SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 266 



In ancient Egj'ptian tomb-paintings (WILKINSON'S Ancient 

 Eo-yptia7is, i. p. 351), archers are depicted wearing such wrist- 

 guards ; and in the European museums it is quite common to find 

 small, oblong, thin plates of bone or ivory, pierced with holes, which 

 are universally regarded there as having been employed for such a 



purpose. 



Boston, Feb. 20. 



Henry W. Haynes. 



Notes on the Geology of the Cascade Range. 



In Science of Feb. lo, Mr. Herbert Lang discussed evidence bear- 

 ing on the history of the Cascade Range in Oregon. It may be of 

 interest in connection with Mr. Lang's conclusions to state some 

 facts observed by the parties of the Northern Transcontinental 

 Survey in explorations conducted in Washington Territory from 

 1881 to 1884. 



Coal was the prime object of these surveys, and work was most 

 thorough where it was found in greatest abundance ; but the pros- 

 pecting parties covered the greater part of the Cascade Range north 

 of Mount Rainier, and the facts which follow are of my own obser- 

 vation unless otherwise stated. 



It was found that the formations of the Cascade Range in Wash- 

 ington Territory are, I. Glacial drift; 2. Tertiary eruptives ; 3. 

 Unaltered sandstones and shales containing numerous carbonaceous 

 beds, thickness 1 3,000' ± (Laramie.'); 4. Local conglomerates 

 (cretaceous ?) ; 5. Altered sediments ; 6. Granite. 



The granite base of this column was observed beneath the erup- 

 tives of Mount Rainier by Mr. S. F. Emmons in September, 1870; 

 it crops out extensively on Upper Cedar River, a stream which 

 enters Puget Sound at Seattle ; it forms the heights of the Peshas- 

 tan Range, north of EUensburg ; granite cliffs of the western side of 

 the Columbia Cafion oppose basaltic walls of the eastern bank from 

 the mouth of the Methow River to the Wenatchie, and granite forms 

 the mass of the Cascade Range north of the Snoqualmie Pass. In 

 remarks recently made before the Philosophical Society of Wash- 

 ington, Dr. George M. Dawson described the continuation of this 

 granite backbone northward for nine hundred miles, and he dwelt 

 upon the absence of volcanic rocks north of the 49th parallel. 



The altered sediments which rest upon the granite have yielded 

 no fossils by which their age might be guessed, but they resemble 

 rocks assigned to the paleozoic age by the Canadian survey, and may 

 be of the same horizons. The beds consist of crystalline schists, 

 limestone, and quartzite. They occur throughout the Cascade Range, 

 from latitude 46° northward, and in the Olympic Mountains. Gold 

 has been found in the crest east of Mount Rainier, in gravels de- 

 rived from the Olympic mass, and on Ruby Creek, a tributary of 

 the Skagit River. Magnetic iron ore occurs in the formation near 

 Snoqualmie Pass, and hard blue specular ore occurs in association 

 with jasper on the Skagit River. This ore and its associations very 

 closely resemble the specular ores of Lake Superior, but they prob- 

 ably belong to a very different period of geologic history. Lime- 

 stone and schist traversed by quartz veins form an extensive area 

 south and west of Mount Baker, bounded on the north by coal- 

 bearing sandstones. 



The altered sediments underlie later unaltered deposits, probably 

 unconformably ; but no contact has been sufficiently well observed 

 to determine a definite relation. A conglomerate containing agat- 

 ized casts of baculites (.') was observed by an intelligent prospector 

 on Skookum-chuck Creek, south-east of New Tacoma ; another 

 ■conglomerate was seen by myself in the Peshastan Range (it con- 

 sisted of large granite and quartz pebbles, resting on granite, and 

 was several hundred feet thick) ; and at the coal-mine on the Skagit 

 River, sandstone dipping 40° south-west rests upon iron ore bearing 

 schists dipping 35^' south. 



These three instances are the only ones known to me in which 

 the apparent base of the recent sedimentary beds has been seen. They 

 mark the beginning of a profound subsidence during which accu- 

 mulations of sand and clay appear to have kept pace with the sink- 

 ing surface. In the Wilkeson Coal-Field the thickness of these 

 beds probably reaches 1 3,000 ± feet, with 127 coal-beds, ranging 

 from one to forty feet in thickness. This deposit is shown by its 

 fossils to be of fresh or brackish water origin. Unfortunately no 

 iarge collections were made, and the fossils do not definitely deter- 

 ,mine the age of the coal-measures ; but Prof. J. S. Newberry and 



Dr. C. A. White agree in considering them the probable equivalent 

 of the Laramie. 



These recent sediments occur throughout the Puget Sound basin, 

 they rim the Olympic mass, they have been found in the high crest 

 of the-Cascades near Cowlitz Pass, and north of Natchez Pass, and 

 they were deposited to a thickness of about 1,000 feet in the region 

 now drained by the Upper Yakima and Wenatchie Rivers. The 

 great thickness and wide distribution of this formation are unusual 

 features of a fresh-water deposit, and it is difficult to conceive the 

 conditions which maintained fresh water over the area of such a 

 subsidence. But the problem is somewhat simplified when it is rec- 

 ognized that the region was an archipelago like that so recently 

 studied in southern Oregon by Captain Dutton and Mr. Diller. 

 The Olympic peninsula was then an island, and the continuity of 

 the coal-measure series may well be interrupted by similar spaces 

 not yet traced out. 



This formation was checked by compression, which resulted in 

 folds of an Appalachian type having a nearly north and south trend. 

 The closeness of flexure varies in different areas, and the chemical 

 concentration of the coal is proportionate to the mechanical dis- 

 turbance. The extreme of uniform alteration over an area of fifty 

 square miles was reached in the Wilkeson coking coal ; but local 

 alteration, due to later volcanic influences, frequently went much 

 further. 



This compression closed the history of sedimentary deposits in 

 this region. It may be assumed that it took place at the same 

 period as the elevation of the northern portion of the Cascade 

 Range, assigned by Dr. Dawson to post-cretaceous time ; but we 

 may not yet date the uplift more definitely. 



A period of erosion intervened between the uplift and the out- 

 pouring of eruptives. Mounts Hood, St. Helens, Adams, and Rai- 

 nier are the conspicuous peaks of the locus of ma.ximum volcanic 

 activity across which the Columbia has cut its cafion. .Mount 

 Baker is the northern outlier of the line of volcanoes which begins 

 with Shasta and Lassens Peak. 



Mr. Lang's hypotheses are in part confirmed by the facts stated ; 

 but like forces have produced unlike results in California and in 

 Washington Territory. South of latitude 42° 30' the Cascade's 

 volcanic mass is supported on a slightly disturbed sedimentary 

 base : north of latitude 46° 30' the range of closely flexed sediments 

 is dotted with volcanic cones. The difference is one of degree, not 

 of kind ; but the difference is great. 



Many of the facts condensed in this note are stated, with more 

 detailed descriptions of the coal-measures, in a report on the coals 

 of Washington Territory, in Vol. XV., ' Tenth Census Reports.' 



Bailey Willis. 



Washington, D.C., March i. 



Ansv7ers. 



21. Globular Lightning. — The late Prof. John Fries Frazer 

 has frequently mentioned to me having seen in his youth a ball of 

 fire descend and strike a tree in a field in front of him. Of course, 

 this phenomenon happened during a thunder-storm. The distance 

 from the object struck v/as about fifty yards or less. P. F. 



Philadelphia, Penn., March 2. 



22. Wasp-Stings. — • The discussion going on in your columns 

 at the present time in regard to wasp-stings recalls a curious dis- 

 covery of my boyhood. I was a very ticklish youngster, and my 

 comrades sometimes used that weakness for their own amusement. 

 One boy used to show me how little effect tickling had upon him ; 

 but one hot summer day, as he was lying reading, I tickled him on 

 the ribs, and he almost went into convulsions. I found that he was 

 far more sensitive than any boy in the company, and he revealed 

 his secret to me under condition of my never telling any one else. 

 By holding his breath he became pachydermatous, and would let 

 anybody tickle him as much as they pleased ; but of course they 

 always gave it up at once when they saw his stolid look. I tried 

 the plan, and it worked admirably ; and it is my only protection, 

 even unto this day, for my cuticle is as sensitive as ever. The de- 

 duction is simple : a man holds his breath, — and a wasp, — and 

 the stinger is ' bluffed.' Verb. sap. R. McMillan. 



Liverpool, Eng., Feb. 2t. 



