384 The American Geologist. December, 1902. 
Beck, the unconsolidated mantle of superficial deposits was 
divided into the proper unmodified soil, called geest, and that 
which has been conveyed from a distance by water and exists 
in thick beds, called "alluvium."* Both Eaton and Beck 
pointed out that in extent and volume the geest far exceeds 
alluvium. But they lived in an age of speculation ; the alluvial 
deposits offered an attractive subject for reflection and the 
thoughts of domestic and foreign geologists were concentrated 
upon them ; cataclysms and deluges were in all men's mouths 
and minds, and before the pendulum of current thought had 
swung to mid position there came the glacial theory to once 
more distract attention from an ii'herently important subject; 
and the simple taxonomy and definite nomenclature of the 
pioneer geologists were forgotten in the race for knowledge 
concerning other and subordinate classes of deposits. 
The provincial term adopted by De Luc and introduced 
into American literature by Eaton and Beck is in itself mean- 
ingless, and is thus an unobjectionable denotative term ; it meets 
a manifest need of the tongue ; it has never been supplanted ; 
it has a definite place in literature, and it seems well to restore 
it. 
REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL 
LITERATURE. 
United States Geological Survey, Twenty-first Annual Report to the 
Secretary of the Interior, iSqq-iqoo, in seven parts. Charles D. 
Walcott, Director. Part VII. Geography and Geology of the 
Black and Grand Prairies, Texas, with detailed descriptions of the 
Cretaceous Forniatiojis and special refe7-ence to A rtesian 1 1 'aters. 
By Robert T. Hill. Pages 666; with 71 plates (including seven 
folded, maps, profiles, etc., in a pocket of the cover), and 80 figures 
in the text. Washington, 1901. 
The region here reported comprises about 50,000 square miles, 
mostly in east central Texas, and thence extending into the southern 
part of the Indian Territory. Its southern end is at Austin, and thence 
it reaches north and northeast to the common corner of Texas, the 
Indian Territory, and Arkansas. The chief rock formations of the sur- 
face, chalky sands, marls, clays, and limestones, range from the begi.n- 
ning to the end of the Cretaceous period. They are almost horizontal, 
* Geol. Survey of the County of Albany, 1S20, p. 31; Of. Geol. and Agl 
Survey, Rensselaer County, 1821. p. 23. 
