706 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVU. No. 435. 



Messrs. Mendenhall and Paul) and to tlie 

 development of the modern type of instru- 

 ments. A large instrument was exhibited of 

 the ' inertia-type/ in which a heavy suspended 

 mass serves as a fixed point for attachment 

 of levers, the distant end of which carries a 

 recording point, while a frame subject to any 

 earth-tremors engages the levers at an inter- 

 mediate point. Professor Newcomb described 

 briefly the instruments shown him during the 

 past summer at Gottingen. 



Dr. A. L. Day then, with the aid of lantern 

 illustrations, presented the modern view of 

 ' Black Bodies ' and the great developments 

 that had followed the introduction of the hol- 

 low internally reflecting and radiating shell, 

 whose radiations reached an outside instru- 

 ment through a small hole in the wall. Such 

 a body is theoretically more perfectly ' black ' 

 and practically more permanent and manage- 

 able than any body that is black to the eye. 

 The methods of estimating the temperature 

 of a highly heated body from the nature of 

 its radiations were pointed out. 



At the 565th meeting, held March 14, 1903, 

 the death, on February 28, of Professor Wil- 

 liam Harkness, formerly the president of this 

 society, was announced. 



On the call for informal communications 

 Professor Cleveland Abbe exhibited a collec- 

 tion of half-tone plates of snow-crystals just 

 published by the "Weather Bureau. The 

 original photomicrographs were selected from 

 the enormous collection of plates taken by 

 Mr. Bentley, of Jericho, Vt. 



The first regular paper had been announced 

 to be by Mr. Gilbert T. Walker, of England, 

 on 'Boomerangs'; but he was unable to ap- 

 pear, owing to a strain received in the after- 

 noon during a public exhibition of his re- 

 markable skill in designing and throwing 

 these weapons. In his absence there was a 

 general discussion of the subject and of his 

 demonstrations. Attention was called to his 

 papers on the subject in Science and the 

 * Smithsonian Eeport ' for 1901. 



The new Baldwin computing machine, made 

 in the United States, and put on the market 

 by the Spectator Company, of New York, was 



exhibited and explained by Professor Marvin. 

 Speaking generally, it is similar in principle 

 and capacity to the long-known Thomas ma- 

 chine, but is more compact and differs in 

 nearly all its details. 



Mr. George R. Stetson then read a paper on 

 ' The Genetic Problem of Typography.' He 

 outlined the various claims made for Coster, 

 Fust, Guttenberg and SchoeSer, emphasizing 

 the great difficulty of finding sufficient evi- 

 dence to establish priority with certainty, and 

 pointing out the very divergent conclusions 

 to which the principal writers on this history 

 have come. He concluded with a description 

 of the Plantin Museum of Typography at 

 Antwerp. Charles K. Wead, 



Secretary. 



THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS. 



January 19, WOS.—'M.r. W. L. Sheldon pre- 

 sented a summary of the progress in the sci- 

 ence of ethics, since the publication of Dar- 

 win's 'Descent of Man,' in 1871. 



Two persons were elected to active mem- 

 bership. 



Felruary 2, 1903.~Dt. Tarleton H. Bean 

 delivered an illustrated lecture on ' The Sal- 

 mon and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska.' 



Dr. E. J. Terry reported on a case of right 

 aortic arch in man — of relatively rare occur- 

 rence — and by the aid of lantern slides and 

 blackboard diagrams indicated its peculiar 

 features and morphological significance with 

 reference to the circulatory system of the 

 embryo and of adults in lower groups of ver- 

 tebrates. 



One person was elected to active member- 

 ship. 



Felruary 16, i90S.— Professor A. W. Gree- 

 ley gave an account of experiments on proto- 

 plasm of variations in temperature and water 

 contents, in which it was shown that in the 

 case of certain alg^ and protozoa, and in the 

 eggs of some of the marine invertebrates, a 

 reduction of temperatui:e gave rise to par- 

 thenogenetic spore formation or egg segmen- 

 tation, as was also the case when water was 

 plasmolytically withdrawn from the cells. 



One person was elected to active member- 

 ship. 



