Apkil 25, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



667 



formal announcement of the death, on Jan- 

 uary 15, of the Curator, Alpheus Hyatt. He 

 spoke feelingly of his cordial and courteous 

 personality, his imfailing good-humor and his 

 deep interest in the development of the So- 

 ciety's work. At the close of these remarks, it 

 was unanimously voted to request the Council 

 to make arrangements for a memorial meet- 

 ing for Alpheus Hyatt. 



The paper of the evening was by Mr. George 

 I>. Gordon, who spoke of 'Recent Explora- 

 tions by the Peabody Museum in Guatemala 

 and Honduras.' He gave an account of the 

 iirst expeditions by white men into this region, 

 and pointed out that General Cortez, in his 

 two years' march from the City of Mexico to 

 Honduras, found the country a wilderness and 

 had great diificulty in obtaining any provi- 

 sions. A considerable amount of work has 

 been done by the Peabody Museum of Archeol- 

 ogy and Ethnology in uncovering and inves- 

 tigating the vast ruins of the Mayas, buried 

 in the depths of the tropical forests of this 

 region. The city of Copan, which has been 

 to a great extent uncovered, appears to be the 

 oldest of these ancient communities. A num- 

 ber of lantern slides was exhibited, illustra- 

 ting the types of monoliths, altars and temples. 

 Mr. Gordon also gave an aecoxmt of an explo- 

 ration of a large limestone cave, in which was 

 found a very deep pit. With some difficulty 

 the explorer was lowered into the pit, and 

 found the floor covered with fragments of 

 human bones. He suggested as a possible ex- 

 planation of this fact that the cavern was 

 used as a temple by the ancient tribes, and 

 the bones were those of victims sacrificed to 

 the Cave God, by being hurled into this 

 chasm. 



At the meeting of Eebruary 19, Professor 

 W. 0. Crosby presented a careful and detailed 

 treatise on the ' Origin of Eskers.' He pointed 

 out that the deposits classed as eskers have 

 doubtless been formed under various condi- 

 tions, and that a stationary ice-margin was 

 highly favorable, if not essential, to such for- 

 mations. The evidence of existing ice areas 

 and glaciers seems to shed little light on the 

 problem. The theories of esker formation 

 were considered in detail, and the defects of 



the subglacial theory of origin were pointed 

 out. A superglacial origin was considered to 

 be much more probable. The material for 

 such superglacial deposits could easily have 

 been derived from englacial detritus, which, 

 as is known, is constantly working up toward 

 the surface of the ice, as the ice-sheet moves 

 onward. This detritus would be acted upon by 

 superficial streams. The ice-floor of a super- 

 ficial stream is lowered by base-leveling, and 

 by the melting away of the ice from below. 

 The channel thus continues to aggrade, while 

 at the same time the deposits consequent on 

 aggradation are being let down, so that the 

 final grade is that of the ground below. In 

 further support of this theory, the speaker 

 cited the general absence of any correlation of 

 the meanders of eskers to the present topog- 

 raphy, a fact which is almost inexplicable by 

 the subglacial theory of formation. The ma- 

 terial of these deposits, too, could hardly be so 

 great as it is, if the subglacial theory be 

 accepted, for a subglacial stream could have 

 gained little from englacial drift, and not 

 largely either from the ground moraine. In 

 conclusion, Professor Crosby considered the 

 eskers and sand plains of Newtonville and 

 Aubui-ndale, especially in their bearing on the 

 two main theories of esker formation. 



An account of an 'Entomological Collect- 

 ing Trip in the Highlands of Bolivia,' from 

 the advance sheets of a forthcoming work by 

 Mr. A. G. Weeks, Jr., was read. A graphic 

 description of the topography and general 

 features of this almost unexplored region was 

 given and several finely executed colored 

 plates were shown, illustrating hitherto unfig- 

 ured Lepidoptera. Glover M. Allen, 



Secretary. 



THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS. 



At the meeting of the Academy of Science 

 of St. Louis on the evening of March lY, Dr. 

 E. E. Buckley, State Geologist of Missouri, 

 addressed the Academy on the work being 

 done by the State Bureau of Geology and 

 Mines, giving a brief review of the work done 

 by the Bureau in the past, since its creation in 

 1839, and an outline of the plans for the 

 future. 



