Schuchert, Chas.

Lower Devonic aspect of the Lower Helderberg and Oriskany formations. (Bull. G. S. Å., vol. 11, pp. 241-332. May, 1900.)

Smyth, J. L. (J. M. Clements and)

The Crystal Falls, Iron-Bearing District of Michigan. U. S. G. Survey, Mon. 36, pp. 512, 53 plates, 1899.

Stevenson, John J.

Edward Orton. (Jour. Geol. vol. 8, April-May, 1900, pp. 205-213.) White, David.

Fossil Flora of the Lower Coal Measures of Missouri. U. S. Geol. Survey, Mon. 37, 1899, pp. 464, 73 plates.

Williams, Henry S.

Silurian-Devonian boundary in North America. (Bull. G. S. A., vol. 11, pp. 333-346, May, 1900.)

PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS

PROF. W. M. RICE, OF WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, will attend the International Congress at Paris, taking part in several of the excursions.

DR. LEWIS G. WESTGATE, OF EVANSTON, ILL., has been elected professor of geology in the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio.

DR. H. FOSTER BAIN, recently assistant state geologist of Iowa, who has returned from Idado Springs, Colo., goes to Joplin, Mo., to undertake a reconnoissance of that zinc field for the U. S. Geological Survey.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY will hereafter be published by Messrs. McClure, Phillips & Co., and edited by Dr. J. McK. Cattell, professor of psychology in Columbia University and editor of "Science."

PROF. C. M. HALL, OF THE NORTH DAKOTA, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, has been appointed to conduct a topographical survey of North Dakota, under the direction of the United States Geological Survey.

PROF. J. E. WOLFF, who has spent most of the last winter in study in Germany, is expected to return during the latter part of August, and to resume his work at Harvard University, next October.

MR. ALEXANDER N. WINCHELL, of Minneapolis, who has been the last two years studying at Paris in the laboratories of Profs. Lacroix and Hautefeuille, has been elected professor of geology and mineralogy in the new Montana School of Mines, at Butte, Montana, and will return in time for the opening of the school in September.

THE NEW WORK ON THE GLACIAL GEOLOGY of New York state, just begun by the state survey, will deal at first with the history of the Hudson valley, of the erosive and constructive action as shown by Long Island and the valley of the river farther north, of the submarine trough to the southeast, etc. At present Mr. Woodworth is engaged in the vicinity of Oyster Bay, Long Island, upon a rather complex series of deposits.

THE RECENTLY ESTABLISHED AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL aims to be "a popular record of the progress of the American Museum of Natural History" of New York. Its evident purpose is to make known in an agreeable and nontechnical manner whatever is of general interest in the scientific work, expeditions, collections. and current accesssions of the Museum. The more noteworthy features of Number I are its excellent illustrations, the incisive sketch of the early history of the institution, the account of the Museum's ethnological work in northeastern Asia, the description of a recent gift of fossil fishes, and the article on the Museum's work in the long-buried cities of Mexico and Central America. Information regarding lecture courses and scientific publications is to be given every month.

THE ENGINEERING AND MINING JOURNAL of June 9th published the full tabics of mineral and metal production of the United States in 1859 as prepared for the "Mineral Industry,” Volume VIII. This production, valued at the mines or furnaces, amounted to $1,211,361,861, the largest amount on record for the United States or any other country. Deducting certain necessary duplications, the net value of the mineral production in 1899 was $1,118,780,830, against $799,518,033 in 1898, showing an increase last year of $319,262,797, or 39.9 per cent. This great amount came partly from the increase in quantities and partly from general advances in values. The United States last year was the greatest producer of coal, salt, iron, copper, silver and lead in the world; also of many of the less important metals and minerals.

The extent of our production is shown by the figures, which include 252.115.387 short tons of coal, 13.400.735 long tons of pig iron, 581,319,091 pounds of copper, 217,085 tons of lead. 129,675 tons of zinc, 57,126,834 ounces of silver, and $70.096,021 in gold.

WORK OF THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN Alasa. The following plan for Government work in Alaska during the season of 1900, submitted by the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey, has received the approval of the Secretary of the Interior.

Exploration, Copper River District.

Chettyna party.-Reliable reports by officers of the Geolo

gical Survey and of the military surveying parties in Alaska, as well as from private sources, indicate the existence of a probably important copper district on the tributary of the Copper river called the Chettyna, south of the Wrangel Alps, and also on the headwaters of the Copper and Nabesna rivers, north of that mountain range. Previous explorations have accomplished all desirable reconnaissance work in this region, and the value of the economic resources appears to justify more detailed topographic and geologic surveys.

It is therefore proposed that a party under Mr. F. C. Schrader, geologist, with one assistant geologist, and Mr. T. G. Gerdine, topographer, with assistant topographer and six camp hands, should make a topographic and geologic survey of the valley of the Chettyna river, comprising an area of about 3,000 square miles, on a scale of four miles to the inch with sketch contours. This work is to be connected with the Coast Survey work near Valdes, and if practicable, explorations are to be made by the geologist between the valley of the Chettyna and the southern coast parallel to it. This party will leave Seattle, May 25.

Surveys in the Seward Peninsula.

Cape Nome district. The most immediately important work to be done in Alaska during the coming season is the detailed topographic and geologic survey of the Cape Nome district and its extensions in the Seward peninsula. According to the best information available, surveys intended to define the extent of the gold-bearing area in the southern portion of the Seward peninsula between Cape Nome and Fish river should cover an area between 3,000 and 4,000 square miles in extent. For this survey it is proposed to organize two parties, one topographic and the other geologic.

The topographic party will be placed in charge of Mr. E. C. Barnard, with one assistant topographer and a sufficient number of camp hands to permit of distinct operations in the field by the two officers. This is necessary in order to cover the required area in the given time. The survey is to be made on the scale of four miles to the inch, with sketch contours, in a manner similar to that executed by Mr. Barnard in the Fortymile district in the summer of 1898. In co-operation with the Coast & Geodetic Survey, it has been arranged that Mr. Barnard's party shall complete the triangulation between Golofnin bay and Port Clarence, work for which the Coast Survey would otherwise have to organize an independent party, and in return for which transportation is afforded the parties of the Geological Survey from Seattle to Golofnin bay, on the steamers of the Coast Survey, leaving Seattle about June 1.

The geological party of the Cape Nome district is placed in the charge of Mr. Alfred Brooks, with two temporary geo

logic assistants. Mr. Brooks' investigation will cover the area surveyed by Mr. Barnard's party from Fish river to Cape Nome and Port Clarence, and also reconnaissance of the Cape York district. It is proposed that he will determine the extent of the gold-bearing formations and trace out the conditions of occurrence of veins from which the placer gold has been derived.

The trend of the gold-bearing belt of Cape Nome and vicinity appears to extend northeastward across the Seward peninsula toward Good Hope bay and the Keewalik river. It is therefore proposed to extend reconnaissance work along this trend and the following additional operations are recommended:

Reconnaissance of extension of Cape None Gold Belt.

This party will consist of Mr. W. J. Peters, topographer, and Mr. W. C. Mendenhall, geologist, equipped with a sufficient number of camp hands and canoes for exploration, with topographic and geologic reconnaissance. It is understood that they can be conveyed by a Coast Survey steamer to Good Hope bay, where they may be landed and whence they may proceed with their equipment to survey the northeastern portion of the Seward peninsula, returning across the neck of the peninsula by Buckland river to Norton bay.

Preparation for Exploration in 1901.

Reconnaissance, Koyukuk River to Arctic Ocean.-The head-waters of the Koyukuk river north of the Arctic circle were partially explored by a party under Mr. Schrader in the season of 1899. Between the Koyukuk and the shores of the Arctic ocean there is a little known district into which explo:ation should be extended. It is impracticable that a party loaded with supplies for a season's work should leave Washington and reach the upper Koyukuk sufficiently early in the season to be assured of adequate results with certainty of escape in the autumn, but if supplies be put in by steamer on the Koyukuk during one summer, the men, with light outfits, may proceed by sledge, to the starting point the following winter and be ready to take advantage of favorable conditions of travel in ascending rivers on the ice early in the spring, and in descending them after the ice is broken up. To accomplish this object it is proposed that supplies shall be sent in by steamer during the summer of 1900, to be stored at the mouth of the Allen Kakat river. Whence the proposed route is up the Allen Kakat to the divide by which it heads against streams flowing north to the Arctic ocean, and thence down such a stream to the Arctic and along the coast westward and southward until the party shall be picked up.