TO Scientific Intelligence. 



them unless they can be shown to be wrong. One important 

 division of the White River series, the Protoceras beds, has been 

 entirely omitted from the report. 



The practical utility of the work in question in the way of 

 application of the information gathered to the great problem of 

 an adequate water supply for the large semi-arid region which it 

 covers, can scarcely be overestimated. If proper advantage is 

 taken of the knowledge which this report affords, it is likely to 

 yield many fold what it has cost to collect and publish it. 



J. L. W., G. R. W., H. E. G. 



4. The JVeioark System of Pomperaug Valley, Connecticut ; by 

 William Herbert Hobbs. With a report on Fossil Wood by F. 

 H. Knowlton. U. S. Geol. Survey, 21st Annual Report, Part III, 

 pp. 1-162 with 17 plates and 59 figures. — This small area exhibits 

 the features common to the Newark system of the Atlantic slope, 

 viz : a series of sandstones with interbedded traps, much faulted 

 into monoclines of low inclination. In the Pomperaug area the 

 unconformable contact of the Triassic with the underlying gneiss 

 was revealed by digging and the contacts between the several 

 members of the Newark series show plainly the extrusive char- 

 acter of the basalts. The deformation of the area has been 

 studied and mapped in great detail (chap. iv). By careful atten- 

 tion to scarps, offsets, the development of slickensides and fault 

 rock, the location of springs, etc., more than 250 dislocations have 

 been mapped. Most of these faults fall into fine parallel series 

 and the individual fault-planes are spnred with remarkable uni- 

 formity. The fault-blocks range in size from " units " to com- 

 posite blocks of different orders which correspond in shape with 

 the unit block. The resemblance of the intersecting system of 

 parallel faults to a system of compression joints suggests com- 

 pression in an east-west direction as the course of the faulting. 

 Professor Hobbs's study of faulting is an important contribution 

 to our knowledge of the structure of the Newark beds. 



Chapter v deals with the Degradation of the Pomperaug Val- 

 ley and vicinity, and shows an interesting history of the develop- 

 ment of drainage. The stream direction is believed to be largely 

 controlled by preexisting faults. Faults have undoubtedly had 

 their influence on Connecticut physiography, but the argument 

 that the stream courses, large and small, in this region owe their 

 existence to fault-lines is not convincing, and when this theory is 

 enlarged to account for the river-system of the entire State 

 (Jour. Geol., vol. ix, No. 6, 1901) the present writer believes that 

 it rests on insufficient data. 



The fossil wood from South Britain, Conn., is referred by Mr. 

 Knowlton to Araucarioxylon Virginianum. h. e. g. 



5. Influence of Winds upon Climate during the Pleistocene 

 Epoch ; by F. W. Harsier. Quart Jouin. Geol. Soc, vol. lvii, 

 pp. 405-476, 1901, with 21 maps. — More than thirty years ago, 

 Dr. Buchan suggested that alterations in the distribution of land 

 and water during past epochs would have reacted on climate, and 



