February 28, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



349 



by the average negro is apt to make him care 

 little for the things of this world, and is thus 

 a drawback to him, while Lindley M. Keasbey 

 intimates, in 'The Descent of Man,' that his 

 physical inferiority to beasts of prey acted as 

 a stimulus to his brain. 



The Osprey for January begins a new series 

 in a new garb, with new type. It contains 

 'The California Jay,' by D. A. Cohen; 'Kan- 

 dom and Eeminiscent Maine Bird Notes,' by 

 W. C. Kendall; 'August Birds of Stony Man 

 Mountain, Virginia,' by William Pabner; and 

 a review of the 'Life and Ornithological La- 

 bors of Sir John Richardson,' by Theodore 

 Gill. A review of 'Animals of the Past' in- 

 cludes reproductions of the restorations of 

 Phorochacos, Archosopteryx and Hesperornis. 

 Also, in the form of a supplement we have the 

 first part of a 'General History of Birds,' 

 starting with an interesting history of the 

 etymology of bird. 



The Museums Journal of Great Britain, for 

 January, under the title 'The Man as Mu- 

 sevam-Curator,' has an appreciative notice of 

 Dr. G. Brown Goode in a review by F. A. 

 Bather of the memorial volume published by 

 the Smithsonian Institution. There is also a 

 g(5od article, 'On the Arrangement of Miner- 

 alogical Collections,' by J. G. Goodchild, and 

 notes on 'New Zealand Museums' and 'Oxford 

 Museums,' besides a long list of General Notes, 

 which as a rule constitute a most, if not the 

 most, interesting portion of scientific period- 

 icals. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



THE CHICAGO SECTION OF THE AMERICAN 

 MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY. 



The tenth regular meeting of the Section 

 was held at Northwestern University, Evans- 

 ton, Illinois, on January 2 and 3, 1902. Four 

 sessions were devoted to the reading and dis- 

 cussion of the following papers : 



(1) Professor M. W. Haskeix: 'A fundamental 

 theorem In the geometry of the tetrahedron.' 



(2) Prof essor M. W. Haskell : 'A theorem for 

 the twisted cubic analogous to Pascal's theorem.' 



(3) Professor M. W. Haskell: 'A special 

 cubic transformation in space.' 



(4) Professor H. S. White: 'Note on a 

 twisted curve connected with an involution of 

 pairs of points in a plane.' 



(5) Dr. J. W. Glover: 'On the derivation of 

 the asymptotes of an algebraic curve from the 

 definition' (preliminary communication). 



(6) Professor Arnold Emch : ' Algebraic trans- 

 formations of a complex variable realized by link- 

 ages.' 



( 7 ) Professor L. W. Cowling : ' On the con- 

 formal representation of the isosceles triangle con- 

 taining an angle of 120 degrees.' 



(8) Professor E. H. Moore: 'On Hilbert's 

 plane desarguesian geometry.' 



(9) Dr. P. R. MouLTON: 'A simple non-desar- 

 guesian geometry.' 



(10) Dr. Jacob Westlund : ' Note on multiply- 

 ing perfect numbers.' 



(11) Dr. Jacob Westlund : 'On the class num- 

 ber of a particular cyclotomic number-field.' 



(12) Dr. Charles L. Bouton: "The equiva- 

 lence of linear differential equations for a trans- 

 formation of the independent variable.' 



(13) Dr. T. P. Hall: 'An algebra of space.' 



(14) Professor J. B. Shaw: 'Commutivity of 

 matrices and application to the theory of linear 

 associative algebra.' 



(15) Dr. H. G. Keppel: 'A cubic three-way 

 locus in four-fold space.' 



(16) Dr. J. C. Fields: 'An equivalent of 

 Pliicker's formulae.' 



(17) Professor H. B. Newson : ' On the product 

 of linear substitutions.' 



(18) Professor G. A. Miller: 'On the groups 

 of order p"" which contain operators of order 



(19) Professor L. E. Dickson: 'Some sim- 

 plifications in the theory of linear groups.' 



A topic of a more distinctly pedagogical 

 character was introduced by Professor Town- 

 send, namely, the question of uniformity in 

 the requirements for the Master's degree where 

 mathematics is the major subject, and the al- 

 lied question of equivalent credits for students 

 migrating from one institution to another. 

 After some discussion the matter was referred 

 to a committee for report at the next meeting 

 of the Section. An enjoyable feature of the 

 meeting was the dinner served in one of the 

 University buildings to the members present, 

 and followed by an exhibition by Dr. Keppel 

 of about fifty portraits of eminent mathema- 

 ticians. 



