Geology and Mineralogy . 265 



twenty-third report which has been issued by the Survey during 

 the past twenty-seven years, and the entire series gives a most 

 interesting and valuable presentation of the development of our 

 mineral wealth. It may not be generally appreciated that since 

 1880 the mineral output of the country has increased more than 

 five times, the value rising from 1365,000,000 to $1,900,000,000. 

 The amount of labor which has fallen upon this division of the 

 Survey in keeping up the records of this progress can easily be 

 imagined. The division of Mining and Mineral Resources, which 

 has been a definite part of the Survey for some years, has now 

 been placed in charge of Mr. E. W. Parker ; Dr. David T. Day, 

 who has done such excellent work for it in the past, will devote 

 himself to the reports on petroleum and natural gas. The sepa- 

 rate chapters which make up this volume of 1300 pages have 

 already been distributed to the public in advance of the appear- 

 ance of the completed volume. 



10. Handbuch der Mineralogie * von Dr. Carl Hintze. 

 Erster Band; Elfte Lieferung. Pp. 1601-1760. Leipzig, 1907 

 (Verlag von Veit & Comp.). — This is the twenty-third part of 

 Hintze's Mineralogy, begun in 1889 ; it embraces the oxides 

 from rutile to corundum. Mineralogists will congratulate them- 

 selves and also the author that, the progress of this monumental 

 work, if not rapid, is still continued uninterruptedly, so that its 

 completion may be looked for at no distant date. 



1 L. The Meteor Crater of Canyon Diablo, Arizona ; its His- 

 tory, Origin and associated Meteoric Irons ; by George P. 

 Merrill. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Quarterly Issue, 

 vol. 1, pp. 461-498, plates lxi, lxxv. Washington, Jan. 27, 1908. — 

 The general interest in the remarkable crater-like depression near 

 Canyon Diablo, in Coconino County, Arizona, which has been 

 repeatedly described since it was first brought to notice by A. E. 

 Foote in 1891,* will be much stimulated by the present thorough 

 study of the subject by Dr. Merrill, the field investigations for 

 which Avere conducted under the auspices of the Smithsonian 

 Institution. The present communication is admirably exhaustive 

 in character, covering all the features of the crater within and 

 without, giving the results of the borings carried on by Messrs. 

 Barringer and Tilghman, and also an account of the iron and 

 the peculiar iron shale and shale balls which accompany it. The 

 last part, it may be added, forms the subject of an earlier article 

 by Merrill and Tassin in vol. 1, part 2, pp. 203-215 of the same 

 publication. The whole is fully illustrated, particularly by 

 numerous excellent reproductions from photographs ; the con- 

 tour map of the crater is of especial interest. The author 

 weighs judicially the two theories which have been offered to 

 explain the existence of the crater, and decides in favor of its 

 meteoric origin. f The fact that the borings thus far made tend 

 to show that no very large mass of iron lies buried in the crater 



*See this Journal (3), xlii, 413, 1891. 



f See also Fairchild, noticed in the February number, p. 156. 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Fourth Series, Vol. XXV. No. 147.— March, 1908. 

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