October 2, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



475 



careless with the disposition of refuse mat- 

 ter. 



E. A. de Schweinitz, "Washington, D. C: 

 ' Vahie and Use of Formaldehyde as a 

 Disinfectant.' Anthrax, Tetanus, etc., are 

 destroyed by formaldehyde. It possesses 

 many good points as a disinfectant. It is 

 a good deodorizer, only a small quantity 

 being required, 1 cc. in ten liters of water. 

 This is applied by spraying. It is a good 

 preventative of decomposition. The amount 

 of the gas in a confined space is determined 

 by absorption in strong caustic soda or alka- 

 line permanganate. One objection to its 

 use has been the length of time necessary 

 to remove the slmrp odor' of the formal- 

 dehyde. This can be largely hastened by 

 sprajang with ammonia. 



E. G. Smith, Beloit College, Wis.: 'Ob- 

 servations on the Sanitary Nature of the 

 Mississippi River Water at Different Sea- 

 sons.' 



AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. 



L. L. Van Hyde, Geneva, N^. Y.: ' The 

 work of the Agricultural Chemists of 

 America.' The author gave a general re- 

 view of the various lines of investigation 

 pursued by the agricultural chemists. He 

 pointed out what valuable service had 

 been rendered in preventing fraudulent 

 practices. An account was also given of 

 the Association of Official Agricultural 

 Chemists. 



S. M. Babcock and H. L. Eussell, Uni- 

 versity of Wisconsin : ' Conditions affecting 

 thel^ormal Viscosity of Milk,' ' On the Res- 

 toration of the Viscosity of Pasteurized 

 Milk.' 



BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY. 



V. K. Chestnut, U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture: ' Andromedotoxin, the Poi- 

 sonous constituent of the Ericaceae and its 

 Relation to some Food Products.' It has 

 been shown that honey from bees feeding 

 on the plant contains the poison ; further 



that meat of animals feeding on the leaves 

 contains the poison and is a source of con- 

 tamination . 



On Thursday the Council of the A. A. A. 

 S. authorized the fusion of Section C with 

 the summer meeting of the American 

 Chemical Society, the first two days of 

 the meeting to be conducted officially by 

 those of the American Chemical Society. 

 The members of the American Chemical 

 Society are to have the privilege of reading 

 papers in Section C, and vice versa. 



This matter is subject to the action of 

 the Council of the American Chemical So- 

 ciety. 



Section C nominated Professor Wolcott 

 Gibbs, of Newport, R. I., to be an honor- 

 ary member of the A. A. A. S. The Sec- 

 retary was ordered to cast the ballot. 



Dr. William P. Mason was nominated 

 for Vice-President of the Section and Prof. 

 P. C. Freer, for Secretary for the year 1897. 

 F. P. Venable, Secretary^ 

 and Chas. H. Herty, 



Press Secretary Section C. 



THE EMBLEMATIC USE OF THE TREE IN 

 THE DAKOTAN GROUP* 



The tribes of the Dakotan or Siouan lin- 

 guistic stock aggregate in number about 

 45,000 Indians. Grouped according to a 

 close relationship of language, we find in 

 the United States : 32,000 in the Dakota; 

 4,000 in the Omaha, Ponka, Quapa, Kanza 

 and Osage ; 800 in the Iowa, Otoe and Mis- 

 souri ; 2,200 in the Winnebago, and 3,000 

 in the Hidatsa, Mandan and Crow tribes. 

 The remaining 3,000 are widely scattered, 

 with the greater part living in the provinces 

 of Canada. 



At the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury a number of tribes belonging to this 

 stock dwelt on a strip of the Atlantic coast, 

 now within the limits of North and South 



■^Address by the Vice-President, before Section H — 

 Anthropology. 



