306 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 



plained surface of a vast mass of inclined 

 schists, with many dikes and veins, of which 

 an unmeasured upper portion has been worn 

 away ; the peneplain being now uplifted and 

 trenched by sharp-cut gorges, 100 to 300 

 feet deep. Monticello, and Carter mountain 

 with which it is joined, are residual emi- 

 nences surmounting theundulant peneplain. 

 It is well pointed out that a peneplain like 

 the Piedmont plateau is a better witness to 

 the work of rain and rivers than even the 

 Colorado canyon ; for what has been only 

 well begun in the canyon is carried almost 

 to completion in the peneplain. Several 

 historico- geographical essays followed Mc- 

 Gee's physiographic address. 



NOTES. 



The North German heaths and moors, 

 geographical inheritances of glacial action, 

 are described with particular reference to 

 their flora by Krause in Globus, Ixx., 1896, 

 Nos. 4, 5. 



The origin of the Wind Gap in Blue 

 Mountain, Pa., north of Easton, by the di- 

 version of an ancient river to several subse- 

 quent branches of the Delaware and Lehigh, 

 finds a recent advocate in F. B. Wright, of 

 Oberlin (Amer. Geol., Aug., 1896). 



Aisr interesting flight of interpretation by 

 O. H. Howarth (London Geogr. Journ., 

 Aug., 1896) treats Popocatapetl and the 

 neighboring volcanoes of the Mexican chain 

 as subsidiary vents, marginal to and later 

 than the Pedregal, a vast flood of uniform 

 basaltic lava that stretches from the Ajusco 

 cone over 200 miles westward nearly to 

 Acapulco. The lava flood is referred to a 

 quiet fissure eruption, while the scoriaceous 

 cones, high as they tower above the Pedregal, 

 are ascribed to explosive eruptions at points 

 where the great body of hot lava encoun- 

 tered accumulations of water. Before the 

 fissure eruption, the North American con- 

 tinent is believed to have ended with the 

 Mexican plateaus. 



A geological and a hypsometrical map 

 of northern Venezuela by Sievers, with ex- 

 planatory text, appears in Petermann's 

 Mittheilungen, vi., vii., 1896. 



The undersigned has recently published 

 the following essays : The Seine, the 

 Meuse and the Moselle (Nat. Geogr. Mag., 

 June, July, 1896), in which the Meuse 

 is shown to have lost certain branches 

 to its neighbors on the west and east. 

 The Outline of Cape Cod (Proc. Amer. 

 Acad., Boston, 1896), in which the attempt 

 is made to reconstruct the original outline 

 of the terminal portion of the Cape. Large- 

 scale Maps as Geographical Illustrations 

 (Chicago Journ. GeoL, May- June, 1896), 

 advocating the introduction of detailed topo- 

 graphical maps in teaching geography, and 

 describing several examples selected from 

 the ofiicial surveys of Great Britain, France 

 and Germany. W. M. Davis. 



Haevaed University. 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 

 WOKK OP THE WEATHER BUREAU IN CONNEC- 

 TION WITH OUR RIVERS. 



Comparatively few persons know of the 

 work our Weather Bureau is doing in 

 connection with the rivers of the United 

 States, and fewer still realize the impor- 

 tance of this work. Bulletin No. 17 of the 

 Weather Bureau contains an account of the 

 origin and development of the river and 

 flood system of the Bureau, and of the work 

 that is now being done in this division of 

 the service. The object of this department 

 is to facilitate commerce on navigable 

 streams hj publishing daily information as 

 to water stages along the course of each 

 river, and to issue warnings of coming 

 floods. Observations of river stages were 

 made by the United States Engineer Corps 

 prior to 1873, in which year the Weather 

 Bureau formally undertook the work of 

 making daily observations of the height of 

 the water in the principal rivers, these ob- 



