March 6, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



391 



Oregon Agricultural College on January 17 

 -and 18. Four sessions were occupied in the 

 presentations of papers. 



A reception was given to the academy mem- 

 bers by the faculty of the Oregon Agricultural 

 College on the evening of the seventeenth. 



Papers were presented as follows: 



" South African Flora," by Mary F. Farnham. 



" Oysters in Oregon," by A. R. Sweetser. 



" Future of Mining," by A. C. Terrill. 



" Space and Number Systems," by H. B. 

 Leonard. 



" Theory of Electrons," by L. A. Robinson. 



" Surface Tension applied to Ore Dressing," by 

 H. M. Parks. 



" The Birds of the Three Arch Rociv Regions," 

 by Wm. L. Finley. 



" Apple Tree Anthracnose," by C. 0. Gate. 



" Notes on Triohoptera," by Annie Laura Hill. 



" The Tides," by J. D. Lee. 



Officers for the ensuing year were elected 

 as follows : 



President — A. R. Sweetser. 



First Vice-president — A. T. Bohman. 



Second Vice-president — A. B. Cordley. 



Recording Secretary — C. E. Bradley. 



Treasurer — C. 0. Chambers. 



Trustees — Dr. J. Withycombe, T. C. Bridwell 

 and P. L. Campbell. 



Librarian — A. W. Miller. 



THE ANTHEOPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OP WASHINGTON 



The paper of the 412th meeting was by 

 Dr. George Byron Gordon, Free Museum of 

 Science and Art, Philadelphia, on " An Eth- 

 nological Survey of the Kuskokwim River, 

 Alaska." Dr. Gordon said that in continua- 

 tion of his Alaskan explorations begun in 

 1905 he visited during the summer of 1907 

 the region of the upper Kuskokwim River, 

 and embarking on that stream, descended its 

 whole length to the mouth in Bering Sea. 

 The upper river for 200 miles he found to be 

 untenanted by man, and it appears that there 

 is a corresponding scarcity of animal life. 

 The first habitations reached were abandoned, 

 and in one house five dead bodies were lying 

 as though overtaken with a sudden pestilence, 

 and later it was ascertained that virulent 

 pneumonia had swept the valley, almost ex- 

 terminating the natives. Lower down the 

 river an uninhabited village was reached, and 



Dr. Gordon observed that the people were of 

 Eskimo type, but spoke a Tinne Indian dia- 

 lect. Their houses are of logs, stood up in 

 arch-shape and covered with earth. Assembly 

 or club-houses of large size exist here, and 

 there are numerous caches, graves and salmon- 

 drying racks. The caribou, on which the 

 natives depended, have left their former range 

 and do not now visit the Kuskokwim. Dr. 

 Gordon visited the Eskimo village at the 

 mouth of the river and secured photographs, 

 measurements and other data concerning the 

 people. The inroads of disease among the 

 natives, says Dr. Gordon, are frightful, and 

 in a few years it is possible that the inhab- 

 itants of this region will be exterminated by 

 maladies introduced by whites. Dr. Gordon 

 said, in answer to a question by Mr. Robinson, 

 that the timbers of the old houses on the upper 

 Kuskokwim had been cut with ivory and stone 

 tools. The discussion of Dr. Gordon's highly 

 interesting paper was participated in by 

 Messrs. Heye, Robinson, Hrdlicka and others. 



Walter Hough, 

 General Secretary 



THE philosophical SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The 642d meeting of the society was held 

 on January 4, 1908, President Bauer in the 

 chair. 



By invitation, Mr. Percival Lowell read a 

 very interesting paper on the subject of " The 

 Recent Discoveries at Flagstaff in Saturn's 

 Rings." In June, 1907, a new phenomenon 

 was observed in Saturn's rings, at Flagstaff. 

 At this time the plane of the planet's rings 

 was directed towards the earth and the inter- 

 esting thing was the band. The dark chord 

 or core seen in the band at this time was the 

 phenomenon that had not been previously 

 known or observed. The same phenomenon 

 was again seen in October last by all of the 

 observers at Flagstaff, and careful measure- 

 ments were made of the band, the dark medial 

 chord and of the positions (in terms of the 

 planet's radius) of the several luminous ap- 

 pendages. 



It was shown by the speaker that the ob- 

 served width of the band was too great to be 

 explained by the rings' shadow or by their 



