Januaey 3, 1896.] 



SGIENGE. 



is reputed to have built more bridges thau any 

 other living engineer, and presents an interest- 

 ing account of his experiences. The next two 

 give the results of a series of experimental de- 

 terminations of the temperatures mentioned in 

 the title. In the fourth paper the results are 

 detailed of an extended series of experiments on 

 a difficult subject and the final attainment cTf a 

 feasible and a not too long method. The fifth 

 paper, which will be a serial, contains the open- 

 ing chapters of a manual on rocks for use with- 

 out the microscope. The last paper emphasizes 

 the importance of teaching architecture as an 

 art, comparable with artists' as distinguished 

 ft-om engineers' or artisans' work. As outlining 

 a future policy for our schools of architectiive it 

 lias important bearings. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



NEW YOEK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, SECTION OF 

 BIOLOGY. 



The following papers were presented on De- 

 cember 9th : 



Prof. C. L. Bristol : ' The Classification of 

 Nephelis in the United States.' The study of 

 abundant material, collected from Maine to 

 South Dakota, has shown that the color char- 

 acters cannot be depended upon for specific de- 

 termination. An examination of the metameral 

 relations of this leech indicates that no more than 

 a single species occurs in this country. 



Prof. H. F. Osborn : ' Titanotheres of the 

 American Museum of Natural History.' The 

 complete skeleton of Titanotherium robustum is 

 remarkable in possessing but twenty dorso- 

 lumbar vertebrse, a number identical with that 

 typical of the Artiodactyla, but entirely unique 

 among Perissodactyla. It now appears proba- 

 ble that the development of horns in the Titan- 

 otheres became a purely sexual character, and 

 that the genera Titanops, Marsh, and Brontops, 

 Marsh, are founded respectively upon male and 

 female individuals of Titanotherium robustum. 



Dr. J. L. Wortman : ' The Expedition of 

 1895 of the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory.' The expedition passed into the Unita 

 beds of northeastern Utah, then between the 

 eastern escarpment of the Unita range and the 

 Green Kiver into the Washakie Beds of south- 



western Wyoming, the most important result 

 geologically being that the Brown Park deposit 

 is found to be of much later age than the Unita. 

 Bashfoed Dean, 

 Mec. Sec'y, Biological Section. 



SECTION OF GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 



The Section of Geology and Mineralogy of 

 the New York Academy of Sciences assembled 

 for its regular monthly meeting Monday, 

 December 16, 1895, Prof. J. J. Stevenson pre- 

 siding. 



The first paper was by Prof. H. P. Gushing, 

 ' Notes on the Areal Geology of Glacier Bay, 

 Alaska.' The paper will appear in full and 

 with a geological map in Vol. 15 of the Trans- 

 actions of the Academy, but the following is an 

 abstract: 



After an introduction which outlined the pre- 

 vious work in the region by Dr. H. F. Reid and 

 the writer and the petrographical determination 

 of the rocks that had been collected by them, 

 and that had been studied by the late Dr. 

 George H. Williams and the writer, a descrip- 

 tion of the general geology was given, based 

 upon a geological map. 



Mr. Gushing shows that the rooks present 

 are argillites, limestone, quartz-diorite, diorite, 

 crystalline schists and dikes of diabase. The 

 argillites have a wide distribution around the 

 eastern side of the Muir glacier basin, and also 

 form the mountains adjacent to Muir Inlet. 

 They present three main phases: First, very 

 hard, fine grained argillo-siliceous beds, gray to 

 brown in color, occasionally approaching quartz- 

 ite in character. Second, blue and black, 

 somewhat slaty rocks, nearly as hard as the 

 first, and equally fine grained, but less siliceous, 

 although containing only a slight amount of cal- 

 careous manner. Third, thin bands of black 

 graphitic slates, with good slaty cleavage, and 

 interstratified with the other two varieties. 

 No fossils were found, although careful search 

 was made. 



The limestone is called the ' Glacier Bay 

 Limestone.' It is dolomitic, and for the most 

 part extremely pure, containing only a trace of 

 insoluble matter. Fossils were rare and so 

 damaged by metamorphism as to be unrecogni- 

 zable. But in 1893 a fossil coral was brought 



