FEBRUARY 22,: 1884. | 
gathered; and they will be obtained as nearly identi- 
cal as practicable, according to a scale adopted by the 
survey. Eventually, therefore, two hundred suites, of 
about a hundred specimens each, will be made up. 
They are to be accompanied by descriptive text, and 
issued to colleges and other educational institutions. 
The work of collection will be divided among the 
members of the survey, and will be distributed through 
about two years’ time. ; 
Additions to collections. — During the season of 
1883 two hundred boxes of specimens were sent in 
to the main office of the survey by the various field- 
parties. They included rocks, minerals, fossils, and 
mineral waters. This number by no means com- 
prises all the collections made, as alarge number have 
not as yet been forwarded to Washington. 
In the Rocky Mountain district, in charge of Mr. 
S. F. Emmons, with headquarters at Denver, Col., - 
twelve hundred specimens of rocks from the Silver 
Creek mining-district were collected, and series of 
the type-specimens of hypersthene-andesite of Buf- 
falo Peaks were secured. 
After the close of field-work in the Yellowstone 
National Park, Mr. Joseph P. Iddings was sent to the 
Eureka district in Nevada to make collections of 
rocks for the educational rock series. He obtained 
sufficient material for two hundred cabinet specimens 
of five characteristic rocks. Three of them illustrate 
types of igneous rocks from the Great Basin, and 
two belong to the sedimentary series. They will all 
be fully described in the ‘ Geology of the Eureka dis- 
trict.’ 
Harvard college herbarium. 
Additions. — Of the 8,755 sheets incorporated dur- 
ing the year, over 5,000 (holding probably 7,000 spe- 
cimens) were derived from the rich herbarium of the 
late George Curling Joad of Wimbledon, near Lon- 
don, from which at least 3,000 more are still to be 
SCIENCE. 
235 
selected. For this most valuable collection of the 
plants of Europe and adjacent parts of Africa and 
Asia, or rather for such portion of it as will be retained, 
the herbarium is indebted to Sir Joseph Hooker, 
director of the Royal gardens at Kew, to which estab- 
lishment it was bequeathed, and by whom, after cer- 
tain selections had been made from it for the Kew 
herbarium, it was generously made over to this her- 
barium for the supply of its needs, the residue to be 
passed on to the National museum at Washington. 
So rich and abundant this collection proves to be, — 
containing, as it does, the principal published ezsic- 
cata, and most of the critical or local species of Eu- 
rope, in authentic and attractive speciniens, —that, 
notwithstanding the ample appropriation on our 
part, the materials which pass from our hands will 
still well represent the principal part of the Euro- 
pean flora. This collection is supplemented by the 
presentation (in continuation of former gifts) of sev- 
eral hundred plants of Algeria and Tunisia, on the 
part of Dr. Cosson of Paris, who is engaged upon a 
Flora of Algeria. 
‘The demand which such foreign collections make 
upon the time of the curator, Mr. Sereno Watson, 
and the director, Dr. Asa Gray, although very con- 
siderable, is small in comparison with that which 
has to be devoted to the critical examination and 
naming of the multifarious collections, large or small, 
which are incessantly poured in from all parts of our 
own country. A response to these demands cannot 
be avoided, generally cannot be deferred, in justice 
to the collectors and donors, and without risk of di- 
verting the streams, which, flowing in ever since its 
establishment, have enriched this herbarium, and 
rendered it adequate to its leading purpose. But 
they press so heavily and unceasingly upon the offi- 
cers, that they greatly retard progress in the prepara- 
tion of works undertaken, and which ought to be 
proceeded with. 
RHECENT PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
Ottawa field-naturalists’ club, Canada, 
Feb. 14.— Mr. W. Hague Harrington presented a 
list of Coleoptera captured in the neighborhood of the 
city during the past six years, and read a brief paper 
introductory to it. The list was stated to contain 
926 species; but, as a large number remain yet un- 
determined, the list, when published, will include 
about 1,050 species. Many species are recorded which 
were formerly unknown in Canada, and there are 
three or four beetles which are probably new species. 
Mention was made of a few of the rarer forms which 
had been captured, such as Chrysobothris pusilla, 
Phymatodes thoracicus, Fornax badius, F. Hornii, 
and Sarpedon scabrosus. Of the latter, two females 
had been taken, which were now in the respective col- 
lections of Drs. Horn and LeConte. The collection 
was stated to be poor in Carabidae, Dytiscidae, etc., 
and comparatively rich in Buprestidae, Elateridae, 
Cerambycidae, and other families which had been 
specially investigated as containing species destruc- 
tive to vegetation. The Ottawa fauna was briefly 
compared with that of several other districts, and 
was shown to resemble most closely that of Lake 
Superior. Mr. J. B. Tyrrell read a paper on the 
‘Revision of the Suctoria,’ giving an outline of the 
different opinions held by entomologists in regard to 
the fleas, and the results of his own microscopica! 
researches. A brief mention was made of some of 
the species which occur upon Canadian animals, and 
of the fact that other species had been found, both 
on mammals and birds, which it had been as yet im- 
possible to determine. After an interesting discus- 
sion, the report of the conchological branch was read 
by Mr. F. R. Latchford. One species, Patula asteris- 
cus Morse, had been added to the list of shells, and 
additional specimens of several very rare species had 
been obtained. Of the new shells, several specimens 
