Trans. N. Y. Ac. Sez. 7 6 Oct. 15, 
resembled very much those which now attend the development of 
the Sorghum industry. 
The Vice-President, Dr. B, N. MarTIN, remarked on the intro- 
duction of the sugar-beet, many years ago, into Massachusetts, by 
means of seed imported from France. The plant thrived, and the 
root was rich in sugar; but the industry met with an insuperable 
difficulty in the fact that the farmer found the product more valu- 
able for feeding stock. 
The PRESIDENT stated that he had seen thousands of acres of 
Sorghum, in Missouri, Kansas, etc., and that we hardly realized 
the importance of this industry in many parts of the country west 
of the Mississippi. The cane was liable there to be overtaken by 
untimely frost, by which the profits of the crop were often lost. 
The crop there has been thus injured this year to such an extent, 
that in many places only syrup can be made from the canes. 
Sorghum can be successfully cultivated in all the Middle States 
by a proper mode of planting and choice of varieties. Its product, 
for a long time, consisted only of a syrup which had a peculiar 
flavor, earthy, raw, and offensive at first ; but this has been since 
removed by improved processes, though the mode of manufacture 
is somewhat complicated. 
Mrs. E. A. SmitH exhibited a series of interesting specimens of 
siliceous sinter and of silicified wood from the Yellowstone region. 
In regard to these, the PRESIDENT-explained that similar speci- 
mens of silicified wood were abundantly found in the Bad Lands. 
Their geological position is in the Tertiary and near the top of the 
Cretaceous formation. They are generally of coniferous wood, 
and represent trees similar to the gigantic Sequoias of California, 
which, in the Tertiary and Cretaceous ages, formed forests which 
contained many splendid forms of arborescent vegetation, now 
extinct, as well as the finest of our living forest trees, and 
covered all the continent to the Arctic Sea. Floated down the 
ancient rivers of the country, and buried in the silt which accumu- 
lated in the bottom of great lakes which once existed there, they 
were subsequently replaced by silica, particle by particle, so that 
the structure is often perfectly preserved. In Yellowstone Park 
is a veritable petrified forest of such trees, successive generations 
of which were buried under volcanic ashes and mud, like that 
which covers Pompeii, and were in part silicified standing. 
