Decembee 1, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



615 



Men of Science" numbered 4,370, and 106 new 

 members have been secured from that group. 

 All members of the Society of Sigma Xi have 

 the privilege of joining the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science without 

 paying the usual entrance fee, but it has thus 

 far been found impossible to send a special 

 invitation to each of these, on account of diffi- 

 culty in securing the membership lists of ail 

 chapters of the society. All members of the 

 society who are not already members of the 

 ' association are asked to send their names and 

 addresses and the names of their respective 

 chapters, to the permanent secretary's Wash- 

 ington office. He will send them literature that 

 will be of interest. At the close of the fiscal 

 year 1922, about 16,200 special invitations to 

 join the association were sent to members of 

 affiliated societies. About 6,500 of these invi- 

 tations went to medical men in New England. 



Organization. Each section secretary Jias 

 received a card list of the members enrolled in 

 his section, with a cabinet for holding the 

 cards. These lists are duplicated in the Wash- 

 ington office, and both sets are kept up to date 

 by additioais and alterations. 



Each section secretary has been asked to 

 secure a mail ballot of his section committee, 

 for at least two nominations for vice-president 

 and chairman of his section, these nominations 

 to be returned to the Washington office, for the 

 use of the council, on a special blank. It will 

 be remembered that' the sections nominate, and 

 the council elects, section chairmen and section 

 secretaries. When a section holds a business 

 session, the nominations secured from the sec- 

 tion committee are to be acted on by the sec- 

 tion as a whole. More than one nomination 

 is to be presented to the council, in order that 

 the latter body may have opportunity for 

 choice. The council needs also to know how 

 the votes stood in the section committee. 



A constitution for the proposed federation 

 of American biological societies was adopted at 

 the Woods Hole meeting, August 4, of the pro 

 tern, executive committee for the federation, at 

 which meeting Dr. Herbert Osborn very kindly 

 represented the association. The proposed con- 

 stitution has been submitted to the councU of 



the association, -and should be considered at 

 the Boston meeting, when it wiM be necessary 

 to decide whether the association will become a 

 member of the new federation. The constitu- 

 tion has been published in Science (Vol. LVI, 

 No. 1448, p. 359, September 29', 1922). The 

 pro tern, committee voted that the aim of the 

 federation would be to make use of the organ- 

 ization of the association, avoiding the dupli- 

 cation of organization wherever possible. It 

 is emphasized by the secretary of the pro tern. 

 committee that the main activities of the fed- 

 eration are apt to concern publications, not 

 the organization of meetings. The pro tern. 

 committee expressed its thanks to the assoeaa- 

 tion for the financial help received in connec- 

 tion with the Woods Hole meeting, and re- 

 quests the association to continue help of this 

 kind during the formative period of the fed- 

 eration. A similar request has been made of 

 the National Eesearch Council. Copies of the 

 proposed constitution for the federation have 

 been sent by the permanent secretary to all 

 members of the section committees of the four 

 biological sections of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, together with 

 letters asking each member to wnite to his sec- 

 tion secretary in regard to the proposed fed- 

 eration and the attitude that should be taken 

 by the association toward it, a carbon copy of 

 each letter being also sent to the permanent 

 secretary's office. A number of replies have 

 been received and the permanent secretary 

 hopes, with the aid of the four section secre- 

 taries concerned, to make a report on this 

 matter to the Executive Committee at the first 

 committee session of the Boston meeting. All 

 members of the biological sections are invited 

 'to write to the proper section secretary in this 

 connection, sending copies of their letters to the 

 pennanent secretary. To be considered in his 

 report, letiters should be in the section secre- 

 tary's hands before December 1. 



Divisions; Local Branch and Affiliated Acad- 

 emies. The membership and financial rela- 

 tions, between the association and the divi- 

 sions, the local branch and the affiliated acad- 

 emies, are shown for the last three years in the 

 following tabulation : 



