he contributed one volume on mammals and two volumes on birds.

MR. JAMES MANSERGH, F.R.S., a British engineer, well-known for his work on watersupply and sewage, died on June 15.

THE government of the Argentine Republic has established a Meteorological Observatory on New Year's Island, which is expected to furnish valuable data from the South Atlantic Ocean.

WE learn from The Athenæum that Professor Karl Schröter and his pupil Dr. Rubel have established a biological station on the Bernina Pass. Although it is intended chiefly for the study of Alpine flora, attention will also be paid to meteorological observations, and the station is supplied with a complete equipment of meteorological and geodetic instruments. Professor Schröter's present idea is to keep the station open during the whole year, and similar stations are to be established in Puschlav and in the Upper Engadine.

WE learn from Nature that the Stephen Ralli memorial-a laboratory for clinical and pathological research-was opened at the Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, on June

29.

THE New York Board of Estimate has appropriated $17,000 towards exterminating the mosquitoes on Staten Island.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS.

THE board of regents has authorized the construction of a wing of the museum of the University of Nebraska.

THE tuition fees in Sibley College and the College of Civil Engineering at Cornell University have been increased from $125 to $150. A matriculation fee of $5 will be required of all students and the fees for graduation have been increased.

PROFESSOR E. J. WICKSON has been appointed acting director of the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of California during the leave of absence granted to Professor E. W. IIilgard.

DR. KARL E. GUTHE, of the U. S. Bureau of Standards, formerly assistant professor of physics in the University of Michigan, has

been appointed professor and head of the department of physics in the State University of Iowa.

DR. EDWARD BARTOW, associate professor of chemistry, at the University of Kansas, has been appointed associate professor of chemistry in the University of Illinois. He will have charge of the state water survey, and other sanitary work in the state.

PROFESSOR SAMUEL AVERY, who holds the chair of agricultural chemistry at the University of Nebraska, has been appointed professor of chemistry and director of the chemical laboratory, in succession to Professor H. H. Nicholson, who has resigned. In the same institution Mr. J. H. Powers has been appointed instructor in zoology.

THE regents of the Kansas State University have made the following appointments: P. F. Walker, of the University of Maine, to be associate professor of mechanical engineering; H. A. Rice, of Lehigh, assistant professor of civil engineering; N. J. Wheeler, of Purdue University, assistant professor of civil engineering; Dr. M. F. Sudler, of Johns Hopkins and Cornell Universities, assistant professor of anatomy.

MR. G. E. CONDRA has been promoted to an assistant professorship of geography and economic geology in the University of Nebraska.

MR. GEORGE D. HUBBARD, instructor in geology and physical geography in Cornell University, has been elected assistant professor of geology in Ohio State University. The other members of the geological department are Charles S. Prosser, professor of geology, and John A. Bownocker, professor of inorganic geology.

THE Paris Academy of Sciences has nominated M. Verneuil as its first choice for the chair of ceramics, and M. Rosenstiehl for the chair of dyeing, in the National Conservatory of Arts and Measures.

DR. ERNST MEUMANN, of Zurich, has been called to the chair of philosophy at Königsberg.

DR. RITCHIE, reader in pathology at Oxford, has been made professor.

THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF NATIONAL ENGINEERING SOCIETIES.*

THE most important factors in promoting the advance of the engineering profession and in disseminating and rendering available to the world the valuable experience and data accumulated by engineers in the practise of their profession, are the professional associations of national engineering societies. The importance of the interchange of data and results of observation and experience was recognized by engineers long before the practise of engineering had been exalted to the dignity of a profession.

While military engineering was recognized from the earliest times and great military engineers such as Vauban, and bridge. and highway engineers such as Perronet, had achieved eminence, it was manifestly impracticable for military officers to organize for the purpose of interchange of information, on the very secrecy of which the military establishments of nations were dependent for their offensive and defensive efficiency. The first important step in the association of engineers into a professional body was taken when in 1828 Thomas Telford, in the name of 156 of his colleaguessome of whom had already formed a society as early as 1818-applied for royal charter for the Institution of Civil Engineers (of Great Britain). The original charter recites that the body is formed "for the general advancement of mechanical science, and more particularly for promoting the

* Presidential address, American Institute of Electrical Engineers, twenty-second annual convention, Asheville, N. C., June 19, 1905.

acquisition of that species of knowledge which constitutes the profession of a civil engineer, being the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man, as the means of production and of traffic in states both for external and internal trade, as applied in the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, river navigation, and docks, for internal intercourse and exchange, and in the construction of ports, harbors, walls, breakwaters and lighthouses, and in the art of navigation by artificial power for the purposes of commerce, and in the construction and adaptation of machinery, and in the drainage of cities and towns."

It will be seen that this famous definition of the field covered by the profession of the civil engineer, as formulated by Telford, covers broadly all of the branches of modern engineering science, excepting military engineering, and includes within its scope directly or by implication mechanical, mining, electrical and sanitary engineering and naval architecture. It was not long before important discoveries in the realm of physical science and epoch-making inventions and improvements in the mechanical arts opened new fields of industrial activity, and we find this broadening of the field covered by the engineer reflected in a differentiation of the profession, in Great Britain resulting in the organization in 1847 of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, in 1869 of the Iron and Steel Institute, and in 1871 of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians, which became in 1889 the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

Coming now to our own country, the American Society of Civil Engineers was organized in 1852, the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1871, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1880 and the American Institute of Electrical

Engineers in 1884. While these are the distinctively national engineering societies, there are other technical associations like the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers, the American Street Railway Association, Association of Engineering Societies, etc., which, although of national importance, do not come within the scope of our subject.

There are still many other professional bodies in the United States identified with the engineering profession, some of a national character, which in addition to professional activities are also associated for commercial relations and whose memberships consist largely of business corporations, such as the National Electric Light Association and the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, and still others largely local in character, such as the Pacific Coast Transmission Association, the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania, and the league known as the Association of Engineering Societies, representing a total membership of 1,766 in eleven local engineers' clubs or societies.

In this review we shall confine ourselves to the four national engineering societies first referred to, with some reference to the corresponding bodies in Great Britain and on the continent.

NATIONAL ENGINEERING SOCIETIES (U. S.).

A study of the annual reports of these bodies from year to year and of their constitutions and by-laws is of considerable interest, showing their progressive expansion, growing influence, and higher professional standing from year to year, and the lines along which these developments take place. We will not undertake a retrospective analysis, however, but rather confine ourselves to a comparative study of the methods of organization and business administration of the four national engineering societies as revealed in their last annual reports. It should be stated at the outset that this study is not undertaken with a view of criticizing the methods followed or results accomplished by our sister societies, but for the purpose of profiting by their experience and, if possible, avoid

ing in our own rapidly growing body any abnormal development which may detract from its efficiency as a whole, or result in purely local development at the sacrifice of. general usefulness and national standing.

One of the very first questions we encounter is that of the grades of membership, then the requirements of admission to them, and the method of election. These questions are of fundamental importance and they are worthy of the closest attention, as upen them more than upcn any other feature of the organization will depend the professional standing of the society and its healthy growth in membership and influence. There is no honor within the gift of the society which requires the exercise of so much judgment, such fidelity to its interests, such conscientiousness, impartiality and impersonality, as membership on the Board of Examiners or Committee on Admissions, and it is deserving of the highest recognition.

The requirements for honorary membership demand no lengthy discussion, as the practise of all of the societies is essentially identical in this respect.

The requirements for full membership vary greatly in the four societies, as we shall see from abstracts from their con-· stitutions.

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS.

Constitution-Article II.-Membership.

2. A Member shall be a Civil, Military, Naval, Mining, Mechanical, Electrical, or other professional Engineer, an Architect or a Marine Architect. He shall be at the time of admission to membership not less than thirty years of age, and shall have been in the active, practise of his profession for ten years; he shall have had responsible charge of work for at least five years, and shall be qualified to design as well as to direct engineering works. Graduation from a school of engineering of recognized reputation shall be considered as equivalent to two years' active practise. The performance of the duties of a Professor of Engineering in a technical school of

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS.

Constitution-Article II.-Membership.

2. A Member shall have been an Associate, and at the time of his transfer to membership he shall be not less than twenty-seven years of age, and shall be:

a. A Professional Electrical Engineer; or b. A Professor of Electrical Engineering; or c. A person who has done important original work, of recognized value to electrical science.

3. To be eligible to membership, as a professional Electrical Engineer, the applicant shall have been in the active practise of his profession for at least five years; he shall have had responsible charge of work for at least two years, and shall be qualified to design as well as direct electrical engineering works. Graduation from a School of Engineering of recognized standing shall be considered the equivalent of one year's active practise.

4. To be eligible to membership as Professor of Electrical Engineering, the applicant shall have been in responsible charge of a course of Electrical Engineering at a college or technical school of recognized standing for a period of at least two years.

It will be seen that two of the societies fix an age limit of thirty years, one twentyseven years and one fixes no limit; one requires professional practise of ten years, one five years, two no time specified; three

require professional competency in designing as well as constructing or directing engineering works, one requires the applicant to be professionally or practically engaged in the branch.

In the case of the Mechanical Engineers and the Civil Engineers the election is by ballot of the membership at large after approval by the executive board or council; in the case of the Mining Engineers and Electrical Engineers, election is by direct vote of the board of directors, in the latter after submitting the names to the membership at large, in the former without submission. In the Mining Engineers, Mechanical Engineers and Electrical Engineers the application is first passed upon by a board of examiners and then by the executive board or council; in the case of the Civil Engineers by the board of directors directly without action by an examining board. The Electrical Engineers' constitution requires that all members be first elected as associates and then transferred by the board.

It will be seen from the above how different the requirements are for full membership in the several societies, and how varied the procedure for election. It would appear at first thought that the more explicit the constitution in its exact definition of the conditions for membership the easier it would be for the membership committee to act; but this is by no means always the case, as it often prevents the taking of a broad view of the candidate's eligibility and is apt to exclude desirable material on very technical grounds, although on the other hand it is a protection against loose interpretation of the requirements by careless examiners. There would seem to be a better division of responsibility and more direct control of the class of men admitted to membership by giving wide publicity to their candidacy and election