748 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 541. 



Editorial Staff of the Bulletin: Editor, Walter 

 B. Barrows; Associates, P. A. Taverner, Norman 

 A. Wood. 



The afternoon session was held in the uni- 

 versity lecture room. The meeting was called 

 to order by Professor Barrows, who addressed 

 the society on ' Recent Advances in Ornithol- 

 ogy.' The following program was then pre- 

 sented : 



Leoj^ J. CoLE: 'In Memoriam— Albert Bowen 

 Durfee' (read by J. Wilbur Kay in the absence 

 of the author) . 



NoKMAN A. Wood: 'Birds ^Noted En route to 

 Northern Michigan.' 



Otto McCreaet: 'Ecological Distribution of 

 tne Birds of the Porcupine Mountains, Michigan.' 



Max M. Peet : ' Observations on the Nesting 

 Habits of a Pair of House Wrens.' 



Alexander W. Blain, Jr. : ' On the Use in 

 Surgery of Tendons of the Ardeidae and Gruidae.' 



Norman A. Wood : ' Some New and Rare Rec- 

 ords for Michigan.' 



Earl H. Frothingham : ' A List of Birds from 

 the Micnigan Forest Reserve, Crawford County.' 



Leon J. Cole: The Occurrence of Bewick's 

 Wren, Thryomanes beivickii (Aud.), at Grand 

 Rapids (read by Wm. H. Dunham). 



P. A. Taverner : 'A Preliminary Notice of an 

 Interesting Migration Route.' 



Alexander W. Blain, Jr., 

 Secretary. 



THE AMERICAN MYCOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The American Mycological Society met in 

 affiliation with the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science at Philadelphia, 

 December 28-31. The following officers were 

 elected : 



President— Charles H. Peck. 



Vice-President— F. S. Earle. 



Secretary-Treasurer— C. L. Shear. 



The following committee on organization 

 and relation to the other societies was ap- 

 pointed by the president: C. L. Shear, S. M. 

 Tracy and Dr. Roland Thaxter. 



The following program was presented: 



Charles Thom : ' Suggestions for the Study of 

 Dairy Fungi.' 



Geo. G. Hedgcock : ' A New Disease of the 

 Cultivated Agave.' 



J. C. Arthur: 'A Study of North American 

 Coleosporiaceae.' 



E. J. DuRAND: 'Classification of the Geoglos- 



saceae.' 



J. C. Arthur : ' The Terminology of the Spore 

 Structures in the Uredinales.' 



E. A. Burt: 'Generic Characters of North 

 American Thelephoraceae.' 



Perley Spauldinq : ' Cultures of Wood-Inhabit- 

 ing Fungi.' 



G. F. Atkinson : ' Two Fungous Parasites on 

 Mushrooms.' 



G. F. Atkinson: 'The Genus BaUmsia in the 

 United States.' 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

 AUBUBON's account of the new MADRID 

 EARTHQUAKE. 



Within the last few years there has been a 

 reawakening of interest in the New Madrid 

 earthquakes as evidenced by the papers of Dr. 

 W J McGee in the fourth volume of the Geo- 

 logical Society of America, Dr. G. C. Broad- 

 head in the American Geologist in August, 

 1902, and Professor E. M. Shepard in Janu- 

 ary-Eebruary number of the Jourrml of Geol- 

 ogy of the present year. In Broadhead's paper 

 are given abstracts of a considerable number 

 of contemporaneous and other early publica- 

 tions on the earthquake phenomena, but the 

 description by Audubon seems to have been 

 overlooked. As he was one of the few, quite 

 possibly the only, scientist who was in the 

 region at the time, his account is of interest. 

 It is of significance that it agrees very closely 

 with the descriptions of many of the residents, 

 indicating that the accounts are probably not 

 so distorted as has sometimes been thought. 

 Audubon's description is in part as follows:* 



Traveling through the Barrens of Kentucky 

 * * * in the month of November [1812],t I was 

 jogging on one afternoon, when I remarked a 

 sudden and strange darkness rising from the west- 

 ern horizon. Accustomed to our heavy storms of 

 thunder and rain I took no more notice of it, as 

 I thought the speed of my horse might enable me 

 to get under shelter of the roof of an acquaintance, 

 who lived not far distant, before it should come 

 up. I had proceeded about a mile, when I heard 



* ' Audubon and his Journals,' Vol. ll., pp. 

 234-237, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1897. 



t The first of the series of shocks was on De- 

 cember 10, 1811. 



