Februaet 7, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



205 



tained above. Nor has the year seen any- 

 notable advances in our philosophical 

 knowledge of the ganoids. Their fin struc- 

 ture alone has been considered critically,' 

 and in this discussion the evolution of the 

 "effective fins" shows the relations of 

 ganoids and teleosts. 



Nor has the great group of Teleosts 

 yielded far-reaching results during the past 

 year. The paper of Woodward above cited 

 recapitulates the teleostean fins and skele- 

 ton from the standpoint of evolutional phi- 

 losophy. And, in a matter of detail, 

 Hussakof has described a form of surgeon 

 fish which serves to connect the balistids 

 with the teuthids. On the purely sys- 

 tematic side work has been active, but this 

 phase of research our time will not permit 

 us to treat. 



Finally, as to the evolutional phi- 

 losophy which the study of fossil fishes 

 has touched upon, we can only say that 

 orthogenesis keeps presenting itself with 

 significant persistency. There has, how- 

 ever, been no attempt up to the present 

 time to collect these results systematically 

 — and herein lies a harvest for the reflect- 

 ive worker. We should, on the other hand, 

 mention the vast materials unearthed by 

 Jaekel at Wildungen, for in them he main- 

 tains, rightly or wrongly, the appearance 

 of an "explosive" or mutational origin of 

 species. 



Bashfoed Dean 



THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOB THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



SECTION O— BOTANY 



Section G of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science met dur- 

 ing the past convocation week at Chicago, 

 all of the sessions, except the vice-presi- 

 dential address by Dr. D. T. MacDougal, 

 being held in the Botany Building of the 



"A. S. Woodward, op. cit., pp. 276-278. 



University of Chicago. Three sessions 

 were held for the reading of papers, and 

 all meetings were held in conjunction with 

 the Botanical Society of America, so that 

 in no case were two botanical meetings held 

 simultaneously. The attendance varied 

 from one hundred to one hundred and 

 fifty, and over one hundred professional 

 botanists from outside Chicago were pres- 

 ent at the meetings. The sessions were 

 presided over by the vice-president of the 

 section, Professor Charles E. Bessey ; in the 

 absence of the secretary. Professor Francis 

 E. Lloyd, Dr. Henry C. Cowles acted as 

 secretary pro tern. 



The following officers were chosen : 



Vice-president — Professor H. M. Richards, Co- 

 lumbia University. 



Secretary (iive years) — ^Dr. Henry C. Cowles, 

 University of Chicago. 



Member of the Council — Dr. F. E. Clements, 

 University of Minnesota. 



Memier of the Sectional Committee (five years) 

 — Professor R. A. Harper, University of Wiscon- 

 sin; (one year, vice Professor Charles E. Bessey, 

 resigned) — Dr. J. M. Greenman, Field Museum 

 of Natural History, Chicago. 



Memier of the General Committee — Professor 

 M. B. Thomas, Wabash College. 



The following resolutions were adopted, 

 in memory of Professor Lucien M. Under- 

 wood : 



Whereas : By the lamented death of Dr. Lucien 

 Marcus Underwood, late professor of botany in 

 Columbia University, science has suffered a severe 

 loss and the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, particularly the Botanical 

 Section, an active and esteemed member, be it 



Resolved, That this society place on record its 

 recognition of his fruitful labors along his chosen 

 lines in the field of scientific research and instruc- 

 tion and its keen appreciation of the stimulating 

 infiuence of his personal character and scholarly 

 attainments. 



The vice-presidential address of Dr. D. 

 T. MacDougal has been published in full 

 in Science. Abstracts of the technical 

 papers presented follow : 



