May 1, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



661 



than is given to it bj^ Credner. Tlie Baltic 

 and the lakes lie, as a whole, between an 

 oldland and a series of less ancient strata, 

 dipping away from it. The Gulf of Bo- 

 thnia and Lake Superior are both within 

 the limits of the oldland ; the other basins 

 are along the margin. In our Great Lakes, 

 local faulting has not been noticed. As for 

 the Swedish faults, most of them are too 

 ancient to have any eifect on existing to- 

 pography, except as guides for modern ero- 

 sive forces. Warping of a longitudinal 

 depression, originally produced by ordinary 

 denudation and modified by glacial erosion 

 and deposition, appears to deserve greater 

 importance than Credner allows it. 



' SHUT-IN ' VALLEYS. 



The St. Fran§ois mountains of south- 

 eastern Missouri consist of very ancient 

 rock masses that have been more or less 

 completely buried in Paleozoic strata, and 

 that are now partly resurrected by the 

 stripping of their cover. An expected 

 feature of such mountains is the occasional 

 occurrence of narrow superposed valleys, 

 either still occupied or now deserted by 

 their streams. A typical example of the 

 latter kind is found in the notch that holds 

 Devil's lake in the Baraboo ridge of Wis- 

 consin, explained by the Geological Survey 

 of that State as the former superposed 

 course of the Wisconsin river. A report 

 by Keyes on the Mine la Motte sheet of the 

 Missouri geological atlas now announces 

 the occurrence of several narrow valleys of 

 this class still occupied as water courses, 

 and so unlike the broader valleys up and 

 down stream that they are locally known 

 as 'shut-ins.' A good example is found 

 two miles west of Fredericktown, where 

 the Little Frangois river passes through a 

 narrow gorge in the porphyry mass of 

 Buckner and Devon mountains between 

 open limestone vallej's up and down stream. 

 Discordance of drainage with their sur- 



roundings, as well as of structure, form and 

 products, thus seems to characterize resur- 

 rected ancient mountains. Monadnocks, 

 on the other hand, may be said never to be 

 traversed by streams. W. M. Davis. 



Paevaed Univeesity. 



CURRENT NOTES IN METEOROLOGY. 

 Under the heading Current Notes in 

 Meteorology it is intended to publish, from 

 week to week, or as opportunity may offer, 

 short notes on recent publications of gen- 

 eral interest and of importance in meteor- 

 ology and climatology. Meteorology, al- 

 though one of the newest of the sciences, is 

 growing in importance every day, and its 

 literature is rapidly increasing. To-day 

 every scientific man needs some knowledge 

 of what this literature is. Unfortunately, 

 since the suspension of the American Meteor- 

 ological Journal, in April of this year, there ex- 

 ists no representative independent meteor- 

 ological publication in the United States. 

 There is, therefore, at present no American 

 journal to which one may turn for informa- 

 tion regarding recent meteorological litera- 

 ture. It is the main purpose of these notes 

 to supply this need, and to give the titles, 

 together with a few words as to the con- 

 tents, of such publications in meteorology 

 and climatology as seem to warrant notice 

 in a general scientific journal such as this 

 is. Mention will also be made of meteor- 

 ological phenomena of interest, accounts of 

 which appear from time to time in records 

 of travel, the Monthly Weather Review of our 

 Weather Bureau, the bulletins of the vari- 

 ous State Climate and Crop Services, etc. In 

 this way it is hoped to furnish , in this column , 

 a source of information on general meteoro- 

 logical and climatological matters that is 

 at present lacking in the United States. 



Mat 1st was the date set for the begin- 

 ning of the International Cloud Year, in ac- 

 cordance with a resolution adopted by the 



