JANUAEY 15, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



99 



The Section then adjourned and joined 

 the rest of the Society. 



The following titles were also announced, 

 but were not read, chiefly because of the 

 absence of their authors. In several in- 

 stances they were read by title : 

 Evidences of Northeasterly Differential Rising 



of the Land along Bell River. Egbert 



Bell, Ottawa, Canada. 



Surface Tension of Water as a Cause of Ge- 

 ological Phenomena. George E. Ladd. 



Geomorphy of Jamaica as Evidence of Changes 

 of Level. J. W. Spencer, Washington, 

 D. C. (By title.) 



Preliminary Note on the Pleistocene History of 

 Puget Sound. Bailey Willis, Washing- 

 ton, D. C. 



Modified Drift in St. Paid, Minn. Waeebn 

 Upham, St. Paul, Minn. 



Note on Plasticity of Glacial Ice. I. C. Rus- 

 sell. 



Physical Basis for General Geological Correla- 

 tion. Charles E. Keyes, Jefferson City, 

 Mo. 



Notes on the Potsdam and Lower Magnesian 

 Formations of Wisconsin and Minnesota. 

 Joseph F. James, Hingham, Mass. 



The Age of the Lower Coals of Henry County, 

 Missouri. David White. 



New Evidence on the Origin of Some Trap 

 Sheets of New Jersey. Henry B. Kttmmbl, 

 Chicago, 111. 



The Origin and Age of the Gypsum Deposits of 

 Kansas. G. Perry Grimsley, Topeka, 

 Kansas. Eead by title. 

 On the whole the meeting was a most en- 

 joyable one, and the 75 to 100 Fellows who 

 were in attendance returned to their homes 

 with appreciative and grateful feelings to 

 the geologists of Washington, by whom they 

 had been so hospitably entertained. 



J. F. Kemp. 



AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY. 

 The annual meeting of the American 

 Mathematical Society was held in Hamilton 

 Hall, Columbia University, on Wednesday 

 afternoon, December 30, 1896. The Presi- 

 dent, Dr. George W. Hill, occupied the 

 chair, and there were twenty -four members 

 in attendance. Profs. T. W. Edmondson 

 and J. L. Patterson were elected to mem- 

 bership. The Secretary's report showed a 

 total membership of 279, being a net gain 

 of 12 for the year. Eeports were also re- 

 ceived from the Librarian and the Treasurer. 

 The Bidletin of the Society has appeared 

 regularly through the year, being at present 

 in the sixth annual volume. The last com- 

 plete volume is a substantial octavo of 354 

 pages. 



The annual election was held at this 

 meeting, the following ticket being adopted : 

 President, Prof. Simon Newcomb ; Vice- 

 President, Prof. E. S. Woodward; Secre-' 

 tary, Prof. F. N. Cole; Treasurer, Prof. 

 Harold Jacoby; Librarian, Prof. Ponieroy 

 Ladue ; Committee of Publication, Prof. T. 

 S. Fiske, Prof. Alexander Ziwet, Prof. Frank 

 Morley ; Members of the Council to serve 

 until December, 1899, Prof. Alfred Baker, 

 Dr. George W. Hill, Dr. Emory McClin- 

 tock. 



Three papers were presented, abstracts of 

 which are given below. 



Prof. Morley, of Haverford College, read 

 a paper on the construction of a single 

 point covariant with five given points. 

 Taking the five points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on a 

 conic, U, and taking Gundelfinger's conic 

 for any four, let the intersection of the 

 polars of the fifth point with respect to the 

 two conies be found; the 5 points so obtained 

 lie on a line which strikes U at the zeros of 

 a quadratic covariant, Salmon's S. By 

 taking the polar of the five points with re- 

 gard to this covariant pair, counted thrice, 

 we obtain a covariant point, readily identi- 

 fied as the second of Salmon's list. For 



