46 



ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



of the executive departments of the Govern- 

 ment. The silver-coinage question was opened 

 by a paper by Prof. E. B. Eliott, of Washing- 

 ton, followed by a discussion, in which Prof. 

 Harkness, following the lead of the essayist, 

 condemned the present silver-coining propen- 

 sities of the Government. An interesting pa- 

 per, by Prof. Eliott, on the economy of elec- 

 tric lighting at the Philadelphia Post-Office, 

 followed. Various committee reports were 

 made, notably one from the Committee on Stel- 

 lar Magnitudes (Prof. C. E. Pickering, chair- 

 man), with elaborate tables. Through Dr. C. 

 S. Minot, the committee on the subject of inter- 

 national conventions reported progress in the 

 direction of a joint meeting of the British and 

 American Associations. This will be found re- 

 ferred to in the account of the Aberdeen meet- 

 ing of the British Association, given below. It 

 was announced that Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, 

 of Stamford, Conn., had presented $25,000 as 

 an endowment, the income to be expended in 

 the interest of pure science by the Internation- 

 al Convention when organized. In the mean 

 while permission has been secured for the dis- 

 posal of the income as the trustees shall see fit. 

 The board of trustees includes : Dr. H. B. Bow- 

 ditch, of Boston, Chairman; Mr. William Minot, 

 Treasurer; President F. A. Walker, of the Mas- 

 sachusetts Institute of Technology ; Prof. E. C. 

 Pickering, of the Harvard Observatory; and 

 Dr. C. S. Minot, Secretary. 



The next meeting of the society is to be held 

 in Buffalo, N.Y., beginning Aug. 18, 1886. For 

 the ensuing year and for that meeting the fol- 

 lowing officers were elected : 



President, Prof. Edward S. Morse, of Salem, Mass. ; 

 Section A, Mathematics and Astronomy, vice-presi- 

 dent, Prof. J. Wolcott Gibbs, of Yale College, New Ha- 

 ven, Conn. ; secretary, Mr. S. C. Chandler, Jr., of the 

 Harvard Observatory, Cambridge, Mass. ; B, Physics, 

 vice-president, Prof. C. F. Brackett, of the College of 

 New Jersey, Princeton, N. J. ; secretary, Prof. H. S. 

 Carhart, of the Northwestern University;, Evanston, 

 111. ; C. Chemistry, vice-president, Dr. H. W. Wiley, 

 of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. ; 

 secretary, Prof. William McMurtrie, of the Illinois In- 

 dustrial University, Champaign, 111. ; D, Mechanical 

 Science and Engineering, vice-president, Mr. 0. Cha- 

 nute, of Kansas City, Mo. ; secretary, Mr. William 

 Kent, of Jersey City, N. J. E, Geology and Geogra- 

 phy, vice-president, Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, of the 

 United States Geological Survey, Beloit, Wis. ; secre- 

 tary, Prof. E. W. Claypole, of Buchte} College, Akron, 

 O. ; F, Biology, vice-president, Dr. Henry P. Bow- 

 ditch, of the Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. ; 

 secretary, Mr. J. C. Arthur, of the New York Experi- 

 ment Station, Geneva, N. Y. ; H, Anthropology, vice- 

 president, Mr. Horatio Hale, of Clinton, Ont. : secreta- 

 ry, Mr. A. W. Butler, of Brookville, Ind.; I, Econom- 

 ic Science and Statistics, vice-president, Mr. Joseph 

 Cummings, of Evanston, 111. ; secretary, Mr. H. E. Al- 

 vord, of Houghton Farm, Mountainville. N. Y. No 

 nominations were made for Section G, Histology and 

 Microscopy, as it has been decided, as stated, to merge 

 it in Section F. The permanent secretary is Mr. F. W. 

 Putnam, of the Peabody Museum. Cambridge, Mass. : 

 the general secretary, Prof. S. G. Williams, of Cornell 

 University, Ithaca, N. Y. ; the assistant secretary, Prof. 

 W. H. Pettee, of the University of Michigan, Ann Ar- 

 bor ; and the treasurer, Mr. William Lilly, of Mauch 

 Chunk, Pa. 



Sixty-eight members were elected fellows, among 

 them the following : Dr. Cornelius R. Agnew, New 

 York ; S. Moulton Babcock, New York Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, Geneva ; Alexander Melville Bell, 

 Washington ; Prof. William Morris Davis, Jr., Cam- 

 bridge ; Alexander E. Douglass, New York ; William 

 L. Elkin, Yale College; Thomas S. Gladding, New 

 York ; Albert P. Hallock, Ph. D., New York ; Prof. 

 Lewis M. Haupt, University of Pennsylvania ; Charles 

 M. Stillwell, New York ; G. B. Grinnell, New York. 



One hundred and fifty-four new members 

 were elected. 



British. The fifty-fifth annual meeting of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science was held in Aberdeen, Scotland, begin- 

 ning Sept. 19, 1885. The number of papers made 

 it necessary to begin their reading on Saturday, 

 an almost unprecedented fact in the history 

 of the society. The attendance was 2,203 per- 

 sons. For committee work tinder all the dif- 

 ferent sections' the sum of 1,195 was voted. 

 Seventeen important reports from committees 

 were received. This division includes some 

 of the most important work of the society. 

 The meeting was considered the best ever held. 

 For the 1886 meeting, Birmingham was chos- 

 en ; for 1887, Manchester; and for 1888 or 

 1889, London is hoped for, and the co-opera- 

 tion of the American Association is also desired. 

 During the session many evening lectures, by 

 Profs. Adam, Dixon, Murray, and others, were 

 given. Excursions to Balmoral, to Dunecht, 

 and to Lord Crawford's observatory and else- 

 where, were indulged in. The inaugural ad- 

 dress was delivered by Sir Lyon Playfair, F. R. 

 S. He alluded to the last Aberdeen meeting, 

 held in 1859 under the presidency of Prince ' 

 Albert. In speaking of the promotion of sci- 

 ence as a duty of state-craft, he contrasted 

 America with England, praising the former for 

 its governmental use of scientific workers in 

 its departments. The biological laboratories 

 at "Wood's Holl, Massachusetts, and at Washing- 

 ton, D. C., were praised, and Washington's 

 Farewell Address was quoted in support of the 

 speaker's views. Like other speakers at the 

 same meeting he spoke of scientific education, 

 holding that too much attention was given to 

 the classics and not enough to science. 



Section A, devoted to mathematical and phys- 

 ical science, was presided over by Prof. G. 

 Chrystal, F. R. S. E. In his address he spoke 

 of the diffusion of scientific knowledge. He- 

 criticised very severely the civil-service exami- 

 nations, as based entirely on standards. An 

 interesting discussion on the kinetic theory of 

 gases was participated in by various members 

 of this section. Several papers were read on 

 Sir Vernon Harcourt's Pentane standard of 

 illuminating power. This standard was also 

 provisionally recommended by the Committee 

 on Electrical Measurements. Prof. Osborne 

 Reynolds's paper on the dilatancy of rigid par- 

 ticles in contact was of the greatest interest. 



Section B, devoted to chemical science, was 

 presided over by Prof. Henry E. Armstrong, 

 Ph. D., F. C. S. He spoke on the advance- 



