Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/143

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FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE.
135

Meyer, A. R. The Distribution of the Negritos in the Phillppine Islands and Elsewhere. Dresden (Saxony): Stengel & Co. Pp. 92.

Nicholson, H. H., and Avery, Samuel. Laboratory Exercises with Outlines for the Study of Chemistry, to accompany any Elementary Text. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 134. 60 cents.

Scharff, R. F. The History of the European Fauna. New York: Imported by Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 3.54. $1.50.

Schleicher, Charles, and Schull, Duren. Rhenish Prussia. Samples of Special Filtering Papers. New York: Eimer & Amend, agents.

Sharpe, Benjamin F. An Advance in Measuring and Photographing Sounds. United States Weather Bureau. Pp. 18, with plates.

Shinn, Milicent W. Notes on the Development of a Child. Parts III and IV. (University of California Studies.) Pp. 224.

Shoemaker, M. M. Quaint Corners of Ancient Empires, Southern India, Burmah, and Manila. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 212.

Smith, Orlando J. A Short View of Great Questions. New York: The Brandur Company, 220 Broadway. Pp. 75.

Smith, Walter. Methods of Knowledge. An Essay in Epistemology. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 340. $1.25.

Southern, The, Magazine. Monthly. Vol. I, No. 1. August, 1899. Pp. 203. 10 cents. $1 a year.

Suter, William N. Handbook of Optics. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 209. $1.

Tarde, G. Social Laws. An Outline of Sociology. With a Preface by James Mark Baldwin. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 213. $1.25.

Uline, Edwin B. Higinbothamia. A New Genus, and other New Dioscoreaceæ, New Amaranthaceæ. (Field Columbian Museum, Chicago Botanical Series.) Pp. 12.

Underwood, Lucien M. Molds, Mildews, and Mushrooms. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 227, with 9 plates. $1.50.

United States Civil-Service Commission. Fifteenth Report, July 1, 1897, to June 30, 1898. Pp. 736. Washington.



Fragments of Science.

The Dover Meeting of the British Association.—While the attendance on the meeting of the British Association at Dover was not large—the whole number of members being 1,403, of whom 127 were ladies—the occasion was in other respects eventful and one of marked interest. The papers read were, as a rule, of excellent quality, and the interchange of visits with the French Association was a novel feature that might bear many repetitions. The president, Sir Michael Foster, presented, in his inaugural address, a picture of the state of science one hundred years ago, illustrating it by portraying the conditions to which a body like the association meeting then at Dover would have found itself subject, and suggesting the topics it would have discussed. The period referred to was, however, that of the beginning of the present progress, and, after remarking on what had been accomplished in the interval, the speaker drew a very hopeful foreview for the future. Besides the intellectual triumphs of science, its strengthening discipline, its relation to politics, and the "international brotherhood of science" were brought under notice in the address. In his address as president of the Physical Section, Prof. J. H. Poynting showed how physicists are tending toward a general agreement as to the nature of the laws in which they embody their discoveries, of the explanations they give, and of the hypotheses they make, and, having considered what the form and terms of this agreement should be, passed to a discussion of the limitations of physical science. The subject of Dr. Horace T. Brown's Chemical Section address was The Assimilation of Carbon by the Higher Plants. Sir William H. White, president of the Section of Mechanical Science, spoke on Steam Navigation at High Speeds. President Adam Sedgwick addressed the Zoölogical Section on Variation and some Phenomena connected with Reproduction and Sex; Sir John Murray, the Geographical Section on The Ocean Floor; and Mr. J. N. Langley, the Physiological Section on the general relations of the motor nerves to the several tissues of the body, especially of those which run to tissues over which we have little or no control. The president of the Anthropological Section, Mr. C. H. Read, of the British Museum, spoke of the preservation and proper exploration of the prehistoric antiquities of the country, and offered a plan for increasing the amount of work done in an-