NOVEMBEB 16, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



633 



that one of the chief reasons for improved 

 endurance was a reduction in proteid. 



Mental tests were taken consisting of the 

 addition of numbers, these showing slight in- 

 crease in mental quickness. 

 • A complete account of the experiments will 

 be published shortly. It was undertaken by 

 Professor Fisher in connection with a series 

 of statistics which he is collecting on the sub- 

 ject of labor-power, especially in relation to 

 diet, somewhat similar to the series of statis- 

 tics collected by the economist Nitti some ten 

 years ago. In communicating to the editor 

 of Science the foregoing outline of his ex- 

 periment, he has asked that any readers of 

 Science who may be able to supply data on 

 this subject from personal experience or other 

 sources will put themselves in correspondence 

 with him. 



FIELD WORK OF THE SCIENCE DIVISION 

 OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



Correlation Worh. — The director and assist- 

 ants continued the field investigations neces- 

 sary to the comparative study of the New 

 York Devonic faunas in their extension east- 

 ward. Explorations, resulting in considerable 

 and exhaustive collections, were carried on in 

 northern New Hampshire and Vermont, east- 

 ern Maine and in the Gaspe Peninsula, 

 Canada. These field investigations, now com- 

 pleted, have brought to light a very large 

 amount of instructive paleontological and 

 stratigraphical data. 



Areal Surveys. — The survey of the crystal- 

 line region of the Highlands of the Hudson 

 has been continued. In the Adirondacks, a 

 portion of the iron region of Essex County 

 has been resurveyed and the Theresa quad- 

 rangle in Jefferson County well covered. In 

 the area of exclusively sedimentary rocks, sur- 

 veys have been made in the Lake Champlain 

 Valley, and the following quadrangles in cen- 

 tral and western New York have been ad- 

 vanced or brought to completion : Chittenango, 

 Cazenovia, Syracuse, Geneva, Auburn, Nunda, 

 Portage, Skaneateles and Phelps. 



Surficial Geology. — Though somewhat inter- 

 rupted by the absence of the geologists in 



charge, some advance has been made in the 

 interpretation of the northern Hudson and 

 lower Mohawk Pleistocene phenomena and in 

 the survey of the morainal deposits of western 

 New York. 



Paleontology. — A discovery of singular in- 

 terest is the occurrence of Eurypterus-bearing 

 shales with a novel and extensive fauna in 

 the Shawangunk Mountains of eastern New 

 York. The age of the Shawangunk grit, com- 

 monly regarded as equivalent to the Oneida 

 conglomerate (lowest Upper Siluric) of cen- 

 tral New York has but recently been demon- 

 strated on purely stratigraphic data, to be the 

 probable equivalent of part or all of the Salina 

 formations. Subsequent to this demonstra- 

 tion the Eurypterus fauna was found in the 

 grit, confirming the stratigraphic deduction, 

 as its species are in some measure those of the 

 Pittsford shale which lies at the base of the 

 Salina series in western New York. The 

 fauna is distributed through nearly 700 feet 

 of the grit deposits. The museum has been 

 enriched by very extensive collections of these 

 fossils. Large acquisitions have also been 

 made from the Eurjrpterus localities of Herk- 

 imer County from the Chazy and Beekman- 

 town limestones of Lake Champlain with some 

 remarkable slabs of Cystideans and other fos- 

 sils from the Trenton limestone of southern 

 Ontario. 



Economic Geology. — A careful reexamina- 

 tion of the iron regions and their ore bodies 

 has been made with the definite purpose of 

 indicating possibilities of future development. 

 These operations have met with a result alto- 

 gether unanticipated and have determined the 

 presence of undeveloped ore deposits so ex- 

 tensive as to put the state in the first rank 

 of iron-bearing regions of the country. In- 

 deed it is now probable that no equal area 

 contains more available undeveloped iron ore, 

 now to be reckoned by some hundreds of mil- 

 lions of tons of fair to high grade ore repre- 

 senting a vast increase in the potential wealth 

 of New York state. 



Other metallic ore industries have also been 

 exploited, an interesting example being the 

 newly developed zinc deposits of St. Lawrence 

 Coiinty. Special examination of the sand- 



