696 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 592. 



China we seem to have a continuous sequence 

 of Paleozoic strata with very meager develop- 

 ment of the Silurian and Devonian, and with 

 a great limestone in place of the Coal Meas- 

 ures of Shan-si and Shan-tung. 



Natural Ooke in the Wasatch Plateau: J. A. 



Taff. 



Mr. Taff described the occurrence of natural 

 coke from two localities in the Book Cliffs 

 coal field near the north end of the Wasatch 

 Plateau in central Utah. The coal, of which 

 there are extensive deposits, crops out in the 

 Book Cliffs and eastern escarpment of the 

 Wasatch Plateau. Along the outcrops the 

 coals have been extensively burned, presum- 

 ably by spontaneous combustion fusing the 

 overlying strata in places into vesicular slag- 

 like masses. At one of these localities, about 

 ten miles southwest of Castlegate, an outcrop 

 of metamorphosed coal having the columnar 

 structure and luster of coke was found in 

 association with fused siliceous deposits. 



The second locality is at the Winterquarters 

 mines, two miles west of Scofield. Dikes of 

 an igneous rock ten feet in width have cut 

 vertically across the coal bed, nine to sixteen 

 feet thick, metamorphosing the coal into a 

 coke-like substance to a distance of three feet 

 on each side. The coal thus fused is dis- 

 tinctly columnar, the columns standing per- 

 pendicular to the face of the dike, and has a 

 graphitic luster, but is not vesicular like arti- 

 ficial coke. While it has the structure in 

 part and the luster of artificial coke it has not 

 the composition. The following are analyses 

 of the coal and coke from the same mine, 

 made by the U. S. Geological Survey. 



Coke, Coal, 



Per Cent. Per Cent. 



Water 0.32 8.10 



Volatile hydrocarbon 20.38 40.20 



Fixed carbon 65.90 45.91 



Ash 13.10 5.76 



The hypotheses presented in explaining the 

 composition are: (1) that the coal at the time 

 of the metamorphism was deeply covered and 

 excluded from the atmosphere, thereby pre- 

 venting the escape of all the volatile hydro- 

 carbons; (2) that the metamorphosed coal 



after having lost a large part of its volatile 

 matter has become enriched to a certain ex- 

 tent by the gaseous products emanating from 

 the surrounding coal; (3) that the natural 

 coke, a product of the metamorphism of coal, 

 is arrested by the cooling of the igneous mass 

 before sufficient time was given for the escape 

 of all the volatile hydrocarbons. 



The Glaciation of certain Quartzite Ledges of 

 Southeastern Wisconsin, and Boulder Trains 

 derived therefrom: W. C. Alden. 

 This investigation wiU be published by the 



Geological Survey. 



The meeting of the society on February 28, 

 1906, was devoted to a general discussion en- 

 titled ' The Early Paleozoic Succession in the 

 Appalachians and the Effect of Barriers on 

 the Distribution of the Formations and 

 Faunas.' The members contributing to the 

 discussion were Messrs. Bassler, Keith, Ulrich 

 and Willis. The interest of fully twenty-five 

 members was aroused to such a degree that 

 three special conferences have been held for a 

 continuation of the discussion. 



On March 14, the following program was 

 presented : 

 Maximum Glaciation in the Sierra Nevada 



(illustrated) : Mr. Willard D. Johnson. 

 Geological Beconnaissance of the Coast of 



Olympic Peninsula (illustrated) : Mr. Ealph 



Arnold. 



On March 28, under the head of ' Informal 

 Communications,' Dr. David T. Day described 

 a sand storm observed by him in the Columbia 

 River Valley in Oregon. In this district, 

 though the ordinary so-called Chinook winds 

 are continually moving the sands brought 

 down by the river, the Oregon Railway and 

 Navigation Company has been able to protect 

 its tracks by placing boards inclined at an 

 angle of 45° to the line of the tracks at critical 

 points. The storm described was caused by a 

 violent wind blowing in a direction opposite to 

 that of the prevailing winds. The amount of 

 sand moved was very large, a rough measure 

 being furnished by the observation of four feet 

 of sand accumulated in box cars standing with 

 one door open toward the storm. From sam- 



