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REPORTS OF COMMITTEES.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON INDEXING CHEMICAL LIterature. THE Committee on Indexing Chemical Literature respectfully presents to the Chemical Section its sixth annual report.

By the liberality of the Association the Committee secured 500 copies of the report for 1887, and these were distributed through the Secretaries of the American Chemical Society, the London Chemical Society, and the Washington Chemical Society, and directly by the Chairman of the Committee.

The Provisional List of Abbreviations of Titles of Chemical Journals, which formed Appendix B to the Report, was received by chemists with general approbation, and was reprinted in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Chemical News (London), American Chemical Journal (Baltimore), Journal of Analytical Chemistry (Easton), Journal of the American Chemical Society (New York), and was favorably noticed in the American Journal of Science (New Haven); this practically ensures its adoption.

During the year just closed, the Index to the Literature of the Spectroscope by Dr. Alfred Tuckerman has been printed by the Smithsonian Institution. This forms a work of about 400 pages, and contains 3,829 titles by 799 authors.

The Table of Specific Gravities for Solids and Liquids by Prof. F. W. Clarke is now in the compositor's hands and will soon be published by the Smithsonian Institution. This work is really a new and completely revised edition of Part I of the original" Constants of Nature."

An Index to the Literature of Columbium by Prof. Frank W. Traphagen has been completed and accepted by the Committee. Its publication has been undertaken by the Smithsonian Institution.

Dr. H. C. Bolton has compiled a Bibliography of Chemistry for 1887, the publication of which has been begun by the Smithsonian Institution.

Several chemists project indexes and have made more or less progress on them. Mr. Arthur A. Noyes is engaged on an Index to the Literature of Ethylene; Prof. William P. Mason volunteers to index Methane; Mr. William Rupp undertakes to index Cæsium and Rubidium; Professor Traphagen plans to index Tantalum ; Dr. H. C. Bolton has in preparation a Bibliography of the History of Chemistry including Biography and Bibliography; and Dr. Alfred Tuckerman is engaged in indexing the literature to Thermodynamics.

Several bibliographies merit brief mention; Dr. Jesse P. Battershall's Food Adulteration and its Detection (New York, 1887), contains an Appendix with the title: "Bibliography including Periodicals, Reports and General Works chronologically arranged." This includes about 275 titles. The Second Annual Report of the N. Y. State Dairy Commissioner (1886) contains a Bibliography of Milk by Mr. Edward W. Martin (pp. 156–170), and a Bibliography of Butter, adulterations, testing, etc., by Prof. Elwyn Waller assisted by E. W. Martin and others (pp. 283-290).

Professor Wm. H. Seaman calls the attention of the Committee to several lists of United States Patents which relate more or less to applied chemistry. These lists on subjects indicated by their titles are found in the following works: Charles Thomas Davis, Manufacture of Leather; the same, Practical Treatise on the manufacture of Bricks, Tiles and Terra Cotta; the same, Treatise on Steam Boiler Incrustations; the same, Practical Treatise on the Manufacture of paper; Wm. T. Brannt, Treatise on Animal and Vegetable Fats and Oils. These are all published in Philadelphia, 1884-1887.

B. Tollens' Handbuch der Kohlenhydrate, Breslau, 1888, contains about 1500 references to the literature of carbohydrates.

Dr. Albert Brown Lyons publishes in the Pharmaceutical Era, under the title "Index Pharmaceuticus," a monthly list of books on pharmacy, chemistry and materia medica, as well as a list of original papers on these topics published in journals.

At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in 1886, a Committee was appointed for the purpose of reporting on the Bibliography of Solution. This Committee consists of Professors Tilden, McLeod, Pickering, Ramsay, Young, A. R. Leeds and Nicol (secretary), and presented its first report in 1887. This report sets forth the classification adopted,

the list of journals (thirty-four in number) desirable to index, and a summary of work accomplished. From this summary it appears that 355 titles have been catalogued from 588 volumes of eleven different periodicals. The Committee of the B. A. recommends as members of the Committee other gentlemen who have access to the journals on the list and who would be willing to take an active share in the work.

The Committee of the American Association expresses its gratification that the work begun by them in 1882 is now being supplemented by chemists in Great Britain.

Persons desiring copies of reports, indexes and other information should address the chairman, care of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington.

H. CARRINGTON BOLTON, Chairman.

F. W. CLARKE,

ALBERT R. LEEDS,

ALEXIS A. Julien,

JOHN W. LANGLEY,

SAMUEL H. Scudder,

CHAS. K. WEAD,

Committee.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PHYSICS-TEACHING.

Ar the Philadelphia meeting of the Association in 1884, the undersigned were appointed a committee to consider and report upon the subject of Physics-teaching.

Brief reports of progress were made at the various meetings since that date, but it is only within the past year that the committee has been able to formulate and agree upon a final report which it now offers to the Association through the Council, at the same time respectfully requesting that it be discharged.

Before entering upon the consideration of the report, it seems proper to refer to some of the causes which have led to so long a delay in its preparation. Shortly after the appointment of your committee, consultation and correspondence with persons interested in the subject developed the great desirability of securing, if possible, the coöperation of the National Educational Association, many of the members of which were more deeply interested if possible, in certain phases of the subject to be considered, than the members of our own body. In accordance with this idea the council of that association, at its meeting in 1885, appointed a committee on Physics-teaching, consisting of Charles K. Wead, LeRoy C. Cooley, W. LeConte Stevens, W. F. Bradbury and James H. Baker.

This committee was not appointed for the specific purpose of coöperating with that of the A. A. A. S. in the preparation of a joint report, but an effort was made by the respective chairmen to secure a joint meeting of the two committees for this purpose.

This effort failed on account of the wide geographical distribution of the members. The committee of the National Educational Association prepared its report, however, and it was presented at the meeting of that body in 1887. It is probably well known to those who have especially interested themselves in this matter.

An attempt was made to secure a meeting of your committee at Buffalo during the meeting of the Association in that city in 1886. A majority of the committee was present and an informal discussion of the subject was had, but it was thought best to defer any report until a full meeting could be held.

Accordingly a meeting was called at Washington, D. C., in December, 1887, and at this meeting, the first session of which was on December 24, all of the members of the committee were present except Professor Trowbridge, who found it impossible to attend.

At this meeting the subject was fully discussed and it was found that the members present were substantially in agreement as to the principal questions involved.

In presenting the conclusions reached it is not thought to be necessary or desirable to insist upon the importance of the study of physics or to offer arguments in favor of its introduction. This ground has been gone over so often and so thoroughly within the past decade that further discussion seems unnecessary.

As a matter of fact it may be said that nearly everything which can be justly claimed is now nearly everywhere admitted. Neither has it been thought necessary to go into detail as to methods of instruction.

The publication in the English language within a few years, of several excellent text-books of physics and a few laboratory guides of a high order of merit, together with a considerable advance in real scholarship among teachers, makes it possible to use the phrases "text-book work," "lecture work" and "laboratory practice" with a fair chance of being understood; yet it may be well to remark that where the latter is referred to, something very different from mere illustrative experimentation is meant, it being the opinion of the committee that the work in the laboratory should be quantitative rather than qualitative and always of as high a degree of precision as is possible with the appliances available.

In order to give definiteness to its conclusions the committee undertook to answer the following questions :

:

1. In what grade of the public school should physics-teaching begin?

2. What should be the character of this first instruction? oral? by text-book? by laboratory methods? etc.

3. What should be the character of the physics-teaching in the

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