110 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
noted that the scope or plan of this work includes, not only original 
investigation and its publication, but the incorporation with this of 
the results of all previous work of value; the primary object being a 
comprehensive handbook of the local geology , with an illustrative 
collection. 
With Mr. Grabau’s assistance, Professor Crosby has completed 
the investigation of Lake Bouv6 ; and Mr. Grabau will prepare the 
text and illustrations of this exceptionally interesting episode in the 
glacial history of the South Shore. Professor Crosby has also traced 
out in a less detailed manner the shores, outlets, and deposits or 
deltas of a much larger glacial lake which occupied the upper val¬ 
leys of the Charles and Neponset Rivers. A general account of these 
glacial lakes of the Boston Basin was presented to the Society by 
Mr. Grabau and Professor Crosby at the meeting January 1, 1896. 
An abstract was published in Science, and in the American Geol¬ 
ogist. 
The relatively low water-partings of the streams tributary to the 
Boston Basin on the south and west have given rise to extensive 
overwash plains and other phenomena which might appear at first 
inconsistent with the theory of glacial lakes. Professor Crosby 
therefore gladly embraced the opportunity afforded by some work 
in the Nashua Valley for the Metropolitan Water Board to study a 
more typical glacial lake in a deeper and more sharply defined val¬ 
ley. This study, which is no>v completed, although beyond the 
limits of the Boston Basin, aids materially in the interpretation of 
the related phenomena in that field. 
Mr. T. A. Watson has presented to the Society a portion of a 
large Paradoxides harlani from an entirely new locality, in Braintree. 
The other additions to the geological collections during the year 
include a valuable series of minerals presented by Mr. Thomas Gaf- 
field; an interesting series of zinc ores and associated minerals from 
Laurium, Greece; many specimens from the mica, talc, phosphate, 
graphite, and iron mines of northern New York and Canada, col¬ 
lected by Professor Crosby last summer; and an extended series of 
stalactites and stalagmites received by exchange from the National 
Museum. 
All the accessions have been duly recorded and placed on exhi¬ 
bition, with the exception of the stalactites and stalagmites, and it is 
proposed to utilize these in arranging a miniature cavern to be placed 
in the vestibule. 
