W. Upham — Fishing Banks. 123 



A few words on the bestowal of a name on these rocks. 

 While deprecating the too free use of new names, yet in this 

 case the writer deems it justifiable. In all the Kula basalts 

 the hornblende plays the leading role, surpassing in constancy, 

 invariability, and quantity the augite, olivine or feldspar. It 

 is not of secondary importance, as in most hornblende basalts, 

 but of the first importance among all the mineral constituents. 

 The name chosen is Kulaite, and by this we may understand a 

 sub-group of the basalts which is characterized by the invari- 

 able presence of hornblende as an essential constituent, which 

 also, both in quantity and petrographical importance, surpasses 

 the augite ; in other words to a large extent replaces the latter. 

 We can call such a plagioclase-basalt kulaite, having the further 

 subdivisions of leucite-knlaite (as just seen), and nepheline- 

 kulaite. 



In addition to the volcanic rocks just described a number of 

 metamorphic schists, serpentine, diorite from a dyke in the 

 schist, and foreign rock enclosed in the basalt were examined. 

 It may be added that the writer hopes to revisit the region the 

 coming spring, when a longer stay will be made, and data and 

 specimens from the whole of the Katakekaumene will be col- 

 lected. The writer desires to return his warmest thanks to 

 Prof. Dr. Zirkel of Leipzig for his very kind advice and 

 assistance and to Prof. E. S. Dana for his kind advice. 



Navesink, N. J , Nov. 11, 1893. 



Art. XVI. — The Fishing Banks between Cape Cod and 

 Newfoundland ; by Warren Upham.* 



Along a distance of about a thousand miles east-nortbeast- 

 ward from Cape Cod the submarine border of the North 

 American continent presents very remarkable irregularities of 

 contour. The sea bed there in its descent from the present 

 coast lines to the abyssal depths of the North Atlantic Ocean 

 differs entirely from the smooth and gently inclined plane of 

 the submerged continental slope along its next thousand miles 

 south to the Strait of Florida and the Bahama Islands. In- 

 stead we find by soundings from Cape Cod to the Grand Bank 

 of Newfoundland that this section of our coast has a profusion 

 of submerged hills and broad plateaus, elevated from 100 to 

 1000 feet above the intervening valleys and adjacent low por- 

 tions of the sea bed, from which they rise nearly to the sea 



* From the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. xxvi. 

 pp. 42-48, for March 15, 1893. 



