22 
termine the exact nature of the destroying 
agency and to fix the responsibility. 
The secretary read the following reviews of 
RECENT LITERATURE RELATING TO STATEN 
ISLAND. 
I. Serpentines of Manhattan Island and 
Vicinity and Their Accompanying Minerals. 
[Part I[.| D. H. Newland, School of Mines 
Quarterly, xxii. (July, 1901) 399-410; illust. 
in text. 
This is the concluding part of the paper 
which was reviewed in the June number of our 
Proceedings. Under the discussion of the 
mineralogy of the serpentines there are num- 
erous references to Staten Island—most of 
them from works or articles with which we 
are familiar and many of which have appear- 
ed in our proceedings. 
In regard to the origin of the serpentines 
the author concludes that the Original rocks 
from which they were derived were of igneous 
character, while in age they are more recent 
than the upper members of the Lower Silur- 
ian. These conclusions are of considerable 
interest to us, as those who have studied the 
serpentines of Staten Island most exten- 
sively were of the opinion that they rep- 
resented metamorphosed sediments and that 
their age was pre-Silurian, 
Il. Lifein New York and Brooklyn Sev- 
eral Million Years Ago. Gustavus Myer. 
New York Herald, Juneg, 1901. 
This is a newspaper reporter’s attempt 
to write an account of the probable con- 
ditions which prevailed in Greater New 
York and vicinity during the Cretaceous and 
subsequent periods based upon a number of 
facts furnished by a member of our Associa- 
tion. 
The sequence of events is rather mixed 
in the text and asomewhat pretentious picture 
occupies the centre of the page, in which a 
Cretaceous dinosaur and a Quaternary mam- 
moth are wandering together through a red- 
wood forest. 
Two plates representing our fossil leaves 
collected at Tottenville and Kreischerville, 
are also included 
