ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. (AMERICAN.) 



entific-research work than any other college grad- 

 uate who had an equal amount of time for 

 preparation, but had taken no engineering work." 

 In conclusion he said : " I desire to repeat that 

 we engineers, or semi-engineers, need to feel that 

 our work is very often scientific-research work 

 of the highest character, and that, although we 

 are very often told that because of its practical 

 nature it does not belong to pure science, yet 

 we should insist that, whether it be pure science 

 or not, it is scientific work." 



The following-named papers were then pre- 

 sented before the section: Crystallization in 

 Bronze Test Pieces, Support of Beams in Tests of 

 Transverse Strength, and The Fracture of Spheres, 



Combustion in Locomotive Boilers, by J. W. 

 Shepherd; Some Engineering Experiences with 

 Spanish Wrecks and Electric Mining of Bitumi- 

 nous Coal, by William S. Aldrich; The Illustra- 

 tion of Critical Speeds of Shafts, The Friction of 

 Balls in Thrust Bearings, and The Fuel Value of 

 Cereals, by Thomas Gray; and A Novel Method 

 of Testing a Locomotive Boiler, by Frank C. 

 Wagner. 



On Aug. 23 a joint session was held with Sec- 

 tion I, when a paper on Some Thermal Determina- 

 tions in Heating and Ventilating Buildings, by 

 Gilbert B. Morrison, was read and discussed. 



E. Geology and Geography. This section was 

 presided over by Mr. Joseph F. Whiteaves, of the 

 Geological Survey of Canada, who presented an 

 address on The Devonian System in Canada. 

 He showed at the outset that the existence of 

 the Devonian as a distinct geological system was 

 first indicated by Lonsdale, in 1837, on purely 

 palaeontological evidence, and subsequently con- 

 firmed by Sedgwick and Murchison, in 1839, on 

 stratigraphical considerations. Having thus es- 

 tablished the origin of the word Devonian, he 

 passed to Canada, and said that "rocks of De- 

 vonian age have been discovered at various times 

 in almost every province and district of the Do- 

 minion, and it is thought that a brief summary 

 of the history of these discoveries and of the 

 present state of our knowledge of the Devonian 

 rocks of Canada, from a palaeontologist's point 

 of view, may be of interest on this occasion. 

 In accordance with long usage in Canada, the 

 line of demarcation between the Silurian and 

 Devonian systems in this address will be drawn 

 at the base of the Oriskany sandstone. It will 

 also be convenient to consider the information 

 that has so far been gained about the Devonian 

 rocks of Canada in geographical order, from east 

 to west, under the three following heads name- 

 ly, (1) the Maritime Provinces and Quebec, (2) 

 Ontario and Keewatin, and (3) Manitoba and the 

 Northwest Territories." Each of these geograph- 

 ical divisions was then taken up, and under sub- 

 divisions of the smaller provinces a summary 

 of the descriptions of the formation in a chrono- 

 logical order was given, as well as a summary 

 of the palaeontological features of the formation. 



The following-named papers were read and 

 discussed before the section: The Geology of 

 Columbus and Vicinity, by Edward Orton; Gla- 

 cial Phenomena of Central Ohio, by Frank Lev- 

 erett; Glacial and Modified Drift in Minneapolis, 

 Minn., by Warren Upham; Lateral Erosion at 

 the Mouth of Niagara Gorge, by G. Frederick 

 Wright; The Geology of Oahu. Hawaiian Islands, 

 by Charles H. Hitchcock; Random: A Pre-Cam- 

 brian Upper-Algonkian Terrane, by Charles D. 

 Walcott; The Petrographic Province of Fox 



River Valley, Wisconsin, by William H. Hobbs 

 and C. K. Leith, with analyses by William W. 

 Daniels; Age and Development of the Cincin- 

 nati Anticline, by August F. Foerste; The Lower 

 Devonian Aspect of the Lower Helderberg and 

 Oriskany Formations, by Charles Schuchert; 

 The Silurian-Devonian Boundary in North Amer- 

 ica, by Henry S. Williams; The Section at Scho- 

 harie, N. Y., by John J. Stevenson; The Ozarkian 

 and its Significance in Theoretic Geology, by 

 Joseph Le Conte; The Geological Results of the 

 Indiana Coal Survey, by George H. Ashley; The 

 Cape Fear Section in the Coastal Plain, by Joseph 



A. Holmes; The Occurrences of Corundum, by 

 J. H. Pratt; Triassic Coal and Coke of Sonora, 

 Mexico, by Edward T. Durable; Some Geological 

 Conditions favoring Water-power Developments, 

 in^ the South Atlantic Region, by Joseph A. 

 Holmes; Paropsonema : A Peculiar Echinoderm 

 from the Intumescens Fauna, New York, Re- 

 markable Occurrences of Orthoceros in the One- 

 onta Sandstones of New York, and The Squaw 

 Island " Water Biscuit," Canandaigua Lake, New 

 York, by John M. Clarke; The Pre-Lafayette 

 (Tennessean) Base Level, by W J McGee; The 

 Relative Ages of the Maumee Glacial Lake and 

 the Niagara Gorge, by Charles E. Slocum; The 

 Gait Moraine and Associated Drainage, by Frank 



B. Taylor; Discovery of New Invertebrates in 

 the Dinosaur Beds of Wyoming, by Erwin H. 

 Barbour and Wilbur C. Knight; The Rapid De- 

 cline of Geyser Activity, by Erwin H. Barbour; 

 The Pot Holes of Foster's Flats (now called 

 Niagara Glen) on the Niagara River, by Miss. 

 Mary A. Fleming; and A Consideration of the 

 Interpretation of Unusual Events in Geological 

 Records, illustrated by Recent Examples, by 

 Frederick W. Simonds. 



On Aug. 22 the section met in joint session with 

 the Geological Society of America. On Aug. 24 

 the entire section visited the gas fields near Lan- 

 caster, Ohio, where a display of natural gas was. 

 made under the direction of the Central Ohio 

 Natural Gas and Fuel Company. 



F. Zoology. Prof. Simon H. Gage, of the bio- 

 logical department of Cornell University, Ithaca, 

 N. Y., was the presiding officer of this section,, 

 and he chose as the subject of his address The 

 Importance and the Promise in the Study of the 

 Domestic Animals. After citing a number of 

 pertinent illustrations, he said : " I have tried 

 to show a few ways in which the study of domes- 

 tic animals has thrown light on the problems 

 confronting mankind in his social ideals, in pre- 

 ventive medicines, in physiology and hygiene, 

 in embryology and comparative anatomy, and in 

 the doctrine of the evolution of organic forms. 

 The attempt has been made to show that, with 

 the higher forms at least that is, the fprms. 

 most closely related to man, and with whose 

 destiny his own economic, hygienic, and social 

 relations are most closely interwoven the do- 

 mestic animals have in the past and promise in 

 the future to serve the best purpose because of* 

 the abundance of the material in quite widely 

 separated groups of animals which long have 

 been and still are under greatly differing condi- 

 tions and surroundings: and, finally, because this, 

 material is plentiful and under control, and thus 

 may be studied throughout the entire life cycle." 

 He also called attention to the fact that " there 

 has been and still is too great a tendency in bi- 

 ology to study forms remote and inaccessible." 

 As a final word he said: " However necessary and 

 desirable it may have been in the past that the 

 main energy of zoologists should be employed in 

 the description of new species and in the mak- 



