262 The American Geologist. -^p"'- ^^"^^ 
August Michel Levy, Director of the Geological Sur- 
vey of France, has been offered the position of professor of 
Geology and Mineralogy in the College of France, vacant 
since the death of professor F. Fouqtie. 
New Mexico Geol()Gical Survey — The Legislature of 
New Mexico at its recent session just closed passed a law 
establishing a State Geological Survey, making an appropri- 
ation of $6,000. The work is to be conducted under the 
supervision of the board of trustees of the New ^Mexico 
School of urines at Socorro. Already considerable new and 
valuable geological information had been collected. 
H. v. WiivCHELL, Butte, Montana, returned recent- 
ly from an extended tour of examination of the western 
mining districts. In a personal letter he says, "I saw much 
of interest in my tour around through Oregon, California 
and Southern Nevada. Each year's experience only serves 
to impress more strongly an my mind the great importance 
of climate and topography, of latitude and geography in the 
formation of ore deposits. Aside from the presence of 
eruptive rocks and the subsequent flow of hot waters there 
are no factors of such importance as climate and topo- 
graph.y. Give me the southern deserts where the rocks 
are slowly altered for ages by surface waters which oxidize 
faster than they erode instead of the Alaskan and Canadian 
mountains where erosion is more rapid than oxidation. 
Goldfield, Nevada is a busy place but little more than 
a year old and is 28 miles from a railroad in a desert coun- 
try. Yet it has electric lights, city water, four banks, many 
stone buildings and a population of 7,000 or 8,000 people. 
It is in the center of a mining camp five or six miles 
square which seems to have promise of a great future. The 
ore is in and much associated with rhyolyte dikes cutting 
andesyte. Water is found at the depth of about 200 feet, 
and below water the ore contains pyrite, gray copper, bis- 
muth, sulphide, tellurides and free gold. The camp has 
produced more than two million dollars in gold in 18 
months of shipping ore worth over $100 per ton. Other 
districts around that country such as Tonapah, Bull Frog, 
etc. are also producing high grade ore and the fortunate 
discoverers are wealthy before they know it. 
At Portland I went to the exposition grounds. They 
are not immense like those at St. Louis, but very well laid 
out and the buildings are attractive. 
