REVIEWS 413 
Elevation and erosion. 
Subsidence and deposition of the Wicomico formation. 
Elevation and erosion. 
Subsidence and deposition of the Talbot formation. 
Elevation and erosion. 
Partial subsidence and deposition of the recent terrace. 
Dr. Shattuck closes his report with the remark that ‘‘a study of the 
Coastal Plain deposits from the bottom to the top shows that the Atlantic 
sea-board has been repeatedly elevated when loaded and depressed when 
lightened. It would seem that some other theory than that of isostasy must ~ 
be proposed for these movements” (p. 137). 
Under the head of interpretation of the paleontological criteria, Dr. 
Clark remarks that all the fossils come from the Pleistocene, none from the 
Pliocene, i. e., the Lafayette. Fossil plants are found in all three of the 
Pleistocene formations—though imperfect in Wicomico—but the animal 
remains are confined to the latest or Talbot formation. In addition to the 
marine fossils in the Talbot formation, leaves, seeds, fruits, twigs, branches, 
logs, and stumps are preserved, some of which, according to Dr. Hollick, 
represent the accumulation of vegetation in place, in swamps, lagoons, 
or estuaries, and some represent transportation from adjacent localities. 
A few mastodons’ teeth and other vertebrate remains have been found in 
the Talbot formation. 
One cannot quite agree with Dr. Clark in saying that ‘“‘the evidence of 
the fossils, as far as available, bears out the conclusions” previously set 
forth (p. 139), if by that is meant the marine origin of the Sunderland and 
Lafayette formations, as one would infer. The occurrence of marine 
fossils in some parts of the Talbot formation, the lowland, sea-border 
member of the Pleistocene deposits, rising from to to 45 feet above sea- 
level, while land vertebrates and plants are found in other portions, implies 
that the deposit was formed partly under marine conditions and partly 
under terrestrial. 
The occurrence of a score of species of land plants and the absence of 
marine fossils in the Sunderland formation, which lies at higher levels, 
point as distinctly, so far as the evidence goes, to the terrestrial deposition 
of that formation. The absence of fossils in the Lafayette of Maryland, 
and the presence of land fossils in the Lafayette elsewhere, point in the 
same direction. 
Concordantly with the fossil evidence, geologists critically familiar with 
the distinctions between marine and terrestrial formations will be disposed 
to question the marine character of such kinds of assortment and such 
