Geology and Mineralogy. 161 



which comprises Western Pennsylvania, shows that the many- 

 areas lie in a belt of country 20 to 25 miles broad, extending in 

 a northeast and southwest direction from Allegheny County, 

 New York, to Beaver County, Pa. The belt to the northward 

 bends to west-northwest, and thus exhibits its parallelism to the 

 mountain system lying to the southeastward. 



An announcement accompanies the recent reports stating that 

 they may be obtained by purchase of Mr. J. S. Africa, Secretary 

 of Internal affairs, Harrisburg, Pa. The State has directed 

 that they shall " be furnished at cost to all applicants." 



The legislature of Pennsylvania at its late session appropriated 

 $50,000 to continue the State Geological Survey for the years 

 18S5 and 1886, and the Governor has signed the bill. The survey 

 was begun in 1874, and the work remaining to be done is chiefly 

 in the anthracite coal regions. A summary of the whole in a tinal 

 report of one or two volumes by Professor J. P. Lesley, the chief 

 State Geologist, a most important work is intended to complete 

 the set of reports. * 



4. Geological Survey of JVeio Jersey : Report for 1884 ; G. 

 H. Cook, State Geologist. — Fine views of the remarkable local- 

 ity of columnar trap in O'Rourke's Quarry, on Mount Pleasant 

 Avenue, Orange, make a frontispiece to this year's Report. The 

 most singular feature is the obliquity of the columns in divergent 

 directions about the center of the quarry while nearly vertical 

 elsewhere. The nearly vertical columns are large, some 6 or 7 

 feet in diameter while the oblique are small. The columnar 

 surface exposed has a length of about 700 feet and a height of 

 20 to 100 feet ; and underneath it, 6 to 8 feet below the exposed 

 surface, there lies the red sandstone. The outer surface of the 

 columns is horizontally banded, but there is no regular cross- 

 fracturing. Professor Cook suggests that after the main extru- 

 sion of trap, there may have been a later outflow along the cen- 

 tral part where the small divergent columns occur. The locality 

 may be reached by going out on Pleasant Avenue in Orange 

 about a mile from the railroad station, and then following the 

 quarry wagon road on the left for 400 or 500 feet. 



An interesting exhibition of a buried forest is reported as re- 

 cently opened at the Earnst Clay pits in South Amboy. The 

 burial must have taken place since the settlement of the countiw, 

 not more than 280 years ago ; the place until recently has been 

 under a swamp and a forest of cedars. " The ground which was 

 formerly enough above the sea-level to sustain a growth of up- 

 land timber, is now so low that every high tide could cover it 

 with salt water." 



Artesian wells have proved to be a success along the low coast 

 region of Southern New Jersey. Abundant pure water has been 

 thus obtained at Ocean Grove, Asbury Park, Red Bank, Ocean 

 Beach, Lakewood, Marlton and other points. Each passes down 

 to the sandy stratum under the Lower Marl bed of the Cretace- 

 ous. The wells at Red Bank and Marlton have a depth between 



