21\e Clinoplains of the lito (jlramJc. Hi rrirk 381 
Plate X of Vol. I, Bui. Univ. Xew Mexico, .i,nves a good 
idea of the talus conglomerates referred to after erosion lias 
laid them open. 
The little sketch accompanying this will atYord an idea of 
the toiK)_i,n-aphy rjsulting from the combination of talus plain 
and' clinoplain in the central Rio Grande valley in Xew Mex- 
ico. 
When the j licve article was written the writer had r.ot read the 
paper by ^Vi!lard D. Johnson entitled "The High Plains and their 
Utilization," in the twenty-first Annual Report of the U. S. Geological 
Survey. The paper referred to gives very interesting description of 
the "debris apron" and the "gradation planes" which tally suflicientlv 
well with the specific instances given above. The statement, "The 
bed of tire desert stream, then, is not a graded profile merely, but a 
plane of gradation, and constitutes a topograpihc form which is, in 
fact, the dominant and characteristic feature of desert landscapes," 
and that "the debris apron is a plexus of graded stream beds identical 
in profile" agree wtll with one type described above. The "mortar 
bed" structure is also common in the clinoplains of the Rio Grande. 
REVIEW OF RECENT GEOLOGICAL 
LITERATURE. 
Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils, 1902. By Milton Whitney, 
Chief; with Accompanying Papers by Assistants in Charge of Field 
Parties. Pages 842 ; with 60 plates, 25 text figures, and a portiolio 
case of 44 folded maps. Washington, Government Printing Office, 
1903. 
This fourth annual report of the Bureau of Soils, a branch of the 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, comprises descriptions and maps of 
selected areas in more than twenty states, and also in Porto Rico, con- 
cerning their varieties of soils and adaptation to different crops and lo 
fruit raising. The aggregate of these areas surveyed in 1902 was about 
iS.coo square miles. Several states, or their agricultural departments, 
have cooperated with the U. S. Bureau in this work, which is of much 
practical interest to farmers and horticulturists. w. u. 
Gcolcgie Atlas of the i'uited States: Oliz-et, Parker. Miteheli, and 
Alexaiicria I- olios. South Dakota, respectively Nos. 96, 97, and Q-j, by 
J. E. Todd, and 100. by J. E. Todd and C. M. H.\ll, 1903. 
Completing the first hundr^'d folios of this great work, wiiich for its 
completion throughout the whole country must require fifty years or 
more, are these four contiguous folios, measuring half a degree on each 
side, adjoining the Dakota or James river, in the southern part of 
