Geology and Natural History. 81 



2. New fossil Coleoptera from the Florissant beds; by H. F. 

 Wickham. Bull. State Univ. Iowa, vol. vii, No. 3, 1916, pp. 

 3-19, pis. 1-4. — The author describes four new genera and 21 new 

 species ; the Miocene of Lake Florissant is now known to have 

 no less than 515 different forms of beetles, the majority of which 

 are inconspicuous. The climate was then mild and moist. " The 

 insects of the Florissant Miocene stand in direct ancestral relation- 

 ship to our present fauna." c. s. 



3. I, Eocene of the Lower Cowlitz River valley, Washing- 

 ton ; II The post-Eocene formations of western Washington ; 

 III. The Oligocene of Kitsap County, Washington; by Charlks 

 E. Weaver. Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., 4th ser., vol. vi, Nos. 1-3, 

 1916, pp. 1-52, pi. 1, fig. 1. 



Tertiary faunal horizons of toestern Washington ; by Charles 

 E. Weaver. Univ. Washington Pub. in Geology, vol. i, No. 1, 

 1916, pp. 1-6*7, pis. 1-5. — The last-named paper is a record of 

 305 Tertiary localities in Washington, together with descriptions 

 of 41 new species, mainly from the Oligocene, and lists of the 

 Eocene (130 species), Oligocene and Lower Miocene (155), and 

 Upper Miocene (81) molluscs found in the state. The maximum 

 thickness of these deposits is 34,000 feet ; the time of most 

 marked deformation was in the Middle Miocene, with marked 

 volcanic activity toward the close of the Eocene. c. s. 



4. The Upper Cretaceous floras of the world ; by E. W. 

 Berry. Maryland Geol. Surv., Special publication from Upper 

 Cretaceous Report, 1916, pp. 183-313. — The author presents here 

 lists of the Cretaceous floras of the world and comments more or 

 less on their age relations. He accepts as the base of the Creta- 

 ceous the Albian of the European standard. Accordingly the 

 Raritan is of Cretaceous age but older than the Dakota, and he 

 correlates it with the Washita, and both with the European 

 Cenomanian. This is a striking and far-reaching conclusion. As 

 the Washita is a part of the Comanchian and is of Upper Creta- 

 ceous age, he further concludes that this term is invalidated as a 

 substitute for Lower Cretaceous. This is a great and unadjusted 

 question in American stratigraphy and can not be so easily fixed. 

 In the first instance it is accepted that the Trinity, Fredericks- 

 burg and Washita divisions of the Comanchian represent an 

 unbroken series of deposits that together make up the Coman- 

 chian. On the principle that diastrophisra is periodic and more 

 or less simultaneous throughout the world, we should then have 

 to refer not only the Washita but all of the Comanchian to the 

 Cretaceous. The reviewer does not intend to go into this correla- 

 tion, but wishes to ask, Are the Lower and Upper Cretaceous 

 divisions of the European standard representative of but one 

 period, or of two (Lower and Upper Cretaceous), or of three 

 (Lower, Middle and Upper Cretaceous) periods ? Further, be- 

 tween what series do the important diastrophic movements of the 

 sea occur ? Certainly the break between the Comanchian and 

 the American Cretaceous is clearly marked and universal in the 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Fourth Series, Vol. XLII, No. 247.— July, 1916. 

 6 



