860 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. Xo. 544. 



J. P. Anderson : ' Plants New to the Flora of 

 Decatur County, with Summary.' 



R. B. VVylie: 'The Morphology of Vallisneria 

 Spiralis ' ( illustrated ) . 



J. L. TiLTON : ' A Problem in Municipal Water- 

 AVorks for a Small Town.' 



T. J. FiTZPATRicK: ' The Liliaceoe of Iowa.' 



J. M. LiNDLY : ' The Flowering Plants of Henry 

 County.' 



J. L. TiLTON : ' The storage Battery and Switch- 

 board at Simpson College.' 



Fred J. Seaver: 'An Annotated List of Iowa 

 Diseomycetes.' 



Charles R. Keyes : ' Northward Extension of 

 the Lake Valley Limestone.' 



Charles R. Keyes : ' Geological Structure of 

 the Jornada Del Muerto and Adjoining Bolson 

 Plains.' 



Charles R. Keyes : ' Bisection of Mountain 

 Blocks in the Great Basin Region.' 



A. C. Page : ' A Laboratory Barometer.' 



Edwin Morrison : ' Cohesion of Liquids and 

 Molecular Weights.' 



C. 0. Bates : ' Municipal Hygiene.' 



L. H. Pammel and Estelle D. Fogel: 'Some 

 Bacteriological Analyses of Railroad Water Sup- 

 plies.' 



The following officers were elected for the 

 ensuing year: 



President — M. F. Arey, Cedar Falls. 

 First Vice President — J. L. Tilton, Indianola. 

 Second Vice President — C. 0. Bates, Cedar 

 Rapids. 



Secretary — T. E. Savage, Des Moines. 

 Treasurer — H. E. Summers, Ames. 



T. E. Savage, 



Secretary. 



THE ONONDAGA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



The regular meeting of the academy was 

 held in Syracuse, on the evening of April 15. 

 Professor W. M. Davis, of Harvard University, 

 gave an illustrated lecture on the Colorado 

 Canyon, based upon four visits to the Arizona 

 plateaus. lie emphasized the origin of the 

 canyon as a valley of normal erosion excep- 

 tional only in depth, as shown fifty years ago 

 by "Newberry; its independence of the great 

 fractures of the region whose course is us- 

 ually north and south, as shown thirty years 

 ago by Powell and Button, while the canyon 

 is cut from east to west; and the record of a 



long geological history magnificently displayed 

 in the canyon walls. This history of the 

 region was traced backwards, first stripping 

 oli the horizontal layers of the plateau series, 

 next reconstructing, untilting and stripijing 

 off the now inclined layers of the so-called 

 Algonkian ' wedge ' and then roughly building 

 the lost mountains of the crystalline founda- 

 tion rocks, commonly regarded as Archean but 

 not yet demonstrated to be of so great an- 

 tiquity. Having thus traveled backwards 

 through the ' corridors of time ' to the earliest 

 stage of geological history there recorded, the 

 return journey was made along the normal 

 succession of events. Six long ages of time, 

 occupied alternately by deposition and by 

 erosion, were thus reviewed: Three ages of 

 enormous deposition, requiring a correspond- 

 ingly enormous erosion elsewhere, and three 

 alternate ages of enormous erosion, suggesting 

 an equally enormous deposition elsewhere. 

 The short chapter of canyon erosion was en- 

 tered upon only after the long earlier ages were 

 closed : thus a correction was suggested for the 

 erroneous view that the erosion of a great 

 canyon requires a long part of geological time. 

 The apex of the Algonkian wedge and the 

 associated ancient plains or peneplains of 

 erosion, best seen from Grand View, sixteen 

 miles east of the railroad terminus, were indi- 

 cated as the points on which the attention of 

 the inquiring visitor should be focussed. The 

 volcanic history of the district, as associated 

 with the erosion of the canyon, was briefly 

 touched upon. J. E. Ivirkwood, 



Corresponding Secretary. 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. SECTION 

 OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. 



A MEETING was held on February 27, in 

 conjunction with the Ethnological Society. 

 General Wilson occupied the chair. The fol- 

 lowing papers were presented : ' Anthropom- 

 etry of the Jews of Xew York,' Maurice 

 Fishberg. Whether the Jews have maintained 

 their racial purity to the present day is a 

 question that can be examined by comparing 

 the physical type of Jew from different coun- 

 tries. Extensive measurements of Jewish 



