76 General Notes. [January,, 



exceedingly fine. The collection is a pretty fair representa- 

 tion of the flora of the older Mesozoic, and will throw light 

 on the Mesozoic of North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The 

 secretary communicated the following notes by Professor Fon- 

 taine, made in the same letters : Upon the views of H. C. Lewis, 

 respecting the Saltville valley in Southern Virginia, published 

 in the Proceedings, No. 107, page 155. Mr. Fontaine points 

 out that the little salt and gypsum bearing valley of Salt- 

 ville cannot be "eroded along an anticlinal of Lower Silurian 

 limestone, because the south-east wall hills only are of that age, 

 while north-west wall hills are of the Umbral (Mauch Chunk 

 or Sub-carboniferous) age." He was the first to find in the lime- 

 stone on that side of the valley an abundance of Umbral fossils 

 in the highly fossiliferous shale beds intercalated between the va- 

 rious limestones. The species are the same as those found near 

 Lewisburg, West Virginia, in the Umbral. The magnesian 

 (Lower Silurian) limestone strata, bounding the valleys on the 

 south-west, show no trace of fossils. The physical aspect of 

 the two formations also differs. Beds of shale and limestone 

 alternate in the hills north-west of the valleys; and some of 

 the limestone is cherty and some of the shales are red. But 

 the south-east hills contain only solid limestone strata. Those 

 on the north-west have a more rounded typography. It is, 

 however, quite true that the stratification is in opposite south-east 

 and north-west directions, gently to the south-east, much steeper 

 to the north-west. The structure is, therefore, anticlinal, and this 

 fault must run along the south-east edge of the little valley. The 

 explanation is then simple, the Umbral limestone is synclinal, and 

 the red shale formation comes up on both sides of it — with 

 north-west dip in the little valley, with a south-east dip in the 

 valley of the Holston river at the foot of the mountain. A 

 reference to the place in the Michigan salt group in the Palae- 

 zoic series makes the presence of salt here easily under- 

 stood. The horizon seems to be salt-bearing in other places in 

 Southern Virginia. There is a salt ooze near Max Meadows, at 

 the above geological horizon. The secretary suggested in addi- 

 tion to the underlying Vespertine (Pocono) sandstone is a salt- 

 producing formation on the Ohio river and up country. That the 

 gypsum is an acid reaction upon the eroded out-crops of the 

 limestone, is shown in Proceedings A. P. S., Vol. ix, pp. 34, 1862. 

 —American Philosophical Society. 



Geological News. — Messrs. Wachsmuth and Springer are 

 publishing in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy a 

 revision of the PaL-ocrinoidea which will prove of great value to 



Heilprin continues his researches on the Tertiary Geology of the 



Southeastern United States. Edward Wethered, F.C.S., F.GS., 



has communicated an important memoir on the formation of coal„ 



