August 2, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



159 



Larvae one and a half to two and a half inches 

 long, with external gills, have been taken in brooks 

 in the college park for several years past. This 

 spring some thirty or forty were taken in a muddy 

 pool in the same park. When caught these were 

 nearly colorless, but when exposed to the light in 

 aquaria set before windows in the laboratory they 

 very quickly became pigmented. These were first 

 thought to be the young of the common salamander 

 which had retained their gills over winter, but 

 discussion of the paper elicited the interesting in- 

 formation from Mr. C. S. Brimley that the Mar- 

 bled Salamander lays its eggs in the fall; these are 

 hatched and the larvae retain their gills over win- 

 ter, losing them in the late spring. Some kept by 

 the writer for a month now show only stumps of 

 these structures. 



The Gloomy Scale, an Important Enemy of Shade 

 Maples in North Carolina: Z. P. Metcalf, Agri- 

 cultural and Mechanical College, West Ealeigh. 

 This paper summarized very briefly the results 

 of three years ' experiments carried on by the State 

 Department of Agriculture for the control of this 

 insect. A brief history of the insect was also 

 given, together with some notes on its present 

 distribution and destructiveness and life history. 

 To be published in full in the current number 

 of the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific 

 Society. 



Two Parasitic Eymenomycetes : Gut West Wil- 

 son, Agricultural and Mechanical College, West 

 Ealeigh. 



Attention is called to the attacks of apples in the 

 Piedmont section of the state by Septohasidium 

 pedicellatum (Schw.) Pat., which also occurs over 

 a considerable area of the southern states on vari- 

 ous hosts. Fames roseits (Albert & Schw.) Cooke 

 is also noted as causing a disease of the red cedar, 

 locally very destructive in eastern North Carolina. 

 Note on the Fundamental Bases of Dynamics: 

 Wm. Cain, University of North Carolina, 

 Chapel Hill. 



Defining mechanics as that science which treats 

 of matter, at rest or in motion, imder the action 

 of force; weighing, by both the equal armed bal- 

 ance and the spring balance, is fully discussed 

 and formiilas presented. Mass and force are then 

 discussed for both the engineers ' and the absolute 

 systems. 



This paper will a,ppear in the next number of 

 the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific So- 

 ciety. 



Discovery of Some New Petroglyphs Near Caicara, 

 on the Orinoco: T. A. Bendrat, University of 

 North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 

 In the winter of 1908 and 1909, while surveying 

 the region about Caicara, Venezuela, the writer 

 discovered some new petroglyphs, which belong 

 geographically and genetically to the same large 

 group of stone-carvings found scattered over a 

 wide area which is bounded by the Orinoco, the 

 Atabapo, the Bio Negro and the Cassiquiare. 

 While Alexander von Humboldt mentions only two 

 petroglyphs from the region of Caicara, "el sol" 

 and ' ' la luna, ' ' of which the writer saw only ' ' el 

 sol," neither he nor any other traveler who ever 

 touched that point seems to have known any of the 

 stone-carvings found by the writer. These newly 

 discovered petroglyphs occur on the banks of the 

 Orinoco and in the adjacent forest. They may be 

 divided up into three distinct groups, one repre- 

 senting the simplest type and consisting of almost 

 geometrical circles, one in the other, the center of 

 the most inner one being hollowed out; another 

 one group of a more complicated type and of more 

 fantastic design, of which only one figure was 

 found; and a third group that evidently repre- 

 sents the highest type in the development of this 

 art of petroglyphy and that comprises "el sol," 

 that was already known to Humboldt, and the new 

 petroglyph that was discovered by the writer, 

 namely, "el tigre. " All these petroglyphs are 

 supposed to have been produced in prehistoric 

 times. As to their meaning there exists quite a 

 number of theories. The writer holds the view- 

 on the base of extended studies in fetichism that 

 they represent records of earlier and later fetich- 

 ism, while they have served, at the same time, as 

 an indirect means to develop the art of sculpture 

 that grew out of the art of petroglyphy. 



To be published in full in the next issue of the 

 Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society. 

 Solution of the Draftsman's Difficulty — To draw 

 from a given point a line which, if extended, 

 would pass through the meeting point of two 

 given lines whose point of meeting is beyond 

 reach: J. P. Lanneau, Wake Forest, N. C. 



