280 



SCIENGE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 88. 



AMERICAN ASSOCIA TION FOB THE AD VANCE- 

 MENT OF SCIENCE : FOBTY-FIFTH 3IEET- 



ING, BUFFALO, AUGUST 24-^9, 1896. 

 The foTirtli Buffalo meeting of the Amer- 

 ican Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, began on Saturday, August 24th ^ 

 1896, with the meeting of the Council at 

 noon, in the Iroquois Hotel, with rather 

 more than usual of that body present. The 

 first general session of the Association was 

 held at 10 o'clock Monday, and the last at 

 8 o'clock on Friday evening. 



On Tuesday evening a reception was 

 given to the Association by the ladies of 

 Buffalo in the rooms of the Twentieth Cen- 

 tury Club. The Buffalo Club extended the 

 privileges of its house to all members dur- 

 ing the week. Thursday afternoon, August 

 27th, the Geologists were entertained at the 

 Idlewood Club, at the mouth of 18-Mile 

 Creek, a noted fossil collecting ground. On 

 Friday, August 28th, the Botanists were 

 taken ten miles up the Canadian lake shore 

 to Point Abino, where the Section was the 

 guests of the Point Abino Association. The 

 grand trip of the session was a general com- 

 plimentary excursion for the Association to 

 Niagara Falls, on Saturday, August 29th. 



The new arrangement as to time seems to 

 have been generally satisfactory, and is de- 

 cidedly advantageous in permitting the sec- 

 tions to have sessions for four full days 

 without interruption. The attendance this 

 year was not large, owing doubtless to the 

 economy-provoking condition of political 

 affairs. The registration was 330. 110 new 

 members were elected and 83 members 

 were elected fellows. Horatio Hale, of 

 Clinton, Ont., upon nomination by Section 

 H, was made a life fellow, and Wolcott 

 Gibbs, Professor Emeritus in Harvard Uni- 

 versity, was elected an honorary fellow. 

 Four foreign associates were elected: Victor 

 Gutzu, of Bucharest, Koumania, sent by 

 his government to investigate petroleum 

 products; Seiryo Mine, of Japan, sent by 



his government to investigate long distance 

 transmission of electrical power; Miss Mary 

 Foster, member of the Geological Society of 

 London, and J. Bishop Tingle, of Aberdeen, 

 Scotland. 



Most of the officers of the Association 

 were present. Vice-President Wm. E. 

 Story, chairman of Section A, was detained 

 by sickness in his family; the untimely 

 death of Capt. John G. Bourke created a 

 vacancy in the secretaryship of Section H, 

 as did the journey to Greenland of Prof. A. 

 C. Gill in that of Section E. Alex. Mac- 

 farlane, of South Bethlehem, Pa., was 

 elected vice-president and chairman of Sec- 

 tion A; Wm. North Rice and Geo. H, Per- 

 kins were elected secretaries of Sections E 

 and H respectively. 



The first session was called to order by 

 the retiring president, Edward W. Morley, 

 of Cleveland, who introduced the president- 

 elect, Edw. D. Cope, of Philadelphia, who 

 called upon Bishop Charles H. Fowler, D. 

 D., to pronounce the invocation. The As- 

 sociation was welcomed by a brief address 

 by Mayor Jewett, on behalf of the city, and 

 by Dr. Roswell Park, President of the Buf- J 

 falo Society of Natural Sciences, on behalf ■ 

 of that body. President Cope responded to 

 the welcome and took occasion to speak of 

 the characteristics of a scientific career. In 

 the afternoon the eight addresses of the vice- 

 presidents were delivered. These will be 

 published in this Journal. In the evening 

 the address of the retiring president (pub- 

 lished in the last number of this Journal) 

 was given before a large audience. 



A communication regarding the metric 

 system was referred to the Chairman of the 

 Committee on Standards of Measurement, 

 President T. C. Mendenhall. Later that 

 committee presented the following report 

 which was adopted : 



Besolved, That the A. A. A. S. is now, as it always 

 has been, earnestly in favor of reform in weights and 

 measures, and it urges upon the Congress of the 



