Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/381

 SCIENCE.

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��FMDAT, MAY 1, 1885.

��The spring meeting of tlie national academy always secures a larger attendance of inembcrs than that held in the nututnn, because the business of this stated session, inclnding the election of new members, is more imiwrtant. Last week, however, the attendance was not BO good as usual, only tbirly-aeven members being registered. Of these, seventeen were from Washington, and the remainder prin- cipally from Pliil.tdelphia, Baltimore, New Haven, and Cambridge. TUongh lacking in si>ecial incident, the meeting was an iotereeling one; both scientific and business sessions ex- tending over four days, and the papers elicit- ing a good share of discussion. Public and private receptions were not wanting, and the mid-day recess gave excellent opportunities for social intercourse. Though many questions affecting the policy and the development of the academy were discussed with great freedom at the business- meeting, these discussions were not marred by a single note of discord.

The trust funds of the academy having been inci-ensed during the year by the gift of eight thousand dollars from the widow of the late Professor Lawrence Smith, and in his memory, to encourage the study of meteoric bodies, Messrs. Wolcott Gibbs, Brush. Asaph Hall, PumiK'Uy, and Rutherford were appointed a permanent committee to administer the trust; and tbej' were also charged with the duty of conveying to Mrs. Smith the thanks of the academy, and its appreciation of her gcnerositj'. The award of the Drajier medal, made for the first lime, was most appropriately bestowed on Prof. S. P. Langley of Allegheny, now absent in England, for bis researches and discoveries in solar rftdiation.

The adulemy was strengthened by the elec-

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��tion of five new members : Prof, E. S. Holden, dircclor of Washburue observatory. Madison. Wis,, the chief of the recent Caroline Island eclipse expedition ; Professor Henry Mitchell of the U. S. coast-survey, whose knowledge of the hydrt^raphy of our eastern coast is un- surpassed; Mr. F. W, Putnam, the curator of the Peabody museum of American archae- ology at Cambridge; Prof. W. A. Rogers of the Harvard observatory ; and Mr. Arnold Hague of the U. S. geological survey, whose work has lain chiefly in our western territories. As the number of home members Is now oinety- eight, it is probable that by another year it will reach a hundred, beyond which it will be difficult to pass, on account of the more strin- gent rules of admission which will then come into force.

We have only space to mention a portion of the papers, a complete list of which will be found in our notes. Jupiter was the subject of two astronomical papers. Prof. C. A. Young called attention to some changes in the constitution of the ' great red s[Kit,' and to the belt of white e|>ots in the southern hemi- sphere. The period of one of the latter, the upi>er of a lozenge- shaired series of four, he had found to be 9h. o5m. 12,74 s., and that of anequalorial white spot 9 h. 50m. 9-1 is., while that of the great red B[}ot was now 9h. 55 m. 13.4 s. Mr. G. W. Hill discussed the two in- equalities in the moon's motion due to the action of Jupiter, the theoretical discovery of which is due to Mr, Nelson, finding the coeOicients for these inequalities smaller than given by Neison ; the former's values being

— 1.163" and -1-2.200", while Mr. Hill obtained

— 0.903" and -1-0.209". In a paper on the cause of the progressive movement of areas of low pressure, Prof. E. Loomis concluded, that, although in middle latitudes these areas usually follow the course of the winds, the general drift of atmospheric movement could not be looked upon as the cause. Their

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