344 
The American Geologist. 
May, 1896 
general and detailed description of the geology and natural resources of 
the State. (6). The consideration of such other scientific and economic 
questions as in the judgment of the commissioners shall be deemed of 
value to the people of the state. 
Sec. 3. And be it enacted, that the commissioners shall cause to be 
prepared a report to the Legislature before each meeting of the same, 
showing the progress and condition of the survey, together with such 
other information as they may deem necessary or useful or as the 
Legislature may require. 
Sec. 4. And be it enacted, that the regular and special reports of the 
survey, with proper illustrations and maps, shall be printed as the com¬ 
missioners may direct, and that the reports shall be distributed or sold 
by the said commissioners as the interest of the state and of science 
demands, and all moneys obtained by the sale of the reports shall be 
paid into the state treasury. 
Sec. 5. And be it enacted, that all material collected, after having 
served the purposes of the survey, shall be distributed by the commis¬ 
sioners to the educational institutions in such manner as to be of the 
greatest advantage to the educational interests of the state ; or. if deem¬ 
ed advisable, the whole or a part of such material shall be put on per¬ 
manent exhibition. 
Sec. 6. And be it enacted, that the sum of ten thousand dollars 
annually, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropria¬ 
ted out of any funds of the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the 
purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act. 
Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, that this act shall take effect from 
the date of its passage. 
Geological Society of Washington. 
At the regular meeting of the Geological Society of Wash¬ 
ington, held in Washington, D. C., March 25, 1896, a paper 
was read by Mr. H. W. Turner on the 
Archean Gneiss in the Sierra Nevada. According to the geologists of 
the Fortieth Parallel Survey,western Nevada is composed of a basement 
of Archean rocks, which throughout Paleozoic time formed a continen¬ 
tal mass, the erosion of the eastern side of which furnished the material 
for the Paleozoic sediments of eastern and southern Nevada, while the 
erosion of the western side furnished the material of which the Paleo¬ 
zoic rocks of the Sierra Nevada are formed. On account of the intrusion, 
about the close of the Jura-Trias, of large masses of granitic rocks in 
the Sierra Nevada and the folding and crushing that occurred at this 
time, these Archean (?) rocks have been greatly obscured, and have not 
been recognized with certainty at a single point. However, in the 
canon of the North Fork of the Mokelumne river, in the central Sierra 
Nevada, there is an area of gneisses having a maximum length of about 
nine miles, which are very similar to the gneisses of the Fundamental 
Complex (Archean) of the Lake Superior region. Associated with these 
gneisses is a biotite-granite which appears to be identical with the so- 
called Archean granite of the West Humboldt mountains in Nevada. 
The entire series, the gneisses and the biotite-granite, are certainly 
much older than the hornblendic granite or quartz-mica-diorite that 
lies to the east of the gneis? area. Dikes of the hornblendic granite 
penetrate the gneisses, and there are abundant gneiss fragments in this 
later granite. The gneisses are as thoroughly crystalline two miles 
from the granite contact as they are at the contact: and therefore their 
present gneissoid condition cannot be ascribed to the contact-metamor¬ 
phism of the hornblendic granite. The relations of the gneiss series to 
the Paleozoic sediments of the Gold Belt on the west have not been 
made out. The gneisses are chiefly pyroxene-biotite-diorite-gneiss. 
hornblende-biotite-diorite-gneiss and quartz-biotite-diorite-gneiss. They 
