256 . Scientific Intelligence, 



idea of the breadth and depth of this treatise. In conclusion it 

 may be said that the general student will find here in the most 

 systematized and digested form a vast mass of facts and principles 

 dealing with chemical and physical geology. All students of 

 geology should gain some familiarity with its contents, and to the 

 specialist in metamorphism it must become a volume of constant 

 study and reference. j. b. 



2. The United States Geological Survey, Twenty-Fifth Annual 

 Report, 1903-04, 371 pp., 25 pis., 2 figs.— The United States 

 Geological Survey has reached its quarter-century anniversary 

 and the director gives a brief outline of the results accomplished 

 during the twenty-five years of the Survey's existence. A com- 

 plete topographic map of 929,850 square miles of the United 

 States, including Alaska, has been made during this time, which 

 amounts to 31 per cent of the area of the country, excluding 

 Alaska. The Survey has been particularly helpful in investiga- 

 tion of the origin and geologic relations of ore deposits ; and the 

 results of this work in Leadville and the Lake Superior region 

 are alone sufficient to justify the generous appropriation now 

 granted by congress. The first appropriation for the Survey 

 amounted to $106,000. The total appropriated in 1903-'04 was 

 $1, 377,820. During recent years the qualitative standard of the 

 work has been much raised ; greater accuracy and higher liter- 

 ary quality characterize the recent papers published by the 

 Survey. Eleven states now cooperate with the government in 

 topographic surveys, and topography still claims the larger share 

 of the annual appropriation. 



The section of Pleistocene Geology has been renamed the sec- 

 tion of Physiography and Glacial geology and placed in charge 

 of G. K. Gilbert. This new division is in distinct recognition of 

 the geographical aspects of geology, and the importance of ice 

 as a geologic agent. The work in Alaska has received greater 

 attention than ever before, and the geographic and geologic pub- 

 lications in that section show the development of one of the most 

 remarkable pieces of scientific exploration ever attempted. The 

 reclamation service reports rapid advance in many of the western 

 states, and during the year actual construction was begun on the 

 Salt River project in Arizona and the Truckee-Carson project in 

 Nevada. The division of chemistry and physics is conducting 

 important researches along new lines and it is gratifying to see 

 that the work is sufficiently recognized as to receive largely 

 increased appropriations. 



3. Geology of Perry Basin in Southeastern Jfaine; by 

 George Otis Smith and David White. United States Geo- 

 logical Survey, Professional Paper No. 35, 102 pp., 6 pis. — The 

 Perry Basin has excited the interest of geologists ever since the 

 formations were first described by Jackson in 1836, and a great 

 deal of difference of opinion has existed regarding the origin and 

 age of the strata here exposed. The formation is now shown to 

 be " distinctly Devonian and probably Chemung." It consists of 



