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Meeting of March 26 

 On Saturday afternoon the Torrey Club in cooperation with 

 the New York Bird and Tree Club and other local organizations 

 attended a lecture at the American Museum of Natural History 

 by Dr. Edgar T. Wherry on Where the Wild Flowers Grow and 

 Why. The speaker chiefly considered the nature of the soil, 

 this forming the most variable feature of the plant's environ- 

 ment locally and laid stress on its chemical character. » 



Meeting of March 30 



The scientific program consisted of three papers. Miss Cor- 

 nelia L. Carey explained the structure of an agar gel. " The 

 structure is not to be confused with an ultramicroscopic one, 

 but is much coarser and appeared when the dried gel that had 

 been soaked in water was viewed under the microscope. It con- 

 sisted of horizontal concavities each shaped like a convex lens 

 in section, and together giving almost the aspect of lamellations. 

 The structure varied somewhat in gels of different strengths, 

 gels of lower concentration showing chiefly larger slits and those 

 of higher agar content more fine ones. When removed from 

 the water the gels would exude under pressure a considerable 

 amount of liquid. The slits were also visible to the eye when 

 light was reflected from the cut surface. 



" The structure is considered as due to rapidity of drying, as 

 all gels dried at 43° C. and 70° C. showed this whether they were 

 dried upon frames or not, whereas this was not true of gels 

 dried at room temperatures. The formation of this structure 

 started when the gel possessed 92-92.5 per cent, and ceased with 

 21.5 per cent, by weight of water. Gels varying in agar con- 

 tent from 0.5—10 per cent, were used." 



Dr. T. E. Hazen reported on his studies in motile algae, con- 

 sidering the phylogeny of Brachiomonas and Lobomonas. This 

 brought out the problem of the development of lobed structures 

 among unicellular algae. Some of the results of this study will 

 be presented in an early number of the Torrey Bulletin. 



