356 NATURAL SCIENCE. December. 



Detroit, be admitted as members of the British Association during its 

 Toronto meeting, on the same terms as old annual members. Science 

 takes the opportunity to suggest that there should be established an 

 International Congress for the Advancement of Science. " The 

 co-operation between the British, French, and American Asso- 

 ciations, the successful international congresses in the separate 

 sciences and for scientific bibliography, the establishment of journals 

 international in circulation, in contributions, and even in editorship, 

 are steps in the forward movement leading directly to a world's 

 congress of men of science." Our readers will remember a little note 

 that we published on International Congresses a short time ago, and 

 they will not expect us to support this proposal very warmly. The 

 great fault of these gatherings is the want of organisation, and the 

 more international the gathering, the worse, as a rule, is the organ- 

 isation. We agree that most of the questions mentioned by our 

 contemporary — " bibliography, nomenclature, the definition of units, 

 libraries and museums, explorations, the teaching of science " — can 

 only be settled by international co-operation. But they should be 

 discussed, not by some general congress with a high-sounding title, 

 but by special international committees appointed ad unumquidque. 



The Encouragement of Zoological Research. 



The International Congress of Zoologists in 1898 will be held at 

 Cambridge at the same time as the congress of Physiologists, A 

 committee, with Professor Alfred Newton in the chair, will arrange the 

 details. Two prizes will be awarded on this occasion, the first, of 

 the Czar Alexander III. for research on the ruminants of Central 

 Asia, zoologically and geographically considered; the second, the prize 

 of the Czar Nicholas II. for an anatomical and zoological monograph 

 on some group of marine invertebrates. Manuscripts should be sent 

 in to the president of the permanent Committee, 7 Rue des Grands- 

 Augustins, Paris, before May ist. 1898. The Revne Scientifiqiie hopes 

 the second subject may be altered in order not to promote the 

 continual publication of monographs, and remarks " II n'y a pas 

 que les faits ; il y a encore et surtout les idees, et les zoologistes con- 

 temporains semblent I'oublier souvent." We cannot say that we 

 altogether agree with our estimable contemporary ; for in the first place 

 we do not see why a monograph on marine invertebrates should 

 necessarily be destitute of ideas ; in the second place, highly as we 

 value ideas, we still maintain that they must be checked by reference 

 to facts, and we agree with our contributor, Mr. F. G. Parsons, that 

 the more facts we have at our disposal, the surer will be our conclu- 

 sions. This, as our last number sufficiently showed, is what geologists 

 and palaeontologists are feeling, and we are glad to find, as the papers 

 by Drs. Parsons and Keith instance, that many pure anatomists 

 share the same view. 



