330 TJie Antcrica7i Geologist. May, i898 
them fifty or sixty years old, I should say. In the bottom of the 
deepest part we measured a pine tree nearly ^Yi feet in circumference. 
* * * At present the gully seems to be at a standstill. I can per- 
ceive no change in it during the six years that I have been living in 
Milledgeville, though I confess I have not observed very closely. 
Through the bottom of the gully, for nearly its full length, runs a tiny 
stream not wider than your three fingers, coming from a spring, per- 
haps; otherwise the entire excavation is as dry as a bone. Immediately 
around the gully is a fringe of woods, the original forest growth, I 
suppose; but less than a hundred yards away on all sides are cleared 
and cultivated fields."* 
In addition to the written account of the present condition of the 
ravine Pres. Chappell sent four photographic views which he had 
taken on the occasion of his visit to the locality, which supply certain 
valuable details. These views show a fringe of trees, principally pines, 
bordering the ravine. The tallest of these trees seem to be somewhat 
less in hight than the walls of the ravine. In at least two of the 
views there are trunks of trees lying on and against the side of tie 
ravine in such positions as to show that they have fallen from above, 
and several others are standing at the very brink of the chasm, with 
bared roots from which the earth, into which they once grew, has 
fallen away. It is quite evident, from a study of these views in the light 
of Lyell's description of the locality, -that the trees which now border 
the ravine, have grown within the last fifty years, and furnish an ex- 
planation to the very natural question, why the wear has not been pro- 
portionally as great in the fifty years from 1846 to 1898 as it was in the 
twenty years prior to 1846. They show also what is of interest in the 
consideration of the influence of forests on soil, that is, the conserving 
power of trees to prevent loss and other destructive results to the soil 
through erosion. Whether this fringe of trees was planted by the 
land owners, or whether the trees were allowed to stand, having sprung 
up after the original forest covering was removed, or whether some of 
them are a remnant of the original forest, they now stand as a bar- 
rier to prevent the too rapid encroachment of the ravine on the adja- 
cent fields. 
Washington, Pa., Feb. 2, rSgS. Edwin Linton. 
PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
Prof. W. P. Blake, director of the Arizona School of 
Mines at Tucson, has been appointed, by the governor, ter- 
ritorial geologist of Arizona. 
The SocieteGeologique de Belgique will celebrate its 
25th anniversary at Liege in September. Excursions will be 
♦Letter dated Jan, 24tli, 1898. 
