Editorial Comment. 323 
<l. Widening of gorges to perhaps eight or more times the 
width of the streams flowing in them. e. Reduction of per- 
pendicular blurt's to moderate slopes of 20 to 30°. ./'. Partial 
lilling of gorges by loess. <j. Removal, inmost cases, of loess. 
h. Erosion of portions of the walls of the gorge, cutting back 
the slopes to perpendicular bluffs, i. A period (the present ) 
of very slow erosion. 
I have endeavored to show, by means of these rock gorges, 
that the degradation interval, and perhaps interglacial epoch, 
whose chronological position is between the formation of tin- 
drift sheet of northwestern Illinois and the deposition of the 
loess, was relatively a very long one. Fifty thousand years is 
considered a minimum, and perhaps twice that time not too 
great, for the accomplishment of the work which belongs to 
this epoch. 
EDITOPxIAL COMMENT. 
The Columbian Exposition. 
The Standard Oil Company's Exhibit of Petroleum. 
The Standard Oil Company never does anything shabbily. 
The master minds which control that vast aggregate of capi- 
tal and power have attained success more by strict attention 
given to the smallest details of their business than by any 
other single factor. This characteristic of thoroughness is 
finely illustrated by the individual enterprises of the control- 
ling spirits in the organization. The University of Chicago, 
the Pratt Institute, the great hotels of St. Augustine, speak 
not alone of the wealth and public spirit of their founders, 
hut the ideas embodied in them tell also a story of organiza- 
tion and thoroughness which have made the business success of 
the Standard Company possible. 
The people of the United States expected thai the corpora- 
tion which had introduced to the world a new illumiiuint. cre- 
ated so many new lines of industry, and amassed such colossal 
fortunes for its owners, all within the last quarter of a ecu- 
