228 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 423. 



northern base of the Ala Tan Mountains 

 in Turkestan, and along the western base 

 of the Thian Shan Mountains, the delta- 

 like characteristics of the distribution are 

 evident, maintaining a pretty general level 

 of twenty-five hundred feet above the sea. 

 Over the southern plains of Russia the de- 

 posit maintains a pretty general level of 

 six hundred feet, having a scope of from 

 fifty to a hundred feet over everything, 

 though the rivers have cut channels three 

 hundred feet deep in the more southern 

 portions. 



In the Missouri Valley there is also a 

 definite relation to the streams. On both 

 sides of the Missouri the deposit is devel- 

 oped from Yankton to Kansas City in 

 almost equal degree, having a depth of a 

 hundred feet or more. Both in the Mis- 

 souri Valley and in the lower levels in 

 China there are also frequent indications 

 of water action in more or less obscure lines 

 of bedding, while in both areas fossils are 

 scarce^ and are mostly of land species which 

 love moist places. In China the source of 

 material is certainly not from a glaciated 

 area, while in the Missouri Valley it is 

 probably both from the adjacent glaciated 

 area and from the arid plains to the west. 

 In both areas the distribution by water is 

 best accounted for on the theory of an ex- 

 tensive subsidence of land over the entire 

 northern hemisphere. In the Missouri 

 Valley the following order of earth move- 

 ments seems best to fit the facts: 



1. Pre-Glacial elevation of two thousand 

 or three thousand feet. This continued 

 until the close of the Kansas stage. 



2. Depression increasing toward the 

 north until the level was considerably be- 

 low present level. This closed the lowan 

 stage, and was accomplished by the main 

 loess deposits, while the gradient of the 

 river was reduced to a few inches per mile 

 and the water action increased from ten to 



twenty feet during the late summer melt- 

 ing of the ice, covering all the adjoining 

 land for a few weeks, and then leaving it 

 bare for the rest of the year. Thus the 

 peculiar fossils may be accounted for. 



3. An elevation increasing to the north 

 with an east and west axis near the latitude 

 of Omaha, culminating in the Wisconsin 

 stage. The once waste grounds from the 

 Wisconsin moraines down the Big Sioux 

 River are a mile and a half wide and only 

 ten feet above the present flood plain. 

 These continue for a little distance down 

 the Missouri after reaching Omaha. Below 

 Omaha there has been filling, instead of 

 erosion, since the Wisconsin stage. This 

 would give to the loess deposits of un- 

 doubted lowan age. 



A New Meteonte {'Bath Furnace^) from 

 Kentucky : A. M. Miller, Lexington, Ky. 

 The meteorite exhibited was the one 

 which occasioned the brilliant display seen 

 at 6.45 P.M. of November 15 by many per- 

 sons in the states of Ohio, Kentucky, Ten- 

 nessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and 

 Georgia. Its detonations, associated with 

 the checking of its orbital velocity by the 

 resistance of the air, startled the inhabit- 

 ants of Bath County, Kentucky. It actually 

 struck the earth in the road in front of the 

 house of Mr. Bluford Staten. The latter, 

 an eye-witness of the event, picked the stone 

 up on the following morning. It passed 

 next into the hands of Mr. W. H. Daugh- 

 erty, of Owingsville, Ky., from whom it 

 has been purchased by Professor Henry A. 

 Ward for the Ward-Coonley collection, 

 New York City. The meteorite is an aero- 

 lite containing, among other substances, 

 disseminated nickelifer.ous iron, and it ex- 

 hibits the usual black crust with pittings. 

 Before chips were removed for analysis the 

 specimen weighed nearly thirteen pounds. 

 Specific gravity, 3.48. 



