Molluscan Fauna of Michigan: MR. BRYANT WALKER. 16. Distoma Patalosum; A Parasite of the Crayfish: MR. C. H. LANDER. 17. Bacteria and the Dairy: PROF. C. D. SMITH. 18. Tendencies in Michigan Horticulture: MR. A. A. CROZIER. 19. Futile Experiments for the Improvement of Agriculture: DR. MANLY MILES. THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. PROFESSOR DANIEL G. BRINTON is giving a course of six lectures, entitled A Survey of the Science of Man, on Mondays, January 28, February 4, 11, 18, 25, and March 4, 1895, in the Lecture Hall of the Academy. The lectures are: 1. The Physical Faculties of Man. 2. The Mental Faculties of Man. 3. The Social Faculties of Man 4. The Artistic Faculties of Man 5. The Religious Faculties of Man. 6. The Progress of the Race. GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. FEB. 13. Discussion of Field Methods: (1) How do you determine the Thickness of Strata? Symposium opened by MR. G. K. GILBERT. General discussion is invited. Rapid Section Work in Horizontal Rocks: MR. M. R. CAMPBELL. Newly Discovered Dyke near Syracuse, N. Y.: MESSRS. N. H. DARTON AND J. F. KEMP. WHITMAN CROSS, Secretary. PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. FEB. 16. Biographical Sketch of James Clarke Welling: MR. J. HOWARD GORE. Biographical Sketch of Robert Stanton Avery: MR. L. D. SHIDY. The Central American Rainfall: MR. MARK W. HARRINGTON. WILLIAM C. WINLOCK, Secretary. FORTNIGHTLY SCIENTIFIC CLUB IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA. Jan. 19, 1895. The Vivisection of Plants: MR. D. T. MACDOUGAL. Is Man Woman's Equal? The Zoologist's answer and some of its consequences: PROFESSOR H. F. NACHTRIEB. Feb. 2, 1895. The Departure of the Ice Sheet from Lake Su- The Detection of Star Motions in the Line of The Constitution of Matter: DR. G. B. FRANK FORTER. SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. THE AMERICAN NATURALIST, FEB. The Philosophy of Flower Seasons, and the Phænological Relations of the Entomophilous Flora and the Anthophilous Insect Fauna: (Illustrated.) CHARLES ROBERTSON. Insanity in Royal Families; A Study in Heredity: ALICE BODINGTON. The Significance of Anomalies: of Anomalies: THOMAS DWIGHT, M. D., LL. D. Editor's Table; Recent Literature; Recent Books and Pamphlets. General Notes; Geography and Travels; Mineralogy; Petrography; Geology; Botany; Zoology; Entomology; Embryology; Archeology and Ethnology; Microscopy: On a New Method of Entrapping, Killing, Embedding and Orienting Infusoria and other very small Objects for the Microtome. (Illustrated.) Biographical Sketch of Garrick Mallery: MR. Proceedings of Scientific Societies; Scientific THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, FEB. A Modified Arrangement of the Elements Under The Oxidation of Organic Matter and the Decomposition of Ammonium Salts by Aqua Regia, in Lieu of Ignition, in the Determination of Potash in Fertilizers: RUDOLPH DE ROODE. On Certain Phenomena Observed in the Pre- The Determination of Nickel in Nickel-Steel : The Contribution of Chemistry to the Methods of Preventing and Extinguishing Conflagration: THOMAS H. NORTON. The Action of Organic and Mineral Acids Upon Soils: HARRY SNYDER. New Books. THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY, JAN.-FEB. The Basic Massive Rocks of the Lake Superior A Petrographical Sketch of Egina and Methana. On Clinton Conglomerates and Wave Marks in Studies for Students: Agencies which Transport Materials on the Earth's Surface: ROLLIN D. SALISBURY. Editorials; Publications; Notes. MAR 29 1895 SCIENCE. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: S. NEWCOMB, Mathematics; R. S. WOODWARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, As- J. S. BILLINGS, Hygiene; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology; The one of these is that which I read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in August last, published in the American Anthropologist for October, entitled Variations of the Human Skeleton and their Causes; the other was the Shattuck Lecture, delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society by Dr. Thomas Dwight, Professor of Anatomy at Harvard University, with the title, the Range and Significance of Variation in the Human Skeleton. The two papers, although drawing their material from wholly independent sources, and reasoning along different lines, reach quite the same conclusion, to wit: That variations, which in the human skeleton resemble forms in lower animals, are not to be interpreted as 'reversions' or 'atavistic retrogressions,' but that other laws should be invoked to account for them, such as nutrition, mechanical action, etc. Dr. Dwight adds the following significant words: "The opinion is growing daily stronger among serious scholars that if man's body came from a lower form it was not by a long process of minute modifications, but by some sudden, or comparatively sudden transition." This is the opinion which, under the name heterogenesis, I have defended for many years (see my Races and Peoples, pp. 80, 81). It has lately received strong support from some of Bateson's admirable studies in variation. THE ANTIQUITY OF MESOPOTAMIAN CULTURE. AT a recent meeting of the Oriental Club of Philadelphia, Dr. J. P. Peters, whose researches among the ruins of the valley of the Euphrates are well known, mentioned his observations on the deposition of alluvium by the river as a chronometer for measuring the antiquity of some ruin-mounds. The deposits from the known date of Alexander's conquests display marked uniformity; and taking the depths of these as a standard, the foundations of Ur (the Ur of the Chaldees' of Genesis, the modern Muchair) and of Erichu (the modern Abu-Shahrein) must have been laid about seven thousand years B. C. This venerable antiquity, however, appears quite modern compared to that assigned the same culture in some calculations laid before the Académie des Inscriptions by M. Oppert last summer. They had reference to the established beginnings of the Sothiac cycle and the Chaldean Saros, or recurrent cycles of eclipses. His argument was that the former dated from an observation of the cosmical rising of Sirius visible to the naked eye. This could occur only at an eclipse of the sun at its rising; and this he figured was upon a Thursday, August 29, in the year 11,542 before Christ! And as it was visible only south of latitude 26°, the locality of the observation he fixes for various reasons at the island of Tylos, the modern Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf. Truly, this is a tour de maître in archæology which makes one dizzy! DIVISIONS OF THE STONE AGE. A USEFUL broadside, about twenty inches square, presenting succinctly the subdivisions of the Stone Age, was published last year by M. Philippe Salmon in the Bulletin de la Société Dauphinoise d' Archæologie et d' Ethnologie. The three periods it presents are the palæolithic, the mesolithic and the neolithic. These are subdivided into epochs, six in all, each characterized by the products of definite stations, peculiar industries, climate and fauna. As a synopsis of the accepted data, from the best French authorities, the scheme merits high praise. The position of the mesolithic division takes the place of the 'hiatus,' which figures in the works of Mortillet and others as an unexplained time of transition between the rough and polished stone ages. Salmon, however, claims that no such gap exists. He quotes, for instance, the station of Campigny, near the lower Seine, and Spiennes, in Belgium, as proofs that the peoples and the culture of the earlier and ruder epochs progressed steadily, without important breaks, up to the full bloom of the neolithic generations. The importance of such a generalization, if it could be established, would be great; for, working back from historic to pre-historic times, there is no doubt but that the neolithic nations of central and western Europe were of Aryan speech, and Salmon's argument would carry this mighty stock in lineal line to the preglacial fishermen in the valley of the Somme. THE TEACHING OF ANTHROPOLOGY. In a little pamphlet which I published in 1892, entitled 'Anthropology as a Science and as a Branch of University Education,' a plan was suggested by which this science could be introduced into our universities as one of the optional branches for the doctorate of philosophy, and its importance as a department of the higher education was emphasized. The subject has been taken up lately in Germany with gratifying interest. In the 'Globus' for October, 1894, Professor Friedrich Müller, of Vienna, warmly advocates that a chair representing anthropology should be recognized as a proper addition to the faculty of a great university; and a few weeks later, in the same journal, the question was discussed by Dr. Rudolf Martin, of the University of Zurich. The latter agrees that anthropology properly takes its place in the faculty of philosophy; but his division of the science is open to doubt. He would class all its branches under two groups: those relating to, 1. physical anthropology; and, 2. psychical anthropology, or 'ethnology.' Under the latter, he includes pre-historic archæology; and not seeing very clearly where in such a scheme ethnography would come in, he takes the short cut of leaving it out altogether! This is a serious omission, as in many respects descriptive racial and tribal anthropology alone offers the indispensable raw material on which to build up a true science of man. His opinon, that at least two instructors, one for the physical and one for the psychical side, are desirable, will, of course, commend itself; but each should at the same time be well versed in the side which he does not teach. GUATEMALAN ANTIQUITIES. UNDER the sensational title 'An American Herculaneum,' a writer, M. X. West, in La Nature,' November 3, describes the site of an ancient city, three kilometers from Santiago Amatitlan, Guatemala. His story is that at a depth of five or six meters, under a mass of volcanic cinders and tufa thrown out by some sudden eruption, there have recently been discovered the remains of a village with all the appurtenances of its daily life, finely decorated pottery, stone implements and images, the foundations of its buildings, and blocks bearing inscriptions in unknown characters. More astonishing is the statement that along with these were cups of graceful shape of glass, sometimes colored. This casts serious doubt on the whole narrative, unless voclanic glass,' i. e., obsidian, is intended, as nowhere on the American continent had glass-making been discovered by the natives; and, indeed, it is very doubtful if at any point they had reached the art of glazing pottery. At the Madrid Exposition, in 1892, the Lake of Amatitlan figured as the locality where an extraordinary seal, Egyptian in appearance, and some other probable frauds were found. No doubt it was the center of a high native culture, that of the Zutuhils, a Mayan tribe; and there seems to be also some modern adepts at present in the vicinity, whose skill should admonish the collector to be wary in investing in articles of that provenance. AN EXCELLENT INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOGEOGRAPHY. THE various relations which his geograpical surroundings bear to man in his personal, social and national life constitute the almost new science of 'anthropo-geography,' to which Professor Ratzel, of Leipzig, has lately contributed standard work. In this country it has received little attention from educators since the time of Professor Guyot, whose 'Earth and Man' was creditable for its period. The more modern opinions and results have been admirably summed up in a little volume written by Professor Spencer Trotter, of Swarthmore College, under the title Lessons in the New Geography' (Boston, D. C. Heath and Co., 1895). In the compass of 182 pages the author presents, in succinct language, suitable to the student and the general reader, the relations which have existed between the distribution of land and water, the climates of the various zones and the plants and animals which they produce, to the life and development of the human species. He then proceeds to define the recognized types or races of men, and to point out their distribution when they first became known. The book closes with observations on commerce and the progress of discovery, and various tables of statistical information. Whether as a text-book in schools and colleges, or as a trustworthy and lucid exposi |