266 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII 1. Xo. 5Sl. 



The Early Days of the Biological Society: 



Theodore Gill. 



Then followed numerous notes regarding 

 the work, former and recent, by members of 

 the society, these being given by Mr. Henry 

 UU^e, Dr. L. O. Howard, Dr. E. A. Schwarz, 

 Professor W. P. Hay, Dr. C. E. Waters, Mr. 

 W. H. Osgood. 



The Present and Future of the Biological So- 

 ciety : President F. H. Ejnowlton. 



E. L. Morris, 

 Recording Secretary. 



THE geological SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



At the thirteenth annual meeting of the so- 

 ciety held on December 13, 1905, the address 

 of the retiring president. Dr. George P. Mer- 

 rill, entitled ' Development of the Glacial 

 Hypothesis in America,' was presented. 



The following officers were elected : 



President — George P. Merrill. 



Vice-Presidents — Waldemar Lindgren and JI. R. 

 Campbell. 



Secretaries — George Otis Smith and Arthur C. 

 Spencer. 



Treasurer — M. L. Fuller. 



At the 173d meeting of the society, January 

 10, under the head of informal communica- 

 tions, Mr. Fuller described several blowing 

 wells in Georgia. In the case of a certain 

 well investigated where there were in-draft 

 from early morning until about 10 a.m., and 

 after that an out-draft until evening, observa- 

 tion extending over several days showed that 

 the change accompanied a fall in the barom- 

 eter. Instances of constant in-draft were ex- 

 plained by drawing an analogy to the familiar 

 hydraulic filter pump of the chemical labora- 

 tory. 



Mr. Gilmore gave an interesting descrip- 

 tion and exhibited photographs of a skeleton 

 of Triceratops from the Laramie formation 

 of Wyoming which he has recently articu- 

 lated at the National Museum. 



Mr. R. S. Bassler exhibited some fossil 

 cystids from the Chazy-Black River strata of 

 the Virginia valley. The speaker stated that 

 when these forms occur in slaty beds they are 

 always greatly deformed, and it is only in the 

 limestone strata that their original globular 



shape is retained. In specimens where the 

 surface plates are well preserved each plate 

 is reinforced by a column of calcite having 

 approximately the same shape as the plate 

 against which it terminates, and each column 

 is found to be a single crystal. The columns 

 extend toward the center of the cystid, which is 

 frequently hollow, so that the whole affair 

 constitutes a small geode. 



The regular program was as follows : 



Algonkian Formations of Northwestern Mon- 

 tana.: Mr. C. D. Walcott. 

 This was a repetition of the paper given 

 by Mr. Walcott before the Geological Society 

 of America at Ottawa, which will appear in 

 the forthcoming volume of the Bulletin of 

 that Society. 



The Franklin Mountains, Texas: Mr. G. B. 



Richardson. 



The Franklin Mountains are the southern 

 extremity of the long, narrow range, known 

 locally by different names, that extends south- 

 ward from the Rocky Mountains and delimits 

 the Rio Grande Valley on the east as far as 

 El Paso. The mountains are about fifteen 

 miles long, average three miles in width, and 

 rise 3,000 feet above the adjacent low lands. 

 The western face is relatively little dissected 

 and constitutes a dip slope. The eastern side, 

 on the contrary, is much dissected and exposes 

 cross sections of the rocks. From a distance 

 the range appears to be simple, but closer in- 

 sijection reveals complex conditions. 



The oldest rocks in the Franklin Mountains 

 are of pre-Cambrian age and include two dis- 

 tinct foi-mations which aggregate 3,400 feet 

 in thickness. The lower one consists of light 

 and dark quartzite and subordinate slate which 

 have been cut by a few thin diabase dikes. 

 These rocks are succeeded by a bed of rhyolite 

 tufi'', ranging from zero to 400 feet in thick- 

 ness, above which is a mass of porphyritic 

 red rhyolite over 1,000 feet thick. Three hun- 

 dred feet of indurated, fine-textured sandstone, 

 carrying upper Cambrian fossils, overlies the 

 rhyolite and contains rounded pebbles of the 

 latter in the basal bed. The sandstone is suc- 

 ceeded by a considerable thickness, amounting 

 to at least 5,000 feet, of massive, gray lime- 



