Ediwrial CommenU 123 
•dollars on the average are expended by every one who attends 
one of these meetings for fifteen hours and a half of reading 
and discussion of papers. So much for the actual individual 
participation in the meeting. 
But it may be said that the seeming discrepancy between the 
expenditure of time and the compensation for it is corrected by 
the publication of the volume of Proceedings whei-ein the gist 
of all the best of what has been written (though without the 
discussions which are often more important than the papers) is 
permanently preserved as a record. 
Let us see how far this is realized in actual fact, and for this 
purpose let us take the last volume of the Proceedings issued 
by the A. A. A. S., that is, the volume of the thirty-sixth meet- 
ing held in New York, August 10, 1S87. 
This volume contains 368 pages counting everything num- 
bered with Arabic numerals, besides 98 pages of preliminary 
matter numbered with lower case Roman numerals. This latter 
comprises ten pages of title and contents; one page of officers 
of the meeting; one page, officers of the council; pages xiii to 
xvii inclusive (five pages) of local committees of the meeting; 
two pages of special committees of the Association; four pages 
of past meetings and officers of the Association (to page xxiv); 
one page of the act of incorporation; eight pages of constitution 
of the Association; pp. xxv to xcviii inclusive (seventv-four 
pages) of patrons, (two-thirds of whom are patronesses), mem- 
bers, fellows, and deceased members. Then begins the record 
of science proper. Of this, forty-four pages are devoted to the 
admirable address of Prof. E. S. Morse. Following this are 
eleven pages of the report of the committee on indexing chemi- 
•cal literature, and one j^age of the report of the committee "on 
anatomical nomenclature, with special reference to the brain." 
Officers of Section A take a page. Eighteen papers take 
eight pages, making less than an average of half a page to a 
paper. Ten of them are printed by title, that most useful form 
for persons who wish to learn something of the subject. 
This brings us to page sixty-seven. The officers of Section 
B. [Physics] occupy a page; the address of the vice-president, 
Prof. Anthony, takes ten. Twenty-two pages following the 
address hold thirty-eight papers, of which all but fourteen con- 
sist of nothino- but a title. 
