January 24, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



81 



too much weathered to show glacier scratches. 



The oscillations of the land surface in the 

 Vermont region are well known to geologists, 

 as are the effects produced upon the surface 

 by which in various ways both highlands and 

 lowlands were modified. One class of these 

 phenomena is found in the ancient water 

 levels which are plainly discernible in many 

 localities. 



Geologists are indebted to Professor H. L. 

 Fairchild for his careful study of these levels 

 through New England. So far as Vermont 

 has been studied. Dr. Fairchild's results are 

 given in the Tenth Report of the Vermont 

 Survey. 



Of the level plains, terraces and similar 

 features he writes : 



The broad stretches of sand plains on both sides 

 of the Champlain Valley and conspicuous in Ver- 

 mont are clear evidence of standing water at levels 

 far above Lake Champlain. 



Again : 



The terraces, beaches and shore phenomena in the 

 open Champlain Valley were produced by waters 

 confluent with the sea. The summit marine plane 

 lies uplifted to-day about four hundred feet above 

 tide at the south edge of Vermont and about eight 

 hundred feet at the north border of the state. 



Most if not all the terraces in the Con- 

 necticut Valley which have been explained as 

 due to river flood action are to be accounted 

 for in the same manner as Professor Fair- 

 child has shown in Bulletin, Geol. Society, 

 Vol. 25, pp. 219-242. 



The condition of Lake Champlain and the 

 many changes through which this lake has 

 passed from Pre-Cambrian time to the end 

 of the Pleistocene forms an interesting chap- 

 ter in the physiographic history of Vermont, 

 but the story is far too long to be told at this 

 time. 



From what has been shown it will be seen 

 that the present physiography of Vermont 

 has become what it is through the action of a 

 great variety of geological agencies during 

 several periods of past time. 



At least eight epoclis may be defined. First, 

 in Pre-Cambrian times wore formed the hard 

 crystalline rocks found in the interior of the 



Green Mountains. Second, an unknown in- 

 terval of erosion and subsidence, during which 

 a large part of the Pre-Cambrian beds were 

 removed. Third, Cambrian deposition when 

 the sandstone, shale and limestone of this 

 time was laid down. Fourth, a relatively 

 short period of erosion when these beds were 

 all carried off except the few remnants now 

 standing. Fifth, deposition of thick beds of 

 limestone and shale in the Ordovician ocean. 

 Sixth, a period of igneous activity and meta- 

 morphism during which the schist, quartzite, 

 gneiss and slate and marble were formed. 

 This was the time of the greater uplift of 

 the Green Mountains as now they appear. 

 Seventh, a vast interval from the close of 

 the Ordovician to the beginning of the 

 Pleistocene. Eighth, the Pleistocene glacia- 

 tion and erosion. 



George H. Perkiks 

 University of Vermont 



WHAT KINDS OF BOTANY DOES THE 

 WORLD NEED NOW?i 



For months, even years, after the great war 

 bc«an I felt that the world had suddenly been 

 plunged into darkness, intense and impen- 

 etrable, in which one could only grope one's 

 way, unable to determine or to keep one's 

 direction, shocked and grieved that those 

 lights, which were thought to sen-e as guides 

 before, had so completely gone out. I believe 

 now that this series of figures is wrong; that, 

 instead, the world has had such a light turned 

 upon it that we are dazzled, if not blinded, 

 that its shams have been exposed as the pleas- 

 ing envelopes of selfishness — mercenary, polit- 

 ical and social — that the lights which had 

 guided us before are still burning but that 

 they have become so shaded and dimmed by 

 human goggles that they disappeared in the 

 flood of light which makes war a great revela- 

 tion of human weakness, human wickedness, 

 human stupidity, and human ideals. 



1 An address delivered ait the meeting of the San 

 Francisco Bay Section, Western Society of Nat- 

 uralists, at Stanford University, on November 30, 

 1918. 



