1870.1 ^1^ 



Dr. Brinton described and proposed the purchase of two 

 rare works now for sale in London — one a Maralio Mexican 

 theological work and grammar, the other a Moska New 

 Granada grammar. The subject was referred to a committee, 

 consisting of Dr. Brinton, Mr. Hopper and Mr. Price. 



Mr. McNeil was then introduced by Prof. Cope, and gave a 

 sketch of his explorations in Central America, undertaken for 

 the Peabodj Institute, in Salem, and for the Kent Scientific 

 Institute, at Grand Eapids, Michigan, and his plan for a fifth 

 expedition, to explore ruined cities on the river which flows 

 into the Chiriqui laeoon. With $1,200, he could carr}^ on 

 his researches for six months, and send to the Society which 

 employed him, objects of antiquarian, ethnological, and natu- 

 ral history interest. 



Dr. Brinton said it was unexplored territory. No stone 

 monuments were known so far south. They were valuable 

 as furnishing possibly a key to the connexion between the 

 Mexican, Central American and Per avian stone monuments. 



Prof. Cope exhibited tlie remains of a new Cretaceous tortoise, of tlie 

 genus Adocus Cope, to be called A. syntheticus. He explained that he 

 had been able to establish more fully the characters of the genus Adocus; 

 that it was found to possess an intergular shield, as in the Pleurodira, 

 but had not the sutural union of the inferior pelvic elements with the 

 plastron, characteristic of that type. These characters had been here- 

 tofore known as correlatives in the order, from the Cretaceous period to 

 the present time, and that this genus presented us with the first exception 

 to the rule. The genus was therefore regarded as a generalized type, and 

 typical of a new family, the Adocida. 



He also made some observations on the metatarsal region of Laelaps 

 aquilunguis, exhibiting the first example found, and said it proved the 

 distinctness of those elements from each other in that genus, and their 

 slender collective proportions. The specimen was an external one, with- 

 out trace of a rudimental one on its outer face. That its measurement, 

 10 inches, was indicative of a length of 18 inches for the median meta- 

 tarsus, a length he had already assigned to it on theoretical grounds. 



Nominations Nos. 651, 652, 654, 655, 660, 661, and new 

 nominations Nos. 662, 663, were read. 



And the Society was adjourned. 



