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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 36. 



proceedings of the Baltimore meeting, but 

 whicli had been laid on the table pending 

 amendment, was recalled and passed unani- 

 mously. The committee (Emmons and 

 "Willis), appointed at the Madison meeting, 

 1893, to urge on the Uaited States Senate 

 the importance of making the region about 

 Mt. Rainier a pubUc park, reported that 

 they and others had presented the case to 

 tlie Senate Committee having it in charge, 

 but that the bill had failed of recommenda- 

 tion. On motion the committee was con- 

 tinued, and President Shaler was added to 

 it. Before proceeding to the reading of f)a- 

 pei-s the usual rule was adopted, that papers 

 not j)resented by their authors in person 

 should go to the end of the list. The first 

 paj)er read was ' The Champlain Glacial 

 Epoch,' by C. H. Hitchcock, Hanover, N". 

 H. The author stated that when he gave 

 the name Champlain to the clays and sands 

 along this lake, he was a disciple of Lyell, 

 and believed in submergence and iceberg 

 action, but ^^-ider experience had made him 

 a follower of Agassiz, and in that he now 

 favored a moderate submergence with local 

 glaciers coming down from the mountains 

 to the east and west, but with an oceanic 

 connection, certainly out through the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence and probably to the Hudson 

 and westward. He mentioned the species 

 of shells found in the claj^s of the St. Law- 

 rence Valley, and along the Atlantic near 

 Portland, Maine, and proved them to be 

 of a Labradorian facies. On citing the 

 European divisions of the Glacial Age of 

 James Geikie, the speaker surmised that 

 the Champlain ej)Och corresponded to the 

 Mecklenbergiau. 



The paper led to a somewhat extended 

 discussion. I. C. White raised the question 

 of the connection between the submergence 

 and the terraces of the river valleys in the 

 Alleghenies in West Vu-ginia and Pennsyl- 

 vania, and the lack of fossils. J. F. Kemp 

 cited the barrenness of the clays in the 



Hudson Valley in all organic remains ex- 

 cept a few diatoms, and that the variety 

 was small ta the Champlain valley itself. 

 J. W. Spencer remarked the moderate ele- 

 vation of the Lauren tide Mountains so- 

 called and other topographical features of 

 the St. Lawrence Valley. W. M. Davis 

 brought up the importance of properly dis- 

 tinguishing terraces in work of this kind, 

 especially as between marine and re-cut 

 river deposits in valleys. The discussion 

 then drifted to the meaning of Champlain, 

 as to whether it applied to a time division 

 or a series of sediments, and was closed by 

 the president, who suggested that the lack 

 of fossils might be caused by the decay of 

 organic matter in the clays, which would 

 develop gases and destroy them. 



The second paper was by H. L. Fairchild, 

 of Rochester, N. Y., and was entitled ' The 

 Glacial Genesee Lakes.' By means of an 

 admirable map, the valley of the Genesee 

 River was shown and the relations of its 

 drainage basin to surrounding river sys- 

 tems. The heights of the divides were 

 marked from the headwaters in Pennsylva- 

 nia down to Rochester. The ai'gument was 

 then made that the ice-sheet came fi-om the 

 north and filled the valley, all of whose 

 streams were pre-glacial and had flowed in 

 almost all cases near their present chan- 

 nels. Then as the ice retreated the waters 

 at its front and from neighboring heights 

 were ponded back and were drained off to 

 the south, west and east, sometunes to the 

 Allegheny River sj'stem, sometimes to the 

 Susquehanna. The old channels are now 

 largely represented by cols with swamps at 

 the divides. Ten stages were recognized 

 in all, viz.: 1. The headwater cols over 

 2,000 ft. A. T. south of Genesee, Pa. 2. 

 The col at the head of the west branch near 

 Genesee, Pa. 3. At Mapes, N. Y., col, 

 1606 A. T. 4. Head of Olean Creek, col 

 1490. 5. The cut from Portage to the head- 

 waters of the Susquehanna. 6. Col at Hor- 



