18 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
248TH Mrerinc. Marcu 1, 1884. 
The President in the Chair. 
Forty-two members present. 
The Chair announced that Messrs. CHARLES Oris BouTELLE, 
GitBert THompson, WILLARD DRAKE JOHNSON, and EUGENE 
RicKsECKER had been elected to membership. 
It was announced from the General Committee that standard 
time would hereafter be recognized in the opening and closing of 
the meetings. 
Mr. R. D. Mussty read a paper entitled 
THE APPLICATION OF PHYSICAL METHODS TO INTELLECTUAE 
SCIENCE. 
The aim of the paper was to show in how far those methods 
which had been successfully employed in the investigation of the 
phenomena of nature, and which were denominated the Physical 
Sciences, were applicable to those sciences, the subject-matter of 
which were mental operations and their results, and which, for dis- 
tinction, might be named the Intellectual Sciences. Some illustra- 
tions were given of the application of these methods to the study 
of the law; and the paper concluded with the remark that its 
writer desired it to be regarded as a suggestion rather than a solu- 
tion of the problem stated: “How far and in what way physical 
methods and physical sciences help thinkers to say Therefore.” 
Remarks were made by Mr. Roprnson. 
Mr. I. C. Russe_i made a communication on 
DEPOSITS OF VOLCANIC DUST IN THE GREAT BASIN. 
[ Abstract. ] 
In contrast with the aridity of the Great Basin at the present 
time, geologists have shown that during the Quaternary it was 
crowded with lakes. In studying the sedimentary deposits of one 
of these fossil lakes, named Lahontan by Mr. King, I found strata 
