34 Reviews — United States Geological Survey. 



There is now but one thing wanting to make the analogy between 

 the isostatic phenomena of America and Europe perfect in every 

 detail, and that is the discovery of a shoreline corresponding to the 

 ' early Neolithic ' or ' Littorina-Tapes ' raised beaches of Great 

 Britain and Scandinavia. This should represent in the south 

 a distinct resubmergence, and in the north a pronounced check or 

 slowing down in the general emergence. 



We must congratulate the author of the paper under review on 

 having made a striking advance in Quaternary geology. Is it too 

 much to hope that he will carry his researches further, and complete 

 the history of the changes of level in his district down to the 

 present dav ? 



W. B. Wright. 



IY. — Thirty-sixth Annual Report op the Director of the 

 United States Geological Survey to the Secretary of the 

 Interior for the year ended June 30, 1915. pp. 186, with 

 2 coloured plates. Washington, Government Printing Office, 

 1915. 



BY its very reticence and conciseness this slender volume is eloquent 

 testimony to the extensive and multifarious character of the 

 work carried on by the United States Geological Survey. How large 

 and useful are the services it renders may be gathered from the 

 following extract from the opening page of the report itself : " The 

 recognition by citizens generally that the Geological Survey is 

 a bureau of information as well as a field service has gradually placed 

 upon it a large burden of work as well as of responsibility. The 

 amount of correspondence involved in performing this public duty 

 may be indicated by the fact that approximately 50,000 letters of 

 inquiry were handled in the different scientific branches of the Survey 

 last year. The scope of these inquiries is not less noteworthy, for 

 they range from requests for information concerning the geology of 

 every part of the United States or the water supply, both under- 

 ground and surface, of as widely separated regions as Alaska and 

 Florida, or for engineering data on areas in every state in the Union, 

 to enquiries regarding the natural resources of foreign countries, 

 especially those of Central and South America." So large has the 

 Survey grown that for convenience of administration it is divided 

 into six main branches, each of which is subdivided into various 

 divisions, certain of which are further subdivided into sections. 

 First and possibly foremost of them comes the Geologic Branch, which 

 is responsible for the geological work of the Survey. Though it was 

 primarily formed for the comparatively restricted task of the classi- 

 fication and examination of the public lands reserved to the state, its 

 scope has been extended to the preparation of a geological map of the 

 whole of the United States. The nature of its duties is best set forth 

 in the words of the Report : "At present the geologic branch is not 

 only the effective agency of the Survey in the geologic investigations 

 carried on by the Government in all parts of the United States and 

 Alaska but also the great geologic information bureau to which the 

 American public, from Key West to Point Barrow and from San 



