academy op sciences. 119 



Regular Meeting, April 18th, 1870. 

 President in the Chair. 



Donations to the Cabinet : Mr. Carlton presented the skull and 

 jawbone of an Indian dug up near Colusa. Gregory Yale pre- 

 sented, from C. Scott, a fossil oyster from the coal formation on 

 Soledad Creek, near San Diego. Prof. Bolander presented a valu- 

 able collection of American ferns, forwarded by Prof. Eaton, of 

 Yale College. 



Donations to the Library : 



Twenty-one pamphlets on Birds, by G. N. Lawrence, N. Y., (extracts from 

 various journals). Geology of the New Haven Region, J. D. Dana, para. 8vo. 

 15th, 16th and 17th An. Reports of Trustees of the Pub. Library of Boston, 

 1867-9, 8vo. Reale Comitate Geologico d' Italia, Boletino primo, Jan., 1870 

 8vo. Mammalia of Massachusetts, by J. A. Allen, Cambridge, Mass., pam. 

 8vo. Contrib. to Fauna of Gulf Stream at Great Depths, 3d series, Echino- 

 derms, pam. 8vo. (The two last are bulletins of the Mus. Comp. Zool. Camb- 

 ridge, Mass.) 



Dr. Blake read a communication from Captain Hall, the Arctic 

 explorer, asking the Academy to petition Congress in favor of an ap- 

 propriation of $100,000 in aid of his proposed expedition to the open 

 Polar Sea. After some discussion, a motion that the Academy 

 memorialize in favor of the appropriation was adopted. 



Prof. Whitney said Mr. Robert Brown, of Edinburgh, had made 

 a statement that the coal of this State is inferior to that of British 

 Columbia, and that we might expect to depend on that province for 

 our future coal supplies. Mr. Brown had also declared that the 

 coal beds of British Columbia belonged to the true carboniferous for- 

 mation. Prof. Whitney noticed these statements because they had 

 gone the rounds of the press and might have some influence. They 

 were not correct. It would be curious to find that a political line 

 coincided with a geological division. The coal formation described 

 by Mr. Brown was not later than the cretaceous ; and the coals of 

 British Columbia were not superior to those found southward. 



Prof. Whitney also made some remarks on the boundary line be- 

 tween California and Oregon. It has been correctly surveyed and 

 established by order of the Secretary of the Interior, by a party 



