color and of medium texture, with feldspar up to 0.3 inches and black silicates to 0.2 inches. As shown by Daly, the color of the freshly-quarried feldspar is a bluish-gray but on exposure this rapidly changes to dark green.* The constituents of the section examined by the writer are, in descending order of abundance (1) dark olive green potash feldspar (orthoclase), minutely and obscurely intergrown with soda-lime feldspar (oligoclase); (2) dark smoky quartz with cavities some in streaks and sheets, and with cracks filled with limonite; (3) hornblende, usually associated with 4; (4) augite; accessory, titanite, magnetite, zircon; secondary, white mica in feldspar, limonite in cleavage and other cracks.

Ow

The stone does not effervesce with cold dilute muriatic acid. ing to the absence of mica, it takes a very high polish, quite as high as that of Quincy granite. Its polished face is much darker than its rough face, but the hammered or cut face is much lighter than either so that lettering or carving stands out boldly on the polished face.

Rochester.-The Pierce Prospect is 3 miles south of Rochester village, the western terminal of the White River Valley railroad, and on the Rochester-Pittsfield town line. The out-crop extends a little ways into the town of Pittsfield in Rutland County. Prospective operator, White River Granite Co. (E. L. Pierce), Rochester, Vt.

The granite is a quartz monzonite of slightly greenish-white color, with conspicuous brilliant muscovite spots up to half an inch in diameter, and of coarse texture, with feldspars to 0.5 inches. The muscovite spots, being aggregates of mica scales, have a peculiar sheen. As they are not over 0.04 inches thick and lie with their flat sides roughly parallel the rock has a somewhat gneissoid texture. Its constituents, in descending order of abundance, are (1) milk-white to slightly greenish soda-lime feldspar (albite to oligoclase-albite), somewhat kaolinized and with thickly disseminated white mica scales up to 0.15 millimeters long, and not a few plates of calcite; (2) clear, colorless to pale bluish quartz, rarely with hair-like crystals of rutile, and with fluidal and other cavities in two rectangular sets of sheets, one with many more cavities than the other; (3) Muscovite in large flakes and aggregates of such.

The stone effervesces with cold dilute muriatic acid and Mr. W. T. Schaller, of the United States Geological Survey, finds that it con

*Daly, R. G. "The Geology of Ascutney Mountain, Vermont." U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 209, 1903, p. 51.

tains 1.38 per cent of CaO (lime) soluble in warm dilute (10 per cent) acetic acid, which indicates a content of 2.46 per cent of CaCO (lime carbonate, calcite), the presence of which mineral is shown by the microscope.

This is a constructional granite of very light, pale greenish gray color with striking contrasts produced by large mica spots, the brilliancy of which on the fresh rift face is almost metallic. Whether its somewhat gneissoid texture and its content of nearly 21⁄2 per cent of calcite are serious obstacles to its constructional use can only be determined by compression tests and continued exposure to the weather.

Although the outcrop is 3 miles from Rochester station, its distance from the nearest point on the railroad is about a mile.

Fossil Cetacea of the Pleistocene of the United States and Canada,

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO

DELPHINAPTERUS VERMONTANUS, Thompson.

G. H. PERKINS.

The Fossil Whale in the State Museum at Montpelier, Vermont, has been for many years one of the most interesting specimens ever discovered in this State. It has for several years seemed to the writer that a more careful study and complete illustration than this specimen has hitherto received is desirable. Soon after this was commenced a request came from Dr. F. W. True of the U. S. National Museum that a series of photographs of the Vermont specimen be taken for the use of the Museum.

This was done and through the courtesy of Dr. True and Dr. Rathburn, Director of the Museum, the author was allowed to use copies of these photographs for illustrating the following paper. Not all, but many of the accompanying plates are from this source.

The author is also indebted to Dr. True for most generously placing at his disposal manuscript material which he had collected referring to the Vermont specimen and also for valuable suggestions and examination of the photographs. Acknowledgements are also due to Mr. Roy C. Andrews of the American Museum of Natural History for important assistance in comparing different fossil bones with those of recent species, to Mr. Harry Piers, Curator of the Provincial Museum, Halifax, N. S., to Dr. J. F. Whiteaves and Mr. L. M. Lambe of the Geological Museum at Ottawa and to Mr. Edward Ardsley, Assistant Curator of the Peter Redpath Museum of McGill University, Montreal, for most freely giving opportunity for examining the specimens in those museums. Through the great kindness of these gentlemen the author has been able to study all the existing specimens of North American Cetacea which have been found in the Pleistocene, excepting only a few scattered bones and the southern species mentioned by Mr. Hay in the reference on page 79.

At the outset the author had no thought of considering other specimens than the nearly complete skeleton at Montpelier, but as his investigations progressed it was found interesting and important to study as many specimens as possible of both recent and fossil cetacea and the results of this work are presented in the following pages.

So far as I am aware only a few isolated cetacean bones have been found in the Pleistocene this side of the Canada line, except those of the Montpelier specimen, but in Canada more or less complete skeletons of several individuals have been found at different times, as will be seen in what follows. All but one of these Canadian specimens have been, I believe, identified with either the Vermont specimen or the recent Delphinapterus leucas. As I have examined the grounds on which these identifications rest most of them seemed to be very uncertain. Anyone who has studied the skeletons of living cetacea to any extent has soon become convinced of the difficulty, which in many cases amounts to impossibility, of satisfactorily determining the specific identity of two skeletons, or parts of them, unless there is opportunity to make direct comparison of the bones. Even then it is not always easy to arrive at certainty. The difficulties arise from the considerable individual variation in the same species and in a greater or less general similarity which is found in skeletons of different species or even genera. Further comments on these identifications will appear later. The following bibliography of the genus Delphinapterus, taken mostly from Bulletin 179, U. S. Geol. Survey, by Mr. O. P. Hay, although made out for the genus named, yet includes most of the Pleistocene Cetaceans which have been found in North America, at least as far as the author has been able to ascertain:

1. Delphinus vermontana Z. Thompson, Am. Jour. Science, 2d Series, Vol. IX, pp. 256-263, 1850.

2. Beluga vermontana Z. Thompson, Appendix, Thompson's Vermont, pp. 15-20, figs. 1-13, 1853.

3. Beluga vermontana Thomp. C. H. Hitchcock, Geology of Vermont, Vol. I, pp. 162–165, 1861.

4. Beluga vermontana Thomp. A. D. Hager, Geology of Vermont, Vol. II, p. 938, fig. 340.

5. Beluga vermontana Thomp. W. E. Logan, Superficial Geology of Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, p. 919, 1863.

6. Beluga vermontana Thomp. E. D. Cope, Proceedings Acad. Nat. Science, Philadelphia, pp. 138-156, 1867.

7. Beluga vermontana Thomp. J. Leidy, Journal Acad. Nat. Science, Phil. 2 VII, pp. 1-472, 1869.

8. Beluga vermontana Thomp. E. Billings, Canadian Naturalist and Quar. Journal of Science, Vol. V, pp. 438–439, 1870.

9. Beluga vermontana Thomp. E. D. Cope, Am. Naturalist, Vol. V, p. 125, 1871.

10. Beluga vermontana Thomp. J. F. Brandt, Memoirs, Imp. Acad. Science, St. Petersburg, Vol. XX, no. 1, pp. I-VIII, 1–372, Plates 1-24, 1873.

11. Beluga vermontana Thomp. B. Gilpin, Nova Scotia Institute of Nat. Science, Vol. II, pp. 400-404, 1873.

12. Beluga vermontana Thomp. D. Honeyman, Am. Jour. Sci., 3d Ser. Vol. VI, p. 597, 1874, also Vol. VIII, p. 219, 1874.

13. Beluga vermontana Thomp. J. W. Dawson, Acadian Geology, Supp. p. 28, 1878.

14. Beluga vermontana Thomp. J. W. Dawson, Am. Jour. Sci. 3d Ser., Vol. XXV, p. 200, 1883.

15. Delphinapterus vermontana Thomp. E. D. Cope, American Naturalist, Vol. XXIV, p. 616, 1890.

16. Delphinapterus leucas Gray. J. D. Dana, Manual of Geology, fourth ed., p. 983, fig. 1561, 1896.

catodon Dawson. Canadian

17. Delphinapterus (Beluga) Record of Science, Vol. VI, p. 351, 1896.

18. Delphinapterus vermontana Truessart Catalogue, Mammalium, Vol. II, p. 1,951, Supp. p. 771, 1898.

19. Delphinapterus vermontana Whiteaves, Ottawa Naturalist, Vol. XX, pp. 214–216, 1907.

From information given in the foregoing references, and still more from personal inspection of specimens in the several museums in which they have been placed we learn that there are in existence the following specimens of Pleistocene Cetacea. Probably there are others represented by scattered bones concerning which the author has not heard.