March 13, 19U3.] 



SCIENCE. 



429 



occupants of each corner of the triangle to 

 see those of both the other corners. Any 

 other arrangement is likely to involve the 

 presiding officer in much diificulty if he at- 

 tempts to see the illustrations shown by the 

 speaker, and to impose upon the speaker the 

 discourtesy of turning his back upon the pre- 

 siding officer. The presiding officer and the 

 secretary should have an open pathway from 

 their table to a neighboring door; a page 

 ready to attend these officers and familiar 

 with the locality of the meeting should be 

 furnished by the local committee. A plat- 

 form for the speaker, raised somewhat above 

 the floor, should be provided in rooms not 

 thus furnished. Blackboard and pointer, 

 racks, clips and thumbtacks, lantern and 

 screen should of course be in readiness (per- 

 haps some sections may not need the lantern), 

 though it not infrequently happens that some 

 of these necessary luxuries are wanting at 

 the last minute. The auditors should enter 

 by a door or doors at or near the back of the 

 room; and they should not have bright win- 

 dows in front of them. The room should be 

 large enough to prevent crowding. One 

 might think that ventilation would be ar- 

 ranged beforehand as a matter of course; yet 

 it is a common experience to have to resort 

 to the windows after the meeting room has 

 become suffocatingly uncomfortable, no one 

 being charged with the duty of supplying 

 fresh air; and the windows usually refuse to 

 open at the top, there evidently having been 

 no preparation for so unexpected a use of the 

 upper sash. The air in the sectional meet- 

 ing room that I frequented this winter in 

 Washington was almost continuously so bad 

 as to be injurious to health. Electric ven- 

 tilators are of much service in this connec- 

 tion; they can usually be installed tempo- 

 rarily at moderate expense. 



Lobhy and Coat Rooms. — Emphasis is al- 

 ways and properly laid on the opportunity 

 that the association meetings furnish for re- 

 newing and extending one's acquaintance 

 with his associates. This is so important a 

 matter that formal provision should always 

 be made for it. A single room is, therefore, 

 not enough for a good sectional meeting; 



there should always be a separate lobby or 

 conversation room, near enough the meeting 

 room to be immediately accessible from it, 

 yet not so near that lively conversation in 

 the lobby shall annoy either the speaker or 

 the auditors in the meeting room. Two or 

 three seats at a writing table should be pro- 

 vided here. Now that meetings are to be in 

 the winter, a coat room will be a great con- 

 venience, to say the least. 



It is very likely that many local committees 

 will find it difficult to provide the three de- 

 sired rooms for each section; and this elab- 

 orate provision will often be impossible if 

 various scientific societies hold meetings at 

 the same time and place with, but independ- 

 ent of, the sectional meetings. The question 

 then arises: Is it worth while to endure 

 continuously uncomfortable conditions of 

 sectional meetings in order to secure the in- 

 termittent advantages of occasional general 

 sessions? My own feeling is that a really 

 well-managed meeting of a national scientific 

 society, such as the Geological Society of 

 America, held independent of the association, 

 gives more profit and pleasure to the attend- 

 ing members than they are likely to secure 

 when their meeting is held in conjunction 

 with that of the association. In the latter 

 ease it is almost impossible to provide the 

 accommodations that a national society really 

 deserves, and the discomforts of insufficient 

 accommodations seem to me to outweigh what- 

 ever advantages come from a general scien- 

 tific gathering. In short, if the alternative 

 were presented to one of the national scientific 

 societies of being limited to one meeting room 

 when combining with the association, and of 

 having separate meeting and conversation 

 rooms when acting independently, I should 

 vote for the latter, so high a value do I place 

 on the informal part of a scientific gathering. 

 But if really good accommodations can be 

 provided for the sections and the national 

 societies when all meet together, then let us 

 gather in force and secure whatever results 

 may follow from meetings of large enroll- 

 ment. 



There are certain other suggestions that 

 might be presented to the local committees. 



