March 7, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



371 



never, under any circumstances, becoming nat- 

 urally infected. 



S. T. Darling 

 Board or Health Laboratory, 

 Ancon, Canal Zone 



a request from the AMERICAN SOCIETY OF 



naturalists 



The American Society of Naturalists does 

 not possess a complete set of its published 

 " Records." It has no copy of Part IV., Vol- 

 ume II. The secretary wishes to complete at 

 least one set of the " Records " to be de- 

 posited with other material at the Wistar 

 Institute. 



Several complete sets may be made up if 

 copies of the following can be obtained: 



Volume I., Parts II., III., IV., V., VH., 

 Vin., IX. and XI. 



Volume II., Parts I., II., IV., V., VI. and 

 VII. 



Members of the society are therefore asked 

 to look through their papers and to write to 

 the secretary if they can supply any of the 

 parts desired. 



Bradley Moore Davis, 

 Secretary for 1913 



University OF Pennsylvania, 

 Philadelphia, Pa. 



the facts about the accounts of learned 

 societies 



To THE Editor of Science : The article by 

 Professor Hart in Science for January 10 

 contains errors that need correction. The 

 financial report of the American Academy 

 of Political and Social Science for the year 

 1910 has been compared with the reports of 

 the other societies for 1911, although the 

 Academy's financial statement for 1911 was 

 printed in May, 1912, eight months before 

 Professor Hart's article appeared. 



The apparent discrepancy between mem- 

 bership list and paying members is due to the 

 fact that Professor Hart fails to take into ac- 

 count the 128 life members and 503 subscrib- 

 ers of the Academy represented mainly by 

 libraries and other institutions not eligible to 

 membership. 



The statement is made in the article that 

 the expenditure of the Academy, per paying 

 member, was $6.71 for the year 1910. This 

 calculation is not based on the true figures for 

 membership, and suppresses the fact that 

 $10,493.00 was received from subscriptions to 

 publications by non-members, from sales of 

 current numbers, from special contributions 

 and from life-membership fees. 



The number of pages published during the 

 year 1910 is said to be 1,523 when in fact 

 2,034 pages were printed. The number of 

 words published in 1910 was 1,176,650 and 

 not 685,000, as stated in the article. 

 The details are as follows: 

 37,300 copies of Annals issued in 1910. 



1,500 copies of Annals reprinted. 

 10,700 copies of a Child Labor supplement. 

 27,800 copies of four issues of supplements. 

 9,500 copies of reprints. 



The average cost of printing per 1,000 

 words was $16.37, and not $32.50, but included 

 in this cost are items not directly chargeable 

 to the printing of the Annals, as will be seen 

 by the enumeration in the report. 



Such are the facts about the American 

 Academy. Professor Hart's statements about 

 the American Historical Association are also 

 incorrect. The proceedings are printed and 

 sent out at government expense, and hence it 

 has no postage bills of this sort in its ac- 

 counts. The association does not print its 

 own magazine, but has a contract with a pub- 

 lishing house which issues it at a net rate to 

 the members of the association. The receipts 

 for advertising and subscriptions are thus not 

 accounted for in the report of the society, nor 

 does it contain the bills for postage and for 

 clerical help employed by the publishing 

 house. These net costs can not fairly be com- 

 pared with the gross costs tabulated in the 

 annual report of the American Academy. 

 Simon N. Patten 



IS the " academic costume " WORTH while ? 

 To the Editor of Science: I shall not at- 

 tempt to answer the above question, raised by 

 Professor Wilder in your issue of January 

 31. But if the question had been worded " Is 



