90 
Brooklyn bridge; and it becomes a matter of much impor- 
tance to ascertain with some precision what is the nature of 
the injury thus caused. As yet, no satisfactory explanation 
has been given. 
Dr. THEO. Hinearp was disposed, from his observations 
during the building of the St. Louis bridge, to attribute 
death under such circumstances to inability to expire the air 
from the lungs, against so great an external pressure. 
The subject was further discussed by Prof. Seeley, Dr. 
Stevenson, Mr. Wm. Falke, and the two previous speakers. 
Pror. D. S. Martin remarked upon the high importance 
of two papers contained in periodicals laid on the table of the 
Lyceum this evening ; that of Prof Morse, in the Proceedings 
of the Boston Society of Natural History, on the “ Affinities 
of the Brachiopoda and Worms,” and Prof. Owen’s account, 
in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, Novem- 
ber, 1873, of the remarkable new fossil bird, Odontopterya, 
from the Eocene beds of the Isle of Sheppey. 
January 12th, 1874. Chemical Section. 
Pres. NEWBERRY in the chair. Twenty-three persons present. 
The President referred to several of the geological articles 
in the January number of the American Journal of Science, 
particularly that on the Geology of Western Texas, by Mr. 
W. P. Jenny, who had laid his facts and his specimens be- 
fore the Lyceum in October last, [these Proc., pp. 68 to 70] ; 
also that of Mr. Lesquereaux on Land Plants from the Lower 
Silurian. He dissented entirely from the view that there is 
yet any proof of the existence of laud vegetation in this 
country before the Devonian age. The specimens described 
by Mr. Lesquereaux are too obscure and uncertain to found 
any such argument upon, and are probably simply roots or 
stems of large fucoids. 
