Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/481

Rh in early life, both had traveled extensively, and both had at the critical moment read Malthus's "Essay on Population." Darwin himself, however, has pointed out that they differed in so far as he was led to his views from a consideration of what artificial selection has done for domestic animals. Sir Joseph Hooker described the events preceding and at the time of the presentation of the paper, from which Darwin was absent through illness. A medal struck by the society—here reproduced by the courtesy of his secretary—was presented in gold to Dr. Wallace and in silver to Sir Joseph Hooker, Professor Ernst Haeckel, Professor Eduard Strasburger, Professor August Weismann, Dr. Francis Galton and Sir E. Ray Lankester. Responses were made by Professor Strasburger, Dr. Galton and Sir E. Ray Lankester, and by delegates from universities and academies, including Dr. Francis Darwin and Lord Avebury.

The hundredth anniversary of the birth of Darwin will occur on February 12 of next year, which is also the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Lincoln. The event will be celebrated by the University of Cambridge, and in this country by Columbia University and the New York Academy of Sciences and doubtless elsewhere. The American Association for the Advancement of Science will, at its Baltimore meeting, give special prominence to exercises in honor of the hundredth anniversary of Darwin's birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species."

recent meeting of the British Association had a program of the usual high standard and an attendance of 2,270 members and associates. The size of the meeting was about the same as the larger convocation-week meetings of the American Association and its affiliated societies, but the number of scientific men and of scientific papers is greater in this country. There were at Dublin 1,374 associates, mainly people living in Dublin and vicinity, who joined the association for the meeting, though not especially interested in science. The American Association has not been able to attract to its meetings people of this class. This is doubtless in part due to better social organization in Great Britain—the sentiment which leads the London Times to devote pages to reports of the meeting and every country house to take in Nature—but it is also in part due to the fact that the meetings are made more attractive to those not professionally engaged in scientific research. It seems that our association should aim to do more for this class, for from it science needs sympathy, support and recruits.

Mr. Francis Darwin, the president of the meeting, who, like his brother. Sir George Darwin, the president of the South African meeting three years ago, bears worthily his great name now being celebrated on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the "Origin of Species," chose as the subject of his inaugural address the reactions of plants. His own experimental work has been largely in this field, and the address was made interesting to a large audience by a discussion of consciousness in plants' and the hereditary transmission of acquired characters'. Public lectures were given by Professor H. H. Turner, of Oxford, on "Halley's Comet" and by Professor W. M. Davis, of Harvard University, on "The Lessons of the Colorado Cañon." The annual lecture to the working classes was by Dr. A. E. Tutton, on "The Crystallization of Water."

The entertainments and excursions were as usual very elaborate. The reception given by the Royal Dublin Society was attended by 4,000 guests, and there were numerous luncheons