December 3, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



531 



may safely be ignored in trying to determine 

 the age and succession of the rocks. 



It may be doubted, however, if any class 

 of organisms do not have an interesting and 

 important story to tell provided we learn their 

 language. This has proven to be the ease 

 with our American foraminifera at the hands 

 of Cushman. Since forams are generally 

 small and abundant when present at all they 

 stand a much better chance of preservation 

 in both compact limestones and coarse sandy 

 marls than do the tests of higher and larger 

 marine organisms. They have been partic- 

 ularly useful in tracing the Tertiary geo- 

 logical zones around the equatorial belt of the 

 world. In Panama, around the borders and 

 on the islands of the Spanish Main, as well 

 as in our own southern coastal plain, the 

 Foraminifera have proven to be often the 

 only, and always among the most satisfactory 

 types of fossils. Widely distributed in the 

 seaways, rapidly mutating into recognizable 

 differentials, they have been one of the keys 

 to our understanding of the history of equa- 

 torial America. 



They, like the Bryozoa, are generally small 

 enough to be present in well samples where 

 larger forms are not encountered or are largely 

 smashed beyond recognition by the drills. 

 They have lately been shown to be of pro- 

 found significance in the location of the oil 

 sands by means of a study of well cuttings 

 in the Texas oil fields. They are almost the 

 only fossils in the thick series of calcareous 

 clays that overlie the oil sands in the Tampico 

 district, and in this last region alone will 

 eventually contribute more in dollars and 

 cents to the wealth of the world than all of 

 the issues of the Congressional Record that 

 have ever been printed. 



Probably the laymen requires no introduc- 

 tion to corals. All boys can probably be 

 divided into two classes, at least such was 

 once the case — those who avowed that they 

 were going to be locomotive engineers when 

 they grew up, and those who longed to ex- 

 plore a coral reef or live on a South Pacific 

 coral atoll. Any one who has never experi- 

 enced the thrill that comes from contem- 



plating the profusion of surging life in and 

 around a coral reef, or does not know the 

 fascinating beauty of even the dead skeletons 

 of coral life would do well to read the popular 

 illustrated account by Vaughan in the last 

 annual report of the Smithsonian Institution. 



Corals are all small marine animals, but 

 many of them dwell in colonies, notably the 

 so-called stone corals, and secrete the cal- 

 careous skeletons familiarly known as corals. 

 Like the Bryozoa, corals are sedentary except 

 for the short period when they have a free- 

 swimming larval fling as it were. Their 

 ancestors go back as far as the fossil records 

 go, and they have never suffered the obliquity 

 as horizon markers that has at times attached 

 to the Bryozoa and Foraminifera. 



Reef corals require definite temperatures and 

 environmental conditions in order to flourish. 

 hence they are useful in retrospective 

 prophecy. Geologically they are especially 

 important during later geological times in 

 Mediterranean regions — in the south of Eu- 

 rope, the Antilles, and the balance of equa- 

 torial America. Their contribution to our 

 understanding of the relations and geological 

 history of the Antilles is probably not 

 equalled and certainly not exceeded by any 

 other group of organisms. 



In conclusion to cite but a single pragmatic 

 instance of the ultimate commercial value of 

 these monographic paleontologic studies that 

 are published by the National Museum — the 

 exploration for oil in central and northern 

 South America, and the successful interpre- 

 tation of structure that is the key to com- 

 mercial success or failure in the far off tierra 

 calienie of Colombia or Venezuela, rests very 

 largely on the application of the results of 

 the unostentatious and unadvertised paleon- 

 tologic studies. 



Edward W. Berry 



Johns Hopkins TJnivbrsitt 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



A NEW OBSERVATORY IN CLEVELAND 



Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, 

 Ohio, dedicated a new observatory on Colum- 

 bus Day, October 12, 1920. It is to be known 



