Personal and Scientific JVewa. 67 
under the term " Coast Ranges" such land masses as may have existed 
on or near the line of the present mountains prior to that upheaval, 
while I am disposed to restrict the name (particularly in the present 
discussson) to the physiographic features initiated by so radical a trans- 
formation as then took place. We do not know how far or in what di- 
rection these older landmasses extended. The conditions, during the 
Miocene, which allowed the accumulation of the very extensive Miocene 
deposits which make up so large a portion of the Coast Ranges, were 
certainly very different from those which have obtained since the be- 
ginning of the Pliocene ; and it does not appear that sufficient corres- 
pondence has been made out between the early Miocene distribution of 
land and sea, and that of the present day, to warrant us in speaking 
of these earlier landmasses as the " Coast Ranges." There is, in brief, 
nothing in the literature that will enable us to reconstruct a Miocene or 
pre-Miocene " Great Valley" which can be satisfactorily shown to have 
any direct genetic connection with the present Great Valley of Califor- 
nia. The quotation from Diller which is advanced as indicating the 
existence of the Coast Ranges and interior valley in Cretaceous times, 
namely, "that during the Shasta-Chico period the Coast range existed, 
but did not furnish sufficient obstruction to keep the ojjen sea out of 
the Sacramento Valley,'" contains within itself the suggestion of my 
objections to Mr. Fairbanks' terminology. Moreover, this statement 
refers only to the northern part of what we know as the Great Valley, 
and leaves room for the interpretation of a very different physiography 
from that which is known to date from the post-Miocene uplift and 
folding. F. Leslie Ransome. 
Harvard University, Dec. 9, 18'JG. 
PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
The Maryland Geological Survey has undertaken a mag- 
netic survey of the state. This work is under the direction 
of Prof. L. A. Bauer. Already observations of the three mag- 
netic elements have been made at about forty stations, aver- 
aging one station to every 250 square miles. The ultimate 
average will be one station to about 140 square miles. A re- 
port on this work is expected to be issued some time this 
winter. 
Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters. At 
the late meeting of this Society geological papers were an- 
nounced as follows: 
The Berlin and Utley quartz porjjhyries and Waushara gi-anite, Sam 
iiel Weidman. 
The pre-Cambrian volcanic rocks of the Fox river vallev, W'ni.H. 
Hohhs, C. K. Leith and IT'. W. Pretts. 
Glacial Phenomena of the Baraboo district, R. I). Salisbur//. 
Certain physical features of Wisc.-onsin, G. L. Collie. 
Relations of faults, complex fractures, fissility and cleavage to length- 
ening and shortening the crust of the earth, C. R. Van, Hise. 
