508 
progress will be moulded by the conclusions 
weshall reach. Letusaddress ourselves to 
the work before us with the same fraternal 
zeal that has characterized the meetings of 
the Society in the past, and that in fact is 
singularly characteristic of that noble body 
of men who practice the profession of engi- 
neering, a profession whose triumphs are 
our pride and whose future greatness it is 
the object of this Society to foster. 
Henry T. Eppy. 
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA. 
ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE AMERICAN ASSO- 
CIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF 
SCIENCE. 
THE section was organized August 9th, as 
follows: W J McGee, Chairman; Anita 
Newcomb McGee, M. D., Secretary (elec- 
ted to fill the vacaney caused by the 
resignation of Harlan I. Smith); W. H. 
Holmes, Councillor; Alice C. Fletcher (ex 
officio), M. H. Saville, Frank Hamilton 
Cushing and Warren K. Moorehead, Sec- 
tional Committee-at-Large; Washington 
Matthews, General Nominating Committee; 
Lightner Witmer, Stephen D. Peet and 
Alois Hrdlicka, Nominating Committee-at- 
Large. 
The meetings of the section were held in 
the most spacious of the class-rooms in the 
high school building, and were well at- 
tended not only by members of the Asso- 
ciation, but by citizens of Detroit; the 
attendance ranged from 50 to 400, averag- 
ing fully 200. Special interest attached to 
the afternoon session of August 11th, which 
was a joint meeting of Sections E and H, 
in the room assigned to the latter, for dis- 
cussion of the human relics from sand de- 
posits in Delaware valley. A number of 
foreign guests, members of the British As- 
sociation, attended this and other meetings 
of the section; among them were Dr. and 
Mrs. Robert Munro, of Edinburgh; Pro- 
fessor and Mrs. J. L. Myres, of Oxford ; 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vox. VI. No. 144. 
Prince Krapotkin, of Russia, latterly of 
Kent, England; Dr. Albrecht Penck, of 
Vienna; Professor Vernon Harcourt, of 
Oxford, and Dr. H. P. Truell, of Wicklow, 
Treland. 
The afternoon of August 9th was devoted 
to the Vice-Presidential address, which 
has appeared in this JouRNAL; and the 
morning session of August 10th was devoted 
mainly to a summary and continuation of 
the address, followed by a general discus- 
sion of the anthropologic classification sug- 
gested therein, in which Miss Fletcher, Dr. 
Munro, Professor Myres, Dr. Peet, Pro- 
fessor Witmer and others participated. 
Later a report was presented by Miss 
Fletcher on the Winter Conference of mem- 
bers of Section H held in New York last 
December. The section then voted to re- 
quest authority from the Council to hold a 
formal meeting at Ithaca during the Christ- 
mas holidays of this year. (This meeting 
was duly authorized by the Council, and a 
small appropriation was made to cover 
cost of printing announcements, etc.) 
The reading of the papers began with the 
afternoon session of August 10th. The first 
of these was an elaborate account of the 
superstitions, beliefs and practices of the 
ancient Mexicans, by Zelia Nuttall, read, in 
the absence of the author, by Dr. Saville. 
The material was mainly compiled from the 
records of early Spanish missionaries among 
the Aztecan Indians ; it derived importance 
from the fact that these records are little 
known, and have not hitherto been brought 
to the attention of students of anthropology. 
The discussion by Dr. Hrdlicka and others 
indicated that many of the superstitions 
and ceremonies of the ancient Mexicans are 
duplicated among the more primitive peo- 
ples of different countries, notably those of 
central Europe. 
“The Study of Ceremony,’ by Dr. Wash- 
ington Matthews, followed. The author 
expressed the conviction that the ceremonies 
