632 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 120. 



quantities ; in shady places the slender cliff- 

 brake ; on the talus upon the larger bowlders 

 the walking fern, and in the shade of these 

 bowlders the Scolopendrium, chiefly in clus- 

 ters of 2 to 6, at first erect, finally somewhat 

 drooping, and ripe in September. Mr. Clute 

 added that the species seems to be increasing at 

 present, being now under the protection of an 

 association. 



3. The third paper was by Mr. B. D. Gilbert, 

 of TJtica, N. Y., entitled 'New and interesting 

 Ferns from Bolivia,' with exhibition of speci- 

 mens of two new ferns, a species of Blechnum 

 and a new variety of Nephrodium villosum, the 

 first peculiar in being fully pinnate, the second 

 in being a one-sided dwarf persistently under a 

 foot and a half high, instead of 4 or 5 feet as 

 its type. 



4. The fourth paper, also by Mr. Gilbert, 

 'Jamaica, the Fern-Lover's Paradise,' de- 

 scribed the abundance of species and of indi- 

 viduals which the speaker had collected there, 

 illustrating the subject by numerous specimens. 

 He remarked that Swartz in his Species Filicum, 

 1783-6, enumerating all then-known ferns, de- 

 scribed 709 species, of which 149 were from 

 Jamaica ; the Jamaican number was raised to 

 300 by Grisebach and now to 500 by resident 

 botanists there, an estimate confirmed by Mr. 

 Gilbert. Probably no other equal area pro- 

 duces half that number. Among reasons which 

 account for this are the warm latitude of 

 Jamaica, its south shore sheltered from cooler 

 breezes by a mountain wall, its mountains 

 themselves rising to 7,000 feet and reaching 

 into a cool temperature climate, and its great 

 variation in moisture, with daily rains in the 

 mountains and sometimes but twice in six 

 months on the plain. 



Edwakd S. Buegess, 



Secretary. 



BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



A GENERAL meeting was held January 2, 

 1897 ; forty-three persons present. Professor 

 W. O. Crosby gave an account of the dike-like 

 masses of sandstone that occur in the granite 

 of the Pike's Peak massif in the TJte Pass, 

 Colorado. For an Abstract see Science, page 

 604 above. 



The Society met February 3d ; one hundred 

 and six persons present. 



Mr. William C. Bates spoke of Venezuela 

 and British Guiana, giving a brief historical ac- 

 count of their discovery, and describing, with 

 the aid of a series of stereopticon views, various 

 points of interest connected with their natural 

 history, scenery and people. 



Samuel Henshaw, 

 Secretary. 



THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS. 



At the meeting of the Academy of Science of 

 St. Louis held on the evening of April 5, 1897, 

 Professor Frederick Starr, of the University of 

 Chicago, briefly addressed the Academy on the 

 functions of such organizations, with especial 

 reference to local problems. Mr. H. C. Irish 

 presented a paper on the relations of the un- 

 folding of plants in spring to meteorological 

 conditions, in which were embodied deductions 

 drawn from a series of observations made at 

 the Missouri Botanical Garden, and those by 

 other observers, extending back to the time of 

 Stillingfleet, in the last century. Mr. Charles 

 Robertson presented for publication a paper 

 entitled ' North American Bees — Descriptions 

 and Synonyms.' 



Wm. Teelease, 



Secretary. 



SCIENCE CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 

 WISCONSIN. 



At the regular meeting of the Club held 

 March 11th the only paper of the evening was 

 by Wm. B. Miller on ' Pulmonary Architec- 

 ture.' The object of the paper was to show 

 that in the structure of the lung there is a de- 

 finite relation of the bronchi, blood and lymph 

 vessels to each other ; and that there is to be 

 found in the lung the same as in the liver, in- 

 testines and other organs, a unit which repeats 

 itself throughout the entire organ, and that 

 when this unit is understood there is little 

 difiiculty in understanding the whole organ. 

 The paper was illustrated by means of numer- 

 ous models, macroscopic and microscopic prep- 

 arations. 



Wm. S. Marshall, 



Secretary. 



