Mabch 12, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



383 



picturesque, but now that the significance of 

 its singular conformation has been pretty well 

 worked out by the labors of E. C. Quereau, and 

 more particularly by Professor H. L. Fair- 

 child, it constitutes a very extraordinary, if 

 not unique, geological record. 



In the course of Professor Fairchild's work 

 upon the Pleistocene geology of New York 

 state, he demonstrated very clearly and in de- 

 tail the accuracy of Mr. Quereau's suggestion 

 that in the retreat of the ice mantle the out- 

 flow of the glacial waters was by way of tre- 

 mendous rivers moving eastward into the Mo- 

 hawk-Hudson drainage, and here one of these 

 streams cut its rock gorge in the limestones of 

 the Helderberg escarpment and left a series of 

 plunge-basins beneath great cataracts which 

 surpassed the dimensions, as they must have 

 equalled the dignity and grandeur, of Niagara. 



The Green Lake or Jamesville Lake, which 

 lies on the property now thus reserved, is sur- 

 rounded on all but its eastern side by an 

 amphitheater of sheer limestone cliils rising to 

 a height of nearly 200 feet, and the depth of 

 the lake is stated by the former owner of the 

 property to be not less than 100 feet. While 

 water still fills this ancient plunge-basin, it is 

 water of a deep emerald hue, without visible 

 outlet or inlet. Westward of this escarpment 

 is a smaller and dry plunge-basin with its 

 abandoned cataract cliff and with rocky chan- 

 nels connecting it with the larger basin, and 

 from the Green Lake eastward is the old open 

 discharge into the other stream courses and 

 cataracts lying beyond Jamesville in the vicin- 

 ity of Payetteville. 



Aside from the extraordinarily clear and 

 wonderfully effective geological record dis- 

 played in this place, the spot has additional 

 scientific interest as its rocks are the resort of 

 many rare ferns and flowering plants which 

 have long attracted the botanist. 



The menace of commerce, expressed in the 

 ever-increasing demand for the conversion of 

 limestone into cement, threatened this wonder- 

 ful spot, and the intervention of the donor, 

 who saved it from destruction, is a particu- 

 larly gracious act inasmuch as it conserves a 

 place of high scientific and educational inter- 

 est. 



The property is given to the regents of the 

 university for the State Museum by Mrs. 

 Mary Clark Thompson, of New York, and 

 presented in the name of her father, Myron H. 

 Clark, a former governor of that state, and by 

 her desire it is to be known as the " Clark 

 Reservation." 



It may be added that this reservation lies 

 about four miles to the southeast of Syracuse 

 on the Seneca Turnpike, a new state road, and 

 is also easily accessible from Jamesville which 

 can be reached from Syracuse by trolley. 



John M. Claeke 



Albany, N". T., 

 March 3, 1915 



THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SUB- 

 VET AT TBE PANAMA EXPOSITION 



The exhibit occupies a space 62 by 18 feet 

 in the Palace of Mines and Metallurgy, flanked 

 on one side by the exhibit of the Bureau of 

 Mines and on another by the Alaskan exhibit, 

 for which also the survey has been in a measure 

 responsible. The central feature of the ex- 

 hibit is a booth, containing stage-like settings 

 of a scene, partly modeled and partly painted. 

 The first represents an undeveloped district in 

 the arid west being studied by the survey. 

 Topographers are at work with their instru- 

 ments on the headlands; geologists have strip- 

 ped a bed of coal and are taking a sample for 

 analysis ; and other geologists are studying the 

 rocks. In the foreground is an automatic 

 gage beside the river that comes out of the 

 picture toward the observer. Farther back, a 

 stream gager is measuring the stream. In the 

 background is a camp and pack train. The 

 second scene shows the same district after 

 development. The results of the stream gag- 

 ing have been utilized in planning a power 

 plant that shows in the distance and an irri- 

 gation project that covers the valley floor. The 

 coal bed is being mined on one side; an oil 

 field is under development elsewhere; a sand- 

 stone bed is being quarried in the foreground; 

 mining and milling are in progress in the 

 mountains; a town has been built, and roads, 

 railroads, and other evidences of civilization 

 abound. 



Behind the scenes, in the same booth but 



