October 30, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



645 



fauna in the " Temblor " beds of the Nortb 

 Coalinga region, it seems clear that these ma- 

 rine beds, commonly referred to Lower Mio- 

 cene or late Oligocene, are not older than 

 mammal-bearing beds of the interior of the 

 continent referred to Middle Miocene. 



The " Temblor " beds of southern California 

 represent a phase of the Monterey series of 

 California, which is one of the best known and 

 most widely spread of the divisions of the Ter- 

 tiary. There seems good reason to believe 

 that the Monterey series of California is ap- 

 proximately to be correlated with the Mascall 

 Middle Miocene of the Great Basin. 



A broad consideration of the lack of adjust- 

 ment between the time scale of the Pacific 

 Coast province and that of the Great Basin 

 suggests that correlations of marine faunas 

 of the Pacific Coast region, particularly those 

 based on the percentage method, have tended 

 to locate the time divisions relatively too far 

 from the present or Recent. In late years, the 

 refinement of specific characterization has 

 proceeded very rapidly. Splitting the species 

 has resulted in giving us a larger number of 

 forms each of which has a relatively restricted 

 geographic and geologic range. The percent- 

 age method, as proposed by Lyell, when used 

 with modern species naturally results in push- 

 ing time divisions farther apart. 



The lack of adjustment in the time scale 

 also suggests the desirability of testing the re- 

 lation of Middle Miocene mammal-bearing 

 beds of North America to the formations of 

 Lower Miocene age in the European scale. 



The fauna of the second mammal zone of 

 the Coalinga region comes from beds referred 

 for the present to the Jaealitos formation. It 

 includes a form referred to Protohippus by 

 Arnold and Anderson, and a NeoMpparion 

 species of somewhat advanced stage. The 

 NeoMpparion material from this zone is in- 

 sufficient for thoroughly satisfactory compari- 

 son. It seems in part to be related to a 

 NeoMpparion from the Rattlesnake Pliocene 

 of the John Day region of eastern Oregon. 

 This species does not appear to be very closely 

 related to the well-known Mipparion species 

 in the Ricardo fauna from the Mohave Desert. 



The fauna of the third or Protohippus 

 coalingensis zone of the Etchegoin formation 

 in the Coalinga region has as its most char- 

 acteristic form a new species, ProtoMppus 

 coalingensis^ which differs from all the de- 

 scribed species found west of the Wasatch 

 Range. It is most nearly related to a species 

 represented in the Ricardo fauna of the Mo- 

 have Desert. It does not, however, seem to be 

 identical with the Ricardo form. The stage 

 of this fauna, in very general terms, seems to 

 be Pliocene. Both the Etchegoin of this zone 

 and the Jaealitos below it were referred by 

 Arnold and Anderson^ to the Upper Miocene. 



The fourth fauna of the North Coalinga re- 

 gion includes a number of species of relatively 

 modern aspect. These include forms referable 

 to Equus and to Oervus or Odocoileus. This 

 assemblage may be known for the present as 

 the Equus-Cervus fauna. Its stratigraphic 

 position is not entirely clear. The fauna is in 

 part much like that of the Pleistocene. 



John C. Mereiam 



THE CEENATION AND FLAGELLATION OF HUMAN 

 ERYTHROCYTES 



I. Crenation 

 The method of preparing the blood on which 

 the following observations on crenation were 

 made is very simple. A drop of blood obtained 

 by pricking the finger is immediately sucked 

 up into a pipette which contains one to two 

 cubic centimeters of sterile Ringer's solution 

 or 0.85 per cent, sterile sodium chloride or 

 human blood serum. The suspension is then 

 mixed on a sterile glass slide until a homo- 

 geneous suspension is obtained. A drop of the 

 suspension is then transferred by means of a 

 pipette to an absolutely clean large coverslip 

 and the drop allowed to spread out into a thin 



1 FrotoJiippus coalingensis, n. sp. Type speci- 

 men, No. 21,341, Univ. Gal. Col. Vert. Palaj. Dis- 

 tinguished by large size, unusual narrowness of 

 cheek-teeth in transverse diameter, small proto- 

 eone and narrow, simple fossettes. 



2 Arnold, E., and Anderson, K., U. S. Geol. Surv. 

 Bull. No. 398, p. 78, 1910. 



