A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 



OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 



FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



Friday, August 2, 1907 



CONTENTS 

 The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 

 The Early Surroundings of Life: De. A. C. 

 Lane 129 



Scientific Books: — - 



Martin's Researches cy)i the Affinities of the 

 Elements: De. J. E. Mills 143 



ScientifiG Journals and Articles 145 



Societies and Academies: — 



The Geological Society of Washington: De. 

 Feed E. Weight 146 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 

 Double-ended Drumsticks: H. Newell 

 Waedle. Are Bulls excited by Bed? X. 

 Nomenclature of the Chironomidw: G. W. 

 Kiekaldy 149 



Special Articles: — 



Specification of Diagrams in Applied Geom- 

 etry: Peofessoe Gael Baeus. The Chro- 

 mosomes of CEnothera Lamarckiana and 

 one of its Mutants, 0. Gigas: Anne M. 

 LuTZ 149 



Current Notes on Land Forms: — 



Diamond Head and Mohokea: D. W. J. A 

 Peneplain in Equatorial Africa: W. M. D. 

 A Prehistoric Landslide in the Alps: W. 

 M. D 152 



Preliminary List of Scientific Communica- 

 tions to be presented at the Seventh Inter- 

 national Zoological Congress : Peofessoe G. 

 H. Paekee 154 



Radium Emanation: SiE William Eamsat . 158 



Scientific Notes and News 159 



University and Educational News 160 



MSB. Intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 review should be sent to the Editor of Sciknge, Garrison-on- 

 Hudeon, N. Y. 



TBE EARLY SURROUNDINGS OF LIFE^ 



The American Association in its Platts- 

 burg meeting is close to the shore lines of 

 the first ocean that seems to have contained 

 organic life in variety, or rather a life 

 that had such hard parts that a tolerably 

 complete record of the main groups and 

 families has come down to us. It is then 

 natural to consider what the conditions 

 may have been under which this so varied 

 and complex life had developed, without 

 leaving more trace of its existence. 



Reading over Darwin's "Origin of 

 Species, ' ' one can readily see that of all the 

 objections to his theory which he so fully 

 and fairly presented, that which he deemed 

 the most serious was the lack of connecting 

 links in the geological record, and in par- 

 ticular the sudden appearance of the varied 

 primordial life. 



He conceded that this latter objection 

 was valid so far as one then knew, and 

 ventured only to suggest that while the 

 continents and oceans had been in grand 

 outline fairly permanent since early Paleo- 

 zoic, during longer eons previous, which he" 

 felt must have elapsed, conditions might 

 have been reversed, and the sediments then 

 laid down have been buried beneath the 

 oceans or altered with their life beyond 

 recognition. 



At about the same time that Darwin 



' Vice-presidential address before: Section E of 

 the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, also complimentary to the Catholic Sum- 

 mer School at the Champlain Assembly near 

 Plattsburg, N. Y. 



