December 14, lSf3.] 



SCIENCE. 



in 



INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 



GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. ■ 

 Geological survey. 



GeoJoyy. — According to Prof. L. C. Johnson, who 

 has been at work on Ihe geology of Alabama (in the 

 southern part of the state), the tertiary boundary 

 will have to be moved from sis to ten miles north of 

 the limits usually assigned it on the maps. The 

 lignitic, a sub-Claiborne division of the tertiary, will 

 therefore appear much extended northward (ten miles 

 at Allenton, six at Camden, and seventeen at Butler 

 Springs). Professor Johnson has collections of fossils 

 to prove his position. He has also recently investi- 

 gated the boundary-line between the rotten-limestone 

 group and the Eutaw group of the cretaceous, and 

 between the latter and the older formations, and has 

 made large and interesting collections of mammalian 

 and saurian remains from the southern part of Ala- 

 bama, principally from Autauga county. 



Prof. R. D. Irving, who is devoting his attention 

 to the copper-bearing rocks of Lake Superior, reports, 

 that, in connection with Professor Winchell, he has 

 personally examined the quartzites of Nicollet and 

 Cottonwood counties, Jlinn. One hundred and forty 

 thin sections of rocks have been made^ mostly of 

 Huronian quartzites; and more than half of these 

 have been examined, with the result of proving that 

 the quartzites of the original or typical Huronian of 

 Lake Huron, and of the Huronian regions of Mar- 

 quette and the Menominee River in Michigan and 

 Wisconsin, are fragmental rocks, and that they have 

 never undergone any metamorphisra other than that 

 involved in the deposit of interstitial quartz among 

 the clastic grains, of which they are in the main com- 

 posed. Professor Irving has also begun a compara- 

 tive study of the greenstones, cherts and flints, and 

 jaspery iron ores of the various Huronian regions 

 examined 'by him. 



Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, who has charge of the 

 raorainic investigations in the eastern United States, 

 has recently examined the border of the later drift, 

 principally in Indiana, and subordinately in Ohio, and 

 has completed the tracing of the line from the Scioto 

 to the Wabash, and more fully demonstrated the 

 peculiar association of the remarkable bowlder-belts 

 of those states with morainic aggregations. Prof. J. 

 E. Todd, one of Professor Chamberlin's assistants, 

 has determined more exactly the character of the 

 morainic loop in the vicinity of Alexandria, in south- 

 ern Dakota. He also found in that neighborhood an 

 exposure of the Sioux quartzite with glacial striae, 

 the direction of which is in harmony with the pre- 

 vious observations. Professor Todd also examined 

 the drift-bluffs in the vicinity of the Big Sioux River, 

 where the loess comes in contact with the drift. In 

 October, Mr. R. D. Salisbury, who is also assisting 

 Professor Chamberlin, made a detailed and specific 

 study of the border of the driftless area In Wisconsin, 

 Minnesota, and Iowa. This had heretofore been ex- 

 amined only cursorily by various observers; and Mr. 

 Salisbury made a critical and connected examination. 



which developed some interesting points, one of which 

 is to give the outline a form more in harmony with 

 the moraines of the later epoch that lie opposite it on 

 either hand. 



Chemistnj. — 'UlT. Hillebrand, the chemist in charge 

 of the field-laboratory at Denver, has been investi- 

 gating the so-called basic sulphates from Leadville. 

 They are an important constituent of the ore deposits 

 of that region, and occur as a rule under the ore 

 bodies, seeming to be a product of secondary decom- 

 position of the original sulphuretted ores. They 

 appear to be a mixture of the mineral jarosite and 

 basic sulphate of iron with hydrated arseniate of 

 iron, anglesite, and pyromorphite. 



A short time ago Prof. F. W. Clarke, chief chemist 

 of the survey, visited and examined the Gilmore mica- 

 mine in Montgomery county, Md., about twelve miles 

 north of Washington, and found it of remarkable 

 mineralogical interest. 



Publications. — A few advance copies of the third 

 annual report have been issued without the complete 

 set of illustratious. Besides the report of the director 

 and the various administrative reports, it contains the 

 following papers : Birds with teeth, by Prof. O. C. 

 Marsh ; The copper-bearing rocks of Lake Superior, 

 by Roland D. Irving; Sketch of the geological his- 

 tory of Lake Lahontan, by Israel C. Russell ; Ab- 

 stract of report on geology of the Eureka district, 

 Nevada, by Arnold Hague; Preliminary paper on 

 the terminal moraine of the second glacial epoch, 

 by Thomas C. Chamberlin; A review of the non- 

 marine fossil Mollusca of North America, by Dr. C. 

 A. White. 



A monograph on the geology of the region adjacent 

 to Golden, Col., by Mr. C. Whitman Cross, is almost 

 ready for the printer. 



Geographical Jield-toork. —The following notes of 

 the geographic work of the survey during the season 

 of 18S3 are furnished by Mr. Henry Gannett, chief 

 geographer. 



Appalachian division. — In the southern 

 Appalachians, five topographic and two triangulation 

 parties have been at work during the season, and 

 are now about returning to the oflice in Washington. 

 Prof. W. C. Kerr has been in charge of the triangu- 

 lation. The area embraced in the survey was the 

 mountain region of North Carolina, exclusive of that 

 worked in previous years; the northern half of the 

 valley of east Tennessee; the south-western portion 

 of Virginia; and that part of West Virginia lying 

 between the Kanawha and Big Sand^ rivers. In 

 addition to the territory thus enumerated, the west- 

 ern part of Maryland, and adjacent portions of West 

 Virginia and Virginia, were surveyed. 



The total area thus comprised will be not less than 

 twenty thousand square miles for the season. Work 

 in this region is necessarily difficult and somewhat 

 slow, on account of the scarcity of salient topograph- 

 ical points, the thick growth of timber, and the heavy 

 rainfall. The latter is a fact that is ignored on most 

 of the rain-charts published during the past ten years. 



