Mat 4, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



697 



pies collected it was found that the greater part 

 of the sand passed a one-hundred-mesh sieve, 

 though sixteen per cent, of the material was 

 coarser than twenty-mesh. In the latter por- 

 tion, however, it is to be noted that there is a 

 large amount of cinder, doubtless derived from 

 locomotives. 



Dr. Geo. P. Merrill exhibited one of four- 

 teen fragments collected by various parties 

 from a meteorite of the peridotite type which 

 fell near Fort Scott, Kansas, September 2, 

 1905. Attention was called to the fact that 

 the exterior of all the pieces of this meteorite 

 which was seen and heard to explode are fused. 



Regular Program. Report of Mr. S. F. 

 Emmons as U. S. Delegate to the Congress 

 of Applied Geology held at Liege, Belgium, 

 June, 1905. 



This was the first international congress 

 devoted exclusively to economic geology, and 

 its sessions were held simultaneously in four 

 independent sections: mines, metallurgy, me- 

 chanics and applied geology, only the last of 

 which the delegate was able to attend. 



Liege is an appropriate place for the meet- 

 ing of such a congress, being a center of old 

 and well-established coal, iron and zinc indus- 

 tries, the seat of an important school of mines, 

 and, during the past summer, the scene of an 

 international exposition commemorative of the 

 seventy-fifth anniversary of the independence 

 of Belgium. 



Mr. Emmons presented a summary of the 

 geological and industrial conditions of the 

 valley of the Meuse in which the flourishing 

 and picturesque city of Liege is situated, and 

 gave an abstract of the more important papers 

 discussed by the congress under the following 

 heads: (1) tectonics, (2) coal and petroleum, 

 (3) ore deposits, (4) hydrology. 



The first discussion had mainly to do with 

 the structure of the Belgian coal basin in 

 which the Paleozoic rocks are compressed into 

 a series of anticlines and synclines, and com- 

 plicated by many overthrust faults. It also 

 considered the probable extension of the coal- 

 basin rocks of Alsace-Lorraine beyond the 

 boundary into France in the region where they 

 are buried by the transgression of Mesozoic 



beds to depths of 2,000 to 2,500 feet. It is, 

 of course, a question of great industrial im- 

 portance to France whether the workable coal 

 beds may be developed within their boundaries 

 in that region. 



The question as to the origin of coal and 

 petroleum was discussed in a most interesting 

 manner by Professors Bertrand, of Lille, and 

 Potonie, of Berlin, based on studies with the 

 microscope and in the field; a brief statement 

 was given of the latter's theories, which are 

 entirely on the autochthonous side of this 

 much-mooted question. 



In metallic ore deposits the discussion 

 touched the genesis of the zinc ores of Bel- 

 giiun and ores of mercury and other metals 

 in Italy, besides making a brief mention of 

 platinum-bearing placers in the Congo. 



The discussion on hydrology involved the 

 fresh-water-bearing dunes along the shores of 

 the North and Baltic seas, from which in 

 Holland the city of Amsterdam draws its 

 supply of potable water. 



Interesting considerations were also pre- 

 sented by French hydrologists on the influence 

 of forests and deforestation in different Euro- 

 pean countries on their resources of white fuel 

 or water {la houille blanche). 



The Hamilton Mine, New Mexico; W. Lind- 



GREN. 



The Santa Fe Range, in northern New 

 Mexico, consists chiefly of pre-Cambrian 

 granites, gneisses and schists. Among the 

 latter are many smaller masses of amphib- 

 olites, evidently derived from pre-Cambrian 

 intrusions of basic igneous rocks in the 

 granite. Carboniferous beds, chiefly sand- 

 stones and limestones, occupy large areas on 

 the east side of the range on both sides of the 

 upper Pecos River, and are separated from the 

 pre-Cambrian crystalline rocks by a fault of 

 great throw. The Hamilton mine is situated 

 on the upper Pecos River about twenty-five 

 miles east of Santa Fe, at the place where the 

 erosion by the river has exposed a small part 

 of the pre-Cambrian basement underneath the 

 Carboniferous beds. The latter contain small 

 but workable coal mines, and the fossils indi- 

 cate a Pennsylvanian age. The amphibolites. 



