

1891.] Geology and Faleontology. 1127 
Paleozoic.—Recent observations by S. Calvin render it certain 
that the Independence shales do not constitute the lowest number of 
the series of Devonian rocks of Buchanan county, Iowa, but that they 
were preceded by brecciated limestone of Devonian age. (Am. Geol., 
September, 1891.) Mr. Middlemiss suggests that the sub-Cambrian 
salt marl of India has no ordinary stratigraphic relations with the 
rest of the series, but is of plutonic, igneous, or deep-seated origin, 
introduced in Tertiary times, accompanied by lateral and vertical dis- 
turbance, thrusting, and shearing. (Geol. Surv. India Records, Vol. 
XXIV., Pt. I., 1890) Dr. Traquair has catalogued fifty species of 
fossil Dipnoi and Rhipidopterygia of Fife and the Lothians. The 
geological interest of these fish beds is the abundance of fish remains 
in estuarine strata below the horizon of the Millstone grit. (Proceeds, 
Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, Vol. XVII., p. 385.) Mr. Davis has 
described a new fossil fish, Strepsodus brockbankit, found in the Lime- 
stone of the Upper Coal Measures near Manchester, England. (Geol. 
Mag., October, 1891.) A collection of Lower Helderberg fossils 
from Albany, N. Y., has yielded a new genus of Ostracoda, described 
by E. O. Ulrich under the name Beecherella. Seven species of this new 
genus are figured in the October number of the American Geologist. 




Mesozoic.—Mr. Wilson calls attention to the color-markings on a 
species of Brachiopoda, Wadldheimia perforata, from the Lower Lias of 
Gloucestershire, England. The color indications are in the form of 
clearly defined concentric bands of black and white, of varying 
breadth, These bands are bilaterally symmetrical, and correspond in 
the two valves. (Geol. Mag., October, 1891.) 
Cenozoic.—According to G. H. Stone, the following-named 
classes of deposit are represented in the asphalt fields of Western Col- 
orado and Northeastern Utah: (1) Asphaltic sand-rock, (2) bitumin- 
ous shales or marls, (3) bituminous limestones, (4) outflow or over- 
flow asphalt. These are lacustrine deposits, and will therefore present 
conditions somewhat different from those of marine beds. (Am. Journ. 
Sci., August, 1891.) Mr. Gilbert attributes the small anticlinal dis- 

turbance of a cliff of Devonian shale in Western New York, near Lake 
Erie, to the post-Glacial rise of temperature and consequent expansion . 
of the rocks. Like other small ridges of Devonian shale in North- 
western Ohio and of Trenton limestone in Northern New York, they 
are shown to have been formed after the departure of the last ice-sheet. 
(Am. Geol., October, 1891. ) 

