146 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XX. No. 501 



SCIENCE; 



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THE AMEKICAN ASSOCIATION AT ROCHESTER. 



BY D. S MARTIN. 



The recent meeting of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science was in all respects a pleasant and successful 

 one. The beauty of the city of Rochester, the absolutely perfect 

 weather that lasted through the entire session, and the careful 

 an^ systematic arrangements of the local committee all combined 

 to favor the attending members. The number present was in all 

 455, larger than at any meeting in the past ten years, save the ex- 

 ceptional ones at Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, and 

 ranking seventh in the entire series of forty-one meetings. 



The sessions were held in the University of Rochester, whose 

 handsome and commodious buildings are surrounded by a large 

 and very beautiful campus. This latter was a constant source of 

 %ijoyment, like the university grounds at Toronto in 1889, where 

 the midday interval could be passed under noble trees and on vel- 

 vety grass, with the lake breezes to refresh the air. No pleasanter 

 "environment" has ever been enjoyed than at Rochester; while 

 the fine collections of the university in Sibley Hall and the prox- 

 imity of the celebrated " Ward's Natural History Establishment" 

 and the Warner Observatory gave added scientific interest. 



A large number of local geological trips were made to points of 

 interest in the neighborhood. Among these may be mentioned 

 the great gorge of the Genesee and the Lower Falls, where the 

 Clinton and Niagara rooks are so grandly exposed in section ; the 

 glacial deposits of the Pinnacle Hills, south of the city, which 

 present some problematical features: and last, but not least, the 

 rock salt mines at Leroy and Livonia, some twenty to thirty miles 

 southward of Rochester, where the great deposits of solid salt are 

 reached at 1,0 10 and 1,369 feet of depth, respectively, and immense 

 works are in process of construction. The age of these beds, as 

 is well known, is salina, or perhaps more strictly waterlime. 



The regular Saturday excursions arranged by the local com- 

 mittee had also much of a geological character, some going to 

 Niagara, others to the Portage Gorge of the upper Genesee, and 

 others to Stony Brook Glen, all of these being magnificent exam- 

 ples of stream-erosion. 



Another matter of local interest was the opening to the mem- 

 bers, by courtesy of the family, of the mansion and library of the 

 late Hon. Lewis H. Morgan, president of the association in 1880 

 and eminent as a writer and student in archaeology and ethnology. 

 The visit to his library and collection was an occasion of gratifi- 

 cation to many. 



To specify or enlarge upon particular papers among the many 

 and valuable ones presented, would be diiHcult and perhaps invid- 

 ious It is. however, but>fair to say that especial interest, in sec- 

 tions E (geology) and H (anthropology), was developed in the 

 active discussions that arose regarding two subjects — that of 

 Comparative Geological Chronology as presented by Professor W. 

 J. McGee, and Aboriginal Quarries of Flakable Stone by Mr. W. 

 H. Holmes — both of Washington. Professor McGee's general 

 doctrine is that, using erosion as a measure of time, it is possible 

 to fix somewhat definitely the relative lengths of certain recent 

 geological epochs, and then (as generally admitted on the basis of 

 sedimentation, as by Dana and others) of the older and greater 

 periods. Then, by fixing a date in years for the last glacial 

 epoch, it becomes possible to estimate somewhat the duration of 

 geological time. This last date, based partly on Croll's astronomi- 

 cal theory and partly on various strictly geological data, he would 

 place at about 7,100 years ago. Using this as a unit of estimate, 

 the relative time indicated by erosion, etc., to the " Columbian " 

 deposits, is to this date as 30 ± to 1, giving about 200,000 years to 

 the Columbian (early Quaternary) ; while the same process will 

 require some fifty times as much, or 10,000,000 years, to the 

 "Lafayette," late Tertiary. It is easy to see from these figures, 

 when compared with the time-ratios for the geological ages 

 as given, e. g , by Dana, how stupendous a time is demanded 

 by Professor McGee's view, and how extreme is the difference be- 

 tween the geological requirements on the one hand and the dura- 

 tion allowed by the physicists and astronomers on the other. The 

 discussion that arose was naturally active, and the subject is one 

 likely to be prominent for some time to come. 



Mr. Holmes has been investigating aboriginal quarries exten- 

 sively, and presents the view that immense quantities of merely 

 unfinished and rejected material at these points exhibit all the 

 characters of so-called "palaeolithic " work. He therefore ques- 

 tions strongly the palEeolithic age of much that has been so re- 

 garded, certainly in this country. The discussion of this and 

 other papers in the section showed a strong tendency to demand 

 more proof, and that strictly stratigraphical, than has often been 

 given in describing "pateolithic" implements and drawing infer- 

 ences therefrom. Those who accompanied Mr. Holmes a year 

 ago to his aboriginal quarry in the Potomac gravels at Piney 

 Branch, near Washington, will remember that visit with in- 

 creased interest in view of this important discussion. 



Much else might well be mentioned, but space forbids. Asa 

 vi'hole, it may be said that few meetings of the association have 

 been more agreeable or more profitable than the one just closed at 

 Rochester. 



The decision to hold the next session at Madison, Wis., rather 

 than at Chicago, is generally^ approved. The place is near 

 enough to give the members opportunity to visit the World's Fair 

 before or after the association meeting, and far enough away to 

 escape the crowd and the distraction ; while the provision made 

 for a permanent headquarters for each section of the association 

 during the entire period of the Fair, in rooms set apart for that 

 purpose, is a most happy and desirable arrangement for the com- 

 fort and convenience of members visiting Chicago. 



AMERICAN BOTANISTS AND NOMENCLATURE. 



BY JOBN M. COULTER, PRESIDENT OP INDIANA UNIVERSITY. 



The Rochester meeting of the American Association was a 

 notable one for American botanists. They had so bui'dened sec- 

 tion F with papers in the years that are past that nothing was left 

 but to organize them into a separate section, under the letter left 

 vacant by the deceased Section of Microscopy. This calls for con- 

 gi-atulation as testifying to the growing numbers and activity of 

 botanists. Among botanists, however, the meeting was still more 

 notable from the remarkable merging of all diflferences of opinion 

 into an agreement concerning nomenclature. 



This subject has not only brought botanists into conflict with each 

 other, but into disrepute with fellow-scientists. Force seemed to be 

 wasted in upholding varying personal opinions. So far as American 

 botany was concerned, there seemed to be two hostile camps with 



