February 10, 1005.] 



SCIENCE. 



235 



tively identified with the society for many 

 years and has served on the board of man- 

 agers since 1897. At the same meeting Mr. 

 Henry Gannett, chief geographer of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey was elected vice-president 

 of the society. Mr. Gannett was one of the 

 incorporators of the society in 1888, and has 

 served continuously on the board since that 

 date. At the same meeting Hon. P. 

 Austin, chief of the Bureau of Statistics, was 

 elected secretary, Mr. John Joy Edson, presi- 

 dent of the Washington Loan and Trust Co., 

 was elected treasurer; Gilbert H. GrosvenoT, 

 editor; and Miss Eliza E. Scidmore, foreign 

 secretary. 



The society is now entering upon its eight- 

 eenth year. It has a total membership of 

 3,400, of whom 1,125 are residents of Wash- 

 ington, and 2,275 distributed throughout every 

 state in the union and in nearly every country 

 in the world. Its object is the increase and 

 diffusion of geographic knowledge which it 

 accomplishes : 



1. Encouraging worthy plans for explora- 

 tion. The society has sent one expedition to 

 Alaska, another to Mont Pelee, Martinique, 

 and La Souffriere, St. Vincent, and has been 

 associated with several Arctic and other expe- 

 ditions. At present its representative has 

 direction of the scientific work of the Ziegler 

 Polar Expedition, and is second in command. 



2. By publishing an illustrated monthly 

 magazine, the National Oeographic Magazine 

 and many large maps. 



3. By an annual series of thirty addresses 

 delivered in Washington by prominent men. 

 The speakers this year have included Hon. 

 John W. Foster, Wm. E. Curtis, Baron 

 Kentaro Kaneko. Charles Emory Smith, F. H, 

 Newell, GifTord Pinchot, G. K. Gilbert, etc. 



4. By the maintenance of a library. 



The society has now been established in its 

 handsome new home, Hubbard Memorial Hall, 

 for nearly a year. It was erected as a me- 

 morial to the first president of the society by 

 the family of Mr. Hubbard. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 After twenty years of service as United 

 States commissioner of labor. Dr. Carroll D. 



Wright retired from that office on January 31, 

 and went to Worcester, Mass., to assume the 

 presidency of Clark College. His successor, 

 Dr. Charles P. Neill, took charge of the 

 Bureau of Labor on February 1. 



Fish Commissioner George M. Bowers has 

 been notified of President Roosevelt's desire 

 that he remain at the head of the Bureau of 

 Fisheries during the next administration. 

 The president has several times expressed his 

 approval of the manner in which the affairs 

 of the bureau were being conducted, and it is 

 reported that he recently reiterated his satis- 

 faction, remarking that all he asked for the 

 next four years was a continuance of the 

 energetic and zealous work which has char- 

 acterized Commissioner Bowers's seven years 

 of service. 



Professor A. Auwers, the eminent astron- 

 omer of Berlin, has been elected an honorary 

 member of the St. Petersburg Academy of 

 Sciences. 



The cross of officer of the Legion of Honor 

 has been conferred by the French government 

 on Dr. Otto Nordenskjold for his South Polar 

 explorations. 



The Societe Nationale d' Agriculture de 

 France has awarded to Professor Wm. B. 

 Alwood, of Charlottesville, Va., a diploma and 

 silver medal for his recent work in pomology, 

 especially as relates to the fermentation of 

 by-products from apples. A gold medal was 

 also awarded the exhibit on Q^nological Tech- 

 nology prepared by Professor Alwood for the 

 St. Louis Exposition. 



Mr. N. H. Darton, of the U. S. Geological 

 Survey, has been awarded a gold medal for his 

 geological model of the Black Hills, exhibited 

 by the South Dakota Commission at their 

 section in the Mines and Mining building, at 

 the St. Louis Exposition. 



Dr. G. B. Halsted's ' Rational Geometry,' 

 reviewed in Science last week, is being trans- 

 lated into French by Professor C. Barbarin, 

 president of the Societe des sciences physiques 

 et naturelles de Bordeaux. His address on 

 the ' Message of the Non-Euclidean Geom- 

 etry,' given as vice-president of the American 



