THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



667 



importance of the inventions it has 

 given to the world, has not as yet done 

 its share for the advancement of physi- 

 cal science, but in geology it occupies a 

 foremost place. It was natural, there- 

 fore, that while American physicists 

 were scarcely represented on the pro- 

 gramme of the Physical Congress, they 

 occupied a prominent place on the pro- 

 gramme of geological papers. Among 

 the three hundred members present, the 

 representation from America included 

 Messrs. Stevenson, Hague, Osborn, 

 Ward, Willis, White, Cross, Scott, Todd, 

 Kunz, Choquette, Adams, Mathew and 

 Rice, and they presented a number of 

 the more important papers. M. Kar- 

 pinsky, the retiring president, gave the 

 opening address, which was followed by 

 an address of welcome by M. Gaudry, 

 the president of the congress. A geo- 

 logical congress can offer special attrac- 

 tions in the way of excursions, and these 

 were admirably arranged on the pres- 

 ent occasion — both the shorter excur- 

 sions to the classic horizons in the 

 neighborhood of Paris and the more 

 extended ones that followed the close 

 of the meeting. The guide for the 

 twenty long excursions and numerous 

 shorter trips, prepared by the leading 

 French geologists, was an elaborately 

 illustrated volume representing the pres- 

 ent condition of our knowledge of 

 French geology. The ninth geological 

 congress will be held at Vienna three 

 years hence. 



The International Congress of Math- 

 ematics met for the second time at 

 Paris, though there had been a prelim- 

 inary meeting on the occasion of the 

 Chicago Exposition. There were about 

 two hundred and twenty-five mathema- 

 ticians in attendance, including seven- 

 teen from the United States. M. Poin- 

 car6 presided, and the vice-presidents, 

 some of whom were not present, were 

 Messrs. Czuber, Gordon, Greenhill, Lin- 

 delbf, Lindemann, Mittag-Leffler, Moore, 

 Tikhomandritzky, Volterra, Zeuthen 

 and Geiser. The sections and their pre- 

 siding officers were aB follows: (1) 



Arithmetic and Algebra: Hilbert; (2) 

 Analysis: Painleve; (3) Geometry: 

 Darboux; (4) Mechanics and Mathe- 

 matical Physics: Larmor; (5) Bibli- 

 ography and History: Prince Roland 

 Bonaparte; (6) Teaching and Methods: 

 Cantor. Valuable papers were presented 

 by M. Cantor on works and methods 

 concerned with the history of mathe- 

 matics, by Professor Hilbert on the fu- 

 ture problems of mathematics and by 

 Professor Mittag-Leffler on an episode 

 in the life of Weierstrass, but the pro- 

 gramme appears to have been not very 

 full nor particularly interesting. Time 

 was found for a half-day's discussion of a 

 universal language, but not to carry 

 into effect the plans begun at Zurich 

 three years ago for a mathematical bib- 

 liography. The next congress will meet 

 four years hence in Germany, probably 

 at Baden-Baden. 



The untimely death of James Ed- 

 ward Keeler, director of the Lick Ob- 

 servatory, is a serious blow to astron- 

 omy and to science. Born at La Salle, 

 111., forty-three years ago, he was edu- 

 cated at the Johns Hopkins University 

 and in Germany. When only twenty- 

 one years old he observed the solar 

 eclipse of 1878, and drew up an excellent 

 report. Three years later he was a 

 member of the expedition to Mt. Whit- 

 ney under Professor Langley, whose as- 

 sistant he had become at the Allegheny 

 Observatory, and whose bolometric in- 

 vestigations owe much to him. He be- 

 came astronomer at the Lick Observa- 

 tory while it was in course of erection, 

 and in 1891 he succeeded Professor 

 Langley as director of the Allegheny 

 Observatory. He was called to the di- 

 rectorship of the great Lick Observatory 

 in 1898. Keeler's work in astrophysics, 

 including his photographs of the spectra 

 of the red stars and his spectroscopic 

 proof of the meteoric constitution of Sa- 

 turn's rings, demonstrated what he 

 could accomplish at a small ob- 

 servatory unfavorably situated. At 

 Mt. Hamilton he was able in the 

 course of only two years to or- 



