SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 472. 



tion, after which they were taken in small 

 parties through the grounds and buildings 

 and shown the various exhibits, under the 

 personal charge of the chiefs of depart- 

 ments. 



On Thursday evening the annual ban- 

 quet of the Sigma Xi Honorary Scientific 

 Society was given at the Mercantile Chib, 

 followed by the address of President David 

 Starr Jordan. 



On Friday evening the members of the 

 association attended the fourteenth annual 

 banquet given by the trustees of the Mis- 

 souri Botanical Garden at the Southern 

 Hotel. 



REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 



The following reports of committees were 

 presented to the council. They were ac- 

 cepted and ordered printed. 



On the Atomic Weight of Thorium. 



To the Council of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science. 

 Gentlemen: Since our last report we beg leave 

 to state that Messrs. Charles Baskerville and R. 

 0. E. Davis have secured further evidence of the 

 complexity of the so-called element, thorium. This 

 work has resulted from applications of methods 

 of fractionation to the large amounts of purified 

 material with which they were engaged, as stated 

 in our last report. Under such circumstances 

 these gentlemen deemed it advisable to prosecute 

 further the fractionation until a stable thorium 

 preparation was secured. This fractionation is 

 controlled by atomic weight determinations and 

 spectroscopic examinations. 



At the Washington meeting of the council, a 

 grant of fifty dollars was made Mr. Charles 

 Baskerville for work on prseseodidymium and the 

 supervision of the same given over to this com- 

 mittee. Concerning this, we beg leave to state 

 that Messrs. Baskerville, James Thorpe and T. B. 

 Foust have secured about one kilogram of quite 

 pure oxide by novel methods. At present Messrs. 

 Baskerville and G. MacNider are subjecting a 

 considerable portion of this purified material to a 

 treatment which promises to show the complexity 

 of this so-called element. 



We therefore, beg leave to report progress. 

 Respectfully, 



Chas. Baskerville, Chairman, 

 Francis P. Venable, 

 Jas. Lewis Howe. 



On the Relation of Plants to Climate. 



Gentlemen: The committee on the relation of 

 plants tp climate presents herewith a paper en- 

 titled ' Soil Temperatures and Vegetation,' which 

 sets forth recent results obtained by the aid of 

 grants received in 1901 and 1902, and which was 

 published in Contributions from the New York 

 Botanical Garden (No. 44). 



Your committee is desirous of extending the 

 observations already made to cover a wider range 

 of soil and climatic conditions, and has secured 

 the cooperation of the New York Botanical Garden 

 and of the Desert Botanical Laboratory of the 

 Carnegie Institution, both of which have under- 

 taken the purchase and installation of sets of 

 instruments. The major inquiry is concerned 

 with the influence of the temperature of soils, 

 with its diurnal and seasonal variations, upon 

 growth and distribution of plants. As a result 

 of the observations already made it has been 

 found that different portions of the body of even 

 small plants may difl'er as much as 40° F. in 

 temperature, a fact which has hitherto escaped 

 notice and which promises to be of great impor- 

 tance in the interpretation of the physical pro- 

 cesses of the plants. In order to carry along the 

 entailed investigations, your committee asks an 

 additional grant of seventy-five dollars. 



During the course of the work, the Hallock soil 

 thermograph has been invented and perfected. 

 Specifications have been placed in the hands of a 

 competent instrument maker, and no limitations 

 of any kind placed on its manufacture or use. 

 The numbers of applications for instruments show 

 that it is deemed useful for thermometric work 

 in various kinds of observations. 

 Respectfully, 



D. T. MacDougal, 



For the Committee. 

 William Trelease, 

 J. M. Coulter, 

 D. T. MacDougal, 



Committee. 



On Anthropometric Tests. 

 The committee of the association on anthropo- 

 metric tests has continued its work throughout 

 the year. A laboratory for physical and mental 

 measurements was arranged at Washington, and 

 tests of the fellows and members of the associa- 

 tion were made by Mr. Miner and Mr. Davis under 

 the direction of the chairman of the committee. 

 The results of measurements of about one him- 

 dred fellows have been compiled and compared 

 with similar measurements of members of the 

 British Association and of other classes of the 



