936 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 363. 



The results of Dr. Brittoa and Mr. Cowell's 

 expedition bid fair to prove of high economic 

 importance aside from their scientific value. 

 The expedition owed much to the kind assist- 

 ance of the planters, who detailed their negroes 

 and horses for the service of the explorers. 

 Without such aid, it would have been difficult 

 to penetrate the forest belt, through which trails 

 had first to be cut. 



Further remarks were added by ]^r. Under- 

 wood regarding a dodder in tops of trees in Porto 

 Rico ; by Mr. J. H. Barnhart, on an epiphytic 

 Utricularia among the specimens from St. Kitts 

 exhibited ; by Mr. F. S. Earle, on the few fungi 

 collected ; and by Mrs. Britton, on the other 

 cryptogams, which numbered 81, and included 

 a Vittaria prothallium. 



Edward S. Burgess, 



Secretary. 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



The 321st meeting of the Society was held on 

 November 5. Professor W. H. Holmes read a 

 paper on the ' Discovery of Human Relics and 

 the Bones of Extinct Mammals in a Sulphur 

 Spring, Indian Territory,' an abstract of which 

 will be published in Science. This paper was 

 discussed by Dr. W J McGee, Jos. D. Mc- 

 Guire, F. W. Hodge, Francis La Flesche and 

 others. 



Miss Alice C. Fletcher gave an account of 

 ' The Inauguration of the New Department 

 of Anthropology, University of California,' 

 through the munificence of Mrs. Phoebe A. 

 Hearst. For ten years Mrs. Hearst has been 

 gathering museum material, spending fifty thou- 

 sand dollars a year on its acquisition and look- 

 ing forward to a time when the collections 

 might be housed in a museum building. Last 

 summer the project took form, resulting in the 

 establishment of the Museum at the University 

 of California with a handsome endowment, the 

 details of which appeared in Science, October 

 18, 1901. 



Walter Hough. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

 THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF FISHES. 



In Science for November 1, Professor A. E. 

 Ortmann offers some very ioteresting notes on 



my paper (in Science, October 11) on the geo- 

 graphical distribution of fishes. On the points 

 raised I may add a word. 



1. There is little or nothing in the present 

 relations of the fish fauna of Japan to that of 

 the Mediterranean to suggest a former connec- 

 tion through a warmer climate to the north- 

 ward. The forms common to the two regions 

 are chiefly of Indian and rather deep water 

 distribution. One curious anomaly occurs, the 

 existence of a second species of the large trout, 

 JSucho, in Japan, the other known species being 

 in the Danube. 



2. The views of Dr. Ortmann as to the faunas 

 separated by the Isthmus of Suez and the 

 Isthmus of Panama seem to agree with those 

 expressed by me. Of course, from the stand- 

 point of ichthyology, no one could say when 

 either oceanic connection actually existed. 

 That is a matter for geologists. 



3. The fish fauna of the Cape of Good Hope 

 is imperfectly known, that of the southeastern 

 coast of Africa still less. It is certain, however, 

 that some tropical or semitropical genera do 

 pass this barrier at present. In other ages the 

 Cape might conceivably have been less of a 

 barrier through less extension or through 

 warmer climate at its extremity. This again 

 rests with the geologists. 



4. I am willing to accept the theory of the 

 former extension of the continent Antarctica on 

 geological grounds, and the known distribution 

 of Oalaxias would be explained by it. But the 

 case of Galaxias would not of itself prove such 

 extension, and the value of zoological evidence 

 ill such cases is easily overestimated. 



David Starr Jordan. 



PREGLACIAL drainage in SOUTHWESTERN 

 OHIO. 



To THE Editor of Science: In his reply 

 (November 15) to Mr. Miller's criticism of my 

 papers on preglacial drainage conditions in the 

 vicinity of Cincinnati, Professor Tight should 

 have added that every one of the smaller streams 

 mentioned by Mr. Miller, in proof of his theory, 

 is of postglacial origin and consequently has no 

 bearing on the question. 



A view up and down the Ohio from the hill- 

 top at either Madison or Leavenworth, Indiana, 



