February 5, 1920J 



NATURE 



61 



to Changing Conditions," under the auspices of the 

 Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science ; 

 and "The Effects of the War upon Experimental 

 Medicine and Physiology," under the auspices of 

 Section K. 



It was an important meeting from the point of view 

 of association business, since the revised constitution 

 was adopted, a copy of which has been published in 

 the journal Science. The principal changes in the 

 constitution which will be of interest to members of 

 the British Association are the' raising of the annual 

 dues from three dollars to five dollars and of the life- 

 membership fee from fifty dollars to a hundred dollars, 

 the re-lettering of some of the old sections and the add- 

 ing of new sections. The old Section A, Mathematics 

 and Astronomy, has been divided, and A is now 

 Mathematics and D Astronomy. The old Section H, 

 Anthropology and Psychology, has been divided into two 

 sections : H, Anthropology, and I, Psychology. Social 

 and Economic Science becomes Section K ; the Section 

 of Engineering becomes Section M, and that of Medical 

 Science Section N ; Agriculture becomes Section O, 

 and Education Section Q. The titles of the old Sec- 

 tions F and G, namely. Zoology and Botany, have 

 been changed to Zoological Sciences and Botanical 

 Sciences. Two new Sections — I, Historical and Philo- 

 logical Science, and P, Manufactures — have been estab- 

 lished, although they will not be organised at present. 



The work of the old office of the permanent secre- 

 tary has been divided, and it has been arranged that 

 a general secretary shall take charge of all features of 

 organisation, while the permanent secretarv shall be 

 simply an executive officer to have charge of meetings 

 and of the current finances of the association. 



Chicago was chosen for the place of the next annual 

 meeting during holiday week 1920-21, and a schedule 

 of future meetings was tentatively drafted as a guide 

 for afliliated societies in forming their plans for future 

 meetings. This tentative programme Includes Toronto 

 or Buffalo for 1921-22, Boston for 1922-23, Cincinnati 

 for 1923-24, and Washington for 1924-25. The 

 Chicago meeting next year will he one of the large 

 fourth-year meetings, that in Washington in 1924-25 

 being another of these six'cially large meetings. It 

 is hoped that all the affiliated societies, and, in fact, 

 all scientific men in America who can do so, will make 

 a special effort to attend these fourth-year meetings, 

 and that men of science from other countries also will 

 be able to attend. 



Arrangements were made for the establishment of 

 geographical branches of the association and for the 

 affiliation of State and citv academies of .science. 



The newly established American Meteorological 

 Society and the Southern Educational Society were 

 admitted to affiliation. 



.\ committee on international auxiliary languages 

 was authorised to co-operate with a corresponding 

 (cmmittee of the British .Association and with the Inter- 

 national Research Council. 



The following affiliated societies met with the asso- 

 ( iation : — .\merican Mathematical Societv, Mathe- 

 matical .\ssociation of .Xmerica, .American Phvsical 

 .Society, .American Meteorological .Society, Societv for 

 Promotion of Engineering Education, .Association of 

 .\merican Geographers, National Council of Geo- 

 graphy Teachers, American Society of Zoologists, 

 Entomological Societv of .America, .American .Associa- 

 tion of Economic Entomologists, .American Nature- 

 Study .Society, Botanical Society of America, .American 

 I'hytopathological Society, .American Pomological 

 Society. Ecolocical Society of .America, .American 

 Society for Horticultural Science, .Association of 

 C)fficial -Seed Analysts, Society for Promotion of .Agri- 

 cultural Science, .American Metric .Association, and 

 Wilson Ornithological Club. 



NO. 2623, VOL. 104] 



The election of officers by the general committee 

 resulted in the selection of Dr. L. O. Howard, of Wash- 

 ington, as president for the coming year. The follow- 

 ing vice-presidents (chairmen of sections) were elected : 

 Section A — D. R. Curtis, Northwestern University ; 

 Section B — J. C. McLennan, Toronto University; 

 Section C — S. W. Parr, University of Illinois ; Sec- 

 tion D — Joel Stebbins, University of Illinois; Sec- 

 tion E — Charles Schuchert, Yale University ; Sec- 

 tion F — J. S. Kingsley, University of Illinois; Sec- 

 tion G — R. H. True, Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 Washington, D.C. ; Section H— G. B. Gordon, 

 American Museum of Natural History, New York ; 

 Section I — E. K. Strong, jun., Carnegie Institute 

 of Technology, Pittsburgh ; Section M — C L. Mees, 

 Rose Polytechnic Institute, Terre Haute; Section N — 

 J. Erlanger, Washington University, St. Louis; and 

 Section Q — C. H. Judd, University of Chicago. 



The election of the chairmen of Sections K, L, O, 

 and P was deferred for the present. Prof. E. L. 

 Nichols, of Cornell University, was elected general 

 secretary, and the selection of a permanent secretary 

 to succeed Dr. Howard, who has held 'office for 

 twenty-two years, was referred to the council, with 

 power to act. 



PIONEERS IN THE SCIENCE OE THE 

 WEATHER.^ 



T^HE year 1919 will be memorable in the annals of 

 ■'• meteorology. It witnessed the completion of 

 the process of co-ordination of the national meteoro- 

 logical work in the operations of a single institution 

 by the incorporation of the work of the British Rain- 

 fall Organization with the Meteorological Office. 

 Beginning with the meteorology of the sea alone in 

 1854, when it was a dep.irtment of the Board of 

 Trade, in 1867, after F'itzRoy's death, the Office 

 undertook the mapping and the study of the daily 

 sequence of weather, and on that account was placed 

 in charge of a director with a "grant in aid" from 

 Parliament under the control of a committee appointed 

 by the Royal Society. In 1879, under a directive 

 council, also appointed by the Royal Society, it 

 became generally responsible for the publication of 

 the national contribution of climatological data in 

 accordance with an international scheme laid down 

 by the Meteorological Congresses of Vienna in 1874 

 and Rome in 1879. In discharge of this duty it was 

 authorised to obtain the aid of the Royal and Scottish 

 Meteorological Societies and of the British Rainfall 

 Organization ; it was also empowered to recognise 

 the duty of development of meteorological science by 

 experiments and special investigations. 



From the early years of the twentieth century the 

 collection of the climatological data of private ob- 

 servers became more and more associated with the 

 Office, until now, by the transfer of the British Rain- 

 fall Organization, the co-ordination is completed, and 

 the compilation of information of all kinds about 

 weather is recognised as a common public duty 

 centred in the Meteorological Office. 



.At the same time, in the course of the year, by 

 a decision of the War Cabinet on May 8, 1919, the 

 Office itself has been "attached" to the .Air Ministry; 

 and, instead of deriving the public funds for its 

 maintenance directly from Parliament through the 

 Treasury, it will receive them through the .Air 

 Council, and the Air Minister will be responsible to 

 Parliament for them. What modifications of pro- 

 cedure are involved in the change are not yet known. 



.Since the year marks so important an epoch in 

 meteorological history, the anniversary meeting of the 



1 Ahstrsc* of th- presiitenlial ad 're**: Heliver^d to tHe Roya' ^feteoro- 

 Iogic.il Suci'ty on January 21 by Sir Nap'er Shaw, F.R.S. 



