1 882.] Proceedings of Scientific Societies. 351 



of notes on the habits of animals and described the effect of the 

 poison of snakes upon red blood -corpuscles, as determined by his 

 recent experiments. Mr. A. B. Seymour read a paper on methods 

 of field work on parasitic fungi. Professor T. J. Burrill reported the 

 normal occurrence of bacteria in the juices of plants, which act 

 as ferment poisons on man, and also explained some recent im- 

 provements made in microscope objectives, and Mr. C. W. Rolfe 

 gave the results of some experiments made by him on the direc- 

 tions taken by the roots of germinating seeds, and some 

 observations on the number of rings exhibited by cross sections 

 of the wood of trees of known age. The latter gentleman 

 likewise read a paper on the improvement of methods of sci- 

 ence teaching in the public schools. Dr. Edward Evans de- 

 scribed the rock system of Northern Illinois, Wisconsin and 

 Iowa, as indicated by records of deep borings, and gave a theory 

 of the artesian water supply of this region ; and Professor D. C. 

 Taft delivered a lecture on the fossil tracks of the Connecticut val- 

 ley. Mr. James Forsythe read an abstract of the proceedings of 

 the last meeting of the Industrial University Natural History So- 

 ciety, and Professor N. C. Ricker described and illustrated the 

 "blue process" of copying manuscript, drawings, plates, etc., by 

 photography. The evening of Wednesday was devoted to a re- 

 ception given to the society by the faculty and students of the 

 university, an interesting feature of which was a fine microscope 

 display, given jointly by the society and the university. The offi- 

 cers selected for the ensuing year were: President, Dr. J. W. 

 Taylor, Kankakee; Secretary. S. A. Forbes, Normal; Treasurer, 

 Tyler McWhorter, Aledo ; Vice-Presidents, Professor T. J. Bur- 

 rill, Champaign, and Hon. William McAdams, Otterville, and ad- 

 ditional members of the Executive Committee, Dr. Edwin Evans, 

 Streator, and Dr. E. R. Boardman, El mini. The reports of the 

 Secretary and Treasurer showed that the society was in a flour- 

 ishing condition as to funds and membership. 



Boston Society of Natural History, February 15. — Mr. S. 

 Carr remarked on the Indians as mound-builders, and Mr. VV. M. 

 Davis concluded his paper on the origin of lake-basins — the 

 " obstruction type." 



March 1.— Dr. W. S. Bigelow spoke of some points in connec- 

 tion with the theory of spontaneous generation and the life-his- 

 tory of the lowest organism. 



New York Academy of Sciences, March 6.— Mr. W. E. Hid- 

 den remarked on a phenomenal " pocket " of quartz crystals con- 

 taining inclusions of water and carbon dioxide. Mr. N. II. Dar- 

 ton read some notes on the Weehawken tunnel. 



Appalachian Mountai 



