REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1920. 13 



Although greatly increased costs of printing, illustrations, etc., 

 for current publications and corresponding increases in costs 



of works long in press have prevented authoriza- 

 ^°^f the^Year!^"^ "^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ usual number of new pubUcations, the 



number of books issued during the j^ear falls not 

 far short of the yearly average for the past decade. Of this hst 

 three may be cited here by reason of their diversity in subject- 

 matter and by reason of special contemporary interests they have 

 aroused. 



Attention was invited in the report of a year ago to the pubH- 

 cation of Volume I of Professor Dickson's History of the Theory 

 of Numbers. Volume II (octavo, pp. xxv+803) of this work has 

 appeared during this year. It is devoted to what is now called 

 "Diophantine Analysis," cultivated alike by the ancient, the 

 medieval, and the modern schools of mathematicians. It is 

 remarkable as the branch of mathematics which has the greatest 

 number of devotees; and its history shows vrell how the higher 

 developments in science are evolved, in general, out of amateur- 

 ism and dilettantism. Hence the desirabiUty of commending 

 both these latter stages while at the same time urging individuals 

 to linger in neither. It is especialty noteworthy in the volume 

 in question that the French statesman Fermat (1601-1665) 

 should be one of the most prominent of the many famous names 

 which adorn this sort of analysis. It has turned out, in fact, 

 that he is more distinguished for his ''Opera Mathematica" 

 than for his high conduct as councillor for the parliament of 

 Toulouse. 



Soon after the establishment of the Department of Embry- 

 olog3^ (December 1914) under the directorship of Professor 

 Frankhn P. IMall, his associates planned to celebrate the com- 

 pletion of his approaching quarter-century of work at the Johns 

 Hopkins University by the dedication to him of a volume of 

 contributions in his favorite fields of research. His untimely 

 death, however, November 17, 1917, prevented realization of 

 this spontaneous tribute from his colleagues and left them the 

 unexpected but not less spontaneous obligation of supplying a 

 memorial volume. This has been prepared under the auspices 



