702 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 570. 



ciety included thirty members. President W. 

 F. Osgood occupied the chair. The following 

 new members were elected: Professor 0. P. 

 Akers, Allegheny College; Dr. E. B. Allen, 

 Clark University; Professor Ernesto Cesaro, 

 University of IsTaples ; Lieutenant Colonel A. 

 J. C. Cunningham, London, Eng. ; Miss M. E. 

 Decherd, University of Texas; Mr. W. W. 

 Llart, Shortridge High School, Indianapolis, 

 Ind.; Mr. H. N. Olsen, Bethany College; Mr. 

 F. H. Smith, Southwestern Christian College. 

 Twelve applications for membership in the 

 society were received. The total membership 

 of the society is now 503. 



A list of nominations for officers and other 

 members of the council was adopted and or- 

 dered placed on the official ballot for the 

 annual election at the December meeting. Dr. 

 W. H. Bussey was appointed assistant secre- 

 tary of the society. 



A committee consisting of Professors 

 Masclike, Pierpont, P. F. Smith, H. S. White, 

 and the secretary were appointed to arrange 

 for the summer meeting and colloquium to 

 be held at Yale University in 1906. 



The following papers were read at this 

 meeting : 



W. B. Caevee : ' On the Cayley- Veronese class 

 of configurations.' 



James Pieepont : ' Multiple improper integrals.' 



Edwaed Kasnee : ' On the geodesies passing 

 through a given point of a surface.' 



H. S. White : ' Poncelet quadrilaterals on a 

 curve of the third order and a conic' 



Max Mason and Peofessoe G. A. Bliss : ' A 

 problem of the calculus of variations in which the 

 integrand function is discontinuous.' 



G. A. Miller : ' Groups generated by two oper- 

 ators which transform each other into the same 

 power.' 



BuEKE Smith : ' Determination of associated 

 surfaces.' 



L. P. Eisenhaet : ' Certain triply orthogonal 

 systems of surfaces.' 



The next meeting of the society, which will 

 be the annual meeting for the election of 

 officers, will be held at Columbia University, 

 on Thursday and Friday, December 28-29. 

 The American Physical Society and the Astro- 

 nomical and Astrophysical Society of America 

 will meet at the same place and time. 



The Chicago Section of the Mathematical 

 Society will meet at the University of Chicago, 

 on December 29-30. -p -jo- Qq^e 



Secretary. 



THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 

 NORTHEASTERN SECTION. 



The sixty-second regular meeting of the 

 section was held Friday evening, October 27, 

 in the Walker Building, Massachusetts Insti- 

 tute of Technology, with President Norris in 

 the chair. About 250 members and guests 

 were present. The report of the nominating 

 for officers for 1905-6 was accepted. 



Professor Wilhelm Ostwald, of Leipzig, 

 Germany, gave a lecture on the ' Development 

 of Chemistry in France, England, Germany 

 and the United States,' in which he said in 

 part, that chemistry had its earliest develop- 

 ment in France, but owing to the centralizing 

 methods of Napoleon I., science had always 

 been monarchical in its tendencies in that 

 country. There had always been a central 

 leader at Paris, who played the role of ' king ' 

 in chemistry; the succession being Lavoisier, 

 Fourcrois, Berthollet, Gay-Liissac, Dumas, 

 Wurtz and Berthelot, the present ruler, with 

 Moissan already elected the next ' king.' The 

 result had been to greatly retard the advance 

 of the science. Berthelot, for instance, had 

 been able to impose his theories on the whole 

 country, so that it was not until recently in 

 French journals that molecular notation had 

 replaced the older equivalent notation. The 

 doctrine of the conservation of energy was 

 first mentioned in a French journal ten years 

 after its discovery, and the same is triie of 

 the theory of electrolytic dissociation. Al- 

 though lately important discoveries have been 

 made by Becquerel, the Curies, etc., this has 

 been done outside of and in spite of the ' sys- 

 tem.' In the same way as the science of 

 chemistry has had one person at its head, it 

 has been centralized in one place, Paris, and 

 very little chemical work has been done in the 

 rest of France. 



The opposite conditions have existed in 

 England, where individualism has been the 

 rule. Boyle, Priestley, Cavendish, Davy, 



