744 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 959 



Victor Emmanuel, honored the occasion with 

 his presence, and brief speeches of welcome 

 were made by the mayor of the city, hy 

 Marquis Capelli, the president of the con- 

 gress, and by the Italian Minister of Public 

 Instruction, to which welcome Professor Otto 

 Nordenskiold, of Sweden, responded on be- 

 haK of the delegates present. 



Seldom has so attractive a program of 

 papers been prepared as that which was 

 mailed to geographers throughout the world; 

 but, alas, two successive postponements to- 

 gether amounting to nearly two years, might 

 well be thought sufficient to dampen the en- 

 thusiasm alike of committee and prospective 

 guests. It is, therefore, a pleasure to be able 

 to state that in the face of these discouraging 

 conditions the congress was a distinct success ; 

 though probably less than it would have been 

 had not the committee decided to adhere 

 strictly to the original program of papers by 

 absentees and refuse all papers oilered later 

 than October, 1912. 



A partial list of well-known geographers 

 who were in attendance includes : Bruce, 

 Briickner, Chaix, Ohisholm, v. Cholnoky, 

 Close, Cvijic, Dechy, Gallois, Hamberg, Hel- 

 land, Kovesligethy, Lescointes, Loczy, de 

 Margerie, Nordenskiold, Oberhummer, Peary, 

 Passarge, Penck, Pumpelly, de Quervain, 

 Schott, Schokalsky, Sapper, Stefanssen, 

 Supan, Teleky, Vidal de la Blanche, Wagner 

 and Woeikof. 



Geographers of all nations vied with each 

 other in showing honor to Admiral Peary, 

 the discoverer of the North Pole, who repre- 

 sented at the congress both the Association of 

 American Geographers and the Peary Arctic 

 Club. The only other Americans in attend- 

 ance were Vilhjalmur Stefanssen, the ex- 

 plorer, who represented the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, Professor Raphael 

 Pumpelly, Mr. H. L. Bridgeman, representing 

 the American Geographical Society and the 

 Geographical Society of Philadelphia, and the 

 undersigned, as delegate of the American 

 Philosophical Society and the University of 

 Michigan. 



As might have been expected, the congress 



was less notable for important papers pre- 

 sented than by reason of programs decided 

 upon for international cooperation. Dr. de 

 Quervain presented, however, a preliminary 

 report upon his crossing of Greenland in 

 1912, and exhibited for the first time his final 

 map of the route and his section across the 

 continent. Professor Emile Chaix, on behalf 

 of the executive committee of the commission 

 on a collection of views to illustrate the ter- 

 restrial relief, made a most attractive presen- 

 tation of the work already accomplished. 

 Mr. Stefanssen described the geographical 

 features of the country traversed on his re- 

 cent expedition to Arctic America, and out- 

 lined briefly his plans for an expedition to 

 Coronation Gulf soon to be undertaken by 

 him for the Canadian government. Captain 

 W. S. Bruce, after giving an account of his 

 Antarctic expedition in the Scotia, outlined a 

 projected expedition which will have for its 

 object the direct crossing of the Antarctic 

 continent from the WeddeU Sea to McMurdo 

 Sound by way of the South Pole and the 

 inland ice plateau to the west of the moun- 

 tain ranges in Victoria Land. Professor 

 Kovesligethy, of Budapest, described his 

 method for the prevision of earthquakes based 

 upon the analytical expression of the hys- 

 teresis of the earth's outer shell, with data 

 supplied from the velocity of wave propaga- 

 tion. Professor Gaetano Platania described 

 the latest eruption of Mt. Etna with quite 

 remarkable lantern slides from photographs 

 taken by Mr. Frank A. Perret, the American 

 vulcanologist. 



At the request of the International Com- 

 mission for the preparation of the "millionth" 

 map of the world, it was decided to hold 

 another official conference, which will be con- 

 vened in Paris before the close of the present 

 year, to which all civilized nations wiU be 

 invited to send delegates. For the present 

 the office of the Ordnance Survey in London 

 is to remain the official center of the enter- 

 prise, to which therefore all correspondence 

 should be addressed. The congress approved 

 a proposition to prepare a " Universal Geog- 

 raphy " to accompany the millionth map, but 



