668 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 382. 



At the meeting- on April 7, Dr. A. S. Langs- 

 dorf, of Washington University, delivered an 

 address on Electric Waves, the explanations 

 being illustrated by experiments, including 

 some of the phenomena of self-induction, 

 absorption, reflection and resonance. 



Dr. H. von Schrenk exhibited a sample of 

 the impregnated wooden paving blocks used on 

 some of the streets of London and Paris. 



One person was elected to active member- 

 ship. William Trelease, 



Recording Secretary. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



SECTION D, 5IECHAXICAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING 

 OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION. 



The next meeting of the American Associa- 

 tion occurs at Pittsburg, June 28-July 3, of 

 this year. 



The various Carnegie and Westinghouse 

 industries and a host of others in and about 

 Pittsburg make this locality probably the most 

 interesting in engineering lines in America. 

 Admission to some of these plants is, under 

 ordinary circumstances, difficult to secure. 

 But strong local committees of influential men 

 will do all that can be done to give visitors 

 entrance wherever desired on the important 

 occasion of the coming meeting. Local condi- 

 tions, therefore, should make Section D, de- 

 voted to 'Mechanical Science and Engineer- 

 ing,' the most prominent of the Association. 



It will have the active cooperation ef the 

 Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania 

 — a powerful organization of 404 members. 

 Prominent investigators in various parts of 

 the country have already signified their inten- 

 tion to participate. 



The order for the week will be short, crisp, 

 pithy papers for the morning sessions and 

 carefully planned educational excursions under 

 competent local leadership for the afternoons. 



This notice is sent out to engineers every- 

 where and a cordial invitation is extended to 

 them to send to the secretary as soon as con- 

 venient titles and abstracts for the morning 

 programs. 



The American Association opens at Pitts- 

 burg on Saturday, June 28. On Thursday, 



Friday and Saturday of the same week the 

 Society for the Promotion of Engineering 

 Education will also meet in the same city. A 

 rare series of meetings is in store, therefore, 

 for those who attend, and it is hoped that very 

 many engineers will put Pittsburg on their 

 summer schedule. Please remember to send 

 titles and abstracts very soon to the secretary. 

 J. J. Flather, Chairman, 

 C. A. Waldo, Secretary. 

 Lafayette, Indiana. 



section a, mathematics and astronomy. 



Members of the Association who will have 

 papers to present before Section A at the 

 Pittsburg meeting, June 28-July 3 next, are 

 requested to send the titles of such papers as 

 soon as possible to the Secretary of the 

 Section. Edwin S. Crawley. 



University of Pennsylvania. 



CENTRAL control OF THE EXPERIMENTAL 

 ST.4.TI0NS. 



The article on the above subject by H. F. 

 Roberts, in a late issue of Science, urges a 

 point of view in some respects plausible, but 

 not, I think, in accord with the best interests 

 of either the scientific or the practical aspects of 

 the station work; unless it be from the stand- 

 point of the trite saying that the best govern- 

 ment would be that of a wise and benevolent 

 despot. And surely, if it is bad for the West 

 to have stations established ten or seventy 

 miles apart, it is worse for the East, where 

 the stations, e. g., of the New England states, 

 and of Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, 

 are located so closely together within a re- 

 markably uniform climatic region, while 

 similar distances on the Pacific slope will 

 often involve the most startling climatic con- 

 trasts. By parity of reasoning, the central 

 authority called for ought to abolish and re- 

 distribute a dozen of these stations of the 

 Atlantic coast region; and logically, the aboli- 

 tion of 'Little Rhody' and similarly small 

 states, which are exceeded in area by many 

 single counties in the West, should follow in 

 due course, the political preponderance given 

 them at present being clearly unfair. 



Robert's fundamental idea, that stations 

 should be located so as to represent climatic 



