NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 163 



November 3. 



The President, Dr. Ruschenberger, in the chair. 

 Twenty- six members present. 



A paper entitled " On new species of NoctuidjE," by Ang. R. 

 Grote, was presented for publication. 



The President read the following extract from a letter written 

 by Prof. Edw. D. Cope, and dated " Camp near Naciraiento, X. M., 

 Oct. 11, 1874 :" "I have been camped for some five weeks in this 

 region with five men, forming one of Lieut. Wheeler's surveying 

 parties. I find much of interest geologicall}-, paleontologically, 

 and archfeologically, and have an agreeable location in a country 

 with good water, timber, and grass, and, I may add, Indians. The 

 latter are Apaches, Utes, and Navajoes, all friendl}'. I find many 

 remarkable ruins of rude stone buildings of an extinct race, with 

 great quantities of broken pottery. I discovered a ruined stone 

 village of twenty-five houses arranged on the edge of a cretaceous 

 sandstone hog-back, from six to twelve feet wide only, and 250 to 

 300 feet perpendicular on one side, and on the other sloping at an 

 angle of 45 to 60, besides other ruins in regions now entirely 

 waterless." 



Dr. F. Y. Haj'den exhibited a series of photographs of ruins 

 similar in character to those spoken of by Prof. Cope. The 

 builders were suj^posed to be the ancestors of the Moquis. 



Wheat and Chess. The specimen of wheat (Ti'iticum) with a, 

 head of cheat (Broimis) apparently'' growing from a joint of the 

 former plant, which had been presented to the Academy at the 

 meeting of Oct. 6, having been referred to Dr. J. Gibbons Hunt 

 for examination, he made the following report: 



After rendering the chaff of both plants transparent, and tinting 

 properly, so as to render every morphological element distinct for 

 study, and after treating the doubtful outgrowth similarly, I pre- 

 sent tlie tliree specimens to the meml)ers for study. 



I will call attention to only a few points of structure in each. In 

 the upper glume of the wheat, on the inside surface against which 

 the grain lies, the cells are large, and are bounded at their ends by 

 cell-walls nearly transverse to the long diameter of the cells. In 

 corresponding cells in cheat the ends of the cells are bounded by 

 oblique lines generally. In the outer or epidermal cells of both 

 plants silica is abundant, the deposit occurring at the ends of the 



