APRIL 26, 1901.] 
tice them. It must be further remembered 
that all those whose studies are with na- 
ture—the geologists, botanists, zoologists, 
anthropologists and others—use the sum- 
mer for their expeditions, so that for many 
of them attendance at summer meetings is 
impossible. 
On the other hand, there has grown up 
within the last dozen or fifteen years the 
custom of holding meetings of learned 
societies during the brief Christmas holi- 
days. ‘The first society to adopt this time 
for its gathering was the American Society 
of Naturalists, which held its first Decem- 
ber meeting in New York, in 1883. Since 
then a number of other societies, more or 
less national in scope, have been formed 
and hold their meetings during the same 
period. We may mention among scientific 
societies the following : 
The American Society of Naturalists. 
The American Morphological Society. 
The Association of American A natomists. 
The American Bacteriological Society. 
The American Physiological Society. 
The American Psychological Association. 
The American Folklore Society. 
The American Society of Plant Morphology and 
Physiology. 
The Anthropological Section of the American As- 
sociation. 
The Geological Society of America. 
The American Chemical Society. 
The American Mathematical Society. 
The American Physical Society. 
All these societies, we think, without ex- 
ception, have found from experience that the 
Christmas holidays are a convenient time 
for their meetings, except in one respect— 
that the time is too short, especially when 
Christmas day falls on a Wednesday or 
Thursday, for then Sunday falling half way 
between Christmas and New Year, it is 
SCIENCE. 
643 
impracticable to get more than two days 
for a meeting, and two days, as we have all 
learned, is far too brief a time for our needs. 
These circumstances point obviously to 
the lengthening of the Christmas vacation 
past New Year as the remedy, hence the 
selection of the week in which the first of 
January falls as ‘ convocation week.’ 
Should the proposition be carried out, it 
will afford an opportunity for the elevation 
of science in America of inestimable value 
and will be a contribution to the advance- 
ment of learning in all its branches, well 
worthy to initiate the progress of the new 
century. : 
THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
THE annual stated session of the National 
Academy of Sciences was held in Washing- 
ton, April 16 to 18 inclusive. The follow- 
ing papers were read : 
‘The Climatology of the Isthmus of Panama’: 
Henry L. ABBOT. 
‘The Effects of Secular Cooling and Meteoric Dust 
on the Length of the Terrestial Day’: R. S. Woop- 
WARD. 
‘The Use of Formule in demonstrating the Rela- 
tions of the Life History of an Individual to the Evo- 
lution of its Group’: ALPHEUS HY ATT. 
‘ Axtificial Parthenogenesis and its Relation to Nor- 
mal Fertilization’: E. B. WILSON. 
‘Simultaneous Volumetric and Electric Gradua- 
tion of the Condensation Tube’: CARL BARUS. 
‘Table of Results of an Experimental Enquiry re- 
garding the Nutritive Action of Alcohol, prepared by 
Professor W. O. Atwater, of Middletown, Conn.’ : 
Presented by J. S. BILLINGS. 
‘The Significance of the Dissimilar Limbs of the 
Ornithopodous Dinosaurs’: THEO. GILL. 
‘The Place of Mind in Nature’: J. W. POWELL. 
‘The Foundation of Mind’: J. W. POWELL. 
‘Conditions Affecting the Fertility of Sheep and 
the Sex of their Offspring’: ALEXANDER GRAHAM 
BELL. : 
‘The New Spectrum ’: S. P. LANGLEY. 
Mr. Alexander Agassiz, of Cambridge, 
Mass., was elected president of the Acad- 
