30 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 210. 



On the evening of November 25th, after a 

 banquet tendered to members of the Academy 

 and their wives by the Lincoln members, an 

 address was given before the Academy by Pro- 

 fessor Lawrence Bruner, on the ' Flora and 

 Fauna of Argentina, S. A.,' where he has spent 

 the past year investigating a grasshopper plague. 



Professor Bruner first gave a few facts regard- 

 ing the location and shape of Argentina, its 

 climate and the effect of the climate on plant 

 and animal life. A very large portion of Argen- 

 tina has an average of less than eight inches of 

 rainfall per annum ; another portion has an 

 average rainfall of from eight to twenty-four 

 inches, while another has from twenty-four 

 inches to sixty. Still all this territory is inhab- 

 ited and is well supplied with plant and animal 

 life. Here evolution in plant and animal life is 

 most noticeable, every form of vegetation and all 

 kinds of animal life changing as the climate 

 changes in traveling from one portion of the 

 country to the other. Argentina was a country 

 where everything protected itself and was fitted 

 by nature to do so. The trees had thorns, the 

 grasses and weeds were provided with thorns, 

 and pointed, sharp blades and herbaceous plants 

 were shielded with burrs. In the dry est parts of 

 Argentina Professor Bruner said he had found 

 plant and animal life abundant. Forests of large 

 trees could be found where rain was scarcest, and 

 he had been told that when heavy rains fell the 

 trees would die from too much moisture. Many 

 forms of animal life thrived best where there 

 was no moisture. Plants were found without 

 leaves, and birds of the same order as our 

 water fowl that avoided water. In no other 

 country on the earth, excepting perhaps Aus- 

 tralia, could forms of animal life be found that 

 compared with what was to be found there. 

 Many kinds of birds were provided with spurs 

 on tlieir wings, and to illustrate some of these 

 wonders the stereopticon was introduced and a 

 number of views of strange animal life shown. 

 Other papers on the program were as fol- 

 lows : ' Methods of Collecting and Preserving 

 Water-Mites,' by Dr. Robert H. Wolcott, with 

 exhibition of new forms of collecting apparatus. 

 ' The Discovery of the Southern Maidenhair 

 Fern in the Black Hills,' by Dr. Charles E. 

 Bessey. It had been reported to him that it 



grew there in profusion, but as its northern 

 limit was about 36 degrees, or the southern 

 line of Missouri, he took a thousand-mile jour- 

 ney that he might be able to state scientifically 

 that it was there. He found it growing in pro- 

 fusion on the banks of a stream fed by warm 

 springs, beside the buffalo berry of the north. 

 C. J. Elmore read the second chapter of his 

 serial, begun last year, on 'The Second Year's 

 Flora of a Dried-up Millpond,' and was re- 

 quested to continue the subject next year. 



'One to One Correspondence,' by Dr. 'Ellery 

 Davis. 'A Determination of the Latitude of 

 the Observatory,' by Professor G. D. Swezey. 

 The reduction of fifty-nine observations for the 

 latitude of the observatory on the University 

 grounds, made with a small universal instru- 

 ment, gave as a result 40° 49' 9.''9±0."4. 

 Over a hundred additional observations have 

 been taken which have not yet been reduced. 

 A joint paper by Abel A. Hunter and G. E. 

 Hedgecock on 'Thorea,' a seaweed found by 

 Mr. Hunter in the northeastern part of Lan- 

 caster county the past summer, was submitted. 

 This very rare and exceedingly interesting sea- 

 weed is now found for the first time in Ne- 

 braska and the second time with certainty in 

 North America. 



, 'What is Phytogeography,' by Dr. Roscoe 

 Pound. A discussion of the province of phy- 

 togeography and of the various names that 

 have been used to designate this and other 

 closely related lines of investigation. 



' The Growth of Children,' by Dr. William 

 W. Hastings. Observations made in European 

 cities and in the larger cities of this country, 

 with the results of experience in the University 

 and public schools of Lincoln. From two to 

 sixteeH years the growth of children is very 

 regular, but from sixteen to seventeen it is re- 

 tarded. The full growth of man does notecase 

 until after he is twenty-five. Athletics extend 

 the growing period to thirty years. Affluence 

 increases and deprivation and hard work de- 

 creases the growth. Size diminishes between 

 the age of fifty and sixty. The speaker men- 

 tioned the phenomenal increase of five and 

 seven-eighths inches chest measure in a 15-year- 

 old boy, but the discussion brought out the fact 

 that his grade marks were only seventy-five. 



