NOTES. 713 
in the history of Swiss science and drew attention to its public 
works of scientific interest. 
As an appropriate introduction to the scientific communications, 
Prof. Gilliéron of Basle gave an account of the Fribourg Alps, 
lying in four concentric arcs between the lakes of Thun and 
Geneva. He passed in review the successive deposits and gave an 
admirable sketch, rapid, clear and concise, of their relations to 
one another, dwelling with especial force on some points of local 
interest. 
Dr. Gros then exhibited a collection of objects of considerable 
importance belonging to the bronze and stone ages obtained from 
Locraz, Lake of Bienne, during a recent partial draining of the 
lake. 
M. Favre read a report of progress made in the preservation of 
the large erratic blocks of Switzerland. The cantonal govern- 
ment assume the protection of these, according as they are recom- 
mended by a standing committee of the association.* 
The session closed with an account by Dr. de Saussure, of the 
last eruption of Vesuvius and the consequent changes in the 
phy: siognomy of the mountain, illustrated by a map and specimens 
obtained on a recent visit. 
The following day was devoted to sectional meetings, which 
opened at the early hour of eight. Dr. de Saussure presided over 
the zoological section, where the first communication was made 
by Prof. Vogt; he gave a detailed account, accompanied by 
numerous enlarged sketches, of the transformations of Artemia ; 
Special attention was drawn to the fact that in the young, the 
second pair of articulated members are natatory legs, similar in 
both sexes, which afterwards become complicated and enormously 
developed claspers in the male, and abortive organs in the female. 
M. A. Forel (who received, at the general session of the pre- 
vious day, the Schafily prize for an exhaustive essay on the struc- 
ture and habits of Swiss ants) gave a very interesting account of 
the habits of certain ants of mixed colonies; these he divided 
into classes, the first comprising ants of different species, which 
live in actual communism and perfect harmony, one as slaves of 
the other ; the second comprising those which sustain a perpetual 
Warfare, the one living in passages mined in the walls of the 
; isdicti mains 
_ * Ought not the state governments to exercise similar jurisdiction over such re 
M our own country ? 
