clxxxiv 



On motion, the committee was instructed to procure labels to 

 place on the books of the Academy. 



Exchanges were laid on the table by the Corresponding Secre- 

 tary, who called especial attention to the Geological Survey of 

 Ohio, and gave an interesting resume of Professor Newberry's 

 views on glacial phenomena, as well as those of Mr. Croll in his 

 late work on "Climate and Time." 



The salient points were that the large lakes of North America 

 had their basins excavated by the glaciers ; that glacial action 

 appears in Ohio as low down as the 40th degree of latitude, and 

 that the alternations of glacial and interglacial periods were due 

 to the eccentricity of the earth's orbit in conjunction with the 

 winter solstice occurring in aphelion, and thus causing a longer 

 period of intense cold and accumulations of glacial ice, and, at 

 the same time, producing a change in the level of the sea in con- 

 sequence of the greater accumulation of ice and snow at times in 

 the polar regions, having the effect to change the direction of the 

 Gulf Stream and ocean currents, and to transfer large masses of 

 water from one hemisphere to the other in the form of glacial ice, 

 with a consequent change in the centre of gravity of the earth. 



Dr. Engelmann presented, on behalf of Dr. Boisliniere, male 

 aments of the bread-fruit tree (Artocarftus) candied in the man- 

 ner used as sweetmeats ; also a humming-bird nest from Guada- 

 loupe. 



Mr. Riley presented, from the author, Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, 

 of Cambridge, Mass., a work on Fossil Butterflies, the first 

 memoir of the American Association for the advancement of 

 Science. 



A skull, supposed to be of great antiquity, found in a mound 

 at Fenton, Mo., was exhibited to the Academy by Messrs. F. E. 

 Roesler and F.J. Soldan. 



Mr. Gage gave an interesting account of an ancient stone-wall 

 in Mississippi, near Natchez, presumed, from such examinations 

 as have been made, to inclose a territory embracing about 400 

 square miles. He remarked : 



In the summer of 1S70 mv attention was called to the existence of an an- 

 cient wall cropping out at different points in Claiborne County, 18 miles 

 east of Port Gibson, in the State of Mississippi. Blocks of the stone have 

 been taken by the farmers for building purposes for many years, and it has 

 formed a general quarry for furnishing large blocks of stone for laying 



