358 Professor Arthur Schuster [May 18, 



Professor Turner), and is going to publish Transactions without any 

 funds beyond those doled out to it by charity. Its vitality will, I 

 hope, help it to overcome its initial troubles. Its ambitious pro- 

 gramme includes a definite agreement on the standard of wave-length 

 and investigations on the permanence or variability of solar radiation. 



This latter question is of considerable interest to meteorologists, 

 and comes therefore within the purview of the Directors of Meteoro- 

 logical Observatories, who have also, under the presidency of Sir 

 Norman Lockyer, established a commission charged with its discussion. 

 An arrangement has been made securing co-operation between the two 

 bodies, the Solar Union leaving out of its programme the difficult 

 question of the relationship between sunspot variability and meteoro- 

 logical phenomena. 



Although an unnecessary overlapping of two separate enterprises 

 has in this instance been avoided, such overlapping constitutes a 

 certain danger for the future, as the problems of geo-physics — for the 

 investigation of which international associations are specially marked 

 out — are so intimately connected with each other, that a homogeneous 

 treatment would seem to require a central body supervising to some 

 extent the separate associations. Such a central body may be found 

 in the International Association of Academies, which promises to play 

 so important a part in scientific history that a short account of its 

 early history may be of interest. The Kartell of some of the German 

 Academies and that of Vienna has already been referred to. In dis- 

 cussing the utility of its deliberations Professor Fehx Klein, of 

 Gottingen, first mentioned to me the idea, that an association of a 

 similar nature would be likely to prove of still greater value, if formed 

 between the scientific and literary academies all over the world. In 

 consequence of this conversation I tried to interest the Royal Society 

 in the subject ; and in order to obtain further information Professor 

 Armstrong and myself attended privately, though with the knowledge 

 and consent of the Council of the Royal Society, the meeting of the 

 Kartell which was held at Leipzig in the year 1897. In the follow- 

 ing year the two secretaries of the Royal Society, Sir Michael Foster 

 and' Sir Arthur Rlicker, together with Professor Armstrong and 

 myself, attended the Kartell which then met at Gottingen. The 

 secretaries were impressed by the great possibilities of the scheme, 

 and the Council took the initiative and approached the Academies of 

 Paris and St. Petersburg, which both returned favourable answers. 



In consequence of the correspondence between these learned 

 societies, the Royal Academy of Berlin in conjunction with the 

 Royal Society of London, issued invitations for a general conference 

 to be held at Wiesbaden on the 0th and 10th of October, in the year 

 189'.). 



The following were represented at this meeting, at which the 

 statutes of the new association were agreed upon : — 



