Mr. Darton described the opening up of this new boss of peridotite in the building of a reservoir. The wall rock is Salina shales, and the geological section of that part of the state was outlined in explanation. J. F. Kemp described the rock as a very fresh peridotite as these rocks go, with perfectly unaltered olivines and a ground mass of small augite crystals, with what was probably originally glass. Gabbroitic segregations were also mentioned containing feldspar. The interest of the rock lies in the fact that it gives much fresher material than that described by Dr. G. H. Williams from Syracuse, in which the larger original minerals were represented only by alteration products. No perofskite or melilite could be found in the Dewitt material.

Professor B. K. Emerson exhibited remarkable pseudomorphs of olivine from a rediscovered though long lost mineral locality in Massachusetts, and corundum with interesting enclosures.

The section then adjourned with the intention of having an exhibition of rock sections the following morning in the same place.

A goodly audience greeted President Chamberlin at 7:30 in the evening for the annual presidential address, the subject being Recent Glacial Studies in Greenland. The speaker brought out the distribution of the ice sheet over Greenland, described his observations at Disko Bay and elsewhere and his final location at Lieut. Peary's station, Inglefield Gulf. Many peculiar features of Greenland glaciers were brought out, such as their rampart-like terminal cliffs, their general foliation or banding and enclosed debris, their causeways of morainic material, etc. The glaciation is thought to be now near its maximum extent because just beyond the ice are unglaciated areas and jagged islands that have never been covered. A large series of lantern views followed and brought out still more forcibly

the points of the address. President Chamberlin was listened to with close attention during the two hours occupied, and all thoroughly enjoyed the lecture, but it is nevertheless true that an hour and a quarter, or at most an hour and a half, is about as long as a speaker can wisely keep a general audience.

The Society reassembled in the geological laboratory about ten o'clock for the annual supper. After an excellent ménu had been cared for, Professor B. K. Emerson was chosen toastmaster, and by his characteristic sallies, in which he was ably aided by several speakers, resolved his hearers into intermittently active spiracles of mirth upon the lava stream of his wit.

When the Society reassembled on Saturday morning the first paper read was 38. The Marginal Development of the Miocene in Eastern New Jersey. WM. B. CLARK, Baltimore, Md.

The deposits which characterize the marginal phase of New Jersey Miocene in Monmouth and Ocean counties were especially discussed. The gravels, sands and clays were considered and their relations shown, together with the occurrence of glauconite in certain areas. The connection of the strata in the northern counties with the highly fossiliferous beds in South Jersey was explained. The paper was discussed by N. H. Darton bringing out some slight divergence of views on the classification of the deposits, in that the discovery of fossils by W. B. Clark had somewhat revised the earlier stratigraphic work.

39. Sedimentary Geology of the Baltimore Region. N. H. DARTON, Washington, D. C. An account of the local geology of Mesozoic and Cenozoic formations and some statements regarding certain unsolved problems in coastal plain geology, illustrated by maps and sections. The sections which passed through the crystallines of the Piedmont plateau and the city of Baltimore

brought out admirably the relations of the later sediments to the older protaxis. 40. The Surface Formations of Southern New Jersey. Ill.

ROLLIN D. SALISBURY, Chicago,

The surface formations of southern New Jersey, which have often been grouped together under the names, 'Yellow Gravel' and Columbia,' are believed to be divisible into five formations, the oldest of which greatly antedates the glacial period. The several formations are unconformable on each other and are believed to have been widely separated in time of origin. These formations were called the (1) Beacon Hill, (2) Canasaucon (the spelling may be wrong), (3) Jamesburg, (4) Trenton and the (5) Keyport. It is impossible as yet to say which are Columbia and which not, but (2) is probably Pleistocene, and formed during ice action on the north. Nothing later than (3) is Columbia. The paper was discussed by Warren' Upham.

41. New Forms of Marine Algæ from the Trenton Limestone, with Observations on Buthograptus laxus, Hall. R. P. WHITFIELD, New York. (The paper was read by E. O. HOVEY.)

Certain fossils from Platteville, Wis., referred years ago by Hall with doubt to the graptotiles, were shown to be really articulated, marine algæ, and referable to several species. True corallines from the same horizon at Middleville were also described which are much older than any hitherto mentioned members of this group of plants. 42. On the Honeycombed Limestones in the Bottom of Lake Huron. ROBERT BELL, Ottawa, Canada. (Read by H. M. AMI.)

The Limestones over a certain region in the bottom of Lake Huron are extensively eroded in a peculiar manner which the writer calls honeycombing and pitting. He described this condition, the area within which it is found, the depth of the water and other conditions most favorable to its pro

duction and then attempted to account for its origin, enumerating various possible causes which might suggest themselves, and giving the most probable one, namely, a differential solubility of the rock in the presence of slightly acidulated water. Reasons in support of this view were stated. The geological ages and the lithological characters of the various limestones attacked were mentioned in trying to arrive at the conditions which produce the phenomena described. The localization of this form of erosion may be attributed to a slight acidity of the water in that part of Lake Huron, and reasons are given for believing that an acid condition. actually exists. In addition to the considerations due to the structure and composition of the rock lying at the bottom of such water, certain external conditions were mentioned as favoring the honeycombing process, which appears to be still in active progress. Examples were given of somewhat similar erosion elsewhere, but the typical honeycombing here described appears to be confined to Lake Huron. The paper was illustrated by specimens and photographs. 43. On the Quartz-keratophyre and its. Associated Rocks of the Baraboo Bluffs, Wisconsin. SAMUEL WEIDMAN. (Read by J. P. IDDINGS.)

In the vicinity of Baraboo, Wisconsin, occur acid porphyritic rocks which correspond chemically with quartz-keratophyres. They exhibit under the microscope fluxion, spherulitic, poicilitic, and other structures of volcanic rocks, and are associated with volcanic breccias which show them to have their origin in a surface flow. They are of Pre-Cambrian age, since they rest upon the upper Huronian quartzite and are overlaid by the Potsdam sandstone and conglomerate. In some portions of the area they have been completely changed to finely foliated sericite schists through the orographic movement which elevated the quartzites to form the Bluffs.

44. The Characteristic Features of the California Gold Quartz Veins. WALDEMAR LINDGREN, Washington, D. C.

The writer described the extent and associations of the veins, bringing out the fact that they are in all manner of wall rocks, although especially in the auriferous slates. They were shown to be true fissure veins that cut the walls at all angles, although mostly along the strike. Direct issue was taken with the view that they are replacements of limestone or related rock, for it was shown that while the veins are siliceous and filled with quartz, the wall rocks have very generally suffered carbonatization. Finally the source of the gold was placed in deep seated regions, whence it had been brought by uprising solutions.

On the conclusion of the paper, the customary votes of thanks were passed to the local committee, to the Johns Hopkins University and to others whose efforts had made the session a success. The next place of meeting, a year hence, has not been settled. On the whole, the meeting was the best attended and most interesting and successful yet held. J. F. KEMP. COLUMBIA COLLEGE.

THE BALTIMORE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN MORPHOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

THE Society met on Thursday morning in the lecture room of the Chemical Building and again upon Friday afternoon, adjourning for the intermediate sessions of the Society of Naturalists. In the absence of Professor C. O. Whitman, President of the Society, Professor W. B. Scott, of Princeton, Vice-President, took the chair. Among those present at these sessions besides those who presented papers were Alpheus Hyatt, Edward S. Morse, Edward D. Cope, Samuel F. Clarke, C. F. Herrick, Henry F. Osborn, E. A. Andrews, W. H. Dall.

The officers elected for the year 1895 were:

President-Professor Edmund B. Wilson, Columbia College.

Vice-President-Professor W. B. Scott, Princeton College.

Secretary and Treasurer, Dr. G. H. Parker, of Harvard University.

The following are abstracts of the papers presented:

Dr. C. W. Stiles, of the U. S. Agricultural Bureau, presented the first paper upon Larval Stages of an Anoplocephaline Cestode and exhibited specimens of Distoma (Polyorchis) molle (Leidy, '56), S. & H., '94; of Dioctophyme gigas, Rud., and of Distoma tricolor, S & H. Five hundred of the last named species are ready for distribution as exchanges to college zoölogists.

Professor William A. Locy, of Lake Forest University, presented the first paper on Primitive Metamerism in Selachians, Amphibia and Birds. It has been generally assumed that the metameric divisions of the Vertebrates depend primarily on the middle germ-layer, and that whenever they appear in the ectoderm they are secondarily moulded over the mesodermic segments. This proposition is not supported by these observations. We find in very young embryos of amphibians and birds, primitive metameric divisions which effect the entire epiblastic folds and in Selachians extend also out into the germ-ring. They are present before any protovertebræ are formed and are most clearly marked in the border regions. These segments become later coincident with the so-called neuromeres, but it is to be noted that they are by no means confined to the neural tube. The timehonored designation 'metamerism of the head' should be interpreted as meaning regional metamerism not as a different form of segmentation from that which affects the trunk region. This paper was discussed and the accuracy of the author's observations was questioned because of the conspicuous character which he assigned to

certain surface markings never observed by others. The opportunity given for examining the specimens, however, proved that the markings could be faintly seen as described by the author.

Dr. Locy's second paper was a Note on the Homologies of the Pineal Sense-Organ. The basis for determining homologies of the two epiphysial outgrowths of Petromyzon, Teleosts and Lacertilia has been furnished by recent publications by Studnicka, Hill and Klinckowström. Basing a comparison upon innervation and also upon the history of the vesicles, we may regard the upper epiphysial vesicle in Petromyzon as corresponding to the epiphysis of Teleosts and Lacertilia, and the lower epiphysial vesicle as equivalent to the anterior vesicle of Hill (which early absorbs) in the teleosts, and to the pineal eye in the Lacertilia.

Under the title: The Quadrille of the Centrosomes in the Echinoderm egg; a second contribution to biological mythology, Professor E. B. Wilson, of Columbia, presented the somewhat surprising results of his renewed investigation of the phenomena of fertilization in the eggs of the sea-urchin. Rabl had predicted in 1889 that the union of the germ-cells would be found to involve a conjugation of centrosomes or archoplasmic elements in addition to the well-known conjugation of nuclear elements. Fol's celebrated paper on the Quadrille of the Centrosomes in 1891 was apparently a triumphant fulfillment of the prediction, and, having been immediately and universally accepted, exercised an important influence on the current theories of inheritance. A prolonged research upon the eggs of Toxopneustes variegatus shows, with a high degree of certainty, that Fol's results were based on material prepared by defective methods; that his account of the origin of the archoplasm is fundamentally erroneous; that no 'Quadrille' occurs in the American species at least, and that his account of it is largely mythical.

Results essentially similar and fully corroborating the above have been reached in the Columbia Laboratory by Mr. A. P. Mathews in the eggs of Arbacia and Asterias. In all these cases the egg-centrosome and archoplasm degenerate and completely disappear after formation of the second polar body, and, therefore, do not play any part in the fertilization. The sperm-archoplasm is derived not from the tip of sperm but from the middle-piece (as in the earth-worm and in the axolotl) and by division gives rise directly to the amphiaster of the first cleavage without any participation of an egg-centre or egg-archoplasm. All the stages in the fertilization process of Toxopneustes were exhibited by the author in photographs taken with an enlargement of one thousand diameters with the coöperation of Dr. Edward Leaming, of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. These photographs illustrated furthermore the effect upon the egg of various reagents, a considerable number of which have been carefully tested. Fol's picro-osmic mixture was shown to be very defective, causing more or less marked disorganization of the archoplasmic structures and producing various artefacts. The 'centers' (centrosomes) of Fol were unquestionably such artefacts, produced by the shrinking and clotting together of the archoplasmic recticulum. In properly preserved material (sublimate-acetic, Flemming's fluid, etc.,) the archoplasm-masses ('astrospheres') consist of a uniform reticulum and contain no centrosomes.

In a second paper on the 'Polarity of the Egg in Toxopneustes' Professor Wilson described the results of his observations on the paths of the pronuclei in the transparent living egg. The very unexpected result was reached that in this case the ultimate vertical axis of the egg (egg-axis' proper) does not necessarily coincide with the polar axis but may form any angle with it; but the plane of first cleavage is nevertheless

always nearly through the entrance-point of the sperm. Regarding the former point there is a possible source of error in that the excentric egg-nucleus may wander from its original position (near the polar bodies), so that the diameter passing through it no longer represents the egg-axis. (This cannot be determined from the polar bodies, since they quickly become detached from the egg). Many facts indicate, however, that such wandering does not occur. If it does not, then the polarity of the egg is not primordial but induced, and one of the most fundamental characteristics of the egg is thus brought into the category of epigenetic phenomena.

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Professor Charles S. Minot, of the Harvard Medical School, presented a paper upon The Olfactory Lobe. He showed that of eleven layers of cells in the olfactory lobe only the inner two layers belong to the cerebral cortex proper, proving that the olfactory lobe is a ganglion structure belonging to the sensory ganglion series with certain great secondary modifications. This is further supported by the fact that the lobe primarily connects with the brain at a point topographically similar with a point midway between the dorsal zone' and the ventral zone' of His. In a second paper Professor Minot pointed out as a Fundamental Difference Between Animals and Plants, of value principally in teaching, that while animals feed typically upon solids, plants always procure their food in a gaseous or liquid form. This paper was discussed by Dr. Locy, Dr. Humphries and several other botanists and zoölogists present, the point being raised that plants manufacture their own food and that when plant assimilation really begins it is practically analgous to that of animals, as it consists in the taking up of solid particles.

Dr. Arnold Graf, of Columbia, presented the next paper upon The Origin of the Pigment and the Causes of the Presence of Patterns

in Leeches. The pigment originates in the excretophores. These are wandering cells which pick up excretory substances from the walls of the capillaries; one part of the cells wanders to the funnels of the nephridium and thus delivers their contents into the nephridium, while another part of the excretophores wanders under the skin emerging along the lines of least resistance, which lie between the muscle bundles. The color patterns of the leeches vary, therefore, according to the arrangement of the musculature. In Nephelis the longitudinal musculature is developed most strongly and consequently the pattern consists in longitudinal stripes. Clepsine has as a consequence of its parasitical mode of life a strongly developed dorso-ventral musculature and therefore the pattern consists in spots, the longitudinal stripes having been interrupted and broken up by the transverse and oblique muscle bundles. The bearing of these facts is very important. The color pattern of the leeches is not in itself adaptive; it is entirely incidental and secondary to the musculature which is essentially adaptive. A change in the musculature would result in a change in the superficial color pattern. This shows how a very striking superficial character may originate without any adaptive significance and as a secondary inheritance.

The following paper by Professor H. T. Fernald, of Central College of Pennsylvania, was entitled Homoplasy as a Factor in Morphology. A review of zoological literature in the past ten years shows that in every group of animals beginning with the sponges and extending up to the highest vertebrates the phenomenon of parallel or homoplastic development is becoming increasingly apparent. Numbers of cases were cited from all classes of animals showing that identical structures, produced independently in different phyla, are extremely numerous.. The paper was discussed by Professors Hyatt,