April 25, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



665 



The two divisions of the red series in north- 

 ern Pennsylvania, provisionally called the 

 Catskill and Oneonta divisions, were described. 

 The Oneonta division was shown to be some 

 300 feet thick in western Bradford County, 

 Pennsylvania, and to be separated from the 

 (Jatskill by 350 feet or more of typical marine 

 Chemung. Some 25 miles further west, near 

 JVIansfield, the division is represented only by 

 one or two thin beds occurring about 400 feet 

 below the Catskill. Both the lower and upper 

 limits of the Oneonta division were shown to 

 be rising to the westward, indicating that the 

 incursion of the sea and its marine fauna 

 probably took place in Bradford County while 

 red beds were still being deposited in Tioga 

 County on the west. 



In considering the age of the red beds at 

 their extreme western limits near Salamanca, 

 New York, it was shown that their strati- 

 graphic position agrees with that of the 

 Pocono in eastern Pennsylvania and with the 

 Waverly in western Pennsylvania. A marked 

 change of fauna, including the introduction 

 of fifty new species, of which seven were of 

 Carboniferous type, was shown to have 

 occurred immediately below the red beds in 

 the region just east of Salamanca, and was 

 regarded as marking the beginning of a transi- 

 tion into the Carboniferous, or possibly the 

 introduction of the Carboniferous itself. The 

 proposition that these beds, with the included 

 red shale, belong beneath the Waverly, and 

 that the latter may have been entirely cut out 

 in this region by the unconformity at the base 

 of the Pottsville was regarded as possible, but 

 as not established. 



Mr. Thomas H. Means, of the Bureau of 

 Soils, then presented a very interesting paper, 

 entitled 'Some Results of the Soil Survey.' 



Mr. Means reviewed briefly the development 

 of soil studies in the United States and 

 described the methods in use in the Bureau of 

 Soils. Sixteen thousand square miles have 

 been surveyed, the areas being generally dis- 

 tributed throiigh the principal physiographic 

 provinces of the country. A survey is now in 

 progress in Porto Eico. Large areas have 

 been surveyed in the irrigated lands of the 

 western United States. In these areas, besides 



a study of the soils, the question of alkali in 

 the soils has received particular attention and 

 methods for the reclamation of the alkali lands 

 have been worked out. The maps as issued by 

 the Bureau are principally for the use of the 

 farmers and therefore the classification of the 

 soils is agricultural rather than geological. 

 Mr. Means exhibited a number of soil and 

 alliali maps and described their principal fea- 

 tures. 



Mr. P. C. Schrader presented a paper, en- 

 titled 'The Geological Section of the Rocky 

 Mountains in Northern Alaska,' illustrated by 

 lantern. The southern end of the section is 

 on the Koyulsuk River, a northern tributary 

 of the Yukon, and it extends northward to the 

 Arctic Ocean, following approximately the 

 152d meridian. Beginning at the southern 

 end, the first hundred miles of the section 

 traverses a dissected upland, made up of sand- 

 stones and slates and some limestones. These 

 are known to be in part Lower Cretaceous 

 beds, and the remainder are believed to be 

 Cretaceous, or at least Mesozoic. North of 

 this upland is a rugged mountain range, hav- 

 ing a width of some eighty miles and reaching 

 altitudes of some 6,000 feet. 



Orographically this range is considered to 

 be the northwestward continuation of the 

 Rocky Mountains of the United States and of 

 British Columbia, which here trend nearly east 

 and west across northern Alaska, forming the 

 great trans-Alaskan watershed between the 

 Yukon on the south and the drainages of the 

 Arctic Ocean on the north. On the south the 

 rise from the rolling Koyukuli country to the 

 mountains is rather abrupt; on the north the 

 mountains break off abruptly, much as they do 

 along the edge of the Great Plains in the 

 western United States. Pronounced faulting 

 and uplift are evidenced by marked deforma- 

 tion of the strata and the presence of promi- 

 nent fault scarps, often miles in extent. A 

 view across the top of the range has the gen- 

 eral appearance of a dissected plateau or 

 uplifted peneplain, whose former surface is 

 marked by a sea of peaks which rise to a gen- 

 eral level of about 6,000 feet, while the valley 

 floors lie approximately at 2,000. The range, 

 however, seems to be somewhat higher near its 



