-Januaby 31, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



191 



Treasurer — J. W. Gidley. 



Councilors — ^A. D. Hopkins, J. N. Rose, A. K. 

 Fisher, A. B. Baker, David White. 



President Stejneger was nominated as a 

 vice-president of the Washington Academy 

 of Sciences. 



M. C. Marsh, 

 Recording Secretary 



THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY. NEW YORK 

 SECTION 



The fourth regular meeting of the session 

 of 1907-8 was held at the Chemists' Club, 108 

 West 55th Street, on January 10. 



Dr. McMurtrie read a short obituary of the 

 late Peter Townsend Austen who was closely 

 identified with the section since its foundation. 

 Dr. Austen served twice as chairman and con- 

 tributed much to the society from his vast 

 fund of information and experience in the field 

 of chemistry. 



Mr. T. J. Parker described the winter meet- 

 ing in Chicago, speaking of the elaborate prep- 

 arations made and the cordial reception ex- 

 tended to visiting chemists, of whom there was 

 a good representation. Mr. Parker also spoke 

 of the business transacted by the council, espe- 

 ■cially that relating to the publication of a 

 journal of industrial chemistry. This journal 

 together with those now issued would place 

 the American Chemical Society ahead of any 

 society of its kind in the extent of chemical 

 knowledge recorded in its publications. 



The following papers were read : 



" Drop Weights and the Law of Tate. The De- 

 termination of the Molecular Weight in the Liquid 

 State by the Aid of Drop Weights," by J. L. E. 

 Morgan and Eeston Stevenson. 



'"' Note on the Precipitation of Zinc as Sul- 

 phide," by W. Geo. Waring. 



C. M. Joyce, 

 Secretary 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



BAPTANODON NOT A " TOOTHLESS " ICHTHYOSAUR 



While it may appear to be ungracious to 

 point out the errors of others, especially of 

 those who are valued scientific friends, never- 

 theless scientific accuracy and the truth of na- 

 ture sometimes make it necessary to do so. 



In the year 1880 Professor O. C Marsh 

 coined the word Baptanodon as the generic 

 name of an ichthyosaurian which in the previ- 

 ous year he had designated as Sauranodon, 

 which was preoccupied. Both names indi- 

 cated the toothless character of the creature 

 for which they stood, and Professor Marsh in 

 his writings maintained the toothless character 

 of Baptanodon. 



In January, 1905, Dr. Henry Fairfield Os- 

 bom published an article in the Century Mag- 

 azine upon ichthyosaurs, in which he speaks 

 of the Jurassic ichthyosaurs included in the 

 genus Baptanodon as " belonging to a race 

 which, like certain of the whale tribe, lost 

 their teeth because they had selected for food 

 the softer marine organisms, such as the 

 squids." Elsewhere he speaks of them as 

 " toothless sea-robbers." 



In hastily glancing over the pages of the 

 second revised edition of Professor W. B. 

 Scott's " Introduction to Geology," I discover 

 on page 692 the following statement: "Bap- 

 tanodon^ found in Wyoming, is an ichthyosaur 

 without teeth, and must have fed upon small 

 and soft marine invertebrates, as do the tooth- 

 less whales." 



jis both Professor O shorn and Professor 

 Scott address themselves in their writings to 

 large audiences, and their repetition of the 

 error into which Professor Marsh fell, if 

 backed by their great names, is likely to be- 

 come very widely accepted, it seems proper for 

 me to call the attention of men of science to 

 the fact that in December, 1902, Mr. C. W. 

 Gilmore in the columns of Science, N. S., Vol. 

 XVI., pp. 913-914, called attention to the fact 

 that Baptanodon was not a toothless reptile. 

 Early in the spring of 1904 the Carnegie Mu- 

 seum published a Memoir by Mr. Gilmore en- 

 titled " The Osteology of Baptanodon Marsh," 

 in which, at page 98, he shows that Baptan- 

 odon, like the English OpMlialmosauruS; is 

 provided with teeth, and figured the teeth, and 

 on page 121 he alludes to the fact that a tooth 

 exists in the jaw of the type of the genus, No. 

 1,952, preserved in the collections of the Yale 

 Museum, a fact which Professor Marsh had 

 entirely overlooked. 



Baptanodon is a misnomer, which, neverthe- 



