August 8, 1884.] 



SCIENCE. 



121 



that permitted the sea to wash the terminal 

 moraine, and cover all points less than eight 

 hundred or a thousand feet above tide. Out 

 of the modified and unmodified drift the mod- 

 ern rivers have carved their channels, leaving 

 a series of well-marked terraces, the highest 

 of which are now two hundred feet above the 

 streams. 



But in the northern or Wilkes-Barre coal- 

 basin, the Susquehanna and its tributaries are 

 still fifty to a hundred and eighty-five feet above 

 their pre-glacial beds for a distance of at 

 least twenty-five miles ; and these buried val- 

 leys are of unusual interest, because at Blooms- 

 burg, Sunbury, and Selinsgrove, points on the 

 Susquehanna thirty to seventy miles below 

 Wilkes-Barre, the rocky bed of the river is 

 a hundred and ten, ninet}', and seventy -feet 

 respectively higher than the buried channel at 

 Wilkes-Barre. 



The geological structure of this district is 

 typically Appalachian, a north-west and south- 

 east section including ten principal overlap- 

 ping flexures of the strata, and the synclinals 

 holding the anthracite-coal fields. 



Professor White believes there is a transition 

 series between the Pocono sandstone No. x. 

 and the Catskill No. ix., and another between 

 the Catskill and the Chemung No. viii. 



The paleontology of this report presents 

 several striking anomalies ; various Devonian 

 and Silurian types, including some of those 

 regarded as most characteristic of their re- 

 spective horizons, occurring here in associa- 

 tions, and following each other vertically, in an 

 order unknown elsewhere. Professor Lesley 

 suggests that this apparent confusion may be 

 due, in part, to incorrect determinations of the 

 forms. But some of the confusion is real ; for 

 Halysytes catenulata, a coral which no one 

 could mistake, occurs very abundantly at one 

 locality in the Stormville limestone, which be- 

 longs near the middle of the lower Helderberg, 

 although this form was never before found 

 above the Niagara. 



Like most of the Pennsylvania reports, this 

 volume is abundantly indexed ; there being six 

 different indexes, covering fifty-four pages. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



A short time since, we referred to the call of the 

 Peabody museum of American archaeology for funds 

 to enable the museum to continue its important and 

 thorough explorations in Ohio. So far the work has 

 been continued without interruption, thanks to the 

 persons whose subscriptions are here acknowledged : 

 Mr. John C. Phillips, Boston, $200; Hon. Stephen 



Salisbury, Worcester, $100; Hon. Robert C. Win- 

 throp, Boston, $50; Mr. II. A. Homes, Albany, X.Y., 

 $5; Mr. A. H. Thompson, Topeka, Kan., $5; Mr. 



A. E. Douglass, New York, N.Y., $47; Mr. William 



B. Weedon, Providence, R.I., $50; Mrs. Esther Herr- 

 man, New York, N.Y., $50: total, $507. 



— The French association for the advancement of 

 science has appointed two delegates to attend the 

 Philadelphia meeting of the American association, — 

 Professor Joubert, professor of physics, and general 

 secretary of the French society of physics; Professor 

 Silva, professor of chemistry at the Municipal school of 

 physics and industrial chemistry. This is of interest 

 as promoting the formation of an international asso- 

 ciation. 



— Before the section of economic science and statis- 

 tics of the American association, papers are an- 

 nounced on the following subjects: A study cf cotton 

 fibres, their value, etc., illustrated by photo-micro- 

 graphs; The economics in deaf-mute instruction; 

 Explanation of instruments used to determine the 

 power to move trains, and also of instruments for the 

 inspection of railroad-tracks ; The apprenticeship 

 question and industrial schools; The value of photo- 

 micrographs of wood-fibres, illustrated with sections 

 of thirty different woods; The use of graphics in 

 statistics; Exhibitions, national and international, 

 considered as economic forces; Theory and economy 

 of the American system of patents; The allotment of 

 lands to Indians, illustrated by experience with the 

 Omaha tribes ; The public and the professions, 1870-80; 

 Statistics and organization of the classified public ser- 

 vice in the United States ; Some general results of the 

 census of crime and misfortune in the United States ; 

 The economic element in the problem of manual 

 training. (Several papers are expected on important 

 topics. ) 



— We are informed by a private letter that three 

 of the younger mathematicians of Germany, all men 

 of mark, are expecting to attend the meeting of the 

 British association in Montreal, and are planning 

 afterwards to visit the United States. Reference is 

 made to Messrs. Lindemann of Konigsberg, Dyck of 

 Munich, and Wedekind of Carlsruhe, all of them 

 professors ordinarii in their respective places. 



— Nature states, that, at the request of the council 

 of the British association, Admiral Sir Erasmus Om- 

 manney, C.B., F.R.S., has consented to act as treas- 

 urer during the meeting at Montreal, Canada. It 

 further announces that Prof. W. G. Adams of King's 

 college will be unable to give the Friday evening 

 lecture at Montreal, and that Prof. O. J. Lodge will 

 take his place. The subject of Professor Lodge's 

 lecture will be 'Dust.' 



— The Seth Thomas clock-company has under- 

 taken, under the advice and guidance of Dr. L. Waldo, 

 the construction of clocks of a high grade of excel- 

 lence for scientific purposes, which they propose to 

 call clocks of precision. They have already made 

 considerable progress as to the best form of pendu- 

 lum suspension, and dimensions of the steel-jar mer- 

 curial pendulum (which is filled in vacuo by a new 



