ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



45 



Attendant. The attendance of members at 

 the meeting as registered was 342. One hun- 

 dred and ninety-four papers were read in the 

 .1 sections. The usual receptions were 

 tendered by citizens. The members visited 

 various localities of interest, and had an en- 

 joyable excursion on the lake. 



Appropriations The income of the research 

 fund for the past year was granted to Fred- 

 erick W. Putnam for the furtherance of his 

 archaeological explorations in relation to the 

 Serpent Mound in Ohio. 



Jlwtins: of 1889. The next mefting is to be 

 held at Toronto, Can., under the following 

 officers: President, Thomas C. Mendenhall. of 

 Terre Haute, Ind. : Vice- Presidents: Mathe- 

 matics and Astronomy. Robert S. Woodward, 

 of Washington, D. C. ; Physics, Henry S. 

 Carhart, of Ann Arbor. Mich.; Chemistry, 

 William L. Dudley, of Nashville, Tenn. ; 

 Mechanical Science and Engineering, Arthur 

 Beardsley, of Swarthmore, Pa. : Geology and 

 Geography, Charles A. White, of Washington, 

 D. C. ; Biology, George L. Goodale, of Cain- 

 bridge Anthropology, Garrick Mallery, 

 of Washington. D. C. : Economic Science and 

 Statistics, Charles S. Hill, of Washington. D. C. 

 Permanent Secretary, Frederick W. Putnam, 

 of Cambridge, Mass.: General Secretary, C. 

 Leo Mees. of Terre Haute, Ind. : Secretary of 

 Council. Frank Baker, of Washington, D. C. 

 Secretaries of sections: Mathematics and As- 

 tronomy, George C. Comstock, of Madison, 

 Wis. : Physics, Edward L. Nichols, of Ithaca, 

 N. Y. : Chemistry, Edward Hart, of Easton, 

 Pa. : Mechanical Science and Engineering, 

 James E. Denton. of Hoboken. N. J. ; Geology 

 and Geography. John C. Branner. of Little 

 Kock, Ark. : Biology, Amos W. Butler, of 

 Brookville, Ind. ; Anthropology. William M. 

 Beanchamp, of Baldwinsville. N. Y. ; Economic 

 Science and Statistics, John R. Dodge, of Wash- 

 ington, D. C. : Treasurer, William Lilly, of 

 Manch Chunk, Pa. 



British. The British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science held its fifty-eighth 

 annual meeting at Bath, beginning, Sept. 3, 

 1838. Twenty-four years have elapsed since 

 this city was the scene of its labors. The list 

 of presidents is as follows: President of the 

 Association. Sir Frederick J. Bramwell: Sec- 

 tion Presidents: Mathematics and Physics. Prof. 

 George F. Fitzgerald: Chemistry, Prof. William 

 A.Tilden: Geology. Prof. William Boyd Daw- 

 kins; Biology. Prof. William T. Thistieton Dyer; 

 Geography, Sir Charles Wilson ; Statistics, Lord 

 Brannwell: Mechanics. William H.Preece; An- 

 thropology. Gen. Pitt- Rivers. The city of Bath 

 possessing no public hall, a temporary building 

 was erected at a cost of 700 to provide a re- 

 ception-room and offices. 



General Meftins. The first general meeting 

 was held on Wednesday. September 6, at 8 p. M. 

 Sir Henry E. Roscoe, the retiring president, 

 resigned his chair to the president elect. Sir 

 Frederick J. Bramwell. Prof. Roscoe intro- 



duced his succes-or by a few happily chosen 

 words, alluding to Sir Charles Ly-!l, president 

 at the former Bath meeting of l*f,4, stating 

 that pure science \va- honored in Pi of. L\ell, 

 while in the election of Sir Frederick J. Bram- 

 well a tribute is paid to applied science. 



President's Addm*. 'I he president's address 

 began with a review of the work of old time 

 engineers, who developed prime movers, and 

 bn night the story down to the present day. 

 He spoke of the increased perfection of the 

 modern steam-engine, but reminded his hear- 

 ers of his own prophecy made at the York 

 meeting, that the steam-engine would in the 

 next century be a thing of the past. He then 

 cited gas. naphtha, and caloric engines to prove 

 that the direction of engineering progress had 

 been correctly indicated by him. The effect 

 of the " next to nothing" in engineering prac- 

 tice was then developed. He cited the effect 

 of minute impurities upon metals, of the im- 

 portance of the introduction of precisely the 

 right amount of air into steam-boiler and other 

 furnaces to secure economy of fuel, and of the 

 effect of alloys upon metals even when in mi- 

 nute proportions. The influence of the ''lit- 

 tle'' was well illustrated in gun-practice where 

 the difference of density of the air above and 

 below a projectile is supposed to cause its lat- 

 eral deviation. He also cited the fact that a 

 projectile fired due north, a distance of twelve 

 miles in one minute, would deviate from the 

 meridian 200 feet. The tenor of the latter por- 

 tion of the address was the importance of mi- 

 nute accuracy in engineering practice. 



Sf ftions. M tJxmatical and Physical Science. 

 Prof. Fitzgerald, elected as substitute for Prof. 

 Schuster, began his address by a tribute of re- 

 gret for the loss of Prof. Schusttr as president, 

 who was too ill to attend the meeting. His 

 address was devoted to the exposition of J. 

 Clerk Maxwell's theory that electro-magnetic 

 phenomena are due to an intervening medium. 

 "The year 1888," he affirms, "will ever be 

 memorable as the year in which this great 

 question has been experimentally decided by 

 Hertz, in Germany, and I hope, by others in 

 England." The intervening medium, he stated, 

 has been decided to exist. Prof. Hertz pro- 

 duced rapidly alternating currents of such fre- 

 quency that their wave-length was about two 

 metres, giving 100,000,000 vibrations per sec- 

 ond. With these he detected phases of in- 

 terference corresponding with those of light- 

 waves. Thus we seemed to be approaching a 

 theory of the structure of the ether. 



Chan i<"fi7 frifnce. Prof. Tilden devoted him- 

 self to the subject of the teaching of chemistry. 

 He advocated a better system, a higher grade 

 of teachers, and less hours of labor for them, 

 in order that they might have time to keep 

 abreast of the age by reading. He said that it 

 took longer than it did formerly to make a 

 chemist, as more was expected of him ; he had 

 to be almost polytechnical in his education. 



Geology. Prof. Daw kins spoke of the ad- 



