62 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. VI., No. 129. 



ciation of the highest character and dignity, 

 the meetings of which, for man}' years past, 

 have been attended by the ablest men of the 

 profession. Great benefits, as well as great 

 pleasure, were anticipated from their assem- 

 bling in this country. The American medical 

 association, having a national name and a na- 

 tional constituency, appointed a select and 

 judicious committee of arrangements ; and this 

 committee, having made good progress in their 

 plans, and having secured the promises of co- 

 operation from a large number of the profes- 

 sion, reported what they had done to the 

 American medical association at its recent 

 meeting in New Orleans. The report was re- 

 ceived with unexpected disapprobation, in 

 which it is not too much to say that personal 

 and geographical jealousies were apparent. 

 Another committee was appointed, which sub- 

 sequently met at Chicago, and ' upset ' nearly 

 all that had been done so carefully by the first 

 committee. Now, it appears that the first 

 committee, though its work was 'upset,' com- 

 mands, in fact, much more confidence from 

 the profession than the second. The gentle- 

 men invited by the new committee to co-operate 

 have begun forthwith to make excuse. In 

 Washington, Baltimore, Boston, and Philadel- 

 phia, — and perhaps in other places from which 

 we have not heard, — men of the highest pro- 

 fessional standing and personal character 

 decline to act with the revolutionary part3^ 

 Their cards have been made public, and have 

 begun to attract attention from the daily press. 



It now looks as if the revolters would not 

 command the situation. Certainly men of 

 eminence abroad will be slow to accept an in- 

 vitation to an international congress upon this 

 side of the Atlantic, if a large number of the 

 most eminent phj'sicians snd surgeons of this 

 country, widely known professionally as well 

 as personall}', have been treated with discour- 

 tesy in the preliminary arrangements, and 

 are therefore compelled to stand aloof. It 

 does not look as if the new committee could 

 enlist the general co-operation essential to suc- 

 cess, and particularly because their authority 



is exercised in what appears to be the spirit of 

 hostile reflection upon measures already ini- 

 tiated, against which no good objection has 

 been made. The only solution of the problem 

 seems to be, for the second committee to ac- 

 knowledge their inability to form a govern- 

 ment, and stand aside, allowing the original 

 committee to go forward and perfect their plans, 

 either in the name of the American medical 

 association or in the name of the profession at 

 large, by some concerted action, which there 

 is time enough to mature. The latter alterna- 

 tive seems to us most likely to be successful. 



During the past decade. Professor Elias 

 Loomis of Yale college has read a series of 

 twenty-one papers, entitled ' Contributions to 

 meteorology,' before the National academy of 

 sciences. The material for these studies has 

 been drawn largely from the publications of 

 the signal-service, and especially from the 

 daily weather-maps, which now present so 

 great an accumulation of observations that 

 extremel}' accurate conclusions can be drawn 

 from them. The results thus gained, as pub- 

 lished in the American journal of science^ 

 constitute the chief source of generalized 

 knowledge that a student can now consult con- 

 cerning the behavior of C3^clonic storms in 

 this country, on which daily weather-changes 

 depend so largely. The work has been 

 throughout characterized by careful and dis- 

 criminating methods, and forms as excellent an 

 example of inductive research as can be placed 

 before a student for a model. When put to- 

 gether, the ' contributions ' now make a con- 

 siderable volume, and form a fitting sequel to 

 the early papers on the same subjects, written 

 by Professor Loomis nearl}' half a century ago. 



In the recent report of the Yale-college 

 observatory^ Dr. Waldo complains, and appar- 

 ently with great justice, that the legislature of 

 Connecticut, at its last session, suddenly ter- 

 minated its contract with the observatory ' for 

 time-service ' to the state at large. He saj^s 

 that this action was taken without a hearing 



