THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



199 



THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS AT MIN- 

 NEAPOLIS AND ELSEWHERE 

 The convocation week meeting of 

 the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science and the affiliated 

 scientific societies was held this year 

 at Minneapolis beginning on the eve- 

 ning of December 27. The attendance 

 of scientific men was in the neighbor- 

 hood of 1,200, which is about half as 

 large as at the recent meetings in 

 eastern cities. Although the number 

 of men of science in the central states 

 is continually inereasing, and the cen- 

 ter of scientific popula.ion will soon 

 coincide with the center of the general 

 population, Minneapolis is in the far 

 northwest of the region, and it is a 

 considerable railway journey from the 

 seats of other universities. It is well 

 known that the distance from the east 

 to the west is psychologically longer 

 than the reverse. There were at Min- 

 neapolis about a hundred scientific 

 men from the eastern seaboard. 



The chemists had as usual the 

 largest attendance and the most exten- 

 sive program. Next came the zoolo- 

 gists and botanists. The geologists 

 had a competing meeting elsewhere; 

 the anthropologists did not meet, and 

 the section of social and economic 

 science had a very small attendance. 

 The national societies devoted to these 

 subjects and to engineering do not 

 meet with the association and it is 

 difficult to decide what should be done 

 in such cases. Probably the best solu- 

 tion is to have no program of special 

 papers, but to plan one or two sessions 

 of general interest, such as the papers 

 on aviation arranged this year by the 

 officers of the section of mechanical 

 science and engineering. 



The numter of papers on the pro- 

 gram to be presented before each sec- 



tion of the association or the corre- 

 sponding affiliated societies was as 

 follows: 



Mathematics and astronomy .... 34 



Physics 40 



Chemistry 178 



Mechanical science and engineer- 

 ing 21 



Geology and geography 24 



Zoology 122 



Botany 81 



Anthropology and psychology ... 41 

 Social and economic science .... 8 

 Physiology and experimental medi- 

 cine 13 



Education 30 



Total "592 



At the opening session the retiring 

 president, Dr. David Starr Jordan — 

 distinguished equally as a zoologist, a 

 university president, an advocate of 

 peace and in other good causes — after 

 introducing the president of the meet- 

 ing, Professor A. A. Michelson, of the 

 University of Chicago — one of the most 

 eminent of living men of science — gave 

 ; his address, entitled " The Making of 

 . a Darwin." Dr. Jordan argued that 

 the fundamental elements in the ma- 

 king of an investigator are the orig- 

 inal material, to which we may look 

 to heredity alone; meeting nature at 

 first hand and meeting her early and 

 persistently, and the personal inspira- 

 tion and enthusiasm derived from some 

 great teacher. It was refreshing to 

 near a university president characterize 

 at their true value the machinery and 

 paraphernalia of the modern univer- 

 sity. Perhaps the address was not so 

 judicial as might have been expected 

 in view of the double office held by the 

 speaker, but it was none the less inter- 

 esting on that account. The group of 

 1 zoologists drawn to the Johns Hopkins 



