1880. ] Scientific News. 915 
difficulties. Itis the least that could in reason be asked, or that 
could in common courtesy be granted as a means of ‘securing a 
cordial and harmonious support for the new society. | 
New Locat Socigeties.—The Central New York Microscopical 
Club was organized some months since, at Syracuse, New York. 
e Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Microscopical Society, J. W. 
Crumbaugh, M. D., president, was organized February. gth. 
The Elmira Microscopical Society was organized May 13th, 
with S. O. Gleason, M. D., for president, and D. R. Ford, Ph.D., vice- 
president, and T. J. Up de Graff, M. D., secretary and treasurer. 
The Fort Wayne Microscopical Society held its first meeting, 
September 18th, with F. W. Kuhne, president, C. A. Dryer, M.D., 
and C. W. McCaskey, M. D.; vice-presidents, C. L. Olds and L. 
R. Hartman, secretaries, and Paul Kuhn, treasurer. 
The Microscopical Society of Central Illinois. was organized at 
Springfield, Illinois, September 23d, F. L. Matthews, M. D., being 
the first president, and T. B. Jennings, secretary. 
_ The Reading, Pennsylvania, Society of Natural Sciences, which 
has been in existence for over ten years, held a series of micro- 
scopical meetings, of the soirée order, last winter, which were 
quite successful, and which will probably be continued. __ 
:0: 
SCIENTIFIC, NEWS. 
— At the late meeting of the American Association at Boston, 
Prof. A. Hyatt gave a popular lecture on the transformation of 
Planorbis as a practical illustration of the evolution of species. 
The lecture was illustrated with stereopticon views. After the 
lecture Mr. Carl Seiler threw some microscopical illustrations 
upon the screen. Prof. Hyatt spoke substantially as follows: 
The word evolution means the birth or derivation of one or more 
things or beings from others, through the action of natural laws. 
A child is evolved from its parents, a mineral from its constituents, 
a state of civilization from the conditions and surroundings of a 
preceding age. While evolution furnishes us with a valuable 
working hypothesis, science ‘cannot forget that it is still on trial. 
The impatience of many when it is doubted or denied, savors 
more of the dogmatism of belief than of the judicial earnestness 
of investigation. Every individual differs in certain superficial 
characters from the parent forms, but is still identical with them 
in all its fundamental characteristics. This constantly recurring 
relationship among all creatures is the best established of all the | 
laws of biology. It is the so-called law of heredity, that like 
tends to reproduce like. There seems to be only two causes 
which produce the variations which we observe; one is the law 
of heredity, the other is the surrounding influences or the sum of 
