52 | SCIENCE. 
of January, 1884, and especially clearing up many 
points wherein the technical journals, which had 
favorably reviewed its provisions, had erred. 
Prof. E. J. Houston introduced Mr. Patrick B. 
Delaney of New York, who thereupon described in 
detail his lately invented system of synchronous- 
aR od ok AD 
[Vou. IIL., No. 49. i 
multiplex telegraphy, illustrating the same with the 
aid of detail-drawings and lantern-slides of essential 
portions of his apparatus. Mr. Delaney’s system, as 
thus far perfected, permits of the sending of seventy- 
two separate and distinct messages over a single wire 
simultaneously. 
INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 
GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 
Geological survey. 
Geological field-work.— Mr. J. S. Diller, in his 
reconnaissance of the Cascade Range, passed through 
the Dalles, at the north end of the range, and fol- 
lowed it southward into California. The following 
is an abstract of the preliminary report made by him 
to Capt. C. E. Dutton, who has charge of the investi- 
gation of the volcanic rocks of that region. Ande- 
sites and basalts are found on the west side; and 
at Oregon City the lavas have a thickness of three 
hundred feet. The massive rocks stretch far south- 
ward towards Salem; and on them rest «extensive 
alluvial deposits which form fertile plains in the val- 
ley of the Willamette, French’s Prairie being one 
of them. Between Salem and Albany the eruptive 
rocks also occur; but at Jefferson, a short distance 
north of Albany, the miocene sandstone occurs, and 
is extensively used in the neighborhood for build- 
ing-purposes. From Albany to Eugene City, both 
eruptive rocks and the miocene sandstones occur, 
the latter being well exposed at Springfield and 
before reaching the Calapooia Mountains. Thirty- 
five miles south of Eugene City the miocene sand- 
stone is frequently penetrated by basaltic and other 
eruptive rocks. Near Cottage Grove the sandstone 
resembles somewhat a tufa, but contains coal, like 
the miocene north-east of Lebanon. Coal with a 
thickness of five feet is said to occur at the great 
bend of Pit River, but was not seen by Mr. Diller, 
as he did not visit the locality. The Calapooia Moun- 
tains are made up mainly of recent volcanic rocks, 
especially on the north side. Fragmental rocks are 
found on the south; but whether they are paleozoic, 
or not, remains in doubt. ‘These beds extend to near 
Oakland, where well-marked tertiary appears. South 
of Rosebury is a belt two miles in width, of olivine 
enstatite rocks, altered, for the most part, into serpen- 
tine. It is bounded on the south by a highly tilted 
conglomerate, which resembles the millstone grit of 
the Alleghanies. No fossils were found in it, but on 
petrographical grounds it was referred to the creta- 
ceous, which Mr. Diller says has not been recognized 
north of Rogue River valley, from which it is sepa- 
rated by a belt of crystalline stratified rocks, — the 
eastward continuation of the Rogue River Moun- 
tains. South of Myrtle Creek, schistose rocks occupy 
a belt along the southern branch of Umqua River 
to Cafionville, where crystalline schistose rocks form 
the prominent mountain ridge through which the 
gorge of Cafion Creek is cut. These rocks are pene- 
trated by a granite which has probably been land- 
surface foralong time. This granite outcrops fre- 
quently in southern Oregon and northern California, 
especially in the Siskiyou Mountains, which are prin- 
cipally made up of it: it also forms Trinity Moun- 
tain and Castle Rock. 
The crystalline rocks representing the eastern pro- 
longation of the Rogue River Mountains are limited 
on the south by the supposed cretaceous rocks of 
Rogue River valley. Mr. Diller thinks that both 
cretaceous and tertiary rocks are embraced in the 
section seen on the north-east side of Stewart’s 
Creek (a tributary of Rogue River extending east- 
ward from Jacksonville). These rocks extend into 
California, where they are covered by the great flow 
of recent eruptive rocks in the plain north of Mount 
Shasta. 
Little Shasta valley, especially between Shasta post- 
office and Mount Shasta, is an extensive plain cov- 
ered by a flow of basic lava like that on the great 
plain east of the Cascade Range in central Oregon. 
Mount Shasta rises above a similar plain. 
At the Haystacks, a short distance north of the 
base of Shasta, granite occurs. Between Mount 
Shasta and Lassens Peak, Cambrian, mesozoic, and 
tertiary occur. Around the eastern base of Shasta to 
Burney valley, and westward over the mountain 
crest to Buzzard Roost, little else is seen than basic 
voleanic rocks. Four miles west of Furnaceville the 
road leaves Cow Creek, and ascends to the ‘plain,’ 
which is covered with angular bowlders and thin soil 
underlaid by coarse conglomerate. From Buzzard’s 
Roost a cafion along Cow Creek is cut in carbonifer- 
ous limestone and other altered sedimentary rocks. 
At Furnaceville, in the metamorphic rocks found 
west of the limestone, mining operations have been 
carried on; but at present the openings are deserted. 
Farther west, cretaceous (?) strata come in, dipping 
towards the Sacramento; and above them, tertiary 
rocks full of fossils. The latter extend to the alluvial 
plain of the Sacramento. 
The Cascade Range, constituted almost wholly of 
basic lavas, is a low, broad arch, not less than 
seventy-five miles in diameter, rising from 3,300 feet 
at Summit Prairie, near Mount Hood, to 5,600 feet at 
Crater Lake. About the head of Deschutes River the 
general plain, which more or less gradually merges 
into the slope of the mountains, has a height of 4,700 
feet. Throughout Oregon this plain lies about a 
thousand feet below the general crest of the range; 
and both are formed of lava sheets arising from 
fissure eruptions. There are numerous topographi- 
