Report of the Sub-Committee on the 
Quaternary and Recent. 
C. H. HITCHCOCK, 
REPORTER. 
American geologists have usually followed their European 
brethren in the use of the general terms Quaternary, Post-Plio- 
cene or Plistocene, when describing Post-Tertiary terranes. The 
use of Alluvium in a similar sense is mostly given up because it 
seems to imply the absence of ice as an important agent. When 
local deposits are described, most authors have employed designa- 
tions of limited application, and the term Champlain is almost 
the only one that is extensively used. Recognizing the fact that 
the Quaternary embraces every kind of formation, it is clear that 
the names of the divisions, whether of a geographical or litho- 
logical character must be very diversified. A terminal moraine 
in Wisconsin may be coeval with a delta in Louisiana, a lake 
terrace in Nevada, a coral reef in Florida, a phosphate bed in 
South Carolina, a sand dune in J*^orth Carolina, or a bed of 
marine sand in New York. Each section of the country has a 
peculiar set of deposits, but all embraced within the general term 
of Quaternary or Plistocene. Inasmuch as the distinction be- 
tween the Plistocene and the Pliocene terrane depends upon the 
percentages of extinct species of marine raollusca, the typical 
beds must be found along the sea shore. The sea is always present 
while the ice-sheet covered only a part of the land. 
The Atlantic Coast. 
Beginning with Florida, according to Dall, Heilprin and E. A. 
Smith the Pliocene is at present overlaid by the Venus cancellata 
