VI NOTES BY THE ED1TO118 



place the Association upon a more effective and permanent basis than it 

 has previously occupied. Among these were the election of a general 

 secretary, a permanent secretary, and a permanent treasurer, the two latter 

 to hold office for three years. The permanent secretary will receive a sal- 

 ary of $300 per annum, and will superintend the publication of the pro- 

 ceedings and conduct the correspondence of the Association. The annual 

 subscription of the members was raised to three dollars, the continuance 

 of the membership being made dependent upon its payment. For the 

 year 1851. the Association voted to hold the semiannual meeting at Cin- 

 cinnati, commencing the first week in May, and the annual meeting at 

 Albany, commencing the third Monday of August. A resolution was 

 also adopted requesting Prof. Henry to deliver an address at the meeting 

 in Cincinnati, " Upon the present condition of American science and the 

 means for its advancement." The following officers were elected for the 

 ensuing year : Prof. Agassiz, President; Prof. W. B. Eogers, General 

 Secretary ; Prof. Spencer F. Baird, Permanent Secretary ; Dr. Elwyn, 

 Treasurer. Among the numerous members elected at this meeting were 

 Miss Maria Mitchell, of Nantucket, Mass., and Miss Moms, of Pennsyl- 

 vania. 



The twentieth annual meeting of the British Association commenced in 

 Edinburgh, on July 31, and continued for one week. It was more numer- 

 ously attended than usual, and eminently successful in all its objects. Sir 

 David Brcwster, the President, in assuming the chair, briefly alluded to 

 the progress made in several departments of science since the former meet- 

 ing of the Association. In his glance at astronomy, he stated that Mr. 

 Lassell, of Liverpool, had recently been able to observe " the very mi- 

 nute, but extremely black shadow of the ring of Saturn upon the body of 

 that planet. He observed the line of shadow to be notched, as it were, 

 and almost broken up in a line of dots ; thus indicating mountains upon 

 the plane of the ring." After noticing in a highly complimentary manner 

 the new law discovered by Mr. Daniel Kirkwood, of Pennsylvania, he 

 says : " This law requires the existence of a planet between Mars and 

 Jupiter, and it follows from the law that the broken planet must have been 

 a little larger than Mars, or about 5,000 miles in diameter, and that the 

 length of its day must have been about 57 i hours. The American astron- 

 omers regard this law as amounting to a demonstration of the nebular 

 hypothesis of Laplace ; but we venture to say that this opinion will not be 

 adopted by the astronomers of England." 



" It has been long known that the imperfect transparency of the earth's 

 atmosphere, and the unequal refraction which arises from differences of 

 temperature, combine to set a limit to the use of high magnifying powers 

 in our telescopes- The Marquis of Ormond is said to have seen from 

 Mount Etna, with his naked eye, the satellites of Jupiter. If this be true, 

 what discoveries may we not expect from a large reflector working above 



