62 The American Geologist. January, i898 
The Faunal Relations of the Eocene and Upper Cretaceous of the 
Pacific Coast, by Timothy W. Stanton, pages 1005-1060, with plates 
63-67. 
Mr. Gannett's paper, compiling and discussing the magnetic declina- 
tion in all parts of the United States, is designed to meet the needs of 
land surveyors who use the magnetic needle, or who have occasion to 
deal with old surveys run by the needle. The resulting map shows lines 
of equal declination for the year 1900, the extremes being about 22 
degrees west on the northeastern boundary of Maine, and 23 degrees 
east at Juan de Fuca strait. 
The part of northwestern Oregon described by Mr. Diller extends 
from the Columbia about 200 miles south to the Umpqua and Coquille 
rivers, with a width of about 75 miles back from the coast. It is found 
that the chief mass of the Coast range, from near the Columbia to the 
Coquille, consists of Eocene rocks, which are shales and sandstones, 
with basalt and associated tufifaceous materials. Oligocene, Miocene, 
and scanty Pliocene beds occupy the lower country. Above these are 
marine Pleistocene beds, formed during a depression of 200 feet or 
more; but this was succeeded by an elevation of the land considerably 
above its present hight, as shown by the submarine continuation of the 
Columbia river valley. The chief mineral resources are deposits of coal, 
of which about 75,000 tons were mined in 1895; limonite, scantily mined 
in several places; and gold, with platinum, iridium, and osmium, which 
occur most notably in black sands along the sea beach and to a short 
distance at and north of the mouth of the Coquille river. 
Mr. Turner supplements his previous memoir on the Sierra Nevada, 
published in the Fourteenth Annual Report of this survey, of which a 
preliminary abstract appeared in the Am. Geologist (Vol. XIII) for 
April and May, 1894. His later articles in this magazine for June, 1895, 
and June, 1896, present portions of the subjects which are more fully 
treated here. The Sierra Nevada is regarded as "a block of the earth's 
crust that has been quite rigid since middle Cretaceous time, although 
it has since, in common with most of California, experienced a con- 
siderable elevation." This paper contains much detailed description of 
the rocks of the mountain belt, both sedimentary and igneous, with 
many plates of their thin sections. 
The lignitic coal deposits of Alaska, described by Dr. Dall, occur in 
the Kenai formation, which has an extensive geographic distribution. 
They will probably be profitably mined for domestic use and for expor- 
tation to California, competing with the lignite of British Columbia. 
The Kenai group, consisting of conglomerate, sandy slates, and shales, 
with a rich fossil flora, wood, and lignite, is regarded as probably 
Oligocene and as of the same age with the Atane leaf beds of Greenland 
and the plant beds of Spitzbergen, although Heer classed them all as 
Miocene. The discussion of this question is accompanied by good 
description of the other Tertury formations of Alaska. The ensuing 
Glacial and Postglacial periods have been supposed (rightly, according 
to the reviewer's opinion) to be represented by the Ground ice forma- 
