196 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 109. 



The election resulted in the selection of the 

 following officers for 1897 : President, Dr. 

 Frank Baker; 1st Vice-President, Prof. W J 

 McGee (re-elected) ; 2d Vice-President, Mr. 

 Geo. R. Stetson (re-elected) ; 3d Vice-Presi- 

 dent, General Geo. M. Sternberg (re-elected) 

 4th Vice-President, Dr. Cyrus Adler ; General 

 Secretary, Dr. J. H. McCormick (re-elected) 

 Secretary to Board, Mr. Weston Flint (re 

 elected) ; Treasurer, Mr. P. B. Pierce (re 

 elected); Curator, Mr. F. W. Hodge (re-elected) 

 Councils (additional members of) : Mr. J. H 

 Blodgett, Mr. J. W. Fewkes, Dr. Geo. M 

 Kober, Mr. J. D. McGuire, Mr. J. O. Wilson 

 Dr. Thomas Wilson. 



No papers were read. 



J. H. McCormick, M. D., 



Secretary. 



SECTION OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 

 92D MEETING, JANUARY 14. 



At this the 13th annual meeting of the 

 Society the following officers were elected for 

 the ensuing year ; viz : 



President, W. D. Bigelow ; Vice-Presidents, 

 H. N. Stokes, Peter Fireman ; Secretary, V. 

 K. Chesnut; Treasurer, W. P. Cutter; Ex- 

 ecutive Committee, the foregoing officers and 

 E. A. de Schweinitz, Chas. E. Monroe, W. H. 

 Krug, Wirt Tassin. 



Dr. E. A. de Schweinitz, the retiring Presi- 

 dent, announced the date of his annual address 

 as February 25th, the subject to be ' The War 

 with the Microbe. ' V. K. Chesnut, 



Secretary. 



BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



A GENERAL meeting was held December 16, 

 1896, twenty-eight persons present. 



Prof. F. W. Putnam prefaced his statement 

 concerning some recent work at Trenton, N. J., 

 bearing upon the early presence of man in the 

 Delaware Valley, with a detailed description of 

 the discovery, in 1879, in the undisturbed 

 gravel, of a stone implement near a boulder. 

 Explorations in the Trenton gravels have been 

 carried on systematically since 1891, by Mr. 

 Ernest Volk, under the direction of Prof Put- 

 nam ; and a section at the place recently exam- 

 ined shows three distinct upper layers, namely : 



(1) black soil, (2) glacial sand, and (3) white 

 glacial sand. Implements of chert, jasper, and 

 quartz, as well as of argillite and of pottery, 

 characterize the black soil, while chipped argil- 

 lite, with occasionally a quartzite, are found in 

 the glacial sand. All but four specimens thus 

 far found in the glacial sand are of chipped argil- 

 lite ; there are no jaspers or cherts. The dis- 

 tinctive implements and the layers are sharply 

 correlated, and the accuracy of Abbott's early 

 work is emphasized by the later work of Volk. 



Prof G. Frederick Wright discussed the ex- 

 tent of preglacial erosion in the United States 

 and its bearing on the question of the length 

 and date of the Glacial period. The new evi- 

 dence as to the age of the deposit of the Tren- 

 ton gravels confirms the results first announced 

 by Lewis and Wright. The Philadelphia brick 

 clays are older than the Trenton clays, and the 

 work of E. H. Williams proves that the rock 

 erosion was earlier than the Philadelphia brick 

 clays. Prof Wright reviewed the work of 

 Salisbury in New Jersey, of White in the de- 

 posits of the Monongahela River, the evidence 

 obtained in Iowa, and Claypole's discovery in 

 the glacial till of Ohio, and showed that the 

 necessary data for more accurate conclusions 

 were accumulating. 



Prof. Putnam spoke of the rude knife found 

 at Steubenville as the most highly finished of 

 all the specimens yet found, and said that being 

 chipped was favorable to its greater antiquity 

 than if it had been flaked. The patina on the 

 implement is very decided. 



Samuel Henshaw, 



Secretary. 



THE GEOLOGICAL CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 



MINNESOTA. 



At the weekly meeting, held Saturday, Jan- 

 uary 16th, a paper was read by Arthur H. Elft- 

 man, on the use of certain terms prominent in 

 petrology. Incidentally the terms grauitic and 

 pegmatitic were noted. The growth of the 

 terms ophitic and poikilitic in geologic litera- 

 ture was then outlined and an attempt made to 

 define them more rigidly than had hitherto 

 been done by petrologists. 



Charles P. Berkey, 



Secretary. 



