Personal and Scientific Xews. 197 
Platycnemic Man in Neio York. Will H. Shekzer, Ypsilanti, Mich. 
An account of the discovery in July, 1893, at Canandaigua lak*» of a well 
preserved skeleton of this ancient and interesting type of man: showing 
besides the cranial development of low order, the compression of the 
femur, the flattening of the tibia and the perforation of the humerus. 
An explanation was attempted of the presence of these simian charac- 
ters in early man and their occasional occurrence, especially in negroes, 
at the present day. 
Dislocations in certain portions of the Atlantic Coastal Plain strata and 
their probable causes. By Arthub Hollick, Staten Island, N. Y. Indi- 
cations of faulting, folding, and other forms of dislocation have been 
mentioned by several observers in the coastal plain region of the south- 
ern states, notably by McGee and Dall. In general, however, the obser- 
vations point to a system of folding or dislocation in a north and south 
direction, as previous experience in mountain-making principles would 
cause us to expect for the region. 
Further north, extending from Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard 
through Block island, Gardiner's island. Long Island. Staten island and 
northern New Jersey, there is another line or area of disturbance having 
a u'eneral east and west direction. It is with this that we have now to 
deal. — The facts in connection with itare so different from those with 
which we are familiar elsewhere in America, that but for the circum- 
stance of one portion having been utilized by N. S. Shaler as an exam- 
ple of mountain-making forces, it would not have received considera- 
tion by me in such connection. In his report on thegeology of Martha's 
Vineyard, Prof. Shaler argues for the hypothesis of mountain-making 
forces in order to account for the dislocations of the Cretaceous and 
Tertiary strata there, and the same views were reiterated in papers read 
before the Geological Society. Observations made on Long Island and 
Staten Island forced me to the conclusion that similar dislocations on 
these islands were to be accounted for on the hypothesis of ice action 
above, and I subsequently came to the same conclusion for the Martha's 
Vineyard dislocations,- thus following the opinions of both Merrill and 
Upham. 
Further investigations on Long Island and northern New Jersey have 
greatly strengthened the views previously expressed and we are now in 
a position to State, as beyond question, that the line of disturbance is 
coincident with the line of the moraine from Nantucket to northern 
New Jersey: that the phenomena of dislocation are only to be found 
where the moraine crossed some port ion of the former coastal plain; and 
that these phenomena cease abruptly where the moraine bends awaj 
from or finally leaves the plain. 
The phenomena are identical throughout, and any theory advanced 
to account for them in one portion of the area must also account for 
them in every other portion. One series of cause and effed has been 
instrumental throughout, and if merely becomes a question as to which 
series — ice action or mountain-making forces — is the most probable. 
The general type of a sect ion through any part of the region, in a 
north and south direct ion. shows a core of contorted Cretaceous and 
post-Cretaceous sands, gravels and Clays, Hanked on the north and 
capped on the top by boulder till, which gradually merges into water- 
assorted material on the southern Hanks and plains beyond. 
The Gay Head escarpmenl is the most extensive section which is any- 
where exposed, but a Similar structure is seen to exist wherever there is 
an exposed sect ion through the morati n Long Island, and if we could 
imagine that island separated into parts b j means of convenient north 
and south erosion channels Gay Head would be reproduced indefinitely. 
On Staten Island the moraine crosses a portion of the coastal plain near 
the Narrows, then bends northward ami rests on the Archtean axis and 
