SCIENCE 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 



OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 



FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



Friday, September 16, 1904. 



CONTENTS: 

 The Loiachevski Pri^e: Pkofessoe George 

 Bruce Halsted 3o3 



The Trophoblast : A Rejoinder: Professor 

 A. A. W. Hubrecht .167 



Scientific Books: — 

 Brigham on Geographic Influences in Ameri- 

 can History : F. V. Emerson 370 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 



Tlie Metric System: F. A. Haxsey. The 

 Song of Birds: F. A. L. Doctorates and 

 Fellouships: President David Starr 

 Jordan 373 



Special Articles: — 



Limitations of the Klincstat as an Instru- 

 ment for Scientific Research: Professor 

 Feedeeick C. Newcombe 376 



Quotations : — 



The Presidential Address before the British 

 Association 379 



An Ancient Fiction: Dr. Charles E. East- 

 man 380 



Scientific Notes and News 381 



University and Educational News 384 



MSS. mteuaed for publieatiou and books, etc., iDtended 

 for review should be sent to tbe Editor of Science, Garri- 

 soT-on-Hwdson, N. Y. 



THE LOBACHEVSKI PRIZE. 



The third award of the great Lobachev- 

 ski prize was the occasion for considering 

 particularly the achievements of two men 

 during the past five years. The first of 

 these is Professor Hilbert, of Goettingen; 

 the second, Professor Barbarin, of Bor- 

 deaux. 



The committee asked from the most dis- 

 tinguished of French mathematicians, 

 Poincare, a report on those works of Hil- 

 bert relevant to the decision. 



With French thrift, Poincare used as 

 the greater part of this report a review 

 of Hubert's 'Grundlagen' which had 

 already been published three times, two 

 parts of which I quoted in my St. Louis 

 address, to point out two errors (Science, 

 N. S., Vol. XIX., No. 480, pp. 401^13). 

 But the works to be considered included 

 others which had only appeared after that 

 re.view was written, so that Poincare was 

 compelled to recast and supplement this 

 review of his, and some of these additions 

 are of high interest. 



Our ideas, he says, on the origin and 

 scope of geometric verities have, since a 

 century, evolved in a very rapid way. 

 The creations of- Lobaehevski, of Bolyai, 

 of Riemann have inaugurated a new era. 

 Certes they have not discouraged the men, 

 only too numerous, who seek to demonstrate 

 the postulatum of Euclid. These, alas ! 

 nothing could discourage. But they have 

 convinced all the true savants of the 

 inanity of such an attempt. This was the 

 first result of the invention of the non- 

 Euclidean geometries. Lie pushed the 



