402 



SCIEJSrCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 220 



Minnesota, there has been found, beneath the St. 

 Croix sandstone, which has for a long time been 

 regarded as the equivalent of the Potsdam sand- 

 stone of New York, some four hundred feet of 

 red and green shales, associated with some red 

 sandstone, and succeeded below by a hard red 

 quartzite. This has been uniformly supposed to 

 be the red quartzite that outcrops in south-west- 

 ern Minnesota and the adjacent i^arts of Iowa and 

 Dakota, and, in Pipestone county, contains the 

 celebrated red clay, otherwise known as pipestone 

 and Catlinite. 



The isolation of the outcrops and the supposed 

 absence of fossils have heretofore left the age of 

 this interesting formation in doubt ; but it has 

 usually, in recent years, been referred to the 

 Potsdam, although that reference has appeared 

 very unsatisfactory, in view of the records of the 

 deep borings already noticed. Geologists must 

 therefore regjird with great satisfaction the dis- 

 covery in the Catlinite of characteristic fossils, 

 which is here announced. Two forms have been 

 described and figured under the names Lingula 

 Calumet and Paradoxides Barberi, which are be- 

 lieved to indicate the lowest primordial zone, i.e., 

 the Acadian, which embraces the Paradoxides 

 beds of St. John, N.B., and Braintree, Mass. 



The discovery of Acadian fossils in the pipe- 

 stone establishes an important datum for deter- 

 mining the true horizons of other rocks of the 

 north-west. Thus Professor Winchell has referred 

 the overlying red shales, observed in the artesian 

 wells, with much probability to the Georgia slates 

 of Vermont ; and the red sandstones connected 

 with them, which appear to exioand toward Lake 

 Superior so as to become the red sandstones called 

 Potsdam by the Wisconsin geologists, really be- 

 come, in that case, the equivalent of the true 

 Potsdam of New York. This makes it necessary 

 to refer the St. Croix sandstones and associated 

 magnesian limestones to the calciferous of New 

 York, with which they are more closely allied 

 paleontologically. 



Passing to the other extreme of the geological 

 scale, we find two contributions, by Dr. G. M. 

 Dawson and Messrs. A. Woodward and B. W. 

 Thomas, to the paleontology of the bowlder-clay, 

 or drift. The microscopic examination of the 

 bowlder-clays of Minnesota and adjacent regions 

 shows that various species of Foraminifera and 

 other microscopic forms are very generally present, 

 with fragments of larger organisms. 



The more important of the Foraminifera are 

 described and figured. Concerning the real origin 

 and age of these fossils. Dr. Dawson says, "that, 

 of all the organic bodies met with, none can be 

 assigned with certainty to the glacial period or 



era of deposition of the bowlder-clay itself. The 

 origin of most can be traced unequivocally to the 

 older rocks, from which they have been derived, 

 and incorporated with the bowlder-clays." In 

 Illinois the Foraminifera seem to have been derived 

 chiefly from Devonian shales, but fai'ther west 

 they are characteristic cretaceous forms. Dr. 

 Dawson further points out that while the exami- 

 nation of these drift-fossils will serve to thi-ow 

 additional light on the direction of glacial move- 

 ment, — a point of particular value over the wide 

 area of the plains, where the soft character of 

 the rock precludes the test of direction of stria- 

 tion, — they have so far failed to afford any cer- 

 tain information as to the actual condition pre- 

 vailing during that period. But the negative 

 evidence, re-enforced by the fact that the derived 

 fossils have been so perfectly preserved, leads to 

 a belief in the great scarcity of life during the 

 ice age. 



The principal feature of the report for 1885 is 

 the bibliography of recent and fossil Foraminifera, 

 prepared by Mr. A. Woodward as an introduction 

 to a contemplated work on the Foraminifera and 

 other microscopic organisms of the cretaceous of 

 Minnesota. The completeness of this work may 

 be judged by the fact that one hundred and thirty- 

 three titles are given for eozoon alone. 



BoENEMANN, in the Deutsche medicinal-zei- 

 tung, states that the victim of morphine looks to 

 cocaine for help, and, mistaking its effects for 

 those of morphine abstinence, seeks to remove 

 them by more cocaine, until, unless he becomes 

 enlightened, he finally becomes an inmate of an 

 insane-asylum. In three out of six cases known 

 to him, this was the result. He evidently agrees 

 with those members of the medical profession who 

 are endeavoring to restrict its use, by saying, 

 " More urgently than ever in the case of any other 

 drug, are legal regulations and limitations needed 

 for the sale of cocaine, which now, unfortunately, 

 is too easily accessible to every layman." 



— There has been of late considerable discussion 

 among physicians in the w^est as to the nature of 

 mountain-fever, — a fever which occurs in the 

 Rocky Mountain region, and which has by some 

 been supposed to be peculiar to that locality. Dr. 

 Curtin, who has recently been engaged in an in- 

 vestigation of the subject, finds that almost any 

 disease which occurs in the mountains is liable to 

 be called mountain-fever. He regards that dis- 

 ease which is more commonly known by this name 

 as true typhoid, modified by the peculiar condi- 

 tions of elevation, etc. 



