534 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 66, 



history as well as the various prophylactic meas- 

 ures were discovered by experimentation and 

 could have been obtained in no other way. 

 The same is true regarding tape worms and 

 flukes. Through a study of the embryology of 

 these parasites by means of animal experimenta- 

 tion data have been obtained for the proper 

 methods of prevention. 



The study of animal parasites bears a close 

 relation in differential diagnosis to the bacterial 

 diseases, for verminous nodular diseases are 

 found in cattle, sheep, chickens, etc., which re- 

 semble tuberculosis and are often mistaken for 

 it. 



Regarding anajsthetics Dr. Stiles said that 

 they could not be used in his line of work as it 

 was necessary to keep the animals under ex- 

 perimentation for several days, weeks or even 

 months at a time. He was firmly of the opinion, 

 however, that the inconvenience suffered 

 by the animals in experiment was, in the vast 

 majority of cases more of the nature of weak- 

 ness than of actual physical pain. He claimed 

 that the appetite of the animals was an excellent 

 index to the amount of pain they suffered since 

 an animal in severe pain refuses food. In ex- 

 periments with animal parasites the hosts 

 nearly always retained their appetites and the 

 speaker maintained that even in the severe ex- 

 periments the pain suffered by the animals was 

 almost insignificant when compared with the 

 pain a human being would suffer in the same 

 stages of the same diseases. 



J. H. McCOKMICE, 



General Secretary. 



GEOLOGICAi SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



At the 45th meeting of this Society, held in 

 Washington, D. C, March 11th, President S. F. 

 Emmons in the chair, two jjapers were read, 

 one by Bailey Willis on ' Evidences of Ancient 

 Shores, and the other by David White on ' The 

 Thickness and Equivalence of Some Basal Coal 

 Measure Sections along the Eastern Margin of 

 the Appalachian Basin.' 



Mr. Willis discussed the evidences of ancient 

 shores with reference to their position, trend 

 and duration. Five classes of evidence were 

 enumerated: namely, (1) overlap or unconform- 

 ity ; (2) suncracks, trails or ripple marks ; (3) 



coarser deposits ; (4) thicker deposits, and (5) 

 synclines of deposition. 



Any point of an unconformity marks with 

 precision a point on some shore line at some 

 instant of time, but as the outcrop of an uncon- 

 formity cannot be assumed to be parallel to the 

 former shore line, this evidence does not define 

 the trend of the ancient shore, and as the shore 

 was in transit its duration was transient. 



In contrast with this conclusion was placed 

 that derived from thick deposits of shales such 

 as are formed by the delivery of a large volume 

 of sediment concentrated at the mouth of a 

 river draining an extensive watershed. These 

 conditions result in the accumulation of a len- 

 ticular formation which thickens rapidly from 

 the shore to a naaximum and thins more gradu- 

 ally seaward. When the thickness of the shale 

 is pronounced, the duration of the conditions 

 was probably long continued. Such evidence, 

 therefore, indicates the approximate position, 

 general trend and long duration of the ancient 

 shore. 



In folded regions such conditions of deposition 

 as have just been described have determined the 

 positions of synclines of the greatest magnitude, 

 the synclines of deposition. Such folds are 

 further characterized by a very steep dip on 

 the shoreward side and by the stratigraphy, 

 which should include a massive bed of shale. 

 When sufficiently characteristic to be recog- 

 nized, the syncline of deposition thus becomes 

 an evidence of proximation to shore, with axis 

 parallel to its general trend ; the infolded 

 strata may also indicate the prolonged duration 

 of the neighboring shoreline. 



Thus the causal relation which exists between 

 sedimentation and folding is appealed to, to aid 

 in the determination of ancient shorelines. 



Mr. David White communicated informally 

 some preliminary results of his recent work un- 

 der instructions from the Director of the Geo- 

 logical Survey in the stratigraphic paleontology 

 of the lower portion of the Carboniferous proper 

 (Mesocarboniferous) and of the Pottsville series 

 in particular. The speaker exhibited columnar 

 sections of the series near Coxton, Pottsville 

 and Tremont, Pa.; Piedmont, the New River 

 and the Tug River, W. Va. ; Soddy, Teun., and 

 in the Warrior Coalfield, Ala., on which were- 



