November 29, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



743 



NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, EEGtTLAE 

 TECHNICAL MEETING, WASHINGTON, 

 D. C, FRIDAY EVENING, NO- 

 VEMBER 15. 



The meeting was devoted to the discussion of 

 the subject of the hydrography of the United 

 States, in which iive Government officers engaged 

 in that worlc took part. 



Mr. F. H. NeAvell, in charge of tlie Division 

 of Hydrography in the U. S. Geological Survey, 

 referred to the hydrographic work done by the 

 Government through the agency of the Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey, the Hydrographic Office, 

 the Engineers' Office of the Army, and one or 

 two other organizations, and pointed out the 

 difference between that work and the work of 

 the Geological Survey, the work of the organi- 

 zations first named having reference in the 

 main to the interests of commerce, while that 

 of the last named Bureau is for the purpose of 

 obtaining data of value relating to land irriga- 

 tion, water power, and the supply of potable wa- 

 ter. He then discussed in general terms the im- 

 portant work that the Geological Survey is do- 

 ing in this line, with the small appropriation that 

 it has for the purpose, and the methods followed. 



Mr. Newell was followed by Prof. Willis L. 

 Moore, Chief of the Weather Bureau, who out- 

 lined the objects and methods of the work of the 

 flood-forecasting division of his Bureau in fore- 

 casting floods on the principal rivers, giving in- 

 stances of how the people in certain regions had 

 been warned of approaching floods, and how 

 many lives and millions of property had thus 

 been saved. He referred to the limited scope of 

 the work, due to lack of funds. 



Prof. Moore was followed by Mr. A. P. Davis 

 and Mr. Cyrus C. Babb, both of the Geological 

 Survey, in charge of stream measurements in 

 the West and in the South and East, respect- 

 ively. Mr. Davis stated the conditions which 

 had governed the location and selection of 

 gauging stations, mentioning State and private 

 cooperation, necessitated by demands of econ- 

 omy, and describing the hydrographic basins, 

 etc. Certain railroads and irrigation companies, 

 he said, are making systematic stream measure- 

 ments in the West. Two States, Kansas and 

 Colorado, are cooperating by devoting a small 

 sum of money to the work. Mr. Babb similarly 



discussed the work done in connection with the 

 streams of the Southern Appalachian region and 

 on the Potomac. His work, which was begun 

 but a few months ago, is the first of the kind 

 yet done in the southern part of the country, 

 and his paper was of particular interest. 



The meeting closed with a paper by Mr. 

 Marcus Baker, formerly of the Coast Survey, on 

 the hydrography of the navigable waters, which 

 was an interesting presentation of the subject 

 from the point of view of navigation and com- 

 merce. W. F. M. 



GEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE OF HARVARD UNIVER- 

 SITY, NOVEMBER 5, 1S95. 



The Great Barrier Beef of Australia. By J. B. 

 WooDWORTH. Mr. Woodworth spoke of the 

 work of Mr. Saville Kent. A selection of about 

 forty stereopticon views from the set of photo- 

 graphs of the great coral reef was shown. The 

 views, it was pointed out, illustrated the way in 

 which lowly-organized animals in coral seas 

 take the place of jjlants, and even of inorganic 

 debris on coasts like those of New England. 

 The leafy alcyonarians grow attached to the 

 bottom and act as the sea-weeds do in fending 

 off the waves, and in harboring free crawling 

 forms of marine life. The coral heads and 

 blocks torn up by hurricanes take the place of 

 boulders along the shore line. This reef further 

 shows how great limestones, such as the Trenton 

 and Corniferous of the North American palaeo- 

 zoic sea, could have been made at no great dis- 

 tance from land. The great limestone-making 

 zone is at sea level and a few feet below. The 

 conditions now existing in the Great Barrier 

 Reef, where islets and lagoons form, permit of 

 the existence of land vegetation, and the record 

 of various forms of shallow water and surface 

 species in the midst of processes of limestone- 

 making, which geologists have been accustomed 

 to consider indicative of deep sea. It is now 

 clear, as Dr. Murray has pointed out, that there 

 are two great classes of marine calcareous depos- 

 its ; those of the deep sea proper not developed 

 in the continental areas, except locally, and 

 those of a strictly continental type, of which the 

 fossil reefs of the New York State system and 

 the Grear Barrier Reef of Australia are past 

 and present examples. 



