proceedings: anthropological society 139 



untouched field of scientific endeavor. Chaulmoogra oil was taken 

 as an example of a phyto-chemical material upon which a great amount 

 of work for the purpose of determining its structure and constitution 

 had been carried out by the speaker and his associates. 



The 266th meeting of the society, held at the Cosmos Club, 

 December 14, 1916, was devoted to the presentation of motion pic- 

 tures showing the manufacture of steel pipe, sheet tin, and tin plate. 

 These pictures were furnished by the courtesy of the American Sheet 

 Tin and Tin Plate Company of Pittsburgh and were presented by D. 

 M. Buck, Metallurgical Engineer of Pittsburgh. 



The 267th meeting of the society, a joint meeting with the Wash- 

 ington Academy of Sciences, was held at the Cosmos Club, January 11, 

 1917. R. B. Sosman, retiring president of the Chemical Society, pre- 

 sented an address on Some problems of the oxides of iron (this Journal, 

 7:55-73. 1917). 



E. C. McKelvy, Secretary. 



THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS 



At the annual meeting of the Society, held at the University Club, 

 January 18, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year: 

 President, Filbert Roth; Vice-President, William T. Cox; Secretary, 

 R. Y. Stuart; Treasurer, C. R. Tillotson; Executive Council, W. B. 

 Greeley, five years, H. S. Graves, four years, R. C. Bryant, three 

 years, D. T. Mason, two years, Clyde Leavitt, one year. 



R. Y. Stuart, Secretary. 



THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The 505th regular meeting of the Society was held January 16. At 

 this meeting Mr. William H. Babcock presented a paper on Certain 

 pre-Columbian notices of the inhabitants of the Atlantic islands. 



Beginning at the north, the speaker referred to the well known Norse 

 colonization of Iceland in the latter part of the ninth century and to 

 the much earlier establishment of Irish monks at some points of its 

 coast. From numerous Celtic local names Dr. Nansen has argued that 

 there may have been a much greater inland Irish settlement. But per- 

 haps these names should be explained by the fact that there were many 

 Irish and Hebrideans among the early Norse colonists. There are also 

 mentions of "trolls" in the saga of Grettir — and perhaps elsewhere in 

 early Norse writings — as inhabiting hidden places of the mountainous 

 interior. These may possibly preserve the memory of aboriginal sur- 

 vivals from pre-Norse and pre-Irish times, but more probably they 

 merely echo old Norse traditions or are freaks of fancy. 



Farther south, perhaps the oldest record is Plato's Atlantis derived 

 from his ancester Solon, who received it, as we are told, from the Egyp- 

 tian priests of Sais. The speaker related it in slightly condensed form 

 with special heed to anthropologic items, but expressed the opinion that 



