420 



NATURE 



[August 30, 1900 



•entielles k plusieurs variables independantes ; M. Vol- 

 terra, Comment on passe de I'equation de Poisson k 

 caract^ristique imaginaire k une equation semblable a 

 -caracteristique reel ; in Sections 5 and 6, M. Padoa, Un 

 nouveau syst^me irreductible de postulats pour I'alg^bre ; 

 M. Capelli, Sur les operations fondamentales de I'arith- 

 fti^tique. The attendance at these sectional meetings, 

 all of which were held at the Sorbonne, varied from 50 

 to 120. 



The concluding general meeting was held at the Sor- 

 bonne at 9 a.m. on Saturday. The proceedings opened 

 with the sending of a message of greeting to M, Her- 

 mite, the president d'honneur of the Congress. It was 

 then unanimously voted that the next Congress be held 

 in Germany, in 1904, at the beginning or end of the 

 summer vacation, the place mentioned as probable being 

 Baden-Baden. M. Mittag-Leffler then delivered his 

 address, " Une page de la vie de Weierstrass," and 

 M. Poincar^ spoke briefly on the " Role de I'intuition et 

 de la logique en math^matiques," closing the proceedings 

 immediately afterwards with the few words, " La seance 

 est levee ; le congr^s est clos." 



On the conclusion of the Tuesday afternoon sectional 

 ■meetings, members were received at the Ecole Normale 

 -Superieure, where a pleasant opportunity for social inter- 

 course was enjoyed ; and at noon on the day after the 

 closing of the Congress a banquet was held at the Salle 

 ■de TAthen^e-Saint-Germain, when about 160 members 

 sat down. In the absence of M. Poincard, the proceed- 

 fl ngs were conducted by M. Darboux ; speeches were 

 made also by MM. Geiser, J. Tannery, Stephanos and 

 Vassilief. A considerable number of members of this 

 and other scientific congresses accepted the invitation 

 of Prince Roland Bonaparte to a scientific soiree on 

 Saturday. A/^/^had been arranged by President Loubet 

 for Thursday evening, but could not be held on account 

 •of the funeral of the King of Italy ; the invitations were 

 consequently transferred to the/^/^ in honour of the Shah 

 on August 10. 



It will be seen that very little business was transacted, 

 apart from the reading of papers. At the joint sitting of 

 Sections 5 and 6, it was asked what steps had been taken 

 to put into effect the resolutions of the Ziirich Congress 

 as to the formation of a committee to consider certain 

 -questions of bibliography, &c., these having been adopted 

 with the hope of ultimately consolidating mathematical 

 enterprise, and directing it into profitable channels. No 

 very satisfactory answer was forthcoming ; M. Laisant, 

 on behalf of the French Mathematical Society, replying 

 that they had done nothing in this line, having been 

 entirely occupied with making material provision for the 

 •Congress. He drew the attention of members, however, 

 to the announcement of the Annuairedes Mathematiciens., 

 undertaken by Carre et Naud, 3, Rue Racine, which is 

 designed to be a complete register of all mathematicians, 

 ■with their addresses. It is much to be hoped that these 

 ■questions, raised at Zurich, will be dealt with in a 

 business-like manner at the Congress of 1904. 



NOTES. 



The Scientia Club gave a banquet to Lord Kelvin during 

 the International Physical Congress at Paris. M. Louis Olivier 

 presided over a distinguished company, and speeches in appre- 

 ciation of Lord Kelvin's scientific work were made by him and 

 -by Profs. Mascart and Cornu. 



From the official report of the International Congress of 

 JElectricians at Paris, we see that two communications, by Mrs. 

 -Ayrtonand M. Blondel, were received with great appreciation. 

 Mrs. Ayrton's paper was on the luminous intensity of the electric 

 -arc with continuous current, and she showed that the best result, 

 •both from the point of view of luminosity and expenditure of 

 NO. 1609, VOL. 62] 



energy, was obtained from an arc only a millimetre in length. 

 Demonstrations in illustration of this conclusion, and- showing 

 the absorbing and cooling effects of carbon vapour produced in 

 the arc, as well as the production and absorption of green and 

 yellow radiations, were given by Mrs. Ayrton at a special meet- 

 ing in the Ecole superieure d'Electricite. M. Blondel reviewed 

 the progress of electric lighting during the past ten years, and 

 made some very valuable remarks on arc lamps with alternating 

 currents, and on the carbons commonly used in arc lights. 



In opening the business of Section A (Mathematical .and Phy- 

 sical Science) of the British Association at the forthcoming 

 Bradford meeting, we understand that Dr. Larmor will review 

 the change of ideas which has recently become current regard- 

 ing the scope and method of physical explanation. The bril- 

 liant experimental verification of Hertz has led to the acceptance 

 on the Continent of the views originated in this country regard- 

 ing the nature of electric actions and their dependence on the 

 tether ; but there has been a strong tendency to eliminate from 

 the exposition of the theory those dynamical explanations which 

 formed a main feature of its development in the hands of Clerk 

 Maxwell. It is of fundamental importance to consider how far 

 purely descriptive methods can thus avail towards an effective 

 formulation of general physical theory, without appealing to a 

 dynamical foundation of some kind. In all branches of the 

 subject the discrete atomic constitution of matter is reached 

 when we probe deep enough ; thus the method of representa- 

 tion of the physical activities of the material atoms, so far as 

 they can be known to us, is of the essence of a dynamical 

 treatment. This leads on to the cognate question, 

 whether denial of direct action at a distance necessarily 

 implies the passing on of all electric eflects from element 

 to element of the medium entirely by simple stress ; if that be 

 too narrow a scheme, the efforts that have been made towards 

 formulation on this basis were foredoomed to failure. The 

 scope and limitations of the method of statistical enumeration of 

 the activities of the atoms, which is the only one now available 

 in ultimate thermodynamic discussions, depend on considera- 

 tions of a different order. The modern extension of the range of 

 the principle of Carnot also requires us to face the question how 

 far the processes of chemical interaction between atoms, as 

 distinct from the properties of the molecules when formed, are 

 amenable to dynamical representation. — The general scheme 

 for the business of the section is to take physical papers of a 

 mathematical nature on Friday, September 7. On Monday, 

 September 10, the section will divide into two, dealing with 

 mathematics and meteorology respectively. On Tuesday a 

 discussion on ions will be opened by Prof. Fitzgerald. It is 

 also hoped to arrange discussions on the partition of molecular 

 energy, and on the relation of radiation to temperature, under 

 the thermodynamic aspect. 



A Pasteur Institute has just been opened at Kasauli, a hill 

 station in the Punjab district, about thirty miles from Simla. It 

 is thus no longer necessary for a person bitten by a rabid animal 

 in India to journey to Paris for treatment by inoculation. The 

 treatment at the Kasauli Institute is to be given free of charge. 



Prof. J. C. Bose, who has been attending the recent Inter- 

 national Congress of Physics at Paris as the delegate of the 

 Government of Bengal, will also attend the British Association 

 meeting at Bradford in the same capacity, and will there de- 

 scribe some electrical investigations with which he has lately 

 been engaged. 



The following international congresses upon scientific subjects 

 will be held in connection with the Exposition at Paris during 

 September : 3-8, History of Religion ; 3-5, Basque Studies ; 

 3-4, Pharmacy SpeciaUties ; 10-16, Meteorology ; 10-12, Agri- 



