DECEMBER 24, 1897. ] 
In a paper in the Revue Mensuelle of the 
Paris School of Anthropology, for Septem- 
ber, he undertakes to locate the period of 
the final disruption of the two continents 
more accurately than heretofore. 
He carefully considers the pleistocene 
fauna of both areas, compares the states of 
the earliest arts, and especially lays stress 
on the time and manner of the disappear- 
ance of the reindeer in France, and the sud- 
den change of climate from arctic to tem- 
perate conditions which thatindicates. The 
cause of this change was the altered direc- 
tion of the current of the Gulf Stream owing 
to subsidence of the land areas. His article 
entitled ‘ L’Atlantide et le Renne * will be 
found highly suggestive. 
D. G. Brinton. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 
AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY. 
THE annual meeting of the American Mathe- 
matical Society will be held on Wednesday, De- 
cember 29th, in Room 301 of the Physics Build- 
ing of Columbia University, New York City. 
In accordance with the provisions of the consti- 
tution of the Society, the annual election of 
officers will be held at this meeting, and a pres- 
idential address, ‘On the Philosophy of Hyper- 
space,’ will be delivered by President Simon 
Newcomb. The sessions will begin at 10:30 a. 
m. and 2:30 p. m., and the Council will meet: 
at 2 p. m. 
The following is a list of papers thus far en- 
tered for presentation at the meeting : 
Morning Session. 
(1) ‘On the differential equations defining the 
-Laplacian distribution of density, pressure and 
acceleration of gravity in the earth,’ PRorEssor 
R. 8. Woopwarp, Columbia University; (2) 
“The theorems of oscillation of Sturm and 
Klein,’ PRorEssoR MAXIME BocHuER, Harvard 
University ; (8) ‘On some points in the theory 
of functions,’ ProrEssor A. S. CHESSIN, Johns 
Hopkins University ; (4) ‘ Point transformation 
in elliptic coordinates of circles having double 
SCIENCE. 
953 
contact with a conic,’ DR. EDGAR ODELL Loy- 
ETT, Princeton University,’ (5) ‘Certain inva- 
riants of a plane quadrangle by projective 
transformation,’ Dr. EDGAR ODELL LOVETT, 
Princeton University. 
Afternoon Session. 
(6) Presidential address: ‘The philosophy of 
hyperspace,’ President Simon NEwcoms, Wash- 
ington, D.C.; (7) ‘ Limits of transitivity of sub- 
stitution groups,’ Dr. G. A. MILLER, Chicago, 
Ill. ; (8) Some theorems in n-dimensional space,’ 
Mr. C€. J. Kyser, Columbia University ; (9) 
‘The orthogonal group in a Galois field,’ Dr. 
L. KE, Dickson, University of California. 
The Chicago Section of the Society will hold 
its second meeting on Thursday and Friday, 
December 30th and 31st, at Northwestern Uni- 
versity, Evanston, Ill. Regular meetings of 
the Society will be held in New York on Feb- 
Tuary 26th and April 30, 1898. The summer 
meeting will be held next year at Boston, Mass., 
in connection with the meeting of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science. 
_ The membership of the Society now exceeds. 
300. The November number of the Bulletin. 
(Vol. VII., No. 2) contains, besides the ‘ Notes’ 
and ‘List of New Publications,’ an account of 
the International Congress of Mathematicians 
held at Zurich last August; a report by the 
Secretary, Professor James McMahon, of the 
proceedings of Section A at the Detroit meet- 
ing of the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science; ‘Quaternions as Num- 
bers of Four Dimensional Space,’ by Professor 
Arthur 8. Hathaway; ‘Note on the Invariants 
of n Points,’ by Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett; ‘Note 
on the Fundamental Theorem of Lie’s Theory of 
Continuous Groups,’ by Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett; 
‘A Geometrical Locus Connected with a System 
of Coaxial Circles,’ by Professor Thomas F. 
Holgate; ‘Condition that the Line Common to 
NN—1 Planes in an N Space may Pierce a Given 
Quadric Surface in the Same Space,’ by Dr. 
Virgil Snyder, and a review of Lamb’s Hydro- 
dynamics by Professor Ernest W. Brown. 
The December number of the Bulletin (Vol. 
VII., No. 3), which has just. appeared, con- 
tains ap account of the October meeting of the 
Society, by the Secretary; ‘Note on Hyperel- 
