The Bone Deposit at Cherokee

Last fall while the writer was classifying material for the Cherokee high school museum, Mr. N. Stiles, one of the leading citizens of the town who is interested in geology and history, and who has made an excellent collection of Indian, geological and historical material for the high school museum, suggested to the writer that he thought he knew where there might be a deposit of fossil bones. The writer became interested immediately and accompanied Mr. Stiles to the place in question. After a careful examination it was found that the bones represent a rich deposit of mammalian remains

A Deep Well at Laurens, Pocahontas County

The town of Laurens is located in the northwest corner of Pocahontas County. The surface drift within the county is Wisconsin, while the underlying drifts are probably Kansan and Nebraskan

The Buchanan Interglacial

On the John G. Miller farm, Section 27, Waterloo Township, Black Hawk County, the writer examined very carefully an area which was excavated for fill for grading of the new four-lane highway into west Waterloo. The area through which the new highway was surveyed was very low ground which flooded when Black Hawk Creek, a tributary of the Cedar River, overflowed. Thus, it became necessary to construct a high road bed through this area. To secure material for the grade, a hill about 25 feet in height was entirely leveled. The top of the hill was capped by about six to eight feet of what was undoubtedly Iowan drift. Below the Iowan, there was a deposit of several feet of interglacial material which was unquestionably Buchanan. The term Buchanan was first used by Dr. Samuel Calvin and is still in use to designate the interglacial between the Kansan glacial stage and the Iowan glacial stage. This interval now includes the Yarmouth interglacial stage, the Illinoian glacial stage and the Sangamon interglacial stage

Bibliography of the Loess

A bibliography of the loess area of Iowa

The Address of the President - Science and the Future

We are truly living in a wonderful and fearful period so far as civilization is concerned. Our present social order has changed so rapidly within the last quarter of a century as to cause many writers and students of sociology to become somewhat alarmed as to its future stability. The concept of progress is one of the most profound and germinal ideas at work in our modern age

A Note on A Sink Hole

Most sink holes occur in regions where the underlying rock is dominantly calcareous. They are variously shaped depressions in the surface into which the run-off is carried away as subterranean drainage

Stalactitic-like Deposits Found in a Gravel Pit in Black Hawk County

The icicle-like forms shown in Figure 1 were brought to me as fulgurites. They are not fulgurites nor are they stalactites. Fulgurites are hollow and these icicle-like forms do not show the structure of stalactites

Relation of the Wisconsin Drift to the Iowan Drift as Revealed in Worth County

This paper is the result of an attempt to determine, if possible, the relation of the Wisconsin drift to the Iowan drift, not only along the immediate border of the Wisconsin drift, as outlined in the Iowa State Geological Survey Reports, but within the Wisconsin drift plain itself. A careful and detailed investigation was made along the eastern border of the Wisconsin drift from the northern boundary of Worth County, where the eastern edge of the Wisconsin drift enters the state, as far south as Hardin County. Examination of drift cuts, well logs, and a recently excavated coal shaft, located in Hardin County on the border of the Wisconsin drift, failed to reveal, in any positive way, the presence of Iowan drift beneath Wisconsin drift

Mastodon Humerus

On May 18, children of Elk Run School located a little to the south and east of Waterloo, were taking a nature study trip when one of the boys discovered a large bone partially submerged in the water of Elk Creek, a tributary of the Cedar River. The location of the discovery was in the south east portion of Section 6, Waterloo Township. The bone had evidently been washed from its original place of interment during the recent floods of the Cedar River. The bone is the humerus of a mastodon which roamed this area during interglacial times. The bone, although considerably weathered on the exposed end, was in a fairly good state of preservation; only one of the condyle processes was missing. It is quite evident from the state of the bone that it has been partially exposed, at least one end of it, for some time, as the exposed part was quite brittle and weathered

The Iowan-Wisconsin Border

Workers of the Pleistocene of Iowa must use several criteria for distinguishing the different drift sheets. The working criteria are, (1) surface topography of the drift, (2) distinctive lithological characteristics, (3) degree and depth of leaching and oxidation, (4) distinctive interglacial deposits and, (5) pronounced erosional and weathered zones. It was formerly thought to be quite an easy matter to distinguish one drift sheet from another by means of criteria (1), (2) and (3), with great emphasis upon (1) and (3). Too much emphasis, however, cannot be placed upon the lithological characters, since a careful study of the drift sheets, with the possible exception of the Wisconsin, has revealed a certain consanguinity existing among them