March 14, 1902.J 



SCIENCE. 



417 



Geology of the John Day Basin.' The 

 igneous rocks of pre-Boeene age comprise 

 quartz-mica diorite, serpentines and pyrox- 

 enite. The Tertiary series, including the 

 fossil-beds, is almost entirely composed of 

 voleanie materials. The Clarno Eocene 

 began with the eruption of andesitic lavas 

 and tufifs, followed by quartz-basalt and 

 rhyolite. The John Day Miocene beds are 

 mainly tuffs of trachytic and andesitic 

 character. Upon them lie the great basalt 

 series, which is in tui'n overlain by the 

 Mascall beds, similar in general composi- 

 tion to the John Day. The Pliocene Rattle- 

 snake formation comprises rhyolitic lava 

 and tuffs. The most recent evidence of 

 volcanic activity consists in ash-beds in- 

 terstratified with the terrace gravels. 



Colemanite: Aethue S. Eakle, Berkeley, 



Cal. 



The paper contains the results of a crys- 

 tal lograpliic study of a large number of 

 colemanite crystals from the Calico dis- 

 trict, San Bernardino, Cal. The crystals 

 are exceptionally rich in forms and in the 

 number of well-developed faces. Although 

 only showing terminations on one end of 

 the vertical axis owing to their attachment 

 to the matrix, seldom less than twenty faces 

 are present, and some of the combinations 

 if completed would show upwards of one 

 hundred faces. About fifty forms occur, 

 of which one third are new. Four quite 

 distinct habits are noticeable, governed by 

 the absence or predominance of certain of 

 the terminal forms. The measurements 

 were made with the two-circle goniometer 

 designed by Goldschmidt, and since this 

 important method is comparatively new to 

 the mineralogists of this country, a detailed 

 description of the work is given, in order 

 to make clear the method of calculating and 

 projecting the forms. The figures accom- 

 panying the paper are a gnomonic projec- 

 tion of the forms, an orthographic projec- 



tion on the base and several clinographic 

 projections illustrating the varied habits 

 and combinations observed. 



Eocene and Earlier Beds of the Huerfano 

 Basin, Colorado, and their Relation to 

 the Cretaceous: R. C. Hills, Denver, 

 Colo. 



The paper discusses the stratigraphical 

 and structural features of the Huerfano 

 Eocene, and associated Upper Cretaceous 

 beds, for the purpose of correcting certain 

 errors that appeared in earlier papers on 

 the subject. The uppermost beds previously 

 assigned to the Eocene have been shown 

 to contain a Wind River and Bridger 

 fauna, but there is a much greater thickness 

 of conformable beds of similar character, 

 the age of which has not been definitely 

 established, which it is thought should be 

 provisionally correlated with the Lower 

 Eocene of the Uinta and San Juan basins. 

 The Lower or Poison Canyon formation is 

 found to be unconformable with the true 

 Eocene and with the underlying Cretace- 

 ous, and to present a strong contrast with 

 the latter lithologically. It is suggested 

 that the Poison Canyon beds are nearly 

 related to, if not identical mth, the post- 

 Laramie formation of the Denver Basin. 

 Andeew C. Lawson, 



Secretary. 



A NEW BAROMETRY FOR TEE UNITED 



STATES, CANADA AND THE WEST 



INDIES. 



A NEW system of reducing the baromet- 

 ric observations of pressure at the stations 

 of the Government Seiwices of the United 

 States and Canada was put in operation 

 on January 1, 1902. The Weather Bureau 

 has received all the data necessary for car- 

 rying on the Canadian computations si- 

 multaneously with its own, through the 

 courteous cooperation of Professor R. P. 

 Stupart, Director of the Canadian Meteor- 

 ological Office. The reduction of pres!- 



