54 
REPORT ON THE AUTUMN MEETING 
many of which are barbed. While barbed points are rarely used in the 
bison area, there was a strong tendency to use bone points, especially 
in the north. 
In addition to the preceding, the investigation is concerned with such 
traits as textile arts, birchbark technique, weapons, and special manu- 
facturing processes. The distribution of the traits enumerated above 
indicates a fundamental similarity between the material cultures of the 
caribou and bison areas. The interpretation of this observation is an 
important theoretical problem. The experience of anthropologists to 
date is that in all such cases we have two major alternatives, diffusion 
from a single center or independent development in two or more local- 
ities. It remains to be seen which of these will be the more satisfactory 
interpretation for the above noted similarities in culture. 
Finally, this study has developed the problem of caribou, or New 
World reindeer, culture in its relation to the reindeer culture of the Old 
World in both modern and paleoHthic times. It now appears probable 
that in the great area of the reindeer and caribou (for they are geo- 
graphically continuous) we have a concomitant human culture which 
may be as old as paleolithic man in Europe. This will be more fully 
discussed when our detailed studies of caribou culture are published. 
REPORT ON THE AUTUMN MEETING 
Prepared by the Home Secretary 
The Autumn Meeting of the National Academy of Sciences was held in 
the Botanical Laboratory of the University of Chicago on December 7, 8, 
and 9, 1914, twenty-one members of the Academy being present. 
BUSINESS SESSIONS 
Business sessions were held on December 8 and 9, at which the following 
business was transacted: 
The President announced that since its Annual Meeting in April the Acad- 
emy had lost by death two members, Theodore Nicholas Gill, elected in 1873, 
who died on September 25, 1914, and Charles Sedgwick Minot, elected in 
1897, who died on November 19, 1914; also two foreign associates, Edouard 
Suess, elected in 1898, who died on April 26, 1914, and August Weismann, 
elected in 1913, who died on November 5, 1914. 
The President made also the following announcements: 
That Mr. Ira Remsen was acting as Chairman of the Board of Directors of 
the Bache Fund for the time being in the place of Charles S. Minot, deceased. 
That by the death of Theodore N. Gill a vacancy was created in the Finance 
