Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/857

Rh every meeting. Professor Putnam, in opening, paid an especial tribute to the late Dr. D. G. Brinton, of Philadelphia, a former president and leading member of the association, devoted to the same branch of research with himself—North American ethnology—although holding different theories therein. Professor Putnam dealt with the prehistoric peoples of this continent, and argued for distinct racial types as expressed in the remains that they have left, and for resemblances as due to intercourse and mingling of tribes, and not to autochthonous development of arts and customs as the result of corresponding stages of evolution without contact or outside influence—the view maintained by Dr. Brinton.

There is not space here to dwell further upon many valuable papers and discussions. The Section of Geology had a full and interesting session, in which glacial phenomena, especially as displayed in Ohio, bore a considerable part. One of the papers had a very wide and painful interest for all Americans—that of Mr. E. H. Barbour, on the Rapid Decline of Geyser Activity in the Yellowstone Basin. Careful and extended comparison of the present state of the geysers and hot springs with that to be seen a few years ago shows that these wonderful and impressive phenomena have greatly decreased in both the amount and the frequency of their manifestations, and Mr. Barbour warned all who desire to witness anything of their grandeur to visit the region without delay, as the indications point to their speedy cessation as probable if not inevitable.

In reference to the future of the association, it is gratifying to observe that the various special societies, whose relations to the association were considered in the article by the present writer a year ago, have not only continued to hold their summer sessions in connection with that of the association, but have shown a very cordial spirit of co-operation, and that some others are proposing to affiliate in a similar way. This is as it should be; but there is in it also the suggestion of a broader and more definite relationship of all these special societies to each other through the medium of the association. The tendency is apparently toward affiliation and co-operation among them, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science could have no more fitting or useful function than as a sort of federative or representative body for all the others.

The next meeting is to be held in New York, two months earlier than usual—at the end of June. Both the place and the time were determined by the Paris Exposition. It was thought best to arrange the meeting so that it might easily be attended