Review of Recent Geological Literature. 187 
York. By John C. Smock, (Bui. N. Y. State Mus. No. 7, June, 1899, 
Albany). In the paleontologic and stratiKraphic goolopy of the state, 
New York has taken tlie load of all the Statos of the Union; but in 
keeping the world aeiinainted with her natural resources, so far as they 
spring from the rocks, she has been as markedly delinijuent. In some 
of the annual reports of the original survey of the state, and also in the 
final quarto volumes, particularly those of P^mmons, Beck and Mather, 
the claims of economic geology were kept in view, and very important 
descrii)tions and records were then put in print which not only show 
their appreciation of the final, as well as of the first and principal, ob- 
ject of such a survey, but present the strongest contrast with the re- 
ports of those who confined their work entirely to the higher and tech- 
nical scientific questions of geology. For a long period of years there 
has been no advance in economic geology in New York through any 
public eflfort. Paleontology has been prosecuted by the persistent, 
and now successful efforts of Prof. Hall, till now it may be said that 
among commonwealths New York stands alone, as an example, not 
only to other states of the Unions, conspicuous among her equals, but 
to the States of longer history across the ocean, in the service she has 
rendered to natural science. 
It is highly gratifying that, through the eff'orts of Prof. Smock, a new 
departure has been begun at Albany, and that the geologic questions 
that concern the direct products of the rocks, so far as they are em- 
ployed for the comfort and convenience of man, are being inquired 
into and reported to the Legislature. 
This is the second report of this kind that Prof. Smock has made, 
the former being on the building stones of New York. This on the ores 
of the state is not final. Many other things are involved in a knowl- 
edge of the iron ores — questions of their mineralogical and geological 
relations, their origin, tlieir kinds, their impurities and their compari- 
tive value in the furnaces of the iron-monger. Prof. Smock has given a 
sketch of their distribution and some history of each mine and its pro- 
ducts. The work is well begun, but it will be a work of years before 
he will be able to report as thoroughly as he should, and equally with 
the detail that the State of New York has carried forward in the pa- 
leontology of the state. 
Fossil Jishes and fossil plants of the Triassic rocks of New Jersey and 
the Coruiectirut valley. By John S. Newbekry, 1SS8. 4to, .\iv, 152 
pp. 2Gpl. $1.00 (U. S, Geol. Sur. Mon. vol. xiv. Washington). This 
memoir mentions twenty-eight species of fish appertaining to the Tri- 
assic of the Atlantic border of North America in strata distributed from 
Nova Scotia to North Carolina, thirteen of them being new. The 
others had been named principally by Redfield, but a few also by 
Newberry, Egerton and Agassiz. Of plants, seventeen species are 
mentioned of which five are by Newberry, and the others by Rogers, 
Schimper, Brogniart, Endlich, Kmmons, Saporta, Fontaine and Fr. 
Braun. The geological sketch, which forms the first part of the volume. 
