486 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 18. 



teachers of schools of every grade through- 

 out the country, urging adoption of meas- 

 ures in their several spheres for diflusing 

 information as to the present state of the 

 world's metrology and recent progress in 

 its reform, and specially for instructing the 

 rising generation in these matters, to the 

 end that our people may be early and fully 

 prepared to act intelligently on the impor- 

 tant questions connected with weights and 

 measures. 



2. By invoking the aid and cooperation 

 of bodies organized to consider questions of 

 scientific or social interest, boards of trade, 

 chambers of commerce, societies of engi- 

 neers, industrial associations, professions 

 and trades, in this country and elsewhere. 



3. By specially ui'ging scientific bodies to 

 open communications with similar bodies 

 in other countries, with a view to general 

 agreement on values to be henceforth uni- 

 formly given to units of measure and points 

 of reference which particularly concern 

 them . i. e., to the so-called constants of sci- 

 ence. 



4. By memoriahzing Congress in favor of 

 laws requiring the use, in certain depart- 

 ments of the public service, of metric weights 

 and measures, wherever such legislation 

 may tend to reheve commerce of some of 

 its burdens, to facilitate international com- 

 munication, to promote international juris- 

 prudence, and to familiarize our own peo- 

 ple with the benefits of that system of met- 

 rology, with the least interference with 

 their ordinary habits of thought or daily 

 business. 



5. By direct appeals to the people through 

 the public press, and by circulating, so far as 

 means allow, books and documents inform- 

 ing the pubhc of the defects of the common 

 system of weights and measui-es, the means 

 most proper for its amendment, and the 

 great advantages which the acceptance of a 

 universal system would insure to all mau- 

 kiud. J. K. R. 



THE INTERNATIONAL 3IATIIEMATICAL 

 CONGBESS. 



Professor A. Vasiliev, President of the 

 Phj^sico-mathematical Society of Kasan," 

 Russia, has sent me a document prepared 

 by him for the Minister of Public Instruc- 

 tion, with a request that I translate such 

 part of it from the Russian as bears on the 

 founding of an International Mathematical 

 Congress, and make it known in America. 



This is in substance as follows : 



After recapitulating the action of the 

 French Association for the Advancement of 

 Science at Caen (August 14, 1894) [already 

 translated by me and published on pp. 21-22 

 of the Bulletin of the American Mathemat- 

 ical Society, October, 1894] , he gives the res- 

 olution offered by me that very same day, 

 August 14, 1894, for their signatures to all 

 the members of the American Mathemat- 

 ical Society present at the Brooklyn meet- 

 ing, and signed unanimously, which was as 

 follows : " The undersigned members of the 

 American Mathematical Society present at 

 its summer meeting, 1894, take this method 

 of expressing their cordial approval of a 

 series of International Congresses of Math- 

 ematicians to take place from time to time, 

 as suggested by A. Vasiliev and C. A. 

 Laisant." The names of the signers may 

 be found on page 290 of Vol. I., of the 

 American Mathematical Monthly. I ex- 

 plained the plan as contemplating a reunion 

 preparatoire at Kasan in 1896, a eongrh con- 

 stihiant in Belgium or Switzerland in 1897, 

 which perhaps might fix the First Interna- 

 tional Congress at Paris in 1900. 



Professor Vasiliev then goes ou to state 

 the decisive step taken by the deutsche Matlie- 

 matikei'- Vereinigung in a reunion at A^ienna, 

 September, 1894. It was there unanimously 

 resolved to take part in the organizing Con- 

 gress. The action was as follows : 



" Concerning future International Con- 

 gresses, the Mathematiker- Vereinigung de- 

 cides in principle to participate, and charges 



