November 15, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



773 



the evening several of the members dined at 

 Mock's restaurant in Forty-Second street. 

 These opportunities for informal intercourse 

 are always an enjoyable feature of the meet- 

 ings. The Christmas meetings of both socie- 

 ties extend through the two days, Friday and 

 Saturday, December 27-28, and it is hoped that 

 a considerable number of the members will 

 arrange to attend the informal dinner which 

 will be arranged for Friday evening. 



F. N. Cole, 

 Secretary. 



SECTION OF GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY OF THE 

 NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



The first meeting of the Section was held on 

 October 21. In calling the meeting to order 

 the chairman spoke of the loss to the Academy 

 and to science occasioned by the deaths of Dr. 

 T. G. White, secretary of the Section, and Pro- 

 fessor Joseph Le Conte, corresponding member 

 of the Academy. A committee consisting of 

 Professors J. J. Stevenson and J. F. Kemp 

 was appointed to draw up suitable minutes in 

 reference to Dr. White and Professor Le Conte. 

 Dr. E. O. Hovey, of the American Museum of 

 Natural History, was then elected secretary of 

 the Section. 



The following program was offered : Dr. A. 

 W. Grabau spoke on * Recent Contributions to 

 the Problem of Niagara.' He said that Davis 

 has shown that the topography of the Niagara 

 region conforms to the type generally found in 

 ancient coastal plains, the original features of 

 which have been more or less modified by sub- 

 sequent warpings, and by glacial erosion and 

 deposition. 



The Niagara escarpment is the inface of the 

 Niagara cuesta, traceable through the Indian 

 Peninsula and Grand Manitoulin Island. The 

 Ontario lowland ia continued in the Georgian 

 Bay lowland. A second cuesta — the Onondaga 

 — has its inface slightly developed north of 

 Buffalo, but becomes prominent in the Lake 

 Huron valley, where its inner lowland forms 

 the deeper part of the lake. The third cuesta 

 and lowland (the Erie) occurs north of the 

 second. 



The Tertiary drainage is supposed to have 

 been to the southwest, instead of the north- 



east, as Spencer holds. The principal streams 

 of that time are supposed to have been (1) the 

 Saginaw, whose path is indicated in part by 

 Saginaw Bay and the deep channel between the 

 Indian Peninsula and Grand Manitoulin Island ; 

 (2) the Dundas, breaching the Niagara cuesta 

 at Hamilton, Ont. , and crossing the Erie low- 

 land near Fort Stanley ; and (3) for a time, at 

 least, the Genesee, though this may later have 

 had a northward course. The subsequent 

 streams tributary to these consequents carved 

 the various lowlands. St. Davids channel is 

 regarded as an obsequent stream, which was 

 accidentally discovered by the Niagara. The 

 whirlpool gorge was probably, in part, the 

 southward continuation of this stream, and not 

 wholly postglacial. 



Professor J. F. Kemp's first paper was on the 

 ' New Asbestos Region in Northern Vermont.'* 

 He said that asbestos has recently opened up on a 

 commercial scale in the towns of Eden, Lamoille 

 Co., and Lowell, Orleans Co., Vt. The towns 

 are adjacent, although in different counties. 

 The asbestos lies from 15 to 25 miles north of 

 Hyde Park, a station on the St. Johnsbury and 

 Lake Champlain R. R. As is quite invariably 

 the case, it occurs in serpentine, either in veins 

 or in matted aggregates along slicken-sided 

 blocks. The serpentine where the best fiber is 

 found lies on the south shoulder of Belvedere 

 Mountain, and forms an east and west belt. 

 It is bounded on the north and west by horn- 

 blende-schist, which forms the summit of the 

 mountain. The contact on the west is a vis- 

 ibly faulted one, and that on the north is prob- 

 ably also of the same sort, because the horn- 

 blende-schist rises in a steep escarpment. 



The serpentine seems to have been derived 

 from enstatite, diallage and probably olivine, 

 since unaltered nuclei of these minerals are 

 found in it. The vein asbestos ranges from 

 a fiber of microscopic length up to J of an inch 

 as thus far exposed. It is fine and silky and of 

 excellent grade. It would, however, be classed 

 as second grade according to the Canadian 

 practice, which makes a first grade, of fiber 

 above % of an inch (about 2^ in. being the 

 maximum), and a second grade of ] in. to % 

 * Communicated by permission of the Director of 

 the U. S. Geological Survey. 



