tain mica and are not schistose; the second, of light and gray finegrained gneisses with some ledges of coarse syenyte and masses of titaniferous magnetite or hematite; one bed of hematite on the Cape Fear River being 40 feet thick; the third of gneiss, hornblendic and mica schists, with some syenyte and coarse granite, and a belt of chrysolyte ledges. The coarse granite of the third area affords much mica in large plates, some 20 inches across; and the mining operations for the mica date back to the mound-builders, the granite veins being "honeycombed with the ancient tunnels and shafts, which were located and excavated with more skill and success than the modern workers have yet attained."

No Silurian rocks are recognized, unless on the extreme western border, within what the map colors as Archæan, where, according to Prof. Bradley, the Lower Silurian exists as a continuation of rocks of that era in Tennessee.

The remaining formations described are the Triassic, the Cretaceous, and the Tertiary. The two Triassic areas, one on Deep River and the other on Dan River, at a distance 75 to 100 miles from one another, have the rocks dipping in opposite directions, those of Deep River, or the more eastern area, dipping southeastward about 15° to 35°, and those of the other northwestward 35°. Prof. Kerr makes the supposition-improbable as it appears to the writer-that the two are the margins of a single anticlinal that once spanned the broad interval between them. The Connecticut River Triassic has in general a similar southeastward dip; but there is no where the opposite side of the anticlinal unless we look to the New Jersey area for it, which is quite too far south to

answer.

A large part of the volume is occupied with a chapter on Economical Products of North Carolina. It embraces a large amount of information on soils; marls and fertilizers; peat and muck; ores and mines (among which those of iron are very extensive, and those of gold and copper, also, have been profitably worked); coal (Triassic); graphite, and kaolin; fire-clay, pyrophyllite, corundum, mica, and mineral waters.

The coal field of Deep River has an area of about 300 square miles. Dr. Genth obtained in an analysis of two samples, fixed carbon 63-28, 70-48, volatile matter 25.74, 21.90, ash 10·14, 6·46, moisture 0.84, 1·16=100. It contained sulphur 1.35, 1.02. The Dan River coal afforded the same chemist 75.96 and 76.56 p. c. of fixed carbon, 11.44, 13.56 of ash, the volatile matter in each about 12 per cent.

The report contains also a well-colored geological map of North Carolina and several plates of fossils.

3. Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania.-The following Reports for 1874 have recently been published by the State Board of Commissioners at Harrisburg.

Report of Progress on the Brown Hematite (Limonite) Ore Ranges of Lehigh County, with a description of the mines lying between Emaus, Alburtis and Fogelsville; by FREDERICK PRIME, Jr., Assist. Geol. 74 pp. 8vo, with cuts and maps.

Report of Progress in the Venango Co. District; by JOHN F. CARLL. Observations on the Geology around Warren; by F. A. RANDALL Note on the Comparative Geology of Northwestern Ohio and Pennsylvania and Western New York; by J. P. LESLEY. 128 pp. 8vo, with wood-cuts and maps.

Report of Progress in the Laboratory of the Survey, at Harrisburg; by ANDREW S. M'CREath. 106 pp. 8vo.

Prof. Prime gives in his report a brief account of the topography and geology of the district under examination, and of the rocks with which the limonite ores are associated. These rocks are stated to be of the magnesian limestone series-that is, Lower Silurian beds of the age of the Calciferous sandrock, and the Chazy, Birdseye and Black River limestones. Mr. Prime says: "The great mass of this formation is dolomite; but there occur one and possibly more beds of hydro-mica (or damourite) slate intercalated in it. The limonite ore always accompanies the hydro-mica slate, and with it there is often clay from the decomposition of the slate. The following are three out of five analyses of this slate from Lehigh Co.:

From the amount of the potash in the first analysis (by Dr. Genth), Mr. Prime calculates the amount of damourite present (with free silica, etc.) to be 55.40 p. c.; in the second (by Mr. S. Castle), 49-70 p. c.; in the third (by Mr. P. G. Salom), 53'02 p. c. This hydro-mica slate, with often associated limonite beds (as a result of alteration), extends, as Mr. Prime observes, from Vermont to Alabama, showing thus a long range of Lower Silurian rocks in the eastern mountain region of North America.*

The report describes further the mines and ores, and gives many analyses. It is followed by a note from the State Geologist, making some explanations with regard to the equivalency of the Pennsylvania formations, and remarking on some topographical changes the country has undergone. Mr. Lesley goes outside of his field in his closing remarks, and states-what is sustained as yet by no adequate stratigraphical evidence-that the "Green Mountain system of Vermont" and "the White Mountain system of New Hampshire," are, like "the Laurentian Mountains of Canada," older than the Potsdam; and that the Green Mountain system, one of these "three great mountain systems of the north," is Huronian. The observations by Mr. Prime in Pennsylvania, above-mentioned, and the parallel facts in the Green Mountain system to which he draws attention, all point as regards the Green Mountains in the opposite direction. The writer has studied stratigraphically the Green Mountain region from Con

* The first determination of the fact that the so-called talcose slates are mostly hydro-mica slates is accredited to Prof. Dana. The latter gives the credit to others in this Journal (III, iv, 366, 1872), where he named the rock hydro-mica slate.

necticut to Vermont, and has found that the hydro-mica and chloritic hydro-mica slates associated with the limonite beds of Berkshire are of the same formation with the hydro-mica, chloritic, and micaceous slates of Graylock and the Taconic range; and with the hydro-mica slates of the ridge lying northeast of Rutland in Vermont, and of others west and north of Rutland; and with the staurolitic schists of the limonite region of Salisbury, Connecticut. Since the limestones associated with the slates of West Rutland abound in distinct Lower Silurian fossils, referred to the Chazy by Billings, part of the Green Mountain slates and schists are unquestionably Lower Silurian. What is the age of the rest is not yet positively known.

*

Mr. Carll's report contains the results of his observations in the oil district of Venango County-giving in detail the geological and topographical distribution of the oil, and its distribution also in depth.

Mr. Lesley's notes on the comparative geology of the adjoining parts of the States of Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania, are of great interest. The equivalency and distribution of the formations are discussed, and the age of the oil-bearing beds, and some new views and facts are brought out. Mr. Lesley states that the Catskill sandstone does not thin out westward in New York, as heretofore described, but that it continues into Ohio, and that it includes the "Rock-City" conglomerate of Chatauqua Co., N. Y.; also, that the conglomerate under the Coal measures, to which the Rock-City conglomerate has been referred, "seems nowhere to reach the New York State line, even in outlying patches."

The Chemical Report of Mr. M'Creath contains descriptions and proximate analyses of bituminous coals of many localities, and analyses of various iron ores, limestones and fire clays. It states that the average amount of water in the bituminous coals analyzed is only 1:03 per cent; the average of ash about 5:38 per cent; of phosphorus, 014 per cent; of volatile combustible matter from bituminous coals of Clearfield Co., 2364 per cent, of Centre Co., 23-81, of Jefferson Co., 32-60, of Armstrong Co., 34.99 per cent; of fixed carbon in coals of Clearfield and Centre Cos., 68.97; of sulphur in 34 coals from Clearfield Co., 1.36 per

cent.

4. The Vertebrata of the Cretaceous Formations of the West; by E. D. COPE. 304 pp. 4to, with 57 plates. Report of the U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories by F. V. HAYDEN, U. S. Geologist in charge, and under the authority of the Department of the Interior. Vol. II. Washington, 1875.-Professor Cope's Report is another of the great works on science due to researches

*These West Rutland fossils are not rare and inconspicuous. Guided by the Rev. A. Wing to the localities he had discovered, I found the rock over the central part of the valley in some places full of them, and other specimens less distinct occur in the western margin of the valley; Mr. Wing has observed them also on the eastern margin. The famous marble quarries of the valley are in the intermediate portion of the limestone formation where the metamorphism was more complete.

J. D. D.

connected with the Geological Survey of the Territories under the charge of Dr. Hayden. The volume takes up only the Vertebrates of the Cretaceous, leaving those of the Tertiary for a later Report. Each subject, owing to the great number of species discovered in the beds, is a very large one; and the latter will make, as the Preface states, two such volumes. These two are in addition to the quarto volume, in the same series, by Dr. Leidy. The work aims to mention all the species thus far discovered in the Cretaceous west of the Mississippi, and to describe in full those made known by the author. Professor Cope, in an introductory chapter presents his views "on the significance of paleontological science;" then treats in Part I of the classification and distribution of the Cretaceous deposits of the West; in Part II, gives "Descriptions of the Cretaceous Vertebrates of the West;" and in Part III, introduces a Synopsis of the known Cretaceous Vertebrates of North America. The 57 plates of illustrations are full of figures, and well engraved.

The whole number of species of Reptiles in the American Cretaceous beds is stated as follows: Dinosaurs, 18; Pterosaurs, 4; Crocodilians, 14; Sauropterygia (Plesiosaurs, etc.), 13; Testudinates, 48; Pythonomorphs (the Mosasaur tribe), 50 = 147. Of the last tribe, 15 species occur in the Greensand of New Jersey, 7 in the Rotten limestone of Alabama, 26 in Kansas, and one from each, North Carolina, Mississippi and Nebraska. Only four are known from Europe.

Professor Cope, besides bringing out his own large contributions to the subject, mentions also those of Dr. Leidy and Professor Marsh, yet not always in a way to do them full justice. He appears to have forgotten one of his statements, when penning the note to page 124, on Clidastes propython. The note reads as follows:

"Professor Marsh (American Journal of Science and Arts, 1872, p. 454,) quotes me as assigning ten cervical vertebræ with articulated hypapophyses to this species. This I have not done, but state (Synopsis of the Extinct Batrachia and Reptiles of North America, p. 221,) that it possesses six such vertebræ. Professor Marsh's statement, and consequent supposition that he first determined the number of cervical vertebræ in the genus Clidastes, are the result of a misapprehension."

But Professor Marsh sustains his remark (this Jour., ii, p. 454, 1872) by reference to page 218 of Cope's Synopsis, where Professor Cope, in drawing out the characters of the genus "Clidastes" from "especially the nearly complete skeleton of Cl. propython," says: "Hypapophyses exist on the ten cervical vertebræ," thus recognizing ten as the number. And on page 221 of Cope's Synopsis (the page he refers to) there is nothing that sets this aside. Professor Cope, in view, as he says, of the fact that “a considerable number of the vertebræ [in Cl. propython] has been lost," gives on that page the following enumeration of the [by him] known vertebra: Atlas and axis, 2; cervicals, 6; dorsals, 15; AM. JOUR. SCI., THIRD SERIES-VOL. XI, No. 61.-JAN,, 1876.

and next adds, under the line dorsals, 15, "at least to be added to this series, 10," making the sum "33." No correction of the previous statement as to the total number of cervical vertebræ is made or suggested.

In the catalogue of works and memoirs on American Cretaceous Reptiles, headed LITERATURE OF THE SUBJECT (pp. 51, 52, 53), Professor Cope has omitted to mention several highly important contributions by others: for example, Dr. Leidy's memoir of 1865, on Cretaceous Reptiles of the United States, a quarto of 135 pages, illustrated by 20 plates; a paper by the same author, on Elasmosaurus (Proceedings of the Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., 1870, p. 9); another on Discosaurus and its allies (ibid., p. 18), and another on Hadrosaurus and its allies (ibid., p. 67); also, the following of Professor Marsh's papers: Notice of some New Mosasauroid Reptiles (this Journ, II, xlviii, 392, 1869); on a New Species of Hadrosaurus (ibid., III, iii, 301, 1872), and Note on Rhinosaurus (ibid., III, iv, 147, 1872). Again, in his Synopsis of the known Cretaceous Vertebrata of North America, constituting Part III of the volume, several Cretaceous Reptiles described by others are omitted, and also the following four species of Cretaceous birds described by Professor Marsh: Graculavus velox, of New Jersey (this Journal, III, iii. p. 353, 1872); G. pumilus, of New Jersey (ibid., p. 364); G. agilis, of Kansas (ibid., v, 1873), and Palæotringa vagans, of New Jersey (ibid., iii, 366). J. D. D.

5. Description of new Species of Fossil Plants from Alleghany Co., Virginia; with remarks on the rocks seen along the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, near the White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier Co., West Virginia; by F. B. MEEK. 19 pp. 8vo. Proceedings of the Washington Philosophical Society. Read before the Society, June 15, 1872. (Received Dec. 8, 1875).-The fossil plants described by Mr. Meek are from Lewis's Tunnell, and occur in the lower part of the Subcarboniferous, near its junction with the upper Devonian. The species are Lepidodendron scobiniforme M., Cyclopteris Lescuriana M., C. Virginiana M., C. Alleghaniensis M., besides an undetermined Stigmaria and some doubtful Carpolithes.

6. Coal plants of Tinkiako in Southern Shensi in China.— AD. BRONGNIART has determined the following plants from the southern part of Shensi, one of the western provinces of China (Bull. Geol. Soc. France, 408, 1874): Pecopteris Whitbyensis, two species of Sphenopters, a leaf of a Zamia near Zamites distans, fragments of Lycopodites Williamsoni, a species of Palissya, and also Bayera dichotoma Fr. Braun. The species are nearest to the Jurassic plants of Whitby, and not Carboniferous. Subcarboniferous fossils are described from the same region by M.M. Paul Fischer and Bayan (ibid., p. 409 and pl. 16), who report, from shales, the following: Spirifer lineatus Mart sp., Athyris ambigua, Meekella Garnieri (n. sp.), Productus Davidi (n. sp.), P. costatus Sow., var cœlestis, and Bellerophon tangentialis Phill.