xiv MINUTES. 



Harlow Shapley, A.M., Ph.D., Cambridge. 

 Henry Skinner, M.D., Philadelphia. 



James Perrin Smith, A.M., Ph.D., LL.D., Palo Alto, Calif. 

 Henry S. Washington, A.M., Ph.D., Washington. 

 David Locke Webster, A.B., Ph.D., Stanford Univ. 

 A letter was received from Dr. Charles C. Torrey, of New Haven, 

 declining election. 



The following letter from the Marquis Antonio de Gregorio was 

 read : 



Palermo Via Molo 132. 

 Very Honored Sir: 



I pray you to be so kind to insert in the Proceedings of A. 

 Philosoph. Society this little paragraph on Gravitation and accept 

 my best regards. 



Marquis Ant. de Gregorio, 



Cor. Member of A. Ph. Soc. 



On Gravitation's Kinetic Theory. 



I have read with much interest the communication of Mr. Charles 

 F. Brush on the Kinetic Theory of Gravitation (Proc. Americ. 

 Philosoph. Soc, Vol. LX,, No. 2, p. 43). But I must observe that 

 already in 1892 I proposed the same theory to the Academy of Sci- 

 ences of Palerme. My work has the title " Sul Continuto della 

 Spazio e sulla causa della gravitazione." It has been published in a 

 volume " Nuovi Strumenti fisici e sulla piu probabile origine del 

 nostro sistema stellare " (Palermo 1893) that has been published in 

 the memoirs of our Academy of Sciences in Palerme. After many 

 years, in 1914, I presented a work to the Societa Siciliano di Scienze 

 Naturali upon the mere cosmogonic theories (Sulle nuove teorie 

 cosmogoniche, sull' origine della materia). In this work, which has 

 been published in the Naturalist a Siciliano (April 19 14) I have again 

 discussed and elucidated and cleared this theory. I said that if there 

 are two masses, they shall be pushed each toward the other by the 

 difference of pression (tension) of ether, because the tension of ether 

 is different in the space and in portion of it interposed between the 

 two masses. So the two corps shall be converse each toward the 

 other. I have considered ether as passing through the matter, but I 

 observe that matter absorbs some part of its energy and transforms 

 it : Radium phenomena are perhaps some of the manifestations of it. 

 I considered matter not as a dead thing but as a living thing. 



