2 Bulletin Wisconsin Natural History Society. [Vol. 9, Nos. 1-2. 



Milwaukee, October 27, 1910. 



Regular meeting- of the Society. 



President Barth in the chair. 28 people present. 



Minutes of the last regular meeting read and approved. 



The name of Mr. Frank E. Tobin, Public Museum, was presented 

 for active membership; Mr. Tobin was subsequently elected by the 

 Board of Directors. 



Dr. S. Graenicher gave the evening's lecture on Some Biological 

 Observations made on a Recent Museum's Collecting Expedition to the 

 Mississippi River. Dr. Graenicher confined his observations to two 

 topics : snakes and mollusks. Various types of snakes found in Wis- 

 consin were correlated to the regions in which they are usually met 

 with. Rattlesnakes, blow-adders, blue racers, and black snakes were 

 those chiefly illustrated. A series of specimens of mollusks, all from 

 the Mississippi basin, served the lecturer in a consideration of their 

 distribution and their adaptation as aquatic animals to their habitat. 

 About 18 species of mollusks and a number of lantern slides were 

 shown in the course of the lecture. 



A brief discussion followed, in which Messrs. Burrill and Colles 

 and Dr. Graenicher participated. 



Upon motion the meeting then adjourned. 



Milwaukee, November 10, 1910. 



Regular meeting of the Society. 



President Barth in the chair. 21 people present. 



Minutes of the last section meeting read and approved. 



Dr. R. E. W. Sommer gave the evening's lecture on Chemical 

 Fakes. Dr. Sommer stated that the temptation for chemical faking 

 lays in the ignorance of the general public as to chemical elements 

 and properties. This ignorance has at all times been preyed upon 

 by fakers. The characteristic feature of the Greek and Roman eras 

 is a disinclination to experiment; it is only thereby that we can 

 account for the general acceptance of Aristotle's superficial dogma- 

 tisms, which later on gave rise to the alchemistic humbug of the 

 middle ages. As interesting examples, Plutarch's and Livy's account 

 of crude vinegar as a solvent of rock as supposedly used by Hannibal 

 when crossing the Alps, and Pliny's tale of pearls dissolved in vine- 

 gar by Cleopatra, may be referred to. 



