294 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 530. 



mental laws of matter and of motion, the 

 existence of any distinctive entity, or prin- 

 ciple that does not fall within the chain of 

 physical causation or that contravenes the 

 general laws of physics, then, I protest, to 

 accept 'vitalism' as a principle of interpre- 

 tation is deliberately to abandon the scien- 

 tific method in biological study. 



Edmund B. AVilson. 



TEE AMERICAN PALEONTOLOGICAL SO- 

 CIETY. SECTION A—VERTEBRATA. 



Section A of the American Paleontolog- 

 ical Society held its third annual meeting 

 in common with the other societies on De- 

 cember 27, 28 and 29, and greatly enjoyed 

 the admirable arrangements made by the 

 officers of the University of Pennsylvania, 

 especially by Professor Conklin. The 

 President, Professor Henry F. Osborn, 

 presided. At the close of the meeting Pro- 

 fessor W. B. Scott was elected president 

 and Dr. IMarcus S. Farr secretary, both of 

 Princeton University. 



The meeting included a series of eighteen 

 papers presented in person or in manu- 

 script by Messrs. Osborn, Eastman, Sin- 

 clair, Case, Lull, Patten, Brown, Gidley, 

 Hay, Loomis, Farr, Scott, Petersen, Doug- 

 lass, Williston, Matthew and Granger. 

 These were presented on Tuesday afternoon 

 and on "Wednesday and Thursday mornings. 

 On Wednesday forenoon the president de- 

 livered his annual address, entitled 'Ten 

 Years' Progress in Mammalian Paleontol- 

 ogy.' In this address, which will be 

 printed in full elsewhere, the history of the 

 science during the last decade was followed 

 in detail, and the principal advances, in 

 the discovery of new forms, principles, 

 and methods of work, were outlined. On 

 Thursday morning the principal feature 

 was the discussion of the phylogeny and 

 classification of the Reptilia, in which 

 Messrs. Osborn, Williston, McGregor and 

 Hay participated. In this discussion Pro- 



fessor Osborn opened with a general re- 

 view, pointing out the gradual develop- 

 ment of the idea of a double grouping of 

 the reptiles, beginning with Baur's phylog- 

 eny published in 1889 and continued in the 

 phylogenies and discussions of Cope, Smith 

 Woodward, Broom, Nopcsa, Williston, 

 Boulenger, Osborn and McGregor. The 

 following table is that of Osborn, 1904. 



The chief dilferenees of opinion at 

 present relate to the position of the 

 Ichthyosauri a, Sauropterygia and Testu- 

 dinata, some authors placing the Ichthyo- 

 sauria as intermediate between the two 

 groups, others placing them frankly with 

 the descendants of the rhynchocephaloid 

 reptiles, as suggested by Baur. Boulenger 

 derives both the Sauropterygia and the 

 Testudinata from the rhynchocephaloid, 

 or diapsidan, group ; whereas all other au- 

 thors take them off from the synapsidan 

 group. 



Professor Williston continued the dis- 

 cussion, speaking especially of the Saur- 

 opterygia. He first stated that he consid- 

 ered the Sauropterygia and Testudinata as 

 fundamentally separate groups, all their 

 points of likeness being due to analogous 

 evolution, while their points of difference 

 are fundamentally distinctive. He consid- 

 ered the Triassic plesiosaurs Nothosaurus 

 and Lariosaurus, as not ancestral to the 

 Jurassic and Cretaceous plesiosaurs, but 

 as representing an independent offshoot. 

 He maintained that the Proganosauria, rep- 

 resented by the Permian genera Mesosaurus 

 and Stereostermim, were certainly not an- 

 cestral to the plesiosaurs, as held by Seeley 

 and Boulenger. The Testudinata are also 

 widely separated from the Placodontia, 

 and are probably of direct Cotylosaurian 

 origin. The points of convergence are 

 partly correlated with the large size of the 

 paddles of plesiosaurs and turtles, the short 

 tail being correlated with the long pro- 

 podials in the plesiosaurs, whereas in the 



