DECEilBEB 4, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



723 



the species with 27, 29, 30, 31, 37, 39, 41, 42, 

 44, 45, 46, 48 and 49 rays no specimens had 

 at the time been discovered. Ten of these 

 were found in 1843 and 1844, but the hist 

 four seem never to have come to light. 



G. K. Gilbert spoke of the twisting of the 

 pines, Pinus balfouriana, observed by him in 

 the Kern Kiver region. In many trees the 

 wooil had a distinct spiral twist, usually to 

 the right, and the branches twisted in the 

 same direction ; in the exceptional cases where 

 the twist was to the left, the branches, as a 

 rule, also followed this direction. 



Lester F. Ward presented a paper on ' The 

 Dresden Cycad ' {Cycadeoidea Bcichenbach- 

 iana), giving a brief historical account of 

 the cycad trunk from the salt region of Galicia 

 that has been in the Dresden Museum since 

 its discovery in 1753. Its true character as 

 a cycad was made known by Goppert in 1844, 

 when he named it Raumcria Reichenhachiana, 

 and he described and figured the specimen in 

 1853. More recently it had been photographed 

 by Geinitz and a copy of the photograph sent 

 to the speaker, who surmised that the cycad 

 had been mounted in an inverted position, 

 and so stated in his ' Flora of the Black Hills.' 

 In August, 1903, Mr. Ward visited Dresden 

 and had an opportunity to examine the speci- 

 men carefully, finding that it was really in- 

 verted. The speaker gave as minute a de- 

 scription of the trunk as was possible without 

 cutting sections to show the internal structure, 

 stating that it shows a number of reproductive 

 organs that promise good results when they 

 shall be cut through and examined micro- 

 scopically. 



Under the title 'The Making of a Whale' 

 F. A. Lucas described the making of the 

 mold of an adult sulphur-bottom whale and 

 the preparation of its skeleton, illustrating 

 his remarks by slides from photographs by 

 Mr. William Palmer. Ho said that in May 

 Mr. Palmer, Mr. Scolliek and himself had 

 been sent to a whaling station on the southern 

 coast of Newfoundland, and told liow the 

 whales >vere captured there and made into 

 oil and fertilizer. The method of making the 

 mold, he stated, had been devised by !Mr. 

 Palmer, who was at present engaged on the 



reproduction of the animal for the St. Louis 

 Exposition. F. A. Luc.\s. 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 01" W.XSIIINGTON. 



The 571st meeting was held October 10, 

 1903. The first regular paper was by Mr. G. 

 W. Littlchales, of the Hydrographic Office, on 

 ' The Locus of Geographical Position and the 

 Compass Error,' depending on the use of 

 special large-scale diagrams and avoiding cal- 

 culation. 



This communication points out a short and 

 simple simultaneous solution, by inspection, of 

 the altitude and azimuth of a celestial body 

 due to an estimated geographical position of 

 the observer. 



The results, which are applied directly to 

 the problem of laying down the Sumner line 

 of position and finding the total error of the 

 compass, are obtained with a degree of pre- 

 cision which is well within the margin of error 

 that is inseparable from observations made at 

 sea. 



A navigator having measured the true alti- 

 tude of a celestial body and then deduced the 

 altitude and azimuth of the observed body 

 due to the estimated geographical position of 

 the ship, can draw a line upon his chart 

 through the estimated geographical position 

 of the ship at right angles to the azimuth or 

 true bearing of the observed celestial body, 

 which might be appropriately called the Sum- 

 ner line of position by account; and next 

 comparing the instrumentally measured true 

 altitude with the altitude due to the geograph- 

 ical position, he can at once draw the actual 

 Sunnier line of position, since it will be 

 sensibly parallel to the line of position by 

 account and removed from it by a perpendic- 

 ular distance equal to the difference in minutes 

 of arc between the observed and deduced alti- 

 tudes and toward the direction of the obsei"ved 

 celestial body or away from it, according as 

 the true altitude obtained by observation is 

 greater or less than the altitude deduced by 

 dependence on the estimated geographical 

 position. 



If the compass bearing of the observed 

 celestial body be noted at the time the ob- 

 servation for altitude is taken, the difference 



