32 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 627 



At the 183d meeting of the society, held on 

 November 28, Mr. Geo. H. Ashley exhibited 

 a diagram illustrating the occurrence of con- 

 torted shales lying below a massive sandstone 

 in relatively flat-lying rocks, suggesting that 

 this effect may have been produced by the ac- 

 tion of gravity subsequent to erosion. Mr. 

 M. E. Campbell and Mr. G. 0. Martin ex- 

 pressed the opinion that such structures are 

 more likely to have originated as a result of 

 folding prior to the deposition of the over- 

 lying strata. 



Mr. Geo. B. Richardson exhibited specimens 

 of fossil bones collected in October, 1906, at 

 Rous' gravel pit in the northern part of El 

 Paso, Texas. The remains, comprising teeth 

 of a mammoth and a horse and the jaw bones 

 of a tapir, had been secured and identified 

 generieally by Mr. Walter Koch, who pre- 

 sented them to the speaker. They have since 

 been determined by Mr. J. W. Gidley of the 

 U. S. National Museum to represent the fol- 

 lowing forms : Elephas columhi, Equus com- 

 plicatus and Tapiris (haysii?). The bones 

 were found in cross-bedded sand and gravel 

 at two horizons, thirty and sixty feet below 

 the surface of a hill, an erosion outlier of the 

 bolson plain which lies at the base of the 

 Franklin Mountains. 



The find is of particular interest because 

 it indicates the age of at least part of a great 

 mass of unconsolidated beds adjacent to the 

 valley of the Rio Grande, and fvirnishes 

 another link in the long chain of evidence of 

 a moist climate during the early Quaternary 

 in the Cordilleran region. Deep well records 

 show the presence of over 2,200 feet of uncon- 

 solidated material in the vicinity of El Paso, 

 but whether all of this is Quaternary or the 

 basal part is Tertiary remains to be de- 

 termined. 



In the discussion Mr. W. T. Lee mentioned 

 the occurrence of the teeth of a Pleistocene 

 species of Equus thirty miles northwest of 

 El Paso, in beds formerly called Miocene, and 

 Mr. 0. A. Fisher reported similar fossils from 

 the Pecos Valley. 



Regular Program 

 The Geological Map of North America : Mr. 

 Bailey Willis. 



This map will be issued with the Comptes 

 Eendus of the International Geological Con- 

 gress held in Mexico City, September 7 to 14, 

 1906. It is further planned by the TJ. S. 

 Geological Survey to issue a revised edition 

 with descriptive text. 



The Elevated Beaches of Labrador: M. L. 



Fuller. 



The speaker reviewed the work of Bell, 

 Packard, Low and Daly on the raised beaches 

 and terraces of the Labrador coast, noting the 

 doubt which a recent trip threw upon certain 

 postulations of change of level based on some 

 of the beaches and terraces. Some of the sea 

 caves appear to be the result of weathering 

 agencies rather than of marine erosion, while 

 a great majority of the rock benches are mani- 

 festly due to differential subaerial erosion con- 

 trolled by normal and concentric jointing and 

 modified by glaciation. The preponderance of 

 the beaches along the sides of the fiord-like 

 inlets, and their eastward slope in certain in- 

 stances, lead the speaker to consider some of 

 them, at least, to be possibly due to causes 

 other than marine erosion, representing, for 

 instance, accumulations of the morainal ter- 

 race tjrpe along the sides of valley ice lobes 

 during the closing stages of the last ice in- 

 vasion. The method employed by Daly — the 

 determination of the lowest limit of undis- 

 turbed glacial erratics — is recommended to 

 future investigators as a more reliable means 

 of determining changes of level than observa- 

 tions on the so-called beaches. 



The Colorado Desert and Saltan Sea. M. R. 



Campbell. 



Discussed from the standpoint of engineer- 

 ing by Mr. E. W. Parker. 



At the 184th meeting of the society, held on 

 December 19, Mr. George P. Merrill, the re- 

 tiring president, presented an address, illus- 

 trated by lantern slides, entitled " The Com- 

 position and Structure of Meteorites com- 

 pared with those of Terrestrial Rocks." 



At the close of Mr. Merrill's address the 

 fourteenth annual meeting of the society was 

 held for the purpose of electing officers, and 

 the following officers were elected for the en- 

 siling year. 



