October 11, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



469 



" key " for the vibrating tongues or tars of this 

 instrument will be changed.) Plutes and 

 similar wind instruments do not appear to be 

 numerous or highly developed, but many 

 horns, especially of ivory, are iigured. The 

 drum and the xylophone or Marimba require 

 many pages. 



The introductions and indexes are similar 

 to those in former volumes and are good; the 

 ethnographical notes are fuller than ever and 

 add many interesting details. 



Charles K. Wkad 



Washington, D. C, 

 June, 1907 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY 



Six years ago the summer meeting and 

 colloquium of the society was held at Cornell 

 University. In the intervening years the 

 Society has met successively at Evanston, Bos- 

 ton, St. Louis, Williamstown and New 

 Haven. This year the summer meeting was 

 again convened at Cornell University, on 

 Thursday and Friday, September 5-6. Forty- 

 seven members were in attendance. By close 

 economy of time the scientific proceedings 

 were condensed into two sessions on Thursday 

 and a morning session on Friday. Friday 

 afternoon was devoted to an excursion on Lake 

 Cayuga, Mr. H. H. Westinghouse, of the uni- 

 versity, having kindly placed his steam yacht 

 at the members' disposal. The evening gath- 

 erings at the Town and Gown Club also 

 furnished pleasant opportunities for social in- 

 tercourse. 



The first session opened with an address of 

 welcome by Professor Wait, head of the uni- 

 versity department of mathematics. At the 

 close of the meeting resolutions were adopted 

 expressing the society's appreciation of the 

 generous hospitality of the university and its 

 oiEcers. 



The president of the society. Professor H. 

 S. White, occupied the chair, being relieved 

 by Professors Fine and E. B. Van Vleck. The 

 council announced the election of the follow- 

 ing persons to membership in the society : 

 Thomas Buck, University of Chicago; Arnold 



Dresden, University of Chicago; T. H. Hilde- 

 brandt. University of Chicago; W. J. King, 

 Harvard University; J. O. Mahoney, High 

 School, Dallas, Texas; J. F. Messick, Eah- 

 dolph-Macon College; H. W. Powell, College 

 of the City of New York. Six applications 

 for membership in the society were received. 

 The total membership is now 569. 



The following papers were read at the 

 meeting : 



L. E. Dickson : " Modular theory of group 

 matrices." 



W. B. FoKD : " Sur les Equations lingaires aux 

 difffirenees finies." 



R. D. Cakmichael: "On the classification of 

 plane algebraic curves possessing fourfold sym- 

 metry with respect to a point." 



R. D. Caemichael: "Note on certain inverse 

 problems in the simplex theory of numbers." 



W. B. Carver: "The ten special r*, configura- 

 tion in the Pascal hexagram." 



E. 0. LovETT: "Generalization of a problem of 

 Bertrand in mechanics." 



E. 0. LovETT : " The invariants of a group 

 which occurs in the problem of n bodies." 



E. R. Hedrick : " A peculiar example in the 

 theory of surfaces." 



E. R. Hedrick: "A smooth closed curve com- 

 posed of rectilinear segments." 



R. D. Carmichael: "On certain transcendental 

 functions defined by a symbolic equation." 



D. C. Gillespie : " On the canonical substitu- 

 tion in the Hamilton-Jacobi canonical system of 

 differential equations." 



G. A. Miller: "The invariant substitutions 

 under a substitution group." 



G. A. Miller : " Methods of determining the 

 primitive roots of a number." 



ViBGiL Snyder : " On a special algebraic curve 

 having a net of minimum adjoint curves." 



James McMahon : " The differential geometry 

 of the vector field. Second paper: lamellar field." 



L. E. Dickson : " Commutative linear groups." 



L. E. Dickson: "A simple derivation of the 

 canonical forms of linear transformation." 



Edward Kasner: "Geometric interpretation of 

 integrating factors." 



Edward Kasner : " The conf ormal representa- 

 tion of geodesic circles." 



A. R. Schweitzer: "On the relation of right- 

 handedness in geometry." 



F. L. Griffin : " On the law of gravitation in 

 the binary systems, II." 



