478 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1056 



The 534th meeting of the society was held in the 

 Assembly Hall of the Cosmos Club, Saturday, Jan- 

 uary 23, 1915, with President Bartseh in the chair 

 and 75 persons present. 



Mr. E. A. Ward was elected to active member- 

 ship. 



Under heading Brief Notes, etc.. Dr. Johan 

 Hjort, Director of Fisheries of Norway, called at- 

 tention to the large numbers of herring caught in 

 Norwegian waters during the last few years, most 

 of them belonging to what he termed the "1904 

 Class." Dr. Hjort attributed the great success of 

 the ' ' 1904 Class ' ' to the known lateness of season 

 when it had been spawned and when the plankton 

 was abundant. Early in spring the sea is practi- 

 cally barren of plankton and fish hatching at that 

 time have little food. 



The regular program was an illustrated paper 

 by Mrs. Agnes Chase on "Developing Instincts of 

 a Young Squirrel. ' ' Mrs. Chase had made careful 

 observations and notes on the bringing up of a 

 young gray squirrel during the past spring and 

 summer. The animal was very young when first 

 acquired by the speaker, needing to be fed on milk 

 with a medicine dropper. Mrs. Chase described its 

 growth, acquisition of squirrel-like habits and in- 

 stincts. It was not brought up as a pet, but was 

 given every freedom to develop its natural traits. 

 At maturity it met with wild members of its own 

 species, at first returned home, but finally remained 

 away. Mrs. Chase had a few records of the squirrel 

 after it had left; at one time it was seen in com- 

 pany with seven wild squirrels in a strawberry 

 patch where it had once learned to feed. Wild 

 squirrels had not been seen in this patch before 

 and the speaker concluded they had been taught to 

 eat strawberries and shown the place by her 

 former pet. 



The rest of the evening was given over to an ex- 

 hibition of lantern slides on biological subjects. 

 W. W. Cooke showed views of bird life; Dr. Smith, 

 of Japanese silk industry; Wm. Palmer, of seals 

 and birds of Pribilof Islands ; Dr. Bartseh, of lo- 

 cal birds. M. W. Lyon, Jr., 



Recording Secretary 



THE NEW ORLEANS ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



The regular monthly meeting of the New Or- 

 leans Academy of Sciences was held at Tulane 

 University on Tuesday, January 19. In the ab- 

 sence of the President, Dr. Irving Hardesty pre- 

 sided. Twx) papers were presented at the meeting, 

 the first by Dr. W. O. Scroggs, of the history de- 

 partment of Louisiana State University, on ' ' The 



Mosquito Kingdom and Henry L. Kinney." Ac- 

 cording to Dr. Scroggs : 



Early in the nineteenth century agents of Great 

 Britain on the Mosquito coast, in eastern Nica- 

 ragua, persuaded the native chiefs in this region 

 to recognize one of their number as king, and this 

 half-breed sovereign was persuaded in turn to place 

 his realms under the protection of the British 

 Crown. In the United States it was feared that 

 the British claims thus set up would prove an ob- 

 stacle to the construction of the interoceanic canal. 

 The Mosquito king meanwhile had made vast 

 grants of his land to enterprising traders along 

 the coast, and these concessions were bought up 

 by an American adventurer, Henry L. Kinney, who 

 undertook in 1855 to colonize the Mosquito coast 

 with Americans and counteract British influences. 

 Kinney's plans were laid on an elaborate scale, 

 but he encountered such opposition from a syndi- 

 cate of American capitalists at home and from a 

 rival adventurer in Nicaragua, William Walker, 

 that the enterprise failed, and he was financially 

 ruined. 



The second paper was by Dr. Gustav Mann, pro- 

 fessor of physiology, Tulane University: "Wh.it 

 part does water play in our economy?" 



Dr. Mann discussed water metabolism. After a 

 general survey of the total quantity of water in 

 individuals of different ages and of that for in- 

 dividual tissues the absorption of water by the 

 intestines, its storage especially in the muscles and 

 its formation inside the body as a result of oxida- 

 tion of fats, sugars and proteins was gone into. 

 Then the advantages of the circulation of water 

 witliin the body, the elimination by the salivary 

 glands, the stomach and the intestines and re-ab- 

 sorption of water along with dissolved food sub- 

 stances was pointed out. The work done by Hawk 

 along with Mattill and Hattrem was criticized. 

 There can not be any doubt that an absorption of 

 4 to 5 liters of water per day greatly helps the di- 

 gestion of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. It is 

 necessary, however, to constantly bear in mind the 

 amount of salt which is taken with the food. The 

 effect which an excess of salt produces is to render 

 the globulins of the body more soluble while large 

 quantities of water produce the opposite effect. 

 The great advantage of giving nutritive solutions 

 hypodermically and thereby insuring a slow ab- 

 sorption of food radicals in contradistinction to 

 giving salt solutions intravenously for purposes of 

 raising blood pressure was exnlained. When talk- 

 ing about the elimination of water by the skin, 

 lungs and kidney, the advantage of breathing 

 through the nose and thus keeping the air passages 

 moist to allow foreign material to be caught in the 

 nasal passages was emphasized. 



Both papers were the subject of considerable 

 discussion. At the conclusion of the papers. Dr. 

 Mann made an exhibit of brain and thalamus dis- 

 sections made permanent by infiltration with solid 

 paraffin. 



R. S. Cocks, 

 Secretary 



