)50 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 379. 



pertinent in this connection. The Society was 

 founded in 1888, primarily to meet just such 

 needs of working geographers as those felt 

 to-day in Michigan and Harvard Universities ; 

 for a time the needs were met by meetings 

 largely of technical character, and by a quar- 

 terly magazine devoted chiefly to technical 

 papers; and in a somewhat later stage the 

 magazine was reduced to a series of technical 

 memoirs published in brochure form. Dur- 

 ing this early period various working geog- 

 raphers made important contributions to the 

 science through this medium, technical papers 

 by both Professor Davis and Professor Rus- 

 sell ranking high among these contributions. 

 Gradually the interest of the meetings in- 

 creased and extended to persons not engaged 

 in geographic work, and to meet their desires 

 the communications were made more popular; 

 and about , the same time the magap^ine was 

 changed into a monthly of largely popular 

 character. This transformation of the Society 

 was never wholly acceptable to the working 

 element, and various efforts were made to op- 

 pose it. Thus, early in the last decade. Dr. 

 T. C. Mendenhall, then Superintendent of the 

 U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and a mem- 

 ber of the Society's board, led a movement 

 toward creating a class of fellows designed to 

 include the investigating and teaching geog- 

 raphers affiliated with the Society; the pro- 

 posal passed the Board of Managers with only 

 two dissenting votes, but failed of adoption 

 by the Society at large. Thus again, in 1895, 

 some of the working geographers of the So- 

 ciety undertook to establish a series of more 

 technical papers complementary to the maga- 

 zine, under the designation 'ISTational Geo- 

 graphic Society Monographs'; of these one 

 volume was published — at a financial loss so 

 serious as to forbid continuance. Thus, too, 

 repeated efforts have been made to bring work- 

 ing geographers together in different centers; 

 a well-attended meeting, devoted primarily to 

 technical papers and discussions, was held in 

 Toronto in connection with the British Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science in 

 1897; another meeting was held in connection 

 with the American Association and the Geo- 

 logical Society of America in Boston in 1898, 



at which the papers and discussions were 

 chiefly technical and the attendance and in- 

 terest were fair; yet the experiments raised 

 a question as to whether it is feasible for 

 working geographers to assemble in summer 

 when so many of their number are in the 

 field. Despite these discouragements, working 

 members of the Society have persisted in 

 efforts to render the organization an appro- 

 priate nucleus for the geographers and geo- 

 graphic activity of the United States. As a 

 step in this direction the Society was, during 

 1901, rendered national in character as well 

 as in name by merging the classes of resident 

 and non-resident members into the single 

 class of members, and by providing that the 

 Board of Managers shall be chosen from the 

 entire country rather than from Washington 

 alone. Some of the members; including the 

 president. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, urged 

 that a class of scientific geographers, to be 

 known as fellows, should be established in con- 

 nection with this extension of membership. 

 Dr. Bell's opinion on this subject appearing, in 

 several addresses before the Society; but the 

 majority of the board were of opinion that the 

 two propositions had better be kept separate. 

 Accordingly, the modification of the constitu- 

 tion required for establishing a class of scien- 

 tific geographers was not taken up last year, 

 but is now pending, with every probability of 

 favorable action. Connected with this change 

 is a proposition to provide for technical pub- 

 lication in the form of a series of papers to 

 be issued in brochure form, and to be known 

 as 'National Geographic Society Memoirs.' 

 Should the pending changes be made, the 

 ISTational Geographic Society will comprise: 

 (1) A large and distinctly national member- 

 ship (at present numbering about 2, .500, dis- 

 tributed throughout all of the States and 

 Territories) including nearly all of the work- 

 ing geographers of the country, (2) a dis- 

 tinctly national class of fellows designed to 

 include all scientific geograpliers in the 

 United States, and (3) a board of managers 

 selected from all parts of the country, with 

 only a sufficient number resident in Washing- 

 ton to meet convenience and legal require- 

 ments as to quorum, etc. ; while its work will 



