1883.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 187 



August 7. 

 Mr. Charles Morris in the chair. 

 Six }Dersons present. 



August 14. 

 Mr. Charles Morris in the chair, 

 Nine persons present. 



August 21. 

 Mr. Charles Morris in the chair. 

 Six persons present. 



August 28. 

 Mr. Thos. Meehan, Vice-President, in the chair. 

 Fifteen persons present. 



Soine Evidences of Great Modern Geological Changes in 

 Alaska. — Mr. Thomas Meehan exhibited a piece of wood taken 

 from a prostrate tree, in what appeared to have been a sunken 

 forest in Alaska. It was in Hood's Bay, as mnrlced on some 

 charts, on a peninsula formed by the junction of Glacier Bay and 

 Lynn Channel, and facing Cross Sound, in lat. 58° 30'. The 

 arboreal vegetation generally prevailing in this section consists 

 of Abies Sitkensis (A. Menziesii of many botanists) ; Abies Mer- 

 tensiana, the western hemlock spruce ; and Thuja gigantea, 

 called here "cedar" and "white cedar." Thujopsis horealis is 

 said to " abound " in these disti'icts by some authoi's, but Mr. 

 Meehan remarked that though looking for it through man}^ hun- 

 dred miles along the shores of the inland seas in southeastern 

 Alaska, he did not see one specimen. The trees in the forest are 

 of all ages,fcom young seedlings to aged decaying and dead ones. 

 But in sailing into Hood's Bay he noted that the forests all had 

 a comparatively young look — few of the trees appearing over 

 fifty 3^ears old. The shores were high — at the point where he 

 landed not less than fifty feet above tide-water — and the soil was 

 sand, or of glacial production. Across from here to Lynn Channel 

 the distance might be about twelve miles, and, so far as could be 

 judged, the soil and trees across were of the same character; and 



