1885.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 29 



1. Glacial tlrift, two feet. 



2. Pre-glacial yellow drift, six feet. 



3. Li^nitic fossiliferoiis clay, eighteen inches. 



4. Stiff fire clay, ten feet. 



5. Sand. 



The occurrence, in abnndance, of similar fossils in beds of the 

 same age at Sonth Aniboy and Woodbridge, New Jersey, led to 

 the belief that they wonld be fonnd on Staten Island, which 

 expectation is now fulfilled. 



The Secketary stated that the programme of fntnre meet- 

 ings was com|)lete to March, and that for several snbsequent 

 ■dates scientific papers were already engaged. 



Prof. D. S. Martin annonnced the death of Mr. Thomas 

 Bland, and described his character, life, and scientific work. 



The President gave effect to an adopted motion by appoint- 

 ing as a committee to prepare memorial resolutions, Prof. D. S. 

 Martin, Mr. George F. Kunz, and Mr. 0. Van Brunt. 



Dr. J. B. Holder read a paper on 



the rise and progress of invertebrate zoology. 



The literature of invertebrate animals, particularly in the 

 •earlier periods of the progress of zoological science, is intimately 

 associated with that of the vertebrate. For a long period, down 

 to tlio present century, the few invertebrate forms known, or 

 taken notice of by naturalists, were embraced in the same cate- 

 gory with vei'tebrates. Our history, then, must take its rise 

 with and accompany for a season, the vertebrata, those animals 

 embraced in the grand division of which man is the head. 



The period preceding the time of Aristotle is generally 

 ignored by naturalists, as producing nothing worthy of being per- 

 petuated in natural history. Doubtless there were those, even 

 at that remote period, who were enabled to see something like a 

 system in nature. Certainly, the glorious record obtained by 

 astronomy, as a science of the greatest antiquity, may reasonably 

 suggest to us that tlie human mind was not, in remote periods, 

 wholly incapable of appreciating the truths of other branches of 

 natural science. But whatever manifestation there were, cer- 

 tainly MO record of consequence has been perpetuated. The 

 immortal Aristotle, the great philosopher of Greece, is, then, 

 «,ccepted as the historian from whom all the recorded data 



