76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SAIXT LOUIS MEETING 



FACETED FORM OF A COLLAPSING GEO ID 

 BY CHARLES R. KEYES 



i Abstract) 



It is not necessary to postulate a cooling globe in order to consider the 

 geometric effects of partial collapse. Because of the fact that with a given 

 mass the body with the greatest surface area is the sphere, and the one with 

 the least surface a four-sided form, it is sometimes thought that our planet is 

 tending toward a tetrahedral earth. It is finally indicated that the crystallo- 

 graphic form could hardly be so simple, but a shape in which each face of the 

 ground-form consists of a number of smaller facets. The rhombic dodecahe- 

 dron best fits the figure which the great mountain chains outline on the surface 

 of the globe. 



In recent experiment, bearing directly on this theme, made with heavy rolled 

 paper, the amount of collapse is measured by the diurnal change in the hu- 

 midity of the air. On dry days the result is a surface of singularly large and 

 perfect rhombohedrons. With paper not so tough relatively, or with the use 

 of some brittle substance, no doubt rupture would have taken place along the 

 edges of the facets. In all practical respects the lines of the great mountain 

 upheavals on the earth are exactly located in miniature. 



Eead by title in the absence of the author. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF TEE UPPER PART OF THE TILL OF SOUTHERN 

 ILLINOIS AND ELSEWHERE 



BY EUGENE WESLEY SHAW 



(Alistract) 



In 1909, while surveying the Murphysboro quadrangle, Illinois, the writer 

 gained the impression that the stones in an upper portion of the Illinoian till 

 are fewer, smaller, and more resistant than those of a middle and lower por- 

 tion, and that the difference is largely original. In the field-notes the two 

 portions are referred to as the non-gravelly and the gravelly till. Further field- 

 work in southern Illinois covering a part of each year since that time and 

 laboratory tests have confirmed the impression, and brief examinations of the 

 Kansan till in northern Missouri and other till sheets elsewhere lead to the 

 inference that the feature is rather general. In some places the non-gravelly 

 till has been erroneously identified as loess. The character of the few pebbles 

 in the upper till indicates somewhat definitely that this till was never like the 

 middle and lower portions of the deposit, though no doubt contemporaneous 

 with them. 



Read by title in the absence of the author. 



