ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



47 



ing paper on the relation of dew to'soil-moist- 

 ure. He maintained that dew, as a rule, did 

 not prevent the drying of soil; that it kept 

 drying during heavy dews. The subject of 

 u Dew Formation " was further treated by 

 Major H. E. Alvord. Prof. T. C. Mendenhall 

 spoke on "Electrical Thermometry." 



The titles of a few other papers follow : " On 

 Devonian and Carboniferous Fishes," and " On 

 the Cretaceous Flora of North America," J. S. 

 Newberry ; " Fossils from the Taconic," J. D. 

 Dana ; " Memoranda of a Revision of the North 

 American Violets," Asa Gray ; " Work of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture in 

 Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy," and 

 " Do any of Our North American Bats migrate ? 

 Evidence in the Affirmative," C. Hart Merriam ; 

 U A Trilobite Track illustrating the Mode of 

 Progression of the Trilobite," N. S.Ringueberg ; 

 " Synopsis of North American Pines based on 

 Leaf Anatomy." John M. Coulter and J. N. 

 Rose ; " On Gold and Silver Ornaments from 

 Florida " and " Gold Ornaments from the 

 United States of Colombia," George F. Kunz. 



The following officers were elected for the 

 next meeting : President, 8. P. Langley, of 

 Allegheny, Pa. ; Vice - Presidents, A. Mathe- 

 matics and Astronomy, WilliamFerrel, of Wash- 

 ington, D. C. ; B. Physics, William A. Antho- 

 ny, of Ithaca, N. Y. ; C. Chemistry, Albert B. 

 Prescott, of Ann Arbor, Mich. ; D. Mechani- 

 cal Science and Engineering, Eckley B. Coxe, 

 of Drifton, Pa. ; E. Geology and Geography, 

 G. K. Gilbert, of Washington, D. C. ; F. Biol- 

 ogy, W. G. Farlow, of Cambridge, Mass. ; H. 

 Anthropology, D. G. Brinton, of Media, Pa. ; 

 I. Economic Science and Statistics, Henry E. 

 Alvord, of Amherst, Mass. ; Permanent Secre- 

 tary, F. W. Putnam, of Cambridge, Mass.; 

 General Secretary, W. H. Pettee, of Ann Ar- 

 bor, Mich. ; Assistant-General Secretary, J. C. 

 Arthur, of Geneva, N. Y. Secretaries of the 

 Sections : A. Mathematics and Astronomy, 

 llenry M. Paul, of Washington, D. C. ; B. Phys- 

 ics, C. Leo Mees, of Athens, O. ; C. Chem- 

 istry, C. F. Mayberry, of Cleveland, O. ; D. 

 Mechanical Science and Engineering, George 

 M. Bond, of Hartford, Conn. ; E. Geology and 

 Geography, T. B. Comstock, of Champaign, 

 111. ; F. Biology, J. Henry Comstock, of Itha- 

 ca, N. Y. ; H. Anthropology, F. W. Langdon, 

 of Cincinnati, O. ; I. Economic Science and 

 Statistics, W. R. Lazenby, of Columbus, O. ; 

 Treasurer, William Lilly, of Mauch Chunk, Pa. 

 British. The fifty-sixth annual meeting of 

 the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science was held at Birmingham, England. 

 The attendance was 2,500. The new public 

 buildings of Birmingham and its leading club- 

 houses were thrown open to the members. It 

 was the fourth Birmingham meeting. The next 

 place for assembling is Manchestei, on Aug. 

 31, 1887. A subsidiary meeting of the Asso- 

 ciation is to be held in Sydney, New South 

 Wales, in January, 1888, to which a deputation 

 of forty of the most eminent members of the 



society is to be sent, at the expense of the col- 

 ony. The work done is to be reported at the 

 regular 1888 meeting in Bath. 



Lord Raleigh, the retiring president, re- 

 signed the chair to Sir William Dawson, 

 Principal and Vice- Chancellor of McGill Uni- 

 versity, Montreal, whose inaugural address 

 began with a tribute to the great advance in 

 English scientific teaching, the Mason College 

 founded in Birmingham by one of her manu- 

 facturers, Sir Josiah Mason, being particularly 

 instanced. His guarded allusion to the Dar- 

 winian theory was interesting as one of the 

 prominent expressions concerning it given at 

 this meeting. He expressed doubts as to its 

 satisfactory elucidation of proof. The body of 

 the address was devoted to the geology of the 

 North Atlantic, based on the prevalent concep- 

 tion of the earth's constitution as comprising a 

 solid nucleus, covered by a plastic envelope, 

 and that by the crust on which we live. The 

 plastic envelope he held to be in a state of hy- 

 dro-thermic fusion. Many of his conclusions 

 were seriously modified by the deductions ne- 

 cessarily following on the Charleston earth- 

 quake. The day after his address, when the 

 news had reached England, Prof. Dawson him- 

 self published the statement. 



In Section A, devoted to mathematical and 

 physical science, the president's address was 

 delivered by Prof. G. H. Darwin, u On Esti- 

 mations of Geologic Time." An interesting 

 synopsis of the different bases for its calcula- 

 tion was given. The erosion of a river-bed in 

 rock went on at the rate of one foot in from 

 1,000 to 7,000 years. The antiquity of life on 

 the earth, he said, might be placed between 

 thirty-six and ninety-eight million years. Mr. 

 Croll's astronomical determinations of epochs, 

 and Sir James Thomson's atmospheric cur- 

 rent determinations, were next considered. 

 Sir William Thompson's three methods of ar- 

 riving at these factors, by applying the laws 

 of energy, were commended, but only as at- 

 tempts, not as definite successes. The first 

 one, based on tidal friction, bringing about a 

 retardation of the earth's motion, the second 

 on the secular cooling of the earth, and the 

 third on the loss of radiant energy of the sun, 

 comprise the three. The first conclusion ar- 

 rived at was that there was no certainty on 

 the subject. 



The president's address in Section B, devoted 

 to chemistry, was delivered by Prof. William 

 Crookes, on " The Genesis of Chemical Ele- 

 ments." He began by citing the many eminent 

 authorities who had hoped for the reduction 

 of all elements to one. He compared the ele- 

 ments in their distribution to the members of 

 the animal kingdom, the rarer ones to the rare 

 animals as to the monotremata, and hence drew 

 a plea for the evolution of the elements. He 

 suggested the word protyle (irpcarov, first, and 

 vA?7, stuff} for the primal element. It compares 

 with the protoplasm of biology. Prof. Emer- 

 son Reynolds's ingenious diagram, elucidating 



