766 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 179, 



Pensauken gravels and sands over tlie 

 drowned lowlands ; and this was followed 

 by an elevation in consequence of which the 

 existing narrow valleys have been eroded 

 in the ' pre-Pensauken peneplain.' The 

 thoroughness of this volume onlj- serves to 

 emphasize the need of an elementary text, 

 or series of brief explanatory tracts, that 

 might go to the public schools along with 

 the relief map of the State, already noticed 

 in Science. 



PHYSIOGEAPHIC TYPES. 



The first folio of the Topographic Atlas 

 of the United States, published by the U. 

 S. Geological Survey, is entitled Physio- 

 graphic Types. It includes the maps of 

 well-chosen typical regions, with explana- 

 tory text by H. Gannett. The Eed River 

 plain represents a young surface ; the West 

 Virginia plateau, a maturely dissected sur- 

 face ; the uplands of Kansas, an old surface, 

 reduced nearly to a plain of denudation ; 

 Shasta is taken as a young volcano ; Wis- 

 consin aifords examples of moraines and 

 drumlins ; the lower Mississippi gives the 

 type of part of a flood- plain ; Maine illus- 

 trates a drowned coast ; and New Jersey, a 

 sand-reefed coast. The policy indicated by 

 the lucidity of the text that accompanies the 

 geological folios is here well maintained. 

 Great educational advantage must follow 

 from it, not only in the better understand- 

 ing of the Survey publications by their ma- 

 ture readers to-day, but even more in lead- 

 ing the younger generation towards a fuller 

 comprehension of this large and growing 

 store of material. The aid thus indirectly 

 given by a great national organization to- 

 wards the improvement of the position of 

 geography and geology in the schools must 

 everywhere be heartily welcomed. 



The authority that this series of folios 

 will exercise in matters of explanation and 

 terminology makes it desirable that the 

 greatest care should be exercised in their 



preparation. There are some points in 

 the first number that do not reach the 

 desirable standard. For example, ' relief ' 

 is first defined in the sentence : " The 

 land features, commonly called the relief, 

 include all the variations of the surface 

 * * *" It is correctly defined afterwards : 

 "The relief, i. e., the difference in height 

 between the stream beds and the divides." 

 More direct evidence for the denudation of 

 the piedmont region of Virginia is found in 

 the deep-seated origin of the rock structures 

 now at the surface, and in the discordance 

 between structural arrangement and sur- 

 face form, than in the great age of the rocks. 

 The ' snag ' explanation of drumlins is 

 given a greater prominence than it deserves. 

 The account of the Maine coast is erroneous 

 in several respects. Glacial erosion is over- 

 estimated, and there are many exceptions to 

 the statement that the thin soil of southern 

 Maine is chiefly derived from postglacial dis- 

 integration ; the soil is often deep, consist- 

 ing of glacial drift, glacial gravels and sands, 

 and marine clays now revealed in an irregu- 

 lar coastal plain which the farmers there 

 know very well. " Ocean currents also 

 bear sand along precisely as rivers do, de- 

 positing it where their force is checked, ' ' is 

 a generalization that may mislead many an 

 uninformed reader. It is unfortunate that 

 a term so well understood as ' ridge ' should 

 be used to name the almost invisible swell 

 of a river flood-plain, particularly in the 

 publications of a Survey that is elsewhere so 

 careful not to exaggerate the vertical scale 

 of its sections. 



W. M. Davis. 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 



CYCLONES OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



From the Observatory of Manila, which 

 has already given meteorology many valu- 

 able publications, comes a report upon the 

 cyclones of the Philippines, written, as 

 Father Algue, its author, tells us in the in- 



