38 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
largely partake of this attribute. A great number of other points 
in regard to dreams were merely named as illustrating the fertility 
of the subject. 
236TH MEETING. May 19, 1883. 
Vice-President HrtGarp in the Chair. 
Forty members and visitors present. 
It was announced from the General Committee that the following 
rules had been adopted : 
I. If the author of any paper read before a section of the Society 
desires its publication, either in full or by abstract, it shall be re- 
ferred to a committee, to be appointed as the section may determine. 
The report of this committee shall be forwarded to the Publica- 
tion Committee by the secretary of the section, together with any 
action of the section taken thereon. 
II. Any paper read before a section may be repeated, either en- 
tire or by abstract, before a general meeting of the Society, if such 
repetition is recommended by the General Committee of the So- 
ciety. 
Mr. Ropert FLETCHER made a communication entitled 
RECENT EXPERIMENTS ON SERPENT VENOM. 
It is published in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences 
for July, 1883. 
Mr. H. FarquuAr then made a communication on 
FURTHER EXPERIMENTS IN BINARY ARITHMETIC, 
showing that the relation between the vertical and horizontal di- 
mensions of the characters used in the binary notation is a factor 
in determining its economic value. He presented, also, the results 
of a series of comparative tests showing that the binary notation 
enables some persons, after brief practice, to perform addition more 
rapidly than with denary notation, while with others it requires a 
longer time. The latter class includes practiced computers, gene- 
rally, and the former those less accustomed to the use of figures. 
