SCIENCE. 
109 
SCIENCE: 
A Weekly Record of Scientific 
Progress. 
JOHN MICHELS, Editor. 
Published at 
229 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
P. O. Box 3838. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1880. 
THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 
We cordially congratulate the managers of the Amer- 
ican Association for the Advancement of Science, 
on the very thorough success which has attended its 
twenty-ninth annual meeting, held last week at Boston. 
We have in this issue devoted nearly the whole 
of our space to chronicling its proceedings, and we 
draw special attention to the masterly address of the 
retiring President, Professor George F. Barker, which 
we present in full. 
The address of welcome delivered by the venerable 
Professor William B. Rogers, L. L. D., will also be 
read with interest ; he traces the history of the Asso- 
ciation from its cradle, when it was called the Asso- 
ciation of American Naturalists and Geologists, to 
its high position at this moment, when, as he 
hopefully said, it may be even fairly on its 
way to overtake the British Association, which has 
a roll of membership of 3,500 persons, and an income 
of $12,500, and at the same time x, 000 life members. 
The success of the present meeting, and the addi- 
tion of nearly six hundred new members, would seem 
to warrant the most brilliant anticipations for the 
future of the Association ; and if its members follow 
the excellent advice of Professor Rogers, and do what- 
ever is in their power to “ quicken scientific thought, 
to accumulate scientific facts and investigate scien- 
tific laws,” and generally to advance science, the 
result must elevate this Association to a position 
second to no other in the civilized world. 
We are also reminded by Professor Rogers that 
while the chief function of the Association is to ad- 
vance the progress of science; the term advance- 
ment necessarily implies diffusion, it would, therefore, 
appear an appropriate moment to speak of the value 
of this Journal in this connection. In addition to 
our report in this issue the addresses of Professor 
Hall, of Washington, and Professor Agassiz will 
be published in full. Of the two hundred and 
eighty papers read before the Association, some 
will be published by us verbatim , commencing next 
week with that of Mr. Alexander Graham Bell on his 
new instrument, the Photophone, illustrated with 
twelve drawings, placed at our disposal by Mr. Bell; 
and of the other papers, we hope to give extracts of 
the most important. 
If, then, the advancement of science necessarily 
implies its diffusion, we may, with justice, claim for 
this journal some credit in the great work, as Professor 
Rogers said, in sowing the seeds of science as widely 
as possible through the world, waking up in all quar- 
ters those latent spirits, whose inborn talent and ten- 
dencies will hereafter blossom and fructify in scientific 
results. 
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE- 
MENT OF SCIENCE. 
The twenty-ninth meeting of this Association met at 
Boston, Mass., on the 25th of last month, under the presi- 
dency of Professor Lewis H. Morgan, of Rochester, N. Y. 
Professor George F. Barker having called the meeting to 
order, and introduced the President elect, the proceedings 
commenced by an address of welcome from Professor Wil- 
liam B. Rogers, L. L. D., President of the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology. After a few preliminary remarks, 
Professor Rogers continued as follows: 
The American Association for the Advancement of Sci- 
ence has never yet held a meeting in this city of Franklin, 
and I may say, also, the city of Bowditch, not to mention 
the long line of other scientific worthies, prominent among 
whom is our great instructor, our adopted citizen, Louis 
Agassiz. It seems a fitting place for such an association to 
convene. Its spirit, its institutions, its history, its habits 
and sympathies, all favor such a reunion between its citi- 
zens and the advocates and votaries of science. It was my 
good fortune, if it is a good fortune of any man to be able 
to date back his life for a long period of years, to have 
been familiar with the cradle of this institution in the form 
in which it first presented itself as the Association of Ameri- 
can Naturalists and Geologists. This, however, was not 
by any means the earliest congress of science assembled in 
the world. The origination of this thought of a parlia- 
mentary annual meeting of scientific men seems properly 
to belong to a great German philosopher and speculator (?), 
who as early as 1822 organized the German Association for 
the Advancement of Science. For eight or nine years this 
example was not followed, but in 1S31 Brewster, aided by 
Brougham, established the great British Association for 
the Advancement of Science, which we are to regard as 
the parent institution from which we have sprung. This 
British association, meeting in the ancient city of York in 
1831, had its annual assemblings for a series of years in all 
the great capitals and some of the secondary cities in Great 
Britain. Faithfully administering to the needs and stimu- 
lating the energies of scientific inquiry, and publishing its 
annual solid quarto, which is a library representing the 
progress of physical and natural science of that time com- 
parable to any that can be presented on the shelves of any 
collection of books in the world. Now this British asso- 
ciation is holding to-day its fiftieth annual meeting; and 
now, in the afternoon of its assembling, I can imagine 
clearly in my mind’s eye some of those great dignitaries of 
science that are there assembled. I can think of Sir Joseph 
Hooker, jof Sir William Thomson, of Huxley, of Tyndal, 
of Balfour Stewart, and of all the great worthies that illus- 
trate physical, mathematical and natural science for the last 
generation ; and as I look back on the records preceding 
