Trans. N. Y. Ac. Sci. 6 Oct. 15, 



resembled very much those which now attend the development of 

 the Sorghum industry. 



The Vice-President, Dr. B. N. Martin, remarked on the intro- 

 duction of the sugar-beet, many years ago, into Massachusetts, by 

 means of seed imported from France. The plant thrived, and the 

 root was rich in sugar ; but the industry met with an insuperable 

 difficulty in the fact that the farmer found the product more valu- 

 able for feeding stock. 



The President stated that he had seen thousands of acres of 

 Sorghum, in Missouri, Kansas, etc., and that we hardly realized 

 the importance of this industry in many parts of the country west 

 of the Mississippi. The cane was liable there to be overtaken by 

 untimely frost, by which the profits of the crop were often lost. 

 The crop there has been thus injured this year to such an extent, 

 that in many places only .syrup can be made from the canes. 

 Sorghum can be successfully cultivated in all the Middle States 

 by a proper mode of planting and choice of varieties. Its product, 

 for a long time, consisted only of a syrup which had a peculiar 

 flavor, earthy, raw, and otfensive at first ; but this has been since 

 removed by improved processes, though the mode of manufacture 

 is somewhat complicated. 



Mrs. E. A. Smith exhibited a series of interesting specimens of 

 siliceous sinter and of siHcified wood from the Yellowstone region. 

 In regard to these, the President explained that similar speci- 

 mens of silicified wood were abundantly found in the Bad Lands. 

 Their geological position is in the Tertiary and near the top of the 

 Cretaceous formation. They are generally of coniferous wood, 

 and represent trees similar to the gigantic Sequoias of California, 

 which, in the Tertiary and Cretaceous ages, formed forests which 

 contained many splendid forms of arborescent vegetation, now 

 extinct, as well as the finest of our living forest trees, and 

 covered all the continent to the Arctic Sea. Floated down the 

 ancient rivers of the country, and buried in the silt which accumu- 

 lated in the bottom of great lakes which once existed there, they 

 were subsequently replaced by silica, particle by particle, so that 

 the structure is often perfectly preserved. In Yellowstone Park 

 is a veritable petrified forest of such trees, successive generations 

 of which were buried under volcanic ashes and mud, like that 

 which covers Pompeii, and were in part silicified standing. 



