Decembeb 11, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



883 



of 14,100 feet, some of which represented cir- 

 cumpolar species, and also made a comparison 

 between these species and those collected on 

 San Francisco Mountain and described by Dr. 

 Merriam (North American Fauna, No. 3). Dr. 

 Merriam's statement that most of the alpine 

 plants from San Francisco Mountain are circum- 

 polar species appeared to the speaker too broad. 

 A tabulation of Dr. Merriam's plants showed 

 that the majority of them were not circumpolar 

 and that many of them did not grow outside of 

 the Eocky Mountains. 



Mr. C. L. Pollard made Some Further Re- 

 marks on Britton and Brown's Illustrated Flora. 



F. A. Ltjcas, 



Secretary. 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OP WASHINGTON. 



At a meeting of the Philosophical Society of 

 Washington, held November 8, 1896, Mr. Les- 

 ter F. Ward gave an account of a reconnais- 

 sance made by himself in company with Mr. 

 T. Wayland Vaughan, in October last, through 

 parts of Indian Territory, Oklahoma and south- 

 western Kansas. The expedition left Musko- 

 gee, Indian Territory, on October 1st, and 

 reached Coldwater, Comanche County, Kansas, 

 on the 16th. It then proceeded to Belvidere, 

 Kiowa County, and to Medicine Lodge and 

 Sharon, in Barber County, where Mr. Ward 

 turned over the outfit to Mr. Vaughan, who re- 

 turned by a different route to South Macales- 

 ter, Indian Territory. The distance actually 

 traveled was not less than 400 miles. 



The route lay across the western decline of 

 the great Carboniferous anticlinal uplift that 

 separates the coastal plain of the Gulf border 

 and Mississippi embayment from the ancient 

 Mesozoic and Tertiary sea that occupied the 

 present Rocky Mountain region. The rocks 

 accordingly dip gently to the west-northwest. 

 In general the Arkansas River and its southern 

 tributaries were followed, but the immediate 

 valleys were avoided as far as practicable. The 

 principal railroad towns passed through were 

 Tulsa, Perry, Enid and Alva. The Carbon- 

 iferous consists of shales overlain by coarse, 

 brown sandstones, forming the hills, which are 

 more or less wooded with black-jack {Quercus 



nigra), post-oak {Q. minor) and hickory {Hicoria 

 alba and S. minima). The shales weather red, 

 but are sometimes carbonaceous and dark, occa- 

 sionally furnishing thin coal seams. The best 

 exposure seen is on Cane Creek, fifteen miles 

 west of Muskogee. The sandstones gradually 

 grow more and more reddish from east to west, 

 and above Tulsa, on the Arkansas, there are 

 fine exposures. Between the Arkansas and the 

 Cimarron, east of Perry, limestones are inter- 

 stratified between them. The oak barrens are 

 covered with coarse grasses and tall weeds 

 {Desmodium, Lespedeza, Frcelichia, Eriogonum, 

 etc.). On the plains east of Perry the first 

 gravel was seen, and the red saiadstones were 

 replaced at intervals by clays of diflferent colors, 

 but weathering red. Farther west the sand- 

 stones disappear and the underlying strata be- 

 comes a red, sandy clay shale, constituting the 

 well-known Red Beds, the base of which, at 

 least, is probably of Permian age, while the 

 summit may even be Cretaceous. These con- 

 tinue to some distance west of the 99th meri- 

 dian, where they pass under the Cheyenne 

 sandstone of the Comanche Series. These lat- 

 ter were encountered between Evansville and 

 Nescatunga, in Comanche County, Kansas, some 

 twelve miles east of Coldwater. 



The work in Kansas consisted in studying 

 the Cheyenne Sandstone and its relations to 

 the Red Beds below and the marine Cretaceous 

 deposits above. The best exposures are in the 

 vicinity of Belvidere. Fossil plants were ob- 

 tained at three different horizons, showing 

 corresponding changes in the flora. So far as 

 they go they confirm Mr. Hill's conclusion that 

 at least the upper part of the Cheyenne Sand- 

 stone belongs to the Wachita Division of the 

 Comanche Series. It may be approximately 

 correlated with the Raritan Clays or the Al- 

 birupean series of the Potomac formation. 



Mr. Ward collected a large number of plants 

 at all points along the route, some of which 

 are rarely obtained because botanists had 

 scarcely ever visited the region so late in the 

 season. Among the 77 species in his collection 

 may be mentioned the following, which have 

 interest either as rare or as extending the 

 range of these plants : Lacinaria acidota, Phy- 

 salis rotundata, Allionia Bushi, Solidago rigidius- 



