52 ASSOCIATIONS, SCIENCE. (BRITISH.) 



ASTRONOMICAL PROGRESS IN 1899. 



spoke of the formation of the Botanic Garden in 

 Calcutta in 1787, and of the successive superin- 

 tendents William Eoxborough, Nathaniel Wal- 

 lich, and William Griffith. . After mentioning 

 other early workers in the field of Indian botany, 

 he passed to a discussion of the splendid work 

 done by Sir Joseph Hooker. Since that event, 

 he said, the most important botanical work done 

 in India has been that of C. B. Clarke. The 

 preservation in good condition of a type speci- 

 men is, from the point' of view of a systematic 

 botanist, as important as the preservation to the 

 British merchant of the standard pound weight 

 and the standard yard measure, on which the 

 operations of British commerce depend, and yet 

 the only place available for that purpose was 

 an old dwelling office on Kew Green, to which 

 a cheap additional wing had been built. " In 

 behalf of the flora of India," he said, " I venture 

 to express the hope that the provision of a proper 

 home for its types may receive early and favor- 

 able consideration of the holders. of the national 

 purse strings." In conclusion he described the 

 forest department, which he styled " one of the 

 great economic enterprises connected with botany 

 in India." After showing that the ordinary forest 

 officer educated in England now arrives in India 

 without sufficient knowledge to enable him to 

 recognize from their botanical characters the best- 

 marked Indian trees, he explained this condition 

 by saying: "The general decadence of the teach- 

 ing of systematic botany in England during the 

 past twenty years is, perhaps, to some extent 

 the cause of the low estimation in which the 

 science is held by the authorities of the Indian 

 forest department." 



The following-named papers were then read and 

 discussed before the section: Some Methods for 

 Use in the Culture of Algae and on the Growth 

 of Oscillaria in Hanging Drops of Silica Jelly 

 and On Horn-destroying Fungus, by Marshall 

 Ward; On the Influence of the Temperature of 

 Liquid Hydrogen on the Germinative Power of 

 Seeds, by Sir W. Thistleton Dyer; On the Phos- 

 phorous-containing Elements in Yeast and On the 

 Sexuality of the Fungi, by Harold Wager; On 

 Bulgaria polymorpha as a Wood-destroying Fun- 

 gus and On India Rubber, by R. H. Biffen; On a 

 Disease of Tradcscantia, by A. Howard; On the 

 Localization of the Irritability of Geotropic Or- 

 gans, by Francis Darwin; The Results of Studies 

 in Araccal, by Douglas Campbell; Studies in the 

 Morphology and Life History of the Indo-Cey- 

 lonese Podostemaccse, by John C. Willis; On Fern 

 Sporangia and Spores, by F. O. Bower ; The Juras- 

 sic Flora of Britain and A New Genus of Palaeo- 

 zoic Plants, by A. C. Seward; The Intumescences 

 of Hibiscus vitifolius, by Miss E. Dale; The Maid- 

 en-hair Tree (Ginkgo biloba), by A. C. Seward and 

 Miss J. Gowan ; Some Isolated Observations bear- 

 ing on the Function of Latex, by J. Parkin; and 

 Stem Structure in Schizacese, Gleicheniaceaa, and 

 Hymenophyllaceae, by L. A. Bootle. 



Affiliation with the French Association. 

 An interesting feature of the Dover meeting was 

 the visit of the French association to Dover and 

 the return visit by the British association to 

 Boulogne. On Sept. 16 nearly 300 members of 

 the French association and of the Societe Geolo- 

 gique de Beige arrived at Dover, and were received 

 by the officers of the British association with 

 appropriate words of welcome, Sir Michael Fos- 

 ter saying : " By the friends of science, by the 

 friends of humanity, this day of the reunion of 

 the two associations will always be truly regarded 

 as a great festival." After a reception at the 

 Town Hall, the visiting scientists gathered with 



the sections of their choice and later met in com- 

 mon with the association at luncheon, when again 

 addresses of felicitation were made by the higher 

 officers of each association. Also on Sept. 20 the 

 officers and about 100 members of the French asso- 

 ciation, together with the president and some of 

 the chief officers of the British association, were 

 received and entertained by the mayor and cor- 

 poration of Canterbury. The return visit of the 

 president, officials, and about 250 members of the 

 British association to the French association 

 gathered at Boulogne was made on Sept. 21. On 

 their arrival they were entertained at a breakfast 

 in the Casino, and later were officially welcomed 

 by the mayor of Boulogne. The British members 

 then attended the sessions of the French associa- 

 tion, presenting papers and taking part in the dis- 

 cussions. A banquet, at which happy expressions 

 of good feeling were conspicuous, brought the 

 event to a close. 



On Sept. 15 an evening lecture on La Vibration 

 Nerveuse was delivered in French by Prof. Charles 

 Richet, and on Sept. 18 an evening lecture on 

 the Centenary of the Electric Current was deliv- 

 ered by Prof. J. A. Fleming. The last-named was 

 made conspicuous by the exchanges of congratu- 

 latory telegrams between the British association 

 and the Congress of Electricians assembled in 

 Como, Italy, to celebrate the centenary of Volta's 

 electric discoveries, and also by the exchange of 

 messages by the Marconi system of wireless teleg- 

 raphy with the French association. 



Attendance and Grants. According to Na- 

 ture, the meeting was " a great success, especially 

 when the size of the town and the fact that it is 

 the most ambitious effort the town has ever made 

 are considered." The attendance was 1,403, dis- 

 tributed as follows: Old life members, 296; new 

 life members, 20; old annual members, 324; new 

 annual members, 67; associates, 549; ladies, 120; 

 and corresponding and foreign members, 27. In 

 grants for research 1,115 was distributed among 

 the sections as follows: Mathematics, 215; 

 chemistry, 90; geology, 95; zoology, 355; 

 geography, 100; economic science and statistics, 

 5; anthropology, 140; physiology, 75; bot- 

 any, 20; and corresponding societies, 20. 



Next Meeting. The association will meet in 

 1900 in Bradford, beginning on Sept. 5. Invita- 

 tions to hold the meeting in 1901 in Belfast and 

 in Cork were presented, but for special reasons 

 the meeting in that year had been predetermined 

 for Glasgow. Sir William Turner, M. B., LL. D., 

 D. C. L., F. R. S., and F. R. S. E., Professor of Anat- 

 omy in the University of Edinburgh, was ap- 

 pointed president for the Bradford meeting. The 

 following persons were invited to serve as vice- 

 presidents: The Earl of Scarborough, the Duke of 

 Devonshire, the Marquis of Ripon, the Bishop of 

 Ripon, Lord Masham, the Mayor of Bradford, 

 the Hon. H. E. Butler, Sir Alexander Binnie, Prof. 

 Arthur W. Rticker, and Prof. T. E. Thorpe; gen- 

 eral secretaries, Sir W. Roberts-Austen and Ed- 

 ward A. Schiifer; assistant general secretary, G." 

 Griffin; general treasurer, Carey Foster. 



ASTRONOMICAL PROGRESS IN 1899. 

 The advancement in astronomy the past year 

 was eminently satisfactory. 



The Sun. So intense is the glare surrounding 

 the Sun in a cloudless sky that no instrument 

 yet devised enables astronomers to make obser- 

 vations of the various phenomena immediately 

 surrounding it, except the prominences or pro- 

 tuberances, which can be seen and leisurely 

 studied by means of the spectroscope. The other 

 phenomena surrounding the Sun the chromo- 

 sphere, the corona, the streamers (curved, straight, 



