418 JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES VOL. 11, NO. 17 



that the best method for annealing requires that the glass be held at constant 

 temperature (below the customary annealing point) for the appropriate time 

 and then cooled at an increasing rate. It is of interest to note that the larger 

 the piece of glass the lower the annealing temperature. Finally, there are 

 presented a number of equations which are convenient for calculating the 

 internal stresses due to heating or cooling solids of various shapes. 



While the original object of this investigation was to put on a quantitative 

 basis the operations connected with the annealing of glass, it was found that 

 many of the results have an important bearing on certain problems of geo- 

 physics. Thus, for example, the relief of internal stresses in glass probably 

 belongs in the category of elastico-viscous flow and is thus connected with such 

 processes as the tidal deformation of the earth's crust. Moreover, the for- 

 mulas expressing the relation between temperature-differences and stress 

 distribution are directly applicable to the phenomenon of the "jointing" 

 of rocks. L. H. A. and E. D. W. 



GEOLOGY. — Oil possibilities in and around Baxter Basin, in the Rock Springs 

 uplift, Sweetwater County, Wyoming. Alfred Reginald Schultz. 

 U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 702. Pp. 107, pis. 17, figs. 9, inserts 3. 1920. 



The data for this report were collected in 1907 and 1908 while the area 

 involved was being mapped for its coal resources, and are now made available 

 to meet the demand for information about oil and gas resources. As a 

 consequence the report lacks the detailed information, especially the structure 

 contour maps, usual in reports on this subject, but makes up for that de- 

 ficiency by the fullness of the information on larger structural features, 

 stratigraphy, oil shales, oil and gas bearing formations, etc. that is brought 

 together for this and surrounding regions. Drilling for oil and gas was active 

 in the Baxter Basin about 1900 but yielded mainly small amounts of gas. 

 A recent revival of drilling had at the time of the report also struck mainly 

 moderate flows of gas and little oil. Land surveys and geography are briefly 

 discussed, and water supply somewhat more fully. In general water supply 

 is poor except that available from deep artesian sources. Sixteen pages are 

 given to a discussion of stratigraphy with detailed description of the principal 

 exposed units which extend from the Baxter shale near the base of the Mon- 

 tana to the Eocene-Green River formation. Valuable correlation tables 

 bring out the naming and subdivision of the entire section down to the 

 pre-Cambrian at various times in this and adjacent areas. Twelve pages 

 devoted to structure in conjunction with the geological map define the prin- 

 cipal lines of folding, faulting, and overthrusting and their relation to the 

 adjacent Uinta Mountains. Fifty-foot structure contours on the Rock 

 Spring anticline are the only ones on the map, and it is only in relation to this 

 structure that the possible localization of oil or gas accumulations is disscused. 



A conspicuous feature of the report is the general review of the oil shale 

 situation. In the area under discussion oil shale occurs in two portions of the 

 Green River formation. Very full sections of this formation bring out the 

 position of the oil shales ; and the character of the beds, their oil content and 

 so forth is discussed. A brief review with map shows the known reserves 

 of oil shale in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. There follow 13 pages of 

 discussion of the beds from the lower Montana to the Cambrian that might 

 be reservoirs or sources of oil. The discussion is based mainly on evidence 

 from adjacent areas and is accompanied by a valuable table showing the beds 

 that yield oil and gas in various surrounding Rocky Moimtain fields. The 



