jRerieir of Recent (Je</ht(jieal Llteratiire. 209 
Mr. Holmes, after long and careful search, which has been carried 
to several ])arts of the country where the stone-chipping jjeople must 
have lived, whether in pre-glacial or post-glacial time, has come to 
the conclusion that some other explanation is necessary for the occur- 
rence of "paleoliths " He is very skeptical as to the actual occur- 
rence of any human relics in the true glacial gravels in this country, 
and hence as to the existence of man in the United States prior to the 
last glacial e])och. He finds the "paleoliths" mingled with "neoliths" 
at the sites of the quarries, where extensive working must have been 
carried on. They were plainly ]iroduced at one and the same time by 
the same peo])le. 
Therefore he conceives the hypothesis that the "paleoiith.^^" are 
simply the rough material, as it was first rudely blocked out, either 
rejected outright, when not satisfactory, or caclied for preservation, 
or perhaps carried from the (juarry to some village site where they 
were wrought at leisure to perfect implements. 
The paper discusses, in the light of this liypothesis, and illustrates 
by two plates, the- distribution of both paleoliths and neoliths in the 
region of the Chesapeake bay, and i)articnlarly of the Potomac valley. 
Xote oil. (Jiuti'tz-hc'driiif/ (jnl)hro in Muri/hdid. V. S. (ti;ani-. (From 
Johns Hopkins University circular. No. 103, Feb. 1893.) 
An interesting development of gabbro, in the vicinity of Wilming- 
ton, Del., northeast from Baltimore, has been described by professor 
F. D. Chester in Bui. 59, U. S. Ueol. Sur. This has been found to con- 
tain notable amounts of quartz. 3H-. (Irant finds some of the gabbro 
in the immediate vicinity of Baltimore also contains from one-tenth 
to one-third of the whole rock of quartz. Thegrains are macroscopic, 
allotriomorphic, blue and original in the rock. He suggests that the 
basic Baltimore gabbro is genetically and chronologically tlic same 
rock mass as the acid A\'ilmington gabbro-granite. 
Ilrnii-ii cixtl iiiid litjiiHc i)f Tr.i-dK. E. T. l»r.Mi!i,i:. Ileportof tlic (Jeo- 
logical Survey of Texas. Koyal octavo, 243 pp., |)hites and ina|i. Aus- 
tin, 1892. 
This work consists of a review of the (|ualities, classes, origin and 
uses of brown coals and lignite, with si)ecial adaptations to the case 
of Texas. Mr. iUunble visited Europe for the purpose and made care- 
ful studies of the methods of using such fuel. The volume contains 
)nuch valuable information on that subject,with ample illustrations of 
furnaces suited for the combustion of brown coal and bri(iuettes. A 
chapter is devoted to the geology of the brown coal deposits of the 
Eocene, and another to the occurrence and composition of the same. 
After a comparison of the Texas products with those of several coun- 
tries in Europe, he reaches tlie conclusion that the Texas brown coals 
will supply an abundant material for fuel which will ))e both effective 
and cheap. 
