Revieio of Recent Geological Literature. 181 
explain the refusal of Congress to continue the survey on its pres- 
ent basis. Personal controversies, scientific jealousies, internal 
dissensions, however cloaked under social and official etiquette, 
local and state antagonisms, and the scientific ostracism which 
some have imputed to the survey against those who have criti- 
cised it and its work, these may have been, in some instances, 
the mainsprings which prompted individual opinion and advice, 
but we think we have compassed the whole opposition, so far as 
Congress could take cognizance of it, when we attribute the action 
to the conviction on the part of Congress that the survey had been 
expanded without warrant, so as to include much costly, original 
research which the law of the survey does not authorize. 
If, in the future, the work of the surve}' can be confined to a 
more limited field, so that the geological map may be constructed 
as rapidly as is consistent with thoroughness, and so that the 
science of geology ma}- be relieved, financially', from the entangle- 
ments of other natural science, unless thej' be bound to it by stat- 
utory definition, we believe the progress of science in America will 
not be impeded by the adverse action of Congress ; but that, on 
the contrary, numerous efficient laborers will spring up where now 
there is little encouragement for local effort, and these allied in- 
vestigations, relegated to independent institutions, scattered in 
all parts of the United States, will be carried on successfully and 
with a certain local pride, while the science of geology itself will 
pursue an unobstructed line of progress. 
EEYIEW OF EEOENT GEOLOGICAL 
LITERATUKE. 
Two Montana coal fields. By Walter Harvey Weed, Bulletin, G. 
S. A., vol. ill, pp. 301-330, with 13 figures in the text; June 28, 1893. The 
Great Falls coal field, belonging to the Kootanie formation, of Lower 
Cretaceous age, is found to occupy a width of a few miles adjoining the 
northeast base of the easternmost range of the Rocky Mountains, and to 
extend from the sources of the Judith river in central Montana north- 
westerly at least 125 miles, and probably onward across the international 
boundary. Its thickest known coal seam is mined at Sand Coulee, 
twelve miles south of Great Falls, having a thickness of 3)^ to 7 feet of 
excellent fuel coal. The Kootanie or Great Falls formation of sand- 
stones and shales, with gentle dips, reposes unconforma])ly on the Car- 
boniferous rocks which form the foot-hills, succeeded westward in the 
mountain ranges by steeply upturned and folded strata ranging in age 
