122 The American Geologist. August, 1902. 
copy was reviewed a year ago in the /Vmerican Geologist for August, 
1901. This paper occupies pages 487-614, and is followed by a transla- 
tion, in eleven pages, from K. Martin, '"Concerning Tertiary Fossils in 
the Philippines." w. u. 
On some Fossils from th.c Islands of Formosa and Riii-Kiu {Loo 
Choo). R. B. Newton and R. Holland. (Jour. Coll. Sci., Imp, 
University. Tokyo, vol. 17, Article 6. 1902. pp. 23, 4 plates). 
We had occasion a few months ago to review, in the Geologist,* 
the late contribution b\' Mn S. Yoshiwara to the geology of Riukiu 
Curve, a series of islands largely volcanic extending northward from 
Formosa. It appears that the fossils collected, or some of them at 
least, were sent by professor Koto to England. They have been ex- 
amined and reported on by Messrs. Newton and Holland. They show 
no older formations than the Miocene. It remains yet, therefore, to 
future geological examination to supply the paleontologic data from 
which the paleozoic ?.ge of the basic rocks of the Riukiu curve can be 
affirmed. n. h. w. 
The Eparclicaii interval. A. C. Lawson. (Bull. Dept. Geol., Univ, 
Cal., vol. 3. pp. 51-62, May, 1902.) 
It was a happy thought which led to the emphasizing of this non- 
conformity by the term cparchean. It is as worthy of special name as 
the loessian inter-glacial epochs, and is much more widespread. It 
is an interval which now is unanimousl}' recognized by those who have 
stitdied the Archean attentively. That the Archean age closed with 
the Archean rocks folded and compressed to verticality, or approxi- 
mate verticalit\^ that it was followed by a series of sediments whose 
strata are horizontal, or approximately horizontal, are truths which 
now no one questions. The land interval which occurred between 
the dates of formation of discordant marine formations was probably 
long and eventful. We may assume that much land existed during 
that interval, but in some cases there is but slight evidence of coarse 
detrital accumulation. This interval was followed apparently, by 
quick submergence, at least in some parts of the lake Superior region, 
and upon it were then piled up the Paleozoic sediments which have 
never been subjected to the profound folding and metamorphism that 
are so evident in the Archean. Hence a great lithologic and strati- 
graphic chasm exists at this horizon, and this is attended also by a pro- 
found biotic change. No organic remains have been found below this 
interval, but they have been found in the nearly horizontal strata which 
succeeded the non-conformity. 
We sympathize with Dr. Lawson in his castigation of the term 
Algonkian and of those who introduced it into American geology. It 
has been a source of confusion and misinterpretation. It has been 
generally supposed that it covered about the same interval as the term 
Huronian, but Dr. Lawson shows that it replaces Archean. It has, 
indeed, had so many and so varied definitions and stratigraphic limi- 
tations, sometimes theoretical and sometimes concrete as applied in 
• April, 1902, vol. xxix, p. 253. 
