May 28, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



855 



Series,' by F. W. Sardeson. A supplementary 

 discussion to tie papers by the same author on 

 these formations, showing the confusion arising 

 from a shifting nomenclature. 



N. H. Winchell gives a partial bibliography 

 with notes on ' The Age of the Great Lakes of 

 North America. ' It is interesting to have the 

 various opinions thus summarized for reference. 

 The prevailing belief has been that these lakes 

 occupy preglaeial valleys which have been shut 

 off by earth movements and by glacial accu- 

 mulations. 



Warren Upham discusses the ' Relation of 

 the Lafayette or Ozarkian Uplift of North 

 America to Glaciation.' Both are referred to 

 the Quaternary. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 THE 95TH REGULAR MEETING OF THE CHEMI- 

 CAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, APRIL 

 8, 1897. 



The first paper, ' Three Early American 

 Chemical Societies,' was read by Dr. H. Car- 

 rington Bolton. 



The first Chemical Society ever organized in 

 either hemisphere was founded at Philadelphia 

 in 1772, forty-nine years before the Chemical 

 Society of London, the oldest in Europe. The 

 President was Dr. James Woodhouse, professor 

 of chemistry in the medical department of the 

 University of Pennsylvania, and the first Vice- 

 President was Felix Pascalis Ouvriere, a natural- 

 ist born in France and sometime a resident of 

 Santo Domingo. On December 10, 1801, 

 Robert Hare presented to the Chemical Society 

 of Philadelphia his memorable paper on the 

 'Hydrostatic Blow-pipe,' which was published 

 by the Society in the following j'ear as a pam- 

 phlet with the title : ' Memoir on the Supply 

 and Application of the Blow-pipe.' 



In 1811 a second Chemical Society was 

 founded in Philadelphia called the 'Columbian,' 

 under the presidency of Professor James Cut- 

 bush. The constitution of this Society provided 

 for levying fines on absent members and those 

 who refused to accept oflSce when elected. The 

 Society numbered sixty-nine members, of which 

 thirty-one were foreign chemists, and thirteen 

 junior members ; these included the most 



prominent chemists and philosophers living on 

 both sides of the Atlantic. In 1815 The Co- 

 lumbian Chemical Society of Philadelphia pub- 

 lished one volume of memoirs ; this contained 

 twenty-six essays on a variety of topics original, 

 speculative and practical. 



The third Chemical Society was the Dela- 

 ware Chemical and Geological Society, organ- 

 ized at Delhi, New York, in 1821 ; it was, how- 

 ever, short lived and issued no publications. 



Dr. Bolton's essay contained brief biograph- 

 ical sketches of the prominent members of these 

 early Societies. 



The second paper, on ' The Experimental 

 Determination of the Hydrothermal Value of a 

 Bomb Calorimeter,' was read by H. W. Wiley 

 and W. D. Bigelow. The methods previously 

 suggested by other authors for this purpose 

 were reviewed and their advantages and disad- 

 vantages discussed. The authors employed a 

 relatively large body of warm water, instead of 

 a very small portion, as had previously been 

 used. Two Beckmann thermometers were em- 

 ployed, which made it possible to read a tem- 

 perature to a thousandth of a degree, so that 

 the error which would otherwise arise from the 

 slight change of temperature was overcome by 

 the accuracy in reading. 



The last paper, on ' The Influence of Vege- 

 table Mold on the Nitrogenous Content of Oats,' 

 was read by Dr. Wiley. Attention having been 

 called several years ago to the large increase in 

 the nitrogen in sugar cane grown in the muck 

 soils of Florida, an investigation was instituted 

 by the Department of Agriculture, in 1894, to 

 determine in what way the humus of such soils 

 influenced the nitrogen contents of cereal crops. 

 The first year's investigation was preliminary, 

 but it showed distinctly that oats grown on soils 

 rich in vegetable mold contained a larger per- 

 centage of nitrogen than that grown in other 

 soils. The total ingrease is, in general, about 

 25 fo . This was not in the grain alone, but also 

 in the straw. The second year's investigation 

 verified this result. The increase was largely 

 in amid nitrogen, the percentage of proteids not 

 being greatly increased. The results are, there- 

 fore, not so interesting from an economic point 

 of view. When it is remembered that these 

 vegetable soils are extremely rich in nitrogen, 



