28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hope its contents also, will be worthy of the first scientific body in 

 the empire ; and, in order to afford to the mathematico-scientific circle 

 of readers the part of the substance of the reports most nearly inter- 

 esting them in a more acceptable form, the Physico-mathematical Sec- 

 tion has decided to prepare an extract from these reports under the 

 title of " Mathematical and Scientific Communications." 



Rarely do important and accessible questions, at least in natural sci- 

 ence, now remain long unworked. The system of the putting of prize 

 questions, and the coronation of the best answer, is therefore less 

 adapted to our time than that of rewarding excellent, already published 

 efforts, which is usual with the practical English. Partly on account of 

 the tenor of the bequests to which the means for many of its prizes are 

 due, partly for other reasons, the Academy has adhered essentially to 

 the former way of awarding prizes. It will simply hereafter offer 

 higher prizes at longer intervals, and it reserves the right, in case a 

 prize question is not satisfactorily answered, to award the amount of 

 the prize as a testimonial of honor to the author of a meritorious 

 essay, not more than three years old, upon the same subject. It is 

 determinative of the character of the Academy that it is under the 

 protection of the state, and its authority is supported by that of the 

 state so far as such a thing is conceivable and desirable in scientific 

 matters. The state thus demonstrates the sympathy which it has 

 with science, as such, with ideal efforts. It expresses this immediately 

 by the means which it puts at the disposition of the Academy for sci- 

 entific purposes. It has been too little recognized, amid the tumult of 

 the great events of the time, that one of the first applications which 

 the Prussian state made of its lately enlarged resources was to increase 

 the annual subsidy of the Academy. Through the turn for the better 

 thereby effected in the circumstances of the Academy were produced 

 the works which now appear almost yearly on all branches of science 

 with our support ; the researches of all kinds, from epigrapbic and 

 diplomatic to micrographic and paleontological studies, for which we 

 supply means ; and the steamboat of the zoological station at Naples, 

 the expense of which we share with the state. Around the Academy 

 are crystallized several literary enterprises, the fame of which is re- 

 flected upon it, as well as endowments and institutes, whose resources 

 accrue to its benefit so far as it has the more or less immediate dispo- 

 sition of them. Hardly ever are we without travelers who are making 

 collections in remote parts of the world in our name and by our order, 

 or interrogating Nature or the monuments of antiquity on the spot. 

 The names of the travelers of the Humboldt Stiftung, to speak only 

 of them, Hensel, Schweinfurth, Buchholtz, Hilderbrandt, Sachs, are in 

 the mouths of all experts, and are associated with extremely impor- 

 tant results. The Academy will shortly hear, in accordance with our 

 new order of business, the reports which are now to be brought in 

 concerning the progress of those investigaions and the work of a part 



