338 



SCIEiNCE. 



[Vol. XIX. No. 489 



Then comes Professor J. G. MacGregor's address on " The 

 Fundamental Principles of Abstract Dynamics." Here the 

 independence of Newton's three Laws of Motion is first con- 

 sidered, and an attempt is made to establish it; Maxwell's 

 deduction of the first from the " doctrine of space and time " 

 and Newton's supposed deduction of the third from the first 

 being subjected to criticism. Their sufiiciency is then dis- 

 cussed. It is shown that Newton's second interpretation of 

 tl]e third law cannot be regarded either as an enunciation 

 of the law of the conservation of energy or as an hypothesis 

 from which that law may be deduced, and a fourth law is 

 suggested, admitting of this deduction. It is then pointed 

 out that, owing to the essential relativity of acceleration, the 

 laws of motion can hold only by reference to certain points. 

 These points are determined, and more precise enunciations 

 both of the laws of motion and of all deductions from them 

 are thus obtained. Finally, it is shown that the fundamental 

 hypotheses from which all the laws of abstract dynamics can 

 be deduced, may be reduced to two. 



Geology and Palaeontology come in for seven papers, as 

 follows: Presidential Address, by Mr. G. F. Matthew of St. 

 John, N.B., "On the Diffusion and Sequence of the Cam- 

 brian Faunas." In this address an attempt is made to dis- 

 tinguish the littoral and warm- water faunas of the Cambrian 

 age from those which mark greater depths of the sea and 

 cooler water. On the hypothesis that species capable of 

 propagating their kind in the open sea would spread rapidly 

 to all latitudes where the temperature of the sea was favora- 

 hle, such forms as the graptolites are taken as fixed points 

 in the successive faunas. The relation to the graptolites is 

 noted of various species of other groups of animals, as they 

 occur in different countries. It thus appears that several 

 genera appeared first in America and afterwards spread to 

 Europe. On the other hand, a very close connection appears 

 to have existed between the Cambrian faunas of the north 

 of Europe and those of the Atlantic coast of North America. 

 Hence it is inferred that the temperature of the sea of these 

 two coasts was similar, and the connection between them 

 direct and unimpeded. Equal temperatures in these differ- 

 ent latitudes would be maintained by a cold current flowing 

 from the North European to the North Atlantic Coast. The 

 evidence available seems to point to a migration of the 

 American species by a route to the west and north of the 

 main part of the Atlantic Basin. 



Mr. Matthew contributed an additional paper, entitled 

 " Illustrations of the Fauna of the St. John Group, No. VII." 

 This is the final paper on this subject, and treats chiefly of 

 the fauna of the highest horizon in the group. It will be 

 accompanied by a list of all the species of the St. John group, 

 showing the several horizons at which they have been found. 

 From the highest horizon itself, the species are of the age of 

 those of the Leirs shale, or thereabout, as shown by the 

 graptolites found here. There are several Orthids, some of 

 which are identical with, or are varieties of, species of the 

 Leirs limestone described by Billings. The few trilobites 

 known are of Cambrian types, and include a Cyclognathus 

 allied to C. micropygiis and a Euloma. Several minute 

 pteropods occur in these shales, with the graptolites. 



Sir William Dawson, F.R.S., presented a paper "On the 

 Correlation of Early Cretaceous Floras in Canada and 

 the United States and on Some New Plants of this Period." 

 The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the present state of 

 our knowledge respecting the flora of Canada in the early 

 Cretaceous, and to notice some new plants from Anthracite, 

 N.W.T., collected by Dr. H. M. Ami, and from Canmore, 



collected by Dr. Hayden. It is a continuation of the author's 

 paper on the " Mesozoic Floras of the Rocky Mountaia 

 Region of Canada," in the Transactions of the Royal Society 

 of Canada for 1885. 



Sir William then introduced Dr. Ami's paper "On the 

 Occurrence of Graptolites and Other Fossils of Quebec Age 

 in the Black Slates of Little Metis, Que." The paper con- 

 tains notes on, and descriptions of, graptolites and other 

 fossils from a small but interesting collection made by Sir 

 William Dawson in rocks closely related to those from which 

 the remarkable fossils were described conjointly with Dr. 

 George Jennings Hinde. 



Mr. J. F. Whiteaves, palaeontologist and zoologist to the 

 Dominion Geological Survey, read two papers, and intro- 

 duced a third by Mr. Lawrence Lambe. In his first paper on 

 the " Fossils of the Hudson River Formation in Manitoba," 

 Mr. Whiteaves gives an historical sketch of the discovery 

 and collection of fossils of that age, by Dr. R. Bell, in 1873 ; 

 by Dr. Ells, in 1875; Dr. Bell, later, in 1879; and by Messrs. 

 T. C. Weston and D. B. Dowling, in 1884 and 1891-92, re- 

 spectively. The object of the present paper is to give as 

 complete a list as possible of the fossils of this formation in 

 Manitoba. There are now as many as sixty species in the 

 Museum of the Survey at Ottawa. Mr. Whiteaves's second 

 paper deals with "Notes on the Land and Fresh-Water Mol- 

 lusca of the Dominion." Mr. Lambe's paper contains an 

 account of the results obtained by that gentleman from a 

 microscopical examination of recent sponges collected, in the 

 waters of the Pacific, along the British Columbia or Canadian 

 coast. The paper is entitled, " On Some Sponges from the 

 Pacific Coast of Canada and Behring Sea." It will be illus- 

 trated with drawings made by the author, who is artist to the 

 Geological Survey Department. 



Professor L. W. Bailey, Ph.D., of Frederickton, New 

 Brunswick, gives the result of his "Observations on the 

 Geology of South- Western Nova Scotia," in the counties of 

 Shelburne and Yarmouth. A careful description of the 

 various contacts and occurrences of the auriferous rocks and 

 other masses follows a review of the geological structure of 

 the district in question. A geological map accompanies the 

 paper. 



" On Paljeozoic Corals " is the title of Professor Chapman's 

 contribution to palseontological science. It is an attempt to 

 simplify the determinations of genera in the so called " Tabu- 

 lated and Rugose Corals of Palaeozoic Rocks." 



Dr. Wesley Mills's paper on "Hibernation and Allied 

 States in Animals " referred to the winter sleep of groups of 

 animals below vertebrates, hibernation in cold-blooded ani- 

 mals, hibernation in certain groups of warm-blooded animals, 

 experimental study of the winter sleep of the bat, and 

 especially of the marmot and allied states in man; all of 

 which was followed by a discussion of the true nature of all 

 such phenomena. 



Dr. George Lawson presented two important contributions 

 to botanical research. The one bore " On the Literary His- 

 tory and Nomenclature of the Canadian Ferns," the other 

 consisted of " Notes Supplementary to the Revision of Cana- 

 dian Ranunculaceae." The object of these notes, the author 

 said, was to bring together such additions as have been made 

 to our Ranunculaceae by Canadians and others since the first 

 paper was published, in 1883; also to discuss certain moot 

 points in nomenclature and specific relations, that have been 

 started by French, German, and United States writers in 

 botany ; further, to bring our knowledge of the Dominioii 

 Ranunculaceae up to date. 



