378 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 349. 



with research in geographic science. He will 

 argue that geography deals with the forms of 

 the crust of the earth and the influence which 

 these forms exert on everything free to move 

 on the surface. In his presidential address to 

 Section F (Economic Science and Statistics) Sir 

 Robert Giflfen proposes to discuss the increase 

 in population during the last 100 years in the 

 chief European countries, in the United States, 

 and in the English-speaking colonies. Among 

 the topics referred to will be the changes in the 

 relative position of European States to each 

 other and to the United States in consequence 

 af the differences in the increase of their pop- 

 ulation ; the increasing dependence of other 

 European countries besides the United Kingdom 

 on supplies of food imported over sea, and the 

 question whether changes in the rate of growth 

 of population in recent years are likely to 

 modify in a material degree the present rela- 

 tive development of the countries in question. 

 Section G (Engineering) will be presided over 

 by Colonel R. E. Crompton, who will first deal 

 with the probable future development of pas- 

 senger and goods transport as affecting rail- 

 ways, tramways and ordinary roads, and will 

 then touch on the standardizing of parts of 

 machines to facilitate manufacture, concluding 

 with a consideration of the National Physical 

 Laboratory. 



In Section H (Anthropology) Professor D. J. 

 Cunningham, F.R.S., of Trinity College, Dub- 

 lin, will devote his address to a consideration of 

 the part which the brain has played in the evo- 

 lution of man, especially the structural 

 changes in the brain which have rendered the 

 associated movements required for articulate 

 speech possible, and to arguing that the ac- 

 quisition of speech has afforded the chief stim- 

 ulus to the general development of the brain. 

 In his presidential address to Section I (Physi- 

 ology), Professor McKendrick will briefly pass 

 in review the advance in our knowledge in this 

 branch of science during the past quarter of a 

 century ; and he then proposes to discuss some 

 of the problems of what may be called molec- 

 ular physiology, more especially the question 

 of how many organic molecules may be con- 

 tained in the smallest particle of living matter, 

 and whether in the ovum, for example, there 



is a suflBcient number of molecules to account 

 for the facts of hereditary transmission. Pro- 

 fessor I. Bayley Balfour is president of Section 

 K (Botany). He will deal in his address with 

 the construction of flowering plants, with the 

 intention of showing that they owe their posi- 

 tion as the dominant vegetation of the present 

 epoch to their having solved best the problem 

 of adequate water-carriage. The new Section 

 L (Educational Science) is under the presidency 

 of Sir John Gorst. The subject of his address 

 has not been announced. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



The Peale Accademia de Lincei of Rome has 

 elected the following foreign members : Emile 

 Picard, professor of higher algebra at the Sor- 

 bonne ; Edward C. Pickering, director of the 

 Harvard College Observatory ; Samuel P. Lang- 

 ley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution ; 

 J. H. Van't Hoff, professor of general chem- 

 istry in the University of Berlin ; Heinrich Karl 

 Rosenbusch, director of the Mineralogical and 

 Geological Institute of the University of Heidel- 

 burg ; Charles D. Walcott, director of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey ; Theodor Engelmann, of the 

 Imperial Board of Health at Berlin ; and Charles 

 Richet, professor of physiology at the Univer- 

 sity of Paris. 



On the application of the Government of Vic- 

 toria, Australia, for a director of agriculture, 

 officers of the U. S. Department of Agriculture 

 have recommended Professor B. T. Galloway, 

 chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and Pro- 

 fessor Willett M. Hays, agriculturist of the 

 Minnesota Experiment Station, 



Dr. Santos Fernandez, president of the 

 third Pan American Congress held recently at 

 Havana, has been presented by the members of 

 the medical profession in that city with a gold 

 medal in recognition of his efforts to advance 

 medical science in Cuba. 



The Alverenga prize of the College of Physi- 

 cians and Surgeons of Philadelphia has been 

 awarded to Dr. George W. Crile, of Cleveland, 

 Ohio, for his essay entitled ' an experimental 

 and clinical research into certain problems re- 

 lating to surgical operations. 



The Belgian government has awarded its an- 



