August 17, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



263 



we too may be remembered a little by those 

 wbo are to follow. 



On great occasions like the present, the 

 older seats of learning and other public in- 

 stitutions had power to grant honorary dis- 

 tinctions. Formerly we possessed no such 

 faculty, but by the act of Her Gracious 

 Majesty we, too, have recently obtained 

 permission to grant a certain number of 

 Honorary Fellowships of this College. The 

 Fellowship is the greatest distinction it is 

 in our power to bestow, and we regard it as 

 the highest purely surgical qualification ob- 

 tainable in this country. It is, therefore, a 

 great privilege and pleasure for me to pre- 

 sent, on behalf of this College, this high 

 honor to those distinguished men who are 

 about to receive it. 



I am sure also all present will be gratified 

 to learn that His Koyal Highness the Prince 

 of Wales has graciously consented to become 

 the first of our Honorary Fellows. His 

 Royal Highness has always shown his 

 interest in the College, and has evinced a 

 special care for the success of its Centenary. 

 It is quite fitting, therefore, that his Royal 

 Highness, who is the patron of so many 

 learned and scientific societies, should add 

 the lustre of his name to the Royal College 

 of Surgeons of England. 



William MacCoemac. 



CEE3nSTBY AT THE NEW YORK MEETING 

 OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION. 



As has been the practice for a number of 

 years Section C met throughout the New 

 York meeting in joint session with the 

 American Chemical Society. The sessions 

 took place in Havemeyer Hall, Columbia 

 University, with the exception of those on 

 the second day of the meeting, which were 

 held at the Chemists' Club of New York 

 City by special invitation of its ofiScers. 



At the opening session of the Section, after 

 the election of the usual officers, a report of 

 the Committee on Indexing Chemical Liter- 



ature was presented, in which the completion 

 of some new important indexes was an- 

 nounced. This report has been already 

 published in this Jouenal. A resolution 

 relating to the establishment of a National 

 Standards Bureau, submitted by the Presi- 

 dent of the American Chemical Society, 

 was endorsed by the Section and referred 

 to the Council of the Association. 



The address of the Vice-President, Dr. 

 Jas. Lewis Howe, on the ' Eighth Group of 

 the Periodic System and some of its Prob- 

 lems,' has been already published in full in 

 Science (see the July 6th number) . 



A large number of valuable scientific 

 papers were presented. As is always the 

 case, many of them, though important, 

 were of a specialized or technical character. 

 Only a few of those having a more general 

 interest can be referred to here. 



First may be mentioned the address of 

 Dr. W. A. Noyes on the ' Structure and 

 Configuration of Camphor and its Deriva- 

 tives,' consisting of a historical review of 

 the previous work bearing on the subject 

 and a brief account of his own remarkable 

 and difficult syntheses of compounds closely 

 related to camphor, and of the establishment 

 of their identity with products obtained 

 directly from it. By his investigations, the 

 correctness of the formulae for camphor and 

 camphoric acid suggested by Bouveault and 

 Perkin respectively, viz : 



OH, OH,, 

 CH,— C — g — CO and CH, 



CH, CH— CH, 

 \ V 

 CH, 



H, CH, 



CH 



"c 



^-k:^ 



-co OH 

 -COOH 



seems to have been placed beyond a reason- 

 able doubt. Two other points connected 

 with the investigation deserve special men- 

 tion ; first, the isolation of an optically ac- 

 tive acid containing no asymmetrical carbon 

 atom, its activity being due to the asym- 

 metrical structure of a ring containing a 

 double-union ; and, second, the method 



