640 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 671 



specimen, when fresh, agreed very well with 

 the description given by Mr. Shull, but it has 

 a third row of brown speckles on the tegmina 

 between the radial and cubital veins. Mr. 

 Scudder's figure in the Entomological News 

 is undoubtedly overcolored, being more red- 

 dish than pink and the speckles are also prob- 

 ably more prominently shown than really 

 exists in the living insects. 



Dr. Wm. M. Wheeler in a recent number of 

 the Journal of the New York Entomological 

 Society says, that of the twenty records of 

 these insects the only male known is that 

 taken by Mr. Seudder. Mr. Shull's specimen 

 and the one under present consideration, both 

 being males, are therefore of unusual interest. 



The theory that the pink coloring is due to 

 the influence of cold on the developing nymph 

 seems to be completely upset when we consider 

 that August 1 is an early date for a full- 

 grown specimen and that the species is found 

 until frost. 



These pink " sports " are not confined to the 

 Orthoptera but occur in the Hemiptera also. 

 I took a pink specimen of Amphiscepa hivit- 

 tata Say, a normally green insect, at Lake- 

 hurst, August 23, a rarity with this species; 

 tut the tettigonid, Gypona octolineata Say is 

 almost as often pink as green in my ex- 

 perience. John A. Geossbeck 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



PLEISTOCENE TEEEACING IN THE NORTH CAROLINA 



COASTAL PLAIN^ 



Terraces of Pleistocene age occurring in 

 the coastal plain of Maryland have been de- 

 scribed by Professor G. B. Shattuck in several 

 papers, including the recent report on the 

 " Pliocene and Pleistocene Deposits of Mary- 

 land." ■ In the fall of 1906 the writer, while 

 engaged in the study of the underground 

 waters of the coastal plain of North Carolina 

 for the United States Geological Survey, 

 noticed similar terracing in that area, and a 

 series of terraces extending across the state 

 from north to south, separated from each 

 other by well-defined seaward facing scarps 



^ Published by permission of the director of the 

 U. S. Geological Survey. 



which extend approximately in a north-south 

 line, rising one above the other from sea level 

 to elevations of over 400 feet along the eastern 

 edge of the Piedmont Plateau, were traced 

 out. 



Reentrants, sometimes of great breadth, ex- 

 tend from the lower up into the higher and 

 older terraces. In North Carolina the condi- 

 tions existing during Pleistocene time were 

 such that the terraces were formed over broad 

 areas and each succeeding terrace was well 

 developed and still preserves much of the 

 level character which it had when first 

 uplifted. The lowest lying and most recent 

 terrace retains almost perfectly its original 

 level surface, being but little dissected by 

 stream erosion. Each succeeding higher and 

 older terrace is more and more dissected until 

 in the oldest and highest mere remnants of 

 the former level surface remain and the sepa- 

 rating scarps can only be traced with difficulty. 



In general, the materials composing the ter- 

 races are thicker, more highly colored, more 

 heterogeneous in composition, more highly 

 cross-bedded, and contain a large per cent, of 

 pebbles and boulders of the crystalline rocks 

 near the Piedmont border than farther east- 

 ward. Seaward the material becomes finer, the 

 deposits thinner and the coloring less brilliant, 

 until in the lowest terrace the sandy loams are 

 gray or mottled with a small amount of 

 yellow, and grade down into interstratified 

 bluish quartz sands and bluish to drab clays. 



A noticeable feature in nearly all sections 

 of the terrace materials is the gradation from 

 a mottled sandy loam at the surface (the 

 mottling at places showing evidences of heing 

 due to the distiirbance of stratified material of 

 slightly different colors) to stratified sands 

 and clays or sands and gravels of different 

 colors at the base. 



The lowest lying and youngest of the ter- 

 races in the North Carolina coastal plain at- 

 tains at its maximum development a width of 

 over 60 miles in the northeastern part of the 

 state. It includes the area enclosed by the 

 present " banks " from Beaufort to the Vir- 

 ginia line and east of the meridian 76° 35'. 

 In the southeastern part of the coastal plain 

 this terrace is present only as a narrow strip 



