870 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 805 



Friday and Saturday, April 21, 22 and 23. The 

 session was opened on Thursday at 2 p.m. 

 by the president, Dr. W. W. Keen, who occupied 

 the chair throughout the meetings except at the 

 afternoon session of Friday, which was presided 

 over by Vicei-President Professor William B. Scott, 

 and the session of Saturday morning, when Vice- 

 President Professor Edward C. Pickering presided. 

 The afternoon of Saturday was devoted to a sym- 

 posium on " Experimental Evolution," the prin- 

 cipal papers being given by Herbert S. Jennings, 

 professor of experimental zoology in Johns Hop- 

 kins University, on " Inheritance in Non-sexual 

 and Self-fertilized Organisms " ; Grcorge H. Shull, 

 resident investigator, Station for Experimental 

 Evolution, Carnegie Institution, Washington, on 

 " Grerminal Analysis through Hybridization," and 

 Charles B. Davenport, director of Station for 

 Experimental Evolution, Carnegie Institution, on 

 " New Views about Reversion." Professor William 

 L. Tower, of the University of Chicago, was also 

 to have contributed a paper, but was prevented 

 from attendance. After the principal papers, a 

 number of other members participated in the dis- 

 cussion. 



At the session on Saturday morning Professor 

 C. L. Doolittle read an obituary notice of Simon 

 Newcomb, late vice-president of the society, and 

 presented a portrait of Professor Newcomb con- 

 tributed by members of the society. The portrait 

 was accepted by Vice-President Pickering. 



On Friday evening a reception was held at the 

 hall of the College of Physicians, at which Pro- 

 fessor George E. Hale gave an illustrated lecture 

 on the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, de- 

 scribing the instruments and observations carried 

 on at the observatory and at the laboratory in 

 Pasadena connected with it. The session closed 

 with an annual dinner held at the Bellevue Strat- 

 ford on Saturday evening, April 23. About ninety 

 members were present. At this dinner the toasts 

 were as follows : " Benjamin Franklin," by Charles 

 Francis Adams, Esq.; "Our Sister Societies," by 

 President Ira Remsen; "Our Universities," by 

 President James B. Angell ; " The American 

 Philosophical Society," by Dr. James W. Holland. 

 At the session on Friday morning the following 

 were elected to membership: 



Residents of the United States. — Simeon Eben 

 Baldwin, LL.D., New Haven, Conn.; Francis G. 

 Benedict, Ph.D., Boston, Mass.; Charles Francis 

 Brush, Ph.D., LL.D., Cleveland, Ohio; Douglas 

 Houghton Campbell, Ph.D., Palo Alto, Cal.; 

 William Ernest Castle, Ph.D., Payson Park, Bel- 



mont, Mass.; George Byron Gordon, ScD., Phila- 

 delphia, Pa.; David Jayne Hill, LL.D., American 

 Embassy, Berlin; Henry Clary Jones, Ph.D., Bal- 

 timore, Md. ; Leo Loeb, M.D., Philadelphia, Pa.; 

 James McCrea, Ardmore, Pa.; Richard Cockbum 

 Maclaurin, F.R.S., LL.D. (Cantab.), Boston, 

 Mass.; Benjamin 0. Peirce, Ph.D., Cambridge, 

 Mass.; Harry Fielding Reid, Ph.D., Baltimore, 

 Md.; James Ford Rhodes, LL.D., Boston, Mass.; 

 Owen Willans Richardson, M.A. (Cantab.), D.Sc. 

 (Lond. ), Princeton, N. J. 



Foreign Residents. — Adolf von Baeyer, Ph.D., 

 M.D., F.R.S., Munich; Madame S. Curie, Paris; 

 Sir David Gill, K.C.B., Sc.D., LL.D., F.R.S., Lon- 

 don; Edward Meyer, Ph.D., LL.D., Berlin; Charles 

 Emile Picard, Paris. 



In addition to the symposium on " Evolution," 

 fifty-one papers were presented. A list of these 

 with a brief summary of their contents follows. 



The Great Japanese Embassy of 1860; The For- 

 gotten Chapter in the History of International 

 Amity and Commerce: Pattebson DuBois, 

 Philadelphia. 



An account of this embassy and especially of 

 its visit to the Philadelphia mint and investiga- 

 tion of our system of coinage, etc. 



The Government of the United States m Theory 

 and in Practise: C. Stuaet Pattebson, Phila- 

 delphia. 



The federal government has taken a highly 

 centralized form very different from the ideals 

 of the founder of the republic and at variance 

 with the early theory of the balance of power 

 between national government, state and citizen. 



On some Philosophioal Ideas in Zoroastrianism: 

 A. V. Williams Jaokson, New York. (Read 

 by title.) 



Magical Observances in the Hindu Epic: E. Wash- 



BUBN Hopkins, New Haven. 



The practise of magic and recognition of its 

 effects as portrayed in literature, notably in the 

 epic, as contrasted with hymns and magic rules, 

 which inculcate the rites only, formed the subject 

 of this paper. Hindu literature has a number of 

 works in which magic formulae are given and 

 hymns evidently written for the purpose of magic; 

 but in the Hindu epic literature we see the appli- 

 cation of these rules and hymns, and the magic 

 which elsewhere is taught is here actively em- 

 ployed. One of the chief fields of application of 

 magic in a war-epic is naturally that of magic 

 weapons. The idea underlying magical weapons 

 is identical with that of the savage of Australia. 



