GEOLOGY. 303 



of strata referred to the Lower Eocene or buhrstone group, 

 succeeded by 300 feet of Upper Eocene, following which are 

 the Cooper and Ashley beds, called by Vogdes, to whom we 

 owe these details, Pliocene. The Lower Eocene at Aiken, 

 S. C, has a thickness of 200 feet, and rests directly on crys- 

 talline rocks. 



The dredo-ino-s made in connection with the United States 

 Fish Commission have shown the existence along the eastern 

 coast of North America of a submerged belt of Tertiary rocks, 

 apparently of Miocene age. The evidence is afforded by nu- 

 merous fragments of hard eroded calcareo-arenaceous rocks, 

 obtained at various points along George's Bank at depths of 

 from thirty-five to seventy fathoms. Other specimens have 

 been got from the Grand Bank and at intermediate points, 

 the whole having yielded a large number of species of fossil 

 shells, besides portions of lignite and a sea-urchin. About 

 one half of the species are now living on the coast, the re- 

 mainder being probably extinct forms. Verrill concludes 

 from this the existence of a submerged Tertiary formation, 

 extending: from off Newfoundland alon^ the outer banks 

 nearly to Cape Cod. This view had been anticipated by C. 

 H. Hitchcock, who, from the consideration that the great Ter- 

 tiary belt, which stretches along the Atlantic coast from the 

 Gulf of Mexico as far as Massachusetts, is absent to the north 

 and east, su2f crested that there had been a recent subsidence 

 of the northeastern coast, and that Sable Island and the 

 Great Bank might mark the place of submerged Cenozoic 



rocks. 



LOESS FORMATION OF CHINA. 



There is found over great areas in Northern China a de- 

 posit which has been compared to the formation known in 

 the valley of the Rhine by the name of J.oess. As seen in 

 the former region, it is a fine brownish-yellow earth, extreme- 

 ly porous, very friable when dry, and more or less calcare- 

 ous. It is for the most part distinguished from ordinary al- 

 luvial deposits by the absence of planes of bedding or lam- 

 ination, presenting, however, at intervals, ordinarily of fifty 

 feet or more, horizontal divisional planes, which are general- 

 ly associated with calcareous concretions; and is, moreover, 

 marked, like the loess of the Rhine, by vertical cleavnge- 

 joints, which cause the deposit, when eroded by water- 



