goods intrusted to it, and that it is entitled to the praise given to the servant faithful over a few things. For Radcliffe the day of small things is over."

The Report shows that the income from tuition-fees for 1897-98 was $72,360.39, and that there were spent for salaries, printing, repairs, and general expenses $78,468.80, the excess of expenses over receipts being met by interest on the endowment.

As to the library the Dean says: "Anxiety has been felt for some time as to the possible effect of so great a weight of books in an old building, and during the summer of 1898 it was found necessary to rebuild part of the original wall of Fay House, replacing the 8-inch wall by a 12inch wall. This was done at an expense of $2000, sorely against the grain of the House Committee, but there was no alternative."

A pleasant room in Fay House, formerly used for the classes in the Fine Arts, has lately been included in the library, and the shelves, holding three thousand books, are already filled. The students' Glee Club propose to give to the library the proceeds of the last operetta, to be used for a musical library.

Immediately after the opening of the gymnasium, work in the classes began, and the attendance increased on an average from about 14 in a class last year to 30 in a corresponding class this year. The Athletic Association decided to have two meets only this year, but they offered for competition a larger banner than heretofore. This was won at the first meet by the class of 1901 with a score of 22 points. On April 6, the American Association for Advancement of Physical Education visited, by invitation of the Council, the Gymnasium and Fay House.

During the spring, two very successful concerts were given in Sanders Theatre, under the direction of the Cantabrigia Club, for the benefit of a Radcliffe College Scholarship to be bestowed by the Club on a Cambridge student.

Since the March Report, the College has bought the property at 5 and 7 Appian Way for $12,200. In April the College received from the estate of Edward Austin $25,500. The terms of the will provide for a bequest to Radcliffe College of $30,000, "the interest upon which they will pay to needy meritorious students and teachers, to assist them in payment of their studies."

For two successive years a prize for Old South Historical Essays has been awarded to Caroline B. Shaw, '01: in 1898, a second prize for "The History of Slavery in the Northern States, and of Anti-slavery Sentiment in the South before the Civil War;" in 1899, a first prize for "The Struggle of France and England for North America, from the Founding of Quebec by Champlain to the Capture of Quebec by Wolfe;" a second prize was given to Edith Hale, '01.

In June, 1899, will appear the first number of a new publication by the students of Radcliffe College, to be called The Radcliffe Magazine. The primary object of the magazine is to publish the best written work of the present and former students of Radcliffe, so far as the editors are able to discover it. This first number will contain contributions from both graduates and undergraduates, including translations from Horace and the "Song of Roland," studies in literary criticism, several stories and sketches, and some verse. The magazine will, if the present plan is followed, appear four times during the college year, in November, January, March, and May. The board consists of seven editors, Mary W. Dean, '99, managing editor; Miss Coes and Miss Paton, advisory editors; and four assistant editors, Mary Howland, '99, Frances Park, Sp., Helen Ward, '00, and Katherine Fullerton, '00. The interests of each class are reported by a class editor. There is also a business manager, Dora Drew, '99, who has two assistants.

Charlotte M. E. Reinecke, '98-99, is to be instructor in German next year at Vassar College. Louisa P. Haskell, '93-98, has taken Miss Ward's School in Boston.

ALUMNAE.

On April 8, a special meeting of the Radcliffe College Alumnae Association was held at Fay House. The President announced that the committee chosen from the Association to confer with the Radcliffe College Scholarship Committee as to the assignment of the Harvard Annex Scholarship founded by Alumnae of Radcliffe College, were Mary Coes, Helen L. Reed, Sarah W. Brooks. The question of admitting to regular membership in the body of Radcliffe alumnae the graduates of other colleges who have qualified themselves to take the higher degrees at Radcliffe was considered, and after discussion it was voted that all holders of the Radcliffe A. M. degree, and those who have done sufficient work for the Ph. D. degree, be eligible to the Association. It is probable that this subject will come up again at the June meeting. After the business meeting, there was music by Mrs. Hammond and Marguerite Fiske, and Beulah Dix's play, The Wooing of Mistress Widdrington, was presented. On April 12, the Harvard Annex Club, an extension of the Old Appian Way Club which includes all the graduates of the Harvard Annex, met by invitation in Cambridge at the house of Sarah W. Brooks, '92. On April 15, Elizabeth Briggs, '87, gave an informal reception to Miss Irwin in New York, and made the occasion an opportunity for gathering together the Radcliffe College alumnae and special students who live in the neighborhood of New York. The Foreign Fellowship for '99-00 of the Woman's Education Association has been

awarded to Grace H. Macurdy, '88, instructor in Greek, at Vassar College. The Mary E. Garrett European Fellowship of Bryn Mawr College for next year has been awarded to Edith F. Claflin, '97. The Bryn Mawr Fellowship in Greek has been awarded to Lida S. King, graduate student at Radcliffe, '97-98. Julia B. Platt, '86-88, '95-96, took the Ph. D. degree at Freiburg in '98; Mary E. Parker, '98-99, is to be superintendent's assistant at Syracuse, N. Y. Alice G. Arnold, '95, and Kate D. Griswold, '98, are to teach next year in Miss Winsor's School, Boston. Frances S. Belcher, '95, is teaching in the Ogontz School, Ogontz, Pa. Katharine M. Thompson, '96, is to teach in Miss Ward's School; Beulah M. Dix, '97, has just published a book entitled "Hugh Gwyeth;" Margaret C. Magrath, '97, is working under the direction of the Children's Aid Society; Edith E. Butler, '99, is to be instructor in English at Rockford College, Rockford, Ill.; Annie L. Jackson, '99, is to teach in the Chelsea High School; Annie Sprague, '99, in Miss Low's School, Stamford, Conn.; Bessie D. Davis, '99, in the Chatham High School; L. Isabelle May, '99, in Miss Brown and Miss Owen's School, Boston.

Mary Coes, '87.

SCIENTIFIC ESTABLISHMENTS.

IMPORTANT WORK AT THE PHYSICAL LABORATORY.

The Committee to visit the Jefferson Physical Laboratory, of which Mr. Francis Blake is chairman, report as follows:

During the past year, the Director and his associates have maintained the routine work of instruction at its usual high standard of efficiency; and in addition have carried on a series of most creditable original investigations which may be summarized as follows:

1. The Director has continued his investigation of electrical oscillations; and, by a transformation of the apparatus therefor, has been enabled to study electrical discharges of greater intensity and length than have hitherto been obtained in atmospheric air. The high electromotive forces necessary for this study are obtained by means of a storage battery of ten thousand cells, which, by the action of original apparatus, yields an electrical tension of three million volts, and sparks of from six to seven feet in length. It is not too much to say that Professor Trowbridge's methods and results in this investigation have awakened the admiration of the scientific world.

2. Prof. B. O. Peirce and Dr. R. W. Willson have finished an important investigation on the thermal conductivity of poor conductors; and their work has become the standard in this subject.

3. Prof. E. H. Hall has finished his investigation of the thermal con

ductivity of cast iron, and published the results thereof in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for the present year.

4. Prof. W. C. Sabine has been engaged upon researches in sound, with a view to the determination of important facts in regard to the acoustical properties of various shaped halls and lecture rooms. He has arrived at a method of measuring the absolute intensity of sound, - a result never before obtained.

5. Mr. Theodore Lyman and Mr. E. H. Colpitts, graduate students, have succeeded in measuring the shortest wave-lengths of light which have been hitherto detected. By exhausting the air from the space in which their apparatus is placed, they have opened a new field of physical inquiry which promises to give still more important results.

6. Mr. H. Brown, graduate student, has been engaged upon a measurement of the relaxation time of different dielectrics, and hopes to finish his work during the present term.

7. Mr. H. Edwards, graduate student, is still engaged upon an investigation of the air thermometer, of which mention was made in the report of last year.

8. Mr. J. E. Burbank, graduate student, is engaged with Professor Trowbridge on an investigation of the absorption of X rays by different gases.

9. Mr. T. C. McKay, graduate student, and Mr. J. C. Howe, Senior, have obtained some interesting results in regard to the energy developed by powerful discharges of electricity.

The apparatus used in connection with the above-mentioned investigations bears witness to the efficiency of the laboratory machine shop. It is evident, however, that the services of an additional mechanic, skilled in glass-blowing, would be of peculiar value. Almost all physical investigations demand work in glass; and it is extremely difficult to get such work done satisfactorily in outside shops.

The Committee note with pleasure the results attained by Dr. R. W. Willson, Instructor in Astronomy, in the design and construction of a large number of simple and inexpensive instruments by means of which students make practical use of the knowledge they acquire in his course. The value to students of so early and so intimate a relation established between theory and practice can hardly be overestimated.

Four hundred and twenty-six candidates for admission to College in 1898 offered experimental physics; and two hundred and seventy-four students are taking the elementary course during the present academic year. The increased attention to physical science by students offering themselves for College is largely due to the labors of Professor Hall.

At the invitation of the chairman, the Visiting Committee were accom

panied by Dr. Mendenhall and Professor Michelson, who, by the subjoined letter, bear witness to the efficiency of the Jefferson Physical

DEAR MR. BLAKE, We were so much interested in the visit to the Jefferson Physical Laboratory, which, through your courtesy, we were enabled to make yesterday, that we desire to join in a brief expression of the gratification it afforded us, and of our appreciation of the great importance of the several investigations which are now in progress under the direction of members of the professional staff.

Professor Trowbridge's interesting studies of high potential discharges are known everywhere; but it was a pleasure to see that he is not content with having, some time since, surpassed all others in the magnitude of the effects which he is investigating. His new transformer by which he can produce a discharging spark seven feet in length through air, has already led him to most important conclusions; and under his skilful direction we may confidently expect, in the near future, further contributions which, like those he has already made, must be of profound significance to all interested in the subject. The carefully planned and successfully executed measurement of the velocity of electric waves, which is being carried out by one of the graduate students, is also a work of unusual importance. The same may be said of the investigation of short light-waves, in which measurements have been carried far beyond any hitherto made.

The scientific public is already informed concerning the research in heat conductivity recently carried out in the Laboratory, under the direction, we believe, of Professors Peirce and Hall. We were privileged to see some of the apparatus with which this work was done, and the value of the investigation can hardly be overestimated. Few subjects are surrounded by greater difficulties, and the ingenuity with which many of them have been overcome is worthy of high commendation.

Perhaps nothing impressed us more than the investigation of Professor Sabine of the acoustics of halls and public buildings. This is a matter of the utmost practical importance, and the problems it presents have been attacked many times, usually with little or no success. We believe that it has never before been treated with anything like the ability and sagacity that is shown by Professor Sabine, who has dissipated many of its perplexing difficulties by the use of rigorously scientific methods, together with a cleverness in instrumental devices and a dexterity in manipulation which cannot fail to be admired by all.

All physicists must be impressed by the noble building in which this work, and much more, is being carried on. Its admirably arranged rooms for special research are sufficient in number, and of adequate dimensions to afford ample facilities for the great work for which it was designed; and it is to be hoped that the University will continue to afford means for the extension and enlargement of opportunity for original research for which it has long been distinguished. While the purely practical outcome of research work should never, in an institution like this, be considered of first importance, it is but fair to