DECEMBER 3, 1897.] 
earn. It is reported that recently, when 
he claimed that the station at Woods 
Holl was the greatest biological station in 
the world because it hatched the largest 
number of fry, he was reminded of the 
Naples station, but replied that he had not 
heard of it. 
The station at Woods Holl, made by 
Baird, Goode and MacDonald a center of 
research, fruitful in practical applications, 
regarded as a model by other nations, has 
now fallen into disrepute. The institution 
has been practically closed to investigators. 
The present Commissioner is apparently 
unable to appreciate what such a station 
means and what great practical benefit 
might proceed from it. Scientific research 
and the applications of science are but the 
obverse and reverse of the same coin, and 
he who expects to do without one side of 
the coin will find that he has none left in 
his pocket. 
Now since the Coast and Geodetic Sur- 
vey has been reformed by the present ad- 
ministration, only the Fish Commission 
When Mr. Cleveland 
was Governor of New York he vetoed the 
needs its attention. 
bill for the continuation of the Geological 
Survey of the State, and when President he 
occasionally showed that he had too long 
The 
present administration is, however, in full 
postponed his university training. 
sympathy with the scientific departments of 
the government, and is competent to decide 
whether the present Commissioner meets 
the requirements of the law, and, if not, to 
appoint a Commissioner of ‘ proved scien- 
tific and practical knowledge of the fishes 
of the coast.’ 
SCIENCE. 
819 
THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
THE autumn meeting of the National 
Academy was held this year in Boston, be- 
ginning at 11 a. m. on Tuesday, November 
16th, and continuing until Thursday after- 
noon. The attendance of members was un- 
usually large for an autumn meeting, about 
thirty being present at one time or another 
during the three-day session. The absence of 
some members residing almost within sight 
of the place of meeting was a noteworthy in- 
dication of a lack of great interest in the 
leading scientific organization of the coun- 
try. The program of papers offered was 
also unusually long and varied, nearly every 
department of science being represented. 
While all of these contributions were valu- 
able and taken together represented a large 
amount of original investigation, none could 
be considered as unusually or unexpectedly 
important or strikingly novel in character 
or results. 
The session opened with Professor Wood- 
ward’s paper on ‘The Mass of the Earth’s 
Atmosphere.’ The general conclusions of 
interest were that the radius of the atmos- 
phere was probably five or six times that of 
the earth, and that while its mass could not 
exceed five per cent. of that of the earth it 
was probably not more than one millioneth 
as much. Professor Carl Barus presented 
the result of further studies of the effect 
of time on the temper of steel, the begin- 
nings of which he had published some years 
ago. ‘The lapse of years has served to bring 
out more clearly the interesting and im- 
portant secular changes, the recent meas- 
urements having been made on the same 
specimens used in the earlier stages of the 
investigation. 
This paper was followed by that of Dr. 
Mendenhall on ‘Steel Knife Edges,’ which 
was also a continuation of researches 
communicated to the Academy at pre- 
vious meetings. The present investigation 
