198 The American Geologist. September, L903. 
Pursuant to the action of the Seventh Internation- 
al Geographic Congress held in Berlin in 1899, the geo- 
graphers and geographic societies of the United States are con- 
sidering plans for the ensuing Congress, which is to convene in 
September, 1904. It is proposed to have the principal scien- 
tific sessions in Washington early in the month, and to have 
social sessions in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chi- 
cago, with a final session in conjunction with the World's Con- 
gress of Science and Arts in St. Louis. It is provisionally 
planned also to provide an excursion from St. Louis to Mex- 
ico, and thence to points of geographic interest in western 
United States and Canada. 
A Preliminary Announcement is in press and will shortly 
be issued to officers and members of geographic societies in all 
countries, and to geographers who may express interest in the 
Congress and its work. Details have been entrusted to a com- 
mittee of arrangements made up of representatives from geo- 
graphic societies in all parts of the United States. The officers 
of the Committee are: Dr. W. J. McGee (vice-president Na- 
tional Geographic Society), Chairman; Mr. John Joy Edson 
(president Washington Loan and Trust Company), treasurer; 
and Dr. J. H. McCormick, secretary. The office of the com- 
mittee is in Hubbard Memorial Hall, Washington, D. C, U. 
S. A„ where communications may be addressed. 
WEST coast geologic notes. 
Dr. James Perrine Smith, professor of Paleontology 
in Leland Stanford University, has been spending the sum- 
mer in collecting material from the beds in northern Idaho and 
Shasta and Invo counties, California, for his monograph on 
the Triassic Ammonites. 
The L t niversity of California has had two parties in 
the field this summer under the direction of Dr. John C Mer- 
riam, professor of paleontology. One party has been investi- 
gating the Quaternary caves of the limestone region along the 
McClpud river, while another has been collecting Triassic sau- 
rians in the beds on Squaw creek, Shasta county. Both parties 
have been particularly successful and have obtained much new 
and valuable information. 
Dr. J. C. Branner, assisted b-y Drs. Newsom and Arn- 
old, has been continuing the work on the Santa Cruz sheet 
this season. The areal geology on the sheet is nearly finished. 
but some structural and paleontologic work yet remains to be 
done. 
Dr. Ralph Arnold, late Assistant in Geology at Le- 
land Stanford university, has been appointed assistant to Dr. 
Dall of the United States Geological Survey, and will here- 
after make Washington his headquarters. 
