ward filed an application which interfered with it. This application was amended in order to avoid the interference, and patents were granted on both; but that Greenough's is the parent of the modern machine, while Gallahue's "did not contain a single feature" of it, except the pegging-awl and driver; while "there is not an essential feature in the present shoe-pegging machine which is not found" in the Greenough claims. The details of the dispute, as Mr. Greenough gives them, are intricate, and we can do no more than fairly state the substance of his claim.
The American Association, 1893.—The next meeting of the American Association (1893) will be held in Madison, Wis. The following are the officers-elect: President, William Harkness, Washington; vice-presidents, A, Mathematics and Astronomy, C. L. Doolittle, South Bethlehem, Pa.; B, Physics, E. L. Nichols, Ithaca, N. Y.; C, Chemistry, Edward Hart, Easton, Pa.; D, Mechanical Science and Engineering, S. W. Robinson, Columbus, O.; E, Geology and Geography, Charles D. Walcott, Washington; F, Zoölogy, Henry F. Osborn, New York; G, Botany, Charles E. Bessey, Lincoln, Neb.; H, Anthropology, J. Owen Dorsey, Tacoma, Md.; I, Economic Science and Statistics, William H. Brewer, New Haven, Conn.; permanent secretary, F. W. Putnam, Cambridge (office, Salem), Mass.; general secretary, T. H. Norton, Cincinnati, O.; secretary of the council, H. L. Fairchild, Rochester, N. Y. Secretaries of the sections: A, Mathematics and Astronomy, Andrew W. Phillips, New Haven, Conn.; B, Physics, W. Le Conte Stephens, Troy, N. Y.; C, Chemistry, J. U. Nef, Chicago, Ill.; D, Mechanical Science and Engineering, D. S. Jacobus, Hoboken, N. Y.; E, Geology and Geography, Robert T. Hill, Austin, Tex.; F, Zoölogy, L. O. Howard, Washington; G, Botany, F. V. Coville, Washington; H, Anthropology, Warren K. Moorehead, Xenia, O.; I, Economic Science and Statistics, Nellie T. Kedzie, Manhattan, Kan.; treasurer, William Lilly, Mauch Chunk, Pa.
Prehistoric Copper Implements.—In a paper at the American Association, on Singular Copper Implements from the Hopewell Group, Ross County, Ohio, Prof. F. A. Putnam emphatically denied the statements that these copper implements were fashioned by white men and given to the Indians in trade. "It must be," said he, "that these implements were made by the native Americans. In all cases where implements and ornaments are found in these mounds, there are found also on the altars nuggets of copper. So it is with the silver implements and those made of meteoric iron. Now, is it likely that the trader would furnish the Indian with nuggets of the natural material? There is conclusive proof that the original settlers of the Ohio Valley worked the metal into these implements and ornaments. Again, these mounds, many of them, have trees growing on them that are between four hundred and five hundred years old. This carries back beyond the time of trading." Prof. Putnam explained that round holes could be cut in the sheet copper which had been hammered out by the Indian, by simply placing the sheet of copper on the trunk of a tree and pounding into it one end of an oak limb squared. He was unable to describe the probable mode adopted by the Indians in cutting edges shaped like the teeth of a saw, but thought it was done by the use of an instrument made of meteoric iron.
Sir Archibald Geikie on the Age of the Globe.—The address of Sir Archibald Geikie, as President of the British Association in Edinburgh, included a historical review of the Huttonian and Wernerian theories of the origin and processes of geological changes, and closed with an examination of the present state of opinion and evidences concerning the age of the globe. While the speaker regarded the demands of the earlier geologists for unlimited time for the formation of the earth's strata as extravagant, he was equally of the opinion that the limitations which the physicists seek to impose on the duration of the processes need to be revised. The rate of degradation of the land under atmospheric influences is capable of measurement, and from this it is concluded that the geological deposits, if they were all made at the most rapid rate witnessed, would require seventy-three millions of years; if at the slowest rate, six hundred and eighty millions of years, for their accumulation. But it may be argued that all kiuds of ter-
