ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



ville, Me.; C, Thomas II. Norton, Cincinnati, 

 Ohio; I>. Mansfield Merriman, South Bethlehem, 



I',-,.: K. Samuel Calvin. Iowa City, Iowa; F, 

 Joseph A. Lintner, Albany. N. Y. ; G, Lucien 

 M. I'nderwood, Greencastle. Ind.: II. Franz 

 H-.as. Worcester, Mass.: I. Henry Farquhar, 

 Washington. D.C. Permanent Secretary, Fred- 

 orii-k \V. Putnam. Cambridge (office Salem), 

 Ma^. General Secretary. Herman L. Fairchild, 

 ester, N. Y. Secretary of the Council, 

 James Lewis Howe. Louisville, Ky. Secretaries 

 of the sections: A. .IctlVrson K. Kershner, Lan- 

 caster I'eiin.; B, Benjamin \V. Snow, Madison, 

 \Vi< C. William Mi-Murt rie. New York; D, 

 .Mm II. Kinealy, St. Louis, Mo.: E, Jedediah 

 Hotrhkiss. Staunton, Va. ; F, John B. Smith, 

 Brunswick, N. J.; G, Charles R. Barnes, 

 Madison, Wis. ; H, Alexander F. Chamberlain, 

 Worcester. Mass. : I, Manly .Miles, Lansing, Mich. 

 Opening Proceedings. The usual regular 

 preliminary meeting of the council with which 

 the association begins its sessions was held in 

 the St. George Hotel, which was the headquarters 

 of the association, on Aug. 15, at noon. At this 



DAMKL . HRINTON. 



>n the final details pertaining to the arrange- 

 ments were settled and the reports of the local 

 Committees acted on. Also the names of 158 ap- 

 plicants for membership were favorably consid- 

 ered. The first general session with which the 

 public meetings began was held in the large hall 

 of the Brooklyn Polytechnic, Institute at 10 A.M. 

 on Aug. Hi. 'As is the custom. President Hark- 

 ness called the meeting to order, and with a few 

 words introduced his successor. Prof. Daniel G. 

 Brinton. who then took the chair and presented 

 the K'ev. \V. II. Ingcrsoll. who made a prayer. 

 The Hon. Charles A. Schieren, Mayor of Brook- 

 lyn, was to have welcomed the association, bu1 

 he was absent, and a letter from him was read by 

 Prof. George W. Plympton, secretary of the local 

 committee of arrangements. Truman J. Backus, 



principal of Packer Institute and a vice-presi- 

 dent of the local committee, then delivered an 

 eloquent address of welcome, closing with 



" Our city, stirred by the spirit of inquiry, 

 reverent toward learning, and ready to receive 

 the gifts you bring, hails your coming and bids 

 you welcome. May. you give illustrations of the 

 power and dignity and glory of high learning, 

 such as shall uplift our people and impel our 

 men of wealth to begin the building of a fitting 

 superstructure upon the broad and strong 

 foundation already laid 1 " 



President Brinton replied : 



" We begin to-day the forty-third annual 

 meeting of our organization. For nigh half a 

 century it has sought to bring together once a 

 year the active workers in all the leading 

 branches of scientific investigation, that they 

 might learn to know each other as individuals, 

 that differences of opinion might be the more 

 readily harmonized, that the good work might 

 be pushed forward by united effort, and that 

 from all quarters of our vast country students 

 could look to our central organization as one in 

 which all are at home with equal rights and 

 privileges." 



In the course of his remarks he spoke of the 

 influence of the association as being in the high- 

 est and best sense of the word educational ; that 

 the goal toward which the members were striv- 

 ing was the attainment of scientific truth : and 

 that the aims of science are distinctly beneficent. 

 " Its spirit is that of charity and human kind- 

 ness. From its peaceful victories it returns 

 laden with richer spoils than ever did warrior of 

 old. Through its discoveries the hungry are 

 fed and the naked are clothed by an improved 

 agriculture and an increased food supply; the 

 dark hours are deprived of their gloom through 

 methods of ampler illumination ; man is brought 

 into friendly contact with man through means 

 of rapid transportation ; sickness is diminished 

 and pain relieved by the conquests of chemistry 

 and biology ; the winter wind is shorn of its 

 sharpness by the geologist's discovery of a min- 

 eral fuel ; and so on, in a thousand ways, the 

 comfort of our daily lives and the pleasurable 

 employment of our faculties are increased by the 

 administrations of science.'' 



The annual report of the association was then 

 read by its secretary, including the necrology 

 of the year. Announcements by the officers 

 and election of 158 new members followed. 



Address of the Retiring President The 

 association met in the Academy of Music on the 

 evening of Aug. 16 to hear the retiring address 

 of President William Harkness. After a wel- 

 coming address from the President of the Board 

 of Aldermen, Jackson Wallace, who was acting 

 Mayor, President Brinton introduced the retir- 

 ing president. He said, in opening : 



" Nature may be studied in two widely dif- 

 ferent ways. On the one hand, we may employ 

 a powerful microscope which will render visible 

 the minutest forms and limit our field of view 

 to an infinitesimal fraction of an inch situated 

 within a foot of our own noses ; or, on the other 

 hand, we may occupy some commanding position, 

 and from thence, aided perhaps by a telescope, 

 we may obtain a comprehensive view of an ex- 

 tensive region. The first method is that of the 



