214 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADMM i OF SCIENCES 



Professor Kemp called attention to Mr. Gilbert's experimental work 

 on the forms of wounds that can be made by impact of clay pellets 

 against a clay background. 



Recent discoveries of shell remains buried beneath the drift of Lower 

 .Manhattan Island were noted by Professor J. F. Kemp. 



At the close of this scientific programme the required business of the 

 Section was taken up. 



Dr. Hovey nominated and Professor Kemp seconded Professor J. E. 

 Woodman, of New York University, as chairman of the Section and 

 Vice-President of the Academy. After the casting of the ballot of the 

 Section, Professor Woodman was declared the nominee to be recom- 

 mended to the Council. 



Dr. C. P. Berkey was nominated and elected Secretary of the Section. 



Summary of Paper. 



Dr. Kunz described the finds of opal and the characteristics of the 

 gem and showed cut specimens. He said in abstract : For the past 

 twenty-five years, there have been found over quite a region at the 

 juncture of southwest Idaho, southeast Oregon and northern Nevada 

 small specimens of opal as float in various parts of the region. Opals 

 from Drewsey, Oregon, have been described by the writer and also 

 specimens from Washington State, the opal being found quite a dis- 

 lance to the north. In 1889, there was sent to New York a specimen of 

 opal one inch long, half an inch wide and one-quarter of an inch thick 

 t bat was good fire opal : a drift pebble, either out of some gravels or a 

 river bed. The color was excellent and quite equal to the pale yellow fire 

 opal from Queretaro, Mexico. 



About three years ago, some specimens of opal were found in northern 

 Nevada, at a point west of the Santa Rosa Mountains. This was of 

 what is known as the fire-opal variety, not precious opal such as was 

 found in Washington State; indeed, it rather resembled certain types of 

 the Mexican opal from the State of Queretaro. Of these Nevada opals, 

 some represent the absolutely transparent, pellucid type, either with 

 large flames of color, or else with a smaller harlequin flaking. These 

 change perceptibly into pale yellow, yellow brown, brown, and sometimes 

 they are only sub-translucent but with a great play of color which changes 

 finally into black. A number of shades include a black, strongly re- 

 sembling the hue of certain types of crude petroleum, or that of the 

 darker types of Burman or Roumanian amber. 



More recently, another locality has been found eight miles from that 



