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284 these societies must be broken up into sections; but the most efficient form of organization has still to be worked out. A general meeting of the scientific men of the country appears to be essential; but it is possible that this can only take place once in three years, the meetings being more local in the intervening years. There should, however, be one central place of meeting each year, where the societies of the whole country can be represented by delegates, should a plebiscite be impossible. It has been agreed that for the present this general meeting should be in the eastern states twice and in the central or western states once in three years.

The general meeting is this year at St. Louis, and it will doubtless rival in interest and importance the Washington meeting. Counting the sections of the American Association, there will be at least thirty scientific organizations in session, and the officers alone make a representative body of scientific men. The Hon. Carroll D. Wright, U. S. Commissioner of Labor and president of Clark College, presides over the association, and Dr. Ira Remsen, president of the Johns Hopkins University, gives the address of the retiring president. Professor William Trelease, director of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, gives the presidential address before the Society of Naturalists, and the public lecture is to be delivered by President David Starr Jordan of Stanford University. It would require many pages to give details of the programs; they will be found in part in recent numbers of Science and in the local program issued by the association. The latter can be obtained from the permanent secretary. Dr. L. 0. Howard, Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C, to whom also applications for membership should be addressed. All scientific workers in the central states and also those interested in science not now members should make the St. Louis meeting the occasion of acquiring membership.