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. 



Editorial Committee: S. Newcomb, Mathematics; E. S. Woodward, Mechanics; E. C, Pickering, 

 Astronomy ; T. C Mendenhall, Physics ; E. H. Thurston, Engineering ; Ira Eemsen, Chemistry ; 

 Charles D. Walcott, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; Henry F. Osborn, Paleon- 

 tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. Hart Merrtam, Zoology ; S. H. Scudder, Entomology ; C. E. 

 Bessey, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

 ditch, Physiology ; J. S. Billings, Hygiene ; William H. Welch, Pathol- 

 ogy ; J. McKeen Cattell, Psychology ; J. W. Powell, Anthropology. 



Feiday, September 27, 1901. 



CONTENTS : 



Prohlems and Possibilities of Systematic Botany : 



Professor B. L. Eobinson 465 



The American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science : — 

 The Change of Front in Education : Professor 



Calvin M. Woodward 474 



Report of Section C, Chemistry : PROFESSOR 



William McPherson 482 



3Iembership of the American Association 492 



Scientific Books : — 



Ganong^s Laboratory Course in Plant Physiology ; 

 MacDougaV s Text-booh of Plant Physiology : 



Professor Charles E. Bessey. Notes 494 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 



Weather Control: Professor W. S. Frank- 

 lin. Review of two Recent Papers on Bahaman 

 Corals: Dr. T. Wayland Vaxjghan. Two 

 Unknown Works of Rafinesque : William J. 



Fox 496 



Recent Zoo-paleontology : H. F. 498 



Reports of Foreign Museums : H. A. L 499 



Scientific Notes and News 500 



University and Educational News 504 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 

 for review sliould be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 

 fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 



PR0BLE3IS AND POSSIBILITIES OF SYSTE3I- 

 ATIC BOTANY* 



These annual summer meetings of our 

 Society, occurring as they do between the 

 close of one year's academic activity and the 

 beginning of the next, offer an excellent 

 opportunity not merely for profitable retro- 

 spects, but for such interchange of ideas as 

 may stimulate renewed effort. The sum- 

 mary of results achieved, although a natural 

 and desirable part in the proceedings of an 

 assembly of this sort, is subject to a growing 

 difficulty from the ever-increasing techni- 

 cality of modern research. We live in an 

 age of great detail and at a time when our 

 subject has branched into many narrowing 

 paths of investigation. Thus, even at a 

 meeting of highly trained botanists, there 

 is less common ground than we could wish, 

 and it is scarcely possible, without the cer- 

 tain ennui of most of our colleagues, to pre- 

 sent the finer results in those particular 

 researches which may have stirred us indi- 

 viduall}' to great enthusiasm. On the other 

 hand, the aims and methods in our varying 

 lines are by no means so unlike, and afford 

 an ever-fertile field for discussion and com- 

 parison. It may be further maintained, in 

 defiance of any suspicion of prejudice, that 

 the aims and methods of systematic botany 

 should command an especial and very gen- 



* Delivered at Denver, August 28, as an address 

 by the retiring President of the Botanical Society of 

 America. 



