Mat 6, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



733 



The May number (volume 10, number 8) 

 of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical 

 Society contains the following articles : ' Re- 

 port of the February Meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Mathematical Society,' by Professor F. N. 

 Cole ; ' Report on the Eeqiiirements for the 

 Master's Degree,' by the Committee of the 

 Chicago Section ; ' On the Subgroups of Order 

 a Power of p in the Linear Homogeneous 

 and Fractional Groups in the GFlp^l,' by Pro- 

 fessor L. E. Dickson ; ' The Exterior and In- 

 terior of a Plane Curve,' by Dr. G. A. Bliss; 

 ' Eicatti Isothermal Systems — a Correction,' 

 by Dr. Edward Kasner; Shorter Notices; 

 Notes ; New Publications. 



According to the annual announcement of 

 the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's 

 Hole, the Journal of Morphology, the publica- 

 tion of which was interrupted in 1901, at the 

 conclusion of the seventeenth volume, is to be 

 immediately resumed, and will be open for 

 larger papers in animal morphology, requir- 

 ing, as a rule, extensive illustration in litho- 

 graphic plates. A Journal of Animal Biology 

 is also to be undertaken in the interest of 

 investigations upon living animals, dealing 

 especially with the problems of evolution as 

 presented in the phenomena of heredity, varia- 

 tion, hybridization, etc., and requiring experi- 

 mental methods and methodical observation. 



80CIEriJS8 AND ACADEMIES. 

 THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



The 152ct meeting was held February 24, 

 1904. 



Dr. Arthur L. Day presented a paper en- 

 titled ' The Study of Minerals in the Labora- 

 tory.' Dr. Day drew attention to the relation 

 of some problems of physics to geology and 

 pointed out the lines of investigation which 

 had been undertaken by the Physical Labora- 

 tory of the United States Geological Survey. 

 His paper was intended as an introduction to 

 a summary of the results of certain investi- 

 gations, an abstract of which will appear be- 

 low. 



This was followed by a discussion of the 

 oil fields of Alaska, by Dr. George C. Martin. 

 Indications of petroleum have been found at 



three distinct localities on the Pacific Coast 

 of Alaska and have been reported from several 

 others. The Controller Bay field lies adjacent 

 to the coast, about twenty miles east of the 

 Copper River delta. In this field one well has 

 been drilled which struck oil and several others 

 were being put down at the time of Dr. Mar- 

 tin's visit. The rocks, consisting of shales 

 and sandstones, are closely folded and are prob- 

 ably of Tertiary age, and are overlain by coal- 

 bearing horizons which are also Tertiary. The 

 structure, as far as could be determined, is 

 complex. 



The second locality lies on the west shore of 

 Cook Inlet, at Enochkin Bay. In this locality 

 the seepages indicate the presence of petro- 

 leum, though the wells drilled thus far have 

 not yielded any gushers. The oil-bearing 

 rocks are of Jurassic age and are thrown up 

 into broad, open flats. 



One hundred miles to the southwest is Cold 

 Bay, where a similar occurrence of petroleum 

 seepages has been found. The geologic struc- 

 ture and rocks seem to be identical with those 

 of Enochkin Bay. An account of these oil 

 fields has been published by Dr. Martin in Bul- 

 letin 225, U. S. Geological Survey, pp. 362- 

 385. 



The 153d meeting was held March 9 and 

 the first paper was entitled ' Extra Morainic 

 Pebbles in Western Pennsylvania,' by Mr. 

 Lester H. Woolsey. Mr. Woolsey said that 

 glacial pebbles, granites, diabases, etc., of prob- 

 ably Wisconsin or lowan age, have been found 

 in 950-foot terraces (supposedly Kansan) along 

 Eaccoon Creek in Beaver and Washington 

 counties as far south as Burgettstown on the 

 Panhandle Eailway. Similar pebbles were 

 found up to 1,100 feet elsewhere in Beaver 

 County. This is some evidence of a general 

 flooding of this region in post-Kansan time. 



Mr. F. H. Knowlton then gave a paper on 

 the ' Fossil Floras of the Yukon.' Up to 

 about 1900 the known fossil flora of Alaska 

 numbered about 110 species, all of which had 

 come from the coast region from Sitka to Cape 

 Lisburne. With the exception of the Cape 

 Lisbume forms, which were regarded as of 

 Jurasso-Cretaceous age, practically all those 

 known were Tertiary in age. The discoveiiy 



