SCIENCE 



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



OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 



FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



Feidat, February 7, 1908 



CONTENTS 



studies on Fossil Fishes during the Year 

 1907 : Peofessoe Bashfobd Dean 201 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 

 Section — Botany: Peofessor Heney C. 

 CowLES 205 



The- Entomological Society of America: Dr. 

 J. Chester Beadley 215 



Scientific Books: — 

 Fairbanks's Practical Physiography: Peo- 

 fessoe D. W. Johnson 216 



Scientifio Journals and Articles 220 



Societies and Academies: — 

 The Torrey Botanical Cluh : De. Charles 

 Louis Pollaed. The Anthropological So- 

 ciety of Washington: De. Walter Hough. 

 The Northeastern Section of the American 

 Chemical Society: Peofessoe Feank H. 



Thorp 220 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



Toioer's Evolution in Leptinotarsa : Dr. 



Fbedeeiok Knab 223 



Special Articles: — 

 Age of a Cooling Olohe in lohich the Ini- 

 tial Temperature increases directly as the 

 Distance from the Surface: Dr. George F. 



Beckee 227 



Quotations : — ■ 



The Great Bequest to Trinity College .... 233 



The George Washington University 234 



William Stratford: B. D 234 



Morris K. Jesup: H. F. 235 



Scientific Notes and News 236 



University and Edticational News 240 



MSS. intended for publication and booka, etc., intended for 

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

 Hudson, N. Y* 



STUDIES ON FOSSIL FISHES DVBINQ TEE 

 YEAR WOT- 



Since the establishment of a merciful 

 Concilium Bibliographicum it is not neces- 

 sary for us either to wait for generous 

 authors to donate separates, or to ransack 

 files of literature to find the annual doings 

 in each of our fields of inquiry. In the 

 field in which I am especially interested, 

 that of the lowest groups of fossil verte- 

 brates, the Concilium will give you the full 

 recolte of references and spare you my list 

 of them— and titles in plenty there are in 

 all the groups of fishes, from primitive 

 sharks to the most complicated teleosts. 

 There are papers systematic on the fossil 

 fishes of California, on new sticklebacks, 

 surgeon fishes, prosturgeons, conodonts — 

 there are papers on the anatomy of fossil 

 fishes, acanthodians and placoderms, and 

 there are not lacking references to the 

 descent of the fishes and to the philosophy 

 of their evolution, as in Eastman's mono- 

 graph on the fossil fishes of New York, 

 Smith Woodward's address before the 

 Paleontological Society, Patten's continued 

 studies on Bothriolepis, and Jaekel's re- 

 marks upon the "nest" of placoderms 

 which he has brought to light in the Upper 

 Devonian of Wildungen. 



But from all these references we can for 

 the present review only those which bear 

 upon the greater problems. 



Our first inquiry, in considering the 

 advances in paleichthyology, is whether the 



' A portion of the address of the retiring presi- 

 dent of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists, 

 New Haven, December 27, 1907. 



