270 Review of Recent Geological Literature. 
Having relieved Arkansas and the survey of the "mineral" incubus 
Dr. Branner proceeds to bring the attention of the people from the ex- 
traordinary features of geology to the ordinary ; and the second, third 
and fourth volumes now in press will contain exhaustive reports upon 
certain well defined geologic areas, and their economic capabilities. 
These reports will include several accurate topographic and geologic 
sheets. Vol. II, about ready, will consist of a report upon the neozoic 
geology of southwestern Arkansas, by R. T. Hill, in which the Cre- 
taceous, Tertiary and Quaternary areas are mapped and discussed and 
attention called to the rich marls, chalk and gypsum beds of the re- 
gion. The exhaustive study of the Cretaceous — especially the upper 
formation, in this'^volume, will be of interest. The third volume, will 
be devoted to the coal regions. Mr. Arthur Winslow% late of the Penn- 
sylvania survey, has done this work, and in a most excellent manner. 
The fourth volume will be made up of several papers upon geology 
by Dr. Branner, Prof. R. Ellsworth Call and others ; and upon botany 
and zoology, by various writers. It is gratifying to know that the 
Legislature of the State have appreciated Dr. Branner's work and is 
preparing to endorse it by increased appropriations for the coming two 
years. 
Texas Geological and Mineralogical Survey: First report oj progress. 
E. T. Dumble, State Geologist, 1888. Austin, State Printing Office, 
1889. 8vo., 78 pp. 
This little Yolume is creditably printed and contains along with 
much rubbish some things which are good. The peculiar political 
conditions of the State of Texas, notwithstanding its illiberality to 
scientific institutions, have always beea productive of an army of sci- 
entific experts (self imagined) to fill its scientific offices, and Mr. 
Dumble has secured his share of these for assistants, judging from the 
number of new names in the work and the recklessness with which 
they handle that most dangerous tool known as mere assertion. For 
instance, it is refreshing to learn that rainfall can without doubt be in- 
creased in the arid regions of Texas, and that the hitherto supposed 
worthless Tertiary woody lignites may prove of great value. The num- 
ber of new terranes, Jurassic, Tertiary, Cretaceous, etc., discovered 
by professor Jermy, is bewildering. The lengthy report upon that 
most interesting terra incognita of American geology, the mountain- 
ous trans-Pecos region, about which we know almost nothing, would be 
of interest, but one necessarily feels disappointed when he finds it 
void of original observations, and filled with such interesting state- 
ments as the following: "I reached old Camp Rice a few minutes 
before the outbreak of a storm, followed by a severe thunderstorm 
with rain and hail, but was compelled to take shelter in an empty 
adobe home with a leaky roof that kei)t us moving round the room 
all night to keep dry." This and similar statements deserve a place 
in geologic annals along side that of a former state geologist who re- 
cords that a certain plant is "a good remedy for rheumatism; the 
