718 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 958 



One specimen from Calmali, original No. 

 65, shows such an abundant horn development 

 that it ranks fifth largest as to length of horn 

 in Eowland Ward's list (sixth edition). The 

 horns, sixteen and one eighth inches long, 

 show a remarkably divergent tendency, there 

 being seventeen and one half inches between 

 them at the fork. The base measurement is 

 six and one quarter inches, and the general 

 form is clean and symmetrical, not stumpy, 

 knobbed and aberrant-looking like some of the 

 others from the same locality. There seems to 

 be, however, in all the California horns a tend- 

 ency to a very sharp angular bend at the 

 terminal portion, instead of a gentle or even 

 curve. Therefore this new race of Prong- 

 horn has a characteristic skull modification 

 and can at times produce fine typical horns, 

 in spite of its seemingly unfavorable en- 

 vironment. 



The type locality of A. americana is an in- 

 definite one and is referred to the Plains of 

 the Missouri. The five americana skulls used 

 for comparison were taken near Percy, Wyom- 

 ing, and are Nos. 43, 46, 49, 50, 52 in the Mu- 

 seum of Comparative Zoology. 



J. C. Phillips 



Wenham, Mass. 



THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 

 The annual general meeting of the American 

 Philosophical Society was held in the rooms of the 

 society in Philadelphia, April 17 to 19, inclusive, 

 and constituted a most notable series of sessions. 

 There were a large number of papers presented, 

 their general character being of a high order of 

 merit and the scope of subjects included wide. 



The meeting was opened on Thursday after- 

 noon, President W. W. Keen, LL.D., in the chair, 

 when the following papers were read: 



The Biographies of Suetonius: JOHK C. Rolfe, 



Ph.D. 

 The Etymology of the Word "III": Hermann 



COLLITZ, Ph.D. 



While most etymologists agree in regarding the 

 word " ill " as a loan word from Scandinavian, no 

 plausible etymology has as yet been given of the 

 old Norse word ("illr") from which it is derived. 

 The traditional etymology of the latter word, iden- 

 tifying it with English "evil," is untenable, for 



phonetic reasons. Both the form and the meaning 

 of this word, however, may be accounted for by 

 regarding it as the Scandinavian equivalent of the 

 English word ' ' idle. ' ' 

 The Treaty Oiligatiom of the United States 



relating to the Panama Canal: Charlemagne 



Tower, A.B., LL.D. 



Former Ambassador Tower discussed the basis 

 upon which the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was con- 

 cluded with Great Britain, and pointed out the 

 legal obligation of the United States arising there- 

 from. He went back to the earliest discoverers 

 and navigators and brought up to the present time 

 the history of the governments of Central America, 

 to show our connection with the enterprise of con- 

 structing the canal. 



He quoted the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, signed in 

 Washington in 1850, by which the governments of 

 the United States and Great Britain declared that 

 neither would ever obtain or maintain any ex- 

 clusive control over the ship canal, would fortify 

 or colonize, or exercise any dominion over Nica- 

 ragua, Costa Rica, the ' ' Mosquito Coast ' ' or any 

 part of Central America. 



Also, that neither Great Britain nor the United 

 States would take advantage of any intimacy or 

 alliance that it might have with any government 

 through whose territory the canal should pass, to 

 acquire or hold any rights or advantages in regard 

 to commerce or navigation which should not be 

 offered on the same terms to the citizens or sub- 

 jects of the other. 



By the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901, Mr. 

 Tower said that, being desirous to facilitate the 

 construction of a ship canal to connect the At- 

 lantic and Pacific Oceans, by whatever route might 

 be considered expedient, and to remove any objec- 

 tion which might arise out of the Clayton-Bulwer 

 treaty to the construction of such canal under the 

 direction of the United States, without impairing 

 the general principle of neutralization, the two 

 nations agreed that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty 

 should supersede the former treaty. 



It was agreed also that the canal should be 

 built by the United States, which should enjoy the 

 exclusive right to provide for the regulation and 

 management of it. To make the understanding 

 between the two nations plain, the following spe- 

 cific stipulation was entered into : 



' ' The United States adopts as the basis of the 

 neutralization of such ship canal, the rules sub- 

 stantially as embodied in the Convention of Con- 

 stantinople, for the free navigation of the Suez 

 Canal, and further, 'The Canal shall be free and 



