624 RECORDS. 



tion could not be safely made from them that acquired characters 

 are inherited. By the theoiy of " Organic Selection " advanced 

 by Morgan, Baldwin and Osborn, such characteristics persist for 

 veiy long periods without becoming hereditaiy. Even as senile 

 characters, they are adaptive, and if they appeared in certain in- 

 dividuals at a slightly earlier age than others, those in which 

 they appeared earlier would possess a slight advantage over 

 others, and thus, after a veiy long period of time, probably thou- 

 sands of years, a senile character would become a juvenile char- 

 acter and finally a congenital or fully hereditaiy character, as in 

 the camels. 



Professor Hunting'ton exhibited a large number of slides to 

 show the variations in the Iliocolic Junction of different types of 

 vertebrates. 



Gary N. Calkins, 



Secretary. 



SECTION OF GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 



January i6, 1899. 



Section met at 8 P. M., Professor Kemp presiding. The min- 

 utes of the last meeting of Section were read and appro\'ed. The 

 following program was then offered : 



F. J. H. Merrill, On the Origin of the White Clays of 

 Long Island. 



George F. Kunz, On the Finding of Native Silver in 

 Davidson Co., N. Y. 



R. Ellsworth Call, The Geology of Mamjioth Cave. 



Dr. Merrill described in his paper white clays as being 

 strongly marked at many points along the western part of the 

 north shore of Long Island in connection with the -Quarternary 

 deposits. In seeking for their source on the mainland he had 

 reached the conclusion that the\- are probably identical with 

 the white and \-ari-colored residual clays derived from the decom- 

 position of the limestone beds of New York and Westchester 

 Counties. If this be true, their absence farther east may be ex- 



