344 The American Geologist. May, 1896 
genera] and detailed description of the georogj and nal ural resources of 
the State (6). The consideration of such other scientific and economic 
questions as in the judgmenl of the commissioners shall be deemed of 
value to the people of the state. 
See.:!. 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 thej may deem necessary or useful or as the 
Legislature may require. 
See. 1. And he it enacted, that the regular and special reports of the 
survey, with proper illustrations and maps, shall he printed as the com- 
missioners may direct, and that the reports shall he 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. ">. Ami he it enacted, that all material collected, after having 
served the purposes of the survey, shall he 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 he put on per 
manenf 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 fuuds of the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the 
purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act. 
Sec. 7. And hi' it further enacted, that this act shall take effect from 
the date of its passage. 
Geological Society ok Washington. 
At the regular meeting of the Geological Society of Wash- 
ington, held in Washington. I). ( '.. March 25, 1896, a paper 
was read by Mr. If. 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 nol 
been recognized with certainty at a single point. However, in I he 
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 he identical with the so 
called Archean granite of the West Humboldt mountains in Nevada. 
The entire series, the gneisses and the hiotite 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 con tact -metanior 
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 
