Scientific Serials

Abstract

American Journal of Science, March.—The Appalachian type of folding in the White Mountain Range of Inyo County, California, by C. D. Walcott. In the broad palæozoic area between the Sierra Nevada on the west and the early palæozoic shore-line on the east (Colorado) a period of folding and thrust-faulting was followed by a period of vertical faulting, which displaced the strata that had been folded and faulted in the preceding epoch. The extent and character of this disturbance can only be determined by a careful study of each of these mountain ranges for a distance of over five hundred miles east and west, and probably one thousand miles north and south.—The succession of fossil faunas at Springfield, Missouri, by Stuart Weller. The rocks studied are beds of grey limestone with lenticular chert concretions, and form part of the Mississippian series. The faunas of the lower part of the section may be correlated with the Burlington faunas of Iowa, and those of the upper part with the Keokuk faunas. The whole series of faunas is continuous, and the whole series of rocks should be designated by a single name. The term Osage, suggested in 1891 by H. S. Williams, is recommended.—Drift boulders between the Mòhawk and Susquehanna rivers, by A. P. Brigham. The Archæan and the more northern Palæozoic fragments are strewn over the whole district at all altitudes, but diminishing southward in size, and sparse in amount on the highest hills, especially to the southward, where the tops of the ranges are often surprisingly free from transported material. Actual reduction of the general surface towards base level doubtless proceeded rapidly during glacial time, but even then the process was rapid only in the geological sense, and the result a minute fraction of what has been accomplished since the region became a land surface.