398 NATURAL SCIENCE. May, 



advancement of their working field. Another paper of value in this number is that 

 of the Rev. W. B. Ritchie, on "The First Thirty Years of Schools and School- 

 masters in British Guiana." The Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Anti- 

 qnarian Field Club, for 1893, has been issued. Mr. Mansel-Pleydell's Presidential 

 Address deals chiefly with the geological distribution of plants, and forms a useful 

 synopsis of the subject. Mr. S. S. Buckman discusses the Inferior Oolite and its 

 subdivision into zones ; while the President adds a further note on the Dewlish 

 " Elephant Bed," with photographic illustrations. The Rev. O. P. Cambridge con- 

 tinues his valuable reports on new and rare British spiders, and the Rev. R. P. 

 Murray gives a coloured illustration of his new bramble, Riibus durotrigum, described 

 two years ago in the Journal of Botany. The other papers are of archaeological 

 interest. The Royal Society of South Australia has issued the second part of vol. 

 xvii. of its Transactions. The papers are mostly of a systematic nature, dealing with 

 Galls, Rhopalocera, Heterocera, Coleoptera, and Tertiary Gasteropoda ; but two 

 papers by W. G. Stretton and Rev. D. Mackillop give a most interesting account of 

 certain aboriginal tribes in the Northern Territory of S. Australia. One of the 

 most useful branches of this flourishing Society is a committee for the protection 

 of the native fauna and flora, many species of which are in great danger of extermina- 

 tion. Among the many interesting papers in the second number of the Proceedings of 

 the Malacological Society of London, mention must be made of the useful paper on 

 British Chitons, by Mr. E. R. Sykes ; an excellent plate is given, and the student 

 should now have little difficulty in identifying his finds. A similarly valuable paper 

 hasjust been published by the Geologists' Association {Proceedings,vo\. win. ,y>- 190), by 

 Mr. Smith Woodward, on " Sharks' Teeth from British Cretaceous Deposits." This 

 paper is also well illustrated, and will enable many an amateur geologist to identify 

 his Chalk finds without worrying a Museum curator. Dr. H. B. Guppy has a 

 paper on the Temperature of Rivers in the last number of the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Physical Society of Edinburgh. Only part i. has yet appeared, and deals with the 

 daily changes and method of observation. 



At the twelfth annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists, held at 

 Yale University, December 27 and 28, 1893, a committee was appointed to 

 appeal to Congress for the repeal of that tax upon knowledge which is embodied in 

 the Customs duties on instruments of research. It was pointed out that these 

 duties were not needed for the protection of the American manufacturer ; for at 

 least one American firm was ready to sell its goods at a price a little below that of 

 the foreign manufacturers to those institutions that could already obtain duty-free 

 prices, while for all others it added the extortionate 65 per cent, of the present 

 tariff. In the interests of science we wish the committee every success. The 

 American Society of Morphologists held its annual meeting at New Haven on 

 December 28 and 29, 1893, while the American Physiological Society was 

 holding its sixth annual meeting at the same time and place. These two Societies 

 have entered a movement of closer co-operation among the leading American 

 scientific Societies, headed by the Society of Naturalists. It is hoped that the 

 Psychologists and Geologists will also join. Co-operation is admirable; but the 

 immediate result appears to be the formation of something like a second American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science. 



In the March issue of the Botanical Gazette, Mr. F. C. Coville, botanist to the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, states that the Department has inaugurated a seed 

 collection in connection with the National Herbarium, which is intended to include 

 seeds of all the species of plants obtainable, especially weeds and forage plants 

 The seeds, when not too large, will be placed in flat-bottomed specimen tubes, which 

 will be labelled, and arranged systematically in covered trays made of binder's board. 

 Fleshy fruits of native American plants will be put into similar bottles filled with a 

 preserving liquid. Authentic herbarium specimens of plants raised from the seeds 

 represented, or of plants from which the seeds were obtained, will accompany the 



