200 The American Geologist. September, 1894 
tai nous and the rocks are deformed therein — this is the aberreni frac- 
tion of ill'- earthcrust; about three-fourths of the land area is non-moun- 
tainous, the rocks aol deformed — this is the norm a 1 portion of the earth- 
crust; and throughout the normal continents, as throughout tin- coastal 
zones, there is a succession of formations and unconformities recording 
profound vertical oscillation, with no concurrent horizontal movement 
save that of extension in normal Faulting. So. excluding the mountain 
regions in which the rocks are crumpled, it maj be affirmed that the 
prevailing movements of the earthcrust are essentially radial, only 
subordinately tangential. In the beginning of geology attention was 
confined to the rare and the remote among phenomena, to the analogic 
only in reasoning; in that branch of geology dealing with particle 
movement attention lias long been given to the common and the near 
and the reasoning lias risen to the plane of homologizing processes, and 
uniformitarianism has resulted; but in the geology of corporeal earth 
movement inference is still based on the abnormal, reasoning is still an- 
alogic; and thus tlie current philosophy remains on the borderland of 
science. A strong plea was made for study of the known vertical move- 
ments of the earthcrust and for reasoning from the known to the un- 
known by direct homology. 
Trias and Jura of Shasta county, California. By James Pkkhin Smith, 
Stanford University, California. The columnar section of the metamor- 
] ill ic series of the Klamath mountains was given; this is made up of strata 
from Devonian to Jurassic aye. The presenceof Middle Trias was shown 
by fossils. This is overlain conformably by slates and limestones with 
a rich fauna of Upper Triassic age, directly comparable to that of the 
/one of Tropetes subbullatus and Trachjiceras nim of the Karnic in the 
Tyrolean Alps. This fauna is shown, by its affinities to Himalayan and 
Alpine species, to belong to a prolongation of the Mediterranean and 
Indian Triassic provinces, and not to the Arctic-Pacific province. The 
occurrence of Jurassic fossils was mentioned and new localities given. 
The widespread Jura-Oretaceous unconformity in the ('oast Range, the 
Klamath mountains, and the Sierra Nevada, was considered a proof that 
these three ranges belong to one greai mountain system in which the 
disturbances were closely associated. 
Restoration of the Anttttean continent. \>\ .1. W. Spencer. There hast>een 
a general impression that the Antilles were at some time connected with 
one or both of the American continents, which extension some thought 
could not have obtained. This is the first study in which definite evi- 
dence of such connection has been proved, and also the date of the con- 
nections. The investigation is the outgrowth of enquiry into the 
changes of level which the continent has undergone, bul now greatiy 
advanced, both in detailed proofs and in the philosophical inductions. 
The geomorphy of land valleys, both of mountain regions and across 
plains, is investigated with the conclusion that all the valleys with 
gradual descent and enlargement are the products of atmospheric ero- 
sion, where tie- same are kept open by drains. The land surfaces are 
deformed by terrestrial undulations of unequal degree, but not such as 
to obliterate the drainage features; yet these epeirogenic movements 
may produce transverse barriers which turn the \ alleys into lake or sea 
basins, or which maj be further deformed b^ erogenic movements. The 
submarine shelves bounding the continent and portions of the West In- 
dian shores were described, as also the fjords which traverse them for 
hundreds of miles in length, with depths of more than two miles, con- 
tinuing to the margin of the continental plateaus and floors of the An- 
tillean seas. These fjords all connect with modern or buried land val- 
leys, which are now silted up to from 800 to more than 900 feet. The 
structures of the drowned valleys and those of the land valleys are in 
even respect identical, -and the conclusion is that the continent was as 
