1891.] Geology and Paleontology. 737 
Occurrence of Texas Lignites.—The lignites of Texas occur 
in the Fayette Beds and Timber Belt Beds of the Tertiary deposits. 
The borders of this area have been determined and have been fully 
described by Prof. E. T. Dumble in the Mineral Resources of the 
United States, 1887, since which time they have not been changed 
materially by the later investigations. The Fayette Beds underlie the 
coast clays and other Quaternary deposits of Texas. Their outcrops 
cross the entire State from the Sabine River to the Rio Grande, and 
consist of clays, sands, limestones, and pebble deposits. The under- 
lying Timber Belt Beds are composed of siliceous sand and greensand 
marls, interstratified with clays, generally of a brown color, and thin 
ds of limestone. The beds of lignite contained in both these series 
of rocks are very numerous, sometimes occurring in lenticular masses, 
greater or less extent, thinning out in every direction, and again form 
extensive seams of considerable thickness, frequently fourteen feet. 
The Texas Tertiary has been but little disturbed. The force lifting 
these strata to their present level has caused a gradual and slow eleva- 
tion, leaving them as originally laid down by the Tertiary sea. How- 
ever, though no violent volcanic eruptions have distorted these beds, 
they are nevertheless found sometimes broken, faulted, and bent, 
caused by the drying and compression of loose, moist underlying 
deposits. (Second Ann. Rept. on the Iron Ore District of East Texas, 
1890. ) 
The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minne- 
sota.'—The report of the Geological and Natural History Survey of 
Minnesota for 1889 embodies a summary of American opinions on the 
older rocks of North America by Alexander Winchell, and the record 
of Mr. N. H. Winchell’s field observations in the northeastern part of 
the state during 1888 and 1889. These observations confirm the views 
lately set forth by Irving, Bonney, and Samson, and the conclusions 
published by the reports of the Minnesota survey, to the effect that 
the Huronian system, as now defined and understood by the Canadian 
geological reports, really embraces two or three formations ; that one 
of these is the true Huronian, as at first described and mapped by 
Murray, another is the Keewatin of Dr, A. C. Lawson, containing the - 
iron ores at Tower, Minnesota, and another is the series of crystalline 
schists which have been styled Vermilion series. These three forma- 
tions are distinctly separated by lithology and unconformities that have 
been noted from Vermont to Minnesota, and should no longer be 
! The Eighteenth Annual Report of the Geol. and Nat. Hist. Surv. of Minnesota, for 
the year 1889; N. H. Winchell, directo 
