NOVEMBER 5, 1897. 
and the refilled Detroit and St. Clair backed 
up into the deepened tributaries. This con- 
firms the previously supposed temporary 
drainage of the upper lakes to the Ottawa. 
4. ‘The Lower Abandoned Beaches of 
Southeastern Michigan,’ by Frank B. Tay- 
lor, Fort Wayne, Ind. The paper de- 
scribed the characteristic features, altitudes 
and deformations of the beaches, and 
showed that there are at least four im- 
portant beaches at the south end of Lake 
Huron, below the Forest Beach of Lake 
Warren. Two of them, the Elkton and 
Algonquin, probably extend as far south as 
Detroit, though not yet traced to this place. 
The Nipissing beach is supposed to pass 
under Lake Huron at the south end. 
5. ‘Recent Earth Movement in the Great 
Lake Region,’ by G. K. Gilbert, Washing- 
ton, D. C. A comparison of gauge records 
and bench marks, representing a period of 
about twenty years, shows that, in the lake 
region, the land is being tilted from north- 
east to southwest. The rate is such that 
of two points one hundred miles apart 
the northern rises five inches with refer- 
ence to the southern, in a century. At 
Chicago the mean lake level is rising at the 
rate of one inch in ten years. On account 
of the slight elevation of the divide be- 
tween Lake Michigan and the Illinois 
River, a comparatively small tilting of the 
region will establish an outlet in this di- 
rection. It is estimated that, in about 
three thousand years, all of the upper lakes 
will discharge into the Illinois River, the 
current of the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers 
will be reversed, carrying the water of Lake 
Erie into Lake Huron, and the Niagara 
River will run dry. 
6. ‘A Supplementary Hypothesis of the 
Origin of the Loess of the Mississippi Val- 
ley,’ by Professor T. C. Chamberlin, Chi- 
eago, Ill. The paper opens by a statement 
of two great features of the distribution of 
the loess of the Mississippi Valley which 
SCIENCE. 
689 
are significant of its origin: (1) The loess 
is distributed along the leading valleys ; 
(2) it is distributed along the border of 
the former ice sheet at the stage known as 
Iowan. These two features indicate the re- 
lationship of the loess to the great drainage 
valleys and to the ice sheet. Nevertheless, 
the vertical distribution of the loess and 
the presence of land shells offer great 
difficulties in the way of accepting the pure 
aqueous theory. After sketching these dif- 
ficulties the paper proceeds to offer a hy- 
pothesis, which divides the honors between 
the aqueous and the Holian agencies. Rec- 
ognizing the strength of the arguments in 
favor of a glacio-fluvial origin, it postulates 
the limitation of the aqueous loess to the 
lower levels and assumes that the oscilla- 
tions in the flood stages gave rise to broad, 
exposed flats, which when dry would be 
swept by the winds and the dust derived, 
carried to and lodged upon the uplands, 
giving rise to an eolian phase of the loess. 
The paper proceeds to discuss the necessary 
accommodation between the extent of the 
aqueous and the fluvial depositions and to 
compare the combined hypothesis presented 
with that of Richtofen. 
7. ‘An Account of the Researches rela- 
‘ting to the Great Lakes,’ by Dr. J. W. 
Spencer, Washington, D. C. The author 
presented an exhaustive review of the 
gradual development of our knowledge of 
the Great Lakes, stating the various 
Opinions that have been, and are now, held 
in regard to their origin, changes and 
probable future. Being in itself largely a 
summary, the paper scarcely admits of con- 
densation to the limits of a brief abstract. 
8. ‘Changes of Level in the Glacial For- 
mations of the Alps,’ by Professor Albrecht 
Penck, Vienna, Austria. The deposits 
belonging to the glacial period of the Alps 
must, as to their origin, be divided into true 
moraine and fluvio-glacial. The moraine 
deposits occur everywhere where glaciers 
