Review of Recent Geological Literature. 179 
REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL 
LITERATURE. 
Contributions to the Tertiary Fauna of Florida. By William Hea- 
LEY Dall, a. M. 
Part V. of the Contributions to the Tertiary Fauna of Florida by 
professor Dall is at hand in Part V. vol III., of the Transactions of 
the Wagner Free Institute of Science of Philadelphia. The publi- 
cation bears date December, 1900. The present contribution deals 
with the Teleodesmacea : Solen to Diplodonta, and is a continuation 
of the work on the Tertiary fauna appearing in the previously issued 
publications of the Institute. It was found impossible to complete 
the discussion of the large family Venerida; for publication in its 
appropriate place in the present part of the volume, and so it is de- 
ferred till the publication of the next part which it is believed will 
contain all that remains to be written to finish the subject. Some 
work on the Tertiary shells of Florida was published in volume I 
of the Transactions of the Institute, but it remained for professor 
Dall, in volume III. to take up the study of this most prolific and in- 
teresting fauna with a thoroughness that could not previously have 
been attempted. The fact that there are nearly 140 new species in 
the present part will give some idea of the practical newness of 
the field which professor Dall has so successfully cultivated, and of 
how little was really known about it when the author began his 
studies. Every such thorough-going contribution, dealing exhaus- 
tively with a single fauna, marks a real advance ; it brings a whole 
new field within the known province of Paleontological science. 
s. c. 
Geology of the Boston Basin; vol. i part iii. The Blue Hills Com- 
ple.r; by William O. Crosby. (Occ. papers. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist. ; 
pp. 289-964, pis. 15-39, No. 4, 1900.) 
This paper completes the detailed study of the southern edge of 
the basin, carried on so long and well by Prof Crosby, from the 
Atlantic coast west to the valley of the Neponset. The author de- 
fines the complex as "the area of granitic and associated Cambrian 
strata which includes the Blue Hills proper, and extends thence east- 
ward across Quincy and the northern parts of Braintree and Wey- 
mouth." It is a distinct geological unit. 
The Cambrian strata occur largely on the north and south mar- 
gins of the area, and consist of fine, poorly bedded slates, which 
are thought to have been deposited in a quiet area of some depth, 
one shore of which was perhaps to the northwest. The base of 
these slates is nowhere exposed. Prof. Crosby believes, although 
upon what data is not made clear, that the quartzytes northwest of 
the basin and the limestones of Shoreham and Newbury are lower 
Cambrian ; and from that time continuous deposition occurred, 
through the middle Cambrian and a now denuded upper Cambrian 
