Maboh 19, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



467 



rieties require a longer time between polli- 

 nation and the date they reach table condi- 

 tion than do the "flint" sweet varieties; and 

 during this time the former kinds appear to 

 change more of their carbohydrate compounds 

 to starch. 



E. M. East 

 Connecticut Agbiculttjbai, 

 ExPEEiMENX Station 



THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



SECTION B— PHYSICS 



The annual meeting of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, Section B, 

 was held in the Physical Laboratory of the 

 Johns Hopkins University, at Baltimore, De- 

 cember 28-31, 1908. This was a joint meeting 

 with the American Physical Society. Each or- 

 ganization held a short session for the transac- 

 tion of routine business, but the eight sessions 

 for the reading of papers were joint meetings 

 of the two societies. 



The presiding officers were Professor Karl E. 

 Guthe, vice-president and chairman of Section 

 B, and Professor Edward L. Nichols, president of 

 the American Physical Society. Professor F. E. 

 Nipher was elected a member of the council. Pro- 

 fessor G. F. Hull, of the sectional committee, and 

 Dr. L. A. Bauer, a member of the general com- 

 mittee. 



The officers for the next annual meeting, to 

 be held in Boston during the convocation week 

 of 1909-10 are as follows: 



Vice-president and Chairman of Section B — 

 Dr. L. A. Bauer. 



Retiring Vice-president — Karl E. Guthe. 



Members of the Sectional Committee — K. E. 

 Guthe, L. A. Bauer, A. D. Cole, E. L. Nichols, 

 A. Trowbridge, E. B. Rosa, A. P. Carman, G. P. 

 Hull. 



In the afternoon of Tuesday, December 29, 

 Professor Dayton C. Miller delivered an address, 

 as retiring chairman of Section B, on "The In- 

 fluence of the Material of Wind Instruments on 

 the Tone Quality." This has been published in 

 full m Science, January 29, 1909. It was heard 

 with great interest by a fine audience of about 

 one hundred and fifty. The other seven sessions 

 were attended by from forty to one hundred per- 

 sons, with an average attendance of about 

 seventy. That on Wednesday forenoon was de- 

 voted to subjects of somewhat general interest 



and papers by Hayford, More and Bauer of the 

 following program were given at that time. 



The hotel headquarters for physicists proved 

 a useful and enjoyable feature of the meetings. 

 Hotel Kernan proved a pleasant gathering place 

 and a large proportion of the visiting physicists 

 were roistered here. The most successful social 

 event was the subscription dinner for Section B 

 and the Physical Society, held on Tuesday even- 

 ing at the Country Club. This was attended by 

 about ninety and was generally declared to be 

 the most successful social gathering of Ameri- 

 can physicists ever held. The success of the oc- 

 casion was principally due to the care and zeal 

 of Professor J. S. Ames, of Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity. 



The titles and abstracts of the fifty-two papers 

 presented at the several joint sessions are given 

 below. 



Fatigue of Metals Excited hy Rontgen Rays: 

 Louis T. More and R. E. C. Gowdt, Univer- 

 sity of Cincinnati. 



The work is a continuation of the results pre- 

 viously obtained in the same subject and reported 

 at the Chicago meeting of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science (see also 

 Phil. Mag., 1907). A new method has been de- 

 vised for measuring the secondary radiation 

 given off by metals bombarded by X-rays. Pre- 

 vious results have been confirmed and extended. 

 To account for the secondary radiation. Pro- 

 fessor J. J. Thomson has advanced the theory 

 that the X-rays cause a disintegration of the 

 metal and permit the expulsion of charged cor- 

 puscles. Our experiments make this theory 

 doubtful. Iron, lead and copper plates with 

 pure surfaces were used and then the plates were 

 coated with thin films of the lower oxides of the 

 metal and again with films of the higher oxides. 

 The efl'ect of this successive oxidation on the 

 fatigue seems to show that chemical changes of 

 the surface produced by the X-rays with the con- 

 sequent changes of surface-electrified double lay- 

 ers, will account for the phenomena observed. 



Errors in Magnetic Testing of Ring Specimens: 

 M. G. Llotd, Bureau of Standards, Washington. 

 This paper is mainly theoretical in character. 

 Formulas are derived connecting the mean mag- 

 netizing force with the magnetizing force at the 

 mean radius, and the actual hysteresis loss with 

 the loss which would occur with uniform distri- 

 bution of flux. Tables and curves illustrate the 

 errors involved and serve to give the necessary 

 corrections in particular cases. 



