468 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1219 



road Station, New York City, the Eussell Sage Me- 

 morial Building, the synod house of the Cathedral 

 of St. John the Divine, the interior finishing of the 

 Jersey City postoiiioe. It has been used also in 

 the new postoffiees at Morgantown, Grafton and 

 Sistersville, and in the Presbyterian Church at 

 Fairmont, West Virginia. It has been used in the 

 United States Aluminum Clubhouse at New Ken- 

 sington', Pennsylvania; in the W. W. Willock resi- 

 dence at Sewickley, the Inslie Blair residence at 

 Tuxedo, and in the finely finished Stewart Duncan 

 residence at Newport, Rhode Island. This last 

 has been described as one of the masterpieces of 

 American architecture. A stiU more artistic use 

 to which it has been put is in the case of the elab- 

 orate mantels at the New Kensington Clubhouse 

 and also the mantel in the Mulligan residence in 

 Pittsburgh. The artistic carving and the statues 

 on the Schwab estate, and the buffaloes and the 

 Indian heads on the Cabin John bridge show some 

 of the finer uses to which it lends itself. This 

 would indicate that a new building stone of singu- 

 lar beauty has caught the favor of the public for 

 refined uses, and its future popularity may be pre- 

 dicted with some degree of confidence. Its 

 strength is sufficient for any purpose to which it 

 is likely to be put, tests showing a crushing 

 strength of 9,000 to 11,000 pounds to the square 

 inch having been made. Its chemical composition 

 runs thus: Silica, 96.50 per cent.; ferric iron, 

 1.76 per cent.; alumina, .86 per cent.; lime, .35 

 per cent.; magnesia, .02 per cent. It would there- 

 fore be graded as a sandstone of moderate purity 

 with its iron cement very evenly distributed 

 through it. Professor Stevenson probably never 

 saw the localities of its best development, but the 

 success of this stone forty years after reminds us 

 of his statement, in which he calls it "a magnifi- 

 cent rock, in layers ten to fifteen feet thick, most 

 of which are of excellent quality and would prove 

 a durable building stone." Although he could 

 hardly have foreseen the finer uses to which the 

 Saltsburg sandstone has been put, nevertheless 

 Professor Stevenson was a true prophet, as every 

 geologist must be who writes only the truth. 



The compilation of coals: Eeinhakdt Thiessen. 

 A complete and correct explanation of the mean- 

 ing of the bright or glanz and dull coal, and an 

 interpretation oi£ the lamination of coal in general 

 has never been given. In spite of many theories 

 and attempts at explanations the matter is still in 

 a state of confusion. Extensive studies have 

 shown that the bright or glanz coal consists in- 

 variably of components derived from matter that 



at one time were larger fragments or parts of 

 woody parts of plants, such as parts of logs, stems, 

 branches and roots. These correspond in every re- 

 spect to the parts of logs, branches and roots in 

 peat. The dull coal represents a general d6bris of 

 plant substances, and consists primarily of com- 

 ponents derived from fragmentary parts, or chips 

 of the woody parts of plants, and fragmentary 

 matter derived from various other parts and or- 

 gans of plants, embedded in or cemented together 

 by an attrdtua, together forming the embedding 

 medium of the larger components or bright coal. 

 The attritus consists of what at one time was very 

 finely macerated plant matter and corresponds in 

 every respect to the fine "mud" in peat. The 

 components derived from the fragmentary woody 

 parts of plants are generally very thin and scale- 

 like and owe their peculiar shape and form to a 

 mode of disintegration through lesions along the 

 annual growth rings, and along the rays, caused 

 by a differential decay during the peat stage. This 

 phenomenon finds an exact counterpart in recent 

 peat. 



Tlie travertine deposits of the Arhuckle Moun- 

 tains, OTclahoma, with reference to the plant 

 agencies concerned in their formation: W. H. 

 Emig. 



At the present time there is a continuous de- 

 velopment of travertine on the numerous falls along 

 two parallel streams in the Arbuekle Mountains, 

 namely Honey Creek and Palls Creek. The devel- 

 opment of the travertine falls is due in part to 

 the presence of felt-like masses of algse — species 

 of (Edogonium and Vaucheria, also Oscillatoria 

 and Lyngiya — and in part to the presence of ag- 

 gregated tufts of the water mosses, Philotiotis cal- 

 cares and Didymodon tophaceus. The various 

 types of travertine, formed as a result of the con- 

 tinuous growth of certain plants in the calcareous 

 water, are quite characteristic. The similarity in 

 the microscopic structure of recent and older de- 

 posits of travertine is very striking. A compari- 

 son of the newly formed deposits with the oldest 

 travertine of the Arbuekle Eegion indicates that 

 the same plant agencies were concerned in the 

 construction of all the travertine formations in 

 Oklahoma. 



The Kanawha ilaclc flint and other cherts of West 



Virginia: W. Armstrong Price. 



Ten Paleozoic formations contain deposits of 

 chert (or flint). The cherts are found in silicious 

 and magnesian members of limestones and calcare- 

 ous shales. Limestone-bearing formations ap- 



