1072 ’ Scientific News. [October, 
scheme, with a view to its adoption with certain limitations. Dr, 
Traquair, Dr. Sharp, Mr. Blanford, and Mr. J. E. Harting spoke 
_ strongly against the proposed change, declaring themselves satis- 
fied with the bincmial system, which recommended itself by its 
extreme simplicity, and which in practice had been found to 
- answer well enough by workers in all classes of the animal king- 
_ dom from the days of Linnzeus to the present time. On bringing 
the proceedings to a close, the chairman (Professor Flower) said 
he hoped that Dr. Elliott Coues was satisfied with the way in 
which his views had been received. Although there were some 
uncompromising binomialists present, many had declared them- 
selves what might be termed “ limited trinomialists,” and some ap- 
peared to go as far even as Dr. Coues himself. In nature, dis- 
tinctly defined species undoubtedly existed in great numbers, owing 
to extinction of intermediate forms, and for these the binomial 
system offered all that was needed in defining them. On the 
` other hand, there were numbers of cases in the actual state of the 
earth, and far more being constantly revealed to us by the dis- 
coveries of palzontology (and nowhere so rapidly as in America), 
where the infinite graduations defied the discrimination of a bino- 
mial system.—From the Field. 
og! 
Re Cr Clark 
enumerates the coal plants of Rhode Island. Mr. Bayley wa E 
Ft is illus- 
trated by an artotype from a sketch made by the paste . k 
Willis notes the presence of ocean terraces about 1600 pie i 
the present sea level; and remarks “ there are certainly eg & 
I do not know 
exactly how many there may be on the south-east, but, ye 
ciers of the White and Carbon rivers, the two of the Ni ually 
of the Puyallup, the one of the south fork, that of the Asq 
__ — Professor GW, Hall’s interesting address on “The Pie 
graphic Conditions of Minnesota Agriculture,” is aroti which 
_ among others of our modern school of scientific agriculu ences 
tends to show the intimate connection between the natu 
