116 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. aXIY. No. 604. 



of one of the churches were broken, and al- 

 most every house having v?indows on the 

 western side suffered from the stones. One 

 of the largest stones was measured, the result 

 showing a circumference of nine inches; it 

 was irregular in form, one and a half inch 

 thick and the edge was deeply indented in 

 places. This was not an exceptional stone, as 

 a great many of this size were found. 



W. K. Gregory. 

 American Museum of Natural History. 



saueopodan gastroliths. 

 To THE Editor of Science: It may be of 

 interest, in connection with Mr. G. R. Wie- 

 land's recent description of the gastroliths 

 found with the sauropod remains in Montana, 

 to call attention to an apparently unrecorded 

 similar discovery at Morrison, Colo. In 1877, 

 Professor O. C. Marsh's party, in charge of 

 Professor Arthur Lakes, obtained among the 

 bones of the type specimen of Atlardosaurus 

 immards Marsh, a number of rounded and 

 highly polished siliceous pebbles whose sur- 

 face peculiarities resembled those of the 

 gastroliths described by Mr. Wieland. No 

 material of similar size, form, surface mark- 

 ings or composition occurs elsewhere in the 

 Atlantosaurus clays of this vicinity. Pro- 

 fessors B. P. Mudge and S. W. Williston were 

 with us when some of these pebbles were found 

 and considered them as identical in origin 

 with the stomach stones that they had recently 

 found with plesiosaurian remains on the plains 

 of Kansas. With the exception of one speci- 

 men, now in the collection of fossils in the 

 Denver High School, these specimens were 

 probably sent to the Peabody Museum of the 

 Yale University and might be found in the 

 collections sent to Professor Marsh by Pro- 

 fessors Lakes and Mudge from the neighbor- 

 hood of Morrison during the years 1877 and 

 1878. The field notes of Messrs. Lakes, Mudge 

 and Williston, if obtainable, might afford addi- 

 tional data and possibly confirm a suspicion of 

 the writer that some gastroliths were also 

 found in connection with the type specimen 

 of the species formerly known as Apatosaurus 

 ajax Marsh. Geo. L. Cannon. 



Denver, Colo. 



the SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AN INSTITUTE OF 

 RESEARCH. 



To THE Editor of Science: I desire to em- 

 phasize the suggestion made by David Fair- 

 child in Science for June 8, in which he 

 advocates changing the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion from a museum to an institute of re- 

 search. It seems to me that this idea ought 

 to appeal strongly to men of science generally 

 throughout the country. It can not be denied 

 that the greatest impetus to research in pure 

 science in the past has been the working to- 

 gether of men earnestly engaged in special 

 lines of research, and the value of such re- 

 searches has been greater whenever the several 

 investigators have been brought together in 

 one institution or in one laboratory. Experi- 

 ence has shown that under such conditions 

 only as are found, for example, in the Biolog- 

 ical Station at Naples, or in the laboratories 

 of the greater German universities, does the 

 most stimulating atmosphere of research exist. 



The elaborate and well-endowed scientific 

 projects now in operation, although extremely 

 valuable, can not do for the progress of knowl- 

 edge what such institutions as the above men- 

 tioned are doing. We have in this country 

 large and well-endowed museums that are 

 amply able to care for the work that falls 

 within their respective provinces, but there is 

 no institution that can be looked upon as a 

 common center of research to which the in- 

 vestigator may go to pursue his studies with 

 the necessary equipment and in an atmosphere 

 whose vigor comes from the helpful sugges- 

 tions and from the keen but friendly criticism 

 of his many colleagues. 



Let the Smithsonian Institution, therefore, 

 be the nucleus of such a great national or 

 international institute of research. 



David M. Mottier. 

 Indiana University. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 



evidences of GLACIATION in SOUTHERN ARIZONA 



AND NORTHERN SONORA. 



In the spring of 1905, during a professional 

 trip to Sonora the writer was interested in 

 observing along the Sonora Railway, south of 



