124 BULLETIN OF THE 



on their record an expression of the high esteem in which they 

 have long held their late fellow-member, Jonathan Homer Lane, 

 for his valuable services to science, as well as for his high intellect- 

 ual and moral character. 



Me. William B. Taylor said that though he was unprepared 

 to pay a just tribute to the memory of our departed associate, he 

 was impelled to unite with Mr. Hilgard in testifying to his many 

 noble qualities both of mind and character. From long acquaint- 

 ance with him and his work, he could fully endorse all that the 

 last speaker had said. He had rarely enjoyed the privilege of 

 meeting with a mind so clear, transparent, and logical, or one capa- 

 ble of such a full apprehension of the principles of science, and 

 such a keen perception of their consequences. The most striking 

 quality was the extreme precision of his thoughts, and it had 

 seemed to him that this very quality may have in a great measure, 

 led indirectly to the hesitation of speech which characterised Mr. 

 Lane's address. Words to him were seldom the exact exponents of 

 thought, and his care in the selection of language which might ex- 

 press with precision the tenor of his thoughts, no doubt led to his 

 hesitation ; but whenever difficult and doubtful questions arose, the 

 clearness of his insight and the soundness of his views were such as 

 belong to few minds. Not only was he a very fine mathematician, 

 but he possessed iu a high degree the much rarer qualifications 

 essential to the mathematical physicist. 



Mr. Cleveland Abbe remarked upon the communication of 

 Mr. Albert Michelson, made at the previous meeting, as follows : 



He believed that an explanation of the phenomena could be 

 given, and if it be correct, it opens a field of observation as 

 important as the experiments of Crookes upon the behavior of 

 gases under an approximate vacuum. The narrowness of the 

 slit indicates that we have indeed some novel conditions of the 

 air to deal with. In the present instance, light is not passing 

 through an ordinary gas, but through the layer of gas, which 

 according to optical theories, is under a state of stress because it 

 is contiguous to a solid surface ; in short, that layer that produces 

 ordinary polarization by reflection. This layer is always present, 

 adjacent to the jaws of the slit, and by narrowing the slit to the ex- 

 treme limits used by Mr. Michelson, we exclude the great mass of 

 gas in its ordinary state, and have to do only with the polarizing 



