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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1144 



of the convocation-week meetings and the first 

 of the greater convocation-week meetings to 

 be held hereafter once in four years, succes- 

 sively in New York, Chicago and Washington. 

 When the association last met in New York, 

 now ten years ago, there were about 5,000 

 members, the attendance was over 2,000, and 

 there were nearly 1,000 papers on the pro- 

 grams. The membership of the association at 

 present numbers about 11,000; the coming 

 meeting will surely be the largest and most im- 

 portant gathering of scientific men hitherto 

 held in this country or elsewhere. It has been 

 planned that at these greater convocation-week 

 meetings all the affiliated societies will join 

 and this year there will be, including the sec- 

 tions of the association, more than fifty sepa- 

 rate national bodies meeting together. Eecent 

 events have impressed on the general public 

 the importance of science for modern civiliza- 

 tion and national welfare and the responsibil- 

 ity of leadership has been placed on this coun- 

 try. It is consequently extremely desirable 

 that scientific men make all possible efforts to 

 be present at the meeting, which will be his- 

 toric in the history of science and may serve in 

 important ways to forward its advancement. 



The registration headquarters will be at 

 Earl Hall, Columbia University, and will be 

 open on December 26, after 9 a.m. Most of 

 the meetings of the sections of the association 

 and of the national affiliated societies will be 

 held at Columbia University. There will, 

 however, be meetings at the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, at the City College, 

 in the medical schools of the city and else- 

 where, as may be arranged in the sections and 

 by the societies. The council will meet at 9 

 o'clock on the morning of December 26, in the 

 trustees' room, Columbia University, and will 

 meet at the same time and at the same place 

 daily during the meeting. The meeting of the 

 general committee will be held at the hotel 

 headquarters, the Hotel Belmont, at 9:30 on 

 the evening of December 29. The Committee 

 of One Hundred will meet at the Hotel Bel- 

 mont at 2 o'clock on the afternoon of Decem- 

 ber 26. The several sections will hold their 

 sessions for the nomination of officers and the 



transaction of other business on the call of the 

 chairman, in most cases just before or just 

 after the address of the retiring vice-president. 



A complete program of the meeting, includ- 

 ing the programs of the affiliated societies, will 

 be ready on the morning of December 26 and 

 will be given to members on registration. The 

 reports on research work before the special so- 

 cieties will doubtless be more numerous than 

 ever have been presented at a gathering of 

 scientific men, and arrangements have been 

 made for many programs of general interest 

 and for social events, only part of which can 

 be noted here. 



The opening general session will be held at 

 8 o'clock on the evening of Tuesday, December 

 26, at the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory. Dr. Charles B. Van Hise, president of 

 the University of Wisconsin, will preside, and 

 Dr. W. W. Campbell, director of the Lick Ob- 

 servatory, will give the address of the retiring 

 president on " The Nebulas." After the ad- 

 dress there will be a reception by the president 

 and the trustees of the museum. 



Section A, Mathematics and Astronomy, 

 will hold a general session, probably on Thurs^ 

 day. The address of Professor Armin O. 

 Leuschner, of the University of California, 

 will be on the " Derivation of Orbits." The 

 American Mathematical Society, the Mathe- 

 matical Association of America and the Amer- 

 ican Astronomical Society will meet in affilia- 

 tion with the section. 



Section B, Physics, will listen to the address 

 of Professor Percival E. Lewis, of the Univer- 

 sity of California, on " Becent Progress on 

 Spectroscopy," probably on Thursday evening. 

 Papers in physics will be on the program of 

 the American Physical Society, but there will 

 be a general-interest session held jointly with 

 Section C and the American Chemical So- 

 ciety. The Optical Society of America will 

 meet in affiliation with the section. 



Section C, Chemistry, will have as its vice- 

 presidential address, " Asymmetric Syntheses 

 and their Bearing upon the Doctrine of Vital- 

 ism," by Professor William McPherson, of the 

 Ohio State University. Sections B and C, in 

 conjunction with the American Chemical So- 



