membership and life-membership funds amounted to $4,337.71, $278.23, and $1,686.01, respectively, totaling $6,301.95. The recent policy of the association has been to maintain in the treasury a small fund available for appropriation in emergency and to appropriate the rest of the available funds each year. Appropriations from the treasurer's available funds are now made in four ways. First, there is a small annual appropriation for treasury expenses, recently $20 for safetydeposit drawer. Second, an appropriation of three dollars per year is regularly made to care for the journal subscriptions of living life members and living sustaining members. For 1926 these amounted to $1,227. Third, grants are made directly by the council or its executive committee from time to time, to organizations or institutions. In this class belong the recent grants to the Naples Zoological Station, to the Barro Colorado Laboratory and to the Concilium Bibliographicum. Fourth, small individual grants in aid of research, amounting to about $3,000 a year, are allotted from an appropriation for that purpose, by the Committee on Grants for Research. Individual grants are generally for not more than $500, in many cases for much smaller amounts. The annual allotment of these grants occurs in December of each year. Applications may be sent to the Washington office at any time, on application blanks that are supplied by the permanent secretary. For consideration at any allotment, applications must be in hand by December 1. Applicants are notified in January, with regard to the action on their applications, and the grants authorized become immediately available. A summary of all grants made by the association in past years has recently been prepared in the permanent secretary's office. For information and as a matter of record, résumés of this summary are presented below. Annual Totals of Individual Grants Year 1892 1895 1896 1897 1898 1904 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 Grants to Institutions, etc. Amount $ 100, Naples Zoological Station. 100, Biological Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor. 100, Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole 100, Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole 200, Journal of Physical Anthropology. 1915 1916 1919 1920 1922 250, Botanical Abstracts. 500, Naples Zoological Table. $200, International Annual Tables. 100, American Institute of Sacred Litera ture. 200, International Annual Tables. 60, American Institute of Sacred Literature. 100, National Conference on Outdoor Recreation. 100, National Conference on Outdoor Recreation. 60, American Institute of Sacred Litera ture. 55, American Institute of Sacred Litera ture. BURTON E. LIVINGSTON, Permanent Secretary For determining pH values by means of capillary tubes instead of test tubes. Has the great advantage of using very small quantities of the solution to be tested. Also, the pH of slightly colored fluids may be determined directly without the use of any compensating device. Owing to the very thin layer of liquid, the color of ordinary slightly colored liquids is negligible. Price of the regular outfit, in leather carrying case, as shown in cut EIMER & AMEND Established 1851, Incorporated 1897 $25.00 Headquarters for LABORATORY APPARATUS and CHEMICAL REAGENTS NEW YORK, N. Y. Third Ave., 18th to 19th St. WALKER PRIZES IN NATURAL HISTORY Two prizes, founded by the late Dr. William Johnson Walker, are annually offered by the BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY for the best memoirs written in the English language, on subjects proposed by the Board of Trustees. For the best memoir presented a prize of sixty dollars may be awarded; if, however, the memoir be one of marked merit, the amount may be increased to one hundred dollars, at the discretion of the Walker Prize Committee. For the next best memoir a prize not exceeding fifty dollars may be awarded. The competition for these prizes is not restricted, but is open to all. It is nevertheless the tradition of the Society that the founder of these prizes intended them more in the nature of encouragement to younger naturalists than as rewards for the work of mature investigators. Attention is especially called to the following points: I. In all cases the memoirs are to be based on a considerable body of original and unpublished work, accompanied by a general review of the literature of the subject. 2. Anything in the memoir which shall furnish proof of the identity of the author shall be considered as debarring the memoir from competition. 3. Although the awards will be based on their intrinsic merits, preference may be given to memoirs bearing evidence of having been prepared with special reference to competition for these prizes. 4. Each memoir must be accompanied by a sealed envelope enclosing the author's name and superscribed with a motto corresponding to one borne by the manuscript, and must be in the hands of the Secretary on or before March 1 of the year for which the prize is offered. 5. The Society assumes no responsibility for publication of manuscripts submitted, and publication should not be made before the Annual Meeting of the Society in May. SUBJECT FOR 1928: Any subject in the field of Botany SUBJECT FOR 1929: Any subject in the field of Geology or Mineralogy BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. November, 1927. SCIENCE 493 495 | Relations of the American Association to the National Academy: DR. BURTON E. LIVINGSTON The Activity of Nerve: DR. R. W. GERARD Hawaii's Tribute to Dr. Newcombe: E. D. W. BROWN 499 Scientific Events: The Australian National Research Council; Lec- Confusing Names for a Meteor: PROFESSOR C. C. The American Association for the Advancement of Special Articles: 500 502 506 506 510 RELATIONS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION TO THE NATIONAL ACADEMY1 THE advancement of science, for which both the National Academy and the American Association stands, has, in the last century, come to represent a great profession of many branches. The number of professional scientists has increased very remarkably in the last half-century in our country, and it continues to increase at an accelerated rate. Science is becoming recognized as one of the important professions. A young man may now look forward with assurance to a professional career in science. The new science profession embraces both research and teaching, the securing of new knowledge and the distribution of knowledge that has already been secured. The two are obviously closely allied, but they represent different aspects of the advancement of science, both of which are necessary. Scientific research includes investigations of both the "pure" and the "applied" kinds and these also represent different aspects of the same general endeavor, although they are not readily separated when one attempts a categorical classification. And science teaching embraces many kinds of work; from elementary instruction to the guidance of candidates for the doctor's degree of a university, from special consultation to the giving of public lectures, from the writing of popular stories on science subjects to the preparation and editing of technical contributions in the several special branches. Coordinate with the development of this complex professional field has developed an increasing need for the organization of scientists, which has been met by the formation of many special societies, each aiming to hasten the advance of science along a particular line or group of related lines. These are devoted to the advancement of the sciences rather than to the advancement of science. Their journals and their meetings are of and for specialists. Before the advent of these societies mathematics and the natural sciences had their general organizations in the National Academy, the American Association, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy and a number of state academies. Their meetings tended to bring together specialists 1 Address given at the dinner of the National Academy of Sciences, at Urbana, Ill., October 19, 1927. in widely different fields and their publications aimed to present scientific advance in the several branches of research without too much classification into specialized groups. In their later development these organizations have maintained themselves and some of them have retained great prestige and importance, but the growth of so many special societies, with their journals and their meetings and their dues, has undoubtedly detracted from the generalizing influence of the broader organizations. In recent decades it has been realized and remarked by many minds that the unquestionably great gain to science that has resulted from the formation and activities of the special societies has not been secured without considerable and serious losses in the realm of scientific synthesis, in the broad appreciation of knowledge as a whole. I touch here on the frequently discussed problem of over-specialization in individual intellectual workers, which is reflected in our organizations. Modern specialization in science tends to promote remarkable ignorance and even intolerance in regard to fields not closely related to the one specialized in. I am reminded of a brilliant schoolmate of mine who did not care even to dip into the writings of Thomas Carlyle because he had not yet read all of what Charles Darwin had written. I am also reminded of a pungent remark once made to me by a Russian agricultural scientist trained under the imperial régime. "The staff members of your American bureaus and stations for agricultural research," he said, "are mainly uneducated experts." It has been very aptly said that "a specialist is a man who knows more and more about less and less." Under the analytical influence, the American Association became subdivided into sections similar to those of the National Academy. Under the synthetic influence, as the special societies came forward, an arrangement was perfected by which, as affiliated organizations, they take part officially in directing the affairs of the association. A further movement toward the interchange of ideas between different groups of specialists was inaugurated just before and during the Great War. Through cooperation of the National Academy and the American Association were organized the beginnings of the National Research Council, which has subsequently developed so satisfactorily and fruitfully under the leadership and sponsorship of this academy. The association tries to further the interchange of ideas among scientists working on apparently divergent lines and it enjoys the cordial cooperation of the National Research Council. Wherever it has been in a position to do so the association has been glad to aid in work undertaken by the council. must add, however, that my Washington office has, fear, thus far received more help from Dr. Kellogg' office than his has received from mine. It is a plea sure to acknowledge at this time many valuable aid that have been had by the association from the Re search Council. Toward a further broadening of scientific speciali zation, if you will permit me to employ such an expression, we may work, I think, in about six general ways: (1) by bringing together scientists from dif ferent fields of science, as in committees of variou kinds that may inaugurate and direct large move ments and cooperative research projects, (2) by ar ranging and maintaining general-science publications for scientists, (3) by arranging scientific meetings for all kinds of scientists and others interested i science, (4) by encouraging an esprit du corps among scientific workers in general, (5) by undertaking to secure such modifications of the methods of school and college education and university training as may be promising and feasible, and (6) by aiding and encouraging the publication of popular but truthful accounts of scientific knowledge. All these lines of work are represented in projects that are engaging the attention of the National Academy and the association. The first is exemplified in the scientific divisions of the Research Council and in the sections of the association, in their efforts to maintain a sort of perpetual exchange among the different special societies and among different groups of research workers as well as among the individuals of each group. An excellent example of a general-science publication calculated to encourage individual cooperation and to promote broader appreciation, is the American Association's official journal, SCIENCE. Throughout a third of a century, under the far-seeing and efficient guidance of Dr. Cattell, SCIENCE has added its increment of broadening influence week by week. It has played an important part in gaining and maintaining the membership of the association and one of the most tangible of the association's accomplishments is the arrangement by which this journal has so long been its official organ. As you all know, the present owner has generously made an agreement with the association by which the journal will eventually become the property of the organization. You are familiar with the Proceedings of the National Academy, which aims to secure wide circulation of original announcements of the results of American research among investigators in all branches of science. The publications of the National Research Council are also to be mentioned here with great appreciation. The scientific meetings of the academy bring to |