straparollus obtusus (Hall). 2a. Alargespecimen. 2b. Trans- 
verse section of same. Kinderhook odlite. 


Fig. 3. Straparollus roberti (White). 3a. An example of medium 
size. 3b. Transverse section of same. Upper Burlington 
limestone. 


Fig. 4. Straparollus macromphalus Winchell. 4a. A large specimen. 
4b. Apertural aspect of same. 4c. Umbilical view of 
another example. Kinderhook beds. 


Fig. 5. Straparollus barrisi (?) Winchell. 45a. View from above. 
ob. Same from below. 4c. Aperture of same. Kinder- 
hook beds. 


THE USE OF THE TERMS LAURENTIAN AND NEWARK 
IN GEOLOGICAL TREATISES. 
By C. H. Hitcucock, Hanover, N. H. 

In the January number of the AMERICAN GroLocist Mr. 
Joseph F. James endeavors to persuade geologists to use the 
term Laurentian for the marine Quaternary terrane for which 
the name Champlain is commonly employed. His reason is 
that the word Lawrentian (in distinction from ZLawrencian) 
was applied to this terrane by E. Desor “about the beginning 
ofthe year 1851,” and before the same name had been sug- 
gested for the great fundamental crystalline system of rocks 
by W. E. Logan. This is in obedience to the right which a 
man has to claim the adhesion of others to his own original 
suggestions. This reason is a good one, but circumstances 
may render the canon nugatory, as is exemplified in the name 
of our continent. By right of discovery it should be called 
Columbia; yet everyone says America. 

It is to be regretted that Mr. James did not examine my 
reference to the publication where Mr. Desor proposed the use 
of the name Lawrentian.’ I quote the essential parts of the 
communication. “Mr. Desor called the attention of the 
society to the deposits of marine shells in Maine, on lake 
Champlain, and the St. Lawrence, and to the question of 
their probable origin.” After correctly describing certain 
localities near lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence river it 
is added, “Mr. Desor had thus been led to the opinion that 
the sea had once filled the St. Lawrence, lake Ontario, and 
lake Champlain. As the deposits in these localities do not 


1 Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. m1, p. 357, 1850. 


RP TEIN AC a py NE RHR TOT USM YL 
He VRCKMRU RUM HG ALM 4 tk 


My 


198 The American Geologist. April, 1390 


in the opinion of the geological party to which he was 
attached, belong to the true drift, they had proposed for them 
the name of the Lawrentian deposits, and he hoped the term 
would be accepted by geologists generally.’ 

Prof. H. D. Rogers was present and commented upon these 
clays and sands as he had seen them on the St. Lawrence and 
in New England and said, “The name offered by Mr. Desor he 
was very ready to receive as applicable to a local deposit ;” 
and he says in the “Geology of Pennsylvania,” 1858, vol. u, 
p. 775, ‘This marine Pleistocene formation has been appro- 
priately named by professor E. Desor the Lawrentian clay.” 

In the communication of Desor to the Geological Society of 
France, quoted by Mr. James, p. 31 of the GroLoaist, he says, 
“As the deposits of this kind are most developed in the valleys 
of the littoral Atlantic, and particularly in the valley of the 
St. Lawrence and of its affluents, I have proposed to designate 
it under the name of Laurentian terrane to distinguish it 
from deposits containing fresh water fossils.” W. E. Logan 
in his Report of Progress of the Canadian survey for 1850-51, 
under date of Aug. 20, 1851 (p.8), speaks of this same marine 
deposit to which ‘Mr. Desor * * * * is disposed to give 
the name of Lawrencian.”’ ihn 

These quotations indicate that Mr. Desor intended to name 
this terrane after the valley of the St. Lawrence river. The 
question arises, what is the adjective derived from it? The 
English form is Lawrencian, while the French is Lawren- 
tian. There should therefore be no controversy as to which 
of these modes of spelling is the correct one. H. D. Rogers, 
W. E. Logan, Z. Thompson, J. W. Dawson, and others, as well 
as Desor himself in his original proposal, use the English form. 
It is therefore improper to chide the reporter of the sub-com- 
mittee upon the Quaternary for quoting Desor as the author of 
the term Lawrencian. 

It does not concern us now whether it was judicious for 
Logan to suggest the name of the same sound for the funda- 

2It will be noticed that Desor’s spelling is neither Laurentian nor 
Lawrencian, but Lawrentian, and Rogers spells it the same way. 
But Logan, Thompson and Dawson, his contemporaries, living on the 
terrane, understood the word correctly. The letter w decides the 
original intent to have been to use the English word, since this letter 


is not used in the French language: while the ¢ and ¢ are commonly 
interchangeable. 


- Use of the Terms Laurentian and Newark.— Hitchcock. 199 


mental gneiss; but it is clear that he took pains to derive the 
term from the Laurentide mountains. He says, (Report of 
Progress, Canada, for the year 1852-3, page 8), ‘“‘it has been 
considered expedient to apply to them for the future, the more 
distinctive appellation of the Laurentian series, a name founded 
on that given by Mr. Garneau to the chain of hills which they 
compose.” From his standpoint Laurentian was the proper 
term for the great system, and any use of a homophonous 
word for an insignificant terrane should not stand in its way. 
The geological public have thoroughly endorsed him. Prof. 
Dana used Laurentian for the Quaternary terrane in his pres- 
idential address before the A.A.A.S., in 1855, but later in his 
Manual of Geology and elsewhere uses the same word for the 
crystallines and Champlain for the clays. 

Is it not an axiom in geological nomenclature that if the 
proposer of a new term makes a mistake in orthography or 
etymology, it shall not debar the originator’s claim to priority? 
In Agassiz’s Womenclator Zoologicus one recalls scores of 
instances in which an error of derivation is rectified, and the 
genus spelled differently from its first proposal, but it is still 
credited to its author. Now it was evidently intended to 
name this terrane after the St. Lawrence valley. Should it 
not, therefore, be more correctly written the St. Lawrencian 
terrane? The river is not the Lawrence river, whether written 
in French or English, and therefore the St. should be prefixed. 
It need hardly be added that with such correct rendering 
there would never be any conflict with the term Laurentian as 
applied to the crystalline system. 

Should it ever be found desirable to discard the name Lau- 
rentian, as applied to the older rocks because of its preoccupa- 
tion by another word, I would respectfully invite the attention 
of bibliographers to a term that precedes all others, viz., to 
Atlantic, as proposed by Featherstonhaugh in 1835. This 
gentleman in a report to the government upon the “Elevated 
country between Missouriand Red rivers,” urged the necessity 
of giving a general name to the chain of mountains, as well as 
to the formations composing them, occupying the region of 
the primitive rocks of Maclure. It is the Blue Ridge, Alleghany 
mountains, etc. He says,’ “It will be apparent, I think, to 
every geologist, that as this primary chain is the true boundary 
of the sedimentary rocks lying west of it, and forms so impor- 
 Featherstonhaugh’s Report, 1835, p. 33, Second edition. 


200 The American Geologist. — April, 1890. 


tant a feature in the mineral structure of the country, it should 
receive a clear geological designation; and as it looks upon the 
Atlantic coast in its whole course, I shall propose the name of 
the ArLantic Primary Cuain.” Further sentences make it 
clear that he excludes the Cambrian of Sedgwick from this 
appellation. Ihave gone into this subject in detail in my 
report upon the geology of New Hampshire.* While W. B. 
Rogers objected to this proposition in 1836, H. D. Rogers 
accepted it in a measure’ in 1858. 

It may be noted that Mr. Desor disclaims the origination of 
the application of the term Lawrencian, referring it to “the 
geological party to which he was attached.” “ They had pro- 
posed,” etc., this name of Lawrehtian. The reference was 
undoubtedly to Foster and Whitney, the government geologists 
of the lake Superior district, in whose employ Desor was at 
that time. I can not find the term used in any of the reports 
upon lake Superior, though it is claimed as original by Prof. 
J. D. Whitney in connection with Mr. Desor.° 

It appears that the views of Mr. James condemnatory of 
those geologists who neglect to say Laurentian for a part of the 
Quaternary are not shared by his colleagues upon the U.S. 
Geological Survey, since Mr. W. J. McGee has taken the pains 
to devise a new expression—the “Columbian formation”—to 
Yepresent its equivalent in our nomenclature. This can not be 
from lack of familiarity with Desor’s paper, since he has 
referred to that one which has correlated the Laurentian of the 
north with the Pleistocene of the south. The term Champlain 
has been in use for many years to embrace both the littoral and 
marine deposits now referred to the Columbia. 

The attempt to revive the local name of ‘Newark, N. J., for 
the Triassic system of the Atlantic coast, seems to be unadvis- 
able for many reasons. F%rst. An essential feature of a name 
derived from a geographical locality is that the terrane should 
be exhibited there in its entirety or maximum development. 
The territory of Newark does not contain one-fourth part of 
the thickness of this sandstone, and that which is visible is 
only a fraction of this fourth. Had Mr. Redfield used the 

* Geology of New Hampshire, vol. 1, p. 525. 


° Geology of Pennsylvania, vol. 11, p. 747. 
® Amer. Jour. Sci., 11, vol. 23, p. 314. 
, II, »P 


name of Passaic, in allusion to the river of that name, which 
flows over the entire system, it would have been truthful and 
comparatively unobjectionable. Second. The name of Con- 
necticut or Connecticut River sandstoge has precedence over 
Newark. My father is acknowledged to be the first of geol- 
ogists to have understood this terrane, and he identified it with 
the Trias or New Red sandstone of Europe. This was before 
the days of putting geographical names upon groups of strata 
in this country; but he and others constantly used the expres- 
sion of Connecticut sandstone or its equivalent. The following 
gentlemen have made use of this expression in their writings 
before the time of Redfield’s proposal in 1856, though none of 
them have formally proposed it asa geological term: E. Hitch- 
cock, Sir Charles Lyell, Dr. James Deane, Dr. 8. L. Dana, Dr. 
Joseph Barrett, Dr. C. T. Jackson, Dr. John C. Warren, T. T. 
Bouvé, and Prof. Jeffries Wyman. Third. In his lectures 
before the class of 1857 in Yale college Prof. J. D. Dana 
adopted the name of Newark for these sandstones, and presum- 
ably on other occasions. In his Manual of Geology published 
in 1861, and the later editions, he makes no allusion whatever 
to the name of Newark. These facts show that this gentleman, 
whose authority is second to none, saw fatal objections to the 
use of Redfield’s name. Prof. 0. C. Marsh in presenting a table 
in Dana’s Manual to show the succession of vertebrate life, for- 
mally uses the name of Connecticut River sandstone. This 
usage is not cited in support of a claim for priority. Fourth. 
While the New Jersey terrane possesses the distinguishing 
features of the Trias, quite as well as the one in New England, 
it is fitting that the local geographical name should be derived 
from the latter, since that was the field of discovery of the 
fossil footmarks which has given the Connecticut valley an_ 
honored reputation throughout the scientific world. Mr. Russell 
has presented a long list of authorities who have written upon 
the Trias, and it is observable that only one of them has used 
the name of Newark—and that was the writer who proposed 
the use of the name. It seems hardly for the good of science 
to attempt to resuscitate a term that everyone has avoided 
using. Fifth. In the language proposing the new name for 
the terrane, the author finds it necessary to explain that these 
New Jersey sandstones are thoroughly identified with those of 


202 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


the Connecticut valley by footprints and other fossils. The 
Connecticut sandstones are hence the original pattern by 
which we are to judge of the dimensions and qualities of all 
the other terranes. What can be more fitting than to make 
this original pattern the standard of comparison for all the other 
Triassic areas? It seems inappropriate, however, to attempt 
to use either local designation for any of these rocks west of 
the Mississippi. 


THE GLACIAL GEOLOGY OF THE IRONDEQUOIT REGION 
By CHARLES R. DRYER, Fort Wayne, Ind. 


At the very head of the great bight on the south shore of 
lake Ontario opens the mouth of a narrow gorge which extends 
some ten miles into the land. The lower half of it is occupied 
by the waters of Irondequoit bay, the mouth of which is one 
mile wide and now nearly closed by a sand bar. The bay 
rapidly narrows to less than halfa mile, but in its upper half 
abruptly widens to three-quarters of a mile. Above the head 
of the bay the gorge is prolonged southward to the village of 
Penfield, but there is no evidence that the bay ever occupied 
the whole of it. The walls rise on either side to a hight of 
170 feet and are everywhere of drift worn into characteristic 
forms of knob and peak, The lateral ravines in the upper 
half of the bay reveal the presence of Clinton and Niagara 
shales and limestones a few hundred feet back from the shore 
and rising nearly to the level of the country on either side. 
The real phenomenon to be considered, then, is a rock gorge 
partially filled and marked by drift. Its limits cansbe approx- 
imately outlined and prove to enclose a space one mile wide 
at the top; the depth of the drift at the bottom is unknown, 
but the bay is in some places 70 feet deep, so that the total 
depth of the gorge can not be less than 250 feet. It is boat- 
shaped and resembles the basins of the “finger lakes.’ It is 
blocked at the south end by a precipitous wall of drift, so that 
its actual length can be determined only by boring. The 
Irondequoit river enters at the southeast corner by a series of 
rapids. 

Twenty miles south of the head of the bay the Irondequoit 
basin is enclosed by a glacial moraine of strong features and 


7 AMERICAN GEOLOGIST, March, 1889, p. 178. 


Geology of the Irondequoit Region.—Dryer. 203 


large proportions. It forms an irregular V, broken by valleys 
into three sections. The eastern section extends from a point 
south of Fairport to the village of Victor. Itis a range of 
drift hills two or three miles wide, seven miles long, and 
rising near its center, at the Turk’s hill station of the U.S. 
Lake Survey, to 681 feet above lake Ontario. The southern 
section is separated from the eastern by a narrow valley and 
extends from Victor southwestward seven miles to the village 
of West Bloomfield, where it is banked up against a ridge of 
Hamilton shale. This section rises near its middle to a hight, 
in Hopper hill, not inferior to Turk’s hill. The western sec- 
tion is an isolated group of extremely irregular hills in the 
townships of Mendon and Pittsford. It is separated from the 
other sections by a level interval of three to four miles and is 
prolonged northeastward by a series of parallel drumlin-like 
ridges nearly to the village of Pittsford, a point directly 
opposite the north end of the east arm of the V. The basin 
of the Irondequoit river is enclosed by these moraines except 
in two places. The narrow valley between the eastern and 
southern sections opens into the valley of Mud creek, which 
is the head of the Oswego river. The wider interval between 
the southern and western sections is continuous with the 
valley of Honeoye creek. 

The opening between the ends of the V, two and one-half 
miles in width, is almost closed by a kame which extends 
from Cartersville on the west to and beyond Bushnell’s basin 
on the east. The north end is a sharp ridge of very coarse 
gravel, fifty feet in hight, one mile long, and in shape like a 
rude fish-hook. It is separated from the southern portion by 
the channel of Irondequoit river, which has cut the kame 
completely in two. In the southern portion the gravel is over- 
laid by fifty feet of fine sand which spreads out toward the 
southeast in a sheet a mile or morein width. This kame 
forms a dam across the valley, complete except for an interval 
of less than one-fourth of a mile on its western side. The 
Erie canal avails itself of this kame to cross the valley and by 
a fifty-foot embankment restores what probably once existed 
as a natural feature. South of the kame the valley is as level 
as a floor for three miles up the stream and was evidently 
once the site of a lake whose waters were held back by the 


204 The American Geologist. April 1890 


kame as adam. Within half a mile north of the Cartersville 
kame a diffused deposit of sand begins and soon assumes the 
shape of a massive and well defined ridge which extends north- 
ward two miles and ends abruptly at the bank of Allen’s 
creek. 

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the region is the 
so-called “sugar loaves.” They are isolated, conical, sand hills, 
rising from the bottom of the Irondequoit gorge to a hight 
level with the top of its walls or nearly so. Two small ones 
stand near the head and a group of four large ones three miles 
below. The latter are islands surrounded by channels of the 
Stream. The most symmetrical one is an almost perfect cone 
20 rods in diameter and 150 feet high. Such sharpness of out- 
line and high angle of slope ina pile of sand is rendered some- 
what less marvellous by the fact that the cones are covered by 
a growth of pine trees and deciduous shrubs. How these 
forms originated is an interesting and difficult question, but 
certain features of the surrounding region seem to throw light 
upon it. The sugar loaves evidently form a part of the Iron- 
dequoit kame system, the larger group being a continuation in 
a direct line of the above described kames. That all are rem- 
nants of one originally continuous kame is an assumption 
warranted by their structure and position. Again, two of the 
cones are almost connected with the east wall of the gorge by 
curved ridges of the same material, now no more than half as 
high and cut off from the cones by channels of the river. In 
short they are unusual if not unique forms resulting from the 
general laws of drift erosion, here acting under peculiar con- 
ditions. In the washing out of the drift from the gorge paral- 
lel tributaries left, high narrow ridges between them, while at 
the same time shifting channels of the main stream, at first 
flowing at a much higher level than now, cut a cone off from 
the end of each ridge. They are analogous to the buttes, mon- 
uments and other erosion forms of the Rocky Mountain plateau. 
The whole region is extremely suggestive of questions as to 
the origin of the peculiar forms of knobby drift, and the laws, 
processes and limitations of drift erosion, problems which do 
not seem as yet to have been adequately considered. The 
Irondequoit cones seem to the writer to stand as dumb but 
eloquent protests against any theory which would assign a 


Geology of the Irondequoit Region.—Dryer. 205 


length of 80,000 years to the period during which they have 
been subjected to erosion. 

Between the Irondequoit gorge and the Genesee river south 
of Rochester lies a remarkable range known as the Pinnacle 
hills. They extend from the river a little north of east five 
miles in a line directly toward the group of larger cones. The 
range is simple, straight, symmetrical, regular except for some 
serration, devoid of spurs and completely isolated on all sides 
by a level plain. Its highest point rises at the U.S. Lake 
Survey station 502 feet above lake Ontario and about 200 feet 
above its base. The lower half is composed of coarse gravel 
and the upper half of sand. Its position indicates that it 
belongs to the Irondequoit system, and its structure shows 
that it is a gigantic kame, differing only in size and direction 
from those before described, the axis of which it would inter- 
sect near the sugar loaves. 

The Irondequoit gorge undoubtedly had its origin in the 
channel of some preglacial river. Present appearances point 
to the Genesee as its original occupant, since from the Pinna- 
cle hills to its mouth the present channel of that river is post- 
glacial; but the length of the gorge and the path by which the 
river reached it are both equally buried in mystery. The 
possibility that it may have given passage to a river which 
flowed southward into the Susquehanna is not unworthy of 
consideration. This conjecture receives some support from 
the fact that the line of maximum depth in lake Ontario 
approaches the south shore with a sharp angle at a point just 
opposite the mouth of the bay.' At some time in the latter 
part of the glacial period a more or less independent lobe of 
the ice sheet, intermediate between the glacier of the Genesee 
and that of the “finger lakes,” pressed through the gorge, 
which it widened and deepened, and maintained itself long 
enough to form, with the help of its neighbors, the moraine 
twenty miles to the south. When the glacier retreated it left 
the valley and gorge blocked with drift which has since been 
removed to the extent described. The washing out has been 
accomplished chiefly by the Irondequoit river when its volume 
was much greater than at present. 

There is, perhaps, no equal area in the world where all the 


1See map opposite p. 279, Wright’s ‘‘Ice Age in North America.’’ 


206 


L= Lake 

K= Kame 
D= Drumlin 
+ = Sugar Loaf 
¥ = Striae 


Scale: 5 milestol inch. 


MAP 
SHOWING THE 


GLACIAL GEOLOGY 


esses 
OF THE O.. 
IRONDE QUQIT REGION WBloomfield 


Drawn by Chea sR.Dryer 
FORT WAYNE,IND. 
889. 


Conularia Missowriensis.— Calvin. 207 


peculiar features of drift topography are so fully exhibited. 
Winding ridges, massive domes buttressed and scored with 
ravines, flat-topped buttes with precipitous walls and reenter- 
ing angles, conical hills, dimpled plateaus, deep glens and 
secluded valleys, “soap-dishes” and kettle-holes of perfect 
symmetry,—all in the greatest profusion and variety, form a 
landscape of strange and peculiar beauty. The Mendon hills 
constitute a morainic island from the peaks of which all these 
features naay be seen at a single glance. They include a clus- 
ter of five small but typical morainic lakes. ‘‘The ridge,” a 
former shore line of lake Ontario, intersects the Irondequoit 
gorge two miles above its mouth and ends abruptly on the 
brink, the gap between the cut ends being one mile wide. 
Either the entire excavation of the present drift gorge has 
been accomplished since this shore line was formed, or the 
loop which it may have made around the head of the bay has 
been obliterated. 


NOTE ON A SPECIMEN OF CONULARIA MISSOURIENSIS 
SWALLOW, WITH CRENULATED COST. 


By S. CALvIn, Iowa City. 

A very interesting specimen of Conularia from the horizon 
of the St. Louis limestone in Brown county, Illinois, has late- 
ly come into my possession. This specimen agrees in nearly 
all essential particulars with the form doubtfully referred 
by Meek and Worthen (Geol. survey of Ill’., Vol v, p. 541. Plate 
22 Fig. 5,) to Conularia missouriensis Swallow. I have not 
seen Swallow’s type specimen, and in the absence of figures it 
is impossible to compare the specimen before me with Swal- 
low’s species. There is little doubt, however, that this is the 
form described by Meek and Worthen, loc cit., and yet inthe 
description of these authors special emphasis is placed on the 
“apparently smooth, sharp, transverse cost,” and on the ap- 
parent absence of crenulations on the costae and spaces be- 
tween. Fortunately in this new specimen a part of the surface 
isin an excellent state of preservation, and shows thatin this 
remarkably large and, in the main, plainly ornamented species 
of Conularia, the sharp edges of the transverse costs were very 
distinctly crenulated, the crenulations taking the form of a 
row of minute, blunt, rounded prominences along the summit 


208 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


of each sharp, carniated rib, It is assumed that the smooth 
edges of the costee in the specimen described by Meek and 
Worthen were due to weathering. The same smooth condition 
of the coste obtains over part of the surface in the specimen be- 
fore me. Moreover itis hardly conceivable that two species 
should occur at the same horizon differing from each other in 
nothing but the presence or absence of coste crenulations. If, 
however, it should be proved on farther investigation that the 
surface of the specimenused by Meek and Worthen was intact, 
then the differences in the two forms may be recognized by 
calling the one represented by the subject of this note Conu- 
laria missouriensis, var, hersmant. 


THE SESSION OF THE INTERNATIONAL GEOLOGICAL 
CONGRESS IN PHILADELPHIA. 


By PERSIFOR FRAZER, Philadelphia. 


It is well known to the readers of the GroLoaist how the 
congress at its last session in London decided to postpone its 
meeting in Vienna until after the session in the United States. 
At the time this decision was taken nothing had been said 
about a quadricentennial world’s fair to be held in this coun- 
try, so that when this question arose it became necessary to 
consult the bureau or governing body of the Congress in order 
to ascertain whether or not it was the desire of the foreign 
members to postpone the session which ought to be held in 
1891 until 1892, and in order to give the visiting European 
geologists an opportunity to see this fair and to attend the 
Congress at the cost of one journey across the Atlantic. 

The following responses were received from influential mem- 
bers of the Bureau constituting in the aggregate more than a 
majority of that body. 

These answers are condensed from letters covering in some 


cases four and five pages each. 

Prof. Joseph Prestwich, president of the Congress, has taken steps to 
ascertain the opinion of the officers of the Congress and will commu- 
nicate more definitely later. 

Dr. J. W. Hulke and Mr. W. Topley. Have consulted most of the 
English members and find the general opinion to be against any such 
postponement for two reasons: (1) It is undesirable to make any 
alteration in the date of the meeting unless absolutely necessary (as 


International Geological Congress.—Frazer. - 209 


in the case at Berlin). (2) The business of the Congress might suffer 
from the distractions incident to a world’s fair. If the American com- 
mittee, however, desires the postponement these gentlemen will take 
the necessary steps to secure the formal sanction of the Congress. 
The American committee should obtain the opinions of Beyrich, 
Capellini, Dewalque, Hauchecorne, and Renevier. 

Prof. T. McKenny Hughes. Personally I have no objections to the 
postponement to ’92 if it recommends itself to your committee, but 
before answering categorically I wish time to consult other members 
of the last session. 

G. Dewalque. While the exposition will bring more geologists to 
the Congress its distractions will turn their attention from its work, 
Besides a decision of the Congress should not be changed without 
gravereason. Butthecommitteeon organization is best able to decide 
this question and we shall abide by its decision. 

E. Beyrich. The postponement of the Congress will be desirable if 
it secure a session during the continuance of the world’s fair. 

G. Capellini. The idea of making the date of the Congress and 
Exposition coincide has been found excellent by all my colleagues 
- whom I have been able to consult. Iwas asked in France by many 
geologists to urge this postponement. It appears that the Englishmen 
are not of this opinion but it is to be hoped that after the vote of the 
majority they will agree to the postponement to 1892. You may 
regard my vote for it as that of all the Italian geologists interested in 
the Congress. 

E. Renevier. I have absolutely no objection to the postponement of 
the Congress to 1892. 

C. LeNeve Foster. It will be well to adjourn the session from 1891 
to 1892 in view of the probability of the international exhibition in 
America during the latter year. 

i Beet Personally I prefer 92 to ’91, but the Americans should 
ecide. 

K. Martin. The postponement of the Congress on the ground pro- 
posed seems desirable. 

J. F. N. Delgado. I adopt on the question of the postponement 
entirely the views of the signers of the letter of inquiry. 

A. de Lapparent. My personal opinion is that there is every advan- 
tage in causing the date of meeting of the Congress to coincide with 
that of the proposed exposition by the United States. 

Dr. Zittel. I would leave the decision entirely to the American 
organization committee and will agree with any conclusion to which 
it may come whether to hold the meeting in 1891 or 1892. 

J. Vilanova. I give my complete assent to the happy thought of 
convening the Congress in 1892 and promise my attendance. 

A. Inostranseff. I find the idea very felicitous of adjourning the 
Congress to 1892, and send you my consent. 

M. Neumayr. Before answering your circular I addressed a note to 
some of the most authoritative of our geologists. The unanimous 
opinion (which I share) is that there is no objection to such post- 
ponement if our American colleagues think it useful to the objects of 
the Congress. 

J. Szabé. think the proposition sufficiently called for, and I have 
the honor of declaring my support of it. 

F. Giordano. It is my opinion and that of several of my colleagues 
from here that it is advisable to postpone the Congress from 1891 to 
1892 which is to meet at Philadelphia. 

T. H. Huxley. My answer to your letter of the 22nd of November 
has been unfortunately delayed in consequence of my absence from 
home. As you may be aware ill health prevented me from being 


210 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


present at the meeting of the Congress in London or from taking any 
part in its subsequent proceedings. In reply to your inquiries, there- 
fore, I can only say that I shall acquiesce in the demands of the major- 
ity ofmy colleagues. 

T. Sterry Hunt. I think it well to postpone the Congress to 1892. 

Persifor Frazer. If the world’s fair is to be held in 1892, it would 
seem unquestionably better to postpone the next session of the Con- 
gress till then, but if (as seems not improbable) the world’s fair itself 
is to be adjourned until 1893, the date fixed by the Congress itself 
should stand. Iam in favor of leaving the decision to the committee 
on organization. 

G. H. Williams. Iam in favor of postponing the meeting till 1892 if 
the international exhibition is held in that year. I do not, however, 
think that the meeting should be put off later than 1892. 


It will be seen that a strong preponderance of opinion is in 
favor of postponing the session for one year. Few of the 
voters have expressed any opinion as to the postponement for 
two years, because probably this possible contingency did not 
suggest itself, but all those who have taken it into account are 
opposed to a two years’ postponement. In view of these facts 
it is well to consider that the strong probability is that the 
meeting will take place as first designed, in September, 1891. 

The time seems very short to prepare for this eventuality. 
When the Congress at Berlin was over, the British committee 
acting through Mr. Topley immediately took steps to inform 
scientific bodies throughout the world of the place and 
date of the next one, and to invite them to become subscrib- 
ers to this Congress, holding out the inducement that in this 
manner the full proceedings and published documents would 
be sent to such subscribers at the nominal price. of their sub- 
scription (10 shillings). Over a score of such notices in differ- 
ent forms were printed in the scientific journals of America 
and in this way there was a larger subscribing membership 
from the United States than from any other part of the world 
(except perhaps England). It was intended that these sub- 
scriptions should raise an important part of the expenses and 
lighten the burden of those who contributed money outright 
for defraying the necessary expenses of the Congress. 

The London session was not as expensive as the Philadel- 
phia session will be for many reasons, one of the strongest of 
which is, that in America we have made it our habit to do 
things of this kind on a scale of liberality which may in part 
atone for our newness as a nation. What Chicago is to the 
eastern cities of this country, that is the United States to the 


International Geological Congress.—Frazer. 211 


countries of the old world. Rightly or not we have made for- 
eigners expect this of us and we must keep our reputation up’ 
or forfeit it. Now the expenses of the London session were 
chiefly of four kinds, viz: 

The expenses of installation in the University of London, 
printing circulars, printing the volume of proceedings, etc, etc., 
were estimated to reach about 5,000 dollars, but it has been 
found that they fell but little short of 6,000 dollars. 

But the expenses have exceeded the estimates and the com- 
mittee finds itself lacking £150 to £200, say about $1,000. 

Nothing is allowed here for the rent of rooms or the expenses 
of excursions. The University of London furnished the halls 
for the collections and for meeting, luncheon, etc., without 
charge, and those participating in the excursions paid each 
for himself, though doubtless at a reduced rate. 

Without these expenses, which must necessarily be included 
in the expenses of a local committee in this country, the 
expenses of the London committee for the four items enumer- 
ated amounted, roughly speaking, to about $6,000. 

If any attempt is made at entertainment and excursions 
4 Vamericaine here our expenses can not well be less than 
double that amount and the committee which must raise it 
could hardly begin too soon. 

But there are other facilities which London enjoyed that are 
not to be found to anything like the same extent in this country. 
Among these are printing and proof reading of scientific mat- 
ters in French, German and other languages; constant and 
inexpensive transportation to and from the meetings. These 
things must be provided by special arrangements which must 
necaem@™iiy be paid for by the local committee. Mr. Topley 
gave his earnest and practically his undivided attention to the 
last Congress for many months beforehand and during its 
session, and has been busy with its volume, etc., ever since. 
During the session Dr. C. LeNeve Foster, an admirable French 
scholar, Dr. Charles Barrois, and Mr. l’abbé Rénard spent 
every night far into the morning hours in order to correct the 
proof of the Procés Verbal of the Council and that of the 
Congress of that day, which were laid on the desks of the mem- 
bers of those bodies on their assembling at 9 and at 10 


212 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


o’clock respectively next morning. Without such efficient 
help as that of those gentlemen, and especially of Dr. Barrois 
who résuméd with rare tact and judgment the remarks of 
those who could not speak French before the Congress, it is 
difficult to perceive how the work could have been carried on. 


THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE QUEBEC GROUP. 


By T. STERRY HUNT, LL.D. 


The history of the Quebec group fills a considerable place in 
American geology, and I have been at some pains to write 
and to publish elsewhere the principal facts regarding it. As 
the questions involved therein are still imperfectly understood 
it has seemed proper to me as the only survivor of those who ~ 
were present at the naming of this group, and as the one who 
wrought its downfall, to rehearse briefly its history. 

In the American Journal of Science for February, 1890, is a 
review by Mr. Charles D. Walcott of a second report by Dr. R. 
W. Ells, of the Canada geological survey, on the geology of 
parts of the province of Quebec, wherein he treats of the un- 
crystalline fossiliferous strata named by Logan the Quebec 
group, and also of the crystalline schists adjacent to them in 
the hills on the east and south, described by Logan as being of 
contemporary age, and the result of a so-called metamorphosis 
over a large area of the lower portions of the same Quebec 
group, and hence mapped and designated by him as the Al- 
tered Quebec group. The reviewer refers to this region of east- 
ern Canada as ‘“‘the battle ground where Logan and his adher- 
ents have been finally driven from position to position until 
there is now little left to defend of what seemed in 1863, a well- 
supported position.” Ells moreover, after his studies of the 
fossiliferous rocks of the group, concludes, according to Wal- 
cott, that the farther use of the name of Quebec group for the 
uncrystalline strata in question “appears not only undesirable 
but to a certain extent objectionable,’ although the terms 
Levis and Sillery may be retained for the subdivisions. 


Mistory of the Quebec Growp.—Hunt. 213 


We are next invited by the reviewer “to consider the breaking 
down of this elaborately constructed geological group, built 
up by the labors of Sir W. E. Logan and his associates, Mr. E. 
Billings, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt and Mr. James Richardson.” Sel- 
wyn, we are told, “began the work of disintegration when he 
showed in his report for 1877-78 that the rocks of the Canadian 
extension of the Green Mountain (or Sutton Mountain) range 
and its northeasterly extension were arranged in an anticlinal 
instead of a synclinal form as supposed by Logan. This re- 
moved the keystone on which the stratigraphic structure of 
the altered portion of the Quebec group was based.” The 
crystalline schists were now referred to a “pre-Cambrian 
group, probably Huronian ;” and what Selwyn had previously 
called a Volcanic group (unrecognized however by Logan and 
his assistants) was imagined to be pre-Cambrian. 

' Besides the false conception with regard to the stratigraphi- 
cal structure, according to Ells, “another source of error, and 
probably the most considerable, was the assumption that the 
metamorphic rocks of that area must of necessity be the equiy- 
alent of the unaltered sediments of the St. Lawrence region, a 
theory which once suggested seems to have been unhesitating- 
ly maintained, although for its support unnecessary inversions 
of strata and profound chemical changes were requisite.” Still 
farther Ells has shown, according to Walcott, with regard to 
the uncrystalline Quebec group, that ‘‘the order of succession 
was inverted by Logan, and that the Levis series is conform- 
ably superjacent to the Upper Sillery (Lauzon of Logan) 
while the Lower Sillery forms the base of the section in the 
vicinity of Quebec.” 

There are thus embodied in the preceding paragraphs four 
important propositions : 

1, The crystalline schists of the Green Mountain range and 
of its prolongation northeastwards in the province of Quebec— 
the so-called Altered Quebec group—do not form a synclinal, 
and are not metamorphosed paleozoic rocks, but on the con- 
trary constitute an anticlinal axis of ancient strata, “pre-Cam- 
brian and probably Huronian” in age. 

2. The uncrystalline fossiliferous strata along the western 
and northern flanks of thisrange are newer rocks of Cambrian 
and Ordovician age. 

3. The order of these newer strata was mistaken by Logan, 


214 The American Geologist. April, 1890. 


who placed the Sillery at the summit and the Levis at the 
base, whereas the true succession shows the Sillery at the 
base, followed comformably by the Lauzon, the Levis being 
at the summit. 

4. Thename of the Quebec group should be rejected in 
geology. 

To allof these propositions I assent most heartily, the more 
so that I have maintained them nearly twenty years, for the 
most part single-handed, and on every favorable occasion. 

A slight acquaintance with the history of geological opinion 
as to the crystalline rocks of the Green Mountain range and 
their relations to the adjacent uncrystalline sediments 
would have shown our authors that the views advanced 
concerning these two classes of rocks were not simply 
those of “Logan and his adherents,” but of the majority of 
American geologists for the past fifty years. Amos Eaton and 
Ebenezer Emmons had, it is true, taught that the region of 
crystalline rocks in question constitutes an ancient anticlinal 
axis, and that the uncrystalline sediments along its northern 
and western base were deposited unconformably upon these 
old rocks and were in part made up of their ruins. The doc- 
trine of regional metamorphism, then and since carried to great 
lengths both in Europe and in America, was, however, adopted 
by Mather ; whose large quarto volume on the geology of the 
Southeastern District of New York, published in 1848, was at 
once generally accepted as authority, so far as New York and 
western New England were concerned. The continued east- 
ward dips observed in the paleozoic strata east of the Hudson 
and the supposed gradual transition of the uncrystalline sedi- 
ments into crystalline schists led Mather to assert that these 
latter were nothing else than the upper portion of the Cham- 
plain division of the New York paleozoic series, or the so-called 
Hudson slates in an altered condition. This view was cited 
with approbation in 1844 by H. D. Rogers, who, in company 
with his brother, W. B. Rogers, attempted to show in 1846 that 
the gneisses and mica-schists of the White Mountain belt, ly- 
ing to the east of the Green mountains, were still newer rocks, 
and represented probably the horizon of the Oneida, Medina 
and Clinton of the New York series. Chas. T. Jackson moreover 
in his volume on the geology of New Hampshire, in 1846, while 
he declared that the White mountains constitute an axis of the 


History of the Quebec Group.—Hunt. 215 


primary rocks, regarded the crystalline schists of the Green 
mountains as altered paleozoic strata, the metamorphosis of 
which he declared to have been effected by intrusive serpen- 
tines and intrusive quartzites. 

As regards the geological horizon of the paleozoic sediments 
in question, we may note that Amos Eaton maintained the ex- 
istence in the region in debate of two distinct series each con- 
sisting principally of argillites and sandstones, which he called 
the First and Second Graywackes, much resembling each other ; 
the first of these being below the horizon of the Trenton 
limestone, and the second above it, or between this same and 
the Niagara limestone. The absence of such a Graywacke se- 
ries in parts of New York below the Trenton led Mather to 
deny its existence, and to confound in one group the First 
and Second Graywackes along the Hudson valley, under the 
common name of the Hudson slates (called collectively by 
Vanuxem, the Hudson-River group); which were assumed to 
be the equivalent of the Loraine shales, with the addition of 
the Utica shale below and the Gray or Oneida sandstone above. 
Mather’s view of the post-Trenton age of the whole of the 
Hudson River Graywacke and of its extension north and east 
through Vermont to the city of Quebec, was accepted by James 
Hall, by C. B. Adams, by W. B. Rogers, and for atime by Em- 
mons himself; who, in his final report in 1842 on the geology 
of the Northern District of New York, describes the rocks at 
Quebec as Loraine shales with their overlying sandstones, 
which he speaks of as extending from the valley of the Hud- 
son through eastern Vermont to the city of Quebec. In anoth- 
er chapter of the same volume, however, Emmons reverts to 
the teaching of Eaton, and in his subsequent writings includes 
these rocks in the First Graywacke—his Upper Taconic series. 
This view, however, was not accepted by other geologists. 
James Hall continued to maintain Mather’s doctrine of the 
post-Trenton age of the Graywacke series in question. C. B. 
Adams, charged with a geological survey of Vermont, held in 
1846 that the Red Sandrock of that state, “now included by 
Emmons inthe First Graywacke or Upper Taconic, is of “the 
period of the Medina sandstone and the Clinton groups,” 
while W. B. Rogers, in 1851, considered that limestones, 
which near Burlington, Vermont, are associated with this Red 
Sandrock are probably “of the Medina group.” 


SUNS a hI SSMS RRR MERLOT AER PO Nae fet Voy NCW aa OR ON CTC 
We OMe te NRC shh hy f Bi Ran aa ih Pikeman: f 
PGA gt Me NRE hte UT cae Yaaes 
ate ey 


iB A ak a 


216 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


When, then, in 1847, Logan began the examination of the 
belts of crystalline and uncrystalline rocks from the frontier 
of Vermont to the vicinity of the city of Quebec, he framed 
no new hypothesis, but adopted without question, the views of 
Mather, Hall, Adams and Rogers as to the post-Trenton age 
of the uncrystalline sediments, In like manner he accepted 
unhesitatingly Mather’s hypothesis of their stratigraphical 
equivalence with these of the crystalline schists of the Green 
Mountain range, sustained as it was by the approval of the 
Messrs. Rogers and of C. T. Jackson. Logan, constitutionally 
diffident, and venturing in a new field, was disposed to defer 
to those whom he, like myself, his young assistant in the cam- 
paigns of 1847-49, had been taught to regard as authorities not 
to be questioned. Hence it was that the limestones and argil- 
lites of Pointe Levis were described as Hudson-River group, 
supposed to be younger than the Trenton limestone of Beau- 
port, while the great mass of 2000 feet of Sillery sandstone, ap- 
parently overlying these, was regarded as the equivalent of the 
Oneida or Shawangunk sandstone and conglomerate of New 
York ; as may be seen in the little colored map in the Equisse 
Géologique du Canada published in Paris in 1855. The crystal- 
line rocks adjacent to the south and east were in like manner 
designated as Altered Hudson-River group. The doctrine of re- 
gional metamorphism being then taken for granted, and at the 
time scarcely questioned, I sought for proof of it alike in the field 
and in the laboratory, and found in the composition of certain 
detrital beds near the crystalline schists, then regarded as 
beds of passage, evidence apparently confirming the meta- 
morphic hypothesis. 

In the views of his masters, then implicitly accepted, Logan 
made in his life-time only a single change, one forced upon 
him by the results of the paleontological studies of Billings, 
which showed that the so-called Hudson-River group at Pointe 
Levis was really, as Eaton and, in his later view, Emmons had 
maintained, not post-Trenton in age, but pre-Trenton, and be- 
longed to the First Graywacke of Eaton. It is unnecessary 
to remind the reader that subsequent researches have shown 
the same to be true of the greater part of the sedimentary 
rocks in question from the valley of the St. Lawrence to 
that of the Hudson. 

Logan’s first acknowledgement of this conclusion was in a 


History of the Quebec Growp—Hunt. 217 


letter to Barrande, dated in 1860 but published March 1861, to 
the effect that certain fossiliferous strata included inthe Hud- 
son-River group at Quebec had long been maintained by Em- 
mons to be older than the Trenton, adding “The fossils which 
have been obtained this year [1860] at Quebec pretty clearly 
demonstrate that he is right.” Instead, however, of calling 
these Upper Taconic with Emmons, or First Graywakce with 
Eaton, Logan proposed in his letter to Barrande the name 
of Quebec group, of which the apparently overlying Sillery 
sandstones constituted the summit, the great underlying mass 
of shales and limestone being called the Levis, and an inter- 
mediate division being subsequently proposed with the name 
of Lauzon. With the exception of this change in horizon of 
the group rendered inevitable by the progress of paleontologi- 
cal study, and the corresponding change in name, no alteration 
was made in the views of Logan, which were still those of 
Mather. The Hudson-River group of the latter was found to 
be pre-Trenton and was named Quebec group, and the crys- 
talline schists were henceforth called Altered Quebec group 
instead of Altered Hudson-River group. 

But the way was slowly preparing for the overturning of 
the whole hypothesis of Mather, and the establishment of the 
older view of Eaton and Emmons with regard to those crys- 
talline schists, as well as to the uncrystalline sediments. My 
studies of the crystalline rocks of the Ottawa and the great 
lakes had shown close resemblances between certain of these 
rocks and the crystalline schists of the Green Mountain range 
as seen alikein New England and in Quebec, and I was led to 
consider carefully the teaching of Eaton and of Emmons, that 
this range is itself a primitive or pre-Cambrian axis more 
ancient than the uncrystalline sediments along its western and 
northern base. I had found and described in 1857 in con- 
glomerates interstratified with the fossiliferous beds of the Hud- 
son-River group at Pointe Levis fragments of purplish and green- 
ish lustrous schists, apparently chloritic, and had moreover de- 
scribed in 1861 the presence of pebbles of green and bluish 
slates in conglomerates of the Potsdam age near the outlet of 
lake Champlain; in both cases evidently derived from rocks 
of greater antiquity, apparently the primitive schists of Eaton.’ 


‘See History of Cambrian and Silurian in Chemical and Geological 
Essays, page 400. 


218 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


In 1862 Thomas Macfarlane, who was familiar with the erys- 
talline schists of Norway, which there underlie the Cambrian, 
compared them with those of the Green Mountain range and of 
the great lakes already noticed, and concluded that they are all 
essentially similar, lithologically. Bigsby, the earliest scientific 
observer of these rocks in the Northwest,moreover announced in- 
dependently, in 1863, their apparent identity with the crystal- 
line schists of Scandinavia. In the Geology of Canada 1863, 
I called attention (p. 705) to these resemblances, mentioning 
that the crystalline schists of the north shore of lake Super- 
ior “recall the strata of the [altered] Quebec group.” 

The whole question of their probable identity, and of the 
great antiquity of these crystalline schists of the Green Moun- 
tain range as evinced by the pebbles and fragments found at 
different localities in the uncrystalline lower paleozoic sedi- 
ments was at that time repeatedly discussed with Logan, but, 
as I have elsewhere said, ‘official reasons then and for some 
years afterward prevented the writer from expressing any dis- 
sent from the views of the director of the geological survey of 
Canada.’ It was not until after having spent some months in 
1869 and 1870, in geological’studies along the southern coast 
of New Brunswick, and made examinations at various points 
on thecoasts of Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, that I 
ventured to declare in October 1870,in a communication to the 
Boston Society of Natural History, (Proceedings XIV, 45; 
46,) entitled “Notes on the Geology of the vicinity of Boston,” 
that the crystalline schists (previously described as altered 
Devonian), which near St. John, New Brunswick, underlie 
unconformably the Cambrian sediments, belong to the same 
series as those underlying such sediments near Boston ; classing 
them moreover with similar crystalline rocks at Newport, 
Rhode Island, and on the coast of Maine. It was then said “‘to 
the same series I refer the great range of gneissic and dioritic 
rocks with serpentines, chloritic, taleose and epidotic schists 
which stretches through western New England,” that is to say, 
the Green Mountain range. In a farther notice of this series of 
rocksin February, 1871, it was added, “they apparently belong 
* * * to the great Huronian system,” (Amer. Journ. Science 
III., 1, 84). See also Azote Rocks, being Report E., second geo- 
logical survey of Pennsylvania, page 114. Having reached 
this point, the attention of Logan was once again invited, and 


History of the Quebec Group.— Hunt. 219 


I proposed to serve as his guide to the more important. locali- 
ties, a proposition which he abruptly refused. Advancing 
years and failing health made him unfit to bear any question- 
ing as to the correctness of the views which he had so long 
maintained as to the Green Mountain range, and the conse- 
quence as is known to many, was a severance of the intimate 
and friendly relations of half a life-time and my withdrawal 
in June, 1872, from the geological suryey of Canada, after 
more than twenty-five years of service. 

The above conclusions as to the Green Mountain rocks were 
reiterated and enforced at length in my address in August 
1871, as retiring president of the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, which the reader may consult in 
the published Transactions, and also in my volume of 
Chemical and Geological Essays under the title of ‘“The Geology 
ofthe Appalachians.” Itis there said, “Although I have in com- 
mon with most other American geologists maintained that 
the crystalline rocks of the Green mountains and the White 
Mountain series are altered paleozoic sediments, I find on a 
careful examination of the evidence, no satisfactory proof of 
such an origin, but an array of facts which appear to me in- 
compatible with the hitherto received view, and lead me to con- 
clude thatthe whole of our crystalline schists in eastern North 
America are not only pre-Silurian but pre-Cambrian in age.” 

‘These conclusions were arrived at and published while I 
was yet an officer of the geological survey of Canada. They 
were, moreover, explained at length on many occasions to Sel- 
wyn, already in 1870 director of the survey, who was furnished 
with my various publications on the question in 1870, 1871, 
1872, 1876 and 1878, and soon began to investigate the argu- 
ments urged by me against the metamorphic hypothesis main- 
tained by Mather and by Logan, as to the crystalline rocks of 
the Green Mountain range. The result was that in 1878 I was 
able to write “The investigations of the geological survey of 
Canada during the years 1876 and 1877, have, according to 
the director of the survey, demonstrated the correctness of 
the view so long maintained by the writer, that the crystal- 
line rocks of the Green Mountain series belong to a more an- 
cient system, which underlies unconformably the uncrystal- 
line Cambrian sediments of the Quebee group.” 

2Azoic Rocks Rep. E., Second Geol. Survey of Penn., p. 198. 


220 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


Moreover as appears from the official report of the First In- 
ternational Geological Congress, held at Paris in September 
1878, after a communication by myself on the crystalline 
rocks of North America, Selwyn, who was present, made 
some remarks which were thus resumed. “As to the crystal- 
line rocks, which form the Green Mountains in the province of 
Quebec, they are according to Sir. W. E. Logan, altered 
paleozoic strata, making part of the Quebec group. Mr. Sel- 
wyn however feels it his duty to say that the recent research- 
es of the geological survey of Canada have confirmed the cor- 
rectness of the view maintained for some years by Mr. Sterry 
Hunt. These crystalline rocks appear to belong to a more an- 
client terrane than the fossiliferous strata jot the Quebee 
group and probably form the equivalent of the Huronian.”’ 

C. H. Hitchcock who had for some years maintained a 
similar view, published in 1877 his final report onthe geology of 
New Hampshire wherein he calls the Altered Quebec group of 
Logan Huronian and in the second volume moreyer gives a map 
of New England and eastern Canada in which the areas of the 
Green Mountain series in Vermont and New Hampshire are de- 
scribed and represented as Huronian. To say as Mr. Walcott 
has done that ‘Selwyn in his report of 1877-78, [dated and pub- 
lished in 1879] began the work of disintegration” in the Quebec 
group, by showing the anticlinal structure and the unconform- 
able infraposition of these crystalline rocks is so obviously con- 
trary to all the facts of the case as to require no comment. Sel- 
wyn’s recognition of these facts and his frank avowal before the 
International Geological Congress in 1878 was neither more nor 
less than a final surrender on the part of Logan’s successor to the 
persistent attacks upon the famous hypothesis of Mather and 
Logan, begun by me in 1857 and 1861, and supported by Mac- 
farlane on lithological grounds in1862. The view finally formu- 


***Quant aux roches cristallines qui forment les Montagnes Vertes dans 
la province de Quebec elles seraient d’aprés Sir William Logan des 
couches paleozoiques alterées faisants partie dela groupe de Quebec. M. 
Selwyn croit devoir dire cependant que les récherches recentes de la Con- 
mission Géologique du Canada ont confirmé la justice de la vue soutenue 
depuis quelques années par M. Sterry Hunt. Ces roches cristallines 
semblent done appartenir a unterrain plus ancien que les couches 
fossiliftres du groupe de Québec etprobablement forment |’ équivalent 
du terrain huronien,’’ Mr. Selwyn, having spoken in English the 
thanks of the president were given to Mr. Ch. Barrois who thus ré- 
sumed them in French (ioc. cit. pp 283—234.) 


History of the Quebec Growp.—Hunt. 221 


lated by me in 1870 and 1871 was but a return, fortified by a great 
accumulation of stratigraphical and lithological evidence, to the 
old conclusion that the Green Mountain range represents an anti- 
clinal axis of primitive schists, as shown by Amos Eaton in 
his engraved sections published in 1824,and again in 1832, and 
constantly maintained and taught by him and by Ebenezer 
Emmons. 

Having thus disposed of the question of the age and _ struc- 
ture of the Green Mountain range we come to the more particu- 
lar history of the uncrystalline sediments,of the vicinity of Que- 
bec, as seen in the sections of Sillery, the island of Orleans and 
Pointe Levis. Whether referred to the Second or later to the 
First Graywacke, whether called Hudson-River group or Quebec 
group, the apparent succession, as described by Logan in this 
typical region,was assumed to be the true one. The massive and 
apparently overlying sandstone of Sillery was declared to be the 
newest and the Levis division the oldest of this great series of 
strata. From many years of careful study of this vicinity, and of 
other out-crops of the same rocks elsewhere, I was however led 
to an opposite conclusion, which so far as I am aware was first 
set forth in 1872, when it was said: “If, as Iam disposed to be- 
lieve, the southeastward-dipping series of the older strata 
near Quebec exhibits the northwest side of an overturned and 
eroded anticlinal, in which the normal order of the strata is 
inverted, then the Lauzon and Sillery divisions which there ap- 
pear to overlie the Levis limestones and shales are older rocks, 
occupying the position of the Potsdam, or of still lower mem- 
bers of the Cambrian.” Billings ina private communication to 
me in 1876, a little while before his death, expressed his ap- 
proval of my view, which was in accordance with his paleon- 
tological studies. 

The same view was again set forth ina note on The Quebec 
group in Geology, read before the Boston Society of Natural 
History, October, 1876. (Proc. xix pp. 2-4.) Therein it was ex- 
plained that the series of rocks to which Logan had given that 
name near the city of Quebec have a measured thickness of 
over 5000 feet and dip at a high angle to the southeast. ‘‘The 
whole was described by Logan as having originally occupied 
a position conformably beneath the Trenton limestone of the 
vicinity, and as having been brought to the surface by a great 
break and uplift of the strata. The speaker however showed 


222 The American Geologist. April, 1890. 


in 1871-1872, that this fault was imaginary, and that the Que- 
bee group really occupies a position wnconformably beneath the 
Trenton; moreover that the series near Quebec is inverted, 
being probably the northwest side of an overturned anticlinal, 
so that the Sillery is in fact the oldest member of the series, 
and was followed by the Lauzon and the fossiliferous Leyis 
limestone, to which succeeded the graptolitic shales, the newest 
portion of the Quebec group.” He then referred again to the 
testimony of Billings ag to the greater antiquity of the few 
organic forms ( Obolella and Lingula) found in the Sillery. Af- 
ter discussing at some length,by the help of numerous sections 
and by comparisons, the relations of the Cambrian rocks of 
Great Britain and of Scandinavia to the so-called Quebec group, 
‘at was urged that the name given by Logan to this group 
should be rejected as misleading, although that of Levis, as 
designating a horizon of fossiliferous strata of Tremadoc age, 
might be advantageously retained in American geology, care 
being taken to distinguish it from the Quebec graptolitic zone.” 

The faunal relations of this group of strata I have discussed 
more at length in Report E of the second geological survey of 
Pennsylvania, where itis said: (p. 112.) “The great continental 
belt of rocks originally designated Hudson River group, and 
subsequently called Upper Taconic and Quebec group, has 
already afforded us at least three distinct faunas: 1. That 
of the Red Sandrock or so-called Lower Potsdam; 2. that of 
the Levis limestone,and 3: that of the Phyllograptus shale of 
Quebec.” Still another fauna is found in certain black slates at 
Farnham, Quebec, at first referred by Logan,from their appar- 
ent infraposition,to the Potsdam, being “at one time conceived 
to underlie the whole Levis or Orleans section, and were still 
placed near its base. From their fossils however, these slates be- 
long to a horizon above that assigned to the Quebec group, and 
correspond to the Trenton or the still higher members of the 
Champlain division.” [loc. c2t., pp., 116, 119.] Further south, 
in the Hudson valley, within the apparent limits of the so- 
called Hudson-River group, are other areas of similar strata of 
Ordovician age, carrying the fauna of the Loraine shales and 
thus affording a certain justification for the frequent use in 
times past of the name of Hudson River group as synon- 
omous with Loraine shales. The area of Silurian rocks at Be- 


, History of the Quebec Group.— Hunt. 223 


craft’s mountain, near the town of Hudson, and other related 
cases, must not be forgotten. 

When geologists abandoning the hypothesis of Mather re- 
cognize the fact that in the area mapped by him and his 
disciples as belonging tothe Hudson-River group, there exists 
a great development of more or less fossiliferous strata alike 
of Cambrian, of Ordovician and, more rarely, of Silurian age,— 
that the Cambrian strata are greatly disturbed so that their real 
succession has been frequently misunderstood—and moreover 
that they are overlaid, unconformably by Ordovician strata, 
which were affected by later movements, and in the local ab- 
sence of the massive Trenton limestones are often confounded 
with the subjacent Cambrian, some of the confusion which 
now perplexes workers in that region will be removed. 

The weighty testimony of James Hall in this connection 
in 1862 should not be lost sight of. Referring to the evidence 
of organic remains then recently found in the Hudson- 
River slates in Vermont and Canada he remarks that they 
“prove conclusively that these slates are to a great extent of 
older date than the Trenton limestone” adding that ‘the 
occurrence of well known forms ofthe second fauna—Leptena 
sericea, Orthss testudinaria, Asaphus (Lsotelus) Trinucleus, 
etc.—in intimate relation with and apparently constituting a 
part of the series along the Hudson river, requires some 
explanation. Looking critically at the localities in the Hudson 
valley which yield these fossils we find them of limited and 
almost insignificant extent. Some of them are at the sum- 
mits of elevations which aresynclinal axes * * * * where 
the remains of newer formations would naturally occur. 
Others are apparently unconformable to the rocks below, or 
are entangled in folds of the strata, * * * * while the 
enormous thickness of beds exposed is almost destitute of 
fossils.” The graptolites of the Hudson valley “which have 
hitherto been referred to the age of the other fossils found in 
the small outliers, or to the second fauna, in reality hold a 
lower position and belong to the great mass of slates below.” 
Inasmuch then as the Hudson-River strata in their typical 
localities are, as a body, older than the Trenton limestone, 
which is itself older than the Loraine shales and the shales 
and sandstones of Pulaski ‘‘the term Hudson-River group can 
not be properly extended to these rocks, which on the west 
side of the Hudson are separated from the Hudson-River 


224 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


group proper by a fault not yet fully ascertained.”* In sub- 
sequent examinations of the region by Logan and Hall con- 
jointly a narrow belt of Loraine shales was traced along the 
east side of the Hudson to a point a little above Hyde Park 
where the boundary between the two formations crosses to the 
west bank, and the rocks of the older series thence occupy 
both sides of the Hudson down to the Highlands. (Azoic 
Rocks, pp. 120-121.) 

In concluding the note of 1876, cited above, it was said ‘‘the 
author many years since pointed out that the fossiliferous 
Levis strata near Quebec hold ‘in their conglomerates pebbles 
from the crystalline Huronian rocks which were described by 
Logan as altered Levis and Lauzon rocks. These crystalline 
schists were by Logan maintained to belong to this horizon 
because they are in some places overlaid by Sillery sandstone, 
but inasmuch as it now appears that the Sillery is really the 
lowest member of the Quebec group, it is clear that these crys- 
talline schists must belong to a more ancient series.” 

It is to be noted that while the Second, or what we may call 
the Ordovician Graywacke, has for its lower member the Utica 
slate overlaid by the Loraine shale and terminated by the 
massive Oneida sandstone and conglomerate this order is re- 
versed, in the First or Cambrian Graywacke, the Upper Ta- 
conic as defined by Emmons, a massive sandstone there form- 
ing the base of the series. For the rest, the general lithologi- 
cal resemblances between the two Graywacke series are such 
that as we have seen, Emmons from the apparent stratigraphy 
of the Quebec section was at first led to refer it to the Sec- 
ond Graywacke, a determination accepted without hesitation 
by Logan, who shared in the general mistrust and disfavor 
shown to the later conclusions of Emmons until convinced at 
the end of 1860 that the contention of the latter with regard to 
the Upper Taconic was true. Meanwhile, accepting the metamor- 
phic hypothesis of Mather, which maintained the transforma- 
tion of the Levis and Lauzon sedimentary strata into crystal- 
line schists, the small amounts of oxyds of titanium, chrome 
and nickel, of magnesian silicate (and even the distinct por- 
tions of serpentine) found in certain beds of the Sillery divis- 

*See Geology of Wisconsin, 1862, p. 443, cited in the author’s report 


on Azoic Rocks, E., Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, page 
118. 


The Making of Pennsylvania.— Claypole. 225 


ion were explained as due to the penetration of a mysterious 
process of metamorphism into the superior member of the 
sedimentary series, rather than to the accumulation of detrital 
matters from the older crystalline schists in the basal member 
of a new and unconformable group of uncrystalline sedi- 
ments.” 

Park Avenue Hotel, New York, March 1, 1890. 


THE MAKING OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
By E. W. CLAYPOLE, Akron, O. 
‘ Part The First. ' 

The beautiful Keystone State has a long and _ eventful 
history. Ages before her bell tolled forth the birth of a nation 
—ages before her Quaker Patron landed on the shores of the 
Delaware, negotiated his bargain for cheap land with the na. 
tive tribes and founded the city of brotherly love—ages before 
the yet earlier Swedo-Finnish colony settled at the meeting of 
the two streams—even long ere the Red Man or that other and 
earlier race whose remains are found in the gravels of New Jer- 
sey had come upon the scene, the ‘‘Making of Pennsylvania” 
began. The story of her development from the most distant 
date yet discernible by the telescope of geology to the com- 
mencement of her occupation by man, though at present a 
mere outline, is yet of great interest not merely to the geolo- 
gist but to every one who feels any curiosity regarding the 
processes— by which the earth of to-day has been evolved. 

The geological history of Pennsylvania divides itself into 
two great eras—the palzeozoic and the post-paleozoic. These 
may be defined for our present purpose as the eras before and 
after the end of the Carboniferous period. The cessation of 

°Those who wish to study the present question will find besides the 
two papers from the Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. History in 1870 and 1876, 
already cited, much additional matter in the author’s address before 
the Amer. Assoc. Ady.Science, at Indianapolis in 1871, on The Geognosy 
of the Appalachians, and in his essay on the History of the names 
Cambrian and Silurian in Geology, in the Can. Naturalist for 1872. 
The latter appeared in a French translation by Dewalque, at Mons, in 
1875, and both are reprinted in the author’s Chemical and Geological Es- 
says. See also the history,with much detail, in Azoic Rocks, being Re- 
port E., of the Second Geological survey of Penn., 1878, and further 
Geological History of Serpentine,with studies of pre-Cambrian Rocks, 
Royal Soc., Canada, Vol. I., and The Taconic Question in Geology, 
ibid, Vols. I. and II. ; both being reprinted in the author’s Mineral Phys- 


iography and Physiology... Further, the Taconic Question Restated, 
American Naturalist, Feb., March and April, 1887. 


226 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


the coal-making process on a grand scale was their dividing 
epoch. 

The two volumes in which are recorded the annals of these 
eras contain all that we at present know regarding the story 
of Pennsylvania. There may be, indeed there probably is, a yet 
earlier volume, a pre-palzozoic one, but it is not yet publish- 
ed, its materials are not yet collected, and it cannot therefore 
be considered. 

In the earlier of the two volumes above mentioned we read 
accounts that reveal a condition of things so different from 
any now existing that the “oldest inhabitant” of the State may 
be pardoned for failing to recognize his home. If we could 
restore palewozoic Pennsylvania with any approach to exact- 
ness we should have a series of successive geographies change- 
able as the views in a kaleidoscope. No one of these would in 
the least resemble the state as it now exists, but it would be 
possible to trace a process of evolution running through them 
and to discover some of its results even in the present topo- 
graphy. 

The paleozoic age was long, very long, longer doubtless 
than allthe time that has elapsed since it ended and in so vast 
an era it is of course impossible to present details. Still less 
is it possible to give at one view more than the merest outline. 
It must suffice to indicate in general terms what was going on 
in the region during the millions of years that flowed by as the 
period passed. 

Tf with the aid of the telescope of geology we try to sight 
across this long time-interval and realize or fill in the dim out- 
lines of the picture that is brought before our mental eye from 
that far-off horizon we behold the water of a sea covering the 
greater part of what is now Pennsylvania. These waters were 
part of an immense Paleozoic Mediterranean whose northern 
boundry was along the Canadian Laurentides, its western 
somewhere in the region of the RockyMountains and its south- 
ern altogether unknown. Its eastern coast as nearly as can 
be determined lay long the line of the gneissic area in the 
southeast of the state for the most part, through Philadelphia, 
Chester, Lancaster and York counties. 

But the geologist does not pretend to lay down this coast- 
line with exactness or definiteness. The view is so distant and 
interrupted by so many intervening obstacles that only the 


The Making of Pennsylvania.— Claypole. 227 


main features are traceable. He cannot tell how large was the 
mass of land whose outlines formed the coast whether it was con- 
tinuous or archipelagic, high or low. Some have thought that 
they could make out a vast continent extending into what is 
now the Atlantic ocean. Others failto see more than a narrow 
strip of land ending eastward nearly at the existing coast. Some 
picture high mountain ranges that have been since destroyed 
by erosion. Others see only a low tract more or less cut up 
into islands of gneiss and schist and slate. 

What we do know is that the bottom of this sea of Pennsyl- 
vania above mentioned was slowly subsiding during the whole 
paleozoic era, not continuously but intermittently, as the 
wreckage washed off the adjoining land was dropped into it by 
rivers and currents. Such subsidence under increasing load 
is acommon occurrence. Itis now happening at the mouths 
of the Ganges and the Mississippi. Its frequency has supplied 
a strong argument to those who favor the theory of a yielding 
crust underlaid by a liquid or viscous stratum. But be this as 
it may the fact remains that a region of great deposition is 
usually a region of continued subsidence and if in the present 
case the proof be demanded it is readily forthcoming. In the 
immense mass of sediment laid down in the paleozoic sea of 
Pennsylvania we find indications of shallow water in ripple 
marks, mud-cracks &c.,and as these occur at almost every level 
through the whole five or six miles of rock that compose the 
deposit it is evident that every such layer was at the time of 
its formation within reach of surface action. 

Probability not less than evidence indicates that then, as 
occurs now, the marginal coast-line rose as the sea-bottom fell 
and that thus there was a continuous renewal of the quarry 
from which material could be cut by erosion and of the pit 
into which it could be thrown. : 

We may then picture to ourselves all the northern, central 
and western parts of the state in the early paleozoic period 
under the waters of a slowly deepening sea and the southeast- 
ern corner as a slowly rising area of land. Beyond this we 
dare not go with confidence. What rivers washed the worn 
material of that land into that extinct sea, where they flowed, 
how large they were and what changes they underwent during 
their long existence—all these matters are left for the future to 
disclose. What rocks then constituted its surface we can do 


228 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


little more than guess. What forms of life inhabited that sur- 
face in the earliest time the paleontologist has not yet dis- 
covered. The land on which they once dwelt is gone and the 
marginal beds have thus far yielded no trace of any remains 
that chance may have washed into them. All is blank. 

This land area remained above the water,doubtless with great 
variation from time to time, throughout the whole paleozoic 
era and afforded, in part at least, the material that went to 
build up the enormous sediments of middle Pennsylvania. If 
total submergence occurred it was neither long nor permanent 
and all evidence of it fails, Successive maps, could they be 
constructed, would show much change of detail but the Pal- 
zozoic Coast Survey has not yet begun its labor, has not indeed 
been appointed and it would be foreign to our porpose to en- 
cumber this sketch with minute and speculative details. 

The Ordovician (Lower Silurian) era passed away with all 
its minor divisions of Calciferous, Chazy, Trenton and Hudson 
River groups and at its close there was a prophetic manifesta- 
tion of Earth-force which outside of Pennsylvania forced up the 
newly deposited strata in western Ohio into a wide anticline ex- 
tending from southwest Ontario to Tennessee now known as 
the Cincinnati arch. Rising above water it formed an island 
in the paleozoic sea which existed for a long time, till sharing 
in the general subsidence it ultimately sank and was covered 
with the later deposits of Silurian and Devonian sediments.’ 

Though it is usually considered that this manifestation of 
Earth-force failed to leave any discoverable impress on the 
geology of Pennsylvania yet it is somewhat doubtful if this 
opinion is well founded. Certain signs in the southeastern 
part of the state betray at the close of Ordovician time an 
epoch of disturbance of considerable extent and importance. 
A glance at the map. shows that these rocks extend much 
farther in that direction than do any of the succeeding paleozo- 
ic strata. Though the exact age of the great limestone rang- 
ing through York, Lancaster and Chester counties is some- 
what uncertain, yet there can be no reasonable doubt that it is 
gence was continuous. Probably the Cincinnati Island existed inter- 
mittently during the whole later paleeozoic era. At timesit was cov- 
ered with water and at others dry. In the Hamilton period for ex- 


ample it was probably dry while in Corniferous and Huron ages it was 
apparently submerged. 


The Making of Pennsylvania.—Claypole. 229 


ofearly paleozoic date. Itmay therefore be taken as evidence 
that the early palsozoic sea extended over that area. The 
absence of every sign of later rocks is at least an indication 
that they were not deposited and therefore that later seas 
did not cover that part of the state. The existence of the 
South mountain as a barrier between these two areas 
may be quoted as an additional argument in the same 
direction. The onset of a time of enormous erosion of 
siliceous material whose only discoverable origin, though 
now altogether effaced by erosion, must lie somewhere 
in this region and its deposition as the massive Medina sand- 
stone again points to an elevation of this portion of the 
state in mid-paleozoic days accompanied with a certain 
amount of folding and crumpling. It is not necessary to 
maintain that the existing South mountains are of that age 
though this is by no means impossible. Their apparently 
Cambrian strata have suffered enormous erosion and the axis 
now surviving even if of later elevation, is but a fragment of 
the mass that once existed. This range may be coeval with 
the Green mountains of Vermont and be due to the southward 
extension of the same compressing force. Both may haye 
stood above the water from mid-paleozoic time to the present 
day. Both bear all the marks of immense antiquity. 

If this view is correct we have proof in Pennsylvania of a 
paroxysm of disturbance before which the rise of the Cincin- 
nati-arch in Ohio sinks into complete insignificance. The 
massive South mountains then become the relics of its eleva- 
tion and the Medina sandstone 2,000 feet in thickness a mon- 
ument to its energy and extent. But the paleozoic geography 
was not essentially changed. Sea and land on the whole still 
occupied the same areas. 

We can pass rapidly over the remainder of the paleozoic 
era as it was unmarked by any epoch-making events. The 
formation of sediment and its deposition in the Pennsylvanian 
sea continued through the whole Devonian era. On the top 
of the Ordivician were laid down the Medina sandstone, the 
Clinton and Onondaga shales and the Lower Helderberg lime- 
stones. On these followed the Devonian system consisting of 
the Oriskany sandstone, the Corniferous limestone and the 
thick shales of the Marcellus, Hamilton, (which includes a 
massive sandstone in middle Pennsylvania), Genesee, Portage 


230 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


and Chemung. The indications of slight or temporary changes 
of level during this long succession, though of much geological 
interest, must not detain us here. But the immense thickness 
of these rocks combined with the fineness of their material 
enables us in some degree to realize the enormous lapse of 
time required for their deposition. 

A change then ensued in the nature of the sediment. The 
deposit of fine mud was succeeded by the inbringing of sand, 
and the Catskill or Upper Devonian strata were laid down to 
the thickness of 8,000 to 10,000 feet. There are strong reasons 
for believing that these red rocks were formed not in a marine 
but in a lacustrine or aestuarine area and that some geograph- 
ica change had taken place which is as yet unknown but 
which had the effect of cutting off that free communication 
with the open sea that had previously existed. Then followed 
the Pocono sandstone 2,000 feet in thickness, the Mauch 
Chunk red shale 1,500 feet, and the Carboniferous Conglomer- 
ate of about 1,000 feet on the top of which the coal beds were 
formed in succession consisting of alternating strata of shale 
and coal with few limestones and indicating fresh water or 
marshy conditions during a great part of the time. 

The long Appalachian subsidence was still continuing, but 
apparently the supply of sediment from some new source 
enabled deposition to keep pace with it and during the Carbon- 
iferous era we find evidence of alternating conditions. At 
one time the sea which had survived in the southwest, in 
Indiana, in Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee,extended into the 
southern and western counties of Pennsylvania, depositing 
marine limestones and marine shells. Then fresh water 
resumed the area and even dry land supported a rich and 
varied vegetation. Anon these were buried beneath a deluge 
of sand or mud. Again the ground became dry or swampy 
and coal plants flourished. Subsidence prevailing brought in 
the sea from the southwest and a limestone was the result. 
Thus the process continued until a heterogeneous mass of 
strata was deposited ranging from 10,000 to 14,000 feet in 
thickness. The picture of the Keystone state during this time 
is one that requires much thought and trouble to realize. The 
eonstant and long succession of changes implies not only a 
long time but a condition of instability now unknown. The 
flow of streams or seas of apparently fresh water bearing 


The Making of Pennsylvania.—Claypole. 231 


enormous quantities of sand and burying beneath it the veg- 
etable growth over thousands of square miles is difficult to 
imagine and the repetition of this over and over again to form 
the many beds thick and thin that compose the coal 
fields of Pennsylvania indicates an oscillation of level quite 
beyond the range of our experience. Yet at the time in ques- 
tion such seems to have been the condition of things over the 
whole state and even far beyond its limits. The massive 
anthracites of the East, the semi-bituminous coals of Bloss- 
burg and Broad Top and the soft but inexhaustible fuels of 
the West all agree to tell us the same story of the time of 
their deposition, when for thousands and tens of thousands of 
years the whole middle and western part of the state was one 
vast coal-growing swamp of varying rankness and luxuriance 
but each part contributing its share to the production of this 
staple of Pennsylvania. 

To one familiar with the state or even well acquainted with 
its map the above description of it during the Carboniferous 
era may sound extravagant. Knowing the small area to 
which the coal-fields are limited he may be surprised to hear 
of the prevalence of coal-making over so great a region. But 
probability leads us to the belief that these conditions pre- 
vailed wherever the later paleozoic sea had spread within the 
state. The present isolated coal-fields of Pennsylvania were 
probably once connected and a vast series of coal-swamps 
existed from the most:easterly point where coal is now found 
across the state to the west, forming a store of mineral fuel 
compared with which even her present liberal supply is insig- 
nificant. This point will be better appreciated when the 
process of rock-destruction has been considered. 

The end of the paleozoic era was now approaching and 
geology to our eye reveals the state of Pennsylvania as one 
dismal, trackless, impenetrable maze of low lying land, of 
swamp and morass, of pool and lake, clad with an obsolete 
vegetation and tenanted by animals whose highest types con- 
sisted of a few reptiles and amphibians. No mountain or 
even hill broke the monotony of her western and central flats 
and if rivers drained them, as they probably did, they wound 
along slow and almost stagnant, in for the most part a south 
or southwest direction. Subsequent changes have, however, 
so completely effaced their channels that it is quite impossible 


239 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


now to reproduce the hydrography of Pennsylvania as then 
existing with any degree of certainty. The Appalachian Rev- 
olution, as Prof. LeConte has happily termed the great change 
next to be described; was at hand and its iconoclastic zeal 
entirely destroyed nearly all traces of pre-existing conditions 
When it was over, Pennsylvania started on a new career of 
existence. 

The Revolution was on this wise: The Earth-force which 
in earlier days had shown signs of its intensity again man- 
ifested itself. The vast system of low lands, marshes, pools 
and rivers that we have just described and the massive 
palzeozoic sediments on which they rested, many thousands of 
feet in thickness, began slowly to yield to its energy. This 
force, whatever its nature, was exerted from the southeast and 
in a horizontal direction. But it was irresistible. Before it 
the solid and massive paleozoic deposits from three to seven 
miles in thickness, yielded as a spread table cloth before a 
pressing hand and rose in gigantic waves or sank in huge fur- 
rows at right angles to the direction of pressure. Stiff as 
these beds were their stiffness availed them nothing; heavy 
as they were their weight was as that of a feather before the 
incalculable Earth-force. Their stiffness and their weight 
were as vanishing quantities when compared with the thrust 
that came to bearuponthem. Arch behind arch slowly arose, 
trough after trough as slowly subsided until the whole central 
part of the state, previously flat and monotonous, became one 
complicated system of ridges and furrows where horizontality 
was almost unknown. The greatest intensity was felt in the 
southeast where consequently the arches are steepest. Grad- 
ually their abruptness grows less to the westward and their 
steep slopes flatten down until they disappear. So severe was 
the pressure at the place of onset that not a few of the anti- 
clinals are actually overthrown, their tops having been pushed 
beyond their bases so that both sides slope in the same direc- 
tion. Thus in the Cumberland valley the successive waves 
are so overthrown and pinched together that there is only one 
continuous dip varying from 50 to 80 degrees across the whole 
limestone outcrop between the South and the Blue mountains. 

The intense compression to which this part of the continent 
was subjected is sufficiently proved by the distorted condition 
of the strata. But another consequence is equally inevitable 


e5 
se 


The Making of Pennsylvania. — Claypole. 233 


though seldom brought forward. Such crumpling as above 
described can not have occurred without the wholesale trans- 
fer of large areas of the state from one place to another. The 
folding of the strata in the west lessened their horizontal 
extent and with every succeeding anticlinal to the east this 
shortening of area became greater so that the previous swamp 
was not only thrown into a series of ridges and furrows but 
these ridges and furrows were crowded against one another 
until the whole mass of the southeastern arches was shoved 
bodily forward to the northwest over the deeper rocks below 
it. Careful computation made some years ago by the writer 
showed that the line from a point in Blair county to a point 
in Cumberland county,crossing eleven of the mountain ranges 
and the Great Valley and now only 65 miles long represents a 


_ line about 153 miles long before compression took place. Or, 


quoting from the paper alluded to :— 

“During the compression and corrugation to which the 
mountains of Pennsylvania owe their origin the southeast line 
of Huntingdoncounty was moved forward two miles, that of 
Mifflin four miles, that of Juniata six miles, that of Perry 
nine miles and that of Cumberland eighty-eight miles. Con- 
sequently the whole of Mifflin county was shoved at the least 
two miles to the northwest, the whole of Juniata county four 
miles, the whole of Perry county six miles and the whole of 
Cumberland county nine miles, over the underlying deeper 
strata. The movement of course diminished toward the north- 
west in consequence of the increasing resistance offered by the 
increasing load and came at length to nothing beyond the 
limits of Pennsylvania. Ohio was the great buffer-plate 
against which this tremendous Earth-force spent itself. The 
southeastern portion of the district—the Cumberland valley— 
and even probably some considerable area beyond it to the 
southeast felt its first and mightiest pressure. There the 
strata were crumpled, bent, crushed and thereby thickened till 
it became easier to shove them bodily forward than to bend 
them again. They were consequently added as a snow-plow 
in front of the mighty engine and in their turn communicated 
the movement and the crumpling to the northwestern country 
beyond them.” ! 


1«“Pennsylvania before and after the elevation of the Appalachians.”’ 
American Naturalist, March, 1885. 


AAT aNERS TeER RCO C SET ANE Yeo eRe af Cia es ea oes as 


x 
Te) Wits 


234 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


Mass motion to this extent and of this nature is, I think, 
seldom realized as an actual occurrence. But if it is real as 
above shown—if strata have slidden bodily over strata for 
miles, and whole counties have been shoved for long distances 
out of their previous places over “thrust-planes” lying almost 
horizontal, it is obvious that great lateral displacement must 
be recognized as an important geological factor in disturbed 
regions. A striking illustration may be found in the very 
area now under consideration. During the Appalachian Rey- 
olution or that earlier one in mid-paleeozoic days the folds 
composing the South mountain chain actually snapped across 
under the strain, and one part—the northeastern—was shoved 
forward three miles beyond the other—the southwestern. This 
cross-fracture and thrust may now be recognized in a notch 
of that extent in the mountain- wall of Franklin county near 
Chambersburg. 

How long these stupendous changes occupied it is of course 
impossible to tell, but there are reasons for believing that they 
were not sudden or catastrophic. They probably progressed 
slowly so that the surface was not much disturbed and they 
may have occupied the whole of the long interval between 
paleeozoic and mesozoic time, or even a longer period. This, 
however, does not now concern us. We have shown that the 
great sea of Pennsylvania was converted into a swamp and 
flat, and that on this swampy flat huge arches of bent strata 
were reared to a hight that it is difficult now to realize. It 
remains to show how from this complex of arches the modern 
Pennsylvania has been slowly constructed as mesozoic and 
tertiary time passed by. In other words we may here close 
the first volume in the history. 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


AWARD OF THE HAYDEN MEMORIAL MEDAL TO PROF. JAMES 
Hatt, LL.D. The widow of Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden, late 
Director of the U.S. geological survey, executed two years ago 
the following deed of trust, to which is appended the official 
acceptance of the same by the designated trustee: 


Know all men by these presents that I, Emma W. Hayden, of the 
city of Philadelphia, in commemoration of my dearly beloved husband 


Editorial Comment. 235 


the late Ferdinand V. Hayden, LL.D., and to perpetuate his name and 
for and in consideration of the sum of one dollar, lawful money of the 
United States of America, have assigned, transferred and paid over 
unto the Academy of Natural Sciences the sum of two thousand five 
hundred dollars, in cash, to be known forever as the ‘‘Hayden Mem- 
orial Geological Fund”’ in trust to hold the same upon the following 
uses, intents and purposes, that is to say in trust to hold the same 
and to invest and keep the same invested in such securities as are 
allowed by law for the investment of trust funds in Pennsylvania, 
such investments to be kept separate and apart from the other funds 
and investments of said Academy and to receive and collect the inter- 
est and income therefrom derived as the same shall accrue and to 
apply such interest annually, together with a bronze medal of such 
cost and design as the hereinafter mentioned committee shall desig- 
nate which shall be purchased thereout, as a reward for the best pub- 
lication, exploration, discovery or research in the sciences of geology 
and paleontology, or in such particular branches thereof as may be 
‘designated, which award and the conditions and limitations attending 
the same and all matters connected with this gift shall be determined 
by a committee to be selected in an appropriate manner by the 
Academy. 

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal in dupli- 
eate the eleventh day of April, Anno Domini 1888. 

Emma W. Haypen. (Seal.) 
Sealed and delivered in the presence of 
H. H. Dieorr. 
Caru Royer. 


The Academy of Natural Sciences hereby accepts the trust in the 
above deed set forth and acknowledges to have received from Mrs. 
Emma W. Hayden the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars 
therein mentioned. 

Witness the corporate seal duly attested this fourteenth day of April 
Anno Domini 1888. 
Josepn Leipy, President A. N.S. (Seal.) 

Attest: 

Epw. J. Nouan, Rec. Secretary A. N. S. 


The committee appointed by the president of the Academy 
of Natural Sciences consisted of Prof. Joseph Leidy, M.D., 
LL.D., etc, chairman, Prof. J. P. Lesley, Prof. Angelo Heilprin, 
Prof. Wm. B. Scott, and Dr. Persifor Frazer. This committee 
was called together a few weeks ago and presented the follow- 
ing report: 


To tHe ACADEMY oF NaATuRAL Scrences. The committee 


236 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


appointed by the Academy of Natural Sciences to recommend 
the award of the Hayden memorial medal for the most impor- _ 
tant contribution to the science of geology, has the honor to 
report to the Academy that it has selected Prof. James Hall, 
the state geologist of New York for the honor of receiving the 
first award of this medal. In making the selection the com- 
mittee feels confident that it will have the endorsement of 
every geologist both here and abroad, but it deems it due to 
the eminent character of the recipient of this medal, and of 
the work which he has done for fifty-eight years and is still 
doing for science that these services should be here formally 
acknowledged. 

Prof. Hall was born at Hingham, Mass., on Sept. 12th, 1811, 
and is therefore now in his 79th year. He commenced his 
scientific life in 1832 when, after graduation at the Van 
Rensselaer Polytechnic School, he immediately assumed the 
duties of a professor there. His dedication to the special 
branch of research to which he has made so many and impor- 
tant contributions, began in 1836 when he was appointed pro- 
fessor of geology at this institution and the same year one of 
the assistant geologists on the then just instituted geological 
survey of New York. In 1837 he was made state geologist in 
charge of the “fourth division” of the state. His final report 
of this district was made in 1848, and thence with the title of 
state geologist he was placed in charge of the paleontological 
work. From then till 1879 five volumes of the paleontology 
of the measures from the Potsdam sandstone to the base of 
the Coal Measures have been issued. He has prepared a com- 
plete revision of the paleozoic brachiopoda of North America 
which is now in press and which has necessarily required 
researches as far west as the Rocky mountains. 

He was also state geologist of lowa in 1855. In 1867 he was 
elected state geologist of Wisconsin. He has besides prepared 
monographs on the graptolites of the Quebec group (1865) ; 
two volumes of the geology and paleontology of Iowa (1858-9) ; 
the chapters on geography, geology and paleontology of Wis- 
consin in 1862; Fremont’s exploring expedition, Appendix A, 
(1845); Expedition to the Great Salt lake (1852); U.S. and 
Mexican boundary survey (1857) ; U.S. geological exploration 
of the 40th parallel, vol.rv. He has published volumes of 
reports of progress ever since 1866 when on the reorganization 
of the N. Y. State Museum he was appointed director as well 
as state geologist. Notable among these are Vol. v1, on the 
Corals and Bryozoa from the Lower and Upper Helderberg, 
and Hamilton—Vol. vir containing descriptions of the trilo- 
bites and other crustacea of the Oriskany, Upper Helderberg, 
Hamilton, Portage, Chemung and Catskill, (in fact, eleven 
volumes in all). He received the grand cross of the order of 
St. Maurice and St. Lazarus from the king of Italy in 1882, 


Editorial Comment. 237 


and the Walker quinquennial grand prize of $1,000 from the 
Boston Society of Natural History in 1884. 

He is the only surviving founder of the American Associa- 
tion of Geologists which was organized in Philadelphia in 1840 
and out of which grew the A.A.A.S. He was one of the char- 
ter members of the National Academy of Science, and one of 
the original founders of the International Congress of Geol- 
ogists, at all sessions of the latter which he has attended hav- 
ing been elected vice-president representing the United States. 
He was elected the first president of the recently organized 
Geological Society of America. 

He was elected one of the foreign members of the Geological 
Society of London in 1848 and received its Wollaston medal 
in 1858, and he was elected correspondent of the Academy of 
Sciences of Paris in 1884. 

Probably no one living has influenced to a greater extent 
the domain of invertebrate paleontology, and much of the 
exactitude of knowledge which his researches have introduced 
into the New York reports have made these the standard of 
geological nomenclature and classificdtion throughout Amer- 
ica. 


In this connection a fragment of the history of the relations 
between Hayden and Hall is interesting. 

In 1851 on Prof. Hall’s return from a successful geological 
exploration of the upper lakes and the’ Mississippi valley he 
called upon Dr. J.S. Newberry at Cleveland, Ohio, and was 
introduced to a young man in the latter’s office who had made 
some interesting collections in the limestone at Sandusky 
_and the neighboring country. This young man was Ferdinand 
V. Hayden. His zeal and industry impressed Prof. Hall and 
his great desire to undertake explorations and the collection 
of fossils prompted the New York geologist to encourage him 
in this purpose. The region of the “Mauvaises Terres” then 
so new and deeply interesting was spoken of and Hayden was 
asked if he had the courage to undertake an exploration to 
that region, which he answered affirmatively. During that 
winter it was arranged through correspondence that Hayden 
was to start in the early spring going up the Missouri in the 
first steamboat of the season. Some difficulties arose at St. 
Louis through another exploring party of which Prof. Hall 
had not known, and the latter sent Mr. F. B. Meek, at that 
time an assistant and draughtsman in his office at Albany, to 
accompany Hayden. This was Dr. Hayden’s first expedition. 


238 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


The collection of fossils brought down was a very good one 
and they haye all passed under Dr. Leidy’s scrutiny (some of 
them having been illustrated by him) and are now in the New 
York Museum of Natural History in New York city. It is 
unusual that the man who first gave aid and encouragement 
to a beginner should live to receive the award of a medal 
founded in honor of the latter. 


REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL LITERATURE, 


The geology of Ontario, with special reference to economic minerals. 
By Rosert Betz, B.A.Sc., M.D., LL.D., member of the Royal Com- 
mission on the mineral resources of Ontario. Toronto. pp. 57. (From 
the report of the Royal Commission). This report consists of a con- 
cise general review of the geology of Ontario, specially enumerating 
the mineral productions that have attracted attention and the possi- 
bilities of further development. Below the drift are enumerated the 
Devonian, Silurian, Cambrian, Huronian and Laurentian, with their 
subdivisions. Their geographic areas are described, and their 
economic resources, employing the names of the formations that were 
applied by the New York geologists. Dr. Bell has personally visited 
and examined very many of these mineral deposits, and his descrip- 
tiens have, therefore, the value and accuracy which belong to the work 
of an experienced geologist. 

The crystalline rocks are embraced under the term Azoic, and are 
divided into Huronian and Laurentian, each with an ‘‘upper’’ and a 
‘ower’? portion. Above these are what Dr. Bell calls Cambrian, con- 
taining the Animikie, the Nipigon and the Potsdam. The greater por- 
tion of the developed economic minerals of Ontario are contained 
in the Azoic and Cambrian. 

The Lower Laurentian is apparently barren of metallic ores, but the 
anorthosites, and the gneisses and limestones of the upper series, (the 
equivalent of the gabbro and the Mesabi gneisses in Minnesota) con- 
tain a considerable variety of them. Here are mentioned iron ores, 
graphite and apatite; but no localities are given where these minerals 
are mined in the Upper Laurentian. 

In the ‘‘Huronian’’ as defined, including all the rocks from the 
Laurentian to the fossiliferous strata of the Primordial, are found by 
far the most of the economic mineral products of Ontario, and Dr. Bell 
styles this the metalliferous series. Here are mentioned some localities 
that promise to be valuable as iron producers. These are mostly north 
of lake Superior, and are thought to be associated with the same 
rocks as those of Tower. Dr. Bell has fallen into a misapprehension, 
however, respecting the iron ore north of Gunflint lake. It is found 
near the bottom of the Animikie, whereas that of Hunter’s island is in 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 239 


the Keewatin, and is in the direct line of strike of the rocks from 
Tower. 

Copper and nickel are described at. Bruce and Sudbury, and that at 
Sudbury is supposed to be in the northwestern extension of the rocks 
that contain the copper and nickel of the old Wallace mine near the 
shore of lake Huron, and similar nickeliferous copper has been observed 
at numerous points intervening. 

Recent discoveries of gold are announced. The Huronian mine is in 
the township of Moss, and the gold is found free and as sylvanite (or 
telluride of gold) associated with galena, iron and copper pyrites and 
blende. This isin a quartz vein, and the country rock is a ‘‘talcoid 
chloritic, dioritic and a little dolomitic schist,’’ with siliceous mag- 
netite and massive dioryte. This is the usual manner of occurrence 
at the other numerous places mentioned in the report. Yet in one 
instance, on lake Wahnapitae, it was found in narrow quartz veins 
cutting a highly feldspathic reddish quartzyte resembling fine-grained 


granite, but distinctly elastic. In this respect this deposit resembles 


that of the famous Treadwell mine on Douglass island, Alaska, as 
described by Dr. Geo. M. Dawson and Mr. F. D. Adams in this jour- 
nal.* In general the gold of Ontario seems to be embraced in the 
same (Keewatin) formation as the mines of Michigan near Ishpeming. 

In the same formation are described briefly some unimportant dis- 
coveries of silver and some of argentiferous galena; zinc, antimony, 
arsenic, tellurium, platinum, tin, molybdenum, bismuth and cobalt 
have also been found in Ontario in small quantities. 

In the Animikie formation are the great silver mines of Ontario 
northwest of lake Superior. Here silver occurs native, in grains, 
threads and small branching forms, and as argentite in leaves and 
small masses, but occasionally in large crystalline lumps, as at the 
Rabbit Mountain mine. Huntilite and animikite, two new silver 
compounds, were found some years ago at Silver Islet, near Thunder 
bay in the great Silver Islet mine. This mine has been worked to the 
depth of 1230 feet, the work continuing up to the beginning of 1884, 
the value of the silver extracted having been $3,250.00. The vein in 
the part worked was from 8 to 10 feet in thickness, but in some places 
measured 20 or 30 feet. The vein, which is one of quartz carrying, 
along with free silver, galena, blende and graphite, runs N. 32° W. 
across Burnt island and on to the main shore, crossing a dike of 
diabase trap. The silver was found only in and near the trap. 
Graphite was present in the richest parts of the vein. Hydrocarbon 
gas and water holding chlorides of sodium, calcium and magnesium 
were struck in the deeper workings of the mine. Graphite and in- 
flammable gas have since been met within other silver mines in the 
district. 

Small quantities of native copper have been found in the Nipigon 
formation on St. Ignace, Simpson’s and Battle islands. But on the 


* AMERICAN GEOLOGIST, Vol. IV., pp. 84, 88. 


ee os te Tee Lo? a het ad Oh ve MAN Tati SS ere Pte Aon poe AL! fy 
) y bo Nine DR bin 
i 4 4 F ‘ LD ASI a aL 4 


240 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


north shore of lake Superior it seems to be relatively scarce compared 
with the copper output of the mines on Keweenaw point on the south 
shore. 

There are many interesting geological and mineralogical facts stated 
in this report. On scientific principles it is rather dogmatic, even on 
controverted questions, but perhaps that is unavoidable in a report 
designed primarily not for geological students but rather for general 
readers and capitalists desiring general information. 


Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada; Annual Report, 
vol. III. new series, for 1887-88. Montreal, 1889. This ponderous 
volume of more than 1450 pages, with 35 plates and 16 sheets of maps 
and sections, is published in two parts, comprising thirteen separately 
paged reports. 

Director A. R. C. Selwyn’s administrative report occupies 117 pages, 
summarizing the work of the survey during the years 1887 and 1888. 
The professional staff numbered thirty-six, with seventeen other assis- 
tants ; and the appropriation each year was about $100,000. The num- 
ber of visitors to the survey museum in Ottawa averaged fifty-four 
daily; and the director believes that the number would be largely 
increased by opening the museum to the public on Sunday afternoons, 
which he recommends. Referring to the objections urged against this, 
he remarks that ‘‘in the museum the work, and in the church and 
Sunday school the word, of the Creator is expounded. 

Dr. George M. Dawson’s Report on an exploration in the Yukon dis- 
trict, N. W. T., and adjacent northern portion of British Columbia, 1887, 
fills 277 pages, and is accompanied with nine plates and two maps. 
The detailed map of the route traversed, amounting to 1,322 miles, is 
in three sheets, on the scale of eight miles to aninch. Itextends from 
the Pacific coast up the Stikine river and across the watershed to 
Dease lake, down the Dease river to the Liard, thence northwestward 
along the Frances and Pelly rivers to the junction of the latter with 
the Lewes, forming the Yukon, and thence northward up the Lewes 
to its head in the Chilkoot pass and to Lynn Canal onthe Pacific. The 
drainage basin of the Yukon, according to Dr. Dawson, measures 
about 330,000 square miles, of which the upper half, approximately, is 
in Canadian territory. He believes the Yukon much inferior in size 
to the Mackenzie, which has twice as large area of drainage, while 
that of the Mississippi exceeds both of these together, though sending 
proportionately less water to the sea. 

The Coast ranges are found to consist mostly of granite and granitoid 
rocks, probably erupted between the Triassic and Cretaceous periods, 
as the author has shown for their continuation to the south, near the 
northern part of Vancouver island. The interior region consists mostly 
of Paleeozoic rocks of very varied appearance, probably belonging to 
several subdivisions of the geological scale. Fossils of Cambro-Siluri- 
an, Carboniferous, and Triassic age are reported. Overlying the Car- 
boniferous limestones, and partly interbedded with them, are more or 


<4 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 241 


less evidently stratified rocks of volcanic origin, comprising amygdaloids, 
agglomerates, and other more massive materials which apparently 
represent old lava-flows. No unconformity has been proved to occur 
throughout the whole of the Palzozoic series, but the examinations 
were not sufficient to detect any stratigraphic break unless of a very 
obvious character. The Mesozoic era is represented also by strata of 
Cretaceous and Laramie age, which rest quite unconformably on all 
the older formations, though they have since been to some extent in- 
volved in their flextures. A paper by Dr. Dawson on the glaciation of 
this district has already appearedin the American GeEoLoaIst, 
April, 1889. 

Seven appendixes of this report treat of the fossils, plant collections, 
zoology, lithology, meteorology, astronomic observations, and Indian 
tribes. 

The next memoir of this volume is a Report on the geology of the min- 
ing district of Cariboo, British Columbia. By Amos Bowman, mining 


- engineer; 49 pages, with maps, sections and panoramic views from 


mountains. Cariboo, as a political division, embraces a complete sec- 
tion across the northern interior plateau, from the Cascade range to 
the Rocky mountains, within the Fraser basin; but the portion speci- 
ally surveyed lies wholly east of the Fraser river, being an area about 
fifty miles square, from Quesnel lake northward. This tract includes 
some of the richest placer mining in the world, having yielded nearly 
half the gold product of British Columbia since 1860, or not less than 
$15,000,000, chiefly from a few miles in length of auriferous drift in 
several valleys. 

Note to accompany a Preliminary Map of the Duck and Riding Moun- 
tains in Northwestern Manitoba. By J. B. Tyrretu. (Part E, of the 
same report, pp. 16, with map.) 

This report discusses the general physiographic features of a pre- 
viously unknown portion of north western Manitoba and gives a review 
of the glacial and Post-glacial phenomena that have largely contributed 
to impress on the country its surface characters. It is divided into two 
distinct portions, viz: An eastern lightly sloping alluvial plain, for- 
merly covered by the waters of the post-glacial lake Agassiz, and a 
western table land presenting a steep escarpment to the east and a 
gentle decline westward towards the present valley of the Assiniboine, 
in the upper portion of which a post-glacial lake, called ‘‘lake Assini- 
boine”’ is shown to have formerly lain. The mountains or table land 
consist in the main of Cretaceous rocks, but these are overlain by a 
considerable thickness of morainic detritus, in places heaped in irregu- 
lar hills, thickly strewn with gneissic boulders. After the retreat of the 
continental glaciers towards the Archean area towards the north and east 
a local nevé was left on the summit of the Duck mountains which sent 
down glaciers into the wide valleys cut out by the floods that had 
rushed from the front of the receding continental glacier. Eviden- 


242 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


ces of these local glaciers are left in small terminal moraines blocking 
the valleys. 

On the alluvial plains to the east the beaches of lake Agassiz are 
traced northward as far as the Swanriver valley in Lat. 52°, where 
they appear to still retain the same well marked characters of those 
further south in Minnesota and Dakota. The north end of lake Agas- 
siz has not yet been reached. Its shore lines ascend northward at the 
rate of a foot or more per mile, the highest observed beach (near lat. 
51° 50’) being at an elevation exceeding 1,400 feet above the sea, or 
700 feet above lake Winnipeg. White or cream-colored Devonian 
limestones underlie the Cretaceous series, and are the bed-rock of the 
country east of the mountain escarpment. 

The map is the first Canadian contour map that we have seen cover- 
ing any extensive area, and serves very well to illustrate the varying 
slopes of the country and the position and extent of the gravel ridges. 

Dr. ANDREW C. Lawson’s Report on the geology of the Rainy Lake 
region, Which completes Part I of this volume, has been reviewed in 
the AMERICAN GEoLoaisT, January, 1890. 

In Part Il, Mr. E. D. INGALL, mining engineer, is author of a Report 
on mines and mining on lake Superior, 131 pages, with thirteen plates 
and two maps. The district reported is the silver-bearing one on the 
north side of lake Superior between Black:bay and Pigeon river. The 
silver ores are the native meta] and sulphide or argentite generally 
associated with blende, galena, pyrites, etc., in a gangue of calcite, 
barite, quartz, and fluorite, in a series of fissure veins traversing the 
nearly horizontal Animikie formation. Black, soft, carbonaceous 
argillites constitute the upper part of this formation; while the chief 
character of its lower part consists in ‘‘the almost entire preponderance 
of siliceous rocks, such as chert and jasper, which are often accom- 
panied by ferruginous dolomites, and themselves all contain more or 
less iron in the oxidized state, at some places carrying so much mag- 
netite as to constitute almostan ironore.’’ All the bodies of silver ore, 
so far as known, occur near dykes or sheets of trap rock, and Mr. 
Ingall concludes that ‘‘the silver may be derived from them by decom- 
position of some of their mineral constituents carrying minute quanti- 
ties of silver, by waters infiltrating downwards through all their joints 
and pores, and that these waters passing onwards and soaking into 
the permeable parts and minerals of the gangue in the veins, have 
there deposited their silver contents, the various forms of carbon pres- 
ent in the sedimentary rocks having had some influence in effecting 
precipitation.”’ 

Mr A. P. Low presents a Report on explorations in James’ Bay and 
country east of Hudson Bay, drained by the Big, Great Whale, and 
Clearwater rivers, 94 pages, with three plates. His observations of 
glacial strie and transportation of boulders accord with those of Dr. 
Robert Bell, showing that the continental ice-sheet had a motionfrom 
northeast to southwest and west across James’ bay and onward over 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 243 


the Archzan country that forms the watershed between Hudson bay 
and lakes Superior and Winnipeg. During the recession of the ice, it 
appears to have terminated for a long time near the middle of James’ 
bay, its western border accumulating a moraine there, represented by a 
remarkable series of islands of unstratified drift. These include 
Charleton island and others extending a hundred miles north to the 
Twins and Grey Goose island, also the Bear islands, which lie nearly 
a hundred miles further on towards the northwest. They all rise to 
considerable elevations above the sea level, and are composed wholly 
of sand, clay, and boulders, with no bedded rocks in place, good sec- 
tions of sea-cliffs being seen in many places. Fossiliferous marine 
beds are found overlying the glacial drift along the valleys near the 
mouths of rivers on the east side of Hudson bay up to the hight of 
over 500 feet. Since their formation, which probably took place short- 
ly after the departure of the ice-sheet, the land has been slowly rising, 
with intervals of quiet, as shown by the terraces cut out of the drift 
along the high land of the coast. 

Four appendixes contain lists of plants, of diurnal lepidoptera and 
coleoptera, notes of the breeding habits of certain mammals, and 
meteorologic observations. 

Second report on the geology of a portion of the province of Quebec. By 
R. W. Etts. (Part K,) The area here reported on lies to the south of the 
St. Lawrence river, and the report deals largely with the structure and 
stratigraphical relations of the several divisions of the ‘‘Quebec 
Group.’’ It-has special interest since the geological problems therein 
discussed have formed a fruitful subject for controversy among geol- 
ogists in Canada and the United States during the last forty years. 

The present report is to some extent a continuation of that issued in 
1886, in which the latest views as to the structure of the rocks of the 
southeastern portion of the province are expressed. These include 
very large areas of the crystalline schists now regarded as of pre- 
Cambrian age, and which in that section have a very considerable 
development, being the northern extension into Quebec of the Green 
Mountain rocks. In addition to the description of the geological forma- 
tion found in the area included in the report, which on the map is 
known as the northeast quarter sheet of the province, further informa- 
tions is presented regarding the economic resources of the district, more 
especially in relation to the asbestos deposits and the distribution of 
the serpentines in which this mineral is found. The forma- 
tions described in this report are five, viz: the Devonian, Silurian, 
Cambro-Silurian or Ordovician, the Cambrian and the pre-Cambrian. 
Of these the areas of Devonian rocks appear to be of very limited 
extent, only two localities being known, the largest of which has an 
extent of only a few hundred square yards. This outcrop is on the 
Chaudiére river, ‘between the Famine river and the village of St. 
George; the second and smaller area being some miles further north. 


244 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


. These rocks contain an abundance of fossils, of which very full lists are 
given, which appear to represent the basal beds of the system, some of 
the species being common to the upper members of the Silurian as 
well. These outcrops appear to be the remains of a formerly extensive 
and wide-spread development of these rocks of this system, the greater 
part of which has been entirely removed. 

The only rocks referable to the Silurian appear to be certain reddish 
shales which rest upon the fossiliferous Hudson River beds near the 
St. Lawrence. These are seen on the Becancour river and other 
streams tothe north; but as the surface is largely covered with drift 
and outcrops of each are very rare, the limits of the basins must of 
necessity be largely conjectural. No fossils have as yet been found 
in these shales. The Cambro-Silurian includes certain shales and 
limestones which are the continuation’ to the northeast of those 
described in the previous report, 1886, and which are there character- 
ized by fossils, chiefly graptolites of Trenton-Utica age. - Many of the 
limestones of this series have been found to contain fossils often deter- 
minable by the microscope, which have also been assigned to the 
horizon of the Lower Trenton. In this system is also now included 
certain portions of the Quebec group, more especially that known as 
the fossiliferous Levis division, as well as a peculiar series of bitumin- 
ous shales and limestones which occur in the city of Quebec and on 
the north side of the island of Orleans and which contain a fauna 
apparently of Trenton-Utica age, but in which many species, not other- 
wise recognized in the Cambro-Silurian sediments of the province, are 
found. The formations of the Trenton, Utica and Hudson River or 
Loraine shales which are well displayed about Montmorency Falls, 
Quebec, and along the St. Lawrence above that city are described 
and very complete lists of fossils from various localities are furnished. 

Under the head of Cambro-Silurian and Cambrian is given a very 
full account of ‘‘the Quebec group.’’ A summary of the various views 
expressed by the several writers on the subject, since the first paper by 
Dr. Bigsby in 1827, is presented, and the conclusions arrived at from 
careful study in the field by the author as to the exact stratigraphical 
relations of the several divisions of the group are there stated. From 
this it appears that the fossiliferous Levis portion, formerly regarded 
as the lowest member of the group, is really the upper, and that it 
overlies the red and green shales and sandstones of the Sillery. This 
is shown stratigraphically by a series of sections, first along the St. 
Lawrence above Quebec, between Cape Rouge and Sillery, and by sec- 
tions across the rocks at Levis City, as well as at other points further in- 
land. The evidence of the upper position of the Levis thus presented 
is supported by the fossils which have been collected from well defined 
zones, at different points, which have been determined by Prof. Lap- 
worth and by Mr. H. M. Ami. _ A brief abstract of Prof. Lapworth’s 
paper is given from which it appears that the Levis fossiliferous rocks 
should be regarded as forming the lowest portion of the Ordovician or 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 245 


Cambro-Silurian system, while from the evidence furnished by the 
Levis limestone conglomerates it is evident that these rocks should be 
assigned, from the presence of fossils in the paste or matrix, to the Cal- 
ciferous formation. These conglomerates and the associated grapto- 
litic Levis shales clearly overlie the red and green shales of the Sillery 
which contain Obolella pretiosa and Lingulz, and which are now 
regarded by the author as constituting presumably the upper part of 
the Cambrian system, though there appears to be a transition from the 
upper part of the red slate series into the lowest fossiliferous zone of 
the Levis or Ordovician as seen by the extension downward from 
the base of the Levis of certain graptolitic forms into the upper beds 
of the Sillery. The red and green shales however contain Obolella and 
Lingule which are not found in the Levisat all, and in the interstrat- 
ified black shales, Dictyonema sociale and several other forms occur, 
which, according to Lapworth, are more characteristic of the Cambrian 
than the Ordovician. 

Of the limestone conglomerates three fossiliferous zones are clearly 
recognized. Of these the lowest which is associated with the Sillery 
rocks, contains Olenellus thompsoni and other Cambrian forms in 
abundance in the pebbles but no forms newer than Cambrian. The 
second zone or of that of Levis is associated with the graptolitic shales 
of that locality. In this zone the Potsdam or Cambrian fossils are 
confined to the boulders, while the paste contains Calciferous species. 
The third is associated with the Trenton Utica beds of Quebec city. 

From all the evidence presented, both from the stratigraphical stand- 
point and from the fossils, there is apparently no further doubt as to 
the relatively lower positions of the Sillery division, a point long in 
dispute, and which, by the present determination, renders the eluci- 
dation of the complicated structure of the interior, to the south and 
east, much more easy to understand. 

The Pre-Cambrian rocks constitute a well defined anticlinal which 
traverses a large portion of the country in a north-easterly direction at 
some distance from the St. Lawrence. These are flanked, on either 
side, by certain beds of quartzite, black, green and purple slates, with 
small areas of limestone which are regarded as of lower Cambrian 
age, and which in character are precisely similar to those which flank 
the Green mountains of Vermont in which Mr.C.D. Walcott found his 
lowest Cambrian fauna. Inconnection with the rocks of the Cambrian 
system are also included large areas of dioritic and serpentinous rocks, 
the latter of special economic importance from the fact that they con- 
tain asbestosin quantity at several points. 

The pre-Cambrian rocks consist largely of crystalline schists, chlo- 
ritic, taleose and micaceous, with which are frequently associated 

sconsiderable areas of green chloritic, and generally massive dioritic 
rocks. All these are regarded as the extension of the Sutton mountain 
anticlinal north-eastward, described in the preceding report. A num- 
ber of sections across the series shows the anticlinal structure at every 


‘ Veh ts a te et Nas 


246 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


“point examined and the regular occurrence of the overlapping Cambrian 
sediments. 

The superficial geology deals principally with the occurrence of 
glacial strise and the distribution of the boulders and other drift. 
There does not appear to be any well defined evidence of an immense 
ice sheet, the striz and most of the boulders indicating merely the 
work of local glaciers, which were discharged apparently from the 
several elevations found in the area into the St. Lawrence valley on the 
west, and the upper waters of the St. John on the east. The presence 
of scattered Laurentian boulders at many points, as well as the gold 
drift of the interior, both of which are from north to south, are ac- 
counted for by the agency of water and drift ice, probably floes, such 
as are found at the present day along the lower St. Lawrence, rather 
than by glacier action. The presence of old pre-glacial river channels, 
excavated many feet below the present bed of the several streams, is 
pointed out. These have been filled with gravel, sand and clay, long 
prior to the deposition of the boulder clay, and it is from these old 
pre-glacial channels that the richest results in gold mining are now 
obtained. 

A list of the fossils enumerated in the body of the report has been 
systematically tabulated by Mr. H. M. Ami, and forms a supplement, 
which presents in concise form the several localities from which these 
have been obtained and the zones to which they pertain. 

Report of explorations and surveys in portions of northern New Bruns- 
wick and adjacent areas in Quebec and in Maine, U. S. By L. W. 
Bartnrny and Wo. M. Innis. (with map.) 

In previous reports by the same authors the general topographical 
features of the district indicated in the title have been described as 
well as the lithological characters and distribution of its various rock 
formations. In the present report the information previously gathered 
is summarized and comparisons are instituted between the Silurian 
system as exposed in this section and in southern New Brunswick, 
Maine, and at various points in Quebec. The northern edge of the 
Silurian is followed from Gaspé peninsula to Temisconata lake, and 
the close correspondence in sequence of the beds exposed at the 
Neegette falls, Rimoriski river, Temisconata lake and at many other 
points is shown by descriptions of sections at those points with lists of 
the fossils which each has afforded. The great area of bluish-gray, more 
or less calcareous slates which occupy the southern part of lake 
Temisconata, the Madawasha river and a large portion of the St. 
John river is held to be probably of Lower Helderberg age and to 
represent the upper and more shaly portions of the Gaspé limestone 
series, being possibly their deep water representatives. Older por- 
tions of the Silurian as low as Niagara, or possibly Clinton, are how- 
ever brought up by anticlines which occur within this area, notably at 
the Sagus river and on the Aristook river, Maine. Descriptions of 
numerous sections in the state of Maine are given with accompanying 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 247 


lists of fossils, and large areas which have been described in the 
reports of that state as of Devonian age are shown to probably belong 
to the Niagara formation of the Silurian system. Ina comparison of 
the strata of southern with that of northern New Brunswick and 
Quebec it is noted that the physical movements which occurred at 
that time resulted, in the southern area, in a general elevation which 
caused the upper portions of the Silurian to be but slightly, if at all, 
represented, while in the northern region the movements were fol- 
lowed by a subsidence lasting to the end of the Silurian era or beyond, 
during which the thick marine beds of the lower Gaspé series which 
include heavy layers of coral-bearing limestone, were deposited. A 
table is given at the end in which, for convenience of reference, the 
strata in the southern and northern portions are tabulated together 
and the correspondence between them shown. The numerous lists of 
fossils which are given throughout the report have been mainly pre- 
pared by Mr. Ami. The map, which is not yet issued, is promised 
shortly. It forms sheet No. 17 N.E. of the series of New Brunswick 
maps. 

R. CHatmers writes on the Surface geology of northeastern New 
Brunswick, 33 pages with two maps. Among the more important 
facts noted is the existence of preglacial rock debris or gravels and 
sands, resting on pre-Cambrian and middle Carboniferous areas, and 
more or less overspread with drift, from which the author concludes 
that the ice-sheet there had no great thickness and therefore failed to 
remove the whole of the pre-existing decayed rock material. 

The mineral wealth of British Columbia, with an annotated list of local- 
ities of minerals of economic value, 163 pages, by Dr. Gzorce M. Dawson, 
is a most useful publication, reviewing briefly the physical features 
and geology of this province, where the author has spent many sum- 
mers in field-work, and more fully relating the history of the discovery 
and development ofits very productive mines of gold, silver and coal. 
During the years 1859 to 1865 over 4,000 miners worked in the gold 
placers, but since 1875 the number has averaged about 2,000, the yearly 
earnings per man varying from $1,200 to about $250. From the dis- 
coveries of the last two years, Dr. Dawson predicts that British Colum- 
bia will soon rank among the great silver-producing regions of the 
world. Argentiferous galenas are known to occur throughout a belt 
1,200 miles long, from the international boundary to the Yukon. In 
coal production the province has steadily advanced to an average 
annual output of about 400,000 tons, three-quarters of it finding a 
market in California. 

A report on the mining and mineral statistics of Canada for the year 
1887, by Evcene Coste, occupies 110 pages ; and Chemical contributions 
to the Geology of Canada from the laboratory of the survey, by G. Curis- 
TIAN HorrMANnn, 58 pages. 

Systematic list of fossils with localities, &c. (Contained in the appen- 


248 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


dix to Dr. Ells’ Report.) By Henry M. Amr, M. A., F. G.S., Assis- 
tant Paleeontologist to the Geological Survey of Canada. 

In a highly disturbed and faulted region such as that portion of the 
Province of Quebec with which the above report deals, palzeontological 
evidence must necessarily play a very important part when the meas- 
ures prove so highly fossiliferous as they are known to be, not only in 
determining the various horizons met with in the intercalated, faulted 
and isolated patches of formations occurring on every hand, but also 
in enabling us to recognize the sequence of strata in their proper 
chronological order. 

Accordingly it will be seen that Dr. Ells’ remarks on the geology of 
that district, which is the classic ground on which the famous ‘Quebec 
group’ controversy has been fought and decided, are copiously filled 
with lists of fossil species prepared by Mr. Ami of the Canadian Sur- 
vey staff. 

These lists were prepared by Mr. Ami from carefully made collec- 
tions at different localities with a view to ascertain the exact relative 
position of the various members of that ‘‘group.’’ This object has 
been fully accomplished as is shown by the lists; and except in the 
case of the collections from Notre Dame du Portage, St. Michael and 
certain districts in and around Quebec City, whence more perfect and 
more extensive material is necessary before a true and exact knowl- 
edge of the horizons can be obtaincd, there remains no uncertainty as 
to the true position of the strata in the other localities, of which there 
are thirty-six included in the Appendix. 

The list comprises one hundred and ninety species of fossils referable 
to ninety-one genera and these are exclusive of forms obtained in the 
limestone conglomerate bands in various localities, which do not afford 
good evidence as to the age of the beds from which they were obtained. 
The genera and spectes noted in Mr. Ami’s list are as follows: 


Genera. Ree Genera. Species. 
MOM PIS aR uae ae ce ks Brachiopoda...... 20S 49 
Belonteraha cui eB alas 3 Lamellibranchia .. 7........ 9 
Graptolitoidea .....22....0...75 Gasteropoda,...... Aerie 5 
Gystoiden cits 6.0 SER te i 1 Pteropodan yc HY RN RAS 2 
Urinoided e. 60s os 5: Pa ioe 2 Cephalapoda...... Steuer 3 
SVIGIMER ELE ER ne AL ath RR 1 Cirripedia......... INGReeis “iC i) 
BEV OZOG Mat eine Gee Tiases neous Ostracoda une snseamoeae 


Trilobita: 15 eunerae 24 Species. 

The result of the above report and the evidence which the fossil re- 
mains have afforded naturally lead to the extinction of the term ‘Que- 
bee Group,’ as the various series of formations observed in the district 
examined have been separated into a true natural succession.. The 
application of the terms ‘Levis’ and ‘Sillery,’ as Prof. Walcott states* 
in an exhaustive review of Dr. Ells’ Report, to the ‘‘local development 
of the Calciferous terrane about Quebec’’ and the ‘‘passage beds and 
Cambrian strata of the St. Lawrence valley in the vicinity of Quebec 
is an admirable one,’’ which certainly commends itself to all practical 

*Amer. Journ. Sc. Vol. xxx1x, Feb. 1890, p. 114. 


geologists who have for years been longing to see the unravel- 
ling of the mysteries of the ‘‘Quebec”’ as well as of the intimately 
allied and ‘‘Taconic’’ controversies. 

At the end of Part II is placed a general index of all these memoirs, 
each being distinguished by a letter affixed to its pagination. The 
whole volume presents a vast amount of well arranged information, 
and reflects great credit on the director and his assistants in this 
Survey. ; 


On the Fossil Plants in the Ravenhead Collection in the Free Library 
and Museum, Liverpool. By Ropert Kipston. Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin- 
burgh, vol. xxxv, 1889, part II, No. 10, pp. 391-417, 2 plates. 

Mr. Robert Kidston’s memoir on the fossil plantsin the Ravenhead 
collection is a valuable addition to the important series of comparative 
studies of the Carboniferous floras of which his Catalogue of the Pal- 
zezoic Plants in the British Museum (1886) was the first and an earnest 
‘of those to follow. The Ravenhead collection, from the middle or pro- 
ductive Coal Measures, which was made the subject of two papers by 
Higgins and Marrat in 1871-’72, and which is the most important col- 
lection of plants from the southwestern Lancashire Coalfield, has been 
twice carefully studied by Mr. Kidston, the identifications and results 


being now given, together with a detailed description of the local stra; 


tigraphy of the Carboniferous, in the present illustrated paper. 
Among the revised species it is interesting to note the identification of 
Neuropteris dentata Lesq. and Sphenopteris mixta Schimp., the identity 
of the latter being ascertained from a specimen from the Sub-carboni- 
ferous of Clinton, Mo., sent to the author by Mr. Lacoe. A number of 
generic changes were found necessary, but Sphenopteris marratii is the 
only new species described. Mr. Kidston is thoroughly familiar with 
the literature, and is painstaking in his extensive comparisons and cor- 
relations. It may be added also that he, more than any other European 
paleobotanist, has recognized the work of Lesquereux and Newberry 
in our American coal flora, and is giving more attention to the correla- 
tions of the American species with those found in the European coal 
fields. 


Transactions of the twentieth and twenty-first Annual Meeting of the 
Kansas Academy of Science, 1887-88. Vol. x1. 1889, 8vo. 127 pp. 
Topeka. 

The regular appearance of the volumes of the Kansas Academy, and 
their scientific value, are highly creditable to that western State, and 
they furnish evidence that the energetic spirit of her early settlers, in 
taking on the forms of amore varied pursuit hag not lost its prestine 
vigor. 

Of geological papers Prof. Robert Hay contributes one on ‘‘The 
horizon of the Dacotah lignite,’’ in which he shows that this lignite is 
in the upper part of the Dacotah group, and not more than fifty feet 


250 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


below the limestone horizon, which he calls Benton limestone, although 
there is difficulty in distinguishing it from the Niobrara. Dr. E, H.S8. 
Baily gives the section and some accompanying notes on the salt beds 
in Ellsworth county, with chemical analysis. The salt bed is 140 feet 
thick but is separated into two parts by a bed of gray slate five feet 
thick. The salt contains 96 per cent. of sodium chloride. Prof. F. H. 
Snow discusses the ‘‘significance of stipules in certain dicotyledonous 
leaves of the Dakota rocks.’’ Dr. L. Lesquereux has discovered in the 
Kansas Dakota leaves a genus which he has named Betulites, and this 
genus shows the singular character of having a single stipule at the 
base of the petiole instead of a pair, furnishing thus a feature which 
allies our modern dicotyledons with those of the Cretaceous. Ina 
lecture Prof. Hay reviewed the geology of Kansas. Mr. E. Jameson 
gives the geology of the Leavenworth deep well, which went down 
2116 feet. It gave indications of petroleum and gas, but failed because 
of the impossibility of shutting off the voluminous flow of water. Prof. 
Hay describes the saliferous horizon of the Triassic, stating that these 
beds are continuous without break into the Permo-Carboniferous. 
Prof. Snow gives the result of an examination of the Logan county so- 
called nickel mines. This was noted in the AMERICAN GEOLOGIST, vol. 

ul, p. 216. Profs. Blake and Bailey made a thorough examination of 
the evaporating power, composition and peculiarities of Kansas coals. 
It was found that they depreciate in their steam-producing powers, 
and in their content of fixed carbon, from the southeastern part of the 
state toward the north and west. 

Application of descriptive geometry to a series of problems in locating 
faulted beds or veins. By E. H. WiurAMs, Jr. A brochure of 23 octavo 
pages, Bethlehem, Pa. These problems and their solution, embracing 
most of the irregularities with which miners have to contend, will be 
useful in mining schools where the methods of nature in concealing 
her coal, iron and other valuable beds, are reduced to geometric fig- 
ures and mathematical formule and revealed to the student. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NorTH AMERICAN VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY 
FOR THE YEAR 1889. By John Eyerman, Easton. c indicates illustra- 
tions in the text; pl. plates. 


1. Cannon jr. G.L. Brief remarks on horned Dinosauria. Proc. Col- 
orado Scientific Society, Jan. 15, 1889. 

2. Cannon jr.G. L. On the Tertiary Dinosauria found at Denver, 
Col. Proc. Col. Sci. Soc. Vol. 3, part 1, p. 
140. 

ar bauriGan esa. Palxohatteria, Credner and the Proganosauria 
Am. J. Sci. Vol. 37, p. 310. 


3. Cope E. D....... An intermediate Pliocene fauna. Am. Nat. 
April, 789, p. 855 (253). 
4, Cope E. D....... A Review of the North American species of 


Hippotherium, 29 p.3 pl. Proc. Am. Phil. 
Soc. Vol. 26, 429. 


hin 


5. 


6. 
7. 


8. 


9. 


10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 
16. 


17. 


b. 


Cc. 


18. 
19. 
20. 
21. 


25. 


tri (HARB ANLE M Es hon A aes WN he "F* hie 
NA e Avi! st ho) 
oF Bhar Ry : i ane 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 251 


Cope E. D....... Ccelophysis, a new Triassic Dinosaurian genus. 
Am. Nat. July 1889, p. 626. 

Cope E. D.,..... Marsh on Cretaceous Mammals. Am. Nat. 
June 1889, p. 490. 


Cope E. D...... . Ona species of Plioplarchus from Oregon. Am. 
Nat. July, 1889, p. 625. 

Cope E. D....... On the North American Proboscidia. Proc. Nat. 

. Acad. 1889. 

Cope E. D........ Onthe Vertebrata of the Miocene of the Cypress 
Hills of Canada. Proc. Nat. Acad. Nov. 
1889. 

Cope E. D....... Pliocene Vertebrate Fauna of Western North 
America. Proc. Nat. Acad. 1889. 

Cope Ns Deck. The Artiodactyla. 36 p. 5 pl. Am. Nat. Feb. 
1889, p. 211 (a1). 

Cope E. D....... The Edentata of North America. 8 p.c. Ipl. 
Am. Nat. Aug. 1889, 657. 

Cope E. D....... The Proboscidia. 20 p. c. 8 pl. Am. Nat. April, 
1889, p. 291 (191). 

Cope E. D....... The horned Dinosauria. 3p. 2pl. Am. Nat. 
Aug. 1889, p 715. 

Cope E. D....... Vertebrata of the Swift Current river, Am. Nat. 
March, 1889, p. 251 (151). 

Cope E. D....... Vertebrata of the Swift Current river, Am. Nat. 
July, 1889, p. 628. 

Cope E. D...... . Vertebrate fauna of the Equus beds. 5 p. Am, 


Nat. Feb. 1889. p. 160. 

Cross Whitman. Denver Tertiary Formation, Am. J. Sci. vol. 
37, p. 261. 

Eyerman John. Tracks of Brontozoum, Grallator and Anomce- 


pus from New Jersey Triassic. Proc. Acad. 
Nat. Sci. 1889, p. 32. 


Leidy Joseph... Cave fossils (in Penn.) 20 p. 2 pl, Ann. Rept. 
Geol. Sur. of Penn. for 1887. Issued 1889. 
LOOK Kec I Alea Fossil Vertebrates from Florida. Proc. Acad. 
Nat. Sci. 1889, p. 96. 
GING) Die ci cuts Sabre Tooth Tiger of Florida. Proc. Acad. Nat. 
Sci. 1889, p. 29. 
Marsh O. C....._ Comparison of the principal forms of Dinosauria 


of Europe and America. 8 pl. Am. J. Sci. 
vol. 37. p. 324. 


.d Marsh 0. C..... Comparison of the principal forms of Dinosauria 


of Europe and America. Geological Mag- 
azine, vol. 6, p. 204. 


. Marsh 0. C...... Discovery of Cretaceous Mammalia. 4p. Am. 


J. Sci. vol. 38, p. 81. 


. Marsh O. C...... Discovery of Cretaceous Mammalia. II. Am. J. 


Sci. vol. 38, p. 177. 


. Marsh O. C...... Notice of Gigantic Horned Dinosauria of the 


Cretaceous. c. Am.J. Sci. vol. 38, p. 173, 


Marsh O. C...... Notice of new American Dinosauria. c. Am. J. 
Sci. vol. 37, p. 331. 


Mi 


AS wa 


252 The American Geologist. April,}1890 


26. Marsh O.C...... Restoration of Brontops robustus from the 

‘ Miocene of North America. 1 pl. Am. J. Sci. 
vol. 37, p 163. 

26.e Marsh 0. C..... Restoration of Brontops robustus, ete. 1 pl. Geol. 
Mag. vol. 6, p. 99. 

27. Marsh O.C...... The skull of a gigantic Ceratopside. 1 pl. Am. 


J. Sci. vol. 38, p. 501. 
28, Matthew G.F... Onan Upper Silurian Fish. Trans. Roy. Soc: 
Canada, vol. 6. 


29. Newberry J.S... Fossil Paahes (and Fossil Plants) of the Triassic 
Rocks of New Jersey and the Connecticut 
Valley. 95 p. 26 pl. U.S. Geo. Sur. Mon- 
ograph 14, dated 1887,-issued 1889. 


(82.) Osborn H. F. See Scott and Osborn, No. 32 


30. Seeley H.G..... On the pelvis of Ornithopsis. ‘(See the discus- 
: ‘ sion.) Quart. J. Geol. Soc. xiv. p. 391. 
31. Scott W. B...... Notes on the Osteology and systematic position 


of Dinictis felina (Leidy) c. 33 p. Proc. Acad. 
Nat. Sci. 1889. p. 211. - 


32. Scott W. B...... The Mammalia of the Uinta ANC Parts 
and I, Geological and Faunal Relations, and II, 
Osborn H.F..... The Creodontia, Rodentia, and Artiodactyla 


by W. B. Scott. Parts III, The Perisso- 
dactyla, and IV, The evolution of the 
Ungulate foot by H. F. Osborn. c. 5 pl. 112 
p. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. vol..16. p. 461. 


33. Traquair R.H... Onthe Devonian Fishes of Canada. Brit. Assn. 
Rept. 1889. 
Diewanner (Al. 0% Discovery of Fossil Tracks, etc., in the Triassic 


of York county, Penn. 11 p. 15 pl. Ann. 
Rept. Geol. Sur. of Penn. for 1887, issued 
1889. 

34. Whiteaves J. F. Cretaceous Fossils from Manitoba. Cont. to 
Canadian Pal. vol. 1, part 1, p. 191. 

30. Whiteaves J. F. Devonian Fossil Fishes. Trans. Roy. Soc. of 
Canada, vol. 6. 

36. Whiteaves J. F. On Some Fossils from the Hamilton of Ontario. 
Description of Macroptalichthys sullivanti. 
Cont. to Can. Pal. vol. 1, part 11, p. 119. 


List of new genera and species described in the above memoirs. 


Acentrophorus chicopensis, Ceratops horridus, Marsh.... 25 
PNG Weeds Reece enna CAiy *29  Chalicotherium bilobatum, 
Alces brevitrabalis, Cope.... 17 Cope eG UN haa aa 15 
A. semipalmatus, Cope...... 17. Cimolestes incisus, Marsh... 22 
Allacodon.lentus, Marsh..... 23 C.curtus, Marsh............ 22 
Amynodon intermedium, Os- Cimolodon nitidus, Marsh... 22 
[SYC1g ORMONEAS RAURNYLaS: favs ere 32. Cimolomys bellus, Marsh.... 22 
Anchisaurus major, Marsh... 25 CC. gracilis, Marsh........... 22 
Anchitherium westoni, Cope. 15 OC. digona, Marsh............ 23 
Camptomus amplus, Marsh.. 22 Ccelophysis bauri, Cope..... 5 
Cariacus ensifer, Cope....... LHC. longicollis, ;Coperag naan 5 
Catopterus minor, Newb..... 295.0 Co willistont, Cope as eee. 5 
Cornatus, Newbs notes... 29 Didelphops comptus, Marsh.: 22 


* Refers to number of memoir. 


Correspondence. 258 
re wot, WAP 5 's0. sy a wie 22 Menodus selwynianus, Cope. 16 
yi ioowax, Marah". 05..),/phise.s « 22. WE. SY COras, «COPE s+ 44 dae 15 
Dipriodon robustus, Marsh... 22 Monoclonius fissus, Cope.... 14 
Dryolestes tenax, Marsh..... 22 M, recurvicornis, Cope....... 14 
Elotherium coarctatum, Cope 16 M.sphenocerus, Cope....... 14 
Hadrosaurus breviceps, Morosaurus lentus, Marsh... 25 
AVD CIS ES  a Gaal y Me oA LES as 25.05 Mi agilis,;Maraht, eared 25 
H. paucidens, Marsh......... 25 Nanomysminutus, Marsh.... 22 
Halodon sculptus, Marsh.... 22 Nodosaurus textilis, Marsh.. 24 
H. formosus, Marsh.......... 23 Oracodon anceps, Marsh..... 23 
Haplacodon augustigensis, Pediomys elegans, Marsh.... 22 
Rane eae Atak na hips si 15  Platacodon nanus, Marsh,... 23 
Hippotherium relictum, Cope 3  Plioplarchus septemspinosus 
Hypertragulus transversus, ACNE OM uc an ines Ae oaks arn 7 
GIDE Me ES OBL a Neh toislc, Sethe! 15 Ptycholepsis marshii, Newb.. 29 
Ischypterus alatus, Newb.... 29 Ptychodus parvulus, Whit- 
Evprauni, Newb... 2.2. 00...<). 29 CUVEE Scie: 1 euch aaa de ni ae aioe 34 
I. elegans, Newb............. 29  Selanacodon brevis, Marsh... 23 
MONE AGING WD. .). 45.05 's% [e622 29 ‘SS. fragilis, Marsh............ 22 
J. lenticularis, Newb......... 29 Stagodon nitor, Marsh....... 23 
Eviineatus, Newb. >. 0.2)... 45. 29 Tetrabelodon brevidens,Cope 14 
I. micropterus, Newb........ 29 Triceratops flabellatum, 
I. minutus, Newb............. 29 Mars ne iis srs ute el aN leas 24 
I. modestus, Newb........... 29: E ealeus Marsh). vile io Woe 24 
Lamna manitobensis, Whit- TE HOREIOUS; EAT Sls 5 Aisle ten eae 24 
SVE are Rieti scl ae Baas Mia Yates oe 34 Tripriodon caperatus, Marsh. 22 
Leptomeryx esulcatus, Cope. 15 ‘TT. ccelatus, Marsh........... 22 
L. semicinctus, Cope........ 15 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS TO MILLER’s NortTH AMERICAN PALZON* 
toLtocy. Nothing better illustrates the necessity recently urged by the 
writer in the American Naturalist, for some concerted action to secure 
the authoritative compilation of literature, especially the descrip- 
tion of new species, than the manifest impossibility for any indi- 
vidual to be perfectly sure of complete success in attempting a synop- 
sis of the described species known from anyperiod. While, no doubt, 
honestly designed to secure completeness, the valuable work quoted 
above loses something of its authoritativeness because of sundry 
omissions. It is, therefore, suggested that the lack may be measur- 
ably supplied, for the present, if those who detect such omissions 
make it their business to supply the data to the public, for which pur- 
pose the Greotocist might be a suitable avenue. 

A list herewith communicated consists chiefly of species figured by 
_ ©. L. Herrick in the several bulletins of Denison University from 
1887 to 1889. For the sake of brevity these species are followed by 
simply a Roman and an Arabic numeral, the former indicating the 
volume, the latter the page. Vol. 1 appeared in May, 1887, vol. mm in 
April, 1888, vol. rv in December, 1888. 

Two other species may also be added as follows: 


254 The American Geologist. April, 1890 


TRILOBITES. 


Phillipsia sampsoni Vogdes. Waverly. 
Trans. New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 11, p. 246. 


Griffithides? sedaliensis Vogdes, Waverly. 
Trans. New York Academy of Sciences, vol. vu, p. 276. 


Erase on p. 562, Phillipsia longicaudata Hall, as a synonym for 
P. sangamonensis, a Coal Measures species. 
CRUSTACEA. 


Phillipsia consors, Keokuk or Burlington. Iv. 53. 
precursor, Kinderhook, U1, 29. 
serraticaudata, Keokuk, Iv, 52. 
shumardi, Kinderhook, 1 69,—Petus or auriculatus Hall. 
trinucleata, Coal Meas. II, 64. 

Proetus minutus, Kinderhook, Iv, 56. 

Phaethonidxs immaturus, Knderhook. ty, 59 
occidentalis, Kinderhook, Iv, 57. 
spinosus, Kind rhook, 58. 

Cythere ohioense? Keokuk, rv, 60. 

BRACHIOPODA. 


Athyris ashlandensis, Kinderhook, ty, 24. 

Chonetes tumida, Kinderhook, I, 36. 

Lingula atra, Waverly shales, rv, 16. 
gannensis, Burlington? Iv, 17. 
meeki, Waverly shales, Iv, 18. 
tighti, Coal Meas. I, 43. 
waverliensis, Burlington, rv, 18. 

Orthis pulchella, Kinderhook, 111, 38. 

Productus annosus, Kinderhook, rv, 20. 
raricostatus, Kinderhook, Iv, 19. 
rushvillensis, Burlington, IV, 22. 

Rhinchospira? ashlandensis, Kinderhook, Iv, 25. 

Spirifer deltoides, Kinderhook, tv, 27. 

S. (Martinia) tenuispinatus, Kinderhook, tv, 27. 
winchelli, Kinderhook, 111, 46. 

Spiriferina depressa, Kinderhook, 11, 47. 

Stricklandi? subquadrata, Coal, Meas, 11, 49. 

Terebratula inconstans, Kinderhook, Iv, 24. 


GASTEROPODA. 


Flemingia? stulta, Kinderhook, rv, 45, 
Pleurotomaria strigulata, Kinderhook, rit, 86. 


PTEROPODA. 


Conularia gracilis. Kinderhook, rv, 48. 
Dentaluim granvillense, Kinderhook, IIT, 92. 


HETEROPODA. 


Bellerophon subcordiformis, Coal Meas. 11, 18. 
LAMELLIBRANCHIATA, 


Allorisma convexa, Kinderhook, III, 74. 
consanguinata, Burlington, Tv, 29. 
coopert, Kinderhook, II, 72. 
cuyahoga, Waverly shales, Iv, 28. 
Avicula recta, Waverly shales, Ivy, 116. 
subspatulata, Burlington, Iv, 30. 
Aviculopecten cooperi, Kinderhook, 111, 51. 
granvillensis=A crenistriatus. 
perelongatus, Kinderhook, i11, 50. 
scalaris, Coal Meas., II, 26. 
sorer, Coal Meas., I, 27. 
Crenipecten foerstii, Coal Meas., 11, 28. 
senilis, Kinderhook, 111, 64. 
subcordiformis, Kinderhook, 111, 55. 
Conocardium alternistriatum, Kinderhook, ry, 42. 
Cypricardinia? scitula, Kinderhook, rv, 38. 
Edmondia sulcifera, Kinderhook, 1v, 30. 
Entolium attenuatum, Coal Meas.. 11, 24. 
Gervillia? ohioensis,Coal Meas., 11, 36. 
Goniodon ohionsis, (=? Paleeaneilo) 111, 84. 
Grammysia famelica, Kinderhook, 1Vv, 35. 
ovata, Burlington, IV, 35. 
Leiopteria halli, Kinderhook, 111, 65. 
nasuta, Kinderhook, rv, 29. 


VORA er Ni 


Personal and Scientific News. 


newberryt, Keokuk? Ivy, 114, 
ortoni, Kinderhook, 111, 60. 
Leptodesma? scutella, Kinderhook, 111, 59. 
Limatulina ohioensis, Burlington, 111, 55. 
Lyriopecten cancellatus, Kinderhook, ty, 54. 
nodocostatus, Kinderhook, rv, 32. 
Macrodon newarkensis, Burlington, rv, 36. 
striatocostatus, Kinderhook, tv, 37. 
(Macrodon?? triangularis,=Schizodus). 
Modiola waverliensis, Kinderhook, 111, 63. 
Nuculana similis, Kinderhook, 11, 79. 
spatulata, Kinderhook, 111, 79. 
Oracardia, Herrick, Bul. Denison Uniy., vol.1v,p. 41. [Ety. oraios, beautifies 
Kardia, heart]. Dexiobia Winchell, pars. Type O. ornata. 
Shell somewhat inequilateral, more or less inequivalve, both 
valves ventricose with a strongly curved, acute, elevated beak, which 
inclines forward atthe apex. Hinge line extended, produced poste- 
riorly, furnished with a thickened ridge or cartilage-plate. The 
beaks separated from the hinge by a pseudo-area, which is elevated 
and more or less arched under the beak. Surface marked by 
radiating lines which do not increase toward the front. 
ornata, Kinderhook, rv, 41. 
eornuta, Kinderhook, ry, 42. 
Palxarca ornata, Kinderhook, 111, 838. 
Palzaneilo consimilis, Kinderhook, rv, 43. 
. curta, Kinderhook, rv, 44. 

elliptzca, Kinderhook, r11, 80. 

zgnota, Kinderhook, ty, 44. 
Plewrophorus immarurus, Coal Meas., 11, 145. 
Promacra? truncatus, Kinderhook, 111, 60. 
Posidonomya fragilis, Kinderhook, u11, 59. 
Pterinopecten? ashlandensis, Kinderhook, rv, 33. 

carniferus, Kinderhook, 111, 58. 
Pieronites obliquus, Kinderhook, 111, 58. 
Sanguinolites senilas, Kinderhook, 111, 66. 
Schizodus affinis Coal Meas., 1, 41. 

harlamenszs, Berea grit, rv, 117. 

newarkenszs, Burlington, 111, 64. 

palxoneiléformis, Kinderhook, 111, 96. 

prolongatus, Kinderhook, tv, 36. 

? spellmanz, Coal Meas., IV, 42. 

subcircularis, Coal Meas. Iv, 41. 

trzangularis, Kinderhook, 111, 74; rv, 116. 
Solenomya? cuyohognesis, Cuyahoga shale, rv, 115. 

(?) meekzana, Coal Meas., 11, 30. 

subradiata, Coal Meas., 11, 30. 
Streblopteria gracilis, Kinderhook, 111, 57. 

media, Kinderbook, 111, 56. 

squama, Kinderhook, 111, 57. 


C.,L. Herrick, 
Cincinnati University, February, 1890. 


PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 


Me. Joun R. PRocTER, DIRECTOR OF THE KENTUCKY GEOLOG- 
ICAL SURVEY, is on an indefinite leave of absence, while doing 
some work in southwestern Virginia for ex-governor Lee and 
others, and meantime assistant M. H. Crump is in charge of 
the survey. 

THE AMERICAN NATURALIST, WHICH HAS REVIVED from its 
comatose condition, appears in good order and on time again. 
This admirable journal, more than twenty years old, now 
published by Ferris Bros., Philadelphia, contains the first 
announcements of many of the paleontological discoveries of 
Prof. E. D. Cope, and is well known in all scientific circles. It 
is with much satisfaction that we notice its establishment on 
a firmer basis, and we heartily commend it to all scientific 
students and libraries. 


- 


256 The American Geologist, April, 1890 


METAGADOLINITE—A NEW MINERAL. E. Goldsmith (Jour. 
Anal. Chem. vol. tv, page 23.) in an article on “Gadolinite 
from Llano county, Texas,” describes and gives an analysis 
of this apparently new mineral, occurring as an incrustation 
upon the species gadolinite. As isso very frequently the case, 
incrustations are mixtures, Mr. Goldsmith resorted to several 
tests, which gave no evidence of a mixture, thereby proving it 
to be apparently a distinct species. The analysis gave, 


SiO, 18.145 YO 21.854 

Ce,0, 20.662 CaO 3.642 

Fe,0, 26.026 MgO 0.214 
A NEMO 761 


A hydrated tri-basic silicate represented by 2(RO+R,0,) 
SiO.(RO,,;). The mineral is amorphous, dull and brittle.Color : 
grayish brown. Streak: red. Hardness: 3. Sp. Gr. 3.494. 

Within the past few months there have been described from 
the Llano Co. localities no less than four new and distinct 
species. Yttrialite, Thoro-gummite and Nivenite (Hidden 
and Mackintosh, Am. J. Sci. vol. 38, p. 473), and the above 
described species. 


A Group oF Meteorites. Some “heavy stones” unearthed 
on a farmin Kiowa county, Kansas having been lying around 
for three years have recently been discovered to be meteorites. 
They have now all been distributed, some are gone to. Wash- 
burn College, Topeka, others to the Kansas State University 
at Lawrence, the Minnesota State University and to Iowa. 
The largest is over 300 lbs weight and others vary down to 
about forty pounds. We will give a fuller account of these 
meteorites next month, but will say here that some of them 
are nearly all iron and others have nickel and cobalt, and also 
contain some earthly and glassy minerals. 


A PATENT WATER-WiTcH. According to the Mining and En- 
gineering Journal, in which the details of the experiments are 
given, a Bavarian by the name of Heerdegen has an apparatus 
by which he detects the presence of water in subterranean 
reservoirs or streams, and which he will not yet fully describe 
nor allow to be inspected till he secures his patent. The in- 
strument indicated, in the neighborhood of Sing Sing, the lo-, 
cation of some of the new water-courses of the Croton aque- 
duct, the same being far below the surface and without any 
possible clue to their location, especially to a stranger. The 
old aqueduct in New York was in the same way accurately lo- 
cated by Mr. Heerdegen. Again 150 feet of }inch steam hose 
was coiled about on the second floor of the Raub building, 
corner Nassau and Fulton sts. When subsequently filled with 
water, Mr. Heerdegen suceeeded fairly well in tracing on the 
next floor above the position and direction of the coil. Some 
other equally satisfactory tests were made. 


THE 


_ AMERICAN GEOLOGIST 


Wor..V. MAY, 1890. Nos. 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE KEOKUK SPECIES OF AGARICO- 


CRINUS. 
By C. H. GoRDON, Keokuk, Iowa. 
[Read before the Iowa Academy of Science, Sept. 5, 1889. ] 

The Keokuk beds have thus far furnished six species refer- 
red to this genus, of which three—A. Americanus Roemer, A 
whitfieldi Hall, A. wortheni Hall—may be found in collections 
made at and about Keokuk. We have had access to a large 
number of these forms and from a somewhat careful study. 
have become impressed with the need of a revision of this 
genus. As between A. americanus Roemer, and A. wortheni 
Hall, the specific distinctness seems well established. The es- 
sential differences, as shown by Hall', occurin the second and 
third radials and in the interradial areas. In A. wortheni Hall, 
the first interradials are much shorter than in A. americanus 
Reemer, thus bringing the second interradials much lowerand 
giving them a proportionately greater prominence in the 
structure of the calyx. In consequence of this they are 
brought in contact with the second radials whose upper lateral 
angles are truncated to receive them, thus giving these plates, 
a hexagonal form, while in the typical form of A. americanus 
Reemer the long first interradial and the quadrangular second 
radials are very characteristic. Moreover in the A. wortheni 


1Geol. Surv. Iowa., Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 620. CC aa aaa 


258 The Amerrcan Geologist. — May, 1890 


Hall the third radial is a larger and stronger plate than is 
usually observed in the other, and the general form of this 
species is more robust. We have here, apparently, the cul- 
mination of this generic form which becomes extinct with the 
Keokuk period. One unusually large individual before us pre- 
sents a remarkable development of the third primary radial. 
Four of these are extremely protuberant, the nodes projecting 
three-eighths of an inch from the surface of the calyx. The 
specimen measures an inch in hight by two and one-fourth 
inches in breadth. A tendency toward the same structure, (ap- 
parently due to age) has been noted in other specimens. 

In Agaricocrinus americanus Roemer we have a form pre- 
senting many variations of structure. Some of these have 
been mistaken for specific differences giving rise to the syno- 
nyms A. bullatus Hall. A. excavatus Hall. A. nodosus M. & W. 
A. tuberosus Troost. Among the specimens before us, usually 
referred to this species, are two forms which, as we believe, pre- 
sent more than varietal differences. While the distinctions 
giving rise to the above synonyms were largely superficial, in 
the present case the differences in structure seem to have a 
deeper significance. We shall attempt but a brief notice of 
them here. 

In the typical form the basal concavity is said to involve 
the entire radial series of plates, while Messrs. Wachsmuth 
and Springer state:* “The differences in the form of the calyx 
are modifications in geological succession. Species with convex 
sides are confined to the Waverly group and to the Burlington 
limestone: species from the Upper Burlington are truncate below, 
or slightly convex, rarely concave, while the Keokuk species with- 
out exception are deeply concave in the basal region.” 

We have a number of specimens in which the basal concay- 
ity is very shallow and does not involve the third radials and 
frequently only the basal plates. The third primary radials 
are more or less prominently convex, heavy plates as are also 
the interradials. In the postero-lateral rays one of the second 
radials is oblique and unequally quadrangular while the other 
(in the right ray) has its upper acute angle truncated by one 
of the interradial plates. In this particular it agress with A. 
whitfield? Hall,from which it differs, however,in being much 
less concave below and more protuberant in the anal region. 


*Revision Palzeocrinoidea, Part. 11., p. 109. 


Keokuk Species of Agaricocrinus.—Gordon. 259 


All the examples noticed have regularly twelve arms and oc- 
cur in the lower crinoid bed (No.2). If as stated by the above 
authors the modifications of the base denote geological suc- 
cession we have here a continuation of the upper Burlington 
form with a slightly increased concavity. In this case it would 


seem proper to consider this form specifically distinct from the 


one to which it is now referred. On the other hand should 
these modifications be deemed varietal only, then no good 
reason would remain for retaining A. whitifieldi Hall, since 
that form is more nearly related to the typieal A. americanus 
Reemer than is the one under discussion. 

An apparent exception to the rule given by Wachsmuth 
and Springer occuts in the case of A. springeri White, from 
Indiana, which is said to have the base truncate but not de- 
pressed. The type specimen was obtained from the “terrace 
drift, west bank of the Wabash, Clinton, Vermilion Co., 
Ind.” Its geological horizon is therefore uncertain, and we 
are inclined to think it belongs to the upper Burlington. 

Specimens of the subexcavate form may be seen in the col- 
lection of Mr. N. K. Bunket, Mr. L. A. Cox, and the writer. 

In its normal state the A. americanus Remer is said to 
have twelve arms, three upon each of the posterior rays and 
two upon each of the others respectively. The number of 
arms is not constant however; additional arms frequently 
appearing upon the postero-lateral and autero-lateral rays. 
We have never observed more than two arms upon the anter- 
ior ray. In examining a number of specimens showing more 
than the normal number of arms we have been impressed 
with a certain uniformity of structure which it is difficult to 
believe to be merely accidental. Rarely or never do we find a 
division of one pair of rays only. The addition of arms on 
the postero-lateral rays is always accompanied, so far as we 
have observed, by an increase of arms in the antero-lateral 
rays. Of five examples before us, four have sixteen arms and 
one seventeen. Three have the arms regularly arranged— 
four on each postero-lateral ray and three on each of the 
antero-lateral rays. The other two are somewhat abnor- 
mal, one having two additional arms on one of the antero- 
lateral rays, making seventeen in all, while the other up- 
on one side has both additional arms placed upon the antero- 


260 The American Geologist. ‘May, 1800 


lateral ray. The tendency is clearly shown to be toward six- 
teen arms. 

The basal concavity, which is exceptionally deep, involves 
the whole series of radials up to and partially including the 
secondary radial so that when placed base downward the fos- 
silrests upon the somewhat protuberant secondary radials. In 
this feature it somewhat resembles A. wh2tfieldi Hall. Above the 
secondary radials the plates are much smaller than in the ordin- 
ary form. These examples all agree in the somewhat depressed 
structure of the dome and very protuberant anal region. The 
proximal and radial dome plates are quite prominently tumid 
with the exception of the third radial which is generally 
smaller than the others and somewhat depressed. The second 
radials are the largest and most tumid plates of the dome in. 
rays having two arms, while the succeeding plates are obscure 
or absent; andinrays with more than two arms,two additional 
well developed plates occur. In rays having three arms, one 
of these plates is large and conspicuous while the other is 
small and crowded to one side; and in four-armed rays the 
two plates are equally prominent and placed side by side. The 
general form of the body is depressed wheel-shaped, and owing 
to the deeply excavate base the capacity of the internal cavity 
must have been very small. 

In an examination as to the mode of origin of extra arms it 
was observed that, in those rays having normally three arms, 
the third arm arises from a single tertiary radial which trun- 
cates, usually, the upper and inner angles of the first second- 
ary radials. In four-armed rays this plate is divided vertical- 
ly thus forming two tertiary radials from each of which 
springs an arm. Sometimes the arms have the appearance of 
springing from the sides owing to being pressed outward by 
those within. 

Nearly if not quite all the examples with sixteen arms from 
this locality are derived from the same geological horizon, 
viz.: the ‘‘Lower Crinoid Bed, (No. 2)” near the base of the 
lower division, and associated with the subexcavate form above 


noticed. 
Keokuk, Iowa, March 8, 1890. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE 
Fig. 1.—Agaricocrinus wortheni Hall. 
Basal view of specimen showing deep concavity and hexagonal form 
of second radials. 


Figs. 2, 3, 4.-Agaricocrinus americanus Roemer. 


Basal view of specimens haying base but slightly depressed. Plates 
large and more or less prominent. Second radial in right postero-la- 
teral ray truncated by interradial. 


Fig. 5.—Agaricocrinus americanus Rcemer. 


Specimens with sixteen arms and showing the very deeply excavate | 


form of the base. 

Fig. 6. Left postero-lateral ray of A. wortheni showing arrangement 
of plates: 

First primary radial—hexagonal. 
Second primary radial—hexagonal. 
Third primary radial—pentagonal. 
Secondary radials. 
Interradial plates. 

f. Arm plates. 

The first secondary radial on the posterior side of the postero-lateral 
ray is essentially a brachial piece with two rows of additional plates 
upon its upper slanting sides. : 

Nore.—The varying proportions of the first interradial in the above 
figures is especially noticeable. The anal area is directed upwards. 


Fig. '7.—Orthis keokuk Hall. Vental valve. 


The figures of this shell given by Hall were evidently from specimens 
more or less exfoliated. Well preserved specimens are rare. The 
above figure is from a specimen showing very prominent radiating 
striz and concentric lines of growth. The striz are fine and close up 
on the upper part of the shell but become abruptly coarser at each 
concentric line of growth. The plications are very prominent on the 
outer row. 

Length 3in. Transverse diameter 4'4 in. Elevation at center 14g 
in. Width of hinge line? 


case 


DRAINAGE SYSTEMS OF NEW MEXICco.! 


By RALPH S. TARR, Austin, Texas. 


In the arid climate of New Mexico the annual rainfall in the 
highest mountains is often more than thirty inches; but over 
the larger part of the territory on all the plains and plateaus 
it is generally not more than twelve inches. During the sum- 
mer months the country is liable to excessive rainfalls lasting 
for an hour or two and in that time doing great erosive work. 
Generally the erosion of a year is done inafew days. For the 
remainder of the year rains are rare and slight invamount and 
the water that falls sinks readily into the parched soil without 
doing any appreciable work of erosion. For nine months of 
the year the wind erodes more rapidly than the rain water. 

New Mexico, being located within the area of the Rocky 
mountain uplift is topographically typical of that region. In 


1TIn the preparation of this paper I am indebted to Prof. Wm. M,. 
Davis for valuable criticism and suggestions. 


262 | The American Geologist. May, 1890 


the southeastern portion are the elevated prairie lands of the 
Llano Estacado,changing in the northwest to the true plateau, 
from which platform rise the mountains of the territory ranges, 
chains and isolated peaks. The mountain topography is not 
so striking in this territory as it is in the more northern por- 
tions of the Rocky mountain area; but in northern New 
Mexico are the lofty Taos and other ranges, spurs of the great 
Colorado system. The trend of all these ranges, with a few 
unimportant exceptions, is generally north and south. The 
valleys between the mountain ranges are broad, shallow plat- 
eau valleys, out of which the peaks and ranges appear to rise 
abruptly. 

The rain that falls upon New Mexico finds its way into two 
oceans by means of three large arteries. The Continental — 
Divide in the western portion sheds water into the Colorado 
on the west and the Rio Grande on the east. The Taos moun- 
tains near the Colorado state line form the divide between 
some of the head waters of the Rio Grande and the Canadian, 
one of the tributaries to the Arkansas. The Pecos, the chief 
branch of the Rio Grande also rises on the eastern slope of the 
Taos range and is separated from the Canadian by a low plateau 
divide. Nine-tenths of New Mexico lies within the drainage 
area of the Rio Grande or its tributary the Pecos; and the ~ 
other two systems deserve mention simply in consideration 
of the drainage of this territory. 

The history of these rivers has been interesting and compli- 
cated, yet the complication has not been such as to obscure 
the general changes that havetaken place. A detailed history 
would demand a much closer study than I have been able to 
give and I shall not attempt to do more than state some of the 
most striking changes that they have undergone in the course 
of their development. 

Many of the American rivers have existed as drainage sys- 
tems through long geological ages and are by this time topo- 
graphically as well as geologically old. The Rio Grande is. 
both topographically and geologically young, and the appear- 
ance of youth is increased by certain accidents which have 
rejuvenated it. Moreover there are two sections of the Rio 
Grande and of each of its tributaries, one of which is much older 
than the other. It is plainly evident that the valleys of 
erosion in the mountains are much older than those on the 


i: pelede Drainage Systems of New Mexico—Tarr. 263 


plains even in places where the latter show no signs of rejuve- 
nation. The mountain streams flow through broad valleys of 
construction and narrow gorges of erosion with rapid slope 
very much as in the case of any Rocky mountain stream. The 
difficulties in the way of erosion in such places are great, yet 
they have been overcome and well established valleys have 
been cut. Undoubtedly the mountain erosion has been in 
progress with slight interruption since the mountains first 
appeared as such. 

After emerging from the mountains the Rio Grande flows 
upon a plateau, lava-capped in places, and almost everywhere 
composed of loose, partially consolidated, Tertiary fresh water 
deposits of cross-bedded sands and conglomerates. In the 
northern portion the river cuts a deep cafion through the 
lava and underlying sands; but this cafion character ceases to 
the south, and near the Texas line has entirely disappeared. 
Here the river flows near the top of the plateau in a broad 
valley a hundred feet or less below the level of the plateau. 

The Rio Grande flows directly southward from Colorado to 
Texas in a broad valley of construction between the broken 
ranges of mountains, and its tributaries have for their divides 
mountain ranges; but in no case that I know do they cut 
across them. This is very different from what is generally 
noticed in mountainous regions. In Montana, for instance, 
almost all the large rivers cut directly across mountain ranges 
in actual erosion valleys. Thisis the case in the Madison, 
Jefferson, Gallatin, Missouri, Clark’s Fork of the Columbia, 
and others. I am inclined to take this as evidence that at the 
time the mountains in New Mexico commenced to be crum- 
pled the territory was beneath the ocean and that the great 
plateau regions were not raised above sea level until the 
mountain folds had assumed their present form, although 
probably not their present elevation. The fact that the moun- 
tain erosion is relatively so much further advanced than the 
plateau erosion seems to point to the same conclusion. 

In the whole course of the Rio Grande from the northern to 
the southern boundary of New Mexico the river valley is for the 
most part carved out of soft unconsolidated sands and conglom- 
erates. Nearly all of these deposits are oldlake or inland sea 
beds of late Tertiary age. My studies have not been made in 
sufficient detail to tell whether the sands were deposited in 


264 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


one great lake or innumerous small ones. There are some in- 
dications that the former is the case. Be this as it may, the 
fact remains that the drainage from the mountains was into 
water in the near neighborhood either in the form of small lakes 
or large bodies. When these lakes were partially filled and their 
barriers removed, as was the case I think at El Paso, where 
the Rio Grande has cut a gorge across a mountain chain, a 
_ system of drainage began to establish itself in the old lake 
bottoms. At this time the mountain drainage was well es- 
tablished while the plateau drainage was only begun. 

How far this platean erosion had proceeded when the great 
New Mexican basalt period of late Tertiary times began it is dif- 
ficult to say ; but there are indications that the drainage was 
in a state of extreme youth. In several places beneath the 
lava I have found signs of sharp erosion such as is characteris- 
tic of young drainage. This is particularly well shown below 
Santa Fé on the Santa Fé creek, which in cutting the lava has 
revealed a narrow cafion sloping to the south and now filled 
with lava. This Tertiary river channel not only shows on both 
sides of the Santa Fé creek; but also several miles north of 
this point at a place plainly visible from the Texas, Santa Fé 
and Northern Railway. At this place, which is near the base of 
the mountains, there was considerable erosion before the flow of 
basalt began ; but further north, between Embudo and Baranca 
the early drainage was not marked and the Tertiary sands be- 
neath the lava are flat topped, level and only shghtly disturbed 


by erosion. 

Where this basalt flowed from has, I believe, been a disputed 
point. Some hold that it may have flowed from great cracks 
in the earth, others from cones. Of the former theory there are 
no proofs in this section; but, on the contrary there are many 
cones from which vast flows of lava poured forth. At “Volcano,” 
near the Colorado line, on the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, 
is one of these old voleanic cones. On each side of the cone 
there is a great thickness of basalt: but the lava thins out on 
all sides and at Embudo, 60 miles south from the cone, it has 
a thickness of only twenty to thirty feet. Fifteen miles below 
Embudo the lava exists on the surface only in the form of 
boulders. The basalt that flowed from this cone alone covers 
an area of 2000 miles that can be traced. There are numerous 
other cones in northern New Mexico from which similar large 


UNA) Mote 


Drainage Systems of New Mexico.—Tarr. 265 
quantities of basalt flowed. There is very little doubt that 
most if not all the Tertiary basalt in this section can be direct- 
ly traced to some volcanic cone. 

When the basalt flowed from the various cones it formed 
dams at many places across the developing rivers. One of the 
principal of these dams was at the eastern base of the “Volca- 
no” cone and thence southward for 60 miles. The effect of this 
dam was to make a large lake having an area of several hun- 
dred square miles, since drained, and now called the San Luis 
Park in southern Colorado. This rejuvenationof the young 
Rio Grande system took place at many points and numerous 
small lakes were formed principally at the mouths of west-flow- 
ing tributaries. One of these may be seen at the town of Em- 
budo near the mouth of the Embudo river. These lake de- 
posits can be distinguished from the earlier Tertiary sands by 
the great abundance of basaltic pebbles in the former. In 
some places the upper layers of the great Tertiary conglomerate 
contain occasional basalt pebbles showing that the Tertiary 
lava period began before the final drainage of some of the lakes. 

During the deposition ofthis lava the entire country was 
undoubtedly uplifted and when it ceased a new drainage sys- 
tem had to be established and a great work of rapid erosion to 
be begun, although the time has been short, the amount of 
erosion since the end of the basalt period has been very great. 
The rejuvenated Rio Grande has in every place succeeded in 
cutting through the lava cap and in many places has eroded 
far into the soft underlying deposits. From the southern end 
of the San Luis Park to below Embudo there is a great canon 
averaging over a thousand feet in depth with a length of more 
than 60 miles and a width ranging from two thousand feet to 
two miles. The lava capping in the northern part being very 
thick, the underlying unconsolidated strata are protected and 
the cafion character of the river valley is well preserved. At 
the southern end, however, near Embudo, where the lava is 
only about twenty feet thick the cafion is broadening and 
rapidly loosing its distinctive steep-walled character. The 
wearing back of the basalt by subaérial denudation has broad- 


ened the cafion toa width of two miles. The soft clays and 
' sands thus left exposed are rapidly melting away and are strewn. 


with thousands of basalt boulders. Some of the hills are still 
lava-capped although they have sunk down several hundred 


266 The American Geologist. “May, 1890 


feet below their original level. This process of melting away 
of the clay beneath the lava is well shown along the basalt 
front where the lava has faulted off in Jong blocks in front of 
and below one another in a series of steps, which, at first sight 
seem to indicate a series of distinct flows. 

In this vicinity there are many places where the surface is 
not strewn with basalt boulders although on nearly every side 
the boulders or basalt capping is found. At present such 
places are valleys but they undoubtedly represent the hills of 
the time when the basalt flowed over this country. This is 
very strikingly shown on the east side of the Rio Grande oppo- 
site the railway station of Embudo. At this point there is a 
high cafion wall of lava-capped sand, but just behind this, at 
a distance of only a few miles, there is a broad and rather deep 
valley. At the time when the lava reached this point sixty 
miles south of the cone the present valley was undoubtedly 
high land which the lava was unable to cover, and hence un- 
protected by lava it has readily fallen to a lower level than the 
neighboring valley of early times. 

The Rio Grande on account of this rejuvenation is a super- 
imposed river. To what extent its present course coincides 
with the course of early youth is difficult to say; but, in the 
northern portion, which I have studied particularly, 1 am in- 
clined to believe that the rejuvenated course and the ancient 
course are practically the same. It is probable that in general 
the basalt flows coincided in direction with the principal val- 
leys of the time. The greatest linear extension of the great 
flows from the “Volcano” cone were southward. At Embudo 
60 miles from the cone, there are evidences at present of several 
distinct flows. At this point the flows were narrow and thin 
and now they cover the high land while both to the east and 
west there are deep valleys in the sand which has never been 
lava-capped. It seems therefore that the present southward 
extension of the lava points to the existence during the basalt 
period, of a river valley flowing southward through Embudo. 
The Rio Grande of to-day flows along this same course. Like 
all superimposed rivers it has been rendered liable by super- 
imposition to certain accidents which present unnatural bar- 
riers for it to overcome. About ten miles above Embudo, for © 
instance, the Rio Grande has, in cutting through the lava and 
sands, found in its course a buried hill of quartzite and schist ; 


Drainage Systems of New Mexico.— Tarr. 


and it is at present engaged in cutting through this barrier. 
From the structural features of the outcrop I infer that to the 
west about a mile the Rio Grande would not have encountered 
this rock, at least not for several hundred feet. Other similiar 
accidents are to be found at various places in the course of the 
river. I believe that a careful study of the river west of Santa 
Fé will show that it has been turned many miles to the east of 
its early course by a great thickness of lava; but I was unable 
to spend the time necessary for the verification of this supposi- 
tion. 

It is evident that the development of the cafion of the Rio 
Grande was rapid, first because it is only slightly effected by 
subaérial denudation; and, secondly from the evidences fur- 
nished by the side streams. The greater part of the work in 
the formation of the Rio Grande cafion was the removal of the 
very uppermost layers which were hard basalt. After this was 
cut through the remaining work was, with some local exception, 
the removal of the soft deposits which could be cut away as 
fast as the stream could dispose of the load. Hence the first 
hundred feet of cutting was slowly done and the next nine 
hundred feet of rock was quickly removed. While the river 
was busy cutting through the lava the side streams had very 
little opportunity to cut channels since they were retarded 
in their work of erosion by the main stream to which they 
were tributary. When once the Rio Grande succeeded in erod- 
ing through the lava crust and began to eat rapidly down 
through the sands, the tributaries began to cut into the lava, 
first near their mouths then progressively up stream farther and 
farther. Erosion at the mouths of these tributaries very nearly 
kept pace with the deepening of the Rio Grande itself; but 

.from this point upstream for a few miles the slope is very rapid 
until the lava-capping is reached where the stream is laboring 
hard to get through the rock into the soft sands below and gain 
upon the stream near the mouth. 

This condition is excellently shown on the Rio Grande at 
the mouth of Taos creek. For a few miles from its mouth the 
creek is deep and cafion-like and at its mouth is as deep as the 
Rio Grande itself, which, at this point, is at least a thousand 
feet below the plateau surface. The cafion grows progressive- 
ly shallower upstream, and a little more than five miles from 
its mouth the stream is on the lava; and one or two miles up- 


a 


268 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


stream from this it has cut into the lava only five or ten feet. 
The side streams tributary to Tads creek exhibit the same 
phenomenon on asmaller scale. This shows with what ra- 
pidity the erosion goes on after the lava is cut through and 
how young the drainage really is. In these creeks we see ona 
small scale what the Rio Grande has been doing on a large 
scale since the basalt flow first interruped its course. 

_The youth of the present Rio Grande drainage system is 
equally well shown in regions not covered with lava. Such 
places are also rejuvenated, in the north at least, by the lava 
flows, which, by impeding the Rio Grande itself also impeded 
all the side streams. At present these places are only just re- 
covering from the accident. If the region was a moist one there 
would be no such signs of present recovery as can be seen there. 
As it is, in this case the rainfall peculiarities aid in the ap- 
pearances of extreme youth. Aside from the main streams 
having sources in the mountains, there are few which carry 
water aJl the year, and not a great many well established trib- 
utaries to carry off the excessive floods to which the country is 
sometimes subject. Consequently every heavy rain develops 
new branches to the smaller tributaries. These “arroyas,” as 
they are called, develop suddenly, even in a single storm, and 
often have a linear extension of several miles and a depth of 
fifteen to twenty-five feet with cafion-like walls of gravel. 
Other arroyas are growing slowly year by year at their head- 
waters. Very frequently an arroya eats back across a well 
traveled road, sometimes suddenly in a single storm; but very 
often slowly year by year so that each year the road is forced 
to make a detour greater and greater in extent until in some 
cases the angle in the road at the head of an arroya is as much 


as a quarter of a mile from a former position a few years pre- 


vious. 

When a small arroya is formed many tons of earth are re- 
moved and turned over to the main stream as a burden to be 
carried to the sea. While the Rio Grande was cutting its own 
cafion it was able to remove the detritus, partly because it was 
not particularly overburdened and partly because its slope 
seaward was rapid. Now the slope is reduced while the river 
is busy removing dams at various places (as at El Paso); 
and the main stream is burdened with sediment furnished 
by all its tributaries which are busily at work establishing 


~ 


bie Drainage Systems of New Mexico.—- Tarr. 269° 


themselves. Such streams asthe Chama and Puerco always 
have as much sediment in their grasp as can be carried. 
This overburdening of the river has brought about a new con- 


dition ofthings with which the steam is now complicated. The ; 


river unable to carry off allthe sediment furnished to it, is lay- 
ing it aside in sand bars and flood plains until such time as the 


equilibrium shall be restored. This clogging increases to the 


south ; and, at Las Cruces, in southern New Mexico just north 
of the reef of rock at El Paso with which the Rio Grande is 


contending, the river winds in and out among bars of quick-. 


sand and broad flood plains which are being added to each 
year. In this valley, the Mesilla valley, the river flows with 
an uncertain course and frequently changes its-channel. 

The Rio Pecos is at present in about the same condition as 
the Rio Grande. It is building up its channel with the silt 
with which it is over burdened. This river is also in its youth, 
and, I believe, a rejuvenated youth. In its upper portion it 
flows in a cafion-like valley of recent date very likely due to 
rejuvenation resulting from the plateau uplift. The condition 
of youth is well proved by the fact that great areas on the bor- 
der of the Staked Plains are entirely destitute of drainage. 
Arroyas are everywhere forming and many roads on hillsides 
have been abandoned because during a rain they have been 
transformed to arroyas. Much of the drainage is underground, 
and these subteranean creeks appear in or near the Pecos as 
great springs flowing many cubic feet of water per second,as at 
Roswell. 

Between the Pecos and Rio Grande there is a great area of 
country having no surface drainage seaward. I refer to the 
area lying between the Organ and San Andreas range on the 
west, the White Mts. and small outliers on the north, the Sac- 
ramento and Guadolupe Mts. on the east and the Hueco and 
E] Paso mountains on the south. Between these mountains 
is a great basin which for the want of a better name I shall call 
the Gypsum Plains. The length of this. basin is 125 miles or 
more and the width varies from 10 to 30 miles. From Sierra 
Blanca which attains an elevation of 11892 feet and is snow- 
capped the greater part of the year, and from other portions of 
the White Mountain range there are several brooks of good 
size flowing into the enclosed basin. The principal ones are 
Tula Rosa creek, Bonito creek and Three Rivers. Each of 


‘ % 
at s) 
e 4% 


1 


SE Bae AO hic Cn Ue CPP trl Beran) As i em AD RA Wan Cry 
taht FY » AA) Ne NL WOBAREENOTY ‘+ ub haey 
AS APR PY ED NOS a) Conny 


270 The American Geologist, May, 1890 


these, after emerging from the mountains, quickly disappears 
in the loose gravels of the basin, probably the deposits of an 
old Tertiary lake bed. From each of the other ranges numer- 
ous streams and arroyas empty into the basin but the water 
all disappears shortly after reaching the plain. 

Near the western margin of the plain at the base of San 
Andreas range is an extensive salt marsh; and just to the 
south of this are the so-called white sands—a large deposit of 
gypsum. Iam convinced thatthis is the last remnant of what 
was once a large lake now destroyed by desiccation. At pre- 
sent there is no surface drainage out of the basin and a very 
little brackish water collects in the lowest part of the old lake 
bed. Itis completely isolated from the great drainage area 
of the territory and receives the rainfall of an area fully 4000 
square miles in extent. 

Conclusion. Condensing the above in a few words,I consider 
the history of the New Mexican drainage systems to first com- 
mence when the southern spurs of the Rocky mountains ap- 
peared above the sea. During their slow uplifting well estab- 
lished streams carved the existing mountain valleys flowing 
first into the sea and later into large bodies of fresh water. 
Grand subsequent uplifting has not appreciably affected the 
torrential mountain stream valleys. By the removal of bar- 
riers and probably in some cases by desiccation the lake beds 
became dry land and a young drainage began to establish itself. 
At this time the plateau uplift began and with it came the vast 
flows of basalt deluging the greater part of the lowlands of the 
territory. When this fiery deluge ceased the rejuvenated Rio 
Grande began anew, settling in many places in its ancient val- 
ley but in others encountering unexpected barriers. The river, 
then rejuvenated and superimposed has since been employed in 
cutting adeep cafion. This stage has now ceased, the cafion 
is beginning to lose its distinctive character, the side streams 
are repeating the example of the mother stream and burden 
ing it with an impossible load, which, being unable to carry, 
it is lying aside for some future time of leisure or power. 


NEW LAMELLIBRANCHIATA, 
By E. O. ULRICH, Newport, Ky. 
No. 1, Containing Descriptions of new species of Modiolopsis. 


This is the first of a series of papers on this class of fossil 


. . 


)\ Qian 


New Lamellébranchiata.— Ulrich. 


shells that I propose to publish during this year, probably 
monthly in succeeding numbers of the Geologist. Most of the 
species were studied in 1880 and 1881 with a view of publish- 
ing descriptions of them, together with new Gastropoda and 
other fossils, in the ill-fated vol. ur of the Ohio paleontologi- 
cal reports. As is well known, the Ohio Legislature has per- 
sistently refused to appropriate the funds necessary for the 
publication of that volume, and, as far as can be ascertained, 
the prospect at present is more discouraging than ever before. 
That the work might not be lost entirely, I have lately begun 
making a new set of drawings (this time in ink, making cheap 
reproduction possible) of the principal species then worked 
on, and of the more interesting forms that have been discovered 
since. 

The total number of species which I propose to describe in 
this series of papers is over fifty, and of all of them the types 
are contained in my private collection. Among them are rep- 
resentatives of five or six new genera, while the remainder are 
referred to Modiolopsis, Orthodesma, Cuneamya, Grammysia, 
Goniophora, (?) Ambonychia and Pterinea. 

Though a large number it is scarcely one-third of the unde- 
scribed Silurian lamillibranchs known to me—and many more 
no doubt still remain to reward the search of earnest col- 
lectors. To give some idea of the great varicty of this class of 
fossils in Lower Silurian deposits, I will mention a few facts 
regarding those found in the Trenton and Cincinnati rocks of 
Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. My own cabinet alone contains 
over two hundred unquestionably distinct species of lamelli- 
branch shells from this locality. Of this number not more than 
eighty can be identified with described species, thus leaving 
over one hundred and twenty-eight without names, and I have 
not all of them either, since every extensive Cincinnati collec- 
tion examined by me contains a greater or less number of 
species not represented in mine. A fair estimate of the total 
number from this locality alone would not fall below two hun- 
and fifty species. And yet it is with this class of shells as with 
nearly all other fossils outside of the Echinodermata and Trilo- 
bita—they are sadly neglected by the average collector. Why 
this is so I do not know, since they are just as valuable to the 
science of geology and quite as interesting as crinoids and 
trilobites. It is to be hoped that hereafter collectors, particu- 


272 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


larly those in Lower Silurian localities of the west and (north- 
west, will pay more attention to these fossils so that a] mono- 
graphical study may soon become practicable. 


Modiolopsis oblonga, n.sp. 


Fig. 1. Modiolopsis oblonga, n. sp., Utica slate horizon of the Cin- 
nati group, at Covington, Ky. a. A very perfect cast of the interior 
of a right valve of this species, preserving a little of the shell, and ex- 
hibiting most of the distinctive features of the species. bandc. End 
and cardinal views of same to show convexity. 


Shells above the medium size, moderately convex, elongate, 
the length more than twice the width, the posterior end a little 
the widest, anterior end small, contracted in front of the beaks, 
the upper portion slightly concave, the lower part narrowly 
rounded. Basal margin slightly convex or nearly straight, in 
the central half, and gently curved upwards at the ends. = Pos- 
terior margin obliquely subtruncate, with point of greatest ex- 
tension in the lower half where the curve is sharp. Junction 
ofcardinal and posterior margins subangular, the two sides 
meeting at an angle of 120°. , Cardinal margin very gently ar- 
cuate, long, the length behind the beaks equaling nearly three- 
fourths of the entire length of shell. Beaks small, depressed, 
scarcely elevated above the hinge line; situated one-eight of 
the greatest length of the shell from the anterior extremity. 
Umbonal ridge subangular near the beaks, but becoming near- 
ly or quite obsolete before reaching the middle of the valve. 
Cardinal surface flattened. General surface of valves moder- 
ately convex, with greatest convexity in the anterior third. 


: New —Lamellibranchiata.— Ulrich. 


Casts of the interior show an undefined flattening or Very shal- 
low depression in the region included between the anterior 
muscle, the basal margin and the umbonal ridge. Anterior 
muscular impression large, deep, subcircular, and roughly 
pitted. Posterior scar large, faintly impressed, situated near 
the center of the cardinal slope. Shell rather thick, (for this 
genus) and marked with fine impressed concentric striz, in- 
visible to the unaided eye, and stronger lines of growth. 

Length 62.5 mm.; greatest hight (measuring across the 
posterior third of shell) 29.5 mm.; hight from beaks to ven- 
tral margin 21 mm.; greatest convexity of single valve (the 
point is near the middle of the anterior half) 8.5 mm. 

From WM. modiolaris Conrad, this species differs in its more 
elongate form, more nearly parallel basal and cardinal mar- 
gins, convex or straight, instead of sinuate basal margin, 
greater prominence of umbones, and in being most convex in 
the anterior half of the shell, instead of the posterior. M. 
cincinnatiensis H. and W., with which it is associated, differs 
in its outline and surface markings, as well as in being more 
convex. WM. subparallela, of this paper, agrees very well, as far 
as the mere outline is concerned, but it is a much smaller 
species, with the point of greatest convexity near the center of 
the shell instead of in the anterior half. M. pholadiformis 
Hall, likewise agrees very well with this shell, but the peculiar 
divaricating plications which mark the surface of that species 
are so distinctive that there is little danger of confounding the 
two species. 


Position and locality : Utica slate horizon of the Cincinnati group, 
at the Covington, Ky.,‘‘river quarries,’’ where it was found associated 
with M. cincinnatiensis and a number of other fossils that are restricted 
to that horizon. 


Modiolopsis subparallela, n. sp. 


may 


Fig. 2. Modiolopsis subparallela, n. sp. Cincinnati group, Coving~- 


274 The American Geologist. — May, 1890 


ton, Ky. a,b andc three views of the best specimen seen. It is a 
cast of the interior and the largest seen. 


Shells below the medium size, rather convex, elongate, the 
length equalling more than twice the greatest hight. Cardi- 
nal and basal margins nearly straight, subparallel, diverging 
very slightly toward the posterior extremity. Anterior end 
very short, contracted in front of the beaks, narrowly rounded. 
Posterior end not evenly rounded, the curves being a little the 
shortest in the basal half. Beaks small; umbonal ridge 
searcely defined, the whole surface of the valves being nearly 
evenly convex, with the point of greatest convexity a little in 
front of the center. The cardinal slope may be somewhat 
flattened. 

Only casts of the interior have been observed. These indi- 
eate that the shell was marked with faint concentric lines of 
growth. The anterior muscular impression is unusually large. 

Length, 25 mm.; length from beaks to posterior extremity of 
hinge line, 17 mm.; hight from umbones to basal margin, 10 
mm.; hight from posterior end of hinge line to basal margin, 
11.5 mm.; greatest convexity of entire cast, 8 mm. 

This species resembles M. anodontoides Conrad, but differs 
somewhat in outline and in wanting a distinct umbonal ridge. 
Conrad’s species evidently belongs to the same section of the 
genus as M.cincinnatiensis H.and W.,in which the shell is very 


thin and the anterior muscular impression faint. 


Position and locality: The types are from the Cincinnati group at 
the hill quarries west of Covington, Ky., and north of Cincinnati, 
Ohio. The horizon is from 300 to 350 fit. above low water mark in the 
Ohio river. I have casts also of the same or of a similar species from 
an horizon about 200 ft. lower in the series. 


Modiolopsis milleri, n. sp. 


Fig. 3. Modiolopsis milleri, n. sp., Cincinnati group, Cincinnati, 
Ohio. a,a large specimen preserving the shell. 6 and c, cardinal and 


end views ofsame. d, cast of the interior of the average size, showing 
the anterior muscle scar and deep impression just behind it. 


Shell small, tranversely elongate subovate, the length a lit- 
tle more than twice the hight. Valves strongly convex, with 
point of greatest convexity near the middle, the surface slop- 
ing rapidly from there to the anterior and posterior extremi- 
ties. Cardinal and basal margins subparallel, diverging very 
slightly posteriorly, the former very gently arcuate, the 
latter broadly sinuate. Anterior end very short, con- 
tracted beneath the beaks, and narrowly rounded. Pos- 
terior margin oblique, the basal half the most prominent 
and strongly curved. Beaks small, nearly terminal, um- 
bonal ridge obtuse, but generally well developed, defined on 
the upper side by the flat or slightly concave cardinal 
slope, and on the other by the depression of the valves, causing 
the sinuate basal margin which is such a characteristic feature 
of the typical species of the genus. The sinus and depression 
are comparatively stronger in this specie than usual. Surface 
of shell with very fine concentric strie and a limited number 
of stronger sub-lamellose lines of growth. Anterior muscular 
impression not deep, but bordered on the inner side by a strong 
clavicular ridge situated just in front of and below the beaks. 

Length of a large specimen, 27 mm.; greatest hight (in the 
posterior half) 13mm.; hight at beaks, 10 mm. ; greatest con- 
vexity of both valves, 11 mm. In a small specimen these 
measurements are respectively, 14, 6.3, 5, and 4.5 mm. 

This species is related to M. modiolaris Conrad, but is readily 
distinguished by its smaller size, comparatively greater con- 
vexity, stronger umbonal ridge, and more pronounced mesial 
depression beneathit. The two species differ also somewhat 
in their outlines. 

The specific name is given in honor of Mr. S. A. Miller, who 
is one of the few paleontologists that have taken pains to col- 
lect and study the Cincinnati lamellibranchs. 


Position and locality: Cincinnati group, on the hills about Cincin- 
nati, Ohio, from about 300 to 400 feet above low water in the river. 


New Lamellibranchiata.— Ulrich. 275 | 


i my A. 


The American Geologist. 


Modiolopsis oviformis, n. sp. 


/ 


Fig. 4. Modiolopsis oviformis, n. sp. Middle Trenton, near Burgin, 
Ky. a, perfect cast of the interior of a left valve of this species. 6 and 
c, anterior end and cardinal views of a free cast of the interior, nar- 
rower than usual. 


Shell of medium size, regularly oval transversely, the pos- 
terior half a little the widest, with the greatest hight and 
length, averaging respectively as three or three and one-half 
is to five. Valves moderately and nearly evenly convex, with 
point of greatest convexity a little in front and above the cen- 
ter. Cardinal margin strongly arcuate; basal margin with 
nearly the same amount of convexity; anterior and posterior 
_ ends nicely rounded, but with the former much narrower than 
the latter. Occasionally the posterior margin is produced 
slightly beyond an even curve in the postero-basal region. 
Beaks small, nearly terminal; umbonal ridge nearly obsolete. 
Shell rather thick, strongest in the umbonal region, its outer 
surface nearly smooth, exhibiting only a few faintly impressed 
fine concentric lines. 

Casts of the interior, in which condition the species is 
usuually found, are terminated anteriorly by the well marked 
pair of muscular scars. The umbonal ridge is more pro- 
nounced than on the outside of the shell being defined anter- 
iorly by a distinct depression. Good casts show a well de- 
fined impression of the characteristic Modiolopsis cardinal 
fold or tooth between the beaks and the anterior muscle scars. 

A cast of a shell of the average size is 45 mm. long, 30 mm. 


high and 13 mm.thick. The hight is proportionately some- 
what greater in specimens preserving the shell. 

_ This species has been confounded with M. modiolaris Con- 
rad, by the Kentucky geologists. It is, however, quite a dif- 
ferent species, being proportionally shorter, with a more ar- 
cuate cardinal margin, shorter and wider hinge plate, more 
nearly terminal beaks, and a different outline, the basal mar- 
gin in Conrad’s species being always more or less sinuate 
whereas it is convex in M. oviformis. Other differences might 
be mentioned, but these will suffice. 


Position and locality : This species is very abundant in the argilla- 
ceous strata overlying the lower massive limestones of the Trenton of 
central Kentucky, at Burgin, Danville and Frankfort, Ky. 


Modiolopsis simulatrix, n. sp. 


Fig. 5, Modiolopsis simulatrix, n. sp., Cincinnati group (lower beds) 
at Covington, Ky. a, b and c, three views of a specimen of this species 
which preserves the shell. The postero-cardinal region should be’ a 
little more angular than shown. 


Shell a little below the medium size, transversely subovate 
in outline, widest posteriorly. Valves moderately convex, 
with point of greatest convexity somewhat above and in front 
of the middle. Anterior end short,not appreciably contracted, 
rounding almost regularly from the beaks into the nearly 
straight or shightly convex basal margin. Posterior margin 
the most prominent at a point a little below the center, but not 
greatly so, the curve on the whole being nearly equal from the 
basal margin to the posterior extremity of the slightly arcuate 
hinge line, where the outline is often subangular. Beaks small 
not projecting above the hinge line, situated about one-sixth 

_of the length of the shell from the anterior extremity. Um- 
bones rounded. Surface between the umbones and the basal 


margin transversely flattened, but not sinuate; cardinal slope. 


flat or slightly concave. Entire surface marked with two sets 


* 


The American Geologist. 


of concentric strie, one set very fine and crowded, the other 
much coarser. 
Length, 29 mm.; greatest width, (measuring from the pos- 
terior extremity of hinge to the basal margin) 17.5 mm.; 
width at the beaks, 12mm. ; greatest convexity ofthe two valves 
Paee) so mm. 
Bah’ This species should be compared with M. modiolaris Conrad, 
M. concentrica H. and W., and Jf, subtruncata of this paper. 
From the first it differs in having the basal margin convex in- 
stead of sinuate, the anterior end not lobate, a somewhat dif- 
ferent outline, andin being both smaller and comparatively 
more ventricose. Similar differences distinguish it from the 
second, and to them may be added that in that species the 
concentric furrows are mainly restricted to the cardinal and 
posterior regions of the shell. In M. subtruncata the basal 
margin is straighter, the posterior end more obliquely truncate 
and the beaks more prominent. The surface is also without 


the strong concentric furrows and the outline generally dif- 
ferent. 


Position and locality: Rare in the lower beds of the Cincinnati 
group, at Covington, Ky., at an elevation of between 100 and 150 ft. 
above the Ohio river bed. 


Modiolopsis pulchella, n. sp. 


Fig. 6. Modiolopsis pulchella, n. sp., Utica slate horizon of the Cin- 
cinnati group at Covington, Ky. a. view of the only specimen seen. 
b and ec. end and cardinal profile views to show convexity. 


Shell of medium size, moderately convex, transversely sub- 
ovate widest posteriorly, the greatest height and length, re- 
spectively, as five is to nine. Cardinal margin straight behind 


line the curve is bien: then gentle as it merges into the con- 
vex basal line. Posterior end somewhat obliquely truncate ; 
yet curving gently and uniformly from the narrowly round- 


gin. Umbones full, the obtusely angular umbonal ridge ex- 
tending nearly to the postero-basal margin. Central portion 
of valves transversely flattened. Cardinal slope concave. 
Point of greatest convexity of shell above the center. Surface 


with concentric furrows and fine concentric lines. These are 


_ erossed by obscure broad radiating lines which probably indi- 
cate former color bands. Both the concentric and radial orna- 

mentation is best developed in the central portion of the 
valves. 

The shell was very thin, and the anterior muscular impres- 
sion faint. Specimens of this species preserving the shell are 
not likely to be comfounded with any other species known to 
me. Casts of the interior in which the peculiar surface orna- 
mentation would be absent, would not be so readily distin- 
guished from similar casts of several species occuring in the 

‘ Cincinnati rocks. There is howeveran appreciable difference 
in the outline and in none of these shells, is the umbonal ridge 
so well-marked a feature as in U. pulchella, 


Position and locality. Rare in the Utica slate horizon of the Cincin- 
nati group, at the “‘river quarries’’ a little west of Covington, Ky. 


Modiolopsis subtruncata, n. sp. 


Fig. 7. Modiolopsis a as n. sp. Cincinnati group, Cincinnati, 
Ohio. a. right valve of this species, preserving the shell. band c end 
and cardinal views of same to show convexity. 


Shell of medium size or smaller, short, a little widest poster- 
iorly,the greatest length and width, respectively, as nine is to 


ae of the shell ; : beginning at the acelin with the hinge : 


ed and prolonged postero-basal region into the cardinal mar-_ 


280 The American Geologist. — May, 1890 


six. Valves rather strongly convex, most prominent near the 
center, where the convexity of one valve equals about one- 
third of the greatest width. Cardinal margin straight, its 
length behind the beaks equal to a little more than half of the 
entire length of shell. Upper half of anterior margin straight 
or faintly concave, forming an angle of about 125° with the 
hinge line. Lower half curving rapidly into the straight basal 
margin, its curve equal to that of the margin in the postero- 
basal region. Uppér half of posterior end straight, oblique, 
forming an angle of 180° with the hinge line; junction between 
the two, obtusely angular. Beaks small, slightly prominent, 
situated one-seventh of the entire length of shell from the an- 
terior extremity. Umbonal ridge broadly rounded, not a con- 
spicious feature. Cardinal slope flattened. Surface with 
rather strong irregular lines of growth and a few finer concen- 
_ tric strie. ' 

Hinge plate narrow, with a long slender ese tooth. 
Muscular impressions not observed. 

Length, 24.5 mm.; greatest width in posterior half 15 mm. ; 
hight from base to beaks, 12.7 mm. ; from postero-cardinal an-- 
gle to antero-basal margin 19.5 mm. ; from beak to postero-bas- 
al margin 23 mm.; greatest dee of single valve 5mm. 

This’species is neleted to MW. truncata Hall, but is less high 
posteriorly, and more ventricose. It also has a narrower hinge 
plate and thinner shell, while, the surface markings are also 
somewhat different. 


Position and locality; Lower beds of the Cincinnati group, near 
Cincinnati, Ohio,at an elevation of about 100 ft. above low water mark 
in the Ohio river. 


Modiolopsis alata, n. sp. 


Fig. 8. Modiolopsis alata n. sp.,Cincinnati group, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
a, and b, three views of a right valve preserved in shale. c, view of the 
right side of a free cast of the interior showing the small anterior scar. 
The rounding of the postero-cardinal region is probably due to attri- 
tion. 


‘oP: 


i" eh ix eae, as i 


New Lamellibranchiata.— Ulrich. 


alate and much the widest posteriorly. Valves appressed, 


with point of greatest convexity above the center. Cardinal — 


margin straight, its length equalling two-thirds of the greatest 
length of the shell. Anterior end forming nearly aright angle 
with the hinge line, then rounding gently into the basal mar- 
gin, the curve of the edge being very nearly uniform from the 
antero-cardinal angle to the postero-basal region. Here the 


margin rounds quickly up into the posterior edge, the curve ~ 


becoming gradually less tothe angular junction with the hinge 
line, which it meets at an angle of about 115°. Beaks small, 
projecting very little above the hinge line, and situated about 
one-fourth of its length from the anterior end of the shell. 
Umbonal ridge inconspicious, only appreciable because of a 
slight concavity in the cardinal slope. Surface with faint con- 
centric lines of growth. Anterior muscular impression, as seen 
in casts of the interior, circular and small, but clearly defined. 

The largest specimen seen has the following dimensions: 
Length of hinge line, 12 mm; length from antero-cardinal (an- 
gle to postero-basal margin (greatest length of shell) 17mm; 
greatest hight, from center of basal margin to posterior ex- 
tremity of hinge line, 13mm; greatest convexity of two valves 
4.5mm. 

Hall’s W. aviculoides is a narrower and more convex shell 
The species also resembles If. truncata Hall and MW. parva of 
this paper. The first, however, is much larger, has a wider an- 
terior end and a thicker shell. The second also has a thicker 
shell and is much more convex. 


Position and locality: Rather rare in yellowish shales_of the Cincin- 
nati group, near the tops of the hills about Cincinnati, Ohio. 


Modiolopsis parva, n. sp. 
Oe 


Shell small, transversely subovate, or Aviculoid in outline, 


282 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


_ Fig. 9. Modiolopsis parva, n. sp. a, left valve X2.5, with the anter- 
ior end a little longer than usual. 6, and c. cardinal and end profiles 
of same. Trenton group near Burgin, Ky. d, a left valve from the 
lower beds of the Cincinnati group at Covington, Ky., also X2.5, e and 
f, end cardinal profiles of same. The minute radiating strie which 
occur on the posterior half of well preserved specimens are not shown. 


Shell very small, obliquely subovate and somewhat Avicu- 
loidin outline, much the widest posteriorly; greatest hight 
and length, respectively, as three is to five. Valves strongly 
convex, with point of greatest convexity above the center. 
Anterior end small, apparently not contracted in front of the 
beaks, narrowly rounded and often subangular at the anterior 
extremity of the hinge line. Central portion of basal margin 


Straight, with the curves at the ends, where it rounds up into 


the anterior and posterior margins, equal. Posterior margin 
broadly rounded, the upper portion nearly parallel with the 
basal margin and forming an angle of about 140° with the 
cardinal line. Hinge line straight, extending nearly to the an- 
terior extremity of the shell. - Beaks small, nearly one-third of 
the length of the hinge from the anterior end. Umbones 
prominent, the umbonal ridge strongly rounded, extending 
to a point a short distance behind the center of the valve 
where it becomes obsolete. Cardinal slope flattened or slight- 
ly concave. Surface smooth or marked with obscure, irregu- 
lar, concentric furrows or strie, scarcely traceable in the car- 
dinal and posterior regions, where good shells exhibit instead 
exceedingly fine and crowded radiating strie. Shell substance 
comparatively thick. Interior not observed. 

Greatest length of the largest specimen seen, 12 mm, ; length 
of hinge line,8mm.; greatest hight measuring across the shell 
at right angles with the hinge line, from itsposterior extremity, 
8mm.; distance from same point to center of basal margin, 7 
mm.; greatest convexity of single valve, 2.5mm. Inasmaller 
example from the ‘““Modiolopsis bed” of the Trenton of central 
Kentucky, the same series of measurements give, respective 
ly, 9, 6, 5.7, 5; and 2mm. 

The small size, straight hinge, Aviculoid outline, great con- 
vexity, and comparatively thick shell are the distinguishing 
features of this species. Jf. alata, of this paper, bears some 
resemblance to it, but is a much less ventricose and more 


delicate shell. 


Position and locality: The original specimens are from the Cincin- 
nati group at Covington, Ky., where they were found at an elevation of 


ah 


: New Lamellibranchiata — Ulrich. 


ha ee 


about 150 ft. above the Ohio river. A specimen, represented in the cut Sala 
by a, bandc, was lately collected in the ‘‘Modiolopsis bed” ofthe = 
Trenton near Burgin, Ky. Meet 


Modiolopsis angustata, n. sp. i eae 


| 


Fig. 10, Modiolopsis angustata, n.sp., lower beds of the Cincinnati ; 
group, at Covington, Ky. a, b, and c, three views of a specimen of this pai” 
species. . 

Shell small, elongate, a little the widest posteriorly, the Ae 
length equal to two and one-half times the greatest width. Car- 
dinal and basal margins nearly straight, sub-parallel. Anter- 
ior end contracted infront of beaks, somewhat extended, with 
the extremity curved abruptly. Posterior end convex, the up- 
per half rounding gently into the cardinal margin, the lower Ra 
half the most prominent and with the curve more pronounced. aie 
Beaks short, flattened, slightly incurved, situated about one ee. 
fifth of the entire length of the shell from the anterior extrem- . 
ity. Body of shell moderately convexed, with a but slightly — a 
developed umbonal ridge; central portion flattened from the re 
beaks to the basal margin, not enough however to cause the 
latter to become sinuate. Point of greatest convexity a little 
above the center of the shell, cardinal slope, very slightly 
convex or flat. Surface marked with small irregular concen- 
tric furrows, strongest centrally, and much finer lines between 
them. 

Length 23.5 mm.; greatest hight (at posterior extremity of 
hinge line) 9mm.; hight at beaks, 7mm.; convexity of the * 
two valves in conjunction, 6mm. 4s, 

This species resembles Orthodesma in its elongate form and 
unusually extended (for Modiolopsis) anterior end. In all 
other respects however, it agrees very well with typical species 
of this genus. 

The New York Trenton species M. mytiloides Hall,(Pal.N. 
Y. vol. 1, p. 157, Pl. 35, fig. 4) may be a closely related species. 
The figures show it to be a more convex shell, with shorter an- 


284 The American Geologist. | May, 1890 


terior end, more pronounced umbonal ridge, and more oblique 
posterior margin. The cardinal and basal margins are also 
less nearly parallel. An undescribed species occurring in the 
upper beds of the Trenton of central Kentucky, is more 
closely related. 


Position and locality: Rare in the lower beds of the Cincinnati group 
at Covington, Ky. 


LEO LESQUEREUX. 
By EDWARD ORTON. 


The revocation of the Edict of Nantes inflicted an irrepar- 
able injury upon the French nation in depleting it of its mid- 
dle class, from which its industrial energy, its science, litera- 
ture and art were mainly drawn; but the Protestant neighbors 
of France gained correspondingly thereby. England, Hol- 
_ land, Switzerland and the English colonies in North Ameri- 
ca were greatly enriched by this enforced emigration. These 
Huguenot exiles brought unique and invaluable contributions 
to the countries in which they found refuge,—intelligence, 
strong convictions and the courage to maintain them, skill 
and taste in handicraft, and gracious manners the charm of 
which was everywhere recognized. They at once became loy- 
al subjects of the governments that sheltered them and their 
contributions to the public service soon became out of all 
proportion to their numbers. For example, of the seven pres- 
idents of the congress that sat in Philadelphia during the 
revolution, three were of Huguenot parentage. 

It was from this stock that Leo Lesquereux sprung, and by 
its training and traditions his early life was shaped. His an- 
cestors, when drivenfrom France by the revocation, established 
themselves in the Swiss canton of Neuchatel and here,in the 
village of Fleurier, on the 18th of November, 1806, Leo Les- 
quereux was born. His father was a manufacturer of watch 
springs, owning a small factory and employing four or five 
workmen therein. His mother was well educated and had a 
great love of knowledge and great respect for superior attain- 
ments among those whom she met. She insisted that her son 
should have the best education available, hoping to see him 
enter the ministry of the Lutheran church. 

From his early childhood he had an enthusiastic love of na- 
ture and especially of the sublime scenery that surrounded his 


Ohi Leo Lesquereux.— Orton. 285 


home. To scale the most difficult summits and to gather the 
rare flowers that grew there, were among his early ambitions 
and pleasures. He must have been a daring climber. On one 
of his excursions, when about ten years of age, he met with an 
accident of so dangerous a character that his escape from 
death seems almost incredible. He had climbed the moun- 
tain that towers above Fleurier, but by a misstep he fell over 
the edge of a cliff, down the steep mountain side. He struck 
first upon a projecting ledge and was rendered insensible by 
the fall; from this point he rolled limp and unresisting, his 
descent being occasionally checked by branches of trees or 
shrubs, to the borders of the meadowland far below. When 
picked up there, he was found fearfully bruised and lacerated, 
but no bones were broken. Fortwo week he lay unconscious, 
but at the end of six weeks he was on his feet again, the only 
permanent injury being a partial loss of hearing in one ear. 
The total deafness that overtook him in early manhood was 
no doubt connected in origin with this fearful fall. The coun- 
cil of the village had the wonderful story entered on its records 
and the cliff from which he fell was marked by a flag fora 
long time thereafter. 

At the age of thirteen he was sent to Neuchatel to begin his 
academic course. It was due altogether to his mother that he 
took this course, the lad himself preferring to remain at home 


and learn his father’s trade. Onentering school, child though ~ 


he was, he was obliged to learn from the first the art: of self- 
help. He earned enough to buy the books which he used by 
teaching pupils younger or less advanced than himself. 
Among his fellow students were two others to whom he was 
especially drawn, Arnold Guyot and August Agassiz, both of 
them of the same French Puritan stock to which he himself 
belonged. Louis Agassiz, an older brother of August, was now 
carrying forward his studies in the German universities, but 
was soon to returnto Neuchatel as a professor. With Guyot 
in particular, young Lesquereux established the closest rela- 
tions of friendship and sympathy, which were terminated only 
by the death of the former in an honored old age, While stu- 
dents, they were inseparable in term time and vacation alike. 
The academic curriculum at Neuchatel was of the old type, asa 
matter of course. There was but one type known at this time 
it was mainly made up of the classical languages and litera- 


— 


286 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


tures, of mathematics and philosophy. The course was severe 
and the training rigid and thorough. Young Lesquereux be- 
came a good classical scholar, even according to the high 
standard that then prevailed. He read Latin and Greek at 
sight and wrote Latin with facility to the day of hisdeath. To 
accomplish these things costs strenuous labor,—there is but 
one road that leads to such results. His day’s work as a stud- 
ent often covered fourteen, or even sixteen hours. Through- 
out his course he was obliged toeke out a scant allowance by 
giving private tuition to his juniors in the college, but this 
work paid him not alone in the money he earned, but in a firm- 
er hold on the subjects which he taught. 

It fell out in his after life that he made comparatively little 
direct use of what he learned at such an outlay of time and 
force in his college days; but he never regretted the severe 
discipline to which he had been subjected. He ascribed to it, 
in fact, a large measure of the success that he afterwards 
attained in widely different fields. 

At the end of aseven years residence at Neuchatel, he had 
completed his academic course, and aside from a genuine and 
even enthusiastic love of nature, he had not come in sight of 
natural science. We hear nothing more of the study of theol- 
ogy and it is probable that he gradually drifted away from the 
end to which his earlier studies were directed. The love of 
learning had been awakened in the youth and he could not rest 
content at the point where he was left by his collegiate course. 
He resolved to continue his studies in a German university, 
but in compassing this result he must depend upon his own re- 
sources. 

The easiest way for the youth just out of college to earn 
money was by teaching others what he had himself learned, 
and the easiest thing for him to teach was his native tongue 
and for this, happily, there was a good market at that time. 
French was the language of diplomacy and culture through- 
out Europe and a knowledge of it was indispensable to all who 
would advance in politics or shine in social life. 

Young Lesquereux found it easy to secure an engagement 
in Germany as instructor in French. He became private tutor 
in a noble family in the city of Hisenach, Saxe Weimar. The 
duties of instruction that he assumed required but a part of his 
time and he was at liberty to use the balance in private tuition. 


Leo Lesquereux.—Orton. 287 


The best families of the city furnished him his pupils. Among 
the households into which he was thus called was that of a 
distinguished soldier of noble birth, general Von Wolffskel, 
an attaché of the court of the duke of Saxe Weimar. The gen- 
eral’s daughter, beautiful and highly educated according to the 
standard of the time, became his pupil. She made great profi- 
ciency in French, learning to speak it with as much facility as 
her native tongue; but both teacher and pupil managed to ac- 
quire another language during this tuition, new to them, but 
old as the human heart. When his year was finished and he 
was about to return to Switzerland, the young tutor summoned 
courage to ask the parents for the daughter’s hand. The 
mother was thunderstruck by his audacity, but the old general 
took a kindlier view. Before answering the question, he deter- 
mined to become personally acquainted with the suitor and 
finding the date on which he expected to set out for Switzer- 
land, he made an errand to the southward himself, taking the 
young tutor along with him in his carriage. As they drove for 
several days through the beautiful Thuringian forest, the wise 
and wary general sounded as best he could the intellectual re- 
sources, the tastes and character of his prospective son, reveal- 
ing himself, as well, by his questions to the latter. The test 
was well met on both sides, and when general and tutor bade 
each other farewell, the foundations for a genuine mutual re- 
spect that lasted with each as long as life, were well laid, and 
moreover there was a new bond between them. Mr. Lesquer- 
eux was to return to claim his bride when he could show his 
ability to support her. Much of the remainder of the journey 
to Switzerland he made on foot, but his heart was light and 
his hopes were high. 

After his return, he soon obtained a position as teacher 
in the High School at Locle, at a salary of three hundred dol- 
lars a year. Presently he madea step in advance by gaining 
the principalship of the High School of the College of La 
Chaux de Fonds which brought him three hundred and sixty 
dollars a year. The latter place he won by sustaining a 
most rigorous competitive examination, continuing through 
an entire week. There were twenty-one competitors on the 
first day; there were but two left for the last day. In prepar- 
ing for this examination, all the time he had been able to com- 
mand during the previous three months had been industrious- 
ly used. 


x “ 7 


SALLE ema TT Ay a AYE 
MANOR ET te ae Oy A 
WANTED NSS UL UR Sar tein 


288 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


Obtaining from the trustees permission to increase his sal- 
ary by giving private lessons out of school hours, and securing 
enough of such work to make his prospective income five 
hundred dollars per year, he felt warranted in returning to 
Kisenach for his bride. 

Mr. Lesquereux touched high life at several points through 
this new connection. Gcethe was for forty years a member of 
the same court to which his wife’s father belonged, and during 
her childhood she enjoyed the special notice and even the 
friendship of the great author. The family still prize the cor- 
respondence which Geethe maintained with his childish friend. 

Prince William, afterward to become the great German Kai- 
ser, came also to this court to find his wife, viz., Augusta, the 
daughter of the grand duke of Saxe-Weimer—-Hisenach., At the 
wedding, Mrs. Lesquereux was a bridesmaid and when a little 
later she herself wore the bridal veil, a young lieutenant of 
the army, Von Moltke by name, was the bridegroom’s “best 
man:” the lieutenant became the greatest general of modern 
times. 

In the second year of Mr. Lesquereux’s married life the 
trouble in his hearing, the foundation of which was laid in the 
perilous fall of his childhood, rapidly increased. He suffered 
great pain during the progress of the disease. At time she be- 
came totally deaf, but would then secure partial though tem- 
porary relief. Finally, after a brave and persistent effort to 
carry on his teaching, he was obliged to resign his position. 
Still hoping for restoration, he consulted an eminent physician 
in Paris, at whose hands he suffered treatment that would now 
expose anyone who should employ it to the charge of mal- 
practice. By it Mr. Lesquereux was thrown into brain fever 
and when he recovered from this, he was obliged to recognize 
the dreadful fact that he was hopelessly and incurably deaf. 

These facts required a new arrangement of his life. Nothing 
seemed open to him at first but manual labor, and to this he 
turned with a cheerful courage that was most honorable to him. 
The change meant a great deal to himself and more to his wife, 
for it involved one of the most costly sacrifices that we can 
be compelled to make, that, namely, of social position. The 
bridesmaid of a queen finds herself the wife of a mechanic. 
The trade selected was that of engraving watch cases. He 
bought a turning lathe and applied himself diligently to the 


Py AMY mune h 
Cerne Rest Uh 4 ts 


Leo Lesquereux.— Orton. 289 


work; but with all his efforts, laboring from six in the morn- 
ing to ten at night, he could earn in the beginning but one dol- 
laraday. On this pittance he was obliged to support his high- 
born wife: she showed herself, however, as brave as her hus- 
band. Just as he was becoming a master of this calling to 
such a degree that he could earn a better living by it, he was 
obliged to abandon it on account of its effect upon his health. 

At this juncture his father came to his relief, and offered 
-him a partnership in the small factory, if the son would first 
spend a year in learning the trade. Nothing was left for the bril- 
liant young scholar and teacher but an apprenticeship in which 
the veriest village hinds stood on equal footing with himself. 
He passed this ordeal successfully, gained the partnership in 
due time and became relatively independent once more. But 
at this period, his life judged by all ordinary standards would 
have seemed to be a disastrous failure. His deafness had 
driven him from his profession and from society, and the only 
calling that appeared to open before him was a very humble 
one; but his mind was active and he gave himself constant 
gecupation in the world of literature during all his spare 
hours. By some chance he was drawn to the study of botany and 
especially to the division of the mosses. This is his first direct 
connection with science. He had but little time for such pur- 
suits,—Saturday afternoon and Sunday of daylight for collec- 
tion, but entire nights he made use of for study. He managed 
to buy a microscope and to begin the systematic examination 
of this family of plants. His natural gifts asserted themselves 
here and it was not long before the young mechanic was 
quoted as an authority on mosses. He had found at last his 
calling, though he did not know it yet. 

About this time the gradual reduction of the forests of the 
Canton led the Government to new interest in the peat bogs, 
which furnished the larger part of the fuel of the poorer 
classes. In the carrying out of this interest the Government 
offered a prize, a gold medal valued at twenty ducats, for the 
best essay on the formation and preservation of peat. Mr, 
Lesquereux determined to compete for this prize. Making 
arrangements with his father, by doing extra work on certain 
days, he obtained a larger amount of daylight for his outdoor 
studies, and was able for a few months to employ Saturdays, 
Sundays and Mondays as well in this way. He probed the 


290 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


peat bogs with instruments of his own devising ; he determined 
their rates of growth and decay and the conditions ofmoisture 
and temperature that prevailed in them. So unintelligible did 
his new interest appear to the simple minded people among 
whom he dwelt, that he was even thought to have gone daft 
and was beginning to be called the “fool of the peat bogs.” 
The manuscripts of the competing essays were sent in. Mr. 
Lesquereux’s essay was found by far the most exhaustive and 
valuable and the prize was easily awarded to it. This was a 
great triumph and his loyal wife was as happy as he in the re- 
sult. It had mainly been written in the dingy little factory 
where his days were spent; and most of it, so far as the com- 
position is concerned, while his hands were busy with the 
mechanical work that claimed them. To this report, all of our 
sound and valuable knowledge as to this important subject 
must be followed back. 

One of the happiest results of his new studies was the form- 
ation of a close friendship with the illustrious Agassiz, who 
was now holding the chair of natural history in the Academy 
of Neuchatel. A committee was appointed by the Government 
to test the observations and conclusions that were embodied 
in the prize essay above named, and of this committee profes- 
sor Agassiz was a member. He did not at first accept all the 
author’s conclusions, but as the commission traveled from 
point to point in the examination, he began to see that Les- 
quereux was master of the facts and of the philosophy, as well, 
and he became an enthusiastic supporter of the author’s views. 

It was thus that Leo Lesquereux broke through the trammels 
that seemed to bind him to tasks unworthy of his powers. 
He could henceforth turn his time to better work than drilling 
holes in watch springs. He had become a man of science and 
fortune was growing kind. The government of the canton forth- 
with employed him to write a text book on peat bogs for the 
use of the schools, and paid him five hundred dollars for the 
work. Presently a new public office was created, that of 
director of peat bogs, and Mr. Lesquereux was appointed to 
fill it. He wrote also two other treatises upon the same gen- 
eral subject. As his fame extended, new and more responsible 
work was brought to his hands. The king of Prussia com- 
missioned him, moved in part thereto by the ties of friendship 
which Mrs. Lesquereux could plead with queen Augusta, to 


Leo Lesquereux.—Orton. 291 


explore and report upon the peat bogs of Germany, Sweden, 
Denmark, Holland and France. This errand gave him the 
unusual advantage of extensive travel and wide observation 


under letters royal. To these tours also he owed the extensive 


personal acquaintance with the scientists of Europe that served 
him so well through the remainder of his life. 

The political changes that were sweeping through Europe 
in 1847 and 748, affected even the governments of the little 
Swiss cantons. By these changes, Mr. Lesquereux’s scientific 
work under the auspices of the State wasarrested. Professor 
Agassiz had already been attracted to the United States by the 
splendid opportunities for advancing science that were offered 
to him here, and Guyot and Lesquereux followed in the next 
year, viz., 1847. To these three compatriots and lifelong friends 
American science owes a great debt. All have passed to hon- 
ored graves, but in countless ways their works still follow 
them. 

Dr. Lesquereux was forty years of age when he reached this 
country. Though in the prime of life as years are counted, he 
was totally deaf. In his native tongue he could maintain a 
conversation so well by following the movement of the speak- 
er’s lips, that a stranger might not at once discover his infirm- 
ity. But our stubborn English tongue foiled him in this res- 
pect, and when it was employed,,he was generally obliged to 
use pencil and paper in his conversation. Moreover, he had 
acquired our language without ever having heard it spoken 
and though he wrote English with force and precision, thanks 
to his early linguistic training, one needed to become accus- 
tomed to his pronunciation to follow him readily as he spoke 
it. 

His first scientific work in this country was done for profes- 
sor Agassiz. It consisted of a classification of the plants 
gathered by the latter in his Lake Superior expediton. While 
engaged in this work, and frequently for months at a time he 
was a member of Agassiz household. His report was publish- 
ed in 1848. 

At the close of the same year, he was called to Columbus 
where he made his home for the remainder of his life. The 
circumstances under which he came to Columbus deserve to 
be mentioned, as they bring to light a history that has had 
few counterparts in the country hitherto. By the publication 


nd 


WO) Gal bas a 
win vita ays 
UANUP NIK eh) uaa 
“ SHRI it ha RT 
} 


292 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


in 1845 of the Wusct Alleghanienses, Mr. William §S. Sullivant 
of Columbus had put himself at the head of American bryo- 
logists, and was so recognized at home and abroad. The 
scientific collections of the Government in this department 
were coming into his hands for study and the field was in every 
way widening before him, bringing him more than he could 
do unaided. He was a gentleman of large fortune and was 
therefore not obliged to ask even aliving from science. All of 
his work was done at his own charges, and most of it was pub- 
lished in a like manner. It was distributed among his fellow 
laborers in science with princely munificence. Mr. Sullivant 
called to his aid Mr. Lesquereux and for many years thereaf- 
ter, even to the date of Mr. Sullivant’s death, the foremost 
bryologist of America and one of the most accomplished bry- 
ologists of Europe worked side by side, in the completest ac- 
cord and harmony, with mutual respect for each other’s ac- 
quirements and results. They effected thereby an immense 
advance in this department of science and made all future 
students of American bryology their debtors. Mr. Lesquereux 
was employed by Mr. Sullivant for one or two years and was 
afterwards aided in various ways in carrying forward his work 
by the generosity of his friend. They published together the 
two editions of Musci Exsiccati Americani, the first edition in 
1856 and the second in 1865. , Mr. Lesquereux also had much 
to do with the crowning work of Mr. Sullivant’s life, the splen- 
did Icones Muscorum. The Latin textisin part his work, and 
the publication of the second volume was carried forward un- 
der his direction after Mr. Sullivant’s death. 

Mr. Lesquereux’s career has been followed thus far without 
a single reference to the department of science in which by far 
his most important work was to be done, the department, 
namely, of paleobotany. His interest in this subject began 
before he left Europe. While still in Switzerland, he had ac- 
quainted himself with the foundations of fossil botany laid by 
Brongniart and others; and as early as 1845 he began to pub- 
lish observations of his own in this field. But his real work 
in paleobotany began about 1850. A passing reference of 
Brongniart had suggested the view that coal-seams originated 
under conditions similar to those in which peat bogs are now 
formed. In the mind of one who knew more of peat bogs than 
anyone had ever known before, the suggestion took root and 


Leo Lesquereux.— Orton. 


ended into a theory which covers the origin of by far the 
largest part of our valuable accumulations of coal. The 
theory, variously supported and reinforced by American facts 


though not without grave difficulties, holds decidedly the first 


place today among the theories of coal formation in the geo- 
logical world. 


But it was not in the theoretical subject of coal formation, _ 
_ many of the problems pertaining to which are difficult and 


perhaps for the present insoluble, that Dr. Lesquereux’s great 
work was to bedone. It is the plants, high and low, that have 
covered the earth in the past, and especially those assemblages 
of them which we denote coal floras, that were to be illustrat- 
ed by his patient labor and illuminated by his wide and in- 
creasing knowledge. Attached to the descriptions of a great 
number of these fossil plants, including many of the most 
abundant and important of the most valued floras of all time, 
the cabalistic letters “Lsqx.” will remain as long as paleonto- 
logical science is cultivated. Dr. Lesquereux’s labors covered 


the great Appalachian coal field, as it occurs in a half dozen | 


states, and from the bottom of the series to its summit. Equal- 
_ ly fruitful were his studies of the floras of the later coals. 

The most valuable single contribution that he has made to 
paleobotany is unquestionably “The Coal Flora of Pennsyl- 
vania”, published by the Second Geological Survey of that 
state. There is no other American work on the subject thatis 
even to be named in comparison with it. It was written when 
the venerable author had long passed his three score yearsand 
ten, and while embodying all his knowledge and experience, it 
shows no signs of flagging strength or failing powers. A list 
of his most important contributions to science will be given at 
the close of this paper. It stands for a prodigious amount of 
labor of the highest grade, accomplished under the fearful dis- 
advantage of total deafness. 

For the last forty years, the name of Leo Lesquereux has 
been known and honored throughout the scientific world. He 
was made a member of a score of the leading scientific socie- 
ties of Europe and was the first elected member of the Nation- 
al Academy of Sciences, of the United States. In 1875, he re- 
ceived the degree of Doctor of Laws from Marietta College. 
He maintained intimate relations by a constant and most kind- 
ly correspondence with all the leading paleontologists of Eu- 


294 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


rope. Oswald Heer, in particular, was one of his most valued 
friends and when his death occurred a few years since, Dr. 
Lesquereux felt as if a brother had been stricken down. Pro- 
fessor Guyot’s departure impressed him in the same way. The 
death of his beloved wife occurred not far from these dates 
and the world began to look empty to him. The sentiment 
jampridem inutilis annos demoror, began to find frequent ex- 
pression in his conversation. “I belong to a past generation,” 
he would say, “my friends and contemporaries are all gone; 
for what do I remain?” But, although almost impatient for 
the summons to cross the bar, he never for a monent lost his 
serenity and never, until the busy brain at last gave way, aban- 
doned his tasks. He died in his modest home in Columbus, 
October 25, 1889, aged nearly 83 years. 

He was modest in his estimate of his own work. All the 
knowledge that has been attained in the departments of which 
he knew most, seemed, in his later years, very small to him. 
“7 know a little,” he sometimes said, “other students of science 
know each a little, but the whole of what is known is but frag- 
mentary and insignificant,—merely a few pebbles picked up 
along the ocean shore.” 

Dr. Lesquereux was a devout Christian believer; he lived 
and died in the communion of the Lutheran church. He ex- 
tended his creed to take in all scientific discoveries, but he did 
not count any of its essentials disturbed thereby. He seems 
never to have been reached by the currents of modern thought 
which have overflowed the old foundations for so many. 

It is a pleasure to add that his noble library, largely com- 
posed of presentation copies of the most valuable paleonto- 
logical works of the last half century, will be maintained in- 
tact. It has been purchased with this intent through the en- 
lightened public spirit of P. W. Huntington, Esq., of Colum- 
bus, and will be placed where it can be fully available for the 
purposes of science. 

Dr. Lesquereux was personally known to but few residents 
of the city in which the last forty years of his life were spent, 
but he was respected and honored by a much wider number 
and there were many that felt, when he was borne out of his 
humble cottage to his last resting place that an illustrious cit- 
izen had passed from among us. 

The facts for this sketch have been derived from conversa- 


Leo Lesquereux.— Orton. 


tions with Dr. Lesquereux, from his son, Leo Lesquereux, Jr., 
from an excellent sketch in the Mute’s Chronicle, January 15, 


1887, and from a valuable article prepared by Miss Lida R. 
McCabe for the Popular Science Monthly, April, 1887. 


LIST OF SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS’ OF DR. LEO LESQUEREUX 

Catalogue of Mosses of Switzerland. Natural History Society, 
Neuchatel, 1840. 

Explorations of Peat Bogs, Prize Essay Neuchatel. 
Directions for Exploration of Peat Bogs, 1844. 
Botany of the Lake Superior Expedition, 1848, 
New Species of Fossil Plants, Journ. Nat. Hist. Boston, 1854. 
Paleontological Report, Ist Penna. Survey. 1857. 
Paleontological Report, Kentucky Geol. Rep’t. Vol. III, 1857. 
Paleontological Rep’t, Kentucky Geol. Rep’t, Vol. IV, 1861. 
Catalogue of Fossil Plants of Coal Measures of Penn’a. 1858. 
Paleontological and Botanical Report, Arkansas Geol. Rep’t 1860. 
Paleontological and Geological Rep’t of Indiana 1862. 
Paleontological Report of Illinois, Geol. of Illinois, Vol. IT, 1866. 
Paleontological Report of Illinois, Geol. of Illinois, Vol. IV, 1870. 


Catalogue of California Mosses, American Philos. Soc. Vol. XIII,1864. 


Tertiary Fossil Plants of Mississippi, Am. Philos. Soc. Vol. XIII, 1864. 
On Fucoids in Coal. Am. Philos. Soc. Vol. XIII, 1864. 
Pacific Coast Mosses in California, Acad. of Science 1868. 
Musci Exsiccati, 1st Edition, (with W. S. Sullivant, ) 1856. 
Musci Exsiccati, 2d Edition. (with W. S. Sullivant) 1865. 
U.S. Geol. and Geogr. Survey of Terr. Rep’ts of Hayden, 1870-1-3. 
Cretaceous Flora of Dakota Group. (same as above) 1874. 
Review of Fossil Flora of North America, Penn. Monthly 1875. 
Coal and Coal Flora. Encyclopedia of North America. 
Latin Text of Supplement to Sullivant’s Icones Muscorum, 1874. 
New Species of Teritary Fossil Plants, U. S. Geol. and Geog.Survey, 
Hayden’s Bulletin 52, 1875. 
New Species of Cretaceous Fossil Plants, U. S. Geol. and Geog. Sur. 
Hayden’s Bulletin 52, 1875. 
retaceous and Tertiary Floras of Western Territories, Hayden, 1874. 
Fossil Marine Plants found in Carboniferous Measures. Geol. Sur. 
of Indiana, 7th Ann. Rep’t, 1876. 
Plants of the Silurian. Philos. Soc. of Phila. 1877. 
Contributions to Fossil Flora of Western Territories, U.S. Geol. 
and Geog. Survey. Tertiary Flora, 1877. 
Pliocene Flora of Auriferous Gravels, Mus. Comp. Zool.,Cambridge, 
1878. 
Catalogue of Fossil Plants of Tertiary and Cretaceous, Hayden 1878. 
On Cordaites. Amer. Philos. Soc. 1878. 
On a Branch of Cordaites bearing fruit, Amer. Phil. Soc. 1879. 
Coal Flora, Atlas and Text. 3 vol. 2d Penna. Survey 1879-1884. 
Manual of American Mosses, (with Thomas P. James) 1884. 
Cretaceous and Tertiary Flora of the United States, Geol. and Geog. 
Survey of Territ. Vol. VIII, 1883. ; 
Principles of Paleozoic Botany. Geol. Rep’t Indiana, 1884, 
Vegetable Origin of Coal, 2d Geol. Sur. of Penna, 1885. 
Papers in American Journal of Science. 
Divers questions concerning Coal, 1860. 
Fossil Fruits of Branden Lignites, 1861. 
Some Fossil Plants of Recent Formations, 1859. 
Some Fossil Plants of John Evans, 1859. 
1Titles not all given in full, and not verified in all cases, but will 
serve as a clue. 


‘Was Fa Av ian 
ye rit lina des 


Bie 296 The American Geologist. May, 1890 98 1 
(ON Origin and Formation of Prairies, 1865. 
RO Ah | Formation of Lignite Beds, 1874. 


Land Plants in the Lower Silurian, 1874. 
‘{Nore. Several of Dr. Lesquereux’s works await publication. Ep.- 


ARTESIAN WELLS IN KANSAS AND CAUSES OF 
THEIR FLOW. 
By RoBeErT Hay, F. G.S. A., Junction City, Kansas. 


Read before the Kansas Academy of Science, Wichita, October, 1889. 


There are wells yielding artesian flow of water in many 
parts of Kansas. The following may perhaps be considered 
the principal places: Fort Scott in Bourbon county, Mound ; 
Valley in Labette, St. Mary’s and Wamego in Pottawatomie, 
Lawrence in Douglas, northwest of Alma in Wabaunsee county, 
at the east line of Cloud county, Oberlin in Decatur, near 
Great Bend in Barton, Larned in Pawnee, on Crooked Creek 
in Meade, at Richfield in Morton, and Coolidge in Hamilton 
county. 

These wells are of all depths from less than fifty feet to six 
hundred and more. The water comes from rocks of different 
geologic periods. It is of very different kinds, from soft 
water, pleasant for domestic use through others of moderate 
hardness to some that are highly mineralized and of more or 
less medicinal quality. Someare decidedly saline. 

; The largest flow in the state is at Larned. There a strong 
AY . brine rushes to the surface with great force to a hight of over 
a fifteen feet. It spouts forth from a depth of four hundred and 
thirty feet and more at the rate of from 250 to 300 gallons per 
i minute. It is used for medicinal purposes and for swimming 
baths. A part of its waste may be seen from the railway in 
the form of a fountain more than ten feet high. 
Wells at Coolidge nearly three hundred feet deep are obtain- 
ing from Dacotah sandstones a supply of good water but 
slightly mineralized. The largest, yielding one hundred gal- 
lons per minute is utilized for the city water-works. Others, 
giving out each about fifty gallons per minute are used for 
irrigation and watering stock. There is one of small flow— 
six or cight gallons per minute—also used for irrigation. 
In Meade county there is a group of wells in an area of sev- 
eral square miles that at depths varying from fifty to one hun- 


- 5 


ie Artesian Wells in Kansas. —Hay. 


4 


dred and eighty feet yield a good water suitable for domestic 


purposes in quantities varying from three or four gallons per 


minute to over sixty. The largest yields 66 gallons per min- 
ute and on another farm there are three wells with an aggre- 
gate flow of 98 gallons. Some, but not nearly half, of the 
water of this district is used for irrigation and two of the pro- 
prietors turnit into carp ponds. This water is obtained from 
debris of the miocene grit probably broken up in pliocene 
time and covered by a light blue impervious clay. The grit 
outcrops on the edges of neighboring high prairie; the wells 
are all in the valley, so the source and course of the water 
are easily determined. 

The wells in Hamilton, Meade, and Pawnee counties owe 
their waters and their force to the usual causes of artesian 
flowage. These are, the not very distant outcrop of porous 
strata catching the rainfall of a considerable area, the dip of 
these porous strata towards the wells and the overlying and 
underlying impervious beds of clay or clay shales. These 
conditions are illustrated in the diagram. (See page 298.) 
The cause of the flow may be called HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE. 


The artesian flow at Mound Valley in Labette county is a 


remarkable example of another force. The well was bored for 
gas or coal. Water was encountered at two places in the 
first hundred feet and a small quantity of gas at 203 feet. At 
277 feet there was a copious inflow of strong brine which rose 
some distance in the tube. At 449 feet there came a flow of 
gas so powerful that it lifted the column of water to the sur- 
face and maintained it as a flowing well. This example is a 
good one of GAS PRESSURE as an efficient cause of artesian 
flow. There are other wells in which this is a probable cause 
also, but not so certainly indicated as in this case. These 
might be called gas artesian, or in more direct reference to 
their cause gas pressure wells. 

There is besides the true artesian wells and those which we 
have called “gas artesian” another class of wells which have 
the artesian flow, but which do not seem to be accounted for 
by the principles illustrated in either of those groups. These 
wells have two characteristics in common: they are deep wells, 
and they have only a small How. There are doubtless some 
others but there are three which will serve to illustrate what 
we have to say. They are at St. Mary’s and Wamego in Potta- 


_ Impervious beds dipping towards center of basin, inclosing porous bed (0). 
ren _ Well near center of basin with artesian flow. F 
_ B, Well on higher ground without artesian flow, because located higher than the outcrop of b. 


Figure II. 


YW III. 


AB. ab. Asin Fig. 1. 
c. Breach in the continuity of the lower (a) impervious bed. iy 


Figure Til. 


| AQ 
NOSES 5 00,00000], 5 


} OR OOO OC O05 100000 0,0 009] ~ 
Ce ee ee a 
T, Tertiary. 1. Pliocene marl. 2. Miocene grit. 
©, Cretaceous. 1, Niobrara. 2. Benton. 8. Dacotah. 
fr.) Trias. 1. Red Beds. 2, Saliferous horizon. 


P, Permo-carboniferous. 
[THE USUAL RELATIONS OF STRATA IN WESTERN KANSAS. | 


Artesian Wells in Kansas —Hay. 


wotamie county and at Richfield in Morton county. They 
each have another quality in common, but this is also com- 
mon to all deep wells whether artesian or not, viz: the water 
is highly mineralized. That of the Pottawotamie wells is 
strongly saline, that of Richfield is without the salt, but has 
iron and other ingredients. 

The artesian water at Wamego comes from a depth of 300 
feet (289 to 804). That at St. Mary’s in the same well (there 
are several flows) is from depths of 454, 675 and 958 feet. 
That at Richfield is from a depth of just under 600 feet. The 
flow at Richfield is 64 gallons per minute. The wells in Potta- 
wotamie county have not had their flow measured but no one 
of them exceeds that at Richfield; they appear to be much 
less. 

In at least one of the St. Mary’s wells there is a suspicion 
that gas may help to sustain the column of water, but there is 
no such appearance at Wamego, and at Richfield the case is 
the same. 

The Pottawotamie wells are in paleozoic (Coal Measure) 
strata. The Richfield well is in Mesozoic, the principal 
part being in Dacotah, and Red beds (Triassic) with a little 
Tertiary at the top. In neither of these cases do we have 
apparent the conditions of an ordinary artesian well. We 
have not seen an outcrop nor recognized a dip of strata that 
would point to the source of the flow as in ordinary cases. 
Diligent enquiry has not revealed that other persons have 
recognized suitable outcrops. The outcrop of the paleozoic 
strata is to the east of St? Mary’s and there the surface of the 
country is lower than in Pottawotamie county. A possible 
outcrop for the Wamego sandstone horizon might be found in 
the highland south of the Kaw river and east of Topeka, but 
the St. Mary’s wells give no water at that depth and they are 
nearer that outcrop though not in the exact line of the dip. 
The outcrop of the St. Mary’s water horizons can only be 
found much farther east where the surface is lower than at the 
wells. The outcrop of the Richfield water horizon must be 
looked for to the west. The land is higher in that direction 
but the outcrop of the horizon which is here 600 feet deep 
must be at a distance too great to warrant the looking to this 
outcrop as the source of the well. 

It would seem then that in these wells of small output from 


300 The American Gealoyist. ~ May, 1990 


considerable depths some other than the usual causes of arte- 
sian flow must be looked for. We think that there is a cause 
ready to our hand sufficient for all such phenomena. It is 
always in operation and might be expected sometimes to pro- 
duce such results. 

This cause we will call rock pressure. -All rocks in the 
earth’s crust contain some water. The more porous rocks 
contain the greater quantity. At a distance below the surface 
the superincumbent strata subject the rock masses to enor- 
mous pressure. If we assume that the rocks of Kansas to a 
depth of one thousand feet have an average specific gravity 
three times as great as that of water we are probably within 
bounds, as, though limestones and sandstones are usually 
somewhat less, the presence of iron in many of the beds will 
bring up the average considerably. On this basis a prism of 
the rocks to the depth of 600 feet and one inch square would 
weigh 781 pounds, which is equivalent to a pressure of 52 
atmospheres. If, then, 25 feet be taken as the measure of a 
column of these mineralized waters equivalent to one atmos- 
phere, the rock pressure would be more than the equivalent 
of a column of water twice this hight. 

Let a water-bearing stratum at a depth of 600 feet as at 
Richfield, be pierced by the drill we should then haye the 
rock pressure of 52 atmospheres squeezing the water out of the 
rock pores and, granting sufficient plasticity in the rock and 
a sufficient quantity of water, it must risein the tube which 
has only the pressure of one atmosphere uponit. A large 
bore to the well and a small supply of water would be against 
its reaching the surface. On the other hand a bed rock with 
mobile molecules at or near saturation, under this enormous 
pressure must cause in a narrow tube a flowing well. At 300 
feet the rock pressure would be only half that given above or 
26 atmospheres and the column of water to be supported will 
be diminished in proportion. At other depths the same pro- 
portions will hold good. P 

Here then we have a force that may be merely an aid in 
some cases of artesian flow which is mainly due to the usual 
eauses of such flow, and which is a most efficient cause for 
the constant flow of wells whose depth is great and whose 
quantity of water is small. We are inclined to consider rock- 
pressure as the cause of the flow of the Pottawotamie and 


Bea.” Orystallogensis—_Honsoldt, 301 


Morton county wells, at least till future search shall make 
more probable that it is due to the usual causes of artesian 
wells. 

_ At some future time we may endeavor to classify all the 
artesian wells of Kansas with reference to the efficient causes 
of their flowage. At present we must be content with here 
suggesting the three forms of hydrostatic, gas, and rock- 
pressure as these efficient causes and especially to call atten- 
tion to the last two in the cases of deep wells of small outflow. 


CRYSTALLOGENESIS. 
By Dr. H. HENSOLDT., 
School of Mines, Columbia College, New York. 
I. 


“We live in that predicament that our facts have outstrip- 
ped our knowledge and are now encumbering its march. The 
publications of our scientific institutions and of our scientific 
authors overflow with minute and countless details, which per- 
plex the judgment and which no memory can retain. In vain 
do we demand that they should be generalized and reduced in- 
to order. Instead of that the heap continues to swell. We 
want ideas and get more facts. | We hear constantly of what 
nature is doing, but we rarely hear of what man is thinking. 
We are in possession of a huge and incoherent mags of obser- 
vations, which have been stored up with great care, but which 
until they are connected by some presiding idea, will be utter- 
ly useless.” 

This passage from Buckles’ “History of Civilization in 
England”! is brought to my mind whenever I hear of the dis- 
covery of another asteroid, a new mineral, parasite or hitherto 
undescribed fungus. It would seem as if the vast majority of 
our observers beheld in the mere recording of trivial facts the 
sole aim and end of science. Witness the large and pitiful 
army of our museum-zoologists and herbarium-botanists . 
Is it because their mental caliber is such that they recognize 
the hopelessness of any other course in their frantic struggle 
for temporary notoriety? 

Crystallography, on account of its numerous inherent com- 
plexities and difficulties is a subject so utterly distasteful to 
even many “mineralogists” that a general diffusion of its teach- 
ings can never be hoped for, yet it is amazing to notice the 

OV GE are: p. 379, London, 1873 


302 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


blindness which prevails even among adepts in reference to 
some of its features—features which have a direct bearing on 
the profoundest cosmical problems, and which in scope and 
grandeur are without a parallel in other departments of science. 

One of the most significant discoveries of modern physics— 
a discovery in which the sciences of mineralogy, optics and 
molecular dynamics are, perhaps, equally involved—is that of 
the singular relations which exist between the external shape 
and the optical properties of crystals. Itis not a discovery; 
which, like the announcement of Kirchhofl’s lucky interpreta- 
tion of the mysterious Fraunhofer lines, has startled us by its 
suddenness, or indeed one for which we are indebted to the 
genius of an individual. It was foreshadowed by Newton’s 
great contemporary Huyghens? and, in a measure, outlined by 
Fresnel, Arago and Brewster, though its evolution proper may 
be said to date from the moment when, in 1814, Wollaston dis- 
covered the rings of Iceland spar, and mineralogists, after end- 
less comparisons and angle-measurements, had come to the 
conclusion that all crystals could be arranged in six groups or 
systems, 

A review of the fundamental facts of crystallography, or 
mere repetition of what may be found in every elementary 
text-book, is not here intended. It is taken for granted that 
the reader is aware of the difference between a tetrahedron 
and a hexagonal prism, especially in reference to axial rela- 
tions, still a detailed knowledge of the intricacies presented by 
the world of crystals is by no means essential to a full compre- 
hension of the points whichI am about to present. | 

We have six crystallographic systems, and it has been math- 
ematically demonstrated by Quenstedt that a seventh is im- 
possible. All mineral bodies, whether compound or elemen- 
tary, whose form and structure is determined by a symmetri- 
eal accumulation of particles in three directions and which 
present polyhedral boundaries can be arranged in six groups, 
and no matter what the mineralogy of the future may have in 
store for us in the way of surprises, the number of fundamen- 
tal systems will never be increased. An accumulation of par- 
ticles, development or “growth” in Jess than three directions is 
inconceivable, and the discovery of a fourth would be equiva- 
lent to that of the mysterious “fourth dimension of space” so 


*Tractatus de Lumine. (1690.) 


Crystallogensis.—Hensoldt. 303 


much talked about and sought after by muddle-headed phy- 
sicists. 

Many a student of Natural History, who has hitherto fought 
shy of crystallography on account of the mathematical ele- 
ment which is so prominently associated with it, would be 
startled to observe that behind its grim and uninviting exter- 
ior a world of fascination and splendor is concealed, and that 
in the wealth ofits unsolved problems it affords a greater, 
richer and fuller field for research than any of the old and 
well-beaten paths of animal and vegetable morphology. 

If we consider crystals of every possible shape or dimen- 
sion in reference to the essential factors by which the distinc- 
tive character of each is determined, viz. their axes of symme- 
try, we are struck by a curious fact. If we afterwards consid- 
er the same crystals in reference to their optical properties— 
so far as the latter can be ascertained by sufficient transpar- 
ency—the same curious fact is again forced upon our attention 
and our astonishment is by no means lessened when we find 
it persistently manifested, no matter in what direction we ex- 
tend our comparison of general physical relations, such as 
thermotic, sound and heat-conducting properties, etc. This 
fact consists in the singular recurrence of the numbers 1, 2 
and 3. 

A crystal may be defined as an aggregate of particles, accum- 
ulated and symmetrically disposed in reference to certain lines 
or “axes” in obedience to laws which, as yet, are very imper- 
fectly understood. The fundamental number of these axis is 
three, though for the sake of convenience we assume four in 
one of our crystallographic systems. 

Now when we come to examine these lines of symmetry a 
little closer, we observe that only one system, viz. the isome- 
tric, is characterized by perfect axial uniformity ; the three axes 
are of equal length so that either may be regarded as the prin- 
cipal one. In two systems, however, only two of the axis are 
equal and in jthe remaining three all the axes are unequal. 
The numbers 1, 2 and 3 are thus manifested in the following: 

Axial classification. 

One system with 3 equal axes. (Isometric. ) 

Two systems with 2 equal axes. (Tetragonal and Hexagonal. ) 

Three systems with 3 unequal axes. (Orthorhombic, Mon- 
oclinie and Triclinic.) 


304 The American Geologist. May, 1800 


Now we find that the crystals of only one system are simply 
refractive or isotropic. Ifa pencil of light falls obliquely on 
one of the faces of such a crystal, it merely experiences a 
change of direction, but it is not split or divided into other 
pencils, which diverge and follow different paths. The system 
which is thus optically characterized happens to be the one in 
which the three axes are of equal length, viz. the isometric. 

The crystals of the five remaining systems exhibit the 
phenomenon of double refraction, but we observe the curious 
fact that in two systems simple refraction takes place in one 
direction only (optically unaxial crystals), and in three sys- 
tems in two directions (optically biaxial crystals). And what 
is still more remarkable, the optically unaxial crystals are 
those of the systems in which two axes are of equal length, 
while the biaxial are, without exception, those of the sys- 
tems in which all the axes are unequal. Thus thenumbers 
1,2 and 8 are again significantly brought to our notice in 
the 

Optical classification. 

One system simply refractive in all directions. (Isometric. ) 

Two systems simply refractive in one direction (Tetragonal 
and Hexagonal.) 

Three systems simply refractive in two directions. (Orthorh. 
Monocl. and Tricl. 

It has been pointed out by Brewster, Mitscherlich, Gmelin, 
Pereira and others that some crystals, when heated, expand 
equally in all directions, while in others the degree of expan- 
sion varies according to the direction, so that we obtain axes 
of greatest medium, and least expansibility. Careful recent 
experiments have confirmed this discovery of the earlier ob- 
servers and we are now enabled to classify crystals accord- 
ing to their thermotic behavior, viz., the slight external changes 
brought about by various degrees of temperature. 

Now it is certainly curious that the crystals which expand 
equally in all directions belong to the system in which the 
three axes are of uniform length, viz., the isometric. The crys- 
tals of two systems—tetragonal and hexagonal—expand equal- 
ly in two directions, which happens to covacide with their equal 
axes, but those of the three remaining systems expand unequal- 
ly in three directions. We have, therefore, once more the num- 
bers 1, 2 and 3 in the following: 


Crystallogensis.—Hensoldt. 305 


Thermic classification. 

One system equally expanding in all directions. (Isometric. ) 

Two systems equally expanding in two directions. (Tetra- 
gonal and Hexagonal.) 

Three systems unequally expanding in three directions. 
(Orthorh., Monocl. and Tricl.) 

It has also been established that the conducting powers of 
crystals in reference to heat, sound and electricity are, in like 
manner, governed by their axial relations, so that we might 
produce additional classifications in which the numbers 1, 2, 
and 3 are exhibited in precisely the same way. 

Tosumup: Thecrystals of one system have three axes of 
equal length, are singly refractive and expand, on heating, 
equally in all directions. The crystals of two systems have 
two axes of equal length, are optically uniaxial and expand 
equally in two directions, viz., those of their equal axes. The 
erystals of three systems have all their axes unequal, are op- 
tically biaxial and expand unequally in three directions. 

What are the conclusions which these facts enable us to 
draw with regard to the internal structure of crystals, the 
groupings, arrangement or shape of their ultimate particles? 

Crystals, like all other aggregates, are composed of minute 
particles, and the difference between crystallized and amor- 
phous matter may be likened to that between a well-drilled 
regiment and an unorganized mob. In crystals the compo- 
nent particles are symmetrically grouped or arranged, while in 
amorphous bodies they are piled up in a confused mass. More 
than 70 years ago the subtle Brewster’ expressed his con- 
viction that the optical properties of crystals “must depend on 
the form of their integrant molecules and the variation in their 
density” and it is astonishing how completely his views have 
been supported and confirmed by more recent speculations and 
research, or rather, what little progress has been made in this 
direction by our modern parlor scientists, who apparently at- 
tach more value to the discovery of a new mineral than to the 
solution of the great problems of crystallogenesis. 

We will, for the sake of convenience, retain the commonly 
accepted term of molecules for the small particles, of which 
crystals are composed, and in considering the external forms 
of the latter, their optical, thermotic and other properties, we 


* Philos. Transactions 1818, p.264. 


306 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


will endeavor to show in how far these physical phenomena can 
be accounted for by mere structural differences and modifica- 
tionsin the way of molecular grouping. 

There is no necessity that our particles should be primary 
in the sense of modern dynamics and chemistry, where an 
atom is defined as the smallest particle of an elementary sub- 
stance which by mere juxtaposition with the particles of other 
substances give rise to a combination, and where the term 
“molecule” is applied to the smallest conceivable aggregate of 
atoms in a compound body. 

An atom is, of course, practically invisible, and even the 
most complicated aggregate of atoms, as presented in the mole- 
cules of certain hydro-carbons, has hitherto escaped the resoly- 
ing power of ourbest lenses. But the particles of which Crystals 
are composed can be clearly discerned with a j, inch objective 
—very rarely in the finished crystal, but whenever a substance 
is examined under the microscope during the process of crys- 
tallization—and wherever the operation of erystalline forces 
can be observed under high powers of magnification. There 
are grounds for believing that each of these visible particles 
(of which more anon) is an augmented molecule, viz., an ag- 
gregate of molecules, just as a molecule is an aggregate of atoms 
and that no single molecule is capable of manifesting polar 
forces of sufficient energy to enable it to play a part in crys- 
talline economy. 

In reference to primary molecules and atoms it is obvious 
that all observations on their shape and dimensions must re- 
main speculative till opticians can furnish us with a combina- 
tion of lenses which affords an amplification of at least 30,- 
000 diameters. Considering the fact that no perceptible pro- 
eress has been made during the last twenty-five years in the 
efficiency of high power objectives*—notwithstanding the per- 


‘The high-power objectives made twenty-five years ago by A. Ross, 
Wenham, Powell & Lealand, Richard Beck and others have not been 
surpassed and are barely equaled by those of the most renowned mak- 
ers of the present. There has been absolutely no gain in amplifica- 
tion and the only apparent ‘*progress’’ made is the very doubtful one 
that we can now, at extortionate prices, purchase objectives of wide 
angular aperture and comparatively low magnifying power. The use 
of wide angled high-power objectives is limited to a few objects, and 
in powers lower than a+} great angular aperture is an unmitigated 
nuisance. To desire wide angular aperture in a ‘‘half-inch’’ ob- 
jective is the hight of absurdity and it is to be regretted, in the interest 
of microscopy, that our opticians have been encouraged in the produc- 
tion of such monstrosities by a few addle-headed excentrics. 


) - Crystallogensis.—Hensoldt. 


iodical announcements of advertising opticians and their 
dupes, of pretended wonderful improvements—and consider- 
ing the almost insurmountable difficulties encountered in this 


direction, the writer cannot but express his doubts whether. 


the question of the size and shape of the primary molecules 
will ever be solved by direct observation. 

Two prevailing opinions, however, originated by the fore- 
most observers of half a century ago, deserve our consideration. 
According to the deductions of Hatiy, molecules and their 
constituent atoms are angular in form, while according to 
Wollaston, Hooke, Brewster and others they are more or less 
spherical. If we bear in mind the fact that all true crystals pre- 
sent angular outlines, which are persistently manifested even 
under the most adverse circumstances, and often strikingly re- 
peated in their cleavage products, we may, at first, feel tempt- 
ed to adopt the views of Hatty.. What could be more natural 
and reasonable than the supposition that the fundamental 
form of a crystal is determined by that of its component parti- 
cles: in other words that an octahedron of magnetite is an ag- 
gregate of innumerable minute octahedrons and a rhombohe- 
dron of Iceland spar built up of innumerable calcite rhombohe- 
drons? There we have an hypothesis which accounts, in the 
most plausible and delightful manner for almost everything, 
except its own wonderful premises and these are, at once, its 
fatal stumbling block. The conception of a world composed 
of cubical, octahedral and dodecahedral molecules—not to 
mention the rest of holohedral forms of the six crystallograph- 
ic systems—is, to say the least original, but a theory which, 
in order to explain one mystery, deliberately introduces an- 
other and far greater one, cannot be regarded as very satisfac- 
tory. This kind of philosophy reminds one of the Atharva- 
Veda tradition,in reference to the‘‘foundations of the universe,” 
expressed in stone on many a Hindoo temple. We there be- 
hold the figure of an elephant, carying on its back a huge disk, 
which represents the world. The elephant, again, is sup- 
ported by a still more gigantic tortoise. The speculative Hin- 
doo is not so much interested in the question of the world’s 
creation as in the problem of its foundation or support. 

“What does the world rest on?” I once asked a Brahmin, 
“An elephant.” And the elephant? “On a tortoise.” And the 
tortoise? ‘“Well—(after considerable hesitation) that supports 


308 The American Geologist. “May, 1890 


itself.’ Indeed! supports itself. Would it not have been 
much simpler to make the world self-supporting at once? 
Why introduce the elephant and the tortoise? They explain 
nothing; on the contrary, they only increase the world’s weight 
and our difficulty. 

The “angular hypothesis” which maintains that the funda- 
mental form of a crystal is determined by the shape of its in- 
tegrant molecules, has very few adherents now, and is practi- 
cally a thing of the past. On the other hand, the example of 
the spheroidal form of the planets, the tendency which liquids 
and even gases manifest to assume the spherical shape® and 
the mechanical facilities which the hypothesis of rounded par- 
ticles offers in the grouping of molecules, have induced later 
inquirers to adopt almost unanimously the views of Wollaston 
and Hooke. We are now in a position to show, by cir- 
cumstantial evidence—at least as weighty as that from which 
we infer the existence of a luminiferous ether—that molecules 
must be more or less spherical, and in the case of “augmented 
molecules” alluded to in the foregoing, viz., the minute parti- 
cles of which crystals are composed, we have abundant direct 
proof of this, as their forms are revealed by a magnification of 
less than 1500 diameters. 

But there is no reason whatever why the form of a molecule 
should not be capable of variation within certain limits. Why 
should it be absolutely constant? The conception of particles 
which under all circumstances preserve their outlines fixed 
and rigid is more difficult than that of particles which mani- 
fest a certain plasticity, and, with an elastic molecule as our 
starting point we can account for all the phenomena of crys- 
tallogenesis. It will be shown anon that this is more than an 
arbitrary hypothesis ; molecules, when uninfluenced by exter- 
nal agencies, assume the spherical form, but pressure, whether 
exerted upon them by mechanical or polar forces, causes pro- 
portionate changes of outline. If once we can establish the 
precise character of these forces, we can, with comparative 
ease, determine the shape of each molecule in a given crystal. 
Symmetrical forms must necessarily result from forces equally 
exerted along particular lines or planes. If we compress a 
number of elastic rubber-balls, we observe that they assume 
oblong, hexagonal, cubical and even tetragonal forms, accord- 


»Vide Pereira. 


Beat Meteorites.— Winchell-Dodge. 
ing to the character and direction of the energies employed. 

_ The planet, on which welive, is a spheroid, whose shortest 
diameter is at the same time its axis of rotation and the direc- 
tion of greatest attraction. As far as we have been able to as- 
certain, the same conditions prevail on all the planetary bodies 
of our system. The analogy between planets and molecules 
is not a mere superficial one,’ and reasoning from all the data 
in our possession, we cannot be far wrong if we look upona 
free molecule as a rotating spheroid, with a northand south 
pole, and an equatorial region where gravity is, in some meas- 
ure, counterbalanced by centrifugal force. 


|To be continued.] 


THE BRENHAM, KIOWA COUNTY, KANSAS, METEORITES 
By N. H. WINCHELL and JAMES A, DODGE, Minneapolis. 
I 

We are indebted to Prof. Robert Hay for information re- 
specting the finding of this group of meteorites, and for assis- 
tance in procuring two of them. The entire group, so far as 
ascertained, numbered at least fifteen. They were dis- 
covered some years ago (1885) when the prairie of that part of 
the state was first plowed for cultivation, but the ranchmen 
and farmers simply regarded them with idle curiosity as 
“heavy stones.” The high prairie and a sand-hill region, are 
totally destitute of stones of every kind. Only in the ravines 
is there a show of transported gravel. Some effort was made 
by some parties to attract the attention of scientists to them, 
but without success. Only lately has their true character 
been discovered. Several of them were at once purchased by 
Prof. F. W. Cragin, of Washburn College, Topeka, and by Prof. 
F. H. Snow of the Kansas State University, Lawrence. Two 
were purchased, at second hand, and are now at the Universi- 
ty of Minnesota; four of the specimens of Prof. Cragin have 
subsequently been purchased by Mr. George F. Kunz, of New 
York, his collection weighing over nine hundred pounds. They 
vary in size from four pounds to four hundred and sixty-six 
pounds. The largest specimen is owned by Mr. Kunz, one of the 
smallest weighing six pounds, being one of those examined by 


*See the writer’s paper on ‘‘Atomic worlds and their motions.’’ Pop- 
ular Science Monthly, December 1888. 


310 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


the writers. They were scattered over an area of fifty or sixty 
acres, imbedded at shallow depths in the pleistocene upland.' 

According to Prof. Cragin they are closely allied in general 
characters, and belong to the class of zron, as distinguished 
from the stony meteorites, only one of them having a specific 
gravity above 7. The others seem to have been all fragments 
of one large pallasite of which the total weight, so far as dis- 
covered, was about 1,500 pounds. Three of these pieces have 
given a specific gravity between 5 and6. Prof. Hay gives the 
specific gravity of our 6-lb. specimen at 5.17. 

Before cutting, the larger of the specimens examined by us 
weighed 211 pounds. It was approximately globular, with 
a broad shallow depression thatencircled it about half way. 
Its exterior is oxidized as by long exposure, some of the miner- 
al grains having been profoundly affected by the penetration 
of iron oxide. Indeed the round or amygdaloidal masses of 
olivine (?) are changed so as to appear like some other mineral. 
In some cases this change has followed along a thin film, or 
between two outer planes of contiguous masses, coloring the 
included portion jet black and leaving the rest of the glassy, 
yellowish to white, brittle olivine (?) almost unaffected. After 
the mass was cut these two contrasted conditions of the olivine 
were so conspicuous that they were first taken for- separate 
minerals. The external groove above mentioned coincides, 
superficially, with an area where metallic iron is absent. Other 
shallow depressions on the surface are due to the absence of 
iron. An irregular roughly triangular area is seen on the ac~ 
companying plate* projecting from the outer margin toward 
the centre, in which no metallic iron is visible. The mass was 
first cut twice through, giving a slab about an inch thick, and 
two plano-convex lenses. The smaller of the lenses was 
also cut into smaller samples, weighing from half a pound 
to two pounds each. The larger lens still weighs about 125 
pounds. A photograph of the cut surface of the inch slab, re- 
produced in the accompanying plate, shows the manner of 

1The specimens, with their respective weights, so far as known by us 
are as follows: Owned by George F. Kunz, four, weighing 466, 345, 75 
and 40 pounds; owned by N.H. Winchell, two, weighing 211 and 6 
pounds; owned by F. H. Snow, one, weighing 54 pounds; owned by F. 
W. Cragin, one, weighing 125 pounds. The whereabouts of that weigh- 
ing four pounds is not known, nor are the weights even of the re- 
maining six specimens. 

*The plate will accompany the second part of this paper. 


Meteorites.— Winchell-Dodge. 311 


distribution of the metalliciron with respect to the other min- 
erals, and its comparative amount. 

Metallic iron comprises somewhat less than one-half of the 
entire surface, as cut, and it serves as a matrix in which are 
embraced amygdaloidal or roundish masses from the size of a 
pea to that of a musket-ball, and larger, of the black and yel- 
lowish minerals which comprise nearly the whole of the rest 
of the mass. The iron frame-work of the whole mass is not 
regularly cellular, but with many partings and tortuous shapes 
it fits closely about the concavities in which thé minerals lie 
and gives firmness and shape to the whole. 

The two most conspicuous minerals, or the two contrasted 
conditions of the same mineral, are readily distinguished at a 
glance, particularly on the fresh interior. When they are asso- 
ciated in a fragment from the rusted exterior they approach 
each other in general aspect, both being rusty brown. One is 
opaque black, with a shining, anthracitic lustre, and a brittle, 
angular non-laminate fracture. This lies near the iron more 
frequently than the other, and is most abundant about the 
edge of the slab, and in those areas where no metallic iron ex- 
ists. 

The other evident mineral, may be only the unoxidized and 
unstained condition of the foregoing. It has alight-yellowish 
color, or beeswax appearance. When broken it appears glassy 
and when crushed its powder is nearly white. It shows but 
rarely any cleavage direction but fractures irregularly and eas- 
ily and even crumbles under pressure as if coarsely granular. 
Its hardness is about 64, which is also that of the foregoing. 

There is, moreover, much more sparse, another mineral. This 
is light brassy in color, and its hardness is not more than 4. 
It is also attractable by a magnet when powdered, and on _ be- 
ing crushed its powder is black, or nearly black. Lining the 
cavities within the iron, and enclosing the other minerals, 
particularly when they consist of the brassy or the opaque- 
black mineral above is another black mineral. This gives the 
concavities within the iron matrix a botryoidal and specular 
reflection. Its hardness is about 3 or 34, mashing down under 
a steel point somewhat like graphite, but it is, in fine powder 
lifted by the magnet. When unbroken and fresh it presents a 
silvery metallic lustre. 

Some chemical. examination has been made, but the final 


Bhat): The American Geologist. May, 1890 


result of the analyses will be given in the next paper. In hy- 
drochloric acid fragments of the dark mineral first mentioned 
afford gelatinous silica, and an odor of sulphur, the latter 
doubtless from some particles adherent from the other minerals. 
Chromium also is present, and a large amount of magnesia. 
The mineral approaches olivine or bronzite, and appears to be 
only a ferruginated condition of the glassy-yellow mineral. 

In thin section the yellowish mineral is transparent. It pre- 
sents the roughened surface seen on thin sections of olivine, 
but it has notats brilliant polarization, in the latter respect 
resembling bronzite. Itis intersected irregularly by fissures 
in which is gathered a ferruginous product of decomposition 
(limonite), and which increase to so great an extent that in 
some places, the section is nearly opaque, showing a gradation 
from the black-opaque mineral mentioned to this yellowish 
glassy one, and indicating their original identity. 

Besides these transparent polarizing minerals there may be 
seen two that are always and entirely opaque. One is black 
as above, and may be the one that contains the chromium al- 
ready detected, but the other is brassy. The former may be 
chromite or daubréelite and the latter troilite. 


{To be continued. | 


REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 


Report of the School of Mines of Colorado, 8vo pp. 264. We have re- 
ceived from Prof. ArruurR Laxkegs, state geologist of Colorado and one 
of the editors of the AMERICAN GrOLOoGIS?, a copy of his annual report 
for 1889 containing a narrative of the exploration of the coal deposits of 
that state during the preceding year. It opens with a chapter on the 
natural history of coal in which the author points out that though the 
coal supply of Colorado is not of Carboniferous but of Cretaceous age 
and consequently much younger than that of the eastern states, yet it is 
of good quality. This is not, he says, generally believed. ‘‘We have an- 
thracite as good as that of Pennsylvania, bituminous coals in beds of 
great thickness comparing favorably with that of the east and of such 
remarkable purity that it will yield coke as good as that of the far 
famed Connellsville field.’”’? ‘‘If the western states had been discover- 
ed first and had become as thickly populated as the eastern states now 
are, it is a question whether Colorado, Wyoming and adjacent territor- 
ies would not have been considered the great coal-area of the U. 8.’’ 

On the resources of the far West he says: ‘‘At least 20,000 sq. miles 


i Review of Recent Geological Literature. 


of Colorado are underlaid with coal. Texas has 30,000 sq. miles, Da- 
kota 100,000 sq. miles. New Mexico has at least 600,000 acres of coal, 
ranging from anthracite to lignite, Wyoming 20,000 sq. miles, Montana 
20,000 sq. miles.’’ : 

Judging from the analyses, many of which are given in the volume, 


most of these coals are of good quality,standing low in moisture and in © 


sulphur and not excessively high in ash. Doubtless only the best 
seams and the best parts of them will at present pay for working. 
Prof. Lakes points out that the anthracite though of good quality is 
not known to be suflicient in quantity. to make it a factor of impor- 
tance in the resources of the State. 

The volume is well illustrated with fifteen outline views which aid 
largely in enabling the reader to follow and understand the nature 
of the country and its geology. 


The Evolution of Climate. By James Geixin, LL.D., F.R.S. pp. 22; 
with maps. (Reprinted from the Scottish Geographical Magazine for 
Feb. 1890.) This paper will be of much interest and value to students 
of palzeontology and of structural and glacial geology. It is accom- 
panied by two plates, the first of which shows four small sketch-maps 
illustrating the geographical evolution of continental areas, and the 
second is a geological map of the world by J. G. Bartholomew. 

The early origin and permanence of the continental plateaus and 
oceanic basins is maintained, as taught by Dana; but during Archean, 
Palzeozoic and Mesozoic time the present extensive land areas were 
probably represented by islands, between which shallow expanses of 
sea permitted marine currents to carry warmth from the tropics to the 
circumpolar regions. These conditions produced very remarkable uni- 
formity of climate, and consequent close relationship of the fauna and 
flora, over the whole globe. Inthe Cainozoic era the extent of the 
land increased, causing the sea to retreat from hitherto submerged 
parts of the continental plateaus; and the land-growth was attended 
by a gradual lowering of the temperature of northern and temperate 
latitudes and the differentiation of climate into zones. 

We now come to the principal purpose of this paper, which is a de- 
fense of Dr. Croll’s theory of the causes of the ice-age. Professor 
Geikie believes, with Wallace, that extensive ice-sheets, like those of 
the Quaternary glacial period, could not be formed in earlier eras be- 
cause the influence of recurring epochs of maximum eccentricity of the 
earth’s orbit was then mainly counteracted by the geographical con- 
ditions, with a possible exception in the Permian period. His adher™ 
ence to this astronomic theory seems not to have taken account of 
recent investigations by geologists in this country, who are led to 
measurements of postglacial time, from the recession of the falls of 
Niagara and Saint Anthony, and from the rate of wave-erosion on lake 
Michigan and the resulting formation of deposits of beach sand and 
dunes, which show that the departure of the ice-sheet of the last 
glacial epoch in the northern United States was only some 7,000 to 


314 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


10,000 years ago. The Ice age here appears to have been subsequent 
to the last period of eccentricity, and was probably due to great eleva- 
tion of the area glaciated, giving it a cold climate; but this might be 
most efficient for the accumulation of ice-sheets, in accordance with 
Dr. Croll’s argument, when winter of our northern hemisphere was in 
aphelion, which coincided with the date thus indicated for the latest 
glaciation of this continent. On the other hand, the return of warmth 
and departure of the ice were coincident with subsidence of the glacia- 
ted portions of the earth’s crust, which indeed appears to have been 
due to the weight of the ice and to have become in turn the principal 
influence leading to amelioration of climate and the final glacial melt- 
ing. 

Mammilian Remains from the Southern States; by Pror. JosmrH 
Letpy. With the exception of a short article by Edward Potts on 
fresh-water sponges, volume 11 of The Transactions of the Wagner Free 
Institute of Science (Phila.) is composed exclusively of six interesting 
papers on fossil vertebrates from Florida, Louisiana and elsewhere as 
follows: 

1. Notice of some human bones. 

2. Description of mammalian remains from a Rock-Crevice in Florida. 
These fossils are from Ocala, and consist of species of the horse, llama, 
tiger, and elephant. The most interesting is the sabre-toothed tiger, 
which, according to Dr. Leidy, differs materially from Machairodus 
neogzxus and he proposes the name M. floridanus. 

3. Description of Vertebrate Remains from Peace creek. The animals 
recognized by Dr. Leidy are Tapirus americanus (molars), Equus 
(molars, incisors), Hippotherium about the size of H. ingenuum, Bison 
americanus (molar, phalanx), Cervus virginianwm (antlers, bone, teeth), 
Elephas columbi Fal. (teeth). ‘‘Perhaps the most interesting of these 
fossils are a number of dermal plates of Glyptodonts.’’ Some of the 
plates belong to Chlamydotherium humboldtii Lund, others to Hoplo- 
phorus euphractus Lund, Megalonyx jeffersoni (1st. phalanx), Manatus 
antiquus (ribs), six vertebre and teeth of an undetermined cetacean, 
fragments of Hmys euglypha and Trionyx, some remains of a huge tor- 
toise and a distinct specimen named Testudo crassisculata, teeth, plates 
and mandible of Alligator mississippiensis and some remains of fishes. 

4. Notice of some Mammalian remains from the Petite Anse salt mine La. 
describing Mastodon americanus, Equus major and Mylodon. 

5. On Platygonus, an extinct genus allied to the peccaries. 

6. Nature of Organic Species, in which Dr. Leidy gives a short study 
in the evolution of forms by a treatment of the extinct and living forms 
of Fulgur, showing the fossil F’. contrarius continuing to the present in 
the living form fF’. perversus. These articles are well and carefully 
illustrated by ten good plates. 


Eighth Annual Report of U. S. Geological Survey. 1061 pages in two 
parts. Part 1 contains, besides the usual administrative reports, 
financial condition, etc., the following papers: The Quaternary His- 


Correspondence. 315— 


tory of Mono valley, Cal., by I. C. Russrrz; The Geology of the 
Lassen Peak District, by J.S. Ditter; The Fossil Butterflies of Floris- 
sant by 8. H.Scupprr. Part m contains an exhaustive monograph 
of 157 pages on The Trenton Limestone as a Source of Petroleum and 
Natural Gas by Epwarp Orton ;an important addition to paleeobotany, 
The Geographical Distribution of Fossil Plants (800 pages) by Lesrrr 
F. Warp; A Summary of the Geology of the Quicksilver Deposits of 
the Pacific slope, by GrorGe F. Breckrer,and The Geology of the Island 
of Mt. Desert, Me., by N. S. SHALER. 

The Potomac or Younger Mesozoic Flora, by W. M. Fontratner. Mon- 
ograph No. xv, U. 8. Geological Survey. Part1, text 337 pp. Part u, 
180 pl. The greater number of species described in this monograph 
are new and important. Of the cryptogams there are three new gen- 
era and 137 new species. Of the phanerogams two new genera and 17 
new species, of gymnosperms seven genera and 89 species of conifers. 
Among the angiosperms 19 new genera and 72 new species. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


Tue Genus TEREBELLUM IN AMERICAN TeERTIARIES.—While looking 
over some material in the collection of the United States National 
Museum from the Eocene formation of Texas,’ several beautiful and 
well preserved casts of a small Zerebellum were observed. This the 
writer believes to be the first time the genus has been noted in theTertiary 
formation of this country. The species mentioned under this genus by 
Tuomey and Holmes from the Pliocene of South Carolina’ belong 
properly to Turritella as the term is ordinarily used. The Texas forms 
are somewhat elongate, and, whenstudied more carefully, will perhaps 
be found to belong to the section, Terebellopsis, Leymerie. 

U. S. Geological Survey, April 3, 1890. GitBert D. Harris. 


Tue AMERICAN NEOCOMIAN AND THE GRYPH®HA PitTcHERI—‘‘<A prelim- 
inary annotated check list of the Cretaceous invertebrate fossils of 
Texas,’’ by Robert T. Hill, Geological survey of Texas, Bulletin No. 
4, Austin, 1889, is too important a paper not to point out a few incor- 
rect statements, which, very likely, have escaped professor Hill’s at- 
tention in the haste of preparation, such a work being always attended 
by great difficulties as to exact references and the right of priority. 

We read at p. vir: ‘‘It is now known that the series of rocks which 
a few years ago were considered as the whole Cretaceous group of the 
United States, east of the Rocky mountains, on the section published 


1Station No. 2056, Eocene, Mt. Enterprise, in the southeastern part 
of Rush county, Texas, L. C. Johnson, U. 8. Geol. Sur., Collection. 

2Terebellum striatum T. & H., 7. exaltatwm Con., T. etiwanensis T. & 
H., T. burdentti T. & H. ‘‘Fossils of South Carolina, Pliocene and 
Post-Pliocene,’’ Tuomey and Holmes, 1855-60, p. 120-122, pl. 26, figs. 
7-11. 


PG eh NOOR T SLO HL GEN TOGO ND Ry NERS 
pe hess) ee fe Liga % 


316 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


by Meek and Hayden, rests in Texas unconformably upon another 
great series (The first announcement of this series was published by 
me in the American Journal of Science, Jan. 1887, p. 75.) of rocks of even 
greater thickness, to which I have given, out of deference to the town 
of Comanche where I first studied them, the name of the Comanche 
series; hence, we now have in the United States two great series, the 
Lower or Comanche and the Upper or Meek and Hayden series.’’?* 

From this statement, it seems that professor Hill is the discoverer of 
the Lower Cretaceous series, east of the Rocky mountains; and that 
before his announcement of 1887, the whole Cretaceous system of the 
United States was limited to what he calls ‘‘Meek and Hayden series”’ 
I am sorry to say, that the whole statement is against plain facts and 
numerous publications on the Lower Cretaceous or Neocomian of the 
United States, east of the Rocky mountains. 

In order to attribute to professor Hill his justly due share in the 
work, itis necessary to recall that in 1855-54-55 and 58, the Lower 
series of the Cretaceous system or Neocomian was discovered and de- 
seribed with plates of fossils for the northern area of Texas and the In- 
dian Territory at Comet creek, fort Washita and near Preston. In 
1853 I saw at Comet creek an affluent of the False Washita river, the 
Caprotina bed, as the basal strata of the Neocomian or Lower Cretaceous, 
and above it a whitish, chalky limestone containing an immense quan- 
tity of Gryphea pitcheri, having the closest analogy with the Gryphxa 
couloni of the Neocomian of Neuchatel (Switzerland). Besides I have 
referred and described beds of the Lower Cretaceous in Texas, near 
Preston and Elm fork an affluent of the Trinity river. 

As far back as 1855, the whole ‘‘Cretaceous group’ of the United 
States east of the Rocky mountains was well known with its three di- 
visions corresponding to and representative of the Lower Creta- 
ceous or Neocomian, the Middle Cretaceous or Green Sand and Marly 
chalk, and the Upper Cretaceous or true white chalk of Europe. In 
1861 and 1863, I completed the series of the Cretaceous system in the 
United States, first by correcting the extraordinary, confused ‘‘Section 
of the Cretaceous strata in Texas,’’by Dr.B.F. Shumard, the State Geo- 
logist of Texas, and second by referring the Dakota group or ‘“‘Lower 
Cretaceous’’ of Meek and Hayden to the Upper Cretaceous or true 
Chalk of Europe. 


1No series of beds was ever named for persons, except the isolated 
proposition of Alcide d’Orbigny to call the strata containing the third 
fauna of Barrande, ‘‘Murchisonian ;’’ a name which was not adopted, 
even by Murchison. As to ‘Comanche series”’ to designate in Texas 
the Neocomian, if absolutely necessary—which is far from proved—it 
may be used as a synonym, but only as such; for professor Hill has al- 
ready used the name “Comanche division’’ fora part of that series, 
which he calls now ‘‘Fredericksburg division’’; and he has used the 
name‘‘Texas series’’ for his two divisions of the Comanche and Washita ; 
duplicating his own nomenclature not only for the Lower Cretaceous, 
but also for the Upper Cretaceous, called, first ‘“Gulf series’’ and now 
‘Black Prairie series’’ ; a confusion to be regretted. 


Correspondence. 


ProfessorHill has done a good work in giving more details of the Creta- 


- ceous strata of Texas and in reierring each subdivision to its proper posi- 


tion in the series. But the classification given by me between 1853-63, 

reported upon by de Verneuil before the French National Academy of 
Science and accepted by all the leaders of geological classification, was 
not changed by professor Hill, who has only developed the sub-divis- 
ions; a work much wanted and which is very creditable to his skill and 
Sality as a practical stratigraphist. — 

In his ‘‘Check List,’’ professor Hill continues to place his “Trinity 
divison’’ in the Lower Cretaceous or ‘‘Comanche series’’, and he still 
regards the fauna of the Trinity division as brackish (Amer. Geol., vol. 
V. No. 1, p.62, January 1890.) instead of referring it to the Jurassic sys- 
tem and the fauna to a marine one. Both views are unacceptable for 
they are against fact; the fauna being entirely marine and being com- 
posed of Upper Jurassic forms, without a single characteristic Creta- 
ceous animal in it. 

At p. 4 professor Hill confounds the young specimen of Gryphxa tu- 
cumcarii with the Grypha pitcheri, saying: ‘‘The same variety was 
beautifully figured in Marcou 1, as var tucumcarii.” I thought that 
the ‘‘endless confusion’’ was at an end; but it seems not. I have never 
figured a Gryphza pitcheri as var. Hebi cap ii; the fig.2, plate IV of my 
““Geology of North America,”’ referred to by professor Hill is a young 
individual, splendidly preserved of the Gryphxa dilatata var. tuewmcartt 
of the Pyramid Mount section, Tucumeari area, taken by me én situ in 
the bed d which is full of Gryphwxa tucumearii. At p. 5, professor Hill 
says: ‘“‘Gryphea pitcheri var. tucwmcarii, Marcou 1. See remarks on 
G. forniculata, White.” There is nothing at G. forniculata about any of 
my Pyramid Mount fossils,and Ihave neyer published a Gryphxa under 
the name of G. pitcheri var. tucumcarii Marcou; itis certainly a mistake. 

The ‘‘preliminary check list’’ of professor Hill is a great improvement 
on the singularly incorrect lists published by B. F. Shumard, W. M. 
Gabb, F. B. Meek and Dr. C. A. White, and will be of great use to all 
practical geologists in their future investigations of the American 
Cretaceous system. 

As he says in his ‘“‘Bibliography”’ p. 55, references to publications of 
first mention in the Texas region of fossil species are not complete as 
modern bibliographic standards require ; and it is certain that professor 
Hill’s list may be extended easily and with great advantage as regards 
the discoveries of fossil species and their true stratigraphic meaning, 
more especially for the publications issued between 1853 and 1863, but 
he reserves it as an addition to future editions. 


. 
26 March, 1890, Cambridge, Mass. Jutes Marcou. 


RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 


1. State and Government Reports. 
Forty-first, annual report of the trustees of the state museum of 
natural history, for 1887, Albany, 8vo, 397 pp. 8 plates of fenestellid:e. 


Tra) 
318 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


Forty-second annual report of the trustees of the state museum of 
natural history for 1888, Albany, pp. 496, 8vo. 

(1) The Archeology of the Potomac tide water region. O. T. Mason. 

(2) The paleolithic period in the district of Columbia, from the pro- 
ceedings of the U. §. Nat. Mus. vol, xir, pp 367-376. 

Preliminary report onthe collection of mollusea and brachiopoda ob- 
tained in 1887-88 (U. 8S. Fish Commission). W. H. Dall, from the Proce. 
U.S. Nat. Mus., vol. xi, pp. 219-362, plates y-xrv. 

The collection of building and ornamental stones in the U. 8. Nat. 
Mus. ; a hand-book and catalogue. Geo. P. Merrill, Smithsonian report, 
1885-86. Parti, pp. 277-648, pls. 1-rx. 

Fossil wood and lignite of the Potomac formation, F. H. Knowlton, 
Bul. No. 56, U. S. Geol. Survey, 1889. 

2. Proceedings of Scientific Societies. 

Observations on the Eocene Tertiary and its Cretaceous associates in 
the state of Maryland. P.R.Uhler. Trans. Maryland Acad. Sciences, 
in 1888 and 1889. 

The pre-Cambrian rocks of the Black Hills, C. R. Van Hise. Bul. 
Geol. Soc. of America. Vol. 1, pp. 203-244, 1890. 

Proceed. Iowa Acad. Sciences, for 1887, 1888 and 1889, contains: The 
terraces of the Missouri (abstract), J. E. Todd; The origin of the extra- 
morainic till (abstract), J. E. Todd; Directive coloration in animals 
(abstract) J. E. Todd; On a new fossil Limnzeid from the Post-Pliocene 
of California (abstract; printed in full in the American Gxrovoaist, vol. 
1, Mar., 1888), R. Ellsworth Call; Some additional observations on the 
loess in and about Museatine, (abstract), F. M. Witter; The Geology 
of Crowley’s ridge, Ark. (abstract), R. E. Call; The lineage of lake 
Agassiz (abstract), J. E. Todd; On the folding of the Carboniferous 
strata in southwestern Lowa (abstract), J. E. Todd; The crystalline 
rocks of Missouri (abstract) Erasmus Haworth; On the Geology 
of eastern Arkansas (abstract), R. Ellsworth Call; Notes on a fossil 
wood from the Keokuk limestone (abstract), C. H. Gordon; On the 
Keokuk beds and their contained fossils, (abstract), C. H. Gordon; 
Observations on the Keokuk species of Agaracocrinus (abstract), C.H. 
Gordon. 


PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 


COAL IN THE soUTH OF ENGLAND. For many years the opin- 
ion has been held by some of the leading geologists of England 
that coal exists below the mesozoic rocks that cover the sur- 
face of the southwest counties. Several attempts have been 
made at different times to reach this supposed store of fuel 
but without success, though every boring confirmed the belief 
that the Carboniferous rocks underlie that part of the island. 
On February 17th a communication of the discovery of coal 


ey Nhu ble ee Ay) ny 


Lj 
midi than inna e Con pean hs 
HTS RNA WMA he (cope ae oO 
nyt Gar ae? yin: iy 


pe eh Personal and Scientific News. we 


was made to Sir Edward Watkin andif the hopes of the drill- 
ers are confirmed and maintained an important epoch in the 
history of coal mining in England will be marked. Itis stated 
that coal has been found at the depth of 1180 feet under con- 
ditions that favor the belief that it will pay for working. 
Writing on the topic professor Boyd Dawkins who has always 
advocated the exploration says: ‘The Coal Measures with 
good blazing coal have been struck at a depth well within the 
practicable mining limit and the question is definitelv settled 
which has vexed geologists for the last thirty years. Further 
exploration however, now under consideration, will be neces- 
sary before the thickness of the coal and the number of seams 
can be ascertained.” 

Whatever the commercial result may be, this discovery is a 
gratifying instance of correct reasoning from geological data. 
The contention has been that the paleeozoic rocks, which in 
the west carry the coal beds and which show an anticlinal 
structure running east and west pass under the London and 
Paris basin and reappear in the Belgian coal-fields near Liége. 
Consequently it was inferred that they could be found in the 
intervening area at no excessive depth. Several borings have 
shown the truth of this argument, but though paleeozoic rocks 
were found no coal-bed has been struck until this late success- 
fulattempt. Should the find prove economically valuable it 
will be a singular instance of the return of an industry to its 
former situation, as in the days of charcoalfurnaces much 
iron was smelted in Sussex and other southern counties. It 
is said that the railings round the dome of St. Paul’s cathedral 
were cast there. With the introduction of coal and coke, 
however, the manufacture migrated to the north. 

THE GENERAL CoMMITTEE constitued to make arrangements 
for the session of the International Congress of Geologists at 
Philadelphia, in 1891, held its third meeting in the National 
Museum at Washington, on April 18,1890. There were present 
chairman Newberry, secretary H. 8. Williams, and Cope, Dut- 
ton, Frazer, Gilbert, Hague, Hall, Lesley, Marsh, Powell, Stev- 
enson Walcott and A. Winchell. The committee adopted res- 
olutions to the following effect : 

1. That thelocal committee previously appointed for Phila- 
delphia be discharged. Moved by Prof. Lesley. 

2. That it is the sense of the General Committee that no 
postponement of the session is desirable; but that it should 
be held, as appointed in 1891. 

3. That it is the sense of this committee that the session 
should be held in Washington instead of Philadelphia. 

4, That the secretary be instructed to transmit this action to 
the Bureau in London. 

The determinations of the General Committee were based on 
the obvious impossibility of insuring desirable success under 
the arrangements existing for holding the session in Philadel- 


320 The American Geologist. May, 1890 


phia. An effort was made to provide for appending the “ayes” 
and “nays” on the question of recommending removal, but 
this failed. Such information, nevertheless, would cer tainly 
have been useful to the Bureau as showing the weight of senti- 
ment in favor of removal, and showing also that Dr. Frazer 
who had been so largely instrumental in pressing the invita- 
tion from Philadelphia didnot entertain the conviction that a 
change of location was necessary. 

Finally, the chairman was instructed to inform provost 
Pepper of the University of Pennsylvania, of the action of the 
committee and explain in language courteous and conciliatory 
as possible, the fact that the change of location had been 
recommended, simply because the committee had been con- 
vinced that it is now impracticable to insure success in a ses- 
sion held in Philadelphia. 

The hope, nevertheless, is privately expressed that, with 
more time for reflection and inquiry, it may yet appear possible 
to meet in Philadelphia in 1891 and accomplish a success 
creditable to American geology. 

THE ELECTION OF Pror. F. H. SNow To THE CHANCELLORSHIP 
of the Kansas State University (Lawrence) has rendered it 
desirable that some one shall aid him in the work of the 
department of pealeey, and natural history; and the regents 
recently elected Prof. 8. W. Williston, of Yale, associate | pro- 
fessor of geology and Tale Gaels: Prof. Williston, who is 
a graduate of Kansas Agricultural College, has more recently 
been assistant to Prof. O. C. Marsh. 

THE ScripenTIFIC PUBLISHING Company, NEw YorK, announce 
the publication of “Gems and precious stones of North Amer- 
ica,” by George F. Kunz. The professional standing of the 
author will serve as a cuarantee for the excellence of the work. 
The volume is to be handsomely illustrated by colored plates 
by Prang & Co., Boston. Roy. octavo. Price $10.00. 

THE SUMMER SCHOOL OF GEoLoGy of Harvard University will 
carry on an advanced course in geological field-work in east- 
ern New York and southern New England, under bee diree- 
tion of Profs. Shaler and Davis, assisted by Prof. H. 8. Wil- 
liams, Dr. J. E. Wolff and Dr. W. B. Clark. 

STUDENTS OF PALMONTOLOGY WILL HEAR WITH MUCH REGRET 
of the recent death of Prof. von Quenstedt, of Tubingen. He 
was a leader among German paleontologists, and did much 
important work in mineralogy also. He had an especially 
profound knowledge of the Lias of Wtrtenberg and its fossils. 
His work on ‘Der Jura” is well known, and so recently as 
1885 a new edition, greatly modified, of his “Handbuch der 
Petrefactenkunde” was issued. Dr. von Quenstedt died at an 
advanced age on December 21st, 1889. 

Dr. RieHaAaRD OWEN, WELL KNOWN TO GEOLOGISTS for his 
‘“Reconnoissance of the state of Indiana,” and other contribu- 
tions, died recently at New Harmony, Ind. Ina future num- 
ber of the Gronoarst there will be a sketch of his life and 
scientific work. 


= 


ult | mere) 
| v 


— 


oe 


a 


Y]/ 


yf Wi, y (4 [= = 
Yi “t 
y i} 
WIM, 


FWA] OLLQ “WG GNY SNINWAD LM “dy AQ 


‘S¥Xa]_ WARY OHOND) HLMON -» d¥py TWOI90 71039 


“ACIOA Wsi1BojoeD uBoleury 9UL 


® 
a. 
(es 


THE 


AMERICAN GEOLOGIST 


Vou. V. JUNE, 1890. No. 6. 


A GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE CONCHO COUNTRY, 
STATE OF TEXAS. 
By PROFESSOR W. F. CUMMINS AND DR. OTTo LERCH. 


The country takes its name from the rivers traversing it. 
About twenty years ago it was the hunting ground of the Le- 
pan Indians, Kickapoos, Comanches and Kiowas. In 1868 
the U. S. Government erected a post on the banks of the North 
Concho river which became the nucleus of the settlement and 
the prosperity of this country. It soon became noted to the 
stockmen for its many varieties of nutritious grasses and its 
abundance of water. Settlement advanced so rapidly that on 
the 13th of March, 1874, a new county was organized contain- 
ing 13,000 square miles, which was called Tom Green, in honor 
of the famous general of the confederacy, a son and citizen of 
the State of Texas. This county was situated west of the 100 
meridian, between 31st and 32nd parallels of north latitude, 
east of the Pecos and south of the Colorado rivers. Recent 
Legislatures have divided this vast area into six new counties: 
The eastern half of old Tom Green county, embracing the 
new counties of Arion, Coke and Tom Green, is now generally 
known as “The Concho Country,” and is the subject of the 
following report. In less than twenty years this country has 
passed through the different stages of human civilization; the 
stockman has succeeded the hunter, and the farmer is succeed- 
ing the stockman. 


322 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


San Angelo, the county seat of Tom Green county, has been 
built at the confluence of the Concho rivers, and contains at 
the present about 4,000 inhabitants. Its site has been very 
happily chosen. It hes in the beautiful and fertile valley of 
the Main Concho river, which at this place is not less than 
thirty miles in width. Blue ridges of Cretaceous hills bound 
the valley on the north and south, and the waters of the Main 
Concho river traverse it. This is the only town of any consid- 
erable size west of Ft. Worth and Dallas, and of great com- 
mercial importance for western Texas. It is the largest ship- 
ping point in the state for stock. A prominent wool market 
and its trade extends over hundreds of miles north, south, 
west, and east. It has very handsome public buildings, large 
commercial stores, banks, waterworks, ice factories, good week- 
ly papers, and is connected by the G. C. & S. Fe R’y with the 


easu 
Drainage and Topography. 


The North Concho river traverses the country diagonally 
from northwest to southeast. The Main Concho river from 
west to east, Spring creek and Dove creek from southwest to 
northeast, and the South Concho river from south to north. 
The Colorado river having a southeasterly course, drains, with 
its tributaries, the north-eastern portion of this country. The 
above mentioned rivers and creeks have an abundance of run- 
ning water during the entire year, and many of their tributa- 
ries not here mentioned are perennial streams. The rivers and 
creeks have their sources on the Staked plains and flow with 
an average fall of ten feet per mile. 


TWIN MOUNTAIN, 
From the Knickerbocker Road, 
a. Permian. b. Cretacic. 


Considering this, a glance at the accompanying map will 
show that the country is well drained. The topography of the 
section is easily understood, if considered in connection with 


Survey of the Concho Country.—Cummins-Lerch. 323 


its geological features. It constitutes a part of the Cretacic 
deposits known as the Gulf series. These deposits have been 
laid down by the Cretacic sea till a gradual elevation of the 
strata took place and the retreating waters left the former bot- 
tom of the ocean a part of the continent, a vast undulating plain. 
Concluding from the fact that these deposits are only covered 
by alluvium, no new subsidence has taken place in this coun- 
try, but the waters retreating have commenced to cut their 
channels and have so well succeeded that they have cut through 
the whole Cretacic series, and in their lower courses into the 
underlying Permian formation. The valleys are narrow at 
the beginning, gradually widening and deepening till at their 
confluence, they form a valley not less than 30 miles in width. 
‘Plateaus, remnants of the former plain with gentle declivi- 
ties, changing frequently to abrupt escarpments of picturesque 
appearance, lie between rivers and creeks. 


Geology. 


The geology of this country is the more interesting as three 
grand periods of our world’s history are represented in the cir- 
cumference of a few miles. The Permian formation, the tran- 
sition period between the old and new forms of life, underlies 
the Cretacic, the last of Mesozoic time, which represents in its 
wide plains the accumulations of the Cretacic ocean. In these, 
diluvial floods have left their traces; deep and wide valleys, 
narrow cafions, steep embankments, hills, ridges and huge de- 
posits of conglomerate speaking of the dawn of a recent period, 
and marking the prominent features of the present topography 
of this portion of Texas. Quiet waters succeeded, left in bas- 
ins and hollows by the retreating diluvial floods. The valleys 
hadthen a swampy appearance, covered with small lakes and 
lagoons in which modern life commenced to flourish, and 
through which the rivers wind their way, grinding the rocky 
material and transporting and depositing the fine sediment 
which at the present marks their courses, and is recognized by 
the geologist as loess deposits. It was left to alluvial times to 
drain gradually these many swamps and lakes, to form the va- 
riety of soils, to cover valley and plain with a dense turf of 
nutritious grasses, and people them with buffalo, antelope and 
Indians. Modern times have commenced to work out anoth- 
er change, the white man has replaced the Indian, cattle the 


324 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


buffalo and antelope; and the cultivation of the soil, roads 
and railroads and works of irrigation are changing daily its 


surface features. 
Recent Geology. 


Alluvium.—The river bottoms or valley lands, formed in re- 
cent periods through rains and wind, frost and sunshine, with 
the powerful aid of carbonic acid contained in the atmosphere, 
are derived from the underlying Cretacic and Permian strata. 
These are in thickness from 20 to 30 feet, in some places inter- 
stratified with loose gravelly deposits. The uplands are cover- 
ed with alluvial soils generally from two to five feet thick. 

Drift.—Beds of hard limestone conglomerate situated along 
the rivers and creeks are often 50 to 60 feet thick. They are 
purely local, as is evinced by the large size of the boulders, 
and from the fact that they are of limestone from the sur- 
rounding strata. Frequently the boulders are but little water- 
worn, evidently having been rolled but a short distance. We 
have been unable to determine with certainty the age of these 
deposits, as no fossils have been found zn situ. Yet it is most 
probable that an inland sea covered the Staked Plains, till in 
diluvial times an elevation of the western side of the conti- 
nent took place, and the waters of this vast sea commenced 
flowing toward the gulf, leaving the vaileys and these beds as 
evidence of their action. 

Lacustrine Deposits.—Succeeding the drift epoch are depos- 
its of an ash-gray or brownish color containing sand and clay, 
and generally spotted with small white calcareous concretions. 
They have been deposited by quiet waters in basins forming 
lakes and lagoons. They are sometimes found 30 feet thick, 
generally overlying or leaning on the drift. No fossils have as 
yet been found in the loess of this country. The deposits of 
this material have been made in basins of comparatively small 
size along the river channels, their size depending on the gen- 
eral width of the valley. The rivers in cutting their way 
through them have left these deposits exposed in steep bluffs 
and embankments. The composition is a calcareous sandy 
loam of a light yellowish brown color, very porous, with a 
number of calcareous incrustations. The material is unstrat- 
ified. 

The Cretacic—Preceding the drift, covers the larger part of 
the Concho country. It rests unconformably on the Permian, 


jj 


Survey of the Concho Country.—Cummiéns-Lerch. 325 


and dips from northwest to southeast about 30 feet to the mile. 
It is easily recognized even from a distance, standing out in con- 
ical hills with flat tops and gently rounded ridges, sometimes 
with bold escarpments of an amphitheatre-like appearance. The 
surface of the wider plateaus lying between rivers and creeks, 


falls slightly toward the southeast, following the general dip— 


of these strata. Their borders are broken by ravines, leaving 
the above mentioned hills and ridges. Frequent and contin- 
ued washings have covered the bases of the hills with detritus, 
making gentle declivities, covered with a spare vegetation of 
grasses and mesquite brush. Along the hillside the deposits 
are well exposed, facilitating the study of their dip, strike and 
composition. They vary from a few inches to many feet in 
thickness, with slight changes in the same horizon. The Cre- 
tacic has been conformably deposited in this country, but the 
different changes of level of this group are well defined by dif- 
ference of composition, density and color. The cleavage of the 
rocks is horizontal, along the strata, but frequently the rocks 
appear vertically cracked, the cause of which is pressure of 
over-lying rocks, moisture and frost. The material of this 
Cretacic group changes from hard blue limestone often semi-» 
crystalline, passing through different stages of density and col- 
or, to pure, white, soft stone; sometimes it is argillaceous, 
sometimes arenaceous, changing in color from a yellowish 
brown to a dirty brown or red. <A peculiar brecciated lime- 
stone we have found interstratifying these layers near the top 
of this group. It is composed of hard limestone pebbles of a 
blue-grayish color, embedded in a calcareous brown yellowish 
matrix, which when exposed is easily washed out, leaving the 
ilmestone pebbles in their former condition. These exposed 
strata are then called by the people “honeycomb rock” from their 
peculiar appearance. Overlying this rock is a dense yellowish 
colored limestone, indicating the change from a shallow beach 
to the deep sea. According to the sections examined there is 
sand or loose sandstone at the foot of this Cretacic group 
which is so generally found in other countries constituting the 
lowest member of this period. No violent action has disturb- 
ed the almost horizontally deposited Cretacic strata in this 
country, but a gradual rise, the lifting force working vertically 
to the dip, has placed the deposits beyond reach of the waves 
and has sent the water to the gulf. The thickness ofthe whole 


326 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


of the Cretacic group in this country called Comanche series by 
R. T. Hill has been estimated by us from the different sections 
examined to be 400 feet. 


SECTIONS ON SOUTH CONCHO, 20 MILES SOUTH OF SAN ANGELO. 


1. Hard buff colored limestone, layers several feet thick...... 30 ft. 

2. Lellow clay with Hxoryra texanas.. sis. 62ccusemee ns ema 30 ft. 

Bey WY Dice shally Sandstone Hh s/o caluiwslale aisacel gale & asysheh eae amen 40 ft. 
LIST OF FOSSILS. 

1. Gryphea pitcheri. 5. Trigonia texana. 

2. Exogyra texana 6. Nautilus. 

3. Ammonite—— 2? 7. Nerinea texana. 

4. Lima wacoensis. 8. Ostrea — 2 


The Permian.—This formation in this country conformably 
overlies the Carbonic, dipping from southeast to northwest, 
about 30 feet to the mile and is overlain unconformably by the 
Cretacic deposits. The change from the Carbonic to the Per- 
mian is gradual. The Carbonic forms of life mingling with 
newer types, gradually disappear more and more, giving 
place to the new forms, until in the upper strata of this epoch 
they appear in such abundance, and leading Carbonic forms 
are so rare, that noted explorers have termed it Triassic. The 
clay beds of the Carbonic formations gradually lose their 
black color and appear now variously colored, deep venetian 
red, blue and yellow, passing frequently through all the differ- 
ent shades. The limestone interstratifying the different Car- 
bonic deposits has changed and has become an argillaceous 
and arenaceous rock of yellowish brown and red color, fre 
quently passing into pure sandstone of different colors, white, 
yellow, and sometimes of a deep red. The formation is ex- 
posed above and below the confluence of the Concho rivers, 
and along the Colorado river. Sandstone and limestone de- 
posits of various thicknesses according to sections examined 
from one foot to six feet, are interstratified by clay deposits 
from a few feet to forty or more in thickness. The clay is 
massive or shaly, and the limestone and sandstone are of dif- 
ferent densities, argillaceous and ferruginous. The fossils are 
generally fairly well preserved in an argillaceous limestone of 
drab color, but difficult to obtain on account of the hardness 
of the rocks. Along the Colorado river the gypsum beds ap- 
pear lying conformably upon the older strata of this period, 
forming the highest member of this formation. The Permian 
deposits in this section belong to the southern edge of this for- 


Survey of the Concho Country.—Cummins-Lerch. 327 


mation in Texas. Their thickness has been estimated by us 
from borings and outcrops examined, to be 200 feet. No vol- 
canic action has disturbed the Permian strata in this country. 
Their composition speaks of shallow water beaches and quiet 
muddy seas accompanied by frequent oscillations of the sea 
bottom. We have been able to obtain only marine fossils and 
cannot say therefore with certainty that portions of this coun- 
try had been raised above the waves of the sea in this period. 
The change from the Permian to the Cretacic is abrupt. The 
earlier members of Mesozoic time, the Triassic and Jurassic, 
are missing, and it must be concluded that either these forma- 
tions had never been deposited in this section or that after 
being laid down they were destroyed by subsequent erosion. 
The Cretacic commences with a loose sandstone in the 
lower strata, gradually changing to pure, hard limestone. 


SECTION OF THE PERMIAN. 


MEMRES ATION GOI iy ner ake Cie hacia Wie a neeein iat al et OM Siatahaje tac M slenany ade 4 feet. 
Pe IVCLMO WT SANGStONE, EVADE! Meir. Fels Uae ie oS clele eae Sings 
PEAS ATICL SLOTS SSA iy ype tA Niele miei WSUS) sit aiiuih Grol ayeln dre abte a Shai 40 ‘ 
226) > SEN) Sra Or pyar a NR NL st eg oy he Cort a re tol a Hea ey SA a 20 a 
5. Teeestone, BOSS LCHOUS Wei chy Ae a take ok ie eke loicte ta Seely 
6. Green Clay eee i a ac RT NY EC (FES Sg DAS BaE Shae 
Phos STR GYRE OH Ean RRS ie BAT aR a ae ANS Sh CH UN Se Gian 
SPECI ONLY 0, Mirena) ACM atebiae's br kShe ic set ORiae Sia (ova! e Cael Deve 
PEATE CRE OTIO splot i bs oie Ws a0 ah edo gas OLY RIG time wiles Lila ara sh wheeers 18 in. 
2 De CUS EST Oo ein ge a a OO AR BAR ee me SU 2 AAR a, A 1 foot, 
ETI E SOME ey aoe Mead Phat as Une ance Lana BILL Ue i Tales 
UPA WY OUR A 1 Sai Nea a LAN Cd oa ri ahd Bea ED SEN od Sa mae 
eter RNY Piha 2k Allott She tt hs Ss aiid, airs" bhava) Smarter gto 'e/ ac ejz aie 3 feet. 
MPA RU OMAO Ie fer Mon ING LATS acklvie ha Sh OY RSNA ha 4 Myr era banal oeatans 8 in. 


LIST OF FOSSILS. 


1. Goniatites baylorensis White. 

2. Medlicottia copei White. 

3. Orthoceras rushensis McChesney. 

4. Nantilus winslowi Meek and Worthen. 

5. Euomphalus subquadratus Meek and Worthen. 
6. Bellerophon crassus Meek and Worthen. 

7. Pleurophorus ? 

8. Myalina permiana Swallow. 

9. Aviculopceten 


10. Productus NWT tae ? 
11. Murchisonia —-? 
12. Fenestella —— ——? 
bd Economic Geology. 


Climate.—Conditions of the air, rainfall, soils and water. 
On account ofthehigh altitude of this country, 2000 feet above 
the level of the sea, the pressure of the air considerably lessens, 


328 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


and in consequence respiration is quickened and evaporation 
increased. As acurative agent the air of elevated places has 
been highly recommended in cases of phthisis, malaria, diges- 
tive troubles, etc. 

Movement of the Air.—This is a very important climatic 


: H sepa ngs 

as 2 e o ) 

mi ee e\e/S\als 

i nated a ee s | o 5 retain ies 3 

a) ee ete ad el Seeds 

Se =p) =H Ae =a = Dg ny ef el La ON rl | 

TPT eee Ratt eM (epee ie ie TAS 8 

‘Fencih On0s Rb psa RUD I Raa Ct aE ai = 

SSVI vss a gts Rest 8 un ea ts el a I saat MeL Hf 

<n GUS LUA MST INES ar Bae Ear ta sae 6 | Aan aie 

GSW | ao | Osa Mert aoe AG na alam 

Ie ed cu Wee a Fania ol gal POE PN RE paseaT MY al Bh ef 

AUS IS Hut eau te aber Westy Pn On aah PRS Sr Mtg SU 

so ald MORI We sks eal ICs Poe PRRs ABOARD VMSA ALS) 

Ice eed A ae es] Cou Na Tan Sapna Ne Sie Oia 

Tb SYSN es fan tents Walaa pe ec ial Dal oa eaecsaisn ryMP FF 

| Dele Beara) BALI Mie Ea We WA CG Rw pee UNG Alp INN Fe 

SSNS NG Pay an UDA REN ea Bese ROMS Hace SH Mego BIE st 

RIS MeN Garr TEM Ta TON Gul gel. 08 4 ansnnael 

SIVAN Bae Rea ales Riba anbone NGO Th it Ling Biers Nrgcogn Ps 05) 7) 

Tide le LCs te lor lok SO Aasl atc ATP Hace ha BPN eas S'S 

INIWV, A UE hese tte cy Te MAY ahd Ny BI erg Ai an es 

I SCHON N ee AC Inlet MES Go Wesley ele eg 

IE TINGE Buin tec ea he So) eked Aa ohGe ae ihe 

TTS KG May Raat a a TB Mesa are MEH ees PGS) 

BOE CRB 109) lod ih Sank ey Lous ecu les Wath a Mom dk RM Poke 

SPS eM Til Tels ah CeO LOM abn |e Oa) hal me GNA | wean neD 

SW Od Sok eee omelet Coke NG abel tzall Bein 

CM UE Ale EEA Hr ea Pg RV RST ROHS WN ad eee Ca PERG 

MW tt etn Glas Ek ab eat sieleh omar tp uaunnius 
TS Ysa at al eye Mesa ane 
RCE: Op An aul ag 
Rea ed ha 
SAN NSE OMT Ric AS AE 
SONS a ks 3h CSO | LG 
SW Wait tea] Oa 
vay MW as bee Ra Be 
PENI 6 La ead 


condition. The wind has a cooling effect on the body and if 
dry increases the evaporation. Though the average tempera- 
ture during the month of January (the month of the north 
wind in Texas) is 40° F., a temperature, which in a quiet at- 


~ 


of the Concho Country.—Cummins-Lerch. 


rvey 


Su 


ne 


‘ 


‘mosphere would be not uncomfortably felt on account of the in- 
crease of evaporation, and the change of the air enclosing the 


SL G9} 6z|¢4/90°S¢|sz 
9G GPIZT|SL|S2'aG|1z 
08 Fg |9Z/e0'eelze 
OL TS/¢T|¢2) pg"9G\cz 
86° 9F/01|Z8}69°S6]08 
86 LPO |Z8|9L°2S|OL 
I€FFIATIS2/09 9¢|¢a 
ST TS!1Z/9L'F0'Sa|ze 
90°FE1Z |G8|8a°SF|8 

98°6F/0 |FS|LF°L¢)cT 
F9°68)8 |PLI98°FS) CT 
GG" LP\CT|IL166°6F| C1 
91 68}6 |FL)08'0¢)6z 
84° 6S|8z}08|9F'8S| sz 
0G 8F19a/94|10°09)2% 
G8 SFITE|EL1Z0'LG| 18 
ST GP|0G|08| 10°%S| 61 
GL FP ET|O8|F8'TS| Ec 
FO EPs 108/69" 6F|2z 
96 '8P/ZT}F8}89 0S] 8 
PL L¥\FZ|06|08'8S\zE 


INQ ULIII( |IOG MBAON] ‘“I9G0I009 |4,qutajydag 


06 
68 
cg 
88 
08 
18 
88 
98 
84 
48 
68 
LL 
G8 
a6 
16 
98 
G8 
I8 
86 


cOL 


SPLL 
99°92 
06 94 
S8°LL 
89°18 


OL'SL lg 


IGGL 
6o'08 
G8 PL 
1g S74 
P6 GL 
6G°LL 
OL'9L 
L8°9L 
96°SL 
09° TS 
SPSL 
CS Ph 
L8°SL 


GOT/48° TL 


aT 64 


86 


OOT 


C6 
96 


LOL 


86 
06 
86 
86 


LOL 


16 


OOL 
TOL 
>| OOT 
SOL 
LOL 
GOT 


06 
86 


OIL 
LOT 


¢6'98 
96°88 
GLP8 
8G'F8 
O's 
SP 08 
OFS 
ST 98 


16 8L 
PR 6L 


06'S! 

8P°E8 
Ce"é8 
L818 
IS F8)0 
60°ES, 
C698 
G88 


‘ysnsny 


TITLZP 98}29|/Z0T 
801/ZE' 9889) 901 
COT) 1398/89/21 
COLI FR §8)69| SOL 
SOL9L°Z8/S9)0LT 
FOL|S3'F8)G9|G0L 
16 |68°S8/¢9|60T 
TOL)G9°98) 69) 901 
96 |60°E8)S¢| TOL 
LOT/64°88}99|L0T 
66 |68 Z8/0¢|00T 
SOT|SF' FS 9S] FOL 
ASIL|S¢'F8}9| OLT 
FOL TS'08/6¢: FOL 
SOL|GF'S8/E2/SOL 
GOT|C8°98)F9/Z0L 
GOT|GL°C8}S9| 00T 
GOLGI L8/3L|Z01 
66°08|§9|00T 
&G°FL|C9|00L 
89°L8/C9/SIL 
e = 
< po) 
g ‘a 
‘Arne 


L0°%8 
PLS 
S9'P8 
G0'G8 
ig 
19°68 
88°18 
ISPS 
PEGS 
GLGS8 
0S 08 
LT08 
06°08 
STL8 
69 L8 
0G 18 
00°82 
[FS 


90°SL1¢ 


egos 
IDPS 


Z 
9G PL 
GLEL 
GS'GL 


ST GL 
GP'6L 
09'FL 
Fis 
60° TL 
G8 69 
cg! ia 


GO aK 


80°FL 
LTSL 


19'8L 


CO'8L 
96°EL 


16°GL 


Cg"9L 


LS*6L 


£0°08 


‘SVXUL ‘OTHDNVY NVS 


06°L6| cs 


SL°TS 
98 09 
P6709 
LOPS 


L6°8¢) 


TP°L¢ 
06°T9 
GE"8S 
GE'S 
92°69 
TL°Lg 
PS*19 
POPS 
9L°L9 
68°LG 
LYS 


FG 
6G 
FG 
0& 
9% 
9% 
SG 
96 
FL 
61 
6% 
0€ 
61 
8& 
cg 


80°0¢ 
bS "0S 
cP'0S 
cL0¢ 
£9°CP 
C8"9F 
06°CF 


Log 


8/8¢° LF 


Tz 0¢ 
CS 6F 
PL6F 
SL's¢ 
PP GS 
$9°eF 
oG‘ge 
PG FC 
09°6F 
LG'S 
&8°6F 
LF0¢ 


LT 
86 
PL 


18(Z§°9F 


6L 
PS 


8L|1S"6E |e 
6LIC8 66 

z3) 
‘18 


ly) 
j44 
SL 


99 
18 
#8 
18 
Gg 


SLISPLE 


68 


‘OHONOO “LH LV ‘QQQT TIYdY BONIS HENOW HOVE DNIUAG GaaUOOTU SENIOd 


ISHMOT GNV ISHHDIH AHL HLIM YAHLAVOL AYALVUAIWAL ADVUAAV AHL YNIMOHS AIAVL 


ITS"OF 


CLI68, 
6LIS8. 
8 
0s} 


re 
oy; 


82 
IL 


c8 


body, the north winds are severely felt even in this southern 


330 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


latitude. They are, however, of rare occurrence, making their 
first appearance in the latter part of December and disappear- 
ing the first half of April. They last generally from two to 
three days of which the second day is most severe. Of course 
it must be understood that this country frequently has winds 
blowing from the north, but on account of a higher tempera- 
ture in other seasons they are not uncomfortable. The pre- 
vailing winds in this section come from the west and south- 
west, blowing almost throughout the year, refreshing during 
the hottest days of the period. The nights are cool and pleas- 
ant, due to a generally cloudless sky and a rapid radiation of 
heat. Though we have before us tables kept since 1868 at this 
place, a general idea as to the points of the compass from 
which the winds blow may be well formed from the inserted 
tables covering the years from 1886 to the present. 

Temperature—Is so important that alone it has often been 
made a ground of classification of climate. An equable cli- 
mate is understood to have no excessive diurnal variations 
and from the following tables which show the maximum and 
minimum and average temperature for the last 20 years, the 
climate of this country may well be called equable; and, as 
in this long term of years, the difference between the hottest 
and coldest month of the year is not excessive, it must also be 
termed limited; both favorable conditions for the inhabitants. 
The following exhaustive tables will show this sufficiently. 

Rainfall—The amount of atmospheric precipitation is one 
of the most important factors in the climate of acountry, as 
the humidity of the air greatly depends on it. It is hardly neces- 
sary to mention the great importance of a sufficient amount 
of rainfall. It determines, with the soils, the success of agri- 
culture and horticulture, and the wealth of a country. The 
following table, showing the annual and monthly rainfall 
from 1868 to 1889 will therefore find an appropriate place in 
this report. 


The following table shows that though the rainfallis not abun- 
dant it is amply sufficient to mature crops. Even in 1886, the 
year of the drouth, early crops could have been raised. Set- 
tlement, and with it cultivation, will loosen the soil so that 
the moisture can saturate it and the rain which now falls on 
dried and hardened prairies, and is drained off as fast as it 
falls, will be saved and utilized. Large cultivated tracts of 


Survey of the Concho Country.—Cummins-Lerch. 331 


orchard and field will serve as condensator, distributing the 
rainfall, preserving the moisture and causing frequent dews. 
In a country like this, situated in a southern latitude, with a 


RAINFALL AT FT. CONCHO, SAN ANGELO, TEXAS, SINCE | 
APRIL 1868. 


February. 
Decemb’r. 
Total for 
the year 


se ee eeeEeEeEE—eeEeEeEeEE —eEeEeE—EE—— EE 


i : : Pd inkae MA ows 
1868 3.27/4.10) .40/7.30)1.86/2.35/6.40/3.75/1.69 
6912.55] .20/2.41}1.10)3.31/3.76) .43)1.94} .50| .96)1.59)1.60/19.82 
"70 =| .16] .16/4.76) .62} .26)4.36/3.32/6.90/9 92/5 .44)1 


4A —| .54/2.75})1.90)4.40} .42) —/2.04) .90/2.78) .44) .20]16.37 
"72 «-11.28/1.20} —/1.12/1.86/1.50/3.79/2.60] .85] .66/1.66) .53]17.05 
73 .16) .33}1.60) —/4.56/6.40) .92/1:46) .44) .08) .25) —/!16.20 
74 .25) .25/1.14) .39/3.29/5.05) .88] .61/5.58} .64/2.92/5.80/24.90 
"75 .05}1. 75] .12) .50)1.70) .64/5.67) .2211.22) —| .36)2.47)12.25 
"76 =({1.00) .32} .36} .50) —j1.52) .78/3.14/2.84) —] .52) .68/11.68 
"dil —}| .98} .30) .79)2.12/1.47| .50/2.32)/3.60]1.50/1.00/2.00/16.58 
78 —| .10} —|2.32) .02]1.50)4.55) —Jj6.70| —/1.10) —/17.29 
79 .50} —} .40}1.70/1.10)5°80) .50/4.00)1.00} .20; —| —13.20 
780 {3.90} .60/1.14} .70]1.15]5.20/7.60/3.90)7.20)2.50) .30) .60/32.79 
81 —| —] .20)1.46/6.10) .10] .40} .20; .70/2.30) .50/1.80)13.76 


782 .84/3.38] .35] .09)1.23)/2.09/4.14/8.46]3.59] .58/2.05) —18.91 

83 —| —|3.16) —| —] .76]3.¢ Di. : d 

84 .40) .80} .50/4.60/9.08)1.87/2.20} .96/2.00/4. 76/1 .86/6.21)/35 .24 
1 


85/4. 23/2.15}1.35/3.91}2.33)/4.22/1.08)1.35]1.94| .75| —) .70/34.01 
86 .15} .80} .75) .48] .76]1.60) .86)3.74) .56)1.35| —} —} 9.55 
’87 —| .10} —j|1.76/2.86) .66] .93/1.88)2.81]1.74)1.36] .98/15.08 
88 .10}1.98} .92/3.63)1.55/2.50/3.10/2.50) .48/1.72)2.20] .40)22.08 


Leal : 
789 {1.94/2.57)1.15/2 .03/2.28 


Average 19.95 


limited amount of rainfall, the farmer can not pay too much 
attention to deep and frequent plowing, toa careful cultivation 
and to setting out of fruit and shade trees. If this is done 
success will meet the effort. A careful cultivation in a loose 
soil will not only save the rainfall but also will utilize the dew. 

Water.—The Concho rivers are noted for the purity and fresh- 
ness of their water. Having their source in the Cretacic limestone 
of the Staked Plains, they drain their southeastern portion. 
Subterranean waters are generally found in sheets saturating 
sandy limestone, and sandstone or gravelly deposits; though 
frequently the well-drill strikes a subterranean stream flowing 
in fissures of the rocky deposits. Their depth varies from 25 
to 100 feet and more. The water procured at various depths 
is either the local rain which has filtered through the limestone, 


332 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


and sandstone deposits until it strikes an impenetrable strat- 
um and collects on it, or it is the rain and snow falling in the 
south eastern portion of the plains following these deposits. 
Like all limestone waters they are clear and sparkling, possess- 
ing an agreeable taste. They are charged with carbonic acid 
and contain, carbonate of lime and magnesia in small quanti- 
ties, small quantities of iron, silica and potash, sometimes sul- 
phates, and little or no organic matter. 
SECTIONS OF WELLS IN DIFFERENT LOCALITIES. 
Average of wells in San Angelo. 


Sai Ghocolate colon, Nmaat] yi so wy iN NN a ae 3 to 10 ft. 
ROME CLOMANICSCO MEN cr beer as ahve MN Oe ity ras eave BN eae NCU Ca 20 to 50 ft. 
4 NC) 2 AUR aD par a YR RE 23 to 60 ft. 
Lipan Flat. 
Soule chocolate color.’ marly ety ke Ane Nn Cor a we 3 to 10 ft. 
UO Oy Teor nye liLayyy Te Serve wale ote i HUH ee eh ee a ne 40 to 50 ft. 
BATES TONE SM NNN Day tie MEM art a ao TR Lane Oa a aE ee 15 to 18 ft. 
Tope eee ees RO Smet BEER 
Prairie North of San Angelo. 
Sport chocolatercolor arly. ie vee i ers ten) mis Sitol 30 oh 
Clay, 120 RRS ATA Oe AU ATED ALE Oa NS BNL aN Hl Se Mand) HY 27 to 40 ft. 
emestone,bline, at seit eos yk Nae eee al ce ce le ER tt 
Sandstone, CR SHU RU MRS ROCHE SAIN lM AVE OED 15 to 20 ft. 
Do fale ee ene el ye 95 to 150 ft. 
South Concho, 40 miles south of San Angelo. 

SOM NCALCATEOUS OTA WISIN. opie sry «lune lalmintagea veel chal SUM baci Si 
Limestone, changing incolor and density................ 100 it. 

Limestone and clay of various colors, changing in thin 
Ley key alate oe SL AM IM UI Ca ali TE I Ss eA 125 ft. 
SCE TUSLONE OTA Ne bods ai iaiion ate Via Ns ata eee gaa utal ll IG aay E CL SUN 2 debe 
Total. . Dele 228 ft. 

Middle Concho, 50 miles west - gi ene 

Ot: CAleareOUS NOT Ay HN SIN Hal AEC NT CE Ma UMC AMS Ne Wiaate 5 ft. 
Limestone, changing in color and density............... 80 ft. 

Clay and Limestone, of various colors, changing in thin 
TARY OTB Mee PIRES Moe ti Car WIR U SU AU RAAT ANY TT Id PN 150 ft. 
ER Vie SIVA SEO SN Bye enti) ces UBIO aN Se ae CY Pua Tic i, Dali 25 ft. 
MO fal: '2) Seis i ak Oe Tea 258 ft. 


Artesian wells—All the conditions favoring artesian wells 
are present :—impenetrable strata, sufficient dip of the forma- 
tion and water in abundance,—but as the water has to be pro- 
cured from the Carbonic deposits, it will probably be found 
brackish, as water has never been found otherwise in this form- 


Survey of the Concho Country.— Cummins-Lerch. 333 


ation in Texas. A few tests have been made, only to affirm 
the experience gained in other localities. Still these waters 
are often saturated with common salt, (chloride of sodium), 
and accompanied with gas, so that perhaps salt works may be 
established with profit, the gas being used for the concentra- 
tion of the brine. 

Salt wells and other mineral wells—The clay deposits of 
the Permian formation in this country are frequently highly 
impregnated with chloride of sodium, (common salt), and 
generally contain chlorides of potash and magnesia, with car- 
bonates and sulphates of lime. The water has dissolved these 
minerals and contains them in solution whenever it has passed 
through these deposits. A decomposition of sulphates causes 
them sometimes to contain sulphuretted hydrogen, These 
wells are not infrequent, and their value in treating diseases 
of the skin and digestive organs is highly reeommended. The 
artesian water of the Carbonic formation formerly mentioned 
is, as far as experience goes, always highly saturated with 
salt and generally accompanied by a flow of gas. The long 
summer and high temperature during this season, by using the 
gas, will permit a cheap manufacture of salt. 

The soils of this section—Are either derived through disin- 
tegration of the Cretacic or Permian strata, and of course 
their character depends on their source. If derived from the 
Cretacic along the upper valleys of the rivers and creeks and 
upon the plateaus, they are highly calcareous, generally of a 
dark grayish black color; if sutticiently mixed with vegetable 
matter they are highly fertile, containing all the minerals nec- 
essary to support vegetation. The soils derived from the 
Permian deposits are always of a deep chocolate-red color; 
they are marly and well mixed with vegetable matter and 
contain a high percentage of iron-oxide and other minerals al- 
ways supporting a vigorous vegetation. These soils, easily 
recognized by their deep red color, cover the lower valleys and 
uplands for a hundred thousand acres. They are very reten- 
tive on account of their argillaceous character and in fertility 
can not be surpassed. 

Building material.—The Cretacic and Permian formations 
consist, as mentioned before, chiefly of sandstone, limestone 
and clay beds. The sandstone and limestone vary in character ; 
the former, especially, if taken from the Upper Permian, is 


334 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


a durable stone; the quartz grains are generally small, bound 
together by a siliceous cement sometimes containing iron, col- 
oring the stone in all shades of yellow, brown and red. The 
rock is easy to work with hammer and chisel, and very suita- 
ble for architectural ornamentation. Examinations in quarry 
and buildings prove that the rock well withstands the various in- 
fluences of this climate. The sandstone constituting the base 
of the Cretacie is generally less desirable, being softer and 
containing a calcareous cement. Both formations furnish a 
good limestone, often semi-crystalline and variously colored. 
On account of its hardness the stone is generally selected for 
rubble masonry. 

Quicklime.—An excellent quality of lime may be obtained 
by burning the limestone of either formation. 

Cement.—The raw material for its product, a mixture of 
clay, sand, and lime, is found in abundance, which if burned 
will make cement of good quality. 

Clay—Underlies the river valleys. These deposits are var- 
iously colored, red, blue and yellow. Suitable for the manu- 
facture of Terra-Cotta, Majolica and pottery. 

Irrigation.—The method of irrigating the river bottoms has 
been practiced since the settlement of this country commenc- 
ed, almost 15 years ago. The average fall of the rivers and 
creeks is 10 feet per mile, and alow dam, from 5 to 10 feet, is 
generally sufficient to raise the water to tne level of the jena 
and permit, at low expenditure, irrigation of large tracts of 
fertile valley land. At the present there are about 16,000 acres 
under irrigation principally located on Dove creek,Spring creek 
South Concho and North Concho rivers. The lower uplands, 
covered with arich marly soil, can be irrigated by constructing 
reservoirs. The land is gently sloping along the course of the 
rivers. Clay underlies the large undulating flats, and the ma- 
terial of the hills is a hard limestone clay and sandstone. The 
rainfall of the country is sufficient to keep even the largest 
reservoirs filled during the year, and the cost would be but a 
trifle in comparison with the benefits derived from such an 
enterprise. 

Grasses.—The principal varieties are: Oat top, which is eas- 
ily recognized by its reddish color. Though resembling the 
common sedge grass it is not as coarse and is well lked by 
stock. Mesquite grass, is of a light green color, growing 


The Maquoketa Shales—James. 335 


among the roots of the mesquite bushes in rich and mellow 
soil, is soft and ofabundant foliage and highly appreciated on 
account of its. nutritious qualities. Gramma grass, is ofa 
bluish green color, and though somewhat coarse is very nutri- 
tious and never becomes perfectly dry. Running mesquite 
and buffalo grass are both valuable pasture grasses, forming a 
dark turf extending over many acres. Both these grasses are 
exceedingly nutritious. The buffalo grass is said to revive af- 
ter a rain succeeding a drouth. 

Timber.—The rivers and creeks are lined with pecan trees 
and these with mulberries, and plums often form extensive 
groves along their bottoms. Upon the large flats grows the 
mesquite, and the declivities of the hills support a growth of 
live oak and cedar. 


ON THE MAQUOKETA SHALES, AND THEIR CORRELA- 
TION WITH THE CINCINNATI GROUP OF SOUTH- 
WESTERN OHIO 
By JostpH F. JAmMrEs, M.Sc., U. 8S. Geological Survey. 

The term Maquoketa shales (pronounced Ma-quo’-ke-tah), 
was applied to an exposure of rocks of Lower Silurian age by 
Dr. C. A. White in 1870.' The character of the strata referred 
to this horizon and the reasons advanced for the introduction 
of the name, are found in Dr. White’s report on the Geology 
of Iowa. The essential portions of his remarks upon this divi- 


sion of rocks are given below. He says ;” 


““Area and General Characters.—The surface occupied by this forma- 
tion is comprised within a singularly long and narrow area, seldom 
reaching more than a mile or two in width, but more than a hundred 
miles long within the state. It lies like a narrow sinuous band upon 
the surface between the regions occupied respectively by the Galena 
and Niagara limestones; having, like them, a northwestward and 
southeastward trend. Its most southerly exposure is in the bluffs of 
the Mississippi river near Bellevue, in Jackson county, and the most 
‘northerly one yet recognized is in the western part of Winneshiek 
county. 

“‘The whole formation is largely composed of bluish and brownish 
shales which weather into a tenacious clay upon the surface, and the 
soil derived from it is usually stiff and clayey. The shales are some- 
times slightly arenaceous, and sometimes calcareous bands compose a 
considerable part of its bulk, The latter is the case at the typical 
localities on the Little Maquoketa river about twelve miles westward 
from Dubuque.’’ 


’ Geology of Iowa, vol. 1. p. 180. 
*Tbid, pp. 180-182. 


336 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


“Geological Age.—The fossils contained in this formation, together 
with its position in relation to the underlying and overlying formations, 
leave no doubt as to the propriety of referring it to the same geological 
period as that in which the rocks at Cincinnati, Ohio, were formed ; 
but as a formation, it is regarded as distinct from any other one of that 
group hitherto defined ;—the designation ‘group’ refers to a whole 
period in geologic time, and when it is applied to any single formation, 
its indefiniteness differs only in degree from a mere reference of the 
formation to its proper system or age. Therefore, as the strata of this 
formation, all referable without doubt to a single epoch of its period, 
are well developed on the Little Maquoketa river, where its character- 
istic fossils are also abundant, the name Maquoketa Shales is given to. 
this particular formation of the group.” 


Dr. White upon the authority of Messrs. Meek and Worthen 
and upon the strength of his own observations, rejects the 
term Hudson River group as applied to these shales in Iowa, 
Illinois and other interior states, and adopts the term Cincin- 
nati group instead, using, he says, “the name Maquoketa 
shales to designate that particular epochal sub-division or 
formation of the group which alone is found in Iowa. 


‘*Fossils.—Several species of fossils which characterize the Cincin- 
nati group are found in the Maquoketa shales, such as Orthis testudi- 
naria, O. occidentalis, Strophomena alternata, S. (Leptena) serecea, etc., 
but they contain a large number of species that have been found no- 
where else than in these shales in Iowa. They belong to the genera 
Orthoceras, Murchisonia, Pleurotomaria, Schizodus (?), Discina, Grapto- 
lithus, etc., The distinct faunal characteristics presented by these fossils 
last referred to, seem to warrant the separation of the Maquoketa shales as 
a distinct formation from any others of the group.’ Its true position is 
probably at the base of the group.’’ 


It is thus seen that Dr. White considered this division of 
rocks as a distinet formation mainly for the reason that cer- 
tain species were confined to the typical locality. The force 
of this supposition will be considered under the discussion of 
the fossils. 

Having thus given the description which accompanied the 
original proposal of the name, let us examine the literature 
which deals with these or rocks of similar age as found in 
Iowa, in Wisconsin and in IIlinois. 

The first detailed notice we find of the formation in geologic 
literature is by professor James Hall. In 1858* he published 
a description of the rocks as observed by him in Iowa, under 
the name of the “Hudson River group.” After noticing the 
connection between the Trenton and the Galena limestones, 
mention is made of the Hudson River group and its charac- 
ters in New York, Canada and Pennsylvania. Toward the 


1These last italics mine. (J.) 
*Geol. Survey of Iowa, vol. 1. part 1. pp. 64-70. 


x 


ROM A MLA Me snee Naas Merete) Om Mepis tS en ae CNL 
Cio et y ie 


The Maquoketa Shales.—James. 307 


west the arenaceous beds are lost and argillaceous and calcar- 
eous beds predominate. Beyond Lake Winnebago in Wiscon- 
sin, the calcareous shales have been recognized in several 
places and they were referred by Mr. Lapham to the “Blue 
limestone” group. Further Dr. Percival recognized the same 
shales as underlying the limestone of the “Mounds,” and des- 
cribed them in his first report of the geological survey of Wis- 
consin.* Professor Hali then goes on to say: 


“The first indication of the existence of this group in Iowa was ob- 
served in some mound-like elevations near the Mississippi river, about 
eight or ten miles below Gutenberg. On examination these proved to 
be above the Galena limestone, ‘and their summits capped by the 
Niagara limestone, with Pentamerus oblongus, corals, etc. The slope 


afforded no opportunity of obtaining a section of the beds between the. 


two limestones; but from the character of the soil, the gentle slope of 
the hill, and other indieations, it was presumed that these beds occur 
here.’ 

‘Our attention was subsequently directed by Mr. Childs to the site 
of an old mill on the Little Makoqueta, from which some fossils had 
been obtained, and which, from their previous examination, were in- 
ferred to belong to the Hudson River group. At this locality, though 
the shales were not seen in situ above ‘water, it was evident that they 
had been thrown out in excavating the foundation of the dam; anda 
slide of gravel and clay on one side of the stream may have covered 
up what was formerly an outcrop of the same, since fragments are 
abundant at the margin of the stream. On another branch of the 
stream, upon the land of Mr. Pitts, there is an exposure of soft shales 
with calcareous bands containing abundance of Orthocer atites; while 
the shaly strata, in some parts, are filled with Tellinomya (Nucula) 
levata. The details of this section are given below: 

“17. Top of bank of stream: calcareous bed, compact comminuted 
shells; a few Orthoceratites. 


16. Shale with praptolite-like markings. 2s). ee. dave wie a Meaeps 1 foot. 
15. Calcareous bed, with comminuted fossils.................... 1 foot 
PRIUS LLG pein a SAR aha is ncn ayy Ghee vawa stale ral ee celala 10 to 12 inches. 
13. More compact calcareous bed, with comminuted and minute fossils ; 

Ermer UGMOCEIALILOS ite 5's Solel edie dia a cee choos lore lavelei tare .18 inches. 


12. Shaly calcareous bed, with comminuted and minute shells.16 inches. 


PRAM OR ALI LEDC 2m Yoe Sat cco t.g sf dp alee Sha Oue wide eps o 8 or 10 inches. 
SU MMMPEREE Toes iar ZORA ECHL 3 Gut dies rein cle ee eR, MB Wee 4’cic.ie oles Ee 6 inches. 
9. Orthoceratite layer CAE GA HAR) An MES Ranh Ye” REORSR Te AE AO on 7 inches. 
Or WEAN CALCALCOUS MALEOT 02.0 ve ees iidaca o f'nels Joes eee OC INCHES 
ioe Teme PANRE Tue WO in hI de Saye totic Wie Waid seid Oe 4 av Do.ele So we 1 foot. 
COSTS Cs 0 HSB ta SS ah alee AE a sane ae eae RE ae 7 inches. 
5. Caleareous bed, with Orthoceratites and minute shells. ...8 inches. 
4. Shale with minute fragments of shells and graptolite-like mark- 
TOBE d AG g UO Ue BV Es AR ie eR Ree Bane AL Et ee 10 inches. 

SI HD AMAT Weer UT OVIL OV, NAAT Lid SMEG if \doy)'s a vie’ Hoe wse' otaeid saw'a.n 4 6°X dela 'a Giclee 1 foot. 
2. Calcareous bed with minute shells like Orthoceratites.......1 foot. 
1. Shale with Lingula, 12 feet from bed of stream. ai eh A eT 12 feet. 
This section is about twenty-five feet in thic eTieAB. The Orthocera- 
tites are noted as being extremely abundant. ‘‘The black shale at the 


base of the section,’? Professor Hall says, ‘‘is not unlike the Utica 
slate, and the presence of Lingula of alarge and small species enhances 


*Page 11. 


338 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


the resemblance.’’ A similar shale was thrown out of a shaft some 
two miles west of Dubuque, which contained broken fossils, and in the 
same vicinity Nucula or Tellinomya were found. ‘‘The entire thickness 
is probably less than seventy-five feet, and apparently but little more 
than sixty feet.”’ 

‘Tn consequence of the easterly direction of the river, (Mississippi), 
the shales of the Hudson River group continue above the water level, 
and appear at their full development as low down as Sabula; where 
the cliff at Savannah, on the opposite side of the river, gives a section 
of some eighty or ninety feet. At this place the calcareous bands have 
increased in thickness and frequency; and the whole mass has much 
the same appearance as at Cincinnati, Ohio, and Madison, Indiana. 
Among the fossils occurring here are Orthis occidentalis, O. testudinaria, 
Strophomena alternata, S. filitexta, and others which do not occur in the 
exposures of these shales farther to the north.’’ ‘‘The shales of this 
group finally disappear beneath the river before reaching Lyons, at 
which point the Niagara limestone comes to the level of the river. We 
. shall probably be able hereafter to find some sections of this group far- 
ther to the Northwest, which may prove its character and thickness. 
All the facts at present known regarding it, show that it becomes grad- 
ually thinner in that direction; and we infer from the exposures ob- 
served, that it does not exceed seventy-five feet in thickness (and is 
probably less than that) on the branches of the Little Makoqueta Creek.? 
On the Ohio river at Cincinnati it is more than five hundred feet in 
thickness, while the geological report of Missouri gives to this group one 
hundred and twenty feet. The great development which it attains in 
eastern localities, compared with these observations, shows that there 
is a constant diminution to the westward; and we may expect to find 
its greatest tenuity or absolute dissappearance from thinning out, 
somewhere about the head waters of the western branches of Turkey 
River.’’ 


In 1861 professor Hall published® descriptions of some new 
species of fossils from the Potsdam, Trenton, Hudson River 
and Niagara groups. Among these species were the following 
from shales overlying the Galena limestone on Little Maquo- 
keta river, in Iowa. Graptolithus peosta, Pleurotomaria 
semile, Cyrtoceras whitneyi, Orthoceras gregarium (after- 
ward changed to O. sociale), and Calymene mammilata. 

In 1862 professor Hall described’ the series which he had 
previously referred to the Hudson River group, under the 
name of “Green and Blue shales and limestones.” Among 
these rocks he places the beds found on the Little Maquoketa 
river in Iowa, and after quoting the section as given in the 
Iowa report, gives the details of another section as found near 
Scales mound in Illinois just south of the Wisconsin line 
This section is as follows: 


*The name is thus spelled by Professor Hall. 

®Rept. of Supt. of the Geol. Survey (of Wisconsin), Madison, 1861, 
pp- 02. 

‘Geol. Survey of Wisconsin, vol. I. pp. 47-55. 

“See ante p. 338. 


Te Aalreiiee ee. ¥ wr By Woes vie 
1 PS al ohn 7 ave nv VK 


The Maquoketa Shales.—James. 339 
Greenish shale, with alternations of calcareous and silicious layers, 
a few inches in thickness................ ets Bit A hg 7 ft. 8 in. 
Green silico-caleareous and argillaceous shales.............. 1] ft. 6 in. 
A silico-calcareous or magnesian band...................... 3 in. 
etre HALE AS ADOVE 1.0 iain; alas cor e's x wie opp cinia wine ield al Y's ere eras 12 ft. 
Coneretionary layer, one to three inches.................... 3 in. 
Sam N YG ITCOTAR EES GT si os Cosy css a G's» Gavan, Oasand Aid aler'olg oteia bela 2 6 ft. 
A layer filled with a small Nucula or Tellinomya, and known 
as the Nucula bed, four to eight inches................ 8 in. 
A calcareous band cut by open joints or fissures, into which 
the materials of the layers above have penetrated. .... 4 in. 


Dark olive shales, finely laminated and destitute of fossils... 3 ft. 4 in. 
Nucula bed, similar to that above, four to six inches......... 6 in, 
Total, 42 ft. 6 in. 

Reference is made in this report to the organic remains and 
the following species are illustrated but no descriptions are 
given: Vucula ( Tellinomya) fecunda, Clidophorus neglectus, 
Pleurotomaria micula, P. depauperata, Cyrtolites conradi, 
Bellerophon (Bucania) liratus, B. patersoni, Theca parvius« 
culus, and Calymene mammillata’ 

In the same volume’ professor J. D. Whitney gives an 
account of the Hudson River shales of the state, in the course 
of which (pp. 179-180), he gives a section of the strata near 
Scales Mound station, which is in all essentials the same as 
that of professor Hall already quoted. He also notes the sec- 
tion on the Little Maquoketa river near Channingsville, Iowa." 

In 1866 professor J. D. Whitney'’® mentioned an exposure of 
the Cincinnati group “near Channingsville, Iowa, on the Little 
Maquoketa river, first pointed out by C. Childs, Esq., of Du- 
buque.” There is here a section, he says, of “about twenty- 
five feet of soft shales and layers, crowded with Orthoceratites, 
as well as Tellinomya (Nucula). Layers made up exclusive- 
ly of Orthoceratites, packed as closely as possible, are seen 
on the small streams a few miles west of Dubuque.” 

This reference of the shales to the Cincinnati horizon ante- 
dates that of Dr. White by four years.. Late Post Office guides 
contain no such office as Channingsville. The name has 
probably been changed, and may be now known as Lattners. 

In 1876 professor N. H. Winchell in his report’ on Fillmore 
county, Minnesota, says under the head of Maquoketa shales : 


°The first eight are figured on page 55, and the last on page 432. 

MTbid pp. 177-186. 

See for this the next reference. 

2Geol. Survey of Illinois, vol. I. p. 175. 

®Geol. and Nat. Hist. Survey Minn., 4th Ann. Rept. for 1875, p. 538, 
1876. 


340 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


‘This is the name given to the Cincinnati group of shales and lime- 
stones, as they appear in Iowa, by Dr. C. A. White, [mis-printed C. M], 
of the Iowa survey of 1870. Without questioning the correctness of his 
conclusions that where these shales appear in Iowa they embrace’a 
distinct portion, only, of that series known as the Cincinnati group, his 
designation is provisionally adopted in our nomenclature. While it is 
certain that this formation enters the state from Iowa, being seen two 
miles south of the state line, at Lime Springs, it is still true, that not a 
single observation has yet been made on it within the limits of Minne- 
sota.”’ 

In 1880 Mr. J. F. Whiteaves published" a notice of some 
fossils that had been found at Stony mountain Manitoba. 
This “mountain” is a hill some fifty feet in hight, on the west- 
ern bank of the Red river not far from Fort Garry. (p. 49). 
Mr. Whiteaves says: 

“The collection made by Mr. Ells at this locality shows, first, that a 
large portion of the mass of Stony Mountain consists of limestones with 
clayey partings, which are identical, both in their lithological and pal- 
seontological characters, with the well known rocks of the Hudson 
River or Cincinnati group of southern Ohio, and elsewhere; and sec- 
ondly, that these Hudson River rocks of Stony Mountain overlie, im- 
‘mediately and conformably, the buff-colored, fossiliferous and more 
or less magnesian limestones of the Red River valley, which have 
already been assumed to be the representatives of the upper part of 
the Trenton limestone.”’ (p. 50). 

The species recorded by Mr. Whiteaves are as follows: 


Cheetetes delicatulus Nicholson. Orthis testudinaria Dalman. 
Monticulipora sp. Orthis sub-quadrata Hall. 
Monticulipora whiteavesi, ? Rhynchonella capax Conrad. 
Nicholson. Murchisonia gracilis ? Hall. 
Favosites prolificus Billings. Cyrtolites ornatus ? Conrad. 
Streptelasma corniculum Hall. Ascoceras newberryi Billings. 
Ptilodictya (Stictopora) acuta Hall. Cheirurus icarus Billings. 
Sirophomena nitens Billings. Calymene blumenbachi Bet. 
Strophomena hecuba, Billings. [Identified by Billings but it is 


probably C. ecallicephala Green]." 

In 1883 Mr. W. H. Pratt published” an account of “An arte- 
sian well at Moline, Illinois,” a point which is about fifty miles 
south of Savannah, and a few miles north of Rock Island, III- 
inois. In this section the Devonian is given at 113 feet; the 
Niagara at 275 feet; and the Maquoketa at 220 feet, immedi- 


M4Geol. Survey of Canada, Rept. Progress for 1878-79. Montreal, 1880 ; 
Appendix I; pp. 49, 50, C. 

This paper is alluded to in this connection because Dr. George M. 
Dawson later on referred to the strata of Stony mountain as probably 
equivalent to a portion of the rocks of a deep well which he called Ma- 
quoketa shales. See reference below. 

16Davenport Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 3, pp. 181, 182. 


The Maquoketa Shales.—James. 341 


ately beneath which comes the Galena limestone. Thus at 
this point the shales have increased to nearly three times their 
thickness at Savannah, and have sunk 388 feet beneath the 
surface, showing a dip of over nine feet to the mile. 

In 1887 Dr. George M. Dawson published” some details of a 
boring at Rosenfeld Station on a branch of the Canadian 
Pacific railway, in the Red River valley, Manitoba. In this 
boring the Maquoketa series has an estimated thickness of 
three hundred and fifty two feet, and consists of grey and red 
shales, sandstones and limestones. Dr. Dawson correlates the 
beds represented in this boring with rocks of the same age in 
Minnesota and Wisconsin. He gives, also, on the authority 
of Mr. J. H. Panton details of a section at Stony mountain, 
Manitoba, of rocks for a depth of one hundred and sixty feet. 
These were pronounced from the fossils, examined by Mr. J. 
F. Whiteaves to be of Hudson River age. These rocks are 
supposed to represent the lower two hundred and sixty feet of 
the rocks of the Rosenfeld well. It would appear from this 
correlation, that after thinning out very materially toward 
Minnesota, the shales increase again in thickness to the north- 
ward. It may be doubted, however, whether they extend un- 
brokenly across Minnesota to its northern boundry. 

In 1888 professor S. Calvin noted’ the formations passed 
through in a deep boring made at Washington,Iowa. He here 
records that at a depth of 702 feet from the surface there was 
found a “fine bluish or greenish shale, identical in all respects 
with shales of the Hudson River group, as seen in the bluffs 
at and below Bellevue, Iowa. Clay shales, sometimes with an 
admixture of sand, and again with some calcareous matter, 
are continued down to a depth of 793 feet. This group of 
shales are plainly referable to the Hudson River shales of 
Hall or the Maquoketa shales of White.” 

This locality is some 75 miles south of the typical locality 
of the shales. The drift was 350 feet in thickness, which 
makes the top of the group 353 feet below the rock surface, 
and we thus have a dip of about 4% feet to the mile, and an es- 
timated thickness of the rocks of 91 feet. It would thus ap- 
pear that they thin out very materially toward the south as 
well as toward the north. 


“Trans. and Proc. Roy. Soc. Canada, vol. 4, sec. 4, pp. 86-89. 
ISAMERICAN GEOLOGIsT Vol. l. pp. 28-31. 


342 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


In October, 1889, Mr. C. H. Gordon published” an article on 
the geology of southeastern Iowa in which he gives the records 
of some deep wells bored at Keokuk, Ottumwa and Sigourney. 
At the former and the latter places the Maquoketa shales were 
recognized. Keokuk is in the extreme southeast corner of the 
state, and is about 60 miles south of Washington. Here the 
shales are recorded as being 63 feet thick and 800 feet below 
the surface. Sigourney is some 25 miles west of Washington 
and here the shales were 140 feet thick and 1030 feet below the 
surface. Not allowing for the drift, the shales at Washington 
are 702 feet below the surface and 91 feet thick; at Sigourney 
they are 1030 feet below the surface and 140 feet thick; while 
at Keokuk they are 800 feet below the surface and only 638 feet 
thick.” 

In 1889 Mr. E. O. Ulrich published” some notes upon old 
and descriptions of new species of corals, polyzoa, and ostra- 
cods from Stony mountain, already atiwied to. Mr. Ulrich 
calls the rocks “Hudson River or Cincinnati” and in a sum- 
mary enumerates twenty-nine species of fossils. Of these no 
less than twenty are also found in the Cincinnati group of Ohio, 
Indiana and Illinois. 

While the references here given comprise all that have been 
noticed as dealing with the Maquoketa shales, or rocks which 
have been referred to this formation, it should be remarked 
that Dr. John Locke in 1839 described* the strata and figured 
a section from the Little Maquoketa River, some seven or eight 
miles west of Dubuque, eastward to Sinsinewa mound in IIl- 
inois. Dr. Locke, however, referred the rocks to a horizon 
which he regarded as the equivalent of the “Cliff limestone” of 
Ohio, now known as the Niagara, and placed the lead bearing 
Galena limestone with the Lower Magnesian of Dr. Owen. He 
did not recognize the existence of the shales as separating his 
Magnesian from the Cliff limestone above. 


19 AMERICAN GEOLOGIST, Vol. 4, pp. 207-239. 

The great thickness of the drift at Washington, 350 feet, is certainly 
abnormal, and the well was probably located in a river valley. Con- 
siderable discrepancy in the depth of the shales beneath the surface 
and in their thickness, is shown in these well borings. 

1Gontri. to Micro-Paleon. of the Cambro-Silurian rocks of Canada. 
Part 2 2. Geol. and Nat. Hist. Survey of Canada, Montreal, 1889, pp. 27- 


tte 
22Qwen’s Survey of Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois in 1839. Reprint 
edition of 1844, pp. 152, 153. 


The M aquoketa Shales—James. 343 


_A recent visit to the typical locality of the shales in Iowa, 

for the purpose of 
shy. COllecting the or- 
97% ganic remains, un- 
: der the auspices of 
a 2 ft, the United States 
Geological Survey, 


i 
! 


| 


( 


| 
| 


aaa Za enables me to give 
15 oy FASS 3fé details of the rocks 


as they are at pres- 

ent, andgto furnish 

_,. some more definite 

3” information as to 

their locality than 

has previously been 
published. 

The Chicago, St. 

Paul and Kansas 


| 
| 
| 


7 
| 
Ull 
l 


| 
Se 


6 ft yin 


Toran 3/ fe 3a Post Office, a small 
37K place of half a doz- 


en houses, a store 
and a mill or two. Between Graf and Lattners is a cut on 
the railroad and a second one on the wagon road. At the 
former of these places is an exposure of about thirty feet, the 
details of which are as follows: 

Section of Maquoketa-Shales on railroad near Graf, Lowa. 


Section of Maquoketa shales on railroad near Graf, Iowa. 


mf City railroad, six- 

teen miles west of 
‘ft. Dubuque,lowa, pas- - 

Zz Bin ses a little station 
A === ae known as Graf. A 
ce mile beyond, and a 

hee few hundred yards 

AZ from the railroad 

Sn crossing, is Lattners 


18. Alternating shales and limestones.................... 800 8 ft. 
17. Limestones formed of finely comminuted shells,a few... . 

TELL CHORES AOR EAA Haars Mia's) olka SV Me Rio's nist cha aleleres RIM de 1 ft. 
16. Thin laminated shales, with Polyzoa.................,.-.1 ft. 9 in 
15, Limestone with Orthoceras, very abundant.............. 1 ft. 
AAS ILLLS (SUT AT CORIO PLE Tie Wivid. oc la doaleralclete, w sia) = fa) eliahic wrevehelactie Ube 8 in. 
Re SMO WI OL DOC BAe Lith le i shaale alph diiai nial ere nisl ath, 4 in. 
DO SH ale hinee olay AMR AU yy Sal aire ANA si leer eee eh tae 4 in. 
Die AMMO RT ONG CO ING.) Lp i Chi a wsy 30 ali Devi ke eosie 5 in. 


344 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


we Shale with Orthoceras, liketNo. 13.03 ke ee 6 in 
9. Limestone, with Orthoceras, Ki cfevble opal Es Buna ae Ret At 1 ft 

8. Shale with many sraptolites and small shells............ 8 in 
7. Comminuted shells, with Murchisonia................... Biota 
6. Shale with comminuted fossils like No. 8................ 9 in 
5. Comminuted shells with a few perfect gasteropods........2 ft. 

4, Shale with Graptolites and Lingule.............. ink. eae 3 ft. 

a oeaale With numerous Miyolithess ciel ol ee ae ain 
2. Shale with graptolites etc., like No. 4, but largely barren.6 ft. 4 in. 
1. Covered; probably like Wa pe eta ie er WM vse mag Siltt 


Total 31 ft. 3 in. 
The position of these shales and limestones is accurately 
given by Dr. White. They are the equivalent, and in fact the 
extension, of a part of the Cincinnati group as exposed in 
Ohio, definitely limited at the top and bottom. The junction 
of the series with the Galena limestone is shown on a small 
branch of the Maquoketa which empties into the main stream 
a mile or so below Graf. On the river itself at this point the 
typical, yellow Galena limestone is exposed, in places having 
a hight of from twenty-five to forty feet. The rock contains 
very few fossils and is in solid courses varying from four and 
six to twelve inches in thickness, the layers being separated by 
a few inches of shale. Following a road which leads up the 
small tributary, the Galena limestone is seen exposed toa 
limited extent. _ About half a mile above the mouth the shales 
begin to appear, and these a mile further up are to be seen in 
full force. The shales with graptolites, No. 2 of the section, 
as well as the layers with Orthoceras, are well shown. The 
junction of the two series, Galena and Maquoketa, can be ob- 
served in the bed of the little creek. The two are quite dis- 
tinct. The lower one, Galena, isa solid, yellowish limestone, 
showing a considerable amount of erosion on its upper sur- 
face. This is overlain by a tenacious yellow clay and this in 
turn by the blue shale as seen in the railroad cut. Thus an 
unconformity by erosion exists between the two formations. 
A short distance from the Post Office (Lattners), a small 
branch comes down from between the hills and empties into 
the river. Along this ravine there are a few exposures, at a 
higher horizon than the railroad cut. A yellow clay replaces 
the blue ; the Orthoceras layers are absent, but slabs containing 
Leptwna sericea are found, as are also specimens of Streptel- 
asma corniculum. Slabs of a dark, heavy limestone with 
polyzoa and brachiopods are occasionally found on the hill 
slopes. Quantities of chert containing a few fossils also oc- 


The Maquoketa Shales—James. 345 


cur. There is no vertical exposure but the slope is undoubt- 
edly overthe upper beds of Lower Silurian age. 

-On the opposite side of the railroad from the Post Office is 
a hill, probably two hundred feet high. On top of this has 
been opened a small quarry with a face of about fifteen feet, 
the limestone in courses of from four to six inches, and with 
considerable quantities of chert in places. Among the debris 
here I found a specimen of avosites gothlandica, indicating 
a Niagara horizon. 

The slope from the bottom of this hill to within about forty 
or fifty feet of the top is gradual. From this point to the top 
it becomes quite abrupt, and this abrupt portion probably rep- 
resents the Niagara limestone. The shalesand limestones of 
the Lower Silurian are easily broken down; but the heavier 
courses of the Niagara resist atmospheric action and are not 
so easily affected. The change from a gradual to an abrupt 
slope is noticeable on all the hills in the vicinity, so that the 
Niagara doubtless caps all the high ground. Both the Niagara 
and the Maquoketa disappear toward the east, and as Dubuque 
is approached the Galena limestone comes to the surface. 

In geologic nomenclature it is occasionally expedient to give 
to exposures of rocks in different parts of the country distin- 
guishing names. It has sometimes been done because the 
facts at hand have not permitted a correlation of the rocks of 
two or more widely separated sections of the country. Thus 
the names Hudson river, Lorraine, Nashville, and Cincinnati 
have been given to groups of rocks in different parts of the coun 
try, though all of them are referable to the same series. The 
term Lower Magnesian was applied to a series of rocks in the 
northwest, before it was known that these were of Calciferous 
age. Le Claire limestone was given to another series because 
it was thought to be distinct from the Niagara. Similarly Maquo- 
ketawas applied to a formation because it was supposed to 
represent a distinct epoch of the Cincinnati group. 

There are certain rules that must govern the coining of new 
names for formations in new localities. The series of rocks 
must represent a distinct period in geological time and one 
that has not been previously named and described. They 
must be shown to be distinct from previously named series by 
a difference in lithologic combined with paleontologic features. 
Or else by showing that the newly proposed group or formation 


346 The American Geologist. "June, 1890 


represents acommingling of forms which characterize two or 
more distinct periods in another part of the country. Such 
cases as the latter we have in the Anticosti group, where Up- 
per and Lower Silurian species are mingled together in a ser- 
ies of rocks of great thickness and peculiar lithologic charac- 
ters; and in the Cincinnati group where Lorraine, Utica and 
Trenton fossils are intermixed. 

But where a difference in lithologic characters alone exists 
without any marked change of fauna or of position in relation 
to other known groups; or where a horizontal distance sepa- 
rated two eras which were once supposed, but at a later period 
are shown not to be separated by any great break in continui- 
ty ; then if a new name be given and a new division formed, it 
can not readily stand the test of investigation, Thus we 
believe the Maquoketa cannot retain its autonomy even as a 
formation distinct from the Cincinnati group for the following 
reasons: 

1. In position with relation to under and overlying rocks 
they are the same. 

2. In lithologic characters there is no difference that can be 
noted ; both consist of calcareous shales and thin bedded lime- 
stones. 

3. In palaeontological features they are almost counter- 
parts, only a single species out of 41 being confined to the 
Iowa series; and 

4. They are in actual fact, the extension of the Cincinnati 
group as exposed in southern Ohio. 

Of these four reasons we shall take up the last first. We are 
the better able to examine into this subject because of the ex- 
tensive search which has been carried on in Indiana for Nat- 
ural Gas. The underground geology, as professor Orton has 
termed it, has become an important adjunct to above ground 
geology. By means of the records of well borings we can trace 
the extension of series of rocks long after they have buried 
themselves beneath the surface. The Ohio Geological Survey 
has taken a leading part in placing upon record and discuss- 
ing the facts the wells have revealed, and Indiana has done 
something in this way. But we are especially indebted to the 
industry of Mr. Frank Leverett, who, while engaged in tracing 
the moraines of Indiana for the United States Geological Sur- 
vey, collected such well records as he could in the course of 


f The Maquoketa Shales.—James. 347 


his work, and who has presented the results in a paper pub- 
lished during the past year. In this paper are given the re- 
cords of 136 wells in Indiana and of 80 or more in Ohio. With 
the first of these we are especially concerned, and by their aid 
we shall be able to trace the extension of the Cincinnati group 
across the state of Indiana. Then from the reports of the Illi- 
nois Geological Survey continue the work to the typical out- 
crop of what has been called the Maquoketa formation in 
Towa. 

The upper portion of the Cincinnati series is exposed ina 
few localities in south eastern Indiana. As long ago as 18387, 
Drs. Locke and Owen noted this extension; and it is well 
known to geologists that at Richmond and Madison, Indiana, 
the highest beds of the series are found. The dip being to the 
westward, and northward, they are soon carried under the sur- 
face and are overlain by rocks of Niagara and later ages. 

If we take Richmond fora starting point and draw a line 
due westward we pass less than five miles to thé northward of 
Indianapolis, and touch Illinois about thirty miles north of 
Terre Haute. Along this line or in its immediate vicinity, 
never more than ten miles to the north or south, we have 
records from ten wells. In the following table these ten well 
borings are given, with the facts necessary for our deductions: 


= ~ a A 

2k Ag | 8 

HR ln BSS) oO 

£314 of | 28 

2r\2 Ae 1d 

. asa Os Oe a 

Names of places with wells. Se ase leet ° 

Alo] O's an 
FA Ds . a. 
gale] 3s | es 
£s\e3| £2 | 38 
Aol 8) Oo | go 

A ls = & 
feet| feet | feet 

RICHI ONL GAs yess oak). cp tive avece ne sels 0} 964) 964 900 
CAMPMASE IOI ssescscce seer ercceese 18] 886] 843 684 
Kiniehtstowne ies ces Vee ee se] 88) (COL) 754 665 
a INOS 2s ciesisire oneecee ine» aif) OO] COs On 642 
MeCords ville eein warns te sulecasnsss ||) 05) 605) 49L 543 
BPO WOOG. os. Mee wre ee ues |p el] OL4| SOF 541 

MGI ANA POs sil eye npuew eile lakvsicice ie [i /20}, 0401; 399 532) |These are 
tc INOM2 oer a yteuntaien ee w. |) 5 20) / 600/379 532) |approximate. 

PTL. Gis: cole delle eek teviodal ae eiecr 90| 652) 17 | 450 
Damiyalle see oe acear nee ee) 96) 790), 998; 2): 408 


The data in this table, though meagre, show in a sufficient- 


23Studies in the Indiana Natural Gas Field. AMERICAN GEOLOGIST, 
vol. 4, pp 6-21, 1889. 


348 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


ly clear manner the increasing depth at which the Cincinnati 
rocks are found and the gradual diminution they undergo in 
thickness toward the west. From a thickness of 900 feet at 
Richmond, they are only 403 feet at Danville, 96 miles distant ; 
and from a hight above the sea level of 964 feet, the top of the 
series descends to 95 feet below sea level. The greatest fall in 
the altitude of the top ofthe series is between Indianapolis and 
Plainfield, where in a distance of 14 miles, there is a differ- 
ence in elevation of 362 feet; while between this and 
Danville, only four miles west, there is a fall of 112 feet. A 
well at Terre Haute, some fifty miles west of Danville, 
was carried to a depth of 2,000 feet and stopped in the 
Corniferous limestone. With the same dip as that between 
Plainfield and Danville,the top of the Cincinnati group would be 
1512 feet below the sea level; but if the thickness decreased at 
the same rate as between Danville and Plainfield, it must have 
disappeared long before Terre Haute was reached. 

Another intefesting feature between the two places, Danville 
and Plainfield, is shown by Leverett’s table. This is the won- 
derful difference in thickness of the Devonian at the two 
places. At Danville this formation is 570 feet thick, but it 
thins out to the eastward, so that at Plainfield, only four miles 
away, itis but 253 feet thick. So that while the Cincinnati 
group thins out toward the west, the Devonian lying aboye, 
diminishes toward the east. 


a an es 
qa }2 3 3 
say es | | 
Bate Ao) 18 
wm |@ Sern 

n as a 
gato | Ge |S 
Bis Bk = mn 

NAME OF STATION. Bales! we |e 

Eyos| = |e 
Sie og |v 
RB(Ee| Se \Ee 
Ssles| Ba lor 
ZEélee| 2O Eo 
A \4 < a 

feet} feet |feet 

RACH MONA Ao wee Nar eerste T ON iG64 1 O64, 900 

TE Kep at Wee ga ape th MASI AUS Ed el Tio) MA) 505 

Mle aM ria es Ne ya seany eae aos carci OBI HRGOO] 400 305 

ne UN CoP AMAT dh URE hay tainly Ln bh (oe tal tfeteAe) cay he) 305 

WOO esha can omnes shee ae ears aH ON |e 94| 408 510 

‘ IN Oe 2 Ss Savsra tis pak odkaetapaereteaeie ey um On GOON, 4o0 484 

Windfall Be a ct R Ee Rety AME ens ea NTA hoe 600 

Sarps ville ee ee Sek IO | oa 485 

MIT TOL Gs ses ess teh oe Mew, ODER OSH kG 500 

FROM MMOGs Sensei tierra al iche eee vat cuae dad IMO ssueM MSIE oe] 6 498 

HMMOr a He sen 121} 614| 94 806 

TO Let ho) WE MERE R LMU A InN Ore CMACUINNU RWS Fraley ail zis 360 

Us IO Pec MARE 130} 550) 5B. T. | 313 

Monticello.......... 144! 470) 35B.T. | 300| Estimated. 


The Maquoketa Shales —James. 349 


Returning now to Richmond, and taking a line toward the 
northwest in the direction of Savannah, Illinois, and the Lit- 
tle Maquoketa river, lowa, we have records of 14 stations in 
Indiana. These are arranged in the preceding table. 

In this table we find a different series of results. The alti- 
tudes of the rock level do not decrease uniformally, though 
there is such a decrease in general terms. The altitude of the 
top of the Cincinnati group shows an almost uniform decrease. 
The thickness of the rocks diminishes from 900 to 305 feet in 
a distance of about sixty miles, or ten feet to-the mile. Then 
it increases to 600 feet in eighteen miles, and subsequently di- 
minishes almost regularly for forty miles further, for at Flora 
it is only 306 feet in thickness. 

Weare unfortunately without definite information concern- 
ing the underground geology in the two Indiana counties near 
the western border. The surface of these is covered with drift, 
but in Jasper county,near Rensselaer, the Niagara is exposed 
for about eight feet, and a well was sunk toadepth of over 800 
feet into limestone. Part of this is Niagara, part Cincinnati 
and probably part Trenton. 

Mr. Leverett in discussing the features of his table remarks 
that the Cincinnati axis extends in a southeast and northwest 
direction, and he demonstrates it by figures relating to the 
Trenton. We believe the same is shown by the figures given 
in the above table. It is apparent, at all events, that at Koko- 
mo we are on the slope of the axis, for in the course of twen- 
ty miles the altitude of the top of the group above tide, dimin- 
ishes over 300 feet, or about 15 feet to the mile. 

Mr. Leverett refers also to the probable existence of an east 


-and west axis of upheaval as extending from Carroll county 


westward to Monon and Kentland. At these two places are 
found outcrops of Niagara limestone, that at the latter place 
apparently being an isolated fragment in the midst of a De- 
vonian area, and forming an island, as it were, half-way be- 
tween the Niagara and Sub-Carboniferous formations. 

From the reports of the Geological Survey of Illinois we 
glean a number of interesting facts relative to the rocks of the 
Cincinnati group in that state. The line we have been tracing 
enters and crosses the northeast corner of Iroquois county. In 
the western half of the county the Coal Measures come to the sur- 
face. Nearits centre aseam of coal eight feet thick, was reported 


300 - The American Geologist. June, 1890 


from a depth of 105 feet. To the southwest of this,at a depth of 
300 feet, a calcareous shale referred to the Cincinnati group 
has been found. 

The next county in order, Kankakee, is crossed in its south- 
west portion. The Cincinnati group outcrops at the county 
line for about ten feet, having risen from 300 feet below the 
surface in the county to the east. In a boring made in Otto 
township, a little to the north of our line of section, the Niag- 
ara was 388 feet thick, this being the depth at which the Cin- 
cinnati rocks were found, while the group itself was 213 feet in 
thickness. 

At Wilmington, in Will county, just north of Kankakee, 
“there is from fifteen to twenty feet of this (Cincinnati) group 
exposed in the bluffs of the Kankakee. The lower part is an 
irregularly bedded argillaceous limestone, which passes up- 
ward into green shales, with thin bands of limestone. Rhyncho- 
nella capaxz is very abundant here, in addition to most of the 
species observed at Oswego.” ™ 

Grundy is the county next west of Kankakee, and here 
again the Coal Measures predominate. A well at Morris 
found the Cincinnati group about seventy feet, (69 ft. 10 in.), 
below the Coal Measures, the intermediate formations being 


absent. The Cincinnati group itself was 100 feet thick. On . 


the Kankakee river only 50 feet of shales and sandstones in- 
tervened between the surface and the Cincinnati group, while 
in other places the overlying rock is only 20 feet in thickness. 
In the northeast corner of the county the Cincinnati rocks 
occupy the north half of the bed of Goose lake, while the Coal 
Measures occupy the south half. The fossils found in the 
outcrops in the county are of such common species as Chx- 
tetes Lycoperdon, Pleurotomaria | Cyclonema| biliv, Orthis testu- 
dinaria, Leptena sericea, Ambonychia radiata, Calymene calli- 
cephala, ete. At Minooka the boulder clay lies 100 feet thick 
upon the rocks of this age. 

Kendall county lies immediately north of Grundy. At Os- 
wego, in this county, the junction of the Cincinnati group 
“with the overlying Niagara limestone is well exposed, and 
also from eighteen to twenty feet in thickness of the upper 
part of this group, [Cincinnati]. The upper six feet of the 
latter, at this locality, is a regularly bedded gray limestone, 


*Geology of Illinois, vol, 1, pp. 138, 139, 1866. 


The Maquoketa Shales.— James. 301 


in layers from six to twelve inches thick. Below this the 
rock is an irregularly bedded limestone, with intercalations of 
green shale extending below the bed of Fox river. It affords 
the following species of fossils: Strophomena alternata, Orthis 
lynx, O. bella-rugosa. Chetetes petropolitanus, Heterocrinus 
crassus, Dendrocrinus latibrachiatus, Porocrinus crassus, two 
species of Nautilus (one of which appears to be N. hercules, of 
Billings) and Tentaculites oswegoensis.””” 

In addition to these Dendrocrinus oswegoensis, and Tentacu- 
lites sterlingensis have been described from this locality.» The 
two species of Tentaculites, since recognized as forms of one, 
occur also at Cincinnati. In the county under consideration 
the group is about 71 feet thick, with a slight dip to the north- 
east. 

LaSalle county is next west of Grundy. The formations are 
here principally Coal Measures. An anticlinal axis crosses 
the county east of north, and the Trenton rocks are exposed. It 
is probable that the Cincinnati rocks were once present, but they 
have been entirely eroded. Inthe next county to the west, 
Lee, the rocks are present to a small extent, only about 30 
feet. 

Our line next crosses the northeast corner of Whiteside 
county. Here the Cincinnati group is from 10 to 37 feet in 
thickness, this being the amount exposed at Sterling. It is 
here a hard, blue limestone, not shaly as it is generally else- 
where, and it overlies the Galenaimmediately. From Sterling 
Dolabra sterlingensis has been described. 

Lastly in Carroll county we reach the Mississippi river and 
find an exposure at Savannah. Here, we are told, ‘the lower 
part of the bed is more calcareous, and consists of thin bedded 
buff and brown limestone, some layers of which are remarkable 
for their cleavage into regular diamond shaped blocks. These 
layers are from two to four inches thick, and contain frag- 
ments of Trilobites. The upper portion of the bed at this lo- 
cality is an ash colored argillaceous shale, with thin plates of 
limestone thickly covered with fossil shells, among which are 
Orthis lynx, O. occidentalis, O. testudinaria, O. bella-rugosa, 
Chetetes petropolitanus and fragments of Trilobites.”*’ As al- 
ready noted the group here is about 80 feet in thickness. We 


Geology of Illinois, vol. 1, p. 138, 1866. 
*6Geology of Illinois, vol. 3, pp. 333, 345, 1868. 


352 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


have also seen that professor Hall compares the exposure to 
that of Cincinnati and Madison, and it is generally recognized 
as the direct extension of the shales of the Maquoketa River. 

In the year 1862 professor J. D. Whitney** mentioned the 
strata of Paige’s Mound in Jo Daviess county, in the north- 
west corner of Illinois, as ‘‘a soft, yellowish, magnesian lime- 
stone, with graptolitic markings, and a considerable number 
of fragments of Asaphus (Isotelus) gigas. These strata on the 
summit of Paige’s mound are identical with a portion of the 
series observed farther south at Savannah.” 

We present below in a tabular form the main facts as ascer- 
tained in those counties in Illinois, which relate to the Cincin- 
nati rocks: 


Ge 
4d 3 na 
: on a 
Counties. Aas a 
Syne 
oN oS 
or a 
=) a 
feet. feet 
EOC IIOUS Te chee iae eee eines 300 4 
iam akee josie eee ea 0-388 213 
DVT Se Shhice Ei oye renin ai ect ic 0 20 Out of line of section. 
CUT yee eee Neu ete eral O70) 100 
AREORT CUI rates evoistare cuaiel ei siaetelatoelete 0 71 Out of line of section. 
PS alee Mas Wee eee Absent.)/Trenton outcropping. 
MGSO Rss deena ols averted atv boss toia sted 0 30 
WiHifeSIde: feel iecenct: an 0 37 
(Oc TE NR ECE NOE 0 80 | 
VOMOAVIESS soupy v ak ee 0 120 


Thus we see that from the last station in Indiana with an 
estimated thickness of 300 feet, and a depth below the surface 
of 500 feet and over, the group rapidly diminishes in thickness 
to 213 feet and 100 feet, and then disappears, while at the same 
time it rises from over 500 feet below, up to the surface itself. 
Reappearing again, however, in the course of a few miles and 
increasing from 30 feet to 120 feet in Illinois, and to probably 
200 feet in places in Iowa. 

Thus we have traced the rocks of Cincinnati age almost 
without a break from Richmond, Indiana, to Savannah, IIli- 
nois, and have demonstrated that the Maquoketa series is an 
extension of the Cincinnati group. It will now be necessary 
to examine the fossil remains from the exposure in Iowa, 
and see to what extent they differ from those at Cincinnati 


*iGeology of Illinois, vol. 1, p. 138, 1866. 
*“Geology of Wisconsin, vol. 1, p. 182. 


The Maquoketa Shales.—James. 


and elsewhere and ascertain whether paleontologic evidence 
will bear out that of stratigraphy. The following list embraces 
species which have been identified from material collected by 
the writer at the typical locality of the Maquoketa shales of 
Dr. White. In the table the distribution of the species is 


| List of fossils identified from Maquoketa Creek, Iowa. 


al |S 4d 7 
faalSi6 
2/318 |ap 
Genera and Species. a/SlShalal. f 
ElS|2\slals 
SIRE lA lolz 
Spongida. 
Per AMUN EN EG ons tes ardafuiew areld's eal cieleciore 
Colenterata. 
Monticulipora lens........... AO bee aad XX) (X]_ |xX|2 a 
MACHR NU i ee IM x X)/X|X 
quadrata...... Sues xX) |xX|X)xX 
sp. undet a 
Streptelasma corniculum......................2.|%|, |X|X/X|X 
Hydrozoa. ¥ 
Diplograptus aoe a came APH asta ccrs X| (XX) |XX 
yap beo UL SE Aa eae Pe ae mp. x 
Crinoidea. 
Heterocrinus Pe rodioun es Mme ae. pea sre bY x X|xX ’ 
sp. undet.. nl apars OW (orelsr Menteiate a Rtetat = 
Porocrinus crassus.. X|xX 
Oustidea. i 
Lichenocrinus crateriformis . x x 
eluant: f 
Paleschara maculata .... 4.0.2.2 {sede esvoes es +04 | x Bath! 
sp. undet.. Nod ph, 
‘ Brachiopoda. abe: 
MAST EENRETICOM. oul aed dethnd care estes caoihw aeclne’ X|X|K] |X/X arg 
Lingula Seinen ia: SOI GSE ELT Ci UR ee x x 2 A 
FET AEE STAM SMMOLSO NUIT S60 CAAT RRL al UU  € ae 
TERTOIS RE ROB BRO ue dhs Nite Gue BAO es Gane ee x x Vind 
PDI) EXEY OC) ta teaare aya ey ore ctane ott atelstorsinel ot aieh i a ; XS fe 
whitfeldi... ... ph EAC E HM bial >. x ht 
Lingulella cincinnatiensis.,.. AVEO Maret atest CHEN x Fea 
Orthis biforata.. Weroraltia bind aa oo PS it <a D. @ Be ey 
emacerata.. abd x|xX ¥ 
Sn CEES ER GG Ie RES ADO xX|X 
testudinaria......... SAO RE la Mechtey ceil <i [2:4 larel P- | p,4] lO. 
Schizocrania filosa... Me eeibiais mmesiten eels XxX) |X} (xix 
Strophomena alternata.. dott Hoe cee: 4 P-Sp-G hap. ge. ‘ 
rhomboidalis, var. tenuistriata..|X BRC Ab RCTS ‘ 
EVEN AUDI SD YELITECLC Gi ialad4e daya/aioites c(eie exalt layh ce) sis ta'einie’s » fH 4 
Zygospiramodesta.. cara ncrshhtoats e Spe tee KX! |X) px i 
Lamellibranchiata. : 
Cleidophorus neglectus ip PASS Dae Iap BOGE ESB CODA Te |X} |X a 
Nucula fecunda.. Saheim ACT a 2 clatotataletints ol \t STIs [RGR 
i Pterinea demissa. BUREN RASER Pitta etal clatias etre fcnlrs)<lotatas xX} |X| |xX|/X ; 
PEMITMOMLY ODI UMAR ieee en eh sek Jackets x x 
: lala ean 
“ld Coleolus? sp. undet. +. |X 
Conularia trentonensis. . |X) |X} XX] f 
Hyolithes parviusculus .. ae HONG oR Le . 
Gaster opoda. : 
Murchisonia gracilis. . |X} |X] 2 Xx 
Pleurotomaria depauperata.. ED. 4 x 
Raphistoma micula. . Ap. Bolen tg pes 
Cephalopoda. 
Orthoceras sociale....... ipa b aie Marie din's «6: 2'r.| chia ? 
‘Annelida. 
Tentaculites sterlingensis ...-...............-.-.|X/X| |X} X 
Crustacea. 
Acidaspis crosotus. xX} x 
Calymene ecallicephala . IX) X)/ Xl 2) XxX 
mammilata....... xX} |X 
Beyrichia sn. undet......... 
x X!X 


Plumulites jamesi.... 


354 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


given as faras known. The list of localities embraces Iowa, 
Wisconsin, Illinois, Manitoba, Cincinnati and New York. It 
is made thus extensive to show the wide extension of 
the Cincinnati group, and the absolute connection of the 
Maquoketa series with the Cincinnati exposure. Out of 
the 41 species enumerated only 9 species are not found at 
Cincinnati, with doubt in respect to two of these. This 
number is likely to be reduced. Out of the 41 only a sin- 
gle species is peculiar to Iowa, though some of them are 
found only in the adjoining states of Wisconsin and Illinois. 
At the same time no less than 23 species are found in New 
York state, with a possible increase in number. 

A few observations on some of the species of this list will 
now be made: 

Streptelasma corniculum was not collected by me, but I was 
assured that it was found frequently in the bed of the creek. 

Diplograptus peosta. A form identical with this has been 
described from the Trenton of New York. Dr. R. R. Gurley, 
of the National Museum, who is working on a monograph of 
the Graptolites, thinks it may be the earlier described D. 
amplecicaule Hall. <A similar, if not identical species, has been 
found at Cincinnati. 

FHeterocrinus heterodactylus was identified from a segment of 
the column. 

Porocrinus crassus identified from a single plate of the body. 
The markings are so characteristic there can be no mistaking 
it. Fragments of other species of crinoids were found but 
have not been identified. 

Paleschara maculata was originally described from the Niag- 
ara of Indiana. It is impossible to separate the Iowa form 
from the Niagara. A species of the genus is found in the 
Lorraine of New York, and another, or a closely related genus 
in the Cincinnati exposure. 

Lingula coburgensis has priority over L. covingtonensis Hall 
«& Whitf. The first was described by Billings from the Tren- 
ton of Canada; H. & W’s. species is from the Cincinnati ex- 
posure. 

Lingula daphne is Billings’s name for the form figured by 
Hall as L. attenuata, Sowb’y. 

Coleolus ? sp. This is a very abundant form, and is the 
only one peculiar to this locality. It varies from straight to 


| 


The Maquoketa Shales.—James. 


curved, though the specimens show little variation in size. It 


is about 10" in length, and 1™" in diameter at the base, taper- 
ing toa sharp point. A slender groove extends along one 
side. Occasional specimens show what appear to be a series 
of joints. In sectionitis circular. It is so abundant as to 


ee 
make up certain layers of rock, and at times specimens are ave 


collected in groups as if swept together by currents and en- 
tangled in a mass. Should this prove to be a new species, I 
propose the name of Towaensis for it. 

Hyolithes parviusculus Hall is interesting as belonging 
to a group which was largely developed in Cambrian time. It 
is associated in the same beds with the preceding, though not 
nearly so abundant. tis probably this form which was cata- 
logued* as occurring at Cincinnati under the name of Hyolithes 
americana Billings. This is, however, a Cambrian form ac- 
cording to Walcott.” Mr. Walcott has described®?? H. vanua- 
emt, from the Pogonip (Lower Silurian) of Nevada, which is 
possibly identical with Hall’s species as above. In cross sec- 
tion, what appears to be a siphuncle, sub-central, is occasion- 
ally to be observed. ; 

Raphistoma micula, Hall, originally described as Plewro- 
tomaria micula, is in all probability the same as R. subtilstria- 
tum from the Trenton of New York. A figure, but no descrip- 
tion of it, is given by Hall in the Geology of Wisconsin, p. 55, 
1862. A comparison of the lowa specimens with forms from 
Cincinnati show that #. micula occurs at Cincinnati, though 
it has been recognized under another name. In fact R. micula 
is a synonym for R. subtilstriatwm. 

Orthoceras sociale, Hall, originally described as O. gregariwm, 
was changed by professor Hall in Miller’s catalogue Paleozoic 
Fossils, p. 245, 1879. This was the only species of cephalopod 
found. The specimens vary from one-fourth of an inch to three 
inches in diameter. Only a few of the latter were obtained. 
Some of the smaller and better preserved specimens show trans- 
verse lines such as are seen in specimens of Endoceras prote?- 
forme,and as shown by figures given by professor Hall. In other 
specimens where the outer surface of the shell is worn off, the 


*®Ulrich, Cat. Foss. Cin. Group, 1880; also James, (J. F.) Cat. Foss. 
Cin. Group, 1886. 


*Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 30, p. 132, 1886. 
%Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, vol. 8, p. 85, 1884. 


Ad Dh ity tf ey 
Wet IP af 
e . 


356 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


septa are shown. These vary from 4 to 10 in the space of an 
inch. The siphuncle is central. Many specimens retain the 
nacreous exterior. A few show the body chamber, and one or 
two of these are very similar to Endoceras proteiforme var. 
strangulatum as figured by professor Hall. It is a question 
whether this species is not really the same as certain forms 
described as Endoceras from New York. 

Tentaculites sterlingensis. Professor Hall has lately shown* 
that forms described as Tentaculites, Ortonia, Conchicolites, 
Spirorbis, etc., are really only certain phases of development 
of Cornulites incurvus Shumard. Whether this be so or 
not, there can be scarcely any doubt but that Tentaculztes 
oswegoensis, T’. sterlingensis, T. minutus, and T. richmondensis 
are all the same species. The differences are too slight to base 
Species upon. 

Plumulites jamesi. A few plates of this species showing the 
characteristic double curve were found. It is interesting as ex- 
tending the range of the species from New York to the Missis- 
sippi. A single plate of a form of this genus is noted as hay- 
ing been found in the Pogonip of Nevada.” 

In respect to the lithologic features of the Cincinnati group 
and Maquoketa shales we have seen that they are identical. 
Professor Hall refers to the close resemblance the rocks at 
Savannah bear to those of Madison and Cincinnati, at all 
three of these localities consisting of intercalated shales and 
limestones. The same fact has been recognized by other 
writers. 

Lastly the position of the shales in relation to over and 
underlying formations is identical with the Cincinnati group, 
the Trenton lying below and the Niagara above in both in- 
stances. 

With all these facts in view, namely, that the Maquoketa 
shales are the almost direct continuation of the Cincinnati 
series; that the paleontologic features of the two are almost 
identical; that the lithologic features of the two are the same, 
and that the position of the two in the geological scale is the 
same, it does not seem wise to retain the name Maquoketa 
as a distinct formation. It would seem better to con- 
sider the rocks as part of the Cincinnati series, dropping the 
term Maquoketa altogether. 


Paleeon. of New York, vol. 5, part 2, pp. 163-166, 1879. 
*“Mon. U. 8. Geol. Survey, vol. 8, p. 88, 1884. 


* pore hammunopy 22ASPD Lb PY? YPi === a 
-vyaingh fuopmnoyy preg wag 2757 7H 2 an, = 
spomrosd PULL U PALYA ‘DIG UDIPOUM) -oporayy 4] Noe eS — 
2o1nr0id SPSTYFOSSV]Y -“PUPTPUNGMINT 42 [n.trnapy Yado, SSS === 
fauayog-ovnmasy Y ‘eu sA7THM-ONMIS F x2 LL 
saoinsosd onto vatyz “Day UTiSsIY- OTPOIG UT 


I 
sit 
Minti 


| 2u0or DYPIUnpS 40 ORUOeHT * 


$710X DIUHOTO UDIUDUTIPUDIE TT =e 2 5 
© 2U0k- pu. oumnuayor Aj ae . oe ys ae oes 
oe = SA Ae 


N oC eer 
6881 ‘QOOUVA SaIor Ad ‘qorasa JINOOVL a‘1aanN GNV UAMO'T CELL sé ive -HOLAMS "TIWOISAHd 
‘A “TOA YstBojosey UBollewWy 3eUL 


Y 


THE LOWER AND MIDDLE TACONIC OF EUROPE AND 
NORTH AMERICA. 
By JuLES MARcou, Cambridge. 
I. 

Inrropuction.—The conclusions of my paper: “The Taconic 
system and its position in stratigraphic geology,” (Proceed. 
Amer. Acad. Arts and Sciences, new series, vol. xt, p. 255, 
Cambridge, 1885), are that the Taconic system comprehends 
all the strata in which the primordial faunas are found. These 
faunas are three in number. The Infra-Primordial or Lower 
Taconic, the Primordial or Middle Taconic, and the Supra- 
Primordial or Upper Taconic. In the same paper, at p. 224, 
there is a “Tabular view of the Taconic system in eastern 
North America,” in which I have tried to classify in a single 


column the Taconic series of the lake Champlain region (Ver- 


mont, Canada and New York) and of the extreme borders of 
the Atlantic (Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Braintree). 
It is condensed below as follows: 


aj Potsdam group. 
Ay a ae slates. 
; (enitipeboreh or Pointe Lévis group. 
(Georgia slates or Olenellus (Elliptocephalus) zone. 
Primordial. + St. John or Acadian group. Paradoxides 
l Argillites of Braintree and St. Mary’s pay.t 
Infra- te sandstone of Great Bell Island. land.] 
Primordial. (Aspidella and Arenicolites slates of St.John’s.[Newfound 


Four years later I called the attention of observers to the 
existence of “an uninterrupted sea” extending from Scandi- 
navia to eastern Newfoundland, and that “during the Taconic 
time, an arctic continent existed from the Scandinavian Alps 
to Scotland, Greenland and Labrador, and was united with an 
equatorial continent by a narrow region, somewhat similar to 
the isthmus of Darien or Panama, which connects the conti- 
nent of North America with the continent of South America. 
That Taconic isthmus formed the barrier between the Atlantic 
and Pacific oceans of that remote period of our globe.” (‘*Can- 
adian geological classification for the province of Quebec,” 
extra from Proceed. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. xxiv. pp. 75 
and 76, Salem, 1889). 

I propose now to show more plainly the existence of those 
two oceans, limiting each one to a special region, sufficiently 
explored so as to allow a great separation between the Taconic 
series; and at the same time to give a more complete tabular 
view of the strata which were deposited in the Acadio-Russian 


358 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


and in the Nevado-Canadian seas. Those two names indicate, 
with more exactness, the extent of sea waters during the 
Taconic epoch, and are preferable to the use of the Atlantic 
and Pacific oceans of that very remote period, because we are 
unable, in our present state of knowledge, to give any idea of 
their extent in any direction outside of the areas of Acadio- 
Russia and Nevado-Canada. I shall confine my remarks to 
the Lower and Middle Taconic, leaving the Upper Taconic for 
a special study. 

Acapio-Russt1an LowER AND MippLE T'aconic.—In the Aca- 


dio-Russian sea we have the following formations distributed _ 


at special and rather isolated points, as mere patches and 
remains of vast formations concealed since by the strata of all 
the systems which have been deposited since the Taconic 
period. 

Tabular view of the Lower and Middle Taconic of the Acadio- 


Russian sea. 


IV. Bohemian formation or Paradowides zone. 

Ill. Scandinavian formation or Holmia zone. 

II. Esthonian formation or Schmidtia zone. 

I. Newfoundlandian formation.—No trilobite found yet. 


I. NEWFOUNDLANDIAN FORMATION.—It would have been 
better to use the name Terranovian, but Mr. T. Sterry Hunt 
has called in his chemical classification of the crystalline 
rocks, a certain class of them Zerranovian, it is true without 
any very definite value as regards superposition, relative age 
or even lithological characters, but which may create confu- 
sion. More recently Mr. C. D. Walcott has used the name 
Terra Nova division for the strata of a part of the peninsula 
of Avalon in Newfoundland, which he has erroneously syn- 
chronized with the Georgia slates of Vermont. (‘Position of 
the QOlenellus fauna, etc,” Amer. Jr. Sci., vol. Xxxvu, p. 583, 
1889). In order to prevent all confusions and claims of prior- 
ity, and desirous also to maintain in classification the name 
of a country so eminently well fitted to be remembered, and 
which will become more and more the typical area of the 
Taconic system, I propose to use the name Vewfoundlandian, 
in French Zerreneuvien, for the first great group containing 
fossils at the base of the Taconic. 

Below the strata containing Paradoxides there exist in 
many places, sandstones, slates, quartzites and even limestone 
bands, sometimes rather thin, but often of great thickness, in 


anit des, but an old form allied to it. 
During the last forty years announcement of the discoveries _ 
of fossil remains—generally of doubtful nature—has been 
made, in those inferior strata near their junction with the*® 
Primitive rocks. The specimens called Kozoon canadense, — 


ny ae in it the oldest trilobite yet ita nota Paradowi-— 


thanks to the sensational character and desire of notoriety 
manifested by those interested in them, have rapidly become 
‘celebrated. In 1861, during a visit to the Museum of the 
Geological Survey of Canada at Montreal, the director, Logan, 
showed me a polished specimen of rock, asking my opinion, 
After looking at it carefully I said: “I do not see any organ- 
ism init; send it to Delesse or any other distinguished lith- 
ologist if you want an exact definition.” Two years after I 
was rather surprised to see that Messrs. Dawson, Carpenter 
and Jones had made it out an organism, under the generic 
name of Hozoon. Directly Hozoon was signalized as existing 
in almost all the crystalline Primitive rocks of Europe and 
America. If truly organic, then we have found a fossil, not 
only in the oldest stratified beds of the Transition strata called 
until then Azoic, but even among the Primitive formations. 
But King and Rowney in a well digested and very careful 
study, have demonstrated the non-organic eharacter of the 
specimens, and Perry and Burbank in Massachusetts, and 
professor Mobius in Germany gaye a final check to that much 
doubted discovery. 

Dr. Emmons has described in his “Geological Report of the 
Midland counties of North Carolina,’ pp. 61-64, 1856, two 
specimens regarded by him as corals of a lenticular form, 
under the names: Palwotrochis major and minor. He found 
them in Montgomery county, North Carolina. The organic 
nature of those specimens has been contested; and although 
it is certainly less objectionable than for the Hozoon, it is best 
to wait for more careful studies before giving a final opinion. 

Obscure forms of supposed /ucotides and burrows of marine 
worms called Arenicolites and Scolerites, have been signalized 
and described in those inferior beds of the Transition period 
in Bohemia, Scandinavia, Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, New- 


= a 
Ate ee 


Fa) CRU Alea uh Pras On 
hand pial Bye 


gX 
360 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


foundland, ete. But until now the only specimen of an 
organic structure certain and indisputable is the Aspidella 
terranovica Billings, compared to a small Chiton or Patella, 
flattened by pressure. It was found in 1866 by A. Murray 
near St. John’s, the capital city of Newfoundland, in the slates 
called in 1843 by Jukes: “St. John’s slate,” and placed by him 
at the base of his “slate formation.” Murray and Howley call 
‘them: “Aspidella slates” of the Huronian rocks (‘Report 
Geol. Surv. Newfoundland for the year 1881, appendix, pp. 
9-3, St. John’s 1882; and “On some fossils from the Primor- 
dial rocks of Newfoundland” by E. Billings, in Canadean 
Naturalist, vol. vi, p. 478, July, 1872). 

If we consider the column of Primordial strata, published 
by the geological survey of Newfoundland in 1870, all the 
strata below divisions m and Jin which Paradowides or more 
exactly Holmia, make their apparition, we have in divisions 
k, j- i,h, g and f a group of strata with Archwocyathus, 
fucoids and annelid (Avrenicolites) tracks, which very likely 
is the equivalent and homotaxis of the following formation, 
ealled u. Esthonian formation of the gulf of Finland, in which 
we may expect to find in Newfoundland one day or another 
the small fauna of the vicinity of Reval (Russia). Below, in 
divisions e, d,c, band a of the column of the Newfoundland 
Primordial strata, 1,500 feet thick, composed mainly of sand- 
stone, quartzites and slates, we have a great group in Trinity 
bay, which seems to be represented round St. John’s by the 
conglomerates, Signal Hill sandstone, and Aspidella slates, 
and the whole constitute the most inferior part of the Lower 
Taconic of Newfoundland, which I think it is proper to call 
Newfoundlandian ( Zerrenewvien in French) formation. Until 
now that formation has not yet furnished any certain fossil 
organism except Aspidella. No trilobite has been discovered 

yet, although they will probably be ferreted out some day. 

The Newfoundlandian formation constitutes the base of the 
Taconic system, and with the following great division, the 
Esthonian, they form together the Infra-Primordial fauna 
existing on our globe. 

II. EstrHonraAn FoRMATION.—A Russian geologist, the engi- 
neer A. Mickwitz, discovered in 1886 some primordial fossils 
at two different spots near Reval in Esthonia, (close by the 
shores of the gulf of Finland); and a year later, in 1887, he 


Lower and Middle Taconie—Mareou. 


PRY ? 
3) PP pha 


i i 


of professor F. Schmidt, a fellow of the Imperial Academy of 


academy, the 16th February, 1888, under the title: “Ueber 
eine nevientdeckte untercambrische fauna in Estland.” Mém. 
Acad. Imp. Sciences, St. Petersbourg, vu série, tome xxxvi, No. 
2). Later on, in November 1888, professor F. Schmidt read 
another paper: “Weitere Beitriige zur Kenntniss des Olenellus 
mickwitzr” (Bulletin Acad. Imp. Sciences, St. Petersbourg, 
tome xxx, p. 191). 


The résumé of the discoveries of both Mickwitz and Schmidt 


is: that below the “Fucoid sandstone” of Sweden, recognized 
without any possible doubt near Reval, there exists at Striet- 
_ berg a series of blue clay with subordinate layers of sandstone 
six hundred feet thick, resting on the Finland granite. In the 
upper beds of the blue clay the following fossils have been 
found: Olenellus mickwitzi, Scenella discinoides, Scen.? 
tuberculata, Mickwitzia monilifera, Obolella? Discina? 
Volborthella tenuis, Platysolenites antiquissimus, Medusites 
lindstroemi, Primitia? and Fraena tenella. Ali the forms of 
these fossils are very old; and a study of the two plates which 
accompany the important memoir of professor Schmidt im- 
presses the idea that we have there the oldest fauna yet 
found. Itis not that no other fossil exists, and that we do 
not possess already a few traces of fossil remains found below 
the Esthonian as we have seen previously in the Newfound- 


landian ; but it is a fact that until now no collection of a cer- 


tain number of fossils, sufficiently numerous to be called a 
fauna, has been found, as old as the Esthonian fauna of Russia. 
Several of the forms of these fossils, more especially the only 
trilobite found, which is the oldest trilobite so far known in 
the world, indicate that something older must exist, and that 
one day more fossil animals will be found at a lower stage 
than the Esthonian formation, in the Newfoundlandian strata. 

In regard to the trilobites, justly regarded as the most im- 
portant and useful family of fossils for the Paleozoic series, 
as the Cephalopoda are for the Mesozoic series, the two most 
primitive forms, with the simplest organization, are Agnostus 
and Microdiscus which have not yet been found in the Infra- 
Primordial fauna or Lower Taconic. 


: found good fragments of a trilobite of the Paradoxidean type. 
He placed fossils and sections with all his notes in the hands _ 


St. Petersburg, who read a most interesting paper before that — 


862 - The American Geologist. Sune, 1890 


Professor Schmidt in his excellent and very carefully made 
description of the Esthonian trilobite has called attention to 


its close affiliation with Paradoxides, Olenellus ( Hllipto- 


cephalus), Olenoides and Mesonacis, all genera of true Prim- 
ordial types, revolving round the great Paradoxidean type, so 
well characterized by Barrande. Eillipiocephalus ( Olenellus), 
Olenoides and Mesonacis are all sub-genera created at the 
expense and as off-shoots of the great genus Paradoxides ; 
for it is worthy of remark, that at first, when found in frag- 
ments—as is invariably the case—all the trilobites, which are 
referred now to Olenellus (Elliptocephalus), Olenoides and 
Mesonacis were regarded as fragments of Paradowides. 

The name Qlenellus, so extensively used lately, is as im- 
proper, as it is incorrectly applhed. Barrande and Matthew 
have shown that the trilobites referred to Olenus and 
afterward to Olenellus by James Hall, have more 
affinities with and are closely allied to Paradoxides, 
instead of being truly of Olenus forms. When right of prior- 


ity, regarded as an immutable law in every department of 


natural history, shall be applied also to Dr. Emmons’ primor- 
dial fossils, described as far back as 1844, then the name 
Olenellus, created only in 1862, will be suppressed and 
replaced by Eiliptocephalus; for Emmons not only saw that 
the first trilobite he found in his Taconic system was a new 
form, but he had the acumen to see its relation to Paradox- 
ides. (“Manual of Geology,” p. 88, 1859, and second edition, 
p- 280, 1860), before Barrande pointed it out in his celebrated 
memoir of 1861 (“Documents ancients et nouveaux sur la faune 
primordiale et le systéme Taconique en Amérique,” pp. 273- 
277). On the contrary Mr. James Hall referred the trilobites 
of Bald mountain and Georgia in 1847 and 1859 first to Olenus, 
from which they differ greatly, and afterward in 1861 to Bar- 
randia, a succession of errors rare in paleontology, not to 
speak of the stratigraphic error of placing the primordial 
fauna above the second fauna, which is even more glaring. 
That the priority of Emmons’ name will be recognized, is only 
aquestion of time. Without knowing the existence of the 
genus Hillipsocephalus, he, with his great paleontological 
acumen, recognized in the Bald mountain trilobite a general 
form, which has been shown since to be characteristic of the 
Primordial fauna, and he called it Eiliptocephalus; as he 


2 but Tam Bidieposed to retain it for the present.” ( \Cameneaee 


- name by another which shall be acceptable to the memory’ 
and respect due to the discoverer, it is best to use Emmons 
name of Eiliptocephalus as he expressed it. 

In the case of the trilobite of Kunda and Strietberg near 


Reval, it is not an Elliptocephalus ( Olenellus) of the Georgia — yi 


typical form Elliptocephalus( Olenellus)thompsoni,on account 


‘ofits pygidium totally different, its head remarkably large if 


and elongated; and finally the thorax also presents great 
differences in the lobes, and in the existence in the middle of 
the thorax of spines (like the genus Holmia), one of which 
on the eighth articulation, is a spade-like form or telson, tres- 
passing over the pygidium, and having a length as great as 
the elongated head. In reality this trilobite possesses generic 
differences and constitutes a new sub-genus, closely allied to 
Paradoxides, and in which may be included J/esonacis ver- 
montana and Olenoides typicalis, the latter being an extreme 
degenerate form ofthe type. I propose to call it Schmidtva, 
in honor of professor F. Schmidt. 

I shall call the group of strata found at the two places in 
the vicinity of Reval, Hsthonian formation or Schmidtia zone; 
a new group not yet found anywhere else, so far as fossil 
animals are concerned, and which is placed at the top or upper- 
most part of the Lower Taconic or Infra-Primordial. It cor- 
responds stratigraphically with the Hophyton sandstone of 
Sweden, the “Sparagmite stage’ of Norway, and the beds 
below division m of the Newfoundland column of lower 
palzeozoic strata, in Conception bay. 

As arésumé, of the Infra-Primordial, the first great group 
or Newfoundlandian formation contains, so far, only one cer- 
tain species of fossil, the Aspidella terranovica with indica- 
tions of remains called Arenicolites, fucoides and Archwocy- 
athus, more or less problematic; and the second great group 
or Esthonian formation contains eleven species, making for 
the whole of the Infra-Primordial fauna only twelve fossils. 

III. ScanpInavIAN FoRMATION.—Sweden and Norway.—We 
come now to the Middle Taconic, the Magnesian and Black 
slates (a and e) of Emmons, the Regio rz Olenorum=A ot 


a Geology,” p. 114, Albany, 1855). So, until an understanding 
is reached among paleontologists to replace Emmons’ original — 


fey) eh 
ie 


‘) 


ai Wah 


ye ene rcs dA Ot) Hes Ws) aH it 
na Dr MTA REN AR: ‘ 
nm 7 


364 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


Angelin, the division c, or the true Primordial fauna of 
Barrande. 

Dr. A. G. Nathorst, when exploring the celebrated locality 
of Andrarum, in Scania, in 1868 and 1869, found below, what 
was then considered the oldest Paradowxides beds, or Regio A 
of Angelin, another trilobitic zone or group of strata contain- 
ing a Paradomides-like form, an Ellipsocephalus, an Arion- 
ellus anda Lingula. Professor O. M. Torell, director of the 
geological survey of Sweden, named the Pavradoaides-like, 
Paradoxides walhenbergi and at the same time he named the 
beds: “the Paradoxides walhenbergi strata ;” but he did not 
give any description or figure of the Paradowxides. 

In 1870 Linnarsson discovered in Norway, near lake Mcesen, 
the same lower horizon of the Primordial zone, naming and 
figuring the Paradoxides-like form, Paradowides kjerult ; 
(“Om nogra foeisteninger fraon Sveriges och Norges Primor- 
dialzon,” 1871). My lamented friend the late professor 
Kjerulf in his “Sparagenitf jeldet,”’ published in 1872, gives 
also good drawings of that trilobite under the name Paradoa- 
ides kjerul#. In 1876 Linnarsson recognized that the Pur- 
adoxides kjerulfi was identical with Paradoxides walhenbergt 
of Torell. The celebrated geologist and paleontologist, pro- 
fessor W. C. Breegger, when working under the direction of his 
teacher, professor Kjerulf, on the geological survey of Norway, 
recognized during the summer of 1877, an excellent station of 
that older horizon of the Paradoxides zone at the station of 
Krekling, northeast of Christiania, and he published in 1878, 
in Nyt Magazin tor Naturvidenskalume, tome xxiv, 1, Chris- 
tiania, a most important and interesting paper entitled: “Om 
Paradoxides skifrene ved Krekling.” In it professor Bregger 
changed the reference by Torell and Linnarsson of Paradow- 
ides, into the genus QOlenellus Hall, and he called that tril- 
obite first discovered by professor Nathorst Olenellus kjeruli. 
Breegger does not give any figure, but refers to the drawings 
of Linnarsson, Kjerulf and Angelin. 

When promesoe Broegger made this reference there was not 
a single complete and well preserved Hiliptocephalus ( Olen- 
ellus) figured and described. He took forthe type of Olenellus 
the figure given by Mr. J. Hall, in February, 1861, in his sec- 
ond edition of his “Note upon the trilobites of the shales of 
the Quebec group in the town of Georgia, Vermont” ( Thir- 


Lime, 


Lower and Middle Taconic.—Marcou. 365 


teenth Ann. Rep. State Cabinet Nat. Hist. of New York, 
Albany, March, 1861), which at p.116, under the name Barran- 
dia thompsoni, gives a figure,’ most inexact in many important 
genetic points, of the already celebrated Georgia trilobite. The 
head, thorax, and more especially the pygidium figured and 
described by Mr. Hall are very defective and misleading. So 
it is not astonishing that professor Broegger made the mistake 
of referring the Scandinavian trilobite of Nathorst, Linnarsson 
and Kjerulf to Olenellus ( Eiliptocephalus). 

As far back as 1862, in one of my numerous visits to Geor- 
gia, I found a complete specimen of the so-called Olenus, 
Barrandiaand Olenellus thompsoni, but by some mischance 
my specimen was not figured and described until February, 
1884, by Mr. R. P. Whitfield in the Bulletin Amer. Museum 
Nat. Hist. vol. 1, No. 5, plate xv, fig. 1, and p. 151, New York. 
Mr. Whitfield corrected the description and figure of Mr. Hall 
to such an extent as to make almost not only a new species, 
but alsoanew genus. The remarkable length of the pygidium, 
or rather caudal spine, as he says, is “a generic distinction.” 
If professor Broegger had seen that figure and description of 
Mr. Whitfield, he would not have referred his Scandinavian 
trilobite to Olenelius. It was reserved to Dr. Gerhard Holm, 
to give in 1887, a most elaborate and truly reliable description 
and figure of the Scandinavian type of that contested trilobite, 
first placed in Paradovides and afterward in QOlenellus. In 
his paper “Om Olenellus kjerult,” Dr. Holm shows generic 
distinctions ; more especially for the pygidium, which is as 
nearly as possible a Paradowides pygidium, and completely 
different from the spare-like or telson pygidium of Olenedlus; 
also thoracic differences; and finally the “growing together 
of the cheeks with the middle part of the head and the peculiar 
elongation of the suture.” A study of Dr. Holm’s excellent 
figures and description lead forcibly to the opinion that 
Olenellus kjerul# is not an Olenellus (Elliptocephalus) at 
all, buta new genus intermediate between Paradowxides and 
Elliptocephalus, more closely related to Paradorides, its 
most immediate successor in chronological order, on account 
of the pygidium; and I fully concur with Mr. G. F. Matthew 
who had proposed to use the name of Dr. Holm for the new 


'The figure was drawn from more or less fragmentary specimens. 


366 The American Geologist. ~ June, 1890 


“ 


genus ;? and in future I shall call it olmia, and the species 
under consideration Holmia hjeruli. 

Linnarsson gave in 1876, (“Onthe Brachiopoda of the Par- 
adoxides beds of Sweden, at p.7), a classification and nomen- 
clature of the Paradoxides beds of Sweden, in which he rec- 
ognized at least six divisions; each one containing its peculiar 
fossils. 

These groups or paleontological horizons are arranged as 
follows, in descending order : 

Strata with Agnostus lxvigatus. 

id id Paradoxides forchammert. 

id id Paradoxides welandicus. 

id id Paradoxides davidis. 

id id Paradoxides tessint. 

: id id Paradoxides kjerulfi. 

Professor Breegger, in 1878, refers all the Paradoxides beds 
of Norway to three divisions which he calls in descending 
order : 

Etage 1d. Krekling with Paradowides forchammeri. 

Etage lc. Krekling with Paradowxides tessini. 

Etage 1b. Ringsaker and Kletten with Olenellus (Paradoxides) kjerulfi. 

The special generic form of Holmia (called Paradowxides 
and Olenellus kjerulf) found in Etage 1b in Norway and in 
division 1 strata with Paradoxides kjerul#,in Sweden, coupled 
with the great importance accorded lately to that subdivision 
of the Scandinavian Middle Taconic, leads me to propose the 
name Scandinavian group or Holmia zone for it. 

Besides the characteristic Holmia kjerulf, other fossils 
have been found; and professor Breegger in his paper of 1878 
quotes: Arionellus primavus, Obolus? Discina? Acrothele? 
and Hyolites. Dr. Holm adds to this list for Sweden: Hilip- 
socephalus nordenskioldi, Metoptoma and Lingulella? 
nathorste. 

So far, only four localities of the Scandinavian group have 
been found in the Baltic region; the first one near Andearum 
in Scania (Sweden), two near Krekling in Norway, and the 
last one in southern Lapland, on the river Umea. Found 
only in 1885 by Mr. E. Moersell, the primordial fauna of Lapland 
has not vet been published; it contains not only the Holmia 
zone, but also the Paradoxides zone. Dr. Holm wrote me 


rt bo Oo He Ot OD 


2 “On the classification of the Cambrian rocks in Acadia’’ (Canadian 
Record Sc. vol. ut,.p. 76), Montreal. 


lately that during this winter he will issue amemoir, in which 
he will describe all the material he has collected for several — 
years, haying the kindness to send mea map, on which he 
has localized not only the Lapland area of Taconic outcrops, — 


but also all the other patches of Scandinavia and Esthonia. 


British-Scandinavian formation. Until now, in Europe, fr 
the only other locality where the Scandinavian group hasbeen _ 


found,is in Great Britain, where lately, 1888, professor C. 


Lapworth has signalized its existence on the flanks of Caer — ¥ 
Caradoc (Shropshire). Besides an Holmia ( Olenellus) which 
he has previously named callavez, professor Lapworth quotes — 


the following fossils: Autorgina, Mickwitzia? and Acrothele. 
The sandstones and calcareous beds containing those fossils 
are succeeded irregularly by the Lower Tremadoce strata. (“On 
the discovery of the Olenellus fauna in the Lower Cambrian 
rocks of Britain,” in Geol. Magazine, Nov. 1888, pp. 484-487, 
and reprinted in Wature, Dec. 27, 1888). 

From the dates it follows that English geologists many 
years after the discoveries of Messrs, Nathorst, Linnarsson, 
Breegger and Holm, have at last found the Holmia zone, just 
as they found only many years after Barrande’s discovery 
ofthe Paradoxides zone in Bohemia, the Paradoxides beds of 
St. David; and of course, many years after Dr. Emmon’s great 
discovery of a special fauna in his Taconicsystem. It is only 
just to insist on the date of discoveries in everything which 
partakes of the Primordial, because British geologists have 
assumed the naming and classifying of all the strata below 
the Carboniferous system, as belonging to them, without any 


regard to priority of discoveries by other nations and other 


geologists.” 
Newfoundland’s Scandinavian formation—Outside of 


Europe, in the same Acadio-Russian sea, on the edge of the 


terra firma of the Taconic period, another patch of Scandina- 
vian group or Holmia zone, has been recognized in Concep- 
tion bay, eastern Newfoundland. 


2M. Geikie: La question de la classification des roches cambri- 
ennes et siluriennes est avant tout une question anglaise”’ (Congrés 
géologique international, Berlin, 1885, p. Lxxxi1; and ‘also in Report of 
Proceed. International Geological Congress, by P. Frazer, p. 24, Phil- 
adelphia, 1885, where we read: ‘Dr. A. Geikie proposed that the 
congress postpone the subject of sub-dividing the Cambrian and 
Silurian until the meeting in England; onthe eround that the Silurian 
question was mainly an English question. (Loud murmurs).’’ 


5 ee ay ed 1CRP Ey i hae aie. ph RAD amt (uaele eee TH 
ay Pek al MARC Nett RAT OETA RL en esr 
BADE i ae 


“os TUS oun! Bay mts 


368 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


Let us say at first that the whole region of the island of 
Newfoundland is the most important for the Taconic system, 
all the world over. The very name of Terra nova seems to 
be ironical, for on the whole earth there is not so large an 
area as old and entirely formed of the most antiquated strata 
which were ever deposited on our globe. 

The southeastern part, from Bonavista bay to St. John’s 
and Fortune bay, with its many profound bays or fjords, its 
numerous settlements, its railroad cuttings, offers the most 
splendid field for researches. There are the best and most 
complete series of strata containing the Infra-Primordial, the 
Primordial and the Supra-Primordial faunas. 

As far back as 1839-40, when the Paleozoic rocks were 
almost unknown, so far as classifications and paleontology 
are concerned, my lamented friend, the late J. Beete Jukes, 
made a first reconnoissance of Newfoundland, and classified 
all that we know now as Lower, Middle and Upper Taconic, 
into two great slate formations, called Lower and Upper Slate 
formations. (“General Report of the Geological Survey of 
Newfoundland,” London, 1843). No fossil was found by 
Jukes; and his elassification—only very general, without any 
details—is entirely based on stratigraphical principles. 

In 1859, the first fossil found in the whole island was sent 
to professor Salter, in London, who described it under the 
name of Paradorides bennettii, showing the existence at 
Branch on the western side of St. Mary’s bay, of the Primor- 
dial fauna of Barrande. In the year 1864, a new geological 
survey was begun by Alexander Murray, who soon took for 
his assistant Mr. James P. Howley, an excellent practical 
observer, who has done all the difficult work of stratigraphy 
and classification of the rocksin Newfoundland. Mr. Howley 
has not only surveyed and published the geological maps of 
Conception bay and Brigus bay, where: are all the super-posi- 
tions and corrugations of the Taconic system of southeastern 
Newfoundland (“Section Map near Brigus,” 1881, and “‘Penin- 
sula of Avalon,” 1881); but to him is due the detailed geolog- 
ical section of Conception bay, p. 27 of the Annual Report for 
1868; and what is moreimportant the “Column of Primordial 
strata,’ published in the Annual Report for the year 1870, 
pp. 36, 37, 88 and 39, with a diagram. 

In that column, which Mr. Howley had the great kindness 


Lower and Middle Taconic—Marcou. 3869 


to send me lately, with many manuscript notes to make it 
more clear, the division n contains all the Paradowides beds; 
and below that great formation, Mr. Howley has found in his 
division m, which he calls Top-Sail Head, a special fauna, 
composed according to Billings and Mr. Matthew of the fol- 


lowing species: Paradoxides? Solenopleura bombitrons, — 


Ptychoparia, Agraulos strenuus, Stenotheca paupera, 
Iphidea, Straparollina? and Hyolites micmac. All those 
fossils belong to old forms, which can be easily compared 
with the fauna of the Scandinavian formation of Norway, 
Sweden and Britain. 

Both Billings and Matthew, with their great knowledge of 
primordial trilobites, and Howley with his long practical 
experience in the field—three excellent judges—have referred 
the most important trilobite found in the “Top Sail Head 
division,” or “horizon of Agrawlos strenuus” as it is called by 
Mr. Matthew, to a primitive form of the Paradowxides family, 
and even Mr. Matthew goes so far as to point out its resem- 
blance to Paradowxides ( Holmia) kjerulf (“On the Cambrian 
fauna of Cape Breton and Newfoundland, May, 1886, in 7rans. 
Roy. Soc. Canada, p. 148). Billings in 1870 called it a “sup- 
posed Paradowides.” As all three know perfectly well the 
typical Olenellus (Elliptocephalus) thompsoni of Georgia, 
Belle Isle strait and Canada, and that instead of referring the 
fragment of trilobite of Top Sail Head to Olenellus, they were 
lead to compare it with a Paradorides, is a strong proof of 
their acumen and great knowledge of the Paradoxidean 
forms. And to them is due not only the exact stratigraphic 
position of the strata, which in Newfoundland correspond to 
and are the exact equivalent of the Scandinavian group, but 
also the comparison and synchronism of the principal and 
most characteristic trilobite found there, with the Holmia 
kjerulfi of Norway and Scania. So that, since 1868, 1870 and 
1886, thanks to the researches and discoveries of Messrs. 
Howley, Billings and Matthew, we know that in Newfound- 
land exists a group with a special fauna below the great Par- 
adowides zone, which corresponds harmoniously with the 
Holmia (Paradowides) kjerulfi beds of Scandinayia. In 1888 
Mr. Walcott visited, in Conception bay, the localities so long 
described and well classified by Mr. Howley; and as he is a 
very remarkable fossil finder, he succeeded in collecting a 


370 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


certain number of specimens at the old well known localities 
of Top Sail Head, Brigus Head and Manuel’s brook. Here is 
the list for the division m, or “Top Sail Head group, or hori- 
zon of Agraulos strenwus:” Obolella atlantica, Kutorgina 
labradorica, Scenella reticulata, Stenotheca rugosa andseveral 
varieties, Hyolitellus micans, Hyolites princeps, Platyceras 
primevum, a Gasteropod, MWicrodiscus speciosus and two 
other species, QOlenellus braggert new species, Avalonia 
manuelensis n. gen., n. sp-, Ptychoparia, Solenopleura Bom- 
bifrons and another species, Agraulos strenwus and varieties. 
All those fossils belong to forms related to the fauna of the 
Scandinavian group of Scania, Lapland, Norway and Britain. 
I shall call attention to two points only; the absence in New- 
foundland as well as in Europe of the genus Agnostus, and 
the presence of a Paradoxidean form called Paradowides by 
Billings, Matthew and Howley, and Olenellus by Mr. Walcott. 
Until now Mr. Walcott has not published a description with 
figure of his Olenellus braggeri, so it isimpossible to control 
in any way his reference of that new trilobite to the genus 
Olenellus ( Elliptocephalus). But after the thorough researches 
of Dr. Holm, on the Olenellus hjerulf#, it is presumable that 
the Conception bay trilobite, ike the Scandinavian species is 
not a true Olenellus and belongs to Holmia. 

Tf Mr. Walcott had contented himself with his collection of 
fossils. which is certainly important and valuable, he would 
have rendered a true service to our knowledge of the primor- 
dial fauna of Newfoundland; but unhappily he had gone into 
an attempt to synchronize the strata of Newfoundland with 
those of Vermont, eastern New York, Massachusetts, Canada 
and the Rocky mountains, which is most confusing and at 
variance with facts. The fauna of the Scandinavian groups 
of Conception bay, is entirely different from the fauna of the 
Georgia group of Vermont, Canada, Western Newfoundland 
and Belle Isle strait. At Conception bay, all the forms found 
in Division m, Top Sail Head, Brigus and No. 2 of Manuel’s 
Brook section, belong to older forms than the fossils of 
Georgia, Bic Harbor, ete.; and without entering into details, I 
shall confine my remarks to the trilobites ealled Olenellus 
breggert, and Olenellus thompsont. All the trilobites of 
Scandianavia and Esthonia referred to Olenellus,do not belong 
to that genus, and as Mr. Walcott regards the HEsthonian 


| Schmidtia mickwitzi and the Scandinavian Holmia hjerultt 
_as true Olenelli of the original typical form of Georgia, it is 
‘to be supposed that his Olenellus breggeri is no more an 


Olenellus than the trilobite of Mickwitz and the trilobite of 


Kjerulf. 
The whole synchronism of the Esthonian and Scandinavian 
formations with the Georgia formation is based entirely accord- 


ing to Mr. Walcott’s views, on the genus Qlenellus. But it — im 
is certain that trilobites have been placed in that genus, which 


truly belong to other genera, and we are lead to conclude that 
a too hasty generalization has been given by Messrs. Walcott 


and Lapworth in their three papers entitled: ‘““Stratigraphical 


Succession of the Cambrian Faunas in North America” 
(Nature, Oct. 4, 1888); “On the Discovery of the Olenellus 
Fauna in the Lower Cambrian Rocks of Britain” (Geol. 
Magaz., Nov., 1888 reprinted in Nature, Dec. 27, 1888) ; and 
Oe eeraphic Position of the Olenellus Fauna in North Amer- 
ica and Europe” (Amer. J?. Sc., May and June, 1889) ; where 
we read the following (De ea S10 Ne bret paper (of Mr, 
Walcott). . . puts an end to a controversy between European 
and American Geologists, and brings into harmony the se- 
quence and paleontology of the Cambrian Faunas on both 
sides of the Atlantic.” 2. “It affords me (Mr. Walcott) pleas- 
ure to recognize the work of the Swedish geologists, and to 
fully coincide with their results, and thus finally establish on 
the two continents the true order of succession of the oldest 
known Paleozoic fauna.” 3. “The relative position of the Mid- 
dle and Lower Cambrian faunas is now changed in the Amer- 
ican scheme of classification, the Paradowides zone being re- 
moved to the Middle, and the Olenelius zone to the Lower 
division.” 4. In all my (Mr. Walcott) previous papers the 
term Middle Cambrian is to be changed to Lower Cambrian, 
and Lower Cambrian to Middle Cambrian.” We have there a 
chassé-croisé of Mr. Walcott, and a too hasty generalization of 
Mr. Lapworth, based on erroneous interpretation of fossil gen- 
era, and not only a total want of stratigraphic proofs but 
against the stratigraphy of the typical localities of Georgia and 
Bald mountain. 

The truth is, that Mr. Walcott made a first mistake, in re- 
jecting Murray and Howley’s observations on the stratigraphy 
of Newfoundland in his “Second contribution to the Cambrian 


372 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


faunas of North America,” p. 49, Washington, 1886, saying 
that their placing the ‘Top Sail Head strata” beneath the Par- 


adoxides beds, was “without paleontologic and stratigraphic” 


evidence,” and now he proposes to replace that exploded mis- 
take, by a second and greater one if possible, in synchronizing 
the Olenellus fauna of Georgia and of the Rocky Mountain 
region with the Holmia ( Olenellus?) breggert fauna of Top 
Sail Head, Brigus and Manuel’s brook. 

Mr. Walcott’s proposition to place the uppermost part of 
the Middle Taconic, which is the position truly occupied by 
the Georgia formation, below the Paradowides zone and regard 
it as the lowest part of the Middle Taconic, which he calls 
Lower Cambrian, is not acceptable, for it is incorrect. Be- 
sides Mr. Walcott totally ignores the true Lower Taconic with 
its two great formations, the Esthonian and the Newfound- 
landian. 

It is regrettable to see such an extraordinary change in 
American classification, made in such a summary way, from 
publications issued officially by the United States Geological 
Survey in its Bulletins; and what is still more strange is that 
the pretended correction is an error, for the Paradoxides beds 
of Braintree, St. Mary’s bay and St. John (New Brunswick) 
are older than the Olenellus (Elliptocephalus) beds of Bald 
mountain, Georgia, Bic Harbor, Eureka, etc. The most which 
can be said, is that the Georgia formation may be contempor- 
aneous and homotaxial with the uppermost beds of the Para- 
doxides beds. Such a transfer of a great group of a 38rd 
order of the Primordial fauna, is not so bad and confusing as 
the transfer of the whole Primordial fauna above the second 
fauna, as was advocated and maintained so long and with such 
force by Messrs. Hall, Logan and Dana. But it is no less to 
be regretted, and the list published by Mr. Walcott, pp. 388- 
389 (loc. cit.) in which he puts together all the fossils of 
the Georgia formation with those of the Scandinavian 
formation is very confusing, for in this list there are forms of 
fossil animals which have never lived together, all mixed 
without regard to their stratigraphic record. That list pre- 
sents a formidable front of 55 genera and 127 species for the 
American fauna of the Scandinavian formation, when in 
truth the number of species and varieties is about 25 or 30 at 
most. In due time the number of 50 species may be reached, 


RS hc 


Bier Ht Middle Taconie.—Marcor. 


, 


but it will take many years forit. As arésumé of the inferior _ 
part of the true Primordial fauna or fauna of the Scandi-— 
_ navian formation, we have a total of 17 species for Europe and 

25 or 30 for Newfoundland; in all 47 species. i 

IV. BowEMIAN FORMATION oR PARADOXIDES Zone.—The first 
fossils special to this zone were found by Dr. Emmons, and — 
published by him as far back as 1844. They were two trilo- | 
bites Atops trilineatus and Elliptocephala asaphoides found near > 
Bald mountain in eastern New York. To the great credit of Dr. 
Emmons he saw that the few fossils which he was able to 
gather, were special and characteristic of the series of strata, 
which he called Taconic System, below the Lower Silurian of 
Murchison, or Cambrian of Sedgwick. Barrande, without — 
knowing the discovery of Emmons, described in 1846, the pri- — 
mordial fauna of Bohemia, showing its complete independence 
and its absolute difference from the second fauna. (Notice 
préliminaire sur le systéme Silurien et les trilobites de Bo- 
héme”, pp. 8-22, Leipzic). 

As soon as Barrande was able to consult Emmons’ publica- 
tions, which did not reach him until 1860, he at once recog- 
onized the priority of the discovery of Emmons, and estab- 
lished on the most solid basis, the just claim of America, to 
the honor of naming the great series of strata below the sec- 
ond fauna or Champlain system, called Lower Silurian system 
in England by Murchison and Cambrian system by Sedgwick. 
If justice and honesty are in favor of using in the general 
classification of the world, the name Taconic system, it is 
right also to recognize that Barrande is the first who gave their 
full value to the fossil remains existing in that great special 
system, calling them, primordial fauna, and that his studies 
in Bohemia, truly created the primordial fauna. Barrande al- 
so, first of all showed the great value of the genus Paradoxides, 
in recognizing the existence of his primordial fauna, and con- 
sequently we are justified in consecrating the name Bohemian 
formation or Paradoxides zone, to designate that great and prin- 
cipal division of the Middle Taconic, in honor of Barrande and 
his splendid discoveries and work on the fauna of Ginetz and an 
Skrey. a 

Bohemia.—After many years of very careful researches, Bar- 
rande found only 40 species of Primordial fossils at Skrey and sh 
Ginetz,the only two fossiliferous localities ofthe Bohemian basin. if 


. 


374 The American Geologist. | ‘June, 1890 


The majority and most conspicuous of those fossils are trilo- 
bites to the number of 27 species: 12 Paradoxides, 4 Cono- 
cephalites, 2 Hydrocephalus, 2 Ellipsocephalus, 1 Arionellus, 1 Sao 
and 5 Agnostus. Besides, Barrande quotes 5 Hyolites, a Theca. 
a Discina, one Orthis, 4 Trochocystites and three undetermined 
forms. The prevalence of Paradowides led Barrande to give to that 
genus an importance of the first order in classifying the lower 
Paleozoic strata; and since his numerous publications on the 
primordial fauna and more especially his splendid and most 
valuable work “Le systéme Silurien du basin de la Bohéme” 
all the trilobites having Paradoxidean forms and consequently 
allied more or less closely to Paradoxides, have justly been 
regarded as the guide; all the strata containing them, are re- 
ferred to the Taconic system or great primordial zones. 

Sweden.—In this paper, we have given already the classi- 
fication of Linnarsson of 1876, for the Paradowides beds 
of Sweden, divided into five groups, the upper one being char- 
acterized by Agnostus levigatus and the four others being char- 
acterized by Parad. forchammert, Parad. elandicus, Parad. da- 
vidis and Parad. tessini. More recently, 1884, Messrs. Tullberg 
and Nathorst in ‘Annexe explicative 4 la carte géologique le la 
Suéde,” p.21, Stockholm, give more details, and they have 
classified for Scania the “Schistes 4 Paradoxides” or “H. Etage 
inferieur” of the primordial fauna system into: 

a. Beds with Agnostus levigatus. 


b.—id——id——Paradoxides forechhammeri. 
c.—id——id——Agnostus lundgreni. 
d. id id Paradoxides davidis. 


e. id——id——Conocoryphe equalis. 
f.—id——id——Agnostus rex. 


g. id——id-—_——_id——intermedius. 
h.—id——id—— Microdiscus scanicus. 
i.—id——id——Conocoryphe exsulans. 
k,——id——_id——Agnostus atavus. 


1. Breccia limestone. 
m. Black aluniferous slates. 


The last division 1 belongs to the Holmia kjerulfi zone or 
Scandinavian formation. According to Linnarsson, the Bohe- 
mian formation or Paradoxides zone of Sweden, contains six 
species of Paradovides,Ellipsocephalus muticus, three Arionellus, 
three Anomocare, three Lzostracus. Delichometopus suecicus 
three Conocoryphe, four Solenoplewra and twelve Agnostus; 3 
Hyolithus, 38 Orthis, 2 Lingulella, Obolus, Obolella, Acrotreta, 


Acrothele, Kutorgina, Iphidea and Protospongia. The Agnos- 
_@ are very common in the upper beds of the formation, and the 
Orthis characterizes also the upper beds. 
: [To be continued.] - 


CRYSTALLOGENESIS. 
; By Dr. H. HENSOLDT. 
School of Mines, Columbia College, New York. 
Ir. 

The crystals of the isometric system, which are equi-axed, 
equi-expansive and singly refractive, are doubtless composed 
of particles which have experienced the least amount of com- 
pression, compatible with their symmetrical arrangement. 
They are either spherical or very nearly so, and it is significant 
that of the twenty-two elementary bodies of which the crystal- 
line forms have been hitherto ascertained, no less than fifteen 
are referable to the isometric system. In the crystals of the 
tetragonal and hexagonal system the molecules are so com- 
pressed that structural differences are developed in two direc- 
tions, and in the forms of the remaining systems three direc- 
tions of structural variation have been similarly originated. 

That the double refraction of crystals is not inherent in the 
molecules, but is an acquired property, is obvious from the 
fact that in crystallized silica (Quartz, Amethyst, etc.,) we 
haye double refraction, while amorphous Silica (Flint, Opal, 
Tabasheer, etc.,) is singly refractive. Ifthe molecules of water 
were identical in form with those of ice, they should also be 
endowed with the same properties, yet in ice we have double 
refraction, while water is singly refractive. 

If we dissolve fifteen grains of Chloride of Sodium in an 
ounce of distilled water and allow a drop of this solution to 
evaporate slowly on a glass slide’ under the microscope, we 
may learn, if we watch the process in its final stages with a 
“oth” objective of good definition—many of the secrets of crys- 
tal life. The commencement of the operation of crystalline 

'The slide should be previously cleaned with alcohol, and it is not 
advisable to accelerate the evaporating process by artificial means, 
such as heating the slide over a spirit lamp. On the contrary, the 
slower the evaporation, the better the phenomena here referred to are 


observed. Weak solutions give the best results, especially if the ex- 
periments are made in a cold room. 


876 The American Geologist. ° Fane, 1890, un 


forces is always signalled by the sudden appearance, in the 
previously clear and colorless field, of innumerable dark points, 
which in an incredibly short time, augment in volume, till a 
diameter of perhaps sioth of a millimeter is reached. It is 
then observed that the particles are spherical in outline and 
that their darkness is only an optical illusion, caused by a 
broad diffraction-ring, for in reality they are quite transpar- 
ent. They are evenly distributed over the field, and their 
‘“growth”’—a kind of spontaneous swelling, which can be plain- 
ly followed—is uniform and simultaneous. 

Then a startling transformation-scene is witnessed; no kal- 


_eidoscope-effect could be more marvelous. The particles 


appear to become suddenly endowed with polarity, they 
change their positions, roll about like billiard-balls in every 
direction, yet always in straight lines. For a moment all 
seems confusion, but, behold! some invisible ‘floor-master” 
is asserting his authority, and in another instant we have the 
first manifestation of a symmetry, destined to culminate in 
that perfect crystalline regularity, which has excited the won- 
der of all ages. The globules, originally scattered all over the 
field, are now arranged in lines or rows, like so many strings 
of beads. Some of these rows consist of only three or four 
globules, in others we can count ten, fifteen, twenty or more, 
and it would seem as if each spherical body was surrounded 
by a delicate film or pellicle, which prevents the dissipation of 
the internal molecular forces. 

A series of rapid changes is now inaugurated, which can be 
followed only with the greatest difficulty, and of which it is 
almost impossible to give an intelligible account within the 
space here at our disposal. The globules in each line, by a 
sudden and simultaneous movement, unite and form solid 
rods, and there are grounds for believing that this solidifica- 
tion is due to the rupturing of the mysterious pellicle referred 
to. That the globules are endowed with polarity cannot for a 
moment be questioned, and—reasoning from analogy—we are 
driven to the conclusion that the north pole of one is attract- 
ed by the south pole of the other. A very close proximity would 
therefore, terminate in a sudden rush and collision. Within 
a fraction of a second after the formation of the rods (which 
are of uniform thickness, however much they may vary in 
length) we observe a general commotion among them. Each 


% aii at Hekt angles, others range breanaerees? in close contact 
+ side by side, and form a symmetrical wall. Taree is piled on 


hes layer, each little rod falls mechanically into its proper place— 


no regiment of soldiers could “form up” with greater precision, 
and before we have time to realize the strangeness of the 
spectacle, the field is studded with little cubes of exquey 
beauty. 


What we have seen here in an evaporating drop of chigeide $ 
of sodium may be observed in any other saline substance ~ 


which we allow to crystallize under the microscope, with the 
sole difference that the diameter of the globules and the form 


of the ultimate crystals vary according to the nature of the — 


substances employed. That in the formation of minute spher- 
ical bodies we have the first visible manifestation of crystal- 
line activity, was announced as early as 1839 by H. F. Link® 
a German microscopist, who detected the globule in evapor- 
ating liquids, which is surprising, considering the inferiority of 
objectives at that period. He expressed the opinion that they 
were hollow, but Vogelsang in his admirable work “Die Krys- 
talliten,” published in 1875, clearly demonstrated their mas- 
sive character. This work—a masterpiece of careful observa- 
tion and originality—should be read and re-read by every pe- 
trographer, mineralogist, chemist, physicist, in short by every 
student of natural science. 

Vogelsang, in his experiments, employed a solution of sul- 
phur in bisulphide of carbon, which he mixed with a certain 
quantity of Canada balsam, in order to retard the crystallizing 
process. The mechanical resistance, offered by the viscous bal- 
sam, prevented the globulites from moving about with their ac- 
customed alacrity,their evolutions could be slackened, acceler- 
ated or arrested at pleasure, so that it now became possible to 
observe every phase in that wonderful series of changes which 
lead from apparent chaos to extreme crystalline symmetry. 

We have abundant proof that the changes here described 
must occur in precisely the same order whenever a molten min- 


eral substance slowly solidifies, and in sections prepared from 


many vitreous rocks, such as obsidians, pitchstones, perlites, 
tachylites, etc., we observe every species of molecular arrange- 
ment, from the primary globulite to the complete crystal. 


* “Ueber die erste Enstehung der Krystalle.” 


378 The American Geologist. June, 1390 


Obsidians, especially, furnish us with the most interesting ob- 
jects for studying the economy of crystal life, as they reveal 
an almost endless variety of intermediary forms. Some are 
perfect natural glasses, free from every trace of devitrification : 
here the cooling was too rapid to permit even the formation of 
globulites. In others we have the field crowded with spherical 
bodies of uniform size, evidently globulites which were arrest- 
edin their further development by the solidification of the 
matrix. A third section shows the globulites arranged in 
lines, a fourth is characterized by the presence of an immense 
number of hair-like rods, in a fifth the rods were evidently on 
the point of uniting into planes of symmetry when the process 
was interrupted, and as we extend our inquiry to specimens 
which solidified more leisurely we find a complete ‘perma- 
ment record” of every step of crystalline activity. 

Globulites and their various combination-products may al- 
so be observed in comparatively coarse-grained Basalts, Dole- 
rites, Porphyrites, etc. and their presence does not always indi- 
cate a vitreous condition of the matrix. It must be remem- 
bered that rocks are usually of very heterogeneous compo- 
sition and that the fusion temperature of one mineral often 
differs considerably from that of another. While Augite, for 
instance, will easily melt before the blowpipe, Orthoclase re- 
quired an enormous temperature, and some minerals are prac- 
tically infusible. When an eruptive mass, a lava, composed 
of, say, six different molten minerals, begins to cool, that min- 
eral which requires the highest temperature in order to melt, 
will be the first to solidify. While it already has developed in- 
to more or less regular crystals, the others are still compelled 
to remain in a liquid or viscous condition, until the tempera- 
ture is sufficiently lowered to permit their consolidation in the 
succession determined by their physical properties. 

Now it may happen that after the individualization of sever- 
al of the constituents of a cooling mass, the temperature sinks 
so rapidly that the remaining ones have no time to crystallize, 
thus we find in thin sections prepared from such rocks, side by 
side with, or between perfectly developed crystals of Feldspar, 
Amphibole or other easily recognizable minerals, vitreous and 
semi-vitreous patches of interstitial matter, crowded with en- 
domorphs. What minerals they represent or what forms they 
would ultimately have assumed, if allowed to develop is in 


most cases impossible to determine, and even observers like 
_Rosenbusch and Zirkel have recognized the hopelessness of 
‘the attempt by applying to these vitreous components such 
vague names as “undeveloped ground-mass,” “amorphous ma- 
trix,” interstitial paste, etc. 

We enter here upon a department of petrographical science 
which presents much that is strange and mysterious. These 
incipient forms have been carefully studied by a number of 
able observers, but though a great deal has been written about 
them—from the time of Vogelsang’s splendid monograph to 
recent treatises and devitrification-processes—we are still 
very much in the dark as to their real character. The mode 
of their origination is part of the great secret of crystal life, 
-and when once we thoroughly understand the laws which goy- 
ern the formation of these remarkable bodies, one of the most 
important tasks of petrographical philosophy will be accom- 
plished. 


EDITORIAL COMMENT. 


THE PHILADELPHIA MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL Con- 
GRESS OF GEOLOGISTS. 

The following official record of the history of the choice of 
Philadelphia, by the International Geological Congress as the 
place for the next meeting, and the subsequent attempt to sub- 
stitute Washington, is inserted in the view of an unfortunate 
misunderstanding which has recently developed. It is hoped 
that it will enable every reader to form an independent opinion 
as to the nature of the considerations and influences brought 
to bear by the representatives of the United States Geological 
Survey, as well as the actual facts regarding the willingness 
and ability of Philadelphia to properly entertain the congress. 

C. L. HERRIck. 

Early in 1885 the year of the last session of the International Geolog- 
ical Congress a form of invitation was signed by the greater number 
of large American institutions of learning and original research, asking 
the International Congress of Geologists to fix the next after the Lon- 
don session in the United States. 

Another form of invitation to hold its sessions in the city of Phila- 
delphia was signed by mayor Fitler, the heads of all the seientifie and 
educational institutions in the city and its neighborhood; the U.§. 


Govt. Officers stationed there, the principal judges, lawyers, bankers, 
merchants, prominent citizens to the number of several hundred, and 


Editorial Comment. 379 


380 — The American Geologist. June, 1890 


placed in the hands of Dr. Persifor Frazer, secretary of the American 
Committee of Nomenclature, for presentation to the Congress. As in 
proper order was necessary, these invitations were presented to the 
Council of the Congress in the morning session, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 
1888 together with an invitation to choose New York. which was sign- 
ed by a single citizen of that city. The following is a translation of the 
official action on these invitations. 

Prof. von. Zittel warmly seconds this invitation as does also Prof. 
Hauchecorne, Stur, Hunt, Capellini and Macfarlane. 

Prof. Hauchecorne said that the great distance and the considerable 
expenses of the voyage which would be the consequence are of a nature 
to prevent many geologists from taking part in the session in the 
United States. He asks if it would be possible to procure reductions 
of the cost of transportation. He thought if it were possible to obtain 
facilities of this kind a great number ,of his countrymen would take 
part in the Congress at Philadelphia. 

Prof. Frazer thought that the cost of the transit across the ocean 
would be reduced to about one-half, because a similar reduction was 
made for the members of the British Association at the time of their 
visit to America in 1884. As to the excursion to the Rocky mountains, 
to the mineral deposits of the south, and to the great lakes he hoped 
that tickets would be obtained from the railroads almost gratuitously. 

Dr. Sterry Hunt in seconding the invitation of Dr. Frazer said that 
in his quality of president of the reception committee of the British 
Association in Montreal in 1884, he knew that the different steamship 
lines and railroads made very considerable reductions. 

Prof. von. Zittel proposed the acceptance of the invitation of the Con- 
gress to the United States, adding that the well known generosity of 
the Americans would make the visit easy. He was sure that many 
geologists would make the journey and as all the phenomena of nature 
are on a grand scale in America, it is almost necessary for every geolo- 
gist to go and complete his studies on that great continent. 

Prof. Capellini having made a voyage to the United States and Can- 
ada in 1853 and having received so many marks of hospitality, warmly 
supported the proposition of Prof. von. Zittel to accept the invitation to 
the United States. 

Prof. Hauchecorne also supported the motion and said that many 
mining engineers who ought to be good geologists will be happy to go 
to America to study the famous mineral deposits of that continent. He 
recalled the fact that the Germans were among the first to exploit the 
beds of anthracite in the United States. 

Prof. de Lapparent supported the proposition. The immense scale 
of all the phenomena of Nature on the continent of America- will have 
the effect of enlarging the views of scientific men. 

Prof. Stur, (speaking in German) said that the geologists of Austro- 
Hungary desired very much that the Congress should hold its session 
in Vienna; but after having heard the invitation to meet in the United 
States in 1891, he supported the proposition to accept this invitation in 
the hope that three years later, or in 1894 the members of the Con- 
gress will come to Vienna where he promises them a hearty reception. 

Prof. Neumayr supported the proposition made by the United States 
geologists and hoped that the session of 1894 would be reserved for the 
city of Vienna. 

Prof. Capellint thought that after having submitted the invitation of 
the United States to the Congress at its last session, a cablegram 
ought to be sent to the city which was chosen. 

At the meeting of the Council of the Congress held Thursday 
morning 9:30: Sept. 20, 1888, 

Prof. Capellini said that everybody was in accord that the next ses- 


sion of. 
_ of a city he was of the opinion that it would be better to entrust it to a 


hae lf 


ne ee a 
the Congress should be held in America, but as to the choice 


committee of Americans. — 
Prof. Dewalque thought that it could be decided by the Council it- 


elf. 
_ Prof. de Lapparent was of the opinion that the decision ought to be 


made by the Americans. 


Dr. Sterry Hunt reminded the members of the Council that Philadel- 


phia had given a warm invitation, while the invitation from New York 
_ was signed by but a single individual. 


Prof. Capellini repeated that he preferred to leave the choice to an 
American Committee. 

Prof. Frazer feared that there was a misapprehension on the subject 
of the city, and the only object to be considered is to choose the city 
which is most suitable in all respects to the meeting of the Congress. 

Prof. Capellini read the names of the North Americans present at 


the Congress to which he wished to add the names of Messrs. Halland © 


Dana. He was of the opinion that the Congress should confide to 
them the task of choosing a city for the meeting of the Congress and 
also of choosing a committee of organization. 

Prof. de Lapparent believes that it:would be of advantage to proceed 
according to the method proposed by the president. 

Mr. Blanford wished to wait till to-morrow in order to have the at- 
tendance of all the American members. 

Mr. Macfarlane was of the opinion that the Council should decide the 
question of the city without waiting longer. 

Prof. Newberry observed that before its last session the Congress 
might receive invitations from other American cities such as Washing- 
ton or Cambridge and he endorsed the proposition of Prof. Capellini 
to confide the choice to a committee of Americans. 

Prof. Capellini said that if it were possible the committee would — 
make its choice before the close of the Congress, but if it were not pos- 
sible the committee could hold a meeting in America and announce 
its choice later. He proposed formally the following names: Messrs. 
Hall, Dana, Newberry, Frazer, Sterry Hunt, Marsh, Walcott, and Gil- 
bert. The motion was adopted by a large majority. One member 
voted in the negative and one did not vote. 

(Official proceedings of the Council of the Congress, issued in sheets.) 

First session of the Provisional Committee. All the members of the 
committee named by the Council except Hall and Dana, were present, 
to-wit: Dr. Newberry, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, Prof. O. C. Marsh, Dr. G. 
K. Gilbert, Mr. C. D. Walcott and Dr. Frazer. 

Dr. Frazer movedthat Dr. Newberry take the chair. Carried. It 
was asked what was the object of the committee’s appointment. 

Dr. Frazer stated that he understood it to be for the purpose of secur- 
ing unanimity among the representatives of the United States in regard 
to the selection of a place of meeting of the Congress in the United 
States in 1891, and to determine with respect to a committe of organi- 
zation. In answer to a question as to the full intention of the Council 
on the latter subject he replied that he was not clear. 

Prof. Marsh said that he had been very much surprised to hear of the 
invitation from Philadelphia. He had heard Washington and New 
York spoken of but not Philadelphia. 

Mr. Gilbert hoped that Washington would be chosen. 

Dr. Hunt’s preference was for Philadelphia. 

Dr. Newberry said that he ought to favor New York, but he thought 
that the attractions of Washington were much greater than those of 
any other place. 

Prof. Marsh suggested that the question of place be first taken up, 


382 The American Geologist. | June, 1890 Sin « 


and in order to bring the subject before the meeting he moved that this . 
committee recommend Washington. > 

Mr. Gilbert seconded this motion and in answer to a question re- 
marked that Columbian University, Willard’s Hall, and the National 
Museum would offer facilities for the meeting places. 

The vote was demanded for Washington or Philadelphia. For Wash- 
ington: Mr. Gilbert and Prof. Marsh. For Philadelphia: Dr. Hunt, 
Mr. Waleott and Dr. Frazer. Mr. Gilbert thereupon changed his vote 
to Philadelphia. Prof. Marsh also changed his vote to Philadelphia. 
Philadelphia was thereupon declared to be the unanimous choice of 
the committee. : 

Mr. Walcott said that Prof. Judd, Mr. Macfarlane and Dr. Geikie had 
informed him that they understood this committee named by the Coun- 
cil to be the committee of organization. 

It was moved and seconded that this committee take a recess of not 
more than fifteen minutes while the chairman ascertain from the official» 
Secretaries what the further duty committed to this body was. During 
the temporary absence of the Chairman one of the official Secretaries, 
Dr. C. Le Neve Foster, entered the room and at the request of Dr. 
Frazer read the minute of the Council meeting which he had made as 
follows: ‘‘M. Capellini lit les noms des américains du nord présents 
au Congres, auxquels il veut ajouter les noms de M. James Hall et 
de M. J. D. Dana; et ilest d’avis que le congrés devrait leur confier la 
tiche de choisir la ville pour la réunion du congres, et celle de choisir 
le comité d’organisation.”’ . 

Dr. Newberry suggested another meeting of this committee. 

Tt was moved and seconded that we meet at the same place to-mor- 
row at9 A.M. Carried. 

The committee then adjourned to meet at 9 A. M., on Sept. 21st. 

Second Session. Sept. 21,9. A.M. Present Drs Newberry, Hunt and 
Frazer, Prof. Marsh, Messrs. Walcott and Gilbert. 

Dr. Frazer was requested to be Secretary to the Committee and ac- 
cepted the position. Dr. Frazer was requested to read the minutes of 
the last meeting which he had taken, and did so. By unanimous vote 
these minutes were then accepted and declared official. 

Prof. Marsh said that he had consulted with Prof. Capellini who had 
told him that the committee could take as long a time as it chose before 
reporting. After some informal discussion, 

Dr. T. Sterry Hunt moved that the Secretary of this committee an- 
nounce to the Council the unanimous recommendation of this committee 
that Philadelphia be chosen as the place of meeting of the next Con- 
gress; and that we adjourn to meet in New Haven, November 15th next 
during the meeting of the National Academy. Carried. 

Mr. Gilbert before the adjournment of the committee expressed the 
wish that the Secretary would settle all doubts as to the name and 
functions of this committee at the immediately following meeting of the 
Council. The committee then adjourned.’ 

Friday September 21, 1888. The Council of the Congress assembled at 
9:30 A. M. 

Dr. Frazer inquired whether a small error had not crept into the ac- 
count of the proceedings of the last session. He believed thatin speak- 
ing of the American committee Prof Capellini and the others had em- 
ployed the expression ‘‘provisional’’? and that the committee was a 
“provisional committee.”’ 


1Note. Pursuant to the informal request of Mr. Gilbert, the Secretary submit- 
ted the questions of the name and functions of the committee to the Council which 
decided that the committee was a ‘‘Provisional Committee” and that it was charged 
with “forming a committee of organization” in addition to the work it had already 
completed, of selecting a place of meeting for the fifth session of the Congress. 


Editorial Comment. 


RAS MO 3 - 4 
_ Prof. Capellini said that he had spoken of the committee in the sense ~ 
that it was a provisional committee with full power. yeh 
Dr, Frazer thought that the word ‘‘provisional’’ should be added to. | 
- This correction having been made the proceedings were adopted. 
Prof. Prestwich (President) read the following telegram which had. 
_ just been received: BR 
From Washington, to Prestwich, President of the Geological Congress, — 
28 Jermyn St., London, England. Earnest invitation for next meeting — 
of Congress in Washington. Halls and printing will be provided; hos- 
pitalities extended. Powell, Director Geological Survey.’’ Pag: 
Pig: Prof. Prestwich thought that the question ought now to be sent back 
to the American committee. Mr. Evans was of the same opinion. 
He Dr. Frazer (after consultation with Dr. Newberry, Chairman of the 
- Committee of Americans) explained that the question of the choice of — 

a city had been discussed as if the telegram had arrived, and presented 

the following report: ‘‘The Provisional American Committee appoin- — 

ted by the Council to ascertain the opinion of the members from the — 
--~—-*- United States on the subject of the choice of a place of meeting of the | 

Congress in America, in 1891, has the honor to report that the city of © 

Philadelphia has been chosen unanimously as the place of meeting.” { 

Dr. Newberry said that the committee had accomplished its duty and 

that he was glad to say that it is a unanimous report. 
_ Prof, Stefanescu moved that the report of Dr. Frazer be adopted. 

Dr. T. Sterry Hunt said that the question of. Washington or Phila- 
delphia had been discussed and that the vote had been unanimous for 
the latter city. 

Prof. Capellini said that it was not necessary that the Council discuss 
the question of the choice of a city because the report was unanimous, 
i ' ‘put he desired to congratulate the Council and the committee of Amer- 

: icans on this happy result. 

The President, Prof. Prestwich, supported the proposition of Mr. Stef- 
anesecu to adopt the report of the Committee of Americans and to decide 
definitely that the meeting of 1891 should be held in Philadelphia. Ne 

Prof. Capellini desired to offer the thanks of the Council to major 
Powell for his invitation to Washington and the following message was 
sent: ; vk 

“To Powell, Director Geological Survey. Washington. Invitation re- 
‘‘eeived. Council heartily thank you. Philadelphia chosen.” 
**Prestwich, President.’’ 

The President, Prof. Prestwich said that he would submit the question 

of a definitive choice to the Congress itself. 


[Official Proceedings of the Council. | 


Meeting of the International Congress, Saturday, Sept. 22, 1888, 11 A. 
M. Aiter the adoption of the minutes of the preceding session as 
corrected, 

Prof. von Zittel, to whom the President (Prof. Prestwich) had yielded 
the chair, explained the manner in which the invitation of the city of 
Philadelphia had been presented to the Congress, and said that the 
Council had confided the choice of a city to a committee of Americans, 
as follows: Dana, Hall, Marsh, Newberry, Sterry Hunt and Walcott.* 
The decision of the Council as announced was adopted by the Congress 
unanimously. 

Dr. Frazer said that the Congress having accepted the invitation to 
Philadelphia in 1891, he had been asked to explain the nature of this 


2These words are wanting in the official account of the proceedings, but are 
entered from a note made in the Congress. This being the last day, there was no 
opportunity to revise the minutes and have them entered in the official report. 
There is no difference of opinion, however, as to the action haying been taken. 


Ma in Wise me REAL IM MRI OC Rath de MEP Q MEN Caya a Oe NER 


rity 
ea ait 
' 


- 


384 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


invitation which had been presented by his fellow citizens. There 
were two reasons on account of which the Congress has done well in 
selecting Philadelphia as its host. The first is that in 1891 the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania will celebrate its centennial anniversary, in which 
celebration savants from all parts of the world will take part. The 
University of Pennsylvania is one of the five oldest universities of the 
American continent, and although it is with one exception best pro- 
vided with halls, laboratories, and various buildings, it is intended to 
expend $3,000,000 to increase and render it more useful. The Proyost 
of the University had permitted him to say that the necessary halls 
shall be put at the disposition of the Congress, and that all possible 
facilities shall be given to its members. As the exercises of the cen- 
tennial will not commence till after the 28d of September, the halls 
will be free before that date. In addition to this, there is to be a 
session of the International Medical Congress at Washington at about 
the same time. But the principal reason for the invitation of the 
International Geological Congress to Philadelphia was that the com- 
mittee which inaugurated the Congress is called the ‘‘ Comité fondateur 
de Philadelphie,’’ because it was created in 1876 during the celebration 
of the centennial anniversary of the Independence of the United States. 
The mayor; the principal officers of the city government; and of select 
and common councils; the judges of the different courts; the United 
States officers stationed in Philadelphia; the presidents of banks, of 
the great railways, and of the great industrial enterprises ; the lawyers, 
business men, and professors,—in short, all the citizens united in 
offering a warm reception to the Congress. He was not able to give 
the exact figures, but as the officers of three great transcontinental 
railways who are in relation with the steamship companies had joined 
in the invitation, he did not hesitate to say that excursions at reduced 
prices would be arranged to the Rocky mountains, the great lakes, to 
the southwest, and probably also to Canada. Besides, it is probable 
that the cost of the ocean transit will be reduced one-half. 

Prof. von Zittel (acting President) said that the members of the 
Congress were delighted to hear what Dr. Frazer had just told them, 
and that he was certain that the Congress of 1891 would succeed. 


%* * * * * * 


At the end of the proceedings of the last session of the Congress, 
President Prestwich declared the session closed and adjourned to 
Philadelphia in 1891. (Official Comptes Rendus, London Session). 


Third session of the Provisional Committee, Nov. 15th, 1888, North 
Sheffield Hall, New Haven. Present, Prof. J. D. Dana, James Hall, O. 
C. Marsh, Persifor Frazer, Mr. C. D. Walcott, and Mr. C. K. Gilbert, 
and Dr. J. S. Newberry, Chairman. The minutes of the two previous 
meetings were read and approved. The chairman declared that the 
meeting was open for business and asked if any propositions were 
ready. 
ee Gilbert offered the following resolution: That the selection of 
the organizing committee be by ballot as follows: Each member of 
our committee shall write on a ballot not to exceed twenty-five names, 
and all persons whose names appear on a majority of the ballots cast 
shall be declared elected. If less than twenty are thus elected, one or 
more additional ballots shall be taken, the chairman indicating in each 
case the number of names to be written. 

Dr. Newberry thought that it was the duty of this committee to name 
another committee, and that with that this committee’s functions 
ceased. 

Dr. Frazer sketched the action of previous organizing committees 
before the sessions of Paris, Bologna, Berlin, and London. ; 


Tyee BR piel 
a ste j 


hy Editorial Comment. 


Gilbert stated that he had had prepared by his clerk a list of the — 
llows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, — 
and from this he had prepared a smaller list of about fifty, comprising _ 
all the names of the larger for whom it was likely anyone would vote. — 
_ He had added several names to these lists which seemed desirable, — 
__ and laid the two lists before the members of this committee simply as — 
___ aids to the memory in making their selections. The resolution offered 
by Mr. Gilbert was seconded and carried. f 

_ Mr. Walcott offered the following resolution: That the permanent — 
organizing committee be authorized to add to its number. Seconded | 
and carried. . ; 
Mr. Walcott offered the following: Resolved, that a temporary chair-— 
_ man shall be appointed for the permanent organizing committee by — 
_ the Provisional Committee immediately aiter the election of the per- — 
——s MManent organizing committee. Seconded and carried. - as 
_ -~—s« The Chairman then ordered the ballot to be taken according to the 
- resolution offered by Mr. Gilbert. Mr. Walcott and Dr. Frazer were 
_ then appointed tellers, and a recess was taken, during which the vote 
was counted. On the re-assembling of the committee the tellers 
reported that the following gentlemen having each received a majority 
of the votes cast were elected members of the permanent committee of 
organization: OC. A. Ashburner, J. C. Branner, T. C. Chamberlin, G. 
H. Cook, J. D. Dana, C. E. Dutton, W. M. Davis, G. K. Gilbert, James 
Hall, Angelo Heilprin, C. H. Hitchcock, Joseph Leidy, J. P. Lesley, 
Joseph LeConte, O. C. Marsh, J. 8S. Newberry, J. W. Powell, J. R. 
Proctor, N. S. Shaler, J. J. Stevenson, Alexander Winchell, H. S. 
Williams, R. P. Whitfield, C. D. Walcott. Twenty-four in all. The 
Provisional Committee then proceeded to the election of a temporary 
chairman of the permanent committee of organization. Dr. J. §. 
Newberry was nominated as chairman, No other nominations being 

_made, the vote was taken and Dr. Newberry was elected. 

Mr. Gilbert moved: That the first meeting of the permanent organ- 
| izing committee be held at Washington, D. C., during the meeting of 
Ore the National Academy of Science, in April, 1889; the precise place 
and the day and hour being fixed by the temporary chairman, who 

shall give due notice to the members of the committee. Seconded 
and carried. 

Mr. Walcott offered the following: That the Secretary of the Pro- 

visional Committee is requested to furnish a copy of all the minutes of 
_ the proceedings of the Provisional Committee to the temporary chair- 
man of the permanent organizing committee. Seconded and carried. 
It was moved and seconded that this committee do now adjourn. 
Carried. Sine die. Persifor Frazer, Secretary. 


At the first meeting of the Permanent Organizing Committee, held in 
Washington, April, 1889, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, E. D. Cope, and Persifor 
Frazer were added to the committee. 

At the second meeting of the Permanent Organizing Committee, held 
in Philadelphia, November, 1889, it was decided to appoint three sub- 
committees, as follows: 

On long excursions—Chairman, J. W. Powell. On programme— 
Chairman, C.E. Dutton. Local committee, Chairman, Lesley, Leidy, 
Frazer. 

The secretary was requested to correspond with the general secreta- 
ries of the London session and ascertain whether or not the Bureau 
desired a change in the date of the next meeting from 1891 to 1892, in 
order to coincide with the period of the proposed Columbian Quadri- 
centennial. 

Minutes of Third Meeting. At the call of the Chairman the American 


386 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


Committee of organization of the International Congress of Geologists 
met in Washington at the National Museum, Friday, April 18th, at 
4P.M. The following members were present: Messrs. Cope, Dutton, 
Frazer, Gilbert, Hague, Hall, Lesley, Marsh, Newberry, Powell, 
Stevenson, Walcott, Whitfield, Williams and Winchell. J. 8S. New- 
berry in the chair. The minutes of the last meeting were read by the 
secretary and approved. 

The Secretary reported that in accordance with the direction of the 
Commitee (see page 11) he wrote a letter on Nov. 18th, 1889 to the gen- 
eral secretaries of the London Congress, asking them if the Bureau 
desired the time of the Congress to be postponed to correspond with 
time of the expected World’s Fair in 1892. This action was taken in 
conformity with the resolution adopted by the Congress at its Paris 
meeting in 1878, investing the ‘‘Bureau actuel’’ with powers during the 
interval up to the next Congress, and committing to the general sec-- 
retary charge of the correspondence. (see p. 199.) 

The letter from the general secretaries, J. W. Hulke and William 
Topley, dated Dec. 6th, 1889, was then read: (see letter on file.) The 
Secretary further stated that the American committee of organization 
not having expressed any recommendation regarding postponment, 
and in consideration of the unsettled state of the legislation regarding 
the World’ Fair, had considered it inappropriate for him officially to 
take further action until the Committee could take action in the matter. 
The general secretaries’ letter was acknowledged. 

Captain Dutton thought that if the only reason for postponement be 
to make the session coincide with the time of holding the World’s 
Fair, no postponement should take place. Professor Lesley suggested 
that Dr Frazer may have information derived from private correspond- 
ence bearing upon the subject, which may be of interest to the meeting... 
The Chairman called for a statement from Mr. Frazer. Mr. Frazer 
stated that he had received letters from a number of members of the 
Bureau expressing their opinions regarding postponement. These 
letters were laid upon the Secretary’s table for inspection, and Mr. 
Frazer read an abstract of views prepared by him (See his report in 
American Geologist. April, 1890, p. 208.) 

Professor Cope would not object to the postponement to 1893. 

Major Powell stated that legislation in the matter is not completed, 
but the prospect is that the Fair will be held in 1893 and in Chicago. 

Professor Lesley stated that he hoped the Congress will not be held in 
Philadelphia, but before deciding the matter of postponement, with 
the consent of the Committee, he wished to make a statement regard- 
ing the Local Committee of Philadelphia. No objection being raised, he 
stated that soon after the appointment of the Local Committee he called 
a meeting, and the first meeting of the Local Committee was held: at 
that meeting he stated that he accepted and held the position of Chair- 
man pro tempore, and proposed to organize the Committee by the 
election of Mr. Frazer as chairman. This proposition was 
met by objection on the part of Mr. Frazer, who maintained 
that the Local Committee had no power to change its constitu- 
tion,—that he would not take the chairmanship unless appointed by 
the General Committee,—and that.if he were appointed chairman by 
the General Committee he would accept. Mr. Frazer would not take 
the work or responsibility of chairmanship unless he were chairman; 
and as Mr. Lesley was unable to perform these functions it was impos- 
sible to act further. Mr. Frazer stated to him that there was a corres- 
pondence with the members of the Bureau, which convinced him that 
there was no reason for hurry. The Local Committee was then ad- 
journed and no further action had been taken, and the committee had 
not been called together since that time. 


Dilton Conimient 


7 4 yj i 
Professor Lesley further stated that under such circumstances he © 
believed it impossible for the present committee to perform satisfac- 

-_ torily the duties with which they were charged, and at the proper time 
he would offer the resolution that the Local Committee be discharged. 

Mr. Frazer seconded the resolution, and said that it wasimpossible 

for him to devote the time and work required unless he was chairman: 

he did not desire the chairmanship, but he would not do the work 
without holding the office: if the General Committee would appoint 
him chairman he would do the best he could. It will cost 12,000 dol- 
lars, if publications are included, to take care of Congress,$8,000if publi- 
cations are left out. He did not agree thatit would be a failurein — 
ieee Ue and protested against any postponement or change of 
ace. \ 
e After several tentative motions, the resolution, that we do not ask | 
for any postponement of Congress was passed. Aha 
Mr. Frazer read extracts from a letter from Provost William Pepper — 
of the University of Pennsylvania, stating that the Centennial of the 
- University, the holding of which was expected to be in 1891, and which 
was one of the strong reasons for inviting the Congress to meet in 
Philadelphia, would not be held in 1891, but probably in 1892, and that 
he (the Provost) hoped the Congress would not be held in 1891. 

The resolution proposed above by professor Lesley was formally 
made as follows: Resolved that the Local Committee be discharged. 

This was seconded by Dr. Frazer, put to vote, and passed with one 
dissenting vote. 

Mr. Cope moved that the Chairman appoint another Committee: 
Seconded by Captain Dutton. 

Professor Lesley urged that we should determine first the place; 
Frazer, that the time would not permit of change, nor would it be cour- 
teous to Philadelphia. A resolution was made and passed to lay the 
motion on the table. 

Upon motion of major Powell, to test the sentiment of the Committee, 
and seconded by professor Lesley: Resolved that it is the opinion of 
this Committee that the place should be changed. | Passed by a vote 
of eight to two. Messrs. Hall and Frazer explained their votes. 

Major Powell moved that it is the sense of this meeting that the next 
Congress should be held in New York ;—not seconded, but opposed by 
professor Stevenson. 

Professor Lesley moved the following: Resolved that it is the sense 
of this meeting that the next meeting of the Congress should be held 
in Washington. The motion was seconded by professor Marsh. Dr. 
Frazer wished to go on record as opposing the motion. After some 
discussion this resolution was passed by a vote of nine to three. 
(Messrs. Hall, Cope, and Frazer voting No.) A formal motion, offered 
by Mr. Gilbert and seconded by Mr. Lesley, was then put as follows: 

RESOLVED, that this Committee recommend and request the Bureau of 
the Congress to authorize the holding of the next Congress in the city of 
Washington. 

The question was considered of importance and the secretary was 
directed to obtain the vote of each member of the Committee, and in 
case the resolution received the majority of votes of the committee, to 
communicate the resolution to the Bureau for its authorization. 

Upon motion of professor Winchell it was resolved that the chairman 
notify Provost Pepper of the action of the committee, explaining in all 
due courtesy the difficulties met with by the local committee, and the 
fact that it appeared eminently desirable that the place of holding the ‘ 
Congress be changed from Philadelphia to Washington, without any 
discourtesty or failure of appreciation of the kindly invitation of the 
people of Philadelphia. 


awe ~~ a " 
el o£ eee ee 


a ee 


ae i 
888 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


The meeting was adjourned subject to the call of the Chairman, 


As soon asthe Washington meeting of the permanent organizing 
committee was over the following letter was addressed to every mem- 
ber of the Bureau: 
April 24, 1890. 


Sir and Colleague:— 


At a session of the General Committee charged with the preparations 
for the coming meeting of the International Geological Congress, 


- which session was held in Washington on April 18, 1890, it was decided 


to request the Bureau to change the place of meeting and to transfer it 
from Philadelphia to Washington, on the pretext that there was in- 
compatibility in the views of the members of the local committee con- 
sisting of Messrs. Lesley, Leidy, and Frazer. It is the duty of the 
undersigned to inform you without delay that the explanation is not 
correct. The opinion of the three members above mentioned, expressed 
at the only meeting they have held, was as harmonious and accordant 
as possible on all points. The only difference was that Prof. Lesley 
desired to yield the chairmanship of the local committee to Prof. Frazer 
on the vote of two of its members, and that the latter did not believe 
himself to be justified in accepting this arrangement without the au- 
thorization of the General Committee ; an opinion in which Prof. Leidy 
joined. Butthis point of pure detail had nothing to do with the 
place of the meeting. 

The undersigned members of this Bureau and of the General Com- 
mittee protest against what they believe to be on the part of the General 
Committee an abuse of power delegated to it by the Congress, and they 
declare that in their opinion, this committee in proposing to the Bureau 
a change of the place originally designated has actedwith out ostensible 
cause, contrary to the wish of the Congress expressed by an unani- 
mous vote. 

Signed, 
T. Sterry Hunt, 
Jospepn Lerrpy, 
KE. D. Corn, 
PERSIFOR FRAZER. 


REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 


The Trenton Limestone as a source of petroleum and inflammable gas in 
Ohio and Indiana. By Epwarp Orron. (Extract from the Eighth 
Annual report United States Geol. Survey). 

In 1885 the Census Bureau issued a portly volume entitled ‘‘Report 
on the Production, Technology, and uses of Petroleum and its Prod- 
ucts,’’ by Prof. 8. F. Peckham—a work which was a marvel of com- 
pleteness and erudition and was then apparently exhaustive of all then 
known or likely to.be known of the natural history of the native petro- 
leum compounds. But now we are called upon to notice a successor 
in a monograph dealing with new data and results. 

In this memoir of 190 pages the remarkable history of the new Ohio 
gas field is s0 admirably told by the veteran Ohio geologist that it 
must take a permanent place among the romances of science. It is not 
the least virtue of the book that it is decidedly readable as well as 


Review of Recent Geological Literature. 


eminently painstaking and accurate, and though written in 1887 it has _ 


suffered little from subsequent discoveries. 


ham, but those familiar with Dr. Orton’s other writings need not be 


reminded that he rejects the distillation hypothesis of Peckham for — 


Dr. Hunt’s theory, which, however, is considerably modified to adapt 


it to recent discoveries in Ohio. The following summary briefly indi- _ 


cates the conclusions reached. 
(1) Petroleum is derived from organic matter. 


(2) It is more Jargely derived from vegetable than animalsubstances. _ 
(3) Petroleum of the Pennsylvania type is derived from the organic _ 


matter of bituminous shales and is of vegetable origin. 
(4) Petroleum of the Canada and Lima type is derived from wes 
stones and is of animal origin. 


(5) Petroleum has been produced at normal rock temperatures (in of 
Ohio fields) and is not a product of destructive distillation of bitumin- | 


ous shales. 


(6) The stock of petroleum im the rocks is already practically com- | 


plete. 
The second chapter contains a lucid discussion of the modes of accu- 


mulation of oil and gas. It may well be a matter of surprise to many 


that the anticlinal theory of gas location—obvious induction that it is— 


should have been so long seeking recognition as the history proves. | 
The following chapter, embracing the history of the exploiting and de- — 


velopment of the Findlay field, reads like a romance. 

The first discovery on record of inflammable gas in the Findlay field 
was made while digging a well, three and a half miles south of the 
court house, in October, 1836. On lowering a torch into the excavation 
after nightfall to ascertain its conditior, the workmen were startled 
by an explosion, and a flame of considerable volume was afterward 
found burning on the surface of the water below. The difficulty in 
finding potable water was,indeed, one of the most constant indications 
of the presence of gas. ‘‘From statements now made, it is clear that 
the presence of inflammable gas has been known in Findlay and its 
vicinity since the country was first occupied. There have always been 
surface indications here of pronounced character, the most conspicuous 
of which are the sulphureted water of wells and springs, the escape of 
gas from springs and rock-crevices, and its presence in numerous ex- 
oavations carried down to the limestone rock * * * * But it is 
also clear that it was likewise universally deplored as a nuisance that 
must be endured because it could not be abated.’’ The gas was first 
utilized in 1838 by means of a primitive reservoir and burner composed 
of an inverted sugar kettle and a gun barrel. The fire thus lighted has 
continued practically ever since, but the first person who is known to 
have recognized the larger possibilities of the Findlay gas was Dr. 
Chas. Oesterlin who long vainly attempted to interest his neighbors 


The work opens with a review of current theories as to the origin of i “te 
gas and oil which confessedly owes much to the older work of Peck- 


<4, S&S =a 
Ps ge 


Ste a= 


a 
—— 


390 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


and to lead them to join him in drilling for a larger supply. In March 
1883 Dr. Oesterlin organized the Findlay Natural Gas Co. with a capi- 
tal stock of $5,000. The drilling of the Pioneer well developed several 
minor gas horizons but at 1,092 feet a horizon of solid highly crystalline 
limestone was reached, which proved a reservoir of high-pressure gas. 
The gas was lighted, and its blaze at night illuminated a circle of coun- 
try 20 miles in diameter, The Pioneer well was successful. A new 
horizon of gas and oil, not dreamed of before, was brought to light and 
Findlay became the centre of inspiration of development of fossil power 
scarcely, if at all, inferior in value to the great petroleum reservoirs of 
western Pennsylvania and New York. The flow from this first well is 
estimated at 300,000 cubic feet per day. This much we condense from 
the account of the development of the new field. 

The fourth chapter embraces the discussion of the geological ele- 
ments in the problem. Incidentally this chapter illustrates the short- 
sighted policy of legislative action in aiding only what is speciously 
termed practical geology and discriminating against paleontology: 
Even the most minute fossils may have an important practical bearing. 
Excellent specimens of the almost microscopic shell Leptobolus insignis 
H. were brought up in fragments of shale from a depth of 1,200 feet 
and positively locate the horizon of the Utica slate. The fact that fos- 
sils are the only indubitable indices of the age of a rock cannot be too 
often reiterated. Attention is called to the petroliferous character of 
the Clinton which may yet acquire as great importance in the North 
as an oil-bearer as in the South as a source of iron. 

As open to criticism we note the use of the term ‘‘Devonian shale”’ 
to include the Cleveland, Erie, and Huron shales. Prof. Orton states 
that ‘‘the belief that the great shale system would everywhere admit 
of the convenient and easily-applied system of division above stated 
has not proved well-founded.’’ Onthe other hand Dr. Newberry forci- 
bly claims that these three shales have nothing in common and Prof. 
C.L. Herrick has sought to indicate the nature of the conditions which 
locally combined elements of them all and interblended them in places 
with horizons of Hamilton habitus. 

A very interesting generalization is stated in the concluding chapter 
viz., that the porous character of the limestone in the petroliferous 
district is due to a process of dolomitization which resulted in complete 
crystallization leaving interstitial pores and spaces capable of carrying 
large quantities of oil, gas, or water. This dolomitization of the Tren- 
ton limestone seems to have been in the main regional and confined to 
the upper portions of the limestone. A warping of the formation has 
resulted in the differentiation of the contents of the porous portions, 
the gas and oils seeking the highest levels and the salt water remain- 
ing at a lower but definite elevation in every field. Prof. Orton con- 
cludes ‘‘it is unsafe to count the Trenton limestone an oil rock or a gas 
rock in any locality unless it can be shown to have undergone the dol- 
omitic replacement by which its porosity is assured. Even in case it has 


Recent Publications. 391 


Vis 


"undergone this transformation it will not be found a reservoir of oil or 


_ gas in an important sense unless, in the accidents of its history, some 
parts of its deeply-buried surface have acquired the relief that is essen- 


{ 


tial to a due separation of its liquid and gaseous contents.’’ The re- 
port in matter and manner is admirable. 


RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 


2. Proceedings of scientific societies. 


Synopsis of the Cretaceous foraminifera of New Jersey, A. Woodward 


from the Journal of the New York Microscopical Society, Dec. 1889. 

On the Cheyenne sandstone and the Neocomian shales of Kansas, 
F. W. Cragin, Bul. Wash. College Laboratory, vol. 2, No. 11, March 
1890. 

The Geological Society of America has issued several bulletins of 
volume 1, viz: 

Organization of the Geological Society of America, with proceedingS 
of the semi-annual meeting held at Toronto, August 28-29, 1889. This 
bulletin contains abstracts of the following papers: Revision of the 
genus Orthis, James Hall; New generaand species of Dictyospongide, 
James Hall; The strength of the earth’s crust, G. K. Gilbert; Bould- 
er beds and boulder trains, T. C. Chamberlin; Trap dikes near Ken- 

-nebunkport, Maine, J. F. Kemp; The Sylvania sand in Cuyahoga 

county, Ohio, Peter Neff. The following are pnblished in full: Areas 
of Continental progress in North America, James D. Dana; Study of 
a line of displacement in the Grand Canon, C. D. Walcott; 
High continental elevation preceding the Pleistocene, J. W. Spencer; 
Ancient shores, boulder pavements, and high-level gravels, J. W. 
Spencer, pp. 1-86. 

Origin of the rock-pressure of natural gas in the Trenton Limestone 
in Ohio and Indiana, E. Orton, pp. 87-98. 

Notes on the surface geology of Alaska, I. C. Russell, pp. 99-162. 

Note on the pre-Paleozoic surface of the Archean terranes of Canada; 
The internal relations and taxonomy of the Archean of Central Canada, 
A. C. Lawson, pp. 163-194. 

Structure and origin of glacial sand plains, W. M. Davis, pp. 195- 
202. 

- Orographic movements in the Rocky mountains 8. F. Emmons, pp. 
245-286. 
_ On the glacial phenomena in Canada, Robert Bell, pp. 287-310. 

On the Pleistocene flora of Canada, Sir William. Dawson and Prof. 
D. P. Penhallow, pp. 311-334. 

' The Journal of the Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist. vol. xm, No. 4, January, 1890 
contains, New Lower Silurian bryozoa, by E. O. Ulrich, pp. 173-198. 

The Topography of Florida, N.S. Shaler, Bul. Mus. Comp. Zool., 
vol. xvz. No. 7. 

The mineral composition and geological occurrence of certain igne- 


392 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


ous rocks in the Yellowstone National park, Jos. P. Iddings. Bul- 
Phil. Soc., Washington, vol. x1, pp. 192-220. 


3. Papers in Scientific Journals. 


Can. Record of Science. On new plants from the Erian and Carbon: 
iferous, and on the characters and affinities of paleozoic gymnosperms, 
Sir. J. W. Dawson. 

Am. Nat. Sept. No. Origin of the Loess, Jno. T. Campbell. 

Am. Naturalist, Oct. No. Synopsis of the families of vertebrata, E. 
D. Cope. Feb. No. Review of the progress of American invertebrate, 
paleontology for the year 1889, C. R. Keyes. Mar. No. The teeth as 
evidence of evolution, W. C.Cohall; Genesis of the Actinocrinide, 
Chas. R. Keyes. 

Am. Jour. Sci. Feb. No. Gictvedus plants'from Martha’s Vineyard, D. 
White; Review of R. W. Ells’ second report on the geology ofa portion 
of the province of Quebec, C. D. Walcott; Tracks of organic origin in 
rocks of the Animikie group, A. R. C. Selwyn. March No. Sedgwick 
and Murchison: Cambrian and Silurian, James D. Dana; Cretaceous 
of the British Columbian region—The Nanaimo group, Geo. M. Daw- 
son; Celestite from Mineral county, W. Va., Geo. H. Williams ; Mineral 
locality at Branchville, Ct. Fifth paper, Brush and Dana; Recent rock- 
flexure, Frank Cramer ; Origin of the rock-pressure of the natural gas of 
the Trenton limestone of Ohio and Indiana, E. Orton. April No. Aolian 
sandstones of Fernando de Noronha, J. C. Branner; Occurrence of ba- 
salt dykes in the upper paleozoic series in central Appalachian Vir- 
ginia, N. H. Darton, with notes on the petrography by J. 8S. Diller; 
Origin of the Soda granite and quartz-keratophyre of Pigeon point, 
W.S. Bayley ; Occurrence of polycrase or of an allied species in both 
North and South Carolina, Hidden and Macintosh; Origin of some top- 
ographic features of central Texas, R. S. Tarr; Formation of silver sil- 
icate, J. D. Hawkins. 

Ottawa Naturalist, No. for Jan. to March. Geological progress in Cana- 
da, R. W. Ells. (President’s inaugural address). April No. The Mis- 
tassini region, A. P. Low. 

Am. Antiquarian, March No. The cliff-dwellers and their works, 
Stephen D. Peet. 

4. Hacerpts and Individual Publications. 


Annual report of the curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 
at Harvard College, 1888-89. A. Agassiz. 

The history of the Niagara river, G. K. Gilbert, Albany. From the 
sixth annual report of the Commissioners of the state reservations at 
Niagara, 1889. 

The horned Dinosauria of the Laramie, E. D. Cope. From the Ameri- 
can Naturalist, published Dec. 17, 1889. 

On excavations made in rocks by sea-urchins, J. Walter Fewkes. 
Am. Naturalist, Jan. 1890. 

Reply to the questions of Mr. Selwyn on ‘‘Canadian Geological Class- 


Recent Publications. 


ification for Quebec.’’ Jules Marcou. Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 
_ XxIv, 1889. 

The Laramie group: Its geological relations, its economic import- 
ance, its fauna and flora. The rock-salt deposits of the Salina group 
of western New York. (abstract) J. S. Newberry. From Trans. Nava 
Acad. of Sciences, vol. rx, Nos. 1 and 2. 

Museum history and museums of History. G. Brown Goode, Am. 
Hist. Asso. 

Remarks upon extinct mammals of the United States, W. R. Shu- 
feldt. Am. Field, vol. xxxtt. 

Some new Kansas industries, Robert Hay. Proc. Kas. State Bd. of 
Agriculture. 

Biographical notice of Chas. A. Ashburner. J. P. Lesley, Trans. 
- Am. Inst. Min. Eng. Feb. 1890. 

Relations of the pinite of the Boston basin to the felsite and con- 
glomerate, W. O. Crosby. Tech. Quart. Feb. 1890. 
. 5. Foreign Publications. 

Untersuchungen ueber Gesteine und Mineralien aus West-Indien. . 
von J. A. Kloos. (Sammlungen d. geol. Reichs Museums in Leiden, — 
1889, S. 169). 

Second report on the geology of a portion of the province of Quebec. 
R. W. Ells. Part K. Rep. of the Can. Geol. and Nat. Hist. Sur. for 
1887, contains an appendix, in tabulated form, showing the system- | 
atie distribution of the fossils, and their localities, referred to in the 
report exclusive of those species obtained in the limestone conglomer- 
ate bands, by Henry M. Ami. 

Proceedings and transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Nat- 
ural Science, vol. v1, \Part m1, contains: A geological recreation in 
Massachusetts centre, D. Honeyman; Ice in the Carboniferous period, 
Henry S. Poole; Glacial boulders of our fisheries, and invertebrates 
. attached and detached, D. Honeyman; The geology of Cape Breton, 
the minerals of the Carboniferous, E. Gilpin. 

Schriften d. nat. Ver. f. Schleswig-Holstein, B. vi, Erstes Heft, 
Kiel, contains: Ueber eine lokale Anhiufung miociinen Gesteins bei 
Itzshoe. E. Stolley; Ueber einige seltene Fossilien aus dem Diluvium 
und der Kreide. Sch. Holsteins, H. J. Haas. 

A manual of paleontology. By H. Alleyne Nicholson and Richard 
Lydekker. Two volumes, 8vo. 1624 pp. Third edition, rewritten and 
enlarged. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, 1889. 

The evolution of climate. James Geikie, Scottish geographical mag- 
zine, Feb. 1890. 

Foldtani Kézlony. Nov.-Dec. 1889, contains: Rhyolithspuren in 
Schweden. Dr. J. Szadeczky; Ueber einige seltenere Gesteinsein- 
schliisse in ungarischen Trachyten Franz Schafarzik; Der Stephans- 
gang und seine Uebenkliifte, Paul Hegediis; Kleinere phytopalionto- 
logische Mittheilungen, Dr. M. Staub. 

Ueber die rothen und bunten Mergelder oberen Dyas bei Manches- 


405 GACY 


394 The American Geologist. June, 1890 


ter. H. B. Geinitz, Geo. Isis in Dresden, 1889, Abh. 3. 
Summary Report of the operations of the Geological and Natural 
History survey, Ottawa. A. R. C. Selwyn. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


PostscrRiIPT TO ARTICLE ON ‘‘THE Maquoketa SuHaAtzs.’’—Since the 
foregoing was put in type Mr. Leverett has kindly sent me some ad- 
ditional data of the Indiana gas borings. The following items are 
taken from his letter. 

In a well at Terre Haute, the Trenton lime-stone was reached at a 
depth of 2,860 feet or 2,400 feet below sea level. In my discussion of 
the records given in table No. 1, it is stated that a well at Terre Haute 
was carried down 2,000 feet and stopped in the Corniferous lime-stone ; 
and that if the rocks of the Cincinnati group continued to dip at the 
same rate as between Plainfield and Danville, the top of the group 
would be 1512 feet below sea level. From the later data the depth is 
even greater than this, probably 2,200 feet below sea level, if present 
at all. 

At Rockville, which is about 40 miles west of Danville and close to 
the line of section west from Richmond, (No. 1) the Trenton was about 
1,400 feet below sea level, as against 518 feet at Danville. The exact 
thickness of the Cincinnati group is not ascertained. 

Rensselaer, again, is on the direct line of the second section, drawn 
north-west from Richmond. Mr. Leverett’s data from a well there 
indicates an altitude of some 70 or 100 feet for the top of the Cincinnati 
rocks above tide, and a thickness for them of 300 feet. These figures 
correspond well with the others given in my second table. 

' Other well records are given by Mr. Leverett, but not being on the 
lines of section treated of, they are not mentioned here. It will be 
enough to say that the additional information confirms the deductions 
made in the body of the paper. 

JosEePH F. JAMEs. 
Washington, D. C. May 5, 1890. 


PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 


THE CHAIR oF GEOLOGY AND Natura History at Granville, 
O. left vacant by the call of Prof. Herrick to the corresponding 
chair in the University of Cincinnati, has been filled by Prof. 
W. G. Tight, under whose conduct the bulletin of the labora- 
tories of Denison University will be continued. The fifth vol- 
ume of this publication will contain, among other geological 
papers, stratigraphical notes on the Waverly in north-central 
Ohio by W. F. Cooper, who seeks to verify and extend the 
correlations suggested for the central and southern counties 
in previous numbers. 


a 


A 


Additions and corrections to Miller’s N. 

: Am. paleontology, Herrick, 253. 

_ Agaricocrinus, observations on Keokuk 
species, Gordon, 257. 

American Society of Civil Engineers, 


bye 

American Naturalist (The), 255. 

American Neocomian and the Gryphea 
pitcheri, Marcou. 315. 

Ami, Henry M., Catalogue of fossils 
relating to the Quebec group as men- 
tioned in Ells’ report for 1887-88, 247. 

Annual report of the Canadian Geolog- 
ical Survey, 240. 

Artesian wells in Kansas and causes of 
their flow, 296. 

Artesian well water power, 128. 

Ashburner, C. A., 128. 

Attempt to eter glacial lunoid fur- 
rows, Packard, 104. 

Award of the Hayden memorial medal 
to Prof. James Hall, 234. 

Azoic system, definitions of, 106. 


B 


Bailey, L. W., Report on northern New 
Brunswick, 246. 

Baily, E. H. S., 250. 

Barrois, C., 209. 

Batocrinus calvini, Rowley, 140. 

Becker, Geo. F., Geology of the qnick- 
silver deposits of the Pacific slope, 178. 

Beecher, C. E., Silurian brachiopods, 54. 

Bessey, C. E., 63. 

Bell, Robert, Economic geology of On- 
tario. 238. 

Beyrich, E. 209. 

Bibliography of N. Am. vertebrate pale- 
ontology, for 1889, Eyerman, 250. 

Blake, W. P., 63. 

Blake and Baily, Kansas coals, 250. 

Boston Society of Natural History, 122. 

Bowman, Amos, Cariboo mining dis- 
trict, 241. 

Branner, J. C.,The training of a geol- 
ogist, 147. 

Brenham, Kiowa county, Kansas mete- 
orites, N. H. Winchell and James A. 
Dodge, 309. 

British Columbia, Report by G. M. Daw- 
son, 240; Carribou mining district, 241. 

Brower, J. V., Sketch of Schoolcraft, 1. 

Bryson, John, Preglacial channels at 

_ the falls of the Ohio, 186. 


Cc 


Calvin, S.,'Note on a specimen of Con- 
ularia missouriensis, with crenulated 
cost, 207. 

Capellini, G. 209; 380; 383. 

Carpenter, Franklin R., 63. 

Casts of Scolithus, flattened by pressure, 
Wanner, 35. 


PND Exe TOV O10 NV. 


Causes of the extinction of species, Mc 
Creery, 100. 

Century dictionary’s definition of the 
Azoic system, 106. 


Chalmers, R., Surface geology of north- 


eastern New Brunswick, 247. 

Chamberlin, T. C., 118. 

Clerks A ohn M., Silurian brachiopods, 

Classification of the geographic features 
of Texas, Hill, 9, 68. ‘ 

Claypole, E. W., Illustration of the “level — 
of no strain,” 88; Making of Pennsyl- 
vania, 225. 

Coal in the south of England, 318. 

Comstock, Theo. B., 125. 

Concho country, a geological survey of, 
Cummins and Lerch, 321. 

Cope, E. D. 62; 387; 388. 

Contributions to micro-paleontology, 
Ulrich, 107. 

Contributions to Canadian paleontology, 
Whiteaves, 108. 

Conularia missouriensis, Calvin, 207. 

Berpes in the Animike rocks, Lawson, — 

74. 


Correspondence, 62, 185, 253. 

Coste, E. Mines of Canada for 1887, 247. 

Cresson, H. T. and the Delaware river 
dwellings, Peet, 188. 

Cretaceous reptilian forms, March, 181. 

Crosby, W. O., 123. 

Crystallogenesis, Hensoldt, 301, 375. 

Cummins, W. F., On the Concho coun- 


try, 321. 
D 


Davis, W. M., Rivers and valleys of Penn- 
sylvania, 60; 124. 

Dawson, Geo. M., Report on the Yukon 
district and British Columbia, 240; Min- 
eral wealth of British Columbia, 247. 

Dawson, Sir William, 121; Erian and 
Carboniferous plants, 180. 

Delgado, J. F. N., 209. 

Description of eight new fossils from 
Manitoba, Whiteaves, 58. 

Desor, E., On the Laurentian as applied 
to Quaternary terrane, 33. 

Development of Silurian brachiopods, 
Beecher and Clark, 54, 

Devonian plants from Ohio, Newberry, 
183. 

Dewalque, G., 200; 381. 

Dictionary of the fossils of Pennsylvania, 
Lesley, 53. 

Dikes near Kennebunkport, Me., J. F, 
Kemp, 129. 

Diller, J. S., 121. 

Dodge, Jas. A., Kiowa county meteor- 
ites. 309. 

Dotsero voleano, Colorado, 40. 

Drainage systems of New Mexico, Tarr, 
3) 


Drumlins, structure of, Upham, 61. 


DRYAS STU RTA NRT SG 


lay | Nt 


396 


Dryer, Charles R., Glacial geology of the 
Irondequoit region, 202. 

Duck, G. F., 63. 

Duck and Riding mountains, J. B. Tyr- 
rell, 241. 

Dutton, C. E., 386. 


E. 


Economic geological suryey in Georgia 
and Alabama, Spencer, 185. 

Editorial Comment, 397. 

Elemente der Paleontologie, Steinmann 
and Ludwig, 183. 

Ells, R. W., On the Quebee group, 120; 
Report on province of Quebec, 243, 

Emerson, B. K., 121. 

Evolution of climate, James Geikie, 313. 

ea yoleanoes in Colorado, Lakes, 


Eyerman, John, Bibliography of N. Am. 
vertebrate paleontology for 1889, 250. 


F. 


Fewkes, J. Walter, Origin and outlines 
of the Bermudas, 88. 

Fontaine, W. M., Potomac or younger 
mesozoic flora, 315. 

Foster, C. LeNeve, 209. 

Foster and Whitney, Definition of the 
Azoic system, 106. 

Frazer, Persifor, Phil. session Int. Cong. 
Geol., 208; 210; 380; 382; 383; 388. 

FoOssIts. 
New, from Manitoba, 58. 
Of the Trinity beds, 62. 
From the Pacifie coast, 109. 
Batoerinus calvini, 140. 
New plants fromthe Erian and Car- 


boniferous, 180. 
Caaeectere of paleozoic gymnosperms, 


Cretaceous reptiles, 181. 

Catalogue of N. A. paleozoie erustacea 
(non-trilobitic), 183. 

pie earo tis from southeastern Iowa, 


Conularia missouriensis, 207. 

Of the province of Quebec, mentioned 
in Dr. Ells report, 247. 

weve in the Rayenhead collection, 

Agaricocrinus, 257. 

New lamellibranchiata, 270. 


G. 


Gas, natural, at Freeborn, Minn., 128. 

Geikie, James, Evolution of climate, 313. 

Geographic features of Texas, Hill, 9, 68. 

Geological history of the Quebee group, 
Hunt, 212. 

Geological and natural history survey of 
Canada, annual report, 240. 

Geological Society of America, 117. 

meeirey of Colorado ore deposits, Lakes, 


Gilbert, G. K. 381; 382; 384; 385. 

Giordano, F., 209. 

Glacial geology of the Irondequoit re- 
gion, Dryer, 202. 

Glacial lunoid furrows, Packard, 104. 

Gordon, C. H., Observations on Keokuk 
species of Agaricocrinus, 257. 


le A 


Hall, James, 234. 
Harris, G. D., Terebellum in American 
Tertiaries, 315. 


Index. 


Hay, Robt., Notes on a Kansas salt mine, 
65; Horizon of the Dakota lignite, 247; 
Artesian wells in Kansas and causes 
of their flow, 296. q 

eye medal, award to James Hall, 


Hauchecorne, 380. 

Heilprin, Prof. A., 192. 

Hensoldt, H., Crystallogenesis, 301, 375. 

Herrick, C. L., 62; Corrections to Miller’s 
N. Am. paleontology, 253; 379. 

Hill, Robt. T., Classification and origin 
of the geographic features of Texas, 9, 
68; Fossils of the Trinity beds, 62, 125. 

Hitchcock, C. H., 121; Laurentian and 
Newark as geological terms, 197. 

Hitchcock, Edward, On the Witchita 
mountains, 73. 

Honeyman David. 185. 

Howard, Mrs. Jane T., Sketch of School- 
craft, 1. 

Howorth, M., Southward flow of the 
Siberian rivers in the age of the Mam- 
moth, 182. 

Hughes, T. McHenry, 209. 

Hudson’s bay, explorations east of, by 
A. P, Low, 242. 

Hulke, J. W. 208. 

Hunt, T. Sterry, 210; Geological history 
of the Quebec group, 2123 380; 382; 388. 

Huxley, T. H., 209. 


I. 


Illustration of the “level of no strain,” 
Claypole, 838. 

Ingall, E. D., Mines and mining of lake 
Superior, (Canada), 242. 

Innes, Wm, M., Report on New Bruns- 
wick, 246. 

Inostranseff, A., 209. 

Internat. Cong. of Geologists, session in 
Philadelphia, Frazer, 208. 

International Congress of Geologists, 
American Committee, 125; Organiza- 
tion Committee, 319; 379. 

Invertebrate fossils from the Pacific 
coast, 109. 

Irondequoit region, glacial geology of, 
Dryer, 202. 

Irving, A., Metamorphism of rocks, 56. 


J. 


James, Joseph F., On Laurentian as ap* 
plied to a Quaternary terrane, 29; On 
the Maquoketa shales and their correl- 
ation with the Cincinnati group of 
southwestern Ohio, 335; 394. 

James bay, explorations of, A. P. Low, 
9A 


Jameson, E., Leavenworth deep-well, 


250, 
K, 


Kansas Academy "of Science, 20th and 
21st meetings, 249. 

Kemp, J. F., Dikes near Kennebunkport, 
Me., 129. 
Kentucky fossil shells, Nettleworth, 107. 
Keyes, Chas. R., Certain forms of Strap- 
arollus from southeastern Iowa, 193. 
Kidston, Robert, Fossil plants in the 
Ravenhead collection, 249. 

King, William, Trilobitesin the Neobolus 
beds of the salt range, 183. 

Kloos, J. H., Untersuch. ueber Gesteine 
u. Min. aus W. Indien, 183. 

Kunz, Geo. F., 320. 


me ant 


Index. 897 


pe 
Lakes, Arthur, Extinct volcanoes in Col- 
orado, 38; Colorado ore deposits 57; 
Report of the School of mines on the 
coal deposits of Colorado, 312. 


‘ pe ere nts A de, 209; 380. 


Leidy, Jos., 388. 


- Laurentian as applied to a Quaternary 


terrane, James. 29. 

Laurentian and Newark, as geological 
terms, C. H. Hitchcock, 197. 

Lawson, A. C. Geology of the Rainy lake 
region. 55;119; Copperin the Animike 
rocks, 174. 

Leidy, Joseph, Mammalian remains 
from the southern states, 314. 

Leo Lesquereux, Orton, 284. 

Lerch, Dr. Otto, on the Concho country, 


Lesley J. P., Dictionary of the fossils of 
Pennsylvania, 53;386; 387. 

‘Level of no strain.’”’ 83,190. 

Leverett, Frank, 123. 

Levy, A. Michel, 62. 

Low, A. P. Explorations in Hudson’s 
and James bays, 242. 

Lower and Middle Taconie of Europe 
and North America, Marcou, 357. 


M 


Makingof Pennsylvania, Claypole, 225. 

Mammalian remains from the southern 
states, Leidy, 314 

Maquoketa shales, and the Cincinnati 
group, Jos. F. James, 335; 394. 

Marcou, Jules, Triassic flora of Rich- 
mond, Va., 160; The Am. Neocomian 
and Grypheea pitcheri, 315; The Lower 
and middle Taconic of Europe and 
North America, 357. 

Marcy, Captain Randolph B., on the 
Witchita mountains, 72. 

Marsh, O. C. Cretaceous reptilian forms 
181; 381. 

Marsters, V. F. Triassic traps of Nova 
Scotia. 140 

Martin, K. 209. 

McCreery, J. M. Causes of the extinction 
of species. 100. 

McConnell, R. G. 119. 

McGee, W. J. 120. 

Metamorphism of rocks, Irving. (A) 56. 

Miller, S. A. No. Am. Geology and pal- 
goutalogy, 52; corrections by Herrick, 

53. 


MINERALS. 

Wurzilite. 63; gold and silver produc- 
tion in 1889, 126; Rustless iron, 126; 
Petroleum in Brazil and in Pennsyl- 
vania, 126; Natural gas, Freeborn, 
Minn, 128; In Ohio and Indiana, 388; 
Copper in the Animike, 174; In 
British Columbia, 247: Metagado- 
linite, 256; Group of meteorites, 256; 

Mines and mining of lake Superior, 

Ingall, 242. 

Minnesota geological Survey. 17th an- 

nual report, N. H. Winchell, 58, 

Mud eruption in Asia, 191. 
Murchison, R. I, The Silurian system 

of rocks, 80. 

N 


Nantucket, Geology of, Shaler, 111. 
Nettleroth, Henry, Kentucky 
shells, 107. 


fossil 


Neumayr, M., 209; 380. 

Newberry, J. S. 118; Devonian plants 
from Ohio, 184; 381; 384. 

New Brunswick, Report of Bailey and 
SEURE, 246. Report of R. Chalmers, 


New Lamellibranchiata, Ulrich, 270 

North American geology and paleontolo- 
gy, Miller, 52. 

Notes on a Kansas salt mine, Hay, 65. 


O 


Ontario, economic geology of, Bell, 238, 

Origin and outlines of the Bermudas, 
Fewkes, 88. 

Orton, E., 63; 119; Sketch of Leo Lesquer- 
eux, 284. Trenton limestone as asource 

of petroleum and gas, 388. 
Ouachita mountains, 70. 
Owen, Richard, 320. 


Packard, A.S., Attempt to explain glac- 
ial. lunoid furrows, 104. 

Patent water-witch, 256. 

Peet, Stephen D., Mr. Cresson and the 
Delaware river dwellings, 188. 

Phil. meeting of the International Con- 

gress of Geologists, 319; 379. 

Petroleum in Pennsylvania, 126. 

Phil. meeting of the International Con- 
gress of Geology, 319, 379. 

Phosphate in Florida, 192. 

Potomac or younger Mesozoic flora, Fon- 
taine, 315. 

Powell, J. W., 383. 

Preglacial channels at the falls of the 
Ohio, Bryson, 186. 

Prestwich, Prof. Jos., 208; 380. 

Proctor, John R., 255. 

Putnam, F. W., 128. 


Quebee group, geological history of, 
Hunt, 212. 

Quebec. Reportof R. W. Ells on the 
province of, 243. 

Quenstedt, Prof. von, 320. 

Quicksilver deposits of the Pacifie slope, 
Becker, 178. 

R 


Rainy lake region, geology of, Lawson, 
55. 
Recent publications, 61, 114, 317, 391. 
Renevier, E. 209. 
Rivers and yalleys of Pennsylyania, 
Davis, 60. 
Rocks. 
Metamorphism of, 56; Silurian sys- 
tem of, 80; Subaerial decay of, 110; 
From the West Indies, 183; Group of 
Meteorites, 256. 
Rowley, R. R. Batocrinus calvini, new 
erinoid, 146. 
Ruffner, W. H. Land of the Buena Vista 
Company, 43. 
Russell, I. C., Subaerial decay of rocks 
and origin of the red color of certain 
formations, 110; 118. 


Salt range, trilobites in the Neobolus 
beds, King, 183. 

Santa Barbara channel, notes on the 
geology, Yates, 43. 

Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 1. 

School of mines of Colorado, report of, 
Lakes, 312. 

Sea-level, its dependence on superficial 


Woodward, 109. 
Seely, H. M., 120. 


_ Selwyn, A. R. C., Annual report of the 


Canadian survey, 240. 
Siberian rivers, their possible southward 
flow in the age of the mammoth, Ho- 
Why worth, 182. 
Shaler, N.S. Geology of Nantucket, 111; 
118; 124. : 


? 


- Silurian brachiopods, Beecher and 
} Clark, 54. 
Silurian system of rocks, R. I. Murchi- 
son, 80. 


Smith, E. A., 192. 
eH F. H., Significance of stipules, 250; 


South African gold fields, 191. 


Species, causes of extinction of. Mce- 
~S. Creery, 100. 
Spencer, J. W., Economic survey in 

Georgia and Alabama, 185; 125. 
Straparollus in southeastern 
~ Keyes, 193. 

Stur, 380. 
Subaerial decay of rocks, Russell 110. 
Szabo, J. 209. 

T 


Taconic, Lower and Middle, of Europe 
and North America, Marcou, 357. 

Tarr, Ralph 8. Drainage systems of New 
. Mexico, 261. : 

~Terebellum in American Tertiaries, Har- 

ris, 315. 
Texas, Geographic features of. Hill, 9. 
Tight, W. G., 394. 
Tiffany, A. S. 124; 128. 
Todd, J. E., 124. 
Topley, W., 208. 
one: The, of a geologist, Branner, 
Trans-Pecos country, Texas, Hill, 76. 
Trenton limestone as a source of petro- 
leum and gas, Orton, 388. 
Triassic flora of Richmond, Va. Jules 
Marcou, 160, 
fon traps of Nova Scotia, Marsters, 
140. 


Iowa, 


masses normal to the earth’s surface, | Tyrrell, J. B.119; Note and map of the 


| 


Duck and. Riding mountains, 241. Ny 


Ulrich, E. 0. Micro-paleontology of the 
New lamelli — 


Cambro-Silurian, 
branchiata, 270. f 
United States geological survey; eighth 
annual report, 314, 
Untersuchungen ueber Gesteine aus 
West Indien, Kloos, 183. 


107; 


Upham, Warren, Structure of Drumlins, — i 


61; 120; 123. 
Use of the terms Laurentian and Newark 
in geological treatises, Hitchcock, 197. 


Villanova, J. 209. 


Vogdes, A. W., Catalogue of N. Am. pal- — ay 


eozoic crustacea (non-trilobitic). 183. 


WwW 


Walcott, C. D. 120; 382; 385. 
Wanner, Atreus, Casts of Scolithus, 35. 


White, C. A. Invertebrate fossils from 


the Pacific coast, 109. 


Whiteaves, J. F. Fossils from Manitoba, — . 


58: contributions to Canadian paleon- 
tology, 108. 

White, C. D. 121. 

Whitfield, R. P. 120. a 

Williams, E. H. Jr., Problems of faulted 
beds and veins, 250. 

Williams, G. H. 118; 120; 210. 

Williams, H. 8. 120. 

Winchell, Alexander, 121. 

Winchell, N. H. The Brenham, Kiowa 
county, Kansas, meteorites, 309; 17th 
Minnesota report, 58. 

Wright, G. F. 119; 123. 

Wurzilite, described by W. P. Blake, 63. 

Ay 

Yates, Lorenzo G. Islands of the Santa 
Barbara channel, 43, ‘ 

Yucatan and Mexico, expedition to, 192. 

Yukon district, report by Geo. M. Daw- 
son, 240. ; 

Z 


Zittel, Dr. 209; 380; 383. 


ERRATA, 


Vol. IV., p. 359, 18th line for ‘‘dividing,”’ read deciding. 
Idem., 13th line from bottom for “spine,” read spire. 5 


Vol. V., p. 62, last line for 5735 read 57350. My 
p. 168, four lines from bottom for ‘“‘color and uppermost type,’’ read cover 


and wppermost top. 


p. 173, three lines for ‘and not characteristic,”’ read and most characteristic. 
p. 239, 14 lines from bottom, for $3,250.00 read $3,250,000. 


; Ms hia ie tL 
rw 


LUNA 


5267661