120 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 733 



THE BIOLOGICAl SOCIETT OP WASHINGTON 



The 449th meeting was held November 28, 1908, 

 with President Stejneger in the chair. Mr. H. W. 

 Clark noted the occurrence of maple seeds gath- 

 ered into clumps and partly buried n the ground 

 under the trees, without apparent reason. Dr. L. 

 O. Howard cited a new problem in the distribu- 

 tion of the gypsy moth. Distribution has been 

 supposed to be only by caterpillars dropped upon 

 and carried by moving objects, as carriages and 

 the like. Isolated colonies of the moth have now 

 been found in the woods far from roads or paths. 

 The moths can not fly and it is yet unknown how 

 the dissemination was accomplished. Information 

 or suggestions were requested, the point being of 

 much practical importance. The part which birds 

 or heavy winds may play is problematical. 



The regular program consisted of an address 

 by Dr. P. Creighton Wellman on the " General 

 Biological Conditions in Angola, Portuguese West 

 Africa." The speaker occupied an hour with an 

 interesting account of general conditions, citing 

 freely from his notes, which were especially rich 

 on the botanical side, on species of both flora and 

 fauna in many groups. 



The 450th meeting was held December 12, 1908, 

 in George Washington University Hall, with 

 President Stejneger in the chair. The program 

 consisted of an illustrated lecture by Mr. Ernest 

 T. Seton, entitled " Two Thousand Miles by Canoe 

 to the Arctic Region." 



The 45 1st meeting, being the 29th annual meet- 

 ing for the election of officers, was held December 

 26, 1908, with President Stejneger in the chair. 

 The following were elected for the ensuing year: 



President — T. S. Palmer. 



Vioe-presidents — E. L. Greene, E. W. Nelson, 

 W. P. Hay, J. N. Rose. 



Recording Secretary — ^M. C. Marsh. 



Corresponding Secretary — W. H. Osgood. 



Treasurer— J. W. Gidley. 



Councilors — A. D. Hopkins, A. K. Fisher, A. B. 

 Baker, David White, Vernon Bailey. 



M. C. Mabsh, 

 Recording Secretary 



SECTION OF GEOLOGY AND MINEBALOGT OF THE 

 NEW YOKE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



At the regular monthly meeting of the section 

 on November 2, the evening was given to the 

 presentation and discussion of a paper entitled 

 "A Contribution to the History of Mt. Pels, 

 Martinique," by Dr. Edmund Otis Hovey. 



The author described, with the aid of many 



lantern slides, the conditions on and near Mt. 

 Pels during his visits in May-July, 1902, Feb- 

 ruary-April, 1903, and April-May, 1908, and illus- 

 trated particularly the devastation wrought by 

 the early eruptions, the disposition and distribu- 

 tion of material thrown out by the volcano, the 

 building up of the spine of 1902-3 and its subse- 

 quent destruction, the advance of erosion since the 

 cessation of eruptions and the restoration of vege- 

 tation in St. Pierre and upon the flanks of the 

 mountain. The paper also described the area of 

 fumaroles in the valley of the Riviere Claire and 

 gave the arguments for the probability of these 

 being true fumaroles. Temperature observations 

 were made also in the great Assures of the new 

 cone, where, by means of an electric pyrometer, 

 temperatures as high as 515° C. (959° F.) were 

 obtained. 



The paper will be published in full in the 

 Bulletin of the American Geographical Society. 

 Chaeles p. Beeket, 

 Secretary of Section 



the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY 

 NEW. YOEK SECTION 



The third regular meeting of the session of 

 1908-9 was held at the Chemists' Club on De- 

 cember 11. 



Messrs. H. S. Miner and M. C. Whitaker pre- 

 sented a paper on " The Rare Earths — their Pro- 

 duction and Application." Mr. Miner spoke of 

 the sources of the so-called rare earths, described 

 the forms in which they occurred and the methods 

 of mining and purifying them. He then gave a 

 xSsumfi of the development of incandescent gas 

 lighting, describing the researches of the early 

 workers on the subject and indicating many prob- 

 lems yet to be solved. Mr. Miner illustrated his 

 subject by a splendid collection of raw and puri- 

 fied materials used in making Welsbach mantles. 

 Mr. Whitaker described the manufacturing proc- 

 esses and different forms of mantles used in this 

 country and abroad. He showed numerous lan- 

 tern slides to illustrate the structure of the 

 mantles and the machinery used in making them. 



The other titles for the evening were as follows: 

 "A Volumetric Method for the Determination of 

 Barium," A. E. Hill and W. A. H. Zink; "The 

 Ultra-microscope and some of its Revelations," 

 Jerome Alexander; "The Potential of Iron Cal- 

 culated from Equilibria Measurements," A. B. 

 Lamb. 



C. M. Joyce, 



