December 25, 1!)03.] 



SCIENCE. 



815 



O. P. Hay, American Museum of Natural 

 History. For monographing the fossil 

 Chclonia of \orth America. $2,200. 

 Abstract of lieport— Dr. Hay reports 

 that he lias prepared 200 pages of type- 

 written manuscript, and has had made, 

 under his personal supervision, 210 draw- 

 ings and 80 photographs of fossil turtles. 

 He finds that there are about ISO species, 

 and that there yet renuiins much to be done 

 before the monograph will be ready for 

 publication. During the summer he spent 

 two months in the Bridger deposits of Wy- 

 oming, collecting fossils, and secured 135 

 specimens of turtles that will add greatly 

 to our knowledge of Eocene forms. 



(;. K. \Vii;i..\xn. Yale University, New 

 Haven, Coiui. For continuation of his 

 researches on living and fossil cycacls. 

 $1,500. 



Abstract of Report. — Dr. Wieland ex- 

 pects to have a memoir ready by the close 

 of the calendar year, dealing with the fossil 

 eycads from a biological standpoint. He 

 has developed a new method for the study 

 of fossil eycads by perfecting or inventing 

 inverted drills, by means of which he has 

 secured leaves, branches, fruits, flowers and 

 terminal buds in the form of cylindrical 

 cores cut from the eycad trunks. He has 

 also adopted the novel plan of cementing 

 together again, in their original po.siticm, 

 the parts of such cores resulting from the 

 cutting of a series of thin sections, and in 

 this way securing a second series, also com- 

 plete. Bj' these methods he has cut a dozen 

 fruits, in various stages of growth, from a 

 silieified cycad trunk. He ha.s also cut 

 thin longitudinal and transvei"se sections of 

 flowers surrounded by leaf bases. It is 

 now possible to make, in the case of eycads. 

 intensive studies of single trunks, sucli as 

 have never before been made in the ease of 

 any fossil plants. 



S. W. Wii.i.i.sToN, University of Chicago, 

 Chicago, 111. For preparing a mono- 

 graph on the Plesiosaurian group. $800. 

 Abstract of AV/jo/V.— Professor Williston 

 reports that he investigated the type ma- 

 terial of Plesiosaurs at Colorado College, 

 University of Kansas >Mu.senm, the Ameri- 

 can iluseum of Natural History in New 

 York, the iluseum of the Academy of Nat- 

 ural Sciences, Philadelphia, and the Na- 

 tional Museum, AVa.shington. Important 

 material has been sent him from these and 

 other sources, upon which he is at present 

 engaged. He hopes to complete his study 

 during the year 1904. 



PHYSICS. 



Henry Ceew, Evanston, 111. For study of 



certain arc spectra. $1,000. 



Abstract of 7»'epo/-f.— Professor Crew re- 

 ports that after the building of certain ap- 

 l)aratus, which required several months, 

 be began the experimental part of his work. 

 He found unexpected difficulties in work- 

 ing with magnesium and zinc, the two 

 metals in which he hoped to find the order 

 of appearance of the lines of the spark 

 spectra. 



His second problem was to complete the 

 maps of the spectra of cadmium and alumi- 

 num. The map of the cadmium arc has 

 Ijeen completed: that of aluminum nearly 

 so. 



The difiieulty of obtaining an oscillo- 

 irraph has delayed the beginning of work 

 on the third problem, the determination of 

 the E.M.F. curves with the 'rotating met- 

 allic arc' 



A. A. MicuELSON, Univei-sity of Chicago, 

 111. For aid in ruling diffraction grat- 

 ings. $1,500. 



Abstract of h'c port. — Processor Michel- 

 son encountered many serious difficidties in 

 the ruling engines for diffraction gratings, 

 most of which he now believi-s are over- 

 come. The work is now l)eing pushed 



