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CORRESPONDENCE.

WHERE DO THE MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION COME FROM?

Messrs. Editors.

HAVING had a curiosity to know, in something more than a general way, how the various sections of the country contribute to the attendance at the meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I have analyzed the "registers of arrivals" of the Boston and Cincinnati meetings. The results, which may be of interest to others as well, are embodied in the following tables. In checking off so many names, there is, of course, liability to error, but some pains have been taken to make the statement correct.E.

Table I.—Attendance by States.


STATES
 
Boston
meeting,1880.
Cincinnati
meeting, 1881.
Maine 14 2
New Hampshire 14 0
Vermont 7 0
Massachusetts 221 [1] 23
Rhode Island 17 1
Connecticut 39 -315 11 -37
New York 170 45
New Jersey 36 3
Pennsylvania 47 18
Delaware 1 -254 0 -66
Wisconsin 4 3
Michigan 7 10
Indiana 8 29
Illinois 21 27
Ohio 22 61 [2]
Kentucky 9 25
West Virginia 1 3
Virginia 3 2
Maryland 16 18
District of Columbia 71 -162 30 -208
Tennessee 6 8
North Carolina 2 2
Georgia 2 4
Florida 1 3
Alabama 1 2
Mississippi 0 -12 3 -22
Louisiana 1 2
Missouri 32 18
Iowa 9 8
Minnesota 4 3
Kansas 2 1
Colorado 0 3
Arizona 3 0
Nebraska 0 1
California 1 -52 3 -39
British Provinces 21 4
England 5 0
Cuba 3 0
Boston 164 [3] 0
Cincinnati 0 155
988 531

Table II. Attendance by Sections.

SECTIONS. BOSTON
MEETING.
CINCINNATI
MEETING.
No. Per ct. No. Per ct.
From New England 315 31·9 37 7·0
From the Middle States 254 25·7 66 12·4
From the Western States east of the Mississippi, and as far south as Kentucky and Virginia 102 16·4 208 39·2
From the Southern States east of the Mississippi 12 1·2 22 4·2
From west of the Mississippi 52 2·9 4 7·3
From the British Provinces and beyond the sea 29 2·9 4 0·7
From the entertaining city 164 16·6 155 29·2
———— ———— ———— ————
Totals 988 100·0 531 100·0

IDENTITY OF THE INDIANS AND THE MOUND-BUILDERS.

Messrs. Editors.

In 1875 I read a paper before the Iowa Academy of Science, on "The Mounds and Mound-Builders," in which I took the same grounds and came to the same conclusion as Professor Winchell, in his recent article on the "Ancient Copper-Mines of Isle Royale." My article was suggested by the examination of some mounds on the bank of the Mississippi, in Whitesides County, Illinois.

Among other things exhumed were one or two skeletons with anchyloses of the first and second vertebræ, and quite a number with flattened shin-bones, and also a flattened or deformed skull. In 1864-'65 there was a large number of Sioux Indians, concerned in the massacre at New Ulm, Minnesota, in the prison-camp at Davenport, Iowa. Dr. R. J. Farquharson, of that place, two or three years ago disinterred several skeletons of the prisoners who died there. He found one with the first and second vertebrae anchylosed, and several with flattened tibia, showing that platycnemism still exists among the modern tribes, and connects them with the mound-builders.

Very respectfully,

P. J. Farnsworth.
Clinton, Iowa, September 1, 1881.

A CORRECTION.

Messrs. Editors.

In your sketch of Edward D. Cope in the May number of "The Popular Science Monthly," the following statement occurs

  1. Excluding Boston.
  2. Excluding Cincinnati.
  3. The two or three names without addresses have been credited to the entertaining city.