Febeuaey 10, 1S99.] 



SCIENCE. 



221 



through the epidermis. In Mipsalie glaucoaa 

 a number of accessory abortive flowers were 

 found. Cuscuta glomerata was mentioned as the 

 only other plant iu which, so far as the speaker 

 knew, subepidermal flowers occur. 



One person was elected to active member- 

 ®^'P- William Trelease, 



Recording Secretary. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

 ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 



Editor of Science: I fear that the sub- 

 ject may verge on becoming tedious to your 

 readers, but will ask the privilege of conclud- 

 ing my part in the discussion by a few com- 

 ments on two points raised in Mr. Bather's 

 communication of January 10th (p. 154). 



It will hardly be denied that the date of 

 printing will always be useful to the systema- 

 tist in noting a period earlier than which pub- 

 lication of a paper cannot be claimed, even if 

 we ignore the obvious fatit that in nearly every 

 case it will now-a-days closely approach the 

 date of distribution or actual publication. 

 Hence, the committee should consider well be- 

 fore minimizing its value. 



Secondly, it has been held, with some plausi- 

 bility, that the distribution by favor alone 

 should not constitute publication, but that the 

 ability of any one interested to procure a paper 

 by purchase is essential to an eflTective publica- 

 tion. If now, by a doctrine of ethics which is 

 certainly novel to me, the committee decides 

 that no paper can be regarded as published 

 until the society which prints it is ready to sell 

 the complete volume of which it may form a 

 part, it is obvious that the committee has it in 

 contemplation to put a quietus on the prompt 

 publication of separate papers, unless this is 

 done commercially by the society in question, 

 in the first place To this proposition I believe 

 it will be impossible to obtain the assent of 

 workers in systematic natural history, and 

 justly so. 



The reasons are obvious and need not be 

 enlarged upon. I think it is not unfair to add 

 that most libraries in this country would rather 

 pride themselves on procuring, even at the cost 

 of seven shillings, at the earliest practicable 



moment, a paper demanded by their readers ; 

 and would consider its belated acquisition in 

 the miscellaneous volume of a scientific so- 

 ciety, subsequently, as no reflection upon their 

 performance of their duties to the public. 



Wm. H. Ball. 



THE RED-BEDS OP KANSAS. 



The correlation of the Red-Beds of Kansas 

 has hitherto been impossible to satisfactorily 

 settle, as has been stated by Professor Prosser 

 in his admirable report upon them in the second 

 volume of the University Geological Survey of 

 Kansas. Many persons have diligently sought 

 for fossils in them, but entirely without success 

 until recently. About two years ago Mr. C. N. 

 Gould discovered a horizon just south of the 

 Kansas line and at the base of the Kansas 

 series, containing large numbers of a small 

 phyllopod crustacean, examples of which, when 

 referred to Professor T. Rupert Jones, through 

 Professor Prosser, were determined as Estheria 

 minuta with some doubt, as stated in his paper 

 in the Geological Magazine (1898, p. 291). 



Associated with these crustacean remains, the 

 blocks sent with the skeleton showing numer- 

 ous specimens, was a large part of the skeleton 

 of an amphibian. This specimen is now in the 

 University of Kansas collection, but so far has 

 been only partly freed from its matrix, a work 

 of much tediousness. The parts already brought 

 to light, however, enable me to determine it as 

 Eryops megacephalus Cope, a form described 

 from the ' Permian ' of Texas. 



This identification settles once for all the 

 horizon whence it came as Permian, if the 

 Texas beds be really of that age. There are 

 several hundred feet of deposits in Kansas above 

 this horizon that still possibly may be con- 

 sidered as Triassic, but there is no reason for 

 so doing. Estheria minuta is a Triassic species, 

 but, even if correctly determined, its value is 

 slight in comparison with that of the vertebrate 

 iu the correlation of the beds. It must be re- 

 membered, however, tbut Eryops is by no means 

 necessarily characteristic of the Permian. 



S. W. Williston. 

 men of science and anti-vivibection. 

 If, according to my critic (Science, Dec. 16, 

 1898, p. 873), the efforts of the anti-vivisection- 



