-460 Scientific Intelligence. 



No. 120. Bibliographic Review and Index of Papers relating 

 to Underground Waters, IT. S. Geol. Survey, 1879-1904 ; by 

 Myron F. Fuller. 128 pp. 



No. 121. Preliminary Report on the Pollution of Lake Cham- 

 plain ; by M. O. Leighton. 119 pp. 



No. 122. Relation of the Law to Underground Waters ; by D. 

 W. Johnson. 55 pp. 



2. Contributions to Devonian Paleontology ; by H. S. Wil- 

 liams and E. M. Kindle. Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. 244, 1905, 

 pp. 1-144. — The purpose of this Bulletin is to present the evi- 

 dence regarding " the nature of the changes in sedimentation, in 

 fossils and in sequence of faunas southward along the Devonian 

 formations in the southern Appalachians." The Devonic sections 

 of the Falls of Ohio region, of southwestern and central western 

 Virginia, east-central Kentucky, and West Virginia, are analyzed 

 and compared with one another. Then the upper Devonic sec- 

 tions in central and northern Pennsylvania are compared with 

 those of New York. This Bulletin will have lasting value be- 

 cause of the many sections it describes in detail and the many 

 faunules listed. 



The fossils from the Helderbergian and Oriskanian horizons in 

 Virginia and West Virginia led Professor Williams to conclude 

 " that the subdivisions of the Rensselaeria fauna [Helderbergian 

 and Oriskanian], which in the northern Appalachian region have 

 determined the division of the strata into numerous separate 

 formations, are not universal. Future investigations probably 

 will show that the composition of the local faunules is determined 

 rather by environmental conditions recorded by the differing 

 characters of the sediment than by actual epochs in their history " 

 (p. 49). The present writer will state that he has collected at 

 nearly all of the southern localities described in this Bulletin and 

 at many others, and finds no great difficulties in correlating any 

 one of the southern faunules with the minor horizons of the New 

 York Helderbergian, and this irrespective of the nature of the 

 sediments. In regard to a complete Oriskanian development 

 New York is a poor standard, whereas the Cumberland region is 

 far better. Combining the New York and Maryland sections, 

 the writer is able to state that the New Scotland, Coeymans, and 

 Manlius occur at Big Stone Gap, Va. The " f aunule of zone 2 

 of section 1376 A" and 1376 B2, on p. 28, are unmistakably New 

 Scotland and not " Oriskany." On the " coarse sandstone " rests 

 the Chattanooga Black shale. No Oriskany was seen about Big 

 Stone Gap. To the northeast, near Bluefield, W. Va., there may 

 be a little Lower Oriskany, but in the region of Covington, Va., 

 there probably is not less than 35 feet of typical or Upper Oris- 

 kany. At the Low Moor Iron Co. mines, the writer collected 

 Spirifer arenosus, Meristella lata, Rensselaeria sp. undet., Eatonia 

 singularis, Leptcena rhomboidalis, and Diaphoro stoma ventri- 

 cosa. 



There is considerable evidence of an erosion interval in the 



