Maech 25, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



429 



Dr. Matthews recounted various reasons why 

 "the snake was held sacred by men in all ages 

 and in all parts of the world where it existed. 

 Among the Navahoes he thought the principal 

 reason was that the snake was associated with 

 the lightning. Lightning is regarded as a ce- 

 lestial serpent ; hence serpent worship is 

 thought to bring rain. A Navaho myth was 

 related which illustrated the connectiou be- 

 tween the serpent and lightning. A connec- 

 tion between the feathered rainbow of the 

 Navahoes and the feathered serpent of the 

 Mayas was suggested. 



Discussed by Major J. W. Powell, Dr. W J 

 McGee and Mrs. M. C. Stevenson. 



J. H. McCORMICK, 



Secretary. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



At the 75th meeting, held in Washington on 

 Wednesday, March 9, 1898,' the following 

 papers were read : 



T. W. Stanton, ' The Mesozoic Section of 

 Sierra Blanca, Texas. ' 



The strata described are exposed in the 

 mountains and hills within a few miles of Sierra 

 Blanca station, at the junction of the Southern 

 Pacific and Texas Pacific Railroads, ninety miles 

 east of El Paso. The special object of the 

 paper was to describe the occurrence of marine 

 Jurassic strata, whose discovery was recently 

 announced by Professor F. W. Cragin, in the 

 Journal of Geology, and to present the paleon- 

 tological evidence of their age. The beds are 

 limestones, shales and calcareous conglomerates 

 overlying important beds of gypsum which 

 should probably also be referred to the Jurassic. 

 Fossiliferous outcrops one and a-half miles east 

 ■of Malone station and on the west side of Ma- 

 lona Blountain have yielded about forty species 

 of marine invertebrates of Jurassic types and 

 all distinct from the Lower Cretaceous species 

 •of the same region. The fauna is somewhat 

 related to that of the Jurassic at Catorce, San 

 Luis Potosi, Mexico. 



F. H. Knowlton, ' The Belly River Horizon 

 on the Upper Missouri. ' 



The author described briefly the character- 

 istics and extent of the Canadian Belly River 

 beds and the probable preserver of similar beds 



along the upper Missouri, in tlie vicinity of Coal 

 Banks, where Messrs. White and Ward discov- 

 ered a fossil plant locality in 18S3. At this 

 point there is a massive light-colored sandstone 

 one hundred feet or more in thickness, asso- 

 ciated with coal seams, that is, immediately 

 above beds that contain an invertebrate fauna 

 which seems intermediate between the Colorado 

 and Montana formations. The fossil plant lo- 

 cality is just above this massive sandstone. 

 Farther down the Missouri, near the mouth of 

 Arrow River, the dark Fort Pierre shales, with 

 a characteristic fauna, are seen to clearly over- 

 lie this sandstone, and still above that comes the 

 section near the mouth of Judith River, which 

 includes the Fox Hills, or Upper Montana, and 

 the Judith River beds, which are true Laramie. 

 The flora consists of seven species, two of 

 which are true Laramie species and have not 

 before been found outside of this formation. 

 The remaining forms are regarded as new to 

 science. Of these, three are closely allied to 

 Dakota group species, one to a Laramie species 

 and the other is too poorly preserved to admit 

 of satisfactory comparison. 



W. F. MOESELL. 

 THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS. 



At the meeting of the Academy of Science of 

 St Louis of February 21, 1898, thirteen persons 

 present. Dr. R. J. Terry exhibited a specimen 

 of a cervical rib from a human subject and dis- 

 cussed the occurrence of structural anomalies 

 of this character. Fifteen persons were elected 

 to active membership. 



At the meeting of March 7, 1898, twenty- 

 eight persons present. Professor C. M. Wood- 

 ward presented a paper embodj'ing an analyt- 

 ical discussion of the eflSciency of gearing under 

 friction. The substance of his paper had been 

 given to his class in 1896, and was believed to 

 be new. Few works on applied mechanics, the 

 speaker stated, give any discussion of the mat- 

 ter. Only spur wheels with epicycloidal and 

 involute teeth were considered. The method 

 of investigation was briefly this : 



Assuming a coefficient of friction (/) and a con- 

 stant moment in the driving wheel, the magni- 

 tude of the friction overcome, multiplied by 

 the velocity of sliding and again by dt, gave an 



