278 The American Geologist. ^''^'- i^'^-'^- 
found whether it were acceptable to all. It is unquestionable 
that the usual descriptions of loess, published many years agO; 
and especially those that were applied to the loess, say at 
Vicksburg, Mississippi, or to most of the southern points 
along- the Mississippi river, would not fit thi:, deposit. There 
are, however, on record many descriptions, applied to points 
further north, say in Iowa, in Illinois, in Missouri, South Da- 
kota and in Minnesota, which will fit this loess deposit. It is 
chiefly due to the research of Mr. W. J. McGee that the ex- 
treme southern features have been founcl to fade out toward 
the north, and to be replaced by what might be styled northern 
features, and at last by extreme northern features, the loess 
becoming more and more like the northern drift, and at last 
even passing horizontally, as well as vertically, into the north- 
ern (lowan) till. Some southern geologists long ago con- 
cluded from studies in southern states that the loess of those 
states is a deposit contemporary with the northern drift, but 
they did not elucidate the manner, nor the place, of transition 
from loess to drift in passing toward the north. In like man- 
ner some northern geologists found a contemporary and con- 
tinuous sheet extending from one deposit to the other and, 
while announcing distinctly that fact, failed to define fully the 
manner and cause of such transition. It required examination 
in a middle latitude (Iowa) where, as already stated, Mr. T^.Ic- 
Gee worked on the Pleistocene history of northeastern Iowa 
with great thoroughness and high appreciation of the problem, 
to bring this curious fact, so long whollv imknown, to a clear 
and indisputable explanation and publication. With the light 
thrown on the nature and origin of the materials of the loess 
by the descriptions of Mr. McGee, it is obvious that the tyi)ical 
idea of loess is subject to great extension and alteration, and 
hence that the deposit on the Cancannon farm, overlying the 
human skeleton cannot at present be excluded from the cate- 
gory of typical loess. The writer has fully discussed this at 
another place,* and will not dwell on it again. He will only add 
that, in his opinion, there is no feature of the deposit lying 
over the Lansing skeleton (above the water-laid silt layer) 
which is incompatible with the designation loess for the lati- 
tude and the Pleistocene geology of the region. 
•Geological Society of America. Presidential addiess, Washington, 1902. 
