August 15, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



263 



much less than it is now. These accumula- 

 tions are sometimes more than 200 feet 

 thick, and are beyond the reach of any 

 glaciers which ever extended down the 

 north side of the range. While these do 

 not indicate a depression below the surface 

 of the ocean, they do necessitate a depres- 

 sion to the south such as would change the 

 relative level of the valley occupied by the 

 upper part of the Terek river. 



4. The existence of arctic seal {Phoca 

 annelate) in Lake Baikal is best explained 

 on the theory of a recent depression, per- 

 mitting the sea to extend inwards to all 

 the points now marked by that level. The 

 lake is 1,561 feet above the sea, and fully 

 2,000 miles distant as the river runs. The 

 presence of the seal in the lake is readily 

 explained by this supposition of a recent 

 subsidence of the region, but is not satis- 

 factorily explained by any other theory. 

 Reaching the enclosure while it was an arm 

 of the sea, the seal would find a favorable 

 habitat, and when, on re-elevation of the 

 land, the basin became cut off from direct 

 communication with the sea, the water 

 would still be salt, and would grow fresh 

 so gradually that the species could adjust 

 itself to the slowly changing conditions and 

 remain a permanent inhabitant. The same 

 seal is also found in the Caspian sea, and 

 was formerly found in the Aral sea. 



5. The distribution of the loess around 

 the base of the Alatau and other immense 

 mountain masses of central Asia is such as 

 to indicate a temporary water level from 

 2,500 to 3,000 feet higher than now. What- 

 ever may have been the ultimate origin of 

 this peculiar soil, its distribution in north- 

 ern China, in Turkestan, about the base of 

 Mount Ararat, at the southern base of the 

 Caucasus mountains, and over the plains 

 of southern Russia, is unaccountable except 

 by the assistance of water action; while 

 the occurrence of the bones of post-Pliocene 



animals and the remains of man under- 

 neath it, both in Russia and in Siberia, to- 

 gether with the small amount of erosion 

 that has taken place in it, indicates that 

 the change of level was approximately con- 

 temporaneous with the glacial period both 

 in America and in northwestern Europe. 



The result of observations in eastern 

 Mongolia, Manchuria, Transbaikalia, and 

 along the base of the Tian Shan range in 

 Turkestan was to show that, during the 

 glacial period, there was no extension of 

 ice anywhere in Asia south of the sixtieth 

 degree of latitude at all corresponding to 

 that in America and in Europe; therefore, 

 the weight of ice could not explain the de- 

 pression of the Asiatic continent. 



But the removal of 6,000,000 cubic miles 

 of water from the ocean bed to form the 

 glaciers of Europe and America, which 

 would be equal to 24,000,000,000,000,000 

 tons, would naturally so disturb the bal- 

 ance of forces that a continental mass like 

 Asia, with mountains rising from 25,000 to 

 30,000 feet above the sea, would sink down 

 by its own weight. 



Recent Geology of the Jordan Valley: 



G. Frederick Wright. 



West of the Jordan the descent from 

 Jerusalem to Jericho is something more 

 than 3,000 feet in about fifteen miles, and 

 the underlying rock is all Cretaceous, the 

 strata dipping to the east even more rapidly 

 than the road descends. A fault of some 

 4,000 to 5,000 feet occurs along the Jordan 

 valley, so that the abrupt wall which forms 

 the western face of the mountains of Moab 

 has at its base Nubian sandstone strata 

 which underlie the Cretaceous, the Creta- 

 ceous rocks appearing near the summit, 

 where the elevation is about 4,000 feet 

 above the Dead sea, or nearly the same as 

 that of Jerusalem and the surrounding 

 hills of Judea. 



