Brief Notices. 325 



VII. — Brief Notices. 



Pre-Cambrian Pocks of Albeeta, Canada. — Mr. C. D. Walcott 

 has described a series of unaltered sedimentary strata, consisting of 

 shales and sandstones grouped, as the Hector and Corral Creek Series, 

 which lie un conformably beneath the Cambrian rocks in the Bow 

 Biver Valley, Alberta. These pre-Cambrian rocks have not at present 

 yielded any fossils. (Smithsonian Misc. Coll., liii, No. 7, 1910.) 



Cambrian" Fauna of North Ameeica. — Mr. Walcott calls attention 

 to the "Abrupt Appearance of the Cambrian Fauna" (op. cit., 

 lvii, No. 1, 1910). He remarks that " The evidence afforded by the 

 few traces of pre-Cambrian fossils is inconclusive as far as determining 

 whether their habitat was in marine, brackish, or fresh water" ; but 

 he adds that life was probably first developed in the open ocean, as 

 advocated by Mr. W. K. Brooks, and that it became adapted to 

 littoral and shore conditions in Algonkian time. The apparently 

 abrupt appearance of the Lower Cambrian fauna is to be explained by 

 the absence on the present American land areas of the sediments and 

 organic remains belonging to the period between the formation of the 

 Algonkian continents and the earliest encroachment of the Lower 

 Cambrian sea. To this intermediate era Mr. Walcott applies the 

 name Lipalian. 



Iowa Geological Suevey. — The Annual Beport for 1909 (1910) 

 of the State Geologist, Dr. Samuel Calvin, 1 is accompanied by reports 

 on the geology of ten counties in Iowa by Messrs. M. F. Arey, 

 T. H. Macbride, B. Shimek, and S. \V. Stookey. The rocks described 

 include Devonian, Carboniferous (Mississippian and Pennsjdvanian), 

 Pleistocene (Nebraskan, Aftonian, Kansan, Iowan, etc.), and Becent. 

 The mammalian remains from the Aftonian Interglacial deposits 

 include Mylodon, Mastodon, Elephas, Equns, etc. ; those from the 

 Alluvial deposits include Bison, Elk, etc. The origin of the loess is 

 briefly discussed, and the view is supported that it is essentially 

 seolian. Much valuable information is given on the economic 

 branches of geology — on coal, building-stones, brick-clays, soils and 

 forests, drainage and water-supply. 



EEPOETS ^.ITSriD PEOCEBDINGS. 



I. — Geological Society of London. 



1. April 26, 1911.— Professor W. W. Watts, Sc.D., M.Sc, F.B.S., 



Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The President made the following announcement : — 

 "By the decease of Professor Thomas Eupert Jones, F.E.S., in his 

 92nd year, the Geological Society has lost one of its oldest and most valued 

 members, who was formerly (1850-62) Assistant Secretary of the Society, 

 and Editor of the Quarterly Journal. During his long life Professor Eupert 

 Jones was an ardent geologist and palaeontologist, and has left behind him 

 in the Palasontographical Society's memoirs, in the Quarterly Journal of the 

 Geological Society, in the Geological Magazine, and in the Annals of 

 Natural History, no mean record of his abilities and strenuous labours. 

 Nor was his work confined to original papers, but as Editor of the Quarterly 



1 Since this notice was written we regret to learn of the death of Dr. Calvin. 



