990 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 548. 



tens belonging to the Arctic fauna of the 

 Pacific coast and not heretofore reported east 

 of Point Barrow. 



A number of facts differing somewhat from 

 those reported by former observers were no- 

 ticed and have resulted in a somewhat differ- 

 ent interpretation for the phenomena pre- 

 sented by these deposits. 



The deposits are not of glacial origin, for 

 (1) numerous delicate and unworn shells oc- 

 cur; (2) bivalves such as Solen, Venus and 

 Mya occur in the position in which they lived 

 with both valves together, and in the case of 

 Venus, with the ligament in place; (3) the 

 faunas are not mixed as would be the case if 

 of glacial origin, the lower beds containing 

 shoal-water species of a southern range, and 

 the upper, deeper water species of a northern 

 and even Arctic type. 



The lower beds were deposited in a shallow 

 inlet or lagoon, as shown by such species as 

 Mya, Ostrea and Venus and especially by 

 numerous mud crabs and the presence of our 

 edible crab, Callinectes sapidus, while the 

 upper beds were deposited during a subsidence 

 of the area contemporaneous with the advance 

 of the Wisconsin ice sheet, as shown by the 

 deeper water and more northern species. 



After the destruction and washing into the 

 lagoon of the protecting barrier beach, as 

 shown by the overlying rounded and pure, 

 white sands, the ice reached and passed this 

 point, eventually burying the beds under fifty 

 feet or more of drift. Later, a reelevation 

 took place, bringing the land to about its 

 present position. 



Early Stages of some Paleozoic Corals: C. E. 

 Gordon. 



J. E. Duerdon in the Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity Circular for 1902 has endeavored to 

 show by studies based on Lophophyllum pro- 

 liferum that the Kugosa exhibit a hexameral 

 plan of growth of the primary septa, in so far 

 as L. proliferum may be taken as representa- 

 tive. Certain studies on Streptelasma pro- 

 fundum show a primary tetrameral plan. The 

 fact that 8. profundum is a middle Ordovicic 

 type suggests that this is the primitive con- 

 dition. Moreover, a careful examination of 



Duerdon's figures shows that they lend them- 

 selves to an entirely different interpretation 

 from that which Duerdon gives. This inter- 

 pretation is that two of the so-called primary 

 septa are secondary septa precociously devel- 

 oped; that their sequence and ultimate posi- 

 tion are the same as those for the secondary 

 septa which appear in the corresponding posi- 

 tions in the corresponding quadrants of a 

 zaphrentoid coral ; that the f ossula and car- 

 dinal septum are on the concave side of the 

 corallum; and that if Duerdon's figures be 

 inverted they reveal a perfect similarity to a 

 zaphrentoid coral, as far as the order of ap- 

 pearance and the arrangement of the septa 

 are concerned. 



The fact that L. proliferum is of Carbonic 

 age indicates that it is a modified type of the 

 zaphrentoid coral, the first secondary septa 

 appearing in nepionic stages and thus simula- 

 ting the character of primary septa. 



A New Lower Tertiary Fauna from Chappa- 

 quiddick Island, Martha's Vineyard: 

 Thomas C. Brown. 



A few years ago while studying the Cretacic 

 deposits of Long Island, Block Island and 

 Martha's Vineyard, Dr. Arthur Hollick made 

 a collection of fossil molluscs and plants from 

 Chappaquiddick Island. The fossil molluscs 

 were deposited in the Columbia University 

 collection without being fully and carefully 

 studied. 



These fossils occur in the island in ferrugi- 

 nous concretions. They seem to have been 

 deposited somewhere to the north of where 

 they are now found, then moved as glacial 

 drift, reasserted and deposited in their present 

 position. From their lithological similarity 

 to concretions containing undoubted Cretacic 

 fossils found elsewhere on Martha's Vineyard, 

 Dr. Hollick thought that these concretions and 

 their contained fossils must be of Cretacic 

 age. 



Professor Shaler noted the occurrence of 

 these concretions and their similarities to the 

 Cretacic drift, but being unable to find any 

 distinctive organic remains hesitated to set 

 them down as Cretacic. 



Professor K. P. Whitfield considered that 



