December 29, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



885 



The rate of increase, 6.9 per cent., is half 

 that for twenty years back. It was 7.9 per 

 cent., 1876 to 1880; and 8.9 per cent., 1880 to 

 1885 ; but this is the only time it has ever been 

 as low; and of the earlier decade, the first five 

 years, 1875 to 1880, were years of great finan- 

 cial depression. 



The past five years have been years of over- 

 flowing prosperity. Yet the increase in popu- 

 lation in Massachusetts drops to one half the 

 earlier rate. The addition to population in 

 the latest five years is no larger than it was 

 thirty years ago, when the inhabitants of the 

 states numbered only half as many as now. 



" This same arrest of population," says the 

 Philadelphia Press, " is in progress all over the 

 country. No state is likely to show in this 

 decade the increase of the past. Our national 

 increase, which has been jogging along at 

 about 25 per cent., in ten years, is about to 

 make a drop to 12 or 15 per cent, in ten years, 

 a little above the average of thriving European 

 countries like Germany and England." 



John Eranklin Crowell. 



Washington, D. C. 



THE MUSEUMS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA. 



Ajsr informal meeting of a few of the ad- 

 ministrative heads of some of the greater 

 museums of Araerica was held at the United 

 States National Museum in Washington on 

 December 21. There were present Dr. Rich- 

 ard Eathbun, the director of the National 

 Museum, Dr. H. C. Bumpus, director of the 

 American Museum of Natural History, New 

 York, Dr. N. L. Britton, the director of the 

 New York Botanical Garden, Dr. E. A. Lucas, 

 the curator-in-chief of the Brooklyn Institute, 

 Dr. W J McGee, the director of the St. Louis 

 Public Museum, Dr. W. P. Wilson, the di- 

 rector of the Philadelphia Museums, and Dr. 

 W. J. Holland, the director of the Carnegie 

 Museum. Dr. Samuel Henshaw, the curator 

 of the Cambridge Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, and Dr. E. J. V. Skiff, of the Eield 

 Museum of Natural History in Chicago, were 

 not present, but were represented by letter. 



The meeting had been called for the purpose 

 of considering whether it might be advisable 

 to take preliminary steps looking toward the 



organization in America of a Museums Asso- 

 ciation somewhat analogous to that which 

 exists in Great Britain. It was finally unan- 

 imously decided that the gentlemen repre- 

 sented in this informal gathering should over 

 their names issue a call to the representatives 

 of a niimber of the larger and more important 

 museums of the United States to convene for 

 the purpose of organizing The Museums Asso- 

 ciation of America. 



In the informal discussion which took place 

 it was decided that the movement should not 

 be restricted to natural history museums, but 

 that museums representing art, as well as the 

 sciences, should be included in the call, and 

 that the invitations should be made to cover 

 the institutions of America, using the word 

 in its widest sense, so as to include all of 

 North America and South America and the 

 various insular possessions of the United 

 States and Great Britain in the western hemi- 

 sphere. 



In accordance with a resolution adopted 

 invitations to attend a preliminary gathering 

 for the purpose of organizing The Museums 

 Association of America will shortly be issued 

 to a number of institutions and individuals 

 who are thought to be likely to be interested in 

 such a movement. This conference will be 

 held at the American Museum of Natural 

 History in New York on May 15, 1906. 



Pittsburgh, Pa., 

 December 23, 1905. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 The New Orleans meeting of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science 

 and the societies affiliated with it begins to- 

 day. This evening Professor W. G. Earlow, of 

 Harvard University, will give the presidential 

 address, his subject being ' The Popular Con- 

 ception of the Scientific Man at the Present 

 Day.' We hope to publish this address next 

 week. 



The Paris Academy of Sciences has awarded 

 the Lalande prize to Professor William Henry 

 Pickering, of Harvard University, for his dis- 

 covery of the ninth and tenth satellites of 

 Saturn. 



