September 20, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



459 



indifference of border to structure is natural 

 enough. In the second place, the body of each 

 range is usually continuous, although it maj'- be 

 incised by sharp-cut valleys ; if the ranges were 

 the residuals of a period of undisturbed erosion 

 long enough to have permitted the excavation 

 of broad interniont valley -lowlands, each range 

 should be divided into isolated mountain 

 groups by the opening of wide branch-valleys 

 in its mass ; but if the depressions and the 

 ranges are blocked out by recent faulting, the 

 continuity of the ranges is to be expected. 



Both these tests are best met in southern 

 Oregon, where the ranges as described by Rus- 

 sell are very little affected by erosion after 

 faulting. Neither test is well met by certain 

 ranges in southeastern California described by 

 Fairbanks as almost worn down to grade. In 

 Utah and Nevada both tests are well borne ; 

 but no definite statement has yet been published 

 concerning the amount of erosion that has taken 

 place in this district since the block faulting ; 

 nor has any careful inference been made as to 

 the form that the region had before faulting, 

 some remnants of which may perhaps still be 

 detected on the lower back slope of the ranges. 

 The absence of steep scarps along the faulted 

 border of a range does not bear closely on the 

 problem, although Spurr attaches much impor- 

 tance to it. Recent and rapid faulting would 

 produce a scarp ; but similar scarps produced 

 less recently would now be more or less com- 

 pletely dissected and destroyed. Gradual fault- 

 ing, even if continued into the historic period, 

 would produce only a low basal scarp ; the upper 

 part of the fault face would be battered back 

 and ravined. The truncated ends of certain 

 spurs of the Wahsatch range near Prevo, Utah, 

 seem to result from faulting of this kind, the 

 fresh scarp that follows the base of the range 

 being the product of the most recent episode of 

 faulting. 



No features due to recent faulting are seen 

 in the Appalachians. The ridges there are in- 

 timately dependent upon the harder strata, the 

 base of a ridge always follows the strike of the 

 individual ridgemaker, and the lowlands be- 

 tween the ridges are demonstrably excavated 

 by erosion on weak rocks. All these are con- 

 ditions which no one has shown to obtain in 



the Great basin; yet Sjturr says: "Suppose 

 the Appalachians, which likewise consist of 

 parallel ridges eroded along lines of folding, 

 should become arid, so that the rivers were 

 unable to remove the detritus and the valleys 

 become choked. There would develop in the 

 course of time exactly what exists in the Basin 

 region, namely, a nearly level desert, contain- 

 ing a series of parallel, synclinal, and anticlinal 

 ranges" (p. 255). The strongest dissent from 

 this unwarrantable comparison must be ex- 

 pressed. 



THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEERS. 



An article that might serve as the type of 

 many more is a description of the Kentucky 

 mountaineers by Ellen C. Semple ('The Anglo- 

 Saxons of the Kentucky Mountains : a Study in 

 Anthropogeography,' Geogr. Joiirn., XVII., 

 1901, 588-623). The dissected Alleghany pla- 

 teau, which is of mountainous ruggedness in 

 Kentucky and West Virginia, shares with the 

 mountains of North Carolina the unenviable dis- 

 tinction of being less affected by civilization than 

 any equal area east of the Rockies. So many 

 old customs are there preserved that the people 

 have been well named ' our contemporary an- 

 cestors.' Miss Semple' s account of these prim- 

 itive Americans is based on personal observation 

 and affords many excellent illustrations of the 

 consequences of living in a region too rough for 

 easy movement and too poor to attract immi- 

 grants. 



W. M. Davis. 



THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO'S FIELD 



WORK IN BOTANY, GEOLOGY AND 



ZOOLOGY. 



President Harper, of the University of Chi- 

 cago, in his last quarterly statement gives the 

 following details in regard to field work : 



The work in biology at the Marine Biolog- 

 ical Station at Wood's Holl, Mass., is largely 

 in charge of University of Chicago men, the 

 director and the majority of the staff being 

 from this institution. The director of the 

 Laboratory of the Brooklyn Institute at Cold 

 Spring Harbor, Long Island, and one of the 

 botanical staff this summer were members 

 of this faculty. The work at both these 



