646 
memory of the late Lieutenant R. W. Poulton 
Palmer and his sister, the late Mrs. E. H. A. 
Walker, the object of which will be the investi- 
gation of obscure diseases in man. 
A FIRE on the night of December #7 in the 
basement of Havermeyer Hall, the chemical 
laboratory of Columbia University, caused. 
damage estimated at $10,000. 
Dean Epwarp A. Bice has been elected 
president of the University of Wisconsin to 
succeed the late Charles R. Van Hise. Dean 
Birge will serve for two years, when he expects 
to retire at the age of seventy. He has been a 
member of the Wisconsin faculty in the de- 
partment of zoology since 1875, and served as 
acting president of the university from 1900 
to 1903. 
Dr. Harotp C. Cuapin, of the National 
Carbon Company in Cleveland, has accepted 
an associate professorship of chemistry at 
Lafayette College. 
. Tue title of emeritus professor of experi- 
mental philosophy has been conferred upon 
Dr. E. H. Griffiths, F.R.S., on his retirement 
from the principalship of the University Col- 
lege of South Wales and Monmouthshire. 
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 
AGE FLOW AND EBB OF THE EOCENE SEAS 
We will agree with geologic writers from 
Wm. Smith’s day to this that a typical geo- 
logical cycle consists of a sequence of arenace- 
ous, argillaceous and calcareous deposits, the 
strandline moving in as deposite-load in- 
creases; in place of littoral sands, clear-sea, 
calcareous matter eventually becomes dom- 
inant. 
During the minor subdivisions of geologic 
time, the ages, for example, wherever conti- 
nental shelves are very broad and near sea- 
level, slight changes of this datum plane may 
produce enormous strand-line shifting without 
bringing about extensive lime-forming condi- 
tions; clays will alternate with sand ad in- 
finitem, characterized now by the life of the 
ocean’s flood, now by swamp life during its 
ebb. 
Our southern Eocene deposits seem to 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Von. XLVITI. No. 1252 
record three such flood stages, separated by 
two ebb stages. 
1. The Midway Stage is the oldest, the most 
generally marine with an expanse of gulf 
waters stretching from South Carolina through 
west Tennessee and perhaps southern Illinois, 
thence through Arkansas, southwest to and ae 
oer the Rio Grande. 
2. The Sabine records the first ebb tide con- 
dition over this same great area, a condition 
conducive to the growth of swamp vegetation, 
hence the lignitic condition of the strata as we 
see them to-day. 
3. The St. Maurice Stage records the seecnd 
notable and generally marine condition over 
much of this area, though extending less deeply 
into the Mississippi Embayment. 
4. The Claiborne Stage appears to be, save 
in Alabama itself, a second great lignitic for- 
mation. Even at Claiborne, just above the 
Upper Landing, a road-cut shows the famous 
marine “sand bed” invaded by lignitie mate- 
rials. 
5. The Jackson Stage may well be looked 
upon as the last and in some ways the most 
remarkable of the marine accumulations. A 
quarter of a century ago we marked out a 
great transgressional loop of this stage up into 
eastern Arkansas but there were then no 
known evidences of its occurrence in Texas. 
But the keen eyes of A. C. Veatch soon dis- 
covered such evidences in east Texas; others 
have made valuable contributions in the same 
direction, and it is quite likely that the Ostrea 
contracta (georgiana) beds on the Rio Grande 
are of this age. To the east, in Florida, 
Georgia and the Carolinas, Cook is doing yeo- 
man’s service in expanding our knowledge of 
this great terrane. 
Our conclusions in tabular, condensed form 
appear thus: 
Stage Water Condition Sediment 
Jackson Flood Marine 
Claiborne Ebb Lignitic 
St. Maurice Flood Marine 
Sabine Ebb Lignitic 
Midway Flood Marine 
The Potomac Basin seems to have been gen- 
erally too deep to show similar responses in 
