Maech 26, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



507 



Stowell, of the Potsdam Normal ; Professor 

 William Hallock, of Columbia; Professor 

 C. C. Wilcox, of Starkey Seminary ; Pro- 

 fessor Henry L. Griffis, of the New Paltz 

 Normal ; Miss Sherman, of Ithaca High 

 School ; Professor E. E. Whitney, of Bing- 

 hamton ; Mr. Charles N. Cobb, of the Re- 

 gents' Office ; Principal S. G. Harris, of 

 Baldwinsville ; Dr. Charles W. Hargitt, of 

 Syracuse University ; Mrs. S. H. Gage, of 

 Ithaca ; Professor Warren Mann, of Pots- 

 dam Normal; Principal Henry Pease, of 

 Medina ; Professor O. D. Clark, of the Boys' 

 High School, Brooklyn, and Principal 

 Henry S. Purdy, of Brewster. 



Feanklin W. Barrows. 

 Buffalo, N. Y. Secretary. 



{To he Concluded.) 



CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 

 TENNESSEE VALLEY REGION, ALA. 



A RECENT report for the Geological Sur- 

 vey of Alabama by Henry McCalley, on 

 'the Tennessee valley region,' contains a 

 general description of the paleozoic area in 

 the northern part of the State, excepting 

 the Coosa valley district, which is reserved 

 for a later volume. Account is given of 

 the level sandstone uplands, or ' barrens,' 

 in the northwest corner of the State ; and 

 of the rolling limestone lowlands with rich 

 red soil in the valley of the Tennessee river; 

 these two districts being the higher and 

 lower parts of the dissected uplands which 

 enter from Tennessee. Next to the east 

 rise the table mountains of the dissected 

 Cumberland (Allegheny) plateau. The 

 waters of the tables often disappear in 

 sinks, and reappear in large springs at the 

 head of coves on the flanks of the ' moun- 

 tains.' South of the Tennessee, Little and 

 Sand mountains are monoclines or cuestas, 

 with steep and ragged escarpments to the 

 north and gentle slopes to the south. The 

 broad flat ' Moulton and Russellville ' val- 

 ley lies between them, trending east and 



west. The Sequatchee valley of Tennessee 

 is called Brown Valley in Alabama, and 

 limits the preceding divisions on the east; 

 it is excavated on an unsymmetrical an- 

 ticline. An outline map locating these 

 areas would have added much to the ease 

 of interpreting the text. Most of the re- 

 port is concerned with stratigraphic and 

 economic geology ; the illustrations are 

 chiefly of quarries. 



THE PREGLACIAL KANAWHA AGAIN. 



Reference should have been made, in a 

 recent note on the Preglacial Kanawha, to 

 the studies of Professor^ W. G. Tight, of 

 Granville, Ohio, and of Professor I. C. 

 White, of Morgantown, W. Va., regarding 

 the changes in river courses of Pennsyl- 

 vania and Ohio on account of obstructions 

 by ice and drift. An article by the last 

 named writer (Origin of the high terrace 

 deposits of the Monongahela river, Amer. 

 GeoL, XVIII., 1896, 368-379) should have 

 been cited, along with the note regarding 

 Leverett's work from the Report of the 

 Director of the United States Geological 

 Survey ; for both are concerned with iden- 

 tical problems. White describes several 

 channels among the hills of the Allegheny 

 plateau, where the waters of the impounded 

 Monongahela for a time ran over cols; 

 one of these channels being permanently 

 adopted in the present course of the Ohio. 

 When this region is mapped and studied 

 in detail it promises to reveal features of 

 peculiar interest in connection with the 

 rearrangements of river courses by glacial 

 action. 



STAGES OF APPALACHIAN EROSION. 



Although this series of notes cannot 

 pretend to completeness, it has been the 

 writer's intention to report here on all the 

 more important American essays, and on 

 certain foreign essays that are relevant to 

 modern physiography. It was entirely by 

 oversight that an abstract of Keith's brief 



