SCIENCE. 



163 



of the inoculation. This latter was sometimes performed 

 with a knife, sometimes with a needle, always with careful 

 precautions and close subsequent examination. Such ex- 

 perimental limbs as permitted it were cut and preserved 

 like herbarium specimens, and are exhibited with the 

 paper." 



The organism found answers fairly to the description of 

 Pasteur's butyric vibrion. They are usually oblong, 

 rounded at the ends, mostly connected, two together. 

 Their motions are not rapid, consisting of turning in every 

 direction, and sliding irregularly forward. They are found 

 within closed cells, in the open spaces, and in immense 

 numbers in the viscid exudations from the diseased bark 

 and leaves. The most conspicuous alteration observed 

 in the tissues is the disappearance of the starch grains from 

 the cells. The cell walls are left intact, and the protoplas- 

 mic portions remain until after the starch is mostly absorbed 

 and appears to suffer little change until death ensues. The 

 disease is, par excellence, one of the bark. The leaves die 

 in consequence of this, or are themselves invaded, either 

 primarily or secondarily, by the destroyer. The progress 

 of the disease is always slow, but the leaves of an affected 

 limb often turn black quite suddenly, perhaps according to 

 meteorologic conditions. In diseased bark, before change 

 has taken place visible from without, and while the leaves 

 are still green and fresh, an active fermentation occurs. 

 This continues until desiccation or the exhaustion of the 

 fermentable substances puts an end to the process. The 

 products of this fermentation are Carbon dioxide and 

 Butyric acid, or a closely similar substance. From the fact 

 that virus from the Pear affects the Apple tree, and vice 

 versa, the speaker argued that the disease was similar in 

 each. The experiments tended to show that the virus is 

 harmless upon the epidermis of healthy plants, nor does it 

 penetrate through the breathing pores. The speaker ex- 

 hibited drawings of the cells of a healthy plant and a dis- 

 eased one, showing that the starch in the latter was gra- 

 dually absorbed. He obtained the virus from diseased 

 trees, where it is exuded, and placed it in distilled water. 

 Upon the dead leaves and branches the virus dried and 

 looked like varnish. When redissolved it retains its vita- 

 lity. The simple puncture of a bark of a tree with a needle 

 which had been dipped in the virus would be sufficient to 

 cause its death. Prof. Burrill exhibited a small vial con- 

 taining about a teaspoonful of the virus in solution, which 

 he said was sufficient to destroy a whole orchard. 



The Griffith Award. 



The committee appointed to examine the specimens of 

 adulterations of commercial articles, and to award the prize, 

 a fine objective, offered by Mr. E. H. Griffith, for the best 

 mounted specimens, reported that C. M. Vorce was the 

 only contestant and that his exhibits of coffee and butter 

 were fine ones. He was therefore entitled to the prize. 



President Smith presented it to him in a brief speech, 

 and he accepted, regretting that there had been no other 

 contestants. 



A resolution offered by Prof. Burrill, that the president 

 and vice-presidents elect of the society be appointed a com- 

 mittee to report upon some plan for uniformity in size and 

 naming of eye-pieces and tubes, was adopted. 



The report of the treasurer Mr. George E. Fell, showed 

 $266.06 on hand, and $450.75 due the society, of which the 

 treasurer regarded $114.69 as being very certain of being 

 paid, making total assets $380.81. The report was adopted. 



Prof. Griffith renewed his offer of a ^ inch objective or 

 its equivalent for the best mounted slides showing adulter- 

 ations in commercial articles, accompanied with the best 

 Thesis upon the specimens submitted. His offer was ac- 

 cepted with thanks. 



The Society then adjourned to meet at such time and 

 place as the Executive Committee may determine upon. 



The Soiree, which was given in the evening at Merrill 

 Hall, by the members of the American Society and the 

 local microscopists, was in every way successful, and gave 

 great satisfaction. 



PRESERVATION OF FOSSIL INSECTS AND 

 PLANTS ON MAZON CREEK. 



By J. W. Pike, Vineland, N. J. 



Mazon Creek is a branch of the Illinois River, which it 

 joins at Morris, Grundy Co., 111. It has carved its channel 

 down into the blue shale, which lies above the Morris coal 

 seam, and exposed the ironstone nodules which contain the 

 fossil plants and insects. 



Scientific interpretation rests upon comparison. We 

 compare this coalbed with other deposits of carbon, and 

 with those now forming, and ascribe it to an ancient swamp 

 or wet land surface. The shale above is compared with 

 other clay-beds and with the mud of bays and lakes, and 

 we conclude that it is the product of a subsidence and of 

 deeper water. The fringing swamp had advanced upon 

 higher ground, and from it floated the fern leaves and in- 

 sects that were buried in the accumulating clay of the 

 deeper basins. Leaves that sink upon the mud of a lake 

 will rest flat upon the upper layer, and are buried under 

 the layers that follow. So, too, the leaves in the Mazon 

 shale are conformable to its lines of stratification. Over 

 the shale are beds of sandrock. Compare them with beds 

 of sand and clay now being formed over the peat and clay 

 of the sinking Atlantic coast. It becomes clear that the 

 beds of coal, shale, and sandstone on the Mazon are the 

 product and record of a subsidence in the carboniferous 

 period. 



Metamorphism. — The shale immediately around the fos- 

 sils was transformed into clay-ironstone nodules by the 

 deposition of ferrous carbonate. The concreting force 

 has emanated from the fossils, because the nodules take 

 their general shape. The iron deposit has not merely filled 

 the spaces between the particles of clay, but has crowded 

 them apart and thickened the strata, making them concavo- 

 convex above and below the fossils. Specimens exhibited 

 show the continuity of the strata from the soft outlying 

 shale through the nodules, their thickening and resulting 

 convexity, the conformability of the leaves, etc. 



These biologrical records, like primitive human inscrpi- 

 tions, were written in nature's picture-language, only they 

 are incomparably more perfect. Like the cuneiform of the 

 Assyrian tablets it was done upon soft clay, but the clay 

 was hardened automatically by the writing itself, and not by 

 baking. Like the castings of the founder who surrounds 

 his models with moist sand, these are casts ; but they are 

 casts of the delicate structure of ferns and insects, moulded 

 in fine clay by the gentle touch of moving water. These 

 inscriptions were not carved on the exposed and crumbling 

 surface of monuments, but were sealed up in the concre- 

 tions, and lay buried in the clay, beyond the reach of wear 

 and decay, during the incalculable periods of the Permian, 

 Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Teritiary. After the ages 

 of ice and prairie lakes, the waters of the Mazon dug their 

 channel through lake deposits, ice drift, carboniferous sand- 

 stone, and into the blue shale. The fossil bearing nodules 

 were washed out of the softer shale, mingled with granitic 

 gravel and strewn in the river bed. Exposure to the air 

 changed the blue ferrous compound to ferric or red oxide. 

 These nodules spontaneously divided into halves, disclo- 

 sing these exquisite pictures of the ferns, insects and creep- 

 ing things of the carboniferous lowlands. Per-oxidation 

 continues till the iron separates from the clay. Thus the 

 half of a nodule, with a fern pictured on its surface, may 

 become a geode — a hard red brown shell of iron enclosing 

 the clay in an ochery form in its interior ; or it may, in the 

 process, crack and crumble into flakes and fragments. The 

 collector, therefore, must now anticipate the denuding 

 forces, and dig the concretions out of the shale of the riv- 

 er's banks and bottom, and crack them for himself. 



CAVES IN JAPAN. 

 By Prof. Edw. S. Morse. 



Mr. Morse described a number of artificially-constructed 

 caves which he had examined in various parts of Japan, 

 giving sketches of them upon the black board. 



These caves varied considerably in their design, but 

 agreed in their general proportions, and were evidently in- 

 tended as receptacles for the dead. They were excavated 



