614 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 355. 



of electrolytic dissociation, that I have felt com- 

 pelled to call attention to the real status of the 

 experimental facts underlying these deduc- 

 tions." 



J. L. H. 



The Pojmlar Science Monthly for October has 

 for its opening article ' The Progress of Science,' 

 by R. S. Woodward, being the address of the 

 retiring president of the American Association. 

 George Stuart Fullerton discusses ' Free-will ' 

 and the ' Credit for Good Actions ' and Alex- 

 ander McAdie presents some ' Fog Studies on 

 Mount Tamalpais,' hinting at the possibility of 

 dissipating such fogs as the one in which the 

 steamer Bio de Janeiro was lost. Hugh M. 

 Smith describjes ' The French Sardine Industry ' 

 pointing out incidentally improvements that 

 might be made in that of the United States. 

 ' The Late Epidemic of Smallpox in the United 

 States ' is considered by James Nevins Hyde 

 who makes a strong plea for vaccination. Ed- 

 ward Atkinson treats of ' Food and Land 

 Tenure,' considering that the free land tenure 

 of the United States is at the bottom of our 

 great agricultural development. The final 

 article is by W. Ramsay on ' The Inert Con- 

 stituents of the Atmosphere,' describing the 

 methods by which some of these have been dis- 

 covered. The number completes Vol. LIX. 

 and the index is appended. 



The American Naturalist for September con- 

 tains the third instalment of W. M. Wheeler's 

 important and interesting description of ' The 

 Compound and Mixed Nests of American Ants,' 

 which includes in the present part the slave- 

 keeping ants. The bulk of the number is 

 taken up with the seventeenth of the ' Synopses 

 of North American Invertebrates,' in which H. 

 S. Jennings treats of the Rotatoria, the paper 

 being illustrated by nine plates comprising 171 

 figures. 



The Museums Journal of Great Britain for 

 September contains a brief account of the work 

 of 'The International Zoological Congress,' 

 which includes some notes on the museums of 

 Berlin and Hamburg, a paper by H. M. Plat- 

 nauer, 'To Utilize Specialists,' and an account 

 of the ' Museum of Science and Art, Edin 

 burgh,' a very popular institution if one may 



judge by the annual attendance of 350,000. A 

 number of samples of labels used in the U. S. 

 National Museum are given and there are notes 

 concerning various museums and art galleries 

 in different parts of the world. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



NEW YORK ACADEMY OP SCIENCES, SECTION OF 

 ASTRONOMY, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. 



The section met on October 7, at the Chem- 

 ist's Club. Professor Wm. Hallock reported 

 that he had tried and failed to obtain permis- 

 sion of the Calumet and Hecla Company to 

 make measurements of underground tempera- 

 tures in their shaft at Keweenaw Point during 

 the summer. He described and exhibited be- 

 fore the Section a new and very simple form of 

 wind musical instrument which he found on 

 sale at the Buffalo Exposition. The instru- 

 ment w^as operated by blowing through the 

 nose, the mouth cavity of the operator acting 

 as the resonance chamber of the instrument. 

 The tone quality was very similar to that of a 

 flute. 



Professor J. K. Rees reported that the Astro- 

 nomical Department of Columbia had received 

 from the Lick observatory a number of star 

 photographs which were to be measured for 

 the determination of parallax. Professor Har- 

 old Jacoby reported upon some photographs of 

 stars near the celestial poles which had been 

 received by the department. 



Professor R. S. Woodward reported the 

 results of an investigation he had carried on 

 upon the effects of secular cooling and mete- 

 oric dust on the length of the terrestrial day. 

 His investigation showed that, due to secular 

 cooling, the length of the day will not change 

 or has not changed, as the case may be, by so 

 much as a half second in the first ten million 

 years after the initial epoch, and that the total 

 effect from secular cooling will accrue before 

 the effect from meteoric dust will begin to be 

 appreciable. 



Professor DeRemus gave a brief account of 

 the research laboratory in chemistry which had 

 been lately established at Schenectady, N. Y. 



F. L. Tufts, 

 Secretary. 



