46 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 211. 



ent, but ballots of preference had been 

 received from seventy-two Fellows, in ac- 

 cordance with which the organization was 

 completed by the election of President, 

 James Hall ; Vice-Presidents, James D. 

 Dana and Alexander Winchell ; Secretary, 

 John J. Stevenson ; Treasurer, Henry S. 

 "Williams; Councillors, John S. Newberry, 

 John W. Powell and Charles H. Hitchcock. 



The matter of publication was discussed 

 at great length, but no definite decision 

 could be reached, and a committee was ap- 

 pointed to consider the whole question, with 

 instructions to present a report at the sum- 

 mer meeting. Another committee was ap- 

 pointed to prepare a permanent consti- 

 tution, to be presented at the next meeting. 



The Advisory Committee on Publication, 

 another name for Professor W J McGee, 

 madean elaborate investigation of the whole 

 question of publication and, in August at To- 

 ronto, presented the report, accompanied by 

 a printed exarapleof the form recommended. 

 This report was adopted and, at the close 

 of the following meeting. Dr. ilcGee was 

 chosen as first Editor that the recommend- 

 ations might be carried out faithfullj'. Our 

 Bulletin, which marked a new stage in 

 scientific publications, owes its excellence 

 of form and accuracy of method to his in- 

 defatigable persistence. His determination 

 to secure exactness in all respects proved 

 not wholly satisfactory to many of us, but, 

 before he demitted his charge, the justice 

 of his requirements was conceded on all 

 sides. The discipline to which the Fellows 

 of this Society were subjected by the first 

 Editor has served its purpose, and editors 

 of other scientific publications have found 

 their labors lightened and their hands 

 strengthened in efforts to produce similar 

 reforms elsewhere. 



Fears and misgivings abounded when it 

 was discovered that this Society was a suc- 

 cess from the start. The American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science had 



been the one society for so many years that 

 attempts at differentiation seemed to be 

 efforts to cut away the pillars of scientific 

 order. But the fears were merely night- 

 mare. Our Society has proved itself an 

 efficient ally of the Association. 



Our net membership at the close of the 

 first j'ear was 187. The new constitution 

 placed severer restrictions upon member- 

 ship by i-equiring a nine-tenths vote for 

 election, the ballot being by correspondence 

 and shared in by all the Fellows. This has 

 kept the number within reasonable limits, 

 and we now have 237 Fellows, our roll in- 

 cluding almost all of those, who, by strict 

 construction of our constitution, are quali- 

 fied for membership. Owing to the rigid ad- 

 ministration of our affairs by Professor 

 Fairchild and Dr. White, who have piloted 

 us for eight years, our financial condition is 

 satisfactory, and the income from the perma- 

 nent fund now goes far toward covering the 

 cost of administration. 



Throughout, the Society has held closely 

 to investigation ; the recondite problems, 

 those of little interest to many, of no inter- 

 est to most, are those which have held the 

 attention of our Fellows — work in pure 

 rather than in applied sciences ; there has 

 been no trenching upon the field of the 

 mining engineer. As a storehouse of fact 

 and of broad, just generalization the vol- 

 umes of our Bulletin are excelled by those 

 of no similar publication. 



We close our first decade justly gratified 

 by success and full of hope for the future. 

 Some of those who led us and gave us rep- 

 utation at the beginning are no longer with 

 us; Hall, Dana and Winchell, the first 

 three Presidents, passed away in reverse 

 order ; Cope, Cook, Sterry-Hunt, Newberry 

 and a few others have gone from us, but the 

 Society retains its membership with changes 

 unusually small, showing no ordinarj' de- 

 gree of physical force and esprit du corps 

 on the part of its Fellows. As we look back 



