AMERICAN ASSOCIATION TOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 63 



turbed by a small magnet. If we draw a circle of any diameter with the mag- 

 net for centre, and join those points in which the circle cuts the lines of force, the 

 straight lines so drawn will be parallel and equi-distant, and it is easily shewn 

 that they represent tha actual lines of force in a paramagnetic, diamagnetic, or 

 crystallized body, according to the nature of the original lines, the size of the 

 circle, &<s. 



ON THE FORM OF LIGHTNING. 



Mr. J. Nasmyth read a paper to the effect that the form of lightning as exhibited 

 by nature was an irregular curved line, shooting from the earth below to the 

 cloud above, and often continued from the cloud downwards again to some distant 

 point of the earth ; and this appearance was the result of the rapidly-shooting 

 point of light, which constituted the true -lightning, leaving on the eye the impres- 

 sion of the path it traced. These views led to much discussion in the Section. 

 (To be continued.) 



AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



The Tenth Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 

 was opened at Albany, in the Capitol of the State of New York, on the 20th of 

 August, by Professor James B. Hall. A deputation from Montreal was intro- 

 duced to the association on the following day, and Principal Dawson of McGill 

 College, in the name of the deputation, communicated the invitation to the Asso- 

 ciation, — which at a subsequent meeting was accepted, — that the next meeting 

 should be held in Montreal. 



The American Association is still on a much smaller scale than its British pro- 

 totype ; and iu some respects presents characteristic differences. The arrange- 

 ments of business, which are left in the British Association exclusively in the 

 hands of the Central Committee, were at Albany repeatedly made the subject of 

 discussion by the whole body; and a good deal of time was lost in debates in gen- 

 eral meeting, upon questions of order and constitutional forms, little calculated to 

 interest those who had been attracted from a distance by the desire to listen to 

 the communications of the distinguished representatives of American Science 

 assembled on the occasion. Another characteristic, which could scarcely fail to 

 strike those who are familiar with the proceedings of the British Association, 

 was the absence of that numerous body of youthful aspirants for a place among 

 the ranks of the Scientific Legion, which constitutes so valuable a feature in the 

 Sections at Home. Already, chairs in the Colleges of England, Scotland, and 

 Ireland, are filled by those who owed their first introduction to the Scientific 

 world to the Sections of the British Association ; and not the least of the benefits 

 traceable to that institution pertain to this important feature of its organization, 

 which has been so employed as to invite the younger students of Science into the 

 arena, and stimulate them to compete with those whose rank has long been estab- 

 lished by universal consent. The American Association on the contrary seems 

 chiefly composed of the veterans of Science; nor was there wanting some appear- 

 ance of an apprehension of any greater infusion of the popular element, such as 

 the influence of the political institutions of that Country on all large and Bome- 



