214 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 5S. 



Bashford Dean, ' On the Supposed Kinship of 

 the Faleospondylus.' A favorably preserved, 

 specimen of this interesting fossil, received by 

 the writer from Wm. T. Kinnear of Forss, 

 Scotland, appears to warrant the belief that 

 this lamprey-like form was possessed of paired 

 fins, a character decidedly adverse to the now 

 widely accepted view of Marsipobranchian af- 

 finities. The structure referred to consists of a 

 series of transversely directed rays, arising from 

 the region of the postoccipital plates of Tra- 

 quair. From this peculiar character, as well as 

 from many unlamprey-like features of the fossil, 

 it would appear accordingly that the kinship of 

 the Faleospondylus is as yet by no means defi- 

 nitely determined. 



C. L. Bbistol, 



January 13, 1896. Secretary of Section: 



SECTION OF GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 



At the meeting of the section of Geology and 

 Mineralogy of the New York Academy of Sci- 

 ences held January 20th, Prof. J. J. Stevenson 

 in the chair, the following papers were pre- 

 sented : 



The first, by E. O. Hovey, described the new 

 and remarkably fine specimens of rare minerals 

 recently discovered by Mr. Niven in the upper 

 part of New York City. A doubly terminated 

 tourmaline, 9J inches long by 4J inch diameter, 

 was shown, and also unusually large samples 

 of xenotime and monazite. The largest xeno- 

 time was |- of an inch in diameter, the monazite 

 was about | of an inch on the long edge. Fuller 

 details regarding the crystallography appear in 

 the Bulletin of the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History of recent date. The specimens are 

 now in the museum. 



The second paper was by J. F. Kemp and T. 

 G. White, and brought out the results of further 

 exploration in the Adirondacks, the Lake 

 Champlain Valley and the Green Mountains as 

 regards the distribution of the trap dikes, well 

 known from that region. One was cited on 

 Mount Mclntyre about 4,000 feet above tide, 

 and others from various interior points in the 

 Adirondacks. Microscopic study shows that 

 they are in instances both camptonites and 

 fourchites. This modifies the previous experi- 

 ence of Kemp and Marsters, who had found 



only diabase dikes in the Archean rocks. A 

 great number of dikes were mentioned from the 

 shores of Willsboro' Bay, on the New York side; 

 one dike of camptonite was described from the 

 granite quarries near Barre, Vt., and one from 

 the Eustis pyrites mine, near Sherbrooke, Que. 

 These outlying dikes materially extend the area 

 in which they had been previously known. 

 Very curious exposures were also described as 

 having been recently uncovered in theWillard's 

 Ledge quarries at Burlington, Vt. The paper 

 concluded with some reflections on the petrology 

 of the dikes. It will appear in full in the 

 Transactions of the Academy. 



The paper was followed by one by W. D. 

 Matthew describing the metamorphism of Tri- 

 assic coals at Egypt, N. C, by the intrusion of 

 diabase dikes. Beginning with samples of coal 

 at a distance of seventy feet from the dike it was 

 shown that there is a progressive loss of vola- 

 tile hydro-carbons as the igneous rock is ap- 

 proached, and that the bituminous coal passes 

 into anthracite and this into prismatic coke next 

 the dike. Geological sections and tables of 

 analyses were shown. Attention was called to 

 the fact that similar phenomena have been pre- 

 viously described from Virginia, but not from 

 Egypt, N. C. The paper will appear in full in 

 the Transactions of the Academy. 



The last paper was by J. J. Stevenson on 

 ' The Cerrillos Coal Fields near Santa F6, N. 

 M.' Prof. Stevenson brought out, by means of 

 geological sections, that there were four coal 

 seams contained between two laccolites of tra- 

 chyte which had spread sidewise between the 

 beds for nearly a mile from the parent dike or 

 neck. In the topmost seam next the neck the 

 coal was a graphitic anthracite passing, as the 

 neck was left behind, into true anthracite, which 

 graduated into semi-bituminous, and this into 

 bituminous coking coal. The nearness of the 

 laccolites appeared to exercise but little influ- 

 ence on the seams that were immediately over 

 or under them, but the metamorphic change 

 was due to the dike. The middle seam, which 

 is at a maximum distance from the two lacco- 

 lites, is bituminous coal throughout, so far as 

 known, but it has not been worked near the 

 dike. The speaker also referred to the change 

 in our former ideas regarding the geology of 



