JE IDET ORAL, 
THE winter meeting of the Geological Society of America 
held at Baltimore December® 27, 28 and 29 was largely 
attended, and marked interest was manifested in the papers pre- 
sented. The foremost thought of all on assembling was the 
irreparable loss the Society had sustained in the death of Pro- 
fessor G. H. Williams, to whose interest and influence the hold- 
ing of the session at Baltimore at this time was chiefly due; and 
the first act of the Society, after the usual opening addresses and 
preliminary business, was to pay a fitting tribute to his memory. 
A very graceful and appreciative sketch of his life and labors 
was presented by Professor William B. Clark, to which several 
members of the Society who had been most intimately associated 
with Professor Williams added earnest and sympathetic expres- 
sions of their esteem and admiration. An appropriate memorial 
to Amos Bowman was presented by his colleague of the Canadian 
Survey, Mr. H. M. Ami. 
The program embraced forty-eight titles. With a very few 
exceptions —and these in part due to illness—the authors of the 
papers were present and the papers actually read and discussed. 
The habit of sending in titles of papers yet unborn, and of 
appearing by name but not in person, has fortunately found little 
expression at the winter meetings of the Society, and at this 
session was reduced to a minimum. 
The distribution of subjects is worthy of study as indicating 
the drift of interest and activity. About 18 per cent. of the 
papers may be classed as predominantly structural. It was nota- 
ble, however, that in a large number of these, the structural 
features were but an obvious groundwork for dynamical infer- 
ences. Very few were simply descriptive in purpose, though the 
authors rarely pressed conclusions, preferring apparently to leave 
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