678 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 305. 



The officers for the ensuing year are : 

 President, B. D. Halsted ; Vice-President, 

 E. A. Harper ; Treasurer, C A. Hollick ; 

 Secretary, G. F. Atkinson. Members of 

 the Council ; B. D. Halsted, B. L. Eobinson, 

 E. A. Harper, C. A. Hollick, G. F. At- 

 kinson, C. E. Bessey, F. V. Coville. 



An important step was taken by the So- 

 ciety in appointing a committee to consider 

 the best means of realizing the purposes of 

 the Society, ' in the advancement of botan- 

 ical knowledge,' as defined in the constitu- 

 tion. Among other things this committee 

 will consider the uses to which the accumu- 

 lating funds of the Society may be put. The 

 committee will report at the next annual 

 meeting of the Society. 



Geo. F. Atkinsois^, 



Secretary. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 PUBLICATIONS OF THE EARTHQUAKE INVESTI- 

 GATION COMMITTEE — IN FOREIGN 

 LANGUAGES, NUMBERS 3 

 AND 4 TOKYO — 1900. 



There is one science which the Japanese 

 have practically made their own. Blessed or 

 cursed (according to how you look at it), by the 

 frequent occurrence of earthquakes, and blessed 

 (certainly) by the presence of a large number 

 of able and enthusiastic students of physical 

 science, Japan has become within twenty 

 years a vast seismologioal laboratory in which 

 seismic phenomena are being studied as they 

 never were before. Indeed, modern seismology 

 had its birth there, and there it has been and is 

 being most carefully nurtured. About twenty 

 years ago there were in Japan a considei'able 

 number of foreigners employed as professors of 

 engineering, geology, physics, etc., and of 

 necessity they became interested in the one 

 characteristic natural phenomenon, the unpleas- 

 antly frequent manifestations of which none of 

 them will ever forget. 



In the observational study of earthquakes 

 one of them. Professor John Blilne, F.R.S., 

 now residing on the Isle of Wight, then Pro- 

 fessor of Geology in the School of Engineering, 



exhibited a zeal and enthusiasm together with 

 untiring patience and fertility of resource be- 

 yond all others, and mostly through his efforts 

 the ' Seismologioal Society of Japan ' was or- 

 ganized. In its organization and maintenance 

 the foreign professors received the hearty co- 

 operation of the Japanese officials in the Uni- 

 versity and out of it. For several years the 

 society issued annual volumes of Proceedings, 

 the great value of which has been everywhere 

 recognized. The gradual and finally almost 

 complete withdrawal of foreigners from the 

 educational work of the country resulted at last 

 in the suspension of the active work of the so- 

 ciety, but happily this did not occur before the 

 Japanese had come to realize fully the impor- 

 tance of the work it had done, and, indeed, not 

 until a number of their own young men had been 

 fully trained to carry that work on. 



In 1891 official interest in seismology took 

 definite form in the passage of a vote by the 

 Chamber of Peers or House of Lords, upon the 

 initiative of one of its members Dr. Dairoku 

 Kikuchi, now President of the Imperial Uni- 

 versity of Japan. By a large majority the 

 Cabinet was urged to appoint an ' Earthquake 

 Investigation Committee,' and on June 25, 1892, 

 an Imperial Ordinance was promulgated estab- 

 lishing such a Commission and naming its 

 members. Its duties were defined in a general 

 way in this Ordinance and the payment to its 

 members of a small annual salary was author- 

 ized. 



The Committee prepared a very elaborate and 

 comprehensive scheme of work which it has fol- 

 lowed pretty closely up to the present. The 

 President is Dr. Kikuchi, and Dr. Omori, of the 

 Faculty of Sciences of the Imperial University, 

 is Secretary. There are nearly thirty mem- 

 bers, including professors of pure and applied 

 sciences in the University, engineers, archi- 

 tects, etc. 



It has been the wise practice of the Com- 

 mittee to publish its principal proceedings and 

 most important papers in foreign languages 

 and of the two under review No. 3 is mostly in 

 the French language and No. 4 is in English. 



One of the principal objects of the Committee 

 is to consider the practical aspects of seismology 

 with a view to a lessening of the loss of life, 



