440 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 875 



in addition graduate courses are offered, for 

 which certificates will be issued, counting 

 toward special degrees to be created. 



A NEW university is to be founded at Perth, 

 Western Australia. Mr. Cecil Andrews, who 

 represents the commission charged with carry- 

 ing out the project, is at present visiting the 

 universities of this country. 



De. George H. Denny, president since 1902 

 and previously professor of Latin at Washing- 

 ton and Lee University, has been elected presi- 

 dent of the University of Alabama. 



Dr. a. S. Peaese goes to the St. Louis Uni- 

 versity School of Medicine as associate pro- 

 fessor of biology. 



At the University of Maine, Mr. Earle O. 

 Whittier has been appointed instructor in 

 chemistry and Mr. Clayton Urey, instructor 

 in physics. 



New appointments in the faculty for the 

 University of Montana for 1911-12 are as fol- 

 lows: Honorable John B. Clayberg, honorary 

 dean and professor of Montana practise and 

 mining irrigation law; H. W. Ballantine, act- 

 ing dean and professor of law; Philip S. 

 Biegler, assistant professor of electrical engi- 

 neering; George H. Cunningham, instructor 

 in mechanical engineering; G. A. Gross, in- 

 structor in engineering shops. 



The faculty of Middlebury College, Ver- 

 mont, has increased from twelve to twenty-five 

 in the last four years. There are eight new 

 instructors this year, all but two of them fill- 

 ing new positions. These include : Avery E. 

 Lambert, Ph.D., assistant professor of zoology, 

 from the State Normal School, Framingham, 

 Mass.; 0. Allan Lyford, A.M., assistant pro- 

 fessor of geology from Clark College; George 

 H. Cresse, A.M., assistant professor of mathe- 

 matics; Eay L. Fisher, assistant professor of 

 physical education and director of athletics; 

 Irving W. Davis, instructor in pomology. 



Dr. Duncan Graham has been appointed 

 lecturer on bacteriology at the University of 

 Toronto. 



Dr. Alex. Findlay, special lecturer at the 

 University of Birmingham, has been appointed 

 professor of chemistry in the University of 

 Wales at Aberystwyth. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 



a carboniferous flora in the SILURIAN? 



Under the caption " The Oldest Silurian 

 Flora " Dr. G. F. Matthews' has recently set 

 forth geological conclusions and correlations, 

 which, if true, mean nothing less than the 

 condition implied by the above title. 



History shows, even in the literature of 

 geology and paleontology, that if error be 

 reiterated with sufficient frequency and vocif- 

 eration it will, unless disproved or contro- 

 verted, gradually gain credence and eventu- 

 ally tacit acceptance. Sometimes, therefore, • 

 as in the present instance, so persistent is the 

 erroneous utterance, it unfortunately becomes 

 necessary to repeat the protest; and in order 

 that the paleobotanical misinformation con- 

 tained in Dr. Matthews's last article may not, 

 as in some preceding instances, find unopposed 

 entrance to the text-books, the common dogma 

 of geology, it obviously becomes somebody's 

 unpleasant duty to challenge his conclusions. 

 This I regretfully do, the seemingly inane title 

 of this note being an epitome of the issue. 



It concerns mainly the flora and the age of 

 the " fern ledges " — the " Cordaites shale ' 

 and the " Dadoxylon sandstones " — at St. John 

 and Lepreau, near the Bay of Fundy, which 

 Sir William Dawson more than forty years 

 ago referred to the Devonian, and which 

 Matthews now declares are, in part at least, 

 Silurian. Soon after the publication of Daw- 

 son's papers mild protests were offered by 

 Geinitz and several others at placing beds 

 with such distinctly Carboniferous plants and 

 insects in the Devonian. About thirty years 

 later, when both the Devonian and the Car- 

 boniferous floras were far better known and 

 their stratigraphic significance more definitely 

 determined, opposition was again made by 

 Mr. Robert Kidston, the highest British au- 

 thority on the Paleozoic floras, and myself, 

 each of whom had examined collections from 

 the disputed beds. Each, wholly without 

 knowledge of the other's views, at once re- 

 ferred the flora to the Carboniferous, both 

 regarding the plants as probably belonging 



'^ Bull. Nat. Hist. Soc. New BrunsivicTc, No. 28, 

 1910, pp. 241-249. 



