Scientific Serials

Abstract

THE American Journal of Science. February.—Examination of Alfred R. Wallace's modification of the physical theory of secular changes of climate, by James Croll. While agreeing with much that has been advanced by Wallace in his “Island Life,” in explanation of geological climate, the author fails to perceive that any of the arguments or considerations there adduced materially affect his own theory as advocated in “Climate and Time.” He still holds that with the present distribution of land and water, without calling in the aid of any other geographical conditions than now obtain, the physical agencies detailed in “Climate and Time” are sufficient to account for all the phenomena of the Glacial epoch, including those intercalated warm periods, during which Greenland would probably be free from ice, and the Arctic regions enjoying a mild climate.—Communications from the United States Geological Survey, Rocky Mountain division, No. v.; on sanidine and topaz, &c., in the nevadite of Chalk Mountain, Colorado, by Whitman Cross. The sanidine crystals contain gas inclusions, but no fluids, and the topaz, elsewhere found only in granite, gneiss, or other meta-morphic or crystalline schists, here occurs in an eruptive rock probably of early Tertiary age.—On the occurrence of the Lower Burlington limestone in New Mexico, by Frank Springer. The observations made by the author in 1882 in the Lake Valley Mining District, Southern New Mexico, have brought to light numerous facts confirming the views of the Burlington geologists regarding the distinct character of the upper and lower sub-carboniferous groups in that district, but demonstrating that the Lower Burlington limestone has a much wider geographical range than had hitherto been suspected.—The Minnesota Valley in the Ice Age (concluded, with two maps), by Warren Upham.—Glacial drift in Montana and Dakota, by Charles A. White. The author, who had already determined the presence of true northern Glacial drift in the region about the Lower Yellowstone River, now traces the same drift much further west. His observations were mainly confined to the Missouri Valley, but also reached to the vicinity of the Great Paw Mountains, extending for over a thousand miles at intervals from the Great Falls of the Missouri to Bismarck in Dakota.—Phenomena of the Glacial and Champlain periods about the mouth of the Connecticut Valley, that is, in the New Haven region (with two plates), by James D. Dana. The author concludes that during the Ice period the Mill River channel was excavated or deepened by glacier action. This channel, as it widened southwards below the mouth of the Pine Marsh Creek, became partly obstructed by sand-bars, which increased as the flood made progress, and ultimately merged in the wide terrace formation of the New Haven plain.—Supplement to paper on the paramorphic origin of the hornblende of the crystalline rocks of the North-Western States, by R. D. Irving.—On herderite, a glucinum calcium phosphate and fluoride from Oxford County, Maine, by William Earl Hidden and James B. Mackintosh.—Note on the decay of rocks in Brazil, by Orville A. Derby.