402 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
Mr. Peter Fireman then, by invitation, spoke on The deduc¬ 
tion of the magnitude of osmotic pressure according to the 
kinetic theory. He sought to prove that the laws governing 
osmotic pressure in solutions are identical with the laws of per¬ 
fect gases and follow directly from the kinetic theory. 
Mr. Briggs made some remarks on the paper. 
559th Meeting. December 6, 1902. 
President Rathbun in the chair. 
Fifty persons present. 
Announcement was made of the death of Mr. J. H. Osborne, 
a noted inventor in the art of photolithography and formerly a 
member of this Society, and of Mr. Henry Mitchell. 
Mr. Newcomb spoke briefly of his visit during the past sum¬ 
mer to Christiania to attend the convention of mathematicians 
held in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Abel’s birth. 
Mr. C. D. Walcott presented a paper on The development of 
the Carnegie Institution. He pointed out how its location in 
Washington is a case of natural development, tracing the growth 
of scientific organization in the city from the early Philosophical 
Society, through the separate societies, the Joint Committee, the 
Academy and the Memorial Association until plans for research 
were formulated clearly enough to attract Mr. Carnegie’s atten¬ 
tion. He said sixteen advisory committees, including forty-six 
members, had been appointed, whose confidentially printed re¬ 
ports, filling over 200 pages, had been presented to the trustees at 
their recent meeting. Some general principles, both of exclusion 
and inclusion have been adopted, special emphasis being laid on 
the man responsible for any research. [Not published.] 
Mr. H. W. Wiley then, by invitation, spoke on How to test 
the harmfulness of food-preservatives. He called attention to 
the enormous industrial importance of the subject and the diffi¬ 
culty of obtaining reliable results from experiments. The older 
methods of preservation were desiccation, sterilization by heat 
