28 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
233p MEETING. ApRIL 7, 1883. 
Mr. Wa. H. Datu in the Chair. 
Thirty-six members and visitors present. 
The Chair announced that Messrs. EnwARD SANDFORD BURGESS 
and SUMNER Homer BoprisH had been elected members. 
The General Committee reported to the Society that “a Mathe- 
matical Section had been organized by the election of Mr. AsaPH 
HA. as Chairman and Mr. Henry Farquuar as Secretary. All 
members of the Society who are interested in mathematics are in- 
vited to attend and take part in its meetings, announcements of 
which will be sent to those who notify the Secretary of a desire for 
them.” 
The first communication was by Prof. W. C. Kerr on 
THE GEOLOGY OF HATTERAS AND THE NEIGHBORING COAST. 
[ Abstract. ] 
The notable projection of Hatteras, beyond the general line of 
trend of the Atlantic coast, has, of course, a geological origin. 
The study of the changes now taking place, and of the phenomena 
which have left their recent traces on the surface, readily furnish 
the data for the solution of the problem. Nearly one-half of this 
eastern inter-sound region of North Carolina is water surface, and 
the land surface lies for the most part below ten feet (much of it 
below five.) 
A large part of this low-lying surface is covered with beds of 
peat, which thicken towards the centre on the divides or swells be- 
tween the bays and sounds, rising, in some cases, to ten and fifteen 
feet, and in the Dismal Swamp on the northern border of the State 
to twenty-two feet. These beds of peat are in process of forming 
by the decay of plants growing on the surface, chiefly cypress and 
juniper. Many tiers of the undecayed logs of these timbers are 
piled upon one another through the whole thickness of the deposit, 
which is soft and yielding, so that a fence-rail may be thrust down 
beyond its length. Vast tracts of such peat swamps (and of marsh 
and savanna on which only water grasses and small shrubs and 
scrub pines grow and decay) are found throughout this coast region. 
Here we have the first stage in the formation of a coal bed. Another 
notable fact is that many of the rivers which empty into the sounds 
