April 4, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



337 



^ehastodes are viviparous, the young being 

 developed internally and in multitudes, to be 

 extruded when about two or throe millinirters 

 in length. The development of the young 

 should indicate the phylogeny of the group. If 

 the total number of vertebrse in Sehasfodes is 

 24, we may infer with strong plausibility that 

 Scorpcena, witli its 24 vertebnc was the ances- 

 tral type. If the number is 31 we would grant 

 this place to Sehastes. In either case, Sebas- 

 todes is intermediate. 



Through the interest of Professor Edwin C. 

 Starks, I have secured a number of young of 

 a species of Sebastodes from Long Beach, 

 California. These are very recently hatched, 

 one to two millimeters in length. Vertebrse 

 do not appear, but the muscular impressions 

 which will correspond to them are 27 in 

 number. 



This agrees ■«vith the nuniber of vertebrse in 

 the adult of all the Sebastodes recorded. This 

 test, therefore, fails to decide the question of 

 origin, though it may be held to show that the 

 separation of Sebastodes from Sehastes or 

 from Scorpcena is really very old, and in spite 

 of the strong resemblances of the forms con- 

 cerned. 



I may further note that all allies of Scor- 

 ptena with 24 vertebrse have 12 spines in the 

 dorsal fin, Sebastodes, and its relatives with 27 

 vertebra} have 13, and Sehastes, with 30 or 31 

 vertebnc, has 1.5 or 16 dorsal spines, the num- 

 bers of fin rays corresponding in a degree to 

 the number of vertebral segments. 



Davtd St.vrr Jordan- 



Since the above was in type, I have ob- 

 tained from the diatomaceous shales of the 

 Puente formation (lliocene) of Orange, Cali- 

 fornia (E. E. riadlcy coll.), a fossil fish ap- 

 parently of the Sebastodes group. This speci- 

 men has the vertebra; about 32 in number, 

 10 -j- 20 being preserved. The liead of the 

 specimen is lost, but the fish must belong to 

 the Sebastino!, as no other forms vmite the 

 characters of stiflF dorsal spines, anal rays III, 

 10, with small scales and the vertebrse more 

 than 24. In other respects, this new genus 

 (soon to be described and figured), seems near- 

 est Sebastosomiis Gill (S. mystinus). The 



discovery of this form is again not decisive, 

 though it indicates the possibly primitive 

 character of the Sebastina fishes having the 

 larger numbers of vertebrse. 



David Starr Jordan 



THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF 

 PETROLEUM GEOLOGISTS 



The fourth annual meeting of the American 

 Association of Petroleum Geologists was held at 

 the Adolphus Hotel, Dallas, Texas, on the 13 to 

 the 15 of March. More than two hundred pe- 

 troleiun geologists and a great number of visitors 

 were present from all portions of the United 

 States, the association being especially honored by 

 the presence of David White, chief geologist of 

 the U. S. Geological Survey; I. C. White, state 

 geologist of West Virginia ; Ralph Arnold, valua- 

 tion expert of the Internal Revenue Department of 

 the IT. S. Treasury, and Professor Chas. Schuchert, 

 of Yale University. 



The opening meeting of the association was 

 called to order on Thursday morning by the presi- 

 dent, Alexander Deussen. Gilbert H. Irish, of the 

 Dallas Chamber of Commerce, delivered an ad- 

 dress welcoming the geologists to Dallas. Short 

 talks were made by Dr. David White, Dr. I. C. 

 White; Dr. J. A. Udden, state geologist of Texas; 

 W. P. Cummins; J. A. Taff, of San Francisco, and 

 Leo Hager, of Houston. 



The first technical session was held Thursday 

 afternoon, attention being devoted to the geology 

 of the oil producing districts of north central 

 Texas. John A. Udden, chief geologist of the 

 Sinclair Oil Company, read a paper dealing with 

 the subsurface geology of the oil-producing dis- 

 tricts of north central Texas, and accompanied his 

 paper Iiy a set of well samples and slides of the 

 formations penetrated in some of the wells of north 

 central Texas. Chas. R. Eckes, chief geologist of 

 the Texas Company, gave a description of cuttings 

 from the Duffer well of the Texas Company at 

 Ranger, and displayed a set of samples from this 

 well. P. B. Plummer, of the Roxana Petroleum 

 Company, gave a description of the cuttings from 

 the Goode well of the Roxana Company, in Young 

 County, and the Dye well in Palo Pinto County. 

 Wallace E. Pratt, chief geologist of the Humble 

 Oil & Refining Company, read a paper entitled 

 "Notes on structure of surface rocks as related to 

 subsurface structure and petroleum accumulation 

 in north Texas." Dr. David White read a paper 

 by G. H. Girty, on the "Bend formation and its 



