212 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXL Xo. 528. 



^Mathematical Congress held in Chicago, 

 were present at the meeting of the society 

 held in October of that year. They both 

 delivered addresses before the society and 

 expressed great interest in its work. 



By the spring of 1894 it was felt gen- 

 erally that the operations of the society had 

 assumed a national character, and a new 

 constitution was adopted providing for a 

 change of name from the New York Mathe- 

 matical Society to the American Mathemat- 

 ical Society. In June of the same year 

 the society undertook to provide means for 

 the publication of the papers read at the 

 Chicago congress the preceding year, and 

 arrangements were made for holding a 

 'summer meeting' in conjunction with the 

 Brooklyn meeting of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science. 



At the annual meeting held December, 



1894, Dr. Emory McClintock retired from 

 the presidency, being succeeded by Dr. 

 George W. Hill. At this meeting Dr. Mc- 

 Clintock delivered an address which was 

 published in the Bulletin for January, 



1895. It was entitled 'The Past and Fu- 

 ture of the Society' and contains an ac- 

 count of the society during the first six 

 years of its existence. T'^pon the occasion 

 of Dr. IVIcClintock's retirement from the 

 presidency the society adopted a resolution 

 expressing its appreciation of the great 

 services that he had rendered while pre- 

 siding officer, and its i-ecognition of the 

 fact that largely to liis initiative were due 

 the broadening of organization and exten- 

 sion of membership which made the society 

 properly representative of the matheiiiat- 

 ical interests of America. 



The next event of special importance in 

 the history of the society occurred in 189{). 

 Immediately after the summer meeting of 

 that year, which was held in connection 

 with the Buffalo meeting of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, the society's first 'colloquium' took 



place. Interesting and instructive courses 

 of lectures M'ere delivered by Professors 

 Bocher and Pierpont, and at the close of 

 the colloquium those participating in it 

 recommended that similar arrangements be 

 made periodically in connection with sub- 

 sequent summer meetings. In the same 

 year, for the regular October meeting of 

 the society was substituted a special meet- 

 ing at Princeton in connection with the 

 sesquicentennial celebration of Princeton 

 University. At that meeting the society 

 was addressed by Professor Klein and Pro- 

 fessor J. J. Thomson. 



In the spring of 1897 the Chicago sec- 

 tion of the society was established. At the 

 same time, it w^as determined to replace the 

 meetings held monthly in New York by 

 meetings held four times a year at inter- 

 vals of two months. The summer meeting 

 of 1897 was held at Toronto in connection 

 with the meeting of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science. It was 

 attended by a number of visitors from 

 Great Britain, among whom were Pro- 

 fessors Forsyth, Greenhill and Henrici. 



A colloquium was held in the summer 

 of 1898 at Harvard University. There was 

 much discussion among those attending it 

 in regard to the need of larger and better 

 facilities for the publication of mathemat- 

 ical researches. The following winter the 

 society proposed to the Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity that the American Journal of Math- 

 ematics should be enlarged and issued more 

 frequently, and that the society shoiald 

 be given a share in the editorial control 

 of the Journal. The society was. however, 

 unable to reach an agreement with the 

 Johns Hopkins University, and in April, 

 1899, the society determined to establish 

 an organ of its own for the publication of 

 the more important original papers pre- 

 sented at its meetings. The financial re- 

 sources of the society were not sufficient to 

 carry on the work already begun and at 



