750 



SCIENCE. 



LN. S. Vol. XVII. No. 436. 



line having a slope of |., the Centigrade line 

 a slope of -|. 



The diagram is capable of being extended 

 as far as may be desired, and by shifting the 

 origin of coordinates and choosing a suitable 

 scale of magnification, almost any desired 

 degree of accuracy may be obtained for read- 

 ings along any given part of the diagram. 

 S. W. Dudley. 

 Sheffield Scientific School, 

 Yale Univebsity, 

 February 7, 1903. 



DISCOVERY OF DENTAL GROOVES AND TEETH IN 



THE TYPE OF BAPTANODON (sAURANODOn) 



MARSH. 



Through the courtesy of Dr. C. E. Beecher 

 the writer has recently enjoyed the privilege 

 of studying the types in the Tale Museum on 

 v^hieh Professor O. C. Marsh based the de- 

 scription of Bapianodon twtans and B. discus. 



The discovery * of teeth in the jaws of an 

 Ichthyosaurian (No. 603) belonging to the 

 collection of fossil vertebrates of the Carnegie 

 Museum, led the author to believe that dental 

 grooves, if not teeth, were present in the type 

 of the genus Baptanodon. 



Only a little preparation was necessary to 

 demonstrate the existence of well-developed 

 dental grooves on both upper and lower 

 jaws, and just outside of the dental groove, 

 imbedded in the matrix surrounding the ros- 

 trum of No. 1952t (type of the genus), a small 

 tooth was discovered. This tooth is Ichthyo- 

 saurian in character. The enameled crown, 

 however, is perfectly smooth, there being pres- 

 ent no such longitudinal striae as those ob- 

 served on the teeth belonging to No. 603 of the 

 Carnegie Museum. The complete preparation 

 of No. 1952 would undoubtedly reveal other 

 teeth. Professor Marsh's statement, that ' the 

 jaws appear entirely edentulous and destitute 

 even of a dentary groove,' was doubtless due 

 to the imperfectly prepared material upon 

 which he based his first description. 



* ' Discovery of Teeth in Baptanodon, an Ich- 

 thyosaurian from the Jurassic of Wyoming,' 

 Science, N. S., Vol. XVI., No. 414, December 5, 

 1902, pp. 913-914. 



t Catalogue number of the Yale Museum. 



The presence of teeth in the type of 

 Baptanodon, as well as their existence in two 

 specimens preserved in the collections of this 

 museum, clearly demonstrates the fact that 

 American Ichthyopterygians possessed teeth. 

 This fact, now firmly established, makes it still 

 more difficult to separate the genus Bapta- 

 nodon from the closely allied European form 

 OpMhalmosaurus, and unless other distin- 

 guishing characters can be found they will 

 necessarily have to be considered as generically 

 identical. Baptanodon would then become a 

 synonym of OpJithalmosaurus. 



In my first paper I provisionally proposed 

 the new genus Microdontosaurus, using as the 

 type No. 603 of the Carnegie Museum collec- 

 tions. I then distinguished this genus from 

 Baptanodon by the supposedly edentulous 

 character of the latter. Since, however, Bap- 

 tanodon has been conclusively demonstrated to 

 have possessed teeth Microdontosaurus must 

 be abandoned as a synonym of Baptanodon or 

 OpMhalmosaurus. 



Since some time must necessarily elapse be- 

 fore the publication of the final paper upon 

 which the writer is now engaged, it has been 

 thought best to call attention to the discovery 

 of teeth in the type of the genus Baptanodon, 

 which has been considered edentulous for 

 nearly a quarter of a century. 



Charles "W. Gilmore. 



Carnegie Museum, 

 April 4, 1903. 



THE BITTER-ROT FUNGUS. 



In 1854 Berkeley (Gardener's Chronicle, p. 

 676) described a fungus, Septoria rufomacu- 

 lans n. sp., growing on grapes. He renamed 

 this in 1860 (' Outlines of British Fungology,' 

 p. 320), calling it Ascochyta rufomaculans 

 Berk. In 1879 von Thiimen ('Fungi Pomi- 

 coli,' p. 59) placed this fungus in the genus 

 Gloeosporium and it then became Gloeosporium 

 rufomaculans (Berk.) von Thiimen. 'In 185G 

 Berkeley (Gardener's Chronicle, p. 245) de- 

 scribed a fungus causing a rot of apples, 

 naming it Gloeosporium fructigenum n. sp. 

 This is the fungus which is the cause of the 

 bitter-rot disease of apples which has caused 

 such extensive damage to apple crops for many 



