Review of Recent Geological Literature. 185 
admetvoloatiers que M. Walcott ait d^couvert une riche serie de fossiles 
■de la faiine seconde sur certaias points du territoire appel^ Taconique, 
mais ce progr^s dans uos counaissauces ne pent avoir d'influence sur la 
•question. Ce q'il faut savoir, c'est la position r(?elle du Taconique 
d'Emmons. Or, il semble incontestable que c'est une 8(?rie ii faune 
priniordiale. Si ce nom doit etre consenv, il ne pent etre appliqu^ qu' 
a ce que I'onproposait d'appeier Cambfien. II faut le conserver parce 
qu'il a la priority. L'orateur ajoute volontiers qu' il sera charnie de voir 
rendre cet hommage a la g^^ologie Americaine, laquelle nous a appris 
tant de choses sur le grand ensemble de couches dout nous cherclions 
la meilleure classification." 
Appendix D contains lists of the members of the congress. 
Memzoic and Cenozoir formations of eaxtern Vlrr/iniii and Jfai-i/land. By 
N. H. Dakton, U. S. Geological Survey. Bull., G. S. A., vol. ii, pp. 431- 
450, with a map and sections; April 14, 1891. The formations here 
described, successively separatad from each other by erosion intervals, 
are the Potomac, of late Jurassic or early Cretaceous age; the Severn, of 
later Cretaceous age, being the southern extension of the New .Jersey 
greensand series; the Pamunkey, of Eocene age; the Chesapeake, be- 
longing to the Miocene period; the Appomattox, referred provisionally to 
the Pliocene; and the Columbia, regarded as early Pleistocene. 
It is ascertained that the transverse depressions of the coastal 
plain region were first excavated during the interval between the 
Chesapeake and Appomattox formations; for the earlier members of 
the series bear no marks of transverse drainage. At a later date, the 
Appomattox and Columbia formations were separated by an epoch of 
great uplift and erosion. "This epoch," according to INIr. Barton's 
observations, "differed from its base-leveling predecessors by greater rela- 
tive emergence and consequent stream-action which developed the greater 
part of the present physiography of the region. This erosion deepened 
and greatly widened the transverse drainage depressions, and trenched 
the side drainage depressions, cut into the edges of the terraces to an 
extent gradually increasing northward fromNorth Carolina, and in north- 
•ern Maryland resulting in the removal of wide areas of the coastal plain 
formations, especiallj' he Chesapeake and Appomattox." 
Oo the Tnassic of MrissaeJtJist'ttx. By Benjamin Iv. Emerson. Bull., 
' G. S. A., vol. ii, pp. 451-456, with a map; April 23, 1891. Marine currents 
probably produced by tides of the bay of Fund}* type, are shown to have 
distributed arkose from south to north, derived from the granites and 
schists along the west side of the Triassic baj' or estuary in Massachu- 
setts; and on the east a strong ebb current spread a coarse conglomerate, 
transporting its materials from north to south. In more quiet water 
along the central part of the basin, sandstones and shells were deposited. 
An artesian boring at Northampton passes through the arkose to a depth 
of 3,000 feet. Professor Emerson finds evidence of monoclinal faulting 
with upthrows on the east side of the faults, like the structure discovered 
by Davis in the continuation of this basin in Connecticut. 
