Geology and Natural History. 91 



6. The Floods of the Spring of 1903 in the Mississippi 

 Watershed ; by H. C. Frankenfield. U. S. Weather Bureau 



Bulletin M, 63 pp., 15 charts. — The Mississippi Floods of 1903 

 exceeded in height any high water on record from Memphis to 

 the Passes. The greatest destruction was at Kansas City, but 

 the villages along most of the western tributaries of the Missouri 

 were affected. As a study of abnormal rainfall and run-off this 

 bulletin is of much value. 



7. Catalogue of the Ward- Coonley Collection of Meteorites ; 

 by Henry A. Ward. 113 pp. with 10 plates. Chicago, 1904. — 

 It is certainly most remarkable in the history of meteorites that 

 a collection, which is now the largest in the world in number of 

 falls and stands in the first rank with the great collections of 

 Vienna, London and Paris, should have been brought together 

 through the activity and enterprise of one collector and that 

 within a period of ten years. This is true, however, of the 

 Ward-Coonley Collection, the third catalogue of which is now 

 issued. Mr. Ward had already brought together two earlier col- 

 lections of 170 and 200 falls, respectively, and it was not until 

 1891: that the present collection was begun. It now numbers 603 

 falls, with a total weight of about 2500 kilos. During the past 

 four years the increase has been at the rate of 45 falls per year ; 

 the catalogue of 1900 showed 424 falls (1399 kilos) and that of 

 1901 gave 511 falls (1786 kilos). The collection is not simply 

 remarkable in the number of occurrences, but also in the rela- 

 tively large size of many of the individual specimens. A list, 

 for example, is given of 30 falls, about equally divided between 

 irons and stones, of which the largest single piece is now pre- 

 served in the Ward-Coonley Collection. In addition to this 

 point, the introduction of the catalogue calls attention also to 

 some of the remarkable features of the individual specimens and 

 deserves to be studied in detail. The collection is at present 

 placed on deposit in the Geological Hall of the American Museum 

 of Natural History in New York City. The catalogue is hand- 

 somely printed, giving not only the locality, details in regard to 

 weight, etc., but also the character of each specimen, as indicated 

 on the scheme of Brezina detailed on a later page. In addition 

 to the main chronological list of the collection, an alphabetical 

 list of all known meteorites with synonyms is given, also a list 

 showing geographical distribution. A series of half-tone plates 

 show some noteworthy specimens, also representations of a num- 

 ber of polished surfaces of the irons, with the figures developed 

 by etching. 



8. Harvard Experiment Station in Cuba. G. L. Goodale. 

 — The generosity of Mr. Edwin F. Atkins, of Boston, has placed 

 at the service of the Botanical Department of Harvard Univer- 

 sity a tract of land and certain buildings near Cienfuegos, which 

 are now employed actively in the attempted solution of a few 

 problems in applied botany. The grounds were first utilized for 

 this purpose a few years ago, when preliminary trials in the arti- 

 ficial production of sugar cane seed were undertaken. For a 



