King’s Systematic Geology of the 40th Parallel, 299 
_ great ice epoch and the Reindeer ice epoch of Europe; the 
_ intermediate dry period corresponds with Newberry’s Forest- 
horizon; and the last dry period still continues. 
During the intermediate dry time there was probably less 
vegetation even than now in the Cordilleras and on the Great 
_ Plains, and it was probably then, that the greater portion of 
the loess of the Missouri and Mississippi valleys was transported 
_ to its present position by the west winds as the present writer 
_ has shown elsewhere. 
__ The well known fact that the surface of Great Salt Lake is 
 rising—it has risen 11 feet since 1867—has been generally 
ascribed to the cultivation of the surrounding region. Mr. 
_ King shows this to be a wrong inference, for a similar increase 
_ has affected all the lakes of the Great Basin. He shows partly 
_ from observations connected with the growth of trees on the 
Sierra, that this is due toa climatic oscillation that began about 
1860 and which was the first of its kind and extent that has 
_ occurred within at least 250 years. This question of oscillation 
of climate is full of importance to the populations that are 
_ pouring into the regions of the Great Plains during the present 
moist extreme. : 
Origin of erystalline schists and granite—Some space is de- 
_ voted in this volume to the presentation of original hypotheses 
t 
