December 5, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



317 



band are very complete. Pull credit will be given for every re- 

 port received, and quotations will be published from reports con- 

 taining information of special value. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



•#* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The vyriter^s name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the' charade i 

 of the journal. 



On request, twenty copies of the numbei- containing his communication will 

 be furnished free to any correspondent. 



On the Geology of Quebec City. 



The researches of Sir William Logan, Mr. Billings, Dr. Sterry 

 Hunt, Dr. Selwyn, Sir William Dawson, Professor James Hall, 

 Professor Emmons, Professor Walcott, Professor Marcou, Dr. Ells, 

 Professor Lapworth, and many others, on the geology of Quebec 

 and its environs, have made that region classic ground to the 

 student of North American geology. The famous Quebec group 

 controversy, as well as its closely related friend the Taconic ques- 

 tion in geology and the Lorraine-Hudson River problem, are all 

 involved in the geologic history of Quebec. Much diversity of 

 opinion has existed as to the exact geological position of some of 

 the terranes at and about Quebec City, as also along the whole line 

 of the great Appalachian or St. Lawrence-Champlaiji fault ; and 

 this is not at all astonishing, seeing that profound dislocations ex- 

 ist, intricate foldings of strata occur, and several terranes are met 

 within an exceedingly small area, faulted and folded together in 

 any thing but a simple manner, which require exceedingly de- 

 tailed and careful examination before satisfactory conclusions are 

 arrived at. 



The rocks forming the citadel hill or promontory of Quebec 

 (Cape Diamond) have been assigned to different positions in the 

 geological scale by different writers and at different times. An 

 elaborate review of their views is given in Dr. Ells' last report to 

 Dr. Selwyn (1888), and published by the Geological Survey of 

 Canada, which includes Dr. Bigsby's paper (1827). down to Pro- 

 fessor Lap worth's report, etc., published in the " Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of Canada" (1887). These Quebec rocks have 

 been referred by some of the geologists above named to the age of the 

 Quebec group (Levis division), while others, and the majority at 

 present, regard them as newer than the Trenton limestone, viz., 

 being of " Trenlon-Utica," " Utica-Hudson," or " Lorraine" age. 

 But before assigning a definite position to the rocks of Quebec 

 City in the scale of terranes in America, it is necessary for the 

 writer to state that so far he has been unable to find any evidence 

 in the field, either stratigraphical or paleontological, whereby the 

 Hudson River rocks and Lorraine shales as originally understood 

 by Emmons could be correlated, and referred to the same or im- 

 mediately following geologic terrane. 



The fauna of the Norman's Kiln shales, that of the Marsouin, 

 of the Tartigo River, Griffin Cove, and Gagnon's Beach rocks, as 

 well as those from Crane Island, south-western point of the island 

 of Orleans, Quebec City, Etchemin Riviere (between St. Henry 

 and St. Anselme), Drummondville, and other localities in Maine, 

 Vermont, and New York States, form one large assemblage of 

 forms peculiar to one terrane. 



The fauna of the Lorraine shales (Cincinnati era) as character- 

 ized at Montmorency Falls, Cote Sauvageau, St. Charles Valley, 

 Charlesbourg (near Church, two miles above St. Nicholas), Ya- 

 maska River, Riviere des Hurons, and in the undisturbed regions 

 of Ontario (intermediate between the Utica terrane and the base 

 of the Silurian (Upper) epoch), marks another terrane. 



These two faunas, I hold, are very distinct, both in their pale- 

 ontological and stratigraphical relations. The Lorraine terrane 

 (see Dr. Selwyn's classification of formations in Canada, "In- 

 dex to the Colours and Signs used by the Geological Survey of 

 Canada") has a definite position; viz., at the summit of the 

 Cambro-Silurian or Ordovician system. Tbe strata at Quebec 

 cannot be referred lo the Lorraine terrane, nor to the Utica, nor 

 yet to the Trenton or the Black River formation. Sir WilUam 

 Logan referred the Quebec City rocks to tbe Levis division of 

 Quebec group; and yet the faima which Mr. Weston and the 



writer have, along with Mr. Giroux and L'Abbe Laflamme, been 

 able to obtain from the rocks of that locality, contains some forty 

 or fifty species of fossils, including graptolites, brachiopods, ostra- 

 cods, and trilobites, different from Levis forms, and yet capable 

 of being correlated with forms from a portion of the Quebec 

 group of Logan as described in his Newfoundland section, as also 

 with Cambro-Silurian strata in the Beccaginmic valley of New 

 Brunswick. 



To give the precise geological horizon of the strata at Quebec 

 City, I hold, is perhaps premature. They appear, however, to 

 occupy a position in the Ordovician system higher than the Levis 

 formation, being probably an upward extension of that peculiar 

 series of sedimentary strata occurring along the present St. Law- 

 rence valley, and which, owing to the peculiar conditions of de- 

 position and specialized fauna entombed. Sir William Logan, 

 advisedly classed together under the term "Quebec group." This 

 would make the rocks at Quebec about equivalent to the Chazy 

 formation of the New York and Ontario divisions. 



As to the propriety of retaining the term "Hudson River" 

 group or terrane in geologic nomenclature at present, there may 

 be some doubt. Much confusion exists as to its use. It would 

 very naturally follow, however, that some such designation as the 

 " Quebec terrane" or "Quebec formation" would be most accep- 

 table at this particular juncture, and would include those rocks 

 which constitute the citadel and main portion of Qufebec City and 

 other synchronous strata. 



In a paper which the writer is now completing for the approach- 

 ing meeting of tbe Geological Society of America next month, on 

 the same subject, a more detailed and exhaustive demonstration 

 will be made of the facts now in our possession, whereby to cor- 

 relate many series of strata hitherto separated, and differentiate 

 others which are by natiu-e unlike. Heney M. Ami. 



Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa, Nov. 28- 



The Education of the Deaf. 



Positive evidence is all the world over regarded as of more 

 value than negative testimony; and any one desirous may con- 

 vince himself that congenital deat-mu;es can be taught to use 

 spoken language correctly by articulation and by writing, without 

 the intervention of any artificial signs, by a pilgrimage to the In- 

 stitution for the Improved Instruction of Deaf-Mutes, corner of 

 67th Street and Lexington Avenue, this city; the Clark Institution 

 for the Deaf at Northampton, Mass. ; or tlie Day School for the 

 Deaf, Boston, Mass. Any unbiased individual will come away 

 from such a visit with the firm conviction that some teachers for 

 the deaf have been for the last seventy years working great detri- 

 ment to the elevation of an unfortunate class of our fellow-beings 

 by preaching the fallacious and utterly untenable doctrine that 

 such an education is an impossibility, and impracticable if possi- 

 ble. B. Engelsman. 



New York, Dec. 2. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited ? An Examination 

 of the View held by Spencer and Darwin. By William 

 Platt Ball. London and New York, MacmUlan. 8°. 



This book is ultra neo-Darwinistic. Natural selection has achieved 

 every thing, according to the author: the effects of use and disuse 

 are not inherited. " Innumerable modifications in accordance with 

 altered use or disuse, such as the enlarged udders of cows and 

 goats, and the diminished lungs and livers in highly bred animals 

 that take little exercise, can be readily and fully explained as de- 

 pending on selection. As the fittest for the natural or artificial 

 requirements will be favored, natural or artificial selection may 

 easily enlarge organs that are increasingly used, and economize 

 in those that are less needed. I therefore see no necessity what- 

 ever for calling in the aid of use-inheritance, as Darwin does, to 

 account for enlarged udders, or diminished lungs, or the thick 

 arras and thin legs of canoe Indians, or the enlarged chests of 

 mountaineers, or the diminished eyes of moles, or the lost feet of 

 certain beetles, or the reduced wings of logger-headed ducks, or 



