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* SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISH- 
ING THE OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN 
ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: S. NEWcoMB, Mathematics ; R. S.. Woopwarp, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THursTon, Engineering ; IRA Remsen, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WatLcorT, Geology; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology; W. K. Brooxs, C. HarT MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScupDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessey, N. L. Brirron, Botany ; C. 8. Minor, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology ; J. S. Bi~iineas, Hygiene; WILLIAM H. WELCH, 

Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CaTTELL, Psychology. 


NEW SERIES. VOLUME » 


JULY - DECEMBER, 1902. 


Og tas We 
erent or 


NEW YORK 119, 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY k 


1902 eS 


THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY, 
41 NORTH QUEEN STREET, 
LANCASTER, Pa. 


CONTENTS AND INDEX. 


N.S. VOL. XVI.—JULY TO DECEMBER, 1902. 


The Names of Contributors are Printed in Small Capitals. 


Aeronautical Congress, 
Rotren, 296 y 

Agricultural Education, Society for Promotion of, 
F. M. Wesster, 512 

Agriculture, Graduate School, 116 

Atpricu, T. H., and E. A. Smiru, Grand Gulf 
Formation, 835 

Auten, E. T., Jahrbuch der Chemie, 431 

G. M., Boston Society of Natural History, 


International, A. L. 


Aten, J. A., Species and Subspecies, 383; and 
Oruers, Fixing Type in Certain Genera, 114 

American Association for the Advancement of 
Science: President’s Address, 1; Mechanical 
Science and Engineering, 12, 334; Pittsburgh 
Meeting, 36; Report of General Secretary, 
41; Botany, 49, 136; Physics, 81, 171; An- 
thropology, 94, 201, 793; Remarks of Retiring 
President and President Elect, 109; Report of 
Permanent Secretary, 110; Mathematics and 
Astronomy, 121, 131; Chemistry, 161, 282; 
Zoology, 241, 344; Geology and Geography, 
258, 321; Membership, 293, 588; Social and 
Economie Science, 372; Indexing Chemical 
Literature, 428; Washington Meeting, 821, 
904, 944, 983, 1027 

Americanists, Congress of, International, 594; A. 
F. CHAMBERLAIN, 884 

Anthropological, Society of Washington, W. 
Houeu, 149; Association, American, W J M., 
309; Museum, Arrangements of Exhibits, W. 
H. Hommes, 487 

Anthropology in America, 436 

Ants, Strength of, A. R. Mruier, 514; F. P. 
DuNNINGTON, 746 

Archeology, New York, W. M. BraucHamp, 870 

Astronomical Society, Toronto, J. R. CoLLins, 868 

Astronomy, Physics and Chemistry, N. Y. Acad. of 
Sciences, S. A. MircHett, 29, 63, 866, 907; 
Recent Progress in, J. K. Rens, 366 

ATKINSON, E., The Carnegie Institution, 586 

Australasian Association for the Advancement of 
Science, 753 f 


Battry, E. H. 8., Inauguration of Chancellor 
Strong at Univ. of Kansas, 752 

Baker, M., John Wesley Powell, 788 

Banks, N., Notes on Entomology, 154 

Baptanodon, Teeth in, C. W. Giimorg, 913 

Barsour, E. H., Morrill Geological Expedition, 22 

Barus, C., Method in Hygrometry, 33; Structure 
of the Nucleus, 633; Changes of Atmospheric 
Nucleation, 948 

BASKERVILLE, C., Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, 
907 


Basketry, Coiled, C. C. WirtLtoucuBy, 31 
Bauer, L. A., Magnetic Work of U. 8. Coast and 
Geodetic Survey, 555 

Baum, H. E., Reference Books in Nomenclature, 
432 

Beat, W. H., Wilcox on Irrigation Farming, 741 

Brat, W. J., Pammel and \weems on Grasses of 
fowa, 61; and Oruers, Nature Study, 910 

Braucuamp, W. M., New York Archeology, 870 

Brecuer, C. E., Morse on Living Brachiopoda; 
Conklin’s Embryology of Brachiopoda; Yatsu 
on Lingula, 901 

Bentiey, 1. M., Minot on Problem of Conscious- 
ness, 386 

Brssey, C. E., Botanical Notes, 156, 476, 953; The 
Carnegie Institution 604; International Cata- 
logue of Scientific Literature, 861 

Bibliographicum Concilium, 1023 

Bicetow, M. A., Parker and Parker’s Zoology, 62 

Biographical Index of Men of Science, J. Mck. 
CATTELL, 746 

Biological, Farm for Experimental Investigation, 
C. O. WHITMAN, 504; Society of Washimeton, 
F. A. Lucas, 748, 945, 826, 986 

Biology, N. Y. Acad. of Sciences, H. E. Cramp- 
TON, 27 

Birds, Song Instinct in, W. E. D. Scorr, 70 

Boas, F., Rudolf Virchow’s Anthropological 
Work, 441; Bureau of American Ethnology, 
828; Ethnological Significance of Esoteric 
Doctrines, 872 

Botton, H. C., and Orners, Report on Indexing 
Chemical Literature, 428 

Borchgrevink on Eruption of Mt. Pelée, BE. O. 
Hovey, 471 

Botanical, Notes, C. EH. Brssmy, 156, 476, 953; 
Society of America, D. T. MacDouaat, 294; 
of Washington, H. J. Wrpper, 945 

Botany, Nomenclature in, O. F. Coox, 30; C. L. 
SHEAR, 1035; Retrospective and Prospective, 
B. T. Gattoway, 49 

Brace, D. B., Group-velocity and Wave-velocity 
of Light, 81 

Branner, J. C., Carnegie Institution, 527 

Bridge Construction in America, H. S. Jacosy, 12 

Brices, L. J., Formation of Dewbows, 474 

British Association for the Advancement of Sci- 
ence, 556; Address of President, J. Drwar, 
533, 567, 621; and American Association, 594; 
A Retrospect, 653; Address to Engineering 
Section, J. Perry, 761; Address to Botanical 
Section, J. R. GREEN, 921 

Brooks, A. H., Geological Society of Washington, 
984, 1028 


iv SCIENCE. 


Brown, A. ., Range of Fox Snake, 151 

Brown, J. 8., Text-books, 65 

Burcess, E. 8., Torrey Botanical Club, 826, 867 

Burritt, T. J., Bitter Rot in Apples, 909 

Butter, N. M., Professional Schools and Length 
of College Course, 613 


C., G. N., Archiv fiir Protistenkunde, 981 

C., T. D. A., Las Vegas Science Club, 828 

Casort, F., Netto’s Lehrbuch der Combinatorik, 
469 

Catt, B. E., European Pond-snail, 65 d 

CampBeLL, D. H., Question of Terminology, 705 

Canker and Black-rot, P. J. O’GaRa, 434 

Carnegie Institution, 978; J. McK. Carret., 
460, 668, 746; G. M. Srernpere, 481; H. 
W. Witey, 482; G. Lusx, 484; M. Lors, 485; 
H. Mtnsterpere, 521; S. H. Gack, 524; J. 
C. BRANNER, 527; D. S. JoRDAN, 528; EH. O. 
JorpAN, 580; J. L. Howe, 582; H. N. SToKes, 
583; E. S. Hoxpen, 585; E. ATKINSON, 586; 
H. S. Prrrevetr, 587; E. B. Witson, 591; 
W. J. Hoxzanp, 601; C. E. Brssry, 604; T. 
D. A. CocKERELL, 606; W. F. Ganone, 607; 
E. B. TrrcHener, 609; W J McGer, 611; B. 
Dean, 641; G. B. Haustep, 644; A. 5. PAck- 
ARD, 646; H. H. Cuayton, 647; A. G. 5S. 
JOSEPHSON, 648; A. C. TrueE,\ 650; J. M. 
Courter, 651; C. O. Wurman, 665; EH. G. 
GaRDINER, 667; J. JastTRow, 693; C. W. 
Srires, 698; E. H. RicHarps, 699; B. 
Wits, 699; W. E. Rirrer, 731; E. A. Hit, 
733; G. M. Wurepte, 735; M. A. Starr, 737; 
W. TRELEASE, 738; A. W. GREELY, 738; C. 
H. EreenmMann, 792; S. E. Mezrs, 987; 
C. H. Sternpere, 989; R. H. Jounson, 990; 
W. A. Noyes, 990; A. L. Herrera, 1033 

Carvetu, H. R., Jones’s Elements of Physical 
Chemistry, 589 

Catalogue, International, of Scientific Literature, 
C. E. Bessey, 861; of Royal Society, 874 

CaTrett, J. McK., The Carnegie Institution, 460; 
and Marine Biological Laboratory, 668; Bio- 
graphical Index of Men of Science, 746; The 
Academy of Sciences, 965 

Cephalothecium roseum, H. J. EUSTACE, 747 

Cestode Genus Bertia Blanchard, C. W. Srizus, A. 
HASSALL, 434 

CHAMBERLAIN, A. F., Congress of Americanists, 
884 

Chemical, Society, American, N. C. Section, C. B. 
WILLIAMS, 212; Northeastern Section, A. M. 
Comey, 1029; Industry in Germany, 237; 
Literature, Indexing, H. C. Boiron and 
OTHERS, 428 

Chemistry, Inorganic, Notes on, J. L. H., 356, 475, 
796, 994; in University Education, 841; Ap- 
plied, International Congress of, H. W. 
Witery, 899; Teachers, New England Asso- 
ciation of, 1030 

CrarK, H. L., Species and Subspecies, 229 

CrarKe, J. M., Squids from Onondaga Lake, 947, 
991 

Crayton, H. H., The Carnegie Institution, 647 

Clouds, Iridescent, R. DEC. Warp, 32 

CocKERELL, T. D. A., Laws of Physics, 593; The 
Carnegie Institution 606; Point in Nomencla- 
ture, 745 


CONTENTS AN 
INDEX. 


Coir, F. N. American Mathematical Society, 511, 
791 

College, Course, Length of, N. M. Burter, 613; 
Year, Length of, J. G. ScHurRMAN, 816 

Cotuins, J. R., Toronto Astronomical Society, 868 

Colon Bacilli, Method of Isolating, S. C. PREscort, 
671 

Comet B, 1902, and Mass of Mercury, EH. C. 
PICKERING, 797 

Comey, A. M., Northeastern Section of American 
Chemical Society, 1029 

Comstock, G. C., Wolf’s Histoire de Observatoire 
de Paris, 59 

Conn, H. W., Schmidt and Weis on Bacteria, 146; 
Baldwin’s Development and Evolution, 819 

Consciousness, Problem of, in its’ Biological As- 
pects, C. 8. Mrnor, 1; I. M. BentLey, 386 

Coox, O. F., Zoological Nomenclature in Botany, 
30; Types versus Residues, 311; Investigation 

- versus Erudition, 552 

Cooper, Dr. J. G., W. H. Day, 268 

Coutrer, J. M., The Carnegie Institution, 651 

Crampton, H. E., N. Y. Acad. of Sciences, Biology, 

Craw ey, E. 8., Mathematics and Astronomy at 
American Association, 131 

Cretaceous, Laramie, of Wyoming, S. W. WILLIS- 
TON, 952 


D., B., Fishery Commission Laboratory at Bergen, 
676 

D., C. L., Young’s Manual of Astronomy, 510 

Dart, W. H., Zoological Nomenclature, 150; Dr. 
J. G. Cooper, 268; John Wesley Powell, 783 
Grand Gulf Formation, 946 

DANDENO, J. B., Root-pressure in Begonia, 833; 
Prickles of Prickly Ash, 871 

Davis, W. M., Notes on Physiography, 636, 748, 
914, 995 

Dean, B., The Carnegie Institution, 641; Hay’s 
Catalogue of Fossil Vertebrata of N. A., 701; 
Mimicry, 832 

Dewar, J., Address of President of British Asso- 
ciation, 533, 567, 621 

Dewbows, Formation of, L. J. Briaas, 474 

Discussion and Correspondence, 30, 64, 114, 150, 
192, 229, 2738, 310, 354, 383, 4382, 470, 513, 
552, 591, 665, 705, 745, 792, 828, 869, 908, 
946, 987, 1031 

Drxon, R. B., Anthropology at the American Asso- 
ciation, 793 

Doctorates conferred by American Universities, 361 

Dream, Realistic, C. A. WuitTr, 710 

Drown, T. M., Thorpe’s Essays 
Chemistry, 551 

Duane, A., Savage’s Ophthalmie Myology, 188 

DuMBtE, HE. T., Tertiary of the Sabine River, 670 

DunninctTon, F. P., Strength of Animals, 746 

Dupree, J. W., and H. A. Morcan, Mosquito De- 
velopment and Hibernation, 1036 

Dyar, H. G., Eggs of Genus Culex, 672 


in Historical 


Ecology, W. F. Ganone, 64 

Eppy, H. T., Telephone and Power Transmission 
Lines and Hydrodynamic Phenomena, 457 

Education, American, Higher, E. J. JAMES, 681 

EIGENMANN, C. H., The Carnegie Institution, 792 

Ever, E. W., Iridescent Clouds, 192 - 

Elevation of Gulf Coast, T. W. VAUGHAN, 514 


New eel 
VoL. XVI. 


Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, C. BASKERVILLE, 
907 

Engineering, Education, Society for Promotion of, 
H. 8S. Jacosy, 183; Research, Graduate School 
of, 940 ~ 

Entomologists, Economic, Association of, A. L. 
QUAINTANCE, 188 

Entomology, Notes on, N. Banxs, 154 

Eros, Planet, 317 

Esoteric Doctrines, F. Boas, 872 

Ether Waves, F. E. Nreuer, 64 

Ethnology, Bureau of, 676; F. Boas, 828 

Kusrace, H. J., Parasitism of Cephalothecium 
roseum, 747 


Farrineton, O. C., Meteorite from Kansas, 67 

FESSENDEN, R. A., Velocity of Light, 474 

FEWEKES, J. W., Prehistoric Porto Rico, 94 

FrreMan, P., Expansion of Gas into a Vacuum, 

- 705 

Fireproofing Treatment of Wood, 8. P. Saprier, 
424 

Fishery Commission Laboratory of Bergen, B. D., 
676 

Force and Energy, C. S. Minor, 64 

Forces, Effective, L. M. Hoskins, 432 

Forestry in the Hawaiian Islands, 436 

Formation, Grand Gulf, E. A. Smiru, T. H. Axp- 
RICH, 835; W. H. Datu, 946 

Formations, Lafayette and Columbia, 
HARPER, 68 

Fossil, Man from Kansas, S. W. Wix.iston, 195; 
W. UpHam, 355; Tree Bridge, H. F. OsBorn, 
991 

Foster, M., Memorial of Haller, 75 

Fox, Blue, on Pribilof Islands, W. I. Lempxrey and 
F. A. Lucas, 216; L. Srrsnecer, 310 

Freer, P. C., Bureau of Government Laboratories 
for Philippine Islands, 579 

Fritz, John, Medal, R. H. Tuurston, 837 

Function Theory, Applications to Physical Prob- 
lems, J. McManon, 121 


R. M. 


Gace, S. H., Carnegie Institution, 524 

GaLtoway, B. T., Botany, Restrospective and 
Prospective, 49 

Ganone, W. F., Ecology, 64; The Carnegie In- 
stitution, 607 

GARDINER, E. G., Marine Biological Laboratory 
and the Carnegie Institution, 667 

Gas, Expansion of, R. W. Woop, 592, 
FIREMAN; 705 

Geographic Society, National, 956 

Geologic and Paleontologic Parties, 141 

Geological, Expedition, Morrill, E. H. Barsour, 
22; Excursions in Pittsburgh Coal Region, 
A. W. Grapau, 274; Journal Club, Columbia 
Univ., H. W. Snimmr, 827, 868, 1030; So- 
ciety of Washington, A. H. Brooks, 984, 1028 

Geologist, Training and Work of, C. R. Van Hiss, 
32] 

Geology, Patagonian, A. E. OrTMANN, 472; N. Y. 
Acad. of Sciences, E. O. Hovey, 905 

Girpert, G. K., John Wesley Powell, 561 

Git, T., Mammals and Mammalians, 1034 

GinMAN, D. C., John Wesley Powell, 784 

Gitmorg, C. W., Teeth in Baptanodon, 913 

Gorpon, R., Bones of a Mastodon, 594, 1033 


908; P. 


SCIENCE. Vv 


GrRaBau, A. W., Geological Excursions in Pitts- 
burgh Coal Region, 274 

GREELY, A. W., The Carnegie Institution, 738 

GREEN, J. R., Address before Botanical Section of 
British Association, 921 

GuLuiveEr, F. P., Joint Meetings of Geological So- 
ciety, Section E and National Geographic So- 
ciety, 258 


H., J. L., Notes on Inorganie Chemistry, 356, 475 
796, 994 

Happon, A. C., Stanford University, 231 

Hailstorm, Peculiar, A. W. G. Wizson, 909 

Haller, Memorial of, M. Foster, 75 

Haustep, G. B., Hilbert on Foundations of Geom- 
etry, 307; The Carnegie Institution, 644 

Harpine, H. A., and F. C. Srewarr, Bacterial 
Soft Rot of Cruciferous Plants, 314 

Harper, R. M., Lafayette and Columbia Forma- 
tions, 68; Scientific Nomenclature, 354 

Harris, W. T., John Wesley Powell, 786 

Harrison, F. C., Rot in Cauliflower, 152 

Hassaz, A., and C. W. Stites, Bertiella, New 
Name for Bertia Blanchard, 434 

Hatcuer, J. B., Discovery of Musk Ox Skull in 
West Virginia, 707; New Vertebrates of the 
Mid-Cretaceous, 831 

Hatuaway, A. §., Gauss’s Curved Surfaces, 902 

Heat, Latent, and the Vapor Engine Cycle, R. H. 
THURSTON, 394 : 7 

Hewset, 8. T., Lichens on Rocks, 593 

Herrera, A. L., The Carnegie Institution, 1033 

Hitz, EK. A., The Carnegie Institution, 733 

Hit, R. T., Voleanie Phenomena, 470 

Hodgkins Gold Medal, 838 

HoupEN, E. §., The Carnegie Institution, 585 

Hortzanp, W. J., The Carnegie Institution, 601 

Hormes, W. H., Exhibits of Anthropological Mu- 
seum, 487 

Hoskins, L. M., Effective Forces, 432 

Hoven, W., Anthropological Society of Washing- 
ton, 149 

Hovey, E. O., Borchgrevink on Eruption of Mt. 
Pelée, 471; N. Y. Acad of Sci., Geology and 
Mineralogy, 905 

Howarp, L. O., Washington Meeting of American 
Association, 821 

Hower, J. L., The Carnegie Institution, 582 

Howe, M. A., Torrey Botanical Club, 30 

Howe.t, W. H., Physies and Study of Medicine, 
33 

Huser, G. C., Hardesty on Neurological Technique, 
703 

Huxley Lecture on Studies of. Immunity, W. H. 
WELCH, 804, 850 

Hydrodynamic Phenomena and Telephone and 
Power Transmission Lines, H. T. Eppy, 457 

Hygrometry, Method in, C. Barus, 38 


Ichthyology, History of, D. S. Jorpan, 241 
Images, Multiple, M. G. Luoyp, 316 
Investigation versus Erudition, O. F. Coor, 552 
Iridescent Clouds, E. W. Exper, 192 


Jacopy, H. §., American Bridge Construction, 12; 
Society for Promotion of Engineering Edu- 
cation, 183 

JAGGAR, JR., T. A., Next Eruption of Pelée, 871 


vi SCIENCE. 


Jasrrow, J., The Carnegie Institution, 693; Spill- 
er’s Mind of Man, 980 

James, E. J., American Higher Education, 681 

Jounson, R. H., The Carnegie Institution, 990 

Jorpan, D. S., History of Ichthyology, 241; Car- 
negie Institution, 528; A Point in Nomencla- 
ture, 870 

Jorpan, E. O., The Carnegie Institution, 580 

Josrpnson, A. G. S., The Carnegie Institution, 648 


Kinnicutt, L. P., Modern Methods of* Sewage 
Treatment, 161 

Kwow.ton, F. H., Six New Species, 273 

Koper, G. M., Sedgwick’s Sanitary Science, 
Mason’s Water Supply, Horrocks’ Bacteriolog- 
ical Examination of Water, Baker’s Municipal 
Engineering and Sanitation, Rideal’s Bac- 
terial Purification of Sewage, 218 

Kremers, E., Heusler’s Chemistry of the Terpenes, 
790 


L., F. A., Job on Water-fowl, 145; Meyer on Euro- 
pean Museums, 941 

Laboratories, Bureau of, for Philippine Islands, 
P. C. FREER, 579 

Lanctey, 8. P., and Oruers, John Wesley Powell, 
782 

Las Vegas Science Club, T. D. A. C., 828 

Ler, F. S., Scientific Aspect of Modern Medicine, 
1001 

Leumer, D. N., Short Method of Multiplication, 71 

Lempxey, W. I., and F. A. Lucas, Blue Fox Trap- 
ping on Pribilof Islands, 216 

Lichens on Rocks, 8, T. HENSEL, 593 

Light, Group-velocity and Wave-velocity of, D. B. 
Brace, 81; Velocity of, R. A. FESSENDEN, 474 

Lioyp, M. G., Multiple Images, 316 

Logs, M., Carnegie Institution, 485 

Louisiana, Magnetic Survey of, 915 

Lucas, F. A., Paleontological Notes, 435; Biolog- 
ical Society of Washington, 743, 945, 826, 986; 
Orange County Mastodons, 669; and W. I. 
LemBkeEy, Blue Fox Trapping on Pribilof 
Islands, 216 

Lusk, G., Carnegie Institution, 484 


M., W J, American Anthropological Association, 
309 


MocM., J. P., Korschelt and Heider’s Vergleichende 
Entwicklungsgeschichte, 144; French’s Ani- 
mal Activities, Kellogg’s Zoology, Hodge’s 
Nature Study, 739 

MacDovueat, D. T., Report of General Secretary of 
American Association, 41; Botanical Society 
of America, 294 

McGer, W J, The Carnegie Institution, 611; John 
Wesley Powell, 788 

McManon, J., Application of Function Theory to 
Physical Problems, 121 , 

Magnetic Work of U. 8. Coast and Geodetic Sur- 
vey, L. A. Bauer, 555 

Mammals and Mammalians, T. GixL, 1034 

Mann, C. R., Histories and Bibliographies of 
Physics, 1010 

Marine Biological Laboratory and the Carnegie 
Institution, 317; E. B. Witson, 591; C. O. 
WHITMAN, 529, 665; E. G. GARDINER, 667; 
J. McK. Catrern, 668 


CONTENTS AND 
INDEX. 


Marsu, M. C., Bacterium Pathogenic to Trout, 
706 

Mason, O. T., Schutz on Altersklassen und Min- 
nerbunde, 26 

Mastodon, R. Gorpon, 594, 10383; F. A. Lucas, 
669 

Mathematical Society, American, F. N. Coxe, 511, 
791 

Marrurw, G. F., Stratigraphy in Nova Scotia, 513 

Maturation of Germ-cells, H. B. WiLson, 991 

Medicine, Scientific, F. 8. Ler, 1001 

Menvbet, L. B., Ortmann on Princeton Expedition 
to Patagonia, 111; Sacharoff on Das Eisen als 
das thiitige Prinzip der Enzyme, 112 

Mendel’s Law, W. J. SprLpMAN, 709, 794 

Merritt, E., American Physical Society, 825 

Meteorite, from Kansas, O. C. FARRINGTON, 67; 
of Simaloa, Mexico, H. A. Warp, 395 

Meteorology, Notes on, R. DEC. Warp, 74 

Metrie System in Great Britain, 595 

Mnzns, S. E., The Carnegie Institution, 987 

Michigan, Univ. of, Research Club, F. C. New- 
COMBE, 272, 704, 987 

Mitrrr, A. R., Strength of Ants, 514 

Mitier, D. S., James’s Varieties of Religious Ex- 
perience, 301 ; 

Mitirr, G. A., Dickson’s Linear Groups, 113 

Miller, Hugh, Centenary, 556 

Mimicry, B. Dean, 832 

Minor, C. S., Problem of Consciousness in its 
Biological Aspects, 1; Elizabeth Thompson 
Science Fund, 35; Force and Energy, 64 

Mircuetnt, S. A., N. Y. Acad. Sci., Astronomy, 
Physics and Chemistry, 29, 63, 866, 907 

Molds on Cigars, R. H. TRuE, 115 

Morean, H. A., and J. W. Duprer, Mosquito De- 
velopment and Hibernation, 1036 

Morean, T. H., Naples Station, 993 

Mosquito, Salt Marsh, J. B. Smiry, 391; Eggs, 
H. G. Dyar, 672; Development and Hiberna- 
tion, J. W. DupREE and H. A. MoreGan, 1036 

Multiplication, Short Method of, D. N. LeHMer, 
71 

Miunsterserc, H., Carnegie Institution, 521 

Museum Reports, 152 

Musical Instruments, Catalogue of, C. IX. Wrap, 
862 

Musk Ox Skull in West Virginia, J. B. HATCHER, 
707 


Nacirries, H. F., Ktikenthal’s Zoology, 431 

Naples Station, T. H. Morean, 993 

National Academy of Sciences, 838 

Natural History, Boston Society, G. M. ALLEN, 

1030; in England, E. B. TircHEener, 1032 

Nature Study, W. J. Brat, A. S. Packarp, J. M. 
Counter, C. P. GrtteTre, W. M. Davis, E. A. 
VeRRILL, D. S. Jorpan, T. H. Macsripg, 910 

Naval Engineering, 515 

Newcomes, F. C., Univ. of Mich. Research Club, 
272, 704, 987 

New York Academy of Sciences, Biology, H. E. 
Crampton, 27; Astronomy, Physics and Chem- 
istry, S. A. MircHE1, 29, 63, 866, 907; Geol- 
ogy and Mineralogy, E. O. Hovey, 905 

Nicuors, E. F., Physics at the American Associa- 
tion, 171 

Nipuer, I. E., Ether Waves from Explosions, 64 


NEW SERIES 
VoL. XVI. 


Nomenclature, R. H. Harper, 354; H. E. Baum, 
432; T. D. A. CockmRELL, 745; D. 8. JorDAN, 
870; C. L. Sumar, 1035 

Norton, J. B. 8., Sclerotina Fructigena, 34 

Noyes, W. A., The Carnegie Institution, 990 

Nucleation, Atmospheric, Changes of, C. Barus, 
948 

Nucleus, Structure of, C. Barus, 633 


Observatory, National, 281 

O’GaRA, P. J., Canker and Black-rot, 434 

Ornithologists’ Union, American, J. H. Sacre, 938 

OrtMaANN, A. E., Patagonian Geology, 472 

Osporn, H. F., Recent Zoopaleontology, 673, 713, 
749; Fossil Tree Bridge, 991 


Packarp, A. 8., The Carnegie Institution, 646 

Paleontological Notes, F. A. Lucas, 435 

Paleontology at American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, 196 2 

Pear Blight in California, N. B. Pirren, 193 

Pelée, next Eruption of, T. A. Jacaar, JR., 871 

Perry, J., Address to Engineering Section of 
British Association, 761 

Philosophical Society, American, 957; of Washing- 
ton, C. IK. Wrap, 744, 865 

Physical Society, American, E. Mrrrirr, 825 

Physics, and Study of Medicine, W. H. Hower, 
33; Laws of, T. D. A. CocKERELL, 593 

Physiography, Notes on, W. M. Davis, 636, 748, 
914, 995 

PICKERING, E. C., Comet B, 1902, and Mass of 
Mercury, 797 

Pierce, A. H., Weights of Bills and Coins, 745 

Pierce, N. B., Pear Blight in California, 193 

Pond-snail, R. E. Cary, 65 

Porto Rico, Prehistoric, J. W. Frwxes, 94 

Powell, John Wesley, G. K. Giuperr, 561; S. P. 
LANGLEY, 782; R. RatHBUN, 783; W. H. Datt, 
783; D. C. Girman, 784; C. D. Watcort, 
785; W. T. Harris, 786; M. Baker, 788; W J 
McGer, 788 

Prepotency of Polydactylous Cats, H. B. Torrny, 
554 


Prescott, A. B., Chemical Laboratory of Sheffield 
Scientific School, 306 

Prescott, 8. C., Isolating Colon Bacilli, 671] 

Prickly Ash, Prickles of, J. B. DANDENO, 871; A. 
REHDER, 1032 

Princeton for the Nation’s Service, W. Wrison, 
721 

PRITCHETT, H. S., The Carnegie Institution, 587 


QuarinTANnce, A. L., Association of Economie Hn- 
tomologists, 188 

Quito, Are of, I. W., 194 

Quotations, 34 


Ramatey, F., Nelson’s Flowering Plants of Rocky 
Mountain Region, 147 

Ratusun, R., John Wesley Powell, 783 

REES, J. K., Recent Progress in Astronomy, 366 

REnHDER, A., Prickles of Prickly Ash, 1032 

Research, Scientific, R. H. Tuursron, 40], 445 

Rhodes Scholarships, 916 

RicwArps, E. H., The Carnegie Institution, 699 

Ricuarps, T. W., van’t Hoff’s Physikalische 
Chemie, 903 


SCIENCE. 


vil 


Rirrer, W. E., The Carnegie Institution, 731 

Rood, Ogden N., W. Lr C. Stevens, 881 

Root-pressure in Begonia, J. B. DANDENO, 833 

Rot, in Cauliflower, F. C. Harrison, 152; Bac- 
terial, of Cruciferous Plants, H. A. HArpING 
and F. C. Stewart, 314; Bitter, of Apples, 
H. von ScHRENK, P. Spauptne, 669; T. J. 
BurRix1, 909 

Rorcu, A. L., International Aeronautical Congress, 
296; Hellmann’s Meteorological Reprints, 351 

Royal Society, Catalogue of Scientific Papers, 
$74; Annual Address of the President, 974 

Rusts of Asparagus and Carnation, J. L. SHELDON, 
235 

Rutter, F. R., Economie and Social Science at 
American Association, 372 


Saptrer, S. P., Fireproofing Treatment of Wood, 
424 

Sacer, J. H., American Ornithologists’ Union, 938 

Scurenk, H. von, Botany at American Associa- 
tion, 136; and P. Spaunprne, Bitter Rot of 
Apples, 669 

Scuurman, J. G., Length of College Year and 
Course, 816 

Sciences, The Academy of, J. Mok. Carrrny, 965 

Scientific, Books, 23, 59, 111, 144, 188, 215, 269, 
301, 351, 381, 431, 469, 510, 551, 589, 631, 
664, 701, 739, 790, 819, 861, 901, 941, 980; 
Journals and Articles, 63, 114, 147, 227, 308, 
358, 431, 552, 632, 704, 942, 821, 865, 943, 
982; Notes and News, 36, 77, 116, 157, 197, 
938, 276, 317, 357, 398, 437, 478, 516, 557, 
596, 637, 677, 715, 754, 798, 838, 876, 917, 
958, 996, 1038; Societies, Convocation of, 
1038 

Sclerotinia Fructigena, J. B. 8. Norton, 34 

Scorr, W. E. D., Instinct in Song Birds, 70 

Sea Water, Physiology of, R. H. Trur, 433 

Sewage Treatment, Modern Methods of, L. P. 
KIcinnicutt, 161 

Suear, C. L., Nomenclature in Botany, 1035 

Snetpon, J. L., Rusts of Asparagus and Carnation, 
235 

Snimer, H. W., Columbia Univ. Geological Jour- 
nal Club, 827, 868, 1030 

Shorter Articles, 33, 67, 115, 152, 232, 312, 355, 
391, 433, 474, 554, 633, 669, 706, 747, 794, 
832, 872, 913, 948, 991, 1034 

Stmonps, F. W., Texas Academy of Sciences, 190 

Smitu, E. A., and T. H. Atpricu, Grand Gulf 
Formation, 835 

Smiru, H. I., Anthropology at the American Asso- 
ciation, 201 

Smiru, H. M., Herdman and Dawson on Fish and 
Fisheries of the Irish Sea, 305 

Smiru, J. B., Salt Marsh Mosquito, 391 

Smithsonian Institution, and its Affiliated Bu- 
reaus, 805; Policy of, 961 

Snake, Fox, Range of, A. E. Brown, 151 

Societies and Academies, 27, 63, 149, 190, 272, 
309, 511, 704, 743, 791, 821, 865, 904, 944, 
983, 1027 ; 

SpauLpIne, P., and H. von Scurenxk, Bitter Rot 
of Apples, 669 

Species, Six New, I’. H. Knowxron, 273; and Sub- 
species, H. L. Crarn, 229; J. A. ALLEN, 383 

SPILLMAN, W. J., Mendel’s Law, 709, 794 


Vill 


Squids from Onondaga Lake, J. M. CrarKeE, 947, 
991 

Stanford University, A. C. Happon, 231 

Stanton, T. W., Vertebrates of the Mid-Creta- 
ceous, 1031 

Srarr, M. A., The Carnegie Institution, 737 

Stars, Northern Circumpolar, Position of, M. 
UPDEGRAFF, 689 

Steam Engineering, Report of Bureau, R. H. 
THURSTON, 864 

StTeJNEGER, L., Blue Foxes on Pribilof Islands, 
310 ‘ 

Srernpere, C. H., The Carnegie Institution, 989 

Strernpere, G. M., The Carnegie Institution, 481; 
Erlich’s Seitenkettentheorie, 664 

Stevens, W. Le C., Carhart and Chute’s Physics; 
Slate’s Physics, Gilley’s Principles of Phys- 
ics; Crew and Tatnall’s Laboratory Physics; 
Kelsey’s Physical Determinations, 271; 
Ogden N. Rood, 881 

Stewart, F. C., and H. A. Harprne, Bacterial Rot 
of Cruciferous Plants, 314 

Stites, C. W., Zoology at the American Associa- 
tion, 344; The Carnegie Institution, 698; and 
A. HASSALL, Cestode Genus Bertia Blanchard, 
434 

Stokes, H. N., The Carnegie Institution, 583 

Stratigraphy, versus Paleontology in Nova Scotia, 
D. WuiteE, 232; G. F. MarrHew, 513 

Stratron, G. M., Jastrow’s Fact and Fable in 
Psychology, 23 


Terminology, D. H. Camppett, 705; L. M. Un- 
DERWOOD, 869 

Tertiary of Sabine River, E. T. DuMBLE, 670 

Texas Academy of Science, F. W. Srsronps, 190 

Text-books, J. S. Brown, 65 

Tuitty, F., Paulsen’s Die deutschen Universitiiten, 
381 

Thompson, Elizabeth, Science Fund, C. S. Minor, 
35 


TuHurston, R. H., Latent Heat and the Vapor- 
Engine Cycle, 394, Scientific Research, 401, 
445; Naval Progress, 631; John Fritz Medal, 
837; Bureau of Steam Engineering, 864 

TiTcHENER, E. B., The Carnegie Institution, 609; 
Natural History in England, 1032 

Tomso, JR., R., University Administration Sta- 
tistics, 1021 

Torrey Botanical Club, M. A. Hows, 30, E. S. 
BurceEss, 826, 867 

Torrey, H. B., Prepotency of Polydactylous Cats, 
554 

Toxins, Bacterial, V. C. VAUGHAN, 312 

TRELEASE, W., The Carnegie Institution, 738 

Trout, Bacterium Pathogenic to, M. C. Marsa, 
706 

Trur, A. C., The Carnegie Institution, 650 

True, R. H., Molds on Cigars, 115; Physiology of 
Sea Water, 433 ; 

Type, Fixing, in Certain Genera, J. A. ALLEN, O. 
Banes, B. W. EvermMann, T. Ginn, A. H. 
Howet., D. S. Jorpan, C. H. Merriam, G. 8S. 
Miter, Jr., E. W. Netson, M. Ratueun, O. 
THOMAS, 114 

Types, versus Residues, O. F. Cook, 31] 


UnprERwoop, L. M., Question in Terminology, 869 


SCIENCE. 


“CONTENIS AND 
INDEX. 


University, and Educational News, 89, 79, 120, 169, 
200, 238, 280, 320, 360, 400, 440, 480, 520, 
560, 600, 639, 680, 720, 760, 800, 840, 879, 
920, 960, 1000, 1040; Administration Sta- 
tistics, R. TomBo, JR., 1021 

Upprcrarr, M., Position of Northern Circumpolar 
Stars, 689 

Upuam, W., Fossil Man in Kansas, 355 


Van Hise, ©. R., Training and Work of a Geolo- 
gist, 321 

VAUGHAN, V. C., Bacterial Toxins, 312 

Vaucuan, T. W., Elevation of the Gulf Coast, 514 

Vertebrates of the Mid-Cretaceous, J. B. HATCHER, 
831; T. W. Sranton, 1031 

Virchow Memorial, 955; Anthropological Work of, 
F. Boas, 441 

Volcanic Phenomena, Study of, R. T. Hix, 470 


W., L., The Are of Quito, 194 

Watcort, C. D., John Wesley Powell, 785 

Watpo, C. A., Mechanical Science and Engineer- 
ing at the American Association, 334 

Warp, H. A., Meteorite of Simaloa, Mexico, 395 

Warp, R. DEC., Iridescent Clouds, 32; Notes on 
Meteorology, 74 

Wrap, C. K., Philosophical Society of Washington, 
744, 865; Catalogue of Musical Instruments, 
862 

Wesser, H. J., Botanical Society of Washington, 
945 


Wesster, F. M., Society for Promotion of Agricul- 
tural Edueation, 512 

Weights of Bills and Coins, A. H. Prerce, 745 

Wetcnu, W. H., Huxley Lecture on Recent Studies 
of Immunity, 804, 850 

WELLS, H. L., Ostwald’s Inorganic Chemistry, 269 

WHEELER, W. M., Comstock and Kellogg’s Insect 
Anatomy, 351 

WurppLE, G. M., The Carnegie Institution, 735 

Wuitr, C. A., A Realistic Dream, 710 

Wuitr, D., Stratigraphy versus Paleontology in 
Nova Scotia, 232 

WuitmMan, C. O., Biological Farm for Experi- 
mental Investigation, 504; Crisis in History 
of Marine Biological Laboratory, 529; Marine 
Biological Laboratory and Carnegie Institu- 
tion, 665 

Winey, H. W., Carnegie Institution, 482; Chem- 
istry in University Education, 841; Inter- 
national Congress of Applied Chemistry, 899 

WILLIAMS, C. B., N. C. Section of American Chem- 
ical Society, 212 

Wits, B., The Carnegie Institution, 699 

Witriston, 8. W., Fossil Man from Kansas, 195; 
Laramie Cretaceous of Wyoming, 952 

Wittoucusy, C. C., Coiled Basketry, 31 

Witson, A. W. G., Peculiar Hailstorm, 909 

Wixrson, E. B., Marine Biological Laboratory and 
the Carnegie Institution, 591; Maturation of 
Germ-cells, 991 

\Witson, W., Princeton for the Nation’s Service, 
721 

Woop, R. W., Cooling of Gases by Expansion, 592, 
908 


Zoological Nomenclature, W. H. Daz, 150 
Zoopaleontology, Recent, H. F. O., 673, 713, 749 


See LENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE: S. NEwcomB, Mathematics; R. S. WoopWaRD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THurston, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WaAtcoTt, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooxs, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScUDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessey, N. L. Brirron, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


pitcH, Physiology; J. S. BILLINGas, Hygiene ; 


WILLIAM H. Wetcu, Pathol- 


ogy ; J. McKEEN CaATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


FPripay, Juuy 4, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science :— 


The Problem of Canseouoneks in its Bio- 
logical Aspects: PROFESSOR CHARLES 
SME Mic IMLROWocgoewcooodauedagedaus 1 

Recent Progress in American Bridge Con- 
struction: PRorrssor Henry §. Jacopy. 12 

Report of Progress of Nebraska State Geo- 
logical Survey and the Morrill Geological 

ELapedition of 1901: PrRoressor ERwIN 

ENG ye BARBOUR ae yiicitle iii sers ss 

Scientific Books :— 

Jastrow’s Fact and Fable in Psychology: 

PROFESSOR GEORGE M. Srratron. Schurtz 

on Altersklassen und Mannerbunde: Pro- 

RESSOR ©. T. MASON..........:.-..---.-:-- 23 

Societies and Academies :— 

New York Academy of Sciences: Section of 

Biology: Prorrssor Henry E. CrRaMpPToN. 

Section of Astronomy, Physics and Chem- 

istry: Dr. S. A. Mirconern. Torrey Bo- 

tanical Club: Marsuatt A. Howe........ 27 

Discussion and Correspondence :— 

Zoological Nomenclature in Botany: O. F. 

Coos. Coiled Basketry: CHARLES C. Wit- 

LoUuGHBY. Iridescent Clouds: PROFESSOR 

R. DEC. Warp. Physics and the Study of 

Medicine: Proressor W. H. Howet..... 30 

Shorter Articles :— 
On a Method in Hygrometry: 


bo 
bo 


PROFESSOR 


C. Barus. Sclerotinia Fructigena: Pro- 
FESSOR J. B. S. NORTON..<.:............ 33 
Quotations :— 
The House of Delegates of the American 
Medical Aissociatiow. 02.55. 5+ sees 34 
The Blizabeth Thompson Science Fund: Pro- 
FESSOR CHARLES 8S. MINOT............... 35 
The Pittsburgh Meeting of the American As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Science.. 36 
Scientific Notes and News................. 36 
University and Educational News.......... 39 
MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 


for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN 
ITS BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS.* 

Our Association meets in Pittsburgh for 
the first time. We are glad to indicate by 
our assembling here our appreciation of the 
immense work for the promotion of educa- 
tion and science which has begun in this 
city and already is of national value. It 
has been initiated with so great wisdom 
and zeal that we expect it to render services 
to knowledge of the highest character, and 
we are glad to be guests of a city and of 
institutions which are contributing so nobly 
to the cause of science. 

We may congratulate ourselves on the 
bright prospects of the Association. Our 
membership has grown rapidly, and ought 
soon to exceed four thousand. Every 
member should endeavor to secure new ad- 
herents. For our next meeting we are to 
break with the long tradition of summer 


‘gatherings, and assemble instead at New 


Year’s time, presumably at Washington. 
To render this possible it was necessary to 
secure the cooperation of our universities, 
colleges and technical schools, to set aside 
the week in which the first of January falls, 
as Convocation Week for the meeting of 
learned societies. The plan, owing to the 
cordial and almost universal support given 
by the higher educational institutions, has 


* Address of the President of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science. 
Pittsburgh Meeting, June 28 to July 3, 1902. 


2 SCIENCE. 


been successfully carried through. For the 
winter meetings we have further succeeded 
in securing the cooperation of numerous 
national societies. The change in our time 
of meeting is an experiment which we ven- 
ture upon with the greater confidence, be- 
cause of the suecess of our present meeting 
in Pittsburgh. 


For my address this evening I have 
chosen the theme: ‘ The Problem of Con- 
sciousness in its Biological Aspects.’ I hope 
both to convince you that the time has 
come to take up consciousness as a strictly 
biological problem, and also to indicate the 
nature of that problem, and some of the 
actual opportunities for investigating it. 
It is necessary to begin with a few words 
on the philosophical interpretation. We 
shall then describe the function of con- 
sciousness in animal life, and consider its 
part in the evolution of animals and of 
man. The views to be stated suggest certain 
practical recommendations, after present- 
ing which I shall conelude by offering an 
hypothesis of the relation of consciousness 
to matter and force. ; 

Consciousness is at once the oldest prob- 
lem of philosophy and one of the youngest 
problems of science. The time is not yet 
for giving a satisfactory definition of con- 
sciousness, and we must fain content our- 
selves with the decision of the metaphysi- 
cian, who postulates consciousness as an 
ultimate datum or concept of thought, mak- 
ing the brief dictum cogito, ergo swm the 
pivot about which his system revolves. I 
have endeavored vainly to discover by read- 
ing and by questioning those philosophers 
and psychologists whom I know, some deep- 
er analysis of consciousness, if possible, 
resolving it into something more ultimate. 

Opinions concerning consciousness are 
many and often so diverse as to be mutually 
exclusive, but they may be divided into two 
principal classes. The first class includes 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 392. 


all those views which make of consciousness 
a real phenomenon; the second, those views 
which interpret it as an epiphenomenon. 
We are, I think practically all, agreed that 
the fundamental question is: Does or does 
not consciousness affect directly the course 
of events?-——or, stated in other words, is 
consciousness a true cause? In short, we 
encounter at the outset the problem of free- 
will; of which more later. . 

The opinion that consciousness is an 
epiphenomenon has gained renewed prom- 
inence in recent times, for it is, so to speak, 
a collateral result of that great movement 
of European thought which has culminated 
in the development of the doctrine of mon- 
ism. Monism itself is postulated chiefly 
upon the two greatest discoveries of the 
nineteenth century—the law of the conser- 
vation of energy, and the law of the evolu- 
tion of species. Both laws establish a 
ereater unity in the phenomena of the uni- 
verse than mankind had previously been 
able to accept. In the physical world, in- 
stead of many forees, we now recognize 
only one force, which assumes various 
forms of energy; and in the living world 
we recognize one life, which manifests it- 
self in many types of form. With these 
two unities in mind, what could be nearer 
than the thought that the unity goes still 
deeper, and that the phenomena of the in- 
animate or physical,and of the living world 
are fundamentally identical? The pro- 
eress of physiological science has greatly 
increased the impetus towards the adoption 
of this thought as the cardinal dogma of 
the new faith, because the work of phys- 
iologists has been so devoted to the physical 
and chemical phenomena of life, that the 
conviction is widespread that all vital phe- 
nomena are capable of a physical explana- 
tion. Assuming that conviction to be cor- 
rect, it is easy to draw the final conclusion 
that the physical explanation suffices for 
the entire universe. As to what is, or may 


Juty 4, 1902.] 


be, behind the physical explanation, com- 
plete agnosticism is of course the only pos- 
sible attitude. Such in barest—but I be- 
lieve correct—outline is the history of 
modern monism—the doctrine that there is 
but one kind of power in the universe. 

It is evident that monism involves the 
elimination of two concepts, God and con- 
sciousness. It is true that monists some- 
times use these words, but it is mere jug- 
elery, for they deny the concept for which 
the words actually stand. Now conscious- 
ness is too familiar to all men to be sum- 
marily cast aside and dismissed. Some 
way must be found to account for it. 
From the monistic standpoint there is a 
choice between two possible alternatives; 
either consciousness is a form of energy, 
like heat, ete., or it is merely a so-called 
epiphenomenon. As there is no evidence 
that consciousness is a form of energy, 
only the second alternative is in reality 
available, and in fact has been adopted 
by the monists. 

It is essential to have a clear notion of 
what is meant by an epiphenomenon. 
Etymologiecally the word indicates some- 
thing which is superimposed upon the aec- 
tual phenomenon. It designates an ac- 
companying incident of a process which is 
assumed to have no causal relation to the 
further development of the process. In 
practice it is used chiefly in regard to the 
relation of the mind or consciousness to 
the body, and is commonly employed by 
those philosophers who believe that con- 
sciousness has no causal relation to any 
subsequent physiological process. 

For many years I have tried to recognize 
some actual idea underneath the epiphe- 
nomenon hypothesis of consciousness, but 
it more and more seems clear to me that 
there is no idea at all, and that the hypoth- 
esis 1s an empty phrase, a subterfuge, 
which really amounts only to this—we can 
explain consciousness very easily by merely 


SCIENCE. 3 


assuming that it does not require to be 
explained at all. Is not that really the 
confession made by the famous assertion 
that the consciousness of the brain no 
more requires explanation than the aquos- 
ity of water? 

Monism is not a strong system of phi- 
losophy, for it is not so much the product 
of deep and original thinking as the result 
of a contemporary tendency. It is not the 
inevitable end of a logical process, because 
it omits consciousness, but rather an in- 
cidental result of an intellectual impulse. 
Its very popularity betokens its lack of 
profundity, and its delight in simple for- 
mule is characteristic of that mediocrity 
of thought which has much more ambi- 
tion than real power and accepts simplic- 
ity of formularizationl as equivalent to 
evidence. It would seem stronger too, if 
it were less defended as a faith. Strong 
partizans make feeble philosophers. 

Consciousness ought to be regarded as 
a biological phenomenon, which the biolo- 
cist has to investigate in order to increase 
the number of verifiable data concerning 
it. In that way, rather than by specula- 
tive thought, is the problem of conscious- 
ness to be solved, and it is precisely be- 
cause biologists are beginning to study 
consciousness that it is becoming, as I 
said in opening, the newest problem of 
science. 

The biologist must necessarily become 
more and more the supreme arbiter of all 
science and philosophy, for human knowl- 
edge is itself a biological function which 
will become comprehensible just in the 
measure that biology progresses and brings 
knowledge of man, both hy himself and 
through comparison with all other living 
things. We must look to biologists for the 
mighty generalizations to come rather 
than to the philosophers, because great new 
thoughts are generated more by the ac- 
cumulation of observations than by deep 


4 SCIENCE. 


meditation. To know, observe. Observe 
more and more, and in the end you will 
know. <A generalization is a mountain of 
observations; from the summit the out- 
look is broad. The great observer climbs 
to the outlook, while the mere thinker 
struggles to imagine it. The best that can 
be achieved by sheer thinking on the data 
of ordinary human experience we have 
already as our glorious inheritance. The 
principal contribution of science to human 
progress is the recognition of the value 
of accumulating data which are found out- 
side of ordinary human experience. 
Twenty-three years ago, at Saratoga, I 
presented before the meeting of this Asso- 
ciation—which I then attended for the 
first time—a paper, ‘On the Conditions to 
be Filled by a Theory of Life,’ in which I 
maintained that, before we can form a 
theory of life, we must settle what are the 
phenomena to be explained by it. So now, 
in regard to consciousness it may be main- 
tained that, for the present, it is more im- 
portant to seek additional positive knowl- 
edge than to hunt for ultimate interpreta- 
tions. We welcome therefore especially 
the younger science of experimental psy- 
chology, which, it is gratifying to note, 
has made a more auspicious start in 
America than in any other country. It 
completes the circle of the biological sci- 
ences. It is the department of biology 
to which properly belongs the problem of 
consciousness. The results of experi- 
mental psychology are still for the most 
part future. But I shall endeavor to show 
that we may obtain some valuable prelim- 
inary notions concerning consciousness 
from our present biological knowledge. 
We must begin by accepting the direct 
evidence of our own consciousness as fur- 
nishing the basis. We must further ac- 
cept the evidence that consciousness exists 
in other men essentially identical with the 
consciousness in each of us. The anatom- 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


ical, physiological and psychological evi- 
dence of the identity of the phenomena in 
different human individuals is, to a scien- 
tific mind, absolutely conclusive, even 
though we continue to admit cheerfully 
that the epistemologist rightly asserts that 
no knowledge is absolute, and that the 
metaphysician rightly claims that ego is 
the only reality and everything else exists 
only as ego’s idea, because in science as in 
practical life we assume that our knowl- 
edge is real and is objective in source. 

For the purpose of the following dis- 
cussion we must define certain qualities or 
characteristics of consciousness. The most 
striking distinction of the processes in liv- 
ing bodies, as compared with those in in- 
animate bodies, is that the living processes 
have an object—they are teleological. The 
distinction is so conspicuous that the biol- 
ogists can very often say why a given struc- 
ture exists, or why a given function is 
performed, but how the structure exists or 
how the function is performed he ean tell 
very imperfectly, more often not at all. 
Consciousness is only a particular ex- 
ample; though an excellent one of this 
peculiarity of biological knowledge—we do 
not know what it is, we do not know how it 
functions, but we do know why it exists. 
Those who are baffled by the elusiveness of 
consciousness when we attempt to analyze 
it will do well to remember that all other 
vital phenomena are in the last instance 
equally and similarly elusive. 

In order to determine the teleological 
value of consciousness, we must endeavor 
to make clear to ourselves what the es- 
sential function is which it performs. As 
IT have found no deseription or statement 
of that function which satisfied me, I have 
ventured, perhaps rashly, to draw up the 
following new description: 

The function of consciousness is to dis- 
locate in time the reactions from sensa- 
tions. 


JULY 4, 1902.] 


In one sense this may be ealled a defini- 
tion of consciousness, but inasmuch as it 
does not tell what consciousness is, but 
only what it does, we have not a true defi- 
nition, but a description of a function. 
The description itself calls for a brief ex- 
planation. We receive constantly numer- 
ous sensations, and in response to these 
we do many things. These doings are, 
comprehensively speaking, our reactions to 
our sensations. When the response to a 
stimulus is obviously direct and immediate 
we call the response a reflex action, but 
a very large share of our actions are not 
reflex but are determined in a far more 
complicated manner by the intervention of 
consciousness, which may do one of two 
things: (1) Stop a reaction, as, for ex- 
ample, when something occurs, calling, as 
it were, for our attention and we do not 
give our attention to it. This we call con- 
scious inhibition. It plays a great réle 
in our lives; but it does not mean neces- 
sarily that inhibited impressions may not 
survive in memory and at a later time 
determine the action taken; in such cases 
the potential reaction is stored up. (2) 
Consciousness may evoke a reaction from 
a remembered sensation and combine it 
with sensations received at other times. In 
other words, consciousness has a selective 
power, manifest both in choosing from 
sensations received at the same time and 
in combining sensations received at differ- 
ent times. It can make synchronous im- 
pressions dyschronous in their effects, and 
dyschronous impressions synchronous. But 
this somewhat formidable sentence merely 
paraphrases our original description: The 
function of consciousness is to dislocate 
in time the reactions from sensations. 

This disarrangement and constant rear- 
rangement of the sensations, or impressions 
from sensations, which we gather, so that 
their connections in time are altered seems 
to me the most fundamental and essential 


SCIENCE. 


5 


characteristic of consciousness which we 
know. It is not improbable that hereafter 
it will become possible to give a better char- 
acterization of consciousness. In that case 
the opinion just given may become unsatis- 
factory, and have to yield to one based on 
greater knowledge. ‘The characteristic we 
are considering is certainly important, and 
so far as the available evidence goes it 
belongs exclusively to consciousness. With- 
out it life would have no interest, for there 
would be no possibility of experience, no 
possibility of education. 

Now the more we have learned about 
animals, the better have we appreciated the 
fact that in them only such structures and 
functions are preserved as are useful, or 
have a teleological value. Formerly a good 
many organs were called rudimentary or 
vestigial and supposed to be useless sur- 
vivals because they had no known funec- 
tion. But in many eases the functions have 
since been discovered. Such, for example, 
were the pineal gland, the pituitary body, 
the suprarenal capsules and the Wolffian 
body of man, all of which are now recog- 
nized to be functionally important strue- 
tures. Useless structures are so rare that 
cne questions whether any exist at all, ex- 
cept on an almost insignificant scale. It 
has accordingly become well-nigh impos- 
sible for us to imagine consciousness to 
have been evolved, as it has been, unless it 
had been bionomiecally useful. Let us there- 
fore next consider the value of conscious- 
ness from the standpoint of bionomies.* 

We must begin with a consideration of 
the nature of sensations and the object of 
the reactions which they cause. In the 
simpler forms of nervous action a force, 
usually but not necessarily external to the 
organism, acts as a stimulus which causes 

* A convenient term, recently gaining favor, for 
what might otherwise be called the economics of 
the living organism. Bionomics seems preferable 


to ecology, which some writers are adopting from 
the German. 


6 SCIENCE. 


- an irritation; the irritation produces a re- 
action. Within the ordinary range of the 
stimuli to which an organism is subjected, 
the reaction is teleological, that is, 1t tends 
to the benefit of the organism. A familiar 
illustration is the presence of food in the 
stomach, which produces a stimulus, the re- 
action to which is manifested by the secre- 
tion of the digestive fluid for the purpose 
of digesting the food. An organism might 
conceivably be maintained solely by this 
mechanism in cooperation with the physical 
laws which govern all matter. Life in such 
an organism would be a succession of teleo- 
logical processes, essentially mechanical 
and regulated automatically by the organ- 
ism. By far the majority of biologists 
regard plants as essentially eonforming to 
this type of life. Whether they absolutely 
so conform we do not, of course, yet know. 

A sensation involves the interpolation of 
consciousness between the stimulation and 
the reaction, and in consequence there is 
established the possibility of a higher order 
of adjustment to the external world than 
ean be attained through the teleological 
reaction to a stimulus. This possibility de- 
pends upon the fact that the intervention 
of consciousness permits an adjustment in 
accordance not merely with the immediate 
sensation, but also, and at the same time, 
in accordance with earlier sensations. 
Thus, for example, the child sees an object, 
and its reaction is to take hold of the object, 
which is hot and hurts the child. Later the 
child sees the object again and its natural 
reaction is to take hold of it again, but the 
child now reacts differently because its con- 
sciousness utilizes the earlier as well as the 
present sensation; the previous sensation 
is dislocated in time and fused with the 
present sensation and a new reaction fol- 
lows. No argument is necessary to estab- 
lish the obvious conclusion that an organ- 
ism which has consciousness has an im- 
mensely increased scope for its adjustments 


[N. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


to the external conditions; in other words 
consciousness has a very high value for the 
organism. It is unnecessary to dwell upon, 
this conclusion, for it will be admitted by 
every one, except perhaps those who start 
with the a priori conviction that conscious- 
ness is an epiphenomenon. 

A sensation gives information concern- 
ing the external world. Perhaps science 
has achieved nothing else which has done 
so much to clarify philosophy as the demon- 
stration that the objective phenomena are 
wholly unlike the subjective sensations. 
Light is a series of undulations, but we do 
not perceive the undulation as such, but 
as red, yellow and green, or as we say 
colors; the colors give us available informa- 
tion, and we use them as so many labels, 
and we learn that reactions to these labels 
may be helpful or hurtful, and so we regu- 
late our conduct. Objectively red, yellow 
and green do not exist. Similarly with the 
vibrations of the air, certain of which cause 
the sensation of sound, which is purely 
subjective. But the sound gives us infor- 
mation concerning our surroundings, which 
we utilize for our teleological needs, al- 
though in nature external to us there is 
no sound at all. Similarly all our other 
senses report to us cireumstances and con- 
ditions, but always the report is unlike the 
external reality. Our sensations are sym- 
bols merely, not images. They are, how- 
ever, bionomically sufficient because they 
are constant. They are useful not because 
they copy the external reality or represent 
it, but because, being constant results of 
external causes, they enable consciousness 
to prophesy or foresee the results of the 
reactions of the organism, and to maintain 
and improve the continual adjustment to 
the external reality. 

The metaphysicians have for centuries 
debated whether there is any external ob- 
jective reality. Is it too much to say that 
the biological study of consciousness settles 


JULY 4, 1902.] 


the debate in favor of the view that the 
objective world is real ? 

Consciousness is not only screened from 
the objective world from which it receives 
all its sensations, but also equally from im- 
mediate knowledge of the body through 
which it acts. As I write this sentence I 
utilize vaso-motor nerves, regulating the 
cerebral blood currents, and other nerves 
which make my hand muscles contract and 
relax, but of all this physiological work 
my consciousness knows nothing though it 
commands the work to be done. The con- 
tents of consciousness are as unlike what is 
borne out from it as they are unlike what 
is borne in to it. 

The peculiar untruthfulness to the ob- 
jective which consciousness exhibits in 
what it gets and gives would be perplexing 
were it not that we have learned to recog- 
nize in consciousness a device to secure 
better adjustment to external reality. For 
this service the system of symbols is success- 
ful, and we have no ground for supposing 
that the service would be better if con- 
sciousness possessed direct images or copies 
instead of symbols of the objective world. 

Our sensory and motor* organs are the 
servants of consciousness; its messengers 
or scouts; its agents or laborers; and the 
nervous system is its administrative office. 
A large part of our anatomical character- 
istics exist for the purpose of increasing 
the resources of consciousness, so that it 
may do its bionomie function with greater 
efficiency. Our eyes, ears, taste, ete., are 
valuable, because they supply conscious- 
ness with data; our nerves, muscles, bones, 
ete., are valuable, because they enable con- 
sciousness to effect the needed reactions. 

Let us now turn our attention to the 
problem of consciousness in animals. The 
comparative method has an importance in 
biology which it has in no other science, 


* And other organs in efferent relations to 
consciousness. 


a SCIENCE. ee 7 


for life exists in many forms which we 
commonly call species. Species, as I once 
heard it stated, differ from one another 
with resemblance. The difference which 
resembles we term an homology. Our 
arm, the bird’s wing, the lizard’s front 
leg are homologous.. The conception of 
homology both of structure and of fune- 
tion lies at the basis of all biological sci- 
ence, which must be and remain incompre- 
hensible to any mind not thoroughly im- 
bued with this conception. Only those 
who are deficient in this respect can fail 
to understand that the evidence is over- 
whelming that animals have a conscious- 
ness homologous with the human conscious- 
ness. The proof is conclusive. As re- 
gards at least mammals—I think we could 
safely say as regards vertebrates—the 
proof is the whole sum of our knowledge 
of the structure, functions and life of 
these animals. 

As we descend the animal seale to lower 
forms there is no break and therefore no 
point in the descent where we can say here 
animal consciousness ends, and animals be- 
low are without it. It seems inevitable 
therefore to admit that consciousness ex- 
tends far down through the animal king- 
dom, certainly at least as far down as there 
are animals with sense organs or even the 
most rudimentary nervous system. It is 
unsatisfactory to rely chiefly on the ana- 
tomical evidence for the answer to our 
query. We await eagerly results from 
psychological experiments on the lower in- 
vertebrates. A sense organ however im- 
plies consciousness, and since such organs 
occur among ccelenterates we are led to 
assign consciousness to these animals. 

The series of considerations which we 
have had before us lead directly to the con- 
clusion that the development and improve- 
ment of consciousness has been the most 
important, really the dominant, factor in 
the evolution of the animal series. The 


fs) SCIENCE. 


sense organs have been multiplied and per- 
fected in order to supply consciousness 
with a richer, more varied and more trust- 
worthy store of symbols corresponding to 
external conditions. The nervous system 
has grown vastly in complexity in order to 
permit a constantly increasing variety in 
the time dislocations of sensation. The 
motor and allied apparatus have been mul- 
tiplied and perfected in order to supply 
consciousness with more possibilities of ad- 
justment to external reality which might 
be advantageous. 

If we thus assign to consciousness the 
Jeading réle in animal evolution we must 
supplement our hypothesis by another, 
namely, that conscious actions are primary ; 
reflex and instinctive actions secondary, or, 
in other words, that, for the benefit of the 
organism, conscious actions have been 
transformed into reflexes and _ instincts. 
Unfortunately we must rely chiefly on 
future physiological and psychological ex- 
periments to determine the truth of this 
hypothesis. Its verification, however, is 
suggested by certain facts in the compara- 
tive physiology of the vertebrate nervous 
system, which tend to show that in the 
lower forms (amphibia) a certain degree of 
consciousness presides over the functions of 
the spinal cord, which in mammals is de- 
voted to reflex actions. Its verification is 
further suggested by the natural history of 
habits. As we all know, new actions are 
performed with difficulty and slowly, but if 
often repeated they are soon easier and 
more rapid. If a given reaction to a sen- 
sation or group of sensations through con- 
sciousness is advantageous to the organism 
and the environment is such that the sen- 
sation is often repeated, then a habit is 
formed and the response becomes more 
rapid, and often in ourselves we see habits 
which arose from conscious action working 
almost without the participation of con- 
sciousness, and moreover working usefully 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


because rapidly. The usefulness of con- 
scious reactions 1s that they are determined 
not merely by the present sensation but 
also by past sensations, but they have the 
defect that they are slow. We ean readily 
understand that it would aid an organism 
to have the quicker reaction substituted, 
and we thus recognize a valid teleological 
reason for the replacement of conscious 
action by habits in the individual, by in- 
stincts in the race. The investigation of 
the evolution of reflexes and instincts is 
one of the important and most promising 
tasks of comparative psychology. 

A frank unbiased study of consciousness 
must convince every biologist that it is 
one of the fundamental phenomena of at 
least animal life, if not, as is quite pos- 
sible, of all life. Nevertheless its consid- 
eration has barely a place in biological 
science, although it has long occupied a 
vast place in philosophy and metaphysics. 
If this address shall contribute to a clearer 
appreciation of the necessity of treating 
consciousness as primarily a problem for 
biological research to solve, my purpose 
will be achieved. In an ideal world phi- 
losophers and scientists would be identical ; 
in the actual world there are philosophical 
scientists and scientific philosophers, but 
in the main the followers of the two dis- 
ciplines pursue paths which are unfortu- 
nately distinct. The philosophical mind is 
of a type unlike the scientific. The former 
tries to progress primarily by thought 
based on the data available, the latter seeks 
to advance primarily by collecting addi- 
tional data. The consequence of this dif- 
ference is that philosophy is dependent 
upon the progress of science, but we who 
pursue the scientific way make no greater 
mistake than to underestimate philosophy. 
The warning is needed. Data of observa- 
tion are a treasure and very precious. 
They are the foundation of our mental 
wealth, but that wealth consists of the 


JuLy 4, 1902.] 


thought into which the data are trans- 
mitted. In pleading therefore for an in- 
creased observational study of conscious- 
ness we plead, not merely for science, but 
equally for philosophy. The scientific 
progress must come first. Hence we urge 
the advantage of investigating conscious- 
ness in its immediate revelations which are 
accessible now. Let us give up the ineffec- 
tual struggle to discover the essential na- 
ture of consciousness until we can renew 
it with much larger resources of knowl- 
edge. 

The psychologists ought now to apply 
the comparative method on a grand scale. 
They are just beginning to use it. Years 
of patient labor must pass by, but the re- 
ward will be very great. The psychic life 
of animals must be minutely observed, the 
conditions of observation carefully regu- 
lated and the results recorded item by item. 
The time has passed by for making general- 
izations on the basis of our common, vague 
and often inexact notions concerning the 
habits of animals. Exact experimental 
evidence will furnish a rich crop of psy- 
chological discovery. Scientific psychol- 
ogy is the most backward in its develop- 
ment of all the great divisions of biology. 
It needs, however, little courage to proph- 
esy that it will bring forth results of mo- 
mentous importanee to mankind. After 
data have been gathered, generalization 
will follow which, it may be hoped, will 
lead us on to the understanding of even 
consciousness itself. 

The teleological impress is stamped on 
all life. Vital functions have a purpose. 
The purpose is always the maintenance of 
the individual or of the race in its environ- 
ment. The entire evolution of plants and 
animals is essentially the evolution of the 
means of adjustment of the organism to 
external conditions. According to the 
views I have-laid before you, consciousness 
is a conspicuous, a commanding, factor 


SCIENCE. 9 


of adjustment in animals. Its superiority 
is so great that it has been, so to speak, 
eagerly seized upon by natural selection 
and provided with constantly improved 
instruments to work with. A conerete 
illustration will render the conception 
clearer. In the lowest animals, the 
celenterates, in which we can recognize 
sense organs, the structure of them is very 
simple, and they serve as organs of touch 
and of chemical sensation resembling taste. 
In certain jelly fishes we find added special 
organs of orientation and pigmented spots 
for the perception of light. In worms we 
have true eyes and vision. In vertebrates 
we encounter true sense of smell. Fishes 
cannot hear, but in the higher vertebrates, 
that is from the amphibians up, there are 
true auditory organs. In short, both the 
senses once evolved are improved and also 
new senses are added. It is perfectly con- 
ceivable that there should be yet other 
senses, radically different from any we 
know. Another illustration, and equally 
forcible, of the evolution of aids to con- 
sciousness might be drawn from the com- 
parative history of the motor systems, 
passing from the simple contractile thread 
to the striated muscle fiber, from the prim- 
itive diffuse musculature of a hydroid to 
the highly specialized and correlated mus- 
cles of a mammal. 

It is interesting to consider the evolution 
of adjustment to external reality in its 
broadest features. In the lowest animals 
the range of the possible adjustment is 
very limited. In them not only is the 
variety of possible actions small, but they 
cover also a small period of time. In 
animals which have acquired a higher or- 
ganization the adjustments are more com- 
plex, both becatse the reactions are more 
varied and because they cover a longer 
period of time. Thus the jelly fish de- 
pends upon such food as happens to come 
within its reach, seizing from moment to 


10 SCIENCE. 


moment that which it encounters; but a 
lobster pursues its food, making compli- 
cated movements in order to reach and 
seize it. One can trap lobsters easily; I 
doubt if one could trap a jelly fish at all. 
The next great advance is marked by the 
establishment of communication between 
individuals of the same species. About 
this phenomenon we know exceedingly 
little; the investigation of it is one of the 
most important duties of the comparative 
physiologist. Its bionomic value is ob- 
viously great, for it allows an individual 
to utilize the experience of another as well 
as its own. We might, indeed, compare 
it with the addition of a new sense, so 
greatly does it extend the sources of infor- 
mation. The communication between in- 
dividuals is especially characteristic of 
vertebrates, and in the higher members of 
that subkingdom it plays a very great role 
in aiding the work of consciousness. In 
man, owing to articulate speech, the factor 
of communication has acquired a max- 
imum importance. The value of language, 
our principal medium of communication, 
lies in its aiding the adjustment of the in- 
dividual and the race to external reality. 
Human evolution is the continuation of 
animal eyolution, and in both the dominant 
factor has been the inerease of the re- 
sources available for consciousness. 

In practical life it is convenient to dis- 
tinguish the works of nature from the 
works of man, the ‘ natural’ from the ‘ arti- 
ficial.’ The biologist, on the contrary, 
must never allow himself to forget that 
man is a part of nature and that all his 
works are natural works. This is specially 
important for the present discussion, for 
otherwise we are likely to forget also that 
man is as completely subject to the neces- 
sity of adjustment to external reality as 
any other organism. From the biological 
standpoint all the work of agriculture, of 
manufactures, of commerce and of govern- 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


ment is a part of the work of consciousness 
to secure the needed adjustments. All 
science belongs in the same category as the 
teleological efforts of a jelly fish or a 
lobster. It is work done at the command 
of consciousness to satisfy the needs of ex- 
istence. The lesson of all this to us is that 
we should accustom ourselves to profit by 
our understanding of the trend of evolu- 
tion, which, in the progress humanity 
makes, obeys the same law of adaptation to 
objective reality which has controlled the 
history of animals. This view of the con- 
ditions of our existence puts science in its 
right place. As all sensations are symbols 
of external reality useful to guide organ- 
isms to teleological reactions, so is all sci- 
ence symbolic and similarly useful. 

Nature never produces what to us seems 
a perfect organism, but only organisms 
which are provided with means of adjust- 
ment sufficient to accomplish the survival 
and perpetuation of the species. Man also 
is imperfect, but in the struggle for exist- 
ence wins his way because his consciousness 
has greater resources than that of any other 
organism. His great power arises from his 
appreciation of evolution. His highest 
duty is to advance evolution, and this duty 
must be most strongly felt by those who 
accept the religious Interpretation of life. 
The advancement of science is an obliga- 
tion. To this view of the work of our As- 
sociation I may safely claim the assent of 
all present. 

The function of science is to extend our 
acquaintanee with the objective world. 
The purpose of the American Association 
is not alone to increase the sum total of 
science, but equally also to preach by word 
and precept the value of truth, truth being 
the correct conscious symbol of the object- 
ive, by utilizing which our purposeful re- 
actions are improved. The most serious 
obstacle truth encounters is the prevalence 
of what I may eall ‘doll ideas’—by anal- 


JuLY 4, 1902.] : - 


ogy with the material dolls, with which 
children play. The child makes believe 
with the doll, knowing all the time its un- 
reality, assigns to it hopes, passions, appe- 
tites; the child may feel the intensest sym- 
pathy with its doll, weep at its sorrows, 
laugh over its joys, yet know always that 
it is a mere inanimate, senseless doll. 
Adult men and women have ideas, with 
which they play make-believe; doll ideas, 
which they know are unreal, and yet they 
mourn sincerely over the adversities of 
their mental dolls, rejoice over their suc- 
cesses and fight for them with passion. 
Such doll ideas become mingled with the 
real and inextricably woven into the fab- 
rie of life. They are treated with the most 
earnest seriousness. Men will fight for 
them as a child will fight for its doll, not 
because it is property, but because it is a 
sacred personality. So are doll ideas often 
made sacred and defended with fanaticism. 
Yet, behind, in consciousness is the sense 
of unreality, the disregarded admission of 
‘making believe.’ Do not doll ideas, pseu- 
do-opinions, play a great réle in human 
life? JI think they do, and thinking so, 
deem it all the more imperative that you 
and others should teach the people the 
standard of science, the humble acknowl- 
edgment of reality. I wish that an im- 
pulse toward this goal from our Association 
could be imparted to every man and woman 
in the country, and I hope that the Asso- 
ciation may* continue to grow in number 
and power for long years-to come, as it has 
grown in the last few years, so that it shall 
be a national, all-pervading influence serv- 
ing the truth. 

It seems to me inconceivable that the 
evolution of animals should have taken 
place as it actually has taken place, 
unless consciousness is a real factor and 
dominant. Accordingly I hold that it ac- 
tually affects the vital processes. There is, 
in my opinion, no possibility of avoiding 


SCIENCE. 11 


the conclusion that consciousness stands 
in immediate causal relations with physio- 
logical processes. To say this is to abide 
by the facts, as at present known. to us, 
and with the facts our conceptions must be 
made to accord. 

The thought which I wish to emphasize 
is the importance for the future. investiga- 
tion of consciousness of separating the 
study of what it does from the study of 
what it is. The latter study is recondite, 
metaphysical, and carries us far beyond 
the lmits of verifiable human knowledge. 
The former study is open to us and offers 
opportunities to science, but it has hitherto 
been almost completely neglected. Biology 
has now to redeem itself by effectual re- 
searches on consciousness. On the ade- 
quate prosecution of such researches we 
base great hopes. 

Before I close permit me a few words 
concerning the relations of consciousness 
to the body, to living substances through 
which it manifests itself. It is intimately 
linked to protoplasm. Probably no ques- 
tion is so profoundly interesting to all 
mankind as the old question, what is the 
relation of the mind to the body? Itisa 
question which has been stated in many 
forms and from many points of view, but 
the essential object of the question is 
always the same, to ask whether conscious- 
ness is a function of living matter, or some- 
thing discrete and not physical or material. 

Throughout this address consciousness 
has been viewed as a device to regulate 
the actions of the organisms so as to ac- 
complish purposes which on the whole are 
useful to the organisms, and accordingly 
we have termed its function teleological. 
If this view is correct it accounts for the 
limitations of consciousness, its mechanical 
mode of work, its precision and definite- 
ness of action, for of course, unless con- 
sciousness is orderly and obeys laws, it 
cannot be of use to the organism, but, on 


12 SCIENCE. 


the contrary, it would be harmful, and 
conscious animals would have ceased long 
ago to survive. The very fact that con- 
sciousness is of such high value in the 
bionomy of an animal renders it obvious 
that it must be subject to law. <Accord- 
ingly it appears to us regulated as do the 
functions of protoplasm. Hence to cer- 
tain modern thinkers it presents itself as 
a function of protoplasm, or, as it may 
be better stated, as a state or condition of 
protoplasm. 

The internal evidence of consciousness, 
however, is against this view and presents 
to us conscious actions as depending upon 
the consciousness. As before stated I be- 
lieve that this evidence must be accepted. 
Now all the sensations of consciousness are 
derived from physical force, and all the 
acts of consciousness are manifested 
through physical force; hence if it has any 
real power consciousness must be able to 
change the form of energy. Unless we 
accept this doctrine, we must give up all 
belief in free-will and adopt the automaton 
theory of life. Is not the more reasonable 
explanation that which is based upon all 
the contents of our consciousness rather 
than that which we can draw by discard- 
ing the internal evidence which conscious- 
ness brings us? The hypothesis which I 
offer for your consideration is this: 

Consciousness has the power to change 
the form of energy, and is neither a form 
of energy nor a state of protoplasm. 

By this hypothesis there are two funda- 
mentally different things in the universe, 
force and consciousness. You ask why 
I do not say three, and add matter? My 
answer is that we do not have, and never 
have had, any evidence whatever that mat- 
ter exists. All our sensations are caused 
by force and by force only, so that the 
biologist can say that our senses bring no 
evidence of matter. The concept ‘matter’ 
is an irrational transfer of notions derived 


[N. S. Ven. XVI. No. 392. 


from the gross molar world of the senses 
to the molecular world. Faraday long ago 
pointed out that nothing was gained and 
much lost by the hypothesis of material 
atoms, and his position seems to me im- 
pregnable. It would be a great contribu- 
tion to science to kill off the hypothesis of 
matter as distinct from force. 

To conelude: The universe consists of 
foree and consciousness. As consciousness 
by our hypothesis can initiate the change 
of the form of energy, it may be that with- 
out consciousness the universe would come 
to absolute rest. Since I close with a bold 
speculation let my last words recall to 
you that my text is: Investigate conscious- 
ness by comparative observations. Only 
from observation can we know. Correct, 
intelligent, exhaustive observation is our 
goal. When we reach it human science will 
be completed. 


CHARLES Sep@wick Minor. 
Harvarp Mrpican ScHooL. 


RECENT PROGRESS IN AMERICAN BRIDGE 
CONSTRUCTION.* 

In view of the great achievements in 
engineering construction which character- 
ized the latter part of the nineteenth cen- 
tury in America, it seems appropriate to 
give a brief review of the most recent pro- 
eress in one of its departments, that of 
bridge construction. It appears to be the 
more fitting since the place of this meeting 
of the Association is the greatest center 
of production of the material which con- 
stitutes the bulk of that used for modern 
bridges. 

The application of scientific principles 
to the construction of bridges is more com- 
plete to-day than ever before. This state- 
ment applies to the specified requirements 


* Address of the Vice-president and Chairman 
of Section D—Mechanical Science and Engineer- 
ing—of the American Association for the <Ad- 
vancement of Science, Pittsburgh Meeting, June 
28-July 3, 1902. 


JuLY 4, 1902. ] 


which the finished structure must fulfill, 
the design of every detail to carry the 
stresses due to the various loads imposed, 
the manufacture of the material compo- 
sing the bridge, the construction of every 
member in it, and finally the erection of 
the bridge in the place where it is to do 
its duty as an instrument of transportation. 

A close study of the economic problems 
of transportation in the United States and 
the experimental application of its results 
led the railroad managers to the definite 
conviction that, in order to increase the 
net earnings while the freight rates were 
slowly but steadily moving downward, it 
was necessary to change the method of 
loading by using larger cars drawn by 
heavier locomotives, so as to reduce the 
cost of transportation per train mile. 
While these studies had been in progress 
for a number of years and there was a 
eradual increase in the weight of locomo- 
tives, it is only within the past five years 
that the test was made, under favorable 
conditions and on an adequate scale, to 
demonstrate the value of a decided advance 
in the capacity of freight cars and in the 
weight of locomotives for the transporta- 
tion of through freight. The test was 
made on the Pittsburgh, Bessemer and 
Lake Erie Railroad, which was built and 
equipped for the transportation of iron ore 
from Lake Erie to Pittsburgh and of coal 
in the opposite direction. 

When this economic proposition was 
fairly established, it was wonderful to see 
how railroad managers and capitalists met 
the situation, by investing additional capi- 
tal for the newer type of equipment, and 
for the changes in road bed and location 
necessarily involved by that in the rolling 
stock. Curves were taken out or dimin- 
ished, grades were reduced, heavier rails 
were laid, and new bridges built, so that 
practically some lines were almost rebuilt. 
The process is still going on and money 


SCIENCE. 13 


by the hundred millions is involved in the 
transformation and equipment of the rail- 
roads. Some impression of the magnitude 
of the change in equipment may be gained 
from the single fact, that one of the lead- 
ing railroads has within a few years ex- 
pended more than twenty millions of 
dollars for new freight cars alone, all of 
which have a capacity of 100,000 pounds. 
The form of loading for bridges almost 
universally specified by the railroads of 
this country consists of two consolidation 
locomotives followed by a uniform train 
load. These loads are frequently chosen 
somewhat larger than those that are likely 
to be actually used for some years in ad- 
vance, but sometimes the heaviest type of 
locomotives in use is adopted as the stand- 
ard loading. The extent to which the 
specified loadings have changed in eight 
years may be seen from the following state- 
ment based on statistics compiled by Ward 
Baldwin and published in the Railroad 
Gazette for May 2, 1902. 

Of the railroads whose lengths exceed 
100 miles, located in the United States, 
Canada and Mexico, only ‘2 out of 77 
specified uniform train loads exceeding 
4,000 pounds per linear foot of track in 
1893, while in 1901, only 13 out of 103 
railroads specified similar loads less than 
4,000 pounds. In 1893, 37 railroads speci- 
fied loads of 3,000 pounds and 29 of 4,000 
pounds, while in 1901, 4,000 pounds was 
specified by 50, 4,500 pounds by 14, and 
5,000 pounds by 17 railroads. The max- 
imum uniform load rose from 4,200 in 
1893 to 6,600 pounds in 1901. 

In a similar manner in 1893 only 1 rail- 
road in 75 specified a load on each driving 
wheel axle exceeding 40,000 pounds, while 
in 1901 only 13 railroads out of 92 specified 
less than this load. In 1893 only 21 of the 
77 railroads specified similar loads ex- 
ceeding 30,000 pounds. The maximum 
load on each driving wheel axle rose from 


14 SCIENCE. 


44,000 pounds in 1893 to 60,000 pounds in 
1901. 

The unusual amount of new bridge con- 
struction required caused a general re- 
vision of the standard specifications for 
bridges, the effect of which was to in- 
clude the results of recent studies and ex- 
periment, and to eliminate some of the 
minor and unessential items formerly pre- 
seribed. 

Meanwhile another movement was in 
progress. Experience having shown the 
ereat advantage of more uniformity in 
various details and standards relating 
to the manufacture of bridges both in 
reducing the cost and the time required 
for the shop work, an effort was begun 
to secure more uniformity in the require- 
ments for the production and tests of steel, 
which is the metal now exclusively em- 
ployed in bridges. 

The American Section of the Interna- 
tional Association of Testing Materials is 
bringing together through its investiga- 
tions and discussions a mass of selected 
information on the relations of chemical 
composition, heat treatment, mechanical 
work, ete., to the physical properties of 
steel as well as of other metals used in 
structures and for mechanical purposes. 

The thorough digest of these results of 
scientific research and practical tests, and 
the preparation and adoption of standard 
specifications for different classes of ma- 
terial, are confidently expected to eliminate 
many old requirements which are proved 
inefficient in securing the results for which 
they were originally intended, and to in- 
corporate in the specifications only the 
essential requirements by which the char- 
acter of the product may be determined 
with sufficient precision for its actual 
duty. By making these requirements rea- 
sonable and fair, on the one hand as sim- 
ple and definite as possible without im- 
pairing their real value, and on the other 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


hand flexible enough to avoid imposing 
undue hardship upon the manufacturer 
who keeps in touch with the best methods 
available, the result is confidently expected 
to be a high degree of interested coopera- 
tion on the part of both engineer and man- 
ufacturer in securing the best grade of ma- 
terial which the present state of science 
makes practicable. 

The American section of that Associa- 
tion in 1901 adopted a series of proposed 
standard specifications, one of which re- 
lates to steel for bridges and buildings and 
which is recommended for adoption by 
those who buy such structures. A commit- 
tee of the Railway Engineering and Main- 
tenance of Way Association is now at work 
on the same problem, a full agreement 
having not yet been reached. 

With greater uniformity in the physical, 
chemical and other requirements for steel, 
as determined by standard tests, the unit 
stresses to be prescribed for the design of 
bridges will naturally approach to a corre- 
sponding uniformity. To what extent this 
is desirable may be inferred from the fact 
that the application of several of the lead- 
ing specifications to the design of a railroad 
bridge under a given live load yields 
results which may vary by an. amount 
ranging from zero to twenty-five per cent. 
of the total weight. 

In the revision of specifications a decided 
tendency is observed to simplify the de- 
sign by making an allowance for impact, 
vibration, ete., by adding certain percent- 
ages to the live load according to some well- 
defined system. It needs but relatively 
little experience in making comparative 
designs of bridges under the same load- 
ing, to show the advantage of this method 
over that in which the allowance is made 
in the unit stresses according to any of the 
systems usually adopted in such a ease. 
Not only are the necessary computations 
greatly simplified but the same degree of 


JULY 4, 1902.] 


security is obtained in every detail of the 
connections as in the principal members 
which compose the structure. 

Experiments on a large scale are very 
much needed to determine the proper per- 
centage of the live load to be allowed for 
the effect of impact, so as to secure the 
necessary strength with the least sacrifice 
of true economy. While the extreme 
economy of material that was formerly 
practised is not now desirable, since stiff- 
ness receives due consideration, some idea 
of the importance of such an investigation 
may be gained by considering the magni- 
tude of the industries involved. 

In March, the Railroad Gazette published 
a supplement containing a list of bridge 
projects under consideration. This list 
was intended to include only the larger 
steel and stone structures, whether for 
railroads or highways, the aim being to 
exclude those that are obviously unimpor- 
tant. Besides this, the bridges needed on 
1,500 new railroad projects recorded in 
the same supplement are likewise excluded. 
After excluding both of these classes the 
list still contains about 1,300 new projects 
for bridges. 

An investigation might also be advan- 
tageously made to determine the proper 
ratio of the thickness of cover plates in 
chord members which are subject to com- 
pression, to the transverse distance between 
the connecting lines of rivets. The same 
need exists in regard to the stiffening of 
the webs of plate girders, concerning which 
there is a wide variation in the require- 
ments of different specifications. 

A movement which has done much good 
during the past decade and promises more 
for the future is that of the organization 
of bridge departments by the railroad com- 
panies. The great economy of making 
one design rather than to ask a number of 
bridge companies to make an equal num- 
ber of designs, of which all but one are 


SCIENCE. 15 


wasted, is the first advantage; but another 
of even greater significance in the develop- 
ment of bridge construction is that which 
arises from the designs being made by 
those who observe the bridges in the con- 
ditions of service and who will naturally 
devote closer study to every detail than is 
possible under the former usual conditions. 


‘The larger number of responsible designers 


also leads to the introduction of more new 
details to be submitted to the test of ser- 
vice, which will indicate those worthy of 
adoption in later designs. In order to 
save time and labor and secure. greater 
uniformity in the design of the smaller 
bridges, some of the railroads prepare 
standard plans for spans varying by small 
distances. For the most important strue- 
tures consulting bridge engineers are more 
frequently employed than formerly, when 
so much dependence was placed upon 
competitive designs made by the bridge 
companies. 

An investigation was recently made by 
a committee of the Railway Engineering 
and Maintenance of Way Association in 
regard to the present practice respecting 
the degree of completeness of the plans 
and specifications furnished by the rail- 
roads. It was found that of the 72 rail- 
roads replying definitely to the inquiry, 
33 per cent. prepare ‘plans of more or less 
detail, but sufficiently full and precise to 
allow the bidder to figure the weight cor- 
rectly and if awarded the contract to at 
once list the mill orders for material’; 18 
per cent. prepare ‘general outline drawings 
showing the composition of members, but 
no details of joints and connections’; while 
49 per cent. prepare ‘full specifications 
with survey plan only, leaving the bidder 
to submit a design with his bid.’ If, how- 
ever, the comparison be made on the basis 
of mileage represented by these 72 rail- 
roads, the corresponding percentages are 
48, 24 and 28 respectively. The total mile- 


16 SCIENCE. 


age represented was 117,245 miles. A large 
majority of the engineers and bridge com- 
panies that responded were in favor of 
making detail plans. 

The shop drawings, which show the form 
of the bridge, the character and relations 
cf all its parts, give the section and length 
‘f every member, and the size and position 
of every detail whether it be a reinforcing 
plate, a pin, a bolt, a rivet or a lacing bar. 
All dimensions on the drawings are checked 
independently so as to avoid any chance 
for errors. The systematic manner in 
which the drawings are made and checked, 
and the thorough organization of every de- 
partment of the shops, makes it possible 
to manufacture the largest bridge, to ship 
the pieces to a distant site and find on 
erecting the structure in place that all 
the parts fit together, although they had 
not been assembled at the works. 

The constant improvement in the equip- 
ment of the bridge shops, and the increas- 
ing experience of the manufacturers who 
devote their entire time and attention to 
the study of better methods for transform- 
ing plates, bars, shapes, rivets and pins 
into bridges, constitute important factors 
in the development of bridge construction. 

As the length of span for the different 
classes of bridges gives a general indica- 
tion of the progress in the science and art 
of bridge building, the following refer- 
ences are made to the longest existing span 
for each class, together with the increase 
in span which has been effected approx- 
imately during the past decade. 

In plate girder bridges the girders, as 
their name implies, have solid webs com- 
posed of steel plates. A dozen years ago 
but few plate girders were built whose 
span exceeded 100 feet, the maximum 
span being but a few feet longer than this. 
To-day such large girders are very fre- 
quently constructed, and the maximum 
span has been increased to 126 feet be- 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


tween centers of bearings. This is the 
span of the large plate girders of the 
viaduet on the Riverside drive in New 
York City, erected in 1900. The longest 
railroad plate girder was erected about 
the same time on the Bradford Division 
of the Erie Railroad, its span beimg 125 
feet 24 inches. The heaviest plate girder 
is the middle one of a four-track bridge 
on the New York Central Railroad erected 
last year near Lyons, N. Y. Its weight is 
103 tons, its span 107 feet 8 inches, and its 
depth out to out 12 feet 2 inches. 

The large amount of new construction 
and the corresponding increase in the 
weight of the rolling stock have combined 
to secure a more extensive adoption of plate 
girders and the designs of many new de- 
tails for them. These affect chiefly the 
eomposition of the flanges, the web splices, 
the expansion bearings and the solid floor 
system. Although solid metal floors built 
up of special shapes were first introduced 
into this country fifteen years ago, their 
general adoption has taken place largely 
within the past decade on account of their 
special adaptation to the requirements of 
the elevation of tracks in cities. Solid 
floors may.not only be made much shal- 
lower than the ordinary open type, thereby 
reducing the total cost of the track eleva- 
tion, but. they also permit the ordinary 
track construction with eross-ties in ballast 
to be extended across the bridge, thus 
avoiding the jar which otherwise results 
as the train enters and leaves the bridge, 
unless the track is maintained with ex- 
traordinary care. 

The necessity for bridges of greater stiff- 
ness under the increased live loads has also 
led to the use of riveted bridges for con- 
siderably longer spans than were in use six 
or seven years ago. The use of pin-con- 
nected trusses for spans less than about 150 
feet is undesirable for railroad bridges, on 
account of the excessive vibration due to 


JuLy 4, 1902. ] 


the large ratio of the moving load to the 
dead load, or weight of the bridge itself. 

While riveted bridges are now quite gen- 
erally used for spans from 100 to 150 feet, 
they have been employed to some extent 
up to 1814 feet. The recent forms of 
riveted trusses do not, however, conform 
to the general character of European de- 
signs but embody the distinctively Ameri- 
ean feature of concentrating the material 
ito fewer members of substantial con- 
struction. With but rare exceptions the 
trusses are of the Warren, Pratt and Balti- 
more types with single systems of webbing. 
At a distance where the riveted connec- 
tions cannot be distinguished, the larger 
trusses have the same general appearance 
as the corresponding pin bridges. 

The recent examples of viaduct construe- 
tion with thei stiff. bracing of built-up 
members and riveted connections exhibit 


a marked contrast to the older and lighter. 


structures with their adjustable bracing 
composed of slender rods. The viaduct 
which earries the Chicago and Northwest- 
ern Railroad across the valley of the Des 
Moines River, at a height of 185 feet above 
the surface of the river is 2,658 feet long. 
It was built in 1901, is the longest double- 
track viaduct in the world, provided those 
located in cities be excluded, and is an 
admirable type of the best modern con- 
struction. The tower spans are 45 feet long 
and the other spans are 75 feet long. Four 
lines of plate girders support the two tracks. 
Along with this viaduct should be mention- 
ed the Viaduct Terminal of the Chesapeake 
and Ohio Railway at Richmond, Va., whose 
length including the depot branch is 3.13 
miles. 
much higher than an elevated railroad in 
cities. The excellent details and élean 
lines of this substantial structure give it 
a character which is surpassed neither in 
this country nor abroad. It may be added 
that the highest viaduct in this country, 


A large part of this is not very - 


SCIENCE. IG 


and which was rebuilt in 1900, is located 
seventeen miles from Bradford, Pa., where 
the Erie Railroad crosses the Kinzua Creek 
at a height of 301 feet. It has a length of 
2,053 feet. 

While the elevated railroads which have 
been built recently, also embody many of 
the characteristics of the best viaduct con- 
struction, special study has been given to 
improve their esthetie effect. The use 
of curved brackets, of connecting plates 
whose edges are trimmed into curves so 
as to reduce the number of sharp angles, 
and of rounded corners of posts, constitute 
some of the means employed. The results 
are seen in the structures of the Bcston 
Elevated Railroad and in some of the latest 
construction in Chicago. 

‘The longest span of any simple truss 
in America is that of the bridge over 
the Ohio River at Louisville, erected in 
1893. Its span center. to center of end 
pins is 5464 feet. Since that. time sey- 
eral other bridges of this kind have 
been built which are considerably heavier, 
although their spans are somewhat shorter. 
The most noteworthy of these are the 
Delaware River bridge on the Pennsylvania 
Railroad near Philadelphia and the Mo- 
nongahela River bridge of the Union Rail- 
road at Rankin, Pa., both of which are 
double-track bridges. The Delaware 
River bridge was erected in 1896, each one 
of its fixed spans having a length of 533 
feet and containing 2,094 tons of steel. 
The Rankin bridge was erected in 1900. 
Its longer span has a length of 495 feet 
83 inches between centers of end pins and 
contains about 2,800 tons of steel, making 


‘it the heaviest single span ever erected. It 


may also be added that the locomotive and 
train load for which this bridge was de-. 
signed is the heaviest that has yet been 
specified. 

The recent changes in the details of pin- 
connected truss bridges have been mainly 


18 SCIENCE. 


the result of efforts to eliminate ambiguity 
in the stresses of the trusses, to reduce the 
effect of secondary stresses, and to secure 
inereased stiffness as well as strength in 
the structure. Double systems of webbing 
have been practically abandoned so far as 
new construction is concerned. The sim- 
plicity of truss action thus secured ‘permits 
the stresses to be computed with greater 
accuracy and thereby tends to economy. 
Before the last decade very few through 
bridges and those only of large span were 
designed with end floor beams in order to 
make the ‘superstructure as complete as 
possible in itself and independent of the 
masonry supports. Now this improved 
feature is being extended to bridges of 
small spans. Similarly dropping the ends 
of all floor beams in through bridges so as 
to clear the lower chord and to enable the 
lower lateral system to be connected with- 
out producing an excessive bending move- 
ment in the posts has likewise been ex- 
tended to the smaller spans of pin bridges 
and is now the standard practice. The 
expansion bearings have been made more 
effective by the use of larger rollers, and 
of bed plates so designed as to properly 
distribute the large loads upon the masonry. 
In the large spans of through bridges the 
top chord is curved more uniformly, there- 
by improving the esthetic appearance. 
These chords are also given full pin bear- 
ings, thus reducing the secondary stresses. 

The stiffness of truss bridges has been 
secured by adopting stiff bracing in the 
lateral systems and sway bracing, instead 
of the light adjustable rods formerly used. 
At the same time adjustable counter ties 
in the trusses are being replaced in recent 
years by stiff ones, while in some cases the 
counters are omitted and the main diago- 
nals designed to take both tension and 
compression. 

Some of the same influences referred to 
above have led to much simpler designs for 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 392. 


the portal bracing by using a few members 
of adequate strength and stiffness similar 
in general character to those of the trusses. 

Such steady progress in the design and 
construction of railroad bridges of moder- 
ate span has, unfortunately, no adequate 
counterpart in highway bridges. The con- 
ditions under which highway bridges are 
purchased by township and county com- 
missioners are decidedly unfavorable to 
material improvements in the character of 
their details. It is a comparatively rare 
occurrence that the commissioners employ 
a bridge engineer to look after the inter- 
ests of the taxpayers by providing suitable 
specifications, making the design, inspect- 
ing the material, and examining the con- 
struction of the bridge to see that it con- 
forms to all the imposed requirements. 
These provisions are only made in some of 
the cities, and accordingly one must examine 
the new bridges in cities to learn what pro- 
egress is making in highway bridge building. 

The lack of proper supervision in the 
rural districts and many of the smaller 
cities results in the continued use of short 
trusses with slender members built up of 
thin plates and shapes, whose comparative- 
ly light weight causes excessive vibration 
and consequent wear, as well as deteriora- 
tion from rust. Under better administra- 
tion plate girders would be substituted for 
such light trusses, making both a stiffer 
structure and one more easily protected 
by paint. The general lack of inspection 
and the consequent failure to protect high- 
way bridges by regular repainting will 
materially shorten their life and thereby 
increase the financial burden to replace 
them by new structures. Some progress 
has been made in adopting riveted trusses 
for the shorter spans for which pin-con- 
nected trusses were formerly used, but ihe 
extent of this change is by no means as 


_extensive as it should be, nor equal to the 


corresponding advance in railroad bridges. 


JuLY 4, 1902.] 


The channel span of the cantilever bridge 
over the Mississippi River at Memphis, 
Tenn., is the longest one of any bridge of 
this class in America. It measures 7904 
feet between centers of supports. This 
bridge was finished in 1890, the same year 
that marked the close of the seven-year 
period of construction and erection of the 
mammoth cantilever bridge over the Firth 
of Forth in Seotland. A number of canti- 
lever bridges have been built since then, 
but most of them have comparatively short 
spans. There is one now under construc- 
tion over the Monongahela River in Pitts- 
burgh, and which is expected to be finished 
this year, whose span is to be a little longer 
than that of the Memphis bridge. It is on 
the new extension of the Wabash Railroad 
system, and the distance between pier cen- 
‘ters is 812 feet. 

But there is another one being built 
which will not only have a longer span 
than any other cantilever bridge in this 
country, but longer than that of any other 
bridge whatsoever. It is located near Que- 
bee, Canada, and its channel span over 
the Saint Lawrence River is to have the 
unprecedented length of 1,800 feet or 
nearly a hundred feet longer than that of 
the Forth cantilever bridge and two hun- 
dred feet longer than the Brooklyn suspen- 
sion bridge. The towers will have a height 
of 360 feet above high tide. It will ac- 
commodate a double-track railroad, besides 
two electric railway tracks and highways. 
In the piers the courses of masonry are 
four feet high and individual stones weigh 
about fifteen tons each. The character of 
its design and the simplicity of its details 
will permit its construction with unusual 
rapidity and economy for a bridge of this 
magnitude. Several other cantilever struc- 
tures whose largest spans range from 600 
to 671 feet are either now or soon will be 
under construction. 


The Brooklyn bridge, completed in 


SCIENCE. 19 


1883, is still the largest suspension bridge 
in the world, its span being 1,5954 feet. 
More people cross this bridge than any 
other in any country. The New East River 
bridge, which is now being built, has a 
span of 1,600 feet, and its capacity will be 
very much greater than that of the Brook- 
lyn bridge. Each of its four cables has a 
safe strength of over 10,000,000 pounds in 
tension. 

One of the most interesting develop- 
ments relating to the subject under consid- 
eration is the construction of a considerable 
number of metallic arch bridges in recent 
years and the promise of their still greater 
use in the future. On account of their 
form they constitute one of the handsomest 
classes of bridges. 

The first important steel bridge in the 
world was completed in 1874. It is the 
arch bridge which in three spans crosses 
the Mississippi River at St. Louis. Its 


_arches are without hinges and their ends 


are firmly fixed to the piers. This is one 
of the most famous bridges in existence. 
For a long time after its construction no 
metallic arches were erected in this coun- 
try, although many were built in Europe. 
In 1888, however, the highway bridge 
across the Mississippi River at Minneapo- 
lis was erected, consisting of two spans of 
456 feet each and which still remains the 
longest span of any three-hinged arch. 
The following year the Washington bridge 
over the Harlem River in New York city 
was completed. It consists of two spans of 
510 feet in the clear and has the largest 
two-hinged arch ribs with solid web plates. 

These were followed by a number of 
arches of various types, the most noted of 
which are the two arch bridges over the 
Niagara River. The first one is a spandrel- 
braced, two-hinged arch with a span of 
550 feet and replaced the Roebling sus- 
pension bridge in 1897. It accommodates 
the two tracks of the Grand Trunk Rail- 


20 SCIENCE. 


road on the upper deck and a highway on 
the lower deck. The other bridge has 
arched trusses with parallel chords and two 
hinges. It replaced the Niagara and Clif- 
ton highway suspension bridge in 1898, 
and as its span is 840 feet, it is the largest 
arch of any type in the world. The man- 
ner in which this arch was erected fur- 
nishes an illustration of the effort which 
is made by engineers to conform the actual 
conditions so far as possible to the theoretic 
ones involved in the computation of the 
stresses. Since the stresses in an arch hav- 
ing less than three hinges are statically 
indeterminate, stresses of considerable 
magnitude may be introduced into the 
trusses if the workmanship be imperfect, 
the supports not located with sufficient 
precision, and the arch closed without the 
proper means and eare. 

The Niagara and Clifton arch was first 
closed as a three-hinged arch and then 
transformed into a two-hinged arch by in- 
serting the final member under the sum 
of the computed stress due to the weight 
of the truss, and that due to the difference 
between the temperature at which the clos- 
ure was made and that assumed as stand- 
ard in the stress computations. This stress 
was secured in the member by inserting it 
when the hydraulic jack which foreed 
apart the adjacent ends of the shortened 
chords registered the required amount of 
pressure. The arch had been erected as a 
pair of cantilevers from each side extend- 
ing 420 feet out beyond the supports, and 
when the closure was made the two arms 
came together within a quarter of an inch 
of the computed value. Such a result in- 
volving the ‘accuracy of the caleulation 
and design of the entire steel work, the 
exactness with which the bearing shoes or 
skewbacks were placed, and the perfection 
of the shopwork’ has been truly charac- 
terized as phenomenal.* In order to re- 
duce secondary stresses to a minimum the 


[N. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


members were bolted up during the canti- 
lever erection and the bolts replaced by riv- 
ets after the closure of the arch rib. 

The past decade witnessed the introduc- 
tion and extensive development of arches 
of conerete and of conerete-steel construc- 
tion. In the latter kind a small amount of 
steel is imbedded in the concrete in order 
to resist any tensile stresses that may be 
developed. During this period more than 
150 conerete steel bridges have been built 
in this country. In the same year in which 
the largest metallic arch was completed, 
the five conerete-steel arches of the bridge 
at Topeka, Kansas, were finished. The 
largest one has a span of 125 feet and still 
remains the largest span of this type in 
America, although it has been exceeded in 
Europe. Considerably larger spans are to 
be built this season, while others are in- 
cluded in the accepted design for the pro- 
posed Memorial bridge at Washington. 

It is the smaller steel structures which 
are destined more and more to be replaced 
by arches of this material. The steel 
bridges require repainting at frequent in- 
tervals, constant inspection, occasional re- 
pairs and finally replacing by a new strue- 
ture after a relatively short life, on account 
of rust and wear, unless it is required even 
sooner on account of “a considerable in- 
erease in the live load. The concrete arch 
requires practically no attention except at 
very long intervals. 

The safety of operating the traffic makes 
it desirable to have as few breaks as pos- 
sible in the regular track construction of a 
railroad, and this constitutes an additional 
reason why conerete or stone arches are 
being substituted for the smaller openings. 
The decreasing cost of conerete tends to 
an extension of this practice to openings 
of increasing size. Last year, however, a 
bridge was completed which marks a de- 
cided departure from previous practice. 

* Engineering News, August 4, 1898. 


Juny 4, 1902. ] 


The Pennsylvania Railroad built a stone 
bridge, consisting of 48 segmental arches 
of 70 feet span, at’ the crossing of the Sus- 
quehanna River at Rockville, Pa. It is 
52 feet wide, accommodates four tracks 
and cost a million dollars. This bridge has 
not only the advantage of almost entirely 
eliminating the cost of maintenance, but 
it also has sufficient mass to withstand the 
floods which oceasionally wreck the other 
bridges on that river. This year the same 
railroad is building a similar bridge over 
the Raritan River at New Brunswick, N. J. 

Of movable bridges the largest swing 
span existing was erected in 1893 at Oma- 
ha over the Missouri River. Two years 
later a four-track railroad swing bridge 
was built by the New York Central Rail- 
road over the Harlem River in New York 
city, which is only 389 feet long between 
centers of end pins, but which weighs about 
2,500 tons and is accordingly the heaviest 
drawbridge of any class in the world. 

During the past decade a remarkable 
development was made in drawbridge con- 
struction by the modification and improve- 
ment of some of the older types of lft 
bridges and the design of several new 
types. At South Halstead Street a direct- 
lift bridge was built in 1893 over the Chi- 
eago River, in which a simple span 130 
feet long and 50 feet wide is lifted verti- 
cally 1424 feet by means of cables to which 
counterweights are attached. Formerly, 
only very small bridges of this kind were 
used, as those, for instance, over the Erie 
Canal. 

In 1895 a rolling lift bridge over the 
Chicago River was completed. In this new 
design as each leaf of the bridge rotates 
to a vertical position it rolls backward at 
one end. When closed the two leaves are 
locked at the center, but they are supported 
as cantilevers. This form has been found 
to have so many advantages for the ecross- 
ings of relatively narrow streams, where 


SCIENCE. 2 


an unobstructed water way is required and 
the adjacent shores are needed for dock 
room, that a seore of important structures 
of this class have been built in different 
eities. The largest span that has been de- 
signed is 275 feet between centers of sup- 
ports, while the widest one is to accom- 
modate eight railroad tracks crossing the 
Chicago Main Drainage Canal. 

About the same time and under similar 
conditions another type of bascule bridge 
was built at Sixteenth Street, Milwaukee, 
in which, as each leaf moves toward the 
shore, one end rises and the other falls, so 
that its center of gravity moves horizon- 
tally, thus requiring a very small expen- 
diture of power to operate the bridge. 

Several improved forms of hinged-lift 
bridges have also been designed and built 
in Chicago and elsewhere. In a small 
bridge erected in 1896 on the Erie Rail- 
road in the Hackensack meadows there is 
only a single leaf hinged at one end and 
lifted by a cable attached to the other end. 
The counter weight rolls on a curved track 
so designed as to make the counter balance 
equally effective in all stages of opening 
and closing the bridge. 

A novel bridge is now being built over 
the ship canal at Duluth which is different 
from any other type in this country. The 
general scheme is similar to that of a de- 
sign made by a F'rench engineer who built 
three of the structures in different coun- 
tries. It consists of a simple truss bridge 
393 feet 9 inches long, supported on tow- 
ers at a clear height of 135 feet above high 
water. Instead of supporting the usual 
floor of a highway bridge it supports the 
track of a suspended car which is properly 
stiffened against wind pressure and lateral 
vibration, the floor of the car being on a 
level with the docks. This ferry is oper- 
ated by electricity. The loaded ear, its 
hangers, trucks and machinery weigh 120 
tons. In the French design a suspension 


22 SCIENCH. 


bridge was used instead of the simple 
truss bridge. 

A bridge is being built across the Charles 
River between Boston and Cambridge that 
deserves especial mention and marks a 
decided advance in the growing recogni- 
tion on the part of municipal authorities 
of the importance of esthetic considera- 
tions in the design of public works. It 
consists of 11 spans of steel arches whose 
lengths range from 1014 to 1884 feet. Its 
width is 105 feet between railings. It is 
claimed that this bridge ‘ will be not only 
one of the finest structures of its kind in this 
country, but will be a rival of any in the 
old world.’ Its length between abutments 
is 1,7674 feet, and it is estimated to cost 
about two and a half millions of dollars. 

The problems incident to the replacing 
and strengthening of old bridges frequent- 
ly tax the resources of the engineer and 
demonstrate his ability to overcome diffi- 
culties. Only a few examples will be cited 
to indicate the character of this work. In 
1900 the Niagara cantilever bridge had its 
capacity increased about 75 per cent. by 
the insertion of a middle truss without in- 
terfering with traffic. In 1897 the entire 
floor of the Cincinnati and Covington sus- 
pension bridge was raised four feet while 
the traffic was using it. It may be of in- 
terest to state that the two new eables, 104 
inches in diameter, which were added to 
inerease the capacity of the bridge, have 
just about three times the strength of the 
two old ones, 124 inches in diameter, 
and which were made a little over thirty 
years before. In the same year the old 
tubular bridge across the Saint Lawrence 
River was replaced by simple truss spans 
without the use of false works under the 
bridge and without interfering with traffic. 
On May 25 of this year the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad bridge over the Rari- 
tan River and canal at New Brunswick, 


‘N. J., was moved sidewise a distance 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


of 144 feet. Five simple spans 150 feet 
long and a drawbridge of the same length, 
weighing in all 2,057 tons, were moved to 
the new position and aligned in 2 minutes 
and 50 seconds. The actual time that the 
two tracks were out of service were respec- 
tively 15 and 28 minutes. On October 17, 
1897, on the same railroad near Girard 
Avenue, Philadelphia, an old span was 
moved away and a new one, 235 feet 7 
inches long, put in exactly the same place 
in 2 minutes and 28 seconds. No train 
was delayed in either case. 


Henry S. JAcosy. 
CoRNELL UNIVERSITY. 


REPORT OF PROGRESS OF THE NEBRASKA 
STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY AND THE 
MORRILL GEOLOGICAL HXPEDI- 
TION OF 1901.* 


In spite of the phenomenal heat of the 
summer of 1901, which was of such inten- 
sity and duration that active work in the 
field was finally suspended, enough prog- 
ress was made to justify the presentation 
of the matter to this society. It should be 
reported, first of all, that a request for 


‘funds, amounting to twelve hundred dol- 


lars, for publishing the first reports of the 
state geological survey, was presented to 
the Legislature, and was passed April 1, 
1901, without comment or dissent. This 
may be recorded as the first sum voted by 
the state for the examination and publica- 
tion of its resources; and, though small, it 
is particularly large at this juncture, for 
it makes possible the initial work of the 
state survey. Unfortunately the passage 
of the bill, by the Legislature, was a little 
too late to enable us to avail ourselves of a 
long-standing offer from the U. S. Geo- 


logical Survey to cooperate in doing geo- 
logical work in Nebraska, as soon as the 


state evidenced its recognition of the im- 
portance of a geological survey by offering 


* Reported to the Nebraska Academy of Science, 
January 25, 1902. 


JuLy 4, 1902.] 


it material support. By the time the bill 
was passed all appointments had been made 
for the U. S. Survey; nevertheless, as soon 
as the facts were made known to Dr. Charles 
D. Walcott, Director of the U.S. Geological 
Survey, several men were detailed to run 
control lines in Sarpy, Cass and Otoe 
counties, with the courteous and encourag- 
ing proffer of an increased force of topog- 
raphers for the summer of 1902, so as to 
expedite the work of making maps to 
serve as bases for the reports of our own 
survey. This is cooperation in fact, and 
it should be stated, furthermore, that we 
have been favored over many of the older 
states, on the ground that so young a state 
can be excused for failing to cooperate with 
the national survey, better than the older 
and more resourceful states. Already a 
line of quadrangles, extending the length 
of the state, has been surveyed topograph- 
ically, and that portion of the state west of 
the 103d meridian has been surveyed, and 
reported upon by Darton. Besides, cer- 
tain papers on the water resources of the 
state have been prepared and published by 
the national survey. Some of the older 
states which have shown no spirit of co- 
operation have received fewer favors. 
Field work was confined to the eastern 
counties, where there are the greatest num- 
ber of quarries, clay pits and exposures. 
Mr. E. G. Woodruff spent the early part of 
the summer, chiefly in Sarpy County, filling 
in gaps left in the maps made by Fisher 
and Woodruff the previous summer. Mr. 
G. E. Condra continued the work of collect- 
ine Carboniferous fossils, especially the 
Bryozoa, while the Director of the State 
Survey made various short collecting trips. 
All field notes of each worker are- put in 
typewritten form, and are uniformly bound 
at the end of each season; likewise all maps 
and photographs. These manuscript vol- 
umes, now numbering twelve books of pho- 
tographs, seven books of notes, and two 


SCIENCE. 23 


books of maps, are deposited with the l- 
brarian for safe keeping until such time 
as they can be published. 

The annual Morrill Geological Expedi- 
tion was rendered self-sustaining during 
the summer of 1901, by the sale of dupli- 
cate specimens the previous year; and one 
extended trip was made to the famous col- 
leeting grounds of Colorado and Wyoming, 
and numerous short trips to interesting 
localities in the state, preliminary to future 
work. Over thirty thousand specimens 
have been added to the state collections dur- 
ing the past three years. 

Specimens, selected from the collections 
of the Hon. Charles H. Morrill, and from 
the state geological collection, which are 
virtually one and the same, are being pho- 
tographed preparatory to figuring and 
describing. The material at hand for 
papers has outrun the publishing fund by 
several years. However, at the close of 
the present biennium, a specific publishing 
fund will not be asked for, for the coming 
biennium. Hereafter the legislative appro- 
priation will be devoted to the preparation 
of reports, which will be submitted to the 
state printer for publication. Supple- 
mental to the state funds for geological 
work is an annual fund from the Univer- 
sity of Nebraska, varying from $200 to $500 
a year. 


Erwin Hinckury Barsour. 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


Fact and Fable in Psychology. By JosePu 
Jastrow. New York, Houghton, Mifflin 
and Co. Pp. xvii+375. 


The wild notions that are current about 
psychic phenomena are for the most part 
founded on truth. If the air is full of vaga- 
ries in this field we must in part at least lay 
the blame on the strangeness and suggestive- 
ness of the facts themselves. Automatic 
speech and writing, hypnotism, the strange 
subsidences and upheavals of memory that go 


Opi SCIENCE. 


by the name of ‘changes of personality’— 
these are surely enough to fire the popular 
imagination to the belief that nothing is too 
strange to come out of psychology. In this 
way the whole field unfortunately comes to be 
represented like those regions on the old 
charts where no details’ were given, but only 
some figures of winged monsters and headless 
men. 

In view of the interest in what has been 
called the ‘borderland’ of mind, the present 
collection of papers by Professor Jastrow is 
timely and will prove of service. The origi- 
nals were published in various popular and 
scientific journals, but have in considerable 
part been rewritten for this volume. Taken 
as a whole they work in well together and con- 
tribute to a single end. His general aim is 
both negative and positive—negative in that 
he clips the wings of the soarers, the uncritical 
enthusiasts over mental phenomena; positive 
in that he attempts both to stimulate a healthy 
interest in many strange and interesting phe- 
nomena that do not immediately suggest the 
occult, as well as to point out psychologically 
the actual causes which lead here and else- 
where to a belief in the occult. While the 
spiritualists and psychical researchers are 
wandering and wondering in their chosen 
fields, Professor Jastrow has a specialist’s eye 
on the mental machinery of these border- 
landers themselves, and finds them in their 
way quite as instructive and as absorbing as 
they in their turn find the mediums and Pol- 
tergeister. Psychology thus stands to win in 
any case; if there is ‘nothing in’ psychical 
research, there is at least a great deal in the 
researchers. 

The author points out the immense differ- 
ence between ‘psychical research’ and psy- 
chology, especially as regards the interest and 
temper of the persons engaged in each. He 
cordially admits that some few researchers 
are actuated by a true scientific interest and 
are guided by a critical sense. The rank and 
file, however, are interested only in the dis- 
covery of evidences for something supernor- 
mal. In as far as the facts are explicable by 
familiar natural law, in so far there is for 
these persons ‘nothing in them.’ But the 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 392. 


psychologist becomes interested’ just at the 


point where the other’s attention flags. His 
very aim is to arrive, if possible, at a 
natural and normal explanation of the 
phenomena in question. Whatever good 


qualities may be hidden within the psychical 
research movement, Professor Jastrow believes 
that its sins are more than an offset to its 
virtues; it has withdrawn energy from fruit- 
ful fields and has done much harm to scientific 
psychology. In this judgment the author may 
be right; but so far as psychology is con- 
cerned, it is perhaps too soon to say what the - 
real and lasting effect of psychical research 
will be. On the whole, the strength which the 
movement has developed has probably been 
drawn very little from psychology, just 
because, as Professor Jastrow has so ably 
pointed out, the temper and interests of the 
two classes of persons are so fundamentally 
opposed. Possibly by a kind of induction, or 
after the manner of antipodal tidal waves, it 
has positively helped toward a study of com- 
monplace and normal mental phenomena. 

As regards the special question of telepathy, 
the author feels that the believers here do not 
take sufficient account of the extent to which 
communication is possible through the ordi- 
nary means of sense, while the channels of 
communication themselves remain unrecog- 
nized; nor do they take sufficient account of 
mere chance coincidence. The hypothesis of 
telepathy, as usually understood, is scientific- 
ally repugnant because it does not keep- 
within the bounds of psycho-physical causa- 
tion. If modified to escape this objection it 
might become a legitimate theory, although 
sadly in need of facts to support it. The evi- 
dence seems to him a “ conglomerate in which 
imperfectly recognized modes of sense-action, 
hyperesthesia and hysteria, fraud, conscious 
and unconscious, chance, collusion, similarity 
of mental processes, and expectant interest in 
presentments and a belief in their significance, 
nervousness and ill-health, illusions of mem- 
ory, hallucinations, suggestion, contagion, and 
other elements enter into the composition; 
while defective observation, falsification of 
memory, forgetfulness of details, bias and pre- 
possessions, suggestion from others, lack of 


Jury 4, 1902.] 


training, and of a proper investigative tem- 
perament, further invalidate and confuse the 
records of what is supposed to have been ob- 
served” (p. 103). 

The chapter on ‘The Psychology of Spir- 
itualism’ is a good tonic for any one who may 
feel himself weakening in his opposition to 
the spiritistic hypothesis of certain trance and 
trick phenomena. The psychological notions 
which lead to the belief, as well as the dif_i- 
culty of obtaining reliable evidence in its 
favor, are well told in this and the preceding 
essay on the ‘Psychology of Deception.’ The 
fact that a witness is a ‘scientist’ does not 
free him from the usual fallacies of the 
senses and of false inference; the testimony 
ef such persons often breaks down just at the 
vital point; witness the celebrated quartette of 
Ziéllner, Fechner, Scheibner and Weber, who 
were so unmercifully hoodwinked by the char- 
latan Slade. 

This trend toward the occult, as expressed 
in the forms mentioned, as well as in theos- 
ophy and ‘Christian science,’ is due to the im- 
pulse always present in the race to look at the 
facts of nature in an intensely personal way. 
Other forms of this same attitude toward ex- 
perience are found in ancient divination, im 
astrology, in the magic and medicine-man 
practices of savage life. To view the facts in 
their historical and anthropological perspec- 
tive is an excellent check on one-sidedness 
here and elsewhere. With this especial aim 
-we have two excellent studies, one of which 
traces the history of hypnotism through the 
vagaries of animal magnetism and mesmerism 
until the kernel of truth becomes fairly di- 


vested of its mystical wrappings, through the | 


work of Braid; the other, with the title of 
‘The Natural History of Analogy,’ shows the 
development of the belief that a person may 
be influenced by performing some act upon 
an object closely associated with him—his 
form in wax, his footprint, his sword, his 
name, and so on. 

But not alone in such perspective would 
the author find the best antidote to the perni- 
cious tendencies toward the occult, but also 
in a wholesome interest in the genuine and 
profitable problems of nature and of life. A 


SCIENCE. 20 


considerable portion of the book is given to 
a study of certain mental phenomena which 
are not only important in themselves, but have 
a direct bearing on the problems discussed in 
the papers mentioned above. The readiness 
of the mind to supplement and modify its 
sense-impressions, so as to bring them into ac- 
cord with its own prepossessions is shown by 
a number of simple illusions. But not alone 
is the power of observation thus affected by 
one’s mental attitude, but the power of action 
is influenced as well. Numerous tracings of 
hand-movements by means of Professor Jas- 
trow’s well-known ‘ automatograph’ are intro- 
duced to show the involuntary effect of differ- 
ent mental states upon the motor apparatus— 
interesting and suggestive in connection with 
‘mind-reading,’ ‘telepathy’ and the like, 
On a larger scale a capital instance of the 
power of suggestion and social ‘atmosphere’ 
is given from certain experiences in the Goy- 
ernment Census Office in 1890. The tabulat- 
ing machines, when first introduced, caused 
enormous wear and tear upon the clerks who 
attempted to master the complicated system of 
symbols. But when once a considerable body 
of capable workers with these machines (and 
thus a more favorable social miliew) had 
become established, raw clerks could now be 
put among them, and in a few days without 
any appreciable nervous strain attained a 
speed and proficiency which the pioneer clerks 
had acquired only with difficulty after weeks. 
The volume closes with a study of the dreams 
of the blind, in which the author brings out 
the existence of a critical period at the age of 
from five to seven years. If blindness occurs 
before this, the faculty of visual dreaming is 
gradually lost; while the occurrence of blind- 
ness after the critical period has no serious 
effect upon the visual dream-life. This fact, 
it turns out, had already been discovered by 
Heermann as early as 1838; but Jastrow’s 
rediscovery was quite independent. There is 
ineluded in this chapter an account by Helen 
Keller of her dreams, told with the charm that 
always marks her writing. 

It is evident that the spirit and matter of 
the volume seem to the present writer com- 


mendable. Beneath an easy and pliant style, 


26 


the essays are rigid, and perhaps a trifle 
fierce, toward the deluded believers in the 
occult; these will hardly feel that they are 
being gently shown the error of their way. 
And yet Professor Jastrow’s opposition is of 
an entirely different order from the mere 
pooh-poohing and scientific cold shoulders to 
which the borderlanders have been so often 
treated and of which they bitterly complain. 
Their views are here dealt with by one who 
has taken the trouble to study the matters in 
question, who is equipped with technical 
training in psychology, and who pronounces 
judgment with discrimination, admitting 
many of the facts adduced, but pointing out 
to what different consequences they lead from 
what the occultists suppose. 

In attributing occultism to the impulse to 
interpret experience personally—to see a di- 
rect significance in whatever occurs—the 
author is doubtless correct in the main: It 


would perhaps have been still more correct, © 


however, to say that the trouble lies in seek- 
ing a short-cut personal interpretation, in 
seeking an exclusive and private significance 
in phenomena, and not in a personal inter- 
pretation per se. For many a scientist tena- 
ciously holds to natural law and at the same 
time, without throwing logic overboard, inter- 
prets the system of nature personally. But 
he does it in a large way and by harmonizing 
mechanism with personal will, rather than by 
seeing them antagonistic. Professor Jastrow, 
while not explicitly saying so, too often seems 
to imply that natural causation and personal 
significance are incompatible, and that the oc- 
cultist has seized the wrong term of the pair. 
The oceultist is really in the bonds of the 
same error that pervades much of our science 
—namely, that the mechanical view of nature 
excludes any spiritual significance from it; 
and while some scientists hold to one side and 
give up the other, the occultist does the same, 
with merely an exchange of terms. One- 
sided science thus is one of the inducements 
to a one-sided ocecultism, and the cure is to be 
found in a larger view that will do justice 
both to our scientifie conviction that things 
are orderly and systematic, as well as to the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 392. 


equally deep and respectable conviction that 
this order and system is pervaded with per- 
sonal purpose and personal significance. 
Grorce M. Srrarron. 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 


Altersklassen und Mdnnerbunde, Eine Dar- 
stellung der Grundformen der Cresellschaft. 
Von Heinrich Scuurrz. Mit einer Ver- 
breitungskart. Berlin. 1902. 8vyo. Pp. 458. 
This massive volume is devoted to the thesis 

that the true beginning of those artificialities 

of human life that we call society is not to be 
sought in the family, the sexual union, the 

Mutterrecht, which is an exaltation of natur- 

ism; but in purely voluntary aggregations of 

males, called men’s associations, and the clas- 
sification of these by age, forming the society 
of the ancients. The author confesses that 
his attention was first called to the subject 
by the wide distribution and different forms 
of bachelors’ quarters among the less cultured 
peoples of the earth. So many necessary acts 
of life require cooperation that artificial social 
structures of more and more complicated char- 
acter grow out of the very nature of the case. 
War, so far from being an exception to the 
rule, proves it, since its struggles occasion 
more perfect and solid unions. It is well 
known and has often been commented on that, 
in America, while children were generally 
named for the mother, there was going on in 

many tribes a transition to father-right. A 

curious modern phase of this assertion of 

man’s rights is a role played by the profession 
of interpreters, who are men of almost unlim- 
ited sway in the tribes having business in 

Washington City. 

Doctor Schurtz in his introductory chapter 
prepares the way for the detailed study by 
explaining the natural and artificial analysis. 
of society—that dependent on sex life and that 
based on purely interested and cultural 
grounds. The classification by age, whether 
allied or not with the question of blood kinship, 
is the earliest form of artificial grouping. This. 
with its curb on the life of promiscuity is 
worked out inthe second chapter. The author 
goes into the fullest detail with the description 
of the men’s houses in all parts of the world. 


JULY 4, 1902.] 


Clubs and secret societies occupy the fourth 
chapter and nearly one third of the volume. 
The conclusions to be drawn from the con- 
tents of the volume devoted to the existence 
and the future of culture society are scarcely 
touched, though they are so full of meaning. 
The author hints that altruistic ethical phi- 
losophy, on the strength of the facts here as- 
sembled, demands now a radical revision, since 
manifestly out of the sex and family impulses 
on the one hand, and the pure and simple im- 
pulses of social organizations on the other, two 
quite different and frequently downright an- 
tagonistic kinds of moral codes must arise. The 
struggle between these has been frequently 
remarked and treated in a poetic fashion, but 
the knowledge of their true significance will 
be made possible for the first time by the facts 
here set forth, and not only in the realms of 
custom, but in all the areas of human activity, 
the two sets of impulses are playing against 
each other and building up forms of society, 


in order subsequently to pull them down and: 


destroy them. 

There ought to be a good English transla- 
tion of this work, which, ignoring the necessity 
of promiscuity at any time in human society, 
finds explanation of artificial social struc- 
tures and functions in the inventive faculty, 
which has been able to create innumerable 
associations for men in their varied emer- 


gencies. 
O. T. Mason. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 


NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
SECTION OF BIOLOGY. 


A REGULAR meeting of the Section of Bi- 
ology was held on April 14, Professor Bash- 
ford Dean presiding. The following program 
was offered: 

J. H. McGregor, 
Ichthyosauria.’ 

A. G. Mayer, ‘Color Patterns in Lepidoptera.’ 

C. C. Trowbridge, ‘The Function of Interlocked 
Emarginate Primaries in Soaring Flight.’ 


‘The Ancestry of the 


Dr. McGregor accepted Baur’s view that 
the Ichthyosauria are derived from Permian 
Rhynchocephalia, but stated that in a study 
of the Belodontia he had found new evidence 


SCIENCE. 27 


as to the nature of the intermediate forms. 
The latter group is of undoubted Rhyncho- 
cephalian origin, and may almost be consid- 
ered as a subdivision including forms modi- 
fied for aquatic life. A comparison of 
Belodonts and Ichthyosaurs shows that both 
have evolved in the same direction, though 
modification has preceeded further in the 
Ichthyosaurs, which were marine in habit. 
Almost all of the skeletal features of the two 
erders are reducible to a common type, and, 
although not directly ancestral, the Belodonts 
must be considered as standing very near the 
line of descent of the Ichthyosaurs; the two 
orders probably had as a common ancestor 
some aquatic Rhynchocephalian of the upper 
Permian or lower Trias. The Ichthyosauria 
are thus brought into. relation with the 
Archosaurian branch of the Reptilia. 

Dr. Mayer presented the results of his 
study of the color patterns of 1,173 species of 
Lepidoptera: 453 Papilio, 30 Ornithoptera, 643 
Hesperide, and 47 Castina. Counting sexual 
differences, 1,340 individual insects were ex- 
amined; 542 Papilio, 59 Ornithoptera, 688 
Hesperide, and 51 Castina. The number of 
rows of spots, bands, or combination mark- 
ings upon the wings were counted, and as well 
the number of spots in each individual row, 
and the number of interspaces over which 
each band extended; the results show that each 
row of spots or bands exhibits a decided tend- 
eney to be of uniform color throughout, that 
rows very rarely break at or near the middle 
of their extent, and that the end spots of a 
row are more variable than those spots near 
the center. ‘Frequency polygons’ were ob- 
tained from the above-mentioned data, for the 
rows of markings, for the number of spots in 
each row, and for the extent of bands meas- 
ured in interspaces. Eight such frequency 
polygons were determined for the spots and 
bands on the upper and lower surfaces of the 
wings in the group of Papilio + Ornithoptera, 
Of the four representing the conditions in the 
fore-wing, three exhibit two well-marked max- 
ima, the numbers being arranged in descend- 
ing series on either side of each. These 
maxima are three and nine spots, or bands 
extending over three or nine interspaces. If, 


28 SCIENCE. 


now, Papilio be divided into three subgenera, 
Papilio s. str., Cosmodesmus, and Pharma- 
cophagus, and be still further separated into 
the African, Indo-Australian, Europo-Siberian, 
and American forms, it is found that the in- 
sects of the subgroups still display the tend- 
ency to have three or nine spots, or bands 
extending over three or nine interspaces. This 
is not a matter of correlation, for only 32 of 
the 453 species of Papilio display both three 
and nine spots upon their fore-wings. It is 


somewhat difficult to explain this condition - 


upon the hypothesis of natural selection, owing 
to the fact that Papilios of widely separated 
regions show the same tendency to produce 
these two maxima in the same manner. The 
Hesperide and Castina show no such tend- 
ency, hence it is not universal for Lepidop- 
tera. If it be due to natural selection acting 
upon Papilios and restricting them to this 
condition, such selection must be universally 
operative in the case of Papilio, but not in the 
other species. It is easier, therefore, to assume 
a race tendency in Papilio to produce either 
three or nine spots upon the fore-wing, or 
bands extending over three or nine inter- 
spaces. Other results, quantitatively expressed, 
were brought out by the author. 

Mr. Trowbridge gave the results of observa- 
tions on flying birds for the purpose of show- 
ing that the emarginate primaries of hawks, 
eagles and certain other birds are interlocked 
in flight. The speaker referred to his original 
paper on the subject in which the theory was 
set forth, which was presented by the late Pro- 
fessor W. P. Trowbridge before the National 
Academy of Sciences and the New York Acad- 
emy of Sciences. The paper created some dis- 
cussion in ScIENCE at the time, participated in 
by Dr. Elliot Coues, Professor Newberry, Pro- 
fessor Trowbridge and others. Mr. Trow- 
bridge showed by a number of diagrams and 
photographs that the primary feathers of a 
number of birds are emarginate near their 
ends, and that the webs of the feathers are so 
shaped that when they are overlapped, a 
curved and rigid aeroplane is formed at the 
end of the wing, which, he considered, is of 
considerable advantage in swift sailing flight. 
The emarginations of the primaries of hawks 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


and eagles are particularly pronounced, and 
permit firm interlocking. A table of observa- 
tions was given, showing that the interlocking 
of the primaries does take place, the data 
having been obtained at New Haven during 
the autumn flights of hawks along the Con- 
necticut coast. It appears that in the case of 
one species of hawk examined, ten wings out 
of forty had all five primaries interlocked, and 
that the number of wings having sixty per 
cent. of the primaries interlocked was twenty- 
nine, or 72 per cent. of the total number, forty. 
Tt was concluded that emarginate primaries 
cf hawks and other birds are interlocked in 
fiight on the following grounds: (1) it has 
been found that the webs of such feathers of 
hawks that had just been killed usually show 
deep notches where they have rested against 
cne another, which notches could only result 
from habitual interlocking of the primaries; 
and (2), in every case of over 25 hawks 
killed while flying and examined immediately 
after they fell, some primaries were inter- 
locked (several slightly wounded birds not in- 
eluded). In the case of 19 perfect specimens 
of one species, 67.9 per cent. of all emarginate 
primaries (190) were found to be interlocked. 
While it is not possible at present to show 
when the emarginate primaries are interlocked 
in flight, the indications are, however, that this 
occurs when the wing is partly flexed, as in 
the case of hawks sailing rapidly through 
the woods and flying in a strong wind. The 
important functions of interlocking appear to 
be (1) to make more rigid the outer portion of 
the wing, that part of the aeroplane formed by 
the primaries, and (2) to produce a curve of 
the wing which enables the bird to have a bet- 
ter control of its swift flight through the air 
than the unlocked condition would permit. 
The end of the bird’s wing when the primaries 
are interlocked becomes shaped somewhat like 
the blade of a propeller screw. The interlock- 
ing also would keep the primaries extended 
without muscular exertion on the part of the 
bird. : 
Considerable discussion was aroused by Mr. 
Trowbridge’s paper. Dr. Jonathan Dwight, 
Jr., presented a series of arguments against. 
the theory of the speaker, to the effect, in 


JuLY 4, 1902.] 


brief, that in the absence of a proper con- 
trolling musculature, any such interlocking 
as that described could be brought about only 
by accident; that habitual interlocking would 
bring about, furthermore, conspicuous wear- 
ing of the vane in the areas of contact, a phe- 
nomenon not observed in emarginate prima- 
ries; and that he concluded from his extensive 
studies upon feathers and feather structure, 
that habitual interlocking did not take place. 
Mr. Frank Chapman, with a series of fine lan- 
tern slides of birds in actual flight, demon- 
strated that in some soaring birds, at least, 
which possess emarginate primaries, these 
feathers are certainly spread and not inter- 
locked. Mr. Chapman agreed with Dr. 
Dwight that the facts tend to support Allen’s 
theory of the origin of emargination, namely, 
that aerial friction wears down the web; and 
that no such function is to be attributed to 
emarginate primaries such as that ascribed 
by Mr. Trowbridge. Prolonged discussion fol- 
lowed, participated in by Mr. Trowbridge, Dr. 
Dwight, Mr. Chapman, Professor Dean, Pro- 
fessor Crampton and others. 
Henry E. Crampton, 
Secretary. 


SECTION OF ASTRONOMY, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. 

Ar the April meeting of the Section Mr. 
Percival Lowell gave a very interesting paper 
on ‘Modern Mars,’ based on a series of maps 
of Mars. 

1. Map-making of Mars began with Beer 
and Midler in 1840. Since then many charts 
have been constructed of the planet. Some 
of these are so old as to have been more or 
less forgotten, some so new as not yet to be 
known. Collection and comparison of such of 
these maps as have marked advances in the 
subject lead to some not uninteresting conclu- 
sions. Such are presented in the accompany- 
ing series. 

2. The series consists of twelve maps. 


I: Beer and Madler........... 1840 
RIC ASOT. cp eee roe 1864 
III. Dawes by Proctor.......... 1867 
IV. Résumé by Flammarion..... 1876 
Weaschiaparellismaenrerre errr 1877 
VI. caer. 2", Estee meen nn 1879 


SCIENCE. Vo Be 


Wie Schiaparelli sco oe. aie 1882 
VIII. Sieve pices aera pepsi. 1884 
Dxes Abowelllh Siewercys ryan are cvenlegencrs 1894 
DG ESSER ean a eect ol Aa TERN eee els Oi 
DC aS El te arson aes ote Caen ree 1899 
XGTT ee ion) peter netneten ary scscr eit 1901 


3. These maps fall naturally into three 
groups, dividing the history of areography 
into as many stages. 

I. Those from 1840-]877 
II. Those from 1877-1892 
III. Those from 1892-1902 

4. The maps of the first group are charac- 
terized by large patches of light and dark 
areas. Maps I-IV. show these patches, and 
by their agreement prove that the patches are 
permanent in place. For the maps are the 
work of different observers made at different 
epochs of time. 

5. The maps of the second group are dis- 
tinguished by a network of fine, straight lines 
covering the bright areas of the disk, the 
‘canals’ of Mars. This was the work of 
Schiaparelli. : 

6. The maps of the third group are differ- 
entiated by a similar system of ‘canals’ in 
the dark regions. This is the work since 
Schiaparelli. It has resulted in a complete 
change in the belief as to the character of 
these ‘seas’; the permanency of the lines 
showing that the background must be land, 
not water. 

7. Inspection of the series results in three 
deductions : 

I. That the whole series are in fundamental 
agreement. 

The basic features appear directly through- 
out the first period and as a groundwork upon 
which subsequently discovered detail is im- 
printed in the second and third. 

8. The second deduction from these data is: 

II. That the almost inconceivable regularity 
in the ‘canals’ was an evolution in percep- 
tion foreed upon Schiaparelli by the objects 
themselves; not a feature imparted by him to 
them. 

His first map, in 1877, showed them as 
arms or inlets of the sea penetrating the con- 
tinent to great distances, but not character- 
ized by remarkable regularity of form. His 


30 
second ‘map, in 1879, shows them narrower, 
straighter and in every way more peculiar. 
His third map, in 1882, presents them as of 
geometric precision; as he himself remarks, 
as if laid down by rule and compass. His 
fourth map shows that they afterward kept 
such a character. 

‘Had their precision been of his devising, 
they should not have gained in it as time went 
on and his eye grew versed in decipherment. 
That they did so implies that the recognition 
was forced upon him from without. 

9. The third deduction is: 

III. That an evolution in detail marks the 
series, and can be traced steadily on from the 
beginning to the end. The additions made in 
each period find themselves superposed upon 
the work of the period before. Similarly 
each map of any given period adds to its pre- 
decessor and is corroborated and extended by 
its successor. Thus a chain of evidence is 
made by them whose strength depends upon 
this very intertwining of results. 

The discussion called forth by the paper 
was participated in by many, among whom 
was Mr. Nikola Tesla. S. A. MircHe tt. 


TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 


A MEETING of the Club was held at the New 
York Botanical Garden on May 28. 

The first paper on the program was by Mrs. 
N. L. Britton under the title of ‘Remarks on 
West Indian Mosses.’ Comments were made 
on several questions of synonymy and nomen- 
celature arising from a study of collections 
recently made in Porto Rico by Mr. A. A. 
Heller and by Professor Underwood, and in St. 
Kitts by Dr. Britton. Attention was directed 
particularly to the genus Sematophyllum Mitt. 
1864 (—Raphidostegium De Not. 1867=Rhyn- 
chostegium, section Raphidostegium Br. & Sch. 
1852). This genus is chiefly tropical or sub- 
tropical in its distribution, though eleven spe- 
cies are known to occur in North America, 
north of Mexico. : 

The second paper was by Dr. P. A. Ryd- 
berg on ‘Some Genera of the Saxifragaeer.’ 
The speaker presented some of the results of 
studies intended as a contribution to a pro- 
jected work on the flora of North America. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


The family name Saxifragacez was used in a 
restricted sense, excluding Ribes, Hydrangea, , 
Philadelphus, Parnassia, Itea, ete. The mem- 
bers of the family in this narrower sense are 
all herbaceous plants, with the exception of a 
single species of Heuchera which has a sort of 
aerial woody stem. Dr. Rydberg commented 
especially upon the genera Bolandra, Thero- 
fon, Telesonix, Hemieva, Tiarella, Heuchera, 
Tellima, Lithophragma, Mitella, and Chryso- 
splenium, referring to the geographical distri- 
bution and number of species of each. Heu- 
chera is the largest of these genera, being 
represented by 58 species in North America 
including Mexico. The paper was discussed 
by Dr. Britton and others. 

Professor F. S. Earle made a brief report on 

a recent trip to western Texas and Eastern 
New Mexico, stating that 800 numbers of bo- 
tanical specimens were collected. April and 
May seemed too early in the season for finding 
many herbaceous plants in flower,’and this 
was especially the case with the monocotyle- 
dons. : 
Dr. N. L. Britton showed specimens of 
Washingtonia longistylis collected a few days 
previously near Washington, D. C., differing 
from Torrey’s type of the species in greater 
hairiness. 

Mrs. Britton alluded to the organization of 
‘The Wild Flower Preservation Society of 
America.’ Professor Earle remarked upon 
the region west of the Pecos River, where veg- 
etation has been nearly exterminated by over- 
stocking with cattle, as a proper field for the 
activities of the society. 

Dr. MacDougal showed a corm of Amorpho- 
phallus, kept for twenty months in a dark 
room, where it had flowered. New buds, ap- 
parently adventitious, had formed near its 
base. 

Marsuatt A. Howe, 


Secretary pro tem. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE IN BOTANY. 


To tHe Epriror or Science: On returning 
from Central America I find Dr. Dall’s note 


JULY 4, 1902.] 


on ‘Botanical Nomenclature’ in your issue of 
May 9 (p. 749), and am gratified, of course, 
by his approval of the suggestion that the 
disposition of objectionable names or caco- 
nyms be separated from the body of nomen- 
elatorial legislation and left to a permanent 
committee or academy. On the other hand, | 
greatly regret my failure to have made suffi- 
cently plain the fundamental importance of 
generic types as necessary to stability in the 
nomenclature of genera.* Had this principle 
been adequately presented Dr. Dall would 
have realized that it is not provided for in any 
existing legislation, botanical or zoological. 
The most serious deficiency of botanical no- 
menclature is therefore not avoidable by 
“rules accepted by practically all zoologists,’ 
among whom there is in this respect quite as 
much diversity of faith and practice as with 
botanists. 

In the formulation of rules upon some of 
the less important details the zoologists may 
have made better progress than their botanical 
brethren, but the illustrations cited by Dr. 
Dall seem rather unfortunately chosen. Ver- 
nacular names, for example, are rejected by 
all codes, that is, when they occur in non- 
scientific writings, but both botanists and zo- 
clogists from the pre-Linnzans to the present 
generation have exercised the privilege of 
adopting such names into scientific literature, 
often in large numbers. Whether a name is 
‘vernacular’ or ‘scientific’ has thus been al- 
lowed to depend upon the nature of the pub- 
lication rather than upon the origin of the 
term, so that unless a new canon of criticism 
can be formulated the nomenclatorial atroci- 
ties of Hernandez cannot be excluded because 
of their barbarian origin without disturbing 
hundreds of commonly accepted designations 
of both plants and animals. 

Dr. Dall declares that ‘ninety-nine hun- 
dredths’ of our remaining tribulations would 
disappear by the use of Linnzus’ ‘Systema 
Nature,’ Ed. X., as the starting point of no- 
menclature, but unless it be the advantage of 
following the zoologists he gives no intimation 

* Science, N. S. XV.: 646; references to pre- 
vious discussions of the same subject are given 
on page 656. 


SCIENCE. ol 


of any reason why 1759 is a better date than 
1753. As a matter of fact, the plants were 
presented under the binomial system of no- 
menclature five years before the animals, and 
Linneus but carried out with the animals in 
1758 what he had accomplished with the 
plants in 1753. Botany had a far larger popu- 
larity and.a much greater and more rapid de- 
velopment than zoology in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, which may explain the 
stronger attachment to medieval traditions 
and the greater difficulties of botanical re- 
forms, but this more persistent conservatism 
will be beneficial if it compels us to master 
the complex problems of taxonomy and pre- 
vents too ready assent to such partial and in- 
adequate readjustments as have found favor 
among some zoologists. 

The historical development and dominant 
traditions of the two sciences have been some- 
what different, but nobody will seriously 
maintain that there is any essential diver- 
gence between the taxonomic requirements of 
botany and those of zoology, and an adequate 
solution discovered in the one science will not 
be lightly neglected in the other. The so- 
called Paris or DeCandollean code of 1867, to 
which Dr. Dall also advises botanists to hark 
back, was not copyrighted, and yet the zoolo- 
gists did not adopt it, doubtless because they 
thought themselves able to do better. Like 
the supplementary Rochester code, it was an 
important step in the right direction, but it 
did not exhaust the possibilities of progress. 
It was evidently prepared as an advisory or 
preliminary document, and is quite lacking in 
the logical arrangement and definite statement 
requisite in nomenclatorial legislation. More- 
over, it was based on pre-evolutionary concep- 
tions of nature, and as a system of recording 
the results of biological study it does not meet 
our present necessities. 


O. F. Cook. 


Wasurncton, June 10, 1902. 


COILED BASKETRY. 


Proressor Mason’s note under the above 
heading in Science for May 30 is another 
reminder that we know but little of the arts 
of our eastern Indians at the period of their 


32 SCIENCE. 


first intercourse with Europeans. That there 
is little evidence of the use of coiled basketry 
among them at that time is not surprising, 
for the early writers were not technologists 
and were satisfied with recording incidentally 
the most meager facts concerning the arts 
and customs of the natives with whom they 
came in contact. 

Basketry of any kind is rarely found in 
graves or its impressions upon pottery east 
of the Rocky Mountains. The burial caves 
have, however, furnished a very few examples 
of the widely distributed twined weaving, but 
so far as I know, no examples of the coiled 
pattern. We must look therefore to existing 
tribes for the principal evidences of the occur- 
rence in ancient times of different types of 
this branch of textile art. 

The isolated examples of coiled basketry 
occurring east of the Rocky Mountains noted 
by Professor Mason may be supplemented by 
a number of specimens in the Peabody Mu- 
seum at Cambridge obtained twenty-seven 
years ago from the Ojibwa Indians of Lake 
Superior. The coils are of sweet grass and 
are about one-fourth of an inch in diameter. 
They are joined with common sewing thread, 
the stitches being continued from the edge 
towards the center of the basket, and not fol- 
lowing the coils as is usual, the mode of con- 
struction having somewhat degenerated. 

I see no good reason for attributing this 
form of basketry among the Ojibwa to Euro- 
pean influence. The Algonquians in. early 
historic days were expert basket makers. The 
excellence and variety of the old basket work 
of the New England Indians for example is 
represented to-day only by the degenerate 
splint basketry which is not worthy of a place 
upon the shelves of a museum. 

There is not to my knowledge a single ex- 
ample of woven basketry extant from New 
England that may be considered typical of any 
one of the many primitive types from these 
states referred to in the early records. Gookin, 
writing in 1674, tells us of “several sorts of 
baskets, great and small; some will hold four 
bushels or more, and so downward to a pint. 
* * * Some of these baskets are made of 
rushes: some of bents [coarse grass], others of 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 392. 


maize husks, others of a kind of silk grass; 
others of a kind of wild hemp; and some of 
the barks of trees, many of these very neat and 
artificial, with the portraitures of birds, beasts, 
fishes and flowers upon them in colors.” The 
soldiers under Capt. Underhill, after destroy- 
ing the Pequot fort in Connecticut, in 16387, 
brought back with them ‘several delightful 
baskets.’ Brereton (1602) found baskets of 
twigs ‘not unlike our osier.? Champlain saw 
corn stored in ‘large grass sacks.’ Josselyn 
writes of ‘baskets, bags and mats woven with 
sparke, bark of the lime tree and rushes of 
several kinds dyed as before, some black, 
blue, red, yellow.’ In 1620 the Pilgrims found 
in a cache at Cape Cod a ‘great new basket,’ 
round and narrow at the top, and containing 
three or four bushels of shelled corn, with 
thirty-six goodly ears unshelled. The New 
England Indians were probably not more: ex- 
pert basket makers than other tribes to the 
west and south. 

Does not the fact that the three distinct 
forms of weaving, twined, checker and coiled, 
are still found among the Ojibwas seem to 
indicate a survival “of these types from pre- 
historic times? CHARLES C. WILLOUGHBY. 

PEABODY MUSEUM. 


IRIDESCENT CLOUDS. 


To tHe Epiror or Science: Iridescent 
clouds are such comparatively rare phenomena 
that notes on individual occurrences of them 
are not superfluous. On June 11, I had an 
opportunity to see some wonderfully fine ex- 
amples of these interesting clouds. It was a 
fine summer day; the sky a deep blue, with 
seattered cirro-stratus patches drifting across 
it from west to east, and the wind SW. About 
11.50 a.m. a small detached cirro-stratus cloud, 
roughly oblong in shape, and at that time 
about 15° to 20° from the sun, attracted my 
attention because of its dazzling whiteness, 
quite unlike the appearance of ordinary clouds. 
Very soon colors began to appear, and at the 
end of about five minutes there were developed 
some faint bands of color, a faint pinkish 
tint being uppermost; then a yellowish-green, 
and then below that a delicate bluish green. 
These bands were roughly parallel with the 


Juny 4, 1902.] 


(apparent) upper edge of the cloud. The lat- 
ter moved in an easterly direction, away from 
the sun, and in four or five minutes the colors 
had faded away. A few minutes later another 
patch of the same kind of cloud, also drifting 
east, occupied about the same position as that 
taken by the first cloud at the time it became 
iridescent, and this second cloud, in its turn, 
showed faint rainbow coloring. This phenom- 
enon was repeated three times, and in no case 
did the iridescence last more than four or five 
minutes. The colors were brightest in the 
second cloud. There were a good many 
patches of cirro-stratus in different portions of 
the sky at the time, and several of them 
showed waves. Light local showers occurred 
during the evening or night following. 
Studies of iridescent clouds have been made 
in Europe by Ekholm, Schips, Mohn, McCon- 
nel, Hildebrandsson, Kassner and others. A 
useful article in this subject, by Arendt, will 
be found in Das Wetter for 1897, pp. 217-224, 
and 244-952. In the Jahrbuch fiir Photog- 
raphie und Reproductionstechnik for 1900, in 
a brief article on the same subject, by Kass- 
ner, there are some half-tones of iridescent 
clouds. The views do not, of course, repro- 
duce the colors. R. DEC. Warp. 
HaArvarD UNIVERSITY. 


PHYSICS AND THE STUDY OF MEDIOINE. 


To rue Eprtor or Science: Dr. Trow- 
bridge, in his paper on ‘The Importance of a 
Laboratory Course in Physics in the Study of 
Medicine,’ Screncr, May 30, 1902, mentions 
the Johns Hopkins as one of the medical 
schools that do not offer a laboratory course 
in physics. His statement is correct, but the 
inference that might be drawn from it, 
namely, that the Johns Hopkins does not con- 


SCIENCE. 30 


the preparation for medicine, is entirely incor- 
rect. Those who are familiar with the re- 
quirements for medical study in this country 
are aware, of course, that from its foundation 
in 1893 the Johns Hopkins has required from 
each of its entering students certificates not 
only of a college course in physics, but of a 
laboratory course as well. If, as frequently 
happens, the student has not been able to get 
a laboratory course in the college from which 
he comes, he is entered as conditioned in 
laboratory physics and is obliged to absolve 
this condition during his first medical year by 
attendance upon a course provided for such 
cases. W. H. Howe tt. 
Jouns Hopkins MepicaL ScHoou. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
ON A METHOD IN HYGROMETRY. 


Durine the course of my work on the dif- 
fusion of nuclei in hydrocarbon vapors, I 
noticed that on certain days the experiments 
were apt to break down; the column of air 
within the tower-like receiver, instead of show- 
ing on exhaustion the sharp plane of demark- 
ation between the nucleated air below and the 
pure air above, was liable to condense as a 
whole, almost explosively. This occurred at 
a definite pressure and after condensation had 
already begun in the nucleated region. Sus- 
pecting that the discrepancy might be due to . 
the hygrometric state of the atmosphere, I 
made the following tests which bear out this 
surmise. The first column shows the pressure 
decrement on exhaustion, the second the effect 
produced on the nucleated atmospheric air in 
the dry receiver. In the second and third 
parts of the table, the results of artificially 


moistening and of drying the air are at once 


sider such a course an important part of apparent. 
1. Room Air, 2. Same, Dampened. | 3. Same, Dried Over CaCl,. 
Pressure 2 Hygrom. Pressure P Hygrom. Pressure | - Hygrom. 

Decrement. | Receiver. State. Decrement. | Receiver. State. Decrement. | Receiver. State. 
em. em. | em. | 
10 clear. = 10 clear. —= || 10 clear. aa 
12 us = 11.5 clear ? | 40 | 15 ef — 
12.7 ce anes | || (73 pe 
13.4 o 3.4 12 tare | BB) Il 17 
14 fog. 3.3 12 a | 39 || 19 21 
14 Ob 3.3 11.5 clear ? 40 || no fog obtainable. 


34 SCIENCE. 


It seems to me probable that a method of 
hygrometry is here suggested which is worth 
a trial and for which suitable apparatus could 
be easily devised. In other words, artificially 
nucleated air is suddenly cooled by expansion 
until a fog just appears. The dew point is 
computed from the pressure decrement thus 
determined. If ¢ be the temperature of the 
air in degrees centigrade and p its pressure, 
and if the air is cooled from 20° and 76 cm., 
we write approximately, 

dt/(t+273)=.29 dp/p, 
so that roughly 1 em. of pressure decrement 
will correspond to a little more than one de- 
gree of temperature decrement in a dew point 
apparatus and more than 10 or 15 em. of pres- 
sure difference will rarely be required. 
C. Barus. 


Brown UNIVERSITY, 
PROVIDENCE, R. I. 


SCLEROTINIA FRUCTIGENA. 


Among the many fungi connected with plant 
diseases, Monilia fructigena is one of the most 
notable. Its life history has been a subject of 
study by many in this country and in Europe. 
Woronin has made perhaps the most complete 
study, and although the ascospore stage was 
not found, he did not hesitate to place the 
species of the genus Sclerotinia. The apo- 
thecia have not been observed, to my knowl- 

“edge, by any one who has had the subject under 
investigation, although they have been sought 
for by many. 

This spring, during April and May, I found 
this stage in considerable abundance in many 
peach and plum orchards in Maryland. In 
fact, some specimens were noticed in every or- 
chard examined where brown rot had appeared 
during the year 1900. The apothecia appear 
with the flowers of the peach, and arise from 
the sclerotia in the ‘mummy’ fruits covered 
by slightly moist soil, especially where they 
have not been disturbed for a year. They are 
from 3 to 12 mm. in diameter and the stipe 
is long enough to bring the disk just above the 
ground. The apothecia dry up in a few weeks 
and are then very difficult to find, although 
with a careful search they can probably now 
be discovered in northern peach and plum or- 


[N.S. Vout. XVI. No. 392. 


chards. A few of the ascospores retain their 
power of germination up to the present time. 
By means of numerous cultures followed. 
out very carefully on agar, bouillon, on sterile 
dried apple and prune and also on green 
peaches and plums, I have produced the conid- 
ial stage (Monilia) from the ascospores. The 
peach petals are also easily infected with the 
‘blossom blight’ by placing the ascospores in 
contact with them. It may be that the 
blighting of peach and plum flowers comes 
largely from the ascospores. 
J. B. S. Norton. 


_ COLLEGE ParK, Mp. 


QUOTATIONS. 
THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES OF THE AMERICAN 
MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 

Tue House of Delegates of the American 
Medical Association was created to be the 
legislative assembly of the medical profes- 
sion of the United States. Its first meeting at 
Saratoga brought out prominently the possi- 
bilities for effective work that are inherent in 
its method of organization. That the work 
of this body at its first meeting was not per- 
fect need hardly be said, as no new machine 
ever made its trial trip without developing 
some friction. However, it can truthfully be: 
said that the House of Delegates at Saratoga 
so performed its duties as to encourage its. 
friends and as to quiet its critics. One criticism 
somewhat frequently passed upon it was that 
its work was not deliberative. Matters were 
referred to various committees whose report 
was adopted or rejected with but scant discus- 
sion. The reason for this is not far to seek.. 
The men composing the House of Delegates. 
were the same men who for years have been 


-endeavoring to get the old general session to 


legislate intelligently upon various topics that 
demanded elucidation at the hands of the rep-- 
resentative gathering of American physicians.. 
Their experience with that method had taught 
every one of them that prolonged discussion: 
meant always defeat or postponement. This 
lesson could not be readily unlearned, and so: 
they were moved by a somewhat feverish haste: 
to have important matters passed upon before- 
they were killed by tiresome discussion. Be-- 


JuLy 4, 1902.] 


cause of the large membership of the House 
it is clear that much of its work must be done 
through committees, just as the work of Con- 
gress and of our State legislatures is accom- 
plished. Yet we must have ample provision for 
free debate upon important topics before they 
are finally passed upon. We are gratified to 
learn that the new Business Committee which 
will arrange a program for the next meeting 
of the House already has under consideration 
a plan to bring out full discussion in such a 
way as to ensure no interference with the de- 
cisiveness of final action. With this provided 
for the House of Delegates will he fully enti- 
tled to the respect, confidence and suport of 
all American physicians.—A merican Medicine. 


Ture House of Delegates.—This new legis- 
lative body of the American Medical Associa- 
tion gave ample evidence that it can dispatch 
work much more efficiently than was possible 
in the general session heretofore. It con- 
tained many representative men, who showed 
a willingness to devote themselves to its busi- 
ness at no little sacrifice to themselves. It 
had to struggle against some disadvantages, 
due to the newness of the work and to the 
fact that an untimely fire at Saratoga drove 
it from its original quarters. The urbanity of 
President Wyeth and his rather low articula- 
tion were, perhaps, not conducive to a quick 
dispatch of business, but after the first day the 
progress made was more expeditious. This 
first experience has proved several things. 
The sessions should, if possible, be held at 
times when the sections for scientific work are 
not in session. Many men were: kept from 
reading papers because they were conscien- 
tiously attending the House of Delegates. 
Others remained away from the House, be- 
cause the sections were more interesting. If 
this is allowed to continue, the House will 
soon be attended by few others than the po- 
litical wire-pullers who have at times domi- 
nated the affairs of the Association to its 
disadvantage. The House would do better 
to meet early in the morning or in the 
evening during the time devoted to en- 
tertainments than during the time as- 
signed for section work. It is probable 


SCIENCE. 


30 


that one of the vice-presidents or chair- 
men elected by itself should be selected to 
occupy the chair in most cases, so that the 
President might be free for social and scien- 
tific duties. The President of the Association 
is usually elected for scientific services ren- 
dered to the profession and the public, and is 
not necessarily a good parliamentarian. The 
House of Delegates should be empowered to 
select a man with a strong voice, a strong 
backbone and a knowledge of parliamentary 
law, combined with absolute impartiality to 
preside over its deliberations. This would 
insure sessions beginning at the exact minute 
agreed upon and would dispatch business in 
a quick, just and efficient way. On the whole 
the House of Delegates was, and promises to 
continue to be, a suecess.—Philadelphia Medi- 
cal Journal. 


THE ELIZABETH THOMPSON 
FUND. 

On June 9, 1902, the twenty-seventh meet- 
ing of the Board of Trustees for the Eliza- 
beth Thompson Science Fund was held at the 
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. 

Messrs. Bowditch, Pickering and Minot 
were present. 

The following officers were elected: 

President, Henry P. Bowditch; 
Charles S. Rackemann; 
Minot. 

The report of the Treasurer, ending May 
23, 1902, was read and accepted. It shows a 
balance of income on hand of $2,586.01. 

It was voted to consider as closed the rec- 
ords of the following Grants: 


SCIENCE 


Treasurer, 
Secretary, Charles 8. 


33. Julien Fraipont. 
81. John Milne. 


82. W. O. Atwater. 
86. H. H. Field. 

87. S. H. Seudder. 
88. P. Bachmetjew. 
89. E. S. Faust. 

92. E. W. Scripture. 
95. F. T. Lewis. 


The Secretary reported that Grant No. 95, 
of $125, had been made to Dr. F. T. Lewis, 
Cambridge, Mass., for investigation of the 
development of the vena cava inferior, being 
agreed to by correspondence, and that the work 
had been completed and published. 


36 SCIENCE. 


The Trustees greatly regretted to be obliged 
to decline forty-five applications, many of 
which were highly deserving of aid. 


It was voted to make the following new . 


Grants: 

96. $150, to Professor H. E. Crampton, Colum- 
bia University, New York, for experiments on 
variation and selection in Lepidoptera. 

97. $100, to Dr. F. W. Bancroft, University of 
California, Berkeley, Cal. for experiments on 
the inheritance of acquired characters. 

98. $125, to Dr. J. Weinzirl, University of New 
Mexico, Albuquerque, N. Mex., for investigation 
of the relation of climate to the cure of tuber- 
culosis, it being agreed that if the work justifies 
it the same amount will be granted next year. 

99. $300, to Professor H. 8. Grindley, Univer- 
sity of Illinois, Urbana, Ill., for investigation of 
the proteids of flesh. 

100. $300, to Dr. H. H. Field, Ziirich, Switzer- 
land, to aid the work of the concilium biblio- 
graphieum. 

101. $250, to Professor T. A. Jaggar, Harvard 
University, Cambridge, Mass., for experiments in 
dynamical geology, provided the Secretary re- 
ceives the necessary assurance that the work can 
be undertaken with reasonable promptitude. 

102. $50, to Dr. E. O. Jordan, University of 
Chicago, Chicago, Il. for the study of the bio- 
nomics of Anopheles. 

103. $300, to Dr. BE. Anding, Miinehen, Bavaria, 
to assist the publication of his work ‘ Ueber die 
Bewegung der Sonne durch den Weltraum,’ but 
the grant is conditional upon other means being 
also secured by the author suflicient to accom- 
plish the publication. 

104. $300, to Professor W. P. Bradley, Wes- 
leyan University, Middletown, Conn., for investi- 
gations on matter in the critical state. 

105. $300, to Professor Hugo Kronecker, Bern, 
Switzerland, for assistance in preparing his phys- 
iological researches for publication. 

106. $300, to Professor W. Valentiner, Grossh, 
Sternwarte, Heidelberg, Germany, to continue the 
work of Grant No. 93 (Observations on variable 


stars). Signed, 
CuHartes S. Minor, 
Secretary. 
THE PITTSBURGH MEETING OF THE 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE 
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 
Tue fifty-first annual meeting of the Ameri- 
can Association, held this week at Pittsburgh, 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 392. 


opened auspiciously, three hundred and fifteen 
members being registered on Monday morning. 
A full report of the meeting will be given in 
the issue of Science for next week; here it 
ean only be said that at the beginning of the 
week it was evident that both the scientific 
programs and the social arrangements were 
excellent in all respects. This may be illus- 
trated by the statement that sixty-nine papers 
were entered to be read before the American 
Chemical Society and the Section of Chem- 
istry, and that the loeal committee provided 
forty-two excursions. The retiring president, 
Dr. Minot, gave the admirable address that is 
printed above. The vice-presidential address- 
es of Professor Jacobi and Dr. Galloway are 
also printed in this issue of Science, and those 
by Professor MacMahon, Professor Brace, 
Professor Van Hise, President Jordan, Dr. 
Fewkes and Mr. Hyde will follow. Full reports 
of the meetings of the sections and of the affili- 
ated societies will be given in early issues of 
this journal. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 
Tuer Paris Academy of Sciences has elected 
M. Amagat a member of the section of physics 
in succession to M. Cornu. 


Tur Academy of Sciences of Vienna has 
elected Lord Rayleigh a corresponding member. 


Tue list of coronation honors in great Brit- 
ain closes with the announcement that King 
Edward has instituted a new Order of Merit 
to be bestowed for well-earned distinction in 
any profession, foreigners to be included as 
honorary members. The original members of 
the order include Lord Kelvin, Lord Lister, 
Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Huggins. 
Lord Lister and Lord Kelvin have also been 
made privy councillors; knighthood has been 
conferred on Dr. Oliver Lodge, and Professor 
William Ramsay has been made Knight Com- 
panion of the Order of the Bath. 


Tuer honorary Doctorate of Laws was con- 
ferred upon Director W. W. Campbell, of the 
Lick Observatory, by the University of Wis- 
eonsin on July 19. 

Yate Universiry has conferred its Doctorate 
of Laws on President Nicholas Murray But- 


Juby 4, 1902.] 


ler, of Columbia University, and on Dr. Ros- 
well Park, director of the New York State 
Pathological Laboratory at Buffalo. 


Mippiesury CoLiece has given its LL.D. to 
Professor Brainard Kellogg, of the Brooklyn 
Polytechnic Institute. 


Dr. Joun M. Cuarke, New York state pale- 


ontologist, has been given the degree of LL.D. 
by Amherst College. 


Tur Alabama Polytechnic Institute has re- 
cently conferred the degree of M.A. on Pro- 
fessor F. S. Earle, assistant curator in the 
New York Botanical Garden, in recognition 
of his extensive researches in the fungi and 
in plant pathology. 


Tue Accademia dei Lincei has awarded 
Mr. Marconi a prize of the value of about 
$2,000 for his work in wireless telegraphy. 


Tue degree committee of the special board 
for medicine of Cambridge University are of 
opinion that the works, submitted by Thomas 
Henry Jones, Trinity-hall, advanced student, 
on (1) the experimental bacterial treatment 
of Cambridge sewage; (2) the bacteriological 
test for sewage-pollution in drinking water; 
(8) notes on the oxidizing bacteria of sewage, 
are of distinction as records of original re- 
search. 


Proressor A. W. Evans, of Yale University, 
and Mr. Perey Wilson, of the New York Bo- 
tanical Garden, have gone to Porto Rico to 
make some further investigations and collec- 
tion of the flora of the island for the New 
York Botanical Garden. Special attention 
will be given to the small area of primitive 
forest yet remaining on the island. 


Mr. Grorce VY. Nasu, of the New York 
Botanical Garden, has recently returned from 
an extensive trip to England, France, Ger- 
many and Holland made for the purpose of 
completing some botanical studies and secur- 
ing material for the collections of the New 
York Botanical Garden. 

Tue Botanical Gazette states that Dr. B. E. 
Livingston and Mr. H. N. Whitford, assistants 
in botany, and Mr. C. D. Howe, fellow in bot- 
any, of the University of Chicago, have been 


SCIENCE. 37 


appointed collaborators in the Bureau of For- 
estry, Department of Agriculture, for the year 
beginning July 1, 1902. Dr. Livingston will 
work on some forestry problems in the north- 
ern part of the southern peninsula of Michi- 
gan; Mr. Whitford will continue some investi- 
gations already begun in the forests of the 
Rocky mountains in the northwestern part of 
Montana, and Mr. Howe will do similar work 
in the vicinity of Burlington, Vermont. 


Tue work in irrigation provided for by Con- 
gress will be under the direction of the Direc- 
tor of the Geological Survey, Dr. Charles D. 
Walcott, and of Mr. F. H. Newell, chief of the 
Hydrographic Bureau. 

Dr. Heser D. Curtis has been appointed 
assistant in the Lick Observatory for three 
years, dating from the departure of the Mills 
Expedition to Chili, with principal duties in 
spectroscopy. Dr. Curtis is a graduate of 
Michigan University, A.B., ’92, and A.M., 793; 
was professor of mathematics and astronomy 
in the University of the Pacific 1896-1900; was 
an eclipse observer in Georgia, 1900, and Su- 
matra, 1901; and has this year taken his Ph.D. 
degree at the University of Virginia. 


Tue election of two American members of 
the Executive Council of the Association In- 
ternationale des Botanists by votes of the 
American members of the Association took 
place on June 1. Professors C. E. Bessey and 
W. F. Ganong were elected. 


Mr. Grorce Grant MacCurpy has been 
chosen to represent the Paris Society of An- 
thropology at the coming International Con- 
gress of Americanists to be held in New York, 
October 20-25, 1902. 


Ar the meeting of the American Clima- 
tologic Association at.Los Angeles the fol- 
lowing officers were elected for the ensuing 
year: President, Dr. Norman Bridge, Los 
Angeles; Vice-Presidents, Drs. J. C. Wilson, 
Philadelphia, and H. 8. Orme, Los Angeles. 


Ar the recent commencement exercises of 
the Stevens Institute of Technology, an ad- 
dress commemorative of the late President 
Henry 8. Morton was made by the Rev. Ed- 
ward Wall. 


38 SCIENCE. 


THE treasurer of the Hyatt memorial fund, 
to which we called attention last week, ac- 
knowledges thes receipt of subscriptions 
amounting to $662. Further subscriptions 
may be sent to Mr. Stephen H. Williams, 10 
Tremont Street, room 80, Boston. 


A MEMORIAL tablet to commemorate the late 
Professor Hughes has been erected in the 
chapel at King’s College, London, and a prize 
has been established to be called the Hughes 
Memorial Prize in Anatomy. 


We regret to record the death, through an 
accident, of Professor J. B. Johnson, dean of 
the College of Engineering of the University 
of Wisconsin. Born at Marlboro, Ohio, in 
1850, Professor Johnson graduated from the 
University of Michigan in 1878, and later 
served as civil engineer on the United States 
Lake and Missouri River Surveys. He was 
called to the chair of civil engineering at 
Washington University, St. Louis, in 1883. 
While in St. Louis he conducted a large test- 
ing laboratory, at which the U. S. timber 
tests were made. In 1899 he accepted the po- 
sition he filled at the time of his death. He 
was the author of ‘The Theory and Practice 
of Surveying, ‘Modern Frame Structures,’ 
‘Engineering Contracts and Specifications,’ 
‘Materials of Construction,’ ete. He was a 
member of the London Institution of Civil 
Engineers, the American Society of Civil En- 
gineers, the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers and a fellow of the American As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Science. 


Mr. Cuartes T. Cup, the electrical engi- 
neer and one of the editors of the New York 
Electrical World, died on June 23, at the age 
of thirty-five years. 


Dr. Carto Riva, docent in petrography at 
the University of Pavia, was killed on June 
83 by an avalanche while engaged in scientific 
investigations on Monte Grigna. 


Mrs. Poorsr A. Hearst, regent of the Uni- 
versity of California, has presented to the 
Lick Observatory the sum of twenty-five 
hundred dollars, available in the year 1902, 
for the purpose of increasing its equipment. 
Previous gifts to the Observatory by Mrs. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 392. 


Hearst in the early nineties provided for the 
Eelipse Expedition to Chili in 1893, for a 
temporary fellowship, and for various other 
purposes. 


Mr. Pirrpont Morcan has presented to the 
museum of the Jardin des Plantes a collection 
of precious stones valued at $10,000. 


We learn from the Bulletin of the American 
Mathematical Society that the Scientific 
Society of Harlem has proposed, as the subject 
for its prize in 1903, the investigation of the 
Japanese mathematics of the middle of the 
seventeenth century, and that the subject of 
the prize competition for the present year of 
the Société Scientifique of Brussels is ‘to make 
a critical study of the works of Simon Stevin 
on mechanics, comparing them with those of 
Galileo, Pascal and other men of science of 
the same period.’ 


THE optical works of John A. Brashear Co., 
Ltd., have completed the 374 inch mirror for 
the reflecting telescope to be used by the D. O. 
Mills Expedition sent from the Lick Observa- 
tory to Chili, in determining the velocities of 
the southern stars in the line of sight. It is 
expected that the expedition will be able to 
sail from San Francisco within the next six 
weeks. 

Tue French Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science will meet at Montauban on 
August 7. 


Nature states that the eighty-third meeting 
of the Société Helvétique des Sciences Natur- 
elles will be held at Geneva on September 7- 
10. M. E. Sarasin is the president of the so- 
ciety, M. Mare Micheli and Professor R. Cho- 
dat vice-presidents, M. Maurice Gauthier and 
M. A. de Candolle secretaries, and M. A. Pie- 
tet treasurer. Correspondence referring to the 
forthcoming meeting should be addressed to 
M. de Candolle, Cour de St. Pierre, 3, Gene- 
va. 


Tue department of state has received from 
the French embassy notice of the Sixth In- 
ternational Congress of Hydrology, Clima- 
tology and Geology to be held in Grenoble, 
commencing September 28, 1902. Papers will 
be read on the following subjects: Hydrology. 


Juty 4, 1902.] 


—(1) Action of mineral waters on the tis- 
sues; (2) practical methods of microbiological 
analysis applicable to mineral waters; (3) im- 
portance of complete chemical analysis of 
mineral waters with reference to mineral and 
organic matters to enlighten thermal medi- 
cine; (4) legal measures for protecting the 
exploitation of thermal and mineral waters; 
(5) hydromineral treatment of pulmonary con- 
sumption, (6) of skin diseases, and (7) of 
stomach complaints; (8) preventive action 
with children with constitutional tendencies. 
Climatology—(9) Variation of respiratory ex- 
changes as influenced by altitude, heat and 
cold; (10) meteorological conditions necessary 
to the installation of a sanatorium; (11) open 
or closed sanatoriums. (Geology.—(12) Wheth- 
er mineral waters intercepted by artificial 
means suffer variations of temperature accord- 
ing to the seasons; what variations; (13) re- 
lations of the principal thermal springs of 
Dauphiny with the geological nature of the 
soil; origin; (14) statistics regarding the min- 
eral springs of Savoy and Dauphiny; (15) 
geological conditions and origin of the min- 
eral waters of Oriol and La Motte (Isére). 

Tue Secretary of State will invite foreign 
governments to send delegates to the Interna- 
tional Mining Congress, which convenes in 
Butte, September 1. The trunk lines of the 
United States will join with the Western Pas- 
senger Association in offering a rate of one 
fare plus two dollars for round trip to the 
congress. 

Tue president and council of the British 
Institution of Electrical Engineers gave a 
conversazione at the Natural History Museum, 
Cromwell-road, on July 1, to meet the mem- 
bers of the Incorporated Municipal Electrical 
Association and the foreign delegates to the 
International Tramways and Light Railways 
Congress. 

A pDEPUTATION from the British Institution 
of Electrical Engineers waited upon Mr. Ger- 
ald Balfour at the Board of Trade on June 19 
to urge that something should be done to re- 
move the impediments in the way of elec- 
trical industrial development. Amongst those 
present were Lord Kelvin, the Earl of Rosse, 


SCIENCE. 39 


Lord Greenock, Sir Michael Foster, M.P., Sir 
Thomas Wrightson, M.P., Professor Perry, 
Professor Thompson,  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Crompton, C.B., Major-General Webber, C.B., 
Dr. Spenee Watson, and Mr. James Swin- 
burne (president of the Electrical Engineers). 
Lord Kelvin introduced the deputation, and 
Mr. James Swinburne stated the case of the 
Institution. He was of the opinion that the 
staff of the Board of Trade which dealt with 
the regulations for the supply of electricity 
ought to be strengthened, and nothing less 
than a royal commission was required to deal 
with the whole question of electrical legisla- 
tion. In his reply Mr. Gerald Balfour said 
that he fully recognized the importance of the 
subject and to a large extent sympathized with 
the deputation. He was afraid that it was 
undeniable that the electrical industry in 
England was behind America and Germany, 
and perhaps some other of the continental 
countries. It appeared that the really im- 
portant question was not so much that of any 
impediments thrown directly by the legisla- 
ture in the way of the development of the 
electrical industry, as the power which the 
legislature had given to the local authorities 
to veto schemes. He then reviewed the at- 
tempts that had been, and were being made, 
to remedy the condition of affairs and stated 
that the board was as anxious as the deputation 
to secure that the public interests should be 
properly served by the development of the 
electrical industry. With regard to the ap- 
pointment of a royal commission he could not 
pledge himself, but he must consult his col- 
leagues in the cabinet. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


THe corner stone for the new educational 
institution for which Mr. James Milliken gave 
$200,000 and an endowment of $20,000 a year 
has been laid at Decatur, Ill. Citizens of De- 
eatur and the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church added $300,000 to the endowment. It 
is to be known as Milliken University. 


Presient Harris, of Amherst College, has 
announced a gift to the library of $25,000 by 


40 


Col. Mason W. Tyler, class of 762, as a memo- 
rial to his father, William Seymour Tyler, for 
many years professor in Greek in Amherst Col- 
lege. 


Tun Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, 
London, has offered scholarships in mining 
and metallurgy to the following colleges :—The 
Royal School of Mines, two scholarships of 
£50 each; King’s College (London), £50; the 
Camborne School of Mines (Cornwall), £50; 
and the Durham College of Science (New- 
castle-on-Tyne), £50. These scholarships will 
be offered annually for three years. In addi- 
tion to other work for the advancement of 
technical education in mining and metallurgy, 
the institution has submitted to the board of 
education a plan for affording practical ex- 
perience in workshops throughout the king- 
dom to mining and metallurgical students. 


We learn from the British Medical Journal 
that at the urgent request of the French Col- 
ony of Cochin China, the council of the 

-medical faculty of the University of Paris has 
decided to found an institute of colonial medi- 
cine. 
Doumer, has granted a subvention of $10,000 
a year. Provision will be made for special in- 
struction in tropical diseases, but it is not in- 
tended to establish a chair for the teaching of 
the subject at present. 


Tue council of King’s College has passed a 
resolution by a majority of twenty-two to two 
declaring that, in view of the University of 
London act of 1898, every religious test as a 
qualification for office, position, or member- 
ship in or under the council of the college, 
with the exception of professorships or lecture- 
ships in the faculty of theology, shall, as soon 
as may be, cease to exist. While thus abolish- 
ing tests, the council declares its unwavering. 
determination to maintain the connection of 
the college with the church of England, as 
provided for by its constitution. 


Ir is understood that Dr. W. L. Bryan, 
vice-president of Indiana University and pro- 
fessor of psychology and pedagogy, will suc- 
ceed Dr. Joseph Swain as president of the 
University. 


SCIENCE. 


The Governor-General of Cochin, M. - 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 392. 


Tur board of trustees of the University of 
Arkansas has elected Mr. Harrison Randolph, 
of Virginia, president of that institution. 


Dr. CHarues S. Patmer, professor of chem- 
istry in the University of Colorado, has been 
appointed president of the State School of 
Mines at Golden, Colo. 


K. CG. Davis, Ph.D. (Cornell), has resigned 
the chair of horticulture in the University of 
West Virginia and the Experiment Station 
to accept the principalship of the Dunn 
County School of Agriculture and Domestic 
Economy, just established under provision of 
a new law, at Menomonie, Wisconsin. The 
new school, supported as it is by county and 
state funds, is without a precedent in the 
United States. 


Dr. B. M. Duaear, of the U. S. Department 
of Agriculture, has been appointed professor 
of botany at the University of Missouri. 


Dr. W. S. Jounson, of the State Normal 
School of Natchitoches, La., has been ap- 
pointed head of the department of philosophy 
and pedagogy at the University of Arkansas. 


Dr. Witpur M. Urpan, of Ursinus College, 
has been elected to the chair of philosophy 
in Trinity College and Mr. Henry A. Perkins, 
formerly of the Hartford Electric Light Com- 
pany, has been made professor of physies. 


Guascow University has called Mr. Robert 
Latta, professor of moral philosophy, Aber- 
deen, to the chair of logic, in succession to 
the late Dr. Adamson. There were eight can- 
didates for the position. 


Dr. Kart SCHWARZSCHILD, associate pro- 


fessor of astronomy at the University at Gét- 


tingen, has been promoted to a full professor- 
ship, and Dr. Hillebrand and Dr. Leopold 
Ambronn, docents in astronomy in the Uni- 
versities of Graz and Gottingen respectively, 
have been made associate professors.. Dr. 
Wilhelm Trabert, associate professor of me- 
teorology in the University. at Vienna, has 
been appointed professor of cosmical physics 
at Innsbriick. Dr. Hugo Schwanert, professor 
of chemistry at the University of Greifswald, 
has retired. 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 


OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVAN -EMENT OF SCIENCE, 


EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE : S. NEwcomsB, Mathematics; R. S. Woopwarp, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; k. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALCcoTT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. SCUDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessey, N. L. Brirron, Botany ; C. 8S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. BinnIneas, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. WELcH, Pathol- 
ogy ; J. McKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Fripay, Juuy 11, 1902. Minor. Ether Waves from LHa«plosions: 

: ; Proressor Francis E. Nipver. Hcology:- 
W. F. Ganone. The European Pond-snail: 
CONTENTS: Dr. B. EvtswortH Catt. Text-books: J. 


" oer SMART) IBKOWiedeosooodoudooucooccuos 64 
American Association for the Advancement Shorter Articles :— 

of Science -— ‘ A New Meteorite from Kansas: Dr. 
The Pittsburgh Meeting: Dr. D. T. Mac- OrivEn CoumMARRINGTON. Notesion the 
Dovucar ees Gas SERRE SESH EES S seh sad eRe cee al Lafayette and Columbia Formations and 
Applied Botany, Retrospective and Pros- some of their Botanical Features: ROLAND 
ae pective: Dr. B. T. GALLOWAY.......... 49 M. Harrer. Instinct in Song Birds: Wx- 
Scientific Books :— y ; 1AM E. D. Scorr. A New Short Method of 

Wolf's Histoire de VObservatoire de Paris: Multiplication: Dr. D. N. LeHMeEr....... 67 


PROFESSOR GEORGE C. Comstock. Pammel 

and Weems on the Grasses of Iowa: Pro- 

FESSOR W. J. Beat. Parker and Parker’s 

Practical Zoology: Dr. M. A. BigELow.... 59 
Societies and Academies :— 


Current Notes on Meteorology :— 
Helipse Meteorology; Rainfall Variations ; 
Notes: Proressor R. DEC. WarpD........ 74 
Memorial of Haller: PRoressors MiIcHAEL 


= 5 inp ee Foster and PauL HEGER................. 75 
New York Academy of Sciences, Section of Scientific Notes and News................. 77 
Astronomy, Physics and Chemistry: Dr. University and Educational News.......... 79 
SeeASE VU GHEDE aces nich aomebie ein wae os 63 

Scientific Journals and Articles............ 63 Mes ate eee ow re ao 
5 7 l Gorr Me no. SS. intended for publication an ooks, ete., intende 
Duscussion and Corres pon eewe: 7 fr review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 

Force and Energy: PRoressor CHARLES 8. fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


Tue fifty-first meeting, held in Pittsburgh, from June 28 to July 3, may be held to 
be fairly typical of the general development of the Association during the last few years, 
and as one which goes far toward realizing some of the more serious purposes of the 
organization. 

The total number of members in attendance was 431, which places the meeting far up 
toward the head of the list, so far as this feature is to be taken into account, and the roll 
includes an unusual proportion of the worthiest names among American men of science. 
Especially large attendance in physics, chemistry, mechanics and engineering may be at- 
tributed to the opportunity afforded the members of inspecting the great number of manu- 
facturing establishments in and about Pittsburgh, which exhibit some of the most modern 
and interesting examples of the applications of the branches in question. This feature 


42 


of the meeting was most fully exploited by 
the local committee, about fifty excursions 
having been arranged, some of which entail- 
ed the charter and use of large river steam- 
ers for an entire day. The arrangements 
for the excursions and for the general 
entertainment of the members were on a 
larger scale than anything attempted at 
recent meetings of the Association, the local 
committee having collected and at its dis- 
posal a fund of $9,000.00 for this purpose. 
In face of such splendid liberality it must 
be added, somewhat ungraciously perhaps, 
that the agreement with the headquarters 
hotel was so loosely made that exorbitant 
rates were demanded of those who found it 
necessary to occupy quarters near the cen- 
ter of business interest of the Association. 
A census of the papers read before the 
several sections and affiliated societies shows 
that 320 papers and addresses were given, 
in addition to the various lectures by the 
presiding officers of these organizations and 
the other special lectures in the evening ses- 
sions, which would probably bring the total 
up to nearly 350. An analysis of the special 
papers discloses the fact that their titles 


were distributed among the separate 
branches of science as follows: 
Mathematics and astronomy......... 24 
IPMS BoGedug cesses aes ouAboD ons Fou) 
IPN to eBiclo se nan Geo peed won do's 45 
American Physical Society....... 14 
Glienmgnny BraccodoosdacououupocopeT 69 
Mechanical science and engineering. . .23 
Geology and geography.............. 26 
MOOR  Kosvccooodourecoos boos ao00% 28 
IBGE cocanobon aro 4doouN O00 DODM 79 
SectionmiGestiacimns acre ieennie 26 
Botanical Clubs oye seeeiyeieia ao 
Botanical Society of America... .30 
Anthropolocyse yt kee eeeeeer 30 
Social and economic science.......... 22 


The membership shows a steady increase, 
the total number at the close of the sessions 
being about 3,500 (as compared with about 
2,800 at the close of the Denver meeting, 
September 1, 1902), and the financial af- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 393. 


fairs of the Association are also in a very 
satisfactory condition. A notable event in 
this connection was the transfer by the re- 
quest of the permanent secretary of $2,000.- 
00 from his funds to the permanent fund 
in the hands of the treasurer, a result 
largely due to the skillful business manage- 
ment of the affairs of the Association by 
the secretary which called out a special 
vote of thanks by the council. 

But little was done in the way of new 
legislation of importance. A single amend- 
ment to article 20 of the Constitution was 
proposed by which the words ‘ for one week 
or longer ’ are to be omitted. This amend- 
ment will come up for action at the next 
meeting, and would have the effect of allow- 
ing meetings of less than a week’s duration 
to be held under the action of the council. 
This section now reads as a result of an 
amendment completed at this meeting: 

Art. 20. The Association shall hold a public 
meeting annually, for one week or longer, at such 
time and place as may be determined by vote of 
the General Committee, and the preliminary ar- 
rangements for each meeting shall be made by 
the Local Committee, in conjunction with the 
Permanent Secretary and such other persons as 
the Council may designate. But if suitable pre- 
liminary arrangements cannot be made, the Coun- 
cil may afterward change the time and place ap- 
pointed by the General Committee, if such change 
is believed advisable by two thirds of the mem- 
bers present. 

As a result of other amendments other 
portions of the constitution now read as 
follows: 

Art. 9. The officers of the Association shall be 
elected by ballot by the General Committee from 
the fellows, and shall consist of a President, a 
Vice-President from each Section, a Permanent 
Secretary, a General Secretary, a Secretary of 
the Council, a Treasurer, and a Secretary of each 
Section; these, with the exception of the Perma- 
nent Secretary, the Treasurer, and the Secretaries 
of the Sections, shall be elected at each meeting 
for the following one, and, with the exception of 
the Treasurer and the Permanent Secretary, shall 
not be reeligible for the next two meetings. The 
term of office of the Permanent Secretary, of the 


JULY 11, 1902.] 


Treasurer, and of the Secretaries of the Sections 
shall be five years. 

Arr. 18. The Council shall consist of the Past 
Presidents, and the Vice-Presidents of the last 
two meetings, together with the President, the 
Vice-Presidents, the Permanent Secretary, the 
General Secretary, the Secretary of the Council, 
the Secretaries of the Sections, and the Treasurer 
of the current meeting, of one fellow elected from 
each Section by ballot on the first day of its 
meeting, of one fellow elected by each affiliated 
society, and one additional fellow from each 
affiliated society having more than twenty-five 
members who are fellows of the Association, and 
of nine fellows elected by the Council, three being 
annually elected for a term of three years, etc., 
ete. 

Arr. 23. Immediately on the organization of a 
Section there shall be a member or fellow elected 
by ballot after open nomination, who, with the 
Vice-President and Secretary and the Vice-Presi- 
dent and Secretary of the preceding meeting and 
the members or fellows elected by ballot at the 
four preceding meetings shall form its Sectional 
Committee. The Sectional Committees shall have 
power to fill vacancies in their own numbers. 
Meetings of the Sections shall not be held at the 
same time with a General Session. The Sectional 
Committee may invite distinguished foreign asso- 
ciates present at any meeting to serve as honorary 
members of said Committee. 

By the action of the general committee 
the next meeting of the Association will be 
held at Washington, D. C., December 29, 
1902, to January 3, 1903, and will be the 
first held during the newly arranged con- 
vocation week as arranged and agreed to by 
more than fifty of the more prominent 
American universities. The general com- 
mittee failed to take the usual step of indi- 
cating the probable time and place of the 
second meeting to follow, the consensus of 
opinion being that it would be protitable to 
await the result of the midwinter meeting 
before a decision is reached as to the desira- 
bility of such arrangements in the future. 

The following officers were elected for the 
ensuing year: 

President—Dr. 
University. 

General Secretary—H. B. Ward, University of 
Nebraska. 


Ira Remsen, Johns Hopkins 


SCIENCE. 


43 


Secretary of Couwneil—Ch. Wardell Stiles, of 
Washington. 

Vice-Presidents—Section A, George B. Halsted, 
Austin, Tex.; B, E. F. Nichols, Dartmouth Col- 
lege, N. H.; C, Charles Baskerville, Chapel Hill, 
N. C.; D, C. A. Waldo, Purdue University, Lafay- 
ette, Ind.; E, W. M. Davis, Harvard; F, C. W. 
Hargitt, Syracuse, N. Y.; G, F. V. Coville, Wash- 
ington; H, G. M. Dorsey, Chicago; I, H. T. New- 
comb, Philadelphia. 

Section Secretaries—Section A, C. S. Howe, 
Cleveland; B, D. C. Miller, Cleveland; CG, H. N. 
Stokes, Washington; D, A. K. Kingsbury, Wor- 
cester, Mass.; E, E. O. Hovey, New York; F, C. 
Judson Herrick, Granville, O.; G, C. J. Chamber- 
lain, Chicago; H, R. H. Dixon, Cambridge, Mass.; 
I, Frank H. Hitchcock. 

The Permanent Secretary and Treasurer are 
elected every five years. Dr. L. O. Howard, Wash- 
ington, continues in the former office, and Pro- 
fessor R. S. Woodward, New York, in the latter. 

The increasing number and size of the 
affiliated societies make it impossible to give 
at this place a full report of their proceed- 
ings. At the request of representatives of 
the organizations concerned, the American 
Anthropologie Association and the National 
Geographic Society were made affiliated 
societies for the Pittsburgh meeting. 

The Botanical Society of America passed 
a series of resolutions on Monday, June 
30, 1902, by which the sum of $500.00 is set 
aside from its yearly income, this year and 
every succeeding year, to be used in making 
grants in aid of investigations. This meas- 
ure goes into operation at once, and appli- 
cations from the members and associates of 
the Society may be sent to.the secretary at 
any time. The funds of the Botanical 
Society of America consist of the accumu- 
lated dues and interest paid in by the mem- 
bers, and the grants in question probably 
constitute the only series ever offered in 
America, the money for which has been eon- 
tributed wholly by a body of scientific 
workers alone. 

Of the reports of committees, that on the 
relations of the journal ScrENcE to the As- 
sociation may be taken to be of the greatest 


44 


importance to the general policy of the As- 
sociation... The report as adopted by the 
Council is given below: 


COMMITTEE ON THE RELATIONS OF THE JOURNAL 
SCIENCE WITH THE ASSOCIATION. 

This committee is able to report that the ar- 
rangement by which Science is sent to members 
of the Association appears to be advantageous to 
the Association and to the advancement and dif- 
-fusion of science in America. At the beginning 
of the New York meeting two years ago when 
the plan was adopted the membership of the As- 
sociation was 1,721, whereas it now about 
3,450. The permanent secretary states that the 
money derived from the initiation fees of new 
members has sufliced to send Science to all mem- 
bers of the Association for the eighteen months 
during which the arrangement has been in effect. 
In order, however, that the finances of the Asso- 
ciation may be on a satisfactory basis without 
depending on the initiation fees of new members, 
and in order that the publishers of ScreENCE may 
not lose by the arrangement the membership must 
be 4,000 and should be 5,000. We recommend 
that special efforts be made to increase the mem- 
bership to at least 4,000 at the time of the Wash- 
ington meeting. 

We recommend that we be authorized to re- 
new for the year 1903 the present contract with 
the Macmillan Company, according to which 
ScIENCE is sent to all members of the Association 
in good standing on the payment of $2 for each 
member from the funds of the Association. 

Professor Simon Newcomb, the chairman of this 
committee, is abroad, but it is known that he 
concurs in its recommendations. 

(Signed. ) 


is 


CHaRrLes §. MINot, 
G. K. GILBert, 

R. §. Woopwarp, 
J. McK. Catrett, 
L. O. Howarp. 


The general proceedings of the Associa- 
tion inclusive of action by the council of 
general interest, but which did not come 
before the general sessions, are as follows: 

The first general session was held in 
Musie Hall, Carnegie Institute, on Monday, 
June 30, at 10 a.m. with the retiring presi- 
dent, Dr. C. §. Minot, in the chair. After 
a prayer offered by the Rev. Lemuel Call ~ 
Barnes, D.D., the retiring president, Dr. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI: No. 393. 
Charles 8. Minot, of the Harvard Medical 
School, introduced the president-elect Pro- 
fessor Asaph Hall, U. S. N.; who ealled on 
Dr. W. J. Holland, director of the Carne- 
gie Institution and chairman of the local 
committee. Colonel Samuel H. Chureh 
and Colonel George H. Anderson also wel- 
comed the Association to Pittsburgh, and 
President Hall made a brief reply. 

A leeture on ‘ The Prevention of the Pol- 

Intion of Streams by Modern Methods of 
Sewage Treatment ’ by Dr. Leonard P. Kin- 
nicutt, was given in the Musie Hall, Carne- 
gie Institute on Monday evening, June 30, 
and the address of the retiring president, 
Dr. C. S. Minot, was delivered in. the same 
place on the following evening. Dr. Mi- 
not’s lecture ‘The Problem of Conscious- 
ness in its Biological Aspects’ was printed 
in full in the last issue of this Journal. 
Mr. Robert T. Hill, of the U. S. Geological 
Survey, gave an illustrated lecture on ‘The 
Recent Disaster in Martinique’ in the same 
place on Thursday evening, July 3, which 
formed the concluding exercise of the meet- 
ing. 
_ In order to facilitate business and short- 
en the period of necessary attendance of 
certain members of the council, itwas voted 
by that body that its duties be delegated to 
an executive committee consisting of the sec- 
retaries of the Association and the secre- 
taries of the several sections for the session 
of the Saturday preceding the week of the 
meeting in which the program is offered. 

The permanent secretary was instructed 
to express to the secretary of the Smithson- 
ian Institution the appreciation of the Asso- 
ciation for his services to science in provid- 
ing for a table at the Naples Biological 
Station. 

The Washington committee on the elec- 
tion of new members during the interim of 
council meetings was continued with power. 

A message of sympathy was sent to King 
Edward of England. 


Juny 11, 1902.] 


Reports by Alexander Macfarlane on 
quaternions, and by H. B. Newsom on the 
theory of collineations to Section A, were 
ordered printed in full in the proceedings. 
The following resolutions on the American 
International Archeological Commission, 
recommended by Section H, were approved 
and adopted by the Council and ordered 
printed : 

WUuUEREAS, The Second International American 
Conference, commonly known as the Pan-Ameri- 
can Congress, in session duly assembled in the 
City of Mexico January 29, 1902, adopted a rec- 
ommendation to the several American nations 
participating in the Conference, that an ‘ Ameri- 
ean International Archeological Commission’ be 
created ; 

WHEREAS, The recommendation has been trans- 
mitted by the President of the United States to 
the Congress (Senate Document No. 330 of the 
57th Congress, Ist Session), thereby giving the 
project official status in the United States; and, 

WHEREAS, The recommendation is in full ac- 
cord with the spirit and objects of American sci- 
ence while international agreement in laws rela- 
ting to antiquities is desirable; therefore, 

Resolved, That the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science heartily concurs in 
the recommendation of the Second International 
American Conference. 

Resolved Further, That the secretary of the 
Association send a copy of this Resolution to the 
Director of the Bureau of American Republics, 
as an expression of the judgment of the Asso- 
ciation. 

Adopted by Section H on this July 2, 1902, 
and recommended to the council for adoption on 
behalf of the Association. 

STEWART CULIN, 
Chairman, 

Hartan I. SmMiru, 
Secretary. 

Reports of Standing Committees were 
presented and ordered printed as below: 

Twentieth Annual Report of the com- 
mittee on Indexing Chemical Literature 
(will be printed hereafter). 


REPORT OF TIE COMMITTEE ON THE TEACHING OF 
ANTHROPOLOGY IN AMERICA. 


To the Council of the A. A. A. S.: The Com- 
mittee on the Teaching of Anthropology in Ameri- 


SCIENCE. 


45 


ca beg to report a continuation of correspondence 
and conferences in the interests of Anthropolog- 
ical teaching. Some of the results of the cor- 
respondence are incorporated in a paper by one 
of the committee (Dr. MacCurdy) entitled ‘The 
Teaching of Anthropology in the United States’ 
published in Science, January, 1902. During the 
year a course of lectures was delivered by one 
of the Committee (the Chairman) in the Free 
Museum attached to the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, pursuant to the purposes of the Commit- 
tee. 

The expenses of the Committee have been in- 
considerable and no appropriation was asked. It 
is recommended that the Committee be continued. 

W J McGer, 
Franz Boas, 
W. H. Houmes. 


REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ANTHROPOMETRY. 


Anthropometric researches under the auspices 
of this committee have been continued during the 
year. Professors Cattell and Boas, members of 
the committee, and Professors Thorndike and Far- 
rand, fellows of the Association, have during the 
year made measurements of students entering 
and graduating from Columbia College, and have 
made other studies on individual differences. 
Professor Thorndike has investigated especially 
the correlation of traits in school children. _ Mr. 
Farrington has studied the question as to wheth- 
er brothers who have attended Columbia Univer- 
sity are more alike than those who are not broth- 
ers. Mr. Bair and Dr. Wissler are calculating 
the results of measurements of school children 
made by, Professor Boas. Professor Cattell is 
collecting data on individual differences, in which 
1,000 students of Columbia University, 1,000 of 
the most eminent men in history and 1,000 scien- 
tific men of the United States are being consid- 
ered. 

Progress has been made with the construction 
of a travelling set of anthropometric instruments, 
toward which an appropriation of $50 was made 
at the Denver meeting of the Association. It is 
believed that the model of a portable set of in- 
struments would be of value for work in schools, 
for the study of primitive races, ete. The pres- 
ent set is the property of the Association and is 
to be used in the first instance in making physical 
and mental measurements of members. Such 
measurements were begun at the New York meet- 
ing, but they cannot be continued until a portable 
set of instruments is available and arrangements 
are made for assistance in carrying out the meas 


46 


urements. The instruments will be ready at the 
time of the Washington meeting, and an assist- 
ant could probably be secured to take the meas- 
urements if his travelling expenses were paid. 
We should be pleased if an appropriation to this 
committee of $25 or $50 could be made for this 
purpose. An appropriation was made for a series 
of years by the British Association for its anthro- 
pometric laboratory. Our own measurements are 
‘more extended than those of the British Associa- 
tion, especially in the direction of mental traits; 
but it would be interesting to compare the meas- 
urements of the members of the British Associa- 
tion with similar measurements of American men 
of science. 

J. McK. CaAtTTELL, 

W J McGes, 

Franz Boas. 


COMMITTEE ON THE STUDY OF BLIND 
INVERTEBRATES. 


To the Cowncil of the A. A. A. S.: Gentlemen— 


In behalf of your Committee on the Investigation 


of Cave Animals, I beg leave to report that the 
following publications have recently been issued, 
or will appear before the Washington meeting, in 
January: 

1. An account of the arthropods of the caves 
of Texas by Carl Jost Ulrich, Proc. Am. Mier. 
Society. 

2. An account of the history of the eye of 
amblyopsis from its appearance to death of the 
individual by old age. 

3. The eyes of Rhineura, 
Acad. Sci. 

During March of the present year, the writer, 
accompanied by Mr. Oscar Riddle as assistant 
and interpreter, visited the blind fish caves of 
western Cuba. A general account of the trip was 
presented before Section F. The crustacea col- 
lected will be described by Mr. W. P. Hay. The 
eyes of the blind crustaceans and the eyes of 
the blind fishes, blind lizards, and blind snakes 
collected will be described by my students and 
myself. : 

The expenses of the Cuban trip, amounting to 
about $400, have been met in part by an unex- 
pended balance of about $80 from the $150 here- 
tofore granted by the A. A. A.S., a promise of $85 
for a report on the fishes by the U. 8. Fish Com- 
mission, and from the sale of specimens. In be 
half of the Committee I respectfully request that 
the Committee be continued and that a grant of 
$100 be made to continue the work. 


Proc. Washington 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vo. XVI. No. 393. 


In the absence of the.other members of the 
Committee respectfully submitted by 
Cart H. EIrGENMANN, 
Secretary. 


REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE RELATIONS OF 
PLANTS TO CLIMATE. 


To the Members of the Council: Gentlemen— 
The efforts of the Committee have been directed 
to the development of methods which would se- 
cure continuous records of the temperature of the 
soil, and which would make possible an analysis 
of the comparative influence of the widely. differ- 
ent soil and air temperatures upon the general 
development, ‘physiology and distribution of 
plants. The Committee has been so fortunate as 
to secure the cooperation and interest of Pro- 
fessor Wm. Hallock, of Columbia University,-and 
a thermograph designed by him has been con- 
structed and installed for taking continuous rec- 
ords of soil temperatures. (For description, see 
Journal New York Bot. Garden, July, 1902.) 
With the invention of this instrument, the Com- 
mittee now finds itself in a position to study 
some of the main problems confronting it with 
much promise of success in the way of valuable 
results, and asks a further grant of sixty-five 
dollars to enable it to construct and maintain 
two additional instruments, and to make other 
necessary records and experiments. In the ab- 
sence of the other members of the Committee, 
Messrs. Trelease and Coulter, this report is sub- 
mitted with their general approval, and with the 
unanimous approval of Section G. 

Respectfully, 
D. T. MacDovueat. 


Report of the Committee on the Atomic 
Weight of Thorium. (Will be printed 
hereafter. ) 

The following grants were made for the 
ensuing year: 


To the committee on anthropo- 


metric measurements......... $50.00 
To the committee on the investi- 

gation of blind invertebrates.. 75.00 
To the committee on the atomic 

weight of thorium..../.:.... 50.00 
To the committee on the relations 

of plants to climate.......... 75.00 


By the action of the Council on July 3, 
1902, a new committee consisting of W. S. 
Franklin, D. B. Brace and E. F. Nichols 
was appointed to which was entrusted in- 


JuLyY 11, 1902.] Pr SCIENCE. 4T 


vestigations of the velocity of light, and a 
grant of $75.00 was made to this committee. 
The following members were elected fel- 
lows at the sessions of the Council on July 
2 and 3, 1902: 
Abbott, Charles G., Smithsonian Inst., Wash- 
ington, D. C. 
Abel, John, Jr., Baltimore, Md. 
Bain, Samuel M., Knoxville, Tenn. 
Ball, Carleton R., Washington, D. C. 
Blackmar, Frank Wilson, Lawrence, Kansas. 
Caldwell, Otis W., Charleston, Ill. 
Chamberlain, Chas. Joseph, Chicago. 
Cook, Melville T., Greencastle, Ind. 
Coquillett, D. W., Washington, D. C. 
Dunean, G. M., New Haven, Conn. 
Dunn, Louise B:, Barnard College, N. Y. City. 
Farrand, Livingston, New York. 
Fisher, Irving, New Haven, Conn. 
Fletcher, Robt., Hanover, N. H. 
Gifford, John C., Ithaca, N. Y. 
Goodyear, Wm. H., Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Gould, G. M., Phila., Pa. 
Grant, U. S., Evanston, Ill. 
Gregory, H. E., New Haven, Conn. 
Hazen, Tracy E., New York. 
Herrmann, Richard, Dubuque, Ia. 
Herter, C. A., New York. 
Humphrey, Richard L., Phila., Pa. 
Jenks, Albert E., Bureau Amer. Ethnology, 
Washington, D. C. 
Jordan, Whitman H., Geneva, New York. 
Kearney, Thos. H., Washington, D. C. 
Lane, A. C., Lansing, Mich. 
Lovett, Edgar Odell, Princeton, N. J. 
Luquer, Lea MclI., Columbia Univ., New York. 
McGuire, Jos. D., Washington, D. C. 
MeNair, F. W., Houghton, Mich. 
Mathews, John A., 4 First Place, Brooklyn, 
N. Y. 
Mills, Wm. C., Ohio State Univ., Columbus, O. 
Moseley, Edwin L., Sandusky, O. 
Moses, A. J., Columbia Univ., N. Y. City. 
Osler, W., Baltimore, Md. 
Owen, Charles Lorin, Field Columbian Mu- 
* seum. 
Paton, Stewart, Baltimore, Md. 
Penfield, S. L., New Haven, Conn. 
Piersol, G. A., Phila., Pa. 
Powers, LeGrand (Tufts), Washington, D. C. 
Pratt, Jos. Hyde, Chapel Hill, N. C. 
Richards, Herbert Maule, New York. 


Sanford, E. C., Worcester, Mass. 

Savage, W. L., New York. 

Schlesinger, Frank, Ukiah, Cal. ; 
Schmeckebier, Lawrence F., Washington, D. C. 
Schwatt, Isaac Joachim, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Seashore, C. E., Iowa City, Ia. 

Shattuck, Samuel Walker, Champaign, Il. 
Shaw, Walter R., Stillwater, Oklahoma. 
Skinner, Henry, Phila., Pa. 

Slichter, Charles S., Madison, Wis. 
Small, John K., Bedford Park, N. Y. City. 
Sneath, E. H., New Haven, Conn. i 
Spalding, Volney M., Ann Arbor, Mich. 
Stanton, T. W., U. S. Nat’l Museum, Washing- 


ton, D. C. 


Stone, Geo. E:, Amherst, Mass. 


Tatlock, John, Jr., New York City. 
Taylor, E. W., Boston, Mass. 
Thompson, Alton H., 721 Kansas Ave., Topeka, 


Kansas. 


Thompson, N. Gilman, New York. 
Titchener, E. B., Ithaca, N. Y. 

Tooker, Wm. Wallace, Sag Harbor, N. Y. 
Towle, Wm. Mason, Syracuse, N. Y. 
Townsend, Chas. O., Washington, D. C. 
Tucker, Rich’d Hawley, Mt. Hamilton, Cal. 
Updegraff, Milton, Washington, D. C. 
Ward, Robt. DeC., Cambridge, Mass. 
Wilder, B. G., Ithaca, N. Y. 

Williston, S. W., Univ. of Chicago. 


“Wood, T. D., New York. 


Woods, F. A., Boston, Mass. 
As a result of action taken by the Coun- 


cil, Section D and the general session on 
July 3, 1902, Mr. George Westinghouse was 
elected an honorary fellow of the Associa- 
tion. 


The following report by the Permanent 


Secretary was received and adopted: 


VYINANCIAL REPORT OF THE PERMANENT SECRETARY 


JANUARY 1] TO DECEMBER 31, 1901. 


Debit. 

To Balance from last account .$4,741.46 
Admission fees 1900......... 15.00 
Admission fees for 1901...... 5,765.00 
Annual dues for 1902........ 5,034.00 
Annual dues for 1901........ 7,874.00 
Annual dues for previous 

VMS odo cdcosocoaqpenaba 774.00 
Associate’ fees............... 123.00 
Fellowship fees.............. 398.00 
Life membership fees........ 1,050.00 
Publicatvonsis eee cee eee 68.29 
AGING So bdoéboouobananoood 23.66 
Imterestisa sere urbe 38.20 
Miscellaneous receipts........ 210.44 


$26,115.05 


48 


Credit. 

By publications.............. $6,548.07 
-By expenses Denver meeting.. 739.16 
By expenses in propagandist 

WOLKyulytitecscteicheter severe taisasomme ye 1,819.90 
By general office expenses... 635.09 
BPS ALATICS ire tepes seceteroie te nyeve sages 2,000.00. 
By miscellaneous  disburse- 

IMENTS Rivne som knee tnecscoreRe cent nloge: 2,087.00 
By balance to new account. ..12,285.83 

$26,115.05 


I hereby certify that I have examined this ac- 
count and that it is correctly cast and. properly 
vouched for, and that the balance was on deposit 
in Washington banks as follows: Citizens’ Na- 
tional Bank (January 2, 1902), $9,955.62; Na- 
tional Safe Deposit and Trust Co. (including in- 


terest credited, January 1), $1,274.85; American — 


Security and Trust Co. (including interest cred- 
ited January 6), $1,055.36; in all, $12,285.83. 
G. K. GrIBert, 
Auditor. 


The following report by the Treasurer 
was received and adopted: 


REPORT OF THE TREASURER. 


In compliance with Article 15 of the Constitu- 
tion, and by direction of the Council, I have the 
honor to submit the following report, showing 
receipts, disbursements, and disposition of funds 
of the Association for the year ending December 
31, 1901. 

Receipts have come 
Treasurer from three 
from commutations of 


into the keeping of the 
sources, namely: First, 
annual fees of life mem- 
bers of the Association; secondly, from excess of 
receipts over expenditures of the Permanent Sec- 
retary; and, thirdly, from interests on funds de- 
posited in savings banks. The aggregate of these 
receipts is $2,397.89. 

Disbursements made in accordance with 
direction of the Council amount to $460.00. 

The total amount of funds of the Association 
deposited in banks and subject to the order of 
the Treasurer, December 31, 1901, is $12,127.07. 

The details of receipts, disbursements, and dis- 
position of funds are shown in the following 
itemized statement. 


Dated June 1, 1902. 


the 


*This includes $2,050 turned over to the 
Treasurer to be added to the permanent funds 
of the Association. 


SCIENCE. ra 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 393. 


THE TREASURER IN ACCOUNT WITH THE AMERICAN 


ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT 
OF SCIENCE. 
Dr. 
1901. 
To balance from last account .$10,189.18 
Dee. 7, to amount transferred from 
funds of permanent Secre- 
NAL O mob bade adnan savagen 6 1,000.00 
Dec. 14, to amount received for 21 life 
memberships .............. 1,050.00 
Dec. 31, to amount received as: interest 
on funds deposited in Say- 
ings Bank as follows: 
From Cambridge Say- 
ings Bank, Cam- 
bridge, Mass....... $36.96 
From Emigrant Indus- 
trial Savings Bank, 
New York, N. Y...102.08 
From Institution for 
the Savings of Mer- 
chants’ Clerks, New 
Works aN M7 ienetecesys 99.50 
From Metropolitan 
Savings Bank, New 
RYorks Ney aWiishsesier-achet 109.35 
cS 4iZ8o 
Motel rate ves $12,587.07 


THE TREASURER IN ACCOUNT WITH THE AMERICAN 
ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT 
OF SCIENCE. 
Cr. 
1901. 

Apr. 30, by amount paid to permanent 
Secretary from contribution 
of Mrs. Phoebe Thorne to 
New York Committee...... 

29, by cash paid D. T. MacDougal 
of committee on study of re- 
lations of plants to climate. 

29, by cash paid Jas. Meck. Cat- 
tell of committee on anthro- 
pometric investigations..... 

4, by cash paid Charles B. Daven- 
port of committee on the 
study of biological varia- 
tions i 

11, by cash paid Charles Basker- 
ville of committee on the 
study of the atomic weight 
of) thoriumbya eee 

31, by cash on deposit in banks 
as follows: 


$200.00 


Aug. 


60.00 
Aug. 


50.00 
Oct. 


100.00 


Nov. 


50.00 
Nov. 


JuLyY 11, 1902.] 


In Cambridge Sav- 

ings Bank, Cam- 

bridge, Mass... ..$1,084.32 
In Immigrant In- 


dustrial Savings 
Bank, New York, 
INNA SENN isha, sesso 2,882.93 


In Institution for 
the Savings of 
Merchants’ Clerks, 
New York, N. Y. 

In Metropolitan 
Savings Bank, 
New York, N. Y. 

In The Fifth Ave- 
nue Bank, New 
Wor's Ne 656566 


2,918.47 
2,999.15 


2,242.20 
12,127.07 


Motaliercn ascetic $12,587.07 
I have examined the foregoing account and cer- 
tify that it is correctly cast and _ properly 
vouched, 
Emory McCLinTocr, 


Auditor. 

June 23, 1902. 

The chief feature of the closing session of 
the Association in the Music Hall of the 
Carnegie Institute on Thursday evening, 
July 3, was an illustrated lecture by Mr. 
Robert T. Hill on the recent voleanic erup- 
tions in Martinique, in which the chief fea- 
tures of his recent investigations were 
described. After the lecture a series of 
resolutions were passed expressing the 
thanks of the Association to the various 
persons and organizations in Pittsburgh 
concerned in the organization of the meet- 
ings and entertainment of the members. 

D. T. MacDovueat, 
General Secretary, A. A. A. S. 
New York, July 5, 1902. 


APPLIED BOTANY, RETROSPECTIVE AND 
PROSPECTIVE.* 

Ir has been the general practice in past 

years for the retiring Vice-President of this 

* Vice-presidential address before the Section 

of Botany, American Association for the Advance- 


ment of Science. Pittsburgh meeting, June 28 to 
July 3, 1902. 7 


SCIENCE. 


49 


Section to give a summary of the results 
accomplished in research work, and to point 
out the lines along which there appears 
promise of further advancement. The 
facts set forth in these addresses and the 
opportunities pointed out in them have 
proved of great advantage to all, especially 
the younger men, who draw their inspira- 
tion from what has been accomplished in 
the past and what the future holds forth. 
In choosing my subject, I have deviated 
somewhat from the usual practice hereto- 
fore followed, not because I have anything 
particularly new to say or any particularly 
startling facts to disclose, but rather for the 
reason that it seems desirable at this time 
to emphasize some of the things that ap- 
peal to us as possibly having a marked in- 
fluence on the future development of bo- 
tanical work. To one who is necessarily 
thrown in contact with the somewhat hurly- 
burly affairs of life, the old meaning of 
botanical work is gradually giving way to 
something else—something that reaches out 
into practical affairs and pushes its way 
into paths where, a few years ago, the bot- 
anist would have feared to tread. 

Now the question arises, is botanical 
science to suffer by this movement, or is 
it, after the first preliminary efforts, to 
emerge rehabilitated, stronger and more 
vital than ever before? I have neither fear 
nor doubt as to the outcome, and believe 
that the spirit which has made us commer- 
cially a leader of nations will enable us to 
build up a science which neither time nor 
change can seriously affect. It hardly needs 
any extended statement to call to mind the 
rapid changes which have taken place in 
botanical work and botanical thought dur- 
ing the past twenty years, yet a critical 
study of these changes is, to me, one of the 
most hopeful signs that our progress has 
constantly been in the direction of a strong- 
er place in the world’s usefulness and a 
higher plane of scientific thought. Twenty 


50: | 


years ago the botany taught in our wniversi- 
ties and colleges was of such a nature as to 
meet the general requirements of the time. 
It broadened out rapidly during the last ten 
years of this period, but it was still limited 
in large part to systematic studies, with 
some few attempts here and there to enter 
the field of morphology, physiology, and the 
kindred branches. Perhaps no one thing 
has given a greater stimulus to apphed bot- 
any than the organization of the various 
State Experiment Stations, under what is 
known as the Hatch Act, which became a 
law in 1886 and went into active operation 
a year later. Under the broad authority 
given in this Act, establishing a Station in 
each State and Territory, opportunities 
were afforded for advanced studies of both 
plants and animals in their bearing on 
agricultural development, and as a result 
there was an extraordinary demand. for 
men, which, even yet, it is impossible to 
meet. 

Coincident with the establishment of the 
Experiment, Stations came a broadening of 
the work of the National Department of 
Agriculture, thus creating the need for still 
more men trained in certain lines. At this 
time the era of specialization was scarcely 
upon us, but such was the demand for men 
and work that the stimulus to those engaged 
in special lines was great. 

Of course, this country was not alone in 
the movement which has just been de- 
seribed, for in Europe, and particularly in 
France, there was experienced the same 
need for help in applied lines, and as a 
result extraordinary efforts were put forth 
by those in charge of chairs in the various 
institutions of learning to meet these de- 
mands. The happenings such as we are de- 
scribing are met with frequently in the 
progress of the world, and are really the 
culmination of more or less subjective 
thought, which, when the proper moment 
arrives, breaks into force and makes itself 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 393. 


felt in an objective way. It is found, there- 
fore, that while this work was making rapid 
strides, the demand was so great for imme- 
diate practical results that sufficient atten- 
tion was not always given to that accuracy 
and precision of conclusion that the world’s 
best thought demands. There was a prone- 
ness, in other words, to sacrifice accuracy 
to utility. Helmholtz, long ago, sounded 
a warning on this subject, when he said that 
‘ Whoever in the pursuit of science seeks 
after immediate practical utility may gen- 
erally rest assured that he will seek in vain.’ 
On the other hand, there is a class of inves- 
tigators, and their numbers are consider- 
able, whose work, for the most part, is 
largely ahead of the practical side. Possi- 
bly, taking all of the work that has been 
done in this country, the need is not so 
much for more research, but for the prac- 
tical application of the researches already 
made to the everyday affairs of life. In 
some branches this, of course, has not been 
the case, as is evidenced by what has been 
accomplished in a number of important 
fields during the past fifteen years. 

Of the different branches of botanical 
science that have been applied to the better- 
ment of man, physiology and pathology 
stand preeminently to the front. We can- 
not lay any great claim to much in the way 
of studies in the pure science of physiology, 
but the practical application of these 
studies to the affairs of life has been con- 
siderable. 

In passing, I may be pardoned for em- 
phasizing somewhat in detail a fact that 
seems to be little appreciated, and that 
is the great value and usefulness of 
the individual or organization that can 
bring to the attention of the people 
the results of scientific work in such a 
way that mankind as a whole is bettered, 
and the struggle for life is made less a bur- 
den. What value to the world is a scientific 
discovery unless it’is clothed by some gen- 


JuLY 11, 1902.]. 


ius with a force that will bring its useful- 
ness home to thousands, where before it 
would have been known to but a few of the 
elect? While willing to admit that America, 
for very good reasons, has not as yet. been 
able to take front rank in the way of origi- 
nal discoveries, no one will denythe fact that 
our country has quickly turned to. practi- 
eal account discoveries of all kinds where 
there was promise of practical results. So 
that while in physiology, laboratory imves- 
tigations. have been pushed with vigor 
abroad, our efforts have been, in the past, 
mainly in the direction of broad field work, 
which has added materially to the wealth 
and power of the country. This is particu- 
larly the case with the work on legumes and 
the application of laboratory discoveries to 
the problems connected with nitrogen sup- 
ply and the rotation of crops. The extend- 
ed work of Laws and Gilbert, and other 
experimenters, has done much to empha- 
size the value of the broad application of 
laboratory research in this field. It some- 
times happens in work of this kind that its 
application is of such a special nature as 
to preclude a proper appreciation of its 
value in a general way. Such, for exam- 
ple, is the work of Loew, who three years 
ago undertook a very special problem hay- 
ing to do with the handling of tobacco, 
and which, in two years, was practically 
finished, but so changed the aspect of the 
work that it opened great possibilities in 
building up an important industry and 
adding wealth to the country as well. The 
keen competition in tobacco growing, and 
the fact that the finest grades were, in large 
part, imported, made it very desirable and 
important that all available information in 
regard to the crop be secured. The chief 
problem upon which light was needed had 
to do with the fermentation of the leaf. 
Prior to Léew’s work, it was generally held 
that fermentation was, in large part, due to 
bacteria, and that the difference in the 


SCIENCE. ; 51 


aromas of tobacco might, to a certain de- 
gree, be controlled through the action of 
these organisms. Loew’s work showed that 
the fermentation of tobacco was due to en- 
zyms. The enzyms causing the fermenta- 
tion were isolated and methods for control- 
ling them were pointed out. As a result of 
this work improved methods of handling 
the crop have been developed and new in- 
dustries established. Such, for example, is 
the Sumatra tobacco industry developed in 
Connecticut, which owes its incentive to the 
advanced work of Loew, and which bids 
fair to add a great deal to the material 
wealth of the country. 

Plant breeding is another branch of ap- 
pled work closely related to physiology, 
which has made rapid advances during the 
past few years. It is true that plant breed- 
ing leads off into horticultural and other 
fields, but the advances that have been 
made in this field in recent years have had 
their inception largely in botanical studies. 
The work, as a whole, has had for its ob- 
ject the advancement of industrial pur- 
suits, and has aided materially in adding to 
the wealth and progress of the country. 
It is true that in some cases applied work 
in this line has been pushed in advance of 
scientific research, but this has led to no 
serious results, for notwithstanding a lack 
of knowledge as to the full scientific signifi- 
cance of the various operations performed, 
the results have in most cases shown far- 
reaching intuitive knowledge on the part of 
those who have actually been engaged upon 
the various problems. What has been ac- 
complished by Bailey, Webber, Waugh, 
Burbank, Hayes and others has shown 
great possibilities, and the improvement 
made in many crops will, no doubt, in time, 
prove of more value than even the present 
seems to indicate. 

In no branch of botanical science have 
the advances in applied work been more 
pronounced than in pathology. Twenty 


52 SCIENCE. 


years ago plant pathology was practically 
unknown in this country. Little or no at- 
tempt had been made toward systematic 
work in this field, and what had been ac- 
complished was largely in the direction of 
applying information secured as a result of 
investigations abroad. The first attempts 
in the study of pathological problems were 
naturally confined to questions having to 
do with parasites. The effects of parasitic 
enemies of plants were pronounced and 
gave opportunity for the most ready inves- 
tigation. In looking back,. therefore, on 
the early development of the work, it is not 
strange to find that investigations, for the 
most part, were in the direction of econom- 
ie mycology, for it was largely a study of 
parasitic fungi in their relation to plant 
diseases. The important problems con- 
nected with the relation of the fungus to 
the host and host to fungus were, for the 
most part, overlooked. Pathology, there- 
fore, had its inception largely in mycolog- 
ical investigations, which later developed 
into a study of the host itself. This 
naturally led into the field of plant physi- 
ology and developed slowly the important 
work of investigating plant environment 
and its relation to pathological phenom- 
ena. It was early seen that no sharp line 
of distinction could be drawn between any 
of these various branches, and for this rea- 
son it became important to push the investi- 
gations along several different lines. To 
the early workers in this field is due the 
eredit of laying the foundation which paved 
the way for a full understanding of the 
broad problems elucidated later, and as a 
result the science itself has been established 
on a firm basis. 

It is the practical application of this 
science, however, that has attracted such 
widespread attention everywhere, especially 
the work which has been done in this coun- 
try and in France. Prior to 1885 very 
little was known in regard to the treatment 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


of plant diseases. The discovery of the 
efficacy of certain compounds in the treat- 
ment of crop diseases about this time led to 
a rapid awakening of the importance of the 
subject, and for the next few years there 
was a phenomenal advancement in the field 
treatment of plant maladies. Improve- 
ments in laboratory methods also did much 
to stimulate advanced work, and made pos- 
sible lines of research which were not prac- 
ticable before the discovery of such meth- 
ods. What has been accomplished in this 
field alone has done much to encourage ap- 
plied work and show the importance of 
such work as an aid to the advancement of 
pure science. 

It has become the practice of late to ig- 
nore the important part that systematic 
botany has played in making known the 
practical value of plants to the human race. 
In the rage for special problems the fact is 
often overlooked that many of them owe 
their inception to prior efforts in taxonomic 
lines. It is hardly necessary or essential to 
20 into details upon the bearing of system- 
atic botany to applied work; but in passing, 
attention should be called to the great bene- 
fit that has come to the country as a whole 
through the important work on grasses, for- 
estry and medicine. Some of the earliest 
work in economic lines in this country was 
based primarily on the systematic study of 
grasses, the object being to determine their 
agricultural value. The early investiga- 
tions of Vasey did much to call attention 
to the value of applied botany, and there 
has been developed from this work very 
important and far reaching lines of re- 
search, such as are now being carried on by 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture and 
many of the experiment stations. This 
work, while having for its basis systematic 
studies, extends into broad fields of agron- 
omy and other lines, such as have to do 
with the improvement of pastures or range 
lands, and many other similar lines. The 


JuLY 11, 1902.] 


same is true of many of the important in- 
vestigations that have been carried on in 
the matter of studying noxious plants, as, 
for example, weeds, ete. 

The advanced forestry work of the pres- 
ent also owes its inception, primarily, to 
systematic studies which were begun years 
ago, and which are still continued in order 
te form an intelligent and rational basis for 
many of the advanced problems in this field. 

In medicine, too, the study of systematic 
botany has played an important part. It 
was the general practice in the early days 
for physicians to be trained in botanical 
lines, and a great deal of our most impor- 
tant information has been brought out by 
the work of these same physicians. In fact, 
it has generally been considered necessary 
for physicians to be pretty thoroughly post- 
ed on botanical matters; hence the close 
relationship of botany to the practice of 
medicine has always been recognized. With 
systematic botany as a basis, the study of 
materia medica has advanced rapidly and 
has formed an important item in the devel- 
opment of our work. The differentiation 
of pharmacy from medicine has also led to 
further advancement in these lines, and has 
done much to advance the value of the in- 
vestigations. 

Probably in no other field of botanical 
science has the appled work been of more 
value to mankind than in bacteriology, sur- 
gery and sanitation. The systematic study 
of the causes of disease has led to most valu- 
able results, and in nearly all of these inves- 
tigations the inception of the work can be 
traced to one or more lines of botanical 
science. Such, in brief, have been some of 
the advances in applied botany in this coun- 
try, and with this somewhat hasty sketch in 
mind, let us turn our attention to the future 
and consider what opportunities are before 
us, and along what lines our efforts should 
be put forth in order to achieve the highest 
and best results. 


SCIENCE. 53 


. 


Attention has already been ealled to the 
importance and necessity of constantly 
keeping in mind the fact that in the appli- 
cation of science we cannot be too careful 
as to the foundation of our work. In the 
race for results we are too apt to lose sight 
of this fact, and in the end we find, too 
late, that our entire fabric has been built 
of straw, and tumbles to earth at the first 
gust of wind. It is necessary, therefore, in 
looking to the future development of ap- 
plied work in this country, that we should 
turn our attention, not so much to the older 
men who are already in the field, but to 
the younger generation, who are still to 
come up; and the training they are get- 
ting, or are to get, in the various institu- 
tions of learning throughout the country. 
It is too true that many of our institutions 
of learning have been slow to recognize ap- 
plied science; and even now, with all the 
demand for applied work, little or no 
effort is being made to put this work on the 
basis where it belongs. The training in 
applied lines at this time is meeting with 
much the same opposition that science 
itself did when first introduced into our 
colleges—especially science as taught by 
laboratory methods, rather than science as 
taught by handing down from year to year 
doubtful knowledge long stored in dusty 
tomes. There was a time, and not so far 
distant, either, when to be a student in a 
science course in some of our institutions 
required considerable moral stamina; but 
all this is changed with respect to science ; 
yet there still lingers that inherent hostility 
to all things practical, as is most strikingly 
emphasized in institutions where apphed 
work, such as agriculture, engineering, ete., 
is made a part of the regular course. With 
the great increase of wealth in this country 
and the commendable spirit being mani- 
fested in the endowment and establishment 
of institutions of learning, the fact must 


54 SCIENCE. 


not be lost sight of that there may be some 
danger, as has been pointed out, in build- 
ing up an ‘edueated proletariat,’ a class 
who, as specialists, will care more for get- 
ting their names attached to abstruse tech- 
nical brochures than they will for a treatise 
that will enable some struggling mortal to 
make life less a burden. Some one has 
truly said that the danger from education 
is not so much from its quantity as from its 
character, so that it is the character of our 
training that should receive most careful, 
conscientious and considerate thought. 
This leads us now to a consideration of 
the nature of the training our young men 
should receive in order to fit them more es- 
pecially for the opening fields of labor in 
applied botany, and at the same time make 
good citizens of them, whether they go into 
the work in question or some other equally 
important. Pure science, of course, must 
form the groundwork for this training, but 
in addition to that there should be parallel 
with it, throughout the entire course, a 
rigid system of training in the application 
of science to the practical affairs of life. 
It is needless to say that we do not have 
anywhere in this country, at the present 
time, such a course of training in botany; 
and for this reason the men who go into 
this kind of work must receive their train- 
ing, in large part, after the college doors 
close on them. I do not wish to be under- 
stood as implying that this state of affairs 
is due to our teachers, for most of them 
recognize the fact just mentioned and are 
doing everything in their power to over- 
come it. The trouble is with our system of 
education as a whole, but more directly the 
body politic, which has, ever since mind 
training began, given preference to the 
ornamental rather than the useful. Noth- 
ing has done so much to weaken this idea 
in the human mind as science itself, and 
nothing can so strengthen science in what 
it can further do in this direction as to 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


teach its broad practical application to the 
affairs of life. It would seem, therefore, 
that the time is ripe for some decided action 
leading to a clearer understanding as to the 
methods whereby the increasing demand 
for men trained in applied botanical work 
may be met. The National Government 
alone is spending close on to a million dol- 
lars a year in this work, and the demand 
for the right kind of men far exceeds the 
supply. In fact, the Government, through 
lack of properly trained men, has been 
forced to undertake the training itself, a 
course which would not be necessary if the 
proper cooperation could be secured from 
the colleges. Here is a subject which 
might very properly be taken up by this 
Association, and more especially this See- 
tion, as it is one in which most of us are 
either directly or indirectly interested. I 
have dwelt upon it somewhat in detail, as 
it has seemed to me the foundation upon 
which all other matters are built. With 
the men that we have and the men we can 
get, what then are some of the problems 
with which applied botany in the future 
ean hope to deal? 

With the opening of new territory dur- 
ing the past few years there has of course 
developed a need for still broader work, 
for we are now especially pressed for trop- 
ical investigations, which we are unable to 
meet through lack of equipment and lack 
of properly trained men. Moreover, an- 
other and equally important field has been 
opened through the rapid extension of our 
population into the arid and semiarid re- 
gions; and the demand from these people 
for light on many subjects, which we are 
ill prepared to give. It seems to me that 
everything points to the fact that the heavy 
demands for applied botanical work for the 
next fifty years will be mainly in the field 
of plant physiology and pathology. The 
two subjects are intimately connected, and 
while there will, of course, be many physi- 


JuLY 11, 1902.] 


ological problems pure and simple, some- 
where and at some time these problems will 
be found closely associated with patholog- 
ical phenomena. 

Reverting to our Western conditions, 
arid and semiarid, there are many questions 
which demand immediate attention and 
which have an important bearing on the 
future development of the country. Such, 
for example, are those which have to do 
with the water supply of plants and the 
bearing of water supply on plant produc- 
tion. Irrigation is now an important fac- 
tor in our industrial and commercial de- 
velopment, and the problems associated 
with it must be reckoned with. In the 
past the work in this field has been mainly 
of an engineering nature, such as the ques- 
tion of securing water and bringing it as 
economically as possible to the plants. Now 
arise far more reaching questions, such as 
how to handle this water in a Way to attain 
the desired maximum results with the least 
expenditure of time and money. Given 
water, soil rich in plant food and proper 
heat and lheht, the productive power 
of plants is great if the requisite 
knowledge is present as to how best to 
utilize what nature and art supply. Such 
problems as these must, for the most part, 
be worked out in the field, but the field 
must be made to take the part of a labora- 
tory, for laboratory methods on an exten- 
“sive scale must be employed. 

What is the effect of varying quantities 
of water on the longevity of a plant; how 
is the production of fruit and foliage af- 
fected by the water supply; how far can 
time of ripening, color, keeping qualities, 
and resistance to diseases and insect attacks, 
be controlled through the ability to control 
the amount of water used? These prob- 
lems, on their face, appear simple, but they 
are important ones and to throw light upon 
them there must be most careful studies in 
a number of fields. Chemistry will of 


SCIENCE. > GS 


course enter into these studies, but it must 
be a living, vital chemistry, if I may use 
such a term, and not the mere question of 
ash determinations. Closely related to the 
problems involved in water supply are those 
which have to do with so-called alkali soils, 
and their effects on vegetation. A question 
of supreme importance to the development 
of our western country is to know more of 
the effects of various mineral salts, sever- 
ally and combined, on plants. With such 
complicated problems as present themselves 
to the investigator in this field, it is not safe 
to base any conclusions on the knowledge of 
how plants behave in a laboratory, where 
the action of a single salt or simple com- 
bination of salts has been determined. The 
fact that individual plants show marked 
differences in their ability to resist the 
poisonous effects of alkali salts opens up 
an interesting field in the matter of plant 
selection and plant breeding. Wherever 
crops are grown in alkali soils, especially 
under irrigation, the power of certain of 
these plants to make better growth and give 


- greater yields than their nearby neighbors 


has been noted. 

Profiting by these facts, an important 
field opens in the matter of developing 
alkali resistant plants, having the power to 
give relatively large yields in the presence 
of an unusual amount of soluble salts in 
the soil. Some interesting suggestions have 
been made in this direction by the recent 
work of Kearney and Cameron, and the 
same investigators have also pointed out 
the great economic advantages that may 
result from the combination of two or more 
salts which, individually, may be danger- 
ous, but when combined have the opposite 
effect on plant growth. 

The nature of the problems here briefly 
reviewed shows the broad scope of physio- 
logical investigations, for they merge at 
various places into ecology, pathology, 
chemistry and physics. There is, further- 


56 SCIENCE. 


more, shown the futility of attempting to 
solve such problems along one line of cleay- 
age, for it cannot be done with any degree 
of satisfaction. 

Aside from the problems mentioned, the 
field for applied work in plant nutrition is 
large. The physiological réle of mineral 
nutrients in plants is little understood, 
and the effects of mineral nutrients on 
growth, singly and combined, should be 
explained. The power to control profitable 
plant production through a better knowl- 
edge of plant foods is recognized, but there 
is yet much to do in the matter of making 
clear little known or obseure questions on 
this subject. In the problems connected 
with the acquisition of nitrogen, however, 
are to be found some of the most important 
practical questions in this field. The re- 
sults already accomplished in this diree- 
tion, through the use of proper nitrifying 
ferments, have not been as successful as 
was anticipated, but this does not indicate 
that future work may not be made more 
profitable. There is much to be done in 
the way of investigating the life history 
of bacteria inhabiting the root tubercles 
of legumes, for unless such questions are 
better understood it will not be practical 
. te apply our knowledge in any far-reach- 
ing way. The time will doubtless come, 
however, when our knowledge of the nitri- 
fying organisms will be sufficient to en- 
able us to apply, in a much broader way, 
the use of pure cultures of such organ- 
isms in general field work. Already encour- 
aging results have been obtained in this 
direction, and steps. are being taken to 
extend the practical application of these 
results as rapidly as circumstances will 
warrant. The future success of this work 
will no doubt depend, in large measure, 
upon the ability to properly grow the nitri- 
fying organisms in large quantities and at 
an expense which will not curtail their 
use; and then to be able to distribute the 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


crganisms in such a way that the farmer 
himself may use them at little expense, 
but with sufficient profit to pay for his 
trouble. It will be seen, therefore, that 
while these may appear as simple problems 
when looking at them from the purely utili- 
tarian view, there is much work to be done 
in the laboratory, under rigid scientific 
conditions, before satisfactory conclusions 
can be reached. 

It is in connection with the problems 
bearing on plant breeding, and the selec- 
tion of plants better adapted to meet the 
special requirements, that some of the 
broadest questions of applied botany ean 
be brought to bear. While, as already ex- 
plained, plant breeding is more or less of 
a composite science and, to a certain extent, 
an art, physiology is, after all, the basis 
for most of the work. There is much need 
for further research work in the field of 
reproduction and heredity, especially with 
a view to obtaining hght on many prac- | 
tical questions which are bound to come 
up within the next few years if applied 
investigations are to have their proper 
place. Admitting the necessity of these, 
it would seem that some of the more prac- 
tical problems that must be considered 
within the near future will have to do with 
cbtaining hght on such matters as the se- 
curing of plants adapted to particular pur- 
poses and to particular regions. As popu- 
lation increases and competition in all lines 
of agricultural production becomes keener, 
the need for securing plants better adapted 
to certain conditions and which ean be pro- 
duced at a minimum expense, will become 
ereater and greater. In the South there 
is already felt the urgent need for im- 
proved kinds of cotton varieties that will 
give greater yields and finer staple, in or- 
der that cheap labor of foreign countries 
can be competed with. There is also a 
demand for improvement in other plants 
adapted to the South, which will en- 


JuLy 11, 1902.] 


able the Southern agriculturist to more 
generally diversify crops. 

We have been told at former meetings 
of this Association, by members of other 
Sections, that within a comparatively short 
time the United States will not be able to 
grow the amount of wheat, and possibly 
other cereals, needed for consumption. 
These statements are based on our present 
yields and the increasing demands of popu- 
lation. If the figures are true it would 
seem important, therefore, that attention 
be drawn to the securing of varieties of 
wheat better adapted to existing conditions 
and yielding larger quantities of grain. 
This is a perfectly legitimate field for ap- 
plied botanical work, and what has been 
accomplished already indicates that much 
can be done in the direction of largely in- 
ereasing the possibilities of this country in 
the matter of cereal production. What is 
true of cotton and cereals is also true of 
many other crops, so that it is unnecessary 
to go into detail as to what might be ac- 
complished in the way of causing not only 
an increased output, but improving the 
quality of the output as well. 

Associated with the work of plant breed- 
ing, and more or less closely related to it, 
is another important field which has for its 
cbject the studies of life histories of prin- 
cipal crop plants, with a view of determin- 
ing the environmental conditions necessary 
for successful growth. This work, of 
course, covers a broad field, as it involves 
knowledge of the requirements of climate 
* and soil, and really merges into the broader 
territory of ecological work. The prob- 
lems involved carry with them, not only 
the question of plant adaptations, but the 
matter of introducing new plants from 
foreign countries and the broader dissemi- 
nation of plants already existing here and 
which give promise of more profitable yields 
under changed conditions of environment. 

With proper studies of soil and climate, 


SCIENCE. 57 


the possibility of more intelligently defin- 
ing the areas adapted to certain crops will 
become greater. After all, however, the 
vital questions involved in this problem 
will depend largely upon actual experimen- 
tation, as those most familiar with success- 
ful crop production know how unsafe it is 
to generalize in such matters. The success 
or failure in growing a certain crop often 
depends on differences in soil and climate 
so shgeht that present instruments cannot 
determine them, although the plant, with 
its power to respond to unmeasurable 
stimuli, can do so. 

In the field of pathology the opportuni- 
ties for applied work in the near future 
will be great. We are all agreed that the 
more or less empirical methods of handling 
plant diseases has about reached an end. 
It served a useful purpose in pointing out 
practical ways of controlling some of the 
common and destructive plant maladies, 
and enabled those who were looking to the 
future to create a sentiment making pos- 
sible better and more far-reaching work. 
We do not agree with those, however, who 
hold that the time is at hand when we can 
afford to stop the propaganda of actual 
field treatment. In fact, we are more and 
more convinced that one of the greatest 
cpportunities for bringing home the prac- 
tical value of pathological studies will be 
to undertake at once, on an extensive scale, 
what may be called demonstration experi- 
ments. A propaganda in this field, con- 
ducted by and depending upon publica- 
tions alone, no matter how practical such 
publications are, will necessarily be slow; 
but when the work can be carried into the 
field and be made to serve as an object les- 
son, the impression made is lasting and con- 
vineing. 

One of the problems, therefore, for the 
future, in this work, is how to insure the 
application of the investigations made and 
to so conduct the work that it will all go 


58 SCIENCE. 


toward the development of a system of 
plant pathology which will build up and 
strengthen the science. Recognizing the 
importance and necessity for the applica- 
tion of remedial measures in the form of 
fungicides, to which the foregoing remarks 
mainly apply, we may turn our attention 
from this art, for so it is, to other methods 
of applied work in this particular field of 
‘botany. The future of other lines of ap- 
plied work all hinges on a recognition of 
the possibilities within the plant itself, its 
plasticity and ability to change, the effects 
of environment and the means of control- 
_ ling environment or controlling the plant 
to meet the requirements of environment, 
to the end of securing desired results. 
Here again the breeding of plants will en- 
ter and furnish the means of overcoming 
diseases by selection of resistant varieties 
from those already existing and the crea- 
tion of new varieties having the desired 
characteristics. Here, too, arises the ques- 
tion as to what factors govern resistance 
to disease, and how these factors may be 
determined and controlled. Why is it that 
the most successful production of a plant 
is often reached when its ability to resist 
the attacks of organisms or to succumb to 
functional disorders, is at a minimum, or, 
expressing it in a somewhat paradoxical 
way, why is a plant weakest when it is 
apparently most vigorous? 

. Proper knowledge on many of the prob- 
lems involved in the questions here pre- 
sented will make it possible to apply it in 
securing crops at far less risk than at pres- 
ent, and will tend to make the occupation 
of plant growing less a matter of guess- 
work than it is now. No rational system 
cf pathology can be developed, further- 
more, without due attention to proper field 
hygiene, the rotation of crops, and other 
similar means of surrounding the plants 
with healthful conditions. Some of the 
principal lines of work, therefore, in the 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


future, in this field, will be in the direc- 
tion of giving a broader application to ex- 
isting knowledge on the question of treat- 
ing plant diseases by means of fungicides, 
to the development of new forms better 
able to resist diseases and suitable for spe- 
cial conditions, to the handling of plants 
so as to better adapt them to conditions at 
the present, and to the improvement of 
field methods to the end of securing vigor- 
ous growth by furnishing conditions need- 
ful to the highest production of the crop. 

Of the future problems in other lines of 
applied botany, it is not necessary to speak 
in detail. Suffice it to say, that in the broad 
field of forestry, agrostology and pharma- 
cology, systematic botany will always play 
an important part. In agrostology, espe- 
cially, which has now come to be understood 
as covering the study of not only the true 
erasses, but all forage crops as well, the 
field for applied work is exceedingly broad. 
With the rapid settlement of the East and 
the utilization of our arable Western lands 
for crops, the areas for the maintenance 
of stock is becoming less and less. Thus is 
developed the necessity for a better under- 
standing of methods of improving and 
maintaining our pastures. The production 
of larger quantities of forage from given 
areas and the improvement of our range 
lands to the end of enabling them to sup- 
port an increasing number of eattle, are 
some of the other important problems in 
this field. These broad questions will, of 
course, involve to a certain extent system- 
atie studies of native floras, the changes 
which may result from the shifting of 
plants from one place to another, and the 
opportunities that may arise from the in- 
troduction of new forms and the improve- 
ment of those already present. 

Within the last few years it is fortunate 
that a well-defined forest policy has been 
developed, so that in the future the growth 
of this work will be largely in a distinet 


JuLy 11, 1902.] 


field. Botanical investigations, however, 
will always play a more or less important 
part in all matters pertaining to the sub- 
ject, especially systematic studies of the 
tree floras and the application of these 
studies to questions having to do with re- 
forestation and the protection of existing 
torest areas. The applied botanical work, 
in connection with future problems in phar- 
macology, will be considerable. Systematic 
studies of plants used in pharmacy, the 
introduction and cultivation of such plants 
with a view to increasing their usefulness, 
all come within this scope of applied bo- 
tanieal research. The study of tropical 
plants, which has already been referred to, 
is also bound to play an important part in 
the near future in the.matter of the devel- 
opment of our insular possessions. As yet, 
we have very little satisfactory imforma- 
tion as to the possibilities of tropical agri- 
culture, especially as concerns our own 
country; and it would seem that some of 
the first problems will have to do with 
systematic studies of the field to determine 
existing possibilities, with a view to apply- 
ing them in the near future in a practical 
way. There are numerous practical ques- 
tions having an important bearing on all 
tropical work, which must receive atten- 
dion before any final conclusions can be 
reached in regard to the successful grow- 
ing of crops in these regions. These ques- 
tions have to do with the interrelation of 
the plants themselves to the development of 
the existing system of tropical agriculture, 
so that really a systematic study of our 
tropical floras would seem one of the first 
requisites offering a key to the future 
solution of other and more general prob- 
lems. 

Bacteriology, in its relation to surgery 
end sanitation, has passed out of the field 
of applied botany, but problems will still 
arise. Systematic studies of the bacteria 
may be essential to the successful prosecu- 


SCIENCE. 59 


tion of certain phases of this work. It is 
hardly necessary to refer to these questions 
in detail, and I may therefore conclude this 
somewhat hasty and general sketch of the 
possibilities of appled botanical work, as 
we see them, by again calling attention to 
a fact which becomes more and more eyi- 
dent as we look into work of this nature, 
and that is, how thoroughly we are all 
dependent on others for aid, not only in 
our own field of science, but other fields 
as well. Like our social fabric, science for 
seience’s sake and applied science are be- 
coming more and more a delicately compli- 
eated system, capable of endless harmoni- 
ous expansion if viewed aright, but leading 
to possible endless discord if handled 
wrong. How essential, therefore, that the 
broadest spirit of tolerance should be cul- 
tivated, for no matter how small or how 
humble a piece of real work is, somewhere 
and some time it may be made to form a 
part of an harmonious whole. While this 
is a practical age, and while the demand is 
heavy for practical results, we should not 
forget that there are ages to come after 
us—ages that may demand something dif- 
ferent from what the majority of us are 
producing now; and for this reason the 
laborer in some obscure field should not be 
forgotten, for it perhaps may be that his 
work, now little known or understood, may 
in the future take its place in the building 
up of mankind. 
B. T. GALLOWAY. 


U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


Histoire de V Observatoire de Paris de sa Fon- 
dation a 17938. Par C. Wour. Paris, Gau- 
thier-Villars. 1902. Pp. xiit392; 16 
plates. ; 
If there had come down to us from the au- 

thor of the Almagest a detailed account of the 

home of the Alexandrian school, the dimen- 
sions and cost of its buildings, their arrange- 


60 SCIENCE. 


ment and government, the official correspond- 
ence concerning the purchase and repair of 
equipment, if, in short, the temple of Serapis 
were presented to us as Mr. Wolf has pre- 
sented the Paris Observatory during the mrst 
century of its existence, the mere remoteness 
of Ptolemy’s epoch and our comparative dearth 
of information concerning it, would command 
for his narrative of commonplace incidents 
an interest that is in great part lacking from 
the corresponding events of an epoch so much 
nearer to our own time. 

It must be confessed that we find Mr. Wolf’s 
chronicle somewhat dry reading, and that 
neither the dimensions and cost of walls and 
windows nor the tale of petty squabbles as to 
who should have the right to grow beans and 
onions within and beneath them, is long able 
to keep the reviewer’s thoughts from wander- 
ing to other topics. Yet is it well that some 
one having access to the original sources of 
information should gather and arrange the 
data here preserved, relative to the growth of 
a great scientific institution, and this work 
Mr. Wolf appears to have done, with a praise- 
worthy diligence whose dry-as-dust character- 
istics are from time to time relieved by an en- 
tertaining digression or a touch of zeal for the 
house of Cassini that might well become a de- 
scendant of the three generations of astrono- 
mers so intimately connected with the early 
history of the Paris Observatory. 

An often-quoted paragraph in Flamsteed’s 
warrant as the first Astronomer Royal of Great 
Britain, charges him with definite duties and 
a definite program in the administration of 
the Royal Observatory, and serves Mr. Wolf as 
a text with whose singleness of purpose he 
contrasts the lack of plan that. characterized 
the foundation of the French observatory. We 
read in substance rather than in exact trans- 
lation, “In creating this institution Colbert 
sought to erect to astronomy and the other sci- 
ences, but chiefly to the glory of his king, a 
magnificent palace, whose splendor should be 
worthy of the prince who built it and in which 
the members of the newly created Academy, 
without being subject to any prescribed duties, 
should by their labors vie with each other for 
the royal approbation, each following his own 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 393. 


preferences according to the inspiration of: the 
moment. Within it laboratories were provided 
for the chemists and physicists, a museum of 
anatomy for the naturalists, ete., but the ob- 
servatory was too far from the center of 
Parisian life, and chemists, physicists and phy- 
sicians alike soon forgot the way thither, if 
indeed they ever learned it. For a time the 
astronomers responded to the munificence with 
which the king and his minister had proyided 
instruments of observation for their use, but, 
alas, the instruments belonged to the Academy 
and no one in particular had charge over or re- 
sponsibility for them, and like their fellow 
academicians of a different cloth, the astrono- 
mers in time learned that the road to the ob- 
servatory was long and that their convenience 
was best served by deporting the instruments 
and doing their work at home. After a few 
years there were left to the observatory only 
the four or five savants who lodged within its 
walls, and these worked independently of each 
other without supervision or direction. While 
Paris in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies hadno lack of brilliant astronomers, down 
to the concluding years of the eighteenth cen- 
tury there was in truth no Paris Observatory 
in the sense that we now attach to this word, 
and that in England has been attached to it 
from the beginning, viz., a body of observers 
working under a common direction for a well- 
defined purpose. They ignore these conditions. 
of the observatory who reproach its astronomers 
fornot having produced and published those well- 
planned and long-continued labors that con- 
stitute the foundations of astronomy, but which 
are possible only in an observatory properly 
organized.” The American astronomer is per- 
force reminded by these lines of analogies with 
another scientific institution much nearer 
home. 

In the early years of the observatory the 
chief authority exercised within it seems to 
have been vested in the concierge, whose office 
was one of considerable dignity and eagerly 
sought by members of the Academy. The first 
real director was not appointed until 1771,. 
when the third Cassini (de Thury) came into 
office. Serving through the dark days of the 
Revolution, he protested manfully against out- 


JuLy 11, 1902.] 


rage and indignity, but was helpless to prevent 
the ransacking and plunder of the observa- 
tory by armed miscreants, and his downfall, 
directly due to political conditions and at- 
tended by the insults and petty persecutions 
of his former subordinates, marks the close of 
the present volume, although Mr. Wolf’s sig- 
nificant paragraph, ‘He retired to his estate 
at Thury, where we shall encounter him in the 
sequel of this history,’ suggests a volume still 
to follow. 

Scattered throughout the present work are 
to be found interesting glimpses of scientific 
life and work in bygone generations: e. g., 
the first Cassini seeking to introduce into 
France, from his native Italy, the arts of glass 
making and telescope building as prerequisites 
to the growth of astronomy; and a casual ac- 
count of the very long telescopes then in vogue, 
with a welcome explanation of the manner in 
which observations were conducted with an ob- 
jective and ocular placed a hundred, or more, 
feet apart with no intervening tube. Turn- 
ing to matters of a more personal character, we 
eatch glimpses of Academicians quarreling 
over rights of domicile in chambers hung with 
tapestry but devoid of beds and tables. With 
more of mirth than surprise do we find one of 
the Cassinis protesting in vain, that the observ- 
atory windows should be glazed before he is 
required to store within it unwelcome instru- 
ments thrust upon him by administrative de- 
eree; and with very different emotions we read 
the pathetic account of Picard, close to the 
discovery of the aberration of light a century 
before Bradley’s time, but dying just before 
completion of the instruments that had been 
ordered expressly for investigation of the sus- 
picious phenomena. 

In mechanical execution the volume wor- 
thily maintains the traditions of the house of 
Gauthier-Villars, but its usefulness is im- 
paired by lack of an index. 


Gerorce C. Comstock. 
Maptson, WIs. 


The Grasses of Iowa. 
Ph.D., J. B. Weems, Ph.D., of Towa 
State College of Agriculture and _ the 
Mechanic Arts, and F. Lamson-Scrisner, 


By L. MH. Pammen, 


SCIENCE, 61 


Agrostologist, U. S. Department of Agricul- 
ture, Des Moines, Iowa. F. R. Conway, 
State Printer, 1901. Bulletin No. I, of the 

Iowa Geological Survey. Pp. 525; with 11 

plates and 514 engravings. 

This is a great credit to the author and to 
the State Geologist who had the good sense to 
secure its preparation. The work treats of 
anatomy of the grasses, the roots, stems, leaves, 
flowers, grain, hybrids; purity and vitality of 
grass seed, cereals, fungus diseases of grasses, 
bacterial diseases, pastures and meadows of 
Towa, weeds of meadows and pastures, chem- 
istry of foods and feeding, lawns and lawn 
making in Iowa. The plates and figures are 
excellent and the whole work seems to be up- 
to-date, excepting some of the names of plants. 
Nearly all of the grasses of the state are 
illustrated, some legumes and weeds. 

The authors must have devoted much time 
in making investigations, reading the best 
modern works on the subjects treated, includ- 
ing reports of scientific societies, bulletins of 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and of 
the numerous State Experiment Stations. 
There are many instances given showing that 
numerous wild grasses are superior for culti- 
vation to those introduced from Europe. 
The following are the most important grasses 
for the State of Iowa: Poa pratensis, Phlewm 
pratense, Bromus inermis, B. breviaristatus, 
Dactylis glomerata, Agropyron  spicatum, 
Andropogon provincialis, A. nutans, Agrostis 
alba, Calamagrostis Canadensis, Panicum 
virgatum. For general cultivation Poa pra- 
tensis, Phleum pratense, and Bromus inermis 
are the most valuable; for shaded ground 
Dactylis glomerata and Agrostis alba; for 
low grounds Agrostis alba, Poa serotina, P. 
pratensis, Calamagrostis Canadensis; for 
dry hills Bowtelowa oligostachya, B. racemosa; 
for alluvial bottoms Andropogon provincialis, 
and Spartina cynosuroides; for the loess of 
western Iowa Agropyron spicatum, Andropo- 
gon scoparius. 

Large numbers of chemical analyses were 
made in grasses in their natural condition and 
when free from water, indicating the per 
cent. of fat, protein, albuminoids, crude fiber, 
ash and nitrogen-free extract. 


62 SCIENCE. 


The index is unusually complete, which 
greatly aids the use of the volume. 

The work contains but little that will inter- 
est the farmer, nor can it be expected that any 
person could prepare such a work, on account 
of the necessary technicalities of the subject, 
but it is just the thing to fall into the hands 
of the botanist, the professor of agriculture 
and students pursuing an agricultural. course. 

W. J. Brat. 


AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MICH. 


Elementary Course of Practical Zoology. By 
the late T. Jerrrey Parker and W. N. 
Parker. London, Macmillan & Co. 1900. 
Pp. 608; 156 illustrations. 

Although this book was published abroad 
about eighteen months ago, it is practically 
recent in this country, having been introduced 
by the New York publishers during the present 
academic year. It is not yet widely known 
and has not received from American teachers 
and students of zoology the attention which it 
deserves. 

Almost twenty-five years ago Huxley wrote 
in the preface to his now classical ‘ The Cray- 
fish as an Introduction to the Study of Zool- 
ogy’ these words: ‘I have desired to show how 
the careful study of one of the commonest 
and most insignificant of animals leads us, 
step by step, from everyday knowledge to the 
widest generalizations and the most difficult 
problems of zoology; and, indeed, of biological 
science in general.’ Every zoologist knows 
how well Huxley succeeded in introducing the 
readers of ‘The Crayfish’ to the great prin- 
ciples and methods of the science. Unfor- 
tunately, the work was better adapted for 
reading than for the modern laboratory method 
of teaching, and hence this masterpiece among 
introductory books on zoology has become a 
reference work. But its central idea has made 
a deep impression on the teaching of zoology, 
and it is therefore with pleasure that we wel- 
come a book in which the pupils of the master 
of zoological teaching have given his sugges- 
tion a new and more complete development in 
adaptation to the laboratory method. In the 
‘Practical Zoology’ by the Parker brothers 
we now have in the form of a handbook for stu- 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


. 


dents an introduction to zoology based upon 
Husley’s idea of a careful study of a common 
animal considered from the standpoint of the 
several phases of zoology. But the frog and 
not the crayfish is the chosen type. 

One might infer from the title that the book 
is exclusively a laboratory manual; but, on the 
contrary, there are extensive descriptions of 
the types to be studied in the laboratory and 
good presentation of zoological principles, so 
that the book is really a text-book and labora- 
tory manual combined. 

In Part I., consisting of 228 pages, the frog 
is thoroughly treated with regard to anatomy, 
histology, physiology, embryology, classifica- 
tion and ecology—the whole forming a splen- 
did introduction to fundamental zoological 
principles and methods of study. 

Following the study of the frog as an intro- 
duction to the study of zoology, Part II. deals 
with Ameba, Hematococcus, Euglena, Para- 
mecium and its allies, Hydra and hydroids 
earthworm, crayfish, mussel, Amphioxus, dog- 
fish and rabbit. The book closes with some 
general points in cytology and embryology 
which have been incidentally referred to in 
earlier parts of the work. 

Most of the descriptive chapters in Part IT. 
are essentially reprints from T. J. Parker’s 
well-known ‘Elementary Biology,’ even the 
illustrations of the book being reproduced with 
additional ones from Parker and Haswell’s 
‘Zoology. But, although the material is 
familiar, the setting is decidedly new; and 
these latter chapters supplement the intro- 
ductory study of the frog so as to form a well- 
rounded course in general zoology. 

Excellent practical directions for obtaining, 
preparing and studying zoological materials 
form appendices to all the chapters, and these 
are so arranged that the laboratory study pro- 
ceeds hand in hand with the reading of the 
descriptions. Those teachers of the American 
school who have been influenced by the labora- 
tory methods of both Agassiz and Huxley will 
criticise these directions for practical study, in 
that the work of the student is practically 
limited to mere verification. | However, the 
laboratory teacher who wishes to stimulate the 
spirit of investigation will find no difficulty in 


Juty 11, 1902.] 


suggesting modifications and substitutions 
which will give the students some work for in- 
vestigation in place of continuous verification. 

The greater part of the descriptive sections 
of the ‘ Practical Zoology’ is from the pen of 
the late T. Jeffrey Parker, and we note all the 
characteristics which made his ‘ Elementary 
Biology’ so popular. It is an interesting and 
excellent book; and, in the reviewer’s opinion, 
a better single volume offering a year’s course 
in general zoology has not yet appeared. 

M. A. BicErow. 
TEACHERS COLLEGE, 
CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 


NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
SECTION OF ASTRONOMY, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. 


Ar the May meeting of the Section, Professor 
R. W. Wood, of the Johns Hopkins University, 
read a very interesting paper on ‘ Anomalous 
Dispersion and its Bearing on Astrophysical 
Problems,’ making special reference to the ex- 
planation of the flash spectrum in this way. 

Dr. William 8. Day, Columbia University, 
read a paper on ‘An Experiment Relating to 
the Application of Lagrange’s Equations of 
Motion to Electric Currents.’ 

The experiment described was analogous to 
one mentioned by Maxwell in his ‘ Treatise on 
Electricity and Magnetism,’ Section 574, Vol- 
ume II. Maxwell’s experiment was made for 
the purpose of discovering whether or not in 
the expression for the kinetic energy of an 
electric current there was a term depending 
on the product of the current and the velocity 
of the conductor. In a single linear circuit 
having only one degree of mechanical freedom, 
the expression for the kinetic energy of the 
system in the most general case would be of 
the form 


T=} In? +Kay + 4 Ly? 


in which ¢ is the velocity of the mechanical 
coordinate, y is the current, J is a quantity of 
the nature of mass, L is the self-induction of 
the circuit, and K is the coefficient of the term 
consisting of products. Just what mechanical 
coordinate is to be represented by x is partly 
a matter of choice. Maxwell chose one whose 


SCIENCE. 63 


velocity means a motion of the wire in the di- 
rection of its length. There is one other co- 
ordinate which seems to be geometrically pos- 
sible, although it is not one that is naturally 
suggested by the most satisfactory hypotheses 
now in yogue as to the nature of an electric 
current. This other coordinate is one such 
that its velocity means a rotation of the wire 
carrying the current around its axis of figure. 
If w has this meaning, then if the coefficient 
K is not zero, Lagrange’s equations of motion 
show that if a current is suddenly started or 
stopped in a wire there would be an impulsive 
torque acting on the wire. The experiment 
was performed to look for such an effect if it 
existed. A straight piece of aluminium wire 
30 em. long and 0.25 cm. in diameter was sus- 
pended by a quartz fiber in such a way that it 
was free to rotate, and by means of mercury 
cups a current could be passed through it at 
pleasure. No effect of the kind considered was 
detected. If the value of K expressed in 
C.G.S. electromagnetic units, and referred to a 
centimeter length of the wire, had been as 
great as 0.00002, it could have been detected. 
S. A. MircHetu. 


SOIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

Tuer May number (Vol. VIIL. No. 8) of the 
Bulletin of the American Mathematical So- 
ciety contains the following articles: ‘The 
March Meeting of the Chicago Section,’ by 
T. F. Holgate; ‘Concerning Angles and the 
Angular Determination of Planes in 4-Space,’ 
by C. J. Keyser; ‘ Note on the Sufficient Con- 
ditions for an Analytic Function,’ by D. R. Cur- 
tiss;review of Scheffers’s‘ Theory of Surfaces,’ 
by J. M. Page; review of ‘Recent Books on 
Mechanics, by E. B. Wilson; ‘The Galois 
Theory in Burnside and Panton’s Theory of 
Equations,’ by B.S. Easton ;‘ Shorter Notices’; 
‘Notes’; ‘New Publications.’ The June num- 
ber (Vol. VIII., No. 9) contains: ‘The April 
Meeting of the American Mathematical So- 
ciety,’ by F. N. Cole; ‘ The Infinitesimal Gen- 
erators of Parameter Groups,’ by T. J. Ta. 
Bromwich ;‘On the Parabolas (or Paraboloids) 
through the Points Common to two Conics 
(or Quadries),’ by T. J. Va. Bromwich; ‘A 
Second Definition of a Group,’ by E. V. Hun- 


64 


tington; ‘ Determination of All the Groups of 
Order p”, p being any Prime, which Contains 
the Abelian Group of Order p”—1 and of Type 
(4, 1,1,... ),’ by G. A. Miller; ‘A Class of 
Simply Transitive Linear Groups,’ by L. E. 
Dickson; ‘Errors in Legendre’s Tables of 
Linear Divisors,’ by D. N. Lehmer; review of 
‘Recent Books on Mechanies,’ by E. B. Wilson; 
review of Kiepert’s ‘ Calculus,’ by E. W. Davis; 
‘Correction’; ‘ Notes’; ‘ New Publications.’ 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


FORCE AND ENERGY. 


To Tue Eprror or Scrence: In my address, 
published in your number for July 4, I have 
used the word ‘force’ without saying as clear- 
ly as I should have done that it is used in the 
sense of energy, as that term is now applied 
in physics. It seemed to me that to a general 
audience force would be more significant. As 
Helmholz wrote of the Erhaltung der Kraft, 
perhaps an outsider may be pardoned for us- 
ing ‘force’ with the above defined meaning. 

Cuartes §. Minor. 

Boston, July 5, 1902. 


ETHER WAVES FROM EXPLOSIONS. 


AxpoutT a year ago the writer began a system- 
atic attempt to examine into the effect of ex- 
plosions upon the ether. A few prior experi- 
ments had yielded results explainable on the 
assumption that such action existed. The in- 
vestigation was suggested by Young’s observa- 
tion upon a solar outburst as given in his work 
on the sun.* The Greenwich magnetic curves 
which Young gives for the dates August 3 and 
5, 1872, are so persuasive in their character 
that an attempt was made to reproduce these 
results by a terrestrial explosion. It was also 
thought that the motion of rifle bullets might 
yield some recognizable result. 

It seems probable that, in order to produce 
a magnetic disturbance, recognizable by a 
needle, the explosion should be as large and 
violent as possible. With the coherer as a 
receiver, it would seem that sharpness of the 
explosion and atomic periodicity might be 
more directly involved. 


*<«The Sun,’ 1881, pp. 156-159. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


The work has been attended with great diffi- 
culty. The buildings and grounds of Wash- 
ington University, where the work has been at- 
tempted, are in the heart of the city of St. 
Louis, and street cars are almost continually 
Only between two and three o’clock 
in the morning was it found possible to obtain 
brief intervals fairly free from great disturb- 


passing. 


ance. Even then the needle was continually 
in motion. The explosions at such an hour 


were necessarily limited in violence by the 
possibilities of damage to property, and have 
been doubtless an outrage upon people who 
wished to sleep. 

So far the results have been inconclusive. 
Deflections have been obtained, but they have 
not been reducible to any system which could 
be rationally explained. It was apparent that 
the sound wave and the shock have been in- 
volved. This work will be carried on in the 
open country, where larger explosions can be 
made at a distance from the receiving appa- 
ratus. In the meantime it is most interesting 
to know that the voleaniec explosion on the 
island of Martinique has apparently produced 
the results which we had been seeking. 

Francis E. NipHer. 


ECOLOGY. 

To THE Eprror or Sctence: Doubtless your 
readers are heartily tired of the discussion 
upon the word ecology, and I shall not attempt 
to reply to Mr. Bather’s letter in your issue of 
June 20, farther than to state that his ex- 
planation does not appear to me to improve 
his case materially beyond providing an ample 
cloud to cover a graceful retreat. 

But aside from the main points at issue, I 
agree with Mr. Bather that the use of the word 
ecology in such an expression as ‘ the ecology 
of a glacial lake’ is somewhat unfortunate. 
Every botanist interested in such _ studies 
knows that this phrase is simply a convenient 
abbreviaton for ‘the ecological relations [or 
features, etc.] of the vegetation of a glacial 
lake,’ and, when used in a botanical publication, 
it produces no misunderstanding. Neverthe- 
less, as the present discussion has shown, it may 
mislead others, and therefore botanists could 
better use the word in such a way as to make 


JULY 11, 1902.] 


clear to all the real nature of the subject under 
consideration. 
W. F. Ganone. 


THE EUROPEAN POND-SNAIL. 

To rue Eprror or Science: It may prove 
of interest to some of your readers, inter- 
ested in geographical distribution and_ its 
problems, to learn that there is a well estab- 
lished colony of the European pond-snail 
Limnea auricularia Linneus in Flatbush 
(Brooklyn). So far as I am informed this is 
the only occurrence in America of the well- 
known ‘wide-mouthed mud shell’ as it is 
called in England. The colony is well estab- 
lished, a number of individuals having been 
collected that were over an inch in length and 
correspondingly broad. They feed on pond- 
lily leaves, destroying the epidermis on the 
under side almost completely. They were no 
doubt introduced through accident on water 
plants, since the pond contains several well- 
known European hydrophytes. Inasmuch as 
the visits of water birds to this pond may 
lead to the young shells being carried away 
to stock other ponds, the occurrence of this 
species should be recorded. 

B. EvuswortH Cau. 

BrookLyn, June 28, 1902. 


TEXT-BOOKS. 


Tur evolution of educational methods in 
this country is interestingly set forth by 
President Harper in ‘The Trend of Univer- 
sity and College Education in the United 
States’ (North American Review, April, 1902) 
and the university of the future is portrayed 
as centering about the library. Professor 
Harper names two centers for the university 
—the library and the laboratory; but for 
present purposes the laboratory may be re- 
garded as the workshop in which are tested 
the ‘receipts’ of the text-books, so that the 
laboratory may in a broad sense be taken as 
an annex to the library. 

In a university library to-day the books are 
so numerous as to require special training or 
assistance to find and use their information 
to best advantage. Books of course are writ- 
ten. from many standpoints and for many 


SCIENCE. 


65 


purposes, from scholastic erudition to the 
mere passing of an idle hour, and wide is the 
range between the needs of the specialist and 
those of ‘that delightfully vague person, the 
intelligent reader,’ as Mr. Haddon puts it in 
his introduction to ‘The Study of Man.’ 

As text-books have been the outgrowth of 
the needs of schools and colleges they reflect 
in extent and method the needs and limita- 
tions set by the requirements of each ease. 
And since these requirements differed 
widely in different institutions, the number 
of text-books in each subject is large and their 
treatment varied. 

The chief peculiarity of a text-book is 
brought about by the fact that it has been 
prepared for use, not in imparting knowledge, 
but in the training of the student mind. Its 
method of presentation is therefore frequently 
such as to require rather the maximum than 
the minimum of mental effort to master its 
contents. 

The second limitation to an ordinary text- 
book, as felt by one who wants only to learn 
facts, is that set by the length of time given 
that study in some particular school or college 
or grade of schools. Hence the ground is 
covered sometimes quite incompletely, and 
quite often a limited view is presented in a 
way most valuable for use in mind-training, 
but with important topics omitted wholly 
rather than a less detailed but more complete’ 
outline of the subject. 

A third limitation is set by the omission 
of much detailed ‘elementary’ information 
imperative to a full understanding of the 
subject, and assumed either as already known 
or that it will be (but too often is not) im- 
parted by the intelligent teacher. This criti- 
cism of the teacher is fortunately becoming 
less pointed as the science of teaching is 
being learned and put into practice. 

There exists however to-day a large class 
of would-be pupils who by force of cireum- 
stances must be self-instructed. They are 
mostly tied down by the necessity of earning 
a living for themselves and usually for others. 
Their minds may or may not be trained but 
they want to learn the known facts and their 


66 


theoretical grouping so far as is established to 
date, and they want this information in the 
They care not 
a rap for the mind-training value of a text- 
book. For their use it is a positive detriment 
and hindrance. They require first a complete 
if only a bare outline of the subject so that 
they may know the extent of the ground 
covered to date. Secondly, they want the 
subject classified and carried as far in detail 
as may be in one volume of convenient size. 
Thirdly, they want full bibliographical notes 
and a good index so that they may know 
where to look for fuller details if needed for 
their particular purposes. 

Such is the ‘fact-book’ needed by two large 
classes in the community; the business man 
who if ‘successful’ has very little time (and 
if unsuccessful still less), yet must keep as 
far as possible abreast of scientific and 
other and, secondly, the work- 
who aims to improve his 
present condition by learning facts, the 
knowledge of which will enable him 
at once to command better pay through added 
ability to more intelligently apply the hand- 
skill for which his wages are paid. 

A demand for this class of book is entirely 
aside from and in addition to the school or 
college text. Neither does the demand for it 
cast any reflection on the need and value of 
mind-training. Both the business man and 
the artisan need and would benefit by it if 
they could secure it. The business man to- 
day, more generally than ever before, has had 
a collegiate training, but that fact does not 
lessen his need of books from which to keep 
up to date as to facts and discoveries with the 
minimum of mental effort. So too the work- 
man would benefit vastly more if he could 
have the mental training so that he might 
have ‘mind-skill’ to sell, but as he cannot 
secure the latter he has all the more need of 
information of the kind he can use and that 


most easily assimilable form. 


progress, 


ing artisan 


presented in the simplest form. 

The college of to-day makes no pretense to 
teach in the sense of imparting working in- 
formation in any branch of study. In fact, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 393- 


while professing to train the mind it some- 
times almost boasts that it does not furnish 
the detailed information needed for money 
winning. And widely as this fact is pro- 
claimed, yet many, particularly poor boys, 
fail td appreciate existing conditions, and 
while their point of view may be wrong and 
utterly unjust to their alma mater, they some- 
times, after graduation, feel that they have 
not received what they thought they were 
paying for. 

A step in the evolution of education soon 
to be taken, if not already begun in our tech- 
nical schools, will be that of presenting the 
known facts to the pupil with the minimum 
of mental effort, and then training his mind 
by a drill in applying the information to 
practical problems in the shape these are pre- 
sented in commercial life. When this course 
shall be pursued in our colleges the gradu- 
ate will have, in addition to a trained mind, 
a fund of information of money-value to him 
immediately on graduation. 

An attempt to supply the existing demand 


for what we have called ‘fact-books,’ as 
opposed to ‘text-books, is illustrated by 
the series of books published by the 
International Correspondence School of 


Seranton, Pa., which, starting as a purely 
commercial venture, now has an enrollment 
of half a million scholars—mostly poor boys 
and working men. Its books may not be the 
ideal along the line suggested, neither are 
they as. yet for sale except to their own stu- 
dents, but the enormous success of the school 
and the books which it has had prepared seem 
to indicate a ‘want’ and one attempt to meet 
it. 

Another attempt might be considered as 
that made by certain publishing houses, as in 
Appleton’s ‘International Scientific Series’ 
and Putnam’s ‘The Science Series’; yet 
valuable as are these books, they have not 
been prepared to meet the exact requirements 
to which attention has just been drawn. 


J. StanrorD Brown. 
New York, N. Y., 
April 5, 1902. 


JuLy 11, 1902.] 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
A NEW METEORITE FROM KANSAS. 

Tue Field Columbian Museum has recently 
received a meteorite seen to fall in Saline 
Township, Sheridan Co., Kansas. The chief 
observer of the fall was Mr. S. A. Sutton, 
of Hoxie, Kansas, and he was also the finder 
of the mass. The fall took place November 
15, 1898, at about 9:30 p.m., the circum- 
stances being thus described by Mr. Sutton: 
On the date mentioned he was about to retire 
for the night when a great light seemed to 
flash in his house accompanied by a rushing 
noise. He supposed a large lamp in an ad- 
joining room was exploding, but on hurrying 
to the room saw instead a great fiery mass 
passing the window near him. Its path was 
nearly horizontal and the direction of motion 
northwesterly. The light given off was white 
and intense like that of an electric light, and 
a fiery trail several hundred feet long with 
sparks of various colors followed in its wake. 
The whole made a beautiful as well as awe- 
inspiring spectacle. The light was so intense 
as to illuminate the entire house and was no- 
ticed by other members of the family besides 
Mr. Sutton. 

Whether it was noticed by others in the re- 
gion has not been positively ascertained as yet, 
but as the territory is sparsely populated it 
may be that no other observer will be found. 

Mr. Sutton, being a surveyor by profession, 
at once began to form as accurate estimates 
as possible of the speed, direction of motion, 
ete., of the mass, in order to enable him to 
discover where it would be likely to strike the 
earth. The speed he estimated at one mile 
per second, the angle with the horizon as 25° 
and that with the meridian as 20° west of 
north. These estimates led him to conclude 
that the point of fall would be about four 
miles from his home, but all subsequent 
searching in that region proved futile. At the 
end of nearly three years, however, he made 
a recalculation in which he assigned a greater 
speed to the meteorite than he had before 
done. This indicated that the point of fall 
might have been about eight miles away. 
Seeking in this locality, his efforts were re- 
warded in the fall of 1901 by finding the me- 


SCIENCE. 67 


teorite in the bank of a ‘draw.’ It had pene- 
trated the soil to an underlying limestone 
stratum on which it lay. The thickness of 
soil at the time of excavation was consider- 
able, but this might have undergone consider- 
able change since the fall of the meteorite. 
Great credit is certainly due Mr. Sutton for 
the skill and persistence with which he follow- 
ed up his observations. 

The mass as received at the Museum has 
the form of an irregular, somewhat tabular, 
polyhedron bounded by eight approximately 
plane surfaces. Its weight is 68 pounds 10 
ounces. It is covered, except where a few 
small fragments have been broken off, with a 
thick black crust contrasting in color to the 
dark gray hue of the interior. The crust is 
stippled with protruding metallic grains, for 
the most part coated with a black oxide of 
iron, but occasionally showing bright, and 
nickel-white in color. One of these protrud- 
ing grains reaches a diameter of 5 mm.; the 
others are smaller. Cracks through the crust 
give the meteorite a ‘ baked’ appearance. 
There are numerous characteristic pittings, 
for the most part oval in shape and having a 
length of about 2 em. A slight coating of 
carbonate of lime occurs in places over the 
surface, doubtless formed upon the meteor- 
ite while it lay in the soil, but aside from this 
the mass has a remarkably fresh and unoxi- 
dized appearance. The texture of the stone 
is quite firm and compact. Even to the naked 
eye a chondritic structure is apparent and 
chondri about 2 in diameter can be 
broken out. 

A. brief chemical and microscopical exam- 
ination shows the chief constituent minerals 
to be chrysolite, bronzite and nickel-iron, a 
fuller account of which will be given in a 
future Museum publication. The specific 
gravity is 3.62. Having fallen in Saline 
Township, this will be the name used for des- 
ignating the meteorite. The region in which 
it fell is one which has already within an 
area of 85 by 120 miles yielded five and pos- 
sibly six distinct finds of meteorites of such 
character that they must be considered sepa- 
rate falls. Now that an observed fall has 
taken place in the region, it would seem that 


mim. 


68 SCIENCE. 


some reason must be sought for the large 
number other than mere coincidence or the 
fact that the area is not forested. A further 
feature of interest in connection with the fall 
is the fact that it occurred at the time of the 
Leonid Only two such instances 
have hitherto occurred within this period, 
these two being the falls of Werchne Tschir- 
skaja and Trenzano. These are both veined 
spherical chondrites and the present indica- 
tions are that Saline Township belongs in the 
same category. 


showers. 


Outver C. FarrINnctTon. 


NOTES ON THE LAFAYETTE AND COLUMBIA FORMA- 
TIONS AND SOME OF THEIR BOTANICAL 
FEATURES. 

Havine spent considerable time during the 
past two years in making a critical study of 
the flora of Georgia in all its aspects, I have 
been investigating, among other things, the 
influence of geological conditions on the pres- 
ent distribution of species. The most striking 
relations between geology and existing flora 
have been observed in the coastal plain, and 
I have restricted my explorations chiefly to 
that part of the state in order to study the 
interesting problems there presented. 

The existing knowledge of the areal geology 
of the coastal plain is much less complete in 
Georgia than in the adjacent states, partly 
because the energies of the State Geological 
Survey have hitherto been necessarily devoted 
mostly to the investigation of mineral re- 
sources and other questions of more imme- 
diate economic importance, and partly because 
Georgia has for many years been singularly 
neglected by geologists and other scientific 
people. This state of affairs has been a source 
of considerable difficulty in the prosecution 
of my work, and has led me to undertake 
some geological investigations on my own 
account, most of those on which these notes 
are based having been made during the sum- 
mer of 1901. 

My geological observations have thus far 
been mostly confined to the Lafayette and 
Columbia formations, which as they cover 
almost the entire surface of the coastal plain 
are the most easily accessible, and at the same 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


time are quite readily recognized even by an 
amateur like myself. My knowledge of these 
formations, aside from my work in the field, 
has been chiefly derived from Mr. W J Mc- 
Gee’s monograph in the Twelfth Annual Re- 
port of the U. S. Geological Survey, and from 
consultation and correspondence with Mr. 
McGee himself; and it was at his suggestion 
that I undertook to prepare these notes for 
publication. 

In addition to the ordinary way of study- 
ing geological formations by their exposures 
in natural or artificial excavations, I have 
employed in the case of the Lafayette and 
Columbia, with very satisfactory results, an- 
other method which has perhaps never before 
been utilized to any considerable extent. This 
method consists in identifying the formations 
by means of the plants growing upon them. 
Early in the course of my investigations I 
noticed that certain species of herbaceous 
plants seemed to occur only on the Columbia 
sands, and that it made considerable differ- 
ence in the distribution of some other species, 
especially trees, whether the Lafayette clays 
were present beneath the Columbia or not. IL 
then used these species as an index in deter- 
mining the formations when the regular 
method could not be used for lack of suitable 
exposures or when traveling by rail. This 
method should not be depended upon alto- 
gether, but when used with due caution it is 
very helpful. 

I will mention here some of the more con- 
spicuous plants which have served thus to 
indicate the formations, and would suggest 
that it would be advisable for every geologist 
who studies the Lafayette and Columbia for- 
mations in the southeastern states to familiar- 
ize himself with as many of these plants as 
possible. 

The best indicator of the Columbia forma- 
tion which has come under my observation is 
Eriogonum tomentosum, a plant which when 
in flower, in late summer, grows three or four 
feet tall and is conspicuous and unmistakable. 
Ti ranges from South Carolina to Florida and 
Alabama, and is widely distributed in the 
coastal plain, extending up to its inner margin 


at altitudes of six hundred feet or more, 


JuLy 11, 1902. ] 


but perhaps not found in the immediate 
vicinity of the coast. It seems to be strictly 
confined to the Columbia sands, and is most 
abundant where this formation is thickest and 
driest. Frelichia Floridana, a plant nearly 
as conspicuous but less abundant, seems to 
have a similar distribution in the coastal 
plain, though the same or a closely related 
species is found also on the plains of the 
Middle West. 

Other species occurring in Georgia, appar- 
ently confined to the Columbia formation 
(with or without Lafayette beneath it), and 
large enough to be recognized from a moving 
train, are Actinospermum angustifolium, 
Asclepias humistrata, Baptisia — perfoliata, 
Chrysobalanus  oblongifolius, Clinopodiwm 
coccineum, Croton argyranthemus, Dicerandru 
linearifolia, D. odoratissima, Kuhnistera pin- 
nata, Nolina Georgiana, Paronychia hernia- 
rioides, Sarracenia flava, and Serenoa serru- 
lata, besides a host of smaller species. Sarru- 
cenia flava (the yellow pitcher-plant), like a 
few others, is occasionally found outside of the 
coastal plain, but within that region seems to 
be confined to the Columbia formation. It is 
a very conspicuous plant when growing in 
large colonies, and can be recognized at a 
considerable distance. The two Dicerandras 
(belonging to the mint family) can sometimes 
be recognized by their odors alone, and might 
therefore be useful in traveling at nighi. 
Their flowers are autumnal. 

Berlandiera tomentosa, Crategus estivalis 
(the well-known ‘May-haw’ of Southwest 
Georgia), Dichromena latifolia, and doubtless 
several other species, seem to be confined to 
the Lafayette, with or without a thin overlying 
layer of Columbia, though this relation is 
much more difficult to determine than that be- 
tween the Columbia and its vegetation, and the 
chances of error are consequently greater, 

I do not recall at present any species which 
grows only on the exposed surface of the La- 
fayette, where the Columbia is absent, but 
there are probably some which are thus re- 
stricted in habitat. There are, however, quite 
a number of species in the coastal plain which 
seem to occur never where the Lafayette is 
present, but only on the Columbia or on out- 


SCIENCE. 69 


crops of the older underlying strata. Among 
these are Bumelia lanuginosa, Dichromena 
colorata, Hrythrina herbacea, Hydrangea quer- 
cifolia, Melanthera hastata, Taxodium dis- 
tichum and Yeatesia letevirens, not to men- 
tion a number of species, especially ferns, 
which grow usually or exclusively on limestone 
and could not exist on the Lafayette clay. 

Lastly, Oxypolis filiformis and Taxodiwn 
imbricarium seem to indicate the simultaneous 
occurrence of both Lafayette and Columba. 

The relations of the two Taxodiums (ey- 
presses) to the geological formations are more 
fully discussed in a paper published in the 
Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club for 
June, 1902 (pp. 3883-399). These two trees, to- 
gether with the herbaceous species in the group 
first mentioned, are the principal plants which 
have been used in my investigations. 

It would be impracticable to give here a 
detailed account of my observations on the 
Lafayette and Columbia formations and their 
distribution in Georgia, but I may do so at 
another time and place. I will mention, how- 
ever, that I have already made notes on them 
in about forty of the seventy counties lying 
wholly or partly in the coastal plain of Geor- 
gia, 
botanical relations to hold true wherever it 
has been possible to verify them. The Col- 
umbia seems to vary little in composition 
and appearance throughout this 
though in thickness 
and mode of occurrence in different parts 
of Georgia. The Lafayette, on the other 
hand, seems to vary more in 
than in mode of occurrence. The two forma- 
tions are very distinct in Georgia, however 
much they may appear to intergrade elsewhere. 


and have found the above-mentioned 


region, 
differing considerably 


appearance 


In many railroad cuts in the southeastern part 
of the state it is possible to locate the line of 
contact between them within an inch or two. 
The term Columbia is of course applied 
here to the superficial layer of light-colored 
sand which covers so large a part of the pine- 
barren region, and differs in some respects 
from this formation as represented at its type- 
locality ; this geographical variation being anal- 
ogous to that exhibited by so many species of 


70 


plants and animals and often affording a 
basis for specific distinctions. 

In the late Dr. Charles Mohyr’s ‘ Plant Life 
of Alabama,’* which deals more exhaustively 
with geological features than any state 
flora previously published, these superficial 
sands are designated as ‘Ozark sands’ (doubt- 
less named for Ozark, Ala.), a term which I 
have not seen used elsewhere. This formation 
is only mentioned three or four times in the 
work, however; so Dr. Mohr perhaps failed to 
perceive its important bearing on the distribu- 
tion of the flora. If the ‘Ozark sands’ should 
ever be regarded as. distinct from the typical 
Columbia, the superficial sands of South 
Georgia would of course be classed with 
them. 

On my travels during the past summer fre- 
quent use was made of Mr. McGee’s map 
(accompanying his monograph already men- 
tioned) of the areal distribution of the La- 
fayette and Columbia formations, which I 
found to be remarkably accurate (in Georgia, 


at least), considering the small scale on which’ 


it is drawn and the large amount of territory 
covered by its author. Most of the discrep- 
ancies between the map and the observed con- 
ditions were naturally found in those regions 
never explored by Mr. MeGee or any other 
geologist. 

With a good series of maps, especially topo- 
graphic maps, of the southeastern coastal 
plain it would not be difficult to trace with 
considerable accuracy the areas covered by the 
Lafayette and Columbia formations, but no 
topographic maps of any considerable portion 
of the coastal plain of Georgia have yet been 
made, and the data for them are as yet very 
meager. It is not even possible to get level 
notes from all the railroads in South Georgia, 
and the same condition doubtless exists in the 
corresponding portions of the adjoining states. 

Rotanp M. Harper. 

CoLtEGE Point, N. Y. 

INSTINCT IN SONG BIRDS. METHOD OF BREEDING 
IN HAND-REARED ROBINS (MERULA 
MIGRATORIA). 

On June 17, 1902, a pair of robins (Merula 
migratoria) confined in a large room with some 

** Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb.,’ Vol. 6, 1901. 


SCIENCE. 


¥ 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


hundred and fifty other birds, of various sorts, 
hatched eggs which had been laid for some 
twelve days. This pair of robins were birds 
about four years old, and were what are known 
as hand-reared birds. I had taken them when 
very young from wild parents and raised them 
by hand. 

On examining the nest after the second day 
I found there was only one young bird. It 
appeared to be perfectly healthy and normal, 
and so matters went on until the fourth day. 
On the morning of the fourth day I found the 
young robin had disappeared from the nest, but 
the female bird was still brooding. It now 
occurred to me to substitute two wild young, 
rather older, from a nest of robins that had 
been hatched out of doors in the yard. I in- 
troduced these two young birds to the parent 
birds, with some remonstrance on their part, 
but within five minutes of the time when I 
placed them in the nest the old birds were 
feeding them, and were apparently as solicit- 


/ous for them as if they: had been their own. 


At the close of the day, the substitution 
having been accomplished early, and I having 
watched the birds closely, it appeared to me 
that only one of the two young birds was 
being fed, and I took the other from the nest 
to rear it by hand. 

Both young birds are now going about, be- 
ginning to fly, learning to eat unaided, 
etc., I feeding one, and the male parent robin 
feeding the other. 

The following comments suggest themselves 
to me: 

To go back in the history of the parent birds, 
they were birds that were taken from a nest 
in May, 1898, and were naked and blind, prob- 
ably not more than three days old when 
adopted. The usual method of procedure 
which I have employed in rearing wild birds by 
hand is to take an entire brood and nest, and 
keeping the young birds as undisturbed as pos- 
sible, to do practically as near what the old 
birds do as is attainable. 

It is unnecessary to suggest that the parent 
birds I am speaking of are healthy and vigor- 
ous, because the very fact that they have bred 
in captivity seems to determine this. A word 
seems essential to their method of nest-build- 


Juny 11, 1902.) 


ing. All the robins that I have in captivity, 
some sixteen or seventeen in number, of which 
three or four pairs breed annually, are unable 
to build a nest-structure, though furnished 
with every facility, except under particular 
conditions which I am about to relate. They 
‘have been unable apparently to erect a nest 
of the conventional robin type. The trees in 
the room in which they are confined seem to 
present every kind of fork and crotch and an- 
‘gle of branch that robins select out of doors 
for nest sites. After watching these birds for 
two years in their efforts to build nests, when 
they were supplied with every material, the 
mud for the cup and all kinds of grasses and 
rootlets for the foundation and superstruc- 
ture, I found that apparently they were unable 
to formulate a nest that would stay together. 
I therefore provided them with small circular 
baskets, which were at once taken possession 
of, and generally the process of nest-building 
was as follows: They selected various grasses 
cand rootlets, and after much work, covering a 
period of some three or four days, they lined 
the baskets in a manner that seemed to them 
satisfactory, when they proceeded to lay eggs 
and go through the ordinary and regular pro- 
-eesses of robins’ lives during the breeding sea- 
son. However, in most cases they were so 
much interfered with by the other birds at 
Jarge in the room with them that they failed 
to succeed in hatching their eggs; or, if they 
did hatch them, the young were destroyed by 
other birds whenever an opportunity was 
given. 

T¢ is rather difficult in such a heterogeneous 
company to determine exactly what transpires ; 
but this is about the case: They do not at- 
tempt to build any cup of mud in such a nest 
as I have indicated, but the particular pair 
of robins in question did not put a mud floor in 
the basket. JI was unable to see them feed or 
take care of the very small young robin which 
I observed in their nest and which was their 
own progeny, during its early infancy; but 
when I substituted the foster-children, as I 
may call them, that were older than the young 
bird, all the operations of feeding and taking 
care of the young were apparent. The female 
bird brooded the young ones for periods of 


SCIENCE. (i 


from fifteen minutes to an hour, while the 
male bird constantly brought her food for the 
young. He also removed all excrement as it 
was evacuated and carried it at least ten feet 
away from the nest, and generally farther. 
Twice I saw him eat the excrement after he 
had laid it on the floor. I have watched robins 
earefully out of doors; and so far as I am 
able to judge, these robins in captivity went 
through all of the actions and attained all 
the results that robins attain with broods out 
of doors. It is not a little singular that they 
neglected, or that I fancied they neglected, to 
take care of one of the young ones, and that 
their attention was entirely concentrated on a 
single bird. All of these actions that I have 
recorded must have been instincts awakened 
by the various stimuli which precede instinct- 
ive acts, for no education by imitating the 
acts of older birds was possible. 

It is also interesting in this connection to 
record the fact that another pair of robins 
breeding, or attempting to breed, under simi- 
lar conditions, so far as I know have failed 
to lay eggs, or their eggs have been stolen 
by other birds after they were laid. However, 
the female parent is incubating and is fully as 
“broody’ as any hen would be under like cir- 
cumstances. That is, I may go up to the nest 
where she sits, and it is absolutely necessary 
for me to take her from the nest by force if I 
wish to see what: is beneath her. At such 
times she bites my finger and fights, and when — 
removed from the nest, utters all the alarm 
cries and notes that a bird out of doors does 
when disturbed. 

The special point to bear in mind in consid- 
ering the foregoing records is the fact that all 
of the birds in question were hand-raised— 
birds that cannot have gained anything by ex- 
perience or education from acts performed by 
their parents; and all of their doings that I 
have recorded I suggest are in the line of pure 
instinct. 

Winuam E. D. Scorr. 


PRINCETON UNIVERSITY. 


A NEW SHORT METHOD OF MULTIPLICATION. 


Tue following method of multiplication has 
been tested by several years’ constant use and 


72 SCIENCE. 


appears to offer marked advantages over other 
methods where logarithms are inadequate. A 
vital defect in the methods commonly used 
lies in the fact that the result is obtained from 
the right; that is, the digits of lower order in 
the product are obtained first. The following 
method is free from this defect and has the 
further advantage that the approximation may 
be carried to any degree of accuracy. Those 
methods which require the writing of the 
digits of the multiplier in inverse order are 
objectionable in that such a process invites 
error. The summing of a number of partial 
products is not only objectionable in itself, 
but renders uncertain the magnitude of the 
error arising from the dropping of final digits. 
The continued attention required in obtaining 
a long partial product is again a fruitful 
source of error. It will be seen that none of 
these objectionable features appear in this new 
method. 

The method is easiest explained by a few 
examples. Let it be required to multiply 324 
by 516. The process is shown thus: 

324 

516 

154024 
1316 


167184 


The work in detail, which of course is all 
done mentally, is as follows: Obtain the follow- 
ing products, and sums of products: 


3°5=15 
3:14+2-5=13 
3°6+2-1+4+4:5=40 
2-6+4-1=16 
4-624 


Set these results down in order, placing the 
units figures of each result one place to the 
right of the units figure of the preceding result. 
Then add. The operation might be written: 


15 
13 
40 
16 
24 
167184 
but the arrangement shown above is clearly 
neater. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


The rule is entirely similar for numbers 
of four or more digits. Thus the product 
1543-2789 may be exhibited as follows: 


1543 
2789 
2519827 
178360 
4303427. 
or in detail: 
2 
“T+ 5:2=17 
*8+5-°7+4-2=51 
°9+5:8+4:7+3-2=83 
-9+4-8+3-7=—98 
-9+3-8—60 
3 == 277, 


cS) 


Arrange as before and add. The product of 
two numbers containing five digits each is 
obtained as follows: 


3.1415 
2.7183 
6.18382515 
23557143 
8.53953945 


or in detail: 
== 6 
‘7+1-2=2 
1+1-:7+4-2=18 
*8+1:14+4-7+1-2=55 
*34+1:8+4:14+1:7+5-2=38 
-3+4-84+1:1+5-7=71 
*3-+1-8-+5-: 
-3+5-8=45 
oto 


eo 


— 25) 


oe Fe ww Ww WwW 


Arrange as before and add. If the result 
were desired to four decimals only, the work 
would be: 

3.1415 

2.7183 

6.1838 

2.3557 

8.5395 


It is interesting to make this last multiplica- 
tion by the ordinary method and compare. 


3.1415 
2.7183 
(94245 

251320 
31415 
219905 
62830 
8.53953945 


JuLy 11, 1902.] 


The number of auxiliary digits is 27 in the 
last as against 17 in the first. We have 
further a tedious addition to perform. It is 
moreover clear that if only four decimals are 
sought we have written down a mass of fig- 
ures in the ordinary method only to throw 
them away in the end. 

In the preceding examples the two factors 
have contained each the same number of 
digits. If this is not the case we may imagine 
the vacancies filled with zeros and proceed as 
before. For example, 

187235 
213 
2252914 
17351915 
39881055 


The successive operations are: 


1-2=2 
1:14+8:2=17 
1:-3+4+8-1+7:2=25 
8-3+7-1+2:2=35 
7-3+2-1+3-2—=29 
2-3+3-:1+5-2=19 
3:°3+5-1=14 
3-5=15 


If the digits are somewhat large it may hap- 
pen that the product sum contains three 
digits. Three rows of auxiliary figures are 
then necessary. Thus: 

396 

994 

27 

10890 

14724 

393624 


Or in detail: 


2 
9-9=108 

9-9 + 6-9=147 
6-9=90 

2 


The same rule must always be observed in 
arranging the product sums. 

When there are two or more equal digits in 
the multiplier the ordinary method would 
seem to be preferable, since the corresponding 
partial products are equal, This advantage 
is more than balanced in the new method by 


SCIENCE. 73 


the resulting simplification in the product 
sums. Thus in the last example the opera- 
tions may be written, 


3°: 9—=27 
(3 +9)9=108 
3°4-+ (9+6)9=147 
(6+4)9=90 
6-4=24 


It is seen that the simplification occurs not 
only when there happens to be a pair of equal 
digits in the multiplier, but also when there 
is a pair in the multiplicand or even when 
one is in the multiplier and one in the multi- 
plicand. A little practice enables one to catch 
sight of these pairs and the labor is materially 
decreased in this way. This feature makes 
the method particularly advantageous in 
squaring a number. Thus: 


3.1415 
3.1415 


9.6141810 
-25484125 


9.86902225 


The operations are, 


3:°3=9 
(3-+3) -1=6 
(3+ 3)4+1-1=25 


ete. 


A formal proof of the above method is 
hardly necessary. The method itself was dis- 
covered by inspecting the coefficients in the 
product of two polynomials, 


a,x +a," +a; 
b,a° +b.0 + by 
The product is 
a,b,0* + (a,b. + a2b;) a 
+ (a,b, +4.b,+ 4;b,) a 
+ (dsb; + A3b,) @ + asbs 
Since we may write any number as 375 in the 


form 
3:10?+7-10+5 


the reason for the method is obvious. 

It is not difficult also to work out a similar 
short method of division which seems to pos- 
sess advantages over the ordinary method. 

The method of multiplication described 
above is to be carefully distinguished from the 
familiar ‘cross-multiplication’ (multiplicato 


74 SCIENCE. 


per crocetta).* That method, which is of un- 
known antiquity, is open to two very grave 
objections. The first is that the result is ob- 
tained from the right. The second is that 
the attention must be continued from the first 
to last. As a consequence of this last objec- 
tion no one but a very clever computer can 
use the method with any success. 
D. N. LeHMer. 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 


CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 
ECLIPSE METEOROLOGY. 


Tuar interesting subdivision of meteorol- 
ogy which is concerned with the meteorolog- 
ical phenomena of solar eclipses is developing 
rapidly. Professor F. H. Bigelow, of the 
Weather Bureau, devotes the whole of ‘Bul- 
letin,” a quarto of 106 pages, to ‘ Eclipse 
Meteorology and Allied Problems.’ In this 
memoir he gives the results of a critical 
study of the direct meteorological phe- 
nomena of the solar eclipse of May 28, 
1900, as well as a discussion’ of cer- 
tain relations between solar and terrestrial 
meteorology in connection with the magnetic 
and electric fields in the atmospheres of sun 
and earth. Professor Bigelow has devoted 
himself very largely for several years past to 
this latter subject, and his work along these 
lines has already become well known to those 
who have a special interest in them. Pro- 
fessor Bigelow has persistently maintained 
that investigation of solar magnetic and al- 


* Cantor, ‘Geschichte der mathematik,’ Band 2, 
p- 286. Also ‘Das Rechnen in 16. Jahrhundert,’ 
yon P. Treutlein, Zeitschrift fiir Math. wnd 
Physik, Suppl. zu XXII., 1877, p. 49. 

+Since writing the above my attention has 
been called by Professor D. E. Smith to a method 
described by El-Hassir about the 12th century, 
which has some points in common with mine. 
For an account of his work see an article- by 
Suter, ‘Das Rechenbuch des Abii Zakarija El- 
Hassir’ in Bibliotheca Mathematica, II, p. 16 
(1901). El-Hassir obtains his product from the 
left, but adds each cross product as he obtains it, 
thus making the work complicated and confu- 


sing. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


lied problems is an essential to the further- 
advance of scientific meteorology, and he has. 
labored steadily and enthusiastically towards- 
the solution of some of these complex prob- 
lems. 

The portion of the ‘Bulletin’ which is more: 
immediately related to the purpose of these 
Notes concerns the meteorological work done: 
by the eclipse expedition to Newberry, S. C.3. 
the special meteorological observations at. 
sixty-two Weather Bureau stations, and a con- 
siderable number of voluntary special obser- 
vations. On the basis of these data Professor 
Bigelow has made studies of the variations. 
in pressure, temperature, vapor tension and 
wind caused by the passage of the shadow; 
of the shadow band phenomena, which ap- 
pear to be due to meteorological conditions. 
exclusively; and has also computed the num- 
ber of calories of heat per kilogram absorbed 
at the earth’s surface by the shadow. As to 
the variations in pressure, it appears that the 
mean curve, based on pressure readings made: 
at a number of stations, is so smooth that it 
cannot be positively asserted that the eclipse 
eaused a rise shortly before totality, or a. 
drop later. The temperature curves show 
clearly defined variations, the greatest lower- 
ing of the temperature being about 3.5° in 
the total shadow. The vapor pressure curves. 
are very irregular, but the means show that 
there was a decrease of vapor tension of about 
0.01 inch at the time of the maximum cooling 
of the air. There was a decrease in the wind 
velocity of about one mile per hour caused by 
the eclipse shadow, but Professor Bigelow’s. 
results as to wind direction seem to him to in-- 
dicate ‘that there was no definite change in the: 
azimuth which could be attributed to the 
eclipse.’ The facts seem to Professor Bige— 
low to ‘exclude the possibility that any sort 
of a true cyclonic circulation was generated 
by the action of the cooling effect of the: 
moon’s shadow on the atmosphere.’ In this,. 
Professor Bigelow is not in agreement with: 
Mr. H. H. Clayton’s results (Annals Harv. 
Coll. Obsy., XLIIL, Part I., 1901, 1-383.. See: 
also Sctence, April 12, 1901, 589-591; May 
10, 1901, 747-750), to a discussion of which 


some attention is given. Professor Bigelow 


JULY 11,.1902.] 


computes that the numbér of calories ab- 
sorbed increased to 4.40 at 15 minutes after 
totality, and then decreased to zero at about 
93 minutes after the totality. From 15 min- 
utes after totality to 45 minutes after total- 
ity there was very little change. A study of 
the shadow bands leads to the conclusion 
‘that the shadows were crescent shaped, and 
had a flickering motion as if struggling 
through two or more conflicting movements 
in the atmosphere itself.’ This, as above 
stated, makes it appear to Professor Bigelow 
that the phenomenon is due exclusively to me- 
teorological conditions. 


RAINFALL VARIATIONS. 

A VALUABLE study of the variations of rain- 
fall during long periods of time has recently 
been made by Hann (‘Die Schwankungen 
der Niederschlagsmessungen in grdésseren 
Zeitriiumen,’ Sitzungsber. Wien. Akad., CX1., 
Ila, 1902). The data used as the basis of the 
discussion are the monthly and yearly mean 
rainfalls for Padua (from 1725 to 1900); 
Klagenfurt (from 1813 to 1900) and Milan 
(from 1764 to 1900). For the past hundred 
years (1801-1900) the annual extremes ex- 
pressed in percentages of the general mean 
are as follows: 


- Padua. Klagenfurt. Milan. 
Driest year, 58 42 62 
Wettest year, 152 151 152 


Classifying the wet and dry years during 
the last century according to their percent- 
age departures from the general mean, the 
following table is obtained: 


Character. Very Dry. Dry. About normal. 
Per cent., 51-70 71-90 91-110 
Number, 8 26 37 

Extraordi- 

Character. Wet. Very Wet. narily Wet 
Per cent., 111-130 131-150 over 150 
Number, 22, 6 il 


It is seen that the dry years number 34 
per cent. and the wet years 29 per cent. The 
rainfall of the wet years, however, departs to 
a greater extent from the mean annual value 
than does that of the dry years. When the 
mean epochs of these dry and wet periods are 
determined, it appears that they show a 35- 
year periodicity, the maxima and the minima 
coming in the following years: 


SCIENCE. 


75 
Wet, 1738 1773 1808 1843 1878 (1913) 
Dry, 1753 1788 1823 1859 1893 (1928) 


This period accords with the 35-year cli- 
matic period of Briickner. 


NOTES. 


Accorping to recent information received 
from Mr. Maxwell Hall, who has long been 
well known for his work in connection with 
the meteorology of Jamaica, it appears that 
the work of collecting the statistics of rain- 
fall, etc., has been transferred to the Island 
Chemist’s office, and that Mr. Hall has been 
relieved of his duties by the Governor’s order. 


A FULL account of the new meteorological 
observatory at Aix-la-Chapelle, and of its 
equipment and formal opening, is given in 
Vol. VI. of the Deutsches Meteorologisches 
Jahrbuch for 1900 (Aachen). The same vol- 
ume also contains the fifth instalment of an 
article on the climate of Aix-la-Chapelle, and 
a paper (illustrated) on two halos observed 
during 1900. 


In the April number of Climate and Crops: 
California Seetion, Professor A. G. McAdie 
points out that Sir Francis Drake was quite 
accurate in his description of the climate 
near San- Francisco, where he anchored in 
June and July, 1579, as cold and foggy. Pro- 
fessor MecAdie also criticizes the erroneous 
statement embodied in~> the article on 
Drake in the ‘Dictionary of National Biog- 
raphy,’ to the effect that “to speak of the cli- 
mate near San Francisco or anywhere else on 
that coast in July in these (. e., Drake’s) 
terms is not exaggeration, but a positive and 
evidently willful falsehood (Greenhow: ‘ His- 
tory of Oregon and California’).” Tables are 
given to show the prevalence of fog in the 
locality in question. 


R. DeC. Warp. 


MEMORIAL OF 
Tris Honoré CoLtiticue: 
Dans la séance du 17 septembre 1901, le 
Congrés de physiologie réuni a Turin a 
* Letter addressed to Professor H. P. Bowditch, 
of the International Committee of the Congress 
of Physiology. 


HALLER.* 


76 SCIENCE. 


décidé, sur la proposition de M. le Professeur 
Kronecker, organisation d’une souscription 
destinée 4 faire l’acquisition, 4 Berne, de la 
maison autrefois occupée par Albert de Haller. 
D’aprés 
tacherait de réunir dans cette maison les 
souvenirs de Haller, les collections de ses ouv- 
rages, ses manuscrits, bref, tout ce qui peut 
donner aux visiteurs Vidée de la prodigieuse 
activité dont Haller n’a cessé de faire preuve 
jusqu’au moment de sa mort. 

D’autre part, la ville de Berne se prépare a 
féter, le 8 octobre 1908, le deux-centiéme anni- 
versaire de la naissance d’Albert de Haller. 
Il importe done de se préoccuper dés main- 
tenant de Vorganisation de la souscription 
internationale. 

On sait Vextraordinaire mérite du grand 
physiologiste bernois; son génie fut universel 


le projet exposé au Congrés on 


et son travail immense; nous devons honorer 
en lui A la fois le savant, le littérateur et 
Phomme d@’ Etat? 

Albert de Haller a fondé a Berne un institut 
@anatomie ot il enseigna gratuitement; ¢’est 
lui qui composa la premiére Flore helvétique; 
il fut médecin la Vhéspital de Berne, con- 
servateur de la collection des médailles, biblio- 
théecaire; membre du Comité d’hygiéne de la 
ville, il indiqua les premiéres régles d’hygiéne 
sociale, préconisa les inoculations, l’isolement 
des personnes atteintes de maladies infec- 
tieuses, ete. 

Haller a laissé prés de deux cents ouvrages 
en allemand, en latin et en frangais. 

A Vage de vingt-huit ans, il fut appelé a 
oceuper 4 Gottingen les chaires d’anatomie, de 
botanique et de chirurgie. C’est dans cette 
ville qu’il fonda la célébre Société royale des 
sciences, dont il fut le premier Président; il 
y institua an jardin botanique, un amphi- 
théitre d’anatomie, et il y poursuivit ses 
études de physiologie. 

On ne saurait mieux caractériser l’influence 
exereée par Haller sur le développement de 
la méthode expérimentale, qu’en rappelant 
quwil avait coutume de faire choisir, par les 
plus capables de ses étudiants, un sujet dans 
Vanatomie ou dans la physiologie et de les 
aider de ses conseils 4 condition qwils en 
poursuivissent l’étude pendant deux hivers 


[N. S. VoL. XVI. No. 393. 


dans son Institut. Et lui-méme appréciait 
la valeur que de telles recherches devaient 
avoir en disant: ‘Nicht unbedeutend ist das 
Licht gewesen dass sich aus diesem Institute 
liber die Physiologie ergossen hat.’ Pareille 
déclaration est trop modeste, car on peut 
aflirmer avec vérité que la physiologie expéri- 
mentale, telle que nous la comprenons encore 
aujourd@’hui a été réellement fondée par 
Haller. N’est-ce pas lui qui en écrivit le Code 
dans son ouvrage on huit volumes intitulé: 
‘Elementa Physiologiae corporis humani’ 
(1757-1766) 2 

Tous les pays d’Europe se disputérent 
Vhonneur de posséder Haller et d’encourager 
son enseignement: l’Angleterre, le Hanovre, le 
Prusse et la Hollande lui firent presque simul- 
tanément les propositions les plus brillantes; 
ses relations s’étendaient d’ailleurs 4 tout le 
monde savant: 4 Leyde, il avait recu les lecons 
de Boerhaave et d’Albinus; il avait achevé ses 
études 4 Londres et 4 Paris, et la correspond- 
ance de Haller, conservée 4 la bibliothéque 
de Berne, ne comprend pas moins de treize 
mille lettres émanant de mille deux cents cor- 
respondants appartenant aux pays les plus 
divers. Haller présente cet exemple unique 
dans Vhistoire de la science internationale que, 
pour l’attacher au sol de sa patrie, il fallut que 
de Gouvernement de Berne rendit un décret 
qui le mettait en réquisition perpétuelle pour 
le service de la République. 

L’Institut de France voulut compter Haller 
parmi ses huit membres étrangers et |’Acadé- 
mie de Saint-Pétersbourg lui décerna le méme 
honneur en l’accentuant encore, car elle 
réserva l’élection de Haller pour la célébration 
solennelle de son jubilé et la fit coineéder avee 
Vélection de Frédérie le Grand. L’Académie 
des sciences de Berlin, la Société royale de 
Londres et un grand nombre de 
savantes appartenant 4 tous les pays de civil- 
isation ont élu Haller au nombre de leurs 


ene 
societes 


membres. 

L’idée @honorer d’une maniére durable et 
exceptionnelle la mémoire du grand physio- 
logiste de Berne devait trouver un accueil 
favorable auprés des membres de notre Con- 
egrés; le moment parait venu de donner suite 
aux résolutions prises; en tardant plus long- 


JuLy 11, 1902.] 


temps, on sexposerait a voir la maison de 
Haller sacrifiée pour faire place a dautres 
édifices ; or, nous voudrions que cette maison fit 
respectée et qu’elle restat, & perpétuité, ouverte 
a tous les hommes de science. 

Pour donner 4 la souscription le caractére 
@universalité auquel elle nous parait avoir 
droit, il est désirable que le montant des con- 
tributions individuelles ne dépasse pas la 
valeur de l’wnité monétaire le (shilling, le 
mark, la couronne, le frane, ete.). Les noms 
des souscripteurs seront recueillis sur des listes 
séparées, de modéle uniforme, qui seront 
réunies 4 Berne et déposées dans la maison de 
Haller en témoignage de la reconnaissance et 
de Vadmiration de toutes les nations du 
monde. 

On s’efforcera d’obtenir soit de la Confédéra- 
tion helvétique, soit de Etat de Berne, la 
mise 4 sa disposition de la maison de Haller; 
si, comme on parait en droit de l’espérer, cette 
concession était obtenue a titre gracieux, ou 
encore si les cireconstances rendaient impos- 
sible acquisition de ’immeuble, le montant 
de la souscription serait joint aux fonds déja 
recueillis par le Comité de Berne pour l’érec- 
tion d’un monument érigé 4 la mémoire de 
Haller devant le nouveau palais de l’Univer- 
sité. 

Nous osons espérer, trés honoré Collégue, 
que vous voudrez bien contribuer 4 assurer le 
succés de la souscription dont le Congrés de 
Turin a approuvé le principe. 

Si vous désirez un certain nombre d’exem- 
plaires de cette circulaire ou d’autres listes de 
souseription, vous voudrez bien les réclamer 
aupres de M. Burkhart-Gruner, trésorier du 
Comité de Berne (Marktgasse, 44, 4 Berne). 

C’est 4 lui également que vous voudrez bien 
adresser le montant des souscriptions re- 
cueillies. 

Veuillez agréer V’assurance de notre con- 
sidération la plus distinguée. 

Micwatni Foster, 
Président @honneur du Congrés in- 
ternational de physiologie. 
Paut Hacer, 
Président du VI Congres. 

Subscriptions from America may be sent to 

Dr. W. T. Porter, Harvard Medical School, 


SCIENCE. 


. 


eC 


Boston, and their receipt will be acknowledged 
in Science. The limitation of the subscrip- 
tions to the ‘monetary unit’ of the country 
would allow Americans to indulge in the ex- 
travagance of a dollar contribution, but 
twenty-five cents would be the equivalent of 
the foreign unit. This limitation ought to 
make the subscription a very popular one.—Eb. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

Dr. WitiiAm Oster, professor of medicine 
at the Johns Hopkins University, has been 
given the degree of D.C.L. by Trinity Col- 
lege, Toronto. Dr. Osler was formerly a stu- 
dent at this institution. 

Masor Watrer Rerp, U. 8. A., has received 
the degree of LL.D. from the University of 
Michigan, as well as from Harvard Univer- 
sity, as a recognition of his work relating to 
the prevention of yellow fever. 

Proressor Epwarp W. Mortey delivered the 
address at the annual public meeting of the 
Ohio State University Chapter of the Society 
of the Sigma Xi, his subject being ‘Advances 
in Precise Metrology.’ 

Dr. A. N. Ricuarps, assistant in the depart- 
ment of physiological chemistry at the Col- 
lege of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia 
University, has been appointed to a research 
fellowship in the Rockefeller Institute. 


Dr. P. G. Wooptey, fellow in pathology at 
McGill University, has been appointed bac- 
teriologist in the United States bacteriolog- 
ical laboratories at Manila. 

Tue University of Pennsylvania has con- 
ferred the degree of Doctor of Science on Dr. 
Willoughby Dayton Miller, professor of den- 
tistry in the University of Berlin. 

Dr. Samuet Suevpon has been elected presi- 
dent of the New York Electrical Society. 

Aone American men of science who have 
sailed or who are about to sail for Europe are 
Professor ©. 8. Minot, of the Harvard Medi- 
cal School, retiring president of the American 
Association; Dr. L. O. Howard, of the De- 
partment of Agriculture, permanent secretary 
of the American Association; Dr. Henry M. 
Howe, professor of metallurgy at Columbia 
University, and Professor W. A. Noyes, pro- 


78 SCIENCE. 


fessor of chemistry at the Rose Polytechnic 
Institute. 


We regret to record the deaths of Dr. Fer- 
dinand Sommer, formerly professor of anat- 
omy and director of the Anatomical Institute 
at Greifswald, at the age of seventy-four 
years; and of Dr. Schréder, professor of math- 
ematics in the Technical Institute at Karls- 
ruhe. 


WE announced recently a civil service ex- 
amination for piece work computers in the U. 
S. Naval Observatory and the Nautical Alma- 
nace Office. The position in the Nautical Al- 
manac Office will be filled by an examination 
on July 15 and 16, but we are now informed 
that the examination for the position in the 
Naval Observatory will be for a miscellaneous 
computer at a salary of about $900 a year, and 
that the examination will be held on August 
12 and 13. Appointments to the $1,200 grade 
of computer at the Naval Observatory are 
made by promotion from the grade of miscel- 
laneous computer. 


THERE will also be a civil service examina- 
tion on August 12 and 13 from which it is ex- 
pected that certification will be made to the 
position of hydrographic surveyor U. S. 8S. 
Ranger, at a salary of $1,600 per annum, and 
to other similar vacancies as they may occur. 


Tue Council of the Horticultural Society 


of New York announces that it has completed _ 


arrangements for the holding of an Inter- 
national Conference on Plant Breeding and 
Hybridization on September 30 and October 
1 and 2 of the present year. Acting under the 
instruction of the society at its annual meet- 
ing in May, 1901, the chairman of the council 
addressed letters of inquiry to prominent 
scientific societies and individuals interested 
in progressive horticulture, both at home and 
abroad, to all the Agricultural Experiment 
Stations in America, the United States De- 
partment of Agriculture and the Minister of 
Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, in 
order to enlist a widespread support and to as- 
certain views as to the most convenient date 
for the attendance of the majority of those in- 
terested. The responses were unanimously in 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


favor of holding such a conference and the 
dates announced were finally selected by the 
conference committee, consisting of Dr. N. L. 
Britton, chairman, Dr. F. M. Hexamer, J. de 
Wolf, H. A. Siebrecht and Leonard Barron, 
secretary. By the cooperation of the Ameri- 
can Institute of the City of New York, it is 
arranged to hold the sessions of the conference 
in the Lecture Hall of the Berkeley Lyceum 
Building, 19-21 West 44th street, New York - 
City. Arrangements are being made for the 
publication of a complete report of the papers 
and discussions in book form under the aus- 
pices of the Society. In connection with the 
Conference there will be an exhibition of hybrid 
plants and their products, and of the related 
literature, to which everyone is invited to con- 
tribute. Awards of the society in the form of 
medals, diplomas and certificates may be made 
to exhibits of plants and plant products of hy- 
brid origin illustrating some particular plant 
or plant industry. 


Dr. W. Sewarp Wess, one of the trustees 
of the University of Vermont, has given it 
$6,000 for the purchase of the herbarium of 
Cyrus G. Pringle. 


Tue American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, New York City, has sent an expedition 
to eastern Colorado to examine the unex- 
plored portions of the Protohippus Beds in 
the hope of securing a complete skeleton of 
this animal. At the same time search will 
be made in western Nebraska for the same 
fossil species of horse, in the locality where 
Professor Leidy first discovered it. The ex- 
penses of these expeditions are defrayed by 
the gift of Mr. William C. Whitney. 


Tue Windward is being fitted for its fifth 
and last trip and will soon sail via Etah for 
Cape Sabine on Smith Sound, where it is ex- 
pected that Lieutenant Peary will be found. 


A BILL is now before the British parliament 
which if passed will make still more stringent 
the provision interfering with experiments on 
living animals in Great Britain. The British 
Medical Journal thus sums up the proposed 
new legislation: (1) The abolition of all an- 
esthetics which are not respirable. (2) The 


Juty 11, 1902.] 


abolition of the use of curare. (3) The aboli- 
tion of the application by way of experiment 
to the conjunctiva of any matter or substance 
for absorption. (4) The abolition of all ex- 
periments in which the animal is kept alive 
after an operation under anesthetics (Certi- 
fieate B). (5) The abolition of all experi- 
ments as an illustration of-lectures in a med- 
ical school where, as at present, the animals 
are kept under an anesthetic during the whole 
of the experiment, and killed before recover- 
ing consciousness (Certificate C). (6) To 
kill or to administer, and keep under, a respir- 
able anesthetic every animal which has been 
subjected to an operation not calculated to 
give pain, should it begin to suffer pain after 
the operation (Certificate A). (7) The pres- 
ence of an inspector during and throughout 
the whole course of every experiment which is 
caleulated to cause pain, although the-animal 
is under an anesthetic and is killed before 
regaining consciousness. (8) No license to 
be granted for more than one experiment or 
for one series of not more than six connected 
and consecutive experiments. (9) Every li- 
cense shall specify the time and place of each 
experiment or series of experiments. (10) A 
detailed chronological report of the descrip- 
tion, course and result of each experiment is 
to be sent to the Secretary of State within 
seven days after the completion of each ex- 
periment. 


Tue Electrical World and Engineer states 
that the committee for the ‘Galileo Ferraris 
Award, instituted in 1898, and composed of 
the representatives of the executive committee 
for the General Italian Exhibition, held in 
Turin, in 1898, of the chamber of arts and 
commerce, of the Royal Academy of Science 
and of the Royal Industrial Museum in Turin, 
have decided to open an international competi- 
tion for the award of said prize on the occasion 
of the unveiling of the monument to Ferraris, 
in Turin, in the latter half of the month of 
September next. The award is 15,000 lires 
($3,000), together with the compound interest 
accumulated since the year 1899 up to the day 
of the award. It will be granted to the in- 
ventor of some practical application of elec- 


SCIENCE. 


79 


tricity likely to lead to noteworthy progress. 
Competitors may submit either pamphlets, 
projects and drawings, or machines, apparatus 
and appliances relating to their invention. 
The jury, composed of the aforesaid committee, 
shall have full power to cause practical ex- 
periments to be made upon the inventions en- 
tered for competition, and upon the correspond- 
ing apparatus. Competitors are to file their 
application and deliver their credentials apper- 
taining to their invention not later than Sep- 
tember 15, 1902, at the office of the secretary 
of the committee, care of the Adminstrative 
Committee on the First International Exhibi- 
tion of Modern Decorative Art in the build- 
ings of the Chamber of Commerce and Art, 
28 Via Ospedale, Turin, Italy. 

Tue deep well borings of the United States, 
made for water, oil and gas, are the subject of 
a statistical report by N. H. Darton, in the 
series of Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers 
of the United States Geological Survey. The 
list of deep wells is arranged by States, in al- 
phabetical order, and appears in two pamphlets 
known as’ Water-Supply Papers Nos. 57 and 
61. All wells 400 feet or over in depth are 
earefully listed. Depth, diameter, yield per 
minute, and other characteristic data are given, 
and many instructive details are noted indi- 
cating for what purpose the borings were ori- 
ginally made, the character of the product ob- 


_tained, and whether the wells are in use or 


abandoned. For the benefit of persons desir- 
ing more detailed information concerning wells 
in any particular region, references are given 
to the literature or other sources from which 
the data were obtained. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Presipent Remsen, of the Johns Hopkins 
University, has succeeded in securing the mil- 
lion-dollar endowment fund, to which we have 
called attention. This money is to be used for 
supporting the educational work of the uni- 
versity and not for the erection of buildings 
on the new site, as has in some places been 
stated. 

Atumni and friends of Amherst College have 
given $65,000 to build an observatory for the 


80) SCIENCE. 


astronomical department and for an observa- 
tory house, to be occupied by the astronomer, 
Professor D. P. Todd. 


Mrs. AnNE Exiza Watsu, of Brooklyn, has 
given $450,000 to a board incorporated under 
the laws of New York State, the interest to be 
used for the education of candidates for the 
priesthood of the Roman Catholie Church. 


Governor Aaron T. Briss has given $21,000 
to Albion College, Albion, Mich. 


Dr. Conan Doyie has given $5,000 of the 
$7,000 cleared on his pamphlet ‘The War in 
South Africa’ for a scholarship which shall 
enable some poor South African, either Boer 
or British, to take a course in Edinburgh Uni- 
versity. 

AccorpinG to the statistics for the entering 
class at Yale University next year the num- 
bers in the academic department will be about 
the same as last year, and the numbers in the 
Sheftield Scientific School show an increase of 
about twelve per cent. 


Proressor Witutam Lowe Bryan, head of 
the departments of philosophy and_peda- 
gogy, has been elected President of the Uni- 
versity of Indiana. 


Dr. E. H. Linpiey has been appointed pro- 
fessor of psychology and Dr. J. A. Bergstrém, 
professor of pedagogy, at the same institu- 
tion. 


Mr. Jonn Hays Hamonp has been appoint- 
ed professor of mining engineering in the 
Sheffield Scientific School of Yale Unversity. 
Mr. Hammond graduated from the Sheffield 
Scientific School in 1876 and is a prominent 
consulting engineer. 


Dr. P. A. Fisn has been promoted to a full 
professorship of comparative physiology and 
pharmacology at Cornell University. 


Two appointments have been made at the 
newly established college of Clark University 
—Mr. Rufus C. Bentley, now fellow in peda- 
gogy at the University, to be dean and profes- 
sor of Latin and Greek, and Mr. Frederick H. 
Hodge, now fellow in mathematics, to be in- 
structor in mathematics. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 393. 


Tue following announcements were made 
at the commencement exercises of Washing- 
ton University: Robert Heywood Fernald, 
graduate of the Maine State College in me- 
chanical engineering, 1892; assistant pro- 
fessor of mechanical engineering in Case 
School of Applied Science, 1896-1900; M.E., 
Case School, 1898; M.A., Columbia, 1901; 
Ph.D., 1902; appointed professor of mechan- 
ical engineering in place of Professor J. H. 
Kinealy, who resigns to go into the practice 
of his profession in Boston. Arthur W. 
Greeley, A.B., Stanford, 1896; A.M., 1899; 
Ph.D., Chicago, 1902; appointed assistant pro- 
fessor of zoology. A single course in this 
subject has been given during the past year 
by Mr. S. M. Coulter, who hereafter will de- 
vote himself exclusively to botany. Frederick 
M. Mann, C.E., Minnesota, 1898; M.S. in ar- 
chitecture, Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, 1895; instructor in architectural de- 
sign in the University of Pennsylvania, 1895- 
98; practicing architect in Philadelphia, 1898- 
1902; appointed professor of architecture. 
Sherman Leavitt, B:S. in chemistry, Wash- 
ington University, 1900; and Samuel W. 
Forder, B.S. in chemistry, Washington Uni- 
versity, 1902; appointed instructors in chem- 
istry. These two appointments are to take 
the place of Doctor Gellert Alleman, who be- 
comes professor of chemistry in Swarthmore 
College. P. R. Goodwin, graduate of the Uni- 
versity of Maine in civil engineering, 1900; 
instructor in same institution, 1900-1901; ap- 
pointed instructor in civil engineering. 


Dr. W. A. P. Martin has accepted the presi- 
deney of the new university at Wu-Chang, 
China. 


Proressor WISLICENUS, of Wurzburg, has 
been called to Tiibingen, to succeed the late 
Dr. yon Pechmann as director of the Chemical 
Institute of the University; Dr. Paul Hensel, 
of Heidelberg, has been called to the profess- 
orship of systematic philosophy at the Univer- 
sity at Erlangen; Dr. Alfred Schaper has been 
appointed a chief of division in the Anatomical 
Institute at Breslau and Dr. von Gerichten, di- 
rector of the Institute for Chemical Technol- 
ogy at the University at Jena. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL ComMMITTEE : S. NEwcoms, Mathematics; R. S. WoopwaRD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WaALcort, Geology; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. SCUDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BessEy, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. 8. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 
pitcH, Physiology ;. J. S. Brnyinas, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. WELCH, Pathol- 
ogy ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Frippay, Juty 18, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science :— 


The Group-velocity and the Wave-velocity 


of Light: Proressor D. B. Brace...... 81 
Prehistoric Porto Rico: Dr. J. WALTER 
FRIESEN Aah Siasie encraveralelctalessustes selelievee oe 94 


Remarks of the Retiring President and of 
the President-elect... 0... ss. ewes ww 109 

Report of the Permanent Secretary....... 110 
Scientific Books :— 

Ortmann’s Reports of the Princeton Uni- 

versity Expedition to Patagonia. Sacha- 
roff’s Das Bisen als das thitige Prinzip der 
Enzyme und der lebendigen Substanze: Pro- 
FEssoR LAFAYETTE B. MENDEL. Dickson’s 

Linear Groups with an Exposition of the 

Galois Field Theory: Dr. G. A. Minter... 111 
Scientific Journals and Articles............ 114 
Discussion and Correspondence :-— 


A Method of Fixing the Type in Certain 


(AREA. ia's.q tio 8S Shs 8 ORO OO Sn ee eee 114 
Shorter Articles :— 

The Prevention of Molds on Cigars: Rop- 

Aypupe, Wek, AN RORG oo) o.oo SSB OES aaa MUE Cee 115 
The Gradwate School of Agriculture........ 116 
Scientific Notes and News................. 116 
University and Educational News.......... 120 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE GROUP-VELOCITY AND THE WAVE- 
VELOCITY OF LIGHT.* 


ALTHOUGH the determination of the im- 
portant constant of nature—the velocity 
of light—has occupied the attention of sci- 
entists from the time of Galileo, and while 
astronomical and terrestrial methods have 
been so carefully refined that individual 
observers have obtained values differing 
by less than one part in 3,000, it is a sig- 
nificant fact that no terrestrial method thus 
far used gives the absolute velocity of 
light under all conditions. If a group 
of periodic disturbances are radiated out 
into any medium the velocity of the indi- 
vidual elements will in general be different 
from that of the mean of the group. Only 
in the one instance, the propagation in 
vacuo, is it likely that these two velocities 
are the same; and here physical methods, 
thus far, have not put the question to a 
test. In the case of ponderable media im- 
portant data are to be expected. The 
astronomical method used by Rémer in 
1675 and founded on the observation of 
the eclipse of Jupiter’s satellites gives the 
so-called group-velocity of light in vacuo. 
The observation of the fixed stars discoy- 
ered by Bradley in 1727 gives the wave- 

* Address of the retiring President and Chair- 
man of Section B—Physics—of the American 


Association for the Advancement of Science, 
Pittsburgh meeting, June 28 to July 3, 1902. 


82 


velocity in the medium within the obsery- 
ing telescope. This is the only method 
thus far used which gives the absolute 
velocity of light. 

The uncertainty in the constant of aber- 
ration and the errors in the observations of 
Jupiter’s satellites render these methods 
unsuited for the comparison of the two 
velocities. We owe perhaps to Arago more 
than any other person a solution of this 
problem of the velocity of light. In 1838 
he submitted to the French Academy the 
plan of an experiment for solving directly 
and definitely the question—which was be- 
ing much debated—whether lhght was a 
corpuscular emission from radiant bodies 
or simply the result of the vibrations of a 
very rare medium. The method was sim- 
ply an adaptation of the rotating mirror in- 
geniously devised by Wheatstone for deter- 
mining the velocity of propagation of elec- 
tricity in a wire. It was not till 1850, 
however, that this method, in the hands of 
Foucault, was actually put to the test of 
determining this constant. In the preced- 
ing year, however, Fizeau had published 
the results of his experiments by means of 
a toothed wheel. These were the first ob- 
servations made on the velocity of light at 
the earth’s surface. The first idea of this 
method seems to have originated with the 
Abbé Laborde, who communicated it to 
Arago some years before. Upon these 
two principles is based our entire knowl- 
edge by terrestrial methods of this constant. 
On the one side we have the refinement and 
modifications of the toothed wheel as used 
by Cornu in France and Young and Forbes 
in England and on the other the very ac- 
eurate results of Michelson in his classic 
experiments and those of Neweomb with 
his highly refined phototachometer in this 
country. It may well be questioned 
whether much greater certainty in data is 
attainable than those which the late la- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


mented French savant and_ illustrious 
physicist Cornu has left as one of his most 
brilliant legacies to science. Nor ean we 
hope for any considerable refinement in 
the determinations by the other method as 
used in this country, and which have al- 
ready given the most surprising agreement 
and warrants us in taking the value ob- 
tained as the most accurate of all. Not- 
withstanding the elaborate execution of 
these experiments serious discrepancies 
exist between the results of the two 
methods. The latest discussion by Cornu 
of his own results gives as the most prob- 
able value of this constant 300,130 meters, 
while the values of Michelson and of New- 
comb are 299,853 and 299,810, respectively. 
This makes the error of the results by the 
two methods ten times the error between 
those of the same method. This difference 
has given rise to the impression that in the 
one or the other or in both methods a 
systematic error exists and the discussions 
and corrections made by different critics 
have left the problem in a somewhat uncer- 
tain state. The relation of these determin- 
ations to the absolute velocity in air at the 
earth, and to the absolute terrestrial velocity 
in vacuo and the possible difference from 
the velocity in space, renders the problem 
of great interest and importance in this 
aspect alone. The famous theory of Weber 
of moving charges to explain the action of 
electric currents, while incompatible with 
the principle of the conservation of en- 
ergy, has done much to enlarge our views 
of the origin of electrodynamic phenomena 
and to establish a comprehensive theory of 
present phenomena. The brilliant experi- 
ment of Rowland as a natural sequence of 
Weber’s theory demonstrated the electro- 
magnetic reaction of a moving charge and 
showed further that if the velocity were 
that of light the mechanical reaction would 
be approximately that calculated from 


JuLY 18, 1902.] 


theory by using the value of the ight con- 
stant as the ratio of the two units. 

The prediction by Maxwell that light 
was an electromagnetic disturbance in 
the medium surrounding an oscillating 
charge, and the consequent identity of the 
velocity of light in the ether alone with the 
ratio of the electrical units in the two sys- 
tems of measurements used, when a charge 
is respectively in motion or at rest and the 
further relation of the light constant to the 
dielectric constant for ponderable media, 
have been since fully confirmed by exhaust- 
ive experiments. His interpretation of 
the physical significance of the ratio of the 
electromagnetic unit to the electrostatic 
unit as a velocity of the same magnitude as 
that for light received remarkable con- 
firmation in the independently conceived 
experiment of Rowland already referred to: 

The celebrated experiments of Hertz 
on electric oscillations and the identifica- 
tion of the velocity of their propagation in 
the ether with that of light waves consti- 
tute perhaps a more remarkable instance 
of the confirmation of a brilliant concep- 
tion than that of the law of gravitation 
itself. 

If we accept these facts as confirming the 
supposition that hght is an electric phe- 
nomenon, then we may consider the results 
found as data obtained by different methods 
for the solution of the problem, the veloc- 
ity of light. It would be necessary then 
to examine the principles of the methods 
involved to determine what phase of the 
problem each corresponds to, 2. e., whether 
to a group-velocity or to a wave-velocity. 

Consider first v, the ratio of the two 
units. In the derivation of the equations 
for the propagation of undulations in a 
non-conducting medium the time rate of 
change in the polarization, either electric 
or magnetic, is obtained in terms of the 
line integral of the force, magnetic or elec- 


SCIENCE. 


83. 


trie respectively, around the bounding 
eurve through which this polarization or 
flux takes place. Since now each term in 
the resulting equations may be expressed 
in either the electrostatic or electromag- 
netic units, the integral of these differential 
equations would show some connection be- 
tween the constant in the problem and the 
ratio of the units, if different units are 
used, otherwise not. The well-known solu- 
tion of these so-called wave-equations is a 
wave-potential involving as one of its fac- 
tors a function periodic in time and in 
space. If we follow any value of the func- 
tion, 7. e., the same phase of the disturb- 
ance, the distance we shall have gone in a 
unit of time is found to be the number of 
electrostatic units in the electromagnetic 
unit multiplied into the reciprocal of the 
square root of the constants of electric and 
magnetic polarization, respectively. In 
vacuo these constants are unity. We there- 
fore conclude that the value of w is the 
wave-velocity of light and not the group- 
velocity. 

In the experiment for measuring the 
velocity of propagation of electric oscilla- 
tions or Hertzian waves, the frequency of 
these oscillations is determined either di- 
rectly, by observing the successive dis- 
charges in a rotating mirror, or by caleu- 
lations from the capacity and induction of 
the electrical system. By determining 
the wave-length of disturbance—usually 
by noting the nodes of standing waves 
along a wire—the velocity is found. The 
velocity may also be measured by noting 
the time for the transmission of individual 
disturbaiices over a given interval of space. 
These methods all have to do with a phase 
of the disturbance and not with the mean 
of a group of oscillations, and hence corre- 
spond to the wave-velocity. 

The electrical methods then all give the 
wave-velocity, while the optical methods 


84 


thus far used do not give directly the wave- 
velocity or the velocity of the individual 
disturbanee, but a velocity dependent on 
that of the group. 

While the agreement between these elec- 
’ trical constants and the light constant has 
perhaps been the strongest factor in the 
identification of electromagnetic and op- 
tical phenomena, additional discoveries now 
give incontrovertible evidence of the com- 
mon ageney of the two classes of phenom- 
ena, so that these constants may now be 
considered with good reason to be, not so 
valuable as evidence of like phenomena, 
as independent data in determining the 
true value of the velocity of propagation 
of the medium for electrical and optical 
disturbances. It is true that exact quan- 
titative evidence is lacking. The experi- 
ment of Rowland is essentially qualitative, 
and although his results agree approxi- 
mately with values calculated from theory, 
more exact results are extremely desirable, 
although such a possibility seems to trans- 
cend present mechanical attainments. The 
futile attempts to definitely establish by 
direct experiments the electrodynamic re- 
lations between electric charges and the 
electromagnetic field do not disturb our 
confidence in the truth of the theory. 

Experiment still fails to give us a me- 
chanical reaction on a charged particle 
moving in a magnetic field. It fails also 
in giving a positive reaction on a charged 
particle when the magnetic field is varied. 
The experiments to detect the electromotive 
intensity produced by the variation of the 
velocity of a moving charge haye not yet 
been successful. These are all essential 
features of the electromagnetic theory 
and undoubtedly will receive a successful 
solution in the future. On the other hand 
the action of a magnetic field in affecting 
the discharge in a vacuum electrode tube 
and the celebrated discovery by Hall desig- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


nated as the Hall ‘effect,’ are evidence of 
the reality of the mechanical action on a 
charge moving in a magnetic field. The 
phenomena of discharge, in electrodeless 
tubes in the presence of electric oscilla- 
tions is significant of the mechanical ac- 
tion on a charged particle in a varying 
magnetic field. The discoveries by Fara- 
day and by Zeemann—as we now interpret 
the association of electrical charges on mat- 
ter as evidenced by what we know from 
electrolysis—are a further confirmation of 
the mechanical reaction of a field of force 
upon moving charges. The experiments of 
Lecher on the magnetic action of displace- 
ment currents in a dielectric also confirm 
our ideas in regard to the essential char- 
acteristic of an insulating medium and the 
electric charges on the ultimate elements 
of matter. Hence we are with full rea- 
son bound to identify these constants, and 
may therefore examine their derivation by 
a closer analysis of their real significance. 
If on the optical side the problem of the 
velocity of propagation of individual dis- 
turbances has never been attacked directly, 
there seems to be full reason for doing so 
in order to complete the evidence from the 
standpoint of ight phenomenon which we 
already have at hand on the electrical side. 

It would be desirable to determine the 
velocity of a group of periodic electric dis- 
turbances under varying conditions in or- 
der to compare it with the velocity of a 
single disturbance. 

In the methods of Fizeau and of Fou- 
eault, which are the only ones used thus 
far, the time of the ‘go’ and return of a 
flash of light is measured. The relation 
of this time to that of the time of the 
‘oo’ and return of a single one of the com- 
ponent waves is not a relation at once sim- 
ple and evident. No experiments have 
been directly carried out to determine this 
relation in optical media. We have the- 


\ 


JULY 18, 1902: ] 


oretical considerations of analogous exam- 
ples to go by, but no direct experimental 
data. Lord Rayleigh has considered the 
problem. It has been noticed that in the 
progress of a group of waves in water, the 
individual waves appear to advance 
through the group and die away at the 
anterior limit. Stokes has explained this 
by regarding the group as formed by the 
superposition of two infinite trains of waves 
of equal amplitudes and of nearly equal 
wave-lengths advancing in the same direc- 
tion. The mathematical formulation of 
this phenomenon as thus explained gives a 
resultant periodic motion with a periodic 
amplitude varying from zero to the sum 
- of the two elements. The velocity of this 
maximum, which is called the group-velocity 
U is related to the wave-velocity V by the 
variation with respect to the wave-length A, 
If the wave-velocity V is definitely known 
as a function of the wave-length, then the 
group-velocity can be ascertained. On the 
other hand, we cannot determine the wave- 
velocity V from a complete knowledge of 
the function U. It is necessary that we 
know the relation of V to the wave-length. 
Rayleigh finds that U—(1—n)V if the 
wave-velocity V varies as the nth power of 
the wave-length 2. Thus for deep-water 
waves n==1/2, U==-3/2V. In the case of 
aerial waves U and V are nearly the same. 
In this instance the ear detects the periodic 
variation of the resultant amplitude as 
beats which are propagated out with the 
velocity of the component waves. The re- 
‘sultant of two such systems of light waves 
may be illustrated by the interference of 
the two sodium lines in Newton’s rings 
and the periodic variation in the luminos- 
ity of the rings when a great number are 
examined together. This of course is the 
fluctuation which occurs in the resultant 
radiations propagated into space but not 
eapable of being seen by the eye. 


SCIENCE. 


85 


The argument from the kinematical 
point of view for the relation of the two 
velocities is not entirely beyond criticism 
as this requires a gradual variation in the 
ampltude according to the cosine law. 
As the group sent out by either of these 
two methods must deviate considerably 
from this law, it would be necessary to 
include a number of harmonics in Fourier’s 
series to give the proper configuration to the 
group. In order that we may then use 
the kinematical argument we must assume 
these harmonies are rapidly frittered 
down and that they never return. This 
may have some significance in the toothed- 
wheel method, where some observers have 
noted a coloration of the return image. 
Further analysis of the kinematical prob- 
lem is necessary before we can feel sure of 
its application to the physical counterpart. 
The argument which Lord Rayleigh has 
advanced, based on the consideration 
of the energy propagated, assumes absorp- 
tion due to a frictional term proportional 
to the velocity. Now while absorption in 
ponderable media is explained on the as- 
sumption of imbedded particles in the ether 
of some specific period, it has not yet been 
proven that this is the only way in which 
absorption may take place. If there be 
absorption in the ether itself it is not easy 
to see just how it does occur. On the as- 
sumption already made above it would be 
impossible for the ether to transmit waves 
of certain frequencies corresponding to 
its natural period and we should have 
selective absorption, a condition quite con- 
trary to the conception of such a medium. 
On the above assumption, however, the 
ratio of the energy passing a given point 
in a unit of time to the energy in the train 
after this unit of time is the ratio of the 
eroup-velocity to the wave-velocity. Thus 
we see the ratio depends directly on the 
amount of absorption. It is not quite clear, 


86 


however, that this relation would hold for 
absorption by some other mode. We may 
then feel some hesitancy in aecepting this 
relation of the group-velocity to the wave- 
velocity as based on either the kinematical 
analogy or the energy argument.. We must 
therefore fall back for the solution upon 
direct experimental means. The signifi- 
eance of such an experimental solution to 
the problem of the propagation of undula- 
tions should not be underestimated. In- 
vestigations of these two velocities for 
monochromatic light, such as from ead- 
mium or mereury, in highly dispersing sub- 
stances like carbon disulphide or alpha- 
monobromonapthaline or dense glass of 
Faraday, now seem entirely possible and 
sufficient for the solution of the problem. 
In the ease of the ether the arguments 
which can be advanced in regard to veloe- 
ity of light for different colors indicate 
the same velocity for all colors. It was 
pointed out by Arago that any difference 
in velocity should produce a coloration in 
any luminous body in the universe which 
should vary rapidly in intensity. Thus in 
the observations on the eclipse of Jupiter’s 
satellites they should momentarily show at 
the instants of disappearing and reappear- 
ing a coloration complementary in the two 
eases. Nothing of this kind has been re- 
eorded. Again in the ease of Algol, New- 
comb estimated, from its probable distance, 
—ereater than 2,000,000 radii of the earth’s 
orbit and the time for light to reach us, 
30 years—that a difference in time between 
the blue and the red rays of one hour 
would give a difference in velocity of four 
parts in a million. Im the remarkable 
changes in Nova Persei last year, its com- 
plete spectrum appeared to be visible even 
though the changes in its intensity were 
far more rapid than in the ease just men- 
tioned. As no trace of coloration has 
ever been observed this difference of time 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


cannot exceed a fraction of an hour. It 
should be mentioned, however, that in the 
experiments of Young and Forbes, the 
velocity of blue hght was apparently about 
1.8 per cent. greater than that of red light. 
Both Michelson and Neweomb claim that 
this would have been very distinetly ob- 
served in their experiments with the rotat- 
ing mirror in the spreading out of the im- 
age of the slit into a distinct spectrum. 
A further instance is cited by Lord Ray- 
leigh which may be of value. If we ex- 
amine the position of the bands in the 
spectrum of glowing gases, we find certain 
harmonie relations. Now if these rays 
had different velocities in the free ether 
the position of the bands would be affected 
and the harmonic relations, apparently hold- 
ing as deduced from the spectra observed, 
would not give the harmonic relations in 
the radiants themselves; or, vice versa, such 
harmonie relations between the radiants: 
would not give harmonie distribution 
of the bands in the spectrum. From an- 
other standpoint it may be mentioned that 
on any theory of an optical medium we 
know that either a difference in velocity or 
a dispersion requires incomplete transmis- 
sion. This may be due to internal reflection 
or to transformation into heat. The trans- 
mission would also be differential. Thus 
only a part of the light of the distant stars 
would reach the eye and this would be 
more and more colored as the distance in- 
creased, due to the differential transmis- 
sion. No effect of this kind can be ob- 
served even in the nebule which are so re- 
mote that the telescope cannot resolve them, 
although the spectroscope gives us unques- 
tioned evidence of their stellar nature. 
These arguments from the astronomical 
point of view are, however, uncertain and 
indirect. Until we can determine to a close 
approximation the wave-velocities of differ- 
ent colored rays in ponderable media as 


Juny 18, 1902.] 


well as in the ether, we cannot be assured 
that we are entitled to consider the deter- 
mination by the group methods used here- 
tofore as sufficient to give us the absolute 
velocity of light. Even if we regard the 
evidence from astronomical observations of 
the common velocity in space for all colors, 
and from this conclude that the absolute 
velocity is the group-velocity, as the equa- 
tions of Lord Rayleigh show with the as- 
sumptions he makes, we are still lacking 
sufficient data for the relation in the case of 
ponderable media. 

In the discussion of the results by the 
toothed-wheel method and the rotating- 
mirror method, considerable difference of 
opinion has been expressed as to just what 
we obtain by the latter method. There 
seems to be no dissenting opinion that the 
toothed-wheel method gives the group-ve- 
locity directly, for here we have the time of 
transit of an interrupted beam of light. In 
the rotating-mirror method the ray is also 
intermittent. Lord Rayleigh seems first to 
have raised the interesting question as 
to what is actually measured in these ex- 
periments, and in his first note states that 
the rotating-mirror method gives the group- 
velocity U. In a later article he arrives at 
a different result and gives the square of 
the wave-velocity divided by the group- 
velocity, V?/U. Evidently unless we know 
the relation of the two we ean find neither 
if this be correct. Now this relation is not 
certainly known as pointed out above. On 
the other hand Gouy, however, dissents 
from this second view and shows that the 
oroup-velocity U is the quantity determined 
by the rotating-mirror method. Schuster in 
a later article dissents from Gouy’s con- 
clusion and corrects Lord Rayleigh’s second 
result, and gives the square of the wave- 
velocity divided by twice the wave-velocity 
minus the group velocity, V?/(2V—Y). 
J. Willard Gibbs in a later article points out 
an error in the derivation of this relation 


SCIENCE. 


87 


by Schuster and shows that the group- 
velocity is after all what is determined by 
the rotating-mirror method. He shows fur- 
ther that the results of Michelson’s observa- 
tion on carbon disulphide give a closer 
agreement with the refractive index with 
this conclusion than with the conclusion ar- 
rived at by Schuster. Lord Rayleigh sug- 
gests in his second note that by placing a 
lens in the path of the ray so that the fixed 
mirror is at its foeus the rotation of the 
wave-front caused by the rotating mirror 
would be corrected on the return and we 
should thus find the absolute velocity V. 
This is evidently in error, as Schuster show- 
ed, as the rotations would be added. Even 
if neutralized we should not obtain V, but 
U. Ina reply to a communication by the 
writer to Lord Rayleigh in 1890 as to sucha 
method for the absolute velocity he has indi- 
eated a misapprehension on this matter and 
expressed his opinion as to the probable 
correctness of Professor Gibbs’s conclusion 
which agrees with his first position. With 
the exception of Schuster the rotating- 
mirror method seems to be accepted by all 
as giving the group-velocity. The corree- 
tion for the rotation between two successive 
wave planes which is erroneously given by 
Schuster would give the group-velocity and 
thus an agreement with the results of the 
rest. While the observations of Michelson 
on carbon disulphide give the closest agree- 
ment with this result, more exact data for 
specific wave-lengths are desirable in order 
to confirm the theoretical conclusion. 

In studying the question of group and 
wave-velocities in connection with disper- 
sion the following two methods occurred to 
the writer: The first one was for increasing: 
the sensibility of the old methods, and the 
second one for observing the wave-velocity 
directly by means of interference. In 1889) 
he was invited by President Hall to Clark 
University to conduct, among other things, 
an investigation on some special problem. 


88 


The dispersion in air was selected, and a 
combination of the arrangements of both 
Fizeau and Foucault which had occurred 
to the writer before was adopted. The 
essential condition in Fizeau’s method is to 
produce an intermittence in a beam of ght. 
This is done mechanically by the rotation 
of a toothed wheel.* It is quite clear that 
if the wheel were fixed and the ray rotated 
the condition of intermittence would be 
fulfilled. It would then be merely a matter 
of arranging a suitable optical system to 
maintain a fixed direction for the ray while 
in transit between the two stations. Any 
such optical system would avoid the inertia 
inherent in a mechanical system and would 
thus allow of much greater speed and con- 
sequent sensibility. Through the courtesy 
of the Secretary of the Navy and the active 


G 
= 


assistance of Professor Neweomb, the photo- 
tachometer of the latter was secured to 
carry out this experiment at the University 
of Nebraska instead. This instrument 

*In the March number of the Philosophical 
Magazine for this year, Professor Michelson de- 
scribes a similar arrangement which occurred to 


him independently during his experiments on 
the motion of the ether. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 394. 


seemed to be well suited for a preliminary 
experiment on account of the rectangular 
shape of the rotating mirror and the num- 
ber of reflecting faces available. Figures 1 
and 2 show the arrangement used and the 
path of the ray. The original apparatus 
was changed slightly, the two telescopes 7 
and 7” being shifted so that their axes 
passed through the middle of one set of 
faces when these stood at 45° to the same. 
The other additions were the lens LZ the 
grating G and the plane mirror M. The 
instrument was originally mounted so 
as to use the concave mirror belonging to 
the instrument itself, which had a radius of 
curvature of 3,000 meters. Owing to im- 
provements about the campus it became 
necessary to remove the piers and discon- 
tinue the experiment for several years. It 


Fig! 


Fig 2 


was again finally mounted in the basement 
of the Physical Laboratory on a much 
smaller scale and the flat mirror M used at 
a distance of about fifteen meters from the 


rotating mirror R. The lens Z was a tele- 


scope lens of one meter focus and ten centi- 
meters aperture. The concave mirror G 
had a radius of curvature of one meter and 


JULY 18, 1902.] 


an aperture of ten centimeters. A narrow 
strip across this mirror was divided into 
equal bright and dark spaces of ten to the 
millimeter. This was accomplished by 
means of a diamond making five deep 
strokes in each alternate space. In this way 
normally incident light would be returned 
over the same path from the bright spaces, 
but be scattered from the cuttings in the 
adjacent spaces, so that very little of it 
would be returned in the direction of inci- 
dence. A lens converged the sun’s rays 
on the slit S from which a beam passed to 
the mirror P through the collimator lens 7 
to the upper part of the adjoining face of 
the rotating mirror R from which it was 
reflected at 45° through one quarter of the 
lens Z and brought to a focus on the grat- 
ing mirror G. From this it was reflected 
through the lower opposite quarter of the 
lens to the lower part of the next face of R 
and thence reflected at 45° to the plane 
mirror M as parallel light. This reflected 
it to the upper part of the same face of & 
thence through Z to G and back to the lower 
half of the face of R upon which it was 
first incident and thence through the ob- 
serving telescope 7’ below the collimator, 
to the eye. It is clear from the diagram 
and from the principle that an even num- 
ber of reflections of a ray system from a 
moving reflecting system does not alter their 
direction that the incident and the reflected 
rays from the rotating mirror R will re- 
main parallel to each other and hence will 
always meet the mirror M at the same point 
during the rotation of R. For the moment 
let us assume the image of the slit S just 
covers one of the bright spaces. By proper 
adjustment of M the return image can be 
made to coincide with it. Usually it was 
displaced slightly below it so as to observe 
the relative positions of the two when the 
mirror R was rotated so as to carry the 
images across the grating. If now, during 
the time of transit from @ and back, the 


SCIENCE. 


89 


mirror has rotated through an odd number 
of spaces no appreciable light will be re- 
flected from G through 7’ to the eye. If 
the rotation corresponded to an even num- 
ber of spaces, the eye would see an enfeebled 
image of the slit S. If the mirror were 
varying in speed the eye would see this 
image pass successively through maxima 
and minima, depending on the rate of 
change of the rotating mirror R. Suppose 
now the image of S covers any number of 
spaces on G the eye will see an image of S, 
but crossed by bright and dark spaces cor- 
responding to those on G. With the corre- 
sponding variations in the speed of the 
rotating mirror the eye will see correspond- 
ing fluctuations in this image. In this way 
the eye may be able to determine the 
minima by comparison with the darker 
spaces which remain of constant intensity. 

The aperture of the ‘sending’ telescope 
was 4.5 em. but the effective aperture with 
the rotating mirror at 45° was only 2.5 
em. The actual spacing was .02 em. be- 
tween the bright lines, which is well within 
the limits of good definition. The mirror 
could be driven up to 250 revolutions or 
more per second without serious vibration. 
Thus the ray could be interrupted about 
10,000,000 times in a second. This would 
give a group of waves about fifteen meters 
long. If the limits of resolving power and 
speed were used 40,000,000 interruptions 
could be obtained and the length of the 
groups could be reduced to less than four 
meters. Thus there would be about 6,000,- 
000 waves in each group. As the eye can 
observe a change in intensity of less than one 
per cent., the method would thus be capable 
of detecting the existence of avelocityif the 
total distance of the mirror M were less 
than 2 em. from the grating. This shows 
the sensibility which the combination of 
the methods of Fizeau and Foucault may 
give under very favorable conditions. 

If the velocity were different for differ- 


90 SCIENCE. 


ent colors this method would be capable of 
showing even a very slight difference. For 
example the difference in velocity between 
the extreme red and the violet rays in 
earbon disulphide is about one sixteenth. 
For air this difference is about one part 
in one hundred thousand. Now an addi- 
tion of five per cent. of one of these colors 
and a subtraction of the same amount of 
the other from white light will produce a 
perceptible change in the time. Thus if 
we consider a five per cent. change instead 
of one per cent. as mentioned previously, 
and multiply this by sixteen we obtain 
1.6 meters as the length of a column of ear- 
bon disulphide between the grating and the 
fixed mirror, in which we could just detect 
the dispersion of light. Similarly in the 
case of air we have to multiply by five and 
by 100,000 and obtain about ten kilometers 
to produce the necessary dispersion in air. 
It is very doubtful whether this sensibility 
ean be actually realized. In the prelimin- 
ary experiments with his instrument sun- 
light was used. The scattered hght from 
different parts of the system prevented the 
contrast between the light and dark spaces 
in the return image which would be nec- 
essary for such a high sensibility. By ad- 
justing the mirror M so that the images 
of the bright spaces of the grating should 
fall on the dark spaces on their return, 
the appearance for an eclipse could be 
studied. In reference to the intensity of 
the return image, if we allow fifty per cent. 
less from successive reflections and remem- 
ber that the angle of the grating was 
only one sixtieth of the circumference, 
we find only about one per cent. of the 
light available in the return image. Thus 
with the mechanical system of Fizeau’s 
toothed wheel we should have one hundred 
times the light available for the same aper- 
ture. The preliminary experiments were 
made under unfavorable conditions, but 


[N.S. Vout. XVI. No. 394. 


indicated a greater sensihility than that 
heretofore obtained. With sunlight suffi- 
cient intensity would be available for the 
experiments just referred to. With the 
apparatus as mounted too much instability 
was experienced to obtain satisfactory defi- 
nition with the rotating mirror and the 
motor and blower which drove it in mo- 
tion. The condition of the faces of the 
rotating mirror also prevented distinct 
definition. In order to use all four faces 
they required refiguring and the angles 
between them recut. The lack of funds 
to make these changes and the recall of the 
instrument have caused the experiments 
to be interrupted several tunes and finally 
abandoned until the means for building 
apparatus more suitable for the purpose 
and for carrying out the experiment can 
be obtained. This method will give the 
group-velocity U directly according to the 
criticism already referred to on the method 
of the rotating-mirror. The possibility of 
obtaining important data on group-velocity 
in different media by so sensitive a method, 
and also the determination of the velocity 
of light in a vacuum itself warrants fur- 
ther efforts beimg made along this line. 
These experiments were initiated in 1889 
and discontinued a half dozen years later 
in the way mentioned. . 
It is doubtful whether there are other 
methods for determining the group-veloc- 
ity of greater sensibility. One method of 
considerable promise is by means of polar- 
ized light. Two rays of light pass through 
a Nichol and a half-wave plate. Each is re- 
flected from each of two mirrors respect- 
ively. By properly focusing we should 
have a half-shade combination which on 
rotating the half-wave plate and the Nichol 
about the common axis would give a dif- 
ference in the intensity of each return ray. 
Half-shade systems have a sensibility as 
high as one thousandth of a degree in the 


JuLY 18, 1902.] 


limit. Such a Nichol could probably be 
rotated at a speed exceeding two thousand 
per second. Polishing machines are now 
run above one hundred thousand a minute. 
Fouecault’s mirror rotated eight hundred 
times a second. At such a speed and sensi- 
bility a velocity in light could be detected 
over a distance of about twenty centi- 
meters. 

Another system depending upon electric 
oscillations would require much the same 
optical system. A prism of glass between 
two electrodes as arranged for the Kerr 
‘effect’ in a dielectric is placed beyond a 
half-wave plate and a Nichol prism which 
is fixed. If now the glass is subjected to 
electric strain by rapid oscillations, the 
fields from each mirror are lighted up dif- 


Fig 3 


SCIENCE. 91 


of the velocity of that property to the wave- 
velocity would have to be determined. 

No method for determining the wave- 
velocity of light seems yet to have been 
proposed. The following arrangement oc- 
curred to the writer in 1890 while experi- 
menting with the phototachometer as al- 
ready described. Suppose that in two in- 
terfering systems of rays we could alter the 
length of the path of one or both of the rays 
during their transit from. their common 
source to their final point of meeting, there 
would be a displacement of the bands de- 
pending on the relative retardation intro- 
duced into the paths during this interval. 
Figure 3 illustrates the first conception of 
the system. A beam of parallel light, from 
a lens, say, strikes the two adjacent faces 


M 


ferently and the limiting distance at which 
this difference is observable will be the 
same as stated previously. Probably oscil- 
lations several hundred millions a second 
would be possible with such a condenser 
system. Forty millions a second was the 
limit with a rotating mirror and grating 
as described above. This could probably 
be increased to one hundred millions a sec- 
ond with a suitable rotating mirror. In- 
stead of using the Kerr ‘effect’ a piece of 
Faraday glass within a single turn of foil 
could be used for very high frequericies 
and the Faraday ‘effect’ employed instead. 
Probably the same order of sensibility 
could be obtained as with the former. It 
is hoped to make preliminary experiments 
on these promising methods which would 
probably give shorter groups or types of 
waves than any of the others. Here we 
should have not an intermittence but a 
property impressed at intervals upon a 
continuous train of waves, and the relation 


—— 


of a rectangular mirror, each face of which 
reflects the rays in opposite directions to 
the mirrors M and M’, each of which reflects 
the corresponding rays to the other and 
thence both return to the mirror, thus trav- 
ersing each other’s paths. If now the mir- 
ror m is displaced to the position of m’ in 
this interval the path of one ray will exceed 
that of the other by twice the distance 
through which the mirror has moved. 
Knowing this distance, by means of the 
wave-length and the time it takes to dis- 
place the mirror a given distance, we have 
at once the time of displacement of the 
mirror from the position m to m’ and thus 
the time of transit of any one ray around 
this path, and hence the wave-velocity. 
Considerable difficulty was experienced in 
devising a method of displacement of suffi- 
ciently high speed. If the mirror m is 
mounted on a rotating dise the rays would 
be reflected beyond the mirrors M and M’ 
and the interference would be changed by 


92 


the angular motion of the mirror. The 
mechanical oscillator of Mr. Tesla sug- 
gested itself as capable of giving pos- 
sibly sufficient speed. The variation in 
the speed which would cause the bands 
to be superimposed and thus obliterated 
rendered this method impossible. The same 
difficulty would be experienced with any 
reciprocating means. The compensation 
for angular movement of a dise did not 
seem clear and its use was abandoned for 
atime. Instead of this the system indicated 
in Figures 4 and 5 was tried. Z and L’ are 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


experiment was about thirty meters. With 
sunlhght and a much greater distance, dis- 
tinet bands could easily be obtained with 
only one fiftieth the intensity, which repre- 
sents the fraction of the incident light avail- 
able during one revolution. Here again we 
are met with the difficulty of obtaining an 
insufficient component velocity in the direc- 
tion of the ray, which is the velocity of the 
dise into the cosine of the angle of the prism 
into the index of refraction less one. 
Through a fortunate idea the rotating 
dise was made possible and the final and 


i Fe 4, 
L L’ 
\ M 
3 ———— | 
™ es 


; | 
. Z if Z - 
Eg / 


two bisected lenses, P and P’ two prisms, 
one of which, P’, is mounted on a rotating 
dise so that the total thickness would be 
increased or diminished by its rotation. 
The split lens Z forms two images of the 
beam from the slit S and one half of its 
aperture. In one focus the double prism is 
placed. The split lens Z’ forms coincident 
images on the distant mirror M, which re- 
flects each ray back over the path through 
the opposite halves of the lenses to the 
mirror m, which reflects the light to the eye. 
If now the prism P’ be moved in the in- 
terval of transit of this optical circuit the 
ray returning through it will be retarded 
over the other. Knowing the constants of 
the prism and the speed of the dise we can 
ealeulate, in this way, the wave-velocity. 
The interference bands in this system re- 
mained distinct during the movement of the 
prism over an are of five to ten degrees. 
The length of this system in the preliminary 


5a es 


most serious difficulty was overcome. Fig- 
ure 6 gives the arrangement with somewhat 
distorted details to show the optical rela- 
tions. The principle that an even number 
of reflections in a rotating system does 
not change the relation of the incident to 
the transmitted ray was made use of. A 
further difficulty had to be met in main- 
taining the ray upon the reflecting ele- 
ments, as the rotation of the reflected ray 
is twice that of the reflector. If the radius 
of rotation is reduced one half the linear 
movement of any point is reduced one half. 
These considerations applied to two mirrors 
on the rotating dise met the required con- 
ditions. Thus the mirror m is placed just 
half the distance of the mirror m’ from the 
center. A ray incident upon m is reflected 
to m’ and thence reflected in some definite 
direction. If the dise now rotate, the ray 
will rotate through twice the angle, but still 
strike the mirror m’ in the same point if 


JuLyY 18, 1902.] 


these conditions are fulfilled and will be 
reflected off parallel to its former direction. 
This relation will be maintained as long as 
the above conditions hold, which will be, 


SCIENCE. 


93 


distant mirror M may be concave and of 
the proper focus for the system; or two 
lenses J and I’ may be used so as to obtain 
a greater aperture to the beam. These two 


approximately, through a considerable frac- 
tion of the cireumference. This will be 
best satisfied when the mirror m is normal 
to the radius, the incident ray being thus 
nearly normal. The arrangement as finally 
adopted is shown in the figure. Light from 
the slit S is converged by a lens Z to a half 
silvered plate 7, one beam being reflected 
and the other passing through and being 
reflected by the mirror I’. Both converg- 
ing beams strike the mirror m at the same 
point and are then reflected, the first beam 
to the adjacent face of the rectangular 
mirror m’ and the second to the opposite 
face, where they form images of the slit 9. 
The first beam is reflected to M’ then to M 
and finally to a focus on m’, while the sec- 
ond ray passes over the path of the first to 
a focus on m’. Thence the two rays trace 
each other’s paths and are refiected and 
transmitted respectively by the plate J . 
through the spectral.system P to the eye, 
where interference bands are formed. 
Thus, aside from other losses by reflection, 
one fourth of the light reaches the eye. The 


rays will in general travel over slightly dif- 
ferent paths and hence give bands which 
may be conveniently analyzed by means of 
channeled spectra. If now the dise rotates 
the path of: one of the rays will become 
ereater than the other and the interference 
bands will shift. If a spectrum is used the 
bands will move across the field, increasing 
or decreasing in number. If the adjust- 
ment is initially made so that the paths are 
the same, no bands will appear until the 
dise is set in motion. By counting the num- 
ber passing any point we can obtain the 
order of the interference for that wave- 
length, and from the dimensions and speed 
of the dise determine the wave-velocity for 
that color. From the position of the other 
bands at this instant we can calculate the 
velocity of that color. Thus we have the 
means at hand for obtaining the wave- 
velocity for all colors, from which the group- 
velocity for the same can at once be ob- 
tained. The radius to the dise m’ is 15 em. 
and a speed of 500 per second is assured. 
The coneave mirror M has an aperture of 


94 SCIENCE. 


15 em. and a radius of curvature of 15 M. 
This is the arrangement now being used. 
With this velocity, assuming a band can be 
read to one thirtieth part, a distance of 
only .3 em. would show a velocity. The 
rays during transit may be made to pass 
within a tube which can be evacuated, con- 
necting Mand M’. Another arrangement 
may be used when M is placed at a much 
greater distance and is shown in the 
annexed diagram. J and I’ are two lenses 
whose foci are M and their conjugate foci 
on each face of IM’ respectively. 

It seems certain now that the wave- 
velocity in different media, as well as in 
vacuo, may be determined to a high degree 
of accuracy and that too for any color. 

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. D. B. Brace. 

PREHISTORIC PORTO RICO.* 

Ir has been customary for the Vice- 
President of this Section of the Associa- 
tion to present in his retiring address cer- 
tain general conclusions to which he has 
been led by his own special studies or those 
of his contemporaries. But it has not been 
regarded as out of place for him to outline 
new and promising fields of research or to 
indieate lines for future development of 
cur science. 

Late historical events have brought into 
our horizon new fields for conquest and 
opened new for anthropological 
study. In the last years the political 
boundaries of the United States have been 
so enlarged that we have come to be re- 
garded a ‘world power,’ and with this 
growth new colonies beyond the seas now 
form parts of our domain. With this new 
epoch certain broad scientific questions 
have come to present a special claim on 
our students, and we have been brought 


* Address by the Vice-President and Chairman 
of Section H, for 1901, at the Pittsburgh meeting 
of the American Association for the Advancement 
of Science. 


vistas 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 394. 


closer than ever before to problems con- 
cerning other races of man besides the 
North American Indian. Great fields of 
work attract our ethnologists to the far 
East and the islands of the Pacific, and 
these new problems will occupy our atten- 
tion with ever-increasing interest in years 
to come as anthropology advances to its 
destined place among sister sciences. It is 
natural and eminently fitting that atten- 
tion at this time should be directed to some 
of the new anthropological problems before 
us, and I have chosen as a subject of my 
address, ‘Prehistoric Porto Rico,’ and the 
Antillean race which reached its highest 
development in our new possession in the 
West Indies. 

Among all the acquisitions which came 
to the United States by the Treaty of Paris, 
Porto Rico is preeminent from an anthro- 
pological point of view. Fourth in size of 
the Antilles, it is the most centrally placed 
of a chain of islands reaching from Florida - 
to the coast of South America. Before the 
coming of Columbus there had developed 
in these islands a culture sufficiently self 
centered to be characteristic, and our new 
possession was the focus of that culture. 
Here was found a race living in an insular 
environment exceptional on the Western 
Hemisphere. If as the great anthrogeog- 
raphers insist anthropological problems 
are simply geographical in their final anal- 
ysis, where can we find a better opportu- 
nity to trace the intimate relationship of 
man’s culture and his surroundings? Where 
was there on the American continent at the 
time of its discovery a people less affected 
by contact with other cultures or more 
truly the reflection of climatic conditions? 

It may be truly said that important 
questions regarding migrations of the 
early inhabitants of the American conti- 
nent are intimately related to the cultural 
character of the prehistoric race which 


JULY 18, 1902.] 


peopled the West Indies. Was this race 
derived from the great northern or south- 
ern land masses or was it an offspring from 
the early inhabitants of Yucatan, the great 
peninsula of Mexico which projects to- 
wards the end of Cuba? Many theories of 
the peopling of these islands have been pro- 
pounded, but none is regarded with full 
confidence. Although this race was the 
first seen by Huropeans, by whom it has 
been known for the longest time, compar- 
atively little accurate study has been given 
to it by the anthropologist. | Documen- 
tary evidences are not meager, but eth- 
nological data are limited, for the race 
disappeared within a few generations after 
its discovery and lost much of its distinctive 
characteristics by mixture with other 
peoples. Archeology furnishes more ma- 
terial bearing on the problem than eth- 
nology, but this material has not been cor- 
related, being widely scattered in different 
museums in Europe and America, and in 
collections which remain in private hands. 
A great amount of archeological data yet 
remains hidden in the soil awaiting the 
spade of the explorer. 

Although English scientific literature 
on the archeology of Porto Rico is remark- 
ably limited, the study has attracted sev- 
eral anthropologists whose works are of 
highest importance. It has been zealously 
cultivated by several native Porto Ricans 
whose publications, in Spanish, are little 
known to students in the United States, 
since some of the most important of these 
contributions have appeared in local news- 
papers of the island having no foreign 
circulation. The main sources for the more 
important historical works of modern his- 
torians are standard writers like Oviedo, 
Herrera, Munoz, Las Casas, and Inigo with 
notes by J. J. Acosta, and rich unpublish- 
ed documentary material by Tapia y Ri- 
vera. The more prominent modern Porto 


SCIENCE. 95 


Rican historians are Salvador Brau and 
Coll y Toste, who deal more especially with 
historical epochs, while the writings of 
Padre Nazario, Neuman, Gandia and Tor- 
res, many of which are controversial, are 
important aids in the same lines of re- 
search. i 

No institutions have exerted a more 
stimulating influence on the local study of 
Porto Rican history than that of the 
‘Socieded Economica de Amigos del Pais,’ 
and the Ateneo Puertorriqueno of San 
Juan. The former, founded by enthu- 
siastie students in Europe, no longer exists, 
but the latter has a fine library on the 
plaza Alfonso XII. where there are a num- 
ber of portraits of famous Porto Ricans. 

A most valuable scientific publication, 
on the Indians of Porto Rico, and the only 
modern Spanish work which follows 
archeological methods is by Dr. A. Stahl, 
a native of the island, educated in Ger- 
many, who has made many important con- 
tributions to the study of the flora and 
fauna of the island. This work, ‘Los 
Indios Borinquenos’ appeared in 1889 and 
while criticised in unessentials has held its 
place as a work of highest merit. 

Professor Mason’s catalogue of the Lat- 
imer and Guersde collections are the most 
important archeological works which have 
yet been published on the antiquities of the 
Antilles. There are many scattered refer- 
ences in the writings of Stevens, Dr. Cron- 
au and other authors which augment this 
information and practically complete the all 
too meager literature of a great subject. 

It would be impossible for me in this 
brief address to do more than outline in 
a general way the prehistoric culture 
of Porto Rico. I have in preparation a 
more extended account in which I have 
drawn largely from sources above men- 
tioned, from an examination of many 
archeological specimens in private collec- 


96 SCIENCE. 


tions unknown to science, and a personal 
study of the island on a short reconnois- 
sance in April and May of the present 
year. 

Ethnology affords us but scanty data for 
the study of the subject, as the aborigines 
have been so changed by intermarriage 
with other races that little can be identified 
as belonging to the precolumbian life of 
the island. Still in the more isolated re- 
gions the Indian features can be recognized 
and certain customs peculiar to the island 
can be traced to Indian parentage. 

There are many Boriquen words in the 
patois of the mountainous region, and the 
rugged valleys of Loquillo, the Sierras on 
the eastern end of the island, called Yunque 
and Cacique mountains; still have a wealth 
of folklore, part Spanish, part Indian, with 
a mixture of African, which will reveal 
to the folklorist many instructive phases 
of this subject. - Mr. Spinosa has already 
published some of these tales in a short 
popular account, but much in this line yet 
remains to be done in this isolated, per- 
haps the most inaccessible region of the 
island. Many of the mountains in this 
locality are regarded as enchanted and 
about them cluster stories of St. John, 
the patron of the island, mixed with legends 
of old Indian caciques and their families. 

In his note on the name of the moun- 
tain Yunque, Acosta, quoting from a docu- 
mentary account of Porto Rico by Pres- 
biter Ponce de Leon and Bachillar Antonio 
de Santa Clara, written in 1582 by order 
of the King, derives the word Loquillo 
from the name of a eacique who lived in 
this high Sierra but was never conquered. 
According to Acosta this tradition of the 
last surviving cacique of the island has 
furnished a subject to Sr. Tapia y Rivera 
for his novel entitled ‘El Ultimo Bor- 
encano.’ 

All the available evidence supports the 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


conclusion that we must look in the inac- 
cessible region of Porto Rico called Loquillo 
for the purest Indian blood among the 
present mountaineers of the island. In 
the isolated valleys of this region we 
still find the old Carib canoe surviving 
in the hollowed-out log of wood by which 
produce is drawn down the slippery moun- 
tain sides. Here are also the old forms of 
hammocks different from those now gener- 
ally used. Maize is a staple article of food 
and the primitive mills with which it is 
ground date back to a remote past. 

The prehistoric inhabitants of the An- 
tilles from the Bahamas to the coast of 
South America belonged to one and the 
same composite stock differing in minor 
characteristics which are not racial.. The 
people of the Bahamas, Cuba, Hayti and 
Porto Rico are a mild agricultural race 
which had lost in vigor what they had 
gained by their sedentary life. The Caribs’ 
confined to the Lesser Antilles were more 
warlike and their ferocity was known every- 
where in the West Indes. Columbus heard 
of them on his first voyage when he landed - 
on the Bahamas, and on his second voyage 
his first landfall was on one of the islands 
where they lived. Although he saw little 
of the Caribs on this voyage, he learned of 
Boriquen or modern Porto Rico from some 
of the captive women, and taking these 
slaves on board his ship, he coasted along 
its southern shore, at last landing on the 
western end, near Aguadilla, filling his 
water casks at the famous spring at that 
place. 

Although a well-known local historian 
has questioned this as the landing 
place of Columbus in Boriquen, the evi- 
dence supports tradition and a beautiful 
monument very properly marks the place 
where the great Admiral landed in 1493. 
But while the majority of writers as- 
eribes the discovery of Boriquen to Co- 


JuLy 18, 1902.] 


Iumbus, on his second voyage, Sr. Luis 
Llorens Torres gives the honor to another 
and, in a_ well-written pamphlet on 
‘America,’ has shown in a convincing way 
that when Martin Alonzo Pinzon separated 
from the great Admiral, on his first voy- 
age, he visited Porto Rico, and probably 
landed on its shores. 

Dr. D. Isaac Gonzales Mestizes, as quoted 
by Sr. Torres, states very clearly the argu- 
ments for the unity of the prehistoric 
people of the West Indies, and shows that 
the insular Caribs and Boriquefios were 
practically of the same stock, although they 
differed somewhat in their mode of life, 
due to climatic influences, their religion, 
customs and languages. 

The former although confined to the 
Smaller Antilles made frequent predatory 
expeditions upon the more peaceable in- 
habitants of Cuba, Hayti and Porto Rico, 
especially the latter, carrying away the 
women as slaves. Thus we have in the in- 
sular Carib communities men and women 
speaking different dialects, showing idio- 
matic differences in the Carib and Boriquen 
speech and implying amalgamation of the 
two stocks. The incursions of the Caribs 
on the eastern coast of Porto Rico con- 
tinued after the Spanish had made settle- 
ments there and they raided and destroyed 
the town Naguabo on the river of the same 
name. 

Unfortunately we have no authentic 
cranium of a typical prehistoric Porto 
Rican to compare with that of the Caribs, 
although it is probable that skulls of this 
race could be found in a systematic sci- 
entific exploration of the island, especially 
in caves in the neighborhood of Utuardo 
Ciales and the more inaccessible parts of 
the island. The name of a cave, Cuea del 
Muertos, not far from Utuado indicates 
that it was used for burial or deposition of 
the dead. These caves contain many re- 


SCIENCE. 97 


ligious symbols, as rock etchings of gods 
and grotesque forms of idols cut out of 
stalactites, showing that they were used 
by the Indians as places of worship, refuge, 
or possibly for burial of the dead. 

When Columbus landed on the island of 
Guanahani the first native words he heard 
belonged to a language which was one of 
the most widely distributed of those of the 
new world, a tongue which, with dialectic 
variations, was the speech from central 
South America to the coast of Florida. 
These dialectic differences in the speech 
of the Antilles aborigines were small, the 
Caribs of the Lesser West Indies and the 
Lueayans of the Bahamas being linguis- 
tically of the same stock, as has been re- 
peatedly pointed out by several writers, 
ancient and modern. This same stock had 
left traces of its language and peculiar 
eulture on the Spanish main along the 
coast of Mexico, which facts are significant 
but have led to erroneous views of the re- 
lationship of the aborigines of Central 
America, Cuba, Hayti and Porto Rico. 

The accounts of the houses of the pre- 
historic Porto Ricans by Oviedo, Inigo 
and others are amply sufficient to lead us 
to conclude that they did not greatly dif- 
fer from those of the country people to- 
day. Stone or adobe buildings were not 
constructed, but a fragile cabin the 
frame of which was tied together with 
maguey fiber and covered with bark of the 
royal palm or yucca and thatched with 
straw furnished a home for the prehistoric 
Portoriquenos. These houses, like their 
modern representatives, were raised on 
posts to avoid dampness and insects, sug- 
gesting pile-dwellings—a feature of house- 
construction with which the Caribs were 
familiar. 

In many of the smaller towns of Porto 
Rico we still find a street lied with these 
houses built in the same primitive way, 


98 SCIENCE. 


inhabited by poorer people, negroes or 
peons. Some of these modern buildings 
are of the rudest construction and prac- 
tically the same as those which Oviedo 
described, in Hayti, four centuries ago. 

It appears from early records that, at 
the time of Columbus’s first visit, the In- 
dians lived in cabins seattered over the 
island, but that here and there these prim- 
itive dwellings were collected in pueblos. 
The pueblo of the Cacique Guaybana was 
described by Munoz in some detail. It was 
situated back from the shore and con- 
sisted of a circle of these cabins surround- 
ing the central houses of the cacique. 
Two parallel rows of palisades forming an 
arbor united this pueblo with a lookout 
on the beach, built somewhat higher as a 
place of observation. It is probable that 
the plaza enclosed by the ring of houses 
was the dance place, and that the central 
houses of the cacique contained the clan 
idol and other objects used in the cult of 
the inhabitants. 

Similar villages are reported as existing 
in Cuba and Hayti, and it was probably 
into one of these that the embassy of 
Columbus to the Great Khan was con- 
ducted, when they penetrated into the in- 
terior of the former island. On their 
return to the squadron this embassy re- 
ported to the Admiral that they were es- 
corted to a special house, probably that 
of the cacique, seated on a wooden chair 
(evidently a duho such as we now find in 
several collections) made in imitation of 
an animal and surrounded by natives who 
also had their appropriate seats. The ac- 
counts clearly indicate that the Spaniards 
were regarded as supernatural beings, 
carried to the god house of the pueblo, and 
seated on the chair of the gods. 

The furniture of the house of the ancient 
Porto Rican was limited but ample. The 
bed was a hammock made of the leaves of 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 394. 


the palm, maguey or fiber of native cotton. 
In the mountainous regions of El Yunque 
primitive hammocks, like those of the 
ancients, are still made and the palm fiber 
is wholly employed in their construction. 
Calabashes or cocoanuts served for house- 
hold implements as drinking cups, and in 
the poorer parts of the island are still used 
for the same purpose. We have every 
reason to suppose that these objects were 
ornamented with incised geometrical fig- 
ures, but whether the patterns now used in 
the adornment of these objects have been 
inherited from a Carib ancestry is yet to be 
satisfactorily made out. 

Clay vessels of rude construction were 
used by these Porto Rican Caribs who lived 
along the shore. Multitudes of frag- 
ments of these objects are found to-day in 
several localities, one of the best of which 
is the country about Cabo Rejo. These 
clay vessels are, as a rule, of rude con- 
struction, unglazed, their rims commonly 
adorned with raised heads representing 
animals of grotesque forms. The likeness 
of many of these heads to monkeys has led 
several writers to ascribe this pottery to 
races living on islands or the mainland 
inhabited by simian genera. There are 
no monkeys in Porto Rico where these 
heads are found and, as the clay objects are 
most abundant along the shore, they are 
generally ascribed to the Caribs. I have 
examined several unbroken clay vessels 
from the island which are undoubtedly of 
Carib manufacture, all of which were orna- 
mented in relief or intaglio, and regard this 
supposed resemblance to monkeys’ heads 
as highly fanciful. 

According to the early writers. the 
men and girls had little clothing, but the 
married women and caciques wore a woven 
cloth of palm fiber ealled nagua, which 
apparently resembled the breech cloth with 
dependent ends. In the warm climate 


JuLy 18, 1902. ] 


clothing was not needed for warmth and a 
liberal covering of paint protected their 
bodies from the heat of the tropical sun 
and the bites of troublesome insects. 

The most characteristic of all objects 
made by the Caribs were the canoes, with 
which they navigated from island to island 
or traveled along the numerous rivers and 
lagoons. These craft often reached a 
great size and were in some instances made 
of logs of wood hollowed out with stone 
tools aided by fire. If there is one fea- 
ture which more than others distinguishes 
this Antillean culture it is the development 
of their maritime habits, of which these 
canoes are the objective expression, but 
this characteristic was highly developed be- 
fore the race landed on the islands. Canoe 
building had reached a considerable devel- 
opment in their primitive original homes, 
and made it possible for the tribes to mi- 
grate to the islands. / 

The number of stone implements in col- 
lections from Porto Rico is very large, in- 
eluding objects of all sizes and many 
shapes. The arms of warfare were mostly 
adzes and hatchets with wooden handles, 
war-clubs made of ironwood of the island, 
spears and possibly throwing-sticks. In 
the collections which were examined, no ar- 
row points were found. As a rule the im- 
plements from the Antilles are polished 
stone, but I have seen two celts which show 
marks of chipping. Most of these imple- 
ments were of stone, but Mr. Yunghannis, 
of Bayamon, has in his collection a celt 
from Porto Rico made from the lip of a 
conch shell like those used by the Caribs 
of the Lesser Antilles. 

The height of culture attained by the 
prehistoric inhabitants of Porto Rico, as 
shown by their pictography, has been vari- 
ously interpreted, but, so far as known, 
the writing of this people was of the rudest 
kind, consisting of pictures having the 
same general character as the pictography 


SCIENCE. 99 


of the North American Indians. Specimens 
of this work are found on the flat slabs of 
stone used in the enclosed dance plazas or 
on isolated bowlders. The soft, easily 
eroded rock of the island does not retain 
this paleography for any considerable 
length of time, especially when exposed to 
the weather. 

In the caves on the island there still re- 
main many excellent specimens of picture 
writing, some of the best of which are 
studied near Ciales and Aquas Buenas in 
the high mountains of the central region 
of the island. Some of the caves are of 
ereat beauty, among the most interesting 
of the many natural attractions of Porto 
Rico. They were resorted to by the In- 
dians for religious purposes and later for 
refuge, but there is no reason to suppose 
that they were ever extensively peopled, for 
the ancient Porto Ricans lived in the open 
and were not trogloditic. 

An article published by Mr. Kriig con- 
tains all that has yet appeared in print on 
Boriquen pictography, which will be more 
fully illustrated in my report on a recon- 
noissance of the island during the last 
spring. The figures which were studied 
appear to be clan totem and other symbols. 

From the accounts which have been pre- 
served there is every probability that the 
social organization of the inhabitants of 
prehistoric Porto Rico was practically the 
same as that of the Indians of other parts 
of America. The unit of organization was 
the clan, the chief of which was called a 
cacique. 

It would appear that certain of these 
eaciques had control over others, governing 
large sections of the island, and that a 
union of several smaller caciques for mu- 
tual defense occurred at rare intervals. As 
a rule there was no such union, caciques of 
neighboring valleys were not friendly, 
often hostile, making raids on each other. 


100 


In certain sections of the island a Carib 
chief appears to have raised himself to the 
position of governor of this region. In 
every settlement the cacique and his im- 
mediate relations occupied a house larger 
than the others and centrally placed, con- 
taining the penates of the clan. The power 
of the head clan man was supreme, his 
wives, of which there were many, were 
practically slaves and descent was ap- 
parently in the male line. The cacique 
had several insignia of his rank, among 
which may. be mentioned bodily decora- 
tion, a gold plate, called a guarum, worn 
on his breast, and a stone amulet (beauti- 
ful specimens of which are now preserved 
in several collections) tied to his forehead. 

The names of many of these caciques 
are still preserved on the island, and it 
would appear ‘that localities, mountains 
and rivers, were so called after powerful 
rulers. Thus we have Arecibo, the modern 
name of a beautiful city on the north coast, 
in the district of the chief, Areziba, 
Mayagoex gave his name to Mayaguez, and 
many other examples which might be men- 
tioned. It is probable, as shown by Dr. 
Stahl, that the names of minor caciques, 
possibly clan chiefs, are perpetuated in 
names of the modern towns Utuado, Yubu- 
ecoa, Gurabo, Cayey, Camuy and many 
others. Aguenaba is commonly stated to 
have been the sovereign ruler of all the 
island, but his power was certainly not 
always recognized, and it would be excep- 
tional in Carib society to find one man an 
absolute ruler of the island of the size of 
Porto Rico. 

Amone supposed insignia of caciques 
should be mentioned characteristic stone 
ring form, which from their form have 
been ealled ‘collars.? These are often 
made of the hardest stone, beautifully 
polished and decorated, showing evidence 
of having been ornamented with inlaid 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 394 


gold or precious stones. The interpre- 
tation of these objects is one of the 
archeological enigmas, for the early his- 
torians are silent regarding their use or 
what they represent. The consensus of 
modern opinion is that they were bando- 
hers worn by the caciques as insignia of 
rank, and the form of many favors this con- 
clusion. Others are too small and many too 
heavy to be carried either about the neck 
or on the shoulders as a kind of bandolier, 
which facts throw some doubt on the theory 
that these objects were ever worn on the 
person. The older writers are also silent 
regarding the meaning of the elaborate 
designs which are cut upon them. A study 
of these designs on many specimens shows 
that, in some instances, they correspond 
to the head and parts of the body of cer- 
tain stone idols, and there is every prob- 
ability that these designs represent forms 
of clan gods. Acosta, in a valuable note 
to the last edition of Fray Ifigo’s history 
of Porto Rico, refers to his examination of 
many specimens of these collars and sug- 
gests that these rings represent the bodies 
of serpents upon which stone heads were 
fitted, the whole representing a coiled ser- 
pent. 

This is not the place to present all the 
evidence I have gathered to support this 
suggestion, but it may be said that in one 
of the so-called collars which was examined 
on my recent visit to the island the resem- 
blance to a coiled serpent was so close that 
its identity was perfect, even the head 
being well represented. 

It may be urged, since snakes are so 
rare and small in Porto Rico, that the 
natives would not elevate a cultus of 
them to the height these stones imply. But 
it may be said that stone collars of this 
lind are not confined to this island, oceur- 
ring also where serpents are large and 
deadly. Moreover, the old accounts say 


JuLy 18, 1902.] 


the Antilleans had images of snakes and 
these are the only objects of serpentine 
form known to collectors. Although it is 
probable that these problematical collars 
were sometimes worn as insignia, there are 
many others where this use would be im- 
possible. 

Among the best polished stone images 
found in collections from Porto Rico are 
small figures, called amulets, representing 
frogs, turtles, lizards, birds and other ani- 
mals. These nicely worked specimens are 
commonly coneave or slightly curved on 
one side, being tied in position by means of 
a cord passing through a hole drilled from 
edge to edge. Some of the writers of the 
sixteenth century mention the fact that the 
Antilleans wore stone images on their fore- 
heads, to indicate the clan. 

As in all primitive society the social 
organization of the Antilleans wags built 
on a religious foundation, the people being 
governed by priesthoods which controlled 
all the public life of the people. Every 
cacique was a priest in virtue of his stand- 
ing in the clan, which was the political 
unit and, as we shall later see, the religious 
and ceremonial unit as well. The whole 
social and religious organization was knit 
together by a form of totemism or tutelary 
clan ancients worship which I shall eall 
zemeism. 

These priests were called Boii or sorcer- 


ers, and their idols apparently often had. 


the same name as the priesthood. In their 
ceremonies these priests represented ances- 
tors symbolieally, and naturally took the 
names of that which they represented. 
The functions of these priests were much 
the same as those of the priesthood in all 
primitive society. They performed rites 
and ceremonies connected with the worship 
of ancestral gods, located diseases and 
bodily ills by magical methods and prac- 
tised an elaborate system of divination, 


SCIENCE. 


101 


which is described with more or less detail 
in the several early accounts. Disguised 
as a god or hidden behind or near a statue 
of the same, these priests gave oracular re- 
sponses to those consulting them, making 
use of elaborate mechanism to deceive those 
who consulted the idols as oracles. 

One of the most remarkable of these 
prophecies mentioned by Gomara in the 
middle of the sixteenth century has be- 
come historic. The father of the cacique, 
Guarionix, who ruled one of the five great 
Caciquedoms of Hayti, consulted the zemi 
regarding the fate of his gods and people, 
having prepared himself by fasting and 
purifications as the customs of his country 
required. He received this reply: Before 
many years there would come to the island 
bearded men with bodies clothed in mail, 
who with one stroke of the sword would 
sever men in twain, would bring fire over 
the land and drive from the earth the 
ancestral gods, destroying time-honored 
rites, and make blood flow like water. 
Gomera comments on this prophecy in his 
quaint way, adding that all these evils 
have followed in the wake of the advent of 
the Spaniards. 

In a famous letter in which he describes 
his first voyage to America Columbus 
stated that the natives of Hispafiiola or 
Hayti were without any religion, but on a 
later sojourn in their midst he was able to 
form more accurate ideas of their man- 
ners and customs and correct his earlier 
impressions. He found that, instead of 
being destitute of this universal human 
attribute, they recognized and worshipped 
many supernatural beings, which ‘they 
represented by idols to which they gave 
the name zemis. Columbus discovered that 
they had special houses called temples set 
aside for this purpose in which these rude 
idols were set up, and that this cult was 
practiced by fraternities of priests who 


102 


exercised the healing art and consulted 
idols for oracular purposes. The idea of 
a future life was found to be universal 
among the inhabitants of the island. In 
a work aseribed to the Admiral’s son, Fer- 
nando, the author sets forth more in detail 
the general character of this religion which 
his father found in the Antilles, and con- 
temporary writers have supplemented it 
with an account of the exoteric character of 
the cultus of the natives of Cuba, Hayti and 
Porto Rico. 

It is but natural that some of these 
writers, and those of the two centuries fol- 
lowing that in which America was dis- 
covered, should have formed erroneous 
impressions of the nature of this. cultus. 
Recognizing a well-developed idolatry, they 
sought and found in it, to their satisfac- 
tion, a god of good and one of evil, or two 
supreme deities, analogues of the Christian 
God and Devil. There could be no more 
erroneous and misleading explanation of 
the meaning of zemeism than this, and the 
error is apparent when we review subse- 
quent historical interpretations in the light 
of modern ethnology. The misinterpreta- 
tion threw discredit on all that had been 
written, most of which was strictly accurate 
so far as statement of facts was concerned, 
for while the Antilleans may not have had 
the ethical gods imputed to them by early 
writers, we need not deny them the pos- 
session of a religious sentiment, or agree 
with the conclusions of a prominent Porto 
Rican ethnologist that everything points to 
the belief that the Boriquen Indians were 
wholly destitute of religious ideas. There 
are to my mind many and conclusive arch- 
eologieal proofs which practically support 
what Columbus, Oviedo, Herrera and others 
state regarding the religion of the Antil- 
lean, although I am unable to accept the in- 
terpretation of its nature advanced by 
them. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


In order to determine the nature of the 
Porto Rican aboriginal cultus, let us ex- 
amine the writings of those who saw or 
knew of it first hand and have recorded 
their observations, and the available arch- 
eological material, a great amount of which 
has come down to our time in the shape of 
idols and religious paraphernalia. 

It will be evident to any one who reads 
the early accounts of these images that the 
same names are appled indiscriminately 
to the idol and the spirit or magic power 
it represents, indicating that one person- 
ates or symbolizes the other. 

Fray Roman Pane says that the Haytian 
eaciques had certain stones called zemis 
which they religiously preserve; that each 
of these has a peculiar virtue; thus one 
can make grain sprout, another aids women 
to be delivered without pain, and the third 
is efficacious in bringing rain. 

I shall later be able to give you some 
idea of the shape of some of these zemis 
from available archeological material, but 
it is sufficient at this point to note that 
magic powers were ascribed to certain 
stones. Stone zemis are the most numerous 
in all collections from the Antilles. But 
this was not the only material out of which 
these zemis were formed, for according to 
Oviedo and other writers various accounts 
have come down to us recording the forms 
of these images. They are said to represent 
various bizarre animals, frogs, turtles, 
snakes, lizards and birds. They had many 
specific names, and according to Fernando 
Columbus each clan chief had his own 
tutellary zemi with a characteristic name, 
and Gomarra in 1553 adds that they were 
named water, corn, safety and victory. 
Several Spanish writers state that both sun 
and moon were regarded as zemis by the 
people of Hayti, and according to Charle- 
voix these luminaries were supposed to have 
originated from a cave near Cape Francois 


JuLy 18, 1902.] 


in the northern part of the island, where 
there were two large idols representing 
the sun and moon, and a pictograph evi- 
dently of the sun, and niches for the re- 
ception of minor idols. 

It is an instructive and suggestive fact 
that the human race was believed to have 
emerged from the same cave, and on their 
advent upon the earth’s surface men had 
the forms of various animals. The strange 
parallelism between this belief of the An- 
tillean and that of the aborigines of the 
continent of America can be readily ex- 
plained by a common theory, for in both 
cases these animals were clan totems. 

The next aspect of the cult of the zemis, 
as derived from historical sources, is also 
significant in attempts at interpretation. 
Several of the older authors speak of the 
custom among the Antilleans of painting 
their bodies and faces, affirming that the 
cacique painted a figure of his zemi on 
his body, following in other words an al- 
most universal custom among primitive 
man of decorating himself with his totem. 
There is good evidence that the totem 
as used by North American tribes was 
primarily a man’s name and mark, and 
that etymologically the word refers to the 
pigment or earth used in painting a dis- 
tinetive mark on the body. A strict ab- 
horrence of incest and the necessity of 
bodily marks to distinguish members of 
the same clan naturally led to designs on 
the body which took the form of animals 
and plants or other natural objects. From 
their simple method of designating mem- 
ber clans by bodily markings so that a man 
could recognize his relatives has sprung a 
system of theoretical totemism which has 
been exaggerated by many well-known 
writers. Primarily the zemi which the 
Antillean painted on his body corresponds 
with the totem of the North American and 


SCIENCE. 


103 


zemeism is practically another name for 
totemism, a form of ancestor worship. 

Certain statements of some of the older 
writers can be quoted to show that the An- 
tilleans derived the clan from the zemi 
by descent. Herrera speaks of zemis named 
from ancestors, a statement Tejada in his 
valuable history of San Domingo repeats 
with addition. These supernatural beings 
personated by images of stone, clay and 
wood, or represented in paint on the bodies 
of the cacique, are said to be ancestral, or 
representations of the clan ancients point- 
ing to the belief that zemeism was a form 
of ancients or ancestor worship, the indi- 
vidual zemis being tutelary clan ancients. 

Other indirect evidence of ancestor wor- 
ship ean be found in the description given 
by early writers of certain objects found in 
the West Indies. 

The sight of human skulls and bones in 
Carib houses, taken in connection with the 
stories of cannibalism with which the 
minds of the early discoverers were filled, 
naturally led to the belief that the Caribs 
were anthropophagous and the name Carib 
subsequently passed into literature as a 
synonym of cannibal. 

It appears that the skulls of the defunct 
were preserved and kept in the houses, and 
it is probable that the sight of these heads 
led to the distorted accounts of cannibal- 
ism among the Caribs, which were found in 
the writings of the sixteenth century 
and copied with gruesome embellishments 
by later authors. The preservation of the 
skulls or other parts of the body of their 
ancestors is simply an aspect of ancestor 
worship which runs through the zemi eul- 
tus and is all-important in the religious 
ideas of all the Antillean aborigines.  Al- 
though these preserved skulls were once 
so numerous, so far as I know only one 
specimen of human skull and body pre- 
served as an object of worship has found 


104 


its way into the hands of the collector. 
This object taken from a cave near 
Maniel, west of the city of Santo Domingo, 
was figured in my article on zemis from 
Santo Domingo, and again in Dr. Cronan’s 
history of the discovery of America. The 
body, made of woven fabrics with arms 
akimbo, is in a sitting posture, while the 
head is covered with cotton fabric, with ar- 
tificial eyes inserted in the sockets of the 
skull. This specimen, one of the most in- 
structive of all objects illustrating the An- 
tillean cultus, was undoubtedly reverenced 
and regarded as an object of worship. 

It is instructive in view of the ancestor 
worship which this specimen indicates 
to refer to certain mortuary customs 
of the prehistoric Antilleans as recorded 
by Oviedo. After describing the custom 
of wife burial with the dead, he says that 
in the interment of certain caciques the 
natives envelop the body in cotton cloth, 
place it in a grave which they cover with 
boughs and sticks, depositing with the dead 
the objects he prized most highly.. The 
corpse was placed in the grave in a sitting 
posture on a seat called a duho, and for 
many days after burial areitos or cere- 
monial dances were held in its honor, in 
which the virtues of the deceased and his 
many good deeds in peace or war were ex- 
tolled. No reference is made to the sub- 
sequent fate of the skeleton, but it is more 
than likely that it was later removed from 
its grave, which may account for the fail- 
ure of archeologists to find the ancient 
Antillean sepultures. 

The archeological material available for 
the study of the Antillean cultus is more 
complete than the historical, for there are 
several large collections in which many of 
these objects made of stone and wood are 
found in different museums in Europe and 
America, and still remain on the islands of 
Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, where 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 394, 


there are several private collections of 
great value. The Latimer collection in the 
Smithsonian and the Stahl collection in the 
American Museum of New York are the 
largest in the United States, while the Neu- 
man and Nazario collections on the island 
of Porto Rico are of great size. 

A typical form of Porto Rican stone idol 
has a conical elevation, to which Mason has 
given the suggestive name ‘mammiform 
figures.’ The general character of these 
stones and the various bizarre animal heads 
which they represent answer all the docu- 
mentary descriptions of zemis, and the fact 
that a similar object figured by Charlevoix 
with the legend ‘zemi’ proves their identi- 
ty. This identification has been questioned 
in some quarters because in the majority of 
specimens the lower surface is concave, sug- 
gesting that they were used as paint mor- 
tars, but in a collection which I have ex- 
amined at Bayamon this surface is convex 
and ornamented with incised lines, making 
it impossible for them to be used as mortars 
or for grinding purposes. 

We find these zemis differing very greatly 
in size, in the kind of rock of which they 
were made, and the artistic finish. It is 
probable that they were once decorated 
with gold eyes and ear ornaments, which 
additions have, however, long ago disap- 
peared. They represent frogs, birds, rep- 
tiles and various other animals with bizarre 
shapes, or are carved to represent grotesque 
human faces with body and limbs, as a rule, 
very reduced in size. 

The most problematical structure of the 
mammiform zemi is a conical projection 
which most of them bear on their backs. It 
has suggested to Mason a symbol of the 
characteristic mountains of Porto Rico and 
other West Indian islands, the whole stone 
figure representing the genius of Boriquen, 
or a myth analogous to the story of Typhe- 
us. 


JULY 18, 1902. ] 


It is interesting to note that El Yunque, 
the highest peak of the island, when seen 
from the little coast town, Loquillo, has 
an appearance that suggests a conical zemi, 
with a central conical elevation and a later- 
al elevation on each side. 

Thus far no zemis made of wood have 
been described from Porto Rico, but sev- 
eral from Hayti and the other Antilles, 
have been found in special niches in the 
walls of caves seated on god chairs, as sever- 
al authors have described. In a report 
on my late visit to the Antilles I shall de- 
scribe and figure one of the most perfect 
of these wooden zemis which has yet been 
recorded. 

From what has been already given re- 
garding the character of the zemis, as de- 
duced from historical and archeological 
sources, it is possible to state in résumé the 
following conclusion regarding the nature 
of the worship which they illustrate. 
Roughly speaking, Antillean worship was 
a form of cultus called zemeism or ancestor 
worship, the zemi representing the clan 
ancient or tutelary god of the clan. These 
elan gods in stone and wood represented 
the ancestors of the clan, and were supposed 
to have, by virtue of their forms, the magic 
power of the ancestor. 

The figures painted on tlie bodies of the 
caciques represent the clan tutelary beings, 
each different and characteristic as the clan 
differed. There is little doubt that when 
a cacique was thus painted with the figure 
of his tutelary in his own conception, as 
well as in that of his clan, he became that 
supernatural to all intents and purposes, 
just as when a Pueblo Indian puts on a 
mask with certain symbols he is trans- 
formed into the being which the symbolism 
of that mask represents. 

Not only did each ecacique or clan pre- 
serve as an object of worship, an idol repre- 
senting his tutelary clan parent or zemi, but 
also his bodily decorations in certain 


SCIENCE. 


105 


dances and at other times represented that 
ancestor. In this occult or esoteric way 
he became a living personator of the ances- 
tors worshiped by the clan of which he 
was chief. The painting of the body among 
the Antilleans appears to have taken the 
place of elaborate masks so common in 
North America, a practical expedient which 
the hot climate dictated. 

But the Antilleans were likewise familiar 
with the use of masks in personations of 
their gods, and while these objects are not 
directly described as worn in their many 
ceremonial dances, there can hardly be a 
doubt that Dr. Chanea had this usage in 
mind when he wrote certain passages of his 
famous letter. That the Antilleans had 
masks of ceremonial import, not only refer- 
énces to them in the early Spanish writers 
show, but also wooden and stone masks 
existing in different, collections demon- 
strate. Some of these, as one in the Capitol 
at Hayti, are of a size to fit the face, others 
are too small and too heavy to be worn, 
so that the probability is that most of these 
masks had become highly conventionalized 
in their use. They were not worn, but still 
functioned for the same purpose as if they 
were. They represented symbolically the 
elan zemi, but face and bodily decoration 
made their use as face coverings redundant. 
There is every probability that they were 
carried in the hands or attached to rods or 
other objects by those personating the an- 
cients. 

In strict accord with this interpretation 
of the symbolic masks of stone and wood 
are the repeated statements in the early 
chronicles that they were offered as gifts to 
those whom the giver thought to be super- 
natural, an act symbolizing the fealty of 
the clan god or zemi to a higher god. This 
is paralleled with modifications elsewhere 
in primitive American religions. Monte- 
zuma, believing Cortez a god, possibly Quet- 
zaleoatl, sent him a bird snake mask of 


106 


wondrous workmanship. So also the early 
accounts say that on several occasions the 
Indians of the Antilles, as symbols of 
friendship or fealty, sent masks to Colum- 
bus. One of these, given by the Cacique 
Guacanagaei to Columbus on his visit to 
Hayti, is said to have been made of wood 
with tongue, eyes and nose of massive gold. 
This object no doubt resembled those of 
stone in the Latimer collection of the 
Smithsonian. Columbus saw many of 
these masks in Cuba on his first voyage, 
and on his return to the ill-starred col- 
ony of Navidad, on his second voyage, was 
met by an embassy of the same cacique 
bearing two masks with gold ornaments as 
regalia. These masks no doubt in both 
eases were symbolic of the supernatural 
power of the tutelary god of the cacique. 
The act of sending them was one of homage 
and respect of himself, his clan and the 
being worshiped. It is also instructive to 
note, as an evidence of a widespread cus- 
tom among American aborigines, that with 
one of these symbolic masks Columbus also 
received as a present a belt ornamented 
with shells, stones and bones recalling, as 
Dr. Cronan has pointed out, the wampum 
of North American Indians. 

The worship of ancestors which comes 
out so plainly in all proper interpretations 
of zemeism, appears likewise in the care 
of the dead and the whole nature of mor- 
tuary customs of both insular Caribs and 
Oronoco Guaraunos. From the existence 
of many skulls in the houses of the former 
it has been supposed that these people were 
anthropophagous, but it is probable, as has 
been shown above, that many of these 
skulls, carefully wrapped in basket ware or 
woven cotton coverings, were the crania of 
their own ancestors, preserved with pious 
care and used in the rites and ceremonies of 
ancestor worship. These skulls, artificially 
covered with cotton fabrics and attached to 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 394. 


bodies of the same material, were seated on 
stone god chairs or duhos, and deposited in 
eaves, but they were also kept in houses as 
the early records state. 

We find in the descriptions of the Antil- 
leans accounts of exercises called areitos 
which I have interpreted as ceremonial 
danees in which ancestors were personated. 
The short descriptions which have come 
down to us indicate, as a rule, that these 
dances had a religious motive in which the 
praise of the ancestors was only one, al- 
though a most important part. Great 
stress 1s laid by most writers on the fact 
that in these dances songs commemorating 
deeds of valor or personal worth of the 
dead were sung, and all agree that they oc- 
eurred on all ceremonial occasions. The 
areito was undoubtedly a ceremonial 
drama, composed of rites public and secret, 
and accompanied semi-religious games, 
dances and various other elements. In 
these areitos the priests personated their 
ancestors, as do the Pueblos in their Kat- 
cinas, but with far different paraphernalia. 

Although there is material available in 
documentary history for that purpose it 
would take me too long to deseribe the 
ceremonies of the prehistoric Antilleans, 
one of typical character which may be 
identified, a ceremony to the goddess of 
growth, which was one of the best known 
ceremonies of the prehistoric Antilleans, 
having been described by Gomara, Her- 
rera, Haklyt, Tejada, Charlevoix and 
others. The latter gives a picture, some- 
what fanciful, of the dance accompanying 
this ceremony, which is copied by Picard on 
his great work on the rites and ceremonies 
of all people. 

The occurrence of this ceremony was 
announced publicly by a town erier di- 
rected by the cacique and consisted of 
a procession to the temple or house in 
which the image of the Earth Mother was 


JULY 18, 1902.] 


placed. The cacique led the line of dancers, 
and, when he had approached the entrance 
to the temple, seated himself near the idol, 
vigorously beating a drum to the sound ox 
which the participants danced. The pro- 
cession was composed of men, girls and 
women. The men had their bodies painted 
black, red, green and other colors and wore 
many ornaments of shell, and feathers in 
their heads. The girls and women bore 
baskets of cakes ornamented with flowers. 

As the members of the procession ap- 
proached the idol of the growth goddess 
they raised the flowers and baskets of cakes 
to the god as offerings with prayers, and 
later these offerings were divided into frag- 
ments and distributed among the people. 
The public dance was preceded by secret 
rites, but we have only fragmentary refer- 
ences regarding the nature of these rites. 
Benzoni records that the idol was decorated 
before the arrival of the procession and 
there are several references to the sprink- 
ling of the same with prayer meal as occurs 
in all Hopi ceremonial rites, and mention 
is likewise made of ceremonial purification 
as a preparation for the rites. 

We have very fragmentary historical ac- 
counts of the shape of the idol of the Earth 
Mother, and the figures given by Charlevoix 
and Picard represent a head composed of 
five different animals with that of the deer 
in the center. As old Peter Martyr says 
that the Haytians have several names for 
an idol in the form of a woman, one of 
which is earth and the other mother, I have 
ventured to translate her name Harth 
Mother, and identify the ceremony as one 
for growth of crops. 

Time does not permit me to describe in 
detail this ceremony or to outline the rea- 
soning which has led me to interpret it as 
a festival of the goddess of growth, but 
there is no doubt that the rites and the 
dance before the image of the goddess of 


SCIENCE. 


107 


the earth have for their object the growth 
of vegetation and increase of the crops 
upon which the Haytian relied for food. 
Judging from the general life of primi- 
tive man we are forced to the conclusion 
that probably the majority of all the Antil- 
lean dances mentioned by the early Spanish 
writers were of a religious nature. As is 
most universal in primitive ritual rhythm 
played in them a most important role, and 
they were accompanied by a rude drum 
made of a log of wood or by a rasping of a 
stick over an elongated gourd incised with 
parallel lines. This latter instrument may 
be of African parentage, but it is still rep- 
resented in Porto Rican folk music and sold 
to visitors as characteristic of the island. 
The poetic beauty of the songs recount- 
ing the deeds of their ancestors in their 
areitos did not escape the attention of 
some of the chroniclers. We are tempted 
to recognize in the Boriquen, a national 
anthem of the Porto Ricans, some strains 
of melody which may have survived from 
aboriginal times, and the weird musie which 
one hears from the palm-covered house of 
the mountaineer may yet be found to con- 
tain Carib survivals. We know that by 
royal edict of Ferdinand in 1513 the right 
of holding their areitos or ceremonial 
dances was allowed to the enslaved Indians, 
and perhaps there may yet survive in the 
cabins of the lowly at least some of the 
melody of prehistoric Porto Rico. 
Whether there were special plazas set 
apart for these dances is a question of some 
interest, and in this connection may be 
mentioned certain level places surrounded 
by lines of stones set on edge found in sev- 
eral localities in the island. These en- 
closures are ordinarily supposed to have 
been constructed for the game of ball, eall- 
ed bato, and are circular or rectangular in 
shape. Some of these structures can still 
be seen in the mountainous districts near 
Utuado, and the sources of the Bayamon 


108 


River, but the majority have been de- 
stroyed, the flat bounding stones having 
been used for pavements or other purposes. 
It is conjectured that the rows of stones 
which form the periphery of these enclo- 
sures are the remains of seats for spectators, 
the judges or cacique occupying seats in 
the middle, as Oviedo describes. While ball 
games may have taken place in them, it 
seems to me highly probable from their 
mode of construction, situation, and other 
characters that they were also used as dance 
courts, in which were celebrated some of 
the solemn religious ceremonies of the 
clans. 

From this imperfect sketch, and much 
more of a like import—which will be de- 
veloped later in a more extended account 
of Antillean archeology—certain general 
conclusions have been drawn which have 
a relation to the early migrations of man 
on the American continent. The peopling 
of the Antilles is believed to have occurred 
at a comparatively modern date and to 
have been brought about by off-shoots of 
the Arawak stock migrating in old times 
from South America to Boriquen vid the 
chain of islands forming the Lesser An- 
tilles. 

The peculiar culture of this race at- 
tained its highest development in Hayti 
and Porto Rico, where conditions were 
most favorable to its growth. Cuba and 
the Bahamas had likewise been peopled by 
the same race, but in neither of these 
islands was the culture the same as in the 
islands mentioned. The Lesser Antilles, 
exposed to inroads from savage South 
American tribes of the same stock as those 
of Porto Rico, were unable, from physical 
and agricultural conditions, to preserve the 
sedentary culture of the more central is- 
lands. They were practically the starting 
points of the foraging parties which con- 
stantly attacked Boriquen. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 394. 


The cradle of the prehistoric Antillean 
culture was on the banks of the Orinoco 
and its tributaries in the great republic of 
Venezuela. His ancestors belonged to the 
Arawak stock of South America. His 
culture having naturally developed certain 
distinctive features in fluviatile waters, 
among great forests, became maritime, and 
spread from island to island until it came 
to Boriquen. There a part of the race be- 
came sedentary, but with the adoption of 
this kind of life lost much of its early 
prowess and daring, retaining only certain 
linguistic and other kinship with South 
American relatives. 

In the same way the Caribs, another race 
related in some respects but distinct in 
others, swarmed out of the same Orinoco 
valley, coasted from island to island in 
the wake of its predecessor, and extended 
its excursions to Florida and our Southern 
States. This race also yielded to the in- 
sular environment, and, commingling its 
blood with that of the former, developed 
the composite culture we have called Antil- 
lean. These two peoples, and others of like 
kin, at first tribally distinct, though mem- 
bers of the same great stock by admixture 
and changed by environment, were fast 
coming to be homogeneous and thoroughly 
amalgamated when the advent of the Eu- 
ropean practically exterminated the Bori- 
quenos and reduced the insular Carib to a 
wretched remnant of one of the finest native 
races of America. 

Imperfect as is the data now available or 
possible to determine the nature of the 
prehistoric Porto Rico I will remind you 
that the problem of primitive culture is 
that of all the Antilles, and that we are 
on the threshold of a great subject, for, 
judging from eollections of antiquities 
from the neighboring islands, I have no 
hesitation in saying that a vast amount 


JULY 18, 1902.] 


of new material awaits the advent of the 
archeologist and ethnologist in these 
islands. 

It is reported that the terrible volcanic 
eruptions on the island of St. Vincent 
have blotted out the last remnant of the 
Caribs, but while local settlements may 
have been destroyed, the race is not yet 
extinct on the Lesser Antilles, and is well 
represented at various points in South and 
Central America, survivors offering many 
and instructive results awaiting our inves- 
tigation. There remain also the kindred 
people in Guiana and Brazil, to a Inowledge 
of whose life and customs Im Thurm, Ehr- 
enrech and von den Steinen have added so 
much, and the relatives of the Caribs and 
Arawak scattered among the numberless 
tribes of the Oronoco valley, the terra in- 
cognita of American ethnology. 

_It is from a view of this kind over a 
special field that we get some idea of what 
there is for the anthropologist to do in the 
future, and the new problems awaiting 
solution. I have called your attention 
to only one of many in the science of 
man. ‘There are more of equal or greater 
importance awaiting solution, which of late 
years especially claim the attention and 
study of American anthropologists. The 
unknown anthropological material opened 
to us by territorial growth is vast, and it is 
natural that when our anthropologists sur- 
vey this great unknown awaiting research 
they should be serenely conscious of the 
future of our science. We have indeed 
every reason to be proud of the past 
achievements of American anthropology, 
in which this section has played a most 
creditable part, but the work before us is 


destined to yield still greater results, shed- 


ding a still brighter luster on American 
science. 
J. WauteR Frewkes. 


SCIENCE. 


109 


REMARKS OF THE RETIRING PRESIDENT 
AND OF THE PRESIDENT-ELEOT.* 

In introducing the president of the As- 
sociation, Dr. Minot, the retiring president 
said: 

My duty is very brief. I come here as 
the retiring officer of the Association to 
have, as the last act of my administration, 
the pleasant duty of handing over the re- 
sponsibilities to one whom we all hold in 
the highest respect; ong who stands for a 
very lofty ideal of scientific research; one 
who has attained, what many scientific 
men fail to attain, a reputation which ex- 
tends far beyond the realms of science, 
practically speaking, for to him was ac- 
corded the privilege of discovering one of 
those features of the heavens which appeal 
to the imagination, the satellites of Mars. 
To the popular mind perhaps this great 
discovery stands as the most prominent ser- 
vice of my successor. I speak, not for my- 
self, but as the mouthpiece of competent 
astronomers who have told me that this 
discovery, great as it is, represents only a 
small part, and not perhaps the greatest 
part, of the services which Professor Hall 
has rendered to astronomical science. This 
Association is indebted to him personally 
for many years of faithful service, of great 
helpfulness, and I esteem it the greatest 
possible honor that after having been my- 
self president of this Association, I should 
have the pleasure of turning over the du- 
ties of the office to Professor Hall. 

In replying to the speeches of Dr. Hol- 
land and other representatives of the local 
committee, President Hall said: 

The American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science comes to hold its 
summer meeting in your city. It is for- 
tunate for us to meet in the city of Pitts- 
burgh, famous for its wonderful produc- 
tion of iron and steel, materials which lie 


* Reports received too late for insertion in the 
last issue of SCIENCE. 


110 


at the foundation of modern civilization. 
We are glad to see the homes of men who 
are the munificent benefactors of our li- 
braries and of our scientific institutions. 
We shall be interested in visiting the great 
shops where you convert the products of 
a generous nature into articles for our 
daily use. i 
Our Association was founded for the en- 
couragement and diffusion of scientific 
learning. Its creed is very simple. It re- 
quires in the novice only will and devotion. 
It is our business to study the works of 
nature by observation and experiment, and 
it is our duty to conform our conduet to 
her laws. We invite all to join us in this 
work, for we believe that along this line 
of investigation lies the true road of 
progress for the human family. But we 
are free. We do not wish to impose our 
ideas on others, but prefer to leave them 
to the operations of reason and judgment. 
If a brother goes astray, and tries to square 
the circle, there is no trial for heresy. We 
let him alone, feeling sure that time, the 
implacable enemy of error, will lead him 
back to the truth. Cicero tells us that time 
overthrows the opinions of men, and con- 
firms the decisions of nature. With full 
confidence in this sentiment we go on in 


our work, ‘without haste, and without 
rest.’ 


REPORT OF THE PERMANENT SECRE- 
TARY.* 

Tue fifty-second annual meeting of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, now drawing to its close, will 
be known as the first Pittsburgh meeting. 
In many respects it has been one of the 
most successful meetings which the Asso- 
ciation has ever held. The attendance, 
while not very large, has been composed of 
members of the active working class, many 
of them being fellows, and the meeting 


* Presented at the closing session. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


may be safely characterized as a working 
meeting. The registration has shown four 
hundred and thirty-five members in attend- 
ance. This ranks the Pittsburgh meeting 
as the twelfth in size of the fifty-two meet- 
ings which have been held. It is the fourth 
in size of the meetings held during the past 
ten years. The geographic distribution of 
members in attendance is especially inter- 
esting, and those who have had the inter- 
est or curiosity to follow this matter of 
geographic distribution during recent years 
will notice that this year there is a larger 
attendance from the South than in any 
previous year. The exact representation by 
States has been as follows: Pennsylvania 
naturally heads the list with 178; New 
York, 59; Ohio, 49; District of Columbia, 
45; Massachusetts, 23; Illinois, 21; Michi- 
gan, 10; Indiana, 10; New Jersey and 
Maryland, 8 each; Missouri, Minnesota, 
Kansas, New Hampshire, North Carolina, 
and West Virginia, 6 each; Texas and Ne- 
braska, 5 each; Arkansas and Connecticut, 
4 each; Alabama, Delaware, Virginia, Cali- 
fornia, Kentucky, and Canada, 3 each; 
Montana, 2; South Carolina, Georgia, 
Louisiana, South Dakota, North Dakota, 
Mississippi, Iowa, Colorado, and Maine, 1 
each. 

It must be remembered as usual that the 
number registered, namely, 435, includes 
only the active members and associates of 
the Association, and that as a matter of 
fact there are always a few members in 
attendance who are so characteristically 
forgetful of all things except scientific mat- 
ters that they entirely fail to register. The 
number registered is only an indication of 
the size of the meeting. For example, 
eleven affiliated societies of a national 
scope have met with us and have swelled 
the gathering of scientific men in Pitts- 
burgh during the past week to approxi- 
mately 750 individuals. The meeting has, 


JULY 18, 1902.] 


therefore, been a scientific congress of great 
importance. 

The papers which have been read before 
the Association proper and ‘in joint ses- 
sion with the more closely affiliated socie- 
ties have been numerous and of a high 
order. About three hundred and sixty 
papers have been thus presented, which is 
a great increase over the number read at 
the last meeting of the Association. 

A number of important measures con- 
cerning the future of the Association have 
been considered and amendments to the 
constitution have been adopted rendering 
the council more permanent in its member- 
ship and thus probably more efficient in 
its work, and also making the sectional 
committees so constituted as to render their 
greater efficiency a matter of practical cer- 
tainty. 

‘About sixty new members have been 
elected during the meeting, and about 
eighty members have been made fellows. 

Pittsburgh and its vicinity have pro- 
vided visiting points of great scientific in- 
terest, and the fact just stated, together 
with the great courtesy and hospitality of 
the local committee and the citizens of 
Pittsburgh, have combined to make the 
meeting now coming to a close a memorable 
one in the annals of the Association. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


Reports of the Princeton University Hapedi- 
tions to Patagonia, 1896-1899. IV., Pale- 
ontology; Part II., Tertiary Invertebrates. 
By A. E. Orrmann, Ph.D. Princeton, the 
University. 1902. 4to. Pp. 45-332; pl. 
XT.-XX XTX. 

The reports of the important expeditions 
sent to Patagonia by Princeton University are 
being published at the expense of the J. Pier- 
pont Morgan fund, and in the present stately 
volume we have the details of the stratigraphic 
paleontology for which those interested in the 


SCIENCE. 


111 


geology of South America have been eagerly 
waiting. 

The volume is printed with elegance and 
taste and the plates, while a little formal in 
drawing, are a refreshing contrast to the 
wretched phototypes which disfigure so many 
recent European paleontological memoirs. 
While the photographic process is suited to the 
reproduction, from the specimens, of a limited 
class of objects, in a limited number of cases, 
it completely fails to give what is required in 
the case of fossil mollusks. When small, all 
important details are apt to be lost; and, when 
large, the presence, in spots, of bits of detail, 
only emphasizes the general failure of the 
process as a whole. For this reason we con- 
gratulate the author and editor of this volume 
that they resisted the possible temptation and 
have given us illustrations which really illus- 
trate. But one criticism occurs to us in re- 
viewing the make-up of the volume, and that 
is a regret that an index to the paper is not 
included in it. 

The memoir begins with an enumeration and 
description of the material collected. A pains- 
taking comparison is made with analogous 
species in the northern hemisphere and also 
with the species of the Tertiary of New 
Zealand and Australia. From the Magellanian 
beds 19 species are described, from the Pata- 
gonian 151, and from deposits at and analogous 
to those of Cape Fairweather, 15 species are 
made known. 

( It has been known for some years that the 
opinions of several South American workers as 
to the age and stratigraphy of the Patagonian 
and other horizons, which they knew only from 
fossils collected by others, were much in need 
of revision. Two years ago Mr. J. B. Hatcher, 
in charge of the expedition, after careful in- 
spection of the type localities, and Dr. Ort- 
mann on the testimony of the fossils collected, 
arrived at certain conclusions which were pub- 
lished with sections in the American Journal 
of Science for 1900. The paleontological evi- 
dence upon which those conclusions rest is now 
furnished in the fullest detail. If any one 
hitherto has suspended judgment, he may 
now yield'to conviction in full confidence that 
the case is proved. No question can arise, 


112 


after the present demonstration, as to the 
analogy which exists between the Chesapeake 
Miocene of North America and the Patagonian 
beds of Ortmann and Hatcher. The number 
of species which are known from the Magella- 
nian beds is small, and they are not especially 
characteristic, but, taking the singular una- 
nimity with which Oligocene strata in the New 
World and on the Pacific coast of Asia are 
associated with lignitie deposits, and the fact 
that such deposits overlie the Magellanian 
beds, it can hardly be doubted that we have 
here a series either Oligocene or upper Eo- 
cene. On the other hand as little doubt re- 
mains that the Cape Fairweather beds repre- 
sent in the south the Pliocene of the northern 
hemisphere. 

After discussing these questions historically 
and otherwise in the fullest manner, Dr. Ort- 
mann concludes his memoir with a discussion 
of the theory of Antarctica, or the existence in 
geological time of land connections between 
the different austral countries. This portion 
of the paper is illustrated by an excellent 
bathymetric chart of the earth south of the 
thirtieth parallel of south latitude. The au- 
thor accepts, in the main, the theory broached 
by Riitimeyer in 1867, as modified by Charles 
Hedley of Sidney, Australia, in 1895, that 
during the Mesozoic or older Tertiary time, 
a strip of land enjoying a mild climate ex- 
tended across the south polar regions from 
Tasmania to Tierra del Fuego, approaching 
Tertiary New Zealand near enough, without 
joining it, to receive by flight or drift many 
plants and animals. 

An excellent bibliography closes the text of 
this very creditable volume, on the publication 
of which we may congratulate the author and 
editor. 


Das Eisen als das thittige Prinzip der Enzyme 
und der lebendigen MSubstanz. By N. 
Sacuarorr. Translated into German by 
M. Recursamer. Jena, G. Fischer. Pp. 
83. Two plates. 

This monograph represents the attempt of 
the author to afford a comprehensive and 
universal: explanation of the manifold phe- 
nomena which are ordinarily termed ‘vital’ re- 


SCIENCE. 


sable binuclein. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


actions. An exposition of the importance of 
the deductive method in attacking the funda- 
mental problems of biology forms the intro- 
duction to the discussion. In distinction from 
the cellular theory, a chemical theory of life 
is proposed. The cell is merely the mechan- 
ism which protects the living substance against 
the destructive forces of its environment, and 
secures the possibility of growth and repro- 
duction; it is not an absolutely indispensable 
condition for the continuance of vital pro- 
cesses. The fundamental hypothesis of the 
author assumes as the cause of such processes 
a cleavage of the living substance brought 
about by the oxidation of minimal quantities 
of iron contained within it in the form of a 
nuclein—bionuclein. 
panied by hydrolysis. 
thus cannot exist. 
The experimental evidence for the probabil- 
ity of this hypothesis is derived from a study 
of the behavior of gelatin towards the vege- 
table enzyme papayotin (papain). The action of 
enzymes depends upon the oxidation and re- 
duction of the small quantities of iron-con- 
taining binuclein of which they are in part 
composed. Many of the facts ascertained by 
Spitzer in his extensive investigations on the 
oxidizing properties of the tissues are recalled. 
From data of this kind the explanation of a 
series of general biological phenomena is de- 
rived. For example, the formation of new 
molecules of living substance is attributed to 
a reconstruction and restitution of the remains 
of old molecules. The nucleus of the cell rep- 
resents an available supply of the indispen- 
The cell proper is an aggre- 
gate of similar molecules of living substance 
which oceur in uninterrupted rows and are 
surrounded by a reducing substance. A de- 
tailed discussion of the various forms in which 
the hypothesis is applied to the most diverse 
phenomena, such as karyokinesis, muscular 
contraction, nervous irritability and conduc- 
tivity, the action of the special senses and the 
central nervous system, cannot be entered into 
here. The monograph is a striking illustra- 
tion of the translation of a very limited num- 
ber of experimental observations into terms of 
universal application. We believe that the 


This cleavage is accom- 
Complete anaerobiosis 


JuLy 18, 1902. ] 


reader will find as much of the obscure and un- 
demonstrated in this attempt as has character- 
ized other similar trials in recent years. 


Larayette B. MEnpeEL. 


SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL 
oF YALE UNIVERSITY. 


Linear Groups with an Exposition of the 
Galois Field Theory. By L. E. Dickson, As- 
sistant Professor of Mathematics in the Uni- 
versity of Chicago. Leipzig, Teubner’s 
Sammlung von Lehrbuchern auf dem Ge- 
biete der mathematischen Wissenschaften. 
1901. Vol. VI. Pp. x+312. 

In 1898 the well-known firm of B. G. Teub- 
ner, Leipzig, Germany, began the publication 
cf the ‘Encyklopidie der mathematischen 
Wissenschaften mit Einschluss ihrer Anwen- 
dungen,’ which is intended to give in seven 
large volumes a general outline of the known 
parts of mathematics, together with applica- 
tions. As a comparatively small amount of 
space could be devoted to each subject, the 
same firm decided to publish a large series of 
advanced text-books in connection with this 
encyclopedia. This series was planned espe- 
cially to enable the authors of articles for the 
encyclopedia to develop their subjects more 
fully, and thus make their articles more use- 
ful. Other writers are, however, invited to 
make the series as complete as possible. 

More than fifty different volumes of this 
series have already been announced by almost 
as many different authors. The list of au- 
thors includes a number of prominent writers 
of various countries. The great majority of 
these are Germans, as might have been in- 
ferred from the fact that the work is due to 
German influence and is published by a Ger- 
man firm. Outside of Germany the Italians 
seem to have been the most active collabora- 
tors, but most of the other European coun- 
tries, together with America, have promised 
contributions. 

This series of text-books, together with the 
encyclopedia, will doubtless act as a very 
strong stimulus for greater mathematical ac- 
tivity, and it will tend to increase in a marked 
degree the German influence in higher mathe- 
matics. Never before has there been such ex- 


SCIENCE. 


113 


tensive collaboration to make the recent pro- 
gress in the various fields of mathematical re- 
search accessible to the student. It is hoped 
that this series will do much towards enabling 
many additional teachers of mathematics, who 
have suflicient leisure, to join the ranks of 
the investigators and to assist in developing 
the rich mines which have been opened in 
many quarters during the past few decades. 

The present work is the sixth volume of the 
series and is devoted to a subject which has 
been developed principally on French and 
American soil. The fundamental ideas are 
due to the marvelous genius of Galois, who 
developed them in a memoir entitled ‘ Sur la 
théorie des nombres,’ published in the Bulletin 
des Sciences de M. Férussac in 1830, when 
their author was only eighteen years old. This 
memoir contains the elements of a new kind 
of imaginaries which have since been known 
as the Galois imaginaries. They occupy prac- 
tically the same position in the theory of con- 
gruences as the ordinary complex numbers oc- 
cupy in the theory of equations. 

The Galois imaginaries are generally studied 
by means of congruences with respect to a 
double modulus, composed of a prime number 
p and an irreducible function of a single varia- 
ble ¥ (x). It has been known for a long time 
that the p” different residue with respect to 
such a modulus constitute a domain of ration- 
ality, Korper, or field. That is, if these resi- 
dues are combined with respect to addition, 
subtraction, multiplication or division (with 
the exception of division by zero) the result, 
when reduced with respect to the double mod- 
ulus, is one of these p” residues. 

About ten years ago Professor Moore proved 
that every finite field may be represented as a 
field of this kind and he applied to it the pres- 
ent name (Galois field. This important theo- 
rem exhibits the great generality of investiga- 
tions with respect to the Galois field. In fact, 
with ordinary operational laws of algebra 
the generality is complete. Imbued with the 
beauty and interest which are attached to such 
general investigations, the author of the pres- 
ent volume has generalized all the systems of 
linear groups studied by Jordan with respect 
to the field of integers taken modulo p. He 


114 


has also studied new systems of linear groups 
in’ which the Galois field has been employed 
ab initio. 

The aim of the present volume seems to be 
to give a systematic presentation of these re- 
sults, together with the necessary theorems 
from the known parts of mathematics. Com- 
paratively little knowledge is presupposed on 
the part of the reader, but the generality of 
the methods calls for considerable maturity 
and training. It is to an unusual extent the 
work of the author, and is a credit not only 
to him, but also to all the mathematicians of 
our country. We predict for it a place among 
the few American works on mathematics 
which are known and respected by the leading 
mathematicians of the world. 


G. A. Miter. 


STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CAL. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

The Botanical Gazette for June contains the 
following papers: Mr. A. Rimbach has re- 
corded a series of physiological observations 
on the subterranean organs of ten Californian 
species of Liliacee. Although they are geo- 
philous herbs of similar organization, they 
show very different modes of self-burial. The 
plants studied are grouped on the basis of these 
methods. Mr. Ralph E. Smith has studied 
“The Parasitism of Botrytis cinerea, and has 
come to the conclusion that too much impor- 
tance has been ascribed to a cellulose-dissolv- 
ing enzyme. The two stages in the process 
are a poisoning and a killing of the cells, and 
their disintegration and utilization as food by 
the fungus. The first effect seems to be pro- 
duced by a substance, probably oxalic acid, 
formed by the fungus as a by-product of its 
metabolism. Following this a number of dif- 
ferent enzymes are secreted that digest the 
various constituents of the tissues. Mr. 
Charles H. Shaw has published a study of 
‘The Development of Vegetation in the Mo- 
rainal Depression in the Vicinity of Wood’s 
Hole.’ In open pools anchored plants with 
floating leaves are often confined to a zone 
somewhat separated from the shore, their ap- 
proach to the shore line being prevented by 
the sweeping in of silt. The vegetation of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


large open morainal pools, though undrained, 
may be purely hydrophilous, but about the 
time of the formation of the floating mat the 
conditions appear to become xerophytie. The 
marginal ditch which surrounds pond islands 
and atolls is formed only in the woods, where a 
dense felt of humus vegetation protects the 
ground from erosion. Fallen leaves and other 
organic materials swept from the forest tend 
to smother the vegetation which might grow 
there. In this way there is produced a belt of 
open water surrounding an island, or ring of 
vegetation. Mr. G. E. Webb has published 
a ‘Morphological Study of the Flower and 
Embryo of Spirwa.’ Some of the conclusions 
are as follows: The order of floral development 
is sepals, inner stamens, carpels, outer sta- 
mens, petals; no archesporial cell or plate of 
archesporial cells is differentiated in the 
microsporangium; the tapetum is cut off from 
the outside of the archesporial mass; several 
archesporial cells are differentiated in the 
megasporangium. Mr. David G. Fairchild de- 
seribes a precocious poplar branch observed in 
Patras, Greece, and suggests the possibility of 
using such precocity in the production of ear- 
lier developing varieties of shade or fruit 
trees. Mr. E. Mead Wilcox records observa- 
tions on the numerical variation of the ray 
flowers of Helianthus annuus. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
A METHOD OF FIXING THE TYPE IN CERTAIN 
GENERA. 

In view of certain recent discussions* as to 
the proper means of fixing the types of genera 
of early authors, when no type was specified, 
we believe the differences of opinion arising 
under existing codes of nomenclature will be 
materially lessened by the adoption of the fol- 
lowing rule: 

*See Cambridge, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., 7th 
Ser., VIII., pp. 403-414, November, 1901; ibid., 
7th Ser., IX., pp. 5-20, January, 1902; Jordan, 
Science, N. S., XIII, pp. 498-501, March 29, 
1901; Allen, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XIV., pp. 
325-334, November 12, 1901; Howell, Proc. Biol. 
Soc. Wash., XV., pp. 1-9, February 18, 1902; 
Allen, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., XV., pp. 59-66, 
March 22, 1902; Cook, Scmmncr, N. S., XV., pp. 
647-649. 


» JuLY 18, 1902.] 


A generic name which is the same as that 
of an explicitly included species (or a cited 
post-Linnean synonym of such species) takes 
that species as its type regardless of subsequent 
elimination. 

Illustrations. 

Cuvier in 1800 (‘Lecons d’Anat. Comp.,’ I., 
‘tabl. 1) proposed the generic name Mephitis 
for the American skunks and mentioned two 
species, mephitis and putorius. Consequently 
the type of Mephitis would be Mephitis 
mephitis (Schreber). 

Bechstein in 1803 (‘Orn. Taschenb. 
Deutschl.,’ p. 282) proposed the genus Totanus, 
to which he referred the following species of 
birds: - maculatus, calidris, fuscus, natans, 
limosa, glottis, egocephalus, lewcopheus, lap- 
ponicus, gregarius and stagnatilis. He quotes 
Scolopax totanus Linneus as a synonym of 
Totanus maculatus; it would therefore be re- 
garded as the type. 

Cuvier in 1817 (‘Regne Animal,’ IT., p. 269) 
proposed the name Smaris for a genus of fishes 
and mentioned two species, mena and smaris, 
of which the latter would become the type. 

J. A. ALLEN, 

OutTrRAM Bancs, 
Barton WARREN EVERMANN, 
Turo. Gm, 

ArtHur H. Howe tt, 
Davm Starr Jorpan, 
C. Hart Merriam, 
Gerrit S. Minter, JR., 
E. W. Newson, 

Mary RatHpun, 
OLpFIELD THOMAS. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
THE PREVENTION OF MOLDS ON CIGARS. 


In January of the past winter a prominent 
cigar manufacturer brought to the attention 
of the Office of Vegetable Pathological and 
Physiological Investigations, U. S. Department 
of Agriculture, the fact that the occurrence of 
molds on cigars forms one of the greatest 
problems with which the tobacco manufacturer 
has to deal, and the loss in profits and in repu- 
tation from this cause alone is one of the most 
serious known to the manufacturer. 


SCIENCE. 


115 


«The undersigned was detailed to this inves- 
tigation, and laboratory experiments were 
promptly begun. The molds found on the ci- 
gars were identified by Mrs. Flora W. Patter- 
son, mycologist, as Aspergillus candidus Link 
and Penicilliwm glaucum Link. Preliminary 
tests showed promptly that these molds would 
not grow under laboratory conditions on un- 
treated wrapper leaf, but when a thin film of 
tragacanth paste, such as is used in cigar 
factories for fastening the wrapper in place, 
was applied to the leaf the molds flourished. 
Whether to disinfect the wrapper leaf or the 
paste was a question answered in favor of the 
latter method. The question of choosing some 
substance which should be lacking in odor, 
taste and harmful properties, was decided in 
favor of boracie acid. A large number of com- 
pounds was tested, but the number of those 
efficient under the conditions here prescribed 
was extremely limited. Boracic acid is well 
known as a perfectly harmless antiseptic agent, 
a fact which further recommended it. Labo- 
ratory tests showed that a saturated solution 
of boracie acid used in making up the traga- 
canth paste, instead of water, sterilized the 
paste. A method of operation adapted to fac- 
tory purposes, based on this laboratory infor- 
mation, was transmitted to the factory from 
which the complaint first emanated. After a 
six-weeks’ test, under the most varying condi- 
tions in factory practice, the superintendent 
writes: “I am happy to state that I sin- 
cerely believe that you have solved the trouble 
of the mold forming on the heads of cigars at 
our factory, as since I have been using the 
boracie acid in the proportion prescribed we 
have no trouble with the mold on the cigars. 
I thought that possibly after they had been 
stored some time the mold might appear, but 
I am pleased to say that our tests in every way 
and under all conditions show that the mold 
will not appear after using the boracie acid 
in the paste. I would add that as boracic acid 
is cheap, we now buy it by the barrel.” 

Since the cost involved in this treatment is 
practically nothing, and the additional labor 
involved in the application is also so slight as 


116 


to be practically nil, we may hope that per- 
haps this difficulty is eliminated. 
Ropney H. TRvE. 


- Bureau OF PLantT INDUSTRY, 
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


GRADUATE SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE. 


Tue Graduate School of Agriculture, the 
first of its kind in the United States, began a 
four weeks’ session at Ohio State University, 
Columbus, Ohio, July 7. About 70 students 
from 25 States are in attendance, of whom 
nearly 50 are officers of agricultural colleges 
and experiment stations. The faculty con- 
sists of about 30 leading teachers and investi- 
gators in agricultural science. Advanced 
courses are given in agronomy, breeding of 
plants and animals, zootechny and dairying. 
At the inaugural exercises held on the evening 
of July 7 addresses were delivered by Hon. 
James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture; Hon. 
Wm. M. Liggett, dean of the College of Agri- 
culture of the University of Minnesota; Dr. 
H. CG. White, president of Georgia State Col- 
lege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts; Dr. 
A. C. True, director of U. 8. Office of Experi- 
ment Stations and dean of the Graduate 
School of Agriculture; and President W. O. 
Thompson, of Ohio State University. In his 
address explaining the objects and aims of this 
school the dean showed that the rapid develop- 
ment of agricultural education and research 
in this country in recent years had created a 
demand for well-trained teachers and investi- 
gators which the agricultural colleges as at 
present organized could not meet. Especially 
had the latest development in the direction of 
the division of the general subject of agricul- 
ture into specialties created a necessity for 
university instruction in agriculture. “One 
aim of this graduate school is to provide a 
certain measure of this advanced and special 
instruction and thereby to illustrate some of 
the lines along which our universities need to 
establish advanced courses of instruction in 
agricultural specialties.” The school may also 
serve a useful purpose in bringing to its stu- 
dents up-to-date information on various agri- 
cultural subjects and in pointing out ways in 
which the methods of teaching and investi- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 394. 


gating agricultural subjects may be improved, 
and the apparatus and illustrative material for 
instruction and research in these subjects may 
be increased in variety and effectiveness. The 
school serves to solidify and amplify the or- 
ganization of agricultural education and re- 
search on the basis of agriculture itself, con- 
sidered as both a science and an art. “The 
signs all indicate,” said Dr. True, “that we 
are on the edge of a widespread movement to 
organize agricultural education in this coun- 
try on a much broader basis in order that it 
may permeate the mass of our rural popula- 
tion. The people are looking to the agricul- 
tural colleges to lead in this movement. In a 
large way it may be said that the hoped-for 
leaders in this new enterprise are here as- 
sembled. Surely our councils will have been 
futile if they do not give an impetus and 
direction to the plans for popular agricul- 
tural education now being formulated. The 
people are already offering our higher insti- 


tutions for agricultural education and _ re- 


search relatively large sums of money and are 
evidently intending to give them more. If 
we can find a way here to make the work of 
our agricultural colleges, experiment stations . 
and Department of Agriculture in any re- 
spects more effective and satisfactory, we 
shall surely reap ample reward in increased 
material support for our instruction and re- 
searches and stronger popular confidence in 
our usefulness as instruments of agricultural 
advancement.” 

Considering the character of the faculty 
and students of this school important results 
may be expected from the inauguration of this 
new enterprise in agricultural education. 


SCIENTIFIO NOTES AND NEWS. 

Tue Albert medal of the Society of Arts, 
London, has for the present year been award- 
ed to Professor Alexander Graham Bell, for 
his invention of the telephone. 

Presipent Exot, of Harvard University, 
was elected president of the National Educa- 
tional Association at the recent Minneapolis 
meeting. 

THE eminent astronomer, Professor Gio- 
vanni Schiaparelli, has been elected an associ- 


JuLY 18, 1902. ] 


ate of the French Academy of Sciences in the 
room of the late Baron Nordenskiéld. 


Tue full list of coronation honors as far 
as they concern men of science is given in 
Nature as follows: Among the new Privy 
Councillors are Lord Kelvin and Lord Lister. 
The new Baronets include Sir Andrew Noble, 
K.C.B., Sir Francis Laking and Sir Frederick 
Treves. The honor of Knighthood has been 
conferred upon Dr. J. W. Collins, F.R.C.S., 
Mr. A. Cooper, F.R.C.S., Mr. H. Croom, presi- 
dent of the Royal College of Surgeons (Kdin- 
burgh); Dr. T. Fraser, F.R.S., president of 
the Royal College of Physicians of Edin- 
burgh; Mr. Victor Horsley, F.R.S., Mr. H. 
G. Howse, president of the Royal College of 
Surgeons; Principal Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., 
Professor W. Macewen, F.R.S., Principal 
Riicker, F.R.S., and Mr. J. Thornycroft, F.R.S. 
In the Order of the Bath (Civil Division) 
Sir William Church, Bart., president of the 
Royal College of Physicians, and Professor 
W. Ramsay, F.R.S., have been appointed 
Knight Commanders, Major Ronald Ross, 
F.R.S., and Professor A. M. Worthington, 
F.R.S., have been appointed Companions of 
the same Order. In the Military Division of 
the Order of the Bath, Admiral Sir Erasmus 
Ommanney, F.R.S., has been appointed Knight 
Commander. The Kaiser-I-Hind medal for 
public service in India has been granted to 
Mr. Edgar Thurston, superintendent, Govern- 
ment Central Museum, Madras. Finally, the 
new Order of Merit includes in its list of 
twelve original members the names of four dis- 
tinguished men of science, namely, Lord Ray- 
leigh, Lord Kelvin, Lord Lister and Sir Will- 
iam Huggins. 

Tue International Committee upon Atomic 
Weights, composed of representatives from 
all the greater chemical organizations of the 
world, has been reorganized, by a vote of its 
own membership, into a working committee 
of three. These are F. W. Clarke, of Wash- 
ington, chairman; T. E. Thorpe, of London, 
and Carl Seubert, of Hannover, Germany. 


Trinity Cottece has conferred the degree 
of LL.D. on Professor W. L. Robb, who leaves 
that institution to take charge of the Depart- 


SCIENCE. 


117 


ment of Physics and Electrical Engineering 
at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 

Mr. F. H. Newent, chief hydrographer of 
the U. S. Geological Survey, has gone to the 
West to supervise surveys in connection with 
the work in irrigation authorized by Congress. 
Surveying parties are in the field in Califor- 
nia, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Utah, 
Nevada, Idaho, Arizona and Colorado. 

On July 1, by order of the Secretary of 
Agriculture, Dr. Ch. Wardell Stiles, who has 
been serving temporarily as pathologist of the 
U. S. Bureau of Animal Industry, resumed 
his regular duties as zoologist of the bureau, 
and Dr. John R. Mohler, formerly assistant 
pathologist, has been promoted to the position 
of pathologist. 

Proressor Epwarp S. Hoxpen, U.S.M.A., 
70, has accepted the appointment of librarian 
of the Military Academy at West Point. The 
library now contains about 45,000 volumes. 
Congress has: provided a much-inecreased ap- 
propriation—$11,500—for the present fiscal 
year and its collections are likely to grow 
rapidly. The interior of the large library 
building has lately been remodeled at a cost 
of $85,000. 

Tue Executive Commission of the Interna- 
tional Congress of Applied Chemistry, which 
met at Paris in 1900 and is to meet at Berlin 
next year, has appointed an international com- 
mittee on analytical methods. The American 
members of this committee are H. W. Wiley 


, and F. W. Clarke. 


Av the general meeting of the Zoological 
Society of London on June 19 the gold medal 
of the Society was delivered by His Grace, the 
Duke of Bedford, K.G., president, to Sir 
Harry Johnston, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., F.Z.S., in 
consideration of his great services to zoolog- 
ical science during the various official posts 
which he had held in Africa and especially in 
commemoration of his discovery of the Okapi. 
After the close of the meeting the third of the 
series of zoological lectures for the present 
year was delivered by Professor E. Ray Lan- 
kester, F.R.S., on ‘The Okapi and its Position 
in the Natural Series.’ Professor Lankester’s 
Memoir in the society’s quarto ‘Transactions,’ 


118 


which contains a full account. of all that is 
known of ‘the new African mammal’ up to 
the present date, is expected to be ready very 
shortly. 

Amone those who will be carrying on bio- 
logical work this summer at the U. S. Fish 
Commission Laboratory at Wood’s Hole are 
Dr. Robert P. Bigelow, Massachusetts Insti- 
tute of Technology; Professor W. K. Brooks, 
Johns Hopkins University; Professor Hubert 
L. Clark, Olivet College; Professor Wesley R. 
Coe, Yale University; Dr. Ulric Dahlgren, 
Princeton University; Professor Bashford 
Dean, Columbia University; Professor F. P. 
Gorham, Brown University; Professor C. W. 
Hargitt, Syracuse University; Professor C. 
Judson Herrick, Denison University; Dr. 
George T. Moore, U. S. Department of Agri- 
culture; Professor George H. Parker, Har- 
vard University; Miss Harriet Richardson, 
Columbian University; Professor W. M. 
Smallwood, Syracuse University; Dr. F. B. 
Sumner, College of the City of New York; 
Professor R. W. Tower, Brown University; 
Dr. Rodney True, U. S. Department of Agri- 
culture, and Dr. Charles B. Wilson, Massa- 
chusetts State Normal School. 

Dr. Joun Danien Runxxe, professor of 
mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology since its foundation and presi- 
dent from 1870 to 1878, died at Southwest 
Harbor on July 8. He was born in New York 
State in 1823 and graduated from the Law- 
rence Scientific School in 1851. He was then 
engaged on the staff of the ‘ Nautical Alman- 
ac’ until the establishment of the Massachu- 
setts Institute in the plans for which he took 
an active part. In addition to his important 
work for the institute Dr. Runkle did much 
to introduce manual training in the schools. 

Tue death is announced of M. Hervé Faye, 
the eminent astronomer, at the age of eighty- 
eight years. He was the oldest member of the 
Paris Academy of Sciences, having been elect- 
ed in 1847. M. Faye has been since 1873 pro- 
fessor of astronomy in the Ecole polytech- 
nique. 

Tue first volume of the International Cata- 
logue of Scientific Literature is reported by 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 394. 


the English papers to have been published. It 
contains part of the botanical literature for 
the year 1901. 


Nature states that the annual general meet- 
ing of the Marine Biological Association of 
the United Kingdom was held in the rooms of 
the Royal Society on June 25. The officers 
and council elected for the year 1902-3 were 
as follows: President, Professor E. Ray Lan- 
kester, F.R.S.; hon. treasurer, Mr. J. A. Tra- 
vers; hon. secretary, Dr. E. J. Allen; council, 
Mr. G. P. Bidder, Mr. G. C. Bourne, Mr. 
Francis Darwin, Professor J. B. Farmer, Dr. 
G. H. Fowler, Dr. S. F. Harmer, Professor W. 
A, Herdman, Professor G. B. Howes, Mr. J. 
J. Lister, Professor EK. A. Minchin, Professor 
C. Stewart, Professor D’Arey W. Thompson 
and Dr. R. N. Wolfenden. The following 
governors are also members of council: Mr. J. 
P. Thomasson (the prime warden of the Fish- 
mongers’ Company), Mr. KE. L. Beckwith 
(Fishmongers’ Company), Sir J. Burdon San+ 
derson, Bart. (University of Oxford), Mr. A. 
E. Shipley (University of Cambridge), Pro- 
fessor W. F..R. Weldon (British Association 
for the Advancement of Science). 


The Electrical World states that the Im- 
perial German Post Office has just appointed 
a commission to go to the United States and 
study American postal, telegraphic and tele- 
phone systems. Special attention will be giv- 
en to the tubular mail service. Germany at 
present is using only small tubes for individ- 
ual letters, and contemplates introducing the 
American system of transmission in bulk by 
mail to and from the branches of the central 
post office. The commissioners are Post 
Councillors Wernecke, of Leipzig, and Braun, 
of Hamburg. They will be accompanied by 
a telegraphic engineer and another engineer 
of Berlin. 


THE Committee appointed by the Institution 
of Electrical Engineers to hold an inquiry on 
electrical legislation, consisting of Professor 
J. Perry, F.R.S., president, and Professor W. 
E. Ayrton, F.R.S., Major P. Cardew, R.E., 
Lieutenant-Colonel R. E. Crompton, O.E., Mr. 
8. Z. de Ferranti, Mr. Robert Hammond, Mr. 
H. Hirst, Mr. J. E. Kingsbury, Mr. W. L. 


JULY 18, 1902.] 


Madgen, Mr. W. M. Mordey, Mr. R. P. 
Sellon, Mr. Siemens, Mr. C. P. Sparks, 
Mr. J. Swinburne, Mr. A. A. Campbell 


Swinton, and Professor Silvanus P. Thomp- 
son, F.R.S., has issued its report. Accord- 
ing to ‘an abstract in the London Times, 
the committee met on eleven occasions and 
heard the evidence of a number of representa- 
tive experts. The witnesses were practically 
unanimous in their conviction that electrical 
enterprise had not attained its due position in 
England. A joint select committee of the 
two Houses of Parliament in 1898 reported 
that the law should be amended as regards the 
veto exercised by local authorities, but no steps 
have been taken to give effect to that recom- 
mendation. The opinions of the committee 
are embodied in resolutions to the effect 
that, notwithstanding that Englishmen have 
been among the first in inventive genius in 
electrical science, its development in the 
United Kingdom is in a backward condition, as 
compared with other countries; that the cause 
of such backwardness is especially due to the 
restrictive character of the legislation govern- 
ing the initiation and development of electric 
power and traction undertakings, and the 
powers of obstruction granted to local authori- 
ties; that local boundaries have usually no 
reference whatever to the needs of the com- 
munity in regard to electric supply and trac- 
tion, and that the selection of suitable areas 
should be dealt with on the basis of economic 
principles and industrial demands; that the 
development of electric power and traction 
undertakings offers the most favorable means 
of relieving congested centers; that it is ex- 
pedient in the national interests that the Elec- 
tric Lighting Acts, 1882-8, the Tramways Act, 
1870, and the Standing Orders relating to 
special Acts for tramways should be amended 
in so far as they enable local authorities to veto 
or delay the carrying out of electric supply and 
traction projects of which the utility can be 
shown, and that effect should be given to the 
recommendations of the joint select committee 
of Parliament, 1898, on ‘Electrical Energy— 
Generating Stations and Supply’; that while 
this committee fully recognizes the ability of 
the technical officials of the government de- 


SCIENCE. 


119 


partments concerned, it is of opinion that the 
statis of those departments, as at present ex- 
isting, are wholly inadequate having regard to 
the great industrial interests involved, and that 
it is essential that these departments should 
be put into a position enabling them to keep 
in touch with all developments in engineering 
matters, both at home and abroad, and 
that a sufficient sum should be provided an- 
nually by government to enable them to em- 
ploy and pay a proper staff for such purposes; 
that the adjustment of departmental regula- 
tions to engineering development should not 
be delayed until the industrial interests con- 
cerned are seriously hampered, and that, with a 
view to preventing any such delay, the Institu- 
tion of Electrical Engineers should be willing 
to take part in revising such regulations from 
time to time; that this committee recommends 
that the institution should memorialize the 
prime minister to receive a deputation for the 
purpose of urging the removal of the present 
disabilities and restrictions which prevent elec- 
trical engineering from making the progress 
that the national interests demand, and attain- 
ing at least the same level as in America, Ger- 
many and other industrial countries. 

THe United States Geological Survey has 
resumed field work for the topographic map- 
ping of a portion of Michigan. The special 
map on which work is now being done will 
be known as that of the Ann Arbor quad- 
rangle, representing the district surrounding 
the city of that name. Like other topographic 
maps issued by the Geological Survey, not 
only the ordinary features will appear in de- 
tail, but ‘also the relief or topography of the 
country, with elevations above sea level. 
Topographic features of special interest which 
will be represented on the Ann Arbor map are 
the terminal moraine passing through Ann 
Arbor and the old shore lines of Lake Erie. 
The professors and students at the university 
are interested in the work, and it will afford 
the students an opportunity for field practice. 
The work is under the supervision of Topog- 
rapher E. C. Bebb. 

Tue British Medical Journal states that at 
a meeting of representatives of the German 
medical press, held not long ago; the follow- 


120 


ing regulations for the conduct of scientific 
controversies were adopted: (1) Every con- 
troversy shall be brought to a close by a final 
reply from the writer who opened the debate; 
only in exceptional cases shall an opponent be 
allowed a second reply. (2) A reply may be 
inserted in small type, and at the end of the 
journal, even when the article animadverted 
on was published as an original communica- 
tion. (3) The editor has the right to send a 
copy of the criticism to the author of the 
article attacked, even before its insertion. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Mr. Freperick W. VANDERBILT has given to 
the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale Uni- 
versity, of which he is a graduate, a valuable 
tract of land and will build upon it a dormi- 
tory. The value of the gift is not known, but 
it is reported to be $500,000. 

Dr. D. K. Pearsons has added $50,000 to 
the $200,000 he has already given to Whit- 
man College, Walla Walla, Washington. 


Tue late Rev. Henry Latham, master of 
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, has left about $35,- 
000 to the university to form a fund, from 
which grants may be made to members of the 
university who are incapacitated by age or in- 
firmity, and to their widows and families. 

Tue Public Health Institute, Edinburgh, 
completed by the liberality of Sir John Usher, 
has been handed over to the university. 

Tue Wesleyan University summer school of 
chemistry and biology has just opened, with 
an attendance of thirty-six. F 

THE universities of the Maritimé Provinces 
of Canada are sending a memorial to the ex- 
ecutors of Mr. Rhodes’s will asking that the 
conditions of the will be altered so as to give 
all the provinces of the Dominion an oppor- 
tunity to compete for the Oxford scholarships. 
The will provides only for Ontario and Que- 
bee, two out of seven provinces. 

Tue president of Waynesburg College, 
Waynesburg, Pa., sends us a note to the effect 
that at the recent commencement the insti- 
tution conferred the degree of Ph.D. on 
President Z. X. Snyder, of the Colorado Nor- 
mal School. According to ‘Who’s Who’ 


SCIENCE. |, 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 394. 


President Snyder was given the degree of 
Ph.D. by Waynesburg College in 1876. It is 
to be hoped that Waynesburg College will 
limit the conferring of the degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy causa honoris to President Sny- 
der. 

Proressor T. W. Gatitoway, of Missouri 
Valley College, has been elected to the chair 
of biology of the new James Millikin Univer- 
sity, at Decatur, Ill, and is succeeded at 
Missouri Valley College by Dr. Lawrence E. 
Griffin, assistant in zoology in the Western 
Reserve University. 


F. L. Srevens, Ph.D. (Chicago), has been 
advanced from an instructorship to a full pro- 
fessorship in the new department of biology 
at the College of Agriculture and Mechanic 
Arts at Raleigh, N. C. 

SeyeraL laboratory assistantships in ele- 
mentary chemistry are available at the Uni- 
versity of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, for the 
coming school year. The pay for these as- 
sistantships is $300 per year, and the work 
consists in laboratory instruction in general 
elementary chemistry; the arrangement being 
that the assistant shall give one half of his 
time to the work and devote the other half of 
his time to research work in some branch of 
chemistry as arranged with the head of the 
chemistry department. 

In connection with the grant of £10,000 a 
year recently voted to the University of Lon- 
don by the London County Council in aid of 
the work of the Faculties of Arts, Science, 
Engineering, and Economics, the Senate have 
made the following appointments: Professor 
Ramsay, F.R.S., teacher of chemistry at Uni- 
versity College; Professor Capper, teacher of 
mechanical engineering at King’s College; 
Professor Unwin, F.R.S., teacher of civil and 
mechanical engineering at the Central Tech- 
nical College, and Dr. J. Norman Collier, 
F.R.S., professor of organic chemistry at Uni- 
versity College. 

At St. John’s College, Cambridge, Mr. G. 
B. Mathews, F.R.S., senior wrangler in 1883, 
has been reelected to a fellowship and Mr. J. 
H. Vincent, D.Se., has been elected to a 
Hutchinson studentship in physics. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL ComMiTTEE : S. NEwcomB, Mathematics; R. S. WooDwaRD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THuRSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALcort, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BessEY, N. L. Brirron, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


DITCH, Physiology 5 


J. S. Brnuines, Hygiene; WiL~L1am H. Wetcu, Pathol- 


ogy ; J. McCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Fripvay, Juuy 25, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science :— 


Some Recent Applications of Function 


Theory to Physical Problems:  Pro- 

FESSOR JAMES McMAHON.............. 121 
Section A, Mathematics and Astronomy: 

Proressor EpwIn 8. CRAWLEY.......... 131 
Section G, Botany: HERMANN YON 

ISCHIREN Kens 2 cycholetein nistersce avarice ratenccesnersieie e 136 
Assignments of Geologic and Paleontologic 

IEG RIOS Medes Sciortino pcre plane Onno aie aio Oras 141 


Scientific Books :— 
Korschelt and Heider’s Lehrbuch der ver- 
gleichenden Entwicklungsgeschichte. der 
wirbellosen Thiere: J. P. MeM. Job’s 
Among the Water-fowl: F. A. L. Schmidt 
and Weis on Bacteria: PRoressor H. 
W. Conn. Nelson’s Analytical Key to some 
of the Common Flowering Plants of the 
Rocky Mountain Region: PROFESSOR 
IOAN CHE) TWO NGO Goc owes enob ene Oe oe On 144 
Scientific Journals and Articles............. 147 
Societies and Academies :— 
The Anthropological Society of Washing- 
ton: Dr. WALTER HOUGH.........:......- 149 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
Zoological Nomenclature: Dr. Wm. H. 
Datu. Range of the Fox Snake: ARTHUR 
lainyany IBROWRTeedo coca vob e ed oodod eos oleE 150 
Shorter Articles :— 
Preliminary Note on a New Organism pro- 


ducing Rot in Cauliflower and Allied 

Plamits\; H.C. HARRISON). ..--- 222.0. 152 
Recent Musewm Reports).......-..:.-..--:.. 152 
Notes on Entomology: NATHAN BANKS..... 154 


Botanical Notes :— 
Two Text-books of Botany; Further Studies 
of Cellulose; Studies of the Structure of 
Mosses; The Ignoring of Beginners and 
Amateurs: PROFESSOR CHARLES EK. Bessy. 156 
Scientijic Notes and News... 22. 4--.--.-- 157 
University and Educational News........... 159 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


SOME RECENT APPLICATIONS OF 
TION THEORY TO PHYSICAL 
PROBLEMS.* 

Ir has seemed appropriate that the ad- 
dress of the retiring chairman should 
draw attention to some of the most recent 
developments in those sciences which it is 
the object of this Section of the Association 
to promote, especially to some problems 
that seem to be making but slow headway, 
and to others that are at a standstill for 
want of appropriate modes of mathe- 
matical expression. 

In selecting a particular group of prob- 
lems I have been guided by the thought that 
there is one field of work which touches the 
domain of every member of this Section, 
whether his or her immediate interests lie 
in abstract mathematics, in physical mathe- 
maties or in astronomy. I mean the great 
field of the theory of functions of a com- 
plex variable. 

The physicist or astronomer who wishes 
to understand the true nature of any fune- 
tion which he deals with must study its be- 
havior on the complex plane, its zeros, its 
poles, its singularities and perhaps its 
Riemann surface. Moreover, in dealing 
with such important questions as stability 


FUNC- 


* Address by the retiring Vice-President and 
Chairman of Section A—Mathematies and As- 
tronomy—of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, Pittsburgh meeting, 
June 28 to July 3, 1902. 


122 


and instability it is necessary to examine 
the region of convergence of the infinite 
series which so often present themselves; 
and this cannot be done with certainty 
without the methods of function theory. 

In such cases we use the function theory 
to test the character of the solutions al- 
ready obtained, and to find out the regions 
within which they are appleable;-but in 
the discovery of solutions of new physical 
problems the methods of general function 
theory have seldom been used. It is chiefly 
of its use as an instrument of discovery 
that I wish to speak to-day. 

It has long been known that the theory 
of functions of a complex variable is useful 
in treating the numerous physical problems 
whose solution can be made to depend on 
Laplace’s equation in two dimensions, 

Ou | Ou 
Ou? oy? if 

This equation presents itself in the 
theory of the two-dimensional potential, 
and in problems relating to the steady flow 
of heat, of electricity and of incompressible 
fluids. 

The essential feature of the method in 
question is to take an arbitrary function 
of the complex variable, and to express 
this function in the form 

(a+ ty) =o (a, y) +iv(x, y), 
in which ¢ and ¢ are real functions of two 
real variables, « and y. 

The funetions ¢g and # are then said to 
be conjugate to each other, and are in all 
cases solutions of Laplace’s equation, what- 
ever be the assumed function f. 

Moreover the two families of curves 

o(x, y)=Q, 

w(x, y)=C, 
(in which C,and @, are arbitrary constant 
parameters) cut each other at right angles. 
The curves of one system may be taken as 
equipotential lines, and those of the other 
system will then be lines of force, or lines 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 


of flow. The physical boundary of the 
region must be some one of the lines of 
either set. 

Some interesting applications of this 
method to tidal theory have recently been 
made by Dr. Rollin A. Harris in his ‘Man- 
ual of the Tides,’ published by the U. S. 
Coast and Geodetic Survey.* I would 
mention especially his use of an elliptic 
function as the transforming function in 
the form 

x+iy=sn(o+u)). 

The two sets of orthogonal curves drawn 
by him may be seen in the Annals of 
Mathematics, Vol. IV., page 83. By im- 
agining thin walls erected along certain of 
the stream lines, we see, for instance, the 
nature of the flow around an island lying 
between two capes. 

The direct problem of determining a 
solution of Laplace’s equation that -shall 
be constant at all points of a boundary 
previously assigned is usually very diff- 
cult. It is a particular case of what is 
commonly known as the Problem of Dirich- 
let. Before stating this problem it is con- 
venient to define a harmonic function. 
Any real function w(2, y, 2) which satisfies 
Laplace’s equation, and which, together 
with its derivatives of the first two orders, 
is one-valued and continuous within a cer- 
tain region, is said to be harmonic within 
that region. Dirichlet’s problem may then 
be stated as follows: 

To find a funetion w(z, uw, 2) which shall 
be harmonic within an assigned region, 7, 
and which shall take assigned values at 
points on the boundary surface S. 

This problem has long been one of the 
meeting grounds of mathematicians and 
physicists. Some important mathematical 
theories have received their starting point 
from this and similar ‘boundary-value 
problems.’ 

* Part IV., A, pp. 574-82. 


JULY 28, 1902. ] 


In proying that a solution always exists, 
Dirichlet began by assuming as self-evident 
that among all the functions which satisfy 
the assigned boundary conditions, there is 
a certain function, u, for which the in- 
tegral 

du \2 du? du\? 

PSL Gay + (2) ese 
taken throughout the region 7’, is a mini- 
mum. This assumption is usually called 
‘Dirichlet’s principle.’ If this principle 
be granted it can be shown by the calculus 
of variations that the function w satisfies 
Laplace’s equation; and it is easy to prove 
by Green’s theorem that there is no other 
solution. 

It was first pointed out by Weierstrass 
that this assumption is not allowable. If 
only a finite number of quantities present 
themselves we can assume that there is a 
smallest one among them. But among an 
indefinite number of quantities in any as- 
signed group a smallest one does not neces- 
sarily exist. Consider for instance those 
rational numbers which decrease towards 
the square root of 2 as a limit; there is no 
smallest among them. 

This led mathematicians to seek for other 
proofs of the existence theorem; and many 
interesting developments in function 
theory have been the result. Very re- 
cently Hilbert has reexamined Dirichlet’s 
assumption, and has succeeded in demon- 
strating it, so that it is once more available 
as a starting point for the 
-heorem. 

When the boundary of the region is 
rectangular, circular, spherical, cylindrical, 
conical or ellipsoidal, the appropriate har- 
monic functions will be found in such 
works as Byerly’s ‘Fourier Series and 
Spherical Harmonics.’ 

I may mention here a new method of 
obtaining solutions of Laplace’s three- 
dimensional equation used by Dr. Harris, 


existence 


SCIENCE. 


123 


and applied to tidal problems.* He uses 
the more general complex variable contain- 
ing two imaginary units 7 and j. An 
arbitrary function of the form 
o(ax + iby + jez) 

is a solution of Laplace’s equation, pro- 
vided ¢=7—=—1, anda@=b'+c. When 
this function is expanded, the real part, 
and the coefficients of 7, of 7 and of ij, are 
all separate solutions of the differential 
equation. A great number of solutions of 
this and similar equations can be obtained 
by this method. It is to be hoped that Dr. 
Harris may have time to develop it further. 

Tn order to lead up to some recent appli- 
cations of funetion theory I wish to speak 
especially of another method of solving 
Dirichlet’s problem, namely by the use 
of Green’s function. 

Green’s function is defined as follows 
for a given closed boundary S and a given 
pole P,, within the bounded region 7’. 

Let (a, y, 2) be the current point within 
the region, and let (2,, y,, 2,) be the pole. 
Then Gi". 1s to vanish at every point 
cf the boundary S, and is to be harmonic 
within the region 7 except at the pole 
(@1, Yi, 21), Where it is to become infinite 
as 1/r, where r is the distance of the cur- 
rent point (a, y, 2) from (#,, y,, 2,). 

There is always one and only one Green’s 
function for a given boundary and pole. 
The determination of the form of this fune- 
tion G furnishes a solution of Dirichlet’s 
problem; for it has the property that the 
surface integral 


Yeas 
Gy 


taken over the boundary of S, has the 
value 47 V(a@,, Y,, 2,), Where V is any fune- 
tion harmonic within S, and dG/dn is the 
normal derivative of Green’s function. 
Henee the value of V at any point 


* Manual of Tides, Part IV., A, pp. 584, 597- 


124 


(2, Yy, %,) within the boundary is ex- 
pressible in terms of its surface values and 
the normal derivative of G. Thus the 
solution of Dirichlet’s problem is reduced 
to a problem in integration when Green’s 
funetion is known. 

Some recent advances have been made 
in determining Green’s function for cer- 
tain boundaries. To make them clearer 
I shall begin with the simple problem of 
finding Green’s function for a region 
bounded by two planes at right angles and 
extending to infinity. Here Lord Kel- 
vin’s method of images is directly appli- 
eable. Let P, be the image of the pole 
P, taken with regard to the first plane. 
Let P, be the image of P, with regard to 
the second plane; and P, the image of P, 
as to the first plane. Then the image of 
P, as to the second plane brings us back 
to the first point, P,. These four poles 
form a closed system, and there is only one 
pole in the given region. The required 
Green’s function is 


in terms of the distance of the current point 
(x, y, 2) from the four poles; for this func- 
tion, being a potential function, satisfies 
Laplace’s equation; it also vanishes on the 
bounding planes by symmetry, and at in- 
finity; moreover it becomes infinite as 1/r, 
at the pole P,, and is infinite nowhere else 
within the bounded region. 

It may be observed that a direct physical 
interpretation of Green’s function is illus- 
trated by this problem. It is evidently the 
combined potential due to a positive unit 
of electricity placed at P, and to the in- 
duced charge on the bounding planes made 
conducting and maintained at zero poten- 
tial; for this distribution realizes the 
boundary conditions. Hence the in- 
duced charge due to P, is equivalent in 
effect to three-point charges, namely, a 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 
positive unit at P,, and negative units at 
Jey eal JE, 

Next consider the problem in which the 
angle of the planes is not an aliquot part 
of z. The simplest case is when this angle 
is 27/3. Performing the successive re- 
flections as before, it is found that there 
are five reflections before the image comes 
back to P,. There are then six poles, of 
which two are situated in the given region. 
The funetion 


satisfies all the conditions except that of 
having only one pole within the region. 
It is thus not the required Green’s fune- 
tion; and Lord Kelvin’s method of images 
does not furnish a solution. . 

This methed fails in two large classes 0 
problems: (1) When the successive images 
(or poles) do not form a closed system; (2) 
when more than one of these poles he 
within the assigned region. 

By the conception of a Riemann space, 
Dr. Sommerfield* has recently made the 
important advance of overcoming the diffi- 
culty arising from the presence of two poles 
within the region. He regards the whole 
region as undergoing successive reflection ; 
and thus, in the problem last mentioned, 
the whole of space is filled twice over. He 
imagines a two-fold Riemann space having 
the intersection of the planes as a winding 
line, and one of the planes as a branch mem- 
brane. The appropriate coordinates are 
eylindrical (r, 9, 2). The axis of z is the 
line of intersection, and the plane zo is 
the plane passed through the original pole 
P,, perpendicular to the axis of z. The 
radius-vector r is the distance of the cur- 
rent point from the z-axis, and @ is the 
angle which 7 makes with one of the planes, 
taken as initial plane. 

* Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., 
zweigte Potentiale im Raum.’ 


1897, ‘ Ueber ver- 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


When any radius. vector OP revolves 
about the axis of 2, it remains in the 
first (or physical) space until 927. It 
then crosses the branch membrane and 
enters thesecond fold of the Riemann space. 
In the problem before us, a second revolu- 
tion brings the radius vector into the first 
fold again. It is to be understood that each 
fold fills all space. Two underlying points 
have the same r and the same z, but their 
¢ coordinates differ by 27 or some odd 
multiple of 2z. Two points whose vec- 
torial angles differ by an even multiple of 
97 ure in the same fold. 

The problem now is to find a Laplace’s 
tunetion which shall vanish on each plane 
and at infinity, and shall have only one pole 
in the original physical space between the 
planes. 

Let (7,, 9, 2,) be the coordinates of the 
assigned pole, and (r, @, 2) those of the 
current point. Then 1/F is a solution of 
Laplace’s equation, where 

R?= (2—%4)?+7r? + r2— 2rr, cos (?—9,). 
Dr. Sommerfeld first replaces 6, by an 
arbitrary parameter a, and denotes the 
result by R&’. He then multiplies 1/R’ by 
an arbitrary function f(a), and integrates 
with regard to a. The result is still a solu- 
tion of Laplace’s equation. By a proper 
choice of the function f(a), and of the 
range of integration, he obtains a function 
of (7, 4, 2) satisfying all the conditions. 
He takes the two-valued function 


Pneaie: 
ie) coe 
e? = 2 
and puts 
ia 
1 1 e 
Uy =e we ee 
Caen 


then regards ¢ as a complex number, and 
performs the integration in the «-plane 
around a contour enclosing the point «= 0, 
and excluding the other points where the 
integrand becomes infinite. The function 


SCIENCE. 


125 


u, thus obtained becomes infimite at the 
pole (7,, 9, 2,) but does not fulfill the con- 
dition of vanishing on the two planes. 
Next he forms a similar function wu, for 
the pole P, situated at (7, @2, 2), and sa 
on. The required Green’s function is 


U= Uy — Uy + Uy 


uy us — Ug. 

The poles of w, and u, would, under 
ordinary circumstances, both lie in the 
given region, but the pole of wu, is given 
such a vectorial angle as to bring it into 
the second fold of the Riemann space. The 
function wu has then only one pole for the 
physical region defined by 0< 0< 27. 

Moreover, « vanishes for points on the 
two planes, and fulfills all the other con- 
ditions for Green’s function. 

Thus we see how a function, which would 
be two-valued and bi-polar if restricted to 
the given physical region, becomes single- 
valued and uni-polar in the Riemann 
space. We may say that the second fold 
of this space is a refuge for the second 
value and the second pole. Care has to be 
taken to use the proper values for @ when 
the indicated operations are being per- 
formed. The difficulties of the problem are 
thus reduced to those of the integral cal- 
culus. 

In the more general case in which the 
angle of the planes is n;/m, there are 2m 
poles in the cireuit (one in each angle 
z/m), of which n are in the given region. 
The Riemann space is then n-fold. 

Sommerfeld has worked out at length 
the very interesting case in which the angle 
between the planes is 27. The region is 
then bounded by the surfaces z= + 0, 
r=o, 0=0, = 27; the last two being 
the two faces of an infinite half plane with 
a straight edge. The assigned pole and its 
image are both in the given region; hence 
the corresponding Riemann space is two- 
fold; and the required solution is 


u=u (0,)—u( —h) 


126 


where wu is of the same form as uw, written 
above. 

By inversion with regard to different 
centers, various other problems are reduced 
to this one; for instance, the infinite plane 
with a cireular aperture, the circular dise, 
and the spherical segment. 

With regard to the uniqueness of the 
solution, Dr. Sommerfeld has proved by a 
remarkable use of function-theory methods 
that a function satisfying the conditions 
already laid down for Green’s function is 
uniquely determined in a Riemann space. 

I next speak of some recent advances in 
the solution of an equation more general 
than Laplace’s, namely, the differential 
equation 


eu O2u | O7u 5 
Ox? iy? saz rete Os 


which plays such an important part in the 
treatment of vibrating systems of various 
kinds; and I may introduce them by a quo- 
tation from Pockels’ treatise on this equa- 
tion: ‘Those solutions of our differential 
equation, which in accordance with their 
physical significance are regarded as single- 
valued within certain bounded regions, 
would by analytical continuation over 
the boundary in general become multiform. 
Therefore, from both a mathematical and 
a physical standpoint, multiform functions 
are important, and it is very desirable that 
the properties of such functions, their 
winding points and singularities, their be- 
havior on Riemann surfaces, ete., should 
be systematically investigated—in short, 
all the function-theory questions which 
were handled in the theory of the New- 
tonian and logarithmic potential. * * * 
‘*Similarly as we have treated of solu- 
tions that are single-valued in the whole 
plane, it would be of interest to seek funce- 
tions which are single-valued on a closed 
Riemann surface, or in an analogous three 
dimensional region, more especially those 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 395. 


functions which are everywhere finite and 
continuous, namely the so-called ‘ principal 
solutions,’ within the region in question. 
Finally there is the further investigation of 
the essential singularities and the natural 
boundaries which the functions satisfying 
this equation may present. * * * Inves- 
tigations regarding these questions” have 
not yet been made, more especially the in- 
tegration of our equation for a closed mani- 
fold has hardly been touched. In this di- 
rection of inquiry without doubt a wide 
and rich field offers itself.’’ 

These words were written in 1890; and 
in 1897 appeared Professor Sommerfeld’s 
paper on multiform potentials of which I 
have given some account above. He and 
his pupil, Dr. Carslaw, have also attacked 
the multiform solutions of the more general 
equation to which Pockels refers.* 

The first problem that ‘presents itself is 
to find a solution that has no pole, and is 
multiform with period 2nz, in the ordinary 
sense, but on a certain n-sheeted Riemann 
surface is uniform. The case n=2 solves 
the following well-known physical prob- 
lem: : 

Plane waves of sound, light or electricity 
are incident on a thin infinite half plane 
bounded by a straight edge, to find the re- 
sulting diffraction of the waves. 

This problem had previously been men- 
tioned by Lord Rayleigh in the article on 
Wave Theory in the Encyclopedia Britan- 
niea in the following terms: 

““The full solution of problems concern- 
ing the mode of action of a screen is searce- 
ly to be expected. Even in the simple case 
of sound where we know what we have to 
deal with the mathematical difficulties are 
formidable, and we are not able to solve 
such an apparently elementary question as 
the transmission of sound past a rigid infi- 


* Pree. Lond. Math. Soc., 1898; 
1901; Proc. Edin. Math. Soc., 1901. 


Zeitschrift, 


JULY 25, 1902. ] 


nitely thin plane screen bounded by a 
straight edge or perforated with a circular 
aperture.”’ 

Again the same author says in his work 
on the ‘ Theory of Sound’ :* 

“‘The diffraction of sound is a subject 
which has attracted but little attention 
either from mathematicians or experiment- 
alists. Although the general character of 
the phenomena is well understood, and 
therefore no very striking discoveries are 
to be expected, the exact theoretical solu- 
tion of a few of the simpler problems, 
which the subject presents, would be in- 
teresting.’’ 

Accordingly the recent solutions of Som- 
merfeld and Carslaw are very welcome to 
mathematicians and physicists. A very 
brief sketch of the principle of the method 
may here be given. 

Let the waves come from the direction 
6= 0’, and be incident on the plane 6=0. 
In the (a, y) plane, or in the (7,0) plane, 
the origin will be regarded as a winding 
point, and the line g=x+ 6’ a branch 
line. Start with the simplest solution of 
our differential equation, namely, that for 
undisturbed plane waves in infinite space, 


oe Mane 
U = eikr (cos 8—8") ; 


replace 6’ by a, multiply by the same two- 
valued function of « as before, and inte- 
erate around the pointa=é’'in the complex 
a-plane. The result of the integration is a 
multiform solution of period 4z. The 
solution of the physical problem is obtained 
by adding the multiform solution for waves 
coming from the direction 6 to that for 
the direction —0’. There is, of course, 
considerable difficulty in performing the in- 
dicated operations, but this does not dimin- 
ish the theoretical value of the solution, as 
the difficulties belong only to the integral 
ealeulus. 


**Theory of Sound,’ Vol. II., p. 141. 


SCIENCE. 


WAT 


The* next problem in order is that of 
Waves issuing from a point-source against 
the half-plane, either in two or in three di- 
mensions. 

In the latter case we start with the undis- 
turbed solution in infinite space 

etkk 


= —_ 


R 


and treat this function as we treated 1/R 
in the potential problem. We put poles at 
(r’, 8, 0) and (7’, — 6, 0), and take the 
physical space as defined by 0 < @ < 2r. 

It will be found that the function 

u=u(0/)+u(—) 
satisfies all the conditions in the assigned 
physical space. 

In the corresponding two-dimensional 
problem, the starting point is the undisturb- 
ed solution 

u= Y,(kr), 


where Y, is the Neumann function. 

The same method is applicable to prob- 
lems in the flow of heat, im which the equa- 
tion 


(iu Pu, Py _ du 

x2 ' dy? ' dz2) ~~ at 
is to be satisfied. The starting point is the 
solution for a point-source in an infinite 
solid 


ene een) 
— (4rkt)3 *P ane) 


In his recent paper published in the Zevt- 
schrift, Sommerfeld has extended the meth- 
od so as to apply to the problem of Rontgen 
rays encountering an obstacle represented 
by the same half-plane. He obtains a 
multiform solution of Maxwell’s equations, 
and adapts it to the physical conditions, 
comparing the results with experimental 
data. 

The induced currents flowing in an infi- 
nite half plane have been studied by Mr. 
Jeans* by the multiform method, using a 


* Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., 1899. 


128 


Riemann space with a single winding 
line. 

The next advance was to solve a problem 
in multiform potentials in a Riemann space 
with two winding lines. Such a case pre- 
sents itself in finding Green’s function for 
an infinite plane with an infinitely long 
strip cut out. Sommerfeld has treated this 
problem by the use of the bipolar coordi- 
nate system 

B 
p=log Z ’ 
o=0,—94,. 

This is the system used so skillfully by 
Maxwell in which the curves p= C,, 9 = 
C, form two orthogonal families of circles 
(or cylinders). The Riemann space will 
have the straight lines corresponding to p= 
=+ o for winding lines, and the plane ¢ = 0 
for branch membrane. 

The work of obtaining solutions of our 
differential equations on other Riemann 
surfaces or spaces has yet to be done. The 
difficulty lies in finding an appropriate 
system of coordinates. This is an attract- 
ive field and seems worthy of the atten- 
tion of the best pure mathematicians. 

It is interesting to note that the idea of 
obtaining a new solution by integrating 
an old solution in the complex plane with 
regard to a parameter seems to have 
occurred independently to a Scotch mathe- 
matician (J. Dougal, Proceedings Edin- 
burgh Math. Soc., 1901). For instance he 
regards the Bessel function J,(kr) as a 
function of its order n, and integrates with 
regard to n. The Legendrian and other 
functions may be treated in the same way. 
New functions are thus obtained that sat- 
isfy various boundary conditions. 

All that I have said illustrates the need 
there is for new forms of functional rela- 
tionship. The more new functions we can 
invent the better; that is to say, functions 
with new and varied characteristic pro- 
perties. We look to general function 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 


theory to supply them. One never knows 
how soon they may find suitable use in some 
field of pure or physical mathematics. I 
said at the beginning that a number of 
physical problems are at a standstill for 
want of an appropriate mode of mathe- 
matical expression. In proof of this I may 
here quote the words of a few experts in 
different lines of work. 

Lord Rayleigh says,* ‘‘ When the fixed 
boundary of a membrane is neither straight 
nor circular, the problem of determining 
its vibrations presents difficulties which in 
general could not be overcome without the 
introduction of functions not hitherto dis- 
cussed or tabulated. A partial exception 
must be made in favor of an elliptic 
boundary.”’ 

I may note here that Mathieu solved the 
problem of the elliptic membrane by trans- 
forming the differential equation to elliptic 
coordinates (&, 7), so that one coordi- 
nate §& would be constant on an elliptic 
boundary, and then satisfying the equation 
by means of a product function 

w= 9(5)-¢(%), 
making yg vanish on the boundary. This 
method might seem promising for other 
boundaries; but Michell has proved that the 
elliptic transformation is the only one that 
leads to an equation capable of being satis- 
fied in the product form. 

Lord Rayleigh says in another place:{ 
“The problem of a vibrating rectangular 
plate is one of great difficulty, and has for 
the most part resisted attack. * * * The 
case where two opposite edges are free while 
the other two are supported has been dis- 
cussed by Voigt.’’S 

In connection with air vibration he says: 
““The investigation of the conductivity for 
various kinds of channels is an important 

** Theory of Sound, Vol. 1, p. 343 (2d ed.)- 

+ Messenger of Mathematics, 1890. 


t{‘ Theory of Sound,’ Vol. 1, p. 372. 
§ Gottingen Nachrichten, 1893. 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


part of the theory of resonators, but in all 
except a very few cases the accurate solu- 
tion of the problem is beyond the power 
of existing mathematies.’’* 

Professor E. L. Brown in his report on 
hydrodynamies presented to the Boston 
meeting says: “‘ No problem of discontinu- 
ous motion in three dimensions has yet been 
solved. The difficulty is one which can be 
easily appreciated. The theory of func- 
tions deals with a complex of the form 
a+ zy and this suits all problems in two 
dimensions. But little has been done with 
a vector in three dimensions. Perhaps the 
paper on Potentials by Sommerfeld in the 
Proccedings of the London Mathematical 
Society last year may have some bearing 
on the problem; it is in any case worth seri- 
ous study. The subject of discontinuous 
motion was set for the Adams prize in 1895. 
A solution for a solid of revolution was 
asked for, and it was generally supposed 
that the cireular dise would be the easiest 
to attempt. No solution was sent in. One 
prominent mathematician who has aided 
considerably in the development of hydro- 
dynamics mentioned that he had worked 
for six months and had obtained absolutely 
nothing. A magnificent reception there- 
fore awaits the first solution.’’ 

Mr. Hayford writes (in Sctencer, 1898) : 
“The most important tidal problem before 
us is that of determining the relation be- 
tween the boundaries (bottoms and shores) 
and the modification produced by them on 
the tidal wave.’ 

Professor Webster, in his report on re- 
cent progress in electricity and magnetism, 
presented to the Boston meeting, says: 
““The problem of electrical vibrations in a 
long spheroid is next to be attacked, and 
then perhaps on surfaces obtained by the 
revolution of the curves known as eyclides. 
The introduction of suitable curvilinear 


*“Theory of Sound,’ Vol. 2, p. 175. 


SCIENCE. 


129 


coordinates into the partial differential 
equations will lead us in the case of the 
spheroid to new linear differential equa- 
tions, analogous to, but more complicated 
than, Lamé’s, and will necessitate the in- 
vestigation of new functions and develop- 
ments in series.’’ 

Dr. Webster also commends to the atten- 
tion of pure mathematicians the various 
differential equations which are to be found 
in Heaviside’s electrical papers; more es- 
pecially the question of existence theorems. 

I may mention here that Hilbert in a re- 
cent volume of the Archiv* suggests the 
question of proving an existence theorem 
for the solution of any differential equa- 
tion subject to assigned boundary condi- 
tions. 

Even a partial treatment of any one of 
these problems might open up new rela- 
tionships, and widen the intellectual hori- 
zon. It is a hopeful sign that several pure 
mathematicians are turning their attention 
to such questions. Speaking at the Chi- 
cago Mathematical Congress in 1893, Pro- 
fessors Klein and Webster deplored the 
growing separation of the pure and phys- 
ical branches of mathematics, and pointed 
out the great loss that would result to each 
of the divergent branches. The recent in- 
creased attention to mathematical history 
has enforced this opinion. The influence 
of Klein, Poincaré, Weber and others has 
been helpful as a corrective, on the con- 
tinent of Europe. The British Universi- 
ties have steadfastly treated mathematical 
physies as an organic part of mathematical 
discipline. The same statement could not 
be made with regard to all of the American 
Universities; but there are many signs of 
improvement. With a true historical in- 
stinect, this Section of the Association, and 
its ally, the American Mathematical So- 
ciety, have exerted their influence for an 


* Archiv Math. und Phys., 1901, p. 229. 


150 


organic union of the entire mathematical 
field. On the whole, the indications are 
that the separation which was so deplored 
ten years ago is now being arrested.* 

Besides the discovery of new functions 
a useful work might also be done in the 
tabulation of old ones. Our sister Associa- 
tion in England has set us a good example 
in this respect. The tables of elliptic in- 
tegrals given by Legendre ought to be ex- 
tended; and tables for the elliptic func- 
tions would be weleomed. The Neumann 
function needs tabulation, and several oth- 
ers might be mentioned. The familiar 
funetions ought also to be tabulated on the 
complex plane. The labor could easily be 
divided up. I have myself made a begin- 
ning of this kind of work by computing the 
trigonometric and hyperbolic sine and co- 
sine of «+ y for values of x and y ranging 
separately from 0 to 4 = at intervals of .1; 
it was published in Merriman and Wood- 
ward’s ‘ Higher Mathematics,’ 1896, and I 
have already had my reward in the fact 
that one electrical engineer has told me that 
he has used this complex table in the appli- 
cation of vector-theory to alternating cur- 
rents. In connection with the chart al- 
ready referred to, Dr. Harris has given a 
convenient method of computing snz, cnez, 
dnz. My friend, Dr. Virgil Snyder, has 
tabulated, under Professor Klein’s direc- 
tion, the Weierstrass sigma and zeta fune- 
tions for the case g,—0. The tables ex- 
tend over nine parallelograms in the com- 
plex plane at intervals of one twenty-fourth 
of each period. They are now being pub- 
lished in Martin Schilling’s ‘Modell Ver- 
lag’ (Halle). The case g,—0 will next be 
treated. 

I have also drawn the attention of the 
Section on former occasions to the impor- 
tance of tabulating certain fundamental in- 


*This paragraph has been amplified since the 
address was read. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 395. 


tegrals, so as to increase our stock of what 
are called ‘known functions,’ in terms of 
which many other integrals might be ex- 
pressed. Among these were the two in- 


tegrals 
f log sin xdz, 
0 


ff talaae. 


In all that has been said I have confined 
myself to things that have been forced 
on my own attention. Many members of 
this Section and of its esteemed affiliated 
Society know of other standing problems. 
Not to go beyond the list of past officers 
that les before me, I see the names of 
Eddy, Woodward, Waldo and Ziwet, who 
could tell us of the new problems in me- 
chanics and dynamies; Gibbs, Hyde or 
Macfarlane could speak for quarternions 
and vector analysis; Bigelow for the me- 
chanics of the atmosphere; Hayford for 
geodetic and tidal problems; Story for in- 
variant theory; Johnson for differential 
equations; Moore for funetion theory; 
Beman, Phillips or Strong for geometry 
and analysis; Miller for group theory. 
Then to speak for the various fields of 
astronomical work we have a noble band 
consisting of Newcomb, Young, Pickering, 
Langley, Hall, Harkness, Hough, Van 
Vleck, Eastman, Stone, Chandler, Doo- 
little, Comstock, Paul, Upton, Holden, 
Kershner, Frisby, Barnard, Hall, Frost 
and Lord. 

It would seem that the work of the Sec- 
tion not only advances science, but tends 
to prolong life; for I find only two starred 
names in the list of officers since the Sec- 
tion was reorganized on its present basis 
twenty years ago. 

- Rogers and Ferrel have entered into the 
larger life; and their works do follow them, 
for they are being carried on to wider is- 


sues. JAMES McMAnon. 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


SECTION A, MATHEMATICS AND 
ASTRONOMY. 

THE meeting of the section at Pittsburgh 
compared favorably with former meetings 
both in the number and character of the 
papers presented and in the attendance: 
The number of papers presented was 
twenty-four, mathematical papers predomi- 
nating somewhat over astronomical. The 
attendance was better in the morning than 
in the afternoon sessions, on account of the 
large and attractive list of excursions 
planned for the afternoons by the Local 
Committee. The list of papers follows: 


On the Adaptability of the Glycerine Clock 
to the Diurnal Motion of Astronomical 
Instruments, particularly those wsed in 
Photographing Solar Eclipses: Professor 
Davi P. Topp, Amherst College Observa- 
tory. 

In outline the glycerine clock is an acecu- 
rately constructed cylinder, about four 
inches in diameter, in which travels a pis- 
ton, the flow of the glycerine being con- 


trolled at any required speed or rate by. 


means of a series of needle valves. By at- 
taching a mirror or objective to a frame, 
equatorially mounted, the glycerine clock 
can be set under one arm of it, at any con- 
venient distance from the axis, and the req- 
uisite rate for counteracting the diurnal 
motion of the sun ean be given by means 
of the needle valves. This permits very 
heavy weights to be thrown on the piston, 
and therefore the vibration of the instru- 
ments by wind can be precluded. When 
the run of the piston is finished, the glycer- 
ine is pumped out of the top of the cylinder 
and forced back into the bottom, and the 
run is commenced over again. 


On a Convenient Type of Finder for very 
large Equatorials: Professor Davin P. 
Topp, Amherst College Observatory. 
The object of a ‘finder’ is convenience. 

But in equatorials above twenty inches in 


SCIENCE. 131 


aperture, the ordinary finder is necessarily 
mounted so far away from the axis of the 
great telescope that its use occasions much 
inconvenience, simply because of the dis- 
tance of its eyepiece from that of the great 
tube. To obviate this difficulty, Professor 
Todd proposes to construct the finder with 
a pair of reflectors, either planes or prisms, 
set at 45°, and to mount the main part of 
its tube in rings or bearings. By turning 
the tube im these, the finder’s eyepiece can 
be brought as near the eyepiece of the great 
tube as is desired, or pushed away from it 
to admit attachment or adjustment of sub- 
sidiary apparatus. 


Series whose Product is Absolutely Con- 
vergent: Professor Fortran  Cavsort, 
Colorado College. 

This paper is a continuation of the sub- 
ject as developed by the author in his pre- 
vious papers (Trans. of the Am. Math. Soc., 
Vol. II., pp. 25-86, 1901; Scrmncr, Vol. XIV., 
p- 395, 1901; Bulletin of the Am. Math. 
Soc., Vol. VIII., pp. 231-236, 1902) and in 
the article of Alfred Pringsheim (Trans. 
of the Am. Math. Soc., Vol. IL., pp. 404-412, 
1901). Some of the results previously ob- 
tained, relating to absolutely convergent 
products of two or more series, are general- 
ized and the method of treatment is simpli- 
fied. The construction of pairs of divergent 
series with real or complex terms is given, 
such that the product of the two series is 
not only absolutely convergent, but equal 
to any desired value, including zero. 


A New Treatment of Volume: Professor G. 

B. Haustep, University of Texas. 

After the establishment of a sect-caleulus, 
the area of a triangle is defined as the pro- 
duct of its base by half its altitude, this 
product being proved independent of the 
choice of base. Then the volume of a 
tetrahedron is defined as the product of the 
area of its base by one third its altitude, 
this product being proved independent of 


132 


the choice of base. The volume of a poly- 
hedron is defined as the sum of the volumes 
of a set of tetrahedra into which it is cut, 
this sum being proved independent of the 
mode of partition into tetrahedra. Then 
a prismatoid is defined, and its volume 
proved 


Pee : 
V=7 (B+ 38). 


Then all the ordinary solids are forms of 
prismatoids. 


A New Solar Attachment: HeErBert A. 
Howe, Director of the Chamberlin Ob- 
servatory, University Park, Colorado. 
This was a description of a small solar of 

simple construction devised by Mr. Orville 
F. Shattuck, a former pupil of Professor 
Howe. It was shown how the device, when 
attached to a universal instrument or engi- 
neer’s transit, may be used for some simple 
astronomical observations, and for illustra- 
ting the principles of the equatorial conde, 
the prism transit, the sextant and the almu- 
cantar. 


On the Periodic Solutions of the Problem 
of Three Bodies: Professor E. O. Lovett, 
Princeton University. 

Lagrange found five exact solutions of 
the problem of those bodies in each of 
which the bodies preserve an unvarying 
configuration which revolves with a uni- 
form velocity. When the third body is of 
infinitesimal mass compared with the other 
two, it ean deseribe small periodic orbits in 
the vicinity of the points where exact solu- 
tions exist. The latter points were called 
centers of libration by Gyldén, and Darwin 
calls the infinitely small body an oscillating 
satellite. Hill pointed out the fertility of 
the notion and made a splendid application 
of it in his lunar theory. Poincaré elabo- 
rated the mathematical theory in his cele- 
brated researches and we owe to Darwin an 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 395. 


extended collection of examples of periodic 
orbits. 

One of the most recent investigations of 
such orbits is a suggestive paper by 
Charlier, in No. 18 of the Meddelanden 
frin Lunds Astronomiska Observatoriwm. 
In the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astro- 
nomical Society for November, 1901, 
Plummer has discussed some of Charlier’s 
results in a more general manner. 

It is the object of Professor Lovett’s 
paper to determine the imaginary centers of 
libration and their corresponding orbits, 
and thus complete the analytical solution 
proposed by Charher. The results cannot 
be expected to fit the sky, but they may be 
of some interest to mathematical astron- 
omers. It appears that there are real 
periodic orbits corresponding to imaginary 
centers of libration. 


The Rate of the Riefler Sidereal Clock, No. 
56: Professor CHARLES 8S. Hows, Case 
School of Applied Sciences. 

In this paper Professor Howe gave the 
details and results of some careful series of 
experiments of a Riefler clock enclosed in a 
elass case from which the air had been par- 
tially exhausted. The mean daily rate for 
a trifle over three months was .116 of a 
second. The average daily variation from 
this mean was .015, and the maximum vari- 
ation .022 of a second. The paper will be 
published in the Astronomische Nach- 
richten. 


A Representation of the Coordinates of the 
Moon in Power Series which are Proved 
to Converge for a Finite Interval of 
Time: Dr. F. R. Mouuton, University of 
Chicago. 

It is proved in this paper that the differ- 
ential equations which the motion of the 
moon must fulfill can be integrated as 
power series in certain parameters, and that. 
the series converge for at least a certain 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


finite, determinable interval of time. The 
equations to be integrated are of the type 
(1) eee (on pads Tn 5 QQ, wt) aj; By, 


: Bast) 
(i=1,-", 2), 


where the x, are any variables defining the 
position and motion of the moon, and the 
a’s and 3’s are parameters occurring in the 
differential equations. 

Solutions as power series in the a’s are 
sought of the form 


wo é 
9 — g® abl qh qs 
(2) i— > Bay wp he Os 


(i=1, 7, »), 
where the 


are functions of the time to be détermined. 
Substituting (2) in (1) and equating to 
zero the coefficients of the various powers 
of the o’s, it is found that after the 


(¢) 
X),+, 0 


have been found the other coefficients are 
determined by lnear non-homogeneous 
differential equations which can always be 
solved. The proof of the convergence of 
these series is made by employing suitable 
comparison differential equations. 

There is nothing to prevent any of the 
f’s bemg numerically equal to any of the 
a’s. In fact, on the start all the parameters 
are «’s, but before the integrations made 
those which occur in a special manner, as 
in the trigonometrical functions, may be 
called @’s. When this is done in an appro- 
priate manner all the 

a) os ay 
are purely periodic functions of the time 
except the angular variables, each of which 
has one term which is proportional to the 
time. After a finite number of terms have 
been found they may be rearranged as 
Fourier series whose coefficients are power 
series in the a’s, giving expressions of the 


SCIENCE. 133 


same form as usually found by lunar 
theorists. 

The advantages of this method are: (a) 
The series are known to converge, (b) every 
step is defined in advance and contains 
nothing arbitrary, and (c) the work is 
divided up in a convenient manner. 


The Mass of the Rings of Saturn: Professor 

A. Hat, South Norfolk, Conn. 

The mass of these rings was first deter- 
mined by Bessel in 1831 from the motion 
of the apsides of the orbit of Titan. This 
motion is about half a degree in a year. But 
the action of the figure of the planet, and 
the attractions of the other satellites were 
neglected; and, as Bessel pointed out, the 
resulting mass of the rings was too great- 
This mass is 1/118, the mass of Saturn 
being taken as the unit. 

In this paper an equation was formed 
containing two indeterminate quantities 
depending on the figure of the planet, the 
mass of the rings, and the masses of the 
three brighter satellites, Rhea, Dione and 
Tethys. The small resulting action of the 
other satellites was estimated. The coeffi- 
ciency of these six indeterminate quantities 
can be computed with sufficient accuracy. 
The uncertainty in finding the mass of the 
rings arises chiefly from the lack of good 
values of the masses of the satellites. 
These masses must be found from the mu- 
tual perturbation of the satellites. Substi- 
tuting the values of the masses of the sat- 
ellites determined by Professor H. Struve, 
the principal coefficient depending on the 
figure of the planet was assumed to be 
0.0222. The mass of the rings is 1/7092. 
It is probable that Struve’s masses of the 
satellites are too small, and the above mass 
of the rings too great. 

Saturn will soon return to our northern 
skies, and it is hoped that further observa- 
tions and their dimensions will give good 
values of the constants of this interesting 
system. 


134 


On a Class of Real Functions to which 
Taylor’s Theorem does not apply; and 


On a Class of Transcendental Functions 
with Line-Singularities: Professor JoHN 
A. Eistanp, Thiel College. 

In the first paper a class of real functions 
to which Taylor’s theorem does not apply 
was discussed. Examples of such functions 
were given and the non-identity of the ex- 
pansion with the function expanded was 
shown. 

In the second paper a new type of trans- 
cendental functions fulfilling certain condi- 
tions within and on the unit-cirele was dis- 
cussed. These conditions are: The function 
together with all its derivatives is finite 
and continuous within as well as on the 
unit circle; which is a singular line for 
the function. The form of the functions 
is as follows: 


z2—(1+a,)e2rva 

JAE —_ eb, (z) 
H(z) 2— (1+ by)e2tva ¢ ’ 
where 


lima =0, limd,—0, 


a ig an incommensurable number, and 


(ay — by)? Ive moe, a (ay — by )e2riva i; 
TL) (1+ by )etiva 2 | 2—(1+ by )eriva 
ora 1 (ay — by jeer iva le 
sls =A | SSS 


On a General Method of Subdividing the 
Surface of a Sphere into Congruent 
Parts: Mr. Haroup C. Gopparp, Amherst 
College. 

The problem was incidental to the prac- 
tical problem of constructing a steel sphere 
one hundred feet in diameter, in connection 
with a new method of mounting a tele- 
scope, as outlined in an article in the Amer- 
ican Journal of Science for June, 1902, by 
Professor David P. Todd, of Amherst Col- 
lege. 

If a regular dodecaedron be inseribed in 
a sphere, planes determined by the center 
and each edge of the dodecaedron eut out 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 


on the sphere twelve equal regular spher- 
ical pentagons. If the vertices of each pen- 
tagon be connected with its center by ares 
of great circles the surface of the sphere 
is divided into sixty congruent isosceles 
spherical triangles, whose angles are deter- 
mined as 60°, 60° and 72°. 


A Possible New Law in the Theory of Elas- 
ticity: Professor J. Burxirr Wess, 
Stevens Institute of Technology. 

Owing to the absence of Professor Webb 
at the time this paper was called for, it was 
presented only in abstract. The law re- 
ferred to in the title is: ‘‘If the forcible 
change of the distance between two points 
in an elastic sytem changes the distance of 
two other-points by a certain amount, then 
the same force applied to alter the distance 
of the two other points will change the dis- 
tance of the first two points by the same 
amount.”’ 


On Extracting Roots of Numbers by Sub- 
traction: Dr. ArtEMUS Martin, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

A paper on ‘Evolution by Subtraction’ 
was published in the Philosophical Maga- 
zine for September, 1880, communicated by 
the Rey. F. H. Hummell, who ascribed the 
method to his friend and neighbor, the Rev. 
W. B. Cole. The rule given in Mr. Hum- 
mell’s paper for finding the square root of 
any number is: 

From any square number’ subtract the 
even numbers in succession, beginning with 
2, until the remainder is less than the next 
even number to be subtracted. This re- 
mainder will be the square root sought. 

The statement of the rule may be simpli- 
fied as follows: 

For the nth subtrahend add 2 to the pre- 
ceding subtrahend. The last remainder 
will be the square root sought. 

Or: For the nth subtrahend, multiply 
by 2; the last remainder will be the square 
root sought. 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


To find the cube root of a number the 
rule is: 

For the nth subtrahend, multiply » by 6 
and add the preceding subtrahend; the last 
remainder will be the cube root sought. 

Thus the first subtrahend is 6; the next 
6X 2-+6=18; the third, 6<3-+18—36, 
and so on. 

For the fourth root, the rule is: 

To find the mth subtrahend, multiply n? 
by 12 and add 2 plus the preceding subtra- 
hend; the last remainder will be the root 
sought. 

In the paper rules are given for finding 
the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 
tenth roots, with examples. 

General formulas for the nth subtrahend 
of any root (the mth) are: 


~ $n=(n+1)™—(n™4 1), 
or 


Sn = Sr—1 + (n+ 1)™+ (n—1)™"—2n™. 


It is shown in the paper that in all cases 
for all roots the number of subtractions 
to be performed is one less than the num- 
ber of units in the root sought, and conse- 
quently the root equals number of subtrac- 
tions plus 1. 

A table of subtrahends containing the 
first ten subtrahends for the first eleven 
roots is appended to the paper. This table 
ean be extended to any desired extent by 
the rules and formulas given. 

The paper will be published in the Math- 
ematical Magazine. 


On the Determination of the Places of the 
Circumpolar Stars: Professor Minton 
Upprcrarr, U. 8. Naval Observatory. 
The contents of this paper are: A sketch 

of previous work done on circumpolar stars, 

(2) a statement of the kind of work needed, 

and (3) some suggestions as to the best 

methods to be used in redeterminations of 
the coordinates of the cireumpolar stars. 


SCIENCE. 


135 


The paper will be published in one of the 
astronomical journals. 


Report on Quaternions: Professor ALEX- 
ANDER MACFARLANE, Lehigh University. 
This paper will be printed in full in the 

Proceedings of the Association. 


The Definte Determination of the Causes 
of Variation in Level and Azimuth of 
Large Meridian Instruments: Professor 
G. W. Hovues, Dearborn Observatory, 
Evanston, II. 

This was an elaborate discussion of the 
various styles of mounting for meridian in- 
struments, and of the effects of changes of 
temperature in causing variation. The re- 
sults of several long series of observations 
upon this effect were exhibited. Professor 
Hough’s conclusion was that stone piers 
give the best results. The paper gave rise 
to some spirited discussion. 


A New Founding of Spherics: Professor 
G. B. Haustep, University of Texas. 
Professor Halsted presented under this 

title some abstracts froma book which he 
is about to publish. The author made a 
simple set of assumptions: (1) of associa- 
tion, (2) of betweenness, (3) of congru- 
ence, and he then showed how, without the 
assumption that the straight line is the 
shortest distance between two points, or 
that the shortest path between two points 
on a sphere is on the great circle through 
them, or even that two sides of a triangle 
are together greater than the third, all the 
projective and metric properties of spherics 
are established. 


Report on the Theory of Collineations: 
Professor H. B. Newson, University of 
Kansas. 

Owing to Professor Newson’s absence 
from the meeting, this paper could be pre- 
sented only by title. It will be printed in 
full in the Proceedings. 


136 


Second Report on Recent Progress in the 
Theory of Groups of Finite Order: Pro- 
fessor G. A. Miuuer, Stanford Univer- 
sity. 

In the absence of Professor Miller this 
report was presented in abstract by Dr. W. 
B. Fite, of Cornell University. It will be 
published in the Bulletin of the American 
Mathematical Society. 


Displacements Polygons: Professor J. 
Burxitr Wess, Stevens Institute of 
Technology. 

Owing to the absence of Professor Webb 
at the time this paper was called for it was 
read by title. 


Some Theorems on Ordinary Continued 
Fractions: Professor THomas EB. McKin- 
NEY, Marietta College. 

Let D be any positive integer not a per- 
fect square, and let its square root be repre- 
sented by an ordinary continued frac- 
tion. This paper determines the form of D 
so that the continued fraction representing 
its square root may have a period with one, 
two; three or four elements, and applies 
the results to the determination of the num- 
ber of reduced forms in the class to which 
the indefinite quadratic form (1, 0, D) 
belongs. 


On the Forms of Sextic Scrolls of Genus 
One: Dr. Vinci SnyprEr, Cornell Univer- 
sity. 

In his classification of sextie scrolls of 
genus 1, Dr. Snyder employed the method 
of point correspondence between two plane 
sections and made use of the following 
theorems which were proved in one of his 
former papers: (1) The nodal curve (sim- 
ple or composite) is of order 9; (2) every 
generator cuts four others, and (3) any 
non-reducible plane curve lying on the sur- 
face is of genus 1. 

Thirty-three types are found, ten of 
which have a multiple conic. It will be 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 395. 


published in the American Journal of 
Mathematics. 


Transformation of the Hypergeometric 
Series: Professor Epcgar Frispy, U. S. 
Naval Observatory. 

If in the differential equation of the 
second order connecting the elements of the 
hypergeometric series 
aB(a+1)(B+1 
Het NOV 54 oy 
xP’ be substituted for P, new relations 
are obtained in which P’ takes the place of 
P, and the new elements are functions of 
the original elements. y» is determined 
from the condition that the new series 
must be of the same general form as the 
old. If, in addition, x be replaced by 1/x 
another series is obtained. From these two 
new series, by proper substitution of the 
new derived elements, are obtained almost 
by inspection, the twenty different series 
ordinarily given in works on differential 
equations. 


B 
P=1+ Tet 


Epwin S. CRAWLEY 
? 
Secretary. 


SECTION G, BOTANY. 

Section G of the American Association 
met in the Botanical Hall of Phipps Con- 
servatory on the mornings of June 30 and 
July 3, 1902. In the absence of Professor 
D. H. Campbell, Stanford University, Pro- 
fessor C. E. Bessey, of the University of 
Nebraska, was elected acting Vice-Presi- 
dent. 

The abstracts of papers presented are as 
follows: 


The Prevalence of Alternaria in Nebraska 
and Colorado During the Drought of 
1901: GEORGE Grant Hepacocr, Lincoln, 
Nebr. 

This paper gives a brief synopsis of 


observations made in various sections of 
Nebraska and Colorado during the severe 


period of drought in July and August of 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


the year 1901. The conditions which ex- 
isted retarded the development of such 
fungi as Cercospora and Phyllosticta, but 
favored the growth of Alternaria upon the 
blighted leaves of a number of plants, es- 
pecially those of the sugar beet, potato, 
pumpkin, cantaloupe and plantain. 

Effect of Acetylene Gas-light on Plant 
Growth, Plant Environment and Plant 
Diseases: FRANK WiuutAM Rann, New 
Hampshire College, Durham, N. H. 

The effect of acetylene gas-lght has a 
marked effect upon plant growth, especial- 
ly under glass, during the winter months. 
Experiments show more effect upon cer- 
tain plants than others. Illustrated by 
photographs of plants. 

Plant Environment and Plant Diseases: F. 
W. RANE. 

Healthy plants seem to evince the law of 
self preservation to more or less an extent. 
Just how far certain well-known plant dis- 
eases are brought about through a mis- 
understanding of ideal environment is 
thought to be a problem with possible grad- 
ual solution. Plant depredations it is be- 
lieved are not naturally associated with 
plants where the environment or culture is 
most favorable. Plant diseases and plant 
culture are closely associated. Examples 
are offered. 

Soil Temperatures and Vegetation: D. T. 
MacDoueat, N. Y. Botanical Garden. - 
A description of a method of making ob- 

servations on soil temperatures by means of 

the newly designed Hallock thermograph. 

The influence of the divergent tempera- 

tures of the soil and air is touched upon. 


Conditions Influencing the Vitality and 
Germination of Seeds: J. W. T. DuVEL. 
The above article treats of the vitality 

of seeds as affected by various climatic .con- 

ditions, especially the deleterious influences 
cf warm, moist climates such as we have in 
the Gulf States. The condition and meth- 


SCIENCE. 


137 


ods for keeping seeds in such unfavorable 
climates are discussed at some length, show- 
ing that the first requisite for prolonged 
vitality of seeds is a reduction in the 
amount of hygroscopic moisture present, 
thereby diminishing the respiratory activ- 
ity and consequently a prolongation of the 
life of the seeds. 


Some Neglected Factors in Discussions of 

Heredity: Grorcr J. PEIRCE. 

Certain influences to which organisms 
are exposed are constant in operation and 
intensity ; there is no escape from these in- 
fluences ; they have never been eliminated in 
experiments, and their importance can only 
be guessed. Among these influences are 
the atmosphere, the earth as a whole, water, 
gravity, which have been uniform in phys- 
ical and chemical properties for millions of 
generations, if not always. The reaction of 
the living organism to these influences 
should be considered in all discussions of 
heredity. 


Sclerotima Fructigena: J. B. S. Norvon, 

College Park, Md. 

Studied by Woronin, Smith, and many 
others; conidial stage (monilia) destruct- 
ive fruit disease; apothecia not previously 
discovered. Found abundant on buried 
peach and plum fruits two years old in 
many Maryland orchards; the disk appears 
just above ground. Deseription of apothe- 
Cla, ascl, spores, ete. Connected with mon- 
ilia by many laboratory cultures on flowers, 
fruit, and various culture media. Cycle of 
development completed in a few days. 
Spores germinate in ten hours. Economic 
importance; fruits should be burned or 
otherwise destroyed. 


A Bacterial Soft Rot of Certain Crucifer- 
ous Plants and Amorphophallus Sin- 
ense; A Preliminary Report: By H. A. 
Harpine and F. C. Stewart, N. Y. Ag- 
ric. Exp. Sta., Geneva, N. Y. 


138 


The Finding of Puccinia phragmitis 
(Schum.) Korn. in Nebraska: Joun M. 
Barns, Callaway, Nebraska. 

June 14, 1901, the writer found the eci- 
dal stage on garden rhubarb, in Kearney; 
August 23 the next two stages were found 
on Phragmitis at Callaway, sixty-five 
miles northwest. This year he has found 
the xcidal stage on Rumex Britannica, R. 
altissimus and R. crispus, and on rhubarb 
in four gardens, thus completing the life 
history. It is thought to be new to this 
continent. 


Notes on Diseases of Western Conifere: 
HERMANN VON SCHRENE, Mo. Botanical 
Garden, St. Louis, Mo. 

The coniferous trees of California, Ore- 
gon, Washington, Idaho and adjoining 
States are attacked by a number of fungus 
diseases, some of which destroy as high as 
forty per cent. of the standing timber. 
The most important diseases are caused 
by forms of Trametes pint, Polyporus 
Schweinitzw, Polyporus Inbocedris, n. sp., 
Echinodontium tinctorum, Polyporus of- 
ficinalis. The development of these fungi 
and the manner and extent to which they 
destroy the wood were described. Refer- 
ence was made to the blue disease of Black 
Hills timber. 


A Disease of Potato Stems m Ohio, Due 
to Rhizoctonia: AuGusTINE D. SELBY, 
Wooster, O. 

The work of Duggar and Stewart in New 
York upon diseases caused by the sterile 
fungus Rhizoctonia and the recent prelim- 
inary publication by Rolfs upon potato fail- 
ures in Colorado due to the same souree, is 
already known to workers in plant pa- 
thology. 

For more than a year past work has been 
in progress at the Ohio Experiment Station 
upon the Rhizoctonia on potatoes. Dur- 
ing the present June outbreaks of a well- 
marked stem disease in Ohio, due to this 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 395. 


source have occurred at several points in 
Ohio. Local areas of decay are situated 
both above and below the soil line; the most 
striking feature, however, is the character- 
istic rosette aspects of the central leaves 
of the plants attacked. By slight incurl- 
ing of the leaves the affected plants may 
be readily discerned in walking through 
the field; apparently this characteristic is 
constant on a number of varieties. Ten 
per cent. or more of the plants have been 
found affected; doubtless larger percent- 
ages may occur. 


Arachniotus trachyspermus, A new Species 
of the Gymnoascacee: C. L. SHEAR, De- 
partment of Agriculture, Washington, 
D. C. 

Arachniotus is a genus of primitive as- 
comycete, deseribed by Schroeter in 1893. 
Four species have thus far been described. 
The present species, which appears to be 
new, is the first thus far reported in this 
country so far as known to the author. It 
was isolated from diseased cranberries 
erown in New Jersey and grown in abun- 
dance in culture media. The fungus first 
forms a thin layer of fine snow-white hy- 
phe. Mature peridia are produced in 
from two to three weeks. These are globu- 
lar, about 4 mm. in diameter, consisting of 
a thin, loose layer of fine hyphz which en- 
close a dense mass of spherical or subglo- 
bose asci borne at the apices of the much 
branched and interwoven fertile hyphe. 
Asci are eight-spored. Spores almost color- 
less but in mass showing a faint greenish- 
yellow tint, rough, elliptical, 3.5 x 2.5. 


An Instance of a Change in the Native 
Flora: Cuas. E. Bessey, Lincoln, Nebr. 
In Nebraska the little grass Festuca 

octoflora, has been common throughout the 

State ever since botanizing has been done, 

but it has never been a conspicuous plant. 

This year inquiries have been sent in to the 

University and Experiment Station from 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


nearly all parts of the State, accompanied 
by the remark that the grass had appeared 
for the first time. There is no question as 
to the much greater abundance of this grass 
the present year. It is of considerably 
larger size, also, than usual. The sugges- 
tion is made that the intense heat and 
drought of last year had to do with the 
greater abundance of this species of the 
present year. 

In connection with this case attention is 
called to the fact that twenty-five years ago 
after the ‘grasshopper raids’ the farmers 
noticed the great abundance of Sporobolus 
vagineflorus, which they called the ‘ grass- 
hopper grass,’ and supposed that it had 
been brought by the grasshoppers. 


~ Note on the Fuel Value of Cottonwood: 

Cuas. E. Brssry, Lincoln, Nebr. 

On the plains where the cottonwood 
(Populus deltoidea) is very commonly 
planted, there is much prejudice against it 
as a tree having any other value than for 
shade and windbreak. It is regarded as 
having low fuel value. 
measurements and calculations made by 
the writer show that on account of its 
rapid growth it produces more heat-yield- 
ing fuel in a given time than the trees with 
which it is usually planted. On a given 
area in a given time more heat units may 
be produced than by the use of any other 
of the commonly planted trees. 


Features of the Flora of Cuba: CHas. 
Louts Pouuarp, 1854 Fifth Street, Wash- 
ington, D. C. (Illustrated with lan- 
tern.) 

A general account of the Cuban flora 
with special reference to the ecological 
aspects. The various plant zones and plant 
formations of the island are described, and 
the characteristic flora of each discussed. 
The plants of economie or ornamental 
value are also briefly discussed. 


SCIENCE. 


Some careful 


139 


The Origin of the Achromatic Figure in 


Pellia: CHartes J. CHAMBERLAIN, De- 
partment of Botany, University of 
Chicago. 


This investigation deals chiefly with the 
first two nuclear divisions in the germinat- 
ing spore. For comparison, however, 
mitosis was studied in other phases of the 
life history. The principal conclusions are 
as follows: The stimulus to nuclear divis- 
ion comes from within the nucleus. The 
asters are cytoplasmic in origin. The caps 
come from the outer portion of the nuclear 
membrane or from a Hawtschicht surround- 
ing the nucleus. The appearance and dis- 
appearance of astral rays suggest that 
they are concerned in the movement of 
nuclear matter. The centrosphere is 
formed by the astral rays, not the astral 
rays by the centrosphere. This centro- 
sphere represents a condition intermediate 
between the well-defined centrosphere of 
one of the thallophytes, and the centro- 
someless condition of the higher plants. 
The spindle fibers, except the mantle fibers, 
grow from one pole to the other. In early 
stages two half spindles are often distin- 
euishable. 


Comparison of the Development of the 
Embryo Sac and Embryo of Claytonia 
Virgiuca and Agrostemma Githago: 
Meu T. Coox, Greencastle, Indiana. 
Claytoma Virginica has one arche- 

sporium; it forms one, occasionally two, ta- 

petal cells, four megaspore cells, of which 
the lower develops into the sae in the usual 
manner. Very little enlargement of the sae 
is evident until the four-celled stage is 
reached, but after that time it enlarges 
rapidly and bends to form almost a com- 
plete cirele. The antipodals disappear 
early; the synereids persist until the em- 
bryo is quite large. In the formation of 
the embryo the cell division is very irregu- 
lar; the basal cell of the suspensor is small; 


140 


only one cotyledon develops. The en- 
dosperm is peripheral. 

In Agrostemma Githago we find from one 
to three archesporial cells, one or two tapetal 
cells and only two megaspore cells, of 
which the lower develops into the sac. Fre- 
quently two sacs begin to develop, but one 
is always absorbed before the two-celled 
stage is reached. The sae begins to enlarge 
after the four-celled stage, the principal 
enlargement being from the antipodal end 
and at right angles to the long axis of the 
sac. The antipodals persist for a short 
time, but the synergids disappear early. 
In the four-celled stage a zone of very thin 
walled cells surrounds the sae and the ab- 
sorption of these cells is an important fac- 
tor in the enlargement of the sac. <A long 
beak is formed from the micropylar end of 
the ovule. The formation of the embryo 
is regular and the basal cell of the filament- 
ous suspensor is very large. Both cotyle- 
dons develop. The endosperm is periph- 
eral. 


- Studies in Phycomycete Fertilization: 
Sclerospora Graminicola (Sacc.): F. L. 
Srrvens, A. & M. College, W. Raleigh, 
N. C. 

The oosphere in Sclerospora graminicola 
is uninucleate, clearly resembling the gen- 
eral type exhibited in the Peronosporeae 
and in Albugo candida, but differing from 
the more primitive forms such as Albugo 
bliti and A. Tragopogonis. The antheri- 
dium bears several nuclei, but one only en- 
ters the antheridial tube. Simultaneous 
mitosis occurs here as in the related forms, 
zonation is a prominent phase in oogenesis 
and the ecenocentrum is a conspicuous 
organ in the oogonium. 


Notes on Agrostis: A. S. Hrrcxcock, U. 8. 
Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 
Synonymy of species of the genus Ag- 

rostis occurring in North American His- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 395. 


tory of several names. Notes on some of 
the early species described by Triu and 
others. 


The Absorption of Water; A Function of 
the Ligule and Stipulaceous Tissue of the 
Grasses: F. L. Stewart, Merrysville, Pa. 
An account of observations and experi- 

ments proving that, coordinate with certain 
structural provisions for the conveyance 
from the leaf-blade of the grasses of dew 
and rainwater deposited thereon, the ligule 
and the connected tissues of the leaf-sheath 
actively absorb it and transmit it into the 
circulatory system of the plant, thus sup- 
plementing the supply of water derived 
from the root. 


The Pith Cells of Phytolacca Decandra: 
Henry Kraemer, Philadelphia, Pa. 
The pith of this plant is differentiated 

into two parts, a peripheral portion made 
up of active cells, and a central metamor- 
phosed portion consisting of biconcave 
diaphragms composed of both active and 
inactive cells separated at regular intervals 
by cavities. The latter appear to be formed 
by the abstraction of water from the cells 
of this region, as a result of the develop- 
ment of other parts of the stem. This view 
as to their origin seems to be confirmed by 
the fact that in the process of drying that 
portion of the pith in the upper internodes, 
which is not already metamorphosed, be- 
comes thus differentiated. The metamor- 
phosed pith in Phytolacca decandra seems 
on the one hand to have a certain resem- 
blance in origin to the hollow internodes of 
the stems of the Polygonacew and on the 
other hand to resemble the heterogeneous 
or modified pith of the Magnoliacee. 


A Review and Criticism of the Botanical 
Curriculum of some of our Colleges and 
Universities—from the Student’s Stand- 
point: E. Map Wiuicox, Auburn, Ala. 


JULY 25, 1902. ] 


Special Haustorial Apparatus wm connec- 
tion with the Embryo Sac of Angios- 
perms: JOHN M. Couutsr, University of 
Chicago. 


A Note on the Vitality of the Spores of 


MarsHatn A. Hows, N. Y. 
Bronx Park, New 


Marsilea: 
Botanical Garden, 
York City. 

The Ascent of the Transpiration Stream: 
Epwin BincHam CopELAND, Stanford 
University, California. 


Chemical Stimulation and the Evolution of 


Carbon Diormde: EKpwin’ BINGHAM 
CopELAND, Stanford University, Cali- 
fornia. 
HERMANN VON SCHRENK, 
Secretary. 


ASSIGNMENTS OF GEOLOGIC AND PALE- 
ONTOLOGIC PARTIBS. 

Tue following assignments of geologic 
and paleontologie parties of the U. S. Geo- 
logical Survey have been made for the pres- 
ent field season : 

Dr. Geo. I. Adams will make an areal 
and economic survey of the Yellville quad- 
rangle in Arkansas, with special reference 
to the preparation of a report on the 
Arkansas lead and zine district. He will 
be assisted by Professor A. H. Purdue and 
Mr. Ernest F. Burchard. 

Dr. Geo. F. Becker will continue the 
supervision of the Division of Physical 
and Chemical Research and the prepara- 
tion of a report embodying his investiga- 
tions on the conditions of gold deposition 
in the Mother Lode of California. 

Mr. J. M. Boutwell and Dr. J. D. 
Irving will study the mining geology of 
the Park City district, Utah. 

Dr. J. C. Branner will continue areal 
surveys on the Santa Cruz quadrangle, 
- California. 

Mr. M. R. Campbell will continue the 
supervision of areal and economic work 


SCIENCE. 


141 


in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, 
Kentucky, and West Virginia. He will 
be assisted by Messrs. Charles Butts, Lester 
H. Woolsey, Ralph W. Stone and Marcus 
Goldman in Pennsylvania; by Mr. Myron 
L. Fuller in New York and Indiana, and 
by Professors Geo. H. Ashley and L. C. 
Glenn in Kentucky. 

Professor T. C. Chamberlin will con- 
tinue the supervision of investigations in 
Pleistocene geology of the United States. 
He will be assisted by Professor R. D. 
Salisbury and Mr. W. W. Atwood in the 
Rocky Mountain region; by Frank Lever- 
ett and F. W. Taylor in Michigan, and by 
W. C. Alden in Wisconsin. 

Professor W. B. Clark, with assistants, 
will continue the investigations of the geol- 
ogy of the Coastal Plain region in Mary- 
land and Delaware, and of the Piedmont 
plateau of Maryland in cooperation with 
the Geological Survey of Maryland. 

Dr. Whitman Cross will suspend his 
regular field work in Colorado for the pres- 
ent season and spend a portion of the year 
in the Hawaiian Islands for the purpose 
of investigating voleanie phenomena. 

Professor T. Nelson Dale will continue 
his surveys in western Vermont and will 
survey the Slatington quadrangle in east- 
ern Pennsylvania. He will be assisted by 
Professor rederick B. Peck and Mr. Fred 
H. Moffit. 

Dr. William H. Dall will continue his 
studies for the completion of the revision 
of the Tertiary faunas of Florida. 

Mr. N. H. Darton will continue areal 
surveys in the Black Hills and the Big 
Horn Mountains, and will complete a 
reconnaissance of the Great Plains for the 
preparation of a map showing the geology 
and water resources of that region. He 
will be assisted by Mr. C. A. Fisher. 

Mr. J. S. Diller will complete the areal 
and economic survey of the Redding quad- 


142 


rangle, California, and make a reconnais- 
sance of the Klamath Mountains. He will 
be assisted by Dr. Geo. B. Richardson. 

Mr. Geo. H. Eldridge, who has recently 
completed a study of the oil fields of Cali- 
fornia, will devote the coming year to the 
preparation of a report on this subject, 
and on the phosphate deposits of Florida. 

Professor B. K. Emerson will continue 
his investigations on the areal and struc- 
tural geology in central Massachusetts. 

Mr. 8. F. Emmons will continue the su- 
pervision of investigations in the Division 
of Metalliferous Minerals, visiting various 
mining regions in the West for the pur- 
pose of examining work in progress, and 
preparing plans for future work. He will 
be assisted by Dr. J. D. Irving in the com- 
pletion of work on the Leadville mining 
district. 

Dr. N. M. Fenneman will continue the 
investigation of the Boulder oil field, 
Colorado. 

Mr. G. K. Gilbert does not expect to 
carry on any field work, but will be en- 
gaged throughout the year in the prepara- 
tion of reports. 

Dr. Geo. H. Girty will investigate the 
paleontology and stratigraphy in connec- 
tion with the work of various geologists in 
Arkansas, Indian Territory, Texas, and 
elsewhere. 

Mr. Arnold Hague will continue the 
preparation of his monograph on the Yel- 
lowstone National Park and will visit the 
Park for the purpose of obtaining neces- 
sary additional information. 

Dr. C. W. Hayes will continue the super- 
vision of investigations on non-metallifer- 
ous economic deposits, and will continue 
areal work in the southern Appalachians. 
He will be assisted by Mr. W. T. Griswold 
in the eastern Ohio oil field, and by Mr. 
Edwin C. Eckel in Alabama and Georgia. 

Mr. Robert T. Hill will continue his 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 


investigation of the economic geology, 
stratigraphy, physiography and vulecanism 
in the trans-Pecos region of Texas, New 
Mexico and Arizona. Dr. Girty will be 
associated with him in this work. 

Dr. T. A. Jaggar will complete the 
areal work necessary for the preparation 
of the Boston Folio, and will prepare a 
report on the Bradshaw district, Arizona. 
He will be assisted by Dr. Chas. Palache 
and Mr. Laurence La Forge. 

Mr. Arthur Keith will continue areal, 
structural and economic surveys in the 
southern Appalachians. He will be as- 
sisted by Mr. H. 8. Gale. 

Professor J. F. Kemp will complete the 
field work necessary for the preparation of 
the Mettawee folio in New York and Ver- 
mont. 

Professor Wilbur C. Knight will con- 
tinue the areal and economic surveys neces- 
sary for the completion of the Laramie 
folio, Wyoming. 

Dr. F. H. Knowlton will devote the year 
to the completion of reports on the fossil 
floras of the Puget and Laramie forma- 
tions. 

Mr. Waldemar Lindgren has recently 
returned from a winter field season in 
Arizona, and will spend the greater part 
of the coming year in the preparation of 
reports. 

Professor H. F. Osborn will continue 
his investigations on vertebrate paleontol- 
ogy, and under his supervision special ex- 
aminations will be made of the stratig- 
raphy of the Colorado Jurassic, by F. 
B. Loomis, and of the Bridger, Washakie 
and Uinta Basins, Wyoming, by W. B. 
Matthew and Walter Granger, for the pur- 
pose of determining the exact stratigraphic 
positions of beds from which fossil collec- 
tions have heretofore been made. 

Professor Chas. S. Prosser will continue 
areal work necessary for the preparation 


JULY 25, 1902.] 
of the Columbus folio, Ohio. He will be 
assisted by Mr. E. R. Cumings. 

Dr. F. L. Ransome is at present en- 
gaged in the preparation of his report on 
the Globe, Arizona, mining district. Later 
in the season he will carry on areal and 
economie surveys for the preparation of 
the Bisbee folio, Arizona, and for a report 
on the Bisbee mining district. Dr. J. 
Morgan Clements will be associated with 
him in this work. 

Dr. Geo. Otis Smith will continue areal 
surveys necessary for the preparation of 
the Snoqualmie folio, Washington. On 
the completion of his field season in the 
Cascade Mountains he will survey the 
Bluehill quadrangle, Maine. He will be 
assisted by Mr. Frank C. Calkins. 

Dr. W. S. Tangier Smith will be asso- 
ciated with Mr. E. O. Ulrich during the 
early part of the season in the study of 
the lead, zine and fluorspar deposits of 
western Kentucky, and later will continue 
his investigation of the lead and zine de- 
posits of the Joplin district. He will be 
assisted by Dr. C. EH. Siebenthal. 

Dr. A. C. Spencer will study the areal 
and economic geology of the Grand En- 
campment mining district, Wyoming. He 
will be assisted by Professor J. Volney 
Lewis. 

Dr. T. W. Stanton will continue a gen- 
eral supervision of the paleontologie work 
of the survey, and will earry on field work 
in cooperation with Mr. J. S. Diller in the 
Klamath Mountains of California. 

Mr. Geo. W. Stose will continue in 
charge of the editing of geologic maps and 
will spend a short field season in the con- 
tinuation of work on the Chambersburg 
quadrangle, Pennsylvania. 

Mr. J. A. Taff will continue his areal 
and economic surveys in Indian Territory. 
He will be assisted by Professor S. W. 
Beyer and Mr. J. W. Beede. 


SCIENCE. 


143 


Mr. E. O. Ulrich will study the geology 
of the western Kentucky mining district 
in connection with Dr. Tangier Smith’s 
investigation of the mineral deposits. 
Later in the season Mr. Ulrich will be 
associated with Dr. Adams in Arkansas 
and Mr. Taff in Indian Territory. 

Professor C. R. Van Hise will continue 
the supervision of investigations on the 
pre-Cambrian and metamorphic rocks of 
the United States. He will visit various 
parties in the field for the purpose of veri- 
fying and coordinating work in his divi- 
sion. He will be assisted by Mr. C. K. 
Leith in the preparation of a final mono- 
graph on the Lake Superior region, by 
Dr. W. 8. Bayley in the completion of 
field work in the Menominee district, by 
Dr. W. H. Hobbs in the continuation of 
surveys in Connecticut and Rhode Island, 
by Dr. Florence Bascom in the continua- 
tion of areal and structural studies in the 
Philadelphia district. 

Mr. T. Wayland Vaughan has recently 
returned from field work in southern 
Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. 
He will be engaged throughout the greater 
part of the coming year in the preparation 
of a monograph on the fossil corals of the 
United States. 

Professor Lester F. Ward will continue. 
the preparation of reports on the Mesozoie 
floras of the United States. 

Mr. W. H. Weed will revisit Montana 
for the purpose of securing additional in- 
formation required for the completion of 
his report on the Butte mining district. 

Mr. David White will continue his in- 
vestigations on the paleobotany of the 
Carboniferous, cooperation 
with various geologists in West Virginia, 
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indian Territory. 

Professor Henry S. Williams will con- 
tinue his studies on the correlation prob- 
lems of the Devonian in Pennsylvania, 


working in 


144 


New York and Maine. He will be as- 
sisted by Mr. E. M. Kindle. 

Mr. Bailey Wills will continue the 
supervision of the investigations in areal 
and stratigraphie geology. He will visit 
field parties in various parts of the United 
States and will investigate the stratig- 
raphy along the eastern base of the Rocky 
Mountains in Montana and Wyoming. 

Professor J. E. Wolff will continue the 
investigation of the areal and structural 
geology in the crystalline areas of New 
Jersey and southern Vermont. 

July 12, 1902. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Entwicklungs- 
-geschichte der wirbellosen Thiere. 
meiner Theil.” Erste-Lieferung: Erste und 
Zweite Auflage. By E. Korscuretr and K. 
Hewer. Jena, Gustav Fischer. 1902. 
Pp. x+538; 318 figs. 

When the third and final instalment of the 
‘special part’ of the ‘Lehrbuch der vergleich- 
enden Entwicklungsgeschichte der wirbellosen 
Thiere,’ by Professors Korschelt and Heider, 
made its appearance, zoologists who had the 
good fortune to be familiar with the work 
began to look forward with no little eagerness 
to the appearance of the ‘general part. It 
was, however, a case of hope long deferred, but 
now, after a lapse of nine years, expectations 
are in the way of being fulfilled. Our knowl- 
edge of the embryology of the invertebrates 
has increased greatly in the interval and a 
demand has arisen for a new edition of the 
‘special part,’ but the authors, feeling that they 
were still in debt to the public to the extent 
of the general part, have decided to complete 
the work as originally planned before begin- 
ning a revision. As a result we have now 
before us a first instalment of the ‘general 
part,’ which is at once an earnest for the com- 
pletion of the first edition and the beginning 
of the second. 

Zoologists will find, however, for the loss 
resulting from the long postponement of the 
volume, ample compensation in the greater 


SCIENCE. 


Allge-: 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 


thoroughness with which it is now possible to 
discuss the general problems of development. 
In the last decade the standpoint from which 
these problems are regarded has shifted 
greatly; the mountain tops, from which they 
were formerly seen but dimly, have been left 
behind and we are now upon the nearer plains, 
with numerous difficulties, it is true, still to be 
overcome, but with the advantage that we have 
come into actual contact with them and can, 
at close range, lay our plans for their sur- 
mounting. And that this is the case is largely 
due to the results obtained from experimental 
embryology. 

In the present volume will be found one of 
the clearest and fullest statements of the re- 
sults and aims of this department of investi- 
gation which has yet been presented. The 
first three chapters or almost half the volume 
is devoted to it, the first chapter, after a brief 
introduction discussing the influence of ex- 
ternal stimuli on development; the second, the 
determination problem; and the third, the 
effects of internal factors» To one familiar 
with the ‘special part’ of the work it will 
sutfiice to say that the facts are presented in 
the present volume with the same wealth of 
detail and clearness of exposition that charac- 
terized the earlier volumes and to these there is 
again added a eritieal and judicious estimate 
of the value of the facts. The authors have 
earefully avoided the advocacy of extreme posi- 
tions and have maintained throughout what 
may be termed a broadly conservative attitude, 
compared with views which have been pro- 
mulgated by some recent writers. It is im- 
possible to discuss here in detail the various 
topics considered in the volume, but a few quo- 
tations may not be out of place to indicate the 
standpoint of the authors on some of the more 
general problems which confront us. 

“Tt results from this that we err in en- 
deavoring to give a general answer to the ques- 
tion whether it is preformation or epigenesis 
which controls the phenomena of development. 
We must particularize and endeavor by ex- 
periment to answer this question for each 
individual stage and each form. It will be 
found that in many eases the development of 
a certain organ or some morphological relation 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


(axial or direction relations) is determined 
rather in the sense of a mosaic-work by self- 
differentiation; in other cases, on the con- 
trary, it may be due to differentiation depend- 
ent upon the regulatory influences of the whole 
upon its parts. In many cases both these prin- 
ciples of development are commingled, fre- 
quently in a marvellous manner, in the forma- 
tion of some complicated part, so that we must 
endeavor to determine by a thorough analysis 
in what respect self-differentiation and in 
what dependent differentiation predominates.” 

And again, “It is a question * * * whether 
the possibility of ‘analyzing animal ontogeny 
into a series of induction phenomena’ 
(Herbst) is conceivable, or whether still other 
components must be recognized. In this con- 
nection there is especially noteworthy the 
newer standpoint of Driesch, who, from the 
problem of the localization of the develop- 
mental processes, has been led to the opinion 
that other special vital components, which he 


figuratively terms forces acting from a dis- 


“tance, must be recognized. We are not yet 
convinced that the former of the possibilities 
mentioned above is at present to be regarded 
as completely excluded, and in this respect we 
agree with the conclusions of von Hanstein.” 

The fourth and fifth chapters, which com- 
plete the volume, treat of the ovum and 06- 
genesis and of the spermatozoon and sperma- 
togenesis. Here again there can be only 
praise for clearness in the arrangement of the 
topics and in their presentation, and it may 
be added that, for the sake of thoroughness, 
the germ cells of the vertebrates as well as of 
the invertebrates are brought within the scope 
of the discussion. 

One is tempted to predict for the ‘Lehr- 
buch, when completed, an influence upon 
embryological research as great as that ex- 
erted by Balfour’s classic ‘Comparative Em- 
bryology.’ Nowhere will there be found a 
work presenting more perfectly the facts and 
problems of embryology, and the gratitude of 
all zoologists is due to the authors for placing 
in their hands a book so reliable and authori- 
tative. The concluding volume, which is to 
treat of maturation and fertilization, the gen- 
eral phenomena of segmentation and the for- 


SCIENCE. 


145 


mation of the germ layers, is promised at an 
early date. 
J. P. McM. 


Among the Water-fowl. Observation, Ad- 
venture, Photography. A Popular Narra- 
tive Account of the Water-fowl as fownd 
in the Northern and Middle States, and 
Lower Canada, Hast of the Rocky Mouwn- 


tains. By Herpert K. Jos. New York, 
Doubleday, Page & Co. 1902. Square 
12mo. Pp. xxi-+-224, with many illustra- 


tions from photographs by the author. 

Hunting with the camera has the double 
advantage of not decreasing the numbers of 
birds, while placing the results of the chase 
at the disposal of the public, instead of reserv- 
ing it for a chosen few. In the present vol- 
ume Mr. Job presents the results of many 
days’ enthusiastic labor on the ponds and in the 
marshes of Dakota, on the Magdalen Islands 
and the historic Bird Rocks; arid among the 
islands off the New England coast. From 
these we get a very clear idea of the breeding 
habits of many of our water-fowl; we learn 
how the auk and murre build no nest at all, 
are introduced to the slatternly homekeeping 
of the grebes and are shown the well-built 
and warmly lined nests of the ducks. Most 
of the water birds that breed within the limits 
of the United States have posed in front of 
Mr. Job’s camera, or if not the birds, their 
nests have been photographed. And of ducks 
alone the author tells us he has found the 
nests of nineteen species. Perhaps the most 
interesting chapters are those relating to the 
grebes, since from their manner of breeding 
the nests are not readily accessible; and these 
nests are so low and so carelessly built that 
the loss of eggs must be very great. Mr. Job 
aptly terms the grebes ‘the submerged tenth,’ 
and in reading his account one is led to wonder 
if that great diver of old, Hesperornis, bred 
after the fashion of the grebes, since he must 
have been even more aquatic in habit. 

It is not pleasant to recall that these same 
grebes are being slaughtered by thousands on 
their breeding grounds in California, and it 
is even more painful to read of the shooting 
of breeding birds on the Great Bird Rock. 


146 


The Canadian Government should absolutely 
prohibit all shooting on the Bird Rocks and 
all taking of eggs after the first of June. In 
pleasing contrast to this Mr. Job tells of the 
increase of gulls and terns at some localities 
on the New England coast, where they have 
been protected. He shows us these gulls and 
their nests, not only on the ground, but 
perched in spruce trees, where most of us 
would hardly think of looking for such birds. 
The largest colony of gulls described was in 
Dakota, where Mr. Job found thousands of 
Franklin’s rosy gull breeding in and about a 
shallow lake, the nests being so numerous as 
to be often within a few feet of one another. 
Some of the best views in the book are from 
this colony, but perhaps the most striking 
are some of gulls in full flight, taken by Mr. 
von Bargen in San Francisco Bay. 

Not quite all of Mr. Job’s hunting was done 
with a camera, for he gives some very vivid 
glimpses of sea duck shooting off the Massa- 
chusetts coast, although, truth to tell, these 
are the exceptions. 

The ornithologist and the casual reader 
will find this book most enjoyable, full of 
pleasantly given information, accompanied by 
illustrations that illustrate. Some of these 
are not quite up to the modern standard, but 
when we read how many of them were obtained 
we cease to wonder at this, and can only ad- 
mire the pluck and perseverance that obtained 
them. F. A. L. 


Die Bakterien. By Jous Scumwpt and Fr. 
Wels. Jena, Gustav Fischer. Pp. 406. 
The extraordinary development of the 

science of bacteriology has resulted in the 

production in the last fifteen years of a large 
number of manuals and text-books devoted to 
various phases of this general subject. Books 
upon general bacteriology have appeared in 
many languages and it would hardly seem that 
there could be found room for another work 
upon the same general subject. The authors 

of the book before us have, however, found a 

niche which has been hitherto unoccupied and 

which they have succeeded in satisfactorily 
filling. Bacteriology is preeminently a prac- 
tical study. At first it created an immense 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vout. XVI. No. 395. 


amount of interest because of its application 
to the’ fascinating subject of disease, and 
more recently because of its intensely practi- 
cal value to the agriculturist. Most works on 
bacteria have, therefore, devoted at least a 
large part of their attention to the practical 
applications of bacteriology in one direction 
or another. The works upon bacteriology 
which may be now found in our libraries are 
devoted in part to the study of bacteria as 
scientific objects, and in part to their rela- 
tions to disease or to natural phenomena with 
which they have been found to be so intimate- 
ly associated. The work of Schmidt and Weis 
leaves out of consideration all practical con- 
siderations and all practical applications of 
bacteriology and is devoted wholly to the 
study of bacteria from a standpoint of pure 
science. 

The authors dividé the subject into three 
sections. In the first they study the mor- 
phology and the systematic relations of bac- 
teria; in the second their physiological rela- 
tion; and in the third the systematic relations 
of the most important of the species of bacte- 
ria which have been described in literature. 
The work has the further advantage that of 
the two authors, one has been able to devote 
himself to the morphology and systematic 
study, and the other to the physiological study 
of bacteria. The result of this is that both 
sides of the study of bacteriology are more 
satisfactorily and authoritatively treated than 
when a single author attempts to deal with 
both aspects of this somewhat complicated 
subject. The work becomes, therefore, one of 
special value; its treatment of the problems 
considered is clear, concise and authoritative. 
It shows the greatest familiarity with the 
most recent advances and discoveries in con- 
nection with bacteriology, and presents all ot 
the subject considered in a clear and some- 
times in a fresh light, which is very suggest- 
ive. The language which is used is simple, 
straightforward and extremely clear, and on 
the whole there is probably no work yet pub- 
lished which contains such a clear, concise 
and authoritative account of the morphology 
and physiology of these immensely important 
microorganisms. 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


This work must be looked upon to a large 
extent as an introduction to the study of 
bacteriology. After all, most people who 
study bacteria are sure to study them for 
their practical bearing upon various topics, 
rather than for the scientific relations of the 
bacteria themselves. In order to understand 
the relations of bacteria to disease, to agri- 
culture or any other practical subject it is 
necessary, first, to have a tolerably good knowl- 
edge of the bacteria themselves. Such a 
knowledge is furnished by the work in ques- 
tion and this book will, therefore, serve as a 
foundation for the study of bacteria to stu- 
dents who are interested in the application of 
these organisms in any direction. No work 
has yet appeared which gives in such a brief 
space an equally clear, concise account of 
bacteria, their structure, their methods of 
‘development, their relations to external con- 
ditions, their distribution, their physiological 
relations to environment, ete., as this work by 
Schmidt and Weis. It is to be hoped that a 
translation into English may appear. 

H. W. Conn. 


WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 


An Analytical Key to some of the Common 
Flowering Plants of the Rocky Mountain 
Region. By Aven NEtson, professor in the 
University of Wyoming. New York, D. 
Appleton & Co. Pp. 94. 

This little book is intended by the author to 
serve.as an introduction to the study of Rocky 
Mountain plants. About four hundred species 
are described. It is expressly stated in the 
preface that the book should not take the place 
of a manual, and the teacher is warned not 
to use it for general field work. Plants should 
be selected for study which are described in the 
key. If the teacher will keep this warning in 
mind the work will, without doubt, be found 
very useful. 

Hitherto it has been quite impossible to use 
modern nomenclature in school work in this 
region, because there was no work of refer- 
ence containing the correct names of even our 
most common plants. Here is a work which, 
so far as it goes, is entirely modern. 

It is a familiar fact, which was known even 
to Aristotle, that parents think most of their 


SCIENCE. 147 


own children, that poets think most of their 
own poems. It seems now that botanists think 
most of their own species of plants. At least 
there are a good many plants in the key cred- 
ited to ‘Aven Nelson.’ This apparent nepo- 
tism is explained when we examine the work 
carefully. Many of these favored species are 
really species quite common, but generally 
confused with similar species of the eastern 
states. 

The key to the families in the front of the 
book seems admirably arranged to show the di- 
agnostic characters. The plants selected to 
represent the different families are well se- 
lected. An important feature of the descrip- 
tions is the reference to ecclogical points in 
connection with the various species and genera. 
The habits and habitats are given as only one 
who knows the plants in the field could give 
them. Professor Nelson’s long experience in 
the Rocky Mountain region has given him’ a 
mastery of the subject which no one from the 
eastern states could possibly have. 

It is very much to be desired that in future 
editions of the work it may be found possible 
to include a few of the more common species 
of grasses, since they form such an important 
part of the earth covering. The reviewer be- 
lieves that a knowledge of the morphology of 
the grass flower and fruit is not beyond the 
grasp of beginners. Species of Agropyron 
and Stipa, which are abundant in the region, 
can well be used with such students. 

Francis RaMALey. 

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO. 


} SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. — 

Tur Popular Science Monthly tor July has 
for its frontispiece a portrait of Asaph Hall, 
President of the American Association, which 
has just met at Pittsburgh. Cloudsley Rut- 
ter presents some ‘Studies in the Natural His- 
tory of the Sacramento Salmon,’ giving many 
details in the life history of the fish, and 
showing the movements of the young from the 
time they are hatched until they reach the 
sea. Under the title ‘A Modern Street,’ S. 
F. Peckham describes the methods and mate- 
rials employed in laying an asphalt pavement. 
An abstract is given of the ‘Views of Dr. 


148 


Rizal, the Filipino scholar, upon Race Differ- 
ences,’ in which he shows how dificult it is to 
get an unprejudiced estimate of the Filipino 
character. ‘Gold Mining in the Klondike’ is 
deseribed by Henry A. Meiers, and Edwin G. 
Dexter has ‘A Study of Twentieth Century 
Success,’ showing the elements of success as 
based upon an analysis of the information 
given in ‘Who’s Who in America.’ William 
H. Burr discusses ‘The Panama Route for a 
Ship Canal, and Woodrow Wilson tells of 
‘Princeton in the Nation’s Service.’ Finally, 
W J McGee has a timely article on ‘The An- 
tillean Voleanoes,’ and there are sundry inter- 
esting items in ‘The Progress of Science.’ 


In The American Naturalist for June, J. 
F. McClenden gives ‘The Life History of 
Ululu hyalina Latreille’ and Wesley R. Coe 
discusses ‘The Nemertean Parasites of Crabs,’ 
concluding that all of the species show great 
similarity of structure, that they are true par- 
asites and that some species are widely dis- 
tributed. H. V. Wilson, in an article ‘On 
the Asexual Origin of the Ciliated Sponge 
Larva,’ shows that Ojima’s recent observations 
seem to bear out his own conclusions as to 
this method of propagation in Esperella fibrex- 
tls. J. E. Duerden, in a paper on ‘Aggre- 
gated Colonies in Madreporarian Corals,’ 
shows that these are probably due to the ecoal- 
escence of larve or young forms and not to 
fission. Under the title ‘Utah Chilopods of 
the Geophilide, Ralph V. Chamberlain de- 
scribes six new species and gives keys showing 
the position of the new forms in their genera, 
as well as for the identification of those al- 
ready known from the West. In considering 
‘Color Variations of the Common Garter 
Snake’ Edwin C. Eckel comes to the conclu- 
sion that the two subspecies of Hutcnia sir- 
talis, obscura and pallidula, are of doubtful 
value, while in ‘Notes on the Dispersal of 
Sagartia Lucie Verrill’ G. H. Parker presents 
evidence that the species is spreading north- 
wards and eastwards. Under ‘ Correspondence’ 
Dr. C. R. Eastman criticises Patten’s recent 
paper on the Ostracoderms and particularly 
the conclusion that they are nearly related to 
the Arthropods. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 395. 


Tue South African Museum has issued 
Parts VI. to VIII. of the second volume of 
its Annals, the principal paper being by W. 
F. Purcell, ‘On some South African Arach- 
nida belonging to the Orders Scorpiones, 
Pedipalpi and Solfuge.’ This comprises a 
revision of the South African species 
of the Parabuthus, deseriptions of 
seven new species and three new varieties 
of scorpions; one new pedipalp, nine new 
species and one new genus (Chelypus) of 
Solfugz, together with lists of new localities 
for various species and notes on local varia- 
tions. G. A. Boulenger gives a’ Description of 
a New Silurid Fish of the genus Gephyroglan- 
ic, from South Africa,’ and Walter E. Collinge 
presents some notes ‘On a Further Collection 
of South African Slugs with a Check List of 
Known Species.’ 


genus 


The Plant World for May, a little belated, 
contains a paper by Cora H. Clarke, entitled 
‘New Missionary Work,’ being another plea 
for the preservation of our wild flowers. Ro- 
land M. Harper gives some ‘Notes on Hlli- 
ottia recemosa, giving an account of the 
rediscovery of this rare shrub after an inter- 
val of twenty years. A. H. Curtiss continues 
‘Among Florida Ferns, and there are the 
customary briefer articles, including an ac- 
count of the aims of the Wild Flower Preser- 
vation Society. 


In The Museums Journal of Great Britain 
the most important article is the fifth and last 
paper on ‘ Hygiene as a Subject for Museum 
Illustration.’ This completes a careful and 
detailed outline of the subject with diagrams 
showing a proposed arrangement of a Mu- 
seum of Hygiene. With this, June, number 
the Journal completes its first year and Mr. 
Howarth is to be congratulated on the suc- 
cessful termination of his first year as an 
editor. 


The American Museum Journal for May 
and June notes the progress in the installa- 
tion of the series showing the development of 
the horse and the successful completion of 
the Saturday afternoon talks on ornithology. 
The supplement, this time under the modest 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


title of ‘Guide Leaflet,’ is an illustrated hand- 
book to the butterflies found within fifty miles 
of New York City. It comprises 52 pages 
and 96 figures and should be in demand by 
loeal entomologists. 


An English dealer in minerals was the 
first to advertise voleanic dust from Mt. Pelée, 
and the British Museum is the first, and only 
one, to make a special exhibit illustrating 
the recent voleanic eruptions in the West 
Indies. This, as described in The Museums 
Journal, comprised a series of maps and 
diagrams showing the geography of the 
Lesser Antilles and the relations of their 
voleanoes to the general structure of the globe, 
and particularly to the disturbed area in Cen- 
tral America. Pictures and photographs give 
an idea of the scenery, buildings, vegetation 
and human inhabitants of the ruined islands. 
The poverty of the fauna and flora, due per- 
haps to previous eruptions, is likewise illus- 
trated by specimens and drawings. Various 
products of the present and previous erup- 
tions are exhibited and explained, while near 
by is an exhibit of typical voleanic products 
from various sources, all carefully labeled. 
Pictures and photographs illustrate the erup- 
tive phenomena of other voleanoes, and ex- 
tinct or possibly dormant volcanoes of other 
parts of the world. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

Tue 331st meeting was held April 22. Dr. 
Emily Brainerd Ryder gave a talk on the Par- 
sees of Bombay, and exhibited costumes, re- 
ligious objects and a model of a Tower of 
Silence. 

Dr. Ryder spent a great many years in 
India, and is thoroughly familiar with the 
customs and religion of the followers of Zoro- 
aster. In describing their religion she stated 
that before they were driven from Persia, 
their native country, by the Mohammedan 
invaders, their temples, in which the sacred 
and eternal fire was kept burning, were in 
the form of round towers, seven stories in 
height, seven being a sacred number in their 
religion. When they fled into India they de- 


SCIENCE. 


149 


cided, in order to live in peace with the Hin- 
doos, that they would build fire temples small 
in size and in out-of-the-way places, so as to 
attract as little attention as possible. Hence, 
all over India their places of worship are small 
and obscure, in comparison with the temples 
and mosques of other religious bodies, not- 
withstanding the fact that they are the wealth- 
iest and most progressive people in India. 

In these temples the sacred fire, the symbol 
of Ahriman, the sun or god, burns on an 
altar of white stone. Three priests relieve 
each other at the end of every eight hours, 
and every time the fire is replenished with 
sandal wood, a gong is struck to notify out- 
siders that the sacred fire is being promptly 
tended and watched. In the opening of a 
new temple the fire of its altar has to be ob- 
tained from heaven; in other words, it must 
be a part of the divine or electric spark, and 
frequently it is months before this can be 
obtained. 

According to the Zoroastrian faith, the hu- 
man body, after the soul has departed, must 
not be allowed to pollute the air, the water, 
or the earth, and for that reason the Parsees 
have what they call their Towers of Silence, 
a large, round, roofless building, in which the 
remains of their dead are exposed to be de- 
voured by vultures. The body is carried to 
its last resting place on a bier, the priest fol- 
lowing leading a white dog of a peculiar 
breed with a yellow spot over either eye. Just 
before reaching the gate of the tower the face 
of the dead is uncovered, to let the sun shine 
upon it for the last time, after which the 
priest holds the dog’s nose toward the face of 
the dead four times, and from all four quar- 
ters. The animal is called the ‘four-eyed 
dog,’ and this curious custom is so old that, 
in Mrs. Ryder’s opinion, the Parsees have 
lost its meaning and significance. 

‘The Vinter’s Bush’ was the title of a paper 
read by Dr. H. Carrington Bolton, on the 
ancient custom of using a bush as a wineshop 
sign in the same manner that three balls are 
used as a sign by pawnbrokers, and a striped 
pole by barbers. He was followed by Mr. G. 
H. Matthes, who has lately returned from 
Sumatra, who read a paper on the Malays of 


150 


that island, illustrating his paper with a se- 
ries of lantern pictures. 

The 332d meeting was held May 6. Lieut. 
W. E. Safford, U. S. N., read a paper on the 
ethnobotany of Guam. Lieut. Safford re- 
mained a long time in Guam in an official 
capacity, and while there made an extended 
study of the island and its inhabitants. The 
paper showed the carefulness of Lieut. Saf- 
ford’s observations and the enthusiasm with 
which he took up this study. Contrary to 
common belief, the natives are slightly mixed 
and speak a pure Malayan tongue. They are 
industrious, own and cultivate land, and make 
use of the feral and introduced plants to a 
remarkable degree. 

Dr. John R. Swanton, of the Bureau of 
Ethnology, gave an account of the social or- 
ganization of the Haida Indians. Dr. Swan- 
ton is familiar with the language of these 
Indians and has studied their customs for 
several years. 

It is an interesting fact that the Haidas 
set apart, near their villages, parks and play- 
grounds for their children. The affairs of 
their towns are administered by the village 
chief, the house chief, and the clan chief. It 
is, apparently, the duty of the chief to earn 
as much property as he ean in order to give 
it away for the purpose of rendering himself 
great and of confusing his enemies. 

Dr. Swanton says that the chiefs and their 
families have a morality of their own; that 
is, they must live up to their station in life. 

The system of relationship is quite com- 
plicated and is diagrammatically shown by Dr. 
Swanton. 

The supernatural beings are eagles and ra- 
vens, the raven being the greater. They be- 
lieve that a supernatural being resides under 
the Haida land and supports it. 

In discussing this interesting paper Pro- 
fessor McGee pointed out, in connection with 
the table of relationship, that the law of mar- 
riage is more stringent in a low stage of civil- 


ization than it is in a high stage of civiliza-~ 


tion, contrary to the accepted beliefs of the 
social organizations of the Indians. 
The 333d meeting was held May 20. <A por- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 395. 


tion of this closing meeting for the season was 
given to remarks on deceased members. 

Dr. George M. Kober paid a tribute to Dr. 
W. W. Johnston, whose death was a severe 
loss to the people of Washington. 

A eulogy on the late Thomas Wilson was 
read by Professor Otis T. Mason. Following 
this, an interesting paper on the origin of 
the United States decimal money was read 
by Dr. William H. Seaman. 

Watter Hovucu. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 


To Tum Eprror of Science: While believing 
that a more thorough study of the existing 
literature on zoological nomenclature would 
clear up most of Dr. Cook’s uncertainties, 
while I would especially recommend him to 
read my report on the subject, of 1877, to the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, and admitting for myself less 
familiarity with the problems of purely bo- 
tanical nomenclature—there are still some 
points in his letter in Scrpncr, No. 392, p. 
30, which seem to call for notice. The neces- 
sity for types as a basis for modern genera I 
appreciate, I believe, fully. It is only when 
hasty methods of selection, upsetting work al- 
ready done and promising no more definite 
stability than present methods, are proposed, 
that any hesitation is called for. 

It seems to be most difficult to induce nat- 
uralists who have not made a special study of 
nomenclature, to get clearly fixed the idea 
that nomenclature is necessarily arbitrary, and 
that unless this principle is admitted to start 
with, stability is hopeless. Thus the accept- 
ance of the tenth edition of the ‘Systema 
Nature’ as the starting point, though based 
on sound reasons, is nevertheless an arbitrary 
decision, and having been generally accepted 
should be adhered to. Dr. Cook thinks that 
because certain naturalists have violated the 
rules excluding vernacular names, therefore 
violation is justified and must be accepted; 
but laws are not enforced in that way. The 
laws are intended to and will, if followed, 
bring about stability, but it is preposterous 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


to suppose stability can be attained in any 
other way. Supplementary rules must be ex- 
pected from time to time and are fully advis- 
able, but not revolutionary changes in the al- 
ready accepted rules. No one has ever 
claimed, as far as I know, that the possibili- 
ties of progress in the rules are exhausted or 
ever will be. 

I confess myself entirely unable to under- 
stand Dr. Cook’s characterization of De Can- 
dolle’s annotated rules as ‘quite lacking in 
logical arrangement and definite statement.’ 

- These are the very characteristics which it 
seems to me they possess in an eminent de- 
gree, though naturally they do not go as far 
as required by the needs of science thirty-five 
years later. Moreover, I do not hesitate to 
say that ‘evolutionary conceptions’ of nature 
and systems of ‘recording the results of bio- 
logical study’ have nothing whatever to do 
with the rules of nomenclature. I cannot 
help suspecting that the attempt to combine 
two or three irreconcilable categories in one 
system is at the bottom of Dr. Cook’s difficul- 
ties. It may be practicable to devise a sys- 
tem which would exhibit evolutionary concep- 
tions, and this might be very useful if it 
proved possible; but this system would not 
be that which we use for animals and plants 
according to Linneus and his followers, and 
the two things are incapable of combination. 
The attempt to mix them would only result 
in intensified confusion. 


Wm. H. Datu. 


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 
July 7, 1902. 


RANGE OF THE FOX SNAKE. 

To THE Epiror oF Science: Traditions often 
develop into truths for want of critical exami- 
nation at an early stage in their career. 

In his very complete catalogue of New York 
snakes, lately issued, Mr. E. C. Eckel refers to 
Dr. J. A. Allen as having ‘described’ a speci- 
men of the fox snake (Coluber vulpinus) as 
captured in 1861 near Wenham, Mass., and-in 
Scrmnce of June 27 Mr. Max Morse adopts 
the statement and suggests that Professor 
Cope, in fixing the range of this species, over- 
looked this record. 


SCIENCE. 


151 


The references which evaded the minute in- 
spection of my late friend, Professor Cope, 
were very few, and fewer still, after capture, 
escaped from that extraordinary memory. As 
a matter of fact he did have this record in 
mind in his Check List of 1875, where Massa- 
chusetts was given as the eastern limit of this 
species. The fact that this reported extra- 
limital occurrence is now unverifiable is 
doubtless the real reason why it was passed 
over by Cope in his later work, as it was by 
myself in preparing, two years ago, a review 
of North American snakes. 

In reality Dr. Allen did not ‘describe’ this 
specimen, nor had he apparently ever seen it; 
he merely in 1869 stated that a specimen had 
been entered on the catalogue of the Museum 
of Comparative Zoology, as having been re- 
ceived from Wenham, Mass., in 1861, and that 
Professor F. W. Putnam believed the identi- 
fication to be correct. That Dr. Allen himself 
doubted this is shown by the language of his 
next sentence: ‘Jf it is this species, ete.’ 
Forty years ago herpetologists were less plenti- 
ful, and identification of species was less exact, 
than at present, and it is easily conceivable 
that one not fully familiar with the group 
might have mistaken an example of Ophibolus 
doliatus triangulus for the then little-known 
Coluber vulpinus. Indeed Baird and Girard, 
in the original description of the latter species, 
mention the similarity in general aspect of 
the two. That there was such an error in 
identification is much more likely than that 
a large and conspicuous species, not otherwise 
known east of Ohio, should have naturally 
occurred at a point so distant as the extreme 
northeastern county of Massachusetts. 

A suggestive case is that of a living Ophi- 
bolus rhombomaculatus received by me in June 
of last year, with the history from a well-in- 
tentioned source, of its capture during the 
previous September, near Erie, Pa. Now this 
rather rare species has never, to my knowledge, 
been previously detected north of the District 
of Columbia, and the best explanation of its 
supposed occurrence at such a remote point 
seems to lie in an inference from the fact that 
the specimen had passed through the hands of 
a person from a southern State, who was 


152 


something of a collector without being an 
ophiologist of experience. The high probabil- 
ity that some of his snakes had become mixed 
has prevented a public record of this alleged 
locality, in the absence of further evidence. 

The collector of living specimens needs 
especially to guard against being misled by 
errors of this class, for the reason that living 
animals are not usually labeled when collected, 
beyond the possibility of confusion. 

A few such eases taken at random from 
memory in the experience of the Zoological 
Society are the receipt of a South American 
heron, said to have been captured near Port- 
land, Oregon; a tayra from west Africa; a 
bald eagle from Brazil; a southern fox squir- 
rel from Java; a North African species 
of hedgehog from Manila; and a coyote cap- 
tured in Porto Rico by soldiers of a volunteer 
regiment which served in that campaign. 


ArtHur Erwin Brown. 
ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, PHILADELPHIA. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 


PRELIMINARY NOTE ON A NEW ORGANISM PRODUC- 
ING ROT IN CAULIFLOWER AND ALLIED 
PLANTS. 


During August and September of 1901 
my attention was drawn to a_ disease of 
cauliflowers in the vicinity of Guelph, On- 
tario. The plants, which were well grown and 
cared for, showed symptoms of rot, the in- 
terior of the stem, and often all the flowering 
or edible part being changed into a dark-color- 
ed soft mass. Examination of this rotted ma- 
terial revealed the presence of enormous num- 
bers of bacteria. Subsequently, the causal or- 
ganism was isolated in pure culture, and its 
pathogenicity and relation to the rot were es- 
tablished by inoculation of healthy cauliflower 
plants, the production of rot in these plants, 
and the reisolation of the germ, and its culti- 
vation on various media. 

The organism is a medium-sized motile ba- 
eillus, with peritrichous flagelle, five to nine 
in number, stains slowly with methylene blue 
(Loeffler), better with carbol-fuchsin. Grows 
best under aerobic conditions, but is able to 
grow slightly in. atmosphere of hydrogen. 
Liquefies gelatin; grows on surface agar as a 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 
moist, whitish, slightly opalescent growth, 
which becomes more massive with age; cur- 
dles milk slowly, producing slight digestion, 
with acid reaction (litmus). Produces heavy 
cloudiness in bouillon. Changes the red color 
of rosolie acid peptone bouillon to a lght 
brown. On slices of raw potato, produces a deep 
creamy growth; the potato is completely soft- 
ened, with the production of a considerable 
amount of ammonia. Grows well on raw 
slices of the following vegetables, producing 
softening or rotting: cauliflower, cabbage, 
turnip, rape, radish, horseradish, kale, cele- 
ry, artichoke, asparagus, carrot, onion, to- 
mato and parsnip. It does not grow on raw 
beet, and on sugar beet but very sparingly. 

The growth on some of the above vegetables, 
notably cabbage, horseradish and onion, is 
frequently accompanied with the production 
of gas bubbles, and disagreeable, offensive 
odors. 

The organism grows best at 25-30° C., but 
grows well at both 20° and 37° C. 

The action of the bacillus on the plant is 
similar to the Pseudomonas described by Pot- 
ter. It dissolves the middle lamella; the en- 
zyme produced by the bacillus may be isolat- 
ed from the rotted cauliflower or from bouil- 
lon. 

The name proposed for the organism is 
Bacillus olereacee. 


F. C. Harrison. 
July 1, 1902. 


RECENT MUSEUM REPORTS. 

THE annual reports of three of our great 
museums have appeared within the last few 
months and may well be considered together. 
These, in their order of appearance, are the 
Field Columbian Museum at Chicago, the 
American Museum of Natural History of 
New York City, and the United States Na- 
tional Museum at Washington. This last is so 
far behind the others in date, being for the 
fiseal year ending June 30, 1900, that it is a 
little difficult to make exact comparison with 
them. Each of these institutions expresses a 
need for more money for current expenses and 
the National Museum makes its regular an- 
nual plea for more room. How necessary more 


JULY 25, 1902.] 


room has become may be partly understood by 
reading Mr. Rathbun’s report, but only those 
conversant with the circumstances in the case 
ean fully appreciate the inconvenience, loss of 
time and money, and danger of loss from fire 
caused by the existing order of things. 

The city of Glasgow is just now finishing a 
museum that will cost $1,500,000, and it would 
seem that a nation so fond of boasting of its 
wealth as is the United States might at least 
spend thrice that sum in the construction of 
a building. 

From the reports one gathers that in all 
these institutions there is special activity 
in the departments of anthropology and ver- 
tebrate paleontology, and in both of these 
departments the American Museum of Nat- 
ural History, largely through the liberality of 
its friends, stands first. Through the activity 
of its collecting parties this institution has 
made good progress with its extremely inter- 
esting exhibit illustrating the history of the 
horse family. Although this is now much more 
complete than any other similar collection ex- 
tant, the Curator hopes eventually to secure 
every form between the little Eocene ancestor 
and the large horse of the Pleistocene, and to 
add skeletons of typical breeds of modern 
horses as well. 

In paleontology the Field Columbian Mu- 
seum has added the largest bone of any animal 
yet found, in the shape of a femur of Camara- 
saurus, six feet eight inches high, while it has 
also placed on exhibition a complete foreleg of 
the great Morosaurus. 

The comment may be made that all these 
fine fossils have been the result of field work, 
and that the U. S. National Museum has no 
funds for this purpose. 

As usual the Field Columbian Museum 
makes a good showing in its exhibition series 
of mammals, the most notable being a group of 
African wart hogs mounted by Mr. Akeley. 
The piece of the year of the American Museum 
is the bird rock group of Mr. Denslow, and an 
illustrated pamphlet describing this may be 
had for the nominal sum of ten cents. 

In entomology and botany the National 
Museum stands first with its accessions of 
85,000 specimens of insects, arachnida and 


SCIENCE. 


153 


myriapoda, and 27,000 herbarium specimens, 
and it is a pleasure to add that the greater 
number of these came as gifts. 

The American Museum announces the in- 
stallation of the famous Bement collection of 
minerals and of the fine series of gems pre- 
sented by J. Pierpont Morgan. The National 
Museum has received on deposit: from Dr. 
Shepard the Shepard collection of minerals 
which includes many rare forms. 

Both the Field Columbian and American 
Museums make provisions for lecture courses; 
the latter, indeed, has always made a special 
point of its lectures to teachers, and has a 
Department of Public Instruction and one of 
the best equipped lecture halls in the country. 
The one institution notes a falling off in its 
attendance, the other a decided increase, so 
that at times the lecture hall was insufficient 
for the accommodation of the public. The 
National Museum has had no lecture course 
for several years, but if it has not, it has im- 
parted much direct information in response to 
requests from various parts of the country, to 
say nothing of those made by passing indi- 
viduals. It is noted that 700 lots of specimens 
were submitted for identification, and that the 
number of letters answered was about 5,000. 
It can readily be seen that this work makes 
great inroads on the time of the scientific 
staff and clerical force, while it may be said 
that the direct results to the Museum are few. 
The indirect benefit, however, is probably con- 
siderable, though nothing like that occurring 
to the American Museum through its Depart- 
ment of Public Instruction. 

The National Museum announces the com- 
pletion of Jordan and Evermann’s ‘Fishes of 
North and Middle America,’ the American 
Museum has published the last part of the im- 
portant ‘List of Types of Invertebrate Fos- 
sils,’ while the Field Museum has issued ‘A 
Synopsis of the Mammals of North America 
and the Adjacent Seas,’ a work that, for the 
first time, places a comprehensive work on our 
The Na- 
tional Museum has published the most papers, 
as it should with its special appropriation. 


mammals within reach of every one. 


“But this institution is very liberal in the mat- 


ter of distribution, as well as in publishing 


154 


papers by others than the actual or honorary 
members of its staff. 

In the matter of attendance the American 
Museum of Natural History had 461,026 visit- 
ors, the U. S. National Museum 358,587, and 
the Field Columbian Museum 248,408, this 
being a falling off from the previous year. 
The Field Columbian Museum is the most 
difficult of access locally, the National Mu- 
seum is the easiest, while the American Mu- 
seum has the largest adjacent population to 
draw from. 

The expenses of the Field Columbian Mu- 
seum were $160,545, of the American Museum, 
$191,584, and of the National Museum, 
$243,540. But $17,000 of this last was for 
publication and $28,040 for additions, rent and 
repairs, so that the actual cost of administra- 
tion was not so great as it might seem. 


NOTES ON ENTOMOLOGY. 

For a number of years Dr. J. L. Hancock, 
of Chicago, has been studying that difficult 
family of grasshoppers, the Tettigide. He has 
now summarized his studies in an elegant 
volume.* 

The work opens with an excellent general 
account of the family, including much inter- 
esting matter on habits, variation, protective 
coloring, ete. The generic and specifie de- 
scriptions appear to be good, but the synoptic 
tables seem to be badly arranged. In fact 
something appears to have been omitted from 
several of them, so that they are of little value. 
The author has apparently no definite idea as 
to his species and varieties, for what are 
treated as varieties in one place are elsewhere 
called species. Altogether the author describes 
about 85 species, about 48 of which occur in 
the United States. Unfortunately Dr. Han- 
eock did not see the National Museum col- 
lection in time to include two new species 
and one new variety that are added in an ap- 
pendix. It seems probable that future study 
will reduce the number of species in our coun- 
try. 


*<«The Tettigide of North America,’ published 
by special grant of Mrs. Frank G. Logan. Chi- 
cago. 1902. 188 pages; 11 plates. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 


Ch. Ferton, well known for his interesting 
ethological studies on predaceous Hymen- 
optera, has added another* to his long list of 
papers on this subject. It includes a great 
amount of matter of general biologic interest 
arranged in a number of chapters. There are 
notes on the variability of instinct in Hymen- 
optera; on the odor emitted by certain spe- 
cies; lists of Hemiptera, Diptera, and Arach- 
nida gathered by various species as food for 
their young; on the position of the egg upon 
the host-insect; on the habit of Odynerus and 
Eumenes of suspending the egg to the end 
of a thread; on the means of protection of 
certain caterpillars against these Hymenop- 
tera; and finally on intelligence and instinct. 

Ferton attributes the curious acts of these 
insects chiefly to instinct, and declares that 
acts of intelligence are exceptional with Hy- 
menoptera. Many that appear as such are 
only habits that one rarely has the opportunity 
to observe. To the paper are added two plates 
illustrative of the nesting habits of certain 
species. 

Tt has long been known that the larva of 
Olythra 4-punctata, a case-inhabiting Chrys- 
omelid beetle, lives in the nests of an ant— 
Formica rufa. But it was not known upon 
what they fed or how they got into the ant- 
nest. Mr. Donisthorpe has now settled these 
points, and in a very interesting articlet he 
gives an account of the entire life history of 
this insect. The adult beetles escape cau- 
tiously from the ant-nest, and feed on the 
tender foliage of birch. The female then 
seeks a shrub overhanging an ant-nest and 
begins oviposition. She covers the egg with 
a ease made of her own excrement, which, 
when dried, has much resemblance to a birch 
bud. The eggs are dropped upon the ant-nest 
and the ants carry them into their galleries. 
Here the larva hatches and uses the egg-case 
for its first protection. It feeds upon the de- 

**Notes détachées sur l’instinct des Hyménop- 
teres melliféres et ravisseurs, avec la description 
de quelques espéces,’ Ann. Soc. Ent. France, LXX., 
pp. 83-148, 1901. 

7‘The Life History of Clythra 4-punctata,’ 
Trans. Entom. Soc. London, 1902, pp. 11-24, 1 pl., 
by H. St. John K. Donisthorpe. 


JULY 25, 1902. ] 


caying vegetable matter that it finds in the 
nest, and enlarges its case by using its excre- 
ment to solder bits of dirt together. When 
ready to pupate, it fastens the case to a piece 
of wood or twig, and turns completely around, 
end for end. The beetle escapes by biting a 
circular cap from the case. The ants are apt 
to attack and kill the beetle, so that it has to 
be careful in getting out of the nest. 

In the new publication—auna Arctica— 
edited by Drs. F. Rémer and F. Schaudinn, 
there have appeared two papers on arctic in- 
sects. One, on the Collembola,* is by C. 
Schaeffer, and the other, on the Lepidoptera,t 
is by A. Pagenstecher. 

In the former there is a complete bibliog- 
raphy, and then an annotated catalogue of 
the 61 species of spring-tails known from the 
arctic and subarctic regions. This is followed 
by a tabulated statement of the distribution 
of the species. Schaeffer records several spe- 
cies from the United States not previously 
known to occur here; these are Achorutes 
tullbergi var. concolor, Isotoma cinerea and 
Tomocerus vulgaris var. siberica, all from 
Massachusetts. 

In the two hundred quarto pages of Dr. 
Pagenstecher’s work there are catalogued 
nearly 1,000 butterflies and moths from the 
arctic and nearby regions. The full synonymy 
is given, and many notes on distribution. The 
catalogue is preceded by an annotated bibliog- 
raphy, containing much interesting matter. 

Catalogues seem to be the order of the day, 
and Darboux and Houard have written one 
that will be as useful as any. It is a descrip- 
tive cataloguet of the European galls, or 
plant deformations caused by animals. It is 
arranged alphabetically according to the host 
plant. Under each plant is a tabular synopsis 
of the species found on that plant. This syn- 


* Fauna Arctica, Vol. I., 2d part, Article No. 
VIL., 1900. 

7 Fauna Arctica, Vol. I1., 2d part, Article No. 
VI., 1901. 

£° Catalogue systématique des Zoocécidies de 
YEurope et du bassin méditerranéen,’ by G. Dar- 
boux and C. Houard. Paris, 1901, 543 pp., 863 
figs. Volume supplémentaire du Bulletin Scien- 
tifique de la France et de la Belgique. 


SCIENCE. 


155 


opsis is based on the nature and shape of the 
deformation, and not on the characters of the 
animals. The great majority belong to three 
groups, the Cecidomyidew of the Diptera, the 
Eriophyide (Phytoptide) of the Acarina, and 
the Cynipide of the Hymenoptera. Over 
4,000 kinds of galls or deformations are thus 
treated. This volume is to be followed by an- 
other containing a supplement, references to 
all the described species and descriptions of 
new forms. 

Dr. M. Régimbart has published a mono- 
graph of the large beetles formerly placed in 
the genus Hydrophilus.* We have two of 
these species in the United States; one of 
them is very commonly found under electric 
lights in the cities. This is now known as 
Stethoxus triangularis Say, while the rarer 
species (ovalis Ziegler) is placed in the new 
genus Dibolocelus. 

Dr. F. Meinert has completed a study of the 
larve of the coleopterous family Dytiscide.t 
Unfortuttately it is published in Danish, but 
there is a French résumé, from which one 
may gather the main facts of the article. 
However the larval characters of the genera 
and species are in Latin. The larve of 49 
species are described, and, in many cases, fig- 
ured. Upon a study of these larve he bases 
a new classification of this and allied families 
ineluded in the Caraboidea of Ganglbauer. 
The six families he reduces to four. The 
Carabide includes the Carabine, and the Ci- 
cindeline; the Dytiscidee includes the Dytis- 
cine, Pelobiine, Noterine and Amphizoine. 
The Halipide and Gyrinide stand as usual. 

In the Journal of the Hungarian Depart- 
ment of Agriculture Joseph Lésy has published 
a very full account. of the bee-louse, Braula 
ceca.{ The text is in Magyar, but one may 
gain much information from the many large 
and excellent figures. The article deals chiefly 


** Revision des grands Hydrophiles,’ Ann. Soc. 
Ent. France, LUXX., pp. 188-230, 1902. 

7‘ Vandkalvelarverne (Larve Dytiscidarum),’ 
Kgl. Danske. Vidensk. Selsk. Skr. (6), Vol. IX., 
No. 8, 1901, pp. 341-440, 6 plates. 

£°A méh 6s a méhtetii egyiittélése,” Misérle- 
tiigyi Kézlemények, Vol. V., Part 2 (1902), pp. 
163-203, 3 plates, 6 figures. 


156 


with the external anatomy of Braula, espe- 
cially with the structure of the mouth-parts; 
but there is an historical account of the insect 
and a consideration of its relations to the bee. 

An interesting little book has been written 
by L. C. Miall as an introduction*to the study 
of economic entomology. The work is divided 
into four portions; I., Preliminary lessons; 
II., Lessons on common insects, chiefly such 
as are either injurious or useful to man; IIL., 
Descriptive account of the larger orders of in- 
sects, with short notices of remarkable forms; 
IV., The destruction or mitigation of insect 
pests. The book is devised especially for Eng- 
lish students, but the introductory structural 
and biological features would be of much 
help to Americans. Indeed on these points it 
is plainly superior to most of our works on 
economic entomology, and indicates the lines 
along which our text-book could be improved. 
The economic accounts of the various species 
treated are frequently of interest to us, and 
the chapter on insecticides is largely drawn 
from American sources. The outline figures 
are good; and the book will undoubtedly do 
much to broaden the knowledge of economic 


entomology in England. 
Naruan Banks. 


BOTANICAL NOTES. 


TWO TEXT-BOOKS OF BOTANY. 


Amone recent books designed for the use of 
students is Professor Heald’s ‘ Laboratory 
Manual of Elementary Biology’ (Clute & 
Co.), Part I. of which interests us here, as it 
alone is devoted to plants. This book is 
interesting as coming from a teacher who has 
had to solve the problem of the best method 
of presenting the subject to beginning classes. 
The method adopted is described by the au- 
thor as a mean between the ‘ verification 
method’ and the ‘ question method,’ neither 
of which he fully approves. Directions are 
given for making particular observations, and 
some questions are asked, but at the same 
time much information is given in the text. 
Apparently the author has succeeded in quite 


**Tnjurious and Useful Insects,’ London, 1902, 
8vo, pp. 256, figs. 103. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S Vou. XVI. No. 395. 
successfully steering the middle course which 
he approves. In taking up the subject he 
begins at once with the lower plants, and 
makes this excellent contribution to the 
pedagogics of botany in his preface: “ No ex- 
cuse need be offered for beginning with the 
simple forms and ending with the complex. 
Experience has shown that the logical order 
can be carried out with even more satisfactory 
results than the illogical order of complex 
first and simple forms later.” The book is re- 
markable in containing no illustrations what- 
ever, and may thus be regarded as a protest 
against the excess of illustrations found in so 
many recent books. Professor MacDougal’s 
little book, ‘Elementary Plant Physiology’ 
(Longmans, Green & Co.), reminds us of his 
earlier work, ‘Experimental Plant Physiol- 
ogy,’ which in fact it is intended to replace. 
The sequence of topics is quite different, how- 
ever, in the new book, and many new illus- 
trations have been added. After a useful 
introductory chapter devoted to material, 
measurements, ete., the author takes up 
‘Growth, following this with ‘ Reproduction 
and Germination.’ Then follow chapters on 
‘Exchange and Movements of Gases and 
Liquids,’ ‘Nutrition, ‘Respiration, Diges- 
tion and Fermentation’ and ‘ Stimulation 
and Correlation.’ The physical aspects of 
physiology are thus first taken up, and then 
the chemical aspects, followed by what may 
be called the vital aspects. Here again we 
detect a suggestion as to the proper sequence 
of topics in the study of plants and their 
activities. The book will no doubt become 
popular. 


FURTHER STUDIES OF CELLULOSE. 

SEVERAL years ago a notable work appeared 
from the hands of C. F. Cross and E. J. 
Bevan under the simple title of ‘Cellulose’ 
(Longmans), which at once took place as a 
standard reference book in botanical labora- 
tories. Recently the same authors have pre- 
pared another book, ‘ Researches on Cellulose,’ 
brought out by the same publishers, which is 
intended to supplement the former 
It gives a brief account of the researches 
published since the issue of the earlier book, 


work. 


JULY 25, 1902. ] 


in addition to some investigations of the au- 
thors themselves. The book follows the gen- 
eral plan of its predecessor, but no attempt is 
made to give it the form of a connected rec- 
ord. 
of the reader in order that the results here 
given may be understood. The original 
papers are summarized under their proper 
headings, and references are made to the 
places of publication. The attempt has been 
made ‘to reproduce the authors’ main con- 
clusions, and in most cases without comment 
or criticism.’ 

It is quite impossible to review a book of 
this kind; it must be read by the person in- 
terested. To show the value of the book to 
plant physiologists we may quote from the 
introductory chapter (pp. 8, 9): ‘“ These re- 
searches of Fenton’s appear to us to have the 
most obvious and direct bearings upon the 
genetic relationships of the plant furfuroids, 
and not only per se. To give them their full 
significance we must recall the later researches 
of Brown and Morris, which establish that 
cane sugar is a primary or direct product of 
assimilation, and that starch, which had been 
assumed to be a species of universal matiére 
premiere, is probably rather a general reserve 
for the elaborating work of the plant.” 


STUDIES OF THE STRUCTURE OF MOSSES. 


We have had occasion heretofore to call 
the attention of botanists, especially of non- 
professionals, to the help that may be ob- 
tained from certain special periodicals which 
are too often overlooked by the very persons 
who might receive benefit. It is all very well 
for the general student of science to read 
general journals, but he misses much if he 
does not read these special journals also. 
Thus there are many amateur botanists who 
are interested in the structure and classifica- 
tion of the mosses who would be greatly 
helped by reading the papers in the current 
numbers of the Bryologist. Dr. Grout, the 
editor, began some months ago a series of 
papers on the peristome of the moss fruit, and 
from those which have appeared we may 
judge as to the high value they will have for 


the beginner in bryology. Every one who 


SCIENCE. 


The earlier book must be in the hands | 


157 


has attempted to work the mosses has found 
out that this is one of the difficult structures 
to understand, and for the solitary student 
who has no handy and obliging professor to 
whom to appeal such help as is given in Dr. 
Grout’s papers must prove invaluable. 


THE IGNORING OF BEGINNERS AND AMATEURS. 

Wuen we take up special journals like that 
referred to above, we are reminded that the 
beginner has a hard time of it now-a-days. 
Most journals ignore him—that is, journals 
of high standing and scientific reputation. 
One is sometimes tempted to wish that the 
large botanical journals might not forget that 
there are a great many people who are still 
beginners in botany, and that there always will 
be many beginners. The writer remembers 
when the American journals of botany were 
edited by beginners, for beginners, and he 
wonders whether they were not even more 
useful than now, for they offered to other be- 
ginners a means for ‘ getting up in the world,’ 
which they scarcely do to-day. Then they 
were botanical ladders let down in the midst 
of students who wanted to learn, but now 
these ladders have been pulled away above 
the reach of the beginner. This is not always 
the fault of the editors. Not long ago an 
editor, in commenting upon the suggestion 
that this journal should contain more for 
beginners and amateurs, said that he had 
been criticised repeatedly by prominent sci- 
entific men for admitting even a very little 
of such elementary matter. Evidently some 
men who attain eminence forget the helps 
which enabled them to succeed, a state of 
mind which is certainly not to be commended. 
Let such repeat to themselves the text: ‘For 
none of us liveth to himself.’ No man should 
be impatient of the elementary work which is 
so necessary in order that beginners in science 
may attain to something. 

Cuaries EK. Bessey. 
Tue UNIversiry or NEBRASKA. 
SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

M. Bouvier has been elected a member of 
the Paris Academy of Sciences in the section 
of anatomy and zoology. Others who received 


158 


votes were MM. Houssay, Henneguy and R. 
Blanchard. 

Dr. Fuorentino Amecuino has been ap-~ 
pointed director of the National Museum of 
Buenos Aires as successor to the late Pro- 
fessor Charles Berg. 

Iv is expected that Dr. W. W. Keen, pro- 
fessor of surgery at Jefferson Medical College, 
will reach Philadelphia by September 20, 
1902, after having completed a tour of the 
world. 

Tue condition of Dr. Charles Kendall 
Adams, the former president of the University 
of Wisconsin; who is ill at Redlands, Cal., is 
greatly improved. 

We hear with regret that Dr. George Mann 
Richardson, professor of organic chemistry at 
Stanford University, is critically ill at Balti- 
more. 

Mr. C. G. Proyeue has been appointed keep- 
er of the herbarium of the University of Ver- 
mont. 

Mr. W. H. Evans, of the office of Experiment 
Stations, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 
has returned from Porto Rico, where he was 
in conference with Mr. F. D. Gardner, in 
charge of the Porto Rico Station, with refer- 
ence to the selection of a permanent site and 
the development of the station there. 


Mr. Ernst A. Brssery, special agent of the 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, sailed for 
Europe and Asia on the second of July. He is 
commissioned to visit Russia and Turkestan 
before his return. 


Proressor Batpwin Spencer and Mr. J. F. 
Gillen have returned to Melbourne from their 
expedition to the northern interior of Aus- 
tralia. 

A SwepisH expedition under Dr. P. Rubin is 
taking meridian measurements on the islands 
north of Spitzbergen. Dr. von Zeipel is as- 
tronomer and Lieut. Duner cartographer of 
the expedition. 

Tue funeral services of M. Faye, the emi- 
nent astronomer and geodesist, took place on 
July 7, when addresses in his memory were 


made by M. Janssen, director of the Observa- 


tory of Meudon; General Bassot, president of 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 


the Bureau of Longitude, and M. Loewy, di- 
rector of the Observatory of Paris. 

Dr. THomas H. Hosnins, at one time a 
physician and teacher of anatomy, but for the 
past thirty-five years engaged in agricultural 
experiments and writing, has died at his home 
at Newport, Vermont, at the age of seventy- 
four years. 

Mr. J. Pirrpont Morcan has presented to the 
Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, the 
collection of precious stones formed by Mr. 
George F. Kunz for the Buffalo Exhibition. 


Mr. Anprew CarNeGie has offered to give 
about $200,000 for four libraries in England. 


Tue Royal Academy of Belgium will make 
at the close of the year 1904 the first award 
of its Ch. Lagrange prize. The value of the 
prize is 1,200 frs., and the subject is a contri- 
bution to geodesy. 

Tue plan is being considered of holding a 
world congress of tuberculosis in St. Louis in 
1904. Dr. George Brown, secretary of the 
American Congress of Tuberculosis, has taken 
steps toward the organization of the congress. 


Messrs. D. AppLeron & ComPaANy announce 
that they will publish in the autumn a volume 
of letters from Charles Darwin. 


Tue second of the two annual conversaziones 
ot the Royal Society was held at Burlington 
House on the evening of June 18, the fellows 
and guests being received by the president, 
Sir Wiliam Huggins. The London Vimes 
states that the exhibits were, with few excep- 
tions, the same as were shown in May, but 
makes reference to some of the more at- 
tractive new exhibits. The model of the Ant- 
arctic exploring ship, the Discovery, exhibited 
jointly by the Royal Society and the Royal 
Geographical Society, naturally attracted con- 
siderable attention. Mr. Henry Crookes ex- 
hibited specimens of volcanic dust from the 
West Indies with micro-photographs and 
microscopic slides of the same. Exhibits by 
Dr. F. W. Gamble and Mr. Frederick Keeble, 
illustrated the color changes of crustacea, es- 
pecially in response to light, and under the 
influence of background. Another specially 
noteworthy exhibit was Dr. Traver’s elaborate 


JULY 25, 1902. ] 


apparatus for liquefying hydrogen. Mr. E. J. 
Bles’s living tadpoles of the Cape clawed frog 
well repaid study, as their remarkable trans- 
pareney showed much of their internal econ- 
omy. Mr. W. Gowland’s Japanese pictures 
of Buddhist divinities and saints by old mas- 
ters were curious examples of the art of Japan, 
and Mr. Edward Whymper’s beautiful photo- 
graphs from the Rocky Mountains of Canada, 
where he spent the greater part of last year, 
were of great interest. Professor Garwood ex- 
hibited examples of telephotography in the 
Alps and Himalayas. Professor Ramsay show- 
ed an attempt to reproduce the Aurora Bore- 
alis by taking advantage of the krypton ele- 
ment in the atmosphere. Professor Flinders 
Petrie showed some striking slides illustrative 
of the early civilization of Egypt. Mr. J. Y. 
Buchanan exhibited a series of slides illustra- 
ting the performance of M. Santos Dumont’s 
dirigible balloon and the accident to it in 
February last, and Professor E. B. Poulton 
illustrated by means of very successful three- 
color slides, some of his recent work upon pro- 
tective resemblance and mimicry in insects. 
Tur seventh annual congress of the South- 
eastern Union of Scientific Societies was, 
says Nature, held at Canterbury on June 5-7. 
Thirty-seven societies are affiliated, a slight 
increase on last year; the accounts showed a 
small balance, and the attendance was good. 
An invitation to meet at Dover next year was 
accepted, and Sir Henry Howorth, F.R.S., was 
elected president for that meeting. Papers 
were read on ‘The Marine Aquarium,’ by Mr. 
Sibert Saunders, and on ‘Mycorhiza,’ by Miss 
A. Lorrain Smith; Professor Poulton gave a 
lecture on ‘ Recent Researches on Mimiecry in 
Insects,’ illustrated by lantern-slides in natu- 
ral colors; a discussion on the measure to be 
adopted for the preservation of British in- 
digenous flora was initiated by Professor Boul- 
ger and Mr. E. A. Martin; and papers on 
‘Well-sections,” by Mr. Whitaker, and on 
‘Eolithic Flint Implements, by Mr. E. R. 
Harrison, were taken as read, but will appear 
in The South-Eastern Naturalist for 1902. 
The event of the meeting, however, was the ad- 
dress by the president, Dr. Jonathan Hutchin- 
son, F.R.S., on leprosy, with special reference 


SCIENCE. 


to its antiquarian aspects, with reasoned argu- 
ment against the theory of contagion. The 
congress was held, by permission of the gover- 
nors, in the Simon Langton Schools, where an 
excellent local museum had been got together, 
including marine aquaria exhibited by Mr. 
Saunders, Mr. Harrison’s eoliths, and many 
fresh specimens of the British orchids, so well 
represented in the district. The members 
visited the cathedral, and were entertained at 
the deanery by the Dean and Mrs. Farrar, and 
were also received, on the Friday evening, by 
the Mayor and Mayoress. The congress ter- 
minated on the Saturday afternoon in a visit 
to the South-Eastern Agricultural College, 
Wye, at the invitation of the principal, Pro- 
fessor A. D. Hall, where the members were 
shown over the farms and laboratories by the 
staft_of the college. 


ConsuL-GENnERAL W. R. Hottoway sends the 
following to the Department of State, from 
St. Petersburg: The official report of the In- 
ternational Exhibition of Fishery, which was 
held at St. Petersburg, January 28 to March 
9, 1902, has just been published. The coun- 
tries participating were Russia and Finland, 
Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Egypt, 
India, Spain, Italy, Monaco, Norway, Persia, 
Roumania, Siam, France, Sweden and Japan, 
the first making much the best exhibit; but as 
a whole, the exhibit was not up to the standard 
of previous ones, the participants, Russia ex- 
cepted, taking little or no pains to make a 
creditable display. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Ir is announced that Mrs. Thomas G. Ben- 
net, of New Haven, is the donor of the new 
clinical building for the Yale Medical School, 
the cost of which with the land is $96,000. 


Ir is reported that Northwestern University 
will receive about $200,000 by the will of the 
late James F. Robinson. y 


By the will of the late Dr. Anson Judd Up- 
son, Hamilton College receives a bequest of 
$5,000, subject to a life interest. 

Mr. B. F. Hawktey, representing the trus- 
tees of the late Cecil Rhodes, has addressed a 


160 


letter to Seeretary Hay, copies of which have 
been forwarded to educational authorities. 
The letter says: The trustees are desirous of 
making regulations with regard to the method 
by which qualifications of candidates are to be 
ascertained, and as to examinations. They 
will, therefore, be obliged if you will be so 
good as to bring the scholarship provisions of 
Mr. Rhodes’s will to the notice of your Gov- 
ernment, with the request on their behalf that 
the views of the chief officials having control 
of education in the various States and Terri- 
tories of the Union may be ascertained and 
communicated to the trustees. It would be 
of further great assistance to the trustees if 
they could be furnished, through your kind- 
ness, with the opinion of the leading educa- 
tional authorities of the United States, es- 
pecially the heads of Harvard, Yale, Columbia 
and other universities with regard generally 
to the election of qualifying students and the 
best mode of giving practical effect to the 
scholarship trust. It is hoped that the stu- 
dents can be elected in time to go into resi- 
dence at Oxford in 1903. 


Dr. F. E. Crements, of the University of 
Nebraska, will open again his summer school 
in the Rocky Mountains during the month of 
August, for the special study of the ecology 
of mountain vegetation. 


TueErE will be a civil service examination 
on August 12 to fill the position of teacher of 
agriculture in the Indian service at a salary 
of $900-$1,000. 


Proressor Rurus W. Stimson has been 
elected president of the Connecticut Agricul- 
tural College. He has been acting president 
since last September. 


Proressor JouNn Fryer, who holds the chair 
of oriental languages at the University of 
California, has been appointed to the presi- 
dency of the new Chinese university at Wu- 
chang. 


Mr. James W. Witson, son of Secretary 
Wilson, has been elected director of the South 
Dakota Agricultural College and Station, and 
will have charge of the work in animal hus- 
bandry. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 395. 


Dr. E. C. Jerrrey, now instructor in the 
University of Toronto, has been appointed as- 
sistant professor in vegetable histology and 
general morphology in Harvard University. 


Dr. Rosert M. Birp, at present at the Miss- 
issippi Agricultural College, has been made 
acting professor of chemistry at the Univer- 
sity of Missouri and acting chemist of the 
Agricultural Experiment Station. 

Proressor FI’. C. Wauau, of the experiment 
station at Burlington, Vt., has been called to 
the chair of horticulture of the Massachusetts 
Agricultural College at Amherst, Mass. 


Ropert StTanuEY Breep, Ph.D. (Harvard, 
1902), has been appointed professor of biology 
and geology at Allegheny College, Meadville, 
Pa. Mr. William Albert Willard, A.M., Mor- 
gan fellow in zoology at Harvard in 1900- 
1901, who took the place of Professor Norris 
during his absence in Europe in the year 1901— 
02, has been appointed instructor in zoology in 
the University of Nebraska. 


We learn from the Botanical Gazette that 
Miss Laetitia M. Snow has been awarded the 
fellowship given by the Baltimore Association 
for the advancement of the university educa- 
tion of women. Miss Snow will continue her 
botanical studies at the University of Chicago. 


Prorrssor Haven Mercanr, who for the 
past year has been fellow in botany in the 
University of Nebraska, has been elected to 
the professorship of botany in Clemson Col- 
lege, South Carolina. 


Tur following changes and additions have 
been made in the medical faculty of the 
Columbian University: Dr. Walter Reed, 
U.S. A., has been elected to the chair of gen- 
eral pathology; Dr. Sterling Ruffin, to the 
vacancy in the chair of practice of medicine; 
Dr. Thomas Claytor, to the chair of materia 
medica and therapeutics; Dr. H. B. Deale, as 
professor of clinical medicine; Dr. H. N. 
Hawkes, as professor of clinical medicine; 
Dr. James Carroll, as associate professor of 
pathology and bacteriology. 

Dr. Daviy Hirperr, professor of mathe- 
matics at Gottingen, has been called to Ber- 
lin. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE : S. NEWcoMB, Mathematics; R. S. WooDWARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. Watcortt, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. SCUDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessgy, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. BinLinas, Hygiene ; WiLLIAM H. WeLcH, Pathol- 
ogy ; J. McKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. PowELL, Anthropology. 


Fripay, Aueust 1, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science :— 
The Prevention of the Pollution of Streams 
by Modern Methods of Sewage Treat- 


ment: PROFESSOR LEONARD P. KINNI- 

CUTE oo noice odintomeeie olotcid mold tio Bia netS 161 
Physics at the Pittsburgh Meeting: Pro- 

Fessor EH. F. NICHOLS.................. 171 


The Society for the Promotion of Engineering 
Education: PRoressor Henry S. Jacosy.. 183 
Association of Economic Entomologists: Pro- 
FEssor A. L. QUAINTANCE................ 188 
Scientific Books :— 
Savage’s Ophthalmic Myology: Dr. ALEX- 
ANDERE DUANE false ise eiericiere cide scien ber 188 
Societies and Academies :— 
The Texas Academy of Science: PROFESSOR 


FREDERIC W. SIMONDS 190 


Discussion and Correspondence :— 
Iridescent Clouds: E. Waire Exper. Pear 
Blight in California: Newton B. Prerce.. 192 
Mie AGO Of QUUOS ib Wedcadsdosooosnaboos 194 
A Fossil Man from Kansas: Proressor S. W. 
WILLISTON 


Paleontology at the American Museum of 
INGO IEMINGOF) o cac nc op onoo pO boo KU eo a US 196 

Scientific Notes and News 

University and Educational News 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE PREVENTION OF THE POLLUTION OF 
STREAMS BY MODERN METHODS OF 
SEWAGE TREATMENT.* 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

When the Council of the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science 
first asked me to address you on the sub- 
ject of modern methods of sewage disposal, 
I felt that it was not a subject of sufficient 
general interest, and it was only after se- 
rious consideration and many misgivings 
that I consented to do so. 

The pollution of streams by the dis- 
charge of crude sewage has, however, 
now reached such a point in the more 
thickly settled portions of our country, that 
public attention has at last been called to 
the subject, and very many of our inland 
cities are now finding themselves face to 
face with the problem: How can sewage be 
treated so that it can be emptied into a 
stream without causing offense? Such 
being the case, it may not after all be out of 
place at a meeting of an Association for 
the Advancement of Science, to consider 
very briefly what science has done and is 
doing towards solution of the problem. 

Sewage can be defined as the water 
supply of a city after it has been used. It 
contains the solid and liquid excreta of the 

* Complimentary address to the citizens of 
Pittsburgh. American Association for the <Ad- 


vancement of Science, Pittsburgh Meeting, June 
28 to July 3, 1902. 


162 


population, household waste, the washings 
of the streets, and the refuse of every 
branch of industry. The total amount of 
this refuse matter varies, but on the aver- 
age the sewage of a city is pure water con- 
taining one tenth of one per cent. of city 
waste; seven pounds in 1,000 gallons. In 
addition to this refuse matter, sewage con- 
tains in immense numbers, approximately 
150 millions to the liquid ounce, those mi- 
croscopic organisms called bacteria, and in 
the perfect treatment of sewage the bac- 
teria as well as the refuse matter must be 
removed. 

The perfect treatment of sewage, the re- 
moval of the microorganisms as well as the 
polluting substanees, 7. e., changing sewage 
back again into a water supply, is possible, 
but at the present time not practicable on 
account of cost, and all that so far has been 
attempted has been to remove the polluting 
substances of city waste, so that after treat- 
ment the sewage will not be offensive to the 
sense of either sight or smell and when 
emptied into a stream can cause no offense. 

The earliest method of sewage treatment, 
which, in fact, was not treatment but 
merely disposal, was to carry the waste 
products of a community into the ocean or 
into the nearest stream. This method, 
known as dilution, is allowable for cities 
situated on the sea, or on rivers whose flow 
is very large as compared to the sewage, 
100 to 1, and the unfiltered water of which 
is not used as a water supply. 

Very few cities are so fortunately sit- 
uated as to make use of this method, and for 
most cities the treatment or purification of 
sewage must be considered as imperative 
as the obtaining of pure water. How can 
this be accomplished? How can the pol- 
luting substances be best removed so that 
the sewage after treatment can, without 
causing offense, be emptied into a small 
stream? This is one of the great sanitary 
problems of the day, and I shall try to 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 396, 


give you this evening an outline of the six 
principal processes by which the necessary 
purification is to a greater or less degree 
accomplished. 

These methods in historical order are: 
Sewage farming, chemical precipitation, in- 
termittent filtration, contact bed treatment, 
septic tank treatment, continuous filtration. 

Sewage farming is applying the sewage 
to cultivated land. Chemical precipitation 
is the adding of certain chemicals tu the 
sewage to remove or throw down the pol- 
luting substances. The four remaining 
methods, intermittent filtration, contact 
bed treatment, septic tank treatment and 
continuous filtration, the so-called modern 
methods, are all based on the fact that the 
microorganisms or bacteria always present 
in sewage will, under proper conditions, 
destroy all the obnoxious substances con- 
tained in sewage. 

The earliest method of sewage disposal, 
as I have already said, was to run the 
waste products of the community into the 
nearest river or stream. In a sparsely set- 
tled region this caused little complaint; 
but as the district became inhabited and 
the towns and villages upon the stream in- 
creased in size, it became apparent that 
this method, though removing the filth 
from one’s own door, would endanger the 
health and comfort of a large part of the 
community. It was then that the question 
of sewage treatment became the subject of 
scientific inquiry. Without going into any 
detail as to the early work done upon the 
subject, I will only state that it resulted in 
the general adoption of either sewage farm- 
ing or ehemical precipitation as the best 
means of destroying the polluting sub- 
stances contained in sewage. 

Sewage Farming.—This method was 
based on the idea that plant life was capa- 
ble, in itself, of decomposing the complex 
matters contained in sewage, and that its 
capacity to do this work was almost with- 


AuaGust 1, 1902. ] 


out limit; consequently it was thought that 
sewage could be applied continuously to 
cultivated land, and, if vegetation was not 
drowned out, not only would perfect puri- 
fication take place, but an immense profit 
could be derived from making use of the 
polluting substances for plant food. So 
firmly were these ideas, especially the ma- 
nurial value of sewage, implanted in the 
English mind, that the most marvelous un- 
dertakings were planned, and to-day at 
Barking one sees a tunnel which was 
started to carry the sewage of London one 
hundred miles into the interior, with the 
idea that the tunnel should be tapped at 
certain intervals and the sewage sold, at I 
know not what price per thousand gallons, 
to fertilize the land. This is hardly less 
startling than the idea of recovering the 
gold that is in sea water. 

It is now well known that plant life can- 
not assimilate the organic matter that oc- 
curs in sewage unless it is first decomposed 
by bacteria, and sewage farming has re- 
sulted in failure except in those few cases 
where the land was of an exceptional char- 
acter and of very large area, compared to 
the population to be served, as one acre to 
fifty persons. The Paris sewage farms, of 
which we have all heard so much, are far 
from being a success. 

Chemical Precipitation.—The chemical 
treatment of sewage consists in the adding 
of certain chemicals, usually lime and iron 

‘sulphate, to crude sewage, allowing the 
sewage to run into large open tanks, 
through which it flows with such slow ve- 
locity that the substances which have been 
thrown down by the chemicals subside, 
leaving the supernatant liquid clear and 
free from all suspended matter, but con- 
taining practically all of the soluble putre- 
fying substances that were in the sewage. 

Chemical treatment of sewage is costly, 
averaging between forty and fifty cents per 


SCIENCE. 


‘fied is of much later date. 


163 


year per head of the population, and the 
amount of organic matter removed is only 
about 55 per cent. of the total organic mat- 
ter in the sewage. The effluent will putrefy, 
and consequently cannot be emptied into 
a stream where the dry weather flow is less 
than ten times the volume of the sewage. 
The precipitate thrown down is difficult 
to treat, and if it cannot be carried out to 
sea and dumped, as is the case of London 
and Manchester, it must be pressed, and 
then either carted away to some unoccupied 
and valueless land, or be burnt. Large 
plants still exist, however, for treating sew- 
age chemically, the largest of all being the 
London disposal works, where 183 million 
gallons are treated chemically each day. 
The plant at Worcester, Massachusetts, the 
largest in this country, treats about fifteen 
million gallons per day. <A few pictures of 
various parts of this plant may show you 
that treating chemically fifteen million gal- 
lons of sewage a day is a serious under- 
taking. 

Sewage farming and chemical treatment 
are now considered as methods of the past, 
and all the modern methods of treatment 
are the so-called bacterial methods. 

Intermittent Filtration—tThe first of 
these methods was intermittent filtration. 
As early as 1865 Dr. Alexander Miiller, of 
Berlin, showed that by passing sewage in- 
termittently through sand, the obnoxious 
substances were removed, but the explana- 
tion of why the sewage could be thus puri- 
It is now known 
that fresh sewage contains, in immense 
numbers, bacteria which live on dead 
organic matter and which cause its 
decomposition. These bacteria can be 
roughly divided into two great groups, each 
containing numerous species. These groups 
are called the anaerobic and the aerobic 
groups. The anaerobic group embraces all 
those species that live, grow and multiply 
out of contact with air and light; the aero- 


164 


bic, those species that live, grow and mul- 
tiply only in contact with air. Each group 
plays its own special part in the destruc- 
tion of the effete matter contained in house- 
hold waste. The anaerobic bacteria act 
first. They disintegrate the solid animal 
and vegetable matters, liquefy them, and 
bring them into solution. The aerobic bac- 
teria act upon the disintegrated and lique- 
fied compounds and, by a process of oxida- 
tion, change them into harmless gases or 
mineral substances. 

For the destruction of dead organic mat- 
ter both groups of bacteria are necessary ; 
the anaerobic to disintegrate and liquefy 
the complex organic substances, the aero- 
bie to change those simplified and liquefied 
compounds into harmless products. 

By passing sewage intermittently 
through sand, conditions favorable to the 
erowth, retention and action of bacteria 
are brought about, and the obnoxious sub- 
stances are destroyed by the aid of these 
microscopic organisms. 

The credit of showing that sewage could 
be purified on a practical scale by intermit- 
tent filtration through sand is due to the 
Massachusetts State Board of Health. 

Their experiments, published in 1890, 
showed that all that was necessary to de- 
stroy organic matter in sewage was to pro- 
vide conditions favorable to the action of 

bacteria. These conditions they found 
were fulfilled by providing suitable mate- 
rial on which the microorganisms could be 
retained; surrounding these microorgan- 
isms at certain intervals with air, and pro- 
viding periods during which they could 
rest. A suitable material was sand, from 
four to five feet in depth, and the surround- 
ing the bacteria with air at definite inter- 
vals, and allowing periods of rest, was ac- 
complished by underdraining the sand and 
by allowing the sewage to flow on the sand 
only six hours out of each twenty-four. 
The combination of these conditions gave 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


us the process called intermittent filtra- 
tion. 

Plants built to answer the above condi- 
tions consist of a number of sand beds, each 
of about one acre superficial area, care- 
fully leveled, underdrained and divided 
from each other by dikes varying from 
three to six feet in height. Crude sew- 
age, after passing through a grit cham- 
ber and screens to remove road washings 
and large floating substances, as rags and 
sticks, 1s run suecessively upon the various 
beds, none of the beds receiving sewage for 
a longer period than six hours out of each 
twenty-four, for if the beds received the 
sewage continuously there would be abso- 
lutely no air present at any time in the bed, 
and air, as we have seen, is necessary for 
the life of the aerobic bacteria. By apply- 
ing the sewage only six hours out of the 
twenty-four, as the liquid drains out of the 
bed, air enters to take its place, and the 
conditions favorable to the action of both 
anaerobes and aerobes are maintained. 

By this process from 50 to 75,000 gal- 
lons of domestic sewage, sewage not con- 
taining a large proportion of manufac- 
turing waste, can be purified each day on 
one acre of sand bed area, so that the pol- 
luting substances are to such an extent re- 
moved that the liquid, as it runs away from 
the bed, is clear, bright, almost odorless, and 
can be emptied into a very small stream 
without fear of causing trouble. 

Intermittent filtration is undoubtedly 
the best method that is known for the pu- 
rification of sewage of cities and towns 
which have in their neighborhood compara- 
tively large areas of sandy soil, but is not 
applicable for cities or towns which would 
be obliged to construct beds with sand 
brought from any distance. This point was 
quickly perceived in England, where sand 
is not of common occurrence, and the bac- 
terial sewage work in England started with 
the problem, Can the amount of land re- 


Avuaust 1, 1902.] 


quired by the intermittent filtration 
method be so reduced that the construction 
of artificial bacteria beds will be a practi- 
eal possibility ? 

The results of the investigations started 
by this problem seem to show that by allot- 
ting distinct abodes to the anaerobic and 
aerobic bacteria, the work of purification 
can be more rapidly carried on. The abode 
allotted to the anaerobic bacteria is called 
the septic tank, that allotted to the aerobic 
bacteria, contact beds or continuous filters. 

The Septic Tank.—The septic tank, 
about which we have all heard so much, is 
only a modified cesspool, and the changes 
brought about in the septic tank are only 
the changes that occurred in the old-fash- 
ioned cesspool of our forefathers, and it is 
most interesting, as well as somewhat amus- 
ing, to see how the old-fashioned cesspool, 
which only a few years ago was regarded 
as a breeder of all manner of ills, is now 
regarded by sanitarians as a most valuable 
adjunet in the disposal of filth. 

A septic tank is only an open or closed 
tank through which the sewage is run con- 
tinuously, but at so slow a rate that it re- 
quires from twelve to twenty-four hours 
for it to pass through the tank. The sew- 
age itself, as we have seen, contains anae- 
robie bacteria, and by allowing the sewage 
to remain in the tank out of contact of air, 
these bacteria increase immensely in num- 
ber, and acting upon the solid and liquid 
substances in the tank, bring about those 
changes which are grouped under the name 
of putrefaction. In other words, the sew- 
age is purifying itself, or, as Professor 
Sedewick has recently said, we have sew- 
age in the septic tank ‘working,’ as it were, 
like apple juice when the latter is being fer- 
mented in a cask by wild yeasts. In cider- 
making, sweet apple juice, charged with 
microorganisms derived from the dust on 
the skin of the apples, or from the atmos- 
phere, or from the sides of the cask, is 


SCIENCE. 


165 


slowly worked over by these organisms 
and turned into hard cider and event- 
ually into vinegar. In a similar way, the 
sewage in a septic tank, charged with anae- 
robie bacteria, is worked over, or fer- 
mented, by these bacteria, which in this 
way remove or completely change a large 
amount of the polluting substances, and 
give a product which is no longer crude 
sewage, but a sewage in which a large 
amount of the solid matter has been lique- 
fied or changed into gas. 

The change which sewage undergoes in 
this fermentation process is very marked. 

The carbohydrates, substances _ like 
starch, sugar, wood fiber, paper, are broken 
down into simpler substances and partially 
liquefied; the nitrogenous substances, the 
so-called proteids, are liquefied, much in 
the same way that the albumen of the egg 
is changed when an egg goes bad; and the 
fats, though not so quickly acted upon, are 
also partially decomposed. In this process, 
as in all processes of fermentation, gases 
are evolved, and the amount given off when 
the process is in the most active state is 
not small, equaling about one cubic foot 
for every hundred gallons of sewage passed 
through the tank. 

The appearance of a septic tank in ac- 
tion is very interesting. The liquid in the 
tank is very dark and opaque, the surface 
being, as a rule, coated over with a thick 
layer or crust of solid matter, through 
which thousands of bubbles of gas are es- 
caping, and the energy of the action that is 
taking place in the tank is shown by the 
continual rising of large fragments of the 
solid matter from the bottom of the tank, 
and sometimes with such force that they 
break through the crust. The gas which 
these masses contain escapes and they 
sink again to the bottom of the tank. The 
rising and sinking of solid matter, with 
the escape of gas, give almost a boiling 
appearance to the tank in hot summer 


166 


weather. The gas which escapes from the 
liquid, when closed tanks are used, is con- 
ducted off, and, containing large amounts 
of marsh gas, often 76 per cent., can be 
used in the same way as natural gas for a 
fuel or for an illuminant. 

This self purification of sewage accom- 
plishes almost as much as chemical treat- 
ment, removing about 50 per cent. of the 
putrescible substances contained in the 
sewage, and besides saving the cost of the 
chemicals used in the chemical process, 
leaves very much less solid matter in the 
tank to be removed and pressed. The 
odor, however, from the liquid that leaves 
the septic tank is often most disagreeable, 
differing in this way from the liquid from 
chemical treatment, and with a sewage 
containing certain kinds of manufacturing 
wastes, as large amounts of free acid, 20 to 
25 parts in 100,000 parts, or other sub- 
stances which act as germicides, the septic 
tank can not be used. 

The great practical value of the septic 
tank is that—removing, as it does, half of 
the impurities—it reduces the amount of 
sand area required for the purification of 
sewage. By the intermittent filtration pro- 
cess, where the anaerobie and the aerobic 
bacteria are working side by side, only 
50,000 to 75,000 gallons can be treated per 
day on one acre of sand area; by the use of 
a septic tank, which is providing a sepa- 
rate work-house for the anaerobes, about 
five times as much sewage can be treated 
on the same area. Further, the septic 
tank has made the English method of con- 
tact beds possible. 

The value of the septic tank is now fully 
recognized and the process is used not only 
in England, but in many places in this 
country, and a few of the photographs I 
have taken I will have thrown on the 
sereen. 

Contact Bed Treatment.—This method 
is the result of experiments made by W. J. 


SCIENCE, 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


Dibden on London sewage. It differs from 
intermittent filtration in that the sewage 
instead of being applied slowly and al- 
lowed to drain through a bed of sand, is 
run rapidly into a water-tight bed, filled 
with a coarse material as cinders, coke or 
broken stone, and retained in the bed for a 
given number of hours, after which the 
liquid is quickly run out of the bed. 

An English contact bed is a water-tight 
bed, one fourth to one half an acre in area, 
three to four feet deep, thoroughly drained, 
and filled with almost any hard, jagged 
material, as burnt clay, coke, cinders, stone, 
broken. to a size that will be rejected by a 
quarter-inch mesh, but that will just pass 
through a half-inch mesh. In most places 
the beds are built on two levels, so that if 
sufficient purification is not accomplished 
by the first bed, the liquid from that bed 
ean be run upon a second bed at a lower 
level. Such a plant is called a double con- 
tact system. ; 

This process is not adapted for treating 
crude sewage, as the action of the bed is in- 
tended to be very aerobic and the method 
of working the process is to fill the bed as 
quickly as possible, usually in one half 
hour, with septic tank or chemically 
treated sewage, allowing the bed to remain 
full of liquid for two or three hours, and 
then by opening valves in the drainage 
system, to empty the bed, in about the 
same time as was required for filling. 

The same bed can be used only twice, or 
at most three times, in twenty-four hours, 
and to keep it in good condition it must 
be allowed to remain idle one day in seven. 
Working in this way, about 500,000 gallons 
of sewage can be purified on one acre of 
contact beds per day, which is certainly 
over five times the quantity that can be pu- 
rified by the intermittent filtration process. 

The action of a contact bed depends on 
the presence of aerobic bacteria. If the 
filling material of a contact bed in active 


Aveust 1, 1902.] 


condition be examined, every individual 
piece is.seen to be coated over with a slimy 
growth, which if removed and dried cuts 
like a jelly. Under the microscope the 
slime is found to be chiefly composed of 
bacteria. 

It is on the presence of this slimy mate- 
rial that the action of the bed depends; the 
greater in amount, up to a certain limit, 
the greater the efficiency. If, however, this 
limit is over-reached, the void spaces be- 
tween the particles of the filling material 
become filled up and the liquid capacity 
is so diminished that the bed becomes 
spongy and will not allow the water to 
drain away. 

Can this growth of organisms be regu- 
lated so that the bed will do its proper 
work and at the same time not lose its 
liquid capacity? Further, is serious trou- 
ble to be apprehended from the deposition 
of the non-putrescible part or ash of organic 
substances ? 

These are the two points about which 
there is a great difference of opinion among 
English sanitary engineers. Many believe 
from the results obtained at Manchester 
that the growth of organisms can be regu- 
lated and that no serious trouble will be 
caused by the ash of organic substances. 
Others, being influenced by the experi- 
ments at Leeds, take the opposite view and 
believe that the loss of liquid capacity de- 
pends as much on the retention of the ash 
of organic substances similar to the humus 
of the soil, as to the growth of organisms, 
and that consequently the loss in liquid 
capacity, or the clogging up of the beds, 
cannot be prevented no matter how care- 
fully the process is worked. They regard 
this as so serious a matter as to prevent 
the contact method from being a practical 
process with many kinds of sewage, espe- 
cially those containing iron liquors and 
acid waste. 

My own opinion, after careful study of 


SCIENCE. 


167 


the whole question, is that crude sewage 
cannot be successfully treated by the con- 
tact-bed method, and should never be at- 
tempted, that clarified sewage, sewage 
from which the solid matter has been re- 
moved by chemicals, or sewage which has 
undergone fermentation in the septic 
tank, can be successfully purified on con- 
tact beds, and that with such sewage the 
contact method offers a solution to the 
problem of sewage purification for towns 
or cities where large areas of sand do not 
occur. It is not, however, a process which 
can be run successfully without care and 
attention, and to be successful requires, as 
does a slow sand-water filtration plant, the 
personal oversight of a well-trained sani- 
tary chemist or engineer. 

A very large contact bed plant for 
treating 15,000,000 gallons of sewage per 
day, costing about $1,500,000, is now being 
built at Manchester, England, and a few 
pictures showing the construction of these 
beds, as well as pictures of some plants in 
operation, may be of interest. 

Continuous Filtration.— With the diver- 
sity of opinion regarding the practical suc- 
cess of the contact method of treatment, 
there has arisen in England during the past 
two years a growing interest in the so- 
called continuous filtration methods and 
the one question you are sure to be asked 
in England is, ‘What is your opinion re- 
garding continuous filtration of sewage?’ 
Continuous filtration is an attempt to still 
further increase the amount of sewage that 
can be treated on a given area, to treat two 
to three million gallons in place of 500,000 
gallons per acre per day. 

The methods by which this is attempted 
are all based on the idea that if air is sup- 
plied to the filter at the same time that the 
sewage is being run upon the filter, and 
the filter is of such a construction and so 
drained that fresh air continuously re- 
mains in the filter, there is no necessity for 


168 


periods of rest as required by the intermit- 
tent and: contaect-bed methods, as the only 
object of periods of rest in these methods 
is to supply sufficient air to the bacteria. 

The continuous supply of air and the 
continuous retention of air in the filter, 
the advocates of continuous filters claim 
ean be accomplished by applying the clar- 
ified sewage in the form of fine spray, so 
that each drop of liquid will be surrounded 
by air as it enters the filter, and that air 
can be retained in the filter by making the 
filter of so open a construction and so thor- 
oughly underdrained that the liquid can- 
not fill up the void spaces between the par- 
ticles of the filling material. 

There is much to be said in favor of 
these ideas, for there seems to be no reason 
why if air is always present the bacteria 
should not act continuously and thus pu- 
rify a much greater amount of sewage 
than is possible in those methods where 
sewage is only run on the filter six or 
seven hours each day. 

Theoretically it would not seem difficult 
to construct a filter answering the condi- 
tions required. Practically, however, it is 
just otherwise. It has been found no easy 
problem to devise automatic apparatus to 
convert successfully large volumes of sew- 
age into the form of spray, or to build 
filters sufficiently open to ensure air al- 
ways being present, and at the same time to 
contain sufficient filling material so that the 
sewage will be retained in the filter the 
leneth of time required for the bacteria to 
remove the organic matter. The contin- 
uous filters now being tried in England 
are attempts to solve this problem. 

Such filters are the Seott-Moncrieff, the 
Dueat, the Whittaker & Bryant, the Stod- 
dart, and what may be ealled the Salford 
filter. Of these filters I consider the Whit- 
taker-Bryant, the Stoddart, and the Sal- 
ford filters as the most important, and these 
three different continuous filters are the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


only ones that I shall at the present time 
try to describe. They are all merely dif- 
ferent methods of applying septic tank or 
chemically treated sewage in the form of 
spray to a filter bed of very open con- 
struction. 

The Whittaker & Bryant filter is a cir- 
cular or polygonal chamber, about sixty-one 
feet in diameter and nine feet high, con- 
taining a central air shaft. The bottom is 
made of cement with a collecting drain run- 
ning along one diameter, connecting with 
which are tile drains set herring-bone-wise. 
The pigeon-hole walls of the chamber and 
air shaft are supported on short brick col- 
umns, so that there is an air space between 
the walls and the conerete floor. The filling 
material between the outside walls and the 
air shaft consists of coke one and one half 
inches or over in diameter. 

The sewage is distributed on the surface 
of the filter by an automatic sprinkler, into 
the delivery pipe of which is placed a steam 
pipe, so that a small jet of steam can be 
blown into the sewage just before it is dis- 
tributed on the filter in order to raise the 
temperature of the sewage to about 70°. 
The heat, according to Mr. Whittaker, ‘not 
only keeps the bacteria at their fullest 
activity, but raises the temperature of the 
air in the filter, thereby causing it to rise 
through the filter, and fresh air to enter, 
rendering the filter self-ventilating and 
self-aerating.’ 

A filter like the one described is caleu- 
lated to treat sewage at the rate of over one 
million gallons per acre per day. 

The largest Whittaker & Bryant plant is 
at Church, near Accrington. A very inter- 
esting small plant has been erected at Hyde, 
and is being tested by Mr. Seudder, of the 
Mersey and Irewell Commission. 

The Whittaker & Bryant filter does treat 
satisfactorily a very large amount of sew- 
age on a given area, at least one million 
gallons per acre. It removes the putres- 


Auaust 1, 1902.] 


cible substances from the sewage and 
- gives a product that can be emptied into a 
stream without causing offense. On the 
other hand, the construction is costly. 
There is much difficulty experienced in 
automatically converting the liquid into 
spray, chiefly through clogging of the holes 
in the distributer, and being obliged to heat 
the sewage in winter, which must be done, 
makes the cost of treatment very large. 

A form of continuous filter that has 
attracted much attention in England dur- 
ing the past year is the Stoddart filter. 

This is essentially only a heap of coarse 
coke or hard cinder, diameter two to three 
inches, placed on a cement floor which has 
a fall of one inch in three feet from the 
center to the collecting drains which sur- 
round, but are entirely outside, the filter. 
As no liquid can remain in the filter no 
walls are necessary and the side of the 
filter can be made of large pieces of the 
filling material, with a slight batten to in- 
crease solidity. The essential points of the 
filter are the slope of floor, the collecting 
drains and the coarseness of the filling ma- 
terial, free from all small particles. 

The method of distribution is patented 
by Mr. Stoddart, and is one of the most 
essential parts of the filter. In principle it 
is very simple. It is made of zine or gal- 
vanized iron, and consists of a number of 
perforated gutters, eleven in each section, 
two inches wide and one and a half inches 
deep, arranged at right angles to the supply 
channel. The perforations are cut in dia- 
mond shape at intervals along the upper 
edges of the gutters. On the under surface 
of the gutters are a number of small points, 
360 to the square yard. The distributer 
rests upon the margin of the supply chan- 
nel and upon suitable supports at the fur- 
ther end, and must be perfectly level to 
secure equal distribution. The clarified 
sewage flows from the supply channel into 
the gutters and over the gutters through 


SCIENCE. 


169 


the diamond-shaped perforations, and falls 
from the small points in a series of drops. 

A filter such as described, and six feet 
deep, Mr. Stoddart claims will treat septic 
tank or clarified sewage at the very high 
rate of five million gallons per acre. 

A number of small plants have been built 
at different places in England, and experi- 
mental plants are now being tried at Man- 
chester and Leeds. Opinions differ greatly 
as to the amount of purification that can 
be obtained by this form of continuous filter 
when run at the high rate of five million 
gallons per acre. I think, however, it is 
true that when the filter is in perfect run- 
ning order, this method will purify sewage 
at a higher rate than any form of filter yet 
devised. The trouble is to keep the filter 
in perfect running order; if any solid mat- 
ter lodges in the channels of the trays, or if 
the trays are not kept perfectly level, the 
distribution becomes uneven, and the suc- 
cessful working of the process depends on 
the even distribution of the sewage on the 
filter. To keep the channels free from sedi- 
ment, and the plates from buckling, even 
if this is possible, must require constant 
attention. Further, in this process, there 
is no provision for heating the sewage in 
winter, and, in my opinion, in cold weather 
the whole filter would become one mass of 
ice, practically stopping bacterial action. 

By far the most interesting experiment 
on continuous filtration that is now being 
tried is the one at Salford, Eng. In this 
city a plant has been just constructed by 
Mr. Jos. Corbett, Borough Engineer, which 
is to treat from eight to sixteen million gal- 
lons of crude sewage per day. The sewage 
is first to be subjected to chemical treat- 
ment, to remove the suspended matter, and 
the clarified sewage is to be distributed 
continuously, in the form of spray on the 
filter bed. 

This bed is 500 feet long, 510 feet wide, 
10 feet deep, and filled with cinders passed 


170 


by one half-inch and rejected by eighth- 
inch mesh. The method of the distribution 
of the sewage is novel; the chemically 
treated sewage runs into two delivery 
mains, each thirty inches in diameter, one 
of these connected with seven horizontal 
pipes, the other with eight. These pipes 
run the whole length of the bed, dividing it 
into sixteen sections, and the flow in each 
pipe is controlled by a valve. From each 
of these fifteen pipes are raised vertical 
pipes ten feet apart and ten feet high. 
Each of these stand pipes is connected at 
right angles with four-inch horizontal pipes 
which run across the bed. On the top of 
the bed, therefore, there is a layer of hori- 
zontal pipes ten feet apart. These hori- 
zontal pipes are fitted with vertical spray 
jets at every five feet, each spray pipe hav- 
ing two quarter-inch holes set at an angle. 

The floor of the filter has a fall of two 
feet from inlet to outlet, and is covered 
with tiles raised on feet sufficiently high, 
about three inches, to ensure air circulation 
beneath the filter. The drains are under- 
neath the fifteen large horizontal pipes at 
the bottom of the chamber and all discharge 
into a main culvert which carries the 
effluent into the river. 

The chemically treated sewage passes 
from the valve chambers into one or both 
of the delivery mains and is delivered to 
any or all of the horizontal pipes; from 
these it passes up the vertical pipes into the 
four-inch horizontal pipes, and then into 
the spray pipes. There is a sufficient head 
to cause the liquid to spout out of the spray 
pipes to a height of from five to eight feet, 
and it will then fall like rain on the surface 
of the filter. 

The dry weather flow upon the bed is to 
be about two and one half million gallons 
per acre, to be increased when necessary to 
five million gallons. 

There is no question but that the con- 
struction of this plant is costly, but it 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


seems to me that the chances of successful 
treatment are greater with Mr. Corbett’s 
plant than by any other method of con- 
tinuous filtration. 

Undoubtedly, continuous filtration has 
certain merits, especially that of being able 
to treat larger quantities of clarified sewage 
on a given area than any other bacterial 
process, but even if it accomplishes all that 
is claimed, it is a process that requires a 
ereat deal of oversight and attention. Fur- 
ther, I do not see how any of these filters 
can give satisfactory results in very cold 
weather unless the sewage is artificially 
heated, owing to openness of construction, 
and applying the sewage as spray. 

In conclusion I would say regarding the 
present status of the sewage problem: That 
Sewage Farmingasa general method of sew- 
age treatment is not practicable and seldom 
possible. That Chemical Treatment only 
removes a part of the polluting substances 
in the sewage. It is a partial or prelimi- 
nary treatment, advisable only in cases 
where sewage contains germicidal sub- 
stances, preventing the use of the septic 
tank. That Intermittent Filtration is the 
best method for the treatment of sewage of 
cities where sand can be easily and cheaply 
obtained, though the amount of sewage that 
can be treated per acre per day is not over 
75,000 gallons, unless the septic tank is used 
in connection with the process. That the 
septic tank process is a most valuable 
adjunct and almost an essential part to all 
bacterial methods of sewage treatment. 

That the contact method is not adapted 
and should not be used for the treatment 
of crude sewage, but can be considered a 
very satisfactory method for the treatment 
of sewage after it has undergone putrefac- 
tion in the septic tank. 

That continuous filtration, though ca- 
pable of treating much greater quantities 
of sewage per acre than can be done by any 


Avaeust 1, 1902.] 


other method, is still in the experimental 
stage. 
Lronarp P. KINNICUTT. 
WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 


PHYSICS AT THE PITTSBURGH MEETING OF 
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION. 


THE meetings of Section B were held in 
the Middle Lecture Room of the Carnegie 
Institute. The first session of the Section 
on Monday, June 30, at 2:30 P.M., was 


taken up with the address of the retiring’ 


Vice-President, Professor D. B. Brace, on 
the subject ‘The Group-Velocity and the 
Wave-Velocity of Light.’ Tuesday after- 
noon the Section adjourned to inspect the 
Westinghouse works at Hast Pittsburgh. 
Wednesday morning was devoted to a joint 
session with the American Physical Society 
and Thursday noon the Section took a final 
adjournment for the Pittsburgh meeting. 
The Section program was an unusually 
full one. Its forty-five titles, together with 
the fourteen on the program of the Ameri- 
can Physical Society in joint session with 
Section B, may be roughly elassified as 
follows: 23 were in the domain of electric- 
ity and magnetism, 22 in optics, 7 in 
thermodynamics, 4 in general mechanics 
and 3 in acoustics. The titles and a num- 
ber of abstracts of the papers presented are 
. given below. The papers were presented by 
the writers, except as otherwise indicated. 


Contributions to the Theory of Concentra- 
tion Cells: Henry 8. Caruart, Univer- 
sity of Michigan. 

The paper dealt first with concentration 
cells of the first class, in which two elec- 
trodes of one metal are immersed in a 
solution of a salt of the same metal, the. 
density of the solution being different at 
the two electrodes. The Nernst theory re- 
quires that the direction of the E.M.F. 
within the cell be from the dilute to the 


SCIENCE. 


Leh 


concentrated solution. The author has dis- 
covered a cell in which the E.M.F. is 
directed the other way, viz., from the con- 
centrated to the dilute solution. It con- 
sists of nickel electrodes immersed in solu- 
tions of nickel sulphate or nickel chloride. 

The explanation given depended on the 
thermal E.M.F.’s at the two electrodes. 
Curves were exhibited showing that these 
E.M.F.’s inerease with the density of the 
solution. In most concentration cells the 
thermal E.M.F. is from the metal to the 
solution; in nickel cells it is in the other 
direction. Hence the reverse direction of 
the E.M.F. of these cells. Application was 
made of these new facts to the explanation 
of the dependency of the E.M.F. of 
the Daniell cell on the density of the two 
solutions, and to the reversal of the tem- 
perature coefficient of the Daniell cell when 
the density of the zine sulphate solution is 
only shghtly over unity. 

The paper next took up the other class 
of concentration cells in which the two 
electrodes are amalgams of-a metal of dif- 
ferent densities, the two amalgams being 
‘immersed in a single solution of the same 
metal. In these the thermal E.M.F.’s in- 
crease when the density of the amalgams 
decreases. The direction of the E.M.F. 
within the cell from the concentrated to 
the dilute amalgam is thus explained. 

Further, since the thermal E.M.F. in- 
ereases with the density of the solution, 
and decreases with the density of the amal- 
gam, it should be possible to make a concen- 
tration cell with the denser amalgam in 
the denser solution and the weaker amal- 
gam in the weaker solution, so that the 
E.M.F. of the cell would be zero. This has 
been found to be true. 

Curves of thermal E.M.F. were shown 
for amalgams of different densities. 

A preliminary paper will be published 
in the Proceedings of the American Electro- 
chemical Society. 


172 


On the Complex Product of E.M.F., Cur- 
rent and other Vectors: H. T. Eppy, Uni- 
versity of Minnesota. 

The rules which govern multiplication 
and the other processes of ordinary algebra 
are those of mere number in its arithmetical 
sense. But algebra necessarily admits the 
use of complex numbers, to which arith- 
metical processes, such as multiplication, 
are perfectly applicable. Such complex 
numbers used as factors are not physical 
vectors, though they are frequently repre- 
sented geometrically as quasi vectors. 

When a physical vector, such as a force 
or a velocity, expressed in complex notation 
is multiplied by a mere numerical complex, 
the ordinary rules of algebra still hold. 
But when we multiply together two phys- 
ical vectors expressed in complex form in 
order to obtain their product, the result 
has a physical significance which imposes 
laws of operation differing from those of 
ordinary algebra, and the factors are found 
to be non-commutative. The paper con- 
tains a detailed comparison of the nature 
of the two kinds of complex products, es- 
pecially directed to the consideration of the 
product of pairs of alternating vectors of 
the same frequency, to show that the double 
frequency of such products does not arise 
in any way from the non-commutative char- 
acter of the multiplication, as has been 
sometimes assumed. 


Coefficients of Expansion between 0° and 
—190° C.: J. S. SuHearer, Cornell Uni- 
versity. 

The coefficients of expansion for a num- 
ber of metals at low temperatures have 
been measured by Dewar, using the method 
The writer has 
tried to get a method for the determination 
of the linear coefficients between O° and 
190° C. The method finally adopted 
was based on the idea of the compensated 
pendulum. By means of a combination of 


of weighing in liquid air. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 396. 


iron and cadmium, one end of the specimen 
was held fixed, while the other operated an 
optical lever. 

This paper will later be published in full 
in the Physical Review. 


A Set of Direct Current Dynamos ar- 
ranged in Series for High Tension Work: 
G. S. Morr, Cornell University. 

This paper describes, in detail, the instal- 
lation at Cornell University of 24 small 
500-volt dynamos connected in series. The 
machines are separately excited and give 
0.22 ampére of current under an E.M.F. 
of 12,000 volts. This paper will later be 
published in full elsewhere. 


Test of Liquid Air Plant at Cornell Um- 
versity: FRANK ALLEN, Cornell Univer- , 
sity. 

This plant consists of an electric motor, 
a compressor and a liquefier. 

The compressor is of the four-stage type 
with air cylinders of about seven-, four-, 
two-, and one-inch diameter and of eight- 
inch stroke. Purified air is compressed by 
this machine to a pressure of 2,700 pounds 
per square inch. 

In order to accomplish this a 500-volt 
electric motor of 30 horse-power is used, 
which has an efficiency of 87.6 per cent. 

The apparatus used for liquefying air is 
known as the Hampson Liquefier, from the 
name of its English inventor. It works on 
the principle discovered by Lord Kelvin 
many years ago, that gases expanding from 
a high pressure to a low become slightly 
cooled. Air compressed to 2,700 pounds is 
allowed to flow through coils of copper tub- 
ing and issues at a low pressure from a 
small valve. The cool air circulates among 
the coils and cools the incoming air, which 
in its turn expands, lowering its tempera- 
ture still more. This process goes on con- 
tinuously and in about five minutes the 


Auausr 1, 1902.] 


air is cooled enough to liquefy. The liquid 
air is collected in double-walled glass ves- 
sels with a vacuum between the walls. 

In this test the power supplied during 
an hour was accurately measured, as was 
also the amount of liquid air obtained. By 
an expenditure of 25 horse power for one 
hour 2,919 grams of liquid air were pro- 
duced. That is, the expenditure of one 
horse power per hour produces 116 grams 
of liquid air. The low temperature of the 
liquid air renders a certain amount of heat 
energy available. To vaporize one gram 
of the liquid requires 50 calories, or heat 
units. To raise the temperature of the gas 
from the boiling point of liquid air 
(—190° C.) to ordinary atmospheric tem- 
perature requires 47 calories more. The 
total amount required per gram is there- 
fore 97 calories. For 116 grams there 
would be required 11,310 calories, or if the 
energy is expressed in mechanical units it 
amounts to 35,000 foot pounds. 

In other words, the expenditure of one 
horse power continuously for one hour re- 
sults in the production of just enough 
liquid air, which if it were utilized in its 
turn as a source of power in a perfect ma- 
chine, the greatest amount of power obtain- 
able would be one horse power for one 
minute. The most efficient method of ob- 
taining liquid air as yet discovered, would 
imerease this last period of time to five 
minutes! 

The efficiency of the plant discussed in 
this paper was thus very low, being not 
quite two per cent. 


The Theory of the Electrolytic Rectifier: 
K. E. Gutus, University of Michigan. 
The paper described the method of inves- 

tigation and was illustrated by means of 
eurves showing the relation between the 
current and the reaction, or polarization, 
or condensation voltage, with different 
metals and salt solutions. 


SCIENCE. 


173 
Rayleigh’s Alternate Current Phasemeter: 

E. 8. Jononnort, Rose Polytechnic Insti- 

tute. 

In the Philosophical Magazine for May, 
1897, Lord Rayleigh has described a ‘soft- 
iron galvanometer’ which is quite suitable 
for measuring all quantities such as are 
ordinarily measured with ammeters, volt- 
meters and wattmeters. It consists of a 
soft-iron needle suspended between two 
parallel coils at an angle of 45° to their 
common axis. Besides furnishing a simple 
means for determining the phase relation 
in circuits, the mstrument may be used as 
a wattmeter. Breslaurer has recently 
shown that it has advantages over the elec- 
trodynamometer used as a wattmeter on 
circuits having low power-factors. 

Some experiments were undertaken with 
the instrument to determine the iron losses 
in choking coils where the power-factor was 
varied over a wide range by increasing the 
alr-gap in the magnetic cireuit. 

Ordinarily the connections are similar to 
those for the wattmeter, the E.M.F. coil 
being connected across the terminals of 
the circuit and the other, the current coil, 
im series with the same. Another manner 
of using the instrument was found in prac- 
tice to be much more simple and to give 
more consistent results. The connections 
for this method were the same as for 
Blakesley’s split dynamometer. An explor- 
ing coil, exactly similar to the magnetizing 
coil, was wound on the magnetic circuit and 
connected in series with the E.M.F. coil of 
the phasemeter. 

The instrument is as easily made as any 
simple form of galvanometer. The laws 
which connect the with the 
electrical quantities are perfectly similar to 
those of other alternate current instru- 
ments. 

Many laboratory exercises, such as the 
determination of coefficients of self induc- 


readings 


174 


tion, phase angles and power, may be 
undertaken by the student with ease. 


Measurement of the Intensity and Pressure 
of Radiant Energy: E. F. NicHous and 
G. F. Hunt, Dartmouth College. Pre- 
sented by Professor Hull. 

This paper was supplementary to a paper 
on the same subject which was read at the 
Denver meeting of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science in 
August, 1901. In the earlier paper it was 
shown that the ‘gas action’ due to a beam 
of light falling on a torsion radiometer had 
been approximately eliminated and that the 
‘light pressure’ had been measured to the 
same degree of approximation; but that in 
the comparison of the experimental value 
of the light pressure with that deduced 
from the Maxwell-Bartoli formula, using 
the value of the energy as measured, a dis- 
crepancy of about twenty per cent. was 
found. 

An analysis of the earlier work showed 
an error in the energy measurement due to 
an error in the resistance of the bolometer 
used. A new value of this resistance was 
found by the potentiometer method and by 
the application of theory to the determina- 
tion of’ the resistance of a circular dise. 
The new value of the energy gave an agree- 
ment between the Maxwell-Bartoli formula 
and experiment, to about five per cent. 

Later a more satisfactory method of 
measuring the energy was used, in which 
was observed the change of temperature of 
two thermojunctions of fine iron and con- 
stantin wire, placed inside a small silver 
dise upon which the radiation fell. The 
thermoelement was calibrated by immers- 
ing the silver dise in baths of kerosene at 
different temperatures. The average error 
in the measurement of the energy was con- 
sidered to be less than one per cent. 

By analysis of the earlier data on light 
pressure it was shown that the gas action 
had been eliminated approximately from 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


the ballistic values, but was present in the 
statical readings. Later and more accurate 
experiments confirmed this result. The 
new value of the radiation pressure was 
found to agree with that derived from the 
Maxwell-Bartoli formula, using the new 
energy determination, to within a few per 
cent. For greater accuracy it will be neces- 
sary to measure the absorption and reflec- 
tion coefficients of the surfaces used. 


On the Penetration of Light into the Rarer 
Medium in the Case of Total Reflection: 
EK. E. Haun, Cornell University. Read 
by title. 

This paper will appear later in the 

Physical Review. 


An Improved Form of Torsion Radiometer: 

E. F. NicHois, Dartmouth College. 

A new radiometer case, somewhat larger 
than that of similar instruments earlier 
described, was shown. The advantage of 
the new form lies wholly in the support 
carrying the suspension, which is so de- 
signed that the length of the quartz fiber 
may be easily changed and the sensitive- 
ness and period of the instrument altered 
through a wide range. All adjustments 
may be made without removing the sus- 
pension from the ease, so that the danger 
of breaking the fiber is reduced to a mini- 
mum. 


The Optical Properties of Iodine: W. W. 
CosLeNtTz, Cornell University. Read by 
title. 

The paper will appear in the Physical 

Review. 


The Emission of a Righi Vibrator and the 
Measurement of the Length of Electric 
Waves by the Interferometer: H. R. W1- 
LARD and L. E. Woopman, Dartmouth 
College. - Presented by E. F. Nichols. 
The paper dealt with the radiations emit- 

ted from a Righi vibrator which were 

studied in the first instance by resonance 


Avu@usT 1, 1902.] 


effects on a Klemencie receiver, the length 
of which was varied. The curves bring 
out the existence .of two upper partial 
vibrations or overtones; in some cases the 
third overtone also appears. The wave- 
length of the fundamental was later meas- 
ured by the interferometer method. Fur- 
ther work on the same subject is in 
progress. 3 


Some Experiments on Retinal Fatigue and 
Persistence of Vision: FRANK ALLEN, 
Cornell University. 

The experiments were a continuation of 
some discussed in the Physical Review, 
Vol. XI., 1900, p. 257. It is a matter of 
common observation that when a person is 
some time in the dark the retina suffers 
‘adaptation,’ which enables faint light to 
be more readily perceived. Some experi- 
ments were performed by the Nichols 
method of the measurement of the persist- 
ence of vision, to see how adaptation pro- 
gressed with time. A normal measure- 
ment of the persistence of vision was made 
with the eye in its ordinary condition of 
adaptation for diffused daylight. Measure- 
ments were made after darkness adaptation 
of one-, three-, five-, ten- and fifteen-minute 
intervals. The results, when plotted with 
time intervals as abscissas and increases of 
persistence of vision as ordinates, give a 
eurve much like a magnetic saturation 
curve. The measurements for fifteen min- 
utes are practically the same as for five 
with all colors. Adaptation seems to be 
quite complete in five minutes. Longer in- 
tervals than fifteen minutes were not tried. 

Experiments were next made in the same 
way by fatiguing the eye with light of 
various wave-leneths. Observations were 
made on the same wave-lengths as the 
fatiguing colors. The zero of reference 
was the normal persistence of vision with 
different colors; ‘saturation’ curves were 
obtained exactly as described above, the 


SCIENCE. 


175 


maximum fatigue being realized in three 
minutes with all colors. 

The maxima of the curves differ, how- 
ever. For wave-length .675» the maxi- 
mum is represented by 14. For yellow 
(.589) fatiguing has no effect. For green 
(.523) the maximum is 10. For blue 
(.470) no change of persistence occurs un- 
der the fatiguing stimulus of even ten 
minutes’ exposure to the blue of an are 
spectrum. In the violet (.480) the maxi- 
mum is 20. These maxima, when plotted 
with wave-lengths as abscissas, give three 
elevations corresponding suggestively with 
red, green and violet. 

The persistence of vision on the temporal 
side of the retina, ten and twenty degrees 
distant from the center, was measured. 
Throughout the spectrum the persistence 
diminished the further out the measure- 
ments were made. Some peculiarities were 
noticed in the part of the curve correspond- 
ing to the yellow region of the spectrum, 
connected doubtless with the ‘yellow spot.’ 

The complete paper will appear in the 
Physical Review. 


A Radiometric Receiver for Electric 
Waves: G. F. Huuy, Dartmouth College. 
The form of receiver for electric waves 

generally used in quantitative work is the 

Klemencie thermoelement. Here the dis- 

sipation of the energy into heat at the con- 

tact of two wires joining the two halves of 
the resonator gives rise to an electromotive 
force which causes a deflection of the gal- 
vanometer. In the form of receiver de- 
seribed in this paper this heat is made 
evident by the radiometric action on a very 
small vane of a torsion balance. Among 
the various receivers used the one so far 
giving the best results consists of two sil- 
vered strips of mica of the proper length 
for the waves used. These are divided at 
their centers by a very fine diamond — 
seratech and are mounted vertically with 


176 


the center of each strip opposite a small 
vane. The whole system is placed in a 
bell-jar in such a way that the strips are in 
the focus of a parabolic mirror. The de- 
flections are read by a telescope and scale. 
Owing to the lightness of the moving sys- 
tem (about 6.5 mgs.) and the efficiency of 
the method, the sensitiveness can be made 
much greater than that of the receivers of 
the Klemenéie design. 


On the Efficiency of Window Illuminating 
Prisms: D. C. Miuurr, Case School of 
Applied Science. 

The paper gave the results of photo- 
metric investigation of the distribution of 
light by prisms of various shapes, placed 
in different positions and operating with 
various sky conditions. The results are 
shown by distribution diagrams, from 
which are drawn conclusions as to the rel- 
ative efficiencies under given conditions. 


A Portable Photometer for Measuring 
Light Distribution: D. C. Miuurr, Case 
School of Applied Science. 

The arrangement described is a special 
form of photometer which may be moved in 
any way, as about a pivot, for quickly meas- 
uring with moderate accuracy the relative 
intensity of ight sent out in any direction 
from a source. 

A Lummer-Brodhun screen is used to 
compare the light from the source with 
that from a standard illumination, the lat- 
ter being capable of measured regulation 
from zero intensity to the maximum re- 
quired. 

The application of the photometer to the 
measurement of the distribution of heght 
throughout a room, as by a window prism, 
was described. 

Models for Explaining Polarized Light: D. 
C. Mitier, Case School of Applied 
Science. 

A description (with exhibit) was given 
of a series of original models for explain- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


ing double refraction, action of one Nicol 
prism and of two Nicols forming a polari- 
scope; also for explaining the production of 
interference colors by a thin plate of a 
doubly refracting substance placed between 
crossed polarizer and analyzer. 


A Model for Showing the Superposition of 
Two Oppositely Moving Wave-trains: 
W. S. Franxury, Lehigh University. 
This model is designed for class-room 

demonstration and it consists of a large 

number of horizontal bars. One set of ends 
of these bars rests upon a wave-template 
and the other set of ends rests upon another 
wave-template. These two templates move 
in opposite directions at the same velocity. 

The middle points of the horizontal bars 

communicate to a row of points or balls the 

resultant motion of the two wave-trains. 


The Just-Intonation Pranoforte of Dr. 8. 
A. Hageman: H. T. Eppy, University of 
Minnesota. 

Dr. Hageman has invented and con- 
structed a pianoforte which will render the 
diatonie scale in perfectly just intonation 
in any key that may be desired. The piano 
differs in outward appearance from the 
ordinary piano simply in the fact that there 
is, in addition to the usual pedals, a bank of 
a single octave of pedals somewhat lke 
organ pedals. These pedals actuate a bank 
of shding bars on the back of the piano, 
whieh, in turn, move the bridges on which 
the piano strings rest, and adjust them 
simultaneously to any key desired by thus 
altering their effective lengths. It is be- 
lheved that this cheap and exceedingly 
simple but perfectly effective device is the 
first practical solution of the problem of 
just intonation for instruments with fixed 
keys. The device is applicable to other 
instruments with fixed keys. 

The piano is tuned in the usual manner 
in equal temperament and may be played 
in equal temperament also if so desired. 


Avaust 1, 1902.] 


Contributions to the History of Musical 
Scales: Cuas. K. WeaAp, Washington, 
D. C. 

This paper was a summary of a research 
just published in the ‘Report of the U. S. 
National Museum’ for 1900. It described 
some forms of four-hole resonators found 
in various museums that give a pentatonic 
scale, whose notes have vibration fre- 
quencies following a square-root law; and 
various flutes and fretted string instru- 
ments were cited that show an equal linear 
division. The conclusion was that the 
primary principle of instruments capable 
of giving a scale is the repetition of ele- 
ments similar to the eye; so the instrument 
is the first thing, the scale a secondary 
thing. Theoretic scales belong to a much 
later stage of culture. 


The Present Significance of Enharmonic 
Musical Instruments: CHaAs. K. WEap, 
Washington, D. C. 

These instruments may, in the hands of 
an artist, furnish a new point of view from 
which to judge of the development of music 
and its possibilities. But there is no evi- 
dence that any important music was ever 
composed in just intonation or that any of 
the many proposed-or patented instru- 
ments are fitted to express the ideas of a 
composer. Certainly the diatonic idea 
which underlies such instruments 1s now 
far less important than when Helnholtz 
wrote, forty years ago. 


Preliminary Note on the Effect of Percus- 
sion in Increasing Magnetic Intensity: 
Guo. F. Strapuine, Philadelphia. 

When a rod of iron, steel or nickel has 
been magnetized and then demagnetized 
by the passage of a current of proper 
streneth through the coil in which the rod 
is placed, tapping the rod causes the 
appearance of poles having the same direc- 
tion as those existing before demagnetiza- 


SCIENCE. 


177 


tion. These poles, as the tapping continues, 
erow in strength to a maximum and then 
decrease. 

If the demagnetizing current more than 
overcomes the original magnetism and pro- 
duces poles in the opposite direction, still 
the effect of tapping is to make them first 
approach to those originally existing and 
then recede. In this case there are three 
stages produced by percussion : 

1. Lessening of pole streneth to zero. 

2. Growth of pole strength in the direc- 
tion existing before demagnetization. 

3. Decrease of the strength of these 
newly acquired poles. 

Whether percussion increases or de- 
creases pole strength depends on the pre- 
vious magnetic history of the body ex- 
amined. 


Preliminary Note on the Electrical Conduc- 
tion of Saturated Powders: N. E. 
Dorsry, Annapolis Junction, Md. 

The electrical conductivity of non-con- 
ducting powders saturated with electrolytic 
solutions was compared with the conductiv- 
ity of the supernatant hquor. For coarse- 
grained powders the two are proportional, 
but when the powder is fine the conductiv- 
ity of the saturated powder at first in- 
creases more rapidly than that of the 
supernatant liquor, with the result that 
for quite dilute solutions the conductivity 
of the saturated powder, as measured in a 
cubical cell, a pair of whose opposite sides 
served as electrodes, may even exceed that 
of a volume of the supernatant liquor equal 
to that of the solution in the powder as 
measured in the same cell. 


Determination of the Vapor-pressure of 
Mercury at Ordinary Temperatures: 
Epwarp W. Morey, Cleveland, Ohio. 
The writer has determined the vapor- 

pressure of mercury at intervals of ten de- 


178 


grees from 20° to 70°. A quantity of mer- 
cury was kept at a constant temperature, 
while a known volume of an inert gas was 
passed through in such a way as to become 
saturated: with the vapor of mereury. From 
the loss of weight of the mercury, and the 
volume of the gas when at the temperature 
of the mereury can be computed the weight 
of vapor in unit volume, and the vapor- 
pressure. 

Carbon dioxide was freed from accom- 
panying hydrochloric acid by passing 
through sodium acid carbonate, and dried 
by phosphorus pentoxide. The mercury 
was contained in a spiral absorption appa- 
ratus. By a somewhat elaborate apparatus, 
a hundred liters of water were kept at a 
temperature constant within two or three 
hundredths of a degree. In an air-bath in 
this water were placed two absorption 
apparatus containing mereury. In one, gas 
passed at a rate of about thirty liters in a 
day, while the current was a third more 
rapid in the other. As both rates gave the 
same final values, it was thought that in 
both the gas had been saturated. The 

_observed loss was always made as much as 
about ten milligrams; at the lower tem- 
peratures this required some twenty days. 

Van der Plaats, in 1886, made determina- 
tions at 0°, 10° and 20°. About the same 
time the writer made determinations at 15°. 
All the observations, whether recent or 
older, are represented by the interpolation 
formula 


Briggs Log P=— 4 + 0.6020 + 0.02718 7, 


which gives the pressure in millimeters of 
mercury. The greatest difference between 
observation and formula is 0.0008 mm. and 
the mean difference is 0.00025 mm. The 
extrapolation formula of Hertz agrees 
with observed values at 20°, but is in excess 
by thirty per cent. at the higher tempera- 
tures; the formula of Ramsay and Young 
agrees with observation nearly as well. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 396. 


On the Feasibility of Transmuting Terres- 
trial Heat into Available Energy: JACOB 
WaINwRIGHT, Chicago. 

This paper has been published privately 
by the author. 


On the Conditions Controlling the Drop of 
Potential at the Electrodes im _ the 
Vacuum Tube Discharge: C. A. SKINNER, 
University of Nebraska. 

The paper was presented by Professor 
Zeleny and will later be published in the 
Philosophical Magazine. 

The drop of potential at the electrodes 
is supposed to be due to the difficulty of 
the carriers to give up their charges to the 
metal on account of the velocity of impact. 

This velocity must first be reduced, 
which is done by repeated bounding away 
from the electrode, the coefficient of restitu- 
tion being taken as less than one. An 
equation was obtained for an ideal simpli- 
fied case for the time required for the car- 
rier to be brought to rest. The longer this 
time, the greater is the fall at the electrode 
on account of the accumulation of the ecar- 
riers at the surface. 

Experiments in which some of the quan- 
tities involved were varied gave results in 
harmony with the above view of the cause 
of the drop at the electrodes. 


On the Rotary Dispersion of Fuchsine So- 
lutions: F. J. Bares, University of Ne- 
braska. Read by title. 


Sparking Potentials for Small Distances: 
E. Earwart, Rose Polytechnic Institute. 
Read by title. 


On the Magnetic Behavior of Nickel-copper 
and Nickel-tin Alloys: Brucze V. Hi, 
University of Nebraska. Read by title. 


Some Observations Showing the Oscillatory 
Character of Lightning: A. W. Sirs, 
University of Mississippi. Read by title. 


Avaust 1, 1902.] 


On the Effect of Electrolytic Condensers in 
Alternating Current Circuits: A. Trow- 
BRIDGE and E. R. Woucorr, University 
of Wisconsin. 

The paper was presented by Professor 
K. E. Guthe and deseribed in detail phe- 
nomena observed in electrolytic condensers 
used in alternating-current cireuits. It 
was shown that the custom of regarding 
such condensers as two ordinary condensers 
im series was erroneous, as such a view is 
inadequate to account for the enormous 
capacities observed. The paper will be 
published in full elsewhere. 


On the Accuracy of the Zero in a Dynamo- 
phone: J. Burkitt Wess, Stevens In- 
stitute of Technology. 

Presented by Professor B. F. Thomas. 

The dynamophone is a new dynamometer 
in which the energy transmitted per revo- 
lution is measured by the twist of the shaft 
transmitting it, said twist being measured 
while the shaft is in motion by an electrical 
method in which no contact is made with 
the shaft. 

It consists of two armatures or toothed 
wheels mounted on the shaft at a sufficient 
distance from each other, each wheel havy- 
ing a telephone magnet with its coil 
mounted in front of it in such a way that 
it can be revolved about the shaft. The 
distance of the telephone magnets from the 
armatures is also adjustable. These two 
‘telephones are connected in series with a 
receiving telephone which, when the two 
telephones are properly adjusted to op- 
posite phases and equal amplitudes, gives 
no sound or indicates zero. When the shaft 
twists under the transmission of a moment 
the observing telephone must be revolved 
through the angle of twist to obtain the 
zero or opposition of phase. 

As in some cases the observing magnet 
can be revolved through a small angle 
without perceptibly altering the zero, it is 


SCIENCE. 


Wag 


advisable to discuss the accuracy of the 
same, regarded as a question of the inter- 
ference of waves of the same period with 
slightly different overtones, and to use a 
method of observation which avoids the 
difficulty to a great extent. % 
Absorption of Salts in Aqueous Solutions 
by Powdered Quartz: Lyman J. Briaes, 

Washington, D. C. 

Finely divided quartz when shaken up 
with an aqueous solution of a salt possesses 
the property of increasing the concentra- 
tion of the solution in the region immedi- 
ately outside of the solid particle, thus 
decreasing the concentration of the free 
solution. Quantitative results showing the 
relation between concentration and amount 
of absorption have been obtained for ear- 
bonates, hydroxides and chlorides of sod- 
lum, potassium and ammonium. 

(a) The absorption of the acid radical 
was found to be independent of the base. 

(0) The amount of absorption is not a 
linear function of the concentration, but 
is relatively greater for dilute solutions. 


On the Osmotic Pressure of Absorbed 
Salts: Lyman J. Briggs, Washington, 
D.C. 

Osmotie pressure of absorbed salts must 
be the same as in the free portion of the 
liquid, if equilibrium exists. But the con- 
centration of the absorbed layer is greater 
than in the free solution. Therefore, the 
osmotic pressure of the absorbed layer is 
not proportional to the concentration of 
that part of the solution. 


On the Rapid Filtration of Turbid Solu- 
tions and the Change in Concentration 
Produced by the Porous Septwm: LYMAN 
J. Briggs, Washington, D. C. 

This paper, which will appear in Bull. 

19, Bureau of Soils, U. S. Department of 

Agriculture, was read by title. 


180 


On the Formation of Dew Bows: LYMAN 

J. Brieas, Washington, D. C. 

A description was given of the formation 
of a prismatic bow caused by the reflection 
and refraction of light from drops of dew 
supported on extremely fine spears of grass. 


Note on a New Form of Laboratory Switch- 
board Jack: F. C. CanpweEtu, Univer- 
sity of Ohio. 

This form of jack, which has proved very 
successful, is made up of one or more brass 
tubes with a shoulder at one end and 
threaded at the other, so that an ordinary 
nut screwed on will hold the jack in the 
board. Where opportunity for inserting 
two or more plugs is required, these jack 
tubes are united by yokes on the back of 
the board. Ten of these jacks after several 
months’ use averaged six-thousandths-volt 
drop when earrying 100 ampéres. The 
plug for this jack is a straight piece of 
three-eighths-inch rod slit at the end and 
fastened in a handle. The cost of such a 
single jack with nut, washer and plug com- 
plete is trifling. . 


Note on a New Variable Ironless Induction. 


Coil for Large Currents: F. C. Cawp- 
WELL, University of Ohio. 

This coil is interesting because of its 
It is made up of two concentric 
coils, one swinging within the other. Its 
resistance is 1.4 ohms, and its impedance, 
with sixty period current, about forty ohms. 
It is wound with ten layers of twenty turns 
of No. 8 wire in the outside coil, and nine 
layers of twenty turns in the inside layer. 
About one hundred pounds of wire was 
used in the construction. The outside 
diameter of inside coil is twenty inches. 


large size. 


On Molecular Friction in Steel and Phos- 
phor-Bronze: J. O. RED, University of 
Michigan. 

The method consisted in observing the 
time required for a tuning fork to diminish 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


its amplitude of vibration from one fixed 
amplitude to another, the tuning fork being 
enclosed in a chamber heated electrically, 
and the amplitudes being observed by a 
telescope. This period of time becomes a 
minimum at about 70°C. and then increases 
again. The diminution in amplitude was 
assumed to be due chiefly to molecular frie- 
tion. 


Young’s Modulus for Phosphor-Bronee, 
Between 20° and 300° C.: J. O. Reen, 
University of Michigan. 

The phosphor-bronze was in the form of 
the tuning fork of the last paper and it was 
heated in the same chamber. The paper 
described the additional appliances neces- 
sary to measure Young’s modulus. The 
results obtained were given. 


A Photographic Study of the Alternating 
Arc: G. A. Hoaptey, Swarthmore Col- 
lege. 

An alternating are was observed. under 
the following conditions: (a) Between car- 
bon points, ordinary; (b) between carbon 
and zine points, showing that there is an 
illuminating are only once per cycle, and 
that there is a direct current passing from 
zine to carbon in the are, which can be read 
by a direct-current ammeter; (c) between 
carbon points in a magnetic field showing 
the alternating direction of the current; 
(d) between carbon points, the lower of 
which is double, showing that two direct- 
current ammeters placed in the lower 
branches will show two direct currents if 
placed in opposite directions. 

The Nernst Lamp: A. J. Wurts, Pitts- 
burgh, Pa. 

Mr. Wurts gave a very interesting ac- 
count of the technical evolution of the 
Nernst lamp in this country, mentioning - 
many of the defects in the original which 
had been overcome by the ingenuity of 
American engineers. The lamp in its pres- 


Aveust 1, 1902.] 


ent form was exhibited and the functions of 
its various parts explained. 


Absorption Spectra of the Permanganates: 
B. E. Moorn, University of Nebraska. 
Read by title. 


The Index of Refraction and the Absorp- 
tion of Fuchsine: W. B. Cartmen, Uni- 
versity of Nebraska. Read by title. 


Determination of Dispersion by Means of 
Channeled Spectra: 8S. R. WiuutAMs, 
University of Nebraska. Read by title. 

E. F. NIcHOLs, 
Secretary Section B. 


SECTION B. 
IN SESSION WITH THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL 
SOCIETY. 

The meeting was held in the Middle Lec- 
ture Room of the Carnegie Institute, July 
2, 1902. Professor W. Le Conte Stevens 
was elected chairman pro tem. The pro- 
gram follows: 


Results of Recent Magnetic Investigations: 
L. A. Bauer, U. S. Coast and Geodetic 
Survey, Washington, D. C. 

The paper was illustrated by charts 
which exhibited the results of recent re- 
searches in terrestrial magnetism conducted 
by the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. 
Several recording magnetic instruments of 
modern construction were described and 
methods of standardization discussed. 
Lantern slides of the new magnetic observ- 
atories of the survey were shown. 


Some Recent Interesting Magnetic Dis- 
turbances Registered at the Coast and 
Geodetic Survey, Magnetic Observa- 
tories: Li. A. BAUER.” 

The records of a number of recent mag- 
netic disturbances taken at the different 
magnetic observatories of the Coast Survey 
were shown by lantern slides and the sig- 
nificance of the results obtained was dis- 


SCIENCE. 


181 


cussed. Both of the foregoing papers will 
appear in the Journal of Terrestrial Mag- 
netism and Atmospheric Electricity. 


On the Relation between Thermoelectric 
Power and Change of Length, caused by 
Magnetization: Epwarp Ruopes, Haver- 
ford College. 

A thermoelectric pile of fourteen iron 
wires, 40 em. long, thirteen copper wires, 
15 em. long, and one bar of a special alloy 
of antimony and zine, was built up. The 
alloy has the property that its thermo- 
electromotive force with iron is such as to 
counteract that of the thirteen copper iron 
junctions. 

When this pile has steam and cold water 
jackets placed over its ends and is inserted 
in a suitable solenoid, a curve may be ob- 
tained showing the thermoelectric power, 
at the mean temperature, of magnetized, 
against unmagnetized iron, as the field is 
varied. 

A eyclic curve of this kind was taken and 
proved to be of the peculiar and distinct- 
ive type of the eyclie change of length 
curves. 

In order that the two curves should 
agree, however, it is necessary to correct 
the change of leneth curve for the contrac- 
tion B*/4xY, where Y is Young’s modulus. 

A similar thermopile was constructed 
of nickel wires. In this case only the 
first ascending branch of the curve was 
taken. This was of the same type as the 
change of length curve for nickel, which is 
altogether different from that for iron. 

The existence of this relation seems to 
open the way to a large amount of further 
work on the nature of magnetism. 

The complete paper will appear in the 
Physical Review. 


Experiments on the Electrolysis of Radio- 
active Solutions: Guo. G. Praram, Co- 
lumbia University. Read by title. 


182 


Absorption Spectrum of Carbon: E. L. 
Nicuots and E. BuaKer, Cornell Uni- 
versity. Presented by Dr. Blaker. 

The selective radiation of carbon has 
already been shown. <A further series of 
experiments have been made during the 
past year on the selective absorption of 
carbon. Deposits have been obtained by 
deposition on glass in vacuum tubes be- 
tween terminals of carbon, in series with 
the secondary of an induction coil, the 
residual gas being acetylene. These de- 
posits vary in composition without doubt, 
and show different absorption for different 
conditions of deposition, depending on the 
pressure of the residual gas. 

Deposits made on platinum by ‘flashing,’ 
as in the ordinary ineandescent lamp, and 
then transferred to glass and studied with 
the spectrophotometer, show the same pecul- 
jiarities as have been shown to be obtained 
using glowing treated carbon. The dis- 
persion has not been fully studied yet. 

The paper will be published in the Phys- 
ical Review. 


Persistence of Vision in Color-blind Sub- 
jects: FRANK ALLEN, Cornell University. 
In this investigation, color-blind subjects 

were studied by the Nichols method of the 

measurement of the persistence of visual 
impressions. A sectored dise was rotated in 

front of the slit of a spectrometer at such a 

speed that the flickering of the part of the 

spectrum under observation just became 
imperceptible. The speed at this instant 
was electrically recorded on a piece of 
paper carried on a chronograph cylinder. 
The measurements when plotted as ordi- 

nates with wave-lengths as abscissas form a 

‘persistency curve’ which is parabolic in 

shape, convex toward the axis of abscissas, 

and with the apex at the D line. Under 
the same conditions of brightness of the 
spectrum and adaptation of the retina the 
persistency curve is invariable for the same 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


subject and even for persons of about the 
same age, providing their color vision is 
normal. Color-blind persons obtain per- 
sistency curves which usually coincide with 
normal curves in part, but which always 
have one or two elevations. The positions 
of these characteristic elevations afford a 
means of classification ; for they occur only 
in the parts of the curve corresponding to 
the red, green and violet of the spectrum. 

The Young-Helmholtz theory postulates 
three fundamental color sensations—red, 
green and violet. In ecolor-blind subjects 
it may be expected that any one of these 
may be absent or modified alone, or that 
any two may be absent or modified, or that 
all three may be absent. The last phe- 
nomenon is that of total color-blindness, 
and its existence is not provided for by the 
Young-Helmholtz theory, apart from total 
blindness. There are thus seven possible 
types of color-blindness, and in this investi- 
gation persistency curves corresponding to 
six of them have been obtained, the miss- 
ing one being that in which an elevation is 
to be expected in the violet end of the 
curve. One case of total color-blindness is 
also described which is remarkable in that 
the brightest part of the spectrum is in its 
normal position to him. No similar case 
has yet been described. 

In this research twenty-six cases of color- 
blindness were examined, and their results 
permit a very complete and systematic 
classification, such as is obtained by no 
other method. The conclusion reached is 
that the fundamental sensations are red, 
ereen, violet and white. The assumption 
of more than these three color-sensations 1s 
strongly opposed by these experiments. 


Heat of Vaporization of Inquid Air: J.S. 
SHEARER, Cornell University. 
This paper will appear in the Physical 
Review. 


Auvaust 1, 1902.] 


The Magnetic Field Produced by a Flight 
of Charged Particles: R. W. Woop and 
Harotp Penper, Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity. Read by title. 


Note on the Thermal Unit: H. T. Barnes, 
McGill University. Read by title. 


On the Action of a Condenser in an Induc- 
tion Coil: J. HE. Ives, University of Cin- 
cinnati. Read by title. 


Note on a Graphical Method for Tracing 
Rays Through Optical Prisms: WILLIAM 
Fox, College of the City of New York. 
Read by title. 


On a New Half-shade Polariscope: D. B. 
Brace, University of Nebraska. 


An Explanation of the Faraday and Zee- 
man Effects: D. B. Bracr. Read by 
title. 


Additional Notes on the Construction and 
Use of the Brace Spectrophotometer: 
S. B. Tuckerman, University of Ne- 
braska. Read by title. 

EK. F. NicHOoLs, 
Secretary pro tem. 


THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF 
ENGINEERING EDUCATION. 

THE tenth annual meeting of the Society 
was held at the Carnegie Institute, Pitts- 
burgh, Pa., on June 27 and 28, 1902. The 
attendance was larger than at any meeting 
since 1898 and the interest was so well 
maintained that the attendance at the four 
sessions did not vary ten per cent. Thirty- 
four applicants were elected to member- 
ship, making the total 287. 

At the opening session the members were 
deeply grieved at the announcement by the 
President of the sudden death of Professor 
John Butler Johnson, Dean of the College 
of Engineering, University of Wisconsin, 
the notice of which appeared in the Pitts- 
burgh press the evening before. Professor 


SCIENCE. 


183 


Johnson was one of the founders of the 
Society, a past president, and its first sec- 
retary. His enthusiasm, influence and act- 
ive work for the Society were prominent 
factors in its development and usefulness, 
and he expected to be present at the Pitts- 
burgh meeting, and, as usual, to take part 
in the discussions. 

After the transaction of general business 
the President, Professor Robert Fletcher, 
Director of the Thayer School of Civil En- 
gineering, read his address on ‘The Effi- 
ciency Factor in Engineering Education.’ 
After referring to the object of the Society 
an analysis of the membership was given 
which showed that 10 per cent. are practic- 
ing engineers who are not teachers, about 
18 or 20 per cent. are both teachers 
and practitioners, 45 to 47 per cent. 
are teachers only or chiefly in civil, 
mechanical, electrical, mining and other de- 
partments of engineering, about 3 per cent. 
are identified mainly with instruction in 
pure technics, such as manual training, etc., 
while about 21 per cent. give the indispen- 
sable and fundamental preparation in 
mathematics, mechanics and the physical 
sciences. Another division gives 33 per 
cent. as committed to civil, 224 per cent. 
to mechanical, 11 per cent. to electrical, and 
94 per cent. to mining and other branches 
of engineering. The balance of 24 per 
cent. constitute the teachers in preparatory 
courses and the practicians. An analysis 
was then made of the character of the 179 
papers and reports by members and com- 
mittees, respectively, which, together with 
the discussions, are printed in full in the 
nine volumes of Proceedings. Attention 
was called to the distinction between engi- 
neering and technology and the inconsisten- 
cies between the titles and performances of 
many engineering and technical colleges or 
schools. 

The factor of efficiency in engineering 
education was regarded as influenced and 


184 


determined by the purpose in view, the 
personnel, both of teachers and taught, the 
substance and methods of instruction, and 
the machinery and cost. A lack of purpose 
characterizes too much of the secondary 
education where education itself is regarded 


as an end instead of a means, while the ex- _ 


treme type of training is given in the mili- 
tary and naval academies, whose definite 
aim is to raise up a body of officers fitted 
to command men. In discussing the time 
to be devoted to the college and professional 
courses, the statement was made that the 
regular college courses are not made effect- 
ive enough even for culture. 

With respect to the personnel of the 
teachers, it was held that, while a teacher 
of engineering must be primarily a teacher, 
he is not simply a pedagogue, but has 
much in common with the engineer in prac- 
tice. To be efficient he must give inspira- 
tion and direction, and know his students. 
There must be mutual respect, confidence 
and sympathy. The element of command 
should accompany his direction and in- 
struction. The habit of obedience should 
be formed in the student, for disobedience 
may be as fatal ‘on the works’ as in the 
army. The quality of the student material 
should be determined not simply by the aca- 
demic test of the requirements for admis- 
sion, but also by the test of character. 
Those who are not found to be entirely 
trustworthy should be promptly excluded. 

As to the substance and methods of in- 
struction the larger and ever-increasing 
work required of engineering colleges to- 
day demands that it be a more powerful 
ageney. The principle of concentration is 
to be applied, since the range of primary 
and essential topics is so much greater than 
formerly that there is no room for non-es- 
sentials. The student’s tasks should relate 
chiefly to that which he must learn while 
a student. The recitation should be used 
whenever practicable, the lecture method 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 396. 


but seldom. What the student really gains 
comes from his own study of the book or 
of full notes, and by hard thinking. The 
coordination of subjects, as to both sequence 
and quantity, is of equal importance with 
the principle of concentration. Electives 
in a well-balanced curriculum should be re- 
stricted to a few courses in which the stud- 
ies are entirely adapted to ends clearly de- 
fined. The principle of continuity follows 
that of coordination, and its application 
shows that it is a disadvantage to sand- 
wich preparatory and culture studies be- 
tween engineering studies. 

Machinery as related to efficiency in engi- 
neering education includes all instruments, 
apparatus, machines, models, ete. Effi- 
ciency is determined by sufficient every-day 
exercises, with due regard to proper limi- 
tations of accuracy. There is not time 
enough for the student to acquire familiar- 
ity and facility with machines beyond those 
of fundamental utility. In modern engi- 
neering operations the principal criterion of 
efficiency is cost. The annual appropria- 
tions for the national military and naval 
schools represent the interest on a principal 
far greater than the endowment of any 
American university. Sufficient endow- 
ments to render an institution independ- 
ent of income from students would limit 
classes by stricter standards of merit only, 
and avoid the lessened efficiency implied in 
large classes with inadequate teaching 
force. The tendency to expend too much 
in expensive buildings lessens the funds 
available to secure the best men as teach- 
ers. The principle to govern should be: 
good men at any price, a good plant at the 
least cost consistent with utility. The final 
estimate of the cost goes beyond the outlay 
of money and cannot be made until the pro- 
fessional development of the graduates is 
in evidence. Here, as elsewhere, the prime 
principle of the engineering profession is 
to derive the largest and best output possi- 


Avuaeust 1, 1902.] 


ble from the judicious expenditure of mon- 
ey and labor. 

The President’s address was followed by 
a very interesting discussion on “The Value 
of Non-resident Lectures on Engineering 
Subjects.’ The three written discussions 
were by Professors William D. Pence, 
George F. Swain and Robert H. Thurston. 
In brief, such lectures, as a rule, were re- 
garded as having but little value as a means 
of edueation, their chief value being as a 
means of inspiration and suggestion to the 
students, and of legitimately advertising 
the institution ; keeping it in touch with the 
profession and extending its influence. 
They are also valuable to the local mem- 
bers of the faculty, in giving them addi- 
tional opportunities to come in contact with 
engineers in active practice. As so much 
depends on the personality of the lecturer 
great care should be exercised in the selec- 
tion. 

At the afternoon session ‘Methods of 
Grading Students in Engineering Colleges’ 
were treated by Professor Charles P. Mat- 
thews, the practice of many colleges being 
given, as obtained by means of a circular 
letter containing ten questions. 

Professor Francis C. Caldwell read a 
paper on ‘Laboratory Notes aud Reports,’ 
in which stress was laid upon the necessity 
of impressing on the student the impor- 
tance of original notes, and that this de- 
pended upon the shape in which they were 


taken down, and the care used in keeping: 


them neat and clean so as to avoid copying. 
Attention was called to the danger of too 
great detail in the nature of printed report 
blanks, used to supplement the note-books 
and to make the students familiar with 
methods of making reports. 

In the paper on ‘Electrochemistry as an 
Engineering Course,’ Professor Charles F. 
Burgess referred to the prominence of 
electrochemistry before the public through 
its progress along strictly scientific lines, 


SCIENCE. 


185 


as well as by reason of industrial develop- 
ment, which has been largely independent 
of the other. This subject may be taught 
as a science, perhaps included under the 
broader heading physical chemistry, or it 
may be taken up as a branch of engineering 
technology. The justification of establish- 
ing engineering courses in applied electro- 
chemistry was considered, and an outline 
given of the studies that may properly be 
included in such work. 

This paper was followed by an adjourned 
discussion of Professor Wm. G. Raymond’s 
paper presented at the meeting in 1901, and 
which advocated some radical changes tend- 
ing to reduce the course in engineering at 
least one year. The charge was made that 
by the present arrangement time was 
wasted: (1) By too much vaeation, (2) by 
doing class work instead of work with the 
individual, and (3) by mixing engineering 
subjects with preparatory and general cul- 
ture subjects. This discussion was lively 
and interesting, sixteen members. taking 
part, those of Professors A. N. Talbot and 
C. L. Mees being written. Professor Tal- 
bot maintained that the vacations were 
educationally valuable to the students, as 
most of them engage in work of an engi- 
neering character, especially after the soph- 
omore year, while others engage in business 
pursuits; that the instructors and young- 
er professors engage in practice which fits 
them for better service, while others are 
making preparation for the following 
year’s college work or in research. He 
also held that work with the individual was 
not applicable to information subjects, nor 
to foundation subjects where the quiz and 
class discussion secured better results; that 
where it was useful it was already employ- 
ed, as in specialized courses, such as the de- 
sien of structures, machines, ete., and that 
certain exercises require party work. Con- 
tinuous work in one subject is in general 
unpedagogical. It was further claimed 


186 


that the segregation of engineering stud- 
ies has been carried about as far as the con- 
dition of the preparatory schools permit, 
but that, essential as the training in gener- 
al principles is recognized to be, it is ad- 
vantageous to give some specialized courses 
of instruction. 

At the Saturday morning session the first 
paper presented was that of Professor El- 
wood Mead on ‘Courses of Instruction in 
Irrigation Engineering.’ He described the 
magnitude and complexity of the industrial 
problems connected with irrigation in the 
West, and the need of engineers with 
special training not only to properly de- 
sign the canals and other works with great- 
er economy than was possible formerly, but 
also to administer the systems when estab- 
lished. The information upon which both 
laws and administrative practice must be 
based must be largely gathered by the en- 
gineer. The settlement of the arid region 
is already creating important problems in 
statesmanship and economics involving the 
relations of vested rights and the respective 
spheres of state and national authority. 
The State Agricultural College at Colorado 
was the pioneer in giving special courses 
of instruction relating to practical irriga- 
tion and the attendant business, social and 
legal problems. The paper gave the irriga- 
tion engineering course recently adopted by 
the University of California, and it was 
urged that other western colleges might 
advantageously adopt a similar course in 
providing for this need. 

No abstract can give any adequate idea 
of the admirable paper as to both contents 
and style, by Professor Edward Orton, Jr., 
on ‘The Subdivision of the Field of Chem- 
ical Engineering Edueation.’ He gave the 
relative magnitude and increasing impor- 
tance of the ceramic and cement industries, 
as well as those depending on metallurgical 
processes, and stated the need for men who 
should have a large part of the usual edu- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


cation of an engineer in combination with 
that of a chemist. 

In discussing ‘Some Abuses of the Lee- 
ture System,’ Professor A. W. French gave 
five strong objections to the use of lectures 
to any material extent in giving instruction 
on engineering subjects, considering the 
present ample supply of text-books adapted 
to the needs of engineering colleges. The 
fact that the lecture system furnished the 
easiest method for the instructor to handle 
large classes was not regarded as a valid 
excuse, since it is the duty of large institu- 
tions to provide as adequate class instruc- 
tion as is done by the small ones. It was 
recommended that in the few cases where 
lectures are properly used each student 
should be furnished with a copy or at least 
with full notes, so that his entire attention 
may be given to the thought presented in 
the lecture room. 

At the afternoon session Professor C. M. 
Woodward read a paper on the ‘Manage- 
ment of Intercollegiate Athletics,’ which 
described some of the difficulties now en- 
countered, and aimed at developing a higher 
moral standard in the actual conduct of 
intercollegiate athletics. A series of rules 
relating to eligibility of members of teams, 
ete., was given. A strong conviction was 
expressed that in some way the evils of 
gate fees at athletic contests and the large 
expenditures incident to training tables, 
extensive trips, ete., should be eliminated. 
In the discussion which followed a decided 
protest was raised against the undue en- 
croachment of athletics on the legitimate 
work of many students who could not 
afford to make the sacrifice. 

“Over-development in Engineering La- 
boratory Courses’ was treated by Professor 
F. P. Spalding. He stated that the impor- 
tance of laboratory instruction in all lines 
of scientifie study, and its absolute necessity 
to any properly organized course in engi- 
neering, are generally conceded, but that the 


Aveust 1, 1902.] 


rapid development of such instruction has 
led to some excessive application. In 
undergraduate courses the laboratory in- 
struction should be based upon and eare- 
fully coordinated with the class room work, 
and not pursued as an end in itself. The 
attempt to introduce research work into 
undergraduate courses may often involve 
a serious waste of the students’ time. With 
large classes and a scheme fully outlined 
by the instructor the student may easily 
fall into habits of careless and superficial 
reasoning. Really beneficial work of this 
character is only feasible to a very limited 
extent, under careful oversight, the student 
being required to fully discuss the results 
of his investigations. Objection was made to 
using a student’s time to assist In making 
commercial tests in place of work in the 
regular course. The facilities for research 
presented by large laboratory equipments 
present an attractive field to graduate stu- 
dents, but immature young graduates 
should not be allowed to use too large a 
portion of their time in this manner. 

The last subject considered was ‘ Ex- 
cessive Differentiation in Engineering 
Courses.’ Written discussions were given 
by Professors Marburg, Magruder and 
Allen, while Professor C. M. Woodward 
and nine others participated in the oral dis- 
cussion. There was considerable difference 
of opinion expressed, although in many 
eases the speaker did not clearly state what 
was regarded as excessive differentiation. 
Some believed that a single general course 
should be given for all engineering stu- 
dents, while others maintained that civil, 
- mechanical, electrical and mining engineers 
should have courses differing materially in 
the last two years and which also permit 
a limited. amount of electives in the senior 
year. The former arrangement is contrary 
to the entire course of development of engi- 
neering education in this country, and it is 
interesting to notice that at this very meet- 


SCIENCE. 


187 


ing of the Society three separate pleas were 
made for still further differentiation, on 
the ground that the industrial development 
of the country demanded it. 

Three of the committees of the Society 
made reports. That on technical books for 
libraries presented the objects of its work 
and pointed out some of the ways in which 
the libraries may assist in the promotion of 
engineering education. That on entrance 
requirements related to the formulation of 
entrance requirements. The committee ex- 
pected to present a set of formulations to a 
similar committee of the National Educa- 
tional Association at its Minneapolis meet- 
ing, July 7-11. The Committee on Statis- 
ties reported the number of students en- 
rolled during 1901-02 at the different in- 
stitutions in the different courses; the 
number of students pursuing engineering 
courses; the number and kinds of degrees 
conferred on engineering graduates to date 
by the different institutions; on the advisa- 
bility of securing further statistics and the 
attitude of administrative officers in re- 
gard to furnishing the desired information, 
ete. Professor C. M. Woodward, of Wash- 
ington University, was elected chairman of 
the Committee on Industrial Education, on 
account of the death of Professor Johnson, 
while Professor A. L. Williston was elected 
to fill the vacancy in the membership of the 
committee. 

The Society, after considerable discussion 
and investigation, by a special committee 
appointed last year, decided at this meet- 
ing to appoint a ‘Committee on Require- 
ments for Graduation.’ The President 
was authorized to take some time in select- 
ing the members and the committee will be 
announeed in a circular probably in Sep- 
tember. 

The following are the newly elected offi- 
cers of the Society: 

President, Calvin M. Woodward, Dean of the 
College of Engineering, Washington University. 


188 


Vice-Presidents, John J. Flather, University of 
Minnesota, and Frederick W. McNair, President 
of Michigan College of Mines. 


Secretary, Clarence A. Waldo, Purdue Uni- 
versity. 

Treasurer, Arthur N. Talbot, University of 
Illinois. 

Members of Council until 1905: William Esty, 
Lehigh University; Henry 8. Jacoby, Corneil 


University; Lewis J. Johnson, Harvard Uni- 
versity; Ellwood Mead, University of California; 
Edward Orton, Jr., Ohio State University, and 
William M. Towle, Syracuse University. 
Henry S. JAcosy, - 
Secretary (1901-2). 


CoRNELL UNIVERSITY. 


SS 
ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTO- 
MOLOGISTS. 

Tue fourteenth annual meeting of the 
Association of Economie Entomologists met 
in the West Room of the Lecture Hall, Car- 
negie Institute, Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, 
Pa., Friday and Saturday, June 27 and 28, 
1902. The following papers were pre- 
sented : 


‘Some Notes on the Use of Lime Salt and Sul- 
phur and Resin Washes in Ohio’: A. F. Bur- 
cess, Columbus, Ohio. 

(1) ‘ Experimental Work in New York State 
against the San José Scale’; (2) ‘ Observations 
on Certain Insects of Pine Trees’: E. P. FE r, 
Albany, N. Y. 

‘Soluble Arsenic in Arsenical Insecticides’: 
Joun K. Haywoop, Washington, D. C. 

“On the Study of Forest Entomology in North 
America’: A. D. Hopxins, Morgantown, W. Va. 

“Recent Work against Shade-tree Insects’: A. 
H. Kirxianp, Boston, Mass. 

(1) ‘Résumé of the Search for the Native 
Home of the San José Seale in Japan and China’; 
(2) ‘Present Status of the Imported Asiatic 
Lady-Bird Enemy of the San José Scale; its Pos- 
sible Usefulness with the Native Lady-bird 
Beetle, Chilocorus bivulnerus, and the Natural 
Enemies, which may Check the Influence of Both 
Insects’: C. L. Martarr, Washington, D. C. 

‘Notable Insect Occurrences in Ohio for the 
First Half of 1902’: H. Osporn, Columbus, Ohio. 

(1) ‘Report of Experiments with the Lime, 
Salt and Sulphur Wash against the San José 
Seale in Maryland’; (2) ‘On the Feeding Habits 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


of the Adults of the Periodical Cicada’: A. L. 
QUAINTANCE, College Park, Md. 
‘Kee-laying Record of Plum Curculio’: <A. L. 


QUAINTANCE and R. I. Smirn, College Park, Md. 
‘Results of some Recent Experiments against 
the San José Scale in Georgia’: W. M. Scorr, 
Atlanta, Ga. 
“Notes from Delaware’: 
son, Newark, Delaware. 


E. DwicHt SANDER- 


The following officers were elected for the 
ensuing year: President, Dr. HE. P. Felt, 
Albany, N. Y.; Vace-President, Wm. H. 
Ashmead, Washington, D. C.; Second Vice- 
President, Professor Lawrence Bruner, 
Lincoln, Neb.; Secretary and Treasurer, 
Professor A. L. Quaintance, College Park, 
Md. 


A. L. QUAINTANCE, 
Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


Ophthalmic Myology, a Systematic Treatise on 
the Ocular Muscles. By G. C. Savacr, M.D. 
Nashville, Tenn. 1902. Published by the 
author. 

Dr. Savage’s book is one that will doubtless 
gain a wide currency among ophthalmologists. 
Eyen those who differ with him the most 
widely must acknowledge the painstaking 
care, the thoroughness, the great ingenuity 
and the perfect sincerity which combine to 
make his work suggestive and valuable. More- 
over, his long and ample experience in this 
special field gives him a certain right to speak 
with authority wherever practical questions 
are involved. 

Among those who busy themselves with 
practical eye work, the book is sure to be 
widely read and quoted, and its teachings to 
find extensive, though not universal, accept- 
ance. But for this very reason it becomes 
all the more necessary for the reviewer to 
point out what he cannot but regard as essen- 
tial and considerable errors in the work. And 
if he confines himself mainly to this more 
ungracious part of his task, it is because the 
good qualities of the book speak for them- 
selves and make encomium of them superer- 
ogatory. 


Avaust 1, 1902.] 


One of the fundamental notions in Dr. 
Savage’s book and one that affects the reason- 
ing all through it is found in the statement 
on p. 2: 

“With this axis [the visual axis] the four 
recti muscles are alone* concerned as to the 
final result of their action. The superior and 
inferior recti of the two eyes are required 
to keep the visual axes always in the same 
plane. * * * The oblique muscles are re- 
quired to so relate the vertical antero-pos- 
terior planes of the two eyes that the vertical 
axes which lie in these planes may be parallel 
with each other, and with the vertical plane of 
the head.” The inference is that the superior 
and inferior recti are practically the only mus- 
eles concerned in elevating and depressing the 
eyes, and the obliques the only ones that ro- 
tate the vertical meridians or keep these 
meridians vertical. And that this is his view 
is shown unmistakably by the further state- 
ment (p. 4): “Hach of the conjugate innerva- 
tion centers controls two muscles, one for 
either eye. The first [serving to elevate both 
eyes] controls the two superior recti; the 
second [serving to depress both eyes], the 
two inferior recti; * * * the sixth [serving 
to keep the vertical axes from diverging 
above], the two superior obliques; the seventh 
[serving to keep the vertical axes from con- 
verging above], the two inferior obliques.” 
So also his eighth and ninth centers, which 
are supposed to keep the vertical axes of both 
eyes parallel with the median plane of the 
head in the oblique positions of the gaze, 
control respectively the right superior and left 
inferior, and the right inferior and left su- 
perior obliques. 

Now if there is one fact in regard to the 
eye-muscles that is demonstrated alike by 
anatomy, by physiology and by clinical inves- 
tigations, it is that in elevation of the eye 
both the superior rectus and the inferior 
oblique take part, and that about equally, al- 
though in the straightforward direction of 
the gaze the superior rectus is the more effi- 
cient of the two. The elevating center, there- 
fore, controls the two inferior obliques quite 


* Ttalies mine. 


SCIENCE. 


189 


as much as it does the two superior recti; and 
the depressing center controls the two superi- 
or obliques as well as the two inferior recti. 
So too both physiological investigations and 
a study of the results of paralysis show that 
the inferior and superior recti quite as much 
as the obliques are concerned in producing 
torsion of the vertical meridians, and Savage’s 
various centers, by which this torsion is regu- 
lated and the vertical meridians kept vertical 
and parallel, must govern these recti as well 
as the obliques. 

It is but just to say that Dr. Savage himself 
admits this, at least in part, in speaking of 
the action of the individual muscles (pp. 39 
et seq.); and it seems all the more strange 
that he should not recognize the bearing of 
this admission upon his theories of the com- 
bined actions of these same muscles, produced 
by the coordinating centers. 

The error above noted has an important 
practical consequence. It leads Dr. Savage 
to the further erroneous teaching that in the 
diagnosis of paralysis of the various muscles, 
it is sufficient to determine the curtailment 
of rotation or determine the amount of diplo- 
pia in the four cardinal directions only (up, 
down, in and out). This would be so if, as 
he assumes, the four recti alone acted to carry 
the eyes in these various directions. If, for 
example, the inferior rectus was the only mus- 
ele that depressed the eye, measurement of the 
degree of downward rotation would indicate 
whether the inferior rectus was weak or not. But 
since the superior oblique takes a very large 
part in performing this downward rotation, 
we cannot, from the mere fact that this rota- 
tion is limited, infer that the inferior rectus 
is weak. We can do so only by demonstrating 
that the limitation of movement increases 
markedly in looking downward and outward 
and diminishes to zero in looking downward 
and inward. 

In fact for diagnosticating weakness or pa- 
ralysis of the individual muscles, we must 
determine the range of excursion of the eyes 
or the amount of diplopia in six, not in four, 
cardinal directions, viz., right, left, up and 
right, up and left, down and right, down and 
left. Unless this fact is realized, the diagno- 


190 


sis of ocular paralysis cannot be made with 
certainty, and Dr. Savage’s differentiation 
(on pp. 514 and 515) is hence inadequate, and, 
if strictly adhered to, would often mislead. 
In particular, it may be said that the tilting 
of the false image, upon which he relies for 
his diagnosis, is a very unsafe guide, being 
often absent and sometimes transferred to 
the image formed by the non-paralyzed eye. 
This part of the book, in fact, must be char- 
acterized as quite unsatisfactory. 

It is not necessarily true, as stated on page 
517, that in comitant squint there is no di- 
plopia. In many, indeed in their beginning 
probably in most, cases of comitant squint 
there is a diplopia, which, in distinction from 
that of a paralytic squint, remains the same in 
all parts of the field. 

Objection must also be raised to his state- 
ment that in oblique directions of the gaze, 
the obliques act to keep the vertical merid- 
ians of the two eyes not only parallel but also 
always vertical. This certainly runs counter 
to a vast mass of anatomical and physiological 
data accumulated by various observers, and 
seems to be supported by no direct proof, 
being based solely on a priori reasoning. 

The author’s well-known views on cyclo- 
phoria, its production by oblique astigmatism, 
and its correction by means of cylinders, are 
given full place in the book. The reviewer 
has not seen reason to concur in these views 
nor to consider cyclophoria as an important 
element in muscular anomalies. 

There are various other points regarding 
which the reviewer would take issue with the 
author, such as his notion that in esophoria 
the presence of a certain amount of hypero- 
pia necessarily argues that a certain proportion 
of the esophoria is false or accommodative 
(p. 198); his failure to recognize divergence 
anomalies; and in general his tendency to 
attribute muscular anomalies too exclusively 
to disturbances in the tension and action of 
the muscles per se, rather than to disturbances 
of the conjugate centers, particularly those 
for convergence and divergence. We have 
good reason for thinking that it is in these 
centers that most motor anomalies arise, so 
that in their origin at least such anomalies 


SCIENCE. 


“Present Status of Forestry in Texas.’ 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


are usually bilateral, affecting the movements 
of both eyes equally, while the muscles per se 
are normal at the outset, and do not become 
affected until later on. 

Enough has been said, however, in the way 
of criticism, and it seems fitting to close with 
a word of hearty praise for the many original 
ideas that the book contains; for the author’s 
skill in their presentation; for his fairness 
in dealing with the work of others; and finally 
for the many happy suggestions that he puts 
forth, particularly as regards treatment, 
whether by exercise or by operation. 


ALEXANDER DUANE. 
New York City. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 


THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 


At the meeting of the Texas Academy of 
Science, held in the Chemical Lecture Room 
of the University of Texas, February 21, 1902, 
Dr. William Morton Wheeler, Professor of 
Zoology, presented “A Consideration of S. B. 
Buckley’s ‘North American Formicide’” (by 
title), and delivered an illustrated lecture on 
‘The Principles of Acceleration and Retard- 
ation in the Development of Animals.’ 

At the meeting of April 25, Mr. E. T. 
Dumble, of Houston, read a paper on the 
“Cretaceous and Later Rocks of Presidio and 
Brewster Counties,’ which is of interest on 
account of the prominence now given the 
last-named county, owing to the discovery and 
development of quicksilver deposits in the 
Terlingua District. 

The second paper on the program was pre- 
sented by Dr. William L. Bray, Professor of 
Botany in the University, who discussed ‘The 
Many 
excellent views, illustrative of the subject, 
were thrown upon the screen. 

The formal meeting of the Academy was 
held in the Chemical Room of the University 
on Wednesday, June 11, at 3:30 p.m. 

President J. C. Nagle announced the result 
of the election of officers for 1902-1903, 
which is as follows: President, Robert A. 
Thompson, M.A., C.E., Expert Engineer to 
the State Railroad Commission; Vice-Presi- 
dents, Professor O. C. Charlton, M.A., late of 


Aveust 1, 1902. ] 


Baylor University, and Professor J. C. Nagle, 
of the Agricultural and Mechanical College 
of Texas; Treasurer, Dr. H. Y. Benedict, 
Adjunet Professor of Mathematics and As- 
tronomy in the University of Texas; Secre- 
tary, Dr. Frederic W. Simonds, Professor of 
Geology in the University of Texas; Libra- 
rian, Dr. William L. Bray, Professor of Bot- 
any in the University of Texas; Members of 
the Council, Hon. Arthur Lefevre, State Su- 
perintendent of Public Instruction, Henry 
Winston Harper, M.D., F.C.S., Professor of 
Chemistry, University of Texas, and Dr. Wil- 
liam Morton Wheeler, Professor of Zoology 
in the same institution. 

The first paper on the program was on 
‘Consciousness and Purposive Movements,’ 
by Dr. Edmund Montgomery, of Hempstead, 
Texas. 

Professor S. E. Mezes, of the University, 
discussed ‘Some Fundamental Characteris- 
tics of the Extensity of Sensations.’ He 
‘pointed out that every sensation has a local 
sign embedded in it, different, roughly speak- 
ing, from every other local sign, and that sen- 
sations, therefore, constitute, from this point 
of view, a manifold of differing elements. 
This manifold is, however, continuous, and 
not discrete; for any two local signs, A and 
LI, whose difference is barely discernible, are 
less similar to each other than either is to 
other local signs, e. g., B, C, J, K, and this 
is precisely the distinguishing characteristic 
of a continum. Another very fundamental 
characteristic of our extensity experience the 
speaker found in the arrangement of local 
signs and their sensations in tridimensional 
extent. The basis of this he found in our or- 
ganic and- muscular sensations coming from 
within the skin, which are always present as 
a totality in waking moments, and which in 
their totality constitute, as immediately felt, 
a tridimensional bulk. And it is because of 
their relations to our tridimensional cenes- 
thesia that special sensations are located in 
tridimensional space. First, largely by virtue 
of the changing relative positions of different 
parts of the body, there arises ontogenetically 
a sense of empty space surrounding the body, 
and largely because of the contrast of double 


SCIENCE. 


191 


and single touch there arises a sense of filled 
space outside the body. Here it was insisted 
that touch intrinsically locates its objects out- 
side the surfaces of the body, and in the third 
dimension relative to that surface. Moreover, 
all the special senses, probably in virtue of 
being daughter senses descended from the 
mother sense of touch, were found to locate 
their objects in tridimensional space. Ches- 
eldens and other cases were quoted to show 
that vision never presents a colored surface 
only, but at the worst a colored surface loca- 
ted in the third dimension, a point that has 
been strangely overlooked. And with local 
signs of depth thus present in vision, even 
under the least favorable conditions, it was 
considered at least possible that these same 
local signs were competent, when developed 
by practice, to substitute objects in proper 
perspective for the surface seen antecedent to 
practice. 

Professor H. Ness, of the Chair of Botany 
in the Agricultural and Mechanical College 
of Texas, spoke on ‘De Vries’ Mutation 
Theory,’ which has recently attracted wide- 
spread attention. 

Mr. W. H. von Streeruwitz, of Houston, a 
former geologist on the State Geological Sur- 
vey, who had recently returned from a pro- 
tracted visit abroad, spoke upon ‘Mining— 


- With some Account of Russian Practice.’ 


The last paper was of a very practical char- 
acter, being an exposition of ‘New Departures 
in Cotton Mill Machinery and Appliances,’ 
by Messrs. Stonewall Tompkins and W. E. 
Anderson, Mechanical Engineers of Houston. 

Part II., completing Volume IY. of the 
Transactions of the Academy, has been re- 
ceived from the printer and is now being dis- 
tributed. The following is the table of con- 
tents: ‘The Influence of Applied Science,’ 
the Annual Address by the President, Pro- 
fessor J. C. Nagle; “A Consideration of S. 
B. Buckley’s ‘North American Formicide, ” 
Dr. William Morton Wheeler; ‘The Silt 
Problem in Connection with Irrigation Stor- 
age Reservoirs,’ Professor J. C. Nagle; ‘The 
Water Power of Texas,’ Professor Thomas 
U. Taylor; ‘Reptiles and Batrachians of Mc- 
Lennan County, Texas,’ John K. Strecker, 


192 


Jr.; ‘The Red Sandstone of Diabolo Moun- 
tains, Texas,’ E. T. Dumble; ‘Cretaceous and 
Later Rocks of Presidio and Brewster Coun- 
ties, E. T. Dumble; ‘A Preliminary Report 
on the Austin Chalk Underlying Waco and 
the Adjoining Territory,’ illustrated with 
half-tone engraving, John K. Prather; Pro- 
ceedings of the Academy for 1901; List of 
Patrons and Fellows; List of Members; Con- 
stitution, in all covering 138 pages. 
Freperic W. Sronps. 
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
IRIDESCENT CLOUDS. 

To THE Eprror or Science: The letter of 
Mr. Ward in Science of July 4, concerning 
iridescent clouds, leads me to record my obser- 
vations of similar phenomena. From my own 
observations, covering five years in Princeton, 
Williamstown, Mass., and Baltimore, and 
seven years in Boulder and Denver, Colo., I 
am led to think that iridescent clouds are of 
very much more frequent occurrence in Col- 
orado than in the Eastern States. And they 
occur much more frequently near the moun- 
tains than at a short distance out on the plains. 

Boulder is situated immediately at the base 
of the eastern foothills of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, these foothills being from 1,200 to 3,000 
feet higher than the plains, upon the edge ,of 
which the town is built. Just above these 
foothills a stratus cloud sometimes forms, es- 
pecially in winter, whose lower edge is often 
bordered with a band of color, frequently very 
bright and clear. These colored bands occur 
from ten to twenty minutes after sunset. The 
cloud usually lies at a distance of 5° or 10° 
above the horizon and is often almost abso- 
lutely horizontal. The colors extend along the 
lower edge for a distance of 15° to 30°, being 
about 1° or 2° wide. 

At other times I have seen great patches of 
cirrus clouds which were most beautifully ir- 
idescent. One of these I saw at about eleven 
o’clock which covered a space perhaps 5° or 
more each way and which was about 15° or 
20° east of the sun. It lasted for ten or fifteen 
minutes, there being very little motion of the 


clouds on that day. At other times I have 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 396. 


seen many small patches of color, mostly 
bluish-green and pink, appearing simultane- 
ously in light cirrocumulus clouds. These 
usually occur about the middle of the after- 
noon. I have on a single occasion observed 
a similar effect produced by the full moon. 

Denver is situated about twenty miles from 
the foothills. Although I have not kept a 
record, my observations during the last two 
years convince me that these cloud colors 
are seen much less frequently here than in 
Boulder. 

I wish also to speak of a related phenomenon 
of very much less frequent occurrence. On 
July 5, I was looking toward a nimbus cloud 
from which the rain was apparently falling 
beyond a mesa which lies about five miles 
east of Boulder. It was between four and five 
e’clock in the afternoon. There appeared in 
the cloud a patch of rainbow colors about 10° 
long by half as wide. The colors were in the 
order of the rainbow, but the bands were very 
much broader and quite irregular. The colors 
lasted for ten or fifteen minutes. The posi- 
tion of the sun precluded the possibility of the 
colors being produced in the same way as in 
an ordinary rainbow. 

I have but once before observed the same 
In the spring of 1895, I was 
teaching in Grand Junction, which is situated 
in the valley of the Grand River in the western 
part of the state. To the east of the town 
at a distance of about thirty miles the Grand 
Mesa rises to a height of 5,000 or 6,000 feet 
above the valley. On May 1, I observed a 
nimbus cloud, from which rain could be seen 
falling, lying in the eastern end of the valley 
and so low that the top of Grand Mesa could 
be seen above it. About half past three I saw 
in this cloud a strip of color extending north 
and south about 10° and about 5° wide. The 
red was above and about 10° or 12° from the 
earth. (These data are copied from my diary 
of that date.) The colors were quite as bright 
as in a brilliant rainbow and included all the 
colors of the rainbow. As in the former case, 
the position of the sun made it impossible to 
explain the production of the colors on the 
basis of the theory of the rainbow. 

E. Warre Exper. 


phenomenon. 


Higu Scnoor, DENVER. 


August 1, 1902.] 


PEAR BLIGHT IN CALIFORNIA, 


THE discussion of California pear blight 
given in Mr. Webber’s report of the proceed- 
ings of the Botanical Society of Washington,” 
induces me to offer some additional notes on 
this subject. 

Although supposed eases of pear blight have 
been reported in California for many years, an 
examination of the affected orchards has 
always resulted, until recently, in throwing 
doubt upon the presence of that disease within 
the State. In the spring of 1899, however, 
there occurred a typical outbreak of blight in 
southern California, the malady assuming the 
normal epidemic form of spring development, 
spreading over several counties in a short 
time. This was the first case of the kind to 
* come to my knowledge, although the orchards 
of the State had been under continual ob- 
servation for upward of ten years previously. 

As early as the spring of 1900 the disease 
developed seriously near Hanford and at other 
points in the southern half of the San Joaquin 
valley, while at present it has spread to a 
large percentage of the leading pear-growing 
districts of southern California and of the 
San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. There 
are still special districts within the State 
which are wholly or nearly free from its ray- 
ages—as the Santa Clara valley and other 
coast regions. 

The destructive development of pear blight 
in the hot interior valleys of California should 
at once dissipate the somewhat popular theory 
that bacterial and many other diseases of the 
East will not thrive under the semi-tropie and 
more arid conditions of portions of the Pacific 
coast. The facts are quite to the contrary. 
In California there is not alone a spring and 
summer, but likewise a fall and winter epi- 
demic of pear blight, and the latter form of the 
disease is by far the more destructive mani- 
festation of the two. The writer has given the 
name of ‘winter blight’ to the fall and winter 
type of the disease, and by careful inoculation 
experiments, conducted with pure cultures, has 
demonstrated the cause of winter blight to be 


* Science, N. S., Vol. XV., pp. 989-991. 


SCIENCE. 


193 


identical with that of spring blight in the 
East.* 

The leading characters distinguishing winter 
blight are: First, it rarely if ever attacks a 
tree at points higher than a man’s head, 
always affecting the trunk or base of the main 
limbs, hence the larger and more vital por- 
tions of the tree; second, the infection takes 
place about the time the crop is gathered or 
shortly after; third, it continues in a most 
active and destructive state during the months 
ot November, . December and January; and, 
fourth, it may prevail in an orchard showing 
little or no signs of the spring form of the 
disease. The experience of growers supported 
by observation in the orchards shows that 
winter blight infections usually occur in short 
spurs developed upon the-base of the main 
limbs or on the trunk of the trees. In Cali- 
fornia it is not uncommon for these spurs to 
develop clusters of flowers in the late fall, 
when the moisture rises in the soil or after 
the fall rains begin. The belated flowers rarely 
occur at points higher than a man’s head, and 
they therefore serve as points of infection 
for the basal limbs and trunk of the trees. 
As the spurs are short the time required for 
the bacillus to pass from the flower to the 
parenchymatic tissues of the cortex of limb or 
trunk is brief, and the girdling of the trunk or 
main limbs is often a matter of a compara- 
tively brief time. As the winter temperature 
of many California valleys is sufficiently warm 
to permit the blight bacillus to grow during 
November, December and January, and as the 
organism is so located in cases of winter blight 
that the affected parts cannot be removed by 
pruning without removing the more essential 
portions of the tree, the winter development 
of this disease has frequently resulted in more 
serious injury and greater losses of trees than 
the spring form of the malady in the East. In 
the latter form of the disease the twigs and 
smaller limbs are the leading points of infec- 
tion, and a careful and early removal of the 
infected parts is commonly accomplished with- 
out serious injury to the trees. 

In winter blight, as in spring blight, the 

*See California Fruit Grower, May 4, 1901, 
Vol. XXVI., No. 675, p. 4. 


194 


growing tips of purely vegetative shoots occa- 
sionally serve as points of infection. Mr. 
Waite has said that ‘it is only in the blossom 
blight that the honey bee is concerned,’* but 
Professor A. J. Cook has thrown a light upon 
this subject which suggests a need for further 
investigation. Professor Cook states that the 
bee men claim that the inoculation of pear 
flowers by means of bees ‘cannot be the ex- 
clusive method of spreading this disease, as 
it often attacks and plays fearful havoe with 
nursery stock and young trees that have never 
blossomed at all.’ To this Professor Cook re- 
plies that “ It is well known that buds secrete 
a sort of glue for their protection in winter 
or spring. This attracts bees and other in- 
sects. The bees secure the main part of their 
bee glue or propolis from such resin-coated 
buds”; stating also that ‘it seems quite likely 
in such visits the bacteria are taken from 
diseased buds [or other sources of infection] 
and conveyed to healthy plants.”’+ I would add 
to these views of Professor Cook that infec- 
tion through growing buds of walnut branches 
is also of very common occurrence in the wal- 
nut bacteriosis caused by Pseudomonas jug- 
landis. 

This distribution of Bacillus amylovorous 
(Burrill) De Toni, through the agency of bees 
and other insects has been carefully demon- 
strated by Waite. The relation existing be- 
tween the number of bee visits and the viru- 
lence of an epidemic of blight has, however, re- 
ceived less attention. Relative to this phase 
of the subject the writer has made several field 
observations having a direct bearing. A few 
miles north of Hanford, California, a large 
colony of bees was located within one fourth 
mile of two of the most valuable pear orchards 
of that region. These orchards were prac- 
tically destroyed by blight before those more 
distant had become seriously affected. A 
second case of like nature was observed near 
Fowler and a third at Banning, California. 


* Paper read before the National Bee Keepers’ 
Convention, Pan-American Exposition—printed in 
California Cultivator, Vol. XVIII., No. 25, pp. 
390-391. 

+ California Cultivator, Vol. XVII., No. 6, pp. 
83-84. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 396. 


The contrast between the number of infections 
in orchards near large colonies of bees and 
those more distant was very striking in both 
eases noted in the San Joaquin valley. The 
field conditions presented convincing evidence 
that near proximity of large colonies of bees 
to pear orchards greatly increases the danger 
to, and hastens the time of destruction of the 
latter. 
Newton B. Pierce. 
PaciFic Coast LABORATORY, 
Santa Awa, CAL. 


THE ARC OF QUITO. 

At a meeting of the Société de Géographie 
in Paris, France, on May 2, 1902, a communi- 
cation was made to the Society by M. R. 
Bourgeois, Commandant du Service Géogra- 
phique de l’Armée, Chef de la Mission 
francaise de Equateur, giving an account of 
the recent operations of the French Officers in 
remeasurement of the old are of Peru now 
called the are of the meridian of Quito. 

An account of the reconnaissance for the 
extension and remeasurement of this arc can 
be found in Sctence for November 2, 1900. 

The following is taken from La Géographie, 
the bulletin of the Société de Geographie for 
May 15, 1902. 

As has been stated the reconnaissance was 
made in 1899. The time to complete the 
work was estimated at four years and in 
1900, 500,000 franes (about $100,000) was 
appropriated for the field expenses. 

The mission, composed of five officers, a 
military surgeon and seventeen non-commis- 
sioned officers and privates started to Equador 
in 1901 and began the work immediately after 
their arrival in June. 

The first year’s work has been completed, 
and M. Bourgeois has returned to France to 
report the progress made, leaving the Mission 
to continue the work under the direction of 
Captain Maurain. 

The Mission reached Guayaquil June 1 
with geodetic and astronomical instruments, 
camp outfit, baggage, etc., weighing 20,000 
kilos (about 40,000 Ibs.). This immense out- 
fit was transported with difficulty to the scene 
of operations, and during 1901 the work was 


Aueust 1, 1902.] 


extended over the region between Guayaquil 
and Riobamba, at the center of the valley re- 
gion between the double range of the Andes 
which exists in this latitude, and the triangu- 
lation is now in progress in this valley region. 

Three months were spent at Riobamba, and 
during this time the determination of the 
fundamental astronomical elements, longitude, 
latitude and azimuth were made and the fun- 
damental base line was measured. 

The base is ten kilometers long and two 
measures of the base were made in two and a 
half months with a resulting difference be- 
tween them of seven millimeters. A four- 
meter bar was used in measuring this base. 

After measuring the base the mission was 
divided into two parties, one of which con- 
tinued the triangulation in the vicinity~ of 
Riobamba while the other proceeded to Quito 
for the purpose of measuring a base of verifi- 
cation and to determine the latitude of the 
northern extremity of the are. One of the 
officers returned to Guayaquil and proceeded 
to Payta in Peru by sea in order to do similar 
work at the southern extremity of the arc. 

The programme of the work for 1901 was 
successfully completed and the measurement 
of angles now in progress in the region to the 
north will be complete in 1902. 

In 1903 and 1904 work in the region to the 
south between Riobamba and Peru will be 
completed and the measurement of an arc of 
the meridian six degrees in amplitude will 
be an accomplished fact with only a delay of 
four years, or within the time fixed in the 
beginning. 


The difficulties are great as a description of © 


the country shows; the altitude of the work is 
unusual, the resources are meager, the cli- 
mate unfavorable and the means of communi- 
cation very inadequate. Numerous vexations 
have been encountered, owing to the lack of 
intelligence in the inhabitants, such as the 
destruction of signals, the digging up of the 
marks, etc., but these are not of a nature to 
stop the observers before they have completed 
the work they have undertaken. 

In conclusion M. Bourgeois expresses his 
pleasure in rendering homage before the So- 
ciété Géographie to the knowledge and energy 


SCIENCE. 


195 


of his comrades, the officers of the mission, and 
also to the zeal and endurance of the non- 
commissioned officers and soldiers who accom- 
pany them, all of whom have exerted them- 
selves to the utmost for the honor of French 
science. 


I. W. 


A FOSSIL MAN FROM KANSAS. 

In April of the present year, two young 
men living in the vicinity of Leavenworth, 
Kansas, in the excavation of a fruit storage 
cave near their residence, discovered a number 
of human bones. They paid but little atten- 
tion to them, supposing them to be of little 
interest, but a brief reference to the dis- 
covery finding its way into the newspapers 
induced Mr. M. S. Long, the curator of the 
museum of Kansas City, a gentleman well 
known for his interest in, and as a collector 
of, things anthropological, to visit the locality. 
He recognized the scientific value of the find 
and secured such as remained of the bones 
discovered. Unfortunately, while the larger 
part of, if not the complete, skeleton had orig- 
inally been present, many of the bones had 
been mutilated beyond repair or lost. <A 
newspaper account of the find was widely 
published as that of a glacial man. 

At the request of, and in company with, 
Mr. Long I have recently had the pleasure of 
making a careful examination of the locality 
whence the bones came, as also of the pre- 
served remains themselves. This examination 
leads me to the firm conviction that the speci- 
men is of great interest as representing the 
oldest reliable human remains hitherto dis- 
covered in North America. The reference of 
their age to the glacial period, though er- 
roneous, was easily inferred from the pres- 
ence of the characteristic glacial boulders 
lying on the side hill above the excavation. 

The tunnel or cave excavated by the Con- 
cannon brothers is directed horizontally into 
the side of a hill to a distance of seventy- 
three feet, near the mouth of a small though 
deep ravine opening on the flood plain of the 
Missouri River, nineteen miles northwest of 
Kansas City, and within a few miles of Lan- 
sing, Kansas. The skeleton was found at the 


196 


extremity of the tunnel twenty-three feet 
from the surface above, as determined by a 
ventilating shaft dug near by. The floor of 
the tunnel is a heavy stratum of Carbonifer- 
ous limestone six feet in thickness, that out- 
crops at its mouth. The material excavated, 
nearly uniform in all parts of the tunnel, is 
river loess or alluvium, interspersed here and 
there by limestone fragments. Some of these 
limestone masses are of considerable size and 
lie, for the most part, horizontally, as though 
they had fallen from a neighboring cliff and 
had been transported by the water. The 
material also contains numerous snail and 
some clam shells, the latter with the valves 
united. The alluvium is so firm and indurated 
that the tunnel, about eight feet in diameter, 
has retained its shape without any protecting 
props or walls, nor has there’ been any caving 
of its walls or roof. The skull and larger part 
of the skeleton was found irregularly placed, 
according to the testimony of the young men, 
near the bottom of the tunnel, the mandible 
separated some five or six feet. That the 
skeleton was intrusive, had been buried, or its 
position due to a creeping or sliding of the 
material, is inconceivable and out of the ques- 
tion. That there had been any deception on 
the part of the finders is equally inconceivable. 
I discovered fragments lying on the floor of 
the tunnel near the place ascribed to the dis- 
covery and picked up numerous other frag- 
ments on the dump outside, including a 
phalange and a complete os uncinatum. The 
bones were found where they were reported 
to be, and had been deposited there by the 
water, at or near the time of the person’s 
death. The cranium itself contains positive 
evidence of its genuineness; not only is the 
characteristic matrix yet firmly attached to 
the bone, but indurated portions are included 
in its sinuses. The specimen is unquestion- 
ably a fossil and was found buried twenty- 
three feet below the present surface in in- 
durated alluvium that has never been dis- 
turbed since its deposition. This alluvium is, 
moreover, of water deposition, and not xolian, 
or talus from the neighboring cliffs. Distinct 
lines of stratification are observed, one of 
them running clearly the whole length of 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vor. XVI. No. 396. 


the tunnel a little above the horizon of the 
skeleton. 

The age of the skeleton is evidently post- 
glacial, but is nevertheless very great. Its 
horizon is about twenty feet above the highest 
water mark of the Missouri River and more 
than fifty feet above its present bed. Add 
to this at least twenty feet of river alluvium 
covering the fossil and we have evidence of 
a change of altitude in the Missouri River 
since the deposition of the fossil of at least 
forty and probably fifty feet. That is, the 
skeleton was deposited during the period of 
depression following the glacial epoch, during 
the time of the so-called Hquus beds, the time 
ot Hlephas, Mastodon, extinct bisons, moose, 
camels, llamas and pecearies. I see no other 
possible conclusion to be drawn. I have ex- 
amined the later Pleistocene deposits in Kan- 
sas in many places and have fossils of this sub- 
epoch from all parts of the state. I am confi- 
dent that the Lansing man belongs in the same 
fauna. 

Of the skull and other bones I will say little. 
I trust they may receive the attention of some , 
professional ethnologist. Much credit is due 
Mr. Long for his appreciation of the value of 
the find, and for the care and infinite patience 
with which he has restored the badly mutilated 
cranium to its present satisfactory condition. 
The cranium appears to be of normal capacity, 
dolichocephalic, the forehead receding, the 
supraorbital and especially the supraciliary 
ridges prominent. 
S. W. WILLISTON. 


Lawrence, Kansas, July 19, 1902. 


PALEONTOLOGY AT THE AMERICAN MU- 
SEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. 

Tur American Museum of Natural History 
has sent out four field parties, under the direc- 
tion of Professor Osborn, for the collection of 
fossil vertebrates. Two of these are at present 
in Montana, one under Mr. Brown exploring 
the Laramie for horned Dinosaurs, the other 
under Dr. Matthew working farther west for 
Upper Miocene mammals. A third party under 
Mr. Granger has returned to the Como district 
of Wyoming and is working two quarries in 
that rich region; the Bone Cabin quarry is 


\ 
Aveust 1, 1902. ] 


still unexhausted, and promises to yield fine 
results again this season. A fourth party is 
working in western Nebraska especially for 
fossil horses, with the aid of the William C. 
Whitney Fund; this is the region where most 
of Leidy’s classical types were found, and it is 
especially hoped to secure more material in 
order to determine the actual structure of 
these highly varied species of horses. In the 
museum the skeleton of the three-toed Anchi- 
thertwm, secured by the Whitney exploration 
party last year, has recently been placed on 
exhibition, and will shortly be described in the 
Museum Bulletin. Professor E. C. Sterling 
has donated the fore and hind limbs of Dipro- 
todon from Lake Callabona, Australia, with 
foot bones and casts sufficient to mount the 
feet of this enormous marsupial. From Mos- 
cow has been received through Mme. Pavlow 
a fine skull of the woolly rhinoceros, R. tichor- 
hinus. Professor Koken, of Tiibingen, has sent 
a series of casts of Triassic Dinosaurs. From 
Lyons, through Professor Charles Depéret, a 
beautiful series of original teeth of the genus 
Lophiodon has been received, chiefly Upper 
Eocene. Mr. Charles Knight has recently com- 
pleted restorations of the Ichthyosaurus and 
a revised restoration of Brontosaurus, as well 
as of T'ylosaurus. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 


Ir is announced that the President has des- 
ignated Col. R. M. O’Reilly to be surgeon- 
general of the army to succeed General For- 
wood, who will retire on September 7 next. 
Colonel O’ Reilly would hold the office for sey- 
en years before reaching the age limit. 


Dr. PasQuaLe Vitart has been elected presi- 
dent of the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome. 


Dr. J. G. Garson has been appointed assist- 
ant general secretary of the British Associa- 
tion, succeeding the late Mr. G. Griffith. 


WE regret to learn that Professor Virchow, 
who is now in the Hartz Mountains, is again 
confined to his bed, after having nearly recoy- 
ered from his recent accident. 


Mr. J. E. Spurr, of the U. S. Geological 
Survey, who has for a year been engaged in 


SCIENCE. 


197 


surveys for the government of Turkey, has re- 
turned to the United States. 


Mr. H. W. Turner has resigned his position 
in the U. 8. Geological Survey to engage in 
practice as an expert in San Francisco. 


Proressor ALBERT von Ko.LiKkeEr, the emi- 
nent anatomist, has retired from the chair at 
the University of Wiirzburg, which he has 
held for thirty-five years. 


Dr. Rirter von Bascu, professor of experi- 
mental pathology in the University of Vienna, 
recently celebrated the fortieth anniversary of 
his doctorate. 


Mr. Pau. pu CuHarniu is at present in Rus- 
sia collecting materials for a book on the Rus- 
sians. 

We learn from Nature that among the Brit- 
ish civil list pensions announced in a parlia- 
mentary paper are the following: Mr. W. H. 
Tludson, in recognition of the originality of 
his writings on natural history, 1501.; the Rey. 
Dr. John Kerr, F.R.S., in recognition of his 
valuable discoveries in physical science, 1001. ; 
Mrs. S. C. Jones, in recognition of the services 
rendered by her late husband, Principal John 
Viriamu Jones, to the cause of higher educa- 
tion in Wales, 751.; and Mr. H. Ling Roth in 
consideration of his services to anthropology, 
701. 


Dr. CHartes Kenpatt Apams died at Red- 
lands, Cal., on July 27. He was president of 
Cornell University from 1885 to 1892, when 
he resigned and became president of the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin. This post he held ac- 
tively until 1901, when he retired on account 
of ill health. Since then he had lived in south- 
ern California, but the University had not 
accepted his resignation, and he was still presi- 
dent when he died. He was born at Derby, 
Vt., on January 24, 1835, and was graduated 


‘from the University of Michigan in 1861. Dr. 


Adams was the author of many works on his- 
torical and educational subjects, including 
‘Monarchy and Democracy in France’ and ‘A 
Manual of Historical Literature.’ 


Mr. A. D. Hoae, who had been a botanical 
assistant to Professor Bayley Balfour in the 


University of Edinburgh, was drowned on July 


198 


first at the Gatty Marine Laboratory, St. An- 


drews. 

We learn from Nature of the death of the 
Abbé Maze, on June 17, at the age of sixty-six 
years. He had been for many years one of the 
editors of Cosmos, the French weekly scientific 
journal; his first connection with that journal 
was as meteorologist after the Franco-Prussian 
War of 1870-1, and he was for some time sec- 
retary of the French Meteorological Society. 
About twenty years ago he undertook a labori- 
ous investigation into the periodicity of rain- 
fall, which he has left uneompleted. He was 
also engaged for many years on a history of 
the thermometer, and has left in manuscript 
a large amount of information upon this sub- 
ject. 

WE regret also to record the death of Dr. 
Forster, formerly professor of ophthalmology 
in Breslau; of Dr, W. Kiesselbach, professor 
of otology in the University of Erlangen; and 
of Louis Solignae, a French electrical engi- 
neer. 

Tue American Medical Association will hold 
its next annual meeting from May 5-8, 1903. 

THE government of the Federated Malay 
States has established in Kuala Lumpur, the 
capital, a research institute which is under 
the direction of Hamilton Wright, M.D., of 
MeGill University. 

Tue new botanical laboratories of the Chel- 
sea Physic Garden, London, were opened July 
25. 

A PorTFOLIO of twenty water colors depicting 
Indian life by the late Colonel Julian Scott 
of Plainfield, N. J., has been sold to the Ameri- 
can Museum of Natural History. The pictures 
were painted from life while Colonel Scott 
was in Arizona in 1890 gathering material for 
the report on the eleventh census on the In- 
dians in the Southwest. 


Proressor J. ©. Merriam, head of the de- 
partment of paleontology at the University of 
California, returned on the 26th from explora- 
tions in the Shasta fossil beds. Mr. Vance 
C. Osmont, an assistant in geology at the Uni- 
versity, and Mr. Eustace Furlong, who were 
of Professor Merriam’s party, have remained 
on the ground to make further investigations. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 396. 


Nature, quoting the Times, states that the 
Morning, the auxiliary ship of the National 
Antarctic Expedition, sailed on July 9 for 
Lyttelton, New Zealand, en route to the Ant- 
arctic regions, where it is intended to meet the 
Discovery with supplies, and to render any 
other services which may be required. While 
the main object of the Morning is to act as 
tender to the Discovery, still she is well equip- 
ped with scientific instruments of various 
kinds, some of which have been supplied by 
the Admiralty, including survey instruments, 
a large photographic equipment, sounding 
gear, and apparatus for collecting at least the 
surface fauna of the ocean. Constant meteoro- 
logical observations will be taken, and in other 
respects as far as possible the staff on board 
the Morning will do its best to supplement the 
work of the Discovery. The captain of the 
Morning and the commander of the relief ex- 
pedition is Mr. William Colbeck, who was one 
of the staff of the Southern Cross Antarctic 
Expedition, on which he took the observations 
and drew the charts. The arrangements for 
the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 
under the leadership of Mr. W. S. Bruce, are 
making satisfactory progress. The Norwegian 
whaler Hekla, which Mr. Bruce recently pur- 
chased for the expedition, is to be renamed the 
Scotia. The ship is now being reconstructed 
on the Clyde, at Troon, by the Ailsa Ship- 
building Company, under the guidance of Mr. 
G. L. Watson, the well-known yacht designer. 
The Scotia is a barque-rigged auxiliary screw 
steamer of about 400 tons register. New deck- 
houses are being built, a larger one aft and a 
smaller one forward divided into a laboratory 
and cook’s galley. A second laboratory and 
dark room is to be fitted between decks. The 
ship is being specially fitted to carry on oceano- 
graphical research, both physical and biolog- 
ical. Two drums, each containing 6,000 fath- 
oms of cable, for trawling in the deepest parts 
of the Southern and Antarctic Oceans, are 
being taken. Mr. Bruce intends to follow the 
track of Weddell, working eastwards from the 
Falkland Islands. 


Tue London Times states that the British 
Forestry Departmental Committee recently ap- 
pointed by the President of the Board of Agri- 


Avaust 1, 1902. ] 


culture to inquire into and report as to the 
present position and future prospects of for- 
estry in Great Britain, and to consider whether 
any measures might be taken, either by the 
provision of further educational facilities or 
otherwise, for its promotion and encourage- 
ment, has held its first sitting. Mr. R. C. 
Munro-Ferguson, M.P., was in the chair; and 
the other members of the committee were also 
present—viz., Sir John Rolleston, M.P., Mr. 
E. Stafford Howard, C.B., Dr. W. Schlich, 
C.L.E., F.R.S., Lieutenant-Colonel F. Bailey, 
Professor J. R. Campbell, Mr. J. Herbert 
Lewis, M.P., Mr. George Marshall and Dr. 
W. Somerville. The following witnesses gave 
evidence: Mr. Samuel Margerison (represent- 
ing the Timber Trade Federation), Mr. Charles 
Hopton (vice-president of the Timber Trade 
Federation), Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey (Lec- 
turer in Forestry at Edinburgh University), 
the Earl of Selborne, Sr. John Ramsden, Mr. 
Andrew Slater (Osborne), Mr. W. B. Have- 
lock (Brocklesby, Lincs.), Mr. A. C. Forbes 
(Longleat, Wilts), Lord Glanusk, Mr. Donald 
Robertson (representing the Royal Scottish 
Arboricultural Society), Mr. John Davidson 
(secretary of the English Arboricultural So- 
ciety), Mr. Arthur Vernon (High Wycombe), 
Dr. W. Schlich (principal professor of For- 
estry, Coopers-hill), Mr. Dudley W. Drum- 
mond (Ferryside, South Wales), Mr. Alex- 
ander Pitcaithley (Scone, Perthshire), and Mr. 
John H. Croxford (managing director of 
Messrs. Price, Walker and Co., timber im- 
porters, Gloucester). 

Mr. Frank H. Mason, our Consul-General 
at Berlin, calls attention to the ‘Motor-Boat’ 
Exposition held at Berlin, during the pres- 
ent summer, and suggests that American 
makers are losing an opportunity where fail- 
ing to exhibit. The excuse for not doing so, 
on the part of the majority of builders, is that 
they are too busy at home. Mr. Mason re- 
joins: “This may be true, but it is a fair ques- 
tion whether neglect to utilize an opportunity 
like this will not be a repetition of the mis- 
take which the makers of fire-extinguishing 
apparatus committed, when they failed to ex- 
hibit at the special exposition of firemen’s 
appliances held here last year. The one Amer- 


SCIENCE. 


199 


ican firm which did exhibit an electric fire- 
alarm system is now putting it in for the city 
of Hanover, and has under negotiation con- 
tracts for similar installations in other Ger- 
man cities. There is abundant evidence that 
a good representative American display at the 
motor-boat exposition this year would be an 
unusually promising investment for the ex- 
hibitors. It is fully understood here that our 
country is first and foremost in all that re- 
lates to the construction and use of motor 
boats as naval auxiliaries and for pleasure and 
business purposes. It is also recognized that 
Germany—the original home of the gas en- 
gine—is so far behind in that class of water 
eraft that the field is practically unoccupied. 
So many inquiries have been received by the 
committee about probable American exhibits 
—their tonnage, cost, and other details—that 
there is evidence of a real demand, and the 
committee states that from all such indica- 
tions, American exhibitors of standard types 
of motor-boats, engines, ete., would be prac- 
tically certain not only to sell their entire 
lists of exhibits, but to take numerous orders 
for future delivery. Responsible firms here 
and at the large German seaports are eager to 
accept agencies to represent American build- 
ers, and German machinists will be on the 
watch to purchase valuable patents in that 
Obviously, all 
patented or registered and the patents applied 
for before being exhibited anywhere in Eu- 
rope. It will be many years before another 
special international exhibition and classified 
competition of motor boats will be held in this 
country, and the present opportunity once lost 
will not soon recur. The committee authorizes 
the statement that every reasonable concession 
and assistance to facilitate a representative 
American display will be gladly and promptly 
accorded. Berlin is the center and mart of a 
vast system of canals, lakes, and canalized 
rivers which could be freely navigated by 
motor boats, where few or none now exist. If 
American builders will not reach out to grasp 
an opportunity like this, the builders of other 
countries—notably Great Britain, France, and 
Belgium—certainly will.” 


class. novelties should be 


200 


Worp has been received from Mr. Alfred 

H. Brooks, geologist in charge of the work of 
exploration which the United States Geolog- 
ical Survey is conducting in Alaska, that his 
party has successfully crossed the Beluga 
River. This party recently landed in southern 
Alaska, and expects to penetrate the region in 
the vicinity of Mount McKinley as far as the 
Tanana River, whence they will proceed to 
Circle City and the Forty-mile district, if the 
season is not too far advanced, or will descend 
the Yukon River, of which the Tanana is the 
principal tributary on the south, if it is too 
late to go farther north. Much of the region 
through which they will pass is entirely un- 
known, and the Beluga River is supposed to 
be the greatest obstacle to progress. Mr. 
Brooks reports that with the aid of a boat he 
safely swam his entire outfit over this stream. 
He also reports that their first view of Mount 
McKinley was had from Mount Sushitna, a 
-distance of 125 miles. Mount McKinley is 
the highest mountain on the North American 
continent—20,464 feet above sea level—and 
lies in the midst of an extremely rugged re- 
gion which has never been explored. 

On July 1 the Bureau of Forestry began its 
field season of 1902, and its work is now being 
carried on in 20 States. The Bureau has ap- 
pointed 90 new student assistants for this sea- 
son, the entire field force numbering 165 men. 
The work includes, among other things, the 
gathering of the necessary data for several 
working plans, a study of a number of well- 
known commercial trees, the examination of 
farm woodlots, and a study of the treeless 
areas with a view of devising plans for forest 

The Bureau of Forestry begins the 
new fiscal year of 1902-1903 with an appro- 
priation of $291,860. The amount for the 
year just ended was $185,440. The present 
season’s work is being carried on in Maine, 
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, 
New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Tennessee, 
Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, 
Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, 
South Dakota, Montana, Arizona, and Cali- 
fornia. Later 
tended to still other States and Territories. 


extension. 


in the season it will be ex- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 396. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


On the occasion of the celebration of the 
centenary of the Technical Institute at Char- 
lottenburg, the sum of about $450,000 was col- 
lected by subscription. $12,000 is to be spent 
for a monument commemorating the centenary 
and the balance is to be used as a fund for 
the advancement of technical science. It is 
administered by a board of twenty-five mem- 
bers. 


Mr. Orsen V. Toustey has bequeathed $70,- 
000 to Williams College, subject to a life in- 
terest of his wife. He suggests that the money 
be used as an endowment for the purchase of 


books. 


Dr. CHartes R. Keyes, the geologist, has 
been elected president of the New Mexico 
School of Mines. 


Mr. W. A. Haminton, graduate of the In- 
diana University, has been appointed professor 
of astronomy and mathematics at Beloit Col- 
lege. 


Ir is reported that all appointments for the 
newly organized collegiate department of Clark 
University have now been made. Professors 
Story (mathematics), Webster (physics) and 
Hodge (biology), of the University, will have 
charge of the same departments in the college. 
Mr. J. G. Coffin, B.S. (Mass. Inst.), is to be 
instructor in physics; Mr. OC. W. Easley, A.M. 
(Dickinson College), instructor in chemistry; 
and F. H. Hodge, A.M. (Boston), instructor 
in mathematics. These instructors hold ap- 
pointments as fellows in Clark University for 
the coming year. Instructors in modern lan- 
guages, in English and in economics and his- 
tory have also been appointed; and, as we have 
already announced, Mr. R. C. Bentley, fellow 
in pedagogy, has been appointed professor of 
Latin and Greek and dean of the faculty. 


Proressor E. E. Bogue has been elected to 
the chair of forestry in the Michigan Agricul- 
tural College. 


At the University of Vienna Dr. Carl Gus- 
senbauer, professor of surgery, has been ap- 
pointed rector and Dr. Ernst Ludwig, professor 
of chemistry, dean. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE : 8S. NEwcomsB, Mathematics; R. S. Woopwarp, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; KR. H. THuRSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BrssEy, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. 8S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


DITCH, Physiology ; 


J. 8. Brntinas, Hygiene ; WiLLIAM H. WeEtcH, Pathol- 


ogy ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. PowELL, Anthropology. 


Fray, August 8, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science :— 


Section H, Anthropology: Hartan I. 

SMBTIRET veya nieyoey arattouney ter te aaa a nanar ats lel 201 
The North Carolina Section of the American 

Chemical Society: C. B. WILLIAMS....... 212 


Blue Fox Trapping on the Pribilof Islands: 
Water J. Lempxey, F. A. Lucas........ 216 
Scientific Books :— 
Recent Books on Hygiene: Dr. GrorcEe M. 


INTIS e Sebo S WS aT BE RHee NaS 218 
Scientific Journals and Articles............. 227 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 

So-called Species and Subspecies: HuBert 

Lyman Crark. Leland Stanford Junior 

University: PRorEssor ALrrep C. Hap- 

DON coodic og dGoou DAB bse UnOne Toner ey ace 229 
Shorter Articles :— 

Stratigraphy versus Paleontology in Nova 

Scotia: Davin Wuitre. Preliminary Stud- 

ies on the Rusts of the Asparagus and the 

Carnation: JOHN L. SHELDON............ 232 
Chemical Industry in Germany in 1901..... 237 
Scientific Notes and News)................. 238 
University and Educational News........... 240 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD- 
VANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. SECTION 
H—ANTHROPOLOGY. 

Durtine the period of the fifty-first meet- 
ing of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science at Pittsburgh, 
June 28 to July 3, 1902, there was held the 
founding meeting of the American Anthro- 
pological Association. This gave a double 
impulse for the attendance at the meeting 
of the anthropologists of the country, in- 
cluding those of Section H, and consequent- 
ly there were present at the sessions of 
Section H many of the foremost anthro- 
pologists, whose interest was sustained un- 
til the close of the session. 

Section H was organized, in the audience 
room of Bellefield Church, on Monday 
morning, June 30, immediately after the 
adjournment of the general session, and, 
with two later mentioned exceptions, held 
all of its sessions in the same place. The 
officers for the meeting were as follows: 

Vice-President, Stewart Culin. 

Secretary, Harlan I. Smith. 

Member of Council, W J McGee. 

Sectional Committee, J. Walter Fewkes, vice- 
president Section H, 1901; George Grant Mac- 
Curdy, secretary Section H, 1901; Stewart Culin,. 
vice-president Section H, 1902; Harlan I. Smith, 
secretary Section H, 1902; Franz Boas, George 


A. Dorsey, William H. Holmes. 
Member of General Committee, Walter Hough. 


During the meeting the following mem- 
bers interested in anthropology were elected: 


202 


fellows: Livingston Farrand, William C. 
Mills, Charles L. Owen, A. E. Jenks, A. H. 
Thompson, J. D. MeGuire, Frank W. 
Blackmar, William Wallace Tooker and 
William Henry Goodyear. 

The reports of the committees on the 
teaching of anthropology in America and 
on anthropometry, and the resolutions on 
the American International Archeological 
Commission, having been adopted by the 
Council, were printed in the account of the 
meeting by the general secretary (ScrENcE, 
pp. 45, 46). 


THE COMMITTEE ON THE PROTECTION AND 
PRESERVATION OF OBJECTS OF ARCH- 
EOLOGICAL INTEREST REPORTED 
PROGRESS. 


Thomas Wilson, LL.D., Curator of Pre- 
historic Anthropology in the Smithsonian 
Institution, died May 4, 1902, at the age 
of seventy. He became a member of Sec- 
tion H of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science in 1888, was made 
a fellow at the thirty-sixth meeting and was 
elected vice-president of Section H for the 
forty-eighth meeting, which was held in 
1899. 


REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE DEATH OF 
DR. THOMAS WILSON. 


The committee appointed by Section H 
of the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science to suggest action on 
the death of one of its esteemed members, 
has the honor to make the following report: 

WuHuergEas, the death of Dr. Thomas Wil- 
son, a former vice-president of the Asso- 
ciation, has deprived us of one whose pres- 
ence at our meetings has contributed much 
to their value, and has deprived prehistoric 
science of an indefatigable and earnest 
worker ; in order to express our high appre- 
ciation of his worth and labor, we recom- 
mend the following resolutions: 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 397. 


Resolved, That in the death of Dr. 
Thomas Wilson the Association has lost a 
most efficient and industrious worker in the 
field of prehistoric archeology, the example 
of whose devotion to science is worthy of 
emulation. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolu- 
tions be sent to his widow and family and 
that a second copy be placed among the 
records of the section. 

WarrREN K. MooreHEAD, 
STEWART CULIN, 
Haruan I. Smiru, 

J. WALTER F'EWKES. 

The report was adopted by the Section. 

The following resolution was presented 
by Franz Boas and adopted by the Section: 

Resolved, That it is the sense of this meet- 
ing that it is desirable to bring about the 
closest possible correlation between the 
work of Section H of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science and 
the American Anthropological Association. 

Retiring Vice-President Fewkes deliver- 
ed his address, ‘ Prehistoric Porto Rico,’ 
Monday afternoon in the Oakland church. 
It was printed in Science of July 18, 1902. 

Following is a list of the discussions and 
papers presented. Each title is aceompa- 
nied by an abstract whenever such could be 
secured from the author. 


TUESDAY, JULY 1. 


Discussion of the relations of Section H 
to the American Anthropological Associa- 
tion. 


The Human Effigy Pipe, taken from the 
Adena Mound, Ross Co., Ohio: by 
Wim C. Mis. 

This pipe is one of the most wonderful 
pieces of arttaken fromthe mounds of Ohio. 
It is tubular in form and represents the 
human body in the nude state, with the ex- 
ception of a covering around the loins. On 
the front of this covering is a serpentine 
seroll and in the back it is tied and hangs 


Avua@usT 8, 1902.] 


down as an ornament. The pipe is eight 
inches in length and made of fire-clay un- 
burned. This fire-clay can be duplicated 
in a number of places along the Scioto 
River and farther down toward the Ohio. 
The paper was illustrated by pictures of 
the pipe and a sample of the fire-clay. 

The paper was discussed by J. D. 
MeGuire, J. Walter Fewkes and Warren K. 
Moorehead. Special attention was called 
to the fact that pipes were often used 
to blow out smoke on ceremonial occasions 
rather than only for drawing in smoke for 
pleasure. 


Gravel Kame Burials in Ohio: Warren K. 

MoorEHEAD. 

This paper dealt with a class of prehis- 
toric remains found in Ohio and which 
have, up to the present, scarcely attracted 
the attention of archeologists. The author 
spent ten or twelve seasons in the explora- 
tion of Ohio mounds and other remains. 

The Kame burials, he said, are found in 
the gravel knolls of supposed glacial origin. 
These burials may or may not be older than 
the remains of the so-called ‘mound-build- 
ers’; this is a question as yet undetermined. 

The crania seem to him different from 
those of the mound interments, and he said 
that certainly some of the artifacts taken 
from the gravel burials do not have their 
counterparts in the tumuli finds. The 
skeletons are better preserved and therefore 
more sought by the anatomists. Moisture, 
by reason of the porous nature of the sandy 
soil or gravel, percolates below the bones 
and leaves them dry. It is not unusual to 
find almost every bone of the body well pre- 
served. Burials in earth mounds or in ceme- 
teries when in clay and other compact soils 
are frequently badly decayed—sometimes 
only the crown of the teeth remaining. 

Attention was called to these differences 
and comments from other archeologists were 
requested. He endeavored to prove that 


SCIENCE. 


203 


the burials in gravel knolls mark the ex- 
istence of a different tribe from that sup- 
posed to have been responsible for the 
mounds and earthworks. 


Microscopical Sections of Flint from Flint 
Ridge, Licking Co., Ohio: WimutamM C. 
Mints. 

This paper attempted to prove that the 
Flint Ridge material contains foraminifera, 
in opposition or correction of the photo- 
graphs of microscopical sections and state- 
ments of Professor Thomas Wilson in his 
‘ Arrowheads, Spearpoints and Knives of 
Prehistoric Times.’ Dr. Mills said he had 
made sections of nearly all the different va- 
rieties of flint found in this prehistoric 
quarry, and found that certain portions of 
the flint are full of foraminifera. He exhib- 
ited drawings of these various forms and il- 
lustrated other features by means of thin 
sections of flint mounted for the microscope. 


The Hernandes Shell-heap, Ormond, Flori- 
da: C. H. HircHcock. 

This paper described the shell-heap on 
the Spanish Grant. Twenty kinds of mol- 
lusea were found. Bones of the deer, two 
kinds of dogs, opossum, wolf and many of 
the porpoise, alligator and turtles, as well 
as of several fish, were also secured. Some 
implements were found, but the most im- 
portant discoveries were those of the bones 
of the great auk. One bone was first col- 
lected by Professor Blatechley. The iden- 
tity of the bone is now confirmed, so that 
the range of this bird is supposed to have 
reached as far south as Florida within the 
human period. Specimens of the bones 
were exhibited and a blackboard diagram 
was made to explain the site. ; 

The paper was discussed by O. P. Hay, 
Harlan I. Smith and J. D. McGuire. The 
latter suggested that persons of the white 
race might have taken the auk bones to 
the region during the last four hundred 
years. 


204 


The Late Dr. Thomas Wilson: WaRREN K. 

MoorEHEAD. 

This paper included some brief remarks 
upon the career of the archeologist, Dr. 
Thomas Wilson, late curator of the Depart- 
ment of Prehistoric Anthropology, Smith- 
sonian Institution. Dr. Wilson has con- 
ducted researches in both France and the 
United States, and published numerous re- 
ports and papers, notable among which are 
two, ‘The Swastika’ and ‘ A Classification 
of Spearheads, Arrowheads and Knives.’ 
Dr. Wilson was greatly interested in young 
men who desired to take up anthropology as 
their life work. He was possessed of a 
peculiarly pleasing personality. 


An Osage Mourning—War 
GerorGE A. Dorsey. 


Ceremony: 


AFTERNOON SESSION. 

This paper was discussed by Franz Boas, 
who said, among other things, practically 
as follows: In ritual we find perhaps the 
most permanent activity of primitive man. 
The explanations of similar rituals are often 
given by various tribes and found to differ 
fundamentally. Actions seem more perma- 
nent than thoughts or the psychological ex- 
planation of such aets. The study of ritual 
may solve problems the explanations of 
which we are unable to discover from the 
study of other matters. We should be 
thankful for such detailed description of 
rituals as those given by Dorsey, Fewkes, 
Voth and others, particularly regarding the 
Southwest. 

J. Walter Fewkes stated that Dr. Dor- 
sey’s paper well illustrated the advantage 
of the study of primitive religion. The 
study of ceremony as an objective element 
in religion is very important. Such studies 
accumulate matter we can not now appre- 
ciate, but ceremonies are rapidly disappear- 
ing or being modified, so that we may live 
to see the end of them and we must now 
make the records. Papers of this kind 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 397. 


should increase. We should have all de- 
tails and interpretations when possible. 
The observer has better opportunities, 
and is in many cases more competent to 
explain, than any one else. The true ex- 
planation in many eases is not known to the 


participants. The meaning is only ob- 
tained by comparative study. So it is 
necessary to record all events. The value 


of recording what every man does is im- 
portant, so we may have in print material 
for such comparison. 

A few ceremonies remain, more than 
some think, but the incorporation of for- 
eign elements is everywhere marked. The 
study of ceremony has strong and weak 
sides; strong as above stated. The weak 
side is due to the probability that ceremo- 
nies may change. Records of changes, 
therefore, should be made in order to trace 
the evolution of ceremonies. Not only 
what is done, but also what is said and the 
songs and prayers, should be recorded. 

W J McGee expressed the following 
ideas: Peoples who participate in ceremo- 
nies can seldom explain them, any more than 
a caged bird can tell why it beats its wings 
in vain effort to migrate south in the fall. 
Ceremonies are instinctive, running far 
back. The Indians who perform seldom 
realize that this is so. They hardly recog- 
nize the existence of laws governing the 
ceremonies. Through the heritage of ex- 
perience, movements take place definitely 
in accordance with law. We know that 
the points of the compass are prominent 
in the rituals of all our primitive peoples. 
We who no longer have occasion to re- 
member points of the compass find one 
of our strongest instincts is to carry orien- 
tation. It is an instinet, and typical of 
what has come up from lower stocks than 
those represented by the Indians described 
by Dr. Dorsey and others. 

The instinct differs only in so far as 
some peoples have lost some of theirs. The 


Av@ust 8, 1902.] 


fittest instincts have been preserved. Rit- 
uals are, in a way, records of partly instine- 
tive habits controlled by law stronger by 
far than the minds of the men who perform 
the ceremonies. 

Walter Hough expressed the following 
ideas: In some cases one man thinks for a 
community. The ceremonies in Hopi may 
be likened to a university education, be- 
ginning with childhood and ending at 
death. In the ceremonies the older per- 
sons teach the younger. 

Dr. Dorsey said that the more he learned 
the greater the number of ceremonies he 
found still existed. He had seen ten dis- 
tinet ceremonies in one week. 


Anthropological Museumsin Central Asia: 

G. FREDERICK WRIGHT. 

One of the agreeable surprises awaiting 
the American traveler in Siberia is the 
evidence which he sees in every center of 
population of an intelligent interest in 
archeological and anthropological investi- 
gations. Indeed, there is scarcely a town of 
ten thousand inhabitants in all Siberia but 
has a public museum, under the care of 
a learned and competent curator, in which 
special attention is devoted to these sub- 
jects. There are such museums, finely 
housed, in the young cities of Valdivostock 
and Blagovestchensk; while in the older 
enters of population the museums often 
rival anything which we have in this coun- 
try outside of Washington, New York, 
Boston and Chicago. 

One of the finest of these museums is 
that of the branch of the Imperial Geolog- 
ical Society which has been formed at Kha- 
barovsk, the capital of the Maritime Prov- 
ince, on the Amur River. The Museum of 
the Society occupies one of the largest and 
best-situated brick buildings of the city. 
Like all the museums in Siberia, it is large- 
ly devoted to matters of local interest. But 
an immense amount of both expense and 


SCIENCE. 


205 


pains has been devoted to its perfection 
and usefulness, and it is one in which all, 
both officers and people, take a just pride. 

The museum at Irkutsk is of still longer 
standing, and is enriched by the accumu- 
lations of well-nigh a century of intelli- 
gent exploration and research. The mu- 
seum building in Irkutsk is also one of the 
finest in the city. But perhaps the most in- 
teresting and important museum in Siberia 
is that of Minusinsk. Here, under the 
skillful guidance of Mr. M. Martianof, the 
principal druggist of the town, a museum 
has grown up which attracts anthropologists 
from Moscow, Copenhagen and indeed all 
parts of the world. The museum is well 
housed in a large brick building. 

Other museums of much importance are 
to be found at Krasnoyarsk, Yeniseisk, 
Tomsk, Omsk, Biisk, Tashkent and Tiflis. 
That of Tashkent is at the present time re- 
ceiving valuable additions illustrative of the 
civilization of the Greco-Bactrian king- 
dom, which followed the conquest of Alex- 
ander. The museum at Tiflis is one of the 
largest and best arranged of all in Asiatic 
Russia, and is fortunate in still having the 
benefit of the supervision of the distinguish- 
ed botanist Radde. 

All these museums are supported and 
have been mainly built up by private con- 
tributors and are the object of much pride 
on the part of the people. Taken together, 
they represent an educational factor which 
is developed much more fully in Asiatic 
Russia than it is in America, and may well 
provoke our emulation. 


Climatic Changes in Central Asia traced 
to their Probable Causes, and discussed 
with Reference to their Bearing wpon the 
Early Migrations of Mankind: G. Frep- 
ERICK WRIGHT. 

That there have been extensive climatic 
changes in Central and Western Asia in 


206 


recent times is made evident by a variety 
of considerations. 

I turn with favor to the natural explana- 
tion offered by the theory of an extensive 
subsidence of the Asiatic continent, ap- 
proximately contemporaneous with the ac- 
cumulation of ice during the glacial period 
over North America and Europe. Such a 
subsidence would produce thus in Central 
Asia an internal sea as large and deep as 
the Mediterranean. This vast body of 
water in Central Asia would add so much 
to the evaporating surface that it would 
naturally largely increase the rainfall upon 
the bordering mountains to the north. 

There are numerous indications that 
Turkestan has been one of the most impor- 
tant centers, if not the original center, from 
which the human race has radiated. Here 
the conditions of life are still extremely 
favorable, and during earlier climatic con- 
ditions were even more favorable than now. 
All Central Asia is most admirably situated 
for irrigation. All along the base of the 
Hindu Kush, the Tian Shan, the Alexan- 
drofski, the Ala-tau, and the Altai range 
there is a broad rich belt of loess, the most 
fertile soil in the world when well watered, 
and the water for its irrigation is near at 
hand. 

The conditions were preeminently favor- 
able for the early development of civiliza- 
tion. Even now the population along this 
irrigated belt is dense. But it is evidently 
far less than at a former time. Doubtless 
this is partly due to the disorganized polit- 
ical condition which has long characterized 
the region, but in no small degree it is prob- 
ably due to the diminution of the water 
supply. In driving over the country one 
finds in various places the remains of irri- 
gating ditches long since abandoned, and 
sees innumerable mounds indicating a for- 
mer population where now secareely any is 
to be found. 

In the same line it is also instructive to 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 397. 


notice the many indications of a constant 
migration from this center. By far the 
most important theory of the origin of the 
Aryan languages would fix it in Bactria, 
from which center Aryan-speaking people 
in prehistoric times migrated to India on 
the one side and to Persia and Europe upon 
the other. This too, was the probable center 
of the Mongolo-Tartar races, whose families 
radiated thence to Malaysia and China on 
the one side, to Turkey, Hungary and Fin- 
land upon the other, and, spreading out 
over the vast wastes of Siberia, across 
into America, peopled the western conti- 
nent. 

When we come to know the whole history 
of the great Tartar migrations it is likely 
that we shall find that the gradual desic- 
eation of the country through the climatic 
changes had much to do with it all. 

The paper was illustrated by a map and 
was discussed by J. Walter Fewkes, J. D. 
McGuire, Harlan I. Smith, W J McGee, 
Stewart Culin, Wiliam H. Holmes and 
others. 


Mortuary Ceremomes of the Cocopa In- 
dians: W J McGee. 

The Cocopa Indians oceupy the lower 
part of the valley of Colorado River, their 
territory extending from the International 
Boundary to the head of tides and salt 
water entering from the Gulf of California. 
Although they subsist in part by fishing 
and the chase, they are essentially agricul- 
tural. By reason of the floods of the Colo- 
rado they are driven annually from the 
bottom lands of the river to the higher 
grounds, just as were the ancient Heyp- 
tians occupying the valley of the Nile. The 
annual migrations are of great regularity, 
and have affected the habits of the tribe in 
various ways. One consequence of the en- 
forced abandonment of homes during each 
summer is an enfeebled home sense; and 
this is connected with mortuary customs,. 


Auausr 8, 1902. ] 


both directly and through an obscure my- 
thology. On the death of an adult his 
small properties are collected for distribu- 
tion among non-relatives, while the body is 
placed on a rude bier and fuel is gathered 
for cremating it. Especially if the dece- 
dent is a householder, intelligence of his 
death spreads rapidly and fellow tribesmen 
of other clans, as well as Indians of other 
tribes, and even Mexicans and Americans, 
gather and help themselves to such property 
as weapons, fishing-tackle, stored grain and 
other food supplies, fowls, horses, saddles 
and bridles, and other chattels. Meantime 
the pyre is being arranged alongside the 
house, and any remnants of the chattels (or 
all, in case claimants have not appeared) 
are placed on and about it; and about the 
end of the second day this is fired. The 
light-framed house soon catches from the 
pyre and is consumed with it, while any 
neighboring houses belonging to the family 
or clan also take fire, either naturally or by 
the help of the mourners, so that the entire 
homestead is destroyed. The 
members of the family abandon the site for- 
ever; and it is shunned for years by other 
families of the tribe. 

This paper was discussed by George A. 
Dorsey, Walter Hough and J. D. McGuire. 

The Section adjourned to Bellefield 
School for the following two papers, in 
order to avail itself of lantern facilities. 


surviving 


A Collection of Crania from Gazelle Penin- 
sula, New Pomerania: Grorce Grant 
MacCurpy. 

This is a comparative study of twenty- 
four crania belonging to individuals from 
the tribes of Gazelle New 
Pomerania. They were procured in 1894, 
through Mr. Frederick Mueller, of Amster- 
dam, by Dr. John S. Billings, then in 
charge of the U. S. Army Medical Museum. 
Their provenience is attested by Dr. J. D. 


Peninsula, 


SCIENCE. 


207 


KK. Schmeltz, Director of the National Mu- 
seu of iJthnography, Leyden. 

The collection is owned by the Free Mu- 
seum of Science and Art, University of 
Pennsylvania, the director, Mr. Stewart 
Culin, kindly forwarding it to Yale Univer- 
sity Museum for purposes of study. 

The skulls are small and all dolichoce- 
phalic. The minimum and maximum fron- 
tal diameters are small, averaging, respec- 
tively, 20.3 mm. and 25.7 mm. less than for 
English erania. The height averages great- 
er than the greatest breadth, a character 
called hypsistencephaly; the crania are 
prognathous, platyrhine, platyopic, phan- 
ozygous and megadont. Glabella and 
superciliary arches are prominent. <Aper- 
tura pyriformis is simian in character. 
Fosse canine are pronounced. The teeth 
are well preserved and not crowded. The 
wisdom teeth are lacking in none. There is 
a tendency toward a division of the root 
in the first upper premolars. The alveolar 
arch of the upper jaw projects considerably 
beyond the third molars (in one case as 
much as 12 mm.). The percentage of first 
lower premolars with anterior roots is high; 
the spina mentalis is practically wanting, 
and the angle of symphysis is large. The 
paper was illustrated by lantern pictures. 


Burials of Adena Mound: Wiaitam C. 

Minus. 

This paper discussed the difference be- 
tween the various burials of the Adena 
Mound, which was in Ross Co., Ohio. It 
was illustrated by lantern pictures. 

Adena mound was cone-shaped, 26 feet 
in height, with a circumference of 445 feet. 
The outer surface of the mound was eover- 
ed with a leaf-mold from three to seven 
inches thick. As work progressed upon the 
mound, it was discovered that it had been 
built at two different periods; the first 
period is represented by the original mound, 
which was twenty feet high, with a base 


208 


diameter of ninety feet, bemmg composed 
almost entirely of dark sand. The second 
period is represented by the enlargement 
of the mound upon all sides. However, 
on the south side the mound was only cov- 
ered with a few feet of soil, while on the 
north side the base was extended more 
than fifty feet, changimg the apex be- 
tween twelve and fifteen feet. The 
mode of burial in the first period was far 
‘different from that in the second. In the 
original mound no burials were found until 
within five feet of the base line, and all of 
the bodies were enveloped in bark or a 
coarse woven fabric and then enclosed in a 
rude sepulcher made of timbers, while in 
the second period the bodies were simply 
covered with soil; not even a trace of bark 
was found with the skeletons. However, 
the implements and ornaments of the first 
period were similar to those of the second 
period. 
WEDNESDAY, JULY 2. 

Meeting with the American Folk-Lore 

Society. 


Cooperation Between the Anthropological 
Museum and the Public School: FREDER- 
1cK HouGHTON. 

This paper touched on the importance of 
the place occupied on the school curricula 
by the natural sciences; the requirements 
and difficulties of teachers, in teaching the 
sciences in elementary schools; and the de- 
sirability from the teacher’s viewpoint of 
help, in her work, from the science museum, 
in the form of lectures for teachers and 
pupils and of exhibits for the use of 
schools. 

From a museum point of view, it spoke of 
the desirability of enlarging the useful- 
ness of the museum, in the great field open 
to it in cooperating, in the work of educa- 
tion, with the public-school system. 

The body of the paper was devoted to an 
outline of work possible for a museum to 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 397. 


do in connection with the school. This was 
commented upon, both from the viewpoint 
of the teacher and from that of the museum, 
and experiments made by the Buffalo Socie- 
ty of Natural Sciences along the lines laid 
down in the outline were described at some 
length as being illustrative of the work out- 
hned. 

This paper was favorably discussed by 
W J McGee and is to be published in full 
in the Journal of Education. 


Uses of Archeological Museums in Educa- 
tion in the Public Schools: Ler H. Suirx. 
This paper was read by title. 


Explorations of 1901 in Arizona: WALTER 

Houeu. 

This paper gave an account of one of the 
most important explorations carried on for 
the National Museum in the pueblo region 
during five months of 1901, describing 
ruins on the Apache Reserve, the White 
Mountain plateau, the petrified forest, 
southwest of Holbrook, north of MHol- 
brook and on the Hopi Reserve. The 
field selected for examination lies in east- 
ern Arizona and extends from Fort Apache 
to the Hopi Reserve, a distance of 180 
miles and east, and west of Holbrook, a dis- 
tance of about 60 miles. 

During the month of May Dr. Hough 
explored the ruins of McDonald’s Canyon 
and at the petrified forest, securing about 
1,000 specimens. On the first of June he 
took charge of the scientific work of the 
Museum-Gates Expedition which was fi- 
nanced by Mr. P. G. Gates, a man of wealth 
interested in pueblo archeology. 

Dr. Hough said that in the course of the 
season’s work of five months in 1901, sixty 
ruins were visited and eighteen of them 
excavated. Some idea of the difficulties 
encountered, aside from the 800 miles of 


~ wagon travel, may be gathered when it is 


known that five of the groups required dry 
camps, water being hauled considerable dis- 


Avaust 8, 1902.] 


tances for men and animals. The work, 
however, was quite successful, 3,000 speci- 
mens having been collected. Plans of 24 
pueblos and maps showing the location of 
the groups were drawn and ethnological 
data, specimens and photographs secured 
from the Apache, Navajo and Hopi Indi- 
ans visited during the season. This materi- 
al will be published in the ‘Annual Report 
of the U. S. National Museum’ for 1901. 
The paper was illustrated by a map and 
discussed by J. Walter Fewkes. 


The Throwing-stick of Prehistoric People 
of the Southwest: GhorRGE H. PEPPER. 
The throwing-stick as found in the South- 

west was used by a prehistoric people who 

occupied a restricted area in southeastern 

Utah and northeastern Arizona. In form 

it is similar to the Mexican atlatl and its 

nearest neighbor is from the State of Coa- 
huila of that country. 

The throwing-stick from the Southwest 
is represented by three perfect specimens, 
so far as known; these are supplemented 
by a few incomplete specimens and frag- 
ments. They are -made of a hard springy 
wood and have handles in the form of 
loops, which are made of rawhide. 

The spears or darts used with this wea- 
pon present many interesting features. 
They were of the compound form, being 
composed of a main shaft and a stone-point- 
ed fore shaft. The main shaft was made 
of wood or reed. One end presented a 
slight depression which fitted the spur of 
the throwing-stick. The other end was 
drilled to the depth of an inch to receive 
the pointed end of the fore shaft. The 
main shaft, in some instances, was feather- 
ed, but the evidence at hand is too meager 


to determine whether this was the usual . 


form or merely a variant. 

The fore shafts were generally made of 
wood, having for a point a chipped blade of 
stone. They varied in size and form, some 


SCIENCE. 


209 


being so large that it would seem that they 
might have been used as fore shafts of 
spears. These fore shafts are similar in 
form to the hafted knives used by the same 
people; the only difference is the finish of 
the handles, one being pointed, whereas the 
other is squared. i 

Of the three throwing-sticks mentioned, 
one is the property of Professor Frederick 
Starr, of the University of Chicago, the 
second is in the State Collection in Salt 
Lake City, Utah, and the third is in the 
Hyde collection, American Museum of 
Natural History, New York. In the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania there are two speci- 
mens, but one is broken and the other has 
no finger loops. 

This paper was illustrated by photo- 
graphs and discussed by Stewart Culin, J. 
Walter Fewkes and W J McGee. It will 
be published in the Bulletin of the Ameri- 
can Museum of Natural History. 


AFTERNOON SESSION. 


Meeting with the American Anthropolog- 
ical Association. 


A War Festival of the Hopi Indians: J. 

WALTER FEWKES. 

This paper discussed the room of the 
war god, preliminary assembly, meeting of 
warriors, greater and lesser festivals, the bi- 
son dance, and concluded with general re- 
marks on the festival. 


A Rare Form of Sculpture from Eastern 

Mexico: MArsHaLtL H. SAvmnie. 

This paper described a rare form of 
sculpture from the region of the Totonac- 
ans in the States of Vera Cruz and Puebla. 
Less than a dozen examples are known. 
The example in the collection of the Ameri- 
ean Museum of Natural History is notable 
for the striking resemblance of the masked 
human figures with snakes in the mouths to 
the snake dancers of the Hopi or Moqui In- 
dians of Arizona. Other examples shown 


210 


in photographs show a resemblance to the 
figures seen in the bas reliefs of Santa 
Lucia, Cozumahualpa, Guatemala. These 
sculptures are found in the same region 
where many of the stone yokes have been 
discovered, and probably have some rela- 
tionship with those enigmatical objects. 
This paper was illustrated by photo- 
eraphs and a very artistic sculpture loaned 
for the purpose by Dr. W. J. Holland, 
Director of the Carnegie Museum. It was 
discussed by J. D. McGuire, Walter Hough, 
William H. Holmes and J. Walter Fewkes. 


The Possible Origin of the Folk-Lore about 
Various Animals: H. A. SURFACE. 
This paper was read by title. 


The Place of Anthropology among the 
Sciences: W J McGee. 


Anthropological Musewms and Museum 

Economy: STEWART CULIN. 

The modern science of anthropology is at 
once the youngest and the most complex of 
the sciences—indeed, it is in large measure 
the outgrowth of all the older branches of 
definite knowledge. The keynote of astron- 
omy, the earliest of the sciences, may be 
said to be gravity, while that of chemistry, 
the next oldest science, may be defined as 
affinity ; yet since chemical relations are at 
least indirectly controlled by gravity, the 
basis of the later science is really gravity 
-Laffinity. So, too, the keynote of botany, or 
phytology, is vitality, yet this property of 
plat-matter is but superadded to the grav- 
ity and the gravity--affinity with which the 
two older sciences are concerned. In the 
realm of zoology, motility, or the power of 
self-movement, is added in turn; and in an- 
thropology, mentality, in all its bearings on 
conscious self-activity, becomes the keynote 
—yet this distinctive property is only 
added to the motility, vitality, affinity and 
gravity to which the leading older sciences 
are especially devoted. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou XVI. No. 397 


Classification and Arrangement of the Col- 
lections of an Anthropological Museum: 
Winturam H. HouMeEs. 

This paper in a more developed form is to 
be published in the ‘ Annual Report of the 

U.S. National Museum,’ for 1901. 


Methods of Collecting Anthropological Ma- 
terial: HARLAN I. Siri. 

This paper stated that there are three 
methods of collecting anthropological ma- 
terial, namely, the research method, the 
synoptic method and the casual method. 
It concluded that for economy, efficiency 
and aceuraey in diffusing knowledge, the 
synoptic method of collecting should be re- 
placed by exchange, and that the research 
method is of the highest type, furnishing all 
the material results produced by the other 
methods. 

The paper is to be published in the Wis- 
consin Archeologist, Vol. 1, No. 4, May, 
1901. 


The Preservation of Musewm Specimens: 

Water Houcu. 

It is the province of the museum worker 
to check insects as far as possible, and to 
his aid come chemistry and entomology. 
The subject is vital, not only to the mu- 
seums, but to a vast number of people. 

The wonderful advance of chemistry has 
given us a number of substances useful for 
the deterring or extermination of moths. 
Some of these are disagreeable and danger- 
ous, unsuitable for domestic use, though 
available for the Museum. 

The methods of poisoning specimens 
practiced in the National Museum suggest 
that a portion of the process may be em- 
ployed for domestic use. This may be done 
by securing an air-tight box—a packing- 
box lined with manila or grocer’s paper an- 
swers—placing the fabrics or objects there- 
in, and after pouring in gasoline lberally, 
closing the lid tightly, and leaving it for a 
day or so. It has been found that woolens, 


Avaust 8, 1902.] 


furs, ete., treated in this way will not be 
subject to the attack of moths for a long 
time, as the oily substances in the animal 
fibers on which the moths feed have been 
removed to some extent, leaving the fabric 
undesirable. Decorative objects, with 
which one does not come in immediate con- 
taet, may be brushed with a weak solution 
of corrosive sublimate in alcohol, one 
fourth ounce to the quart. 

The paper summarized the experience 
gained during the past seventeen years in 
the. treatment necessary to preserve mu- 
seum specimens from attacks of insects, 
from dampness, dust, ete. 


The Australian Natwe: J. A. Fowurr. 
This paper was illustrated by pictures 
and read by title. 


The Growth of Children: F. Boas. 
This paper was read by title on motion 
of the author. 


Charcoal Covered by Stalagmite from Put- 
in-Bay: E. li. MOsELEY. 

In Perry’s Cave charcoal in different 
layers of stalagmite shows that fires were 
built in the cave at times separated by con- 
siderable intervals. A specimen of char- 
coal, which was exhibited, has a stalagmitic 
covering about two inches thick. 


The Sandusky Engraved Slates: E. UL. 

MOSELEY. 

Two argylite pendant ornaments were 
exhibited. One was engraved with a pro- 
boscidean on one side and a coiled rattle- 
snake on the reverse. The other was en- 
eraved on each side with an Indian face. 
The circumstances of their finding were nar- 
rated. 

The aboriginal character of the engrav- 
ings was questioned. 


Exhibition of a Modern Clay Tablet from 
Michigan: Haruan I. Suir. 
A clay tablet from Michigan, and bearing 
impressions, was exhibited. The object is 


SCIENCE. 


211 


of recent manufacture and bears no resem- 
blanee to native American art. It was 
probably made and deposited, as have been 
many similar objects, for deceptive purposes 
and was exhibited in opposition to such an 
end. 


Square Occipital in the Cranwum of a Mod- 
ern Othomi Mestizo: Dr. Nicouas LEON, 
Professor of Anthropology and Ethnog- 
raphy in the Museo Nacional, Mexico. 
From among the mortuary spoils which 

now and then are exhumed from the muni- 

cipal pantheon of Tula Allende, State of Hi- 
dalgo, Mexico, and which are thrown into 

a common place called the ossuary, was tak- 

en out, a short time ago with other Othomi 

skulls, the one which is the object of the 
present communication. 

Tt has all of the characters of a mascu- 
line cranium, well defined, of about forty 
years of age, and without notable asym- 
metry.* 

An examination of the various parts of 
the face and the margins of the anterior 
apertures of the nasal fosse manifest the 
anatomical particularities of the American 
Indian race. The author was able to ac- 
quire some information respecting the in- 
dividual to whom this cranium pertained, 
and supposes it was the son of an Othomi 
Indian father of pure blood and of a 
woman descended from the whites, that is, 
it was that of a mestizo. The anatomical 
particularity of this skull is worth pointing 


* The author is now preparing a critical study 
of all the publications referring to the anthro- 
pology of Mexico, especially those given to the 
light by Mexicans. Figuring among them is the 
paper of a pseudo-anthropologist who pretends to 
obtain general laws of the biology and somatology 
of the Mexican aborigine, giving as racial char- 
acters some anomalies, badly observed and inter- 
preted, and deducing from a small number of 
osteological measurements, by manipulation, gen- 
eral laws. The title of this work is ‘ Anthro- 
pologie Mexicaine Osteologie,’ Mexico, 1900. 


212 


out; it is the geometric form of its occipital, 
which is nearly square. 

It is certain that this does not constitute 
(and less in an isolated case such as the 
present) a racial characteristic; it is pre- 
sented only as data that will aid in the 
study of the morphology of the occipital 
bone, which it is thought will supply the ex- 
planation of its anomaly. It is useless to 
expound the theory of the development of 
the occipital, for it is well known by all who 
occupy themselves with the anatomical 
sciences. 

In all of my studies I have never encoun- 
tered a similar case and it is desirable that 
this isolated datum may be utilized. For 
this reason it is brought to the attention of 
the fellows of this Association. 

This paper was illustrated by a photo- 
graph and read by title. 


Evanescent Congemtal Pigmentation in the 
Sacro-Lumbar Region: Harristr New- 
ELL WARDLE. 

The purpose of this paper was not to re- 
cord any new observation, but to call to the 
attention of American anthropologists the 
various aspects of the questions relating to 
the occurrence of well-defined pigmented 
areas, chiefly in the sacro-lumbar region 
common upon a large percentage of the 
children of certain of the darker races. 
The stigmata fade away in from two to 
eight years. Their presence has been ob- 
served sporadically over a wide geographic 
territory reaching from Greenland in the 
east to Madagasear in the west—Danish 
Greenland, Vancouver, Hawaii, Samoa, 
Korea, Japan, China, the Philippines, the 
Celebes, Java, Malay archipelago, Indo- 
China, Madagascar,—thus appearing in 
many ethnic divisions. Nevertheless they 
have been elevated to the position of a 
racial character and ealled ‘ Mongolian 
marks.’ No effort has as yet been made to 
inquire into their biological significance. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 397. 


The hypothesis is offered that these evan- 
escent congenital pigmented areas are the 
nuclei of more general pigmentation, the 
regions wherein occurs the first deposition 
of the cutaneous pigment normal to the 
darker races and peoples, and that their ap- 
parent disappearance may be explained by 
the deepening of the tint of the whole body 
surface. When it is remembered that the 
cells of the rete mucosum are derived from 
those of the dermis, the fact becomes very 
significant that the pigment of the so-called 
Mongolian marks is situated, not in deep 
epidermal cells, but in the underlying der- 
mal tissue, for it would seem to be pre- 
cisely in the latter layer that the earliest 
carbonous deposit should be expected. 

This paper was read by title. 

The newly elected officers for the Wash- 
ington meeting are: 

Vice-President, George A. Dorsey, Curator of 
Anthropology of the Field Columbian Museum, 
Chicago. 

Secretary, Roland B. Dixon, Instructor in An- 
thropology, Harvard University, Cambridge. 

Haran I. Suita, 
Secretary. 


NORTH CAROLINA SECTION OF THE 
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 

THE sixth annual meeting of the North 
Carolina Section was held on Saturday, 
May 17, 1902, at 11 a.m. in the office of 
State Chemist, Agricultural Building, 
Raleigh. 

After the transaction of some miscellan- 
eous business the following resolution was 
unanimously adopted: 

In the death of Hugh Lee Miller on 
February 5 last the North Carolina Section 
of the American Chemical Society sus- 
tained its first and deep loss of one of its 
charter members. After graduation from 
the State University in 1890, where he 
served one year as assistant in the chem- 
ical department, he acceptably filled an 
instructorship in the Agricultural and 


THE 


Avausr 8, 1902.] 


Mechanical College. His efficiency and re- 
fined character evidenced themselves in the 
affection of his students. He carried his cul- 
ture and high standard of rectitude into 
commercial work, serving as chemist and 
subsequently general manager of the Nauas- 
sa Guano Co., of Wilmington, N. C. On the 
absorption of that corporation by the Vir- 
ginia-Carolina Chemical Company he was 
promoted to the position of superintendent 
in charge of South Carolina Division. He 
was married, April 10, 1901, to Miss Pur- 
den Smith, of York, Pa. The dread disease 
phthisis deprived technical chemistry in 
the South of an able, conscientious, high- 
minded worker, and us of a much beloved 
friend. 

The officers elected for the ensuing year 
were: 

President, Chas. E. Brewer; Vice-President, G. 
S. Fraps; Secretary-Treasurer, C. B. Williams; 
Councilor, B. W. Wilgore; and EHaecutive Com- 
mittee, Chas. E. Brewer, G. 8. Fraps and C. B. 
Williams. 


The program as presented and discussed 
was as follows: 


Molecular Attraction: J. EB. Mrs. 

Assuming that the total intrinsic energy 

of a molecule is the same in the liquid as 
in the gaseous state, it is shown that the 
change in the latent heat of vaporization 
at different temperatures can be accounted 
for, to a fair approximation, on the sup- 
position that the attraction between the 
molecules varies inversely as the square of 
their distance apart. Other lines of argu- 
ment advanced to prove this assumed law 
of attraction agree well with the observa- 
tions. 

The conclusions drawn are that the mo- 
lecular attraction, like the attraction of 
gravitation, varies inversely as the distance 
apart of the molecules and does not vary 
with the temperature. Unlike gravitation, 
the attraction does not depend primarily 


SCIENCE. 


213 


upon the mass, but upon the chemical con- 
stitution of the attracting molecules. 

The paper is mathematical and not suit- 
able for abstraction. It will appear in the 
Journal of Physical Chemistry. 


Bromination of Heptane under Pressure: 

ALVIN SAWYER WHEELER. 

As the best yield of f-heptyl. bromide 
gotten by Venable was only 30 per cent. of 
the theory, an attempt was made to increase 
it by conducting the bromination under 
pressure. The reflux condenser was at- 
tached to a jar filled with solid potash to 
absorb the hydrobromie acid. To the fur- 
ther end of the jar was attached a tube 
extending 190 mm. under mercury. The 
bromine was forced into the reaction flask 
by -air pressure. The yield of f-heptyl 
bromide was not increased. However, the 
yield was increased to 36 per cent. by using 
an excess of bromine, the highér bromina- 
tion products also increasing and the un- 
changed heptane decreasing considerably. 
But this experiment was carried out at 
atmospheric pressure. 


Notes on the Occurrence of Cobalt in Wake 
County, North Carolina: S. E. Aspury. 


Action of Chloral Upon the Nitranilins: 
ALVIN SAWYER WHEELER and H. R. 
WELLER. 

The work done by Baskerville and Hib- 
ner, independently, upon the condensation 
of chloral with para-nitranilin was extend- 
ed to the ortho- and meta-nitranilins. The 
reactions are readily carried out in benzol. 
Two molecules of a nitranilin condense 
with one molecule of chloral to form a tri- 
chlormethylendi-nitrophenylamine. They 
are all beautiful crystalline substances. The 
para and ortho bodies are very stable while 
the meta is easily decomposed. By work- 
ing in the cold, additional products may be 
formed first. 


214 


The Determination of Starch in Baking 
Powders: W. M. AuLEN. 


Arsenic Pentachloride: CHAS. BASKERVILLE 
and H. H. Bennerv. 
Penta-halogen compounds of arsenic in 

which one or more chlorine atoms have 

been replaced by organic radicals are well 

Sloan (Chemical News, 46, 194) 

prepared AsI, and Marignac obtained 

AsF,. Many workers have failed to pre- 

pare AsCl,—although Sloan (Chemical 

News, 42, 180) produced a body answering 

to the formula As,Cl, stable at 15° C., hav- 

ing saturated the trichloride with chlorine 
at —23°. The authors prepared AsCl, by 
following out the same procedure at the 
temperature of solid carbon dioxide. The 
greenish-yellow liquid was stable up to 

—28° C.; readily lost chlorine with eleva- 

tion of temperature; dissolved in earbon 

disulphide and absolute ether cooled to 

— 30°, erystallizing from the latter on low- 

ering the temperature a few degrees. 


known. 


Preparation of Pure Preseodymium Com- 
pounds: CHAS. BASKERVILLE and J. W. 
TURRENTINE. 

The beautiful but tedious and time-con- 
suming method of Carl Auer, who split 
didymium into neo- and prxeseodymium, 
has been followed with alterations in detail 
by the subsequent workers, viz., von 
Scheele, Brauner, Dennis and most reecent- 
ly H. C. Jones. The method depends upon 
prolonged- fractional crystallization of a 
water solution of the double preseodymium 
ammonium nitrate acidified with nitric 
acid. This paper gives an account of a 
partial repetition of that process, some un- 
successful efforts to improve upon it, and 
finally a method giving very satisfactory 
results. 

Experiments seeking the separation by 
fusion with sodium peroxide, potassium 
disulphate; precipitation by potassium 
chromate (Muthman) and iodate (Gibbs) 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 397. 


and formaldehyde, gave negative results or 
observations were made not sufficiently en- 
couraging to warrant further pursuit. 

The final method depended upon satura- 
ting a cold concentrated citric acid solution 
with fairly pure preseodymium hydroxide, 
free from ammonia and excess of water. 
This solution when filtered and _ heated 
precipitated a beautiful green citrate, 
which is insoluble in boiling water, 
being rapidly washed by the same in a hot 
funnel until free from acid. Neodymium 
and lanthanum citrates do not act this way. 
The purity of the body was determined 
with a large Rowland grating by Dr. W. 
J. Humphreys, who made the examinations 
of the materials used by Jones. 


The Sulphur Contents of Some Vegetable 
Materials: W. A. WitHErs and G. S. 
Fraps. : 
As the average of a number of analyses, 

we find the ash of plants to contain only 
a portion of the total sulphur, as follows: 
cottonseed meal, one-sixth ; cottonseed hulls, 
one-fifth; oats, one-tenth; cowpeas, one- 
sixth; corn, one-fortieth; peanuts, one- 
third; tobacco, four-fifths. Plants contain 
much more sulphur than has generally been 
considered to be the ease. Corn and oats 
contain more sulphur (as SO.) than pot- 
ash, soda, lime or magnesia. It is probable 
that sulphur plays a greater role in plant 
nutrition than has been suspected. 


Methods of Determining Sulphur in Plants: 

G. S. Fraps. 

The paper is an account of a study of 
several methods. Evaporation with nitric 
acid and subsequent ignition with the ad- 
dition of calcium acetate seems to be the 
best method. 


Determination of Sulphuric Acid in Soils: 
C. B. Wiuutams (See Jour. Am. Chem. 
Soc., Vol. XXIV., p. 658-661). 


AUGUST 8, 1902. ] 


The Deportment of Pure Thorium and Al- 
lied Elements with Orgamc Bases: CHAS. 
BaskKERVILLE and F. H. LeMuy. 

Miss Jefferson (Doctorate Dissertation, 
University of Penn., 1901) used acid-free 
pure nitrate in her study of the effect of 
certain organic bases on thorium salts. 
This work was repeated, verified and new 
observations made, namely, in certain cases 
(phenyl-hydrazine for example) two dis- 
tinet precipitates were obtained which, 
mixed, corresponded with the results cited. 
The work was extended by the use of other 
bases, including many alkaloids. The ac- 
cepted pure thorium nitrate, sulphate. and 
oxychloride were tested side by side with 
Baskerville’s repurified _—_ tetra-chloride 
(Journ. Am. Ch. Soc., 23, 761, 1901), and 
the volatile chloride (Weisser dampf of 
Berzelius, Pog. Am., 119-155, 1863). All 
solutions were of known strength. The 
sulphate was found to be most readily pre- 
cipitated by organic bases and good quali- 
tative reactions verifying former work on 
the complexity of thorium were obtained. 


Rediscovery of a Process for Rendering 
Phosphoric Acid Available: CHas. Bas- 
KERVILLE. 

In endeavoring to secure a mechanical 
method for concentrating phosphatic peb- 
ble overlaying the Eocene mar! of the coast- 
al plain region of North Carolina (Castle 
Haynes Mines) the concentric structure of 
many of the nodules was redetermined 
(Penrose, Bull. U. 8S. Geol. Survey, 46, 71). 
A number of analyses of carefully selected 
pebbles were made and in no ease, except 
with the fossil teeth, which oceur in the 
deposit to a greater or less extent, could 
samples be had which contained less than 
fifteen or twenty per cent. each of silica 
and limestone. 

The chemical methods for increasing the 
content of phosphate were unsuccessful 
from an economic point of view. Jigged 


SCIENCE. 


215 


material could be had which contained from 
39 to 44 per cent. of tricalcium phosphate, 
so methods of fusing with substances like 
alkaline sulphates, sulphides, nitrates and 
finally carbonates were tried. The last 
was thoroughly successful, the nitrates giv- 
ing the largest percentage of citrate solu- 
ble phosphoric acid, but the expensive nit- 
rogen was driven off. Knoop (Bied. Centr., 
B. 28, 576) heated phosphates, bones, ete., 
with alkaline silicates and obtained a 99-. 
per-cent. yield of ‘available phosphorie 
acid.’ 

G. A. Liebig (U.S. Patent 241,868, 1881) 
heated the same materials with carbon and 
Wiborgh (U. S. Patent 601,089, 1898) se- 
cured the American rights for a process 
the same as the author’s, having preceded 
him by a few months. The process is of 
value in those countries where chamber 
acid is dear (Sweden) and large deposits 
similar to the North Carolina carbonaceous 
and silicious phosphates are found as re- 
cently noted in Japan. (Science, X., 900.) 
A Bath for Hot Precipitations: Cuas. Bas- 

KERVILLE. 

A spiral of block tin passes through a 
tall copper bath arranged to promote a can- 
stant flow of hot oil. The clear solution en- 
ters at the top and drops from the bottom 
precipitated into a heated filtering appara- 
tus. The suggestion was made to the au- 
thor by Dr. H. 8. Carbeth, of Cornell Uni- 
versity. Drawing shown. 


A Platinum Air Bath: CHas. BASKERVILLE. 
A drawing was shown of this bath, used 

by the designer in atomie weight work, ac- 

cording to the method of G. Kriiss. 


Black Rain in North Carolina: Cuas. Bas- 

KERVILLE and H. R. WELUER. 

‘The famous black rain,’ so-called by 
natives, fell at Louisburg, N. C. 

A sample (through the kindness of Pro- 
fessor M.S. Davis, of the Louisburg Female 
College) came into the hands of the au- 


216 
thors, who made an analysis of the water. 
No especial phenomena were noted preced- 
ing or during the precipitation ‘ except an 
unusually black cloud and a heavy down- 
pour of rain, accompanied by a darkness 
so-dense as to necessitate the use of lamps 
for half an hour.’ About sixty per cent. 
of the total residue (88 parts per million) 
was organic matter, largely soot. The 
ehlorine content (19.144 parts per mil- 
lion) showed an unusual amount of sodium 
chloride. The residue contained traces of 
several metals, as caleium, iron, manganese, 
zine and aluminum. The other constitu- 
ents indicated ordinary rain. The situa- 
tion and amount of fuel burned in the 
place, as well as the time of year, preclude 
accounting for the fluorescent black rain 
by local contamination such as observed in 
numerous cases by Augus Smith and Phip- 
son and lately by Irwin, who examined the 
snowfall in Manchester (J. 8S. C. In., 21, 
533). While it is well known that unusu- 
al impurities in rain, snow, ete., often oc- 
eur and the sourees of contamination may 
be traced great distances, no opinion is 
hazarded as to the cause of this phenome- 
non. All such incidental observations de- 
serve chronicling as did the ‘ blood rain ’ 
reported (by Passerini) to have fallen at 
Florence in March of last year (L’Orosi, 
24, 325) and the ‘dust fall’ in Europe the 
same month (reported by Hellmann and 
Meinardus). 
C. B. Wiliams, 
Secretary. 


BLUE FOX TRAPPING ON ZHE PRIBILOF 


ISLANDS. 

Science for January 26, 1900, contained 
an account of the method of trapping blue 
foxes employed on St. George Island of the 
Pribilof group and of the efforts, there 
and elsewhere, to render the blue fox 
polygamous by killing males only. Near 
the end of the article it was said ‘The out- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 397. 


come of these experiments will be awaited 
with much interest, and if by a little arti- 
ficial selection and environment a naturally 
monogamous animal ean be rendered po- 
lygamous, the supply of blue fox furs will 
be materially increased.’ 

The experiment has been continued and, 
by the courtesy of the Treasury Depart- 
ment, some of the results are here given. 
From the fact that for the last four sea- 
sons all females taken in the traps have 
been released it might naturally be ex- 
pected that there should now be a marked 
preponderance in the number of females. 
That such is not the case, however, is shown 
by the fact that during the trapping sea- 
son of 1900-1901 there were taken 614 
males and but 690 females, an excess of 
only 80 after four years of killing males 
only. <A glance at the subjoined table 
giving the results of each year’s trapping 
shows that not only has there been no 
increase in the proportion of females to 
males, but that in one year the number of 
males taken actually exceeded that of the 
females by 89. 


NUMBER OF Foxes TAKEN ON Sr. GEORGE ISLAND. 


Excess of 

Males. Females. Total. Females. 

1897, 102 324 426 222. 
1898-9, 478 389 867 —89 
1899-00, 468 487 955 19 
1900-02, 614 690 1304 76 


At first sight it might appear that there 
had been a noteworthy inerease in the 
total number of foxes, but a large portion 
of this apparent gain is due to the effort 
that has been made to ascertain the num- 
ber of foxes on St. George, and in the 
spring of 1901 trapping was earried on 
both at the ‘fox house’ and in other places 
after the close of the regular season. All 
these animals were marked and released, 
so that no fox was counted twice. That there 
has been some slight gain in the number 
of foxes seems probable, but a glance at the 


Avuaust 8, 1902.] 


table reveals the curious fact that the pro- 
portionate number of females has not in- 
creased. 

The present system of trapping on St. 
George, under which all females were 
spared, was commenced by Agent Judge 
during the season of 1897-8. In that 
season 324 females and 102 males were 
branded and released. Undoubtedly there 
were more foxes on the island during that 
time than those which had been through 
the trap, but taking the foregoing figures 
as a basis, giving an increase of only two 
pups each year for every female, to allow 
for females which did not bear young, and 
releasing one male for every four trapped, 
we should have for the succeeding years 
the following results, presuming that the 
sexes are born in equal proportions, viz., 


Year. Males. Females. 
1897-8, 102 324 
1898-9, 106 648 
1899-00, 188 1,296 
1900-01, 371 2,592 


thus showing that in four years the pro- 
portion of the sexes, in theory at least, 
ought to bear the relation to each other of 
one to seven, which it is believed is not 
sufficient to serve the purposes of breeding. 

The rate of increase estimated for each 
breeding female in the above table is ab- 
surdly small. Litters of foxes have been 
stated by the natives to have been found 
having as many as twelve or thirteen young 
ones. But even at this small rate, it will 
be seen that there should be over 2,000 
breeding females on the island at the close 
of the trapping season of 1900-01. The 
trapping last season, however, has shown 
that but 690 females were found on the is- 
land after months of trapping, and that the 
number of females was but little in excess 
of that of the males. 

The experiment of the Semidi Propagat- 
ing Company has been similar to that ob- 
tained on St. George. This company, 


SCIENCE. 217 


about fifteen years ago leased the Semidi 
Islands and, obtaining several pairs of blue: 
foxes from the Pribilof Islands, began. 
operations. The foxes have been fed and 
eared for, all the females released, and a 
certain proportion of males, at first one 
male to seven females, and, later on, a 
larger proportion. But in spite of this the 
foxes on the Semidi Islands have not in- 
creased as was anticipated, their numbers 
being far below what they theoretically 
should be. 

What becomes of the females released. 
each year, and their natural increase, is 
a question. Some, of course, die of old 
age and disease. There is a possibility, 
too, that some few are carried away on the 
ice when the latter surrounds the island, 
but as natural infirmity and ice are agents. 
which may be supposed to operate on both 
sexes alike, it will be hard to believe that 
proportionately they cause the loss of more 
females than males. It is more probable 
that the increase even at the rate mentioned 
did not occur. If not, the only explana- 
tion is that all females on the island did 
not bear young and that a considerable 
percentage of the young that were born 
did not reach maturity. 

The reason why all the young do not 
reach maturity is probably that in some 
instances the extreme young are eaten by 
the adults. There also may be present 
on the islands the same cause which re- 
sulted in .the death, in the National 
Zoological Park, where several pairs were 
deposited by the Semidi Company for ex- 
perimental purposes, of the only litter of 
blue foxes born there that attained any 
erowth whatever, namely, Uncimaria. It 
would seem that the provision, as far as 
possible, of a male consort for every breed- 
female, would in large measure provide 
against the eating of the young, if we are 
to believe that the male is instrumental in: 


218 


providing food for the female. But the 
reason why there is apparently not the 
least increase in the number of females re- 
mains to be shown. 

A different problem seems to be pre- 
sented by the conditions found on St. Paul, 
thirty miles distant from St. George. 

On St. Paul efforts were made by Mr. 
Judge last winter to localize the foxes by 
€xposing seal careasses as food in the stable 
at Northeast Point and at the watch-house 
at Half-way Point. His efforts, however, 
were not successful in bringing together 
foxes in any number sufficient to justify 
the adoption of the trapping methods used 
on St. George. The old method of trap- 
ping with steel traps, therefore, was re- 
sorted to, the killing being restricted to 
about two weeks’ actual trapping. This 
catch amounted to 153 blues and 1 white. 

The trapping on St. Paul disclosed the 
presence of about a dozen pelts of very in- 
ferior quality. Nearly all of these skins 
were taken on the reef adjacent to the vil- 
lage. This ground has always rendered 
a poor grade of skins, but this year the be- 
ihef is that those skins are poorer than 
ever before. 

‘So far no means have been arrived at 
which will assure the perpetuation of the 
species on St. Paul Island. In former 
years it was the practice to take foxes only 
on alternate years on St. Paul Island, the 
antervening year being closed to trapping. 
'The numbers - still it was 
‘thought wise during the last two seasons 
‘to ‘trap during a limited time each season, 
~proceeding on the theory that, owing to the 
fewer number of seals taken, the food sup- 
ply on the island was insufficient to provide 
-for a larger number of foxes, and that it 


decreasing, 


wwas better to trap the surplus than to 
allow it to die of starvation. 

‘The food supply on the island last win- 
ter, however, was more than was necessary 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 397. 


to support the fox herd, owing to the large 
number of dead arries cast up on its 
The careasses of these birds, Agent 
Judge states, were found in numbers un- 
eaten the following spring. This unusual 
food supply undoubtedly served to defeat 
the efforts made to localize the foxes by 
artificial feeding, and to trap them in 
house traps. It may be, if these efforts 
are continued the winter of 1901-02, that 
better results will follow, but, unless some 
improved method of fox trapping or fox 
culture is devised for St. Paul, the prae- 
tical extermination of the species on that 
island is threatened. 

Water I. LEMBKEY, 

F. A. Lucas. 


shores. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 
RECENT BOOKS ON HYGIENE. 

Principles of Sanitary Science and the Public 
Health. By Wim T. Sepewick, Ph.D. 
1st edition. New York, The Macmillan 
Company. 1902. 8mo. Pp. 368. Price, 
$3.00. 

Water Supply (considered principally from a 
sanitary standpoint). By Wituam P. 
Mason. 3d edition. New York, John 
Wiley & Sons. Pp. 448. 

Bacteriological Examination of Water. By 
W. H. Horrocks, M.B.B.Se., London, Assist- 
ant Professor of Military Hygiene in the 
Army Medical School, Netley. London, J. 
& A. Churchill; Philadelphia, P. Blakis- 
ton’s Son & Co. 1901. Pp. 300. 

Municipal Engineering and Sanitation. By M. 
M. Baxer, Ph.B., C.E., Associate Editor of 


Engineering News. 1st edition. New 
York, The Maemillan Company. 1902. 
The Citizen’s Library. 12mo. Pp. 318. 


Price, $1.25. 

Sewage and the Bacterial Purification of Sew- 
age. By Samurnt Ripgan, D.Se. (London). 
New York, John Wiley & Sons. 1901. 8vo. 
Pp. 316. Price, $3.50. 

Whatever Professor Sedgwick may write 
will always be read with pleasure and profit, 


Avu@ust 8, 1902. ] 


and his recent volume on the ‘Principles of 
Sanitary Science and Public Health,’ with 
special reference to the causation and preven- 
tion of infectious diseases, will be received 
with intense satisfaction by students of this 
subject. He has been the biologist to the 
State Board of Health of Massachusetts 
and also professor of sanitary science and 
the public health in the Massachusetts In- 
stitute of Technology for a number of years, 
and his opinions are, therefore, entitled to 
great weight. His work is as clear and ac- 
curate as his lectures, and it is well for man- 
kind that his teachings are now accessible to 
a larger number of students, especially as we 
thoroughly endorse his quotation from Lord 
Derby that ‘sanitary instruction is even more 
important than sanitary legislation.’ The 
work is divided in three parts. Part I. deals 
with ‘Health and Disease’; Chapter 1, on 
health, old age and disease—a classification of 
diseases according to their place of origin; 
Chapter 2, on the causes of disease, ancient 
and modern theories; the zymotic or germ 
theory of infectious disease; Chapter 3, on 
the rise and influence of bacteriology; trans- 
formation of the zymotic into the zymotoxic 
theory of infectious disease; and Chapter 4, 
on the sanitary aspects of the struggle for 
existence; parasitism, health and disease in 
terms of general biology, vital resistance, sus- 
ceptibility and immunity. These chapters are 
written in a masterly style and are pregnant 
with facts clearly and concisely presented. We 
are pleased that among the theories of the 
eighteenth century regarding the causes of dis- 
ease, Hahnemann’s pretensions receive atten- 
tion in a quotation from the ‘Encyclopedia 
Britannica,’ 9th edition, Vol. XII., pp. 126- 
129: “Wahnemann taught that disease is to 
be regarded as consisting especially of the 
symptoms of it as experienced and expressed 
by the patient or as detected by the physician; 
in other words that the chief symptoms or 
the ‘totality of the symptoms’ constitute the 
disease, and that disease is in no case caused 
by any material substance, but is only and al- 
ways a peculiar, virtual, dynamic derange- 
ment of the health. “ Diseases (introduction 
to the ‘Organon,’ p. 17) will not cease to be 


SCIENCE. 


219 


spiritual dynamic derangements of our spirit- 
ual vital principle.” In all countries the doc- 
trine of homeopathy is still without broad sci- 
entifie recognition. * * * 


Modern medicine is 
doing some of its best work in showing the ma- 
terial and the visible character of the causes 
of many of the commonest diseases and sug- 
gests this in many cases where it has not 
yet been demonstrated. The cause of many 
diseases is shown to be a living germ, or par- 
ticle, which can be discerned under the micro- 
scope, can be carried on a lancet or in a tube 
and inserted under the skin so as to produce 
its peculiar disease. * * * The causes of 
other diseases are often not merely visible 
under the microscope, but coarsely visible. 
* * * The lead which paralyzes the painter’s 
wrist is not a ‘spiritual’ thing. It is an ac- 
cumulation of matter in the wrong place and 
enters his body in palpable quantities, and, 
what is more, can be recovered in similar 
quantities from his body. So with uric acid 
or its salts in the blood of a person who has 
inherited his father’s gout, and perhaps his 
port wine. It is not a ‘spiritual’ affair at 
all, but can be demonstrated chemically and 
under the microscope. The itch to whose 
mysterious workings Hahnemann attributed 
two thirds of the internal diseases of the body, 
including mania, cancer, gout, ete., is easily 
demonstrated to be dependent on an ugly crab- 
like insect, which can be destroyed in a few 
hours with sulphur, when there is an end both 
of it and of the itch.” In spite of the rotten 
foundation of Hahnemann’s teachings, a 
monument has been erected to him which oc- 
cupies one of the most conspicuous sites in 
the national capital. 

We like our author’s paragraph wherein he 
says: “If diseases due to defects or flaws in 
the vital machinery are to be avoided, this is 
obviously to be done only by improving and 
perfecting the apparatus, which is a compara- 
tively slow and difficult matter. To make a 
family of weak constitution strong is to re- 
constitute its entire physical basis, and if this 
can be done at all, it may be only after genera- 
tions shall have come and gone. It must be 
done by careful living and good feeding, 
wise intermarriage and severe natural selec- 


220 


tion. Sanitation alone cannot hope to effect 
these changes. Diseases which arise from 
some invasion of the organism may possibly 
be warded off. As they virtually proceed from 
the environment which, in theory at least, is 
under our control, they may be prevented. 
With such diseases the sanitary science of to- 
day is chiefly concerned. 

“Sanitation has stamped out smallpox in 
many civilized communities. It is seeking 
to-day with more or less success to do away 
with typhoid fever. It boldly attacks epidem- 
ics of diphtheria and scarlet fever and has 
recently sought to control tuberculosis and 
malaria. There can be no question that it 
has already won signal victories, and that its 
practitioners may reasonably hope for fresh 
laurels in the near future.” 

As a matter of fact the achievements of 
sanitation have been modestly stated, when 
we consider that the mortality from typhoid 
fever, diarrheal diseases and consumption has 
been reduced during the fifty years fully one 
half, and that the reduction in the mortality 
from croup and diphtheria in the United 
States during the past ten years alone amounts 
to over 52 per cent. Indeed when the methods 
of prevention recommended by sanitarians are 
generally adopted many of these diseases will 
be reduced to a minimum and probably eradi- 
cated in the course of a few years. So, for 
example, in December, 1900, the propagation 
of yellow fever by mosquitoes was discovered 
by Surgeon Walter Reed and his colaborers 
of the United States Army, and the practical 
value of this discovery, which in point of im- 
portance ranks only second with Jenner’s dis- 
covery of vaccination, has been proved by 
the complete eradication of this scourge from 
Havana. We learn from Surgeon W. GC. 
Gorgas, Chief Sanitary Officer of Havana, that 
in 1900, though the general sanitary condition 
had immensely improved, yellow fever was 
still present, amounting to 1,400 cases with 
800 deaths, and he felt discouraged at the little 
progress made. After Reed demonstrated that 
the mosquito can be infected only during the 
first three days of the disease and that there 
is a period of from twelve to fifteen days 
when the bite of the stegomya can convey the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. XVI. No. 397. 


disease, Dr. Gorgas, in February, 1901, re- 
organized the sanitary department and turned 
its attention to the local conditions and their 
relation to the spread and development of the 
mosquito. The rain barrels, the family cis- 
tern, all breeding the stegomya, the Chinese 
gardens from which came anopheles, were 
studied and 150 men ‘were put to work to de- 
stroy the breeding places by drainage and the 
addition of kerosene oil to the stagnant water, 
and the mosquitoes themselves were killed by 
fumigation and pyrethrum powder. In Jan- 
uary, 1901, the city was free from yellow fever, 
in July the suburbs received a certain amount 
of reinfection, but on September 28, 1901, the 
last case of yellow fever occurred. Since that 
time the land has been practically free, since 
Havana has been the center of infection. Dr. 
Gorgas has shown what organized scientific 
efforts can accomplish in the eradication of 
disease germs and their carriers, and it is to 
be hoped that the present government will 
maintain the same vigilance and radical pre- 
cautions. There can be no half-way measures. 
The sanitary history of Havana is one of the 
most brilliant chapters in American sanita- 
tion and augurs well for the twentieth cen- 
tury. What has the Government done to re- 
ward the labors of Reed, Carroll, Agramento 
and Lazear? or for that brave young soldier 
Kissinger, from Ohio, who, on December 5, 
1900, was the first to volunteer to be bitten 
by infected mosquitoes, with the only proviso 
that he should receive no pecuniary reward, 
but as he expressed it ‘solely in the interest of 
humanity and the cause of science.’ Such ex- 
hibition of moral courage as well expressed 
by Doctor Reed has never been surpassed in 
the annals of the Army of the United States, 
and, we will add, could never have been in- 
spired except by a man of Dr. Reed’s stamp. 
Part II. of Professor Sedgwick’s work deals 
with infection and contagion, their dissemina- 
tion and control and fundamental problems 
of public sanitation, and contains ten chap- 
ters. His selections on man and other ani- 
mals and their excreta, as sources and prime 
movers of infection, on dirt and disease and 
the philosophy of cleanness are presented in 
an original and effective manner, as are also 


AveusT 8, 1902.] 


chapters on sewage and water supplies and ice. 
He very properly emphasizes the important 
services rendered by the State Board of Health 
of Massachusetts in solving some of the prob- 
lems involved in the purification of sewage 
by land treatment or intermittent filtration, 
and the purification of water by slow sand 
filtration. His description of the latter pro- 
cess is very simple and clear, and while the 
process is nearly, if not exactly, the same as 
in the purifying of surface waters which pass 
through earth and become ground waters, we 
believe that properly constructed filter beds 
are an improvement on nature as there will 
be no geological flaws which permit the pas- 
sage of disease germs. We cannot subscribe 
entirely to the author’s views expressed on p. 
239, regarding artificial processes of purifica- 
tion of water supplies, especially the process 
known in America as mechanical filtration, 
and especially his paragraph on page 240 re- 
lating to the hygienic efficiency of rapid me- 
chanical filters. The importance of the sub- 
ject demands a full presentation of the com- 
parative efficiency of the natural, or slow, and 
the rapid mechanical filters. Perhaps the 
most recent and exhaustive discussion of this 
subject will be found in Senate Document 
1901, ‘Purification of Washington water sup- 
ply,’ edited and compiled by Charles Moore, 
Clerk of the Senate Committee on the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. On page 195, a Commit- 
tee of the Medical Society states that the most 
important aspect from which the two methods 
of filtration shall be compared is in their rela- 
tion to public health and more particularly 
in relation to what they have accomplished in 
the reduction of typhoid fever mortality in 
cities where they have been employed. Viewed 
from this standpoint, it appears that the me- 
chanical filters, as first pointed out by Mr. 
Hill, have accomplished relatively very little 
in the reduction of typhoid fever -death rates. 
In a subjoined table five American cities using 
the mechanical devices are compared with five 
cities in Europe using water from sand filters, 
with an average for the year 1895 for the 
American cities of 46.8 typhoid fever deaths 
per 100,000 of the population against 6 deaths 
per 100,000 for the foreign cities; that is to 


SCIENCE. 


221 


say, the American rate was almost eight times 
as great as the foreign rate. Lest this com- 
parison between foreign and domestic cities 
be considered unfair, another table was pre- 
sented showing the average number of deaths 
from typhoid fever in several American cities 
before and after filtration. This table shows 
that while sand filters accomplish a reduction 
of 78.5 per cent. in the number of deaths from 
typhoid fever, the establishment and use of 
mechanical filters have coincided with an in- 
crease of 20.48 per cent., and even if the sta- 
tistics from Elmira, Lexington and Newcastle, 
where an increase was noted, are eliminated, 
the reduction of typhoid fever in consequence 
of mechanical filtration amounts to only 26 
per cent., as compared with 78.5 by the process 
of slow sand filtration. We believe that even 
the more recent experiments at Pittsburgh 
quoted by Sedgwick and Mason as indicative 
of hygienic efficiency of the mechanical filters, 
show the inferiority of this system as com- 
pared with the sand filter. 


EXPERIENCE OF SIX MONTHS AT PITTSBURGH, PA. 


ll 


ae i S38 | ame aS 
aseo | &a3 | 22853 
S358) #55 | e8oie 
e.ce | $58 |2e5k= 
Ba 0 | 38 ESoun 
a a 5 
Jewell filter ........... | 11,531 | 97.45 | 294 
Warren filter... «| 11,531 98.26 200 
Sand filter............0+- 11,531 | 99.09 | 105 


If typhoid germs are proportioned to the 
colonies of bacteria found in the effluent of a 
filter, can any one deny that the prevalence 
of typhoid fever among the users of each of 
the three waters as deduced from the above 
figures would be in the proportions of 105, 
200 and 294, or nearly 1, 2 and 3, the advan- 
tage being in favor of slow sand filtration? 
From the testimony at hand there appears to 
be no doubt that sand filtration has given bet- 
ter results than mechanical filtration; the 
former has been in use since 1839, and is an 
imitation of nature, whose processes are gen- 
erally simplicity and perfection, while the lat- 
ter requires mechanical devices and is still 
an experiment from the hygienic standpoint, 
that is, as bearing on the prevalence of ty- 


222 


a 


phoid fever, and requires, moreover, the addi- 
tion of alum. It is the alum, not the filtra- 
tion, which is actively concerned in the re- 
moval of the bacteria. If enough alum is 
added the effluent is clear and gives satisfac- 
tory results on bacteriological examination. 
If an insufficient quantity is added the effluent 
may be turbid and charged with bacteria. If 
too much is added or more than can be decom- 
posed by the carbonates present, alum will 
remain in solution in the effluent as a most 
undesirable accidental constituent; and finally, 
the life of an English sand filter is practically 
unlimited, while that of the mechanical type is 
as yet undetermined. In view of all these facts, 
the writer finds no difficulty in unhesitatingly 
declaring in favor of the natural methodof sand 
filtration, especially as the superiority of this 
method in the suppression of typhoid fever 
may be accepted as acknowledged even by the 
advocates of the mechanical process. 
Professor Sedgwick’s chapter on ice as a 
vehicle of infectious disease, the ice supply 
and the public health, on p. 251, is especially 
interesting; the more important facts are 
summarized as follows: “(1) While it is true 
that some individual bacteria survive exposure 
to freezing and even very low temperatures, 
such conditions are highly unfavorable to bac- 
teria in general, even of the same kind, es- 
pecially if the exposure be prolonged. Water 
does certainly tend to purify itself, and under 
ordinary and favorable circumstances does 
actually and extensively purify itself during 
freezing. On the other hand, such purifica- 
tion, while great, is usually incomplete. (2) 
Out of a number of individual bacteria of 
any kind subjected to freezing, a large propor- 
tion usually perish, especially if they continue 
to be exposed to the low temperature for two 
or three weeks, but a small proportion survive. 
(3) There is good reason to believe that the 
efficiency of the survivors and their virulence 
are weakened both by their loss of numbers 
and by freezing or by long exposure to low 
temperatures. These facts taken together 
with those already mentioned above enable us 
to explain all or nearly all the phenomena in 
question. They also enable us to draw im- 
portant conclusions concerning the dangers 


SCIENCE. 


[N.s. Vou. XVI.- No. 397. 


of the pollution of ice and concerning ice sup- 
ply and the public health.” 

In the next paragraph he says: “ Although 
from what has now been said it is clear that 
there is much truth in the popular opinion 
that water purifies itself in freezing; it is 
equally plain that too much reliance must not 
be placed upon this process. Ice should be 
made only from good raw materials, 2. e., from 
waters which are pure and potable, and this 
is doubly true if ‘artificial’ rather than ‘nat- 
ural’ ice is to be used for public or private 
supplies.” In view of these difficulties the 
writer has urged upon his students for years 
the dangers of mingling of melted or cracked 
ice with food and drink, for apart from the 
possibility of infected ice he is convinced 
that many of the digestive derangements so 
common in this country are induced by the 
low temperatures of food and drink. A tem- 
perature of between 50° and 60° F. is suffi- 
ciently low to be refreshing, and for this pur- 
pose he reeommends that the bottles contain- 
ing the filtered or boiled water and other 
articles of food be set on ice or placed in a 
cold storage.” 

Chapter XI., on milk as a vehicle of infec- 
tious disease, is also extremely valuable and 
must be read to be thoroughly appreciated. 
‘he importance of this article of food in rela- 
tion to public health has been thoroughly 
studied; the present writer continued the 
investigations made by Mr. Ernest Hart in 
1881 and presented his conclusions, based 
upon the tabulated histories of 330 outbreaks 
of infectious diseases spread through the milk 
supply, before the International Medical Con- 
gress at Paris in 1900; these outbreaks consist 
of 195 epidemics of typhoid fever, 99 epi- 
demics of scarlet fever and 36 epidemics. of 
diphtheria. On page 284 the author says: 
“One of the most startling discoveries re- 
cently made «in regard to infectious materials 
in milk is that of Dr. Stokes and an asso- 
ciate, of Baltimore, who investigated a curi- 
ous creamy yellowish layer of a slightly sus- 
picious appearance upon milk derived from a 
dairy tributary to that city. They found that 
the yellow layer was largely composed of pus 
and finally traced its origin to a herd affected 


AuGustT 8, 1902. ] 


with garget.” The writer in his article on 
morhific and infectious milk, Report of Health 
Officer of the District of Columbia, 1895, re- 
ferred to Professor Brown’s observation pub- 
lished in the Transactions of the Epidem. 
Society of London, Vol. VIII., 1888-1889, p. 
34, who, in speaking of a communicable udder 
disease of the cow, said: ‘‘Whatever the dis- 
ease really might be, it was at least certain 
that the milk of cows suffering from it was 
contaminated with pus and other morbid prod- 
uets which might very well be responsible for 
human disease. * * * The condition of the 
milk can be judged best from the remark of 
a dairy boy, who said: ‘They could not drink 
the milk themselves and had sent it to London, 
but they hoped the poor people there would 
not suffer.’” Indeed, D. J. Fagan described, 
in the British Medical Journal, Vol. I1., 1869, 
p. 489, a case of pseudo-membranous stomati- 
tis produced by the milk of a cow with inflamed 
udder, and after, Guillebeau, Adametz, Mace 
and Hueppe found several pus-producing or- 
ganisms in the milk of cows suffering from 
garget, the writer in the paper already referred 
to felt warranted in declaring that in all the 
epidemics 
which were traced to milk from cows sutter- 
ing with some inflammatory lesions of the 
udder, we have typical instances of a strepto- 
coceus and staphylococcus infection, and Grey 
Edwards, in August, 1897, published cases of 
follicular tonsilitis in which these organisms 
were not only found in the suspected milk 
and in the milk of a certain animal, but also 
in the culture from the throat. We quite 
agree with the author that the outlook for im- 
proved milk supplies, in consequence of whole- 
some agitation and public demand, is very 
encouraging. 

Chapter XII. on certain uncooked foods, 
meats, oysters, fruits, vegetables, etc., as ve- 
hicles of infectious disease and the sanitary 
significance of cooking is likewise of great 
importance, as are the chapters on the pre- 
vention and inhibition of infection and dis- 
infection, and disinfectants. 

Part III. deals with some popular beliefs as 
to certain special and peculiar causes of dis- 
ease, and ‘dwells briefly upon some of the 


SCIENCE. 


of scarlet fever and diphtheria’ 


223 


more widespread of the fallacious notions or 
half-truths of sanitary science, and defines ex- 
plicitly the present attitude of the best opin- 
jons of the time in regard to certain subjects 
relating to the public health commonly mis- 
understood or misinterpreted.’ Among the 
topies discussed are the belief in dangers from 
sewer gas, which he regards as very much ex- 
aggerated, though he freely grants the possi- 
ble efficiency of sewer gas as a general poison 
and depressant. The writer, however, disap- 
proves of the presentation of the subject mat- 
ter in relation to wells, even at the risk of 
being classed among the pseudo-sanitarians; 
he feels disposed to regard most wells with 
grave suspicion, for the simple reason that 
family wells and privies are, alas, too often 
dangerous This 
novel point of view has been forced upon us 
by the numerous outbreaks of typhoid fever 
spread through polluted wells. We also know 
that typhoid fever is far more common in the 
country than in cities, and as a result of a 
general introduction of a common supply in 
the country towns of Massachusetts in place 
of that derived from individual wells, a very 
decided decline in ‘typhoid fever has been 
noticed. 

Again, the typhoid fever death rate at Mu- 
nich at a time when that city was riddled with 


neighbors. comparatively 


cesspools and wells, was 210 per 100,000 of 
population; with the introduction of sewers 
and a pure water supply, the rate has fallen 
to 3 per 100,000. 

Professor Sedgwick evidently has the ut- 
most confidence in the filtering powers of the 
earth, and deems it very unlikely that disease 
germs survive in or pass even a few feet 
through soil beyond a leaky cesspool. We 
fully agree with him that the dangers of in- 
fection from the top of the well have not 
been sufficiently emphasized; on the other 
hand, Drs. Abba, Orlandi and Rondelli, who 
experimented on the filtration capacity of the 
soil about the filter galleries of the Turin 
water supply, found that cultures of Micro- 
coccus prodigiosus poured with large volumes 
of liquid into the ground at various points 
made their appearance 200 meters away in 42 


224 
hours, and 27.5 meters away in 7 
showing what we started out to say, that the 
soil cannot be depended upon to hold back all 
the organisms from wells, and certainly not 
when in dangerous proximity to barnyards 
and privies; moreover, the above typhoid fe- 
ver statistics appear to fully warrant this con- 
clusion. As regards the belief in dangers 
from damp cellars, the writer is of the opin- 
ion that this fear on the part of the more in- 
telligent of the human race is well founded. 
Damp cellars usually mean damp walls and 
dampness of the air of the house; this not only 
leads to undue abstraction of animal heat and 
lowers the vitality of the inmates, but also 
influences the cutaneous functions and favors 
the development of catarrhal and rheumatic 
affections, and a bronchial catarrh thus pro- 
duced renders the mucosa vulnerable to the 
invasion of tubercle bacillus. This would ap- 
pear to explain the undue prevalence of con- 
sumption in some of the damp prisons, the 
relation between dampness of soils and con- 
sumption, as first pointed out by Bowditch 
and Buchanan, and the good effects of drain- 
age in the reduction of consumption. In spite 
of these differences of opinion, we predict that 
Professor Sedgwick’s hope that his book may 
find a useful place in sanitary education, both 
professional and popular, will be fully realized. 
Professor Mason’s book on ‘Water Supply’ 
has reached the third edition since 1896, and 
is well and favorably known. The book is 
divided into eleven chapters, dealing with the 
history of water supplies, drinking water and 
disease, artificial purification of water, nat- 
ural purification of water, rain, ice and snow, 
river and stream water, stored water, ground 
water, deep-seated water, quantity of per cap- 
ita daily supply, action of water upon metals. 
The appendix deals with analysis of city water 
supplies, typhoid fever death rates for Amer- 
ican and European cities, effects of contami- 
nated water upon fish, use of sea water for 
street washing, sewer flushing, ete. It is an 
excellent work from a sanitary standpoint, 
and will continue to enjoy its present pop- 


hours ;* 


* Zeitschrift f. Hyg., Vol. XX., p. 66; see also 
Professor Pfuhl’s experiments in the same jour- 
nal for 1897, p. 549. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 397. 


ularity. The chapters on the ‘chemical and 
bacteriological examination of water’ have 
been omitted from the present edition, as they 
have been published in a separate book for the 
more convenient use of students. 

Professor Horrock’s book, an introduction 
to the bacteriological examination of water, 
will be a welcome addition to the working li- 
brary of the sanitarian. While assuming a 
knowledge of elementary bacteriology, the au- 
thor in Chapter I. gives directions for the col- 
lection of samples, followed in Chapter II. 
by the method pursued in qualitative bacte- 
riological analyses and the preparation of 
water plates. The next chapter deals with 
multiplication of the water microorganisms, 
the influence of light, rest and movement, sed- 
imentation, chemical conditions upon the du- 
ration of bacterial life, and the action of 
electricity on bacteria. Chapter IV. considers 
the bacterial contents of snow, ice, hail and 
rain, and of waters from rivers, lakes, wells 
and springs. We quite agree with him and 
Mace that the number of microorganisms 
present does not give any accurate informa- 
tion as to the value of a water, for it is after 
all the character of the germs which concerns 
us most, at the same time Mace suggests the 
following classification, based upon a long se- 


ries of examinations: 
Microorganisms per ¢.c- 


Very good water contains from O= 50 
Good ‘§ ef is 50— 500 
Mediocre se ef fs 500— 3,000 
Bad oe $f ** -3,000— 10,000 
Very bad “ re “10,000-100,000 


Chapter V. contains a very satisfactory 
presentation of the action of sand filters in 
the elimination of bacteria, which he consid- 
ers, like most authors, as partly mechanical 
and partly vital. 

Chapters VI. to XV. are devoted to the 
qualitative bacteriological analyses of water 
and constitute the most valuable part of the 
book to the student. Chapter XV. describes 
the mode of action and utility of the Pasteur, 
Chamberland and Berkefeld filters and the 
methods of testing water filters, and the final 
chapter gives a summary of the procedure rec- 
ommended for the bacteriological examination 
of water and preparation of nutrient media. 


August 8, 1902. ] 


Mr. Baker’s book on ‘Municipal Engineer- 
ing and Sanitation’ is one of the series of the 
- Citizen’s Library published by the Macmil- 
lan Company, and is ‘intended for that 
large and rapidly growing class of persons 
who, either as officials or as citizens, are striv- 
ing to improve municipal conditions.’ For 
this purpose the book cannot be too highly rec- 
ommended, and if generally read cannot fail 
to exereise a powerful influence for good in 
sanitation, as it will stimulate an interest and 
educate the public in the various and impor- 
tant questions of municipal hygiene. The 
book is divided into five parts with 43 chap- 
ters. Part I. deals with the city and its 
needs, ways and means of communication, in- 
eluding streets, pavements and sidewalks, sub- 
ways, grade crossings, urban and interurban 
transportation, bridges, docks, telegraph, tele- 
phone and messenger service. 

Part IL. treats of water supplies, water puri- 
fication, water consumption and waste, pure 
ice, milk, markets and slaughter houses, mu- 
nicipal office buildings, light, heat and power. 
Part III. contains chapters on sewerage and 
drainage, sewage disposal, street cleaning, col- 
lection and disposal of refuse, cemeteries and 
erematories. - 

We like the text and the whole tone of the 
book; here is a sample: “One reason for the 
unsatisfactory state of garbage disposal in 
the United States is the failure to recognize 
that the problem is a technical one, demand- 
ing a high grade of engineering knowledge for 
its solution. Most cities intrust the study of 
the garbage question to some council or com- 
mittee possessed with no previous knowledge 
of the subject and with no training which fits 
its members to gather and weigh information. 
Such committees generally take a more or less 
extended tour of inspection of garbage plants 
in other cities, where they are very likely to 
be met by commercial agents of the various 
systems in use; the outcome often is that the 
agent who can make the most favorable im- 
pression on the committee, by talk, wine and 
theaters, has the pleasure and possible profit 
of having his system adopted. Rightly con- 
ducted these trips may prove instructive and 
valuable, but, hurried and superficial as they 


SCIENCE. 


225 


usually are, they are likely to give false im- 
pressions. They should always be supple- 
mented by competent engineering advice. The 
latter might be obtained in the first instance 
with less expense and more certainty of sound 
conclusions than is likely to be the result of 
an investigating trip by three to ten laymen.” 

Part IV. deals with protection of life, 
health and property, and contains chapters on 
fire protection, building and plumbing regu- 
lations, electrolysis of underground pipes, 
smoke abatement, suppression of noises, dis- 
infection, prevention of water pollution, pub- 
lic baths and wash houses, public lavatories 
and water-closets, municipal dwellings and 
lodging houses, municipal parks, playgrounds 
and gymnasiums. These chapters are of 
special interest to the general reader. We 
are told by the author that the cities of Eu- 
rope and Japan are far in advance of Amer- 
ican municipalities in the provision which 
they have made for public baths. The city 
of Tokio is said to contain one thousand such 
establishments. 

In the United States at the close of 1900 
not more than a dozen cities had provided 
themselves with all-the-year-round baths. It 
is sometimes urged that in this country there 
is much less need of public baths than abroad 
on account of the greater prevalence of bath 
rooms in private homes, and in connection 
with philanthropic organizations, but the fal- 
lacy.of this argument is apparent by the sta- 
tistics collected by the United States Depart- 
ment of Labor, which show the percentages of 
the families in four of our largest cities who 
had no bath rooms, Baltimore 98 per cent., 
Chicago 97 per cent., New York 97 per cent., 
Philadelphia, 83 per cent. A similar plea is 
made for public lavatories and water-closets, 
which are lamentably deficient in American 
cities, and often compel recourse to saloons. 
The chapter on municipal dwellings and lodg- 
ing houses contains food for reflection. The 
author says: “An exhibit in the year 1900 by 
the Tenement House Committee of the New 
York Charity Organization Society made ap- 
parent the fact that there is no place in the 
world where the decent poor have so poor a 
chance to live decently as in New York. 


226 


Other American cities are also afflicted ,with 
overcrowding. More yet are cursed with 
dwellings that are unsanitary in other re- 
spects. It is well known that the death rate 
in all such buildings, poorly ventilated, with 
deficient water supply and defective plumb- 
ing, is abnormally high. The death rate is 
but a partial index of the harm done by over- 
crowding, for the results are moral as well as 
physical and there is no death like the death 
of virtue. Where large fractions of the popu- 
lation are packed together under such condi- 
tions that personal cleanliness, modesty and 
decency, and even sexual morality, are prac- 
tically impossible, the problem is one whose 
speedy solution demands the attention of the 
moralist and the philanthropist, as well as the 
sanitarian.” The author makes a strong plea 
for model tenements at reasonable rentals, and 
Chapter XX XII. sets forth the necessities and 
advantages of municipal parks, playgrounds 
and gymnasiums, all of which will find a sym- 
pathetic response in the hearts and minds of 
those who have the welfare of the human race 
at heart. Part V. deals with administration, 
finance and public policy, including city char- 
ters, municipal experts, the department of 
public works, the work of the board of health, 
municipal franchises, ownership and expan- 
sion and many kindred subjects. 

Dr. Rideal’s first edition on sewage and the 
bacteriological purification of sewage appeared 
in May, 1900, and enjoyed such a rapid sale 
in England and America that a second edi- 
tion was called for in June, 1901. The work 
is divided into twelve chapters, and is of in- 
tense interest to the engineer and sanitarian. 
The introductory chapter deals with the char- 
acters of sewage and primary methods of dis- 
posal, committal to earth, cremation, cesspools, 
sewers, scavenging, conservaney systems, in- 
filtration, official regulations, water-closet 
system, dilution in rivers, tidal discharge. In 
this chapter will be found a historical résumé 
of the subject of sewage disposal. In speaking 
of the location of privies and middens, he re- 
fers to the danger of wells, springs and rivers 
from infiltration and points out a number of 
cases where such pollution took place; in one 


instance the contaminating influence was 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 397 


about a half a mile distant. He also refers 
to the reports of the medical officers of 
health in 1900, notably those of York and Dur- 
ham, who give statistics showing the connec- 
tion between outbreaks of typhoid fever and 
midden privies. He quotes from an address 
by Sir William Preece before the National 
Health Society, October, 1899, wherein he re- 
ferred to the city of Leeds, with a population 
of 400,000, with a reduction during the twenty 
years 1875 to 1895 in the death rate from 28 
to 18 per 1,000 in consequence of the comple- 
tion of sewers and the introduction of a better 
water supply, and continued, ‘if this has been 
accomplished in one city by acting on those 
principles of applied science, what might be 
the total number of lives saved throughout 
the country by the operation of those whose 
duty it was to carry out the details of the sci- 
ence of sanitation?’ The same question may 
very justly be applied to our own country when 
we consider that only about 30 per cent. of 
the population live in sewered towns and 41 
per cent. live in towns having public water 
supplies. During the census year of 1900, 
there were 35,379 deaths from typhoid fever, 
which means an annual prevalence of 350,000 
cases and a loss to the commonwealth of 
$185,000,000 per annum from one of the so- 
called preventable diseases. The undue prey- 
alence of typhoid fever in unsewered towns 
and suburbs has already been pointed out and 
explained by the writer in a former review in 
Science, November 8, 1901. Chapters 2 and 
3 deal with the chemical analyses of sewage 
and effluents. Chapter 4 with the bacteria in 
sewage and possibility of the survival of path- 
Chapter 5 points out the 
bacteria. 


ogenic organisms. 
chemical changes produced — by 
Chapter 6 discusses the ultimate disposal of 
sewage and treats very fully of irrigation and 
sewage farms. The treatment of sewage by 
subsidenee and chemical precipitation, by 
heat, chemicals and electricity is disposed ot 
in Chapters 7 and 8. The next three chapters, 
which are the most important in the book, 
deal with bacterial purification in a most exact 
and painstaking manner. On the whole we 
may conclude that sewage farming will have 
a very promising future in the West, where 


AUGUST 8, 1902. ] 


every drop of water is needed for general irri- 
gation. In sections of our country not 
adapted to farming and where land is scarce, 
the purification of sewage by intermittent fil- 
tration, which requires only about one twen- 
tieth the land, has been resorted to, and we 
are indebted to the splendid experiments made 
by the Massachusetts State Board of Health, 
at Lawrence, for much valuable information 
concerning the efficiency of this system, and 
which indeed has been adopted by a large num- 
ber of municipalities both at home and abroad. 
In communities where land is so searce that 
even intermittent filtration is impracticable, 
a number of processes for the purification of 
sewage before its discharge into the rivers 
have been proposed, such as chemical precipi- 
tation, sterilization, sedimentation, ete. These 
processes, however, are now considered as 
wrong in principle and aiming at the unat- 
tainable, and wherever irrigation or intermit- 
tent filtration cannot be advantageously car- 
ried out, preference should be given to the 
‘septic or bacterial tank.’ This system was 
devised by Mr. Cameron, of Exeter, England, 
and is really an elaboration of the old cesspool ; 
the tanks are built of concrete, brick or 
masonry walls, tightly covered to exclude both 
light and air, and large enough to contain the 
flow of sewage from 1,500 to 2,000 persons for 
from twelve to twenty-four hours. The raw 
sewage without screening or any preliminary 
treatment enters by two inlets which are car- 
ried down five feet below the surface in order 
that the entry may be quiet, so as not to dis- 
turb the bacterial layers, also that air may 
not be carried in or any gases escape back to 
the sewer. After passing through a ‘grit 
chamber’ 10 feet deep by 7 feet long and 18 
feet wide, the sewage flows over a wall sub- 
merged one foot below the surface into the 
main portion of the tank, which is 65 feet in 
length, 7 feet 6 inches in depth and 18 feet 
wide, its capacity: being 53,800 gallons, or ap- 
proximately a day’s supply; hence the transit 
of the sewage is ordinarily very gradual, aver- 
aging about 24 hours in the tank, so as to give 
ample time and quiet for the putrefactive 
changes which are brought about by the an- 
aerobic bacteria, and which result in the di- 


SCIENCE. 


227 


gestion of the suspended organic matter, or 
its conversion into simpler, soluble forms and 
gases. The effluent from the tank, brownish- 
yellow in color and offensive in odor, after 
being aerated by being run over a weir and 
cascade arrangement, is next passed over the 
‘Dibdin bacteria beds’ filled with coke breeze 
and clinkers, where the nitrifying organisms 
perform their share of the work, until the fil- 
trate is fit to be discharged into the water 
courses, although whenever practicable it 
should be previously passed through well- 
drained land or over water meadows. 

The advantage of the tank lies in the re- 
duction in the amount of suspended matter; 
the accumulation of sludge from the sewage 
and excreta of 1,500 persons amounted to but 
four feet at the end of three years’ trial; the 
operating expenses are also very slight and so 
far the bacterial or septic tank has given the 
most satisfactory results from a sanitary and 
economic standpoint, where broad irrigation 
or sewage farming cannot be applied. Chap- 
ter 12 deals with the agricultural value of 
bacterial effluents and conservation of the val- 
uable constituents of sewage, the classification 
of trade effluents and the recovery of waste 


products. Georcr M. Koper. 
tEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

Tue third (July) number of Volume 3 of 
the T'ransactions of the American Mathemat- 
ical’ Society contains the following papers: 
“On the Group defined for any given Field by 
the Multiplication Table of any given Finite 
Group,’ by L. E. Dickson; “Nachtrag zum Ar- 
tikel: ‘Zur Erklarung der Bogenlinge, u. s. 
w.,” by O. Stolz; ‘Proof of the Sufficiency 
of Jacobi’s Condition for a Permanent Sign 
of the Second Variation in the so-called Iso- 
perimetric Problems,’ by O. Bolza; ‘On Hy- 
percomplex Number Systems, by H. E. 
Hawkes; ‘On Metabelian Groups,’ by W. B. 
Fite; ‘Conjugate Rectilinear Congruences,’ by 
L. P. Eisenhart; ‘Constructive Theory of the 
Unicursal Cubie by Synthetic Methods,’ by D. 
N. Lehmer; ‘ The Groups of Steiner in Prob- 
lems of Contact (second paper),’ by L. E. Dick- 
son. 


228 


The editorial staff of the T'ransactions has 
been increased by the appointment as assistant 
editors of Professor James Harkness, Professor 
E. B. Van Vleck, Professor H. S. White, Dr. 
©. L. Bouton, Professor L. E. Dickson, Dr. J. 
I. Hutchinson, and Professor M. B. Porter. 

The July number (Vol. 8, No. 10) of the 
Bulletin of the American Mathematical So- 
ciety contains: ‘The First Meeting of the San 
Francisco Section of the American Mathemat- 
ical Society, by E. J. Wilezynski; ‘ Mathe- 
matical Problems, Lecture by D. Hilbert before 
the Paris Congress of Mathematicians, 1900,’ 
translated by M. W. Newson; ‘ Reply to Mr. J. 
L. Coolidge’s Review of Hill’s Euclid, by M. 
J. M. Hill; ‘Notes’; ‘New Publications’; 
‘Eleventh Annual List of Papers read before 
the Society and Subsequently Published’; and 
a nineteen-page Index of the volume. 

The Botanical Gazette for August contains 
the following articles: J. C. Arthur describes 
the Uredinz occurring upon Phragmites, Spar- 
tina and Arundinaria in America, giving full 
synonymy and specimens examined, descri- 
bing two new species, and presenting a key; 
Aven Nelson continues his ‘ Contributions 
from the Rocky Mountain Herbarium,’ de- 
scribing numerous new species; George F. At- 
kinson describes and illustrates three new gen- 
era of the higher fungi, the names proposed be- 
ing Homycenella, Hoterfezia and Dictybole. 
Eoterfezia is taken as representing a new fam- 
ily, which is named Koterfeziacee. Edward W. 
Berry presents a paper ‘On the Phylogeny of 
Liriodendron, tracing the development of the 
type through fossil forms to the present L. 
Tulipifera. Mel. T. Cook reports polyembry- 
ony in Ginkgo; Hermann von Schrenk de- 
scribes a root rot of apple trees, and E. M. 
Wilcox shows that Stipa Hassei is not a good 
species. 

The Popular Science Monthly for August 
has for its article Charles 8. Minot’s ad- 
dress before the American Association on ‘ The 
Problem of Consciousness in its Biological 
Aspects.’ Consciousness is considered as the 
most important factor in the evolution of ani- 
mals, without which the author thinks evolu- 
tion could not have taken place as it has done. 
The following hypothesis is advanced near the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 397. 


close of the paper: Consciousness has the 
power to change the form of energy, and is 
neither a form of energy nor a state of proto- 
plasm. William H. Burr concludes his paper 
on ‘The Panama Route for a Ship Canal,’ 
this seeming to be preferable to the Nicara- 
gua route in the more important particulars. 
Edward Atkinson considers ‘ Social Bacteria 
and Keonomie Microbes, Wholesome and Nox- 
ious, this being a review of the money ex- 
pended or received for the leading staple pro- 
duets of our country. Edward L. Thorndike 
discusses ‘ Marriage among Eminent Men,’ 
concluding that they marry at about the same 
age and in the same proportion as other men, 
and David Starr Jordan treats of the problem 
of ‘University Building.” Two of the most 
important desiderata are shown to be sufli- 
ciently long course of training and the conduct- 
ing of original tesearch in the best sense of the 
word. Minnie Marie Enteman in.a paper ‘ On 
the Behavior of the Social Wasps’ presents 
a good study of the psychology of these insects. 
‘Field Notes of a Geologist in Martinique and 
St. Vincent,’ by Thomas A. Jaggar, gives one 
of the best accounts of the recent eruptions, 
and what actually did take place, that has been 
published. The final article, by Frederick 
Adams Woods, on ‘ Mental and Moral Hered- 
ity in Royalty,’ is an inquiry into the problem 
which is the more important, environment or 
heredity, or is there still another factor to be 
taken into consideration ? 


The American Naturalist for August, opens 
with an article by Freeland Howe, Jr., on ‘A 
Case of Abnormality in Cats’ Paws,’ being ap- 
parently the intercalation of an extra digit. It 
is refreshing to see that it is not considered as 
a case of reversion. Helen Dean King de- 
scribes in some detail ‘The Gastrulation of 
the Ege of Bufo Lentiginosus, and Charles 
W. Hargitt presents some ‘ Notes on the 
Ceelenterate Fauna of Woods Hole,’ which in- 
cludes descriptions of several new species. 
William A. Hilton has a very careful study of 
“The Body Sense Hairs of Lepidopterous Lar- 
ve, concluding among other things that in 
most species all body hairs are sensory and 
supplied by the bipolar cells. Hannah Teresa 
Rowley notes the ‘ Histological Changes in 


Avaust 8, 1902.] 


Hydra viridis during Regeneration’ stating 
that it seems probable that the new cells are 
_ formed by division of the old cells throughout 
the entire piece. There are numerous good 
reviews of recent biological literature. 


The Plant World for June contains ‘ How 
Shall our Wild Flowers be Preserved? by A. 
J. Grout, being the third of the prize essays on 
that subject; ‘The Yellow Water Lily of 
Florida, by A. H. Curtiss who notes that this 
rare species is likely to be extirpated by the 
water hyacinth; and ‘ Habits of the Deep-set 
Bulbs of Hrythronium’ by Grace Stoddard 
Niles. Among the briefer articles is the re- 
port of the Secretary of the Wild Flower Pres- 
ervation Society. The Supplement on the 
Families of Flowering Plants concludes the 
treatment of the order Gentianales and com- 
mences that of the Polemoniales. 

The Wilson Bulletin for June contains a 
good article by Lynds Jones on the winter 
birds of Lorain Co., Ohio, and the same writer 
notes Mareca penelope, taken on the Licking 
Reservoir in March as ‘A Bird New to Ohio.’ 
Besides other articles the number contains a 
‘List of the Birds of Yokima County, Wash- 
ington,’ by Wm. Leon Dawson. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
SO-CALLED SPECIES AND SUBSPECIES.* 


PrRHAPS no discussions in zoology are as 
uninteresting and apparently profitless, to per- 
sons not engaged directly in them, as are those 
concerning the status of so-called species and 
subspecies. But a discussion may be uninter- 
esting and apparently unprofitable, and still 
involve questions of great import, and these 


** A Review of the Larks of the Genus Otocoris.’ 
By Harry C. Oberholser, Assistant Ornithologist, 
Department of Agriculture. From the Proceed- 
ings of the United States National Museum, Vol. 
XXIV., pp. 801-884 (with Plates XLIII.—XLIX.) 
[No. 1271]. Washington, Government Printing 
Office. 1902. 

‘Descriptions of Three New Birds from the 
Southern United States’ By Edgar A. Mearns, 
Major and Surgeon, U. S. Army. From the Pro- 
ceedings of the United States National Museum, 
Vol. XXIV., pp. 915-926 [No. 1274]. Washing- 
ton, Government Printing Office. 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


229 


two ornithological papers which have just ap- 
peared from the Government press, cannot fail 
to raise serious questions in the mind of the 
average reader. Both papers deal with diversi- 
ties of size and color in some of our common 
birds, and ten new trinomial names are added 
to our already overburdened nomenclature. 
For what do these names stand? Do they rep- 
resent anything real and tangible? Is the 
phase of systematic ornithology exploited by 
these authors contributing anything of value 
to science, or is it simply making ‘ confusion 
worse confounded ’? 

Mr. Oberholser’s pamphlet represents a very 
large amount of painstaking work, as 2,150 
specimens of horned larks were carefully ex- 
amined and compared in the attempt to make 
as complete and satisfactory a revision of the 
genus Otocoris as possible. The results are 
worth examination, but not so much for their 
intrinsic value, as for the revelation to an 
unusual degree of a zoological tendency, char- 
acteristic of the present day, and especially 
marked among ornithologists, the worth of 
which demands careful estimation. The 
author divides the horned larks into six 
species, although he admits that possibly two 
of these may be reduced to subspecific rank, 
ultimately. Of these six species, one well- 
marked form, of which little is known, comes 
from South Africa, while the others are con- 
fined to the northern hemisphere. Only one of 
the five species occurs in North America, but 
as 2,122 of the specimens examined represented 
that species, it will not be unfair to confine 
our attention to it, Otocoris alpestris. Al- 
though originally described by Catesby from 
the coast of the Carolinas, it is found not 
only throughout North America (except the 
extreme southeast) and southward into Colom- 
bia, but also in northern Europe and Asia. It 
therefore inhabits a wide range of greatly 
diversified country, and would naturally be 
expected to exhibit considerable variety in 
color and size. The important question which 
this monograph raises is how far is it desirable 
to recognize these varieties by name? Or better, 
are the diversities of size and color in a speci- 
fied geographical area, sufficiently constant to 
warrant recognition as subspecies ? 


230 


To many persons it would seem to be almost 
an axiom that a character which can not be 
stated in language or in figures of any sort is 
not sufficiently conspicuous to bear the weight 
of a name. But Mr. Oberholser, holding a 
point of view occupied by many ornithologists 
and mammalogists (and perhaps other zool- 
ogists) which is adding to current zoological 
literature hundreds, if not thousands, of 
trinomials every year, thinks differently; he 
says (page 803): “ Various more or less per- 
fect intermediates are very perplexing, and no 
means of determination can possibly be of 
value except the actual comparison of speci- 
mens, coupled with an accurate knowledge of 
the relative value of the proper differential 
characters. Satisfactorily to present such in- 
formation in printed diagnoses is manifestly 
out of the question, for characters that will 
serve to identify even typical examples of some 
of the more closely allied forms are frequently 
almost impossible to express intelligibly on 
paper.” Notice especially the contention that 
even the actual comparison of specimens is not 
itself sufficient for the identification of a bird 
unless such comparison is made by an expert. 
If this is so, systematic ornithology is in a bad 
way, for if the expert can not express the dis- 
tinguishing characters ‘ intelligibly on paper,’ 
what are we going to do when he dies? Of 
what possible use is it to attempt to maintain 
distinctions so fine that even a well-trained 
ornithologist can not tell upon what form his 
observations are made? Such distinctions 
might be of value if they had any geographical 
meaning, but even this is denied them in the 
ease of Otocoris, for in Kansas the student 
must distinguish between four possibilities, 
and in northwestern Mexico near the interna- 
tional boundary line, he may come upon any 
one of seven of Mr. Oberholser’s ‘ subspecies.’ 
Nor will the season of the year help him much, 
for in Kansas at least three forms occur in 
winter, and in northwestern Mexico near the 
‘Line,’ unless the larks keep very strictly to 
the limits laid down for them, no less than half 
a dozen forms may breed. 

Another rule which to the layman would 
seem to be axiomatic is that characters which 
can not be recognized regardless of the loeality 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 397. 
where the specimens are collected are worth- 
But Mr. Oberholser says (page 803) that 
‘the identification of specimens without regard 
to geography is, to say the least, liable to be 
difficult.’ No one can read the paper carefully 
and not realize the magnitude of the difficulty. 
An illustration may be taken from the sub- 


less. 


species chrysolema, which is given as resident 
in Mexico. Speaking of some specimens from 
Puebla and Vera Cruz, this statement is made 
(page 844): “If comparison be instituted 
between these specimens and typical actia 
from California, however, it will be at once 
seen that they are exceedingly similar, and, to 
say the least, difficult to distinguish, forming 
another of those perplexing cases of forms 
reduplicated by apparent intergradation of two 
or more others.” In other words, these birds 
are O. a. chrysolema in Mexico, but if taken 
in southern California, they would be O. a. 
actia! 

Another point which will be a great surprise 
to many unsophisticated persons is the recog- 
nition given to very slight differences in size. 
Many examples might be given, but the follow- 
ing will suffice. 

O. a. enthymia is said to be ‘ decidedly 
smaller’ than O. a. arcticola, but the latter has 
the wing (total lengths are not given) averag- 
ing only 6.7 mm. longer than the former, the 
tail 0.8 mm. and the exposed culmen is the 
same in both forms. Even the apparent dif- 
ference in the length of wing is not really so 
great, for only fifteen specimens of each form 
were measured, and the difference between the 
maximum and minimum wing measurement 
of the two is just 1 mm. Again the subspecies 
peregrina is based on a single specimen (from 
Colombia), which is distinguished from insu- 
laris (from the Santa Barbara Islands) only 
by size. It is said to be ‘very much smaller.’ 
As a matter of fact, the wing is only 5 mm. 
shorter than the average insularis, the tail 1.4 
mm. shorter and the culmen .08 mm., and, 
moreover, the tail is 3 mm. longer than the 
minimum insularis, and the bill, tarsus and 
middle toe are each half a mm. longer than the 
minimum for that species. Clearly we have 
here an exaggerated idea of the length of a 
millimeter; the ‘inch on the end of a man’s 


Avaust 8, 1902. ] 


. nose’ is as nothing in comparison to the milli- 
meter on the end of a lark’s tail! If the phrases 
in reference to color, such as ‘much darker,’ 
* decidedly paler,’ ‘much more yellowish,’ ete., 
indicate as trivial differences as the statements 
regarding size, it is no wonder it was impos- 
sible to express them ‘intelligibly on paper.’ 

Turning now to Mr. Mearns’ paper, we find 
the same evidence of ability to distinguish 
differences, which, while of course worthy of 
note, are altogether too trivial to be in any 
degree constant. The ‘new’ subspecies of 
grasshopper sparrow is said to be ‘smaller’ 
than C. s. passerinus, yet the differences are so 
slight that it is an exaggeration to say they 
are two per cent. of the measurements. The 
‘new’ martin is also said to be ‘smaller’ than 
the typical form, though the figures given belie 
the statement. And finally the ‘new’ Rocky 
Mountain nut-hatch is boldly characterized as 
the ‘largest known form of Sitta carolinensis, 
although by the measurements given it aver- 


ages 1 mm. shorter than the typical form, and | 


the wing averages less than 3 mm. longer. Let 
us hope that the statements in regard to color 
mean more than those in regard to size. 
These two papers are not exceptional. One 
cannot be at all familiar with American 
ornithological and mammalogical literature 
and not recall numerous cases of similar recog- 
nition of utterly trivial differences. The chief 
value of systematic zoology lies in its service 
as a basis for progress in knowledge of the 
Jaws of distribution, variation and evolution. 
Recognition of well-defined subspecies is essen- 
tial to accurate knowledge, but bestowing 
names upon all sorts of individual diversities 
and inconstant trivialities is the very worst 
extreme. In Mr. Oberholser’s paper, his 
first paragraph closes with these sensible words 
(page 801): ‘But the manner and degree of 
variation must be properly set forth before the 
full significance of these facts can be appre- 
ciated, and this should be the ultimate aim of 
systematic research—not, as seems only too 
often to be considered, the mere facilitation of 
the determination of specimens in the ¢éabi- 
net’; but can degrees of variation be properly 
set forth if they cannot be ‘intelligibly ex- 
pressed on paper’? One ean only feel that 


SCIENCE. 


231 


were Mr. Oberholser as quick to see resem- 
blanees as he is to detect differences, and as 
eager to unify and reduce as he is to subdivide 
and magnify, the result of his review of the 
horned larks would have been very different, 
much more acceptable and, I venture to think, 
much nearer the truth. 
Hupert Lyman Crank. 


LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY. 
A SUGGESTION. 


Tue able and interesting address on ‘The 
Universities in Relation to Research,’ by 
President James Loudon which was published 
in Screncr, June 27, 1902, constrains me to 
venture a suggestion that I have had in my 
mind for several months. 

At the outset may I assure my readers that 
I make no pretension to a knowledge of all 
the local conditions? I write merely as a 
casual traveler, but one who is greatly im- 
pressed with the prospects of California from 
a non-material point of view. 

When I paid a hurried visit to Palo Alto 
last November, I felt what a splendid oppor- 
tunity there was for a new departure in the 
history of universities. Nicely situated in a 
beautiful country enjoying a fine climate, 
with buildings of an interesting style of archi- 
tecture and with a princely endowment, the 
possibilities are very great. The well-equipped 
university near the largest city of the state, 
which is only some thirty miles distant, is 
quite capable of supplying the academic needs 
of the State for some time. There does not 
appear to be, therefore, any pressing need for 
the foundation of a new university on similar 
lines to that of the State University. 

Supposing the university authorities re- 
solved not to do any ordinary university teach- 
ing, say for fifty years, but decided on making 
it a home for all kinds of research, what might 
not be the benefit to learning in general and 
to the state in particular? If the most able 
investigators and scholars were enticed to 
make Palo Alto the center of their labors, 
there is no knowing what good might result. 

Research first and foremost should be its 
watchword, and students should be trained 
solely for research, whether in the humanities 


232 


or in science. The geographical position of 
California suggests some of the main lines 
of research—all that is in or around the Pacific 
Ocean. As the greater part of the researches 
could be conducted most profitably at various 
spots within this area, so the course of in- 
struction, or rather the direction of the re- 
search, in any subject would be undertaken 
wherever the professor happened to be. For 
example, the professors of geology, botany, 
zoology and anthropology, with their stu- 
dents, might be for one year in some island 
in the Pacific. The professor of comparative 
religions and his students might make investi- 
gations from Kamchatka to Australia. 

The ordinary European academic mind 
would stand aghast at the upsetting of tradi- 
tional methods and would say promptly that, 
even supposing such a scheme were in any 
way desirable, it would be unworkable. Per- 
sonally I believe it would prove most stimula- 
ting and valuable and I have no doubt that 
American wits could devise a working scheme. 


ALFRED C. Happon. 
CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND, July 10, 1902. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 


STRATIGRAPHY VERSUS PALEONTOLOGY IN NOVA 
SCOTIA. 


Tue recent discussion of the Upper Paleo- 
zoic formations in the region of the Bay of 
Fundy brings the value of fossils as means of 
age determination, even as between two major 
time divisions, somewhat acutely in question. 
Beds which on stratigraphical grounds have 
been classed as Middle Devonian appear on 
the evidence of floras and faunas to be Car- 
boniferous. 

Certain fossiliferous terranes at Riversdale 
and on the Harrington River, Nova Scotia, 
are referred by Dr. R. W. Ells and Mr. Hugh 
Fletcher, statigraphers, to the Middle De- 
vonian, and are correlated with the ‘fern 
ledges’ (Little River group) at St. John, which 
were regarded by Sir William Dawson also as 
Middle Devonian. The correlation of the 
Nova Scotia beds with the St. John ‘fern 
ledges’ is agreed to by Mr. Robert Kidston, 
the foremost British authority on Paleozoic 
Plants, and the writer; but each of us, quite 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 397. 


independently and without knowledge of the 
other’s views, unhesitatingly referred the’ 
plant beds, both at St. John and at the Nova 
Scotian localities, to the Caribonferous. The 
St. John flora, which is more complete, is re- 
garded by the writer as probably of Upper 
Pottsville age and by Mr. Kidston as belong- 
ing to the Lower Coal Measures, the latter in 
Great Britain appearing to closely correspond 
paleobotanically to the uppermost Pottsville 
of the northern Appalachian district. 

The gist of our conclusions has been given 
by the Nova Scotian geologists; but the pale- 
ontological evidence has been published only 
in part. Mr. Kidston submitted a report from 
which extracts have been made by Dr. Ami, 
who is personally not responsible for silence 
in regard to the rest of it. The evidence in 
the writers hands, which concerns the detailed 
study of the species and their geographical 
and vertical range in other portions of this 
continent, cannot properly be presented in 
full in advance of the publication of his mon- 
ograph of the floras of the Pottsville forma- 
tions, but an examination of the material from 
St. John described by Sir William Dawson 
and a comparison of it with the Paleozoic 
floras as yet made known in other regions of 
the world is in itself sufficient to prove the 
Carboniferous age of the beds to most paleo- 
botanists. 

The paleontological data for the age deter- 
mination are not, however, confined to fossil 
plants. The beds in question contain verte- 
brates, crustacea, insects, pelecypods, ostra- 
eods and annelids. Collections of these fos- 
sils have been made and forwarded to vari- 
ous specialists, but of the results of the ex- 
aminations by the faunal experts and of the 
conclusions communicated very little indeed 
has been made public, though reports seem 
long ago to have been submitted. From a 
short unofficial article* published by Dr. H. M. 
Ami, we learn that the ostracods were submit- 
ted to Professor T. Rupert Jones, and the 
erustacea to Dr. H. Woodward; and that 
Hylopus Logani, Sauropus Dawsoni, Bellin- 
urus agrandevus, Prestwichia sp., Leaia tricart- 

* Proc. N. 8. Inst. Sci., Vol. X., pt. 2, pp. 162— 
178, 1900. 


AvuaustT 8, 1902.] 


nata, L. Leidyi var. Baentschiana, Estheria 
Dawsoni, Anthracopalemon n. sp., Carbonia 
sp., Anthracomya elongata, A. obtusa, and 
Spirorbis eriana, were among the fossils col- 
lected. Further, Dr. Ami, who in 1897 and 
1898 seems to have made extensive collections, 
states that although he constantly made 
search for Devonian fossils in the beds under 
consideration, only Carboniferous types were 
discovered. He therefore distinctly refers 
the beds to the Carboniferous, although, for 
stratigraphical reasons apparently, he places 
them in the Lower Carboniferous. 

At this time, perceiving that the paleontol- 


ogists were going astray and that by refer-?» 


ring the beds in question to the Carboniferous 
they had ‘ hindered not helped in mapping the 
comparatively simple geological structure of 
these formations’ in Nova Scotia, Mr. Flet- 
cher in a paper* on ‘ Geological Nomencla- 
ture in Nova Scotia,’ sounded a note of warn- 
-ing, and stated the real age and ‘simple geo- 
logical structure’ of the beds as he considers 
these to have been irrefragably established 
stratigraphically by Dr. Ells and himself. By 
means of the parallel column he graphically 
displays the supposedly ridiculous blunders of 
the paleontologists, among whom the paleo- 
botanists receive special attention. As Mr. 
Fletcher had misconstrued certain statements 
of the writer besides erroneously crediting him 
with a probably erroneous correlation of the 
Union beds, the writer, in an articlet on ‘Some 
Paleobotanical Aspects of the Upper Paleozoic 
in Nova Scotia,’ expressed his views more ex- 
plicitly and suggested that there might have 
been a mistake either in tracing the beds or in 
interpreting the structure. The region is one 
of metamorphic and locally of closely folded 
strata which are extensively covered by drift. 
It is therefore one in which stratigraphic work, 
when at variance with the paleontology, does 
not command unqualified confidence. The 
heresy of these suggestions is illuminated in 
the contributions and communications pub- 


* Trans. N.S. Inst. Sci., Vol. X., pt. 2, pp. 235- 
244. 

t Can. Rec. Sci., Vol. VIII., No. 5, January, 1901, 
pp. 271-280. 


SCIENCE. 


233 


lished by Dr. G. F. Matthew and Dr. Ells dur- 
ing the last twelve months. 

Since the burden of this criticism and cor- 
rection is addressed to the paleobotanists, and 
since the vehemence, volume and ubiquity of 
the communications may lead casual read- 
ers to conclude that the question is settled and 
that the paleontologists have abandoned faith 
in the faunal and floral evidence in the beds 
as means of discriminating Carboniferous 
from Middle Devonian, it becomes a duty to 
notice these articles and to point out some ob- 
stacles in the way of so speedy a termination 
of the discussion. 

In a communication, ‘Are the St. John 
Plant Beds Carboniferous? Dr. Matthew* 
states the sequence of the Upper Paleozoic for- 
mations in eastern New Brunswick, and very 
briefly outlines the geological history of the 
region as prevailingly interpreted. He also 
argues that the St. John genus Megalopteris 
assuredly existed before the Pottsville (Mill- 
stone Grit), it having been found, he says, by 
Andrews in earlier beds in Ohio, and by Les- 
quereux in beds of Mauch Chunk shale chiefly 
in the southern and the Mississippi states. 
This Megalopteris proof is founded on a false 
premise, the beds of the South and of Ohio be- 
ing in the Pottsville, lower than which the ge- 
nus does not seem to have been found in any 
part of the world. 

In the next paper, on ‘The Devonian of the 
Acadian Province,’ Dr. Ellst repeats the con- 
clusions of the stratigraphers that the St. John 
plant beds (Little River) are beneath not only 
the Lower Carboniferous Limestone, but also 
the ‘lower sandstone group’ (which is gener- 
ally regarded as Lower Carboniferous, but 
which Dr. Ells seems to regard as Devonian) 
and a great portion, at least, of the underlying 
Perry beds of eastern Maine. The paper con- 
tains no stratigraphical details. Dr. Ells lays 
great stress on Sir William Dawson’s conclu- 
sion that the St. John plants are Middle De- 
vonian, and even uses it as argument to show 
that the Riversdale plants also are Middle De- 
vonian, though Sir William’s insistence that 
the latter were not Devonian, but Carbonifer- 

* Amer. Geol., June, 1901, pp. 385-386. 

7 Can. Rec. Sci., Vol. VIII., No. 6, pp. 335-343. 


234 


ous (Millstone Grit), precipitated the present 
controversy.* Also Dr. Ells agrees with Mr. 
Fletcher in placing the Horton, which Daw- 
son referred to the Lower Carboniferous and 
correctly correlated with our Pocono, in the 
Devonian, the ‘ Carboniferous limestone’ be- 
ing made the lowest formation of the Carbon- 
iferous.t A considerable portion of Dr. Ells’s 
article and the whole of the communication by 
Dr. Matthew, which immediately follows it in 
the same magazine,{ are devoted to proof that 
Dawson’s reference of the St. John plants to 
the Middle Devonian was not due to the 
influence of his statigraphical colleagues. 
This point, on which I seem to have been 
mistaken, is a matter of history of opinion, 
and, though interesting as such, does not af- 
fect the geological facts of the region. 

The latest contribution to the discussion, 
“A Backward Step in Paleobotany, by Dr. 
Matthew,§ demands respectful attention both 
for its matter and its dignified place of pub- 
lication. In part it attempts to meet a call for 

- conclusive stratigraphical proof that the St. 
John plant beds are Middle Devonian. The 
first half of the paper contains a statement of 
the stratigraphical arguments in a form more 
extended than in the American Geologist for 
June, 1901. Here again the strongest argu- 
ment seems to be the metamorphism seen in 

the Little River group and other beds suppos- 
ed by Dr. Matthew to be older than Carbon- 
iferous. The first of the profile sections in- 
cluded to show the stratigraphy of the plant 
beds is conclusive as to Middle Devonian, if 


*H. Fletcher, Trans. N. 8S. Inst. Sci., Vol. X., 
pp. 236-237. : 

+ The suggestion made by the writer (Can. Rec. 
Sci., Vol. VIIL., p. 279) that this limestone ‘ may 
be much younger than is generally supposed,’ by 
which it was meant that, if the Riversdale plants 
were actually beneath the limestone, the latter 
must at least occupy a high place in the Lower 
Carboniferous, is interpreted by Dr. Ells as neces- 
sitating the reference of the ‘ Carboniferous rocks 
proper ’ to the place now assigned to the ‘ Permo- 
carboniferous, or possibly the horizon of the Cre- 
taceous.’ This seems a needless alarm. 

£Can. Rec. Sci., Vol. VIII., No. 6, pp. 344-345. 

§ Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., 1901, sec. IV., pp. 113- 
122. Dated 1901, but printed in 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. VoL. XVI No. 397, 


it is correct both as to stratigraphy and as to 
correlation; but in view of the small portion of 
the diagram occupied by rocks above sea level, 
the incompleteness of the exposures, and the 
paleontological evidence I find myself unwiil- 
ing to admit so simple a structure. ‘Lhe 
second of the two sections presents what seems 
an isoclinal structure involving a fault which 
is not shown. Any one of several interpreta- 
tions may be put upon it. Dr. Matthew per- 
haps understands the true structure; but the 
diagram is too equivocal to demonstrate it. 
The remaining half of Dr. Matthew’s paper 
is devoted to proof by paleobotany itself. 
Here again, as in his former article, his chief 
argument that the Megalopteris plant beds of 
the Mauch Chunk in the Appalachian region 
carried the St. John flora across from the 
Middle Devonian to the Pottsville, falls flat 
when we recall that the Megalopteris beds sup- 
posed to constitute the bridge are now recog- 
nized by the stratigraphers as not in the 
Mauch Chunk at all, but as lying within the 
Pottsville. The discussion of other paleo- 
botanical aspects of the St. John plant beds, 
and especially the doubtful identifications of 
the older types reported in the latter, requires 
greater space than is here available; but be- 
fore passing on it may be noted that probably 
over 60 per cent. of the valid plant species 
found at St. John are also in hand from the 
Pottsville in the Appalachian trough, while it 
is very doubtful if three species recognized 
elsewhere as characteristic Devonian plants 
are present. 7 
The paleobotanists do not contend that there 
are no beds of Middle Devonian age in south- 
ern New Brunswick, or that all the rocks of 
Nova Scotia that have been correlated with or 
mapped as representing the plant-bearing for- 
mation at Riversdale are Carboniferous. But, 
after reading the statements and inspecting 
the profiles lately published, it still sees 
proper to inquire whether, in the closed fold- 
ing and faulting inevitably indicated though 
not explained in the section from the vicinity 
of St. John, some segments of Carboniferous 
terranes have not been thrown in a false posi- 
tion as well as altered; and whether in tracing 
the Devonian formations through the largely 


Aueust 8, 1902.] 


drift-covered region of Nova Scotia an error 
has not been committed in correlating them 
with the beds carrying Carboniferous fossils 
at Riversdale and Harrington River. 

Speaking for himself only, the writer does 
not regard the evidence yet adduced by the 
stratigraphers as sufficiently complete to show 
beyond doubt that this remarkable assemblage 
of plants, consisting largely of types which 
nowhere else in the world have been found be- 
low the Waldenburg stage or the Pottsville 
(Millstone Grit) of the Upper Carboniferous, 
existed in eastern Canada during and from 
Middle Devonian time. Many of the species 
and several of the genera are, so far as known, 
peculiar to and characteristic of the Upper 
Carboniferous. A small portion of the flora 
is common to the Lower Carboniferous; but 
- very little of this element is characteristic of 
the latter, while a close examination of the ma- 
terial from St. John tends to bring into doubt 
the identification of the few forms published 
as characteristic Devonian species. 

No trace of this extraordinary paleobotan- 
ical anomaly appears in the thoroughly stud- 
ied magnificent section of the Devonian near 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, nor have any signs 
of such a condition yet been found in the De- 
vonian of eastern Maine, New York, or any 
other region of the world. It is a remarkable 
fact if a flora almost exclusively composed of 
characteristic Carboniferous species, most, by 
far, of which are typical of the Upper Carbon- 
- iferous, was isolated in the region of the Bay 
of Fundy both in and after Middle Devonian 
time; but it is still more remarkable if this 
flora were accompanied there by a likewise iso- 
lated Carboniferous mollusean fauna. Condi- 
tions producing isolation of a land flora are 
not generally readily reconcilable with contem- 
poraneous and continued isolation of the in- 
vertebrates of the same region. 

As to the precise characters of the faunas 
of the beds in question and as to the weight 
of their evidence in the age determination of 
the formations, we are but partially informed, 
since the reports and opinions of the several 
specialists to whom the materials were commu- 
nicated for examination, or whose paleontolog- 
ical views were solicited, have not been made 


SCIENCE. 


235 


public. As has already been noted, materials 
representing vertebrates, crustacea, polecypods, 
and ostracods were during several seasons gatii- 
ered in some quantity and placed in the hands 
of ‘experts. These reports and opinions are 
awaited by paleontologists and _ geologists 
alike. We are in a general way informed that 
all the fossils gathered are more or less dis- 
tinctly indicative of Carboniferous age, all ef- 
forts to discover Devonian types in the beds 
being unsuccessful; and it is perhaps fair to 
assume that had one or more of the experts, 
to whom some class of fossils was sent, re- 
ported in favor of their Devonian (not to say 
Middle Devonian) age the  stratigraphers 
would not have omitted mention of the fact. 
The circumstances attending the discussion 
suggest a trial at which the testimony of the 
faunal witnesses has not been admitted. 

What is at present most needed is a thorough 
investigation of the faunas as well as of the 
floras of the terranes in question, especially in 
Nova Scotia. If the plants are misleading the 
paleobotanists to overconfidence and if we are 
mistaken as to the non-existence of such a re- 
markable flora, containing so large a propor- 
tion of Upper Carboniferous types, in the 
Middle Devonian and living in isolation until 
Upper Carboniferous time, there is no one to 
whom the truth means more or who realizes 
more fully than the paleobotanist the impor- 
tance of the fact. If the testimony of the 
plants is false, the evidence of the faunas will 
correct it; and if the beds in question are 
Middle Devonian the fossils themselves will 
prove it. Let us have a thorough paleon- 
tological study of the beds, and the paleon- 
tological question will settle itself. 

Davin Wuite. 


PRELIMINARY STUDIES ON THE RUSTS OF THE 
ASPARAGUS AND THE CARNATION: 
PARASITISM OF DARLUGCA. 

Durine the past two years, the writer has 
been carrying on a series of experiments at the 
University of Nebraska, in cooperation with 
the United States Department of Agriculture, 
in inoculations the 
(Puccinia asparagi DC.) and the carnation rust 
(Uromyces caryophillinus (Sch.) Schroet). 


with asparagus rust 


236 


These experiments have for the most part been 
conducted in the greenhouse, where there was 
an advantage to be derived from a partial con- 
trol of the heat, light, moisture, wind, etc., 
especially in the control of natural infection. 
The inoculations have been made after the 
usual manner by spraying the plants and plac- 
ing the spores on the moistened stems or leaves 
of seedlings or established plants. The first 
inoculations on asparagus were made Decem- 
ber 12, 1900, with uredospores obtained from 
the then dead plants in the field. Spores, 
obtained in the field on March 28 and April 
24 following, gave successful inoculations also, 
the uredospores having retained their vitality 
during the winter when protected by the un- 
broken epidermis of the asparagus. 

The period of incubation in the greenhouse 
has varied from eighteen to eight days. What 
it is in the field has not been determined, but 
it probably varies there as it did in the green- 
house. 

Since the rust was dependent upon its host 
for its food, it seemed that the conditions of 
heat, sunshine and moisture necessary for the 
growth of the asparagus ought to have some 
effect on the development of the rust as indi- 
cated by its period of incubation, or the time 
that elapsed between the time of inoculation 
and the first appearance of the uredospores 
through the ruptured epidermis of the aspar- 
agus. 

In these experiments, the variation could 
not have been due to a lack of moisture, for 
at times some of the plants were often kept 
too wet, as indicated by the growth of alge on 
the surface of the soil. The plants, of course, 
did not grow well, neither did the rust, the 
sori being small and the spores light-colored. 
The two factors of heat and sunshine are so 
closely related to each other that it would be 
almost an impossibility to separate them. 
During the spring and summer the sun was 
the only source of heat in the greenhouse. 

When the temperature, the number of hours 
and the intensity of the sunlight were low dur- 
ing the winter months, from fourteen to 
seventeen days were required for the sori to 
appear; during the spring months, when there 
was a gradual increase in the number of hours 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 397. 


of sunshine and the intensity of the sunlight, 
the number of days was reduced from twelve 
to eight. When the mean daily temperature 
in the greenhouse was 69° and the average 
hours of sunshine* were five, it required four- 
teen days for the sori to appear after an 
inoculation was made; and when the tempera- 
ture increased to 76° and the number of hours 
of sunshine increased to 6.8, only eight days 
were required; the period of incubation being 
in each case inversely as the temperature and 
the hours of sunshine. 

The susceptibility of the plants to inocula- 
tion depended to a large extent upon their 
vigor and rate of growth. Attempts were made 
repeatedly, not only on the asparagus but on 
several species of the Caryophyllacex, to in- 
oculate them when they were not growing ~ 
well. It was tried on repotted plants, those 
attacked by insects, slow-growing seedlings 
and mature plants, with little if any success, 
while out of forty-two plants which were ma- 
king a vigorous growth and inoculated at the 
same time 387, or 90 per cent., of them pro- 
duced sori. 

Successful inoculations with uredospores 
were made on the principal varieties of the 
garden asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) and 
the following species grown for decorative pur- 
poses: A. plumosus nanus, A. broussoneti and 
A. verticillatus. 

It was a difficult matter to germinate the 
teleutospores by the methods employed. Dur- 
ing the spring spermogonia were produced on 
seedlings of A. officinalis in seven days, fol- 
lowed by ecidia. Infection from the excidio- 
spores was brought about by sprinkling the 
plants with the hose. Spermogonia were also 
produced on Smilax (A. medeoloides), but ne 
eecidia. 

In many instances teleutospores have fol- 
lowed the production of uredospores, thus 
giving all the stages of the asparagus rust 
from inoculations. 

The most unexpected results have been 
obtained from inoculations made on the com- 


* These results were obtained from the observer 
for the Weather Bureau at Lincoln, Nebr., and 
represent the time when the sun was actually 
shining. 


Auausr 8, 1902. ] 


mon onion (Alliwm cepa), all three stages 
having been produced. Mr. E. W. D. Holway 
reports that he collected «cidia on ‘ winter 
onions’ the latter part of May and the writer 
collected two specimens about a month later. 
In each of the above instances asparagus was 
growing near ‘winter onions. The great 
similarity of the asparagus rust (Puccinia 
asparagt) and the onion rust (P. porri), 
together with the results obtained by inocula- 
tion and the ecidia recently collected on the 
onion, is very suggestive of the identity of the 
two rusts. But Klebahn* has been able to 
inoculate several species of Alliwm, including 
A. cepa with Melampsora, producing a 
Ceoma in each ease, so that it appears that 
the Alliwms are very susceptible to the attack 
of the rusts when inoculated. 

The writer is conducting experiments along 
the same line with other liliaceous plants, but 
as yet results are not ready for publication. 

Inoeculations of a number of species of 
Dianthus and Gypsophila with the uredospores 
of the carnation rust (Uromyces caryophylli- 
nus (Sch.) Schroet.) have given the same gen- 
eral results, so far as the effect of temperature, 
sunlight and susceptibility is concerned, as 
was obtained for the asparagus. It has been 
demonstrated that the carnation rust is local 
instead of being distributed through the plant, 
and that certain varieties are practically 
immune. 

There is often associated with both the 
asparagus and carnation rusts another fungus 
(Darluca filum Cast.) thought to be parasitic 
on the rust. Some observations have led the 
writer to conclude that it is not parasitic on 
the rust and that it is not so beneficial as is 
generally supposed. Its saprophytic tenden- 
cies haye been demonstrated by growing it 
on various culture media, both animal and 
vegetable, including bouillon-gelatine and 
bouillon-agar, asparagus-agar, potato, canned 
asparagus stems, ete. On some media it pro- 
duced pyenidia in three to five days. Spores 
from pure cultures when inoculated on rusted 
asparagus gave the characteristic pycnidia 
with the curled masses of spores issuing from 

*Klebahn, Zeitschrift fiir 
heiten, 12: 1, 17, 1902. 


Pflanzenkrank- 


SCIENCE. 


237 


them. Only negative results have as yet been 
obtained on the stems of living asparagus, 
although it flourishes on the cooked stems, and 
there are strong indications that it may be 
parasitic on asparagus. A complete account 
of the work will be published later. 


Joun L. SHELDON. 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA, 
LINCOLN. 


CHEMICAL INDUSTRY IN 
1901.* 

ReEcENtTLY published statistics of the chem- 
ical industry in Germany for the year 1901 
show that it has shared in the general busi- 
ness depression of the Empire, though the 
results are less unsatisfactory than in other 
branches of manufacture. 

Among the reasons assigned for the depres- 
sion are a tendency toward overproduction, the 
increased cost of raw materials, the high price 
of coal and of labor, and proposed changes in 
the tariffs on many articles which enter into 
chemical manufacture. It is also pointed out 
that in the United States, in Russia, and in 
several other countries, there is a growing in- 
terest in this branch. 

The following figures show the imports and 
exports for the years 1900 and 1901. The 
articles included are the more important 
drugs, pharmaceutical supplies, and dyestuffs 
or materials entering into the manufacture of 
the same: 


GERMANY IN 


Imports. Exports. 
Year. | 
Quantity. Value. | Quantity. Value. 
Metric tons.| | Metric tons 
1901 | 1,219,889 |$66,164,000 889,550 |$88,298, 000 
1900 | 1,114,554 | 62,832,000 834,229 | 83,776,000 


While these figures show an excess of ex- 
ports over imports, and a gain in exports for 
the year 1901 over the preceding year, the 
cost of raw materials and of labor has left 
manufacturers but small returns for their in- 
vestments. 

Statistics of dividends paid by concerns en- 
gaged in this branch of manufacture during 
the year 1901 are not yet fully announced, but 


* Consular Report from H. W. Harris, Mann- 
heim. 


238 


it is claimed that they will not differ greatly 
from those of the preceding year, when they 
showed a falling off. One hundred and twenty- 
one stock companies, having a combined capi- 
tal of about $83,000,000, paid in 1900 an 
average dividend of 12.33 per cent., as against 
13.82 per cent. in 1899. Nineteen companies 
paid no dividends in 1900; 20 paid less than 
5 per cent. : 

As will appear from the following figures, 
the gain in imports in 1901 was marked in 
certain articles, particularly in coloring mat- 
ters: 


; Gain in Im 
Article. | a aampoxts 
Ammonium sulphate .................06 | $1,071,000 
Peruvianibarken.ccrseste sess seccecsscess | 238,000 
JIGYsh Yes a eescrdannr tion eteetosaecesanoccesods 178,500 
Chilefsaltpeten=s.-ccscscsenerssscesetecss 178,500 
Superphosphate .......... 476,000 
Cyanide of potassium.................... 357,000 
Chloridejof Mimey-.22.ssscsscscesseece) <-> 178,500 
238,000 
476,000 
952,000 
238,000 


SCIENCE. 


As is well known, the manufacture of dye- 
stuffs, and especially of coal-tar products, has 
been a specialty of the Germans. This branch 
of chemical industry has shown a marvelous 
growth and has apparently yielded good re- 
turns on the money invested. 

The exports of aniline colors for the past 
six years have been: 


Quantity. 


Metric tons. Value. 


25,029 $19,213,000 


23,781 18, 402,000 
22,705 17,839, 000 
19,712 17,131,000 
17,639 15,969,000 
16,232 15,460,000 


The German manufacturer of chemicals is 
dependent upon foreign countries for most of 
his raw product and for an outlet for his 
goods; he is also hampered by the high price 
of fuel and freights, and he realizes that his 
main reliance is the supply of trained chem- 
ists in Germany. A summary of the statistics 
of this industry in the United States, taken 
from the recently published census returns, 
has been published somewhat widely in Ger- 
many; and the certainty of vigorous and in- 


[N. S.. Vot. XVI. No. 397. 


creasing competition on the part of the United 
States in this important branch is admitted. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

We have noted that four men of science— 
Lord Kelvin, Lord Lister, Lord Rayleigh and 
Sir William Huggins—have been included in 
the new order of merit founded by King Ed- 
ward at the time of his expected coronation. 
Attention should further be called to the fact 
that in addition to these four men of science 
there are in the order three generals, two ad- 
mirals, two men of letters and one artist. 
Science consequently appears to be in advance 
of any other department in the number of 
those selected as especially noteworthy, and to 
represent one third of the most eminent mer 
(excluding statesmen) in Great Britain. 


Ir is said that Captain Willard Herbert 
Brownson, now commanding the battleship 
Alabama, has been selected as superintendent 
of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, to assume 
his duties in October. Captain C. H. Davis, 
superintendent of the Naval Observatory, will, 
it is understood, succeed Captain Brownson in 
command of the Alabama. 


Desparcues from Germany report that Pro- 
fessor Virchow has had another fall and is 
very seriously ill. 

A titte of nobility has been conferred on 
the Asiatic explorer, Dr. Sven Hedin. 

Mr. Girrorp Prxcuot, chief of the Bureau 
of Forestry, is at present in Minnesota con- 
ducting experiments on reforestation. He 
will later go to the Philippine Islands to pre- 
pare a report on the forest conditions. 

Dr. Wurman Cross, of the U. S. Geological 
Survey, will spend part of the year in the 
Hawaiian Islands studying voleaniec phenom- 
ena. 

Mr. J. A. L. Coonmer, instructor in mathe- 
matics at Harvard University, has been 
granted leave of absence, and will spend two 
years in study abroad. 


Tuer centenary of the establishment of the 
Paris Council of Hygiene was celebrated on 
July 7. On this occasion gold medals were 
presented to Professor Proust and M. Schloes- 
ing. 


Aveust 8, 1902.] 


Prorerssor A. W. Evans, of Yale University, 
and Mr. Perey Wilson, of the New York Bo- 
tanical Garden, have gone to Porto Rico to 
make some further investigations and collec- 
tions of the flora of that island for the New 
York Botanical Garden. 

Lrorotpo Barres, the conservator of na- 
tional monuments, has returned to Mexico 
City, after his winter’s archeological excava- 
tions among the ruins of Zapotecan cities in 
the State of Oaxaca. 

Dr. Anton WEDDIGE, professor of chemistry 
at Leipzig, has retired. 

Mr. E. B. Baiey has been appointed a geol- 
ogist on the Geological Survey of Scotland. 

Dr. Gruser, professor of hygiene in the Uni- 
versity of Vienna, has been called to the presi- 
dency of the Munich Institute of Hygiene. 

A sraruE of Pasteur was unveiled at his 
birthplace, Déle, Jura, on August 3. 

Tuer centenary of the death of Bichat, the 
celebrated anatomist and physiologist, was 
commemorated on July 22, under the auspices 
of the French Society of the History of Medi- 
eine. An address was made by Dr. Albert Pri- 
eur, and a commemorative tablet was placed 
on the house in the Rue Chanoinesse in 
which Bichat died. A portrait medal, struck 
in honor of the occasion, may be obtained from 
Dr. Prieur, Place des Vosges, Paris. 

Masor Jostan R. Pierce, a well-known civil 
engineer, died at Washington on July 31. 
He was born in 1861 and had been connected 
with the Coast and Geodetic and Geological 
Surveys, and had been professor of civil engi- 
neering at the Columbian and Catholic Uni- 
versities. He served as a major of engineers 
in the Spanish war and had been engaged in 
a number of topographical surveys. 

Prorsssor Sarartk, who held the chair of 
chemistry and later of astronomy at the Uni- 
versity of Prague, died on July 2, at the age of 
seventy-three years. 

We also regret to learn of the deaths of Pro- 
fessor Gerhardt, an authority on the diseases 
of children and professor at the University of 
Berlin, who died at the age of sixty-nine years; 
of Mr. Benjamin Martell, a British engineer, 
at the age of seventy-seven years, and of Dr. 


SCIENCE. 239 


Alexander Kowalski, an astronomer at the ob- 
servatory at Pulkova, at the age of forty-four 
years. 


Tue French Minister of Agriculture has 
established an office for agricultural informa- 
tion, the object of which is to act as a bureau 
of correspondence and a means of populari- 
zing scientific agriculture. 

A year ago M. M. Bischoffsheim presented 
the astronomical observatories of Nice and Mt. 
Mounier to the French Government. The 
anniversary of this event was recently cele- 
brated by a dinner to M. Bischoffsheim, at 
which a number of the most eminent French 
astronomers were present. 


Tue Council of the British Medical Asso- 
ciation is prepared to receive applications for 
a scholarship of £200 for the study of some 
subject in the department of State Medicine 
in memory of the late Mr. Ernest Hart. 


A BACTERIOLOGIST is wanted for the Scottish 
National Antarctic Expedition. The condi- 
tions may be learned by application to W. S. 
Bruce, 21 Hill Place, Edinburgh. 


Tue French Surgical Association will next 
meet at Paris beginning on October 20. The 
association meets under the presidency of Dr. 
Jacques Reverdin, professor at the University 
of Geneva and foreign associate of the society. 


Tue Royal Institute of Public Health will 
hold its next annual congress in Exeter, August 
20 to 27. The work will be arranged in five 
sections: (1) Preventive medicine and vital 
statistics; (2) chemistry, climatology and bac- 
teriology; (3) engineering and architecture; 
(4) municipal and parliamentary hygiene; (5) 
veterinary and farm hygiene. 

Ir is announced that in the autumn a new 
journal, entitled Electrochemical Industry, 
will commence publication, with Dr. E. F. Ro- 
ber as editor. 

QUEENSLAND has given up its weather bu- 
reau, and the services of Mr. C. L. Wragge and 
others have been dispensed with. It is hoped 
that an arrangement may be made by which 
the service will be continued by the federal 
government. 

Tue directors of the meteorological observa- 


240 


tory on Ben Nevis have decided to close the 
institution in October. 


Tue Berlin correspondent of the Medical 
News describes the recent exposition of the 
Berlin Medical Society which, it appears, was 
arranged in six different groups: (1) Ana- 
tomical and pathological model preparations ; 
(2) Phantoms and plastic models; (8) Tables 
and Charts, including Photography and Radi- 
ography; (4) Microscopy in all its branches; 
(5) Apparatus for Demonstration; (6) Pro- 
jection Apparatus. In addition lectures were 
provided for on eight consecutive nights by 
the following eminent men: (1) Professor v. 
Bergmann on the means of medical instruc- 
tion; (2) Professor Doyen, of Paris, upon the 
development of surgical technic and methods; 
(3) Professor Jolly on the pathology of brain 
and spinal diseases; (4) Professor v. Leyden, 
demonstrations of diseases of the heart; (5) 
Professor Wassermann on bacteriology and 
serum therapy; (6) Professor Liebreich on 
pharmacology; (7) Professor y. Michel on 
tuberculosis of the eye; (8) Professor Ols- 
hausen on diseases of women and obstetrics. 

Procress of the topographic mapping of 
Kentucky by the United States Geological 
Survey is indicated by the instructions re- 
cently given to Mr. W. L. Miller, one of the 
topographers of the Survey, to assume charge 
of a party and conduct the mapping of the 
territory surrounding Harrodsburg, bounded 
by latitudes 87° 30’ and 38° and longitudes 
84° 30’ and 85°, as far as the length of the 
field season will permit. Mr. Miller’s party 
will consist of Messrs. F. F. Frank and W. C. 
Palmer, levelmen; IF. Moorhead and J. F. 
Howard, rodmen, and R. Berry and J. W. 
Craig, field assistants. Mr. Miller will later 
be joined by Mr. Hersey Munroe, topographer, 
who will have general supervision of the work; 
he will be accompanied by an assistant, Mr. 
G. T. Ford. 

Tue daily papers report that the French 
government has adopted the automatic tele- 
phone invention of a Russian engineer. The 
apparatus does away with ‘Central’ girls. 
The subscriber turns five disks, each num- 
bered from 0 to 9, to form the number wanted, 
whereupon the correspondent is called auto- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 397. 


matically. If he is absent a sign soon appears 
saying: ‘Rang one minute; no answer,’ while 
the ecaller’s number is registered at the other 
end, so that he may be called after the person 
sought returns. When the number desired is 
already ‘busy,’ a special buzz is immediately 
heard. In order not to dismiss all the tele- 
phone girls together, which might disturb the 
labor market, the new system will be intro- 
duced gradually. Three towns of moderate 
size are being equipped now—Limoges, Nimes 
and Dijon. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 
Tue will of the late Charles Kendall Adams, 
president of the University of Wisconsin, gives 
most of the estate to Mrs. Adams for life. The 
property is then to go to the University of 
Wisconsin to establish fifteen fellowships of 
the value of $10,000 each. 


Present Butter, of Columbia University, 
has offered to establish two fellowships for 
American students to study in France if the 
French government will establish at Columbia 
University two fellowships for students from 
France. 


Tue enrollment at the summer session of the 
University of California, including the Mar- 
ine Biological Laboratory at San Pedro, is 
829, an increase of 30 over last year. 


Tue Academy of Miinster has been made a 
University. 


Dr. Epmunp James will be installed as 
president .of the Northwestern University, 
October 21. The exercises will cover three 
days, and formal invitations are to be sent to 
prominent European and American colleges 
and universities and learned societies to send 
delegates. 


Dr. O. Voct has been made assistant direc- 
tor of the physiological laboratory of the Uni- 
versity of Berlin. 

Proressor Davin HinBert, professor of math- 


ematies at Gottingen, has declined a call to the 
University of Berlin. 


Dr. JOHANNES HarTMANN, astronomer in the 
Astronomical Observatory at Potsdam, has 
been made professor. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE : S. NEwcomB, Mathematics; R. S. WooDwaRD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WaALcortT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. Hart MERRIAM, Zoology ; 8. H. ScuppDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Brssty, N. L. Britton, Botany; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. BinLinas, Hygiene ; WiLLIAM H. WELcH, Pathol- 
ogy ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Fripay, August 15, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science :— 

The History of Ichthyology: PRESIDENT 
Davin STARR JORDAN.................. 241 
Joint Meetings of the Geological Society 

of America, Section E, and the National 

Geographic Society: Dr. F. P. Gutir 
VER 


Dr. J. G.. Cooper: PRoressor Wm. H. Dati. 268 
Scientific Books :— 

Ostwald’s Prineiples of Inorganic Chemis- 
New Teat- 


ProFESSOR W. LEC. 


try: Proressor H. L. WELLS. 
books in Physics: 


STEVEN Sirti aaretercrsr iyicvceeyeaae bccn tabsnarevaicienetas 269 
Societies and Academies :— 

Research Club of the University of Michi- 

gan: Proressor FREDERICK C. NEWCOMBE. 272 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 

Sia New Species: F. H. KNowuton....... 273 


Geological Excursions in the Pittsburgh 
Coal Region: AMADEUS W. GRABAU...... 274 
Scientific Notes and News................. 276 


University and Educational News.......... 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y, 


THE HISTORY OF ICHTHYOLOGY.* 

SCIENCE consists of human experience, 
tested and placed in order. The science of 
ichthyology contains our knowledge of 
fishes, derived from varied experience of 
man, tested by methods or instruments of 
precision and arranged in orderly sequence. 
This science, in common with every other, 
is the work of many men, each in his own 
field, and each contributing a series of facts, 
a series of tests of the alleged facts of 
others, or some improvement in the method 
of arrangement. As in other branches of 
science, this work has been done by sin- 
cere, devoted men, impelled by a love for 
this kind of labor, and having in view, as 
‘the only reward they asked, a grateful 
remembrance of their work.’ And in token 
of this reward it is well sometimes, in grate- 
ful spirit, to go over the names of those 
who made even its slight degree of com- 
pleteness possible. 

We may begin the history of ichthyology 
with that of so many others of the sciences, 
with the work of Aristotle (383-322 B.C.). 
This wonderful observer recorded many 
facts concerning the structure and habits 
of the fishes of Greece, and in almost every 
case his actual observation bears the 
closest modern test. These observations 


* Address of the Vice-President and Chairman 
of Section F, Zoology, American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, Pittsburgh Meeting, 
1902. 


242 


were hardly ‘set in order.’ The number 
of species he knew was small, about 115 in 
all, and it did not occur to him that they 
needed classification. His ideas of species 
were those of the fishermen, and the chang- 
ing vernacular supphed him with the neces- 
sary names. 

As Dr. Giinther wisely observes, ‘It is 
less surprising that Aristotle should have 
found so many truths as that none of his 
followers should have added to them.’ For 
about 1,800 years the scholars of the times 
copied the words of Aristotle, confusing 
them by the addition of fabulous stories and 
foolish superstitions, never goimg back to 
nature herself, ‘who leads us to absolute 
truth whenever we wander.’ <A few ob- 
servations were made by Caius Plinius, 
Claudius Atlianus, Athenzeus and others. 
About 400 A.D. Decius Magnus Ausonius 
wrote a pleasing little poem on. the Moselle, 
setting forth the merits of its various 
fishes. It was not, however, until the mid- 
dle of the seventeenth century that any 
advance was made in the knowledge of 
fishes. At that time the development of 
scholarship among the nations of Europe 
was such that a few wise men were able to 
grasp the idea of species. 

In 1553, Pierre Belon published his little 
book ‘De Aquatilibus,’ in which numerous 
(110) species of fishes of the Mediterranean 
were described, with tolerable figures, and 
with these is a creditable attempt at classi- 
fication. At about this time Ulysses Ald- 
rovandus, of Bologna, founded the first 
museum of natural history and wrote on 
the fishes it contained. In 1554, Salviani 
(1514-1572), a physician at Rome, publish- 
ed ‘ Aquatilium Animalium Historia,’ with 
good figures of most of the species, together 
with much general information as to the 
value and habits of animals of the sea. 

More important than these, but almost 
simultaneous with them, is the great work 
of Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1557), ‘De 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


Piscibus Marinis,’ later published in 
French and enlarged under other titles. In 
this work the different species, 244 in all, 
chiefly from the Mediterranean, are fairly 
described, and the various fables previously 
current are subjected to severe scrutiny. 
Recognizable woodcuts represent the differ- 
ent species. Classification, Rondelet had 
none, except as simple categories for pur- 
poses of convenience. More than usual care 
is given to the vernacular names, French and 
Greek. He closes his book with these words. 

‘Or sil en i a qui prennent les choses 
tant a la rigueur, qui ne veulent rien 
apparouver qui ne soit du tout parfait, je 
les prie de bien bon cueur de traiter telle, 
ou quelque autre histoire parfaitement, 
sans qu’il i ait chose queleonque a redire 
et la receverons é haut louerons bien voul- 
untiers. Cependant je seai bien, et me con- 
sole * * * avee grand travail * * * qu’on 
pourra trouver plusieurs bones choses é 
dignes de louange ou proufit é contentement 
des homes studieux é a l’honneur é gran- 
dissime admiration des tres excellens é 
perfaits ceuvres de Dieu.”’ 

And with the many ‘bones choses’ of the 
work of Rondelet, men were long too well 
satisfied, and it was not until the impulse 
of commerce had brought men face to face 
with the new series of animals not found in 
the Mediterranean that the work of the 
science of fishes was again resumed. About 
1640 Prince Moritz (Maurice), of Nassau, 
visited Brazil, taking with him two phy- 
sicians, George Maregray and Wilhelm Pi- 
so. In the great work ‘Historia Naturalis 
Brasilie,’ published at Leyden, 1648, 
Maregrav described about one hundred 
species, all new to science, with a good deal 
of spirit and accuracy. This work was 
printed by Piso after Marcgrav’s death, 
and his colored drawings—long afterwards 
used by Bloch—are in the ‘History of 
Brazil’ reduced to small and crude wood- 
euts. This is the first study of a local fish 


Aveust 15, 1902.] 


fauna outside the Mediterranean region, 
and it reflects great credit on Maregrav 
and on the illustrious prince whose assistant 
he was. 

There were no other similar attempts of 
importance in ichthyology for a hundred 
years, when Per Osbeck, an enthusiastic 
student of Linnzeus, published (1757) the 
records of his Chinese cruise under the 
name of ‘Iter Chinensis.’ At about the 
same time another of Linneus’ students, 
Hasselquist, published his ‘Iter Pales- 
tinum,’ the account of his discoveries of 
fishes in Palestine and Egypt. More pre- 
tentious than these and of much yalue, as 
an early record, is Mark Caterby’s (1679- 
1749) ‘Natural History of Carolina and the 
Bahamas,’ published in 1749, with large 
colored plates, which are fairly correct ex- 
cept in those cases where the drawing was 
made from memory. 

About this time, Hans Sloane (1660- 
1752) published his ‘Fishes of Jamaica,’ 
Patrick Browne (1720-1790) wrote on the 
fishes of the same region, while Father 
Charles Plumier (1646-1704) made paint- 
ings of the fishes of Martinique, long after 
used by Bloch and Lacépéde. Dr. Alex- 
ander Garden, of Charleston, S. C., col- 
lected fishes for Linneus, as did also Dr. 


Peter Kalm in his travels in the northern. 


parts of the American Colonies. 

With the revival of interest in general 
anatomy, several naturalists took up the 
structure of fishes. Among these Giinther 
mentions Borelli, Malpighi, Swammerdam 
and Duverney. 

The basis of classification was first fairly 
recognized by John Ray (1628-1705) and 
Francis Willughby (1635-1672), who, with 
other and varied scientific discoveries, un- 
dertook, in the ‘Historia Piscium,’ pub- 
lished in Oxford in 1686, to bring order out 
of the confusion left by their predecessors. 
This work, edited by Ray after Willughby’s 


SCIENCE. 


243 


death, is ostensibly the work of Willughby 
with additions by Ray. In this work 420 
species were recorded, 180 of these being 
actually examined by the authors, and the 
arrangement chosen by them paved the 
way to a final system of nomenclature. 

Direct efforts in this direction, with a 
fairly clear recognition of genera as well 
as species, were made by Lorenz Theodor 
Gronow, called Gronovius, a German nat- 
uralist of much acumen, and by Jacob 
Theodor Klein (1685-1757), whose work, 
‘Historia Naturalis Piscium,’ published 
about 1745, is of less importance, not being 
much of an advance over the catalogue of 
Rondelet. 

Far greater than any of these investiga- 
tors was he who has been justly called 
the father of ichthyology, Petrus Artedi 
(1705-1734). 

He was born in Sweden, was a fellow stu- 
dent of Linneus at Upsala, and devoted 
his short life wholly to the study of fishes. 
He went to Holland to examine the collec- 
tion of East and West Indian fishes of a 
rich Dutch merchant in Amsterdam, named 
Seba, and*there at the age of twenty-nine 
he was, by accident, drowned in one of the 
canals. ‘His manuscripts were fortunately 
rescued by an Englishman, Cliffort,’ and 
they were edited and published by Linnzeus 
in a series of five parts or volumes. 

Artedi divided the classes of fishes into 
orders, and these orders again into genera, 
the genera into species. The name of 
each species consisted of that of the genus 
with a descriptive phrase attached. This 
cumbersome system, called polynomial, was 
a great advance on the shifting vernacular, 
which in the works of Artedi, Gronow, 
Klein and others, it was now replacing. 
But the polynomial system as a system 
was of short duration. Linnzus soon sub- 
stituted for it the very convenient binomial 
system which has now endured for 150 


244 


years, and which, with certain modification, 
must form the permanent substructure of 
the nomenclature in systematic zoology. 

The genera of Artedi are in almost all 
cases natural groups, although essentially 
equivalent to the families of to-day, a divi- 
sion which in ichthyology was first clearly 
recognized by Cuvier. 

The following is a list of Artedi’s genera 
and their arrangement: 


ORDER MALACOPTERYGII. 
Syngnathus (pipe-fishes) (4 species). 
Cobitis (loaches) (3). 

Cyprinus (carp and dace) (19). 
Clupea (herrings) (4). 
Argentina (argentines) (1). 
Exocetus (flying-fishes) (2). 
Coregonus (white fishes) (4). 
Osmerus (smelts) (2). 
Salmo (salmon and trout) (10). 
Esox (pike) (8). 

Echeneis (remoras) (1). 
Coryphena (dolphins) (3). 
Ammodytes (sand launees) (1). 
Pleuronectes (flounders) (10). 
Stromateus (butter-fishes) (1). 
Gadus (cod-fishes) (11). 
Anarhichas (wolf-fishes) (1). 
Murena (eels) (6). 

Ophidion (cusk-eels) (2). 
Anableps (four-eyed fish) (1). 
Gymnotus (carapos) (1). 
Stlurus (eat-fishes) (1). 


ORDER ACANTHOPTERYGI. 
Blennius (blennies) (5). 
Gobius (gobies) (4). 
Xiphias (sword-fishes) (1). 
Scomber (mackerels) (5). 
Mugil (mullets) (1). 
Labrus (wrasses) (9). 
Sparus (porgies) (15). 
Sciena (croakers) (2). 
Perca (perch and bass) (7). 
Trachinus (weavers) (2). 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 398. 


Trigla (gurnards) (10). 
Scorpena (scorpion-fishes) (2). 
Cottus (seulpins) (5). 
Zeus (john dories, ete.) (3). 
Chetodon (butterfly-fishes) (4). 
Gasterosteus (stickle-backs) (3). 
Lepturus (cutlass-fishes) (—Trichiurus) 
(1). 

ORDER BRANCHIOSTEGI. 
Balistes (trigger-fishes) (6). 
Ostracion (trunk-fishes) (22). 
Cyclopterus (lump-fishes) (1). 
Lophius (anglers) (1). 


ORDER CHONDROPTERYGII. 

Petromyzon (lampreys) (3). 

Acipenser (sturgeons) (2). 

Squalus (sharks) (14). 

Raja (rays) (11). 

In all 47 genera and 230 species of fishes 
were known from the whole world in 1738. 

The cetaceans, or whales, constitute a 
fifth order, Plagiuri, in Artedi’s scheme. 

As examples of the nomenclature of spe- 
cies I may quote: 

“Zeus ventre aculeato, cauda in extremo 
circinata.’ This polynomial expression 
was shortened by Linneus to Zeus faber. 
The species was called by Rondelet ‘ Faber 
sive Gallus Marinus’ and by other authors 
‘Piscis jovit.? ‘Jovii’ suggested Zeus, 
and Rondelet’s name, faber, was the specific 
name chosen by Linneus. 

‘Anarhichas Lupus marinus nostras.’ 
This became with Linneus ‘‘Anarhichas 
lupus.’ 

‘Clupea, maxilla inferiore longiose, 
maculis nigris carcus: Harengus vel Chal- 
cis Auctorum, Herring vel Hering Angelis, 
Germanis, Belgis.’ This became Clupea 
harengus in the convenient binomial sys- 
tem of Linnzus. 

The great naturalist of the eighteenth 
century, Carl von Linné, known academ- 
ically as Carolus Linneus, was the early 


AuGusT 15, 1902.] 


associate and close friend of Artedi, and 
from Artedi he obtained practically all his 
knowledge of fishes. Linnus, the head of 
the University of Upsala, primarily a bot- 
anist, was a man of wonderful erudition, 
and his great strength lay in the orderly 
arrangement of things. In his lifetime, 
his greatest work, the ‘Systema Nature,’ 
passed through twelve editions. In the 
tenth edition, in 1758, the binomial system 
of nomenclature was first consistently ap- 
plied to all animals. For this reason, most 
naturalists use the date of its publication 
as the beginning of zoological nomencla- 
ture, although the English naturalists have 
generally preferred the more complete 
twelfth edition, published in 1766. This 
difference in the recognized starting point 
has been often a source of confusion, as 
in several cases the names of species were 
needlessly changed by Linneus and given 
differently in the twelfth edition. 

In Linneus’ system (tenth and twelfth 
editions), all of Artedi’s genera were re- 
tained save Lepturus, which name was 
changed to Trichiwrus. The following new 
genera were added: Chimera, Tetraodon, 
Diodon, Centriscus, Pegasus, Callionymus, 
Uranoscopus, Cepola, Mullus, Teuthis, Lor- 
caria, Fistularia, Atherina, Mormyrus, 
Polynemus, Ama, Elops. The classifica- 
tion was finally much altered; the Chon- 
dropterygia and Branchiostegi (with Syng- 
nathus) being called Amphibia Nantes, and 
divided into ‘Spiraculis compositis’ and 
“Spiraculis solitariis.’ The other fishes 
were more naturally distributed according 
to the position of the ventral fins into Pis- 
cis Apodes, Jugulares, Thoracici and Ab- 
dominales. The Apodes do not form a 
homogeneous group, as members of various 
distinct groups have lost their ventral fins 
in the process of evolution. But the Jugu- 
lares, the Thoracici and the Abdominales 
must be kept as valid categories in any 
natural system. ; 


SCIENCE. 


245 


Linneus’s contributions to zoology con- 
sisted mainly of the introduction of his 
most ingenious and helpful system of book- 
keeping. By it naturalists of all lands 
were able to speak of the same species by 
the same name in whatever tongue. Unfor- 
tunately, ignorance, carelessness and per- 
versity brought about a condition of con- 
fusion. For a long period many species 
were confounded under one name. This 
began with Linnzus himself. On the other 
hand, even with Linneus, the same species 
often appeared under several different 
names. In this matter it was not the sys- 
tem of naming which was at fault. It was 
the lack of accurate knowledge, and some- 
times the lack of just and conscientious 
dealing with the work of other men. No 
system of naming can go beyond the knowl- 
edge on which it rests. Ignorance of fact 
produces confusion in naming. The ear- 
ler naturalists had no conception of the 
laws of geographical distribution. The 
‘Indies,’ East or West, were alike to them, 
and ‘America’ was a sufficiently exact 
record of the origin of any specimen. 

Moreover, no thought of the geological 
past of groups and species had yet arisen, 
and, without the conception of common 
origin, the facts of homology had no sig- 
nificance. All classification was simply a 
matter cf arbitrary pigeon-holing the rec- 
ords of forms, rather than an expression 
of actual blood-relationship. To this con- 
fusion much was added through love of 
novelty. Different authors changed names 
to suit their personal tastes, regardless of 
rights of priority. Amia was altered to 
Anuatus because it was too short a name. 
Hiodon was changed to Amphiodon because 
it sounded too much like Diodon, and other 
changes much more wanton were intro- 
duced, to be condemned and discarded by 
the more methodical workers of a later 
period. With all its abuses, however, the 
binomial nomenclature made possible sys- 


246 


tematic zoology and botany, and with the 
‘Systema Natura’ arose a new era in the 
science of living organisms. 

In common with most naturalists of his 
day, the spirit of Linneus was essentially 
a devout one. Admiration for the wonder- 
ful works of God was breathed on almost 
every page. “O Jehovah! quam ampla sunt 
‘opera Tua’ is on the title-page of the ‘ Sys- 
tema Nature,’ and the inscription over the 
door of his home at Hammarby was, to 
Linneus, the wisdom of his life. This in- 
seription read: ‘Innocue vivito: Numen 
adest’ (Live blameless: God is here). 

The followers of Linneus are divided 
into two classes, explorers and compilers. 
To the first class belonged his own students 
and others who ransacked all lands for 
species to be added to the lists of the ‘Sys- 
tema Nature.’ These men, mostly Seandi- 
navian and Dutch, worked with wonderful 
zeal, enduring every hardship and making 
great contributions to knowledge, which 
they published in more or less satisfactory 
forms. To these men we owe the begin- 
nings of the science of geographical distri- 
bution. Among the most notable of these 
are Per Osbeck and Frederick Hasselquist, 
already noted; Otto Fabricius,. author of a 
‘Fauna of Greenland’; Carel Thunberg, 
successor of Linneus as head of the Univer- 
sity of Upsala, who collected fishes about 
Nagasaki, entrusting most of the descrip- 
tive work to the less skillful hands of his 
students Jonas Nicolas Ahl and M. Hout- 
tuyn, Martin Th. Brunnich, who collected 
at Marseilles the materials for his ‘Pisces 
Massiliensis’; Petrus Forskal, whose work 
on the fishes of the Red Sea (Descriptio 
Animatium,’ ete.), published posthumously 
in 1775, is one of the most accurate of fau- 
nal lists, and one which shows a fine feeling 
for taxonomic distinctions, scarcely trace- 
able in any previous author. George Wil- 
helm Steller, naturalist of Bering’s expedi- 
tion, gathered amid incredible hardships 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


the first knowledge of the fishes of Alaska 
and Siberia, his notes being printed after 
his tragic death, by Pallas and Kraschenin- 
nikow. Petrus Simon Pallas gives the ac- 
count of his travels in the North Pacific in 
his most valuable volumes, ‘Zoographia 
Russo-Asiatica.’ S. T. Gmelin and Giil- 
denstadt, like Steller, crossed Siberia, re- 
cording its animals. Johann David 
Schopf, a Hessian surgeon stationed at 
Long Island in the Revolutionary War, 
gave an excellent account of the fishes about 
New York. 

Other naturalists accompanied navi- 
gators around the globe, collecting speci- 
mens and information as opportunity of- 
fered. John Reinhold Forster and Solan- 
der sailed with Captain Cook. Commer- 
son accompanied Bougainville and furnish- 
ed nearly all the original material used by 
Lacépéde. Other noted travellers of the 
early days were Sonnerat and Mungo Park. 

Still other naturalists, scarcely less use 
ful, gave detailed accounts of the fauna of 
their own native regions. Ablest of these 
was Anastole Risso, an apothecary of Nice, 
who published in 1810 the ‘Ichthyologie 
de Nice,’ an excellent work afterwards 
(1826) expanded by him into a Tlstone 
Naturelle d’Europe Meridionale.’ 

Contemporary with Risso was a man of 
opposite character, Constantine Samuel 
Rafinesque (1784-1842), who wrote at 
Palermo in 1810 his ‘Caratteri di Aleuni 
Nuovi Generi’ and ‘Ittiologia Sciliana.’ 
Later he went to America, where he was 
for a time professor in the Transylvania 
University in Kentucky. Brilliant, erudite, 
irresponsible, fantastic, he wrote of the 
fishes of Sicily and later (‘Ichthyologia 
Ohiensis,’ 1820) of the fishes of the Ohio 
River, with wide knowledge, keen taxonom- 
ic insight and a hopeless disregard of the 
elementary principles of accuracy. Always 
eager for novelties, restless and credulous, 
his writings have been among the most diffi- 


Aueust 15, 1902.] 


cult to interpret of any in ichthyology. 
Earlier than Risso and Rafinesque, Thomas 
Pennant wrote of the British fishes, Oscar 
Fredrik Miiller of the fishes of Denmark, 
J. E. Gunner, Bishop of Thréndhjem, of 
fishes of Norway, Duhamel du Monceau of 
the fisheries of France, D. J. Cornide of the 
fishes of Spain, and Meidinger of those of 
Austria. Most of these writers knew little 
of the Linnzan system, and their records 
‘are generally in the vernacular. Most im- 
portant of this class is the work of Antonio 
Parra, ‘Descripcion de Diferentes Piezas 
de Historia Natural de la Isla de Cuba,’ 
published in Havana in 1787. In 1803, 
Patrick Russell gave a valuable account of 
‘Two Hundred Fishes Collected at Vizag- 
apatam and on the Coast of Coromandel.’ 
Following this was a work on the fishes of 
the Ganges, well illustrated, by Francis 
Buchanan-Hamilton. 

Bering Sea and Japan were explored by 
William Theophilus Tilesius (1775-1835), 
whose papers are published in the transac- 
tions of the early societies of Russia. 
Stephan Krascheninikov (1786) wrote a 
history of Russia in Asia, and other geo- 
graphical writers, as Kriisenstern, contrib- 
uted something to our knowledge of the 
fishes in regions visited by them. 

Other notable names among the early 
writers are those of Auguste Broussonet, of 
Montpelier, whose work, too soon cut short, 
showed marked promise, B. A. Euphras- 
en, Fr. Faber, who wrote of the fishes of Ice- 
land, Everard Home, E. Blyth, who studied 
the fishes of the Andamans, J. T. Kolreuter, 
J. Lepechin, John Latham, W. E. Leach, 
A. G. Desmarest, G. Montague, C. Quen- 
sel, H. Storm and M. Vahl. 

The compilers who followed Linnzus be- 
longed to a wholly different class. These 
were men of large learning, methodical 
ways, sometimes brilliant, sometimes of 
deep insight, but more often, on the whole, 
dull, plodding and mechanical. 


SCIENCE. 


247 


Earliest of these is Antoine Goiian, 
whose ‘Historia Piscium’ was published in 
Paris in 1770. In this work, which is of 
fair quality, only genera were included, and 
the three new ones which he introduces into 
the ‘System’ (Lepadogaster, Lepidopus and 
Trachypterus) are still retained with his 
definition of them. 

Johann Friedrich Gmelin published in 
1788 a thirteenth edition of the ‘Systema 
Nature’ of Linneus, adding to it the dis- 
coveries of Forskal, Forster and others who 
had written since Linneus’ time. This 
work was useful as bringing that of Lin- 
neus to a later date, but it is not well done, 
the compiler having little knowledge of the 
animals described and little penetration in 
matters of taxonomy. Very similar in 
value, although more lucid in expression, 
is the French compilation of the same date 
(1788), ‘ Tableau Eneyclopédique et Métho- 
dique des Trois Régnes de la Nature,’ by 
the Abbé J. P. Bonnaterre. Another ‘ En- 
cyclopédie Méthodique,’ of still less merit, 
was published as a dictionary in Paris in 
1787, by Réné Just Haiiy. 

In 1792, Johann Julius Walbaum, a Ger- 
man compiler of a little higher rank, gath- 
ered together the records of all known spe- 
cies, using the work of Artedi as a basis, 
and giving binomial names in place of the 
vernacular terms used by Schopf, Steller, 
Pennant and Krascheninnikow. 

Far more pretentious and more generally 
useful, as well as containing a large amount 
of original material, is the ‘Ichthyologia’ 
of Mark Eliezer Bloch, published in Berlin 
in various parts from 1782 to 1795. It was 
originally of two parts in German, ‘ Oeco- 


nomische Naturgeschichte der Fische 
Deutschlands’ and ‘Naturgeschichte der 


Auslandischen Fische.’ Bloch was a physi- 
cian, born at Anspach in 1723, and at the 
age of fifty-six began to devote himself to 
ichthyology. In his great work is contained 
every species which he had himself seen, 


248 


every one which he could purchase from 
collections, and every one of which he could 
find drawings made by others. 

That part which relates to the fishes of 
Germany is admirably done. In the treat- 
ment of East Indian and American fishes 
there is much guess work, and many errors 
of description and of facet, for which the 
author was not directly responsible. To 
learn to interpret the personal equation in 
the systematic work of other men is one 
of the most delicate of taxonomie arts. 

After the publication of these great folio 
volumes of plates, Dr. Bloch began a sys- 
tematic catalogue to include all known spe- 
cies. This was published after his death 
by his collaborator, the philologist, Dr. 
Johann Gottlob Schneider. This work, ‘Sys- 
tema Ichthyologie M. E. Blochu,’ contains 
1,519 species of fishes, and is the most cred- 
itable compilation subsequent to the death 
of Linneus. i 

Even more important than the work of 
Bloch is that of the Comte de Lacépéde, 
who became with the progress of the 
French Revolution ‘Citoyen Lacépéde,’ 
his original full name being Bernard Ger- 
main Etienne de la Ville-sur-Illon, Comte 
de Lacépéde. His great work, ‘ Histoire 
Naturelle des Poissons,’ was published orig- 
inally in five volumes, in Paris, from 1798 
to 1803. It was brought out under great 
difficulties, his materials being scattered, 
his country in a constant tumult. For 
original material he depended chiefly on 
the collection and sagacious notes of the 
traveler Commerson. Dr. Gill sums up the 
strength and weakness of Lacépéde’s work 
in these terms: 

‘* A work by an able man and eloquent 
writer even prone to aid rhetoric by the aid 
of the imagination in absence of desirable 
facts, but which because of undue confi- 
dence in others, default of comparison of 
material from want thereof and otherwise, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. XVI. No. 398, 


and carelessness generally, is entirely un- 
reliable.’’ 

The work of Lacépeéde had a large influ- 
ence upon subsequent investigators, espe- 
cially in France. A large portion of the 
numerous new genera of Rafinesque was 
founded on divisions made in the analytical 
keys of Lacépéde. 

In 1803 and 1804, Dr. George Shaw pub- 
lished in London his ‘ General Zoology,’ the 
fishes forming part of Volumes IV. and V- 
This is a poor compilation, the part con- 
cerning the fishes being largely extracted 
from Bloch and Lacépéde. In 1807, Con- 
stant Duméril published an analytical table 
of classification of some merit as ‘ Ichthy- 
ologie Analytique,’ and about 1815, H. 
Ducrotay de Blainville wrote the ‘ Faune 
Frangaise’ and contributed important 
studies to the taxonomy of sharks. 

With Georges Chrétien Léopold Dago- 
bert Cuvier and the ‘Régne Animal Ar- 
rangé aprés son Organization’ (1817— 
1826) we have the beginning of a new era 
in ichthyology. This period is character- 
ized by a recognition of the existence of a 
natural classification based on the prin- 
ciples of morphology. The ‘Régne Ani- 
mal’ is, in the history of ichthyology, not 
less important than the ‘Systema Nature’ 
itself, and from it dates practically our 
knowledge of families of fishes, and the in- 
terrelations of the groups themselves. The 
ereat facts of homology were clearly under- 
stood by Cuvier. Their significance as in- 
dications of lmes of descent was never 
grasped by him, and this notwithstanding 
the fact that Cuvier was almost the first 
to bring extinct forms into the proper rela- 
tions with those now living. 

Dr. Giinther well says that the investi- 
gation of anatomy of fishes was continued 
by Cuvier until he had sueceeded in com- 
pleting so perfect a framework of the sys- 
tem of the whole class that his immediate 


AvueustT 15, 1902.] 


successors could content themselves with 
filling up those details for which their mas- 
ter had no leisure. Indefatigable in exam- 
ining all the external and internal charac- 
ters of the fishes of a rich collection, he 
ascertained the natural affinities of the 
infinite variety of fishes, and accurately 
defined the divisions, orders, families and 
genera of the class, as they appear in the 
various editions of the ‘Réene Animal.’ 
His industry equaled his genius; he 
opened connections with almost every ac- 
cessible part of the globe; not only French 
travelers and naturalists, but also Ger- 
mans, Englishmen, Americans, rivaled one 
another to assist him with collections; and 
for many years the Museum of the Jardin 
des Plantes was the center where all ichthy- 
ological treasures were deposited. Thus 
Cuvier brought together a collection the 
like of which had never been seen before, 
and which, as it contains all the materials 
on which his labors were based, must still 
be considered to be the most important. 

- The greatest contributions of Cuvier to 
ichthyology are contained in the great 
“Histoire Naturelle des Poissons,’ the joint 
work of Cuvier and his pupil and successor, 
Achille Valenciennes. Of this work 22 vol- 
umes were published, from 1828 to 1847, 
containing 4,514 nominal species, the larger 
number of volumes appearing after the 
death of Cuvier (1832), the work closing, 
not quite complete, with the death of Val- 
enciennes in 1848. 

This is a most masterly work, still in- 
dispensable to the student of fishes. Its 
descriptions are generally exact, its state- 
ments correct, its plates accurate and its 
judgements trustworthy. But with all this 
it is very unequal. Many of the species are 
treated very lightly by Cuvier; many of 
the descriptions of Valenciennes are very 
mechanical; as though the author had 
grown weary of the endless proeess, ‘a fail- 
ing commonly observed among zoologists 


SCIENCE. 


249 


when attention to descriptive details be- 
comes to them a tedious task.’ As Giin- 
ther observes, the number of nominal spe- 
cies is almost doubled because the authors 
neglected to give proper attention to the 
changes in different species due to age and 
sex. 

After the death of Valenciennes (1848) 
Dr. Auguste Duméril (son of Constant 
Dumeéril) began a continuation of this work, 
publishing two volumes (1865-1870) cover- 
ing sharks, ganoids and other fishes not. 
treated by Cuvier and Valenciennes. The 
death of Duméril left the great catalogue 
still incomplete. Duméril’s work is useful 
and carefully done, but his excessive trust 
in slight differences has filled his book with 
nominal species. Thus among the ganoid 
fishes he recognizes 135 species, the actual 
number being not far from 40. 

We may anticipate the sequence of time 
by here referring to the remaining at- 
tempts at a record of all the fishes in the 
world. Dr. Albert C. L. G. Giinther, a 
German naturalist resident in London, and 
long the Keeper of the British Museum, 
published in eight volumes the ‘ Catalogue 
of the Fishes of the British Museum,’ from 
1859 to 1870. In this monumental work, 
the one work most essential to all system- 
atic study of fishes, 6,843 species are 
described and 1,682 doubtful species are 
mentioned. The book is a tremendous ex- 
ample of patient industry. Its great mer- 
its are at once apparent, and those of us 
engaged in the same line of study may pass 
by its faults with the same leniency which 
we may hope that posterity may bestow on 
ours. 

The publication of this work gave a re- 
markable stimulus to the study of fishes. 
The number of known species had been 
raised from 9,000 to about 12,000, and some 
hundreds of species even accepted by the 
conservatism of Giinther have been erased 
from the system. 


250 


A new edition of this work has been long 
in contemplation, and in 1898 the first 
volume of it, covering the percoid fishes, 
was published by Dr. George Albert Bou- 
lenger. This volume is one of the most 
satisfactory in the history of ichthyology. 
It is based on ample material. Its ac- 
cepted species have been subject to thor- 
ough eriticism and in its classification every 
use has been made of the teachings of mor- 
phology and especially of osteology. Its 
classification is distinctly modern, and with 
the writings of the contemporary ichthy- 
ologists of Europe and America, it is fully 
representative of the scientific era ushered 
in by the researches of Darwin. The chief 
eriticism which one may apply to this work 
concerns most of the publications of the 
British Museum. It is the frequent as- 
sumption that those species not found in 
the greatest museum of the world do not 
really exist at all. There are still many 
forms of life, very many, outside the series 
gathered in any or all collections. 

We may now turn from the universal 
catalogues to the work on special groups, 
on local faunas or on particular branches 
of the subject of ichthyology. These lunes 
of study were made possible by the work of 
Cuvier and Valenciennes and especially by 
that of Dr. Giinther. 

Before taking up the students of faunal 
groups, we may, out of chronological order, 
consider the researches of three great tax- 
onomists, who have greatly contributed to 
the modern system of the classification of 
fishes. 

Louis Agassiz (born in western Switzer- 
land in 1807; died at Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1873) was a man of wonderful 
insight in zoological matters and possessed 
varied range of scientific information, 
scarcely excelled in any age—intellectually 
a lineal descendant of Aristotle. His first 
work on fishes was the large folio on the 
fishes collected by Jean Baptiste Spix in 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


Brazil, published at Munich in 1827. After. 
his establishment in America in 1846, at 
which time he became a professor in Har- 
vard University, Agassiz published a num- 
ber of illuminating papers on the fresh- 
water fishes of North America. He was the 
first to recognize the necessity of the mod- 
ern idea of genera among fishes, and almost 
all of the groups so designated by him are 
retained by later writers. He was also the 
first to investigate the structure of the sin- 
gular viviparous surf-fishes of California, 
the names EHmbiotoca and Holconoti ap- 
plied to these fishes being chosen by him. 

His earlier work, ‘Recherches sur les 
Poissons des Eaux Douces,’ published in 
Europe, gave a great impetus to our knowl- 
edge of the anatomy and especially of the 
embryology of the fresh-water fishes. Most 
important of all his zoological publications 
was the ‘ Recherches sur les Poissons Fos- 
siles,’ published at Neufchatel from 1833 
to 1843. This work laid the foundation of 
the systematic study of the extinct groups 
of fishes. The relations of sharks were first 
appreciated by Agassiz, and the first segre- 
gation of the ganoids was due to him. Al- 
though he included in this group many 
forms not truly related either to the gan- 
oids or even to the extinct arthrognaths, 
yet the definition of this order marked a 
great step in advance. 

The great, genial, hopeful personality of 
Agassiz and his-remarkable skill as a teach- 
er made him the ‘best friend that ever stu- 
dent had’ and gave him a large following 
as a teacher. Among his pupils in ichthy- 
ology were Charles Girard, Frederick 
Ward Putnam, Alexander Agassiz, Samuel 
Garman, Samuel H. Scudder and the pres- 
ent writer. 

Johannes Miiller (1808-1858), of Berlin, 
was one of the greatest of comparative 
anatomists. In his revision of Cuvier’s 
‘System of Classification’ he corrected 
many errors in grouping, and laid founda- 


Avaust 15, 1902.] 


tions which later writers have not altered 
or removed. Especially important is his 
classical work, ‘Ueber den Bau und die 
Grenzen der Ganoiden.’ In this he showed 
the real fundamental characters of that 
group of archaic fishes, and took from it 
the most heterogeneous of the elements left 
in it by Agassiz. To Miiller we also owe 
the first proper definition of the Lepto- 
eardii and the Cyclostomi, and, in associa- 
tion with Dr. J. Henle, Miiller has given 
us one of the best general accounts of the 
sharks (‘Systematische Beschriebungen der 
Plagiostomen’). To Miiller we owe an ac- 
cession of knowledge in regard to the duct 
of the air-bladder, and the groups called 
Dipneusti (Dipnoi), Pharyngognathi and 
Anacanthini were first defined by him, al- 
though now usually restricted within nar- 
rower limits than those assigned by him. 
In his work on the Devonian fishes, the 
great British comparative anatomist, 
Thomas Henry Huxley, first distinguished 
the group of Crossopterygians, and sepa- 
rated it from the Ganoids and Dipnoans. _ 
Theodore Nicholas Gill is the keenest in- 
terpreter of taxonomic facts yet known in 
the history of ichthyology. He is the au- 
thor of an immense number of papers, the 
first bearing date of 1858, touching almost 
every group and almost every phase of re- 
lation among fishes. His numerous sugges- 
tions as to elassification have been usually 
accepted in time by other authors, and no 
one has had a clearer perception than he 
of the necessity of orderly methods in 
nomenclature. Among the orders first de- 
fined by Gill are the Eventognathi, the 
Haplomi, the Xenomi and the group called 
Teleocephali, which included all the bony 
fishes except those which showed peculiar 
eccentricities or modifications. Dr. Gill’s 
greatest excellence has been shown as a 
scientific critic. Incisive, candid and 
friendly, there is scarcely a scientific man 
in America who is not directly indebted to 


SCIENCE. 


251 


him for critical aid of the highest impor- 
tance. The present writer cannot too 
strongly express his own obligations to this 
great teacher, his master in fish taxonomy, 
as Agassiz was in fish ecology. Dr. Gill’s 
work is not centered in any single great 
treatise, but is diffused through a very 
large number of brief papers and cata- 
logues, those from 1861 to 1865 mostly pub- 
lished by the Academy of Natural Sciences 
in Philadelphia, those of recent date by 
the United States National Museum. For 
many years Dr. Gill has been identified 
with the work of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion at Washington. 

Closely associated with Dr. Gill was Dr. 
Edward Drinker Cope, of Philadelphia, a 
tireless worker in almost every field of 
zoology, and a large contributor to the 
broader fields of ichthyological taxonomy 
as well as to various branches of descriptive 
zoology. Cope was one of the first to in- 
sist on the close relation of the true ganoids 
with the teleost fishes, the nearest related 
group of which he defined as Isospondyli. 
In breadth of vision and keenness of in- 
sight, Cope ranked with the first of tax- 
onomic writers. Always bold and original, 
he was not at all times accurate in details, 
and to the final result in classification his 
contribution has been less than that of Dr. 
Gill. Professor Cope also wrote largely on 
American fresh-water fishes, a large per- 
centage of the Cyprinide and Percide of 
the eastern United States having been dis- 
covered by him, as well as much of the 
Rocky Mountain fauna. In later years his 
attention was absorbed by the fossil forms, 
and most of the species of the Cretaceous 
rocks and the Hocene shales of Wyoming 
were made known through his ceaseless 
activity. 

The enumeration of other workers in the 
great field of ichthyology must assume 
something of the form of a catalogue. Part 
of the impulse received from the great 


252 


works of Cuvier and Valenciennes and of 
Giinther was spent in connection with voy- 
ages of travel. In 1824, Quoy and Gaim- 
ard published in Paris the great folio work 
on the fishes collected by the corvettes 
L’Uranie and La Physicienne in Freycinet’s 
voyage around the world. In 1834, the 
same authors published the fishes collected 
in Dumont D’Urville’s voyage of the Astro- 
labe. In 1826 Lesson published the fishes 
voyage around the world. In 1834, the 
great works lie at the foundation of our 
knowledge of the fishes of Polynesia. In 
1839, Eydoux and Gervais published the 
fishes of the voyage of La Favorite. In 
1853, also in Paris, Homborn and Jacqui- 
not gave an account of the fishes taken in 
Dumont D’Urville’s expedition toward the 
South Pole. In England, Sir John Rich- 
ardson, a wise and careful naturalist, 
wrote of the fishes collected by the 
Sulphur (1845), the Hrebus and Ter- 
ror (1846) and the Herald. Lay and 
Bennett recorded the species taken by 
Beechey’s voyage on the Blossom. More 
important than any of these is the account 
of the species taken by Charles Darwin on 
the voyage of the Beagle, prepared by the 
conscientious hand of Rev. Leonard Jenyns. 
Still more important and far ranging is the 
voyage of the Challenger, including the 
first important work in the deep seas, the 
stately volume and parts of other volumes 
on fishes being the work of Dr. Giinther. 
Other deep-sea work of equal importance 
has been accomplished in the Atlantic and 
the Pacific by the U. S. Fish Commission 
steamer Albatross. Its results in Central 
America, Alaska and Japan, as well as off 
both coasts of the United States, have been 
made known in different memoirs by Goode 
and Bean, Garman, Gilbert, Gill, Jordan, 
Cramer and others. The deep-sea fish collec- 
tions of the Fish Hawk and the Blake have 
been studied by Goode and Bean and Gar- 
man. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 398. 


The deep-sea work of other countries may 
be briefly noticed. The French vessels, 
Travalleur and Talisman, have made col- 
lections chiefly in the Mediterranean and 
along the coast of Africa, the results having 
been made known by Leon Vaillant. The 
Hirondelle about the Azores and elsewhere 
has furnished material for Professor Rob- 
ert Collett, of the University of Christiania. 
Dr. Decio Vinciguerra, of Rome, has re- 
ported on the collections of the Violante, a 
vessel belonging to the Prince of Monaco. 
Dr. A. Alcock, of Caleutta, has had charge of 
the most valuable deep-sea work of the In- 
vestigator in the Indian seas. Dr. James 
Douglas Ogilby and Dr. Edgar R. White, 
Sydney, N. S. W., have described the collee- 
tions of the Thetis, made on the shores of 
New South Wales. 

From Austria the voyage of the frigate 
Novara has yielded large material which 
has been described by Dr. Rudolph Kner. 
The cream of many voyages of many Dan- 
ish vessels has been gathered in the ‘Spolia 
Atlantica’ and other truly classical papers 
of Christian Frederik Liitken, of the Uni- 
versity of Copenhagen, one of the great. 
naturalists of our times. 

F. H. von Kittlitz has written on the 
fishes seen by him in the northern Pacific, 
and earlier and more important we may 
mention the many ichthyological notes 
found in the travel records of Alexander 
von Humboldt in Mexico and South Ameri- 
ca. 

The local faunal work in various nations 
has been very extensive. In Great Britain 
we may note Parnell’s ‘Natural History of 
the Fishes of the Firth of Forth,’ publish- 
ed in Edinburgh in 1838, William Yarrell’s 
‘History of British Fishes’ (1859), the ear- 
ler histories of British fishes by Edward 
Donovan and by William Turton, and the 
works of J. Couch (1862) and Dr. Francis 
Day (1888), which possess similar titles. 
The work of Day, with its excellent plates, 


Avuaust 15, 1902.] 


will long be the standard account of the 
relatively scant fish fauna of the British Is- 
lands. H. G. Seelye has also a useful 
“Synopsis of the Fresh-water Fishes of 
Europe.’ - 

We may here notice without praise the 
extensive work of William Swainson 
(1839). W. Thompson has written of the 
fishes of Ireland, and Rev. Richard T. Lowe 
and J. Y. Johnson have done most excellent 
work on the fishes of Madeira. F. McCoy, 
better known for work on fossil fishes, may 
be mentioned here. 

The fish fauna of Scandinavia has been 
described more or less fully by Kroyer 
(1840), Nilsson (1855), Fries and Ekstrém 
(1836), Collett, Lilljeborg and F. A. Smitt, 
besides special papers by other writers, no- 
tably Reinhardt, L. Esmarek, Japhetus 
Steenstrup, Liitken and A. W. Malm. Rein- 
hardt, Kroyer, Liitken and A. J. Malmgren 
have written of the Arctic fishes of Green- 
land and Spitzbergen. 

In Russia, Nordmann has described the 
fishes of the Black Sea (‘Ichthyologie Pon- 
tique,’ Paris, 1840) and Hichwald those of 
the Caspian. More recently, S. Herzen- 
stein, Warpachowsky, K. Kessler, B. N. 
Dybowsky, Kamensky and others have writ- 
ten of the rich fauna of Siberia, the Caucas- 
us and the scarcely known Sea of Okhotsk. 
Stephan Basilevsky has written rather un- 
skillfully of the fishes of northern China. 
A. Kowalevsky has contributed very much 
to our knowledge of anatomy. 

In Germany and Austria the chief local 
‘works have been those of Heckel and Kner 
on the fresh-water fishes of Austria (1858), 
and those of C. Th. von Siebold on the 
fresh-water fishes of Central Europe 
(1863). German ichthyologists have usual- 
ly extended their view to foreign regions 
where their characteristic thoroughness and 
accuracy has made their work illuminating. 
The two memoirs of Edouard Riippell on 
the fishes of the Red Sea and the neigh- 


SCIENCE. 253 


boring parts of Africa, ‘Atlas zu der Reise 
im Nordlichen Afrika,’ 1828, and ‘Neue 
Wirbelthiere,’ 1837, rank with the very best 
of descriptive work. Giinther’s finely il- 
lustrated ‘Fische der Siidsee,’ published in 
Hamburg, may be regarded as German 
work. Other papers are those of Dr. Wil- 
helm Peters on Asiatic fishes, the most im- 
portant being on the fishes of Mozambique. 
J. J. Heckel, Rudolph Kner and Franz 
Steindachner, successively curators of the 
Museum of Vienna, have written largely on 
fishes. The papers of Steindachner cover 
almost every part of the earth and are ab- 
solutely essential to any serious system- 
atie study of fishes. No naturalist of 
any land has surpassed Steindachner in 
industry or accuracy and his work has the 
advantage of the best illustrations of fishes 
made by any artist, the noted Edouard Kon- 
opicky. Other German writers are J. J. 
Kaup, who has worked in numerous fields, 
but as a whole with little skill, Dr. S. B. 
Klunzinger, who has given excellent ac- 
counts of the fishes of the Red Sea, and Dr. 
Franz Hilgendorf, of the University of Ber- 
lin, whose papers on the fishes of Japan 
and other regions have shown a high grade 
of taxonomic insight. Other writers of 
earlier date are Johann Marcusen, who 
studied the Mormyri, W. von Repp, who 
wrote on the fishes of the Lake of Constance, 
and J. F. Brandt. 

In Italy, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, 
Prince of Canino, has published an elabo- 
rate ‘Fauna Italica’ (1838), and in numer- 
ous minor papers has taken a large part 
in the development of ichthyology. Many 
of the accepted names of the large groups 
(as Elasmobranchii, Heterosomata, ete.) 
were first suggested by Bonaparte. The 
work of Rafinesque has been already no- 
ticed. O. G. Costa published (about 1850) 
a ‘Fauna of Naples.’ In recent times G. 
Canestrini, Decio Vinciguerra, Enrico Hill- 
yer Giglioli, Luigi Déderlein and others 


254 


have added largely to our knowledge 
of Italian fishes, while Carlo F. Emery, F. 
de Filippi, Luigi Facciola and others have 
studied the larval growth of different spe- 
cies. Camillo Ranzani, G. G. Bionconi, G. 
D. Nardo and others have contributed to 
different fields of ichthyology. 

Nicolas Apostolides and, still later, Hor- 
ace A. Hoffman and the present writer 
have written on the fishes of Greece. 

In France, the fresh-water fishes are the 
subject of an important work by Emile 
Blanchard (1866), and Emile Moreau has 
given us a convenient fauna of France. 
Leon Vaillant has written on various 
eroups of fishes, his monograph of the 
American darters (Etheostomine) being a 
masterpiece so far as the results of the 
study of relatively seanty material would 
permit. The ‘Mission Scientifique au Mex- 
ique,’ by Vaillant and F. Bocourt, is one 
of the most valuable contributions to our 
knowledge of the fishes of that region. Dr. 
H. E. Sauvage, of Boulogne-sur-Mer, has 
also written largely on the fishes of Asia, 
Africa and other regions. 

Important among these are the ‘Poissons 
de Madagasear,’ and a monograph of the 
sticklebacks. Alexander Thominot and 
Jacques Pellegrin have also written, in 
the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, on 
different groups of fishes. Earlier writers 
were Alphonse Guichenot, L. Brissot de 
Barneville, H. Hollard, an able anatomist, 
and Bibron. 

In Spain and Portugal, the chief work 
of local authors is that of J. V. B. Bocage 
and F. de Brito Capello on the fish of 
Portugal. So far as Spain is concerned, 
the chief memoir is Steindachner’s account 
of his travels in Spain and Portugal. The 
principal studies of the Balkan region have 
also been made by Steindachner. 

In Holland, the chief great works have 
been those of Schlegel and Pieter van 
Bleeker. Professor Schlegel, of the Uni- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 398. 


versity of Leyden, deseribed the fishes col- 
lected about Nagasaki by Ph. Fr. de Sie- 
bold and Biirger. His work forms a large 
folio illustrated by colored plates, the ‘Fau- 
na Japonica Poissons,’ published in Leyden 
from 1844 to 1850. Schlegel’s work in 
every field is characterized by scrupulous 
eare and healthful conservatism, and the 
‘Fauna Japonica’ is a most useful monu- 
ment to his rare powers of discrimination. 

Pieter von Bleeker (1819-1878), a sur- 
geon in the Dutch West Indies, is the most 
voluminous writer in ichthyology. He be- 
gan his work in Java without previous 
training and in a very rich field where al- 
most. everything was new. With many 
mistakes at first he rose to the front by 
sheer force of industry and patience, and 
his later work, while showing much of the 
‘personal equation,’ is still thoroughly ad- 
mirable. At his death he was engaged in 
the publication of a magnificent folio work, 
‘Atlas Ichthyologique des Indes Orientales 
Neerlandaises,’ illustrated by colored 
plates. This work remains about two 
thirds completed. The writings of Dr. 
Bleeker constitute the chief source of our 
knowledge of the fauna of the East Indies. 

Dr. Van Lidth de Jeude, of the Univer- 
sity of Leyden, is the author of a few de- 
scriptive papers on fishes. 

To Belgium we may assign part at least 
of the work of the eminent Belgian natu- 
ralist, George Albert Boulenger, now long 
connected with the British Museum. His 
various valuable papers on the fishes of the 
Congo are published under the auspices of, 
the ‘Congo Free State,’ itself largely a 
ereation of the government of Belgium. 
To Belgium also we may ascribe the work 
of Louis Dollo on the morphology of fishes, 
and on the deep-sea fishes obtained by the 
‘Expedition Antaretique Belge.’ 

The fish fauna of Cuba has been the life- 
long study of Dr. Felipe Poey y Aloy (1799 
—1891), a pupil of Cuvier, for a half cen- 


Avaust 15, 1902.] 


tury or more the honored professor of zoo- 
logy in the University of Havana. Of his 
many useful papers, the most extensive are 
his ‘Memorias sobre la Historia Natural de 
la Isla de Cuba,’ followed by a ‘Repertorio’ 
and an ‘Enumeratio’ on the same subject. 
Poey devoted himself solely to the rich fish 
fauna of his native island, in which region 
he was justly recognized as a ripe scholar 
and a broad-minded gentleman. <A favor- 
ite expression of his was ‘Comme natural- 
iste, je ne suis pas espagnol: je suis cosmo- 
polite.’ Before Poey, Guichenot, of Paris, 
had written on the fishes collected in Cuba 
by Ramon de la Sagra. His account was 
published in Sagra’s ‘Historia de Cuba,’ 
and later Philip H. Gosse (1810-1888) 
wrote on the fishes of Jamaica. Much ear- 
ler, Robert Hermann Schomburgh (1804— 
1865) wrote on the fishes of British Guiana. 
Other papers on the Caribbean fishes were 
contributed by Johannes Miiller and F. H. 
Troschel, and by Richard Hill and J. Han- 
cock. 

Besides the work in South America of 
Maregrave, Agassiz, Reinhardt, Liitken, 
Steindachner, Jenyns, Boulenger and 
others already named, we may note the local 
studies of Dr. Carlos Berg in Argentina, 
Dr. R. A. Philippi in Chile, and special 
records of Humboldt, Garman, J. F. Ab- 
bott and others in recent times. Carl H. 
Higenmann and also Jordan and Higen- 
mann have studied the great collections 
made in Brazil by “Agassiz. Steindachner 
has described the collections of Johann 
Natterer, and Gilbert those made by Dr. 
John C. Branner. The most recent ex- 
tensive studies of the myriads of Brazilian 
river fishes are those of Dr. Higenmann. 
Earlier than any of these Francis de Cas- 
telnau (1855) described many Brazilian 
fishes and afterwards numerous fishes of 
Australia. Guichenot, of Paris, contrib- 
uted a chapter on fishes to Claude Gay’s 
‘History of Chile,’ and J. J. von Tschudi, 


SCIENCE. 


255 


of St. Gallen, published an elaborate but 
uncritical ‘Fauna Peruana’ with colored 
plates of Peruvian fishes. 4 

In New Zealand, F. W. Hutton and J. 
Hector have published a valuable work on 
the fishes of New Zealand, to which Dr. 
Gill added valuable critical notes in a study 
of ‘Antipodal Faunas.’ Later writers have 
given us a good knowledge of the fishes of 
Australia. Notable among them are W. 
Macleay, James Douglas Ogilby and Edgar 
R. Waite. Clarke has also written on 
‘Fishes of New Zealand.’ 

The most valuable work on the fishes of 
Hindustan is the elaborate treatise on the 
‘Fishes of India’ by Surgeon Francis Day. 
In this all the species are figured, the 
groups being arranged as in Giinther’s cata- 
logue, a sequence which few non-British 
naturalists seem inclined to follow. Can- 
tor’s ‘Malayan Fishes’ is a memoir of high 
merit, as is also McClelland’s work on the 
fishes of the Ganges, and we may here refer 
to Andrew Smith’s papers on the fishes of 
the Cape of Good Hope and to R. I. Play- 
fair and A. Giinther’s ‘Fishes of Zanzibar.’ 
T. C. Jerdon, John Edward Gray, E. Tyr- 
whitt Bennett, J. Bennett and others have 
also written on the fishes of India. 

In Japan, following the scattering papers 
of Thunberg, Tilesius and Houttuyn and 
the monumental work of Schlegel, numer- 
ous species have been recorded by James 
Carson Brevoort, Giinther, Gill, Edouard 
Nystrom, Hilgendorf and others. About 
1884 Steindachner and Déderlein publish- 
ed the valuable ‘Fische Japans,’ based on 
the collections made about Tokyo by Dr. 
Déderlein. In 1881, Motokichi Namiye, 
then as now Assistant Curator in the Im- 
perial University, published the first list 
of Japanese fishes by a native author. In 
1900 Dr. Chiyomatsu Ishikawa, in a paper 
on the ‘Fishes of Lake Biwa,’ was the first 
Japanese author to venture to name a new 
species of fish (Pseudogobio zezera). This 


256 


reticence was due not wholly to lack of 
self-confidence, but rather to the scattered 
condition of the literature of Japanese ich- 
thyology. For this reason no Japanese au- 
thor has ever felt sure that any given un- 
determined species was really new. Other 
Japanese ichthyologists of promise are Dr. 
Kamakichi Kishinouye, Dr. Shinnosuke 
Matsubara and Keinosuke Otaki, and we 
may look for others among the pupils of 
Dr. Kakichi Mitsukuri, the distinguished 
Professor of Zoology in the Imperial Uni- 
versity. 

The most recent, as well as the most ex- 
tensive, studies of the fishes of Japan were 
made in 1900 by the present writer and 
his associate, John Otterbein Snyder. 

The scanty pre-Cuvieran work on the 
fishes of North America has been already 
noticed. Contemporary with the early 
work of Cuvier is the worthy attempt of 
Professor Samuel Latham Mitchell (1764— 
1831) to record in systematic fashion the 
fishes of New York. Soon after followed 
the admirable work of Charles Alexander 
Le Sueur (1780-1840), artist and natural- 
ist, who was the first to study the fishes of 
the Great Lakes and the basin of the Ohio. 
Le Sueur’s engravings of fishes, in the early 
publications of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences in Philadelphia, are still among 
the most satisfactory representations of the 
species to which they refer. Constantine 
Samuel Rafinesque (1784-1842), the third 
of this remarkable but very dissimilar trio, 
published numerous papers descriptive of 
the species he had seen or heard of in his 
various botanical rambles. This culmi- 
nated in his elaborate but untrustworthy 
‘Tehthyologia Ohiensis.’ The fishes of 
Ohio received later a far more conscien- 
tious though less brilliant treatment at the 
hands of Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland (1793- 
1877), an eminent physician of Cleveland, 
Ohio. In 1842 the amiable and scholarly 
James Ellsworth Dekay (1799-1851) pub- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 398. 


lished his detailed report on the ‘New 
York fauna,’ and a little earlier (1836) 
in the ‘Fauna Boreali-Americana’ Sir 
John Richardson (1787-1865) gave a most 
valuable and accurate account of the fishes 
of the Great Lakes and Canada. Almost 
simultaneously, Rev. Zadock Thompson 
(1796-1856) gave a catalogue of the fishes 
of Vermont, and David Humphreys Storer 
(1804-1891) began his work on the fishes 
of Massachusetts, finally expanded into a 
‘Synopsis of the Fishes of North America’ 
(1846) and a ‘History of the Fishes of 
Massachusetts’ (1867). Dr. John Edwards 
Holbrook (1794-1871), of Charleston, pub- 
lished (1860) his invaluable record of the 
fishes of South Carolina, the promise of 
still more important work, which was de- 
stroyed by the outbreak of the Civil War. 
The monograph on Lake Superior (1850) 
and other publications of Louis Agassiz 
(1807-1873) have been already noticed. 
One of the first of Agassiz’s students was 
Charles Girard (1822-1895), who came 
with him from Switzerland, and, in asso- 
ciation with Spencer Fullerton Baird 
(1823-1887), described the fishes from the 
United States Pacifie Railway Surveys 
(1858) and the United States and Mexican 
Boundary Surveys (1859). Professor 
Baird, primarily an ornithologist, became 
occupied with executive matters, leaving 
Girard to finish these studies of the fishes. 
A large part of the work on fishes pub- 
lished by the United States National Mu- 
seum and the United States Fish Com- 
mission has been made possible through 
the direct help and inspiration of Pro- 
fessor Baird. Among those engaged in this 
work, James M. Milner, Hugh M. Smith 
and Marshall Macdonald may be noted. 

Most eminent, however, among the stu- 
dents and assistants of Professor Baird 
was his successor, George Brown Goode 
(1851-1899), one of the most accomplished 
of American naturalists, whose greatest 


Aueust 15, 1902. ] 


work, ‘ Oceanic Ichthyology,’ published in 
collaboration with his associate of many 
years, Dr. Tarleton Hoffman Bean, was 
barely finished at the time of his death. The 
work of Theodore Nicholas Gill and Ed- 
ward Drinker Cope has been already 
noticed. 

Other faunal writers of more or less 
prominence were William Dandridge Peck 
(1763-1822) in New Hampshire, George 
Suckley (1830-1869) in Oregon, James 
William Milner (1841-1880) in the Great 
Lake Region, Samuel Stehman Holdeman 
(1812-1880) in Pennsylvania, William O. 
Ayres (1817-1891) in Connecticut and 
California, Dr. John G. Cooper, Dr. Wil- 
liam P. Gibbons and Dr. William N. Lock- 
ington in California. Philo Romayne Hoy 
(1816-1893) studied the fishes of Wiscon- 
sin, Charles Conrad Abbott those of New 
Jersey, Silas Stearns (1859-1888) those of 
Florida, and Stephen Alfred Forbes those 
of Illinois. 

Samuel Garman, at Harvard University, 
a student of Agassiz, is the author of nu- 
merous valuable papers, the most notable 
being on the sharks and on the deep-sea 
collections of the Albatross in the Gala- 
pagos region, the last illustrated by most 
excellent plates. 

The present writer began a ‘Systematic 
Catalogue of the Fishes of North America’ 
in 1875, in association with his gifted 
friend, Herbert Edson Copeland (1849- 
1876), whose sudden death, after a few 
excellent pieces of work, cut short the un- 
dertaking. Later, Charles Henry Gilbert 
(1860- ), a student of Professor Cope- 
land, took up the work and in 1883 a 
‘Synopsis of the Fishes of North America’ 
was completed by Jordan and Gilbert. 
Dr. Gilbert has since been engaged in 
studies of the fishes of Panama, Alaska and 
other regions, and the second and enlarged 
edition of the ‘Synopsis’ was completed 
in 1898 as the ‘Fishes of North and Mid- 


SCIENCE. 


207 


dle America,’ in collaboration with another 
of the writer’s students, Dr. Barton War- 
ren Evermann. A ‘Monographic Review 
of the Fishes of Puerto Rico’ was later 
(1900) completed by Dr. Evermann, to- 
gether with numerous minor works. Other 
naturalists whom the writer may be proud 
to claim as students are Charles Leslie Mc- 
Kay (1854-1883), drowned in Bristol Bay, 
Alaska, while engaged in explorations, and 
Charles Henry Bollman, stricken with fever 
in the Okefenokee Swamps in Georgia. 
Still others were Dr. Carl H. Higenmann, 
the indefatigable investigator of Brazilian 
fishes and of the blind fishes of the caves; 
Dr. Oliver Peebles Jenkins, first explorer 
of the fishes of Hawaii; Dr. Alembert Win- 
throp Brayton, explorer of the streams of 
the Great Smoky Mountains; Dr. Seth Eu- 
gene Meek, explorer of Mexico; John Otter- 
bein Snyder, explorer of Mexico, Japan 
and Hawaii; Edwin Chapin Starks, explor- 
er of Puget Sound and Panama and inves- 
tigator of fish osteology. Still other natu- 
ralists of the coming generation, students 
of the present writer and of his lifelong 
associate, Professor Gilbert, have contrib- 
uted in various degrees to the present fab- 
ric of American ichthyolory. Among 
them are Mrs. Rosa Smith Higenmann, Dr. 
Joseph Swain, Wilbur Wilson Thoburn, 
Frank Cramer, Alvin Seale, Albert Jeffer- 
son Woolman, Philip H. Kirsch, Cloudsley 
Rutter, Robert Edward Snodgrass, James 
Francis Abbott, Arthur W. Greeley, Ed- 
mund Heller, Henry Weed Fowler, and 
Richard Crittenden McGregor. 

Other facts and conclusions of impor- 
tance have been contributed by various per- 
sons with whom ichthyology has been an 
incident rather than a matter of central im- 
portance. 

As students of the extinct fishes, follow- 
ing the monumental work of Louis Agas- 
siz, some of the notable names are those 
of Pander, Asmuss, Heckel, Hugh Miller 


258 


and R. H. Traquair. An indispensable 
‘Handbuch der Palaeontologie’ is that of 
Karl A. Zittel (1890), in which the knowl- 
edge of fossil fish is brought up to a recent 
date. The most valuable general work is 
the ‘Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the 
British Museum,’ in four volumes, by Dr. 
Arthur Smith Woodward, a most worthy 
companion of Giinther’s ‘Catalogue’ of 
the living fishes, and still more modern in 
the taxonomy and views of relationships. 
Important contributions are those of Hux- 
ley, F. MeCoy, van den Marck, de Kon- 
inck, Davis, Nicholson, Charlesworth, Sir 
Philip Egerton, Rictet, Kner, von Meyer, 
Hasse, Thiolliére, Jaekel, Rohon, Sauvage, 
Stolieza, Lawley, Molin, Gibbes, Probst, 
Karpinsky, Kipryanoff and many others. 

In America, Dr. John Strong Newberry 
has studied the fossil fishes of Ohio. Pro- 
fessor Edward W. Claypole has worked 
largely in the same region. Edward 
Drinker Cope and Dr. Joseph Leidy have 
added to our knowledge of the Eocene and 
Cretaceous fishes of the Rocky Mountains. 
Numerous recent papers of great value have 
been published by Dr. Bashford Dean, of 
Columbia University, and Dr. Charles R. 
Eastman, of Harvard. Other important 
records are due to Orestes St. John, A. H. 
Worthen, Charles D. Walcott and the Red- 
fields, father and son. 

Still more difficult of enumeration is the 
long list of those who have studied the 
anatomy of fishes, usually in connection 
with the comparative anatomy or develop- 
ment of other animals. Preeminent among 
these are Karl Ernst von Baer, Cuvier, 
Goftrey St. Hilaire, Louis Agassiz, Johan- 
nes Miller, Carl Vogt, Carl Gegenbaur, 
Meckel, William Kitchen Parker, Francis 
M. Balfour, Thomas Henry Huxley, H. 
Rathke, Richard Owen, Kowalevsky, H. 
Stannius, Joseph Hyrtl, Gill, Boulenger 
and Bashford Dean. Other names of high 
authority are those of Wilhelm His, Kol- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


liker, Bakker, Rosenthal, Gottsche, Mik- 
lucho, Macleay, Weber, Hasse, Retzius, 
Owsjannikow, H. Miiller, Stieda, Marcusen 
and Ryder. 

Besides all this, there has risen, especial- 
ly in the United States, Great Britain, 
Norway, Canada and Australia, a vast lit- 
erature of commercial fisheries, fish culture 
and angling, the chief’ workers in which 
fields we may not here enumerate even by 
name. 


JOINT MEETINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY OF AMERICA, SECTION BE, 
AND THE NATIONAL GEO- 
GRAPHIC SOCIETY.* 

The Geology of the Pittsburgh District: I. 

C. WHITE. 

The Appalachian coal field begins near 
the northern line of Pennsylvania, and ex- 
tends in a canoe-shaped trough 900 miles. 
southwestward, ending in western Ala- 
bama. Pittsburgh is situated near the cen- 
ter of the northern end of this great basin, 
and has, therefore, easy access to all of the 
coal formations. } 

To one of these beds, the great Pitts- 
burgh seam, which overlooks the city from 
an elevation of 350 feet, and extends up 
the Monongahela for 200 miles, the indus- 
trial supremacy of the region is largely 
due. 

Several years ago the gifted Blaine pre- 
dicted that the Pittsburgh district would 
in time become the manufacturing center 
of the world because of its command of 
cheap fuel. This prophecy has become a 
reality within less than a decade of its ut- 
terance. 

The Monongahela formation, of which 
the Pittsburgh coal is the basal member, 
caps all the hills around the city and 
stretches away to the south up the river 
which gave the beds a name, to be in turn 
covered up by the Dunkard formation at 

* Pittsburgh, Pa., July 1 to 3, 1902. 


Ava@ust 15, 1902. ] 


the summit of the Carboniferous column 
and probably of Permian age. The city 
itself is located mostly on the Conamaugh 
formation or the old Barren Series of Rod- 
gers, the central red beds of which crop 
along all the railroads which enter the city 
and give no end of trouble from landslides, 
slips and eaves. These red beds enclose 
one of the most interesting deposits of the 
entire Carboniferous column, viz., the 
Ames or Crinoidal limestone. It marks 
the end of marine life in the Carboniferous 
waters of the Appalachian field, and is a 
most important ‘key’ rock. Coming as it 
does 300 feet below the Pittsburgh coal 
bed, and at an equal interval above the 
Upper Freeport seam, it has been traced 
from central West Virginia around through 
western Pennsylvania, across Ohio, and 
back into southern West Virginia near 
Huntington. 

Within easy access from Pittsburgh the 
geologist may see all of the Carboniferous, 
and on the erest of the great Chestnut 
Ridge arch above Connellsville get a peep 
deep down into the Devonian. 

This, however, has been given in the dia- 
gram before you, which represents the 
rocks under Pittsburgh as revealed in the 
deepest oil boring ever made in America, 
and, with one exception, the deepest in the 
world. This record we owe to the intelli- 
gent interest in pure science of Mr. W. J. 
Young, of Pittsburgh, now at the head of 
the great producing interests of the 
Standard Oil Co. At an expense of many 
thousands of dollars Mr. Young drilled 
this well near West Elizabeth, Pa., to a 
depth of 5,575 feet, and gave to Professor 
Hallock, of Columbia University, the op- 
portunity to make his important contribu- 
tions to earth temperatures. This is but one 
of numerous examples of encouragement to 
pure science given by the officers and agents 
of that much-abused organization. 


SCIENCE. 


259 


But interesting as are the stratified rocks 
of the remote past in the Pittsburgh region, 
the surface deposits tell for many a still 
more attractive story. The clays, silts, 
sands, gravels and cobbles which rest upon 
the ancient river bottoms, and mantle up 
the slopes to 300 feet above the present 
streams, unfold a most interesting history. 
They reveal a river during Tertiary time 


‘flowing with its bed immediately under the 


site of the Carnegie Institute, 200 feet 
above the present streams, descending with 
gentle fall (only one third the rate of the 
present rivers), and at Beaver, instead of 
turning southward down the Ohio, keeping 
northward and joining the St. Lawrence 
system in the region of Lake Erie. 

Then in Quaternary time, this north- 
ward-flowing river was met by a great mass 
of southward-moving ice and other glacial 
débris which effectually impounded the 
Allegheny and Monongahela drainage, and 
caused their waters to intermingle across 
the East Liberty valley, and finally to cut 
a new pathway to the sea along what is 
now the Ohio River. This great inland 
lake is marked by a series of deposits of 
clay, sand, boulders and other transported 
materials upon all except steep surfaces up 
to a little more than 1,000 feet above tide 
over the entire basin of the two rivers. 
Mr. Campbell, of the U. S. Geological Sur- 
vey, has recognized the character of these 
upland deposits as having been made in 
a lake-like body of water, but has erro- 
neously referred them to a local ice dam. 
The one great dam which we know existed 
just north from Beaver will explain all the 
phenomena. 


The Lower Carboniferous of the Appala- 
chian Basin: J. J. STEVENSON. (Read 
by title.) 

In this paper a description is given of 
the several divisions of the Lower Car- 


260 


boniferous as they exist in the Appalachian 
basin; the effort is made to determine the 
boundary between Devonian and Car 
boniferous and to ascertain the changes in 
physical geography during the period. 


A New Meteorite from Algoma, Kewaunee 
County, Wisconsin: Wiuu1AM HERBERT 
Hoses. 

The Algoma meteorite, which was plow- 
ed up near Algoma, Wis., in 1887, was rec- 
ognized in March of the present year as a 
true meteorite. It is almost unique among 
meteorites because of its peculiar shape and 
surface markings. Whereas most meteor- 
ites are quite irregular in form, this me- 
teorite is in the shape of a thin shield, or 
disk, with convex and coneave sides. Con- 
trary to common notions it is quite clear 
that this body, when it entered the atmos- 
phere of the earth, presented its convex 
surface to the front, and was in part by the 
erosion of the air given its present form, 
and its convex surface was deeply eroded. 
From a central, smooth, elliptical area upon 
the front, radial and slightly spiral groov- 
ings proceed to the cireumference of the 
meteorite. It seems clear that these groov- 
ings and ridges are the result of fusion 
and erosion by the compressed air, the 
dead-air area in front of the center pre- 
venting a similar grooving there. 

Although not generally appreciated, it 
appears that there have been other disk- 
like meteorites, and from the principles of 
mechanics it is clear that they, like the 
Algoma meteorite, must have moved 
through the atmosphere with their broad 
side on. 

The Algoma meteorite shows well the 
Widmanstitten figures produced by etch- 
ing, and also numerous erystals of schreib- 
ersite. 


The Meteorites of Northwestern Kansas. 
Outver C. FARRINGTON. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


Of the thirteen meteorites known from 
Kansas, six have been found within an 
area 115 miles long by 85 miles broad in 
the northwestern part of the State. As 
these all resemble each other in outward 
appearance the question has been raised as 
to whether they belong to a single fall. In 
deciding the question the probable course 
of a meteor and the structure and compo- 
sition of the meteorites should be dis- 
cussed. It is shown that the probable 
course of the meteor would have been from 
southeast to northwest, and not from south- 
west to northeast as would be required if 
the meteorites belonged to a single fall. As 
regards structure and composition, three of 
the meteorites have been studied, while the 
other three have not. Results of studies of 
two of the latter, Long Island and Frank- 
linville, are given and the Long Island me- 
teorite shown to be, in several respects, re- 
markable. The conclusion is reached that 
two of the meteorites may belong to one 
fall but that the others are single individ- 
ual falls. 

The Mohokea Caldera on Hawaun: C. H. 

HrreHcocr. 

The eruptions from Mauna Loa upon the 
southwest side are different from those 
upon the northeast, chiefly in being of the 
explosive type. The new map of Hawaii 
develops the interesting facts of the exist- 
ence of an immense depression analogous 
to a caldera a few miles back from Punu- 
luu. It is of larger dimensions than the 
celebrated calderas of Mauna Loa and 
Kilauea. 


Ellipsoidal Structure in the pre-Cambrian 
Basic and Intermediate Rocks of the 
Lake Superior Region: J. Morgan 
CLEMENTS. 

The greenstones of pre-Cambrian age in 
the Lake Superior region have very com- 


Aveust 15, 1902. ] 


monly developed in them a structure which, 
since the masses separated by this struc- 
ture are ellipsoidal, is designated ‘ ellip- 
soidal’ structure. This structure was de- 
seribed and illustrated by means of lantern 
slides. 

A review of the ideas held by various 
observers concerning the origin of this 
structure was given, and the conclusion was 
reached that the ‘ellipsoidal’ was an orig- 
inal structure due to the breaking up of 
a viscous lava while it was being extruded. 
The structure is of widespread occurrence, 
especially in the greenstones of the Lake 
Superior region. 

The desirability of using the term ‘ ellip- 
soidal’ instead of ‘spheroidal’ in referring 
to this structure is urged in view of the 
fact that it is an original structure, and 
that the bodies formed by this structure are 
ellipsoidal, whereas the spheroidal struc- 
ture in the rocks is of secondary nature 
and is due to exfoliation caused by weather- 
ing. 


Vermilion District of Minnesota: J. Mor- 

GAN CLEMENTS. 

The Vermilion district occurs in north- 
eastern Minnesota, extending from Vermil- 
ion lake, N. 70° E., to Gunflint lake on 
the international boundary. As described 
the district is about eighty miles long by 
ten miles wide. The area surveyed com- 
prises nearly 1,000 square miles. The 
stratigraphic succession is as follows, given 
in descending order: 


Pleistocenes ee asee se ce: Glacial drift. 
(Unconformity) . 
Keweenawan............ Great Gabbro and Lo- 
gan sills. 
(Unconformity) . 


Upper Huronian 
(Animikie series). | Upper slate formation. 
Confined to eastern end [ Gunflint formation 
ofa district jel (iron-bearing). 
(Unconformity) . 


SCIENCE. 


261 


Intrusives. 

Knife slates. 

Lower Huronian iron- 
bearing formation. 

Ogishke conglomerate. 


Lower Huronian...... 


(Unconformity ). 
Intrusive granites, por- 
phyries and green- 
Archean (Vermilion stones. 
Series) Wann esata aieys Soudan formation 


(iron-bearing) . 
Ely greenstone. 

The structure is complex. The Vermil- 
ion district is broadly a great complex 
synelinorium bounded on the north by the 
Archean granite, and on the south by the 
Huronian granite, Keweenawan gabbro, 
with the Upper Huronian slates coming in 
for a short distance. The ores are high- 
grade hematites, averaging 63 per cent. of 
iron and .05 per cent. of phosphorus, and 
they are found in structural basins. Since 
this district began to ship ore in 1884, it 
has sent out some 17,000,000 tons of ore, 
and the greater part of this came to Pitts- 
burgh. 

As regards the origin of the iron, it ap- 
pears to come first from preexisting rocks, 
and then it is deposited to form the sedi- 
mentary iron-bearing formations. In the 
ease of the Archean Soudan, the most eco- 
nomically important iron-bearing forma- 
tion of this region, the iron comes from the 
Archean greenstone (basic and intermedi- 
ate intrusives and voleanics). Later, after 
the folding, the iron is leached from the 
iron-bearing formation chiefly, and after 
being carried down by descending meteoric 
waters is precipitated as the oxide in places 
favorable for its accumulation, thus form- 
ing the ore deposits. 


The Pacific Mountain System of British 
Columbia and Alaska: ArtHur C. 
SPENCER. 

The author brought together and at- 
tempted to interpret the existing descrip- 
tions of the physiography of the coastwise 


262 


mountains of British Columbia and Alas- 
ka. The term Pacific Mountains, which 
was used by Powell as a designation for 
the westernmost ranges of the United 
States, was extended to apply to the moun- 
tain ranges contiguous to the Pacific Ocean 
from Lower California to the Alaskan 
peninsula. 

North of the United States the moun- 
tains are generally flat-topped and their 
uniform summits are considered to repre- 
sent uplifted peneplains. Back of them 
the plateaus of the interior are of similar 
origin. Reasoning from the antecedent 
character of the rivers which head in the 
inland plateau, and cross the coastal 
mountain belts, and also from local mer- 
ging of interior and mountain plateaus, it 
was shown that the peneplains of the vari- 
ous regions can be correlated. A great sea- 
ward-sloping surface of erosion was pro- 
duced in Eocene time, and upon it the pre- 
cursors of the present drainage systems 
were developed. Since the completion of 
this peneplain, all of the existing moun- 
tains have been formed, mainly by differ- 
ential uplift attendant upon the general 
elevation of northwestern North America. 


Development of the Southeastern Missourt 
Lowlands: C. F. Marsut. (Abstract 
read by W. M. Davis.) 

The lowland region of southeastern Mis- 
souri consists of two broad belts of flat 
lowland with a discontinuous ridge between 
them. One of the lowland belts is an aban- 
doned valley of the Mississippi river, the 
other is the valley of the Ohio. The Mis- 
sissippi river has gained its existing valley 
by two successive changes, abandoning 
first about 200 miles of its original valley, 
and later about twenty more. It was led 
to abandon its valley because of a shorter 
and steeper course having been offered it 
by the Ohio. The Ohio drainage first cap- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


tured some of the small tributaries of the 
Mississippi and later the Mississippi turned 
itself into these valleys in succession by | 
sapping the ridge between. Since the cap- 
ture of the Mississippi, several of the small- 
er rivers of the region have abandoned their 
older valleys. 


Notr.—The above papers were presented 
through the Geological Society of America, and 
for more complete accounts of the same see Bul- 
letin G. 8S. A., Vol. XIIT., 1902. 


The following papers were offered di- 
rectly to Section E: 


The International Geographic Congress of 
1904 under the Auspices of the National. 
Geographic Society: GiuBert H. Gros- 
VENOR. (Read by title.) 


Possible Effects of the Glacial Period upon 
the Land Levels of Central Asia: G. 
FREDERICK WRIGHT. 

That northern and central Asia has ex- 
perienced an extensive subsidence in recent 
ceological time is proved by a variety of 
evidence : 

1. Stadling reports gravel terraces con- 
taining fresh pieces of wood several miles 
back from the lower part of the Lena river, 
650 feet above it. In some cases these ter- 
races contain the bones of the mastodon 
and are resting upon solid ice. 

2. On the south shore of the Black sea 
at Trebizond and Samsun, and upon the 
north shore around the Crimea, there are 
fresh gravels which are evidently beach de- 
posits, hanging upon the sides of cliffs, 
indicating a recent subsidence of that whole 
region to the extent certainly of 750 feet. 

3. In the Dariel pass, on the north side 
of the Caucasus mountains, a few miles 
above Vladikavkas, there are extensive re- 
cent water deposits, with the finer material 
at the bottom and the coarser material at 
the top, which could have accumulated only 
when the gradient of the incline was very 


AvuaGust 15, 1902.] 


much less than it is now. These accumula- 
tions are sometimes more than 200 feet 
thick, and are beyond the reach of any 
glaciers which ever extended down the 
north side of the range. While these do 
not indicate a depression below the surface 
of the ocean, they do necessitate a depres- 
sion to the south such as would change the 
relative level of the valley occupied by the 
upper part of the Terek river. 

4. The existence of arctic seal (Phoca 
annelate) in Lake Baikal is best explained 
on the theory of a recent depression, per- 
mitting the sea to extend inwards to all 
the points now marked by that level. The 
lake is 1,561 feet above the sea, and fully 
2,000 miles distant as the river runs. The 
presence of the seal in the lake is readily 
explained by this supposition of a recent 
subsidence of the region, but is not satis- 
factorily explained by any other theory. 
Reaching the enclosure while it was an arm 
of the sea, the seal would find a favorable 
habitat, and when, on re-elevation of the 
land, the basin became cut off from direct 
communication with the sea, the water 
would still be salt, and would grow fresh 
so gradually that the species could adjust 
itself to the slowly changing conditions and 
remain a permanent inhabitant. The same 
seal is also found in the Caspian sea, and 
was formerly found in the Aral sea. 

5. The distribution of the loess around 
the base of the Alatau and other immense 
mountain masses of central Asia is such as 
to indicate a temporary water level from 
2,500 to 3,000 feet higher than now. What- 
ever may have been the ultimate origin of 
this peculiar soil, its distribution in north- 
ern China, in Turkestan, about the base of 
Mount Ararat, at the southern base of the 
Caucasus mountains, and over the plains 
of southern Russia, is unaccountable except 
by the assistance of water action; while 
the occurrence of the bones of post-Pliocene 


SCIENCE. 263 


animals and the remains of man under- 
neath it, both in Russia and in Siberia, to- 
gether with the small amount of erosion 
that has taken place in it, indicates that 
the change of level was approximately con- 
temporaneous with the glacial period both 
in America and in northwestern Europe. 

The result of observations in eastern 
Mongolia, Manchuria, Transbaikalia, and 
along the base of the Tian Shan range in 
Turkestan was to show that, during the 
glacial period, there was no extension of 
ice anywhere in Asia south of the sixtieth 
degree of latitude at all corresponding to 
that in America and in Europe; therefore, 
the weight of ice could not explain the de- 
pression of the Asiatic continent. 

But the removal of 6,000,000 cubic miles 
of water from the ocean bed to form the 
glaciers of Europe and America, which 
would be equal to 24,000,000,000,000,000 
tons, would naturally so disturb the bal- 
ance of forces that a continental mass like 
Asia, with mountains rising from 25,000 to 
30,000 feet above the sea, would sink down 
by its own weight. 


Recent Geology of the Jordan Valley: 

G. FREDERICK WRIGHT. 

West of the Jordan the descent from 
Jerusalem to Jericho is something more 
than 3,000 feet in about fifteen miles, and 
the underlying rock is all Cretaceous, the 
strata dipping to the east even more rapidly 
than the road descends. <A fault of some 
4,000 to 5,000 feet occurs along the Jordan 
valley, so that the abrupt wall which forms 
the western face of the mountains of Moab 
has at its base Nubian sandstone strata 
which underlie the Cretaceous, the Creta- 
ceous rocks appearing near the summit, 
where the elevation is about 4,000 feet 
above the Dead sea, or nearly the same as 
that of Jerusalem and the surrounding 
hills of Judea. 


264 


Approximately the grand movements 
producing this fault may be fixed as be- 
ginning in the Middle Tertiary period, 
since Lower Tertiary rocks, consisting of 
nummulitie limestone, are found on Mounts 
Carmel, Ebal and Gerizim, and on some of 
the heights in the vicinity of Jerusalem 
and to the south of Hebron. 

The extensive post-Tertiary deposits of 
silt extend as high as 750 feet above the 
Dead sea, showing that up to a recent time 
the water was 750 feet higher than now, 
producing a lake several times larger than 
the Dead sea, and extending southward 
about forty miles beyond the Dead sea, in 
which were deposited hundreds of feet of 
fine sediment where side streams came in, 
and one hundred feet or more over the en- 
tire valley. In the wady Zuweiya, where 
it enters the depression near the south end 
of the Dead sea, one ean see the fine 
lamin of this sediment as it has gradually 
accumulated to a depth of between 200 and 
300 feet just below the 750-foot line, and 
where it has been exposed by subsequent 
erosion. 

The Jordan valley throughout all its 
lower portion occupies a narrow gorge 
which it has cut out of this sedimentary 
deposit. The river is constantly under- 
mining its banks, now on one side and now 
on another, leaving, pretty generally, per- 
pendicular walls of the sedimentary depos- 
its separated from the river by a flood- 
plain of varying width, averaging about a 
quarter of a mile. As a consequence the 
river is extremely muddy as it enters the 
Dead sea. 

Notwithstanding the vigor of these ero- 
sive agencies only a relatively small por- 
tion of the sediment has been washed away, 
and the Dead sea is still unfilled, which 
is a witness to the recentness of its forma- 
tion. The drainage basin of the Jordan 
valley is more than 10,000 square miles in 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


extent; while the immediate valley itself is 
scarcely one fifteenth as large. All the 
wash of this large drainage area finally 
lodges in the valley. 

If we estimate the rate of erosion in the 
drainage basin of the Jordan at one foot 
in 2,000 years, the age of the Jordan fault 
must be reckoned in tens of thousands of 
years, rather than in hundreds of thou- 
sands; thus confirming the shorter geolog- 
ical chronology of the physicists. 


History of the Discoveries and Discussions 
Concerning the Glacial Terraces in the 
Upper Ohio and tts Tributaries: G. 
FREDERICK WRIGHT. 


Submerged Valleys in Sandusky Bay: EH. 

L. Moseey. 

Tilting of the earth’s crust is causing a 
depression of the land at the southwest ex- 
tremity of Lake Erie as compared with the 
outlet at Buffalo. The effect of this is 
shown in the vicinity of Sandusky by the 
extension of the water over the low ground 
as evidenced by surveys, submerged 
stumps, slack water in the lower course of 
all the streams and submerged stalagmites 
in the eaves of Put-in bay. It is also 
shown by the fact that from the mouth of 
each stream entering Sandusky bay a val- 
ley now filled with mud can be traced out 
through the bay. These valleys show a rise 
of the water of at least forty feet. 


Some Geological Notes in Honduras, Cen- 
tral America: J. Francis Patcu-Lr 
Baron. (Read by title.) 

The main geological features of Hondu- 
ras are volcanic, but of a former age. These 
features are more pronounced on the Pacific 
slope, but there are at present no live vol- 
canoes in the Republic. 

The greater part of the stratified forma- 
tions belong to the Permian. The charac- 
teristic country rock in the departments of 


Auaust 15, 1902. ] 


Olancho, Yoro and Mosquitia is a quartz- 
ose conglomerate, 1,000 feet in thick- 
ness. In the vicinity of Tegucigalpa, the 
characteristic section is composed of red 
and green marls nearly a thousand feet 
thick. These are capped with limestones, 
red conglomerates, sandstones and shales, 
very rich in gold and silver. The beds of 
non-fossiliferous limestones in Honduras 
are immense, and we find the old sea basins 
in many places 3,000 feet above present sea- 
level. 

Granite and syenite occur on the coast 
west of Trujillo, and basalts and lavas are 
found all over the country in great abund- 
ance. 

Geological classification is difficult in 
Honduras on account of the great mass of 
eruptive rocks which have been greatly 
metamorphosed. 


The Great Canyon of the Euphrates River: 

EnLswortH HUNTINGTON. 

Although the Euphrates river is known 
by name to every one certain parts of its 
upper course are still almost unexplored. 
One of the least known sections is where 
the river, after the junction of its two larg- 
est branches, flows over great rapids 
through the Taurus mountains in an im- 
mense canyon. 

In 1883 the great German general von 
Moltke floated down this part of the stream 
on a raft of inflated sheepskins manned by 
Kurds, but the rapids are so formidable 
that for over sixty years no other Euro- 
peans visited the region. In the spring of 
1901 Professor T. H. Norton, U. S. Consul 
at Harput, Turkey, and the writer made 
the same journey, using a raft of inflated 
sheepskins manned by Armenian fishermen. 
For the first hundred miles no great diffi- 
culties were met, although at one place the 
Kurds threatened the party with their 
guns, because the strangers floated past the 


SCIENCE. 


265 


place where a Kurdish lord had the right 
of ferriage. In another place a crowd of 
Turkish villagers stoned the raft because 
the Armenian fishermen had no fish to sell. 
In both eases the natives refrained from 
further violence out of respect for the fact 
that the travelers wore hats and so must 
be men of consequence. 

Two small canyons were traversed, the 
second of which, nearly 2,000 feet deep, 
was the picturesque home of large herds of 
ibex. Below this is a holy mountain, with 
several shrines, at one of which rises an 
immense square altar of rough stone, all 
covered with the gore of the numerous 
goats and sheep which are here offered in 
sacrifice by both Christian Armenians and 
Mohammedan Turks. 

The main canyon is cleft through the 
mountains to a depth of from 2,000 to 
5,000 feet, and the contracted stream 
thunders over rapid after rapid between 
towering walls of frowning basalt or ecas- 
tellated buff limestone. In many ways it 
resembles the grand canyon of the Colo- 
rado, with its exceedingly swift current ob- 
structed here and there by fans of detritus 
brought in from the sides, its steep walls of 
naked rocks and its raging rapids. In 
some places the main stream has cut its 
gorge so fast that the smaller tributaries 
could not keep pace with it, and so fall 
over the walls into the river in a series of 
easeades. All these facts and many others 
show that the Euphrates is very young 
geologically. 

The real difficulties of the voyage began 
in the great canyon. At the first big rapid 
a whole day was spent in making a portage 
of two miles, involving a climb of 1,200 
feet over an almost impassable road; in an- 
other place, while the raft was being let 
down past a rapid with ropes, a raft of 
logs floated by, on which were two almost 
nude Kurds, with tridents for paddles and 


266 


strings of dried gourds around their waists 
for preservers. 

The difficulties became greater and great- 
er as the party floated swiftly into the wild- 
er parts of the canyon, where rapids were 
shot far larger than those where portages 
had been made a day or two earlier. The 
raftsmen’s nerves were so completely un- 
strung one night that they dared neither 
shoot the rapids, nor climb the mountain 
side to get help from the Kurds in making 
a portage. Next day, the wildest of all the 
rapids was reached. The raftsmen dared 
not shoot it, and a portage was out of the 
question, so the Americans decided to 
shoot it alone, in spite of the entreaties of 
the servants, who fell on their knees, and, 
with tears in their eyes, begged the for- 
eigners not to go to certain death. The 
raft shot into the rapids over a long 
smooth, tilting sheet of water; there was a 
wild exhilarating slide, and the great 
waves broke over the explorers, time and 
time again wetting them through to the 
skin; the raft whirled round and round. 
Soon the danger was passed, and the raft 
safely moored. The journey lasted seven 
days because of the numerous portages, 
although the actual time occupied in float- 
ing on the river was but thirty-seven hours. 

The youthfulness of the deeper part of 
the canyon seems to be due to a recent re- 
vival of deformation, which has caused the 
streams to inecise deep, steep-sided, V- 
shaped, young valleys in the bottoms of 
broad, U-shaped, older valleys. 


Systematic Geography: W. M. Davis. 
Observations of geographical matters by 
travelers and explorers are usually incom- 
plete in one respect or another, largely be- 
cause there is no maturely developed and 
generally accepted scheme of systematic 
geographical classifications, by which the 
relation of the whole of the subject to its 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 398. 


parts is concisely indicated. The facts of 
inorganic environment on the one hand 
(physiography) and of environed organ- 
isms on the other (ontography), which con- 
stitute, when studied in their mutual rela- 
tions, the subject matter of geography 
proper, can only be appreciated after care- 
ful analysis and arrangement. Geography 
may be given a regional aspect when the 
features of a single region are considered; 
but complete regional description implies 
a previous understanding of general sys- 
tematic geography; for otherwise, regional 
facts cannot be recognized as examples of 
the large classes of facts in which they 
fall. Systematic geography is therefore a 
fundamental study. The author outlined 
the chief subdivisions of its two parts, 
physiography and ontography, and dis- 
cussed the order in which the relations be- 
tween them should be considered. 


Some Topographic Features im the South- 
ern Appalachians: J. A. HouMEs. 


The Petrographic Province of Neponset 
Valley, Boston, Massachusetts: KF. Bas- 
com. (Read by title.) 


The Occurrence of Liquid Petroleum Her- 
metically Enclosed with Quartz Crystals, 
from Alabama: F. L. Stewart. 


Restoration of Embolophorus dollovianus: 
E. C. Case. (Read by title.) 


Synopsis of the Missourran and Permo- 
Carboniferous Fish Fauna of Kansas 
and Nebraska: C. R. Eastman and E. 
H. Barzour. 

The majority of Upper Carboniferous 
fish remains from Nebraska are from the 
Atchison shales in the southeastern part of 
the State, and consist almost exclusively of 
Elasmobranchs. Some of these are inti- 
mately related to those of older horizons 
from the region east of the Mississippi, in- 
cluding even the Chester limestone, and a 


Auaust 15, 1902.] 


lesser number are suggestive of a Permian 
aspect. Only a few species occur in the 
Permo-Carboniferous of Nebraska, and at 
least one of them is identical with a Per- 
mian species from the Red Beds of Texas. 
Fhe Upper Coal Measure fish fauna of 
Kansas is slightly more varied than that 
of Nebraska, Dipnoans and Crossoptery- 
gians being represented besides Elasmo- 
branchs. Altogether, more than twenty 
species of fish remains are known from this 
region. 


Phylogeny of the Cestraciont Group of 

Sharks: C. R. Eastman. 

The family of Cestraciont sharks has 
had a continuous existence since the De- 
vonian, a range which is paralleled among 
fishes only by the Ceratodus group of Dip- 
noans. Some of the Devonian and Car- 
boniferous forms (Protodus, Campodus, 
Edestus, Helicoprion, ete.) were remark- 
able for their great development of sym- 
physial teeth, which became coiled without 
being shed, but none of these specialized 
genera are known to have survived the 
Paleozoic. This family probably gave rise 
to the Cochliodonts with inrolled crushing 
teeth in the Middle Paleozoic, and to the 
modern ray type during the Mesozoic. The 
existing Port Jackson shark is the sole sur- 
vivor of the generalized Cestraciont stem, 
and special importance is attached to a 
study of its embryological phases. 


On a Complete Skeleton of a New Creta- 
cean Plestosaur, Illustrated from Photo- 
graphs from Mounted Skeletons: S. W. 
WILLISTON. 


The Bacubirito Meteorite: H. A. Warp. 
Bacubirito is a small but very old min- 
ing town situated on the Rio Sinaloa in 
latitude 26° and in west longitude 107°. 
The elevation above sea-level is some 2,000 
feet. The meteorite is seven miles nearly 
due south from there, near the hamlet eall- 


SCIENCE. 


267 


ed Palmar de la Sepulveda. It was struck 
by the plow of Crescencio Aguilar in the 
summer of 1871. He soon uncovered 
enough of its bright surface to satisfy 
himself that he had found a silver mine! 
Its surrounding is now a cornfield, with a 
black vegetable soil of some two yards in 
thickness. In this soil we found the great 
meteorite deeply imbedded. Its surface 
was but a little below the surface of the 
ground. 

The general form of the mass seen from 
the side was that of one ramus of a huge 
jaw. The surface was entirely covered 
with ‘ pittings,’ very regular in size, and 
about two to three inches across, shallow, 
but with well-defined walls. There were 
no areas which showed the devastation of 
deep rust; a fact due both to the dryness 
of the soil and to the large alloy of nickel 
in the iron. On one side there was a deep 
erack, running horizontally through half 
the length of the mass. At one end this 
crack was too narrow to insert a knife 
blade, at the other end it was nearly three 
inches wide. Over the area the vegetable 
soil was from three, to four feet deep, while 
below it was a porphyry rock, common in 
this part of the country, much broken up 
by natural cleavages and decomposed in 
situ. 

Immediately around the meteorite we 
had dug much lower, leaving the great 
iron mass poised on a pillar or pedestal of 
the undisturbed rock. It needed little me- 
chanical aid to make the mass turn over. 
Looking beneath it we found that its late 
bed was a clean depression crushed into 
the rock, with absolutely no soil between 
it and the mass which had lain above it. 

The extreme measures of Bacubirito, for 
so our meteorite from the first has been 
ealled, are: 


IGN Gopaoododobeeoond 13 feet 1 inch. 
Wish Bonaldo ddicoconeoude Gey MOR Mss 


268 


The form of the mass is extremely irregu- 
lar, and though measures have been taken 
around the mass at many different points, 
its eubie contents cannot be calculated with 
more than an approximation to accuracy. 

The five largest meteorites known to sci- 
ence to-day are: 


Bemdego (Brazil)........... 54, tons. 
San Gregoria (Mexico)....... lly “ 
Chupaderos (Mexico)........ 154% “ 
Anighito (Greenland)........ 50 i 
Bacubirito (Mexico)......... 50 a 


The first three are weights proven on 
scales: the last two are thus far simple 
estimates. 

Whichever meteorite shall, after accu- 
rate calculation, prove to be the heavier, it 
will ever remain of interest that the two 
largest meteorites known to our earth have 
fallen on the North American continent— 
one far toward its northern end, the other 
toward its southern. 


Paleontological Notes: (a) Notes on Gas- 
tropods, (b) Spirifer mucronatus and its 
Derivatives: A. W. GRaBau. (Read by 
title.) 

The following papers were read under 
the auspices of the National Geographical 

Society : 


Scientific Results of the Recent Eruptions 
in the West Indies: R. T. Hi. 


The Magnetic Disturbances during the 
Time of the Recent Volcanic Eruptions 
in Martimque: L. A. BAurr. 


Atmospheric Phenomena in Connection 
with the Recent Eruptions in the West 
Indies: A. J. Henry. (Read by G. H. 
Grosvenor. ) 

F. P. Gubiiver, 
Secretary, Section E. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vout. XVI. No. 398. 


DR. J. G. COOPER. 

News has been received of the death at 
Hayward, Alameda County, California, of: 
Dr. James G. Cooper, at the age of seventy- 
two years, July 19, 1902. Dr. Cooper’s 
services to science have been such (coupled 
with the singular omission of his name and 
his father’s from the chief records of 
American biography) as to render some 
statement of them desirable for a genera- 
tion to whom he was little known. 

James Cooper, an English merchant, set- 
tled in New York shortly after the Revolu- 
tion, accumulated a competency and died 
in 1801, leaving a son, William Cooper, 
born in 1798. At an early age the latter, 
who had inherited the love of nature from 
his mother, Frances Graham, determined 
to devote himself to the study of Natural 
History. At the age of eighteen young 
Cooper became one of the founders of the 
Lyceum of Natural History, now the New 
York Academy of Sciences, under the lead 
of Dr. S. L. Mitehill, John Torrey, Daniel 
Barnes and others, and soon became a gen- 
erous contributor to its library and one of 
its officers. In 1821 William Cooper sailed 
for Europe to continue his studies in zool- 
ogy and was elected the first American 
member of the Zoological Society of Lon- 
don. He attended the lectures of Cuvier 
at Paris, and on his return devoted himself 
to ornithology and paleontology. He was 
a friend of Schoolcraft, a correspondent 
and colaborer of Lucien Bonaparte, who 
dedicated to him the well-known Falco 
Coopert. His son, James G. Cooper, was 
born June 19, 1830, and in 1851 graduated 
from the College of Physicians and Sur- 
geons, New York, following it by a two 
years’ course in the city hospitals. In 1853 
he was appointed surgeon to the northern 
division of the Pacific Railroad Survey, at 
the suggestion of Professor S. F. Baird, 
and spent some time at the Smithsonian In- 
stitution, preparing himself for the duties 


Avaust 15, 1902.] 


of naturalist as well as medical adviser to 
the party. He was one of the original 
group of young naturalists which gathered 
around Professor Baird in the early days of 
the institution, who made up the Potomac- 
side Naturalists Club, and whose names are 
classic in the annals of zoology in this coun- 
try. Although never robust, and for much 
of his life in delicate health, he survived all 
the others. Dr. Cooper was assigned to the 
western division of the survey, terminating 
at Puget Sound, under the superintendence 
of Geo. B. McClellan, of the Engineer 
Corps of the army. Jefferson Davis was 
Secretary of War; the regimental quarter- 
master who supplied the needs of the party 
on the Pacifie coast was U. S. Grant. Co- 
laborers with Cooper in working up the 
collections were Baird, Torrey, Asa Gray, 
Hayden, George Gibbs, Meek, Le Conte, and 
Dr. Suckley, in cooperation with whom 
Cooper prepared a report on the birds of 
Washington Territory. As usual in those 
days, he collected in all branches, and made 
a particular study of the meteorology of the 
region. The following year he returned to 
Washington to prepare his report, but was 
soon obliged by lung trouble to return to 
the more favorable climate of the Pacific 
coast. For several years he devoted him- 
self to making collections on the Pacific 
coast, much of the time at his private cost. 
During the latter part of the Civil War he 
was surgeon in the 2d Cavalry, California 
Volunteers, and served until the regiment 
was mustered out. In 1865 and 1866 he 
was naturalist to the Geological Survey of 
California, under Whitney, and his report 
on the birds of the state, after the close of 
the Survey, edited by Professor Baird, was 
published by Professor Whitney at the per- 
sonal cost of the latter, though in form as 
one of the ‘Reports of the State Geological 
Survey.’ In 1866, Cooper married Miss 
Rosa M. Wells, and continued in the prac- 
tice of his profession until the failure of 


SCIENCE. 


269 


his health in 1871, after which his work, 
though often interrupted, was still pursued 
as his strength permitted. He was long as- 
sociated with the California Academy of 
Sciences, and also with the State Mining 
Bureau. Much of Dr. Cooper’s early work 
was of great help and importance in devel- 
oping knowledgeof the fauna, floraand geol- 
ogy of the Pacific coast. Ornithology knows 
him as a valuable contributor, and his most 
extensive works were on that branch of 
science. Later he published many papers 
on the mollusks of the coast, and the number 
of titles in this line of research mounts up 
to forty-three. Many of the younger stu- 
dents of zoology on the Pacifie coast have 
testified to their appreciation of his help in 
guiding and promoting their studies. The 
Cooper Ornithological Club of California 
was named in his honor, and the first num- 
ber of its Bulletin contains a sketch of his 
life, up to 1899, and a portrait. To this 
summary we are indebted for many of the 
above facts. Dr. Cooper was tall and slen- 
der, rather reserved in manner, and his 
physical activity was held in check by ill 
health during much of his life, while for 
years he was dependent upon his medical 
practice for support. But in spite of these 
handicaps his work on the Pacific coast has 
been of primary importance, and by his 
death passes away the last member of a 
eroup of men to whom American zoology is 
permanently indebted. 
Wo. H. Dat. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 
The Principles of Inorganic Chemistry: Wit- 
HELM Ostwaup. Translated with the Au- 


thor’s Sanction by ALExANDER FINDLAY. 
London, Macmillan & Co. 1902. 8yvo. Pp. 
xxvil+785. 


Professor Ostwald has played a most promi- 
nent part in the promulgation of modern phys- 
ical chemistry. His pen has been so wonder- 
fully prolific that astonishment is felt that he 
is able to produce so many books of large size 


270 


while he is at the same time performing la- 
borious investigations, editing the Zeitschrift 
fir Physikalische Chemie, and doing the large 
amount of teaching that falls to his lot. 

The work under consideration appeared in 
Germany about two years ago, and the recent 
appearance of a good translation of it is to be 
heartily welcomed, for in many respects this 
is a noteworthy and useful book. The English 
edition does credit to the publishers in being 
a handsome book, which, as it happens, is more 
attractive than the German one. 

We have here an attempt to introduce a 
good deal of physical chemistry into the teach- 
ing of elementary inorganic chemistry. While 
this aim is a praiseworthy one, to some extent 
at least it appears to the reviewer that Profess- 
or Ostwald has gone somewhat too far in this 
direction. The book seems to be too difficult 
for any but mature and highly talented begin- 
ners. However, for chemical students of con- 
siderable experience, and in fact for a very 
large number of chemical readers the work 
will undoubtedly be valuable, for it contains 
clear and simple explanations of the points 
of physics that every educated chemist should 
know. Many physical matters are treated in 
a very interesting and suggestive way. 

So much has been said in praise of the book 
that a few adverse criticisms may be allowed. 
In the first place, one important reason why 
the work would be difficult for a beginner is 
the fact that the author, while admitting that 
the atomic hypothesis is of great value for the 
purposes of instruction and investigation, 
avoids the use of this and of the molecular hy- 
pothesis as far as ‘the present usage of lan- 
guage will permit.’ His reason for so doing 
is that these are hypotheses, not realities. If 
he were consistent he would not use the ionic 
hypothesis, but he employs the latter to the last 
degree, and even occasionally alludes to ions 
in solid substances. The question may well 
be asked, can ions be assumed to exist without 
the assumption that atoms and molecules 
exist? The attitude of certain physicists in 
abandoning the atomic and molecular theories 
must appear absurd to chemists until some- 
thing better is brought. forward to replace 
those theories, for, what could an organic 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 398. 


chemist do, for example, if he gave up atoms 
and molecules ¢ 

Another fault of the book is the occurrence 
of too many inaccurate statements. The 
translator says that the mistakes that had 
crept into the German edition have been, as 
far as possible, corrected; but still many re- 
main that have been noticed, and it may be in- 
ferred that there are others which the reviewer 
was not wise or diligent enough to detect. A 
few examples will suffice to show the character 
of the errors. 

The statements in regard to the amounts of 
carbon in iron and steel are contradictory and 
incorrect (pp. 563, 564, 585). The erroneous 
statement is made that sulphur can be readily 
removed with carbon and silicon in the ordi- 
nary Bessemer process (p. 585). Tale, which 
contains water, is given as an example of an 
anhydrous silicate of magnesium (p. 537). It 
is stated that the most frequent types of the 
double salts of antimony trichloride and tri- 
iodide are M,SbCl, and MSbI, (p. 700), 
whereas these are rather rare types in both 
eases. Lead tetracetate, which is white, is 
called yellow (p. 652). 

The translator’s work has been very well 
done. One typographical error, which is not 
copied from the original, is noticed (p. 463) 
where 42,400 c.c. instead of 22,400 c.c. are giv- 
en, which makes the volume of gas produced 
by the explosion of gunpowder altogether too 
large. In the table showing the periodic ar- 
rangement of the elements the translator has 
corrected the atomic weights of krypton and 
xenon, according to recent determinations, 
from 45 and 65 to 82 and 128, but, curiously 
enough, he has left the new numbers in the 
old places instead of putting them in the 
places called for by their magnitudes. The 
translator has introduced some curious names 
for ions, such as potassion, lithion, triferrion, 
earbanion, sulphanion, ete. As long as these 
are self-explanatory there can be no serious 
objection to them, but without having master- 
ed the nomenclature one might be in doubt 
whether the last, ‘ sulphanion,’ referred to the 
sulphide, sulphite or sulphate ion. 

H. L. Wetts. 


Avuaust 15, 1902. ] 


NEW TEXT-BOOKS IN PHYSICS. 


Physics for High School Students. By Henry 
S. Carwart and Horatio N. Cuure. Bos- 
ton, Allyn & Bacon. 1902. 

Physics; a Text-Book for Secondary Schools. 
By Freperick Suate. New York, The Mac- 
millan Company. 1902. 

Principles of Physics. By Frank M. GiLuey. 
Boston, Allyn & Bacon. 1901. 
A Laboratory Manual of Physics. 
Crew and Rospert R. TAatNatt. 

The Macmillan Company. 1902. 
Physical Determinations. By W. R. Ke.sey. 

London, Edward Arnold; New York, Long- 

mans, Green & Co. 1902. 

No criticism of a school text-book can be 
quite fair without a clear apprehension of the 
author’s point of view, which may differ quite 
radically from that of the critic. In the ab- 
sence of an opportunity for personal inter- 
“change the critic has no resource but to judge 
from his own standpoint, incurring the risk of 
appearing to indulge in too much praise or 
too much censure, in proportion to the degree 
of accordance or discordance between himself 
and those whom he wishes to treat. with jus- 
tice. 

The first of the group of books named is a 
new and wholly rewritten edition of a text- 
book issued nearly ten years ago, which has 
been extensively used. Each of the authors 
had already become well known as an exposi- 
tor, the one in the university and the other in 
the high school. Each holds firmly to an opin- 
ion, which has been repeatedly expressed in 
print by the present critic, that in physics the 
class room and the laboratory should be pro- 
vided with separate books, which may be 
equally necessary to the student. That in- 
tended for the class room should be confined 
to a clear, well-methodized presentation of 
principles, accompanied with a goodly num- 
ber of well-graded numerical problems. There 
may be outline descriptions of experiments, 
but only of such as are suitable for class room 
demonstration, to be performed by the teach- 
er. For the elementary laboratory, on the con- 
trary, the student needs a manual in which the 
‘instructions are chiefly for his guidance in 
manipulation. The class book is not a mere 


By Henry 
New York, 


SCIENCE. 


271 


reading book. Its use is necessarily accom- 
panied with much oral discussion by the teach- 
er, and for this provision should be made in 
the text by much judicious omission of details. 
According to prevailing American usage the 
class book serves as the basis of much recita- 
tional work, and in its preparation this end 
should be kept always in view. No modern 
teacher will merely ‘hear lessons’ from it; but 
for convenience in actual use a well-arranged 
text-book is an important aid; and one that is 
written by even a fine scholar without the 
teacher’s instinct or experience may be a 
source of keen suffering to its user, whether 
young or old. 

Messrs. Carhart and Chute have been par- 
ticularly successful in fulfilling these condi- 
tions in this new edition of their class text- 
book. The amount of mathematical preparation 
expected of the student is small, but formulas 
are introduced enough to make him appreciate 
their value in the solution of problems. 
Illustrations are sufficiently numerous, always 
simple, and none of them _ superfluous. 
Both metric and British systems of units are 
employed, the preference in general being giv- 
en to the former. The book is well arranged, 
with many short paragraphs and suggestive 
headings; and its statements are clearly and 
carefully worded. It is worthy of unreserved 
commendation. 

The volume by Professor Slate- was pre- 
pared for California high schools, and in some 
particulars its aim is perhaps a little higher 
than can be reached by many of those for 
whom it was written. The style is discursive, 
such as might be adopted by a lecturer who is 
accurate and conscientious, but who does not 
emphasize salient ideas to any great degree. 
In arrangement the subdivision is not so clean 
eut as in the volume by Carhart and Chute, 
and long paragraphs are frequent, but the rea- 
soning is generally good and suggestive. The 
book may be regarded as the reproduction of 
a series of well-prepared lectures, without the 
interruption of experimental details. An ad- 
mirable outline of experiments, intended to 
aid the teacher, is reserved for the latter part 
of the volume. This includes many references 
to Chute’s ‘Practical Physics,’ to which the 


272 


author offers a deserved tribute. Another val- 
uable feature is the list of references for col- 
lateral reading, the outcome evidently of long- 
continued use of the note-book in the author’s 
own reading. The order of presentation of 
the successive topics is a little different from 
usual, and out of 346 pages only 49 are de- 
voted to magnetism and electricity, including 
5 closing pages on electrostatics. Formulas 
are but sparingly employed and no problems 
are offered. To many this may seem a dis- 
tinct element of weakness. 

Mr. Gilley’s book is a mixture of class text- 
book with laboratory manual, and as such it 
may be commended to those who are partial 
to such a mixture. The opening chapter treats 
of density, both experimentally and theoreti- 
eally, density being defined as the quotient of 
weight by volume. This identification of mass 
and weight is convenient, but obviously not 
always allowable. Much space is occupied 
with minute instructions and precautions for 
the guidance of the student in manipulation, 
and there are many indications that the author 
is ingenious and energetic as a teacher. He 
has introduced many well-chosen problems, 
and his theoretical discussions are generally 
satisfactory. Like Professor Slate he gives 
scant attention to electrostatics, less than 4 
pages out of 530 being thus devoted to ‘surface 
electricity.’ For elementary students this plan 
has much to commend it. Much of what pass- 
ed for school instruction in the subject. of 
‘frictional electricity’ a half century ago was 
mere trifling; and such theoretic discussion as 
ean now be given about it requires greater 
maturity than that of the high-school student. 

Passing now to a manual which is not a 
mixture but intended exclusively for the labo- 
ratory, the high-school guide by Professor 
Crew and Dr. Tatnall is exceedingly good. 
Only simple exercises have been selected, in- 
volving for the most part apparatus that is 
commonly in use or fairly inexpensive if spe- 
Nearly every exercise is intro- 
duced with references to one or more of seven 
elementary text-books in which the student may 
find a discussion of the theory involved. Then 
comes a list of the apparatus to be used; a 
clear statement of the problem to be experi- 


cially made. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


mentally solved; such instructions as are need- 
ful for the manipulator; and, finally, in the 
earlier part of the book, tabular forms are giv- 
en to aid the student in acquiring methodical 
laboratory habits. These forms are discarded 
for the most part after the second chapter. 
Some of the exercises are merely qualitative, 
especially in electricity. Of those that are 
quantitative some will perhaps be welcomed 
not only in the high school, but for beginners 
in institutions that assume more pretentious 
names. 

Kelsey’s ‘Physical Determinations’ are in- 
tended for students of rather more advanced 
grade, having been written for a technical 
school. The author’s aim was ‘to supply out- 
line directions which might enable a class of 
students to proceed with work until the dem- 
onstrator could give individual instruction to 
each group.’ Discussion of detail is hence 
omitted, and to such an extent that the book 
does not seem destined to meet ‘a long-felt 
want’ in very many American laboratories, in 
view of the considerable number of more help- 
ful books of this kind already in the American 
market. The explanations of theory are not 
always very clear, inconveniently long steps 
being occasionally taken; nor are the instruc- 
tions about manipulation sufficiently full to 
warrant the student in making much headway 
with his work while impatiently waiting for 
the arrival of the demonstrator. Nevertheless 
the book would never have been prepared had 
not its material served a useful purpose in 
the laboratory for which it was intended. 

W. LEC. STEVENS. 

WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY, 

July 25, 1902. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
RESEARCH CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 


Since last reported, the club has held two 
meetings. At the first meeting Professors 
Russell and MeMurrich gave papers; the 
former, using lantern slides, detailed his ex- 
plorations in Idaho last summer, and the 
latter addressed the club on the phylogeny of 
the muscles of the human forearm. At the 
last meeting of the year, held in May, Pro- 
fessor Craig explained the process by which 


Auaust 15, 1902.] 


the Assyrian inscriptions were deciphered, and 
Professor Vaughan gave the results of a long 
series of experiments made during the past 
two years by his students and himself in 
endeavoring to ascertain the nature of the 
specific bacterial toxins. An abstract of this 
paper will be published in Science. 
Frepericn OC. Newcoomse. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
SIX NEW SPECIES. 


To tue Eprror or Science: There has just 
come to my attention a copy of the ‘ Ninth An- 
nual Report of the Ohio State Academy of 
Science,’ for the year 1900. Although appar- 
ently published in 1901, it contains one article 
that is still deserving of wider notice! This 
is a paper on ‘ Six new Species, Including two 
New Genera, of Fossil Plants,’ by H. Herzer, 
the reading of which is calculated to cause 
mixed reflections, alike to the student of Eng- 
lish and the paleobotanist. His first species, 
quoted entire, reads as follows: ‘Paleophyeus 
elavifrons. Nov. Spee. A much ramifying 
marine weed, shooting at once at sharp angles 
a number of branches, which at distant inter- 
vals multiply again in the same manner. 
Each branch seems a barren, rugged cylinder, 
beginning at its outgrowth thin as twine, then 
assuming a thickening of 2 inch, giving the 
rather lengthy branches a club-like form.— 
Sandstone flagging, Harmar Hill, Marietta, 
Ohio.” 

Of his ‘Caulopteris magnifica, Nov. Spec.,’ 
he says: “Among the numerous silicified re- 
mains of plants of the carboniferous age, from 
Athens County, Ohio, that have been liberated 
out of the Mahoning sandstone, we find quite a 
variety of species grouping under different 
genera, which are by their internal organiza- 
tion closely allied to each other. The great 
interest in these thus preserved plants is pre- 
sented in the minute preservation of internal 
structure by which their classification is great- 
ly facilitated and at once obvious. * * * 
Our species here is a well-preserved, magnifi- 
cent treefern, once beautifying the unbroken 
wilds of its time”!! ; 


“Psaronius junceus, Nov. Spee. As has 


SCIENCE. 


273 


-been shown in one of our former meetings, 


Psaronius is not a conical stalk of aerial roots, 
enclosing the base of tree-ferns, but is a plant 
per se. We present the one before us as a 
new species, having in its central arrangement 
the structure of a fern or a Sigillaria or like- 
ly a Lepidodendron; for all these characters 
are closely allied to one another; but also being 
remarkably made up of cellular fascicles, en- 
closing like individuals that center and join- 
ing one another so densely, as to have no inter- 
stinet tissue between them. Lach fascicle is 
throughout the whole trunk, which attains the 
thickness of 14 in., as thin and slender as bul- 
rushes, from three sixteenths to one eighth 
inch thick, crowding each other in various 
angles. In each fascicle is a star-like center 
of coarse woody cells, surrounded by small cir- 
cular cells. The main center two inches in 
diameter and being a pithy cylinder, has the 
same long vermicular woody bundles as are 
common to the above mentioned trees.” 

This is undoubtedly a new species, if not 
indeed a new order. The absence of ‘inter- 
stinet tissue’ settles that! 

The first mentioned of the so-called new gen- 
era (Cystiphycus) is introduced by the lucid 
statement that ‘ Like many other fucoids this 
species had the same mode of growth.’ The 
other may be quoted entire. ‘“ Nodophycus 
thallyformis [sic], a New Genus. The fronds 
of this seaweed must have been very large. I 
find them covering large slabs of sandstone. 
The nodose elevations of the frond are from 
one third to one half inch apart and look as if 
a soft thallus had spread over peas’! 

The first mentioned ‘new’ genus is incor- 
rectly formed, etymologically, and both gen- 
eric and specific words in the other are hybrid 
Latin and Greek combinations. Can anything 
be worse? 

I submit that not one of these descriptions 
is adequate or even intelligible, and, with the 
possible exception of the Caulopteris, the fig- 
ures are as bad. Those illustrating ‘Pale- 
ophycus clavifrons’ and ‘ Nodophycus thally- 
formis’ might, with equal propriety, be used 
to illustrate a paper on meteorites. 

In the name of paleobotanists I protest 
against such solecisms as these being con- 


274 


sidered a part of our science. Paleobotany 
has legitimate troubles enough of its own with- 
out being taxed with this. It is difficult to 
understand how the publication committee of 
the Ohio State Academy of Science could have 
admitted this paper, at least in its present 
form. 
F. H. Know tron. 


GEOLOGICAL EXCURSIONS IN THE PITTS- 
BURGH COAL REGION. 

Tue Pittsburgh meeting of the Geological 
Society of America and of Section KE of the 
A. A. A. S. was rendered memorable to many 
geologists by the opportunity afforded them ‘vu 
study the stratigraphy of the bituminous coal 
fields of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, un- 
der such an experienced and enthusiastic 
guide as Professor I. C. White. About 
twenty geologists and students assembled at 
the Pennsylvania station on Tuesday morn- 
ing, June 24, for the 6.15 train. The 
first objective point was Garver’s Ferry, oppo- 
site Freeport, on the Allegheny River. This 
is the type locality for the Upper and Lower 
Freeport coals, and these with their accom- 
panying shales, fire-clays and sandy beds 
were studied. An interesting feature was 
the occurrence of limestone beds in this coal 
series, which in some cases lay directly be- 
neath the coal, and in others were associated 
with the fire-clay. Frequently both fire-clay 
and limestones were replaced by the sandstones 
of the series. 

The Freeport sandstone underlying the 
coal series was seen in the river bed. The 
lowest member of the Conemaugh or Lower 
Barren series in this region is the Mahoning 
sandstone group, which often includes a thin 
seam of coal (Mahoning) and sometimes 
ealeareous beds. The overlying Masontown 
coal and the red beds higher up, nearly to the 
horizon of the Crinoidal limestone, were stud- 
ied in a walk of several miles and a climb up 
the steep rocky cliffs. This brought before 
the party the entire lower half of the Cone- 
maugh, up to the horizon of the rocks ex- 
posed at Pittsburgh. The upper portion of 
the Allegheny or Lower Productive series 
(Freeport coal group) was also included. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


At Kittanning, further up the river, the 
study of the Allegheny series was taken up 
again, and this time nearly the entire series 
was seen from the Clarion Coal, twenty-five 
feet above the Pottsville, to the Upper Free- 
port coal, and also the overlying Mahoning 
sandstones of the Conemaugh series. Special 
attention was called to the Ferriferous lime- 
stone and the Kittanning coals in this sec- 
tion. Still farther up the river at the mouth 
of the Mahoning, the greater portion of the 
Pottsville series as brought up by the Kellers- 
burg anticlinal, was studied. The lower or 
Connoquenessing sandstone with its included 
Quakertown coal, and the upper or Home- 
wood sandstone with the intermediate Mercer 
coal groups, were pointed out. 

On the return journey a stop was made 
at Crag Dell and a short walk along the rail- 
road tracks enabled Dr. White to point out 
many of the interesting detailed character- 
istics of the Upper Freeport coal and its 
associated rocks. 

On Wednesday the party visited the inter- 
esting region about the junction of the Con- 
noquenessing with the Beaver, and here the 
Homewood and Upper and Lower Connoque- 
nessing sandstones were studied at their type 
localities. Some of the lower members of the 
overlying Allegheny series were also studied, 
especially the Ferriferous limestone. Later in 
the day, near Beaver, the Brookville and 
Clarion coals with the intervening Eagle 
limestone were seen, thus completing the base 
of the Allegheny series. 

The interesting glacial phenomena along 
the Beaver, below the terminal moraine, were 
given special attention, and the evidence of 
the former impounding of the waters in the 
preglacial river valleys of the Ohio and its 
tributaries by the front of the ice sheet, as 
pointed out by Dr. White, was pronounced 
very conclusive. Attention was also given to 
the character of the preglacial valleys, and 
the high-level terraces on either side of the 
Ohio and the Beaver, and their gradual de- 
scent northwestward, forcibly suggested the 
former northwest drainage into the Lake Erie 
Valley of the river systems of this region, as 
pointed out by White, Hice and others. 


AvuGUST 15, 1902. ] 


These terraces were again seen along all the 
larger streams of this region, which were 
visited during the week, and the evidence of 
the impounding of the waters in all of these 
valleys, up to the level of 1050 A. T., was 
found to be very striking and conclusive. 
(The details concerning these high gravels 
have been given by Dr. White in several 
papers.) Thursday morning was devoted to 
a study of the stratigraphy of Pittsburgh city, 
where the whole upper portion of the Cone- 
maugh series from the Crinoidal limestone— 
which is finely exposed in many portions of 
the city—to the Pittsburgh coal, the basal 
member of the Monongahela or Upper pro- 
ductive measures, is exposed. 

The Pittsburgh coal is mined along the 
summits of the hills in Pittsburgh and has 
become the chief source of the city’s natural 
wealth. The high level terraces and gravels 
were again pointed out. 

In the afternoon the novel experience 
of witnessing the shooting of an oil 
well was enjoyed by the party. For this ex- 
perience the party is indebted to the Mc- 
Donald Oil Company. Later the Jumbo coal 
mine in the neighborhood was visited, where, 
under the guidance of Dr. White and mine 
foreman Campbell, the mining of the Pitts- 
burgh coal was inspected. 

On Friday several additional outcrops of 
the Pittsburgh coal bed in the vicinity of the 
city were visited, and then a trolley ride to 
McKeesport enabled the party to visit the 
old high-level oxbow of the Youghiogheny. 
The high-level terraces and their gravel de- 
posits were again the chief subject of study, 
and in the afternoon a visit to Monument Hill, 
in Allegheny, an isolated remnant of the 
ancient river bottom, furnished additional 
opportunity for the study of these features. 

On Saturday the party left Pittsburgh for a 
two days’ excursion. The first stop was made 
at Connellsville, where the coking of the 
Pittsburgh (Connellsville) coal is carried on 
extensively. Various coke ovens were visited 
under the guidance of the officials. The entire 
Conemaugh, Allegheny and Pottsville series 
were here passed over in a short space, owing 
to their elevation in the anticlinals flanking 


SCIENCE. 


275 


the Connellsville basin. The Mauch Chunk, 
Greenbrier and Pocono formations were also 
seen and the outcrops of the upper Devonian 
were pointed out. At Uniontown the higher 
members of the Monongahela, and the lower 
members of the Dunkard up to the Washington 
coal were passed through in the deep mine of 
the H. C. Frick Company, where the Pitts- 
burgh coal is mined at great depth. Many of 
the strata above the Pittsburgh coal were also 
observed in the various outcrops. Sunday was 
spent in Morgantown, W. Va., and a drive to 
Cheat River canyon enabled the party to 
study the continuation of the high-level rock 
terraces and their washed gravels, which clearly 
indicated the extent of the great ice-dammed 
lake which Dr. White has traced out in these 
valleys. The revived topography of the region 
and the Cheat canyon across the Chestnut 
ridge anticlinal gave opportunity for dis- 
cussion, and as the rain interfered to some 
extent with the field work, the members of the 
party were treated to a careful description of 
the structure and topography of the region by 
Dr. White, whose intimate familiarity with 
the region enabled him to speak with authority 
on the subject. 

Through the exertions of Dr. White the trip 
to Morgantown and return was made com- 
plimentary by Superintendent Haas, of the 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Pittsburgh. 
On Saturday the party was entertained in the 
most liberal manner by the Frick Coke and 
Coal Company through its manager, Mr. O. 
W. Kennedy. Everything was done to make 
the excursion interesting and profitable. At 
Morgantown all the members of the party were 
the guests of Dr. White, to whom they were 
already so deeply indebted for his constant 
readiness and eagerness to explain the 
phenomena encountered, and his untiring 
effort to make the week, what it certainly has 
been, one of unparalleled success and enjoy- 
ment. The week’s work was most pleasantly 
wound up by a reception given by Dr. and 
Mrs. White and the other members of their 
hospitable family at their beautiful home, 
‘Cherryhurst.’ Here the geologists had the 
opportunity of meeting many of the promi- 


276 


nent citizens of Morgantown and a number of 
the officers of the University of West Virginia. 

The following is the list of persons who 
attended one or more of the excursions: 

I. C. White, Morgantown, W. Va., leader; J. 
R. Macfarlane, Pittsburgh, Pa., assistant leader; 
H. L. Fairchild, University of Rochester; B. K. 
Emerson, Amherst College; C. R. Eastman, Mus. 
Comp. Zool., Cambridge; J. B. Hatcher, Carnegie 
Museum, Pittsburgh; F. B. Peck, Lafayette Col- 
lege; C. S. Prosser, Ohio State University; A. E. 
Turner, President Waynesburg College; A. R. 
Crook, Northwestern University; U. 8S. Grant, 
Northwestern University; Florence Bascom, 
Bryn Mawr College; G. C. Martin, Johns Hop- 
kins University; A. E. Ortmann, Princeton Uni- 
versity; A. W.-Grabau, Columbia University; 
H. W. Shimer, Columbia University; Miss Ida 
H. Ogilvie, Columbia University; R. R. Hice, 
Beaver, Pa.; J. C. Williams, Ridgeway, Pa.; 
Miss L. K. Miller, Groton, Mass.; F. H. Oliphant, 
Oil City, Pa.; D. E. Crane, Sewickley, Pa.; A. 
S. Coggeshall, Carnegie Museum; L. 8. Cogge- 
shall, Carnegie Museum; Sidney Prentice, Car- 
negie Museum; Claude McD. Hamilton, of the 
Pittsburgh Despatch, Pittsburgh. 

AMADEUS W. GRABAU. 

CoLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

M. Bouvier has been elected a member of 
the Paris Academy of Sciences in the section 
of anatomy and zoology in the room of the 
late M. Filhol. 

Prorressor ANGELO Heriprin sailed on the 
12th instant for the West Indies to complete 
his observations on the voleanoes of Mar- 
tinique and St. Vincent. 

Gen. A. W. GREELY, chief of the U. S. Sig- 
nal Service, has returned from Alaska, where 
he had been inspecting the work on the Goy- 
ernment telegraph line from Valdez to Eagle 
City. 

Tue daily papers report that President 
David Starr Jordan has been successful in 
securing a valuable collection of fishes in the 
Bay of Apia, Samoa, some four hundred and 
fifty species, many of them new, having been 
collected. 


A party, under the direction of Professor 
Birksland, has left Copenhagen for Nova 


SCIENCE. : 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


Zembla to study the aurora borealis during 
the summer. 


Proressor W. E. Rirrer, of the University 
of California, has secured funds for the erec- 
tion of a marine laboratory at San Pedro, 
which will be used as a center for the bio- 
logical study of the Pacific coast. 


Lieutenant W. E. Sarrorp, U. 8. Navy, has 
resigned his commission in order to take the 
position of assistant curator in the Bureau 
of Plant Industry of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment. His specialty will be tropical botany. 
Mr. Safford has been engaged for many years 
in collecting material and information rela- 
ting to useful plants of the countries visited 
by him in cruising. ; 


Rosert L. Ranpotpu, M.D., associate pro- 
fessor of ophthalmology and otology in the 
Johns Hopkins Medical School, has recently 
received the Boylston prize for a paper en- 
titled ‘The Réle of the Toxins in Inflamma- 
tions of the Eye.’ 


Tue Paris Society of Geography has con- 
ferred its Ducros-Aubert prize on Dr. Huot, a 
physician in the French colonies. 


Dr. Martin Ficker, custodian of the Mu- 
seum of Hygiene of the University of Berlin, 
has been appointed director of the Hygienic 
Institute. 


Tue Advisory Committee of Public Hygiene 
of France has elected as members MM. Ed. 
Bonjean, Thierry, Binot, Brouardel, Boulloche 
and Courtois-Suffit. 


We learn from the American Geologist that 
a bust of the late Dr. Edward W. Claypole has 
been placed in the assembly hall of the Throope 
Polytechnic Institute. The presentation ad- 
dress was made by President W. H. Knight, of 
the Los Angeles Academy of Sciences, and it 
was accepted by Dr. Norman Bridge for the 
board of trustees. 


Dr. Witttam S. BrapsHear, president of the 


Iowa State College at Ames, died on August 
4, at the age of fifty-two years. 


Tue deaths are also announced of Dr. W. 
Iveson Macadam, lecturer on chemistry in the 
School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges of 


Auvaust 15, 1902.] 


Edinburgh, and of Dr. P. M. Garibaldi, pro- 
fessor of physics at Genoa. 

Mr. Anprew Carnecie has given £10,000 to 
build a free library at Cork, Ireland. 

Tur University at Tomsk has received a 
gift of one hundred thousand roubles for the 
establishment of a biological station. 


Tue Berlin Academy of Sciences has an- 
nounced that its academic prize, 5,000 Marks, 
will be awarded in 1904 for an investigation 
of the kathode rays and in 1905 for an inves- 
tigation of the theory of functions of several 
variables which admit of linear substitution. 
The income of the Cothenius legacy —$2,000— 
for 1904 will be awarded for investigations on 
new varieties of grain. The papers may be 
written in English and must be presented 
without the name of the author to the Bureau 
of the Academy, Universitit Strasse, 8, Ber- 
lin. 

Sreps are being taken for the establishment 
of a medico-historical department in the Ger- 
manic Museum at Niirnberg on the occasion 
of the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. 
It will contain a collection of medical and 
surgical instruments and apparatus, drawings, 
portraits, books and manuscripts, illustrating 
the history of the art of healing. 

Tue British Medical Association held its 
seventieth annual meeting at Manchester, be- 
ginning on July 29. The business of the As- 
sociation was conducted in seventeen sections 
which held their meetings at Owen’s College. 
There were somewhat over 1,500 members in 
attendance. The meeting next year will be 
held at Swansea under the presidency of Dr. 
Griffiths. 

Tue first conference of the International 
Bureau for combating tuberculosis will meet 
at Berlin from October 22 to 26. 

Tue German Society for Mechanics and 
Optics, consisting of those engaged in making 
instruments of precision, will this year meet 
at Halle on August 15, 16 and 17. 

Tue Paris correspondent of the London 
Standard states that the Ministers of Foreign 
Affairs and Agriculture, just before the sum- 
mer recess, presented to the Chamber a bill 


SCIENCE. 


277 


approving the international convention for 
the protection of birds useful to agriculture. 
The international convention has been signed 
by eleven European states. Encouraged by 
the constantly renewed resolutions of the 
Councils General and the agricultural socie- 
ties, which deplored the systematic destruc- 
tion of certain birds useful to agriculture, the 
French Government, in 1892, took the initia- 
tive in the matter by inviting the European 
powers to send their representatives to an 
international commission intrusted with the 
task of elaborating a convention. That com- 
mittee met in Paris in June, 1895. After long 
negotiations the convention thus framed has 
now obtained the adhesion of France, Ger- 
many, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Hun- 
gary, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden, Swit- 
zerland, and the Principality of Monaco. All 
the other states are empowered by the terms 
of the agreement to adhere, if they think fit, 
to this convention for the protection of birds. 
The various contracting governments under- 
take to prohibit the employment of snares, 
cages, nets, glue, and all other means for the 
capture and destruction of birds in large num- 
bers at a time. In addition to this general 
measure of protection, no one is to be allowed 
to capture or kill, between March 1 and Sept. 
15, any of the birds useful to agriculture, and 
of which a complete list is contained in the 
international agreement. This list of useful 
birds comprises sparrows, owls, common brown 
owls, tawny owls, sea eagles, woodpeckers, roll- 
ers, wasp-eaters, pewits, martins, fern owls, 
nightingales, redstarts, robin redbreasts, white 
bustards, larks of all kinds, wrens, tomtits, 
swallows, flycatchers, ete. 


A une of work recently taken up by the 
Bureau of Forestry, and for the first time 
receiving adequate attention in the United 
States, is the study of the tendency of natural 
forests to extend over the land devoid of forest 
growth. This tendency has been noticed in 
many parts of the country, but has never been 
studied with a view of controlling it for prac- 
tical use, or assisting it where desirable. A 
field party from the Bureau is now investi- 
gating the reproduction of white pine on 


278 


pastures and abandoned lands in Massachu- 
setts and New Hampshire, to learn the condi- 
tions under which reproduction takes place. 
The Bureau is making this investigation in 
crder to be able to give owners of such lands 
directions as to the best methods of handling 
them, with a view of securing a stand of pine 
by natural seeding. A field party of six men 
is studying the same problem in Oklahoma, 
in connection with the hardwood growth which 
composes the timber belts of that region. It 
has been found in certain places in the middle 
west that natural forest belts have extended 
up streams as much as two miles in the last 
twenty-five years. Particular attention will be 
paid to devising methods for extending and 
improving the forest growth of the Wichita 
Forest Reserve, where at present the stand of 
timber consists of only a scattering growth 
of oak. A similar study is being made on the 
Prescott Forest Reserve in Arizona, where the 
stand of timber consists almost entirely of 
Western yellow pine. For several years only 
a scant reproduction has taken place on this 
reserve, and one of the objects of the present 
investigation is to devise means of increas- 
ing the stand of young timber. 


Amone the important economic studies now 
being conducted by the United States Geo- 
logical Survey in the region east of the Mis- 
sissippi River is the investigation of the coal 
field within the first district in southwestern 
Indiana, the results of which will appear be- 
fore the close of the year. The area covered 
to date embraces nearly 1,000 square miles, 
and includes portions of Pike, Gibson, Vander- 
burg, Warrick, Spencer and Dubois counties. 
The Survey has prepared unusually accurate 
topographic maps, showing not only the 
houses, highways, railways, town and county 
boundaries, and drainage .features, but also, 
by means of contours, the heights and shapes 
of the hills. The geologic maps, which are 
being prepared by Messrs. M. L. Fuller and 
George H. Ashley, will show the outcrop of 
the ‘big’ or Petersburg coal vein from near 
the White River to the vicinity of the Ohio. 
Its approximate elevation above sea level will 
be shown both along its outcrop and beneath 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 398. 


the surface, giving a basis from which its 
depth below the surface can be caleulated at 
any point. The locations of the mines are 
also shown. The outerop of the smaller coal, 
designated ‘No. 7’ by the Indiana State Sur- 
vey, which occurs above the Petersburg coal, 
will be shown in the same manner, as will also 
some of the coals beneath the latter. The 
maps will be accompanied by an account of 
the geologic history of the region, by descrip- 
tions of a number of important drainage 
changes, and by a detailed description of the 
character and structure of the rocks, especially 
of the coal. The maps described are the first 
installment of a series which will later be ex- 
tended westward into Illinois and southward 
into Kentucky. 


Tue United States Geological Survey has 
recently completed a study of the oil fields 
of California, which of late years have be- 
come so important an economic feature of 
that State. The investigation was conducted 
by Mr. George H. Eldridge, one of the geol- 
ogists of the Survey, who is now engaged in 
the preparation of a report. This report, 
which will later be available to the public, 
will contain information of interest regarding 
the geologic conditions governing the occur- 
rence of oil in the California district. Dur- 
ing the year Mr. Eldridge will also complete 
a report on the phosphate deposits of Florida, 
upon which a portion of his time has recently 
been spent. 


Mr. Georce F. Linconn, Consul-General of 
Antwerp, writes to the Department of State 
that the Cartographic, Ethnographic and 
Maritime Exposition was opened to the public 
on May 22. The Royal Geographical Society 
of Belgium has obtained for the purposes of 
this exhibition the assistance of the French, 
Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Mexican Govy- 
ernments, and in addition the Queen has sent 
many interesting objects from her private col- 
lections. The exhibition of ancient and mod- 
ern charts, atlases, maps, globes and projec- 
tions is perhaps the most interesting that has 
ever been brought together, and is particularly 
notable for its fine specimens of the works of 
Mereator, Ortelius, Blaeu, Hondius and the val- 


Auaust 15, 1902.] 


uable display of those of Elisée, Reclus, the 
great geographer of modern times. The charts 
of the Ka-Tanga scientific expedition here find 
a place, as well as the various scientific appa- 
ratus used by the members of the mission. 
There is a fine map of the Lower Kongo and 
some remarkable relief maps of the Suez and 
Panama canals, the districts of Lake Geneva 
and the Matterhorn, as well as a large one of 
the surface of the moon. The ethnographical 
section comprises photographs, weapons, house- 
hold utensils, religious objects, articles of 
wearing apparel, etc., from the Kongo Mu- 
seum at Terveuren, from missions in the Kon- 
go, China, Java and South America, besides a 
brilliant display of gods and goddesses from 
the Dutch East Indies and beautiful tapes- 
tries from the royal palace at Pekin. In the 
maritime section are models of the newest 
‘types of ocean liners, furnished by the princi- 
pal steam navigation lines; models of old 
Dutch craft and men-of-war, and of the pro- 
‘ posed ports at Ghent, Brussels and Heyst; 
souvenirs of the explorations of the Duke of 
Abruzzi, of the Belgian Antarctic expedition, 
ete. A number of improved instruments for 
studying the depths of the sea, life-saving ap- 
paratus, and instruments of precision for ex- 
ploring, prospecting and surveying purposes, 
besides astronomical instruments, complete an 
exhibition that is highly interesting from both 
an educational and scientific point of view. 


Nature states that at the meeting of the 
London County Council on Tuesday the Tech- 
nical Education Board reported the result of 
the inquiry by a special subcommittee of the 
board as to the need and present provision for 
special training of an advanced kind in con- 
nection with the application of science (es- 
pecially chemistry and electricity) to industry, 
and as to what, if any, developments are need- 
ed to secure efficient training in these subjects 
for senior county scholars and other advanced 
students who desire to qualify themselves to 
take leading positions in scientific industries. 
The report of the special subcommittee deals 
with matters which the board points out are of 
great importance to the present and future 
prosperity of various English industries, no- 


SCIENCE. 


279 


tably some connected with London. The mem- 
bers of the special committee came, without a 
dissentient voice, to the conclusions (1) that 
England (and London in particular) has suf- 
fered the loss of certain industries and that 
others are in danger; (2) that this loss has 
been largely due to defective education, especi- 
ally in the higher grades; and (3) that London 
is still seriously behind other cities, notably 
Berlin, in the provision for the higher grades 
of scientific training and research. The re- 
port was accepted, with the addition of the 
recommendation ‘that the Technical Educa- 
tion Board be instructed to report as to the 
steps it proposes to take in order to give prac- 
tical effect to the suggestions contained in the 
report.’ 


Tue Electrical World states that Arizona 
has several large and very important water 
power projects under construction. Lack of 
rain in the southwest serves as a great hin- 
drance to development of water storage and 
developments in water power. In the Salt 
River Valley the towns of Phcenix, Tempe and 
Mesa are lighted with electricity, generated 
by small falls in the valley’s canal systems. 
Sixty miles southeast of Prescott, on Fossil 
Creek, work has begun on a scheme that is 
destined to develop 2,000 horse-power, to be 
used mainly in the mines of central Yavapai 
County. A great power project is in incuba- 
tion, based upon the damming of Bill Wil- 
liams Fork, in extreme western Arizona. The 
new dam that is to store flood waters for the 
use of the Salt River Valley is to be built 
largely with the aid of water power, and a few 
miles above the reservoir it will supply power 
for a 3,000-h. p. transmission line to Globe and 
other central Arizona mining camps. This 
plant is being built by C. M. Clark. The 
Grand Canyon of Arizona affords the greatest 
field for electricity generated by water power. 
Below the new Santa Fé Hotel, on the canyon 
brink, are Indian Garden Springs, which, in 
ordinary seasons, have a flow of nearly 100 
miners’ inches, that can be thrown over a cliff 
3,000 feet high. In Cataract Canyon, the 
stream of flow usually approximating 10,000 
miners’ inches, makes three great leaps of 70, 


280 


144 and 250 feet, respectively, without refer- 
ence to several thousand feet of drops from 
the Indian villages to the Colorado’s channel. 
Many plans have- been mooted for developing 
the marvelous power of the Colorado, a stream 
which rises as much as 100 feet in flood time 
within the canyon. Floats equipped with 
great paddle wheels have been suggested, but 
it is probable that the river will some day be 
harnessed by means of tunnels that will ‘pick 
up’ the fall of the stream. One such tunnel, 
at a point near Bass’s Trail, and not over half 
a mile in length, driven through black granite, 
would cut off 12 miles of river channel, aver- 
aging not less than 12 feet of fall to the mile. 
Dr. A. J. Chandler, of Mesa, Arizona, is engi- 
neering the latest Grand Canyon power plant. 
Dr. Chandler is the manager of the southwest- 
ern interests of Bowen & Ferry, the Detroit 
capitalists, and has made a success of a power- 
generating plant near Mesa. He has found 
an ideal location for power-generating works 
on the Kanal, Wash., not far from its union 
with the inner canyon of the Colorado about 
“0 miles north of Williams. It is stated that 
even 5,000 feet of fall can be found in a dis- 
tance a little over a mile. The water supply 
is said to be ample and of remarkable regular- 
ity of flow. The only question seems to be 
that involving the carriage of the necessary 
heavy machinery down into the canyon and 
across the river, unless it be hauled southward 
from some Utah railroad point and lowered 
over the precipitous cliffs. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


Tur University of Toronto has arranged 
its academic course leading to the B.A. de- 
gree, so that when the student has completed 
four years of work he may have fulfilled the 
requirements of the first two years of medi- 
cine. He can then enter the third year of 
medicine and graduate in two years, thus mak- 
ing it possible to obtain the degrees of Bache- 
lor of Arts and Bachelor of Medicine after six 
years of study. 


A waporatTory of experimental psychology 
will be opened next winter at King’s College, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vor. XVI. No. 398. 


London. It will be under the general super- 
vision of the professor of physiology, Dr. Hali- 
burton, and the special conduct will be en- 
trusted to Dr. W. G. Smith, formerly of Smith 
College, Northampton, Mass. 


Tue University of Jena will celebrate its 
three hundred and fiftieth anniversary in 
1908. Arrangements are already in progress 
for the preparation of a history of the univer- 
sity based on unpublished documents. 


Cornett University, through the generosity 
of Abraham Abraham of Brooklyn, has ac- 
quired the Egyptological and Assyriological 
library of the late Professor August Eisenlohr 
of Heidelberg. 


Tue registration at the summer school of 
Columbia University is this year 643 as com- 
pared with 589 in 1901 and 417 in 1900, when 
the school was first established. 


Tue State University of Iowa has created a 
chair of psychology and elected to it Dr. C. 
E. Seashore, at present assistant professor in 
philosophy. Dr. Seashore took his doctor’s 
degree at Yale in 1895 and was assistant in 
the Psychological Laboratory from 1895 to 
1897. 


Rosert S. Suaw, professor of agriculture in 
Montana, has been elected to the chair of agri- 
culture in Michigan Agricultural College. He 
graduated at Guelph, Ontario, in 1892, man- 
aged his father’s farm for four years, and 
took his father’s classes for one year in the 
University of Minnesota. 


L. B. Watton, A.M. (Brown, 1900), Ph.D. 
(Cornell, 1902), has been appointed instructor 
in biology at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. 
He held last year the Goldwin Smith fellow- 
ship in zoology at Cornell University. 


At Purdue University J. R. McColl, now of 
the University of Tennessee, a graduate of 
the Michigan Agricultural College, has been 
appointed associate professor of thermo- 
dynamics, and Mr. Fritz B. Ernst, now on 
the editorial staff of the Railway Age and a 
graduate of Purdue University, has been ap- 
pointed assistant in car and locomotive design. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: 8S. NEWcomB, Mathematics; R. S. WooDWARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; k. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Geology ; W. M. DAvis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology; C. E. = 

BessEy, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 
pDItcH, Physiology; J. S. BrLtinas, Hygiene; WitL1AM H. Wetcu, Pathol- 
ogy ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. PowELL, Anthropology. 


Fray, Auegust 22, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
The National Observatory Question in its 


LUTE IAVUSCs Boe te Wes eR BORE eu eB Ae Moree 281 
The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science :— 
Section iG, Chemistry. 3. 55.20. ue soe 282 
Membership of the Association........... 293 
The Botanical Society of America: Dr. D. T. 
IMTANG) DOU GY bys Bie sin Groene Dasa aicn Onin een ola ota 294 
The International Aeronautical Congress: A. 
GAN RENCE ROL CH eae eit sera y shots 296 
Scientific Books :— 
James on Varieties of Religious Eaperi- 
ence: Dr. Dickinson 8. Miter. Herd- 
man and Dawson on Fish and Fisheries of 
the Irish Sea: Dr. H. M. Smirn. Studies 
from the Chemical Laboratory of the Shef- 
field Scientific School: PRorEssor ALBERT 
B. Prescott. Hilbert on the Foundations 
of Geometry: PROFESSOR GEORGE BRUCE 
ISIN SRD) saison OE mAcD ea ocaic oe mama ae 301 
Scientific Journals and Articles............ 308 
Societies and Academies :— 
The American Anthropological Association: 
A VWiesr Iie ILE eta estates tec ress, psoas ste sensor sesaaye cusuese 309 
Discussion und Correspondence :— 
Blue Foxes on the Pribylof Islands: Dr. 
LEONHARD STEJNEGER. Types versus Resi- 
Chess Os 1S (COwitemere neon at He Beato 310 
Shorter Articles :— 
Nature of the Specific Bacterial Toxins: 
Dr. V. C. VaAuecHAN. A Bacterial Soft Rot 
of Certain Cruciferous Plants and Amor- 
phophallus Simlense: H. A. Harprne, F. C. 
Stewart. Note on the Multiple Images 
formed by Two Plane Inclined Mirrors: 
Dr. Morton GITHENS LioyD............. 312 
AND IU ARS OIRO SGI eC O00 ao OF 6.5 4 bits MERIC 317 
The Marine Biological Laboratory and the 
Carnegie Imstitution. 322.62. 455..s....- 317 
SScientijic) Notes) and News)s..\.-eeie es. 317 
University and Educational News........... 320 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE NATIONAL OBSERVATORY 
IN ITS 


QUESTION 
LATEST PHASE. 

THE newspapers have announced, we sup- 
pose on good authority, that Captain Colby 
M. Chester, U. 8S. N., has been selected as 
Superintendent of the Naval Observatory. 
It seems from these dispatches that the posi- 
tion is recognized as the most attractive 
and desirable in the gift of the Navy De- 
partment, and is tendered to an officer 
whose professional abilities and personal 
character are of so high a class as to render 
On 
the old theory that offices are rewards of 


him eminently worthy of the reward. 


merit, the action of the Department will 
doubtless meet general approval. And yet, 
the abnormality of the situation is such 
that we hope not to weary our readers if we 
summarize its principal features. 

1. The institution in question is, not- 
withstanding its name, the national observa- 
tory of the United States. 


tional purpose of existence except a desire 


It has no ra- 


on the part of the American people that 
our nation shall, in its public capacity, do 
its full share in the promotion of those 
branches of astronomy which have to be 


pursued under public auspices. The lead- 


bo 


282 
ing position which our country has taken in 
the extraordinary development of astro- 
nomic science during our generation can 
alone justify the unparalleled expenditure 
of our government upon its observatory. 

2. The this 


through the ten years since the completion 


results of expenditure 
of the new observatory should have been 
its general recognition as the leading ob- 
servatory of the world in at least some im- 
With its great 
advantages over old-fashioned Greenwich 
and Paris, it should have left both these 


portant field of the sciences. 


institutions in the rear. 

3. Has it done anything of this kind? 
Is any work of prime importance in as- 
tronomice science heing pursued? Do the 
astronomers of our own or any other coun- 
try set that high price upon its output 
which it should command in the world of 
science? The claim has been made over 
and over by authorities too high to be ig- 
nored that these questions must be answered 
in the negative. The only official rejoinder 
to them which we ean find is a very free 
use by the head of the observatory of such 
terms as ‘malice,’ ‘animosities’ and ‘preju- 
Did 


allege overt 


dices’ in his recent annual reports. 
the 


wrong-doing, this sort of defence might be 


criticisms in question 


more or less in place. But a better defence 
to the charge that the observatory has been 
doing nothing of importance would be the 
showing of something important that it 
has done. 

4. The conduet of the institution can add 
nothing to the efficiency of the naval ser- 
vice, and must subtract from rather than 


add to its high character in the eyes of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 399. 


world. The very appellation ‘naval’ is a 
misnomer. 

5. The idea that even the best officer in 
the navy, which the new appointee may well 
be, can take up the present ill-organized 
institution, with its imperfect and often 
antiquated instruments, and its absence of 
definite aim, and lead the astronomical force 
on to that position which the establishment 
should assume in the world of science, is 
one that cannot be entertained by any im- 
partial reviewer of the situation. 

Under these circumstances, should the 
body of astronomers who desire to make 
their national institution a worthy represen- 
tative of their science relax their efforts to 
bring this result about? Were there any 
doubt as to the reasonableness and justice 
of their cause—could even the show of a 
case against their view be made—they 
might well abandon their efforts in despair. 
But when the system against which they 
contend is so injurious to the good name of 
American science, and at the same time 
completely indefensible as it seems to us 
to be, patriotism and a due regard for the 
dignity of their science will not allow us 
to doubt that ultimately success must attend 


their efforts. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD- 
VANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. SEC- 
TION C, CHEMISTRY. 

Tue meetings of Section C of the Ameri- 
ean Association for the Advancement of 
Science were held in common with those of 
the American Chemical Society from June 
30 to July 3. The meeting place was the 
chapel of the Bellefield Presbyterian 
Church, Pittsburgh. During the first two 
days the meetings were in charge of the 


AUGUST 22, 1902. ] 


officers of the American Chemical Society, 
and under the presidency of Dr. Ira Rem- 
sen. On July 2 and 3, Vice-president Dr. 
H. A. Weber, of Ohio State University, 
presided. 

Of the sixty-nine papers which were an- 
nounced, fourteen were upon subjects re- 
lating to industrial chemistry, thirteen 
were in the domain of physical chemistry, 
thirteen were devoted to organic, five to 
inorganic and twelve to analytical chem- 
istry. Among the papers presented were 
the following: 


Arsenic Pentachloride: CHAS. BASKER- 
vILLE and H. H. Bennert. Abstract 
published in the issue of Scrence for 
August 8. 


Preparation of Pure Preseodymiwm Com- 
pownds: CHas. BASKERVILLE and J. W. 
TURRENTINE. Abstract published in the 
issue of ScreNce for August 8. 


The Deportment of Pure Thorium and Al- 
lied Elements with Organc Bases: 
Cuas. BAsKERVILLE and F. H. LeMty. 


The Chlorids of Ruthenium: Jas. Lewis 

Howe. 

Until a few years ago, the only known 
chlorid of ruthenium was of the type 
RuCl,, 2R’Cl. Claus’s tetrachlorid was 
shown by Joly to be a nitroso-chlorid, of 
type RuCl,NO, 2R’Cl. Several years since 
Antony described a tetrachlorid, RuCl,, 
2KCl. At the last meeting the author 
described the cesium and rubidium salts of 
the types RuCl,, 2R’Cl, RuO,Cl,, 2R’Cl 
and RuCl,H,O, 2R’Cl. The method of 
forming this latter, called an ‘aquo’-salt, 
was not then known. It has now been 
found that the salts of this ‘aquo’ series 
are formed by boiling the salts of the type 
RuCl,, R’Cl, with alcohol and dilute HCl. 
These are dehydrated at 180°—200°, giving 
salts of an isomeric RuCl,, 2R’Cl, differing 
ereatly from the ordinary RuCl,, 2R’Cl in 


SCIENCE. 283 


properties. They become hydrated again 
on treatment with water. The ‘aquo’ salt, 
on addition of chlorin, gives the tetra- 
chlorid. RuCl,, 2KCl is a black salt with 
greenish tint, very soluble and instantly 
decomposed by water, differing entirely 
from the salt described by Antony. Using 
Antony’s method, no salt higher than the 
trichlorid could be obtained, but a hydrated 
salt, RuCl,, 2KCl, H,O, differing from the 
‘aquo’ salt was found. This is probably 
identical with that described by Miolati. 

By the action of stannous chlorid on 
ruthenium trichlorid beautiful red isomet- 
rie octahedra were obtained, which con- 
tained ruthenium, tin, chlorin and an alkali, 
and in which the ratio of ruthenium to tin 
is 1:12. 


An Explanation of Valence and Stereo- 
chemistry: THEODORE W. RICHARDS. 
Attention was called to the fact that the 

valence of an element is probably connected 

with its compressibility, since in general 
the greater the compressibility, the less is 
the valence. It was shown that this rela- 
tionship is easily explained with the help of 
the hypothesis assuming that atoms are 
compressible and elastic throughout their 
whole substance (Richards, Proc. Am. 

Acad.,37,1,1901 ; 399, 1902 ; Zeitschr. Phys. 

Chem., 40, 169, 597, 1902). The carbon 

atom, with small atomie volume and com- 

pressibility would naturally possess high 
valence, and four larger atoms on combin- 
ing with it would distort it into the tetra- 
hedron demanded by the theory of van’t 
Hoff and Le Bel. The disposition of the 
four added atoms on the faces instead of 
the points of the tetrahedron thus formed 
would of course make no difference in the 
geometric relation. If the four added 
atoms were all different, they would cause 
an asymmetric distortion of the carbon 
atom. The electrical relations of valence 
were purposely omitted from the discussion. 


284 


These and other aspects of the question 
will receive consideration in the more com- 
plete paper soon to be published in the 
Proceedings of the American Academy and 
the Zeitschrift fiir physikalische Chemie. 


The Exactness of Faraday’s Law: T. W. 

RiciHarpDs.. 

After reviewing work done in cooperation 
with H. Collins and G. W. Heimrod (which 
showed that Faraday’s law holds with great 
accuracy for aqueous solutions and ordi- 
nary temperatures), the speaker described 
some more recent work done with the assist- 
ance of W. N. Stull. The weight of silver 
deposited in the ‘porous cup voltameter’ of 
Richards and Heimrod was compared with 
the weight deposited by the same current 
from a solution of argentic nitrate in fused 
sodie and potassie nitrates at 300°. After 
taking several precautions which cannot be 
described here, and subtracting the weights 
of alkaline nitrates included in the silver 
erystals, it was found that the weights were 
identical within the limits of error of the 
experiment (about 0.005 per cent.). This 
investigation places Faraday’s law among 
the most exact and invariable of the laws 
of nature. 


The Electrical Conductivity and Freezing 
Points of Aqueous Solutions of Certain 
Metallic Salts of Tartaric, Malic and 
Succinic Acids: O. F. Tower. 

In an article about two years ago it was 
shown that the molecular conductivity of 
aqueous solutions of the tartrates of nickel 
and cobalt was very low, and also that the 
freezing point lowerings yielded molecular 
weights greater than those caleulated from 
the simple formulas. These results have 
been confirmed and similar determinations 
made with the tartrates of magnesium, 
barium and manganese, and the malates 
and succinates of nickel, cobalt and mag- 
nesium. The results show that magnesium 
tartrate acts, as it may be termed, normally. . 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 399. 


The tartrates of barium and manganese 
give results but little different from those of 
magnesium tartrate. Nickel and cobalt 
malates yield results considerably different 
from those of magnesium malate, but the 
difference is not so great as between the tar- 
trates of the same metals. The succinates 
of nickel and cobalt act not greatly differ- 
ent from magnesium succinate. The ma- 
lates and tartrates of nickel and cobalt seem 
to be polymerized in aqueous solution, the 
malates, however, less so than the tartrates. 
The polymerizing influence 1s dependent on 
the presence of an hydroxyl group in the 
acid radicle, and this influence is stronger 
the greater the number of these groups 
present. 


A Thermochemical Constant: KF. W. 

CLARKE. 

The author has studied the heats of com- 
bustion of organic compounds, as deter- 
mined by Thomsen. These data represent 
substances burned as gas, with production 
of gaseous carbon dioxide and liquid water. 
By a simple correction applied to the last- 
named factor all the equations of com- 
bustion may be reduced to the gaseous form 
throughout, under uniform conditions of 
temperature and pressure. So adjusted, by 
application of a definite formula, nearly 
every equation yields a constant which is 
identical in value with the neutralization 
constant of strong acids and gases. The 
average, in 66 cases, is 13,773 small calories. 
From this constant, and the original equa- 
tions, the conclusion is reached that the 
absolute heat of formation, from gaseous, 
dissociated atoms, of the aliphatie hydro- 
carbons and their simpler derivatives, is 
proportional to the number of atomie link- 
ings within the molecule. In this caleula- 
tion every linking counts as one, and single, 
double or triple unions between carbon 
atoms become identical as regards their 
thermal value. The conclusion is revolu- 


AuGusT 22, 1902.] 


tionary, but it represents a satisfaction of 
the equations, which are otherwise inde- 
terminate. The preliminary paper contains 
sixty-six verifications of the new law. 


On Conductivity: Gro. A. HULETT. 

1. Advantages of saturated solutions as 
a basis for conductivity of electrolytes. 

-2. The values for saturated solutions of 
gypsum are of the correct magnitude for 
determining the capacity of conductivity 
cells, and have been proposed by Kohl- 
rausch, but his results are affected by sur- 
face tension. 

3. Definiteness and reproducibility of 
normally saturated solutions, and the equa- 
tion 
(At = .002206 + .0000456 (t — 25) 

+ .000000163 (¢ — 25)?) 
for normally saturated solutions from 10° 
to 30° calculated from observed data. 

4. Sources of error in the Arrhenius cells 
and water conductivity. 


Bezehung zwischen osmotischem Druck und 
negatiem Druck (Relation between Os- 
motic Pressure and Negative Pressure) : 
Grorce A. HULETT. 

1. It will be necessary here to go some- 
what into detail concerning the important 
property of liquids known as negative 
pressure (or better perhaps, tensile strength 
of liquids) reviewing the work of Berthelot 
(An. chim. phys. (3), 30, 232), Worthing- 
ton (Phil. Trans., 1893), Jolly and Nixon. 

2. The dissolved substance, under the in- 
fluence of osmotic pressure, diffuses to the 
boundary of the solvent, where it first finds 
‘foothold’ and exerts a pressure normally 
to the surface equal to the osmotic pres- 
sure, and this is a negative pressure on the 
solvent since it tends to increase the volume 
of the solvent. This pressure is resisted by 
the tensile strength of the solvent (which 
has been measured directly by Worthington 
and Hulett). 


SCIENCE. 285 


3. A solution in equilibrium with its 
vapor must then be considered as a system 
with unequal pressures on the two phases. 
The vapor is subjected only to its own 
equilibrium pressure, while the liquid is 
subjected to a very considerable negative 
pressure (equal to the osmotic pressure). 

‘Such a system, considered from the stand- 
point of thermodynamics, shows a relation 
between the negative pressure, molecular 
volume of the solvent and volume occupied 

Pe 
by a gram molecule of the vapor, (4 = ah 
This shows why osmotic pressure lowers the 
vapor pressure, while the van’t Hoff equa- 


tion 4 = ae 


shows only that 4 is propor- 


tional to RT? and 1/A, and it seems that 
this is only indirectly proportional. 

4. Calculation by means of the equation 
from known data, of the change of vapor 
pressure due to a given osmotic pressure 
and comparison with the known changes. 

5. The experimental work consists in the 
direct observation of change of vapor pres- 
sure when negative pressure is applied 
mechanically to the liquid alone, with a 
brief description of the apparatus. 


The Expansion of a Gas into a Vacuum and 
the Kinetic Theory of Gases: PETER 
FIREMAN. 

The expansion of a gas into a vacuum 
is accompanied by no change of energy. If, 
however, the experiment is carried out by 
means of two communicating vessels of 
equal size, one containing a gas under a 
given pressure and the other being vacuous, 
then, on allowing the gas to enter into the 
vacuous vessel, we observe a rise of tem- 
perature in the latter and an equal fall of 
temperature in the former. Why so? A 
plausible explanation would be perhaps 
this: As soon as a little of the gas has 
entered the empty vessel the rest of the gas 
will do work on it, causing a rise of the tem- 


286 


perature in one and a simultaneous lower- 
ing in the other vessel. Such an explana- 
tion, however, is unsatisfactory. How can 
elastic particles (molecules) do work on 
elastic particles? From the impacts of 
elastic molecules at a given temperature but 
with all degrees of velocity, there can result 
nothing other than all degrees of velocity 
with the same temperature (only the mean 
free path would become greater, but this 
does not affect the velocities). Why then 
the change of temperature? In my opin- 
ion the reason is as follows: 

Consider the first molecules near the 
opening into the vacuous vessel. Suppose 
a very quick molecule enters into the vac- 
uum; it will retain its high velocity. Sup- 
pose further a slow molecule enters into 
the empty vessel, it will soon be overtaken 
by a quick one and exchange velocities 
(according to the law of impacts between 
elastic bodies) with it. In brief, for a short 
time there will be, in the empty vessel, only 
quick molecules, and consequently in the 
other vessel only slow ones. We have 
here, as it were, a separation (fractionally) 
into quick and slow molecules which causes 
the observed changes of temperature. 


The Use of Potassium-ferric Chloride for 
the Solution of Steel in making the De- 
termination of Carbon: Gro. WM. Sar- 
GENT. 

Ferric chloride reacts upon the steel 
drillings according to the equation: Fe-- 
2FeCl,—3FeCl,, The reaction takes 
place best as in the case of the copper salt, 
in the presence of potassium chloride. To 
prepare the salt, dissolve 267 grams of the 
e. p. ferric chloride of commerce, which 
contains about fifty per cent. of FeCl,, and 
130.7 grams of potassium chloride in a liter 
of water. Two hundred ee. of this solution 
will decompose a factor weight of drillings 
in the same time as the double chloride of 
copper and potassium. Free hydrochloric 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI.- No. 399: 


acid should not be in excess of the ratio 
of 1 ee. to 225 ec. The amount of acid 
should be just sufficient to prevent the 
formation of any basic salt of iron. By 
chlorinating the filtrate from the carbon 
(see Jour. Am. Chem. Soc., 22, 210), 
it may be used to decompose a second lot 
of drillings. This may be repeated until 
sufficient iron has accumulated to permit 
of the addition of more potassium chloride 
and a further dilution. The solution after 
it has decomposed a weight of drillings re- 
mains transparent, unlike the copper salt; 
hence the point when the decomposition of 
the drillings is complete is readily ascer- 
tained. This fact, together with the ease 
with which one ean observe how the filter is 
holding the carbon, as well as the economy 
of the process, recommend it. (The article 
will be published in the Journal of the 
American Chemical Society.) 


Condensation of Chloral with the Nitran- 
lins: AuVIN SAwYyER WHEELER, and H. 
R. WELLER. 

Chloral readily: reacts with the three 
nitranilins with the elimination of water, 
forming condensation products. If the 
temperature is kept down, addition pro- 
ducts are first formed. The condensation 
products are beautiful crystalline yellow 
bodies. We name them ‘trichlorethyliden- 
di-nitrophenamines.’ The melting points 
are: o-body, 171°; m-body, 212°; p-body, 
218°, uneorr. The para-body was prepared 
in 1898 independently by Eibner and by 
Baskerville. 


The Electrical Conductivity of Urine and 
its Relation to Chemical Composition: 
J. H. Lone. : 

In this paper six complete analyses of 
normal urines were given along with the 
electrical conductivity. It was then shown 
that nearly the same conductivities are. ob- 
tainable by combining the inorganic salts 
in the proportions as found by analysis, 


AUGUST 22, 1902.] 


the effects of the urea and other organic 
bodies being but slight. In a lengthy 
series of tests the variation in conductivity 
throughout the day is determined. The 
whole of the day’s urine was collected in 
three-hour periods and in each portion the 
conductivity was found, and also the 
amount of chlorine and urea. By calcu- 
lating the chlorine as sodium chloride and 
estimating the conductivity of this, by sub- 
traction the element of the conductivity due 
to other salts is obtained. This becomes a 
factor of some importance in the study of 
body metabolism at different periods 
through the day. The urines of different 
individuals are compared. 


Gluten Feeds, Determination of Fat and 

Acidity: E>DwarD GUDEMAN. 

Drying corn gluten feeds in hydrogen, 
vacuum or air modifies them sufficiently 
to give low results for the percentage of 
fat. It imereases the acidity of the ex- 
tracted fat. Gluten meals containing 5.16 
per cent. fat before drying gave 3.56 after 
drying. Acidity of fats extracted before 
drying, 5-15 per cent., and acidity of fats 
extracted after drying 20-40 per cent. 
Acidity of feed materially influenced by 
the indicators; methyl orange neutral to 
alkaline, rosolic acid 6-7 acidity and phe- 
nolphthalein 11-12 acidity. Acidity of 
feeds is due to acid salts and is no criterion 
of quality of feed or of raw materials from 
which they were made. 


A Novel Constant High Temperature Bath: 
- CHARLES BASKERVILLE. 

A drawing was shown of the bath, which 
is essentially an iron water-bath with as- 
bestos jackets wherever exposed and a 
double cover, one being copper. An iron 
float, provided with depressions to fit plat- 
inum crucibles, which rests upon the fus- 
ible alloy, is held in position by copper 
springs reaching to the copper flange of the 
bath. A cylindrical handle rises verti- 


SCIENCE. 


287 


cally from the center of the float; just 
above the asbestos cover the iron cylin- 
der is sufficiently large to contain a ther- 
mostat by which the gas is controlled. 
The two covers are provided with slits that 
they may be placed and removed when the 
float is in position. A brass sheath con- 
taining a thermometer graduated to 550° 
C. passes through the covers, projecting 
within one of the crucible depressions. The 
bath is being used in redetermining the 
atomic weight of thorium according to the 
method of C. Kriiss, and was paid for in 
part by a grant from the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science. 
(Will appear in the Journal of the Ameri- 
can Chemical Society.) 


Quantitative Blowpipe Analysis by Bead 
Colorations: JosEPH W. RicHarps and 
Water S. LANDIS. 

Dr. V. Goldschmidt, of Heidelberg, Ger- 
many, has constructed a plate of colored 
glass, showing the various tints character- 
istic of the metallic oxides when dissolved 
in borax bead or salt of phosphorus bead, 
in the oxidizing or reducing flame. These 
tables are obtainable from Stoe, Mechan- 
iker, Heidelberg, and therefore are now 
available as standards for bead colorations. 
The first part of the work consisted in de- 
termining the percentage of metallic oxide 
present in the beads when presenting the 
color of the glass representing them on the 
plate. This we have determined for Fe, 
U, Cr, V, Mo, Cu, Co, Ni, Mn, Ti and W. 
These being known, the substance to be 
tested is weighed off, and enough taken 
up in a bead to give the standard color. 
The bead is then weighed, and from the 
known percentage required to give this 
color, the amount of coloring oxide is 
These being known, the substance to be 
being determined by a second weighing, 
the percentage of metallic oxide in it is 
known. The accuracy varies from one to 


288 soe 


five per cent. The time necessary is fif- 
teen to twenty minutes. <A balance weigh- 
ing to 0.01 mg. is necessary, if direct weigh- 
ings are made, but, by a shght modification 
of the modus operandi, satisfactory results 
may be obtained with a portable balance 
weighing to 0.1 meg. 


Glucose Determination: EpwArD GUDEMAN. 

The determination of glucose or grape 
-sugars by use of the polariscope ,gives in- 
correct results, due to the variation of the 
rotating power of these substances being 
‘between 80 and 198, instead of the constant 
175, generally accepted. Method suggested 
consists in determining the reducing power 
on Fehling solution directly, after inver- 
sion at 67° C. and after treatment with 
malt (as for starch analyses). In- 
vert sugar is determined by double polari- 
zation at 20° and 87° C. From these 
results the amount of reducing and non- 
reducing substances from the glucose or 
grape sugar is directly ecaleulated, and the 
sum of the two taken as the actual amount 
of commercial glucose or grape sugar pres- 
ent in the mixtures. 


The Identification, Composition and Analy- 
sis of Malt Liquors: CHARLES LATHROP 
PARSONS. 

In three of our northeastern prohibition 
states the statutes forbid the sale of ‘malt 
liquors.’ The task of the chemist is not 
therefore the usual one of simple alcohol 
contents, but he is required to prove that 
the liquor under examination was brewed 
from malt. The paper gives the analysis of 
a large number of such liquors and of a 
few imitations. The identification is mainly 
accomplished by means of the albuminoids, 
phosphates, and ash constituents. Analyses 
show a decidedly poor quality of malt 
liquor sold in these states and that the per- 
centages of sulfates in the ash are abnor- 
mally large, indicating very extensive use 
of glucose. The chief modifications in the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 399. 


methods of analysis from the official 
methods were the application of Hind’s 
photometric method for sulfates to the ash 
and the volumetric determination of phos- 
phates in the ash by uranium acetate, after 
moistening with concentrated hydrochloric 
acid and evaporation on the water-bath. 
(To be published in the Journal of the 
American Chemical Society.) 


The Distribution of Hydrogen Sulfid to 
Laboratory Classes: CHARLES LATHROP 
PARSONS. 

Describes a new generator having the 
advantages of the perfect automatic action 
of the Kipp generator, greater regularity 
of pressure, no second contact with the 
sulfuric acid, practically complete neu- 
tralization of the acid, and its immediate 
removal from the field of action so that no 
stoppage from the ferrous sulfate occurs. 
Coupled with this is used a long lead de- 
livery pipe with exits where desired. These 
exits are of thermometer tubing specially 
bent, and of such a length that the student 
can secure only a limited flow of gas of 
from one to two bubbles a second. (To be 
published in the Journal of the American 
Chemical Society.) 


The Influence of the Growth of Mold upon 
the Chemical Composition of Oleomar- 
garine and Butter: C. A. Crampton, 
Washington, D. C. 

Analytical results are given of the values 
obtained from a series of samples of oleo- 
margarine which had been kept three years 
and had become infected with a growth of 
mold. These results showed great variation 
in composition of the fat, chiefly induced 
by the mold. The practical lesson is con- 
sidered, in the way of the interpretation of 
analytical results, and also the theoretical 
bearing upon the causes and character of 
rancidity changes in fats. The paper in- 
cludes a brief résumé of the more recent 
articles on this subject, and the author con- 


AUGUST 22, 1902.] 


siders that his results bear very strongly in 
favor of the theory that the rancidity of 
fats is brought about (primarily, at least) 
by the influence of the growth of micro- 
organisms, or the enzymes produced 
thereby. 


On Carbyl Salts: M. GoMBERG. 

The paper dealt with results obtained, 
proving beyond doubt that certain organic 
halogen compounds must be considered as 
salts, from the chemical’as well as the phys- 
ical point of view, being strong electrolytes. 
The theory of dissociation can therefore be 
applied to substances other than those 
which have been classed as acids, bases and 
salts. 


Some Preliminary Experiments upon the 

Clinkering of Portland Cements: E. D. 
' CAMPBELL. 

In the first part of the paper the author 
describes the method used in preparing a 
number, of mixtures of marl and clay or 
shale. These mixtures were burned in a 
rotary cement kiln, a description of which 
appeared in the Journal of the American 
Chemical Society, Vol. 24, No. 3, p. 248. 
During each burning a series of sam- 
ples of clinker was collected at tem- 
peratures differing by 22° to 30°. Tests 
of the time of setting and the behavior of 
the pats, after keeping twenty-four hours 
in boiling water, were made on each 
sample of clinker collected. The details 
of the influence of the temperature of 
burning on the pats from each series are 
given in seventeen tables; all the results are 
summarized in one large table, and com- 
pared with those of A. Meyer (Thonin- 
dustrie Zeitung, Vol: 73, p. 1201). The 
author has summarized the preliminary 
work as follows: 

Viewed from the standpoint of the in- 
fluence of chemical composition upon the 
changes in temperature necessary to pro- 


SCIENCE. 


289 


duce a sound cement, and the temperature 
at which the clinker will give trouble by 
sticking in the rotary, we find to be: The 
minimum temperature necessary to pro- 
duce Portland cement which will give a 
perfect pat test from fresh clinker is about 
1450° C. This temperature is for mini- 
mum amount of CaO. It increases with 
inerease of CaO, until in ordinary commer- 
cial cements it reaches 1550°. With the 
most heavily limed commercial cements this 
figure would be somewhat higher. It de- 
pends somewhat on the length of time 
required to pass through the rotary, slow 
driving tending to lower the temperature. 
The substitution of Al,O, or Fe,O, for 
Si0,, that is, the use of a richer clay, lowers 
the over-burning temperature, but may 
lower or raise the temperature required for 
perfect hot test. With mixtures high in 
CaO, the burning temperature for perfect 
hot test is lowered by this substitution, but 
with mixtures high in CaO, the burning 
temperature required for perfect hot test is 
raised and may become coincident with the 
overburning temperature. Any attempt to 
raise the over-burning temperature by in- 
creasing the proportion of lime will fail 
to give a perfect hot test, even at the over- 
burning temperature. This is a confirma- 
tion of what manufacturing experience has 
shown, that with lean clays heavily limed 
there is a margin between the proper clink- 
ering temperature and the over-burning 
temperature, while with rich clays, in order 
to prevent the clinker from balling up 
great care must be exercised to maintain 
the proper clinkering temperature. ~With 
the amount of CaO found in ordinary ee- 
ment the introduction of eight or nine per 
cent. of magnesium oxide has but little 
influence on the temperature for perfect 
hot test or over-burning temperature. So 
far as the clinker is concerned, magnesium, 
as has been maintained by Newberry, acts 
as an inert substance. 


290 


A New Glass of Low Solubility: G. E. 

Barton. 

The statement in a recent number of 
ScrleENCE to the effect that American glass 
is inferior to that made in Germany is 
without doubt true if for ‘Germany’ we 
read ‘Jena.’ The grounds for the claim 
that at least one glass made in this country 
heretofore has been equal to anything made 
on the continent except Jena glass, I sub- 
mit herewith. I have here also samples of 
a new glass of my own devising which is 
the equal of the Jena glass as regards its 
resistance to water, acids and carbonates, 
and superior in its resistance to caustic 
alkali solutions. I believe this glass will 
render the statement in ScrENCcE obsolete. 
Solubility tests of Whitall Tatum Company, 
Kavalier, Jena, and the new glass were 
made by determining the loss in weight 
sustained by pint flasks when boiled for 
three hours with solutions of the strength 
shown in the table, under an inverted con- 
denser. Further details of the method, 
together with a brief explanation of the 
reasons for choosing such a method in pref- 
erence to others, will be found in the com- 
plete paper which will be published in the 
Journal of the American Chemical Society. 
The results obtained were as follows, each 
figure being the average of three results: 


LOSS PER FLASK EXPRESSED IN MILLIGRAMS. 


|_Wwhitall | Kava- N 
litatamnCom|iblicrsll cna leases 
| alee = | 
1% Na.CO, sol..... | 134.4 | 126.6) 306) 32.3 
\WWaiooeneageooued emeelat 2016) Sis) a7 
0.4% HCl sol..... 47 | 162| 13/ 415 
1% NaOH sol...... 100.1 | 78.4 oie | 89.0 
Totalneneen eae | 247.6 | 241.8 | 130.1 | 123.5 


The variations between the new glass 
and the Jena glass are, with the exception 
of the solubility in one per cent. sodium 
hydrate solution, within the limits of fac- 
tory practice. In resisting the last solution, 
however, the new glass is over eight per 
cent. better. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 399. 


A Process for Rendering Phosphoric Acid 
Available: CHARLES BASKERVILLE. Ab- 
stract published in the issue of SclENCE 
for August 8. 


A Contribution to the Chemistry of some of 
the Asphalt Rocks found in Texas: HENRY 
Winston Harper. 

This paper constitutes Chapter V. of 

Bulletin No. 8, the University of Texas 


‘Mineral Survey (‘Coals, Lignites and As- 


phalt Rocks of Texas’). It contains new 
analytical data and it is a contribution to 
the chemistry of the asphalt rocks and some 
of the asphalt industrial products of Texas. 
The paper includes an introduction, analyt- 
ical methods used, nomenclature, the limits 
of the proportion of petrolene to asphaltene 
in asphalts intended for paving purposes, 
constituents that lessen the value of as- 
phalts used for paving purposes, the speci- 
mens examined. The experimental part 
contains tabulated results which show: loss 
of weight in vacuo over sulphuric acid 24 
hours at room temperature (21°-23° C.); 
loss of weight when heated and maintained 
at various temperatures four and seven 
hours; the influence of a temperature of 
160° C. upon the constituents of some as- 
phalt rocks; and many other chemical and 
physical points of interest regarding the 
Texas asphalts. It also contains an exam- 
ination of the percentage of petrolene and 
asphaltene in the total bitumen; the 
influence of a temperature of 160° C., 
continued one hour, upon the percentage of 
total bitumen in the samples used and upon 
the percentage of petrolene and asphaltene 
in the total bitumen; percentage of loss 
of total bitumen and the percentage 
of petrolene and asphaltene in the samples 
treated; analyses of the ash of samples; 
the bitumen of the asphalt rocks of Texas 
—preliminary investigation; the petrolene 
complexes obtained from samples 1605, 
1606, 1607—treatment of these complexes 


AUQ@UST 22, 1902. ] 


with fuming nitric acid; the action of an 
alcoholic solution of mercuric chloride and 
acetate of soda on same; the action of sul- 
phurie acid upon petrolenes 1605, 1606, 
1607; bromine absorption and hydrobromie 
acid produced; the asphaltene complexes 
obtained from samples 1605, 1606, 1607; 
treatment of same with fuming nitric acid; 
bromine absorption and hydrobromiec acid 
produced; the chloroform soluble; ‘soft 
gum’ and ‘hard gum’—industrial products 
obtained from Uvalde asphalt rock; proxi- 
mate and ultimate composition of same; 
synoptic table of the ultimate analyses; 
table showing bromine absorption, hydro- 
bromie acid liberated, and sulphur and ni- 
trogen in the petrolene and asphaltene com- 
plexes obtained from the asphalt rocks of 
Texas; bromine absorption and sulphur 
in asphalts, ete.; heavy crude petroleum 
from Watters Park, Texas; proximate 
analysis of the residuum of sample 1601; 
summary of results. 

On account of the large amount of ana- 
lytical data presented a satisfactory ab- 
stract of the paper is impracticable. 


Occurrence and Importance of Soluble 
Manganese Salts in Soils: E. E. Ewewu. 
In the course of a qualitative examina- 

tion of an acid soil which failed to grow 

leguminous crops, it was discovered that the 
soil contained a very considerable percent- 
age of manganese compounds soluble in 
water. An aqueous extract of the soil has 
been found to contain about twice as much 
manganese as calcium. It is believed that 
this high proportion of manganese in the 
soluble salts of this soil contributes very 
largely to its sterility. The occurrence of 
soluble manganese compounds in soils has 
received so little attention in the past that 
an extended investigation of the occurrence 
of this element in soils has been undertaken 
by the Bureau of Chemistry of the U. S. 
Department of Agriculture. The investi- 


SCIENCE. 


291 


gation will include a study of the effects 
of soluble manganese salts on plants, and 
the agricultural importance of manganese 
in soils. 


Black Rain in North Carolina: Cas. 
BASKERVILLE and H. R. Weuurr. Ab- 
stract published in the issue of ScIENCE 
for August 8. 


A Modification of the Calorimetric Method 
of Determining the Heat of Chemical 
Reactions: AvBert W. SmirH and Ep- 
WARD J. HUMEL. 
The modification consists in keeping the 

contents of the calorimeter during the re- 
action whose change of heat is to be meas- 
ured, at exactly the room temperature, by 
the addition of water, at the melting point 
of ice. The method was proposed some 
years ago by F. A. Waterman for the de- 
termination of the specific heat of metals. 
It was found to be capable of yielding very 
accurate results in determining the heating 
value of fuels by the bomb-combustion 
method, domg away wholly with two 
troublesome sources of error in this deter- 
mination, namely, the water equivalent of 
the apparatus and the loss or gain of heat 
by the apparatus from radiation. The 
number of heat units is found from the 
weight of ice water added and the room 
temperature, both of which factors are 
easily and accurately determinable. 


A Source of Error in the Chromic Acid 
Method of Determining Carbon in Iron: 
Apert W. Suir and Burton B. Nimp- 
ING. 

It was found that when the exit gases 
from the apparatus, used for the determina- 
tion of carbon in iron, during the oxidation 
by chromic and sulphuric acids were passed 
over pentoxide of iodine heated to 150°, 
the presence of unoxidized carbon in the 
form of carbon monoxide could always be 
detected, usually in material quantities, 


292 


often sufficiently large to cause serious error 
in the determination. 
The following papers were also read: 


‘Bessemer and Open-hearth Steel Practice’: 
Epwarp H. Martin and Wo. Bostwick. 

‘Manufacture of Optical Glass’: Gro. A. Mac- 
BETH. 

‘The Ozone from Potassium Chlorate’: 
warp Hart. (By title.) 

‘Malleable Iron’: H. E. Diver. 

‘The Old and the New in ‘Steel Manufacture’: 
Wma. METCALF. 

‘The Exactness of Faraday’s Law’: 
RICHARDS. 

‘Tonic Velocities in Liquid Ammonia Solution ’: 
E. C. FRANKLIN. 

‘Solubility, Electrolytic Conductivity, and 
Chemical Action in Liquid Hydrocyanic Acid’: 


Ep- 


Tee 


Louis KAHLENBERG and HERMAN ScHLUNDT. (By 
title.) 

‘Molecular Attraction’: J. E. Mitts. (By 
title.) 


“A New Apparatus for Measuring the Coeffi- 
cient of Expansion of Gases’: T. W. RICHARDS 
and K. L. Marr. 

‘Electrolytic Deoxidation of Potassium Chlo- 


rate’: Witper D. Bancrorr. (By title.) 

‘The Solid Phases in Certain Alloys’: WILDER 
D. Bancrort. (By title.) 

“Otto Hoffman By-product Coke’: C. G. Art- 
WATER. 

‘Crucible Steel Manufacture’: E. L. FRENCH. 


“A Proposed Distillation Test for Fireproofed 
Wood’: C. F. McKenna. (By title.) 

“Comparison of Results Obtained by Different 
Methods of Determining the Amount of Oxygen 
Absorbed by Waters Containing Oxidizable Sub- 
stances’: LronarpD P. KINNICUTT. (By title.) 

‘An Improved Grinder for Analyses of Mother- 
beets’: Davin L. Davott, Jr. (By title.) 

*Blectric Combustion’: Epwarp Harr. (In 
abstract. ) 

‘The Retention of Arsenic by Iron in the Marsh 
Test’: C. L. Parsons and M. A. Stewart. 

“A New Electric Test Retort’: CHas F. Mc- 
Kenna. (By title.) 

‘The Distribution of Hydrogen Sulphide to 
Laboratory Classes’: OC. L. Parsons. (By title.) 

‘The Hydrolysis of Maltose and Dextrine for 
the Determination of Starch’: W. A. Noyes, G. 
CrawForpb, C. H. Jumper and E. L. Flory. 

‘Some Notes on Glass and Glass Making’: 
RoBertT LINTON. 

‘Plate Glass Manufacture’: F. P. MAson. 
title.) 


(By 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 399. 


‘Symmetrical Trimethylbenzyl, Symmetrical 
Trimethylbenzol Hydrazone and some of its 
Derivatives’: EVERHARDT P. HARDING. 

‘1-4-Dimethylbenzyl, 1-4-Dimethylbenzol Hydra- 
zone and some Derivatives’: EverHart P. Harp- 
ING. 

‘The Action of Valerianic Acid and Valeric 
Aldehyde upon Antipyrin’: Davin C. EccLus. 
(By title.) 

‘A Chemical Study of the Pitch of the Northern 
Pine’: G. B. FRANKFORTER. 

‘Derivatives of Eugenol’: G. B. FRANKFORTEB 
and Max Lanpo. 

‘The Reaction of Bromine upon Oxalic Acid’: 
T. W. Ricuarps and W. N. Sruxy. (By title.) 

‘Tsomeric Oxy-Azocompounds ’: W. McPHERSON. 
(By title.) 

‘Reaction between Acid and Basic Amides in 
Solution in Liquid Ammonia’: E. C. FRANKLIN 
and O. F. Srarrorb. 

‘Picryl Derivatives of some Phenols’: 
Hiyer. (By title.) 

‘Camphorie Acid: Synthesis of Trimethylpara- 
conic Acid’: W. A. Noyes and A. M. PATTERSON. 

‘Recent Progress in the Fireproofing Treatment 
of Wood’: S. P. Saprrer. (Will be printed in 
SCIENCE. ) 

‘Manufacture of White Lead’: G. O. SMITH. 

‘On some Expansion Measurements of Portland 
Cement’: E. D. CampBeLty. (By title.) 

‘The Probable Existence of a New Carbide of 
Tron’: E. D. CAMPBELL. (By title.) 

‘The Discovery of a Dextrose Factor in Satu- 
rated Cane Sugar Solutions’: L. W. WILKINSON. 
(By title.) 

‘The Composition of Myrtle Wax’: 
SmirH and F. B. WADE. 


Pittsburgh being at the center of the 
region of greatest iron and steel produc- 
tion of the United States, opportunities 
were offered the members to inspect many 
of the great metallurgical establishments. 
Visits were made also to the works of the 
H. J. Heinz Company, manufacturers of 
food products, to the oil works of the At- 
lantic Refining Company, to the oil wells 
of the Forest Oil Company, and to the 
Demmler works of the American Tin Plate 
Company. The many courtesies shown by 
the officers of these works added much 
to the pleasure and interest of the Pitts- 
burgh meeting. 


H. W. 


W. R. 


AUGUST 22, 1902. ] 


MEMBERSHIP OF THE ASSOCIATION. 


Tue following have completed their mem- 
bership in the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science during the months 
of June and July: 

Lewis E. Akeley, Univ. of 8. Dak., Vermillion, 
S. Dak. 

Delos Arnold, Pasadena, Cal. 

Donald §. Ashbrook, 3614 Baring St., Philadel- 
phia, Pa. 

B. R. Baumgardt, 626 W. 30th Street, Los An- 
geles, Cal. 

James W. F. Beatty, Pitcairn, Pa. 

T. Raymond Beyer, 119 Maplewood Ave., Ger- 
mantown, Pa. 

Ernest Blaker, Pleasanton, Kansas. 

Charles H. Bowman, School of Mines, Butte, 
Montana. 

Edwin T. Brewster, Phillips Academy, Andover, 
Mass. 

Luther S. Brock, M.D., Morgantown, W. Va. 


D. I. Bushnell, Jr., Peabody Museum, Cam-" 


bridge, Mass. 

Wm. P. Carr, M.D., 1418 L St., N. W., Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

Shelby C. Carson, M.D., Greensboro, Ala. 

Charles E. Chambliss, Exper. ‘Sta., Clemson 
College, S. C. 

Wm. W. Churchill, 26 Cortlandt St., New York 
City. 

Friend BE. Clark, New Martinsville, West Va. 

J. Morgan Clements, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madi- 
son, Wis. 

Geo. H. Colton, Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio. 

Pontus H. Conradson, Franklin, Pa. 

Frank H. Constant, University of Minnesota, 
Minneapolis, Minn. 

Hermon C. Cooper, 114 Waverly Ave., Syracuse, 
Io. Wo 

Edward Cowles, M.D., Waverley, Mass. 

John Cox, McGill Univ., Montreal, Canada. 
Alex. R. Craig, M.D., 232 Cherry St., Columbia, 
Pa. y 

John B. Crombie, M.D., 500 North Ave. W., 
Allegheny, Pa. 

G. Lenox Curtis, M.D., 7 West 58th St., New 
York City. 

Charles G. Davis, MD., 31 Washington St., 
Chicago, Il. 

Frederick 8. Dellenbaugh, Century Club, 7 West 
43d St., New York City. 

Kennon Dunham, M.D., Auburn Ave. and Mc- 
Millan St., Cincinnati, Ohio. 


SCIENCE. 


293 


Nevin M. Fenneman, Madison, Wis. 

John C. Fetterman, Castle Shannon, Pa. 

Henry W. Fisher, 5403 Friendship Ave., Pitts- 
burgh, Pa. 

Margaret P. Forcee, M.D., Arch near Ohio St., 
Allegheny, Pa. 

Chas. W. Foulk, Ohio ‘State Univ., Columbus, 
Ohio. 

E. L. French, Crucible Steel Co., Syracuse, N. Y. 


James W. Goldthwait, 93 Nahant St., Lynn, 
Mass. 

Geo. P. Grimsley, Washburn College, Topeka, 
Kansas. : 

Benjamin F. Groat, Univ. of Minnesota, Minne- 
apolis, Minn. j 

Artemus N. Hadley, Box 313, Indianapolis, Ind. 

James D. Hailman, Shady Avenue, Pittsburgh, 
Pa. 

Robert W. Harris, M.D., 621 Vincennes St., 
New Albany, Ind. 

C. Willard Hayes, U. 8. Geological Survey, 
Washington, D. C. 
+ Ellery C. Hebbard, M.D., 122 Huntington Ave., 
Boston, Mass. 

John B. Herron, S. Linden Ave., E.E., Pitts- 
burgh, Pa. 

Wm. F. Hillebrand, U. 8. Geol. Survey, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

Frederick Homburg, 104 West Clifton Ave., Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. 

John D. Hooker, 325 West Adams St., Los An- 
geles, Cal. i 

Albert L. Hopkins, 2904 West Avenue, Newport 
News, Va. 

Frederick Houghton, Public School No. 7, Buf- 
falo, N. Y. 

J. F. Jenkins, M.D., 48 Chicago St., Tecumseh, 
Mich. 

John B. Johnson, 708 East Colorado St., Pasa- 
dena, Cal. 5 

Thos. C. Johnson, 375 Spruce St., Morgantown, 
West Va. 

Myer M. Kann, Station B, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Gustav A. Kletzsch, M.D., 453 Cass St., Mil- 
waukee, Wis. 

Israel P. Klingensmith, M.D., Blairsville, Pa. 

Edgar L. Larkins, Lowe Observatory, Echo 
Mountain, Cal. 

Ellis W. Lazell, 1619 Filbert St., Philadelphia, 
Pa. 

Edwin Linton, Washington and Jefferson Coll., 
Washington, Pa. 

T. Mortimer Lloyd, M.D., 125 Pierrepont St., 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 


294 


Wm. Lochhead, Ontario Agric. Col., Guelph, On- 
tario, Canada. B 

Edgar O. Lovett, Princeton Univ., Princeton, 
N. J. 


D. J. McAdam, Washington, Pa. 

Anna J. McKeag, 14 East 16th ot., New York 
City. 

J. C. McLennan, Toronto Uniy., Toronto, On- 
tario, Canada. 

Fred. W. McNair, Houghton, Mich. 

W. L. Miggett, 331 Jefferson St., Ann Arbor, 
Mich. 

J. Pearce Mitchell, 227 Benefit St., Providence, 
R. I. 

Kiichi Miyake, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 

Robert C. Morris, Cheyenne, Wyoming. 

Frank C. Newell, 484 Rebecca Ave., Wilkins- 
burg, Pa. 

Lewis G. Nolte, Senns Block, Milwaukee, Wis. 

Ezra Palmer, M.D., 2 Lincoln Hall, Trinity 
Court, Boston, Mass. 

A. M. Patterson, Rose Polytechnic Inst., Terre 
Haute, Ind. 

John W. Perkins, M.D., 423 Altman Bldg., Kan- 
sas City, Mo. 

G. Gilbert Pond, State College, Pa. 

Wm. P. Potter, 304 St. Clair St., Pittsburgh, 
Pa. 

LeGrand Powers, 3007 13th St., N. W., Wash- 
ington, D. C. 


-A. L. Quaintance, College Park, Md. 


Calvin W. Rice, c/o Nernst Lamp Co., Pitts- 
burgh, Pa. 

Herbert M. Richards, Barnard Coll., Columbia 
Univ., New York City. 

Henry L. Rietz, Butler College, Gilmore, Ohio. 

F. G. Ross, Vandergrift, Pa. 

T. M. Rotch, M.D., 197 Commonwealth Ave., 
Boston, Mass. : 

John J. Rothermel, 9 Fourth St., S. E., Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

John B. Russell, Wheaton, III. 

Wm. H. Sands, M.D., Fairmont, West Va. 

K. I. Sanes, M.D., 1636 5th Ave., Pittsburgh, 
Pa. 

Henry C. Shaw, Glenshaw, Pa. 

Jesse P. Simpson, M.D., Palmer, Ill. 

EK. R. Smith, M.D., Toledo, Iowa. 

Herbert H. Smith, Carnegie Institute, Pitts- 
burgh, Pa. 

Francis L. Stewart, Murrysville, Pa. 

Arthur N. Talbot, Univ. of Illinois, Champaign, 
Tl. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 399. 


Wm. W. Torrence, M.D., 649 Main St., Dead- 
wood, 8. Dak. 

Frederic E. Turneaure, 
Madison, Wis. 


Univ. of Wisconsin, 


Charles von Hoffmann, M.D., 1014 Sutter St., 
San Francisco, Cal. 


Charles E. Wait, Univ. of Tenn., Knoxville, 
Tenn. 

Frederic L. Washburn, 1005 University Ave., 
S. E., Minneapolis, Minn. 

Alfred Weed, ¢e/o Nicholson File Co., Provi- 
dence, R. I. 

C. Gilbert Wheeler, 14 State St., Chicago, Ill. 

J. C. Williams, 221 Orchard St., Ridgway, Pa. 

Arthur L. Williston, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 
N. Y. 

Samuel W. Williston, Univ. of Kansas, Law- 
rence, Kansas. 

Paul Wolfel, c/o Am. Bridge Co., Pencoyd, Pa. 

A. J. Wood, Delaware Coll., Newark, Del. 

Matthew P. Wood, 234 West 44th St., New 
York City. 

Alfred A. Woodhull, M.D., 46 Bayard Lane, 
Princeton, N. J. 

Samuel B. Woodward, M.D., 58 Pearl St., Wor- 
cester, Mass. 

Cary Wright, Box 654, Boise, Idaho. 


S. Edward Young, 2512 Perrysville Ave., Alle- 
gheny, Pa. 


THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. 


T1H5 sessions of the Eighth Annual Meet- 
ing of the Botanical Society of America 
were held in Pittsburgh, Pa., June 30, July 
1 and 2, 1902. 

Officers were elected for the ensuing year 
as follows: 

President, Beverly Thomas Galloway, Bureau of 
Plant Industry, Washington, D. C. 

Vice-President, Frederick Vernon Coville, Bu- 
reau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C. 

Treasurer, Arthur Hollick, New York Botanical 
Garden, New York City. 

Secretary, Daniel Trembly MacDougal, New ~ 
York Botanical Garden, New York City. 

Councilors, William Trelease, Missouri Botanic- 


al Garden, and Lucien Marcus Underwood, Co- 
lumbia University. 


The above officers with Past President J. 
C. Arthur constitute the Council of the 
Society. 


AvGuST 22, 1902.] 


Members.—The following associates were 
elected members : 

Benjamin Minge Duggar, Professor of Botany, 
University of Missouri; Rodney Howard True, 
Physiologist, Bureau of Plant Industry, Wash- 
ington, D. C.; Francis Ernest Lloyd, Professor of 
Biological Science, Teachers’ College, Columbia 
University; George Thomas Moore, Physiologist, 
Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D..C.; 
Lewis Ralph Jones, Professor of Botany, Univer- 
sity of Vermont. 


Associates.—The following persons were 
elected associates: 


William L. Bray, Associate Professor of Bot- 
any, in charge of School of Botany, University of 
Texas; Carlton Clarence Curtis, Tutor in Botany, 
Columbia University; Frank S. Earle, Assistant 
Curator, New York Botanical Garden; Edward 
Charles Jeffrey, Assistant Professor of General 
Morphology, Harvard University; Thomas Mac- 
bride, Professor of Botany, State University of 
Iowa, Professor of Pharmacognosy in the College 
of Pharmacy U. of I., and Member of Staff of the 
State Geological Survey; Peter Henry Rolfs, 
Pathologist, Bureau of Plant Industry, in charge 
of Tropical Laboratory, Miami, Florida; Augustus 
D. Selby, Professor of Botany, Wooster, Ohio; 
Frank Lincoln Stevens, Professor of Biology, Col- 
lege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Raleigh, 
N.C. 


The Society now includes 36 members, 

21 associates and 1 patron. 
- The report of the Treasurer showed a 
balance of $2,628.24 of cash on hand, the 
receipts during the year amounting to about 
$500, in consequence of which the declared 
policy of the Society relative to re- 
search work was put in the form of resolu- 
tions by which grants may be made in aid 
of research (see below). 

A committee consisting of Messrs Under- 
wood, Coulter and Galloway, upon the rela- 
tions of the Botanical Society of America to 
other botanical organizations, was ap- 
pointed, Professor Underwood being chair- 
man. 

The following papers were presented dur- 
ing the sessions devoted to scientific sub- 
jects : 


SCIENCE. 


295 


Address by Past President, B. D. Ha.srep, 
‘Two Centuries of American Botany.’ (Not de- 
livered, owing to illness of Past President.) 

‘The Relations of the Botanical Associations of 
the Country’: J. M. CouLTer. 

‘Suggestions for Ecological Cartography’: H. 
C. CowLes. 

“Fossil Ferns from the Laramie Group of Flor- 
ence, Colorado’: ArrHur HOoLuick. 

‘The Genus Gymnogramma, and its Treatment 
by English Botanists’: L. M. UnpERwoop. 

“Studies on Reproduction by Gemme of the 
Prothallus of Ferns’: EnizaBseru G. Brirron. 

“Tea Fermentation’: R. H. TRUE. 

“Some Disorganization Products of 
Cells’: A. F. Woops. 

“Studies in Cyperus and Other Cyperacee’: N. 
L. Britton. 

“A Disease of Catalpa speciosa’: 
SCHRENK. 

“The Geasters of the United States’ (by invi- 
tation): Miss V. S. WuIrTr. 

“The Dimensional Relations of Compound 
Leaves’ (by invitation): CHARLES ZELENY. 

“Parthenogenesis in Seed Plants’: J. M. 
COULTER. 

“The Cytology of the Secreting Epithelium of 
Zea Mais’ (by invitation): Joun C. Torrey. 

‘North American Species of Leptochloa’: A. S. 
HircHcock. 

“The Genus Ganoderma in North 
(by invitation): W. A. Murrix. 

“A Study of Astragalus’: P. A. RYDBERG. 

‘The Stimulus to Heterophylly in Proserpinaca 
palustris’ (by invitation): W. B. McCatium. 

“The Genus Sematophyllum (Raphidostegium)’: 
ELIzaBeTH G. BRITTON. 

“Maturation Divisions in the Pollen Cells of: 
Hybrid Cottons’ (by invitation) : W. A. Cannon. 

‘The Embryology of the Cucurbitacer ’ (by in- 
vitation): J. E. Krrxwoop. 

‘Anatomy and Physiology of Baccharis genistel- 
loides’ (by invitation): Miss E. M. Kuprerr. 

‘Dimorphic Structure of the Phyllodes of 
Oxypolis filiformis’ (by invitation): Miss R. J. 
RENNERT. 

“Recent Investigation in the Pleistocene Flora 
of Maryland’ (carried out under the auspices of 
the Maryland Geological Survey, and presented by 
permission of the State Geologist) (illustrated) : 
ARTHUR HOLLICK. 

“A Comparative Study of the Sand Dunes of 
the Ocean and Lake Shore’ (illustrated): H. C. 
CowLeEs. 


Plant 


H. von 


America ’” 


296 


‘The Relations of Light and Darkness to 
Growth and Development’: D. T. MAcDoueat. 

‘The North American Species of T'richomanes’: 
ELIZABETH G. BRITTON. 

‘A Green Organism Found in Water Tanks 
and Reservoirs in Arizona’ (by invitation): J. J. 
THORNBER. 

‘Mitosis of the Primary Nucleus in Synchyt- 
rium decipiens’ (by invitation): F, L. Stevens. 

During the first nine years of its exist- 
ence the Society has steadfastly refused 
to permit its funds to be drawn upon for 
any purpose except to meet the actual ex- 
penses of administration, it being the 
avowed purpose of the organization to use 
its resources in the furtherance of botanical 
research. The membership of working 
botanists is thoroughly in sympathy with 
this idea, and by a formal resolution at the 
Denver meeting in August, 1901, the 
Society declared its policy of using its in- 
come as soon as the annual receipts amount- 
ed to five hundred dollars. : 

Tt was found possible to take up this pur- 
pose of the Society at the last meeting and 
the following enabling resolutions were 
passed, by which the sum of five hundred 
‘dollars is to be set aside yearly to be distrib- 
uted as grants among the members and as- 
‘sociates. It is to be noted that the making 
of the grants in question does not exhaust 
the annual income of the Society, provision 
being made for addition to the permanent 
funds. The exact wording of the resolu- 
tions is as follows: 


i GRANTS IN AID OF INVESTIGATION. 


Resolved: That applications for grants in aid 
eof investigations may be made at any time by 
‘members or associates in good standing. Such 
‘applications should be made to the secretary, ac- 
‘companied by a detailed statement in regard to 
tthe work for which the grant is requested, and 
shall be referred by the secretary to the Council. 
The Council shall report upon all applications at 
the next meeting subsequent to the date at which 
they are received. The amount of any grant 
confirmed by the Society may be drawn by the 
applicant from the treasurer within six months 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 399. 


after the meeting at which the grant was made, 
after a proper receipt has been made therefor. 

The recipient of a grant must make a report 
of the progress, or of the completed results of the 
investigations for which the grant was given, at 
the next annual meeting, and at every succeeding 
meeting until the work in question is finished. 
Such report must be made in writing to the 
Council, and may or may not be referred to the 
Society. Any and every paper dealing with the 
results of investigations carried out by the aid 
of grants as above, shall bear the imprint, ‘ In- 
vestigations prosecuted with the aid of a grant 
from the Botanical Society of America.’ 

Resolved: That at the next meeting of the So- 
ciety a grant or grants in aid of investigations 
may be made in any amount not to exceed the 
total sum of five hundred dollars ($500) to mem- 
bers and associates of the Society. 


D. T. MacDoueat, 


Secretary. 
New York BoTaNniIcaAL GARDEN. 


THE INTERNATIONAL AERONAUTICAL 
CONGRESS. 

Tue third meeting of the International 
Committee for Scientific Aeronautics, 
appointed by the meteorologists in 1896, 
was held at Berlin, May 20-24, and by 
reason of the number of military and scien- 
tifie men who were invited to attend, it is 
more widely known than either of the pre- 
ceding meetings of the committee at Strass- 
burg in 1898 and at Paris in 1900. The 
Kaiser, who has done so much to advance 
aeronautics, both practical and scientific, 
was expected to attend the opening of the 
Congress in the great hall of the Reichstag, 
but, being absent from Berlin, he delegated 
Prince Frederick Henry of Prussia as his 
representative and telegraphed his wishes 
for the success of the deliberations. After 
an introduction by Professor Hergesell, 
president of the Committee, the representa- 
tive of the Minister of Public Instruction 
recognized the importance of interna- 
tional cooperation in meteorological and 
magnetic researches, and predicted impor- 
tant results from the present conference. 


AUGUST 22, 1902. ] 


Dr. von Bezold, director of the Prussian 
Meteorological Institute, showed how, by 
the use of balloons and kites, our knowl- 
edge of the high atmosphere had been in- 
creased through various nations working 
with a single purpose, and Professor Her- 
gesell explained further the results and ob- 
jects of international cooperation in scien- 
tific aeronaties. 

There were present of the International 
Committee for Scientific Aeronautics, Pro- 
fessor Hergesell, Dr. Assmann and Mr. 
Berson, representing Germany, General 
Rykatchef and Colonel Kowanko, of Rus- 
sia, Messrs. Cailletet and Teisserenc de 
Bort, of France, and the writer from the 
United States. At the first meeting of 
the Committee fifteen new members were 
chosen, including representatives of the 
Italian, Spanish and British governments, 
which had participated in this Congress 
for the first time. It was decided that the 
scientific discussions should be open to the 
invited specialists who numbered about one 
hundred, while the administrative ques- 
tions should be considered by the Com- 
mittee in closed session. One of these ques- 
tions related to the protection of balloons 
and apparatus that fall in a foreign coun. 
try, cameras, in particular, having been re- 
garded with suspicion by the military au- 
thorities. Another topic of discussion was 
the raising of funds from the various coun- 
tries for the regular publication of the re- 
sults obtained from the international 
ascents of balloons and kites. The con- 
sideration of some of these data was now 
begun in the public meeting by General 
Rykatchef, director of the Central Physical 
Observatory at St. Petersburg, who de- 
seribed the results of the observations with 
kites and balloons at Pawlowsk and St. 
Petersburg during the past five years. By 
means of kites the details of the conditions 
prevailing up to 3,000 meters were ascer- 
tained, especially the influence of day and 


SCIENCE. 


297 


night on the vertical changes of tempera- 
ture. The decrease is greatest during the 
day and in summer, while during the even- 
ing and in winter large inversions of tem- 
perature oceur. In the lower strata of anti- 
cyclones these inversions are marked, while 
in the upper regions the decrease of tem- 
perature is rapid. It was announced that 
the Tsar had given a considerable sum of 
money for the prosecution of these experi- 
ments. M. Teisserene de Bort, of Paris, 
discussed the temperature of the high at- 
mosphere, ten or fifteen kilometers above the 
earth, as deduced from the ascents of 258 
ballons sondes at Trappes, and showed, con- 
trary to the general belief that the decrease 
approached the adiabatic rate at these great 
heights, that there was a stratum eight to 
ten kilometers thick, depending on the sea- 
son and weather conditions, where, not only 
does the temperature not diminish with 
augmenting height, but rather tends to in- 
crease. Dr. Assmann, director of the 
Aeronautical Observatory of the Prussian 
Meteorological Institute, stated that the 
German observations had led him to the 
same conclusion regarding this warm up- 
per current. 

Professor Palazzo, director of the Italian 
Meteorological Office, announced that in 
consequence of a subvention from the Min- 
isters of Agriculture and War the project 
of his predecessor, M. Tacchini, to establish 
kite-stations on mountains could be real- 
ized. Professor Palazzo said that the ob- 
servatory on Monte Rosa would be com- 
pleted next year and that, besides the 
routine observations, it would be available 
for physical investigations. Dr. von 
Schrotter, of Vienna, urged the importance 
of the study in balloons of the chemical in- 
tensity of light, especially of light reflected 
from clouds. 

Dr. Assmann next described his rubber 
or registration balloon, ballon sonde. The 
usual paper or silk balloon, open at the bot- 


298 


tom, has the disadvantage of rising more 
and more slowly as it approaches its culmi- 
nating point, and, consequently, the tem- 
peratures registered are influenced by in- 
solation to an unknown amount. Closed 
balloons of expansible material, however, 
rise with a constantly increasing velocity 
until they burst, thus insuring sufficient 
ventilation of the instruments. <A para- 
chute moderates their fall, so that they 
reach the earth without injury. The small 
size of the rubber balloon and the moderate 
quantity of hydrogen gas needed is an 
advantage as regards both cost and ease of 
manipulation. Such a balloon, holding at 
the start about one cubic meter of gas, 
weighs only 380 grams, or, with the instru- 
ment, 500 grams. <A balloon formed by 
dipping a mold into a solution of india- 
rubber, was expanded to 68 times its origi- 
nal volume before it burst, which indicated 
that it would rise to an altitude of about 
38 kilometers. The subject of sensitive ther- 
mometers for ballons sondes was opened 
with an account of some tests by Dr. 
Valentin, of Vienna. M. Teisserene de Bort 
exhibited a thermograph in which the Bour- 
don tube was insulated by a piece of hard 
rubber and Dr. Hergesell showed another 
instrument in which a curved metal tube 
transmitted its changes of length through a 
bar of nickel steel that had almost no coeffi- 
cient of expansion. It was proposed that 
these two thermometers should be tried 
together in a balloon sent up at night, so 
that the disturbing effect of insolation 
might be avoided. A statoscope, to indicate 
the rise or fall of a manned balloon, the in- 
vention of Captain Royas, was exhibited by 
Major Vivez y Vich, of Madrid, and a 
project of directing an airship from the 
ground by means of Hertzian waves was 
explained by Mr. Alexander, of Bath, Eng- 
Jand. 

Kites and kite-stations were then con- 
sidered, the writer first presenting his plan 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 399. 


to explore the atmosphere over the tropical 
and equatorial oceans by means of kites 
flown from a steamship, as outlined in 
Scrmmnce, Vol. XIV., pages 412-13 and 
896-97. He stated that application had 
been made to the Carnegie Institution for a 
grant of $10,000 to defray a portion of the 
expenses, but still he hoped his German 
colleagues might cooperate in this large 
undertaking. The project was enthusiastic- 
ally received, Dr. von Bezold remarking 
that the importance of the proposed investi- 
gation consisted in the fact that quite a dif- 
ferent vertical distribution of temperature 
might be expected to prevail over the ocean 
from that found over the land. The con- 
ditions of equilibrium are disturbed over 
the ocean, not by heating the lower layers of 
air but by cooling the upper strata, and 
henee at sea and on the coast thunder- 
storms are most frequent during the cold 
season and at night, while on land the re- 
verse obtains. More than two years ago he 
had proposed to explore these regions by 
an expedition furnished with kites which 
project was unavoidably postponed, but 
now, as Mr. Berson stated it might be ecar- 
ried out in cooperation with Mr, Rotch. 
Professor Koppen, of Hamburg, said that 
the Seandinavian Hydrographic Congress 
had arranged four cruises a year in the 
northern seas and the Deutsche Seewarte 
would operate meteorological kites on board 
the vessel. The Gdéttingen Society of 
Science has recently sent out a geophysical 
expedition to Samoa, which was to fly kites 
with registering instruments, both there 
and on the return voyage. On the Lake of 
Constance, also, meteorological kite ascents 
will be made upon a vessel furnished by 
Count Zeppelin, through the cooperation of 
the Meteorological Service of Alsace-Lor- 
raine. A resolution was then passed, recog- 
nizing the importance of Mr. Rotch’s pro- 
posed voyage to increase our knowledge of 
the distribution of temperature in the 


AuGusT 22, 1902.] 


atmosphere, and expressing the hope 
that, by government aid, the plan might 
soon be carried out. Professor Képpen sub- 
mitted a new publication of the Deutsche 
Seewarte containing the results of his ex- 
periments with kites at Hamburg and he 
announeed that, through Franeco-Seandina- 
vian cooperation, kite flights were to be 
made this summer at Viborg in Jutland, 
simultaneously with flights at Hamburg 
and Berlin, so that valuable vertical sec- 
tions of the barometric depressions travers- 
ing north Germany would probably be ob- 
tained. Professor Hergesell mentioned the 
fact that kites had been flown upon the 
Vosges mountains. 

General Rykatchef exhibited a new 
anemometer, invented by Mr. Kusnetzof, 
and intended to be carried by a kite, which 
has bridled Robinson cups to record the 
force of the wind at each instant. Another 
anemometer, exhibited afterwards by Mr. 
Gradenwitz, an engineer of Berlin, had a 
glass cylinder partly filled with glycerine, 
which is rotated by the Robinson cups and 
the parabolie surface of the liquid shows 
on a concentric seale the velocity of the 
wind. M. Teisserene de Bort urged the im- 
portance of sounding the atmosphere at fre- 
quent intervals and showed diagrams of 
such a series of soundings made with kites 
and ballons sondes almost daily during 
thirty-six days at his observatory near 
Paris, to an extreme height of twelve kilo- 
meters. The rise and fall of the isotherms 
during the passage of areas of high and low 
pressure indicated graphically the compli- 
cated conditions which still require further 
investigation. 

The next session was occupied with the 
topic of high ascents. Professor Cailletet, 
of Paris, exhibited his apparatus for 
breathing oxygen at great elevations. The 
old method of using the compressed gas 
required a large and heavy receptacle, but 
liquid gas can be much more conveniently 


SCIENCE. 


299 


carried and after it is allowed to evaporate 
and to mix with air, by means of a 
specially constructed mask the aeronaut is 
forced always to breathe the mixture. Dr. 
Stiring, of Berlin, described the physio- 
logical phenomena attending his record- 
breaking ascent with Mr. Berson to the 
height of 10,800 meters on July 31, 1901, 
and Dr. von Schrotter stated that his own 
experiments In a pneumatic cabinet, under 
a pressure of 230 millimeters of mercury, 
proved that the respiration of oxygen re- 
stored both the physical and mental power. 
He also exhibited a breathing mask which 
was to be tried with the one of M. Cailletet 
during the next balloon ascent. Count 
Zeppelin called attention to the well-known 
fact that birds often soar above high moun- 
tains as proving that they avail themselves 
of the rising currents of air, and suggested 
that ascents of ballons sondes in such 
places might give interesting results. Lieu- 
tenant von Lucanus, on the part of the Ger- 
man Ornithological Society, advocated 
observations in balloons to determine the 
various levels at which birds are found. At 
the close of the session a telegram was sent 
to James Glaisher, the Nestor of scientific 
aeronauts, in London, with the greetings of 
his colleagues assembled from Europe, Asia 
and America. 

The last session of the Congress was de- 
voted to a discussion of measurements of 
atmospheric electricity and terrestrial mag- 
netism in balloons. Assuming that the 
electrification of the air occurs through 
‘ions’ or ‘electrons,’ as shown by the dis- 
persion apparatus of Elster and Geitel, it 
is of great interest to determine how the 
constitution of the air, as regards positive 
and negative ions, varies with height. By 
using an aspirator to bring a definite quan- 
tity of air over the apparatus, Professor 
Ebert, of Munich, said that he had obtained 
absolute measurements of the quantity of 
free electricity in a cubic meter of air. In 


300 


the discussion, Dr. von Bezold remarked 
that the connection between the Féhn wind 
and the number of ions in the air was now 
being studied. The air brought down from 
a great height by the Féhn earries more 
ions to a lower level and there thus appeared 
to be a relation between mountain sickness 
and the well-known physiological effects of 
the Féhn. Professor Palazzo, of Rome, ex- 
plained his photographie arrangement of 
Exner’s electrometer, for use in balloons, 
and Dr, Linke, of Potsdam, described the 
measurements he had made in balloons to 
determine the change of potential and con- 
ductivity of the air. He had confirmed his 
early results that the potential was always 
positive, but found the variation of the con- 
ductivity in cloud strata depended upon 
the weather conditions. The vertical mo- 
tion of the balloon introduced complications 
which made the dispersion observations 
very difficult. On the request of Professor 
Ebert, the Congress recognized the impor- 
tance of executing electrical measurements 
in balloons. The same speaker showed an 
apparatus for determining the horizontal 
magnetic intensity in a balloon without 
Inowing either the astronomical or mag- 
netic meridian. This is not only of scientific 
importance, but may be practically useful 
to guide the aeronaut at night and when he 
is in the clouds or over the sea. Dr. 
Mareuse, of Berlin, then showed an instru- 
ment for determining astronomically in a 
balloon its position. Dr. Kassner, of Ber- 
lin, suggested that kites and kite-balloons 
might be employed in the following 
scientific investigations: in physics for 
the determination of the conditions affect- 
ing the velocity of sound, in geodesy and 
astronomy for researches as to the causes of 
the variation in atmospheric refraction and 
in meteorology for a study of the action of 
‘hail shooting.’ Finally Director Archen- 
hold, of the Treptow Observatory in Ber- 
lin, said that the voleanie eruptions in the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 399. 


West Indies may produce optical phenom- 
ena similar to those following the Kraka- 
toa explosion, namely, first brilliant sunsets 
and then the luminous night clouds which 
would be first perceived by aeronauts dur- 
ing nocturnal ascensions. 

The Committee recommended that the 
international ascents of balloons and kites 
should take place, as heretofore, on the 
first Thursday of each month, and the 
ballons sondes should be liberated an hour 
before sunrise in order that the instruments 
may be unaffected by insolation and the 
balloons may be seen when they fall to the 
earth. The employment of the insulated 
thermometer and of the sensitive metallic 
thermometer already described were like- 
wise advised. The president noted with 
satisfaction the arrangements by which kite 
flights would be made above the seas, lakes 
and mountains, and hoped that the British 
Government would aid in the investigation 
of the great Asiatic monsoon region. The 
Congress was then closed, but the Commit- 
tee in executive session formulated reso- 
lutions, among them a request to the 
Reichschancellor for a subvention to defray 
half the cost of the proposed German-Amer- 
ican kite expedition to the tropics. 

The entertainments were a notable fea- 
ture of the Congress. During a visit to the 
Aeronautical Observatory of the Prussian 
Meteorological Institute, at West Reinick- 
endorf, a few miles north of Berlin, the 
lntes, kite-balloon and rubber  ballons 
sondes were sent up, one of the last at- 
taining the unprecedentedly great height of 
twenty Iilometers. The following day, 
after the adjacent establishment of the 
Prussian Balloon Battalion, which is the 
most modern and complete in the world had 
been inspected, field manceuvres were exe- 
cuted and the time required to bring the 
kite-balloon on the field, inflate it and 
send up an officer to reeconnoiter was found 
to occupy but sixteen minutes. A number 


AUGUST 22, 1902.] 


of free balloons ascended from the grounds 
carrying military and civil members of the 
Congress, one of the latter ascents being for 
meteorological purposes and another for 
physiological experiments. A sumptuous 
breakfast, given by the officers of the 
Balloon Battalion in their Casino, was 
attended by the Minister of War, and at a 
banquet given in the Zoological Garden in 
honor of the Congress, Prince Frederick 

Henry presided. It is evident, therefore, 
that the organizers of the Congress suc- 
ceeded in pleasing their guests and in 
giving the foreign military officers, who 
represented the chief European powers 
excepting France, an idea of the high 
efficiency of military ballooning in Ger- 
many. As regards the exploration of the 
atmosphere, nowhere is there a station so 
completely equipped as the one directed by 
Dr. Assmann, and yet, notwithstanding the 
time and money expended to bring it to this 
condition, the site near a great city having 
proved unfavorable for kite-flying, the 
observatory will be moved into the open 
country about a hundred miles northeast of 
Berlin. The observatory of M. Teisserene 
de Bort has likewise been removed from 
the neighborhood of Paris for similar 
reasons, and this action by both a govern- 
ment and a private institution shows that in 
Europe ‘the sounding of the ocean of air’ 
is regarded as being of sufficient impor- 
tance to justify its prosecution under the 
best possible circumstances. 


A. LAWRENCE RoTcH. 
BivuE Hitt METEORGCLOGICAL OBSERVATORY. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

The Varieties of Religious Experience: A 
Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford 
Lectures on Natural Religion delivered at 
Edinburgh in 1901-1902 by Winu1am James, 
LL.D., ete., Corresponding Member of the 
Institute of France and of the Royal Prus- 
sian Academy of Sciences, Professor of Phi- 
losophy at Harvard University. New York, 


SCIENCE. 


301 


London and Bombay, Longmans, Green and 

Co. 1902. 

In the portion of this book which is wholly 
novel in academic philosophy, that which gives 
a careful statement and a deliberate discussion 
of ‘the religion of healthy-mindedness’ (in- 
cluding ‘mind-care,’ ‘Christian science,’ ete.) 
the reader has a fair gauge of the author’s 
spirit and method throughout. We have the 
‘human documents,’ the religious feelings and 
ideas as set forth in extracts chosen with the 
happiest discrimination, the analyses and ex- 
planations of psychology, and the author’s hos- 
pitable-minded but critieal summing-up. We 
meet with that reluctance to deny, that wist- 
ful sense of ‘more beyond,’ which is so singu- 
larly blended in his writing with sceptical 
science. We have that vivid perception of the 
concrete in all its variety, that distrustful in- 
terest in abstract theory in all its variety,, 
which make us feel somewhat tossed about 
on the waves of suggestion, and yet distinctly 
safer than in the hands of the artificer of con- 
sistent systems. And lastly we have the care 
for results, for the difference a theory makes 
to life, joined with an individualism, a will- 
ingness to live and let live in matters of be- 
lief, which would encourage diverse theories 
to bring forth practical fruit after their kind 
and so put themselves to the proof. We un- 
derstand how it could happen that Professor 
James has been falsely set down as a spiritist, 
merely because of his completer suspension of 
judgment in subjects where to hesitate is 
deemed hardly consistent with scientific pro- 
priety. On this point he has elsewhere made 
his views explicit.* In these peculiarly frank 
pages there is no trace of any taste for the con- 
ception of spirit-possession; it figures, indeed, 
not at all; but there is repeated refusal to 
assume that human consciousness is subject to 
no impressions but those of sense. 

Highly characteristic of their author, these 
lectures stand in marked contrast with the 
other philosophic courses of the Gifford series. 
Such lecturers as Professors Caird, Ward and 
Royce offered abstract reasoning in proof of a 

*See review of Hodgson, ‘ Further Report on 


Certain Phenomena of Trance,’ Psychological Re- 
view. 1898. 


302 


philosophic theism or in confutation of its 
adversaries. Mr. James writes: ‘In all sad 
sincerity I think we must conclude that the 
attempt to demonstrate by purely intellectual 
processes the truth of direct religious experi- 
ence is absolutely hopeless.’ He throws him- 
self instead upon that experience itself, de- 
scribing its vital richness and variety and 
analyzing its nature with his well-known gifts 
of psychologic insight and of style. The aim 
is to keep as close as possible to the recorded 
facts of personal religious feeling, especially 
in its most acute and unprompted phases, since 
there only do we study the power of religion 
at its source. To this end ecclesiastical and 
other social forms are left on one side. To 
this end too the pages teem with extracts from 
autobiography, Catholic, Protestant, and non- 
Christian, illustrative of varied forms of spir- 
itual life. The learning is immense, and the 
profusion of vital and memorable passages 
cited makes the volume a treasury in this 
kind. The author stands by as interpreter, 
comparer and analyst, and the extracts are 
woven into a somewhat carefully planned pro- 
gression of chapters. But he comes not only 
as a psychologist to describe and classify, but 
as a philosopher to judge. Indeed the psy- 
chologist could hardly seize the nature of the 
religious sentiment without some estimate of 
its service and meaning in human nature. 
But here too his appeal is solely to experience. 
‘The religion of healthy-mindedness,’ the re- 
ligion of conflict and remorse, conversion, the 
asceticism of the saintly life, mysticism, dog- 
matic theology, ritual, confession and prayer 
are judged by their fruits alone. Thirty years 
ago Matthew Arnold laid it down that the 
basis of religion must be sought in the veri- 
fiable facts of present human nature and life. 
Mr. James’s attitude is (with one considerable 
reservation) similar, but it results in a less 
dry and moralistic conception of that basis. 
Arnold (though not trained himself in the sci- 
entific school) wrote in days of belligerent 
science and saved but little from the siege. 
The present work, coming as it does from a 
master of contemporary psychology, marks a 
point where science has found its way into too 
many recesses of human nature to remain in 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 399. 


a militant mood toward any of the great pro- 
pensities whose roots it finds there. Arnold 
almost confined himself to the moral element 
in religion, but we have here an interpretation 
of what must be more broadly called the spir- 
itual. 

To some eritics, no doubt, the book will 
hardly seem to invite with any emphasis the 
term scientific; nor even the term philosoph- 
ical. Not to dwell upon the unconventional 
play of wit and imagination in the style, an 
author who makes so little effort to maintain 
a systematic rigor of treatment, and who 
deliberately classes himself as a ‘piecemeal 
supernaturalist,’ has chosen, it might seem, 
to quit the ways of contemporary research. 
And his supernaturalism might make even a 
limited comparison with Arnold seem inept. 
But indeed both what there is of supernatural- 
ism in the book (and when one tracks it reso- 
lutely through the various qualifications it 
proves a somewhat modest quantity) and the 
indifference to systematic forms, which is in- 
deed carried to a fault, are connected with 
the author’s conscience and candor as a 
seeker after fact. He has an evident dread of 
summary divisions and pert generalizations 
that ‘substitute a rude simplicity for the com- 
plexity of nature,’ and whilst handling and 
examining such as have been propounded he 
refuses to be restricted by them. Rejecting 
the a priori methods of some of his prede- 
cessors in the Gifford chair, he has more than 
a usual share of the restless spirit of induc- 
tion, and will not close the gates whilst but 
ninety-and-nine of the facts lie safely in the 
fold. It is the same demand for reality and 
impatience of formulas thinner than the fact 
that drives him into what he quaintly calls 
his ‘crass supernaturalism.’ “ Religion, wher- 
ever it is an active thing, involves a belief in 
ideal presences [%. e., exalted but real pres- 
ences] and a belief that in our prayerful com- 
munion with them work is done and some- 
thing real comes to pass.” It is the fear of 
‘explaining away,’ the distaste for ‘mere’ and 
‘nothing but,’ the sheer fidelity to the spiritual 
consciousness of which he is interpreter, that 
forces him, as he conceives, to regard a refer- 
ence to the supernatural as essential to com- 


AUGUST 22, 1902.] 


plete religion, and such a religion as essential 
to complete life. Justified or not, his conclu- 
sion is due to a sympathy which, necessary for 
insight as it is, belongs to the very spirit of 
science when it takes the form of psychology 
and advances into human nature. One may 
wish in some particulars to amend the con- 
clusion, but one must own one’s debt for an 
incomparable rendering of the facts. 

In undertaking his ‘descriptive survey’ the 
lecturer warns his hearers to distinguish be- 
tween assertions of psychological or physical 
‘fact and assertions of spiritual value. The 
value of a man’s religious propensities cannot 
be judged by the circumstances of their origin. 
‘The opening chapter, on ‘Religion and Neu- 
rology’—announced as a lecture at Edinburgh 
under the vivacious title ‘Is Religion a Ner- 
vous Disease?’—deals with the ‘medical ma- 
terialism’ which would explain away the in- 
tenser spiritual experiences as due to bodily 
disturbance. “Medical materialism finishes up 
Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road 
to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occip- 
ital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs 
out Saint Teresa as an hysteric, Saint Francis 
of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate. George 
Fox’s discontent with the shams of his age, 
and his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats 
as a symptom of a disordered colon. Carlyle’s 
organ-tones of misery it accounts for by a 
gastro-duodenal catarrh.” To which Mr. 
James answers that by the first principle of 
physiological psychology “there is not a single 
one of our states of mind, high or low, healthy 
or morbid, that has not some organic process 
as its condition. * * * If we only knew the 
facts intimately enough we should doubtless 
see ‘the liver’ determining the dicta of the 
sturdy atheist as decisively as it does that of 
the Methodist under conviction anxious about 
his soul. When it alters in one way the blood 
that percolates it we get the Methodist, when 
in another way the atheist form of mind.” 
Since all thoughts have physical conditions, 
no thought is by that mere fact discredited. 
Nor is the distinction between healthy and 
unhealthy physical conditions decisive in the 
matter. A temperament nervously unbal- 
anced, however inferior from the standpoint 


SCIENCE. 


303 


of personal comfort and longevity, is compat- 
ible with high social usefulness, may even, in 
certain forms of such usefulness, be a power- 
ful aid. We must judge the spiritual value 
of mental states by experience of their results 
for life. This is something upon which their 
bodily antecedents shed no light. “When we 
speak disparagingly of ‘feverish fancies,’ 
surely the fever-process as such is not the 
ground of our disesteem—for aught we know 
to the contrary, 103° or 104° Fahrenheit 
might be a much more favorable temperature 
for truths to germinate and sprout in than 
the more ordinary blood-heat of 97 or 98 de- 
grees. It is either the disagreeableness itself 
of the fancies, or their inability to bear the 
criticisms of the convalescent hour.” “By 
their fruits ye shall know them, not by their 
roots.” 

As a purely negative argument, the repulse 
of an attack, this is admirably conclusive. 
But when the positive principle is laid down, 
when consequences are presented as the sole 
test of religion, there is something else to be 
said. Origin cannot disprove value, but then 
consequences cannot prove truth. If religion 
undertakes to tell of the supernatural, we may 
know it by its fruits as valuable, but not as 
true. This, however, seems upon the whole to 
be the author’s view. When in the final chap- 
ter it becomes a question, not of human value, 
but of objective truth, his standards are of 
another order. In that chapter, however, he 
first recognizes as tenable the position that 
religion is a purely human and natural phe- 
nomenon, existing for its psychological func- 
tion; its supernaturalism being but a.sym- 
bolic expression of natural fact. In that case 
of course religion grown clear-sighted would 
assert as literal truth nothing for which uni- 
versal experience did not vouch; the test of 
value and the test of truth would coincide. 
His own analysis is quite consistent with this 
position. “There is a certain uniform deliv- 
erance in which all religions appear to meet.” 
This deliverance tells of “(1) an uneasiness, 
and (2) its solution. The uneasiness, reduced 
to its simplest terms, is the sense that there 
is something wrong about us as we naturally 
stand. The solution is a sense that we are 


o04 


saved from the wrongness by making the prop- 
er connection with the higher powers. * * * 
Along with the wrong part there is a better 
part of him, even though it be a most helpless 
germ. * * * When stage two (the stage of 
solution or salvation) arrives, the man identi- 
fies his real being with the germinal higher 
part of himself; and does so in the following 
way. He becomes conscious that this higher 
part is * * * continuous with a More of the 
same quality, which is operative in the uni- 
verse outside of him, and which he can keep 
in working touch with, and in a fashion get 
on board of and save himself.” This more, 
Mr. James is disposed to think, is first of all 
the subconscious mind or ‘subliminal con- 
sciousness’ whose discovery in 1886 was ‘the 
most important step forward that has occurred 
in psychology’ since he became a student of the 
science. In conversion, mystical experiences, 
‘mind-cure’ and the effects of prayer, he of- 
fers abundant reason for thinking that influ- 
ences from this region play a leading part. 
“Tt is one of the peculiarities of invasions from 
the subconscious region to take on objective 
appearances and to suggest to the subject an 
external control. In the religious life the con- 
trol is felt as ‘higher’; but since on our hy- 
pothesis it is primarily the faculties of our own 
hidden mind which are controlling, the sense 
of union with the power beyond us is a sense 
of something, not merely apparently, but liter- 
ally true.” 

How completely this accords with Arnold’s 
conception of the name God as a symbolic ex- 
pression for the purely natural stream of tend- 
ency, not our narrower selves, that makes for 
righteousness, will be seen at once. Beyond 
this, our author holds, articulate proof cannot 
go. But let us not, therefore, he would add, 
make haste to close the door against what may 
lie beyond. Here begin his ‘supernaturalism’ 
and the grounds he recognizes for faith in its 
‘objective truth.” From two points of view it 
is legitimate to cross the line. First, the lu- 
minous perceptions of the mystical state, sup- 
posing them to be as they are reported, are by 
the logic of the case all-sufficient for the per- 
ceiver, but unfortunately non-transferable. 
Secondly, those who do not share the mystical 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 399. 


experience may ‘in the exercise of [their] in- 
dividual freedom’ embrace ‘ over-beliefs’ and 
“build out their religion’ in the direction to 
which their inward need and ‘ the total expres- 
sion of human experience as [they] view it ob- 
jectively’ seem to point. This is of course the 
thesis of his well-known essays on ‘The Will 
to Believe.’ The last phrase quoted shows 
him still holding to ‘ experience.’ It is not to 
mere desire or will that he consigns the deci- 
sion—so one is led, despite some of his own 
words, to infer; but to the inmost judgment, 
dealing with probabilities and tokens too deli- 
cate for speech. Thus we have in the second 
basis of belief a fainter sort of perception, 
which, like the first, must be incommunicable. 
According to Mr. James’s own profession of 
faith, ‘in communion with the Ideal new force 
comes into the world, and new departures are 
made here below.’ The supernatural force 
probably enters ‘through the subliminal door,’ 
2. €., affecting the subconscious life first, and 
through it the conscious life. “The current of 
thought in academic circles runs against me, 
and I feel like a man who must set his back 
against an open door if he does not wish to 
see it closed and locked.” That is, though 
there is nothing, as he has shown, in the psy- 
chology of religion that does not seem expli- 
cable by natural causes, yet such is our author’s 
jealous fidelity to the religious consciousness 
and the forms its experiences take that he-will 
not accept an explanation that seems to him 
to impoverish their meaning. One might sug- 
gest that these forms, as a symbolic expression 
of the deepest facts in human life, are no 
greater than the things symbolized; and that, 
needful though it be to preach to science an 
open imagination, yet it is no service to the 
general world to identify religion with what 
is from the general standpoint a mere possibil- 
ity, not a sure and common possession. 

I have been obliged to neglect some of the 
chief thoughts of the book, such as the psy- 
chological distinction between ‘ moralism’ 
and religion (which recalls the writings of the 
author’s father, the elder Henry James), that 
between the ‘once-born’ and ‘twice-born’ 
types of religious spirit, the comparison be- 
tween the principle of modern ‘mental heal- 


AUGUST 22, 1902. ] 


ing’ and that of Luther’s ‘justification by 
faith,’ the profound interpretation of asceti- 
cism, ete. Of the work as a whole one may 
say that it is precisely its ‘unsatisfactoriness,’ 
the pregnancy of its paradox in leaving so 
many doors open and yet keeping so much 
science within, by which it serves us best. 
Coming when psychology has just reached the 
study of religion, it can hardly fail to deepen 
the whole of the research to which it bril- 
liantly contributes. | Dickinson S. Miturr. 


Fishes and Fisheries of the Irish Sea: W. A. 
HerpMan and Rosert A. Dawson, London, 
George Philip & Son. 1902. 4to. Pp. 98. 
This is the second memoir of the Lancashire 

Sea-Fisheries Committee, of which Professor 
Herdman is the honorary director of the scien- 
tific work and Mr. Dawson the fishery expert. 
It is the outgrowth of studies of fishes of the 
Trish Sea commenced many years ago by 
Herdman, in connection with the work of the 
Liverpool Marine Biology Committee. The 
systematic consideration of the fishes consti- 
tutes the major part of this report, but much 
collateral information adds to its value. In 
dedicating it to the members of the Lancashire 
and Western sea-fisheries joint committee, 
the authors express the hope that the work 
may fill a want as a guide to the fish and fish- 
eries of the region, and that it may be of value 
to fishermen and others at home and to fishery 
authorities and scientific men abroad. 

The physical features of the Irish Sea are 
briefly described under the head of area, depth, 
rivers and estuaries, temperature, specific 
gravity, tides and currents, and bottom depos- 
its. This sea, which has an area of about 
17,250 square miles, may be regarded as a 
landlocked body, for the connections with the 
North Sea (St. George Channel and North 
Channel) constitute only one tenth of the cir- 
cumference. Jn this respect the Irish Sea is 
said to be unique, for no other sea of equal 
extent is so completely closed in by land be- 
longing to one nation. “Consequently the 
Trish Sea seems peculiarly well fitted for those 
experiments in fisheries administration and 
cultivation which depend upon identical fish- 
eries regulations.” 


SCIENCE. 305 


In connection with the study of the sud- 
den appearance and disappearance of swarms 
of copepods and medusxz, and the influence 
of the movements of such and other surface 
food materials on the migration of fishes, two 
thousand drift bottles were dropped into the 
sea at various places, and their behavior forms 
the basis of the chapter on tides and currents. 
The recovery of over forty-two per cent. of 
the bottles furnished data as to the combined 
effects of tides, currents, and prevailing winds 
on the distribution of small surface organisms. 
Considerable influence seems to be exerted by 
winds on the movements of fish ova, fish lar- 
vee, the fish food, and hence on the abundance 
of particular species in a given region. The 
two tidal streams which pour into this sea 
meet and neutralize each other, causing a 
zone of water, which extends from one shore 
to the other and in places is twenty miles wide, 
where no tidal currents exist, but only a rise 
and fall; twelve per cent. of the drift bottles 
were caried by winds from one tidal system to 
the other. 

The nature of the bottom deposits is re- 
garded as the most important of the various 
factors determining the distribution of ani- 
mals over the sea-bottom; and this subject, 
therefore, receives special consideration; and, 
in connection with the chapter on the distribu- 
tion of fishes, ete., constitutes the most inter- 
esting and important section of the memoir. 
Sample lists of all species of animals taken in 
dredge-hauls in different parts of the sea show 
how the physical conditions influence the 
abundance of animals as regards individuals 
and species and make it ‘clear that whether 
it be a question of mere mass of life or variety 
of life, haul for haul, the shallow waters can 
hold their own against the deep sea, and form 
in all probability the most prolific zone of life 
on this globe.’ This zone in the Irish Sea 
affords two very distinct types of abundance: 
the Welsh and Manx coasts are characterized 
by rocks and sea weeds, the Lancashire and 
Cheshire coasts by sand and mud; the shore 
waters of the former abound in species, those 
of the latter in individuals. 

The fishes of the Irish Sea, of which a 
freely annotated list is given, comprise 141 


306 


species; 15 of these are regarded as accidental 
or occasional stragglers from the ocean, 85 
are small inedible species, and 41 are market- 
able forms. Of the last named, the most nu- 
merous and commercially important family 
are the Pleuronectide, 18 species being record- 
ed and noted in detail. 

The constitution and work of the sea-fisher- 
ies committees are referred to at length. 
These committees are analogous to the State 
fish commissions of the United States, but 
their organization and methods are very dif- 
ferent. They are all subordinate to the na- 
tional Board of Trade, but are vested with 
large powers in matters of legislation, regula- 
tion and investigation; and their work has a 
number of features that our local fish commis- 
sions could consider to advantage. The en- 
tire absence of artificial propagation of fishes 
and other animals is in strong contrast with 
other countries. Two appendices contain a 
full draft of the by-laws proposed for the 
Lancashire and Western sea-fisheries district, 
and a detailed statement of the results of ex- 
perimental dredge-hauls, fishing trials, ete. 
The gathering of shrimps, one of the leading 
fishery industries of the Irish Sea, is shown to 
have a remarkable influence on the abundance 
of fishes and is one of the subjects in dealing 
with which the services of the biologist have 
proved most useful. From numerous test trials, 
it has been demonstrated that shrimping on cer- 
tain grounds at certain times is enormously 
destructive to immature fish, as many as 10,- 
000 undersized fish sometimes being killed in 
taking one quart of shrimp, and the average 
destruction per quart is said to be 1,000 fish, 
chiefly pleuronectids. 

This memoir constitutes an admirable model 
for future investigations and reports of its 
kind. As an example of the harmonious com- 
bination of the scientific and the economic, 
the work will be welcomed by all persons inter- 
ested in the preservation of one of the most 
valuable resources of the world. The most use- 
ful purpose the work ought to subserve, how- 
ever, aside from its local application, is the 
demonstration (1) of the many diverse consid- 
erations underlying the regulation and ad- 
ministration of the fisheries, (2) of the neces- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 399. 


sity for scientific methods in the proper study 
of economic problems, and (3) of the futility 
of radical legislation affecting the fisheries 
without competent biologic investigation. 
Many fishery laws which have suppressed 
or seriously disturbed established indus- 
tries would never have been enacted had 
the facts been known; and, on the other hand, 
some languishing fisheries would be improved 
and failing resources replenished if legislators 
would heed the results of scientific investiga- 
tion. H. M. Smira. 


Studies from the Chemical Laboratory of the 
Sheffield Scientific School. Edited by 
Horace L. Weuus. Vol. IL, pp. xi+444; 
Vol. IL, pp. ix+879. New York, Charles 
Scribner’s Sons. 1901. | 
These volumes appear among the Yale Bi- 

centennial Publications, issued ‘as a partial 
indication of the character of the studies in 
which the university teachers are engaged.’ 
They furnish a continuous record of recent 
progressive studies bearing directly upon 
questions of prime importance at the present 
time. Certainly they constitute a body of con- 
tributions to knowledge highly honorable to 
the university they represent. 

Volume I. opens with a very brief historical 
account of the Sheffield Laboratory from the 
beginning, then presents a bibliography of the 
research publications of the present instructors 
of the laboratory, and gives in 427 pages the 
papers of the last ten years on ‘General In- 
organic Chemistry’ and on ‘Double Halogen 
Salts” Volume II. gives in 371 pages the pa- 
pers of ten years upon ‘Organic Chemistry.’ 

Well known to chemical readers as these 
papers have been, there is now much advantage 
in having them all together in the order in 
which the investigations have developed. The 
chemists of the Sheffield Laboratory are to be 
congratulated upon the prevailing unity and 
continuity of their labors, extending through 
so eventful a decade. 

The twenty-seven papers upon ‘Double 
Halogen Salts’ appeared from 1892 to 1901. 
Of all the known double halides classified by 
Professor Wells it is stated that about one 
third have been prepared in the Sheffield Labo- 


AUGUST 22, 1902.] 


ratory. In the determination of the constants 
of these compounds a great deal of founda- 
tion has been laid. So far, it may be said, the 
facts serve quite as much to do away with 
talse generalizations as to support true ones. 
Perhaps the results reach toward that border- 
land of residual affinity which Werner and 
others have been cultivating. At any rate, 
whatever is gained in real knowledge of halo- 
gen combination touches chemistry every- 
where, on inorganic, organic and physical 
lines, either in elucidation or in restriction 
of our theories of atomic union and our views 
of the periodic system. 

There are several papers upon perhalides of 
the metals in the division of ‘General Inor- 
ganic Chemistry,’ and several upon organic 
perhalides in the ‘Organic Chemistry’ volume. 
In the same relation may be included the re- 
searches upon double salts and metallic salts 
of the anilides, and those upon the substitu- 
tion of one halogen for another in the ani- 
lides. 

The article on the ‘Periodic System and In- 
organic Compounds’ gives a much needed dis- 
cussion of the thesis that ‘the nature of the 
compounds of an element is also a function 
of its atomic weight,’ and then goes on to re- 
port the results of very faithful experimenta- 
tion upon the alums, in respect to solubilities 
and other features. It is to be hoped that 
Dr. Locke will continue his researches in this 
field, important as it is, and calling for a spe- 
cial allowance of the scientific spirit, evident 
in his work. 

The papers in the volume on ‘Organic 
Chemistry,’ familiar as they are to chemical 
readers, now present a quite logical series of 
cognate investigations, largely upon the ani- 
lides and related imido compounds. Very 
few of the papers deal with compounds desti- 
tute of nitrogen. It is not too much to say 
that the chemical literature of the bodies just 
mentioned, as well as that of many formyl 
compounds, and a good number of imido est- 
ers, has been of late years materially enriched 
by these contributions. The same may be said 
of the literature of the esters related to car- 
bamic acid and urea. And further experimen- 
tations upon ester derivatives of urea are ap- 


SCIENCE. 


307 


pearing under the name of Professor Wheeler 
in the journals current since these volumes 
were issued. 

The recent records of the chemistry of Yale 
are of the greater educational interest because 
of the early development of the science in the 
same institution. The account given in Vol- 
ume I. of the establishment of the Sheffield 
Laboratory is a good bit of history rescued 
from the recollections of a very early chemical 
period. It appears that, as a university labora- 
tory distinctly for students, it was established 
in ‘the old President’s house’ from 1847 to 
1860. The data are well worth saving, for the 
history of the laboratory method, and to help 
out what may be gathered from the biography 
of the elder Silliman, and the sketches of 
American chemists collected by the younger 
Silliman in 1876. Apert B, PrEscorr. 


The Foundations of Geometry. By Davip 
Hiveertr. Authorized translation by E. J. 
Townsend, Ph.D., University of Illinois. 
Chicago, The Open Court Publishing Com- 
pany. 1902. Pp. vii+182. 

The merest justice calls for a pointing out 
of some few among the blemishes in what 
Professor Townsend puts forth as a transla- 
tion of MHilbert’s beautiful ‘Festschrift.’ 
These blemishes are the more indefensible 
because Professor Townsend had before him, 
in addition to the limpid original, the admira- 
ble French translation of L. Laugel. 

To begin with, Hilbert, so studiously spar- 
ing of words, uses the word Erklarung nine 
times on his first thirteen pages. 

Townsend never renders it at all. Thus 
Hilbert’s profound and elegant distribution 
into definitions, conventions, assumptions and 
theorems is totally lost, not appearing in 
Townsend’s translation. 

In the third sentence of the introduction 
Aufstellung is translated choice, and in the 
fifth sentence aufzustellen is given as ‘to 
choose.’ In the note to the introduction, ‘in- 
structive account’ is rendered ‘explanatory 
report’! 

In § 1, p. 3, the point is missed when erfolgt 
dureh is rendered ‘follows as a consequence 
of,’ 


308 


On p. 5, in note to axioms of order (better 
axioms of arrangement), W. Pasch should be 
M. Pasch. On p. 6, first line, die Anordnung, 
the arrangement, is rendered ‘an order of 
sequence.’ 

In IL., 4, the repetition of the word ‘so’ de- 
stroys the statement intended. 

Could there be a more pitiful bungle than 
that which, in the last two lines of p. 6, 
gives ‘alle itibrigen Punkte der Geraden a 
heissen ausserhalb der Strecke AB gelegen’ 
as ‘all other points are referred to the points 
lying without the segment AB’ 

The translation of the important Axiom 
IV., 1, p. 12, is so bungled as to be worse than 
meaningless, actually false, as will be seen 
by comparing with the French translation: 

Si lon désigne par A, B deux points d’une 
droite a, et par A’ un point de cette méme 
droite ou bien d’une autre droite a’, ’on pourra 
toujours, sur la droite a’, d’un edté donné du 
point A’, trouver un point et un seul B’, tel 
que le segment AB soit congruent au segment 
A’/B’. 

On p. 18, ‘emanating’ is unfortunate. 

On p. 15, 1. 10, the angle-symbol is omitted. 

On p. 17, 1. 8 from below, ‘so’ should be 
‘such.’ 

On p. 22, theorem 16 is mistranslated, the 
insertion of the word ‘corresponding’ turning 
it into bathos. 

But on p. 24 we have a still more ludicrous 
misinterpretation, which shows that Professor 
Townsend has not attempted to understand 
the book he attempts to translate. Under the 
heading Definitions (which should be Defini- 
tion) he says: ‘From this definition can be 
easily deduced, with the help of the axioms 
of groups III. and IV., all of the known 
properties of the circle.’ 

What a stupendous blunder this is we realize 
when we recall that thus cannot even be 
proved that a straight line which has a point 
within a circle has a point on the circle. 

What Hilbert himself proves and what 
Townsend translates on p. 116, demonstrates 
that, using axioms I.-IV., we could not even 
show that from any point without a circle 
there is a tangent to the circle. Just so, with- 
out an axiom of continuity we cannot demon- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 399. 


strate that a circle having a point within and 
a point without a second circle has a point on 
it. 

On the same p. 24 the introduction, in 1. 6 
from below, of the word ‘corresponding’ is a 
childish mistranslation. 

On p. 25 Professor Townsend puts in a lit- 
tle from Laugel, but seems to have no better 
luck with his French than with the German. 
‘This axiom gives us nothing directly con- 
cerning the existence of limiting points, or of 
the idea of convergence’ is how he renders, 
“Cet axiome ne nous dit rien sur l’existence de 
points limites ni sur la notion de conver- 
gence.’ 

But the game would not be worth the candle 
to go on thus through all the 132 pages. 

So I choose as a fitting climax the sentence 
on p. 125, ‘We easily see that the criterion of 
theorem 44 is fulfilled, and, consequently, it 
follows that every regular polygon can be con- 
structed by the drawing of straight lines and 
the laying off of segments.’ 

From this we should suppose that Professor 
Townsend studied his geometry from the pop- 
ular treatise of Mr. Wentworth between 1877 
and 1887, which during those years contained 
on p. 224, Proposition XIII., § 387: ‘To in- 
seribe a regular polygon of any number of 
sides in a given circle.’ 

GrorceE Bruce Hatstep. 

AUSTIN, TEXAS. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 


The Journal of Physical Chemistry. March. 
‘On the Relative Velocities of the Ions in 
Solutions of Silver Nitrate in Pyridin and 
Acetonitril,’ by Herman Schlundt. The ionic 
velocities found are considerably lower than in 
water, but this difference seems to decrease 
with increasing dilution. ‘On the Inversion 
of Zine Sulfate, IT.,’ by H. T. Barnes and H. 
L. Cooke. ‘Synthetic Analysis of Solid 
Phases,’ by Wilder D. Bancroft. Description 
of a new method, applicable to alloys, efflo- 
rescent substances, basic salts, and double salts 
which are decomposed by the pure solvent, 
where the solid phase cannot be conveniently 
isolated in a pure state. ‘A Derivation of the 


. 


AuGUST 22, 1902.] 


Phase Rule,’ by J. E. Trevor. ‘Limitations of 
the Mass Law,’ by Wilder D. Bancroft. 

April. ‘Molecular Attraction, by J. E. 
Mills. The presentation of evidence to prove 
that molecular attraction, like gravitation, 
varies inversely as the square of the distance 
apart of the molecules, that it is only slightly 
affected by changes in temperature, and that 
it depends primarily upon the chemical con- 
stitution of the molecule and not upon its 
mass. ‘Studies in Vapor Composition, II.,’ by 
H. R. Carveth. ‘On the Stability of the 
Equilibrium of Univariant Systems,’ by Paul 
Saurel. ‘On the Fundamental Equations of 
the Multiple Point,’ by Paul Saurel. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 


As announced in Science for June 27, and 
as briefly noted in the report of the Secretary 
of Section H of the Américan Association 
for the Advancement of Science (this volume, 
p- 201), an American Anthropological Asso- 
ciation was formally established on June 30. 
The founding meeting was held in Oakland 
Church, Pittsburgh, under the Chairmanship 
of Stewart Culin, Vice-president of Section 
Hof the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science. After the adoption of 
a constitution the following executive officers 
were elected: 

President, W J McGee; Vice-President for four 
years, F. W. Putnam; Vice-President for three 
years, Franz Boas; Vice-President for two years, 
W. H. Holmes; Vice-President for one year, J. W. 
Powell; Secretary, George A. Dorsey; Treasurer, 
Roland B. Dixon; Editor, F. W. Hodge. 

The plan of the organization providing for 
a Council large enough to include the leading 
workers in American anthropology, the follow- 
ing persons, all of whom except two (who 
chanced to be abroad) had indorsed the objects 
of the Association, were elected Councilors: 
Frank Baker, Henry P. Bowditch, A. F. 
Chamberlain, Stewart Culin, Livingston Far- 
rand, J. Walter Fewkes, Alice C. Fletcher, J. 
N. B. Hewitt, Walter Hough, Alés Hrdlicka, 
A. L. Kroeber, George Grant MacCurdy, O. T. 
Mason, Washington Matthews, J. D. McGuire, 
James Mooney, W. W. Newell, Frank Russell, 


SCIENCE. 309 


M. H. Saville, Harlan I. Smith, Frederick 
Starr, John R. Swanton, Cyrus Thomas, and 
E. S. Wood. 

The Association arranged to hold the next 
regular meeting at Washington, in connection 
with the meeting of the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science during Con- 
vocation Week, 1902-03. 

A session for the representation of scientific 
papers was held jointly with Section H, as 
already reported in ScIENCE. 

The following preamble and _ resolutions 
were adopted: 

“WHEREAS, The Second International 
American Conference, commonly known as the 
Pan American Congress, in session duly as- 
sembled in the City of Mexico, January 29, 
1902, adopted a recommendation to the seve- 
ral American nations participating in the Con- 
ference, that an ‘American International 
Archzological Commission’ be created, to 
promote archeological research, to aid in the 
preservation of antiquities, and to endeavor 
to establish an American International Mu- 
seum; and 

Wuereas, The recommendation is in full 
accord with the spirit and objects of American 
science; therefore 

“ Resolved, That the American Anthropolog- 
ical Association heartily concurs in the rec- 
ommendation of the Second International 
American Conference. 

“Resolved further, That the Secretary of 
the Association send a copy of these Resolu- 
tions to the Director of the Bureau of Ameri- 
can Republics as an expression of the judg- 
ment of the Association.” 

Undoubtedly the founding of the new as- 
sociation will meet a need long felt by the 
anthropologists of the United States; it was 
indeed the consummation of a movement 
started in 1896 when the Anthropological Sec- 
tion of the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science began holding winter 
meetings. The action at Pittsburgh was es- 
pecially notable for the unanimity shown by 
the representatives of all sections of the coun- 
try. Most of the leading anthropologists of 
America were present in person; and it may 
be said that all were in some way represented. 


310 


It rarely happens that a scientific organiza- 
tion of national character is instituted with 
so general support and so complete harmony as 
was displayed at the founding of the Ameri- 
ean Anthropological Association. 


W J M. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


BLUE FOXES ON THE PRIBYLOF ISLANDS. 


Tuer account of the ‘Blue Fox Trapping on 
the Pribylof Island,” by Lembkey and Lucas 
in Science, Vol. XVI., pp. 216-218, is highly 
interesting in many respects, but while the 
authors seem to regard the experiment of 
sparing the females as of doubtful success, I 
am of the opinion that the result has amply 
justified it. 

It is quite true that the table of foxes trap- 
ped on St. George Island, 1897-1901 (p. 216),* 
apparently indicates a surprisingly small in- 
erease in the females caught, but several 
causes have probably conspired towards this 
result. In the first place, the experience 
on the Commander Islands seems to indicate 
that the females are more cautious than the 
males and are not so easily caught. Thus in 
1896 there were taken in steel traps on Copper 
Island 515 males and 452 females or 63 males 
more than females. If this represents the nor- 
mal ratio between the sexes caught then it will 
be seen that on St. George Island in 1900-1901 
there should have been taken only 539 females 
to 614 males under normal circumstances. As 
690 females were really taken it would seem 
that the normal excess of females was 151 in- 
stead of 76. 

It will be observed that during the previous 
three years a large number of females have 
been trapped on St. George Island, which were 
released after having been ‘ marked ’or ‘ brand- 
ed.” Is it quite probable that all these females 
have allowed themselves to be caught over and 
over again? The blue fox is a stupid crea- 
ture compared with his red brother, and I know 
that the same animal has repeatedly been trap- 
ped. But from this to conclude that all the 
females are thus caught and that none of them 
have learned by experience to keep out of the 


* 1902 in the table quoted is probably a mis- 
print for 1901. ; 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 399. 


traps seems little probable, especially if it is 
true that the females are more cautious than 
the males. It appears to me even highly prob- 
able that a large number of the females avoid- 
ed being taken again, and that we have here 
a valid explanation of the comparatively low 
number of females in the table on p. 216. 

The writers of the article in question think 
it probable ‘that there has been some slight 
gain in the number of foxes.’ Apart from the 
above considerations I think it can be shown 
that the gain has been great and almost unex- 
ampled. : 

Statistics covering a long period of years 
(1847-1891)* show that on the Commander 
Island,t as a rule the successful fox hunt of 
one season is followed by a tremendous drop 
in the yield during the next year. Thus on™ 
Bering Island the number of foxes killed in 
1852 was 1,900; in 1853 the number dropped to 
547, or more than two thirds. In 1859 the 
harvest was 1,233 foxes, while in 1860 only 584 
were caught. In 1871 870 blue foxes were 
killed, in 1872 only 580. In 1875, 1,087, in 
1876 only 573. In 1881-2 the number was 
1,477, in 1882-83 only 872. A series of fig- 
ures such as we have them from St. George for 
three consecutive years, viz., 867, 955, 1,304, is 
therefore highly encouraging. 

It is therefore greatly to be hoped that the 
authorities on the Pribylof Islands may not 
lose heart even if the actual returns may not 
come up to the figures of the table which is in- 
tended to show what the increase ought to be 
theoretically. It is evident that we do not 


* See my ‘Asiatic Fur Seal Islands,’ 1898, p. 43. 

j A corresponding table relating to the Pribylof 
foxes during part of the same period (‘ Fur Seals 
and Fur Seal Islands N. Pacif., III., 1899, p. 
340) taken from I. Petroff’s census report does 
not show similar conditions on the Pribylof Is- 
lands. Without knowing the source of these statis- 
tics this difference is not easy to explain, but I 
would suggest that the list in question may only 
be a record of the number of skins shipped during 
the respective years but not showing the number 
of foxes actually killed in the year to which they 
are credited. The company probably required a 
certain number of skins shipped each year to sat- 
isfy the demand of the market, hence the remark- 
able uniformity. 


AuGusST 22, 1902.] 


know as yet all the factors involved in the 
problem, but considering the relative scanti- 
ness of the food supply on the island at the 
present it is safe to say that the experience 
thus far gained speaks in favor of continuing 
the policy of sparing the female fox. 
LEONHARD STEJNEGER. 
U. S. Nationat MusEeum, 
August 11, 1902. 


TYPES VERSUS RESIDUES. 

To THE Eprror or Science: My recent note 
under the heading ‘Zoological Nomenclature 
in Botany’ was not intended as a contribu- 
tion to a running controversy, but was merely 
a plea of ‘not guilty’ to the horrible charge 
of having continued in botany the discussion 
.of a tiresome question solved long ago in 
zoology. Historical differences in the develop- 
ment of the two biological sciences were taken 
to be at least a partial explanation of the fact 
that zoologists had managed, though not with- 
out considerable effort of casuistry, to keep 
their barge afloat in spite of shoals which 
would bring the more heavily laden botanical 
eraft firmly aground. That the framers of the 
zoological chart to which botanists had been 
referred had not sounded all the difficulties of 
the problem of nomenclatorial stability is ren- 
dered even more obvious by Dr. Dall’s two 
letters.* 

It is not to be expected that the merits of 
any suggestion in so old and intricate a sub- 
ject as nomenclature can be made plain by 
desultory argument, but the possibility that 
somebody may wish to examine the matter 
further may justify the notice of such of the 
new specifications of the second letter as seem 
calculated to obscure the question of perma- 
nent generic types. I am quite unable to un- 
derstand why Dr. Dall should represent me as 
objecting to 1758 as the initial date for zoo- 
logical nomenclature, or as favoring vernacu- 
lar names. 

Under the method of types systematists who 
agree to the validity of a generic group will 
not differ as to the name to be applied to it, 
while under the method of elimination such 


* ‘Science, N. S., XV., 749, May 9, 1902; XVL., 
150, July 25, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


dll 


differences are frequent and necessary. This 
absurd provision for perpetual confusion has 
appeared unavoidable to DeCandolle and to 
many eminent systematists of later date be- 
cause they persist in the pre-evolutionary fal- 
lacy of regarding genera as definitions or con- 
cepts instead of taking advantage of the evo- 
lutionary right to treat them as groups of 
species, to one of which the generic name may 
be as directly and fixedly attached as the spe- 
cific name itself. And since by means of an 
evolutionary axiom we can escape the Doubt- 
ing Castle of medieval casuistry and much 
unproductive labor of antiquarian research, 
Dr. Dall’s objection to so simple and practical 
an expedient can scarcely be understood ex- 
cept as an unwillingness to come out—a no- 
menclatorial Prisoner of Chillon, as it were. 

To attach generic names to type species cer- 
tainly renders nomenclature far more effect- 
ively separate from classification than when 
they are made to pertain only to residues 
which vary with every individual opinion. 
Taxonomy as a whole is, however, but a means 
for scientific ends, and is not studied merely 
to preserve the Linnean or the DeCandollean 
traditions. The taxonomic problems of to-day 
are very different from anything contemplated 
by Linnzus, and if the system of nomen- 
clature popularized by him could not be modi- 
fied to serve practical purposes it would un- 
doubtedly be discarded, as occasionally threat- 
ened already by physiologists and ecologists 
impatient at once of the complexity of or- 
ganic nature and the fickleness of systematists. 

To have types for ‘modern genera’ will 
yield no ‘definite stability’ while the ancient 
names are free to roam over the face of na- 
ture, though to tether each of them securely 
in a particular place must disappoint all ex- 
cept one of the claimants for possession. 
Nevertheless it would seem that those who 
have made hundreds of changes of names in 
accordance with rules which do not produce 
stability are scarcely in a position to object 
to measures better calculated to secure perma- 
nence. 

The only ‘upsetting’ advocated in this con- 
nection is that of a rule which causes, per- 
petuates and legalizes confusion and instabil- 


312 


ity in the application of generic names. The 
changes incident to the execution of such a 
reform are few and harmless in comparison 
with those perpetually necessary where names 
depend on residues. An excellent example of 
the workings of the method of elimination is 
appropriately revealed in the mazes of the 
recent Mephitis-Chincha-Spilogale discussion. 
Several prominent zoologists propose to settle 
this by a new rule* which eliminates elimina- 
tion and yields definite types for a very small 
percentage of genera, but which constitutes a 
significant admission of the essential insta- 
bility of residues. The new rule leads in the 
right direction, though it is but a short step 
on a long journey. 

Obviously, the method of elimination lacks 
the definite and ‘necessarily arbitrary’ fea- 
tures without which, as Dr. Dall well says, 
‘stability is hopeless.’ It may be true that the 
zoological laws ‘are intended to * * * bring 
about stability,’ but it is plain that the inten- 
tion has not been rendered effective by ade- 
quate formulation. Systematists who appre- 
ciate stability may differ on details of the 
legislation needed to inaugurate the method of 
types, but they should not use stability as an 
argument for residues. 

O. F. Coox. 


WASHINGTON, Aug. 7, 1902. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
NATURE OF THE SPECIFIC BACTERIAL TOXINS.t 


Arter it had been demonstrated beyond any 
controversy that certain bacteria cause certain 
diseases, quite naturally the question was 
asked, How do bacteria cause disease? Sev- 
eral answers to this question have been offered. 
If the liver, spleen or kidney of a guinea-pig 
which has died from experimental anthrax 
be sectioned and examined under the micro- 
scope, the blood vessels of these organs will 
be found to be filled with bacilli. In many 
places the germs have grown so abundantly. 
that they distend the smaller vessels. It was 
suggested that the anthrax bacillus causes 

* Sctence, N. S., XVI., 114, July 18, 1902. 

7 Abstract of a paper presented by Dr. V. C. 
Vaughan before the Research Club of the Univer- 
sity of Michigan. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 399, 


disease and death by mechanically interrupting 
the functions of certain organs. This is 
known as the mechanical interference theory. 
It has no support in any other disease than 
anthrax, and consequently it cannot be ac- 
cepted as a satisfactory answer to the ques- 
tion, How do germs cause disease? Another 
theory offered supposes that the bacteria cause 
disease by consuming the proteids of the body 
and thus depriving it of its sustenance. It is 
known that the proteids are necessary for the 
building up of cells, and it is also known that 
microorganisms feed upon proteids. This 
theory is untenable in the first place because 
many of the infectious diseases destroy life so 
quickly that the fatal effects cannot be pre- 
sumed to be due to the consumption of any 
very large amount of proteid substance. Sec- 
ondly, the distribution of the germs in the 
body is such in many diseases that they do not 
come in contact with any large percentage of 
the proteids of the body, and thirdly, the 
symptoms of the majority of the infectious 
diseases are not those which would be pro- 
duced by withdrawing from the various organs 
their food supply. A third theory supposed 
that the germs cause the symptoms of the 
disease and death by depriving the red blood 
corpuscles of their oxygen. This theory was 
suggested by the resemblance between the 
symptoms of anthrax and those of carbon diox- 
ide poisoning: More extended observation 
soon demonstrated the fallacy of this theory, 
especially inasmuch as it was shown that the 
amount of physiological oxidation going on in 
the bodies of animals sick with anthrax was 
not diminished by the disease. In this way 
the theory that germs destroy life by depriv- 
ing the blood of its oxygen has been shown 
to be not applicable to anthrax, and in fact 
not to any known infectious disease. Next it 
was suggested that bacteria cause disease by 
forming chemical poisons. This is the theory 
which has found general acceptance and which 
is now generally believed to be the true ex- 
planation, although none of the _ specific 
toxins has been isolated in a state of chem- 
ical purity. The elaboration of chemical 
poisons by bacteria may occur in either of two 
ways: In the first place the bacterium, either 


~ AUGUST 22, 1902.] 


acting as a ferment, or by forming some solu- 
ble enzyme, may split up the proteids or other 
constituents of the body or of the artificial cul- 
ture medium, and among these split products 
poisons may be produced. Im this way the 
formation of the specific toxins would be an 
analytical process. In confirmation of this 
theory, highly poisonous bodies have been 
found in artificial culture media of some of 
the pathogenic bacteria. Some of the first of 
these poisonous bodies found were basic in 
character and were known as ptomains, which 
is a designation given to putrefactive alka- 
loids. Many chemists have sought diligently 
among the basic products of putrefaction for 
the specific toxins of the infectious diseases, 
and while a few highly poisonous ptomains 
have been found, it is safe to say that no one 
has yet been discovered to which all the symp- 
toms and lesions of a disease could be 
attributed. The researches of Roux and 
Yersin, followed by those of Brieger and 
Fraenkel, on the diphtheria toxin, led to the 
conclusion that the specific poisons, instead of 
being basic in character, are modified proteids, 
and to these the term toxalbumins has been 
given. However, competent workers have 
failed to find anything like toxalbumins in 
cultures of many of the most virulent patho- 
genic bacteria. Anthrax is a disease to which 
all of these theories concerning the modus 
operandi of bacteria have been referred, and 
although Brieger and Fraenkel thought at one 
time that they had found a specific toxalbumin 
in the bodies of animals dead from anthrax, 
more careful investigations by other chemists 
have failed to confirm their results, and it is 
safe to say to-day that no specific bacterial 
toxin has been found either in the body after 
death from an infectious disease, or in artificial 
culture media}; at least, no substance belonging 
to this group of bodies to which the symptoms 
and lesions of the disease could be attributed. 
~ The other possible explanation of the produc- 
tion of chemical poisons by pathogenic bac- 
teria is that these substances are formed by 
synthetical processes and are built up in the 
cells of the microorganisms. The problem 
which Dr. Vaughan and his students have at- 
tempted to solve was that of determining 


SCIENCE. 


313 


whether or not the cells of pathogenic bacteria 
contain specific toxins. By means of the large 
incubating tanks, devised by Dr. Vaughan, and 
which have been described in ScIENCE on page 
378 of the issue of March 7, 1902, the cellular 
substance of the pathogenic bacteria has been 
obtained in large amount. The first experi- 
ments were made witli the colon bacillus. A 
virulent form of this germ was first grown in 
ordinary beef tea cultures at 37° for periods 
varying from fifteen to thirty days, and shown 
to be toxic in both sterile and unsterilized con- 
ditions, provided that the sterilization was 
accomplished by means of heat, but when the 
beef tea culture was deprived of germs by fil- 
tration through porcelain, the germ-free fil- 
trate could be injected into guinea-pigs in 
amounts of from eight to ten cubic centime- 
ters without any other harm than that which 
would result from the introduction of an equal 
amount of sterile beef tea into the abdominal 
cavity of an animal. It follows from this that 
in the colon bacillus at least there is no sol- 
uble toxin formed. However, when the germ 
substance was obtained in large amount, free 
from constituents of the culture medium, ex- 
tracted with alcohol and ether, dried and pul- 
verized, and injected into animals in doses of 
from one to five milligrams, death resulted. 
This shows that the bacterial cell contains a 
toxin. In case of the colon bacillus the bac- 
terial cell suspended in water and placed in 
a sealed tube may be heated in 180° C., for 
half an hour without loss of toxicity. Various 
attempts were made to extract the toxin from 
the cell by physical means. AI] kinds of sol- 
vents, including various salts of different 
strengths, were tried, without effect. These 
investigations led to the belief that the spe- 
cific toxin of the colon bacillus is an integral 
part of the cell, and consists of a molecular 
group of the cell proteid. It was then found 
that when the dried colon cell substance was 
heated at the temperature of the water bath 
for a period not exceeding thirty minutes with 
one-per-cent. aqueous solution of sulphuric 
acid a certain constituent of the cell was split 
off by this process and passed into solution. 
The acid extract when filtered through porce- 
lain or hard paper yields a voluminous pre- 


314 


cipitate when poured into three volumes of 
absolute alcohol. This precipitate, when col- 
lected, thoroughly washed until wholly free 
from acid, dried and pulverized, induces, when 
injected into animals, the symptoms and le- 
sions of colon intoxication. So far — this 
method of extracting the cellular toxins has 
been applied to the colon bacillus, and the 
bacilli of anthrax and diphtheria. These 
pathogenic organisms have all yielded, when 
treated with dilute sulphuric acid, toxins 
which, when injected into animals either sub- 
cutaneously or intraperitoneally, induce the 
symptoms and lesions which follow inocula- 
tion with virulent living cultures. The space 
limitation has already been exceeded, and we 
will have to omit a discussion of the properties 
of these intracellular toxins. 


A BACTERIAL SOFT ROT OF CERTAIN CRUCIFEROUS 
PLANTS AND AMORPHOPHALLUS SIMLENSE.* 


For several years the writers have had un- 
der observation a soft rot of certain crucifer- 
ous plants, particularly cabbage and cauli- 
flower. During epidemics of black rot, Pseu- 
domonas campestris (Pam.) Smith, in both 
cabbage and cauliflower it often happens that 
much damage is done by a soft rot. At first 
this soft rot was supposed to be merely a viru- 
lent form of black rot; but it was found that 
severe attacks of soft rot may occur in fields 
where there is little or no black rot. Especial- 
ly is this true of seed cabbage. On Long 
Island the production of cabbage seed is an 
important industry, and one of the chief ene- 
mies to the crop is a soft rot which attacks 
the plants during winter storage in trenches 
and also at the time of blooming. In storage 
the plants are attacked just below the head. 
In the field this portion of the stem rots, caus- 
ing the plant to suddenly wilt and die while 
in bloom. 

In the cauliflower fields on Long Island one 
may find at any time during August, Septem- 
ber and October plants which have suddenly 
collapsed with soft rot of the stem. From a 
plant thus affected the writers, in September, 


*A preliminary report read before Section G 
of the A. A. A. S. at Pittsburgh, Pa., June 30, 
1902. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 399. 


1901, isolated an organism which in their notes 
was designated 0.2 E. Pure cultures of this 
organism were inoculated into cabbage and 
cauliflower plants in pots in the greenhouse 
in the following manner: A leaf springing 
from the fleshy portion of the stem was cut 
off close to the stem with a sterilized scalpel. 
Through the sterile surface thus formed the 
stem was punctured to the center by means 
of a needle which had been first sterilized and 
then dipped into a fresh culture of the organ- 
ism. Finally the wound was smeared over 
with melted grafting wax. In this manner 
numerous plants of cabbage and cauliflower 
were inoculated at various times between 
March 10 and June 17. With one exception 
all of these plants became much rotten at the 
point of inoculation, whereas in the same 
number of check plants none showed any rot 
or discoloration whatever. The extent of the 
rotting seemed to depend largely upon the 
condition of the plant. On thrifty young 
plants it progressed with wonderful rapidity. 
Thrifty cabbage plants, two months old, nine 
inches high and with stems of the size of a 
lead pencil were so much rotted at the end of 
forty hours after inoculation that their own 
weight caused them to break over at the point 
of inoculation. On old, woody, slow-growing 
plants unmistakable signs of rot appear in 
from two to four days after inoculation; but 
in the majority of cases such plants are only 
checked in growth and not killed outright. 

In most cases the rot first appears as a 
slight discoloration around the point of inocu- 
lation, works very rapidly for a few days, then 
stops. At first the rotten tissue is soft and 
mushy and watersoaked in appearance, but it 
soon dries and mostly disappears, leaving only 
a cavity lined with shreds of dry, blackened 
tissue. 

Cabbage and cauliflower leaves inoculated 
in the petioles usually become broken over and 
soft rotten at the point of inoculation within 
forty-eight hours. Inoculations made in the 
blade of the leaf produce no marked results 
unless a large vein is punctured, in which 
ease soft rot follows as with petiole inocula- 
tions. However, on the leaves of plants under 
bell-jars circular, dead, brown spots sometimes 


AUGUST 22, 1902. ] 


appear in the parenchyma around the points 
of inoculation. Inoculations on the heads of 
cauliflower plants under bell-jars bring about 
an active soft rot which in a few days involves 
the whole head. 

Young plants of kohlrabi and Brussels 
sprouts were caused to rot by inoculation in 
the stem, rutabagas by inoculation in the leaf 
petioles and radish and flat turnip by inocu- 
lation in the fleshy root. 

Ten seed cabbages in full bloom and grow- 
ing in the open air were inoculated with a 
pure culture by making a puncture in the en- 
larged portion of the stem where the head was 
originally attached. The wounds were cov- 
ered with grafting wax. There were ten check 
plants. On the eighth day after inoculation 
three plants died from soft rot at the point 
of inoculation. None of the check plants 
were affected. Since May 28, when these 
plants were inoculated, there has been but a 
single shower upon them. This, coupled with 
the prevailing low temperature, may explain 
why more have not yet died. 

The organism was also tested on slices of 
uncooked carrot, turnip, potato, onion and 
parsnip. Within twenty-four hours there 
were large areas of soft rot around the points 
of inoculation on all of these vegetables. Up 
to this time the organism was supposed to be 
different from Bacillus carotovorus Jones be- 
cause it rots cabbage and cauliflower with 
avidity, whereas Jones states* specifically that 
B. carotovorus is without effect when inocu- 
lated on cauliflower; but the behavior of 0.2 
E on uncooked vegetables aroused the suspi- 
cion that it might, nevertheless, be related to 
B. carotovorus. Accordingly, an authentic 
culture of B. carotovorus was obtained from 
Professor Jones and inoculated into cauli- 
flower and cabbage plants. There followed a 
virulent soft rot strikingly like that caused 
by 0.2 E. The two organisms were then 
grown in parallel cultures on various culture 
media and found to behave in about the same 
way. Thus it appears highly probable that 


* Jones, L. R., ‘A Soft Rot of Carrot and Other 
Vegetables.’ Ann. Rep. Vermont Exp. Sta., 13: 
310, 1900; also, Centralbl. f. Bakt. Parasitenk. u. 
Infektionskr., II. Abt., 7: 15. 


SCIENCE. 


315 


the germ 0.2 E is closely related to, if not 
identical with, Bacillus carotovorus Jones. 

Besides 0.2 E there have been isolated sev- 
eral other similar organisms which produce 
soft rot when inoculated into cabbage and 
cauliflower plants. Two such germs were 
obtained from rutabagas affected with a de- 
structive soft rot in a garden at Phelps, N. Y., 
in 1901; one from stored cabbages on Long 
Island; several from seed cabbage plants dying 
with stem rot while in bloom; and two from 
Amorphophallus simlense, a member of the 
Aracee cultivated by florists. Since 1897 the 
writers have each year observed a destructive 
soft rot which attacks the petioles of A. sim- 
lense during June and July and causes the 
death of many leaves. The petioles of this 
plant are often two feet in length, an inch in 
diameter at the base and very juicy. The 
bacterial nature of this disease has been proy- 
ed by inoculation experiments made in 1897, 
1900 and 1901. Quite recently the Amor- 
phophallus germs have been compared with 
0.2 E and the other cabbage rot organisms and 
found to agree very closely with them. The 
Amorphophallus germs inoculated into cab- 
bage plants produce soft rot and 0.2 E, and 
the germs from rutabaga when inoculated into 
Amorphophallus produce a soft rot of that 
plant. 

Thus we have several bacterial forms which 
produce a violent soft rot of cabbage, cauli- 
flower and several other crucifers and at least 
four of them also attack Amorphophallus sim- 
lense. It is likely that the list of host plants, 
and, perhaps, also the number of organisms, 
will be enlarged by future studies. The rela- 
tionship of the various forms has not been 
fully worked out, but the present indications 
are that we have here to do with a group of 
organisms closely related to each other and to 
Bacillus carotovorus Jones, but presenting cer- 
tain minor differences which may cause them 
to rank as varieties of B. carotovorus or, pos- 
sibly, as separate species. 

When completed, a full account of this in- 
vestigation will be published in a bulletin of 
the New York Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

H. A. Harprne, 
F. C. Srewart. 


316 


NOTE ON THE MULTIPLE IMAGES FORMED BY 
TWO PLANE INCLINED MIRRORS. 


Havine noticed errors in the statement of 
the number of images in a couple of text- 
books, I have recently made a canvass of 
forty-one books on optics or general physics, 
and was surprised to find a general lack of in- 
formation on this subject. Fifteen of the 
books did not consider it at all, many of the 
others took up only special cases where the an- 
gle is 60° or 90°, and eight contained mis- 
statements as to the number of: images. It 


does not seem to be generally recognized that ~ 


the number of possible images depends upon 
the position of the object, and that the num- 
ber of these which are visible depends upon 
the position of the observer’s eye. As in only 
five of the forty-one books examined was the 
dependence of the number of images upon 
the position of the object correctly stated, I 
have thought it well to write out the following 
analysis. 


Fie. 1. 


Let ¢ be the angle between the mirrors, a 
the angular distance of the object Ie from 
one of them, P,, P,, ete., the images formed by 
first reflection in the latter, P’, P”, ete., the 
images formed by first reflection in the other 
mirror. Then, if n be a whole number, the an- 
gular distance from P, to any image may bs 
stated as follows: 


Pon 2Qno 

2Qno + Qa 

eae 2Qno 

P+1 Qno+2(6—a) 


Pon +1 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 399. 


If the p-th image fall behind both mirrors 
in set P,, 
7+ 6—a > 2nd >7—a 
in set Py, 44 
m+ a> 2nd+ 2a >7—b+ 4 
or 


m+$—a>(2n+1)¢>7—a 


These conditions are the same and may be 
written 
x+o—a>pp>r—a 

or 
T™T—a 

9 
where the equality sign is brought in so that 
p may represent the number of images in this 
set as well when the last one falls on the line 
of one of the mirrors. 

Similarly, if the r-th image fall behind both 
mirrors in set P?” 


z+a>np>7—$ +a 
in set P+? 
x +—a>2np +2(¢—a) >7—a 


™—a 2a 
RCS +1>p5 


or 

m+4+a>(2n4+1)¢>7—9 +a 
Hence 

Ti >rstef-1 


and the total number of images=k=p-r. 
If g divide evenly into z, p=r= z/g and 
the last images of the two sets coincide. Then 


k=ptr—1="—1, 


and k is independent of a. 

This much is correctly worked out in 
Violle, Heath and several smaller works on 
optics, but in no text on general physics in 
English that I have seen. 

If the eye be behind the plane of one mirror, 
only the images finally formed by the other 
are visible. If the eye be between the mirrors 
(angularly) all the images formed in front of 
either mirror are visible. An image behind 
both mirrors will be visible only to an eye 
between the mirrors whose position makes an 
angle less than z — 6 with the surface in which 
the last reflection takes place, where 6 is the 
angle between this surface and the position of 
the image considered. 


AUGUST 22, 1902.] 


A few examples may make the subject more 
clear. 

Tf ¢=72°, a=36°; then p=2, r—=2, k=4, 
and all the images are visible to an eye any- 
‘where between the two mirrors. 
10°; p=3, r=2, k=5, 
but only three of the five images will be visible 
to an eye placed within 25° of the mirror 
furthest from P,, 

Tf ¢=55°, a= 25°; p=3, r=3, k=6. 

Tf ¢=55°, c= 10°; p=4, r=3, k=7. 

If the eye be placed within the angle 7 only 
five of the seven images are visible. This is 
the case shown in the figure. 

It is interesting to observe the results ex- 
perimentally and see one of the images dis- 
appear or merge into another at critical angles. 
For 9 =55°, a critical case is given by 
Coal tiers 


If ¢=72°, a 


Morron GitrHens Luoyp. 
RanpAL MorGan LABORATORY OF PHYSICS, 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
THE PLANET BROS. 

Tue planet Eros, as we noted last week, was 
rediscovered on the morning of August 2 by 
Dr. Chas. J. Ling with the twenty inch re- 
fractor of the Chamberlin Observatory at Uni- 
versity Park, Colo. It was found pretty close 
to the place derived from an ephemeris com- 
puted by Miss Mary Clark Traylor. But it 
was estimated to be considerably brighter than 
had been expected. In view of the fact that 
the law of its variability is unknown the re- 
sults of photometric measures will be awaited 
with interest. As Eros is now low in the east 
when the morning twilight begins, and is ad- 
vancing in right ascension nearly as fast as 
the sun, it will not be an easy object for some 
months to come. The position on August 11 
at 15) 25m 198 Univ. Park M. T. was 


AR 55 36™ 35.038. 
Decl.+ 31° 56’ 17.7”. 


_THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY 
AND THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 

Avr a meeting of the corporation of the Ma- 

rine Biological Laboratory held at Woods 


SCIENCE. 


S17 


-Hole on August 12, it was voted to transfer 


the laboratory and its equipment to the Car- 
negie Institution. This action was taken after 
it had been stated to the members of the cor- 
poration that the executive committee of the 
Carnegie Institution would recommend to the 
trustees that the laboratory should be accepted, 
that its debts should be paid, that new build- 
ings should be erected, that $20,000 a year 
should be allowed for maintenance and that 
the scientific management should rest as here- 
tofore with the naturalists of the country. A 
motion that a three fourths vote of the mem- 
bers present be required for the transfer of 
the property of the corporation was defeated 
by a vote of 32 to 19. It was voted without 
dissent that an account of the action of the 
corporation be made public. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

Dr. N. L. Brivron sailed for England on 
August 16, where he will complete some in- 
vestigations upon American Carices and Cras- 
sulacece which will be issued as the first parts 
of the ‘Systematic Botany of North America’ 
to be published by the New York Botanical 
Garden. Dr. MacDougal will be acting direc- 
tor of the garden during his absence. 

Proressor J. EK. Wourr, of the U.S. Geolog- 
ical Survey, is continuing the investigation of 
the areal and structural geology in the crystal- 
line areas of New Jersey, in cooperation with 
the state geologist. 

Dr. Ropert Bewx, of the Geological Survey 
of Canada, has been engaged in the geological 
survey of Baftin Land, which he finds to have 
an area of about 300,000 square miles, making 
it the largest island with the exception of Aus- 
tralia, and Greenland. The results of Dr. 
Bell’s explorations are to be presented to the 
Royal Geographical Society. 

Mr. Borcucrevink, the Norwegian explorer, 
has taken out naturalization papers, so as to 
Americanize the Antarctic expedition he is 
planning under the auspices of the National 
Geographical Society. 

Mepicau exchanges state that the committee 
of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 
is making arrangements to enable Major Ron- 


318 


ald Ross to proceed to Ismailia next Septem- 
ber, to start an organized campaign against 
malaria, in consequence of an urgent request 
from the president of the Suez Canal Com- 
pany that the Liverpool School of Tropical 
Medicine assist in a concerted effort to cope 
with the prevalence of malaria. 


Trp Bisset Hawkins gold medal of the Royal 
College of Physicians of London, conferred 
triennually for advancing sanitary science, has 
been awarded to Dr. W. H. Power, F.R.S., 
principal medical officer to the local govern- 
ment board. 

Proressor A. W. Evans, of Yale University, 
and Mr. Perey Wilson, of the New York Bo- 
tanical Garden, have returned from a tour of 
exploration of the mountains of Porto Rico 
carried out under the auspices of the New 
York Botanical Garden. A large quantity of 
valuable material, including living and _pre- 
served specimens, was secured. 

Mr. Wituam ©. Mints, curator and libra- 
rian of the Ohio State Archeological Society, 
is at present directing field explorations near 
Chillicothe, Ohio. The party has completed 
the exploration of the noted Baum village site 
and is now exploring the Gairdner mound, 
which is situated near the Cedar Bank Works. 
Many skeletons are being found and they are 
close together. Bone implements and orna- 
ments are also numerous. 

Dr. Frepertck H. Barrser, assistant resi- 
dent physician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 
has been sent to Europe by that institution to 
study for one year the x-ray treatment of can- 
cer. 

LizuTenant Ricuarp Srrone, of the Army 
Medical Corps, is studying the cholera bacillus 
in the laboratories established by the Bureau 
of Insular Affairs in the Philippines. 


Dr. T. O. Jaccar, of Harvard University, 
who has recently returned from investigating 
the voleanic eruptions at Martinique and St. 
Vincent, has given a lecture on the subject at 
Harvard University. 

Dr. J. F. Newsom, professor of mining in 
Stanford University, goes to Europe in Sep- 
tember and will return to his university work 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 399. 


in January next. He expects to visit the prin- 
cipal mining districts and mining schools of 
Great Britain and the continent during his ab- 
sence. 


Dr. Freperick BeEpeELL, assistant professor 
of physics in Cornell University, returns early 
in September after a Sabbatical year in Eu- 
rope. 

Gerorce F. Srver, adjunct professor of elec- 
trical engineering at Columbia University, 
has been appointed a consulting electrical 
engineer in the New York City Department 
of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity. 


Proressor D. J. Cunnrncuam, F.R.S., will 
give before the Anthropological Institute of 
Great Britain and Ireland the third annual 
Huxley memorial lecture on October 21, his 
subject being ‘Right-Handedness and Left- 
Brainedness.’ 

Dr. Davip Ferrier, F.R.S., will deliver the 
Harveian oration before the College of Physi- 
cians, London, on October 18. The Bradshaw 
lecture will be delivered in November by Dr. 
C. J. Cullingworth. Dr. A. S. F. Griinbaum 
has been appointed Goulstonian lecturer and 
Dr. T. R. Glynn Lumleian lecturer for 1903, 
and Dr. J. R. Bradford the Croonian lecturer 
for 1904. 


THoseE interested in hydrotherapeutices are 
asked to contribute toward a monument to 
Priessnitz, the father of hydrotherapy, to be 
erected at Vienna. Contributions can be sent 
to Professor Chrobak. 


Cuartes W. M. Buack, assistant professor 
of mathematics in the University of Oregon, 
has died in La Grange, Oregon, of consump- 
tion. He was on his way to Colorado, where 
he hoped his health would be benefited. 


Tue death is also announced of Dr. Cesare 
Tarufi, professor of pathological anatomy at 
Bologna. 


Ir is announced that Professor Joseph See- 
gen proposes to offer a prize under the auspices 
of the mathematical and natural science class 
of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, in Vien- 
na, for th best answer to the following ques- 
tion, ‘Is any part of the nitrogen of the albu- 
minates which have undergone metabolism in 


AuGuUST 22, 1902.] 


the animal body eliminated either by the lungs 
or by the skin in the gaseous form?’ The 
value of the prize is 6,000 kronen, about $1,000. 
The essays may be written in German, French 
or English, and must be sent in before Febru- 
ary 1, 1904. 

Mepicat journals state that a prize of 500 
lire is offered by the Societa Medico-Chirur- 
gica of Bologna for the best work received be- 
fore 1903 on the subject of ‘Serum Diagnosis 
of Tuberculosis.’ All competing communica- 
tions must be addressed to the secretary of the 
society, and be written in Latin, French or 
Italian. 

Tue daily papers report that patents on 
eleven different parts of wireless telegraphic 
apparatus were granted on August 12 by the 
Patent Office to Professor Reginald A. Fessen- 
den of the Weather Bureau. 

“Deeps were filed on July 26, at Saranac 
Lake, transferring 514 acres of land at Ray 
Brook to the State Hospital Commission. 
This is for the state sanatorium for the treat- 
ment of incipient tuberculosis. 

Tue Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation states that the New South Wales 
branch of the British Medical Association gave 
a conyersazione at the University of Sydney, 
June 24, including among the guests govern- 
ment officials and members of parliament, for- 
eign consuls and ministers. An exhibit in- 
cluded pathologic models and specimens, old 
books, electric devices with demonstrations, 
chemical and biologic apparatus. 

Tue first international conference to discuss 
uniform standards for the stronger drugs of 
the Pharmacopeia will meet at Brussels on 
September 15. 

A LETTER received on August 14 by the sec- 
retary of the Peary Arctic Club from Captain 
Samuel W. Bartlett of the steamer Windward, 
dated Domino Run, Labrador, July 26, says: 
“Everything works smoothly, and am in hopes 
of reaching Etah Aug. 5, and that we shall 
have no difficulty in crossing Smith Sound and 
finding Peary. Hope to see you in New York 
Sept. 20 with the best of news.” 

Tue University of Illinois Biological Sta- 
tion at Winona Lake is closing after a very 


SCIENCE. 


319 
successful season. The total enrollment 
is 79, as compared with 58 last sum- 
mer. 


Tue topographic survey of North Carolina 
is being actively pushed during the present 
season by the United States Geological Sur- 
vey in cooperation with the state, the state 
board of agriculture providing half the funds 
for this work and the federal organization the 
remainder. The work is under the charge of 
Topographer Albert Pike, who has several par- 
ties now in the field. 


We learn from Symons’ Meteorological 
Magazine that Mr. W. H. Dines has been 
carrying on experiments with his rhomboidal 
kites at Crinan, in the west of Scotland, during 
the month of June, and has, it seems, suc- 
ceeded in obtaining satisfactory meteorological 
records from heights up to 4,800 feet or more. 
Mr. John Anderson has been making similar ex- 
periments with a bamboo box-kite at Millport. 


Tue Civil Service Commission announces 
that on September 9 an examination will be 
held for the positions of pathologist and bac- 
teriologist in the government laboratories at 
Manila, P. I. The salaries of these positions 
are $1,800 and $1,500 respectively. On Oc- 
tober 21, 22 and 23 an examination will be 
held for the positions of civil and electrical 
engineers in the Philippine service, the sal- 
aries being $1,400 and $1,600. Appointees will 
be required to pay their traveling expenses to 
San Francisco, but the government furnishes 
them transportation free of charge on its trans- 
ports from that point to Manila, but exacts a 
charge of $1.50 a day for meals while en route, 
which is returned to the appointee upon his 
arrival at Manila. Employees who are resi- 
dents of the United States at the time of their 
appointment shall, after six months’ satisfac- 
tory service, be reimbursed for their traveling 
expenses from the place of their residence to 
the point of embarkation for Manila. Thirty 
days’ leave of absence is granted each year, ex- 
elusive of Sundays and holidays, and those 
employees who are promoted to $1,800 per an- 
num are entitled to thirty-five days, or about 
forty days, including Sundays and holidays. 
Leave is also cumulative, and at the end of 


320 


three years those who have to their credit 
cumulative leave for two years may visit the 
United States without having the time in 
going to and returning from San Francisco 
charged against their leave. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Rurcers Couiece receives $10,000 by the 
will of the late William Clark. 

Mr. Groras F. McCunuocn, president of the 
Union Traction Company of Indiana, has giv- 
en $10,000 to the National Technical Institute 
to be located on the arsenal grounds at Indian- 
apolis. 

Tne corner stone of the new women’s build- 
ing of the University of Texas was laid by 
Mrs. Sayers, wife of Governor Sayers, on Mon- 
day, August 11, in the presence of represen- 
tatives of the board of regents, the faculty 
and other prominent citizens. The building 
is of Austin cream-colored pressed brick with 
white limestone trimmings. ‘The portion now 
in the process of erection, about one half, will 
cost $75,000. 

Mr. J. K. Cairo, of Dundee, has offered to 
the council of Dundee University College 
£13,000 to provide and equip a new physical 
laboratory. ; 

Tue University of North Wales has received 
£2,500 for scientific and technical scholarships 
to perpetuate the memory of the late Sir G. 
Osborne Morgan. 

Ir is reported from London that the execu- 
tors of the will of the late Cecil Rhodes expect 
that the first scholarships under the terms of 
the will will be awarded in 1904. 

Tue Czar has ordered the liberation of all 
the students who were imprisoned at Smolensk 
in connection with the student disturbances 
in Moscow last February. 

Arrer consultation with Mr. Astor, and in 
accordance with his wish, the council of Uni- 
versity College, London, has resolved to endow 
the chair of pure mathematics and to name it 
the ‘Astor chair.’ 

Tue fifth annual session of the University 
of Texas summer school opened on July 12, 
the day following commencement, and closed 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 399. 


on July 26. There were courses offered in 
mathematics, physics, physiography, chemistry, 
botany, education, history and the languages. 
The attendance reached 262, the largest of any 
summer session to date. The management of 
the school was in the hands of an executive 
committee consisting of President Prather, 
Dean Sutton and Professors Garrison, Sim- 
onds and Battle. 

THe south wing of the main building at 
Towa State College of Agriculture and Me- 
chanie Arts at Ames was burned on August 
14. The wing was to have been torn down to 
make room for a new building. The valuable 
botanical collection and equipment were saved. 

Presipent Ernest R. Nicuo ts, of the Kansas 
State Agricultural College, has been elected 
president of the Rhode Island College of Agri- 
cultural and Mechanie Arts at Kingston. 

Dr. T. N. Lewis, of Western Maryland Col- 
lege, has been elected president of Adrian Col- 
lege, at Adrian, Mich. 

E. W. Rerrcer, Ph.D. (Clark), and G. O. 
James, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins), have been. ap- 
pointed instructors in the department of 
mathematics and astronomy of Lehigh Univer- 
sity. 

Mr. Joun Apams, rector of the United Free 
Church Training College, Glasgow, and lec- 
turer on education in Glasgow University, has 
been appointed professor of education in the 
University of London. The senate of the Uni- 
yersity has also appointed Dr. Samuel Smiles 
assistant teacher in organic chemistry at Uni- 
versity College and Dr. F. G. Donnon, assist- 
ant teacher in general chemistry. The staff 
of the reorganized department of chemistry 
of the college, London, will be as follows: 


General and inorganic chemistry; profess- 
or Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S.; 
assistant professors, Dr. F. G. Donnan, 


Dr. Morris Travers and Mr. E..C. GC. 
Baly; organie chemistry; professor, Dr. J. 
Norman Collie, F.R.S.; assistant professor, 
Dr. 8. Smiles. 

Dr. Cart GussenBAvER, professor of sur- 
gery, has been appointed rector, and Dr. Ernest 
Ludwig, professor of chemistry, dean of the 
University of Vienna. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 


EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE : 8S. NEwcoMB, Mathematics; R. S. WoopwaRpD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THuRsTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooxs, C. Hart MrgriAm, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppgER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BrssEY, N. L. Brirron, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. BILLInas, Hygiene ; WiLLIAM H. Wetcu, Pathol- 
ogy ; J. McKErEN CaTrELL, Psychology ; J. W. PowELL, Anthropology. 


Fray, Aueust 29, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science :— 


The Training and Work of a Geologist: 


Proressor C, R. VAN HISE............ 321 
Section D, Mechanical Science and Engi- 
neering: PROFESSOR C. A. WALDO...... 334 
Section F, Zoology: Dr. CH. WARDELL 
STIEESM ren yaistcyapohecistctehsisvete tereiahessieleveneispele 344 
Scientific Books :— 
Comstock and Kellogg’s Elements of Insect 
Anatomy: PRoFESSOR W. M. WHEELER. 
Hellmann’s Neudrucke von Schriften und 
Karten wiber Meteorologie und Erdmag- 
netismus herausgegeben: A. LAWRENCE 
INCASE? so dodo acon oonanouoMN ODN eOOMOsOn 351 
Scientific Journals and Articles............. 353 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
Scientific Nomenclature: Dr. R. H. Har- 
PER way sgetet srelareeyfeseiere ya ce sseceleis) cunterscocsevers ays Mois 354 
Shorter Articles :— 
Man in Kansas during the Iowan Stage of 
the Glacial Period: Dr. WARREN UPHAM... 355 
Notes on Inorganic Chemistry: J. L. H..... 356 
Scientific Notes and News.................. 357 
University and Educational News.......... 360 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THH TRAINING AND WORK OF A 
GEOLOGIST.* 

GEOLOGY is a dynamic science, subject to 
the laws of energy. Geology treats of a 
world alive, instead of, as commonly sup- 
posed, a world finished and dead. The 
atmosphere, or sphere of air, is ever un- 
quiet; the hydrosphere, or sphere of water, 
is less active, but still very mobile; the 
lithosphere, or sphere of rock, has every- 
where continuous although slow motions. 
The motions of the atmosphere, the 
hydrosphere, and the lithosphere alike 
include body motions by which the posi- 
tions of large masses of material are 
changed, and interior motions, through 
which the mineral particles are constantly 
rearranged with reference one to another, 
and indeed are constantly remade. Fur- 
thermore, the molecules and even the atoms 
which compose the atmosphere, hydrosphere 
and lithosphere have motions of marvelous 
intricacy and speed. These motions of the 
atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the litho- 
sphere, are all superimposed upon the as- 
tronomical motions—the wobbling revolu- | 
tion of the earth about its axis, the revo- 
lution of the earth-moon couple about 
their common center of gravity, the move- 
ment of this couple about the sun at 
the rate of 68,000 miles per hour, the 


* Vice Presidential address, Section E, Geology 
and Geography, American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science, Pittsburgh Meeting, 1902. 


322 


movement of the solar system among other 
systems. If it were possible for one to fix 
in space coordinates by which to measure 
these various motions, the movement of an 
air particle, of a water drop, of a mineral 
grain, would be seen to be extraordinarily 
complex. 

It is clear that there’ is every reason to 
believe that no atom or molecule in the 
world ever occupies the same absolute posi- 
tion in space at any two successive 
moments. Indeed, it must have been an ex- 
traordinary accident, if it ever has oc- 
curred, that a single particle has occu- 
pied in all the history. of the universe 
exactly the same position that it has oe- 
-cupied at any previous time. No such 
thing as rest for any particle of matter 
anywhere in the earth or in the universe is 
known; but, upon the contrary, everywhere 
all particles are moving in various ways 
with amazing speed. 

No science is independent of other, sci- 
ences, but geology is peculiar in that it is 
based upon so many other sciences. As- 
tronomy is built upon mathematics and 
physies. Chemistry and physics to a con- 
siderable degree are built upon each other. 
Physies also requires mathematics. Biolo- 
ey demands a limited knowledge of physics 
and chemistry. However, it cannot be said 
that a knowledge of the basal principles 
‘of more than one, or at the most two, other 
sciences is an absolute prerequisite for a 
successful pursuit of astronomy, chemis- 
try, physics or biology. This is not true of 
geology. In order to go far in general 
-eeology one must have a fair knowledge 
-of physics, chemistry, mineralogy and biolo- 
‘ey. These may be called the basal sciences 
of geology. In certain lines of geology 
the additional sciences, mathematics, as- 
tronomy and metallurgy, are'very desirable. 

Geology treats of the world. In order to 
have more than a ‘superficial knowledge of 
eeology, it is necessary to know about 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. XVI. No. 400. 
the elements which compose the world; 
how force acts upon these elements; what 
aggregates are formed by the dlomant and 
forces, and how life has modified the 
construction of the world. Chemistry 
teaches of matter; how it is made up, 
both in life and in death. Without 
an understanding of its principles we 
cannot have an insight into the consti- 
tution of the earth or of any part of it. 
Physics teaches of the manner in which 
the many forms of that strange something 
we call force acts upon matter. Without 
a knowledge of its principles we can never 
understand the transformation through 
which the world has gone. The elements 
which compose the earth under the laws of 
physies and chemistry aggregate into those 
almost lifelike bodies which we call miner- 
als. The minerals are Ls in vari- 

“ways. in 1 Without a knowl- 
edge of mineralogy no one can have even a 
superficial understanding of the’ constitu- 
tion of rock masses. Biology teaches of the 
substances alive which clothe the outer, part 
of the earth. Life is one of the most funda- 
mental of the factors controlling the geo- 
logical transformations in the surficial belt 
of weathering; it has acted as the greatest 
precipitating agent in the sea. Life, has 
had therefore, a profound and far-reaching 


effect in detérmining the nature on the 


sedimentary formations. 

The sciences of chemistry, physics and 
biology have been built up by using minute 
parts of the materials of the earth. If 
geology, or a science of the earth, is to be 
constructed, it must apply to the earth as a 
whole the principles which have so en- 
lightened us as to the nature and relations 


‘of the fractions of the earth which we 


observe and handle in our laboratories of 
physies and chemistry and biology 

It thus appears that geology is a com- 
posite science; and it might in a certain 
sense be called an applied science. ‘Indeed 


AuGUST 29, 1902.] _ 


I have often defined geology as the applica- 
tion of the principles of astronomy and 
physics arid chemistry and mineralogy 
and biology to the earth. 

~ Certainly the earth is the single enormous 
complex aggregate of matter directly with- 
in the reach of man. This highly compos- 
ite earth is the joint result of the work of 
astronomical, physical, chemical and_bio- 
logical forces ; working on an incomparably 
vaster scale than can ever, be imitated in our 
laboratories. A study of these mighty 
results has already. advanced at many 
points astronomy, physics, chemistry and 
biology, and future studies made with 
direct reference to the causes which have 
produced the earth are sure to lead to even 
greater. advances in these studies. 

If geology is to become a genetic science, 
or, more simply, is to become a Science under 
the laws of energy, geology in large meas- 
ure must become a quantitative science. 
In the past it has been too frequently true 
that because a single foree or agent work- 
ing in a certain direction is a real cause 
of a phenomenon, the conclusion is drawn 
that it is a sufficient cause. Only oceasion- 
ally has the question been asked, ‘Is this 
cause only a real cause, but is it an adequate 
cause?’ Very-often differences of opinion 
have arisen between geologists, one holding 
that this cause is the one which explains 
the phenomenon; another holding that 
that is the explanation, and each insisting 
that the other is wrong. In such cases very 
rarely is the question asked whether the 
explanations offered are contradictory or 
complementary. In many cases the expla- 
nation is not to be found in one cause, but 
in several or, many, and thus frequently the 
conclusions which have been interpreted to 
be contradictory are really supplementary. 
To illustrate: But few writers have as- 
signed more than a single cause for crustal 
shortening. One has held that secular cool- 
ing is the cause; another has given a dif- 


SCIENCE. 


323 


ferent one, and has held that secular cooling 
is of little consequence. But it is certain 
that secular cooling, vuleanism, change of 
oblateness of the earth, change of pressure 
within the earth, changes of form of the 
material of the earth, and various other 
causes, are not exclusive of one another, 
but are all supplementary. The ability to 
perceive the supplementary nature of vari- 
ous explanations offered for a phenomenon 
is one of the most marked, perhaps the 
most marked, characteristics of the superior 
man. The new geology must not only 
ascertain all of the real causes for crustal 
shortening, and other phenomena, but in 
order satisfactorily to solve the problems 
it must determine the quantitative impor- 
tance of each. Geology within the next few 
years is certain to largely pass to a quan- 
titative basis. 

If I have correctly stated the relations 
of geology to the other sciences, it follows 
as a corollary that those only can greatly 
advance the principles of geology who have 
a working knowledge of two or more of 
the sciences upon which it is based. 

By a working knowledge of a science I 
mean such a knowledge of its principles as 
makes them living truths. One must not 
only be able to comprehend the principles, 
but he must see them in relation to one 
another; must be able to apply them. It 
is not sufficient for a carpenter to be able 
to explain how the hammer, and saw and 
plane and chisel work; he must be able 
to use them. He must be able to hit the 
nail on the head; to cut straight; to 
plane smooth; to chisel true; and do all 
upon the same piece of timber so as to 
adapt it to a definite purpose in a building. 
Just so the geologist must be able to apply 
as tools the various principles of physies 
and chemistry and biology and mineralogy 
to the piece of geology upon which he is 
engaged; and thus shape his piece to its 
place in the great structure of geological 


324 


science. This is what is meant by a work- 
ing knowledge of the sciences basal to 
geology. 

It is not supposed that any one man 
has a comprehensive knowledge of all the 
basal sciences, or even a working knowledge 
of their principles; but such knowledge he 
must have of two or more of them if he 
hopes to advance the principles of geology. 
He will be able to handle those branches 
of his subject with which he deals in pro- 
portion as he has a working knowledge of 
the basal sciences upon which his special 
branch is based, and will probably correlate 
this branch with the other branches of the 
great subject of geology in proportion as 
his working knowledge of the basal sciences 
is extensive. 

For instance, to advance geological pa- 
leontology one must have a working 
knowledge of the principles of biology and 
of stratigraphy. To advance any of the 
lines of physical geology, one must have a 
working knowledge of the principles of 
physics, and especially of elementary 
mechanics... To advance physiography one 
must have a working knowledge of physics 
and chemistry. To advance knowledge of 
the early history of the earth, one must 
have not only a working knowledge of 
physics and chemistry, but of astronomy. 
To advance petrology, one must have a 
working knowledge of physics, chemistry 
and mineralogy. To advance the theory of 
ore deposition or metamorphism, one must 
know not only the principles of physical 
geology, with all that implies, but he must 
have a working knowledge of chemistry, 
physies, mineralogy and petrology. It is 
unnecessary to add that a geologist must be 
able to read some of the modern languages, 
and be able to express himself clearly and 
logically in one language. 

Considering the breadth and thorough- 
ness of the necessary preliminary training 
for the successful pursuit of geology, one 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 400. 


might anticipate that geology would suffer 
but little from pseudo-scientists. But this 
anticipation is based upon the idea that no 
one attempts geological work, and especial- 
ly to write geological papers, until he is 
prepared to do so. All sciences have their 
eranks. Many a little town has its philoso- 
pher who believes that all of the principles 
of astronomy, of physics, of chemistry, 
which have been discovered by the great 
men of the past are absolutely erroneous, 
and who makes a new start upon the con- 
struction of the world, building out of his 
brain strange vagaries which have no rela- 
tion to the facts of the universe. While 
there are temptations to pseudo-scientific 
work in all sciences, the temptation is no- 
where so great as in geology. The planets, 
sun and stars are far off; the elements are 
elusive; to do anything with force one must 
have at least seen the inside of a physical 
laboratory ; the manner of the transforma- 
tions of living forms is not obvious, or 
even apparently so, and therefore few write 
about the constitution of plants and 
animals who have not closely studied them. 
But one is born upon the earth; he lives 
upon the earth; he sees the surrounding 
hills and valleys. The dullest sees some- 
thing of the transformations going on. 
Many naturally become interested in the 
phenomena of the earth, and without 
preparation think that they are able to make 
important contributions to the subject of 
geology. Thus not only in every city, but 
in many villages, is a geologist of local 
repute who has ready explanations for the 
order of the world. 

Geology starts as an easy observational 
study, and gradually becomes more and 
more complex until it taxes the master 
mind to the utmost. This easy start leads 
to the multitude of. local geologists, but 
geology suffers comparatively little from 
them. The real injury which the science 
receives is from some of those who call 


Avua@usr 29, 1902. ]j 


themselves professional geologists, are 
teachers of geology in academies and col- 
leges, or are even members of the staff 
of state or government surveys. These men 
have gone further than the local geologist ; 
but perhaps they have been led into the 
subject for somewhat the same reason, by 
its easy start as an observational science. 
A man may begin his career as a geologist 
by making a few observations here and 
there and giving a guess as to their mean- 
ing. With this beginning he becomes more 
and more interested, until finally he decides 
to make geology his profession. 

In some eases following this decision the 
necessity is seen for obtaining a working 
knowledge of the basal sciences. But too 
often men who have entered upon geo- 
legical work have received no adequate 
training in chemistry, in physics, in 
biology; and therefore at the outset wholly 
lack the tools to successfully interpret the 
phenomena which they observe. But such 
inadequately trained men feel that a satis- 
factory explanation of any phenomenon 
must involve a statement of the underlying 
chemical or physical or biological princi- 
ples. In such eases it is safe to say that the 
explanations given are extremely partial, in- 
eluding only a modicum of truth, and more 
often than not are absolutely fallacious. 
Indeed, no other result can be expected 
from one who lacks a’ working knowledge 
of the principles of physics, chemistry and 
biology. Occasionally there is a _ clear- 
sighted, capable man, lacking in adequate 
training, who does important geological 
work simply because he knows his lmita- 
tions, and there stops. But this is very 
exceptional indeed; and the physical ex- 
planations offered by many for various 
geological phenomena are no less than 
grotesque. 

It has been made plain that a working 
knowledge of the sciences basal to geology 
is necessary in order to advance its prin- 


SCIENCE. 


ciples. But I go even further, and hold 
that such basal knowledge is absolutely 
necessary in order to do even the best de- 
scriptive work. Suppose a man to be stand- 
ine before some complex geological phe- 
nomenon. The whole intricate interlocking 
story is engraved upon the retina of his eye 
with more than photographic accuracy. The 
image on the retina is absolutely the same 
in the eye of this experienced geologist and 
that of a child. Yet if the child be asked 
to state what he sees, his statements will 
be of the most general kind and may be 
largely erroneous. The experienced geol- 
ogist with a knowledge of the principles 
of physics and chemistry and biology in- 
terprets the phenomena imaged in terms of 
these subjects. The engraving on his retina 


‘is the same as that of the child, but his 


brain perecives the special parts of the 
picture of interest to him in their true pro- 
portions. He understands what is im- 
portant, what is unimportant; he. must 
select and record the things which are im- 
portant. If he attempted to record all that 
is imaged in his eye, a notebook would be 
filled with the phenomena to be described 
at a single exposure; and yet half the story 
would not be told. Good descriptive work 
is discriminative. Good descriptive work 
picks out certain of the facts as of great 
value; others of subordinate value; and 
others of no value for the purposes under 
consideration. How then can this discrim- 
ination be made? How ean the facts be 
selected which are of service? Only by 
an insight into the causes which may have 
produced the phenomena. Without this 
insight to some extent at least a description 
is absolutely valueless. So far as the geolo- 
gist has such insight, his description is 
valuable. 

It is frequently urged in opposition to 
the above that, ‘If a person has theories in 
reference to the phenomena which he 
observes his descriptions will be erroneous; 


326 


he will be biased by his theories.’ Unfortu- 
nately in many eases this is so; but just 
so far as it is true, the man fails of the 
qualities which make a suecessful geolo- 
gist. One’s theories undoubtedly control 
in large measure the selection of the phe- 
nomena which are to be noted, and the wis- 
dom of the selection is a certain criterion 
But what- 
ever the facts selected for record, the state- 
ment of them should be absolutely un- 
‘biased by the theories. Invariably, good 
practice requires that the statement of facts 
and the explanation of these facts shall be 
sharply separated. Doubtless each geologist 
who is listening has at different times had 
different ideas about the same locality, or 
while away from a locality a new idea has 


of the grade of the geologist. 


come as to the meaning of the phenomena: 


there observed. Upon returning to the old 
loeality with the new idea, additional ob- 
servations of value have been made, but 
all the statements of facts at the previous 
visits should be found to be absolutely true. 
In so far as they are untrue, the geologist 
fails of accuracy, the first fundamental of 
observation. If the previous observations 
are found to be largely erroneous, the man 
who made them has small chance to become 
a good geologist. The difference between 
bad observation and good observation is 
that the former is erroneous; the latter is 
incomplete. Unfortunately in many cases 
not only are the observations recorded by 
many men absolutely false, but they are so 
intertwined with the theories of the author 
that one is unable to discriminate between 
what is intended to be fact and what is ad- 
vaneed as opinion. It is needless to say 
that the case of such a man is hopeless; that 
there is no possibility that he shall ever 
become a geologist. I conclude, therefore, 
that in order to have a standing in the 
future, even as a descriptive geologist, one 
must interpret the phenomena which he 
observes in the terms of the principles of 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 400. 


astronomy, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, 
and biology. 

If my statement thus far be true, the out- 
line of the training of a man hoping to be- 
come a professional geologist is clear. Such 
a man should be sent to thorough and 
long courses in each of the subjects of as- 
tronomy, physics, chemistry, mineralogy 
and biology. This means that a large part 
of the training of a geologist is the study of 
the sciences upon which geology is founded. 
If a man who hopes to be a geologist is 
wholly lacking in a knowledge of any of the 
basal sciences, this defect he can probably 
never make good. Even if he so desires, 
the time eannot be found. Moreover, chem- 
istry, physics, mineralogy and biology are 
laboratory sciences and ean be satisfactorily 
handled only in the laboratory. If the fun- 
damental work in the basal subjects has 
been done in the college or university, one 
may keep abreast of their progress during 
later years; but in order to do this, the ba- 
sal principles must have become living 
truths to him while a student. If a per- 
sonal illustration be allowable, during the 
past five years, in order to handle the prob- 
lems of geology before me, I have spent 
more time in trying to remedy my defective 
knowledge of physies and chemistry and in 
comprehending advances in these sciences 
since I was a college student than I have 
spent upon current papers in geology; and 
with, I believe, much more profit to my 
work. If one has a working knowledge of 
the basal sciences and lacks training in 
some branch of geology, this defect he may 
remedy; for he has the foundation upon 
which to build. But if he lacks knowledge 
of the primary principles of the basal 
sciences he is likely to be a cripple for life, 
although this is not invariably the case. 
There are conspicuous instances where lack 
of early training in the basal sciences has 
been largely remedied by unusual ability 
and industry, but this has been most diffi- 


Avausr 29, 1902.] 


cult. We should see to it that the young 
men trained in our colleges and universi- 
ties, upon whom we place the degree of 
Doctor in Geology, are not crippled by the 
necessity of making good in later life defect- 
ive basal training. Any university which 
gives a man the degree of Doctor in Geol- 
ogy with a defective knowledge of the basal 
sciences 18 wronging the man upon whom 
the degree is conferred; for this man has 
a right to expect that his courses shall have 
been so shaped as to have given him the 
tools to handle the problems which will 
arise in his chosen profession. 

It is not necessary that all of the basal 
work shall be done before a man begins 
his life work, but at least a large part of 
this work should have been done before a 
man is given the certificate that he can do 
the work of a professional geologist. But 
in any case studies in the basal sciences 
should not cease when the professional de- 
gree is granted. Continued studies not 
only in the basal subjects but in cognate 
branches and even those far removed from 
science should continue through life. The 
geologist finds that however broad and deep 
his studies are in basal and cognate sub- 
jects, he is continually limited by lack 
of adequate knowledge of them. 

In recent years it has been a mooted ques- 
tion in colleges and universities as to when 
specialization should begin, rather imply- 
ing that when specialization begins broad- 
ening studies should cease. And, indeed, 
it is upon this hypothesis that most of the 
discussion upon this subject has been car- 
ried on. Some have held that specializa- 
tion should not begin until late in the col- 
lege course, or even rather late in a post- 
eraduate course. Others have held that 
one should early direct his studies to special 
subjects which he expects to pursue, and 
give comparatiyely little time to other sub- 
jects. The argument for this latter course 
is that competition is now keen; and if a 


SCIENCE. 327 


man keeps in the race he must begin to 
specialize early. It appears to me that 
both of these answers are inadequate. My 
answer to the question is that specialization ; 
should begin early, but that broadening 
studies should not be discontinued. This 
rule should obtain not only through the 
undergraduate course, but in the post- 
graduate work and during profession- 
al life. The specialized work will be bet- 
ter done because of the broad grasp 
given by the other subjects. The broaden- 
ing studies will be better interpreted be- 
cause of the deep insight and knowledge of 
a certain narrow field. Thus each will 
help the other. No man may hope for the 
highest suecess who does not continue 
special studies and broadening studies to 
the end of his career. 

But is it held that a geologist lacking an 
adequate working knowledge of basal stud- 
ies cannot perform useful service? No, the 
domain of geology is so great, the portion 
of earth not geologically mapped and the 
structure worked out is so vast, the ore and 
other valuable deposits which have received 
no study are so numerous, that there is an 
immense field for the application of well- 
established principles. In geology, as in 
engineering and other applied sciences, 
there is an opportunity for many honest, 
faithful men to perform useful service to 
the world even if their early training and 
capacity are not all that could be desired. 
But even the application of old principles 
to new areas will be well done in proportion 
as the geologist has training in the basal 
sciences; and to the man who combines 
with such training talent must necessarily 
be left the advancement of the philosophy 
of geology. The philosophy of geology, the 
inner meaning of phenomena, was the par- 
amount consideration to Hutton and Lyell 
and Darwin. To them facts were useful 
mainly that they might see common factors, 
the great principles which underlie them, 


328 


or, in other words, generalization. To cor- 
rectly generalize in geology involves the 
capacity to hold a vast number of facts in 
the mind at the same time; to see them in 
their length and breadth and thickness; to 
see them at the same time as large masses 
and as composed of parts, even to the con- 
stituent mineral particles and the elements ; 
to see the principles of physics and chemis- 
try and mineralogy and biology interlacing 
through them. Only by holding a multi- 
tude of facts and principles in one’s mind at 
the same time can they be reduced to order 
under general laws. 

Failure thus to hold in one’s mind a 
large number of facts and principles leads 
to lack of consistency. Often in a single 
book or a single chapter, on the same 
page, or even in the same paragraph or sen- 
tence, are contained ideas which are exelu- 
sive of one another. They are not seen by 
the writer to be exclusive of one another 
because he is so lacking in a command of 
the principles of the basal sciences that he 
is not aware of the antagonism. Major 
Powell once said to me, ‘The stage of the de- 
velopment of the human mind is measured 
by its capacity to eliminate the incongru- 
ous.’ If this hard eriterion were rigidly 
applied, it would follow that many of our 
professions have not passed the youthful 
stage. The man who can insert in the 
same treatise, chapter or page incongruous 
ideas saves an immense amount of cerebral 
tissue for himself. Such a man can write on 
through chapters and books, and not find it 
necessary to go back, adjust and interrelate 
the various parts. There is no action and re- 
action between the multitude of ideas. The 
writer has the easy task of holding in his 
mind at any one time but a few data. He 
is in delightful and happy unconsciousness 
of the fact that many of his statements de- 
stroy one another. But the man who sees the 
phenomena and principles of geology in all 
their complex relations, and tries to express 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 400. 


the parts of them he is considering in pro- 
portion to one another, and to place his 
fragment of the science of geology in proper 
relations to other departments of geology 
and other natural sciences, has a task be- 
fore him requiring great mental effort. 
He must see and understand in three di- 
mensions. At every point he must see 
the lines of cause and effect radiate and 
converge upon the phenomena he is consid- 
ering from many other phenomena and 
principles. Of course all fail to do this 
completely in reference to any com- 
plex problem. But in so far as success 
would be attained, the effort must be made. 
In proportion as one can hold many facts 
and principles and see their interrelations, 
he will be able to advance the philosophy 
of geology. This is the work which burns 
the brain. 

And his results he must express in lan- 
guage, the chief means of communicating 
ideas and relations. Yet language is linear. 
By figures, models, maps and illustrations, 
wisely used, one may to an important de- 
gree supply the defects of linear language. 
Yet language and illustration, even where 
used to the best advantage, but poorly con- 
vey one’s ideas. Most conscientious writers 
require as much or more time to put a com- 
plex subject into words and illustrations 
ready for publication as they do in working 
out the results. 

But upon the other side, and in favor. of 
expression in language, it should be re- 
membered that there is action and reaction 
between one’s ideas and the attempt to ex- 
press them in words and illustrations. The 
necessity for expression in language is often 
a wonderful clarifier of ideas. The ideas 
are improved by the attempt at expression, 
and the expression is continually improved 
as the ideas are enlarged. 

That the difficulty as to expression does 
not apply to geology alone is well illustrated 
by the vast amount of labor Charles Darwin 


Auaust 29, 1902.] 


spent in putting into the linear form of lan- 
guage the most revolutionary work of the 
time, ‘The Origin of Species.’ It seemed 
as if the intricately interrelated facts of 
life were of so complex a nature that lan- 
guage could not handle the problem. But 
the genius of Darwin was such that he not 
only conceived the idea of natural selection 
and proved its truth to his own mind, but he 
so marshaled his facts and principles in 
linear form in one volume that men were 
forced to believe. Many of the ideas con- 
tained in single sentences or paragraphs of 
the ‘Origin of Species’ have been expanded 
into papers, volumes or treatises by others; 
and thus made easier to comprehend. The 
‘Origin of Species’ has often. been said to 
be a difficult book to read. So it is, be- 
cause its ideas are more complex than 
language can easily convey. Darwin un- 
questionably saw deeper than he was able to 
express; and it was the struggle to state 
what he knew which made the writing of 
the ‘Origin’ such an onerous task. But 
geology as a whole is only less complex than 
life; and many of us in the smaller matters 
with which we are attempting to deal have 
felt the impossibility of conveying more 
than imperfectly the ideas and relations 
which are in our minds. 

In thinking of the marvelous complexity 
of the phenomena of geology, and seeking 
for an analogy which might in some meas- 
ure express this complexity, it seemed to 
me that the inhabitants of the globe and 
their intricate relations furnish an approx- 
imate illustration. From each individual 
or family or hamlet or city or metropolis, 
there go out on foot, by wheel, by wagon, by 
railway, by vessel, various products, some 
of them to the remoter parts of the earth. 
From each center, by letter, telegram, tele- 
phone, communications diverge; if the cen- 
ter be a large one, by thousands of lines. To 
each center, materials and thoughts in a like 


manner converge. In a similar way one 


SCIENCE. 


329 


class of geological phenomena is related to 
They are related 
as to their material parts, as to the forces 
and agents acting, and as to principle con- 
cerned in their production. For instance, 
an economic geologist will appreciate that 
the development of an ore deposit de- 
pends upon the nature of adjacent rocks, 
upon earth movements, upon the resul- 
tant deformation, upon fractures, upon 
vuleanism, upon erosion by water and 
ice and wind, upon the circulation of 
underground water. One who hopes to 
gain even an approximately adequate idea 
of the genesis of an ore deposit, and an in- 
sight as to what is probably beyond the 
point where the deposit is ‘shown up,’ must 
be able to handle the intricate principles of 
geology. In so far as a geological or min- 
ing engineer is a master of these, he rises 
in his profession; in so far as his knowledge 
of facts and principles is meager, an ore de- 
posit seems a lawless thing which can be 
only dealt with on the relatively simple 
principle of the doctrine of chances. If an 
ore body happens to be found at any place, 
follow it. If for some unknown reason it 
is lost or depreciates in value, prod the 
ground in all directions, up and down, to the 
right and left, in the blind hope that chance 
may find more ore. In many cases nine 
tenths of this expensive chance work is done 
in a manner that a fair knowledge of the 
oeeurrenees, relations and principles of ore 
deposits would have shown in advance to be 
wasted. 

If the statement thus far be founded on 
truth, the training of a geologist is a valu- 
able one from an intellectual point of view. 
It is the fashion for professors in all de- 
partments of learning each to hold that a 
knowledge of his subject is necessary for a 
liberal edueation. I have heard each of 
half a dozen professors, including the elas- 
sies, history, economies, English, in a sin- 
ele evening each prove to his own satisfae- 


nearly all other classes. 


330 


tion that a man could not be a good eiti- 
zen or liberally educated if a knowledge of 
his special subject were neglected. And at 
the present time some universities still hold 
similar views in reference to certain sub- 
jects. The claim that this or that subject 
is essential to a liberal education shows a 
lack of breadth and lack of capacity to see 
things in their proper relations. No one 
language or science is essential to a liberal 
education. But while this is true, it does 
not follow that this or that subject may not 
be essential for a particular career; and in 
geology capacity to use language for the 
expression of ideas is absolutely essential. 
Far be it from my purpose to speak in a 
derogatory way or to underestimate the 
value of any line of knowledge. At the 
present day a man who is trained only in 
science or only in the humanities has but 
one hand; that hand may be strong, but the 
man can never control the affair before him 
with the power, with the nicety, with which 
does the man with two hands, one of which 
is the rich treasures of science, and the 
other the no less rich and important treas- 
ures of the humanities, each doing its part 
in harmony with the corresponding full- 
ness of results. With a fundamental 
knowledge of both, the scholar of the 
future may choose as his chief occupa- 
tion the clear, cold work of science or that 
of the humanities, which will always have 
more numerous followers, because of their 
direct personal interest. 

As I have already intimated, I hold that 
for the best liberal education one must pur- 
sue broadening studies from the first to the 
last, and also that one must early begin to 
specialize. If this be true, geology may be 
said to be a very desirable part of a liberal 
education; for it is built upon the whole 
realm of pure science; 7. e., the knowledge, 
which applies not only to the earth and all 
it holds, including man, but to the universe 
as well. Because of the breadth of train- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Von. XVI. No. 400. 


ing combined with specialization required 
of a geologist, it might be shown that geol- 
ogy is one of the most useful studies in giy- 
ing a person a sense of proportion, ideas as 
to relative values, of perspective, qualities 
of the first order in this world. It might be 
held that the intellectual training of the 
geologist is of a kind which helps him in 
dealing with men and things; and, there- 
fore, for handling the world’s work. But 
time does not suffice to develop this part of 
the subject. 

I shall now suppose that a geologist is 
adequately trained, that he has some power 
in generalization, and consider what should 
be his method of work. It is assumed that 
the young geologist spends a part of each 
year in the field. This field work should 
include areal mapping with structural and 
genetic interpretations. The wider a young 
geologist has traveled, the more numerous 
the excursions in which he has taken part, 
the better will be his equipment. But no 
general work such as this can supply the 
place of systematic mapping. And the 
more exact the mapping is, the better the 
training. Very frequently the educational 
value of the mapping in detail of a small 
area is underestimated. Indeed, I hold 
that nothing else can take its place. More- 
over, the only sure way to test a geologist 
is to require him to delineate upon a map 
and in structural sections the detailed phe- 
nomena of the field. For my part I have 
more confidence in the future of a young 
geologist who has mapped in detail twenty- 
five square miles, and has got out of the area 
much that isin it, than that of another who 
has doneno detail work but has run over and 
written about thousands of square miles. 
Rarely can the general conclusions of a man 
who has not done systematic mapping be re- 
lied upon. In America there have been con- 
spicuous cases of men ealling themselves 
geologists who have never carefully mapped 
a square mile. Yet some of these by the un- 


AUGUST 29, 1902. ] 


discriminating have been regarded as lead- 
ing geologists. And in one or two eases these 
men have gained a wide hearing. But the 
systems which they built up had little or no 
relation to the world; and they disappeared 
with the death of their authors. But a 
geologist must not only do systematic field 
work at the outset; he must continue to do 
such work through the years to a ripened 
age. Not infrequently a geologist, who in 
early life has done systematic field work, 
drops this work and continues writing geo- 
logical philosophy; but this is a precarious 
course, which sooner or later makes of him 
what one of our members calls a ‘ closet geol- 
ogist.’ It is only by never-ending action 
and reaction between the complex phenom- 
ena of geology in the field and reflection as 
to the meaning of the phenomena that sure 
results can be obtained. 

While one should spend a part of each 
year in the field, I suspect that many more 
discoveries of geological principles are 
made in the office or in the laboratory than 
in the field. The cow collects the grass in 
the meadow, and afterwards lies down to 
chew the cud and digest the food. So the 
geologist in the field, in the midst of in- 
numerable facts, collects all he ean. His 
notes are a record of his daily collections; 
and if a successful geologist, of his daily im- 
perfect inferences and deductions. But 
during the eight or nine months of office 
and laboratory work he has full opportunity 
for reflection. He is then likely to see more 
of the common factors of the facts col- 
lected ; is more likely to see deeper into the 
underlying principles which explain them. 

This is still more true of the facts collect- 
ed in the current and during the previous 
years. Indeed, in the field the observations 
of the current year are often too prominent 
on account of their recency, and it is only 
after some months have elapsed that they 
take their true proportion in connection 
with observations of previous years. The 


SCIENCE. 331 


use of the material collected not in one year 
only, but through many years, is necessarily 
done in the office or in the laboratory, and 
it is only from such large masses of material 
that broad generalizations can be made. 

But the inductions and deductions made 
in the office and the laboratory during the 
winter should be tested in the field in the 
following year in the light of the new ideas. 
The new ideas should not by a fraction 
modify the correctness of the observations 
of the previous years; they should be found 
as accurate as when made. But observa- 
tions are always incomplete, and with a 
new idea one invariably adds valuable ob- 
servations which were not noted before the 
idea was available. 

I once wrote to a number of the geologists 
of this and other countries, asking the direc- 


. tionsand dips of the dominant cleavages and 


joints for the various districts and regions 
of the world with which they were familiar. 
From only a single geologist did I obtain 
data of value. Some geologists wrote that 
they had not time to observe such subordin- 
ate phenomena! These men had _ evi- 
dently not learned the principle that the 
small but numerous agent or force or strue- 
ture may have as great or greater impor- 
tance than more conspicuous but less com- 
mon ones. Darwin should have taught 
every scientist the principle of the quanti- 
tative importance of the small factor when 
he showed how great is the work of the 
apparently insignificant earthworm. It 
seems to me that joints are one of the im- 
portant phenomena of geology; and this is 
true whether the point of view be defor- 
mation alone, physiography, metamorphism, 
circulation of groundwater, or the genesis 
of ores. 

While the work of each ceologist should 
be based upon thorough field and office 
work, and thus have an inductive basis, one 
should not there stop, but should by deduc- 
tion ever be looking forward. No one ever 


oo2 SCIENCE. 


held more firmly to fact as a basis for induc- 
tion than Darwin; but also, no man has 
more successfully projected by deduction 
beyond his facts than Darwin. This in 
biology was a task of extraordinary difficul- 
ty. In geology cne who has a firm grasp 
of the principles of physics and chemistry 
may be more daring. Their principles, if 
not more definite than the laws of biology, 
are at least better known and more simple. 
Therefore, one, after having observed the 
facts in a district and grasped the princi- 
ples which explain them, may deduce what 
are likely to be the facts in the field and 
their relations in advance of observation. 
Or more coneretely, after one gets the cor- 
rect idea as to the meaning of the phenom- 
ena for a certain district, he often can tell 
in advance of observation what he will see; 


or can find what I call ‘geology made to or- . 


der.’ 

There is no better or more severe test of 
a theory than one’s capacity to find geology 
made to order. If observation of the area 
where the facts are expected to be found in 
a certain way shows that nature does not 
obey the order, this is certain evidence that 
one or more factors in the problem have 
been omitted and that the theory is inade- 
quate. In so far as the theory is adequate, 
the geology will be found as anticipated. 
The reason for this is the very great com- 
plexity and delicate adjustment of the phe- 
nomena of nature. To illustrate, if the 
many parts of some complex machine, such 
as a Hoe press, or a chronometer, were scat- 
tered far and wide, and then one should 
gather some of these parts, and try to fit 
them, he might find that a certain set fit 
perfectly. If this were so, he would know 
to a certainty that these parts are in the 
correct positions and relations, even if he 
did not know the relations of these parts 
to other parts or the purpose of the whole; 
for so complex and exact is the adjustment 
that there is but one way to put the parts 


LN. S. Vou. XVI. No. 400. 


together. Another set of parts might be 
found and these made to fit. But doubtless 
certain parts would not be found. These 
would be missing links necessary to make 
a perfect machine. In this situation, if the 
man had a genius for mechanical construc- 
tion, and an insight into principles, he 
might be able to understand the purpose of 
the whole, and finally to supply the parts 
which render the whole a useful machine. 
This he would be able to do just in propor- 
tion as he had mechanical insight. 

So the geologist fits together his numer- 
ous diverse facts. If he finds a solution of 
his problem which gives accordance to all 
the numerous facts observed, he may be 
sure he is on the right track, even if he is 
incapable of seeing the full truth, for so 
delicate is the adjustment of facts that 
where they are numerous there is usually 
only one way to put them together. Just in 
proportion as the man has a working knowl- 
edge of the principles of physies and chem- 
istry and biology, and the other cognate 
sciences will he be able to eliminate er- 
roneous explanations, combine the facts into 
groups under true theories, and correctly 
infer how the different groups are to be ad- 
justed, how the various facts which seem at 
first to have no definite relations are relat- 
ed. Or, to put it in another way, in propor- 
tion as he knows the rules of the game will 
he be able to correctly interpret the mean- 
ing of phenomena and from them to project 
into the unknown. The importance of un- 
derstanding the rules of the game is not 
often appreciated. To the person who is 
ignorant of the principles of the various 
sciences all things are possible. So many 
wonderful things have happened within the 
past half century that he thinks it possible 
for anything to happen. He has no prin- 
ciples by which he can determine whether 
or not a statement is probably true. Hence 
all sorts of grotesque notions flourish. In- 
deed, the very fact that so many wonderful 


AUGUST 29, 1902. ] 


things have been accomplished makes many 
more ready to regard as possible almost any 
absurdity announced by some so-called ‘ pro- 
fessor.’ 

Probably at no time in the history of the 
world has the public shown such ready 
credulity. Indeed, it seems as if the more 
grotesque and preposterous an idea the 
more likely it is to receive attention. And 
this credulity 1s not confined to those who 
are altogether ignorant of science. A man 
may be a very narrow expert in one direc- 
tion of science and be wholly ignorant of 
the rules of the game in reference to anoth- 
er science. For instance, when an eminent 
biologist says ‘bell-ringing, the playing on 
musical instruments, stone-throwing and 
various movements of solid bodies, all with- 
out human contact or any discoverable 
physical cause—still oceur among us as they 
have occurred in all ages,’ * the statements 
show the author to be so lacking in a com- 
prehension of the principles of physics 
that he is unable to estimate whether or 
not a phenomenon of physics is likely or 
not likely to be true. It is clear that a man 
may be an authority as to biology, and vet 
be so ignorant of the rules of physics that 
he may be as simple as a child in reference 
to that subject. Upon the other hand, a 
man who has a firm understanding of the 
principles applicable to a case, or, in other 
words, knows the rules of the game, is hke- 
ly to be able to reach a rather definite con- 
clusion as to whether or not an explanation 
which suggested itself is in accordance with 
those rules, and therefore may be true, or 
disagrees with some of the well established 
rules, and therefore is not worth consider- 
ing. 

A geologist once said to me of my teach- 
er and early geological guide, Professor Tr- 
ving, that he was more correct as to the 
structure of the Lake Superior region than 


**The Wonderful Century,’ by Alfred Russell 
Wallace, p. 211. 


SCIENCE. 


339 


he ought to have been. But I say that 
every man is just as correct as to deduc- 
tion beyond observed facts as he should be. 
Men with defective basal training and poor 
intellectual power will always fail when 
they try to put complex facts together un- 
der principles, and especially when they at- 
tempt to project by deduction beyond ob- 
served facts. But men who have a firm 
grasp of the principles of the sciences basal 
to geology, the capacity to correlate these 
principles and apply them to the facts of 
geology, will go beyond their observations 
and by deduction will reach conclusions 
with perfect confidence which are far in ad- 
vance of observation. Indeed in this way 
only can the best geological work be done. 
After one has projected his deductions in 
advance of observations, he returns to the 
field with these new ideas, and then earries 
his observations farther than he was able to 
do before. The geologist whose ideas are 
not continually outrunning his observations 
will never go far in the science. He whose 
mind is behind his observations instead of 
in advance of them, will ever be mediocre. 
The minds of the leaders of geology are on 
the mountain heights before their feet have 
more than touched the foothills. 

The conclusions deduced by a scientific 
genius may go so far in advance of observa- 
tions that he who announces the conclu- 
sions may not be able to make observations 
which confirm the theories during his life- 
In such cases subsequent observa- 
tions made through many years by others 
will find the phenomena confirming the 
principles. The truths announced by men 
of insight are often not accepted by slower 
men until this later observational work is 
done. Many eases could be cited illustra- 
tine these statements. Darwin, in 1860, 
knew that life had existed that would fill in 
the great gaps in the very imperfect paleon- 
tological record. Since 1860 .all the greater 
gaps have been filled by discovered fossils. 


time. 


334 


Mendeleeff, when he saw the law of the peri- 
cdic arrangement of the elements, knew that 
elements exist which would fill the gaps; 
but it took many years of work by many 
men to find a part of them; and during 
the past few years a half dozen or more of 
the vacant places have been occupied. 
Each geologist, each scientist, now as in 
the past, is just as right as he should be. 
The scientific seers will ever go far in ad- 
vanee and guide others, even as did the 
spiritual seers of old. 

The scope of these observations doubtless 
extends beyond geology. Much of what has 
been said is true of knowledge as a whole, 
not restricted to one subject. But I shall 
have accomplished my purpose if what I 
have said be true of geology; for if my con- 
clusions be well founded, they furnish the 
basis upon which courses leading to degrees 
in professional geology should be laid out, 
and to methods of good geological work in 
the field and in the office. 

C. R. VAN Hise. 


UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 


SHOTION D, MECHANICAL SCIHNCE AND 


ENGINEERING. 
Papers were presented as follows: 


The Trend of Progress of the Prime 
Movers: Proressor R. H. THURSTON, 
Cornell University. 

1. The great prime movers have been 
known in type and in some eases, in specific 
forms, still familiar, since the days of Hero 
of Alexandria and probably may have been 
in some forms known to prehistoric Greeks 
and Asiatics. The sources of power—heat, 
falling waters, the winds—all were well 
known when the earliest scientific writings 
were produced, and the famous Alexan- 
drian ‘Museum’ contained illustrations and 
examples of even some of our simpler fa- 
miliar types of steam-engine and steam- 
boiler. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 400. 


2. The prime movers made little progress 
toward their present perfection until the 
commencement of the eighteenth century, 
when the steam-engine of Savery and 
Worcester, the old steam fountain of Hero 
the Younger, was displaced by the modern 
steam-engine, a real train of mechanism, 
devised by Newcomer, the inventor of the 
modern type of machine, about 1707. 
Meantime, water-wheels and windmills were 
taking form and the prime movers thus 
were preparing to do their part in the 
world. Improved by Watt, the steam-en- 
gine assumed the largest part of the load, 
but the water-wheels and windmills have 
always done a large amount of work in the 
ageregate. The industrial world came after 
a time to be moved as a whole by the prime 
mover of Watt, and steam power has of 
late performed vastly more work than could 
the whole population of the world, unaided. 

3. The gas-engine has a history of about 
the same length as the steam-engine in its 
form of a prime mover for mills. It was 
introduced about a century ago and has 
progressed meantime less rapidly than its 
rival, but since the middle of the nineteenth 
century its advance has been steady, both 
in construction and in employment. To- 
day this motor has assumed a perfection 
of design and construction and has attained 
an excellence of economical performance 
which is rapidly bringing it into use in a 
ereat variety of fields and is, in fact, mak- 
ing it a promising competitor with the old- 
er motor. 

4. The other motors have been meantime 
greatly improved. The modern hydraulic 
turbine has attained an efficiency of eighty 
per cent. and upward and the contemporary 
windmill is a scientifically designed, skill- 
fully made apparatus of but little if any less 
perfection, for its purpose, or efficiency in 
utilizing its form of energy. All the com- 
mon forms of prime movers have now, 
thanks to advances in sciences related to 


Auaust 29, 1902.] 


engineering and to the progress of inven- 
tion, become highly perfected and the next 
question of the engineer and of the employ- 
er of power has come to be: ‘What new 
motor can be devised to more perfectly 
utilize the available energies of nature?’ 

5. The serious wastes of the best heat- 
motors are doubly serious and important 
in view of the fact that our coal deposits are 
of limited extent and that however great 
they may appear, that limit will be attained 
in one fifth of the time, even with the best 
practice of to-day, that would be secured 
could the wastes, now apparently inevitable, 
be extinguished. Our best steam and gas- 
engines waste four times as much of the 
thermal energies supplied them as they util- 
ize. A substitute for these engines must be 
sought if they cannot be made thus practi- 
cally perfect; but no way is known to which 
the purely thermodynamic wastes which 
constitute the greatest obstacle can be pre- 
vented. 

6. Our existing stores of available energy 
may possibly be reinforced by more com- 
plete employment of the water-powers, the 
wind currents and the internal heat of the 
earth. Our present wastes of thermal ener- 
gy might be reduced to comparative insig- 
nificance could a way be found of imitating 
nature in the complete utilization of the 
supply through other processes than ther- 
modynamic. Nature actually does produce 
light without heat and apparently, at least, 
power without thermodynamic wastes; it 
would seem that man should be able to imi- 
tate her methods. If this could be done, 
our electric lighting could be provided or a 
substitute of similar value obtained that 
should reduce the wastes, as in the fire-fly 
and the glow-worm, with one four hun- 
dredth as much expenditure of energy as 
now is exacted in the production of light by 
our usual forms of illuminant. It would 
be possible to increase the amount of power 
derived from a stated quantity of potential 


SCIENCE. 


330m 


energy four or five times. Heat drawn 
from the interior of the earth would pro- 
vide us with what may be needed by man as 
long as man ean live upon a cooling globe. 

7. When the inventors and discoverers 
have thus performed their task, ‘we shall 
be assured of a vastly longer persistence of — 
civilization upon the globe, shall be able to 
employ mechanical power at a fraction of 
its present cost, shall secure light without 
heat and of a hundred times greater quan- 
tity at the same expenditure, shall distrib- 
ute the electric current for whatever pur- 
poses at minimum expense, and shall make 
every civilized nation on the earth many 
times wealthier and shall extinguish pov- 
erty and, largely, crime.’ 


On Changes in Form as an Essential Con- 
sideration in the Theory of Elasticity: 
Frank H. Ciuuey, Engineer’s Office, 
New East River Bridge, New York City. 
While we perceive the necessity of recog- 

nizing and allowing for large distortions of 

elastic bodies under load, we are apt to 
think that, if the distortion be sufficiently 
small, it is negligible. We are apt to pro- 
ceed on the supposition that changes in 
stress and deflection due to an added load 
are unaffected by the existence of other 
stresses at the time the load was ap- 
plied. This is incorrect. Distortions, how- 
ever small, may seriously modify the 

change in stress and deflection due to a 

given load. And the existence of other 

stresses at the time of the application of the 
load may be a most important consideration. 

The consequences of small distortions 
may be fully taken into account by direct 
but highly mathematical analysis. But 
methods of approximation will usually an- 
swer the same end and be much simpler in 
single numerical cases. We have only to 
determine the distortion from the stresses 
as ordinarily found, and then recalculate 
the stresses for the changed form. 


336, 


The cases in which this more exact pro- 
cedure is most necessary are to be found 
chiefly among problems in thin plates, rods, 
trusses with very light webbing, arches and 
suspension bridges. 

A simple case is the post under com- 
bined axial and transverse load. Standard 
posts may have bending moments and de- 
flections a third to a half greater than they 
would were they simple beams. And this 
is equally true whether the end pressure be 
due to loads or to a stressed tie (primary 
stress). 

The posts under combined axial and 
transverse loads are comparable to the 
parabolic arch ring under uniform load 
and bent by a concentrated load. 

They are sufficiently slender to have 
materially increased stresses and deflections 
in consequence of their distortion. 

Frameworks with sufficiently hght web- 
bing may have very different stresses and 
deflections from those determined by the 
usual methods. This is particularly the 
case with heavy bowstring trusses. 

But the greatest divergencies in practice 
resulting from the appleation of the more 
exact analysis which takes account of small 
changes in form, are found in connection 
with suspension bridges. There the funda- 
mental proposition of the usual analysis, 
that single loads on the stiffening truss 
cause a uniform increase in the suspender 
stresses, 1s sensibly in error and leads to 
many most incorrect conclusions. 

To sum up, even small changes in the 
form of some structure have most appreci- 
able consequences, and stresses existing at 
the time of the application of a load may 
most seriously modify its effects. These 
truths require more general consideration. 


The Ratio of Direct to Transverse Change 
of Dimension wnder Longitudinal Stress 
(Poisson’s Ratio): Proressor THOMAS 
GRAY. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 400. 


This paper consisted mainly of a descrip- 
tion of the apparatus and methods of meas- 
urement employed in the determination of 
Poisson’s ratio for metal bars. 

The specimens used were round bars 
varying in thickness between one and a 
quarter and two inches. The stress, either 
tension or compression, was applied and 
measured by means of a Rhiele testing ma- 
chine capable of applying a total load of 
100,000 pounds. The lengths under test 
were usually either ten inches or sixteen 
inches, and the elongation or compression 
was measured by means of the author’s au- 
tographie attachment to the machine (7. 
A. S. M. E., Vol. XIII, 1892). The auto- 
graphic record was omitted, the change of 
length as indicated by the magnifying 
levers being read, for particular loads, from 
a scale. The transverse change of dimen- 
sion, which is much the more difficult to 
measure with accuracy, was obtained by 
means of a special calipering device con- 
trived by the author of the paper and con- 
structed in the Rose Polytechnic shops. 
This apparatus was carried by the speci- 
men at the middle of the test length, in such 
a way that the points of contact of the cali- 
per levers were at opposite extremities of a 
diameter and remained constant. The mag- 
nifying power was adjustable and could be 
made such that a change of diameter of less- 
than one millionth of an inch gave a posi- 
tive indication. The total change of dimen- 
sions which can be obtained, within elastic 
limits, is very small even for steel, being only 
about one three thousandth of an inch on a 
diameter of one inch. 

It has been customary to infer the value 
of this ratio for separate determination of 
the Young’s and the rigidity modulus of 
elasticity on the assumption that the materi- 
al is nearly enough isotropic. One of the 
objects of this direct measurement was to 
test the reliability of this method of infer- 
ence. If FE be Young’s modulus in the 


AucGusr 29, 1902.] SCIENCE. 337 


rigidity modulus, and o« Poisson’s ratio, fore the American Society of Mechan- 
the theory of elasticity gives, for an iso- ical Engineers by Professor C. H. 
tropie solid, Benjamin. The principal subject in 

E—2n that paper was the resistance to compres- 
ea sion of helical springs. Incidentally it was 
stated that the modulus of rigidity derived 
by caleulation from these experiments was 
much higher than that usually given in the 
published data for steel. This seemed con- 
trary to my experience, but on looking for 
direct evidence on the subject no record 
could be found. In consequence a few 


Now for most metals H is about two and 
one half times n. Hence it is evident that 
a small error in the determination of # or 
nm may be quite a large error, in the in- 
ferred value of o. 

The results of the experiments in general 
were that for steel either hardrolled or an- 
nealed the results given by the above for- specimens of steel, containing different 
mule and those got by direct measurement ®™ounts of carbon, were prepared and 
are almost identical. In the cases of cast tested directly for rigidity in their original 
iron and alloys of the metals, however, the State, and also after hardening by heating 
results obtained from the formule are not to redness and quenching in water. The re- 
reliable. The following short table illus- sults are given in the tabular form below. 
trates the results obtained by direct meas- The percentages of carbon in these speci- 


urement : mens were not determined as the exact 
Description of Specimens. | Diameter. ie geo! Lod | | eee | Folssons 
| 
Hammered tool steel 1. Bs per eset, ‘Geren, hails 1.4985 | 50000 29.5 <108 | 0.291 
Hammered tool steel 1.5 per cent. carbon, manealedl 1.4930 | 20000 29.5 108 | 0.291 
Hammered tool steel 1.2 per cent. carbon, hard...) 1.4988 | — 50000 | 29.7 108 | 0,293 
Hammered tool steel 1.2 per cent. carbon, annealed) 1.5130 | 30000 30.0 > 108 | 0.294 
Hammered tcol steel 0.9 per cent. carbon, hard...) 1.5513 | 50000 | 29.4 ><10° 0,288 
Hammered tool steel 0.9 per cent. carbon, annealed 1 4830 | 30000 30.0 «10° | 0.295 
Cast bronze 90 per cent. copper (compression) .. . 1 496 | 16000 10 8 ><10° 0.297 
Cast bronze 90 per cent. copper (tension)........) 1.496 | 12000 | 10.9 ><10° 0.303 
Aluminum zine alloy density 3.4............... | 1.4979 | 7000 5.27X105 | 0.208 
Aluminum zine alloy density 3.5................ 1.2445 | 14000 | 7.79108 | 0.290 
Casthinony acre ysenin cancers clon plowe. ‘Aidlbeo | 1.7485 | 5000 | 13.2710 | 0 258 
@alstsimony se Prge paheteloskese rdasetsony mises wis nicleesues oe valle | 1.7485 16000 | 11.81><105 | 0.245 


Effect of Hardening on the Rigidity of amount did not seem of any importance. 


Steel: Professor THOMAS GRAY. Specimen No. 3 had just carbon enough to 
Attention was called to this subject admit of hardening. 
some months ago in a paper read _be- The results show the effect of hardening 
A Dia t mG Length Under cal 
Kinds of Steel. ane in Len ah pte Modulus of Rigidity. 
LZ a ees | psu skein sata s 
leben CARDONA WOOL (SOME) sooo occogonanetuoenecse | 430 Be 12.24 11 61108 
High carbon tool (hardened) ................... | 430 12.25 11.46 10° 
Medium canbonmtoolmn (sont) ein iati aie | 444 12.27 11.67 10° 
Medium carbon tool (hardened)................ | 415 12 30 11.56 10° 


12.06 12.32 108 
4805 11.44 | 12.23 109 
4295 11.90 12.275<105 
4930 16 63 11.585<108 
4900 | 16.27 1151108 


Wows carbons tool (sett) pereee rere nor 
iow. carbon) tool (hardenedi)\-e5 so. o. a 
Low carbon tool (blue tempered)............... 
Special tool 1.5 per cent. carbon (soft).......... 
Special tool 1.5 per cent. (hardened)........... 


ey 
om 5 
D 
$o 
isi 


338 


on the rigidity to be small but instead of 
a large increase it is a diminution. 


The Advantages of Siamesed Hose Lines for 
Fire Steamers: MANSFIELD MERRIMAN. 
Lehigh University, South Bethlehem, Pa. 
The method of using several parallel lines 

of hose from a fire steamer to a siamese 

joint is explained, and formule for the 
discharge and effective velocity head of the 
stream from the nozzle are established. The 
effects upon the discharge and velocity-head 
of two, four and six lines of hose are illus- 
trated by practical examples and exhibited 
graphically. The great increase caused by 
two or three lines is noted, as also the much 
smaller increase caused by additional lines. 

It is shown that more than six lines are 

rarely advantageous and that four lines 

probably give the best practical results. 

In conclusion the author briefly notes and 

compares the analogy between the formule 

for the common and viscous flow of water 
in pipes laid in parallel with that for the 
flow of electricity in metallic conductors. 


The Nomenclature of Mechanics: R. S. 
Woopwarp, Columbia University, New 
York. 

The object of this paper is to advocate 
the desirability of adopting definite and 

-unique meanings for the principal technic- 

al terms of mechanics, of discarding all 
secondary meanings of such terms, and of 
inventing new terms when essential to dis- 
tinguish mechanical principles and proper- 
ties differing from one another. 


On a Type of Planetary Orrery Utilizing 
the Mechanical Principle of the Conical 
Pendulum: Davi P. Topp, Director of 
the Observatory of Amherst College. 
This machine is intended to employ the 

principle of the conical pendulum. Pendu- 

lums of different length, suitable to the rev- 
olution periods of the planets, are attached 
at the upper end to concentric arbors, prop- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 400. 


erly geared; the spheres representing the 
planets are attached to the lower and outer 
ends of these pendulum rods. In this way 
the relative periods of revolution of the 
planets and their sizes can be conveniently 
illustrated mechanically on as large a scale 
as may be desired. 


The Viscous Dynamometer: J. Burxitr 

WEBB. 

Some years since the author designed an 
absorption dynamometer depending on the 
viscosity of water for use in testing the 
Whitehead torpedo and the results were 
published in the Stevens Indicator. In the 
use of it a very convenient property which 
it possessed was discovered, namely, that 
a sufficiently exact relation existed between 
the moment tending to rotate it and the 
number of revolutions, to make it possible 
to get the horse-power from an observation 
of the moment only. This was especially 
valuable in Whitehead torpedo work on ac- 
count of the engine running but a short 
time. : 

The dynamometer was redesigned three 
or four years ago for testing turbines for 
electric light work and is now used largely 
for that purpose. The one first built con- 
sists of two steel disks (circular saw blanks) 
mounted on a horizontal revolving shaft on 
which is journaled a cast-iron case enclo- 
sing the disks and supporting a stationary 
disk between them. The sides of the case 
are also turned true so that each revolving 
disk has a fixed surface about one eighth 
of an inch distant from it. The case is sup- 
plied with water which is allowed to run 
slowly through it to prevent a rise of tem- 
perature, and means are provided to regu- 
late the amount of water in the case, which 
is kept by centrifugal force in annular lay- 
ers or disks at the other part of the case cav- 
ity. The shaft being now connected with 
a source of power of sufficient speed, the 
viscosity of the layers of water tends to 


Avausr 29, 1902.] 


carry the case and fixed dises around with 
it, which being prevented by a spring bal- 
ance attached to a radical projection from 
the case, the moment is readily obtained. 

Various interesting facts developed them- 
selves in the use of this instrument and 
experiments in progress by a large electric 
company confirm the theoretical formulas 
for the moment by which the dynamometer 
can be correctly designed. 

The horse-power absorbed is adjustable 
by varying the amount of water retained 
in the case, which is easily done. 

A specially interesting thing was the ef- 
fect of handling the water entering the 
dynamometer ; let the hands be wiped (not 
washed) ever so carefully, after handling 
the ordinary shghtly greasy tools and parts 
of machinery, and held under the stream 
of entering water, there would be an im- 
mediate reduction of the moment by about 
ten per cent. 

As an illustration of the effectiveness of 
this dynamometer it is sufficient to say that 
the two revolving disks two feet in diameter 
absorbed the whole one hundred and ninety 
horse-power, of a turbine of twice their 
diameter. 


The Dynamophone, a new Dynamometer: 
J. Burkitt Wess, Stevens Institute, Ho- 
boken, N. J. 

The dynamophone is a new form of trans- 
mission dynamometer. In a large number 
of cases when power is to be measured me- 
chanically it is done by observing the extent 
to which some elastic substance yields and 
deducing therefrom the stress caused in it 
by the transmission of the power to be 
measured. Power is transmitted mechan- 
ically mainly by rotating mechanism, and 
such transmission is Invariably accompa- 
nied by a change of phase, that is, the driv- 
en part lags behind the part that drives. The 
simplest and most common example of this 
is an ordinary line of shafting in which we 


SCIENCE. 


309 


have only to determine the torque and 
number of revolutions to find by their pro- 
duct the energy transmitted. About 1880 
I was working under the direction of Pro- 
fessor Helmholtz upon the change of phase 
in an alternating current in a circuit con- 
taining an electrolytic cell as well as 
resistance, capacity and inductance, and in- 
vented an apparatus (of which the dynam- 
ophone is a modification) for making and 
measuring a difference of phase. After my 
return to the United States this remained 
packed away, until recently the problem of 
measuring the power transmitted to a ma- 
rine propeller presented itself. The motor 
being an improved form of turbine, the or- 
dinary steam-engine indicator could not be 
used, and so a portion of the shaft was pre- 
pared for the purpose and exactly calibra- 
ted by ascertaining the torque required to 
twist it from one degree up to ten degrees. 
To measure the twist of the shaft when re- 
volving from 400 to 700 times a minute and 
transmitting from 100 to 2,300 horse power 
the dynamophone was successfully employ- 
ed and in the following manner: 

Upon each end of the calibrated length of 
shaft a wheel twelve inches in diameter was 
mounted, having 36 teeth. In front of 
each wheel a telephone magnet and coil was 
supported, the axes of the magnets at right 
angles to the shaft. The ordinary vibra- 
tine disks of the telephones were thus re- 
placed by the toothed wheels, which thus in- 
duced in the telephone circuits a musical 
tone the strength and quality of which 
could be adjusted by serews which varied 
the distance of the magnets from the wheels. 
These telephones were further mounted so 
that they could be revolved about the cen- 
ter of the shaft with a scale and microscope 
to measure their angular position, and such 
a revolution must of course change the 
phase of the tone vibrations. To compare 
the phases of the two telephones, their cir- 
cuits were connected in series with one (or 


340 


more) receiving telephones, so that one 
(or more) observers could hear the combi- 
nation or algebraic sum of the tones. Now 
the tones being adjusted to equal strength 
by the adjusting screws and to the opposite 
phases by revolving one of the mounted 
magnets, the receiving telephone gave no 
sound, and this condition of things was evi- 
dence that the teeth at both ends passed 
before their magnets at the same time. Now 
the zero having been determined with the 
propeller disconnected, it remained only to 
observe the angle through which the ob- 
serving magnet had to be moved when the 
shaft was running under torsion, to havea 
measure of the twist of the shaft. 

The apparatus gave perfectly accurate 
results with a precision of from one quarter 
to one per cent. The zero was readily and 
certainly obtained by a particular method 
of observation and in spite of the noises of 
the running machinery, and the results re- 
quired only a single multiplication to give 
the horse-power corresponding to any par- 
ticular observation. A medel of the 
dynamophone was exhibited to the Section, 
with photographs connected with a recent 
test of the new turbine yacht Revolution. 


The Deflection of a Complete Quadrilateral: 

J. Burxirt WEBB. 

The object of this paper is to outline a 
method which I have used for some years 
at Stevens Institute for investigating the 
stresses in framed structures with super- 
fluous members. Suppose we consider ac as 
superfluous and imagine the joint a to be 
constructed as indicated in the figure. 

Now remove the weight and screw up the 
nut until the perfectly definite stresses thus 
produced in the members amounts to some 
convenient amount, say a tension of minus 
40 in cb. An ordinary foree polygon is 
then drawn, the corresponding 
stresses in the members, and, the material 
and dimensions being known, the strains 


elving 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 400. 


due to these stresses are tabulated for all 
the members. 

This primary part of the process is ecom- 
pleted by finding the displacements of all 
the joints and the lower end of a by means 


b 


of a displacement polygon (treated of in 
a paper before Section A), which gives the 
distance which the nut must be screwed up 
to produce the assumed stresses. 

Secondly, the nut is run down entirely 
out of the way and the weight put on to 
produce a stress of plus 40 in be and 
another force polygon is constructed with 
its corresponding deflection polygon. 

The final operation is to screw up the nut 
any desired distance and then add the 
stresses thus produced to those already due 
to the weight. Evidently the final stresses 
consist of the weight stresses plus the 
primary stresses multiplied by a fraction, 
the denominator of which is the distance 
determined as corresponding to the minus 
40 in be, and the numerator of which is the 
distance the nut may be finally screwed up. 


A New Photometer for the Measurement of 
the Candle-power of Incandéscent Lamps: 
Proressor C. P. MarrHews, Purdue Uni- 
versity. 

Nearly every one in this age of electric 


AuGusST 29, 1902. ] 


lights knows that the familiar incandescent 
lamp is made in several sizes of different 
brightness or candle-power: The common 
size yields nominally a light in the direec- 
tion chosen for rating equal to that emitted 
by sixteen standard British candles. The 
light emitted in other directions depends on 
the form in whieh the filament is coiled. 
Now, it is possible for each of two lamps to 
yield light in the measured direction of 16 
¢. p. intensity, and yet to produce quite dif- 
ferent total amounts of light. This means 
that the lamps, although nominally of the 
same candle-power, are actually of quite 
different power as producers of general 
illumination. 

Clearly the only true criterion of the 
worth of lamps as producers of light is the 
average light produced in all directions. 
This value is called the mean spherical 
candle-power. 

A new form of photometer has been de- 
vised by Professor C. P. Matthews, of Pur- 
due University, that gives this value with 
the ease and simplicity of the ordinary 
photometric measurement. A double ring 
of mirrors produces on one side of the pho- 
tometer screen an illumination proportional 
to the mean spherical candle-power of the 
lamp to be tested. This illumination is 
balanced or equalized against that due to a 
light of known eandle-power at a distance 
that can be read from a convenient scale. 
The instrument is adapted to all forms of 
photometric measurements or incandescent 
lamps, gas flames and sources of like inten- 
sity. 


The Proposed Aw-ship Contests at the St. 
Lows Fur: Cauvin Woopwarp, Wash- 
ington University. 

It is the expressed opinion of many, per- 
haps the conviction of most people, that 
nothing ever will be accomplished in the 
way of aerial navigation that is of perma- 
nent commercial or social value. It is 


SCIENCE. dt] 


admitted that balloons may furnish valu- 
able positions for observations in war, but 
no air-ship will ever be able to make trips 
to and fro, carrying either freight or pas- 
With all due respect to such peo- 
ple, the author is bound to differ. They bee 
the question. He freely admits that the 
problem has not been solved; that our 
appliances for the transformation and 
utilization of energy are at present inade- 
quate ; even the line along which progress is 
to be made has not been fully determined; 
but he has no doubt of the result. It may, 
and probably will, take many years, but 
there is plenty of time, and even the wisest 
of us ‘do not know it all.’ 

History ought to teach us something of 
the proper attitude toward unsolved prob- 
lems. It will be remembered that a com- 
mission consisting of the most eminent of 
the engineers of England headed by Rennie 
opposed the use of the locomotive on the 
first complete railroad, but Stephenson per- 
suaded the owners of the Liverpool and 
Manchester road, who had expected to pull 
their trains by cables moved by stationary 
engines, to offer a prize of $2,500 for the 
best locomotive and to open the competition 
to the world. The result was the entry of 
five engines, among which was the victorous 
‘Rocket’ which demonstrated the possibility 
of a successful railroad locomotive. The 
result proved the great value of an open 
competition. 

Scientific men sometimes nod. Professor 
Lovering, afterwards President of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, when Cyrus W. Field was pre- 
paring to lay the first Atlantic cable, in a 
lecture to the author’s class at Harvard, 
proved the utter impossibility of tele- 
eraphie communication under an ocean 
3,000 miles wide. 

The Executive Committee of the Louisi- 
ana Purchase Fair believe that progress in 
aerial navigation is possible and they have 


sengers. 


342 


proposed to stimulate it. They have de- 
cided to offer liberal prizes and to enforce 
conditions which will call out the best 
efforts of the best investigators. 

They specify no device or machine; they 
base everything on performance, on a re- 
turn course requiring a high degree of con- 
trol. They have fixed a minimum which 
greatly exceeds any recorded maximum. 

Before reading their rules the author 
wishes to call attention to two consider- 
ations touching the possibility of progress 
and the probable line of approach. 

Rapid progress is being made in the 
matter of reducing the weight of prime 
movers per horse-power. The diminution 
of the steam-boiler, as shown by the gas- 
engine and the Diesel motor, has made it 
quite possible to construct an engine as 
strong as a horse and as heavy as a goose. 
Human ingenuity will surely suffice some- 
time to enable such an engine to fly. 

The skillful teacher at the swimming 
school gently buoys up the novice while he 
learns how to move his arms and legs. As 
his pupil masters the movements and co- 
ordinates the strokes he needs less and less 
of help from the fish-pole and line of the 
instructor, and soon he swims without 
assistance and to his great surprise. 

Will it not be so with the navigator of the 
air? At first he needs the buoyancy of a 
balloon attachment while he elaborates his 
propellers, planes and guides. As these 
increase in efficiency the balloon attachment 
diminishes, until finally it may disappear 
altogether. Who ean say it will not? The 
writer has no hope from the balloon pure 
and simple. He has at present small hope 
of a pure flying machine; but he has great 
hope of a device which, while flying, 
aecepts more or less aid from a buoyant 
gas. 


New Methods of Experimentation in Aero- 
dynamics: A. F. ZAHN. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vox. XVI. No. 400- 


In this paper Zahn outlines some re- 
searches in aerodynamics by Mr. Mattullath 
and himself at the Catholic University of 
America. Their investigations cover a 
variety of subjects important to the science 
of practical dynamic flight, but the paper 
is confined mainly to the description of a 
new laboratory and equipment for genera- 
ting a uniform rectilinear flow of air and 
measuring its effects upon various models 
and shapes of scientific and practical in- 
terest—in other words, the description of 
an aerial ‘model basin.’ 

In a special building erected on the 
campus by Mr. Mattullath is a wooden air 
tunnel fifty feet long by six feet square in 
cross sections, having a five-foot suction fan 
at one end and a netting or two of close mesh 
at the other. A wind is thereby generated 
of practically uniform velocity and direc- 
tion, the speed varying less than one per 
cent., the direction but a small fraction of 
a degree. In this current are held objects 
whose lift, drift, skin-friction, ete., are to 
be measured. 

A general description is given of the 
apparatus for generating and controlling 
the wind, the devices for proving its uni- 
formity of velocity and direction, the in- 
struments for measuring its effects on 
immersed bodies. Among the various ane- 
mometers and wind balances designed is a 
pressure gauge graduated to millionths of 
an atmosphere, and which may be adjusted 
to read to less than one ten-millionth. It 
is connected by hose to one or more Pitot 
nozzles, and is used to measure the air 
velocity and pressure at all points of the 
stream, particularly in the neighborhood of 
the exposed body. 

The results of each investigation will be 
given in technical detail in a series of 
papers, excepting those that are withheld 
for business reasons. The prime motive of 
these researches is to furnish a basis for 


AUGUST 29, 1902.] 


calculations in aeronautics, particularly in 
the theory of mechanical flight. 


Long Distance Electric Transmission Re- 
garded as a Hydrodynamic Phenomenon: 
Henry T. Eppy, University of Minne- 
sota. (A full abstract will be published 
later. ) 


The Effect of Weeds and Moss upon the 
Coefficients of Discharge in Small Irri- 
gating Canals: J. C. Nacux, College Sta- 
tion, Texas. 

This paper gave the results of a half 
dozen measurements made during the sum- 
mer of 1901 upon small irrigation canals 
discharging from about three and one half 
to twelve cubic feet of water per second, 
and will show the retarding effect of moss 
and weeds in some of the canals. 


The Compound Pendulum: ALBERT KINGs- 

Bury, W. P. I., Worcester, Mass. 

The paper referred especially to a dia- 
gram by means of which the relations be- 
tween the centers of suspension, of gyration 
and of oscillation are graphically deter- 
mined; the identity of centers of percussion 
and of oscillation; the interchangeability of 
centers of oscillation and of suspension; 
the position of the axis of suspension for 
minimum time of small oscillations; and 
the two cylinders of positions of the axis of 
suspension for any given time of oscillation. 


Crushed Steel and Steel Emery; an Arti- 
ficial Abrasive produced from Steel: M. 
M. Kann. 


The Mechanics of Reinforced Concrete 
Beams: W. Kenprick Harr. 


A Test of a Ball Thrust Bearing: THOMAS 
GRAY. 


Determination of the Exponent in the 
Equation pv" of Heat Engine Indica- 
tor Diagrams: W. T. Maeruper, Ohio 
State University. 


SCIENCE. 


343 


Some Experiences with a Simple Babbett 
Testing Machine: EB. S. FarwEtu, New 
York. 

In order to select the most suitable 
babbett metal for use in paper mills a series 
of tests were undertaken with a machine 
consisting of a three and one fourth-inch 
mandril rotated at about 775 revolutions. 
The test block was held against the bottom 
of this mandril by a long bent lever to 
which weights were applied. The block and 
mandril were immersed in oil. After a 
number of failures which are described, and 
the discovery that the readings of the ther- 
mometer were vitiated by the heat from the 
main bearing the machine was remodeled. 
As remodeled it consisted of the same 
mandril and two test blocks held against 
opposite sides by a pair of levers acting like 
nut crackers. The weights were added to 
the outer end of the upper lever, while the 
outer end of the lower lever rested on a 
platform scales. The other end of the levers 
was counterbalanced so as always to pro- 
duce an equal pressure on both blocks. As 
thus reconstructed the coefficient of fric- 
tion may be determined as well as the 
breaking load. Observations on several 
methods of lubrication are given as well as 
other experiences with this simple but 
accurate testing machine. 


Notes on the Electrical and Mechanical 
Equipment at the Charleston Exposition: 
J. H. GRANBEY, Elizabeth, N. J. 

A short paper giving a résumé of the 
data regarding operation and equipment of 
the exposition at Charleston, 8. C. Some 
details of interest in the installation of 
temporary underground lines are given, 
and attention is called to some departures 
from the accepted practice in engineering 
work, used for special features. 

The following papers were presented by 
title: 


/ 


344 


U. S. Work in the Ohio, Allegheny and 
Monongahela Rivers near Pittsburgh: 
Tuomas P. RoBerts. 

C. A. Waxpo, 
Secretary. 


SECTION F—ZOOLOGY. 

Ar the first morning session on Monday, 
June 30, 1902, in the absence of Vice- 
President Charles C. Nutting, of the State 
University of Iowa, the meeting was called 
to order by Professor Henry B. Ward, and 
Professor Carl H. Eigenmann was elected 
temporary chairman. 

In the regular order of business, the fol- 
lowing elections were made to the positions 
mentioned : 

Member of the Council: Dr. 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Members of the Sectional Committee: Professor 
Charles W. Hargitt, Syracuse University; Pro- 
fessor Henry F. Osborn, Columbia University ; 
Professor F. M. Webster, Wooster, Ohio. 

Member of the General Committee: 
Herbert Osborn, Ohio State University. 

Press Secretary: Dr. Ch. Wardell Stiles, U. 8. 
Dept. of Agriculture. 


W. J. Holland, 


Professor 


At the afternoon session the meeting was 
called to order by the Secretary. 

In the absence of President David Starr 
Jordan, his vice-presidential address was 
presented by Professor Carl H. Eigenmann. 
The secretary announced that the Sectional 
Committee had elected Professor HE. L. 
Mark, Harvard University, to serve as vice- 
president during the Pittsburgh meeting. 

At the morning session, on July 1, Pro- 
fessor E. L. Mark in the chair, the follow- 
ing papers were presented : 


A New Microscopical Cabinet, Made of 
Metal: Cuarues Sepewick Minot, Har- 
vard Medical School. 

A metal cabinet containing metal trays 
for microscopical specimens was exhibited. 
It has the advantage of being relatively 
safe from fire, and much more compact 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 400. 


than wooden cabinets, and is therefore 
recommended especially for permanent and 
valuable microscopical collections. The 
case 1s made of tin Japanned, and the trays 
also. Hach tray is made with a double bot- 
tom to prevent warping and has space for 
twenty-four 3x1 slides. Each cabinet, hav- 
ing thirty trays, will take 720 slides. The 
cabinets cost $12.50 each and may be ob- 
tained from Peter Gray and Son, 11 Mar- 
shall Street, Boston. (Discussed by E. L. 
Mark. ) 


Insect Enemies: A Matter of Taste: 
Francis M. Weepster, Wooster, Ohio. 
(Will appear in Entomological News.) 
The speaker gave an account of experi- 

ments in feeding living insects tc mice, and 

ealled attention to the fact that distasteful 
insects are not always rejected by all indi- 
viduals of the same species of bird. 


Remarks on the Finding of Bones of the 
Great Auk in Florida: OLIvER PERRY 
Hay, American Museum of Natural His- 
tory. (Will appear in full in The Auk.) 
The speaker stated that bones of the 

ereat auk were found in a shell-mound at 

Ormond, Fla. He described the situation 

and character of the mound and discussed 

the probability of the bird’s having lived 
in that region. (Discussed by L. L. Dyche.) 


Variation Among Hydromeduse: CHARLES 

W. Harairr, Syracuse University. 

A continuation of earlier observations 
on this subject confirms the conclusions 
published elsewhere by Dr. Hargitt and 
extends them to other genera and species. 
An examination of several hundred spee- 
imens of Coryne mirabilis confirms the 
statements of Bateson relative to the re- 
markable constancy of this medusa, since 
not the slightest variation was noticed in 
any essential organ. The trachomedusa, 
Trachynema digitale, showed the compara- 
tively low ratio of eight per cent. in total 


AvuausT 29, 1902.] 


variations, chiefly in radial canals and go- 
nads. Rhegmatodes tenuis, a leptomedusa, 
presents a much higher ratio of varia- 
tion, no less than twenty per cent. show- 
ing more or less marked variation in char- 
acter and size of radial canals. In this 
species a rather prominent variation was 
that of the bifureation, looping and an- 
astomosing of the canals, suggesting 
a probable means by which the large 
number of canals may have arisen. 
The speaker has already called atten- 
tion to a similar condition in Gonion- 
ema as has Mayer in Pseudoclytia pen- 
tata. Variation of the gonads followed 
a similar range, but in view of the com- 
paratively immature condition of many of 
the specimens, no attempt was made to go 
into details upon this point. 


The Sense of Taste in Fishes: C. Jupson 

Herrick, Denison University. 

Sense organs known as terminal buds, 
which resemble taste buds in structure and 
are wholly independent of the lateral line 
system of sense organs, are found freely 
scattered over the entire body surface of 
the catfishes. Like the taste buds in the 
mouth, they are innervated by communis 
nerves and presumably they serve the gus- 
tatory function. To test this hypothesis 
experiments were performed to determine 
how the siluroid fishes perceive their food. 
It appears that the sense of sight plays very 
little part, the sense of smell and the sense 
of touch considerable parts, but the sense 
of taste clearly the chief part in their de- 
tection of food. These fishes appear to 
taste not only in the mouth, but by contact 
with sapid substances by the barblets or 
the skin of the body at any point as far 
back as the root of the tail fin. Gustatory 
and tactile sensations arising in these cu- 
taneous areas commonly cooperate in evo- 
king the reflex of seizing food, but by train- 
ing the fishes can be taught to discriminate 


SCIENCE. 


045 


between the gustatory and the tactile ele- 
ments in the stimulus and to respond only 
when both are present, ignoring simple tac- 
tile contacts. Some other fishes with large 
eyes and having these terminal buds less 
generally distributed over the body surface 
feed in a wholly different way, by snap- 
ping up a moving bait (visual stimulus), as 
every fisherman knows. (Discussed by 
Messsrs. Dyche, Higenmann and Surface. ) 


On the Value of an Apparently Fixed 
Food-Habit in Scale Insects as Determin- 
ing Species: CHARLES LESTER MARLATT, 
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. 

The speaker detailed striking variability 
in the food habits of certain species of scale 
insects; food plants of the same species in 
different districts may be multiple or sin- 
ele, and may change from year to year or 
after a series of years, the plants once at- 
tacked becoming practically exempt and 
new host plants being assumed. A fixed 
food habit could not, in the opinion of the 
speaker, be considered as necessarily of 
value in determining species. (Diseussed 
by Messrs. Webster and Hopkins.) 


Statistical Study of Variation in the Peri- 
odical Cicada: HERBERT OsBorN, Ohio 
State University. 

A distinet variation from the typical 
form of Cicada (Tibicen) septendecim has 
been recognized since 1829, and was de- 
seribed in 1851 as a distinet species, cassini. 
Riley, however, and later Marlatt have con- 
eluded it should be ranked simply as a di- 
morphic variety. In the occurrence of the 
present year this form has been so very 
abundant that a statistical comparison of 
the two forms was naturally suggested. 
Measurements of 800 specimens show a very 
decided constancy of each variety and for 
each sex of each variety. This constancy 
ean best be shown in curves of frequency. 
Color variation is also very constant and is 
believed to be as constant as the other fea- 


346 


tures which can be represented in actual 
measurement. A very distinct difference 
in the note is observable and has been fre- 
quently mentioned in previous records; a 
fact that must be borne in mind as not only 
meaning some difference in morphology of 
sound-producing organ, but in controlling 
the selection of mates. 

Special effort was made to observe the 
copulations and determine whether any ef- 
forts were made at crossing between the 
two forms. In all the specimens taken in 
coitus and which have been reported by 
others not a single instance of such crossing 
has been observed. 

This has been the uniform instance of 
previous observers who have made observa- 
tions on this point, and is evidently very 
uniform and shows distinet sexual selec- 
tion; that is, we have here a very evident 
ease of isolation due to sexual selection, and 
it would appear on this basis every oppor- 
tunity for perpetuation of the variety. 

No evidence of ‘dimorphism,’ as Profess- 
or Osborn understands the term, seems to 
be available from any source. It is certain- 
ly not seasonal or sexual, and if, possibly, a 
depauperate form, we would not term it 
dimorphic unless it can be proved that it 
may alternate with normal forms. 

It may be said in summary that: (1) 
There is a very constant color difference; 
(2) measurements show very close adher- 
ence to two entirely different averages for 
length of body, length of wing and width 
of wing. This is best shown in curves. (3) 
There is a totally different note character- 
istic of each form, which must be con- 
sidered as representing different morphol- 
ogy of sound-producing organs as well as 
basis for selection of mates. (4) No cas- 
sint forms have been found paired with nor- 
mal forms and none have been recorded or 
have been reported. (5) There is a dif- 
ference in genitalia though perhaps not 
enough to exclude the possibility of mating 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 400. 


and Riley says the differences are not con- 
stant. 

The fact that the two forms appear si- 
multaneously or practically so in the seven- 
teen-year period and have so many points 
of resemblance is certainly good evidence 
of very close relationship, and it would 
seem safe to say that they have sprung 
from a common and rather recent ancestral 
form or very likely that one is a derivation 
of the other which still represents the an- 
cestral form for both, and taking data now 
available it appears more likely that cas- 
sint is the derived form. 

The cassini form appears especially 
prominent in the brood XXII. sowidely dis- 
tributed the present year and, in my own 
experience, has been very rare in broods V. 
and XIII. 

A variation possibly indicating another 
type is noted, though represented by only 
two specimens. (Discussed by Messrs. 
Marlatt, Hargitt, Hopkins, Webster and 
Ortmann. ) 


The Animal Ecology of Cold Spring Beach, 
with Remarks on the Theory of Adapta- 
tion: CHARLES B. Davenport, University 
of Chicago. (In absence of author, read 
by title.) 

Cold Spring Beach is a sandspit near the 
head of Cold Spring Harbor, L. I. An out- 
er harbor of strong erosive currents and an 
inner quiet harbor of deposition are separa- 
ted by it. In the submerged beach is a 
shallow water fauna of sessile lamelli- 
branechs, burrowing molluses and worms, 
crawling and burrowing crustaceans and 
molluses, and swimming predaceous animals, 
chiefly fish. The struggle here is so keen 
that certain marine forms (Orehestia, I1t- 
torina) have been forced to the terrestrial 
beach. The outer lower terrestrial beach 
is covered with microscopic débris and oceca- 
sional decaying molluses. Collembola 
cover its stony surface, chiefly arctic forms 


Avaust 29, 1902.] 


of Isotoma and Xenylla. They burrow as the 
tide rises. In the outer middle beach is 
found the débris left at high tide, and this 
is feasted upon by scavengers, these scaven- 
gers in turn by predaceous forms of vari- 
ous orders of strength and swiftness. The 
tip of the sandspit is a region of currents 
where lamellibranchs thrive, attached to 
and protecting masses of Spartina. The 
inner beach supports numerous fiddler 
erabs. The animals form a society, the 
members of which are all there for some as- 
signable purpose. The paper closed with a 
discussion of an auxiliary theory of adapta- 
tion, called segregation in the fittest en- 
vironment. 


Observations on the Mouth Structure of 
Scale Insects: JoHN B. Smita, Rutgers 
College. (Will appear in full in Bull. 

159, N. J. Experiment Station.) 

The mouth parts of scale insects have 
been figured as three slender bristles or 
laneets for the adult and as a looped struc- 
ture for the larva. The three bristles are 
regarded as mandibles and united maxille; 
but the nature or use of the larval loop has 
not been explained so far as the author’s 
literature could inform him. The author 
regards all the bristles as maxillary and 
finds that the loop is used as a reserve 
length of tubing to keep the insect at all 
times in touch with its food. The bristles 
pass beneath the galear remnant and, form- 
ing a loop, return through a chitinous tube 
in the galea and are then foreed into the 
plant tissue. The specimens studied were 
mostly prepared and mounted by Mr. E. L. 
Dickerson in securing material for a gradu- 
ation thesis. (Discussed by Messrs. Mar- 
latt, Mark, Webster, Osborn and Needham. ) 


Early Development of the Rock Barnacle, 
Balanus: M. A. and ANNA N. BicELow, 
Columbia University. (In the absence 
of authors, read by title.) 


SCIENCE. 


d47 


The authors described the early develop- 
ment of rock-barnacle, Balanus, dealing 
primarily with the subject from a stand- 
point of cell-lineage. Contrary to previous 
accounts, they maintain that the cleavage 
is regular and determinate. The germ- 
layers are traced from the early stages of 
the cleavage, and the development is shown 
to be closely similar to that of barnacles of 
the genus Lepas. 


AFTERNOON SESSION, JULY 1. ' PROFESSOR E. 
L. MARK IN THE CHAIR. 


Wind and Storms as Agents in the Diffu- 
ston of Insects: Francis M. WEBSTER, 
Wooster, O. (Will appear in full in the 
American Naturalist.) 

The speaker called attention to the sev- 
eral influences of winds on the diffusion 
of insects both independently of and in 
connection with thunder-storms. (Dis- 
cussed by Messrs. J. B. Smith, Surface, 
Minot, Dyche and Bowlus.) 


The Blind Fish of Cuba (with lantern 
slides) : Cart H. E1GENMANN. 

There are two species of blind fish found 
in the sink holes leading down to the under- 
ground streams draining to the south he- 
tween Artemisa, Province Pinar del Rio and 
Alacranes, Province Matanzas. These fish 
are immigrants from the sea. They are 
viviparous; the young are about an inch 
long and four in number per gestation. 
The unborn young and the recently born 
individuals are colorless and possess well- 
developed but small eyes. The fish acquire 
color with age and the eyes very probably 
degenerate; at least they become covered 
with a thick layer of tissue. (Discussed by 
Professor Surface. ) 


The Problem of Getting Air, and How it is 
Solved by Aquatic Insects (with lantern 
slides): JAmus G. NeepHam, Lake For- 
est College. 

The primitive terrestrial insect, with its 


348 


impervious cuticle, its spiracles and its sys- 
tem of internal air tubes, would seem, of all 
animals, the least likely to be able to take to 
aquatic life. Yet the adaptation has been 
successfully carried out on many different 
lines. 

This paper set forth the diverse types of 
devices that have enabled insects to rein- 
vade the water—the primitive home of ani- 
mal life—and to become in shallow fresh 
waters a chief part of its fauna. Aquatic 
insects fall naturally into the following eco- 
logical groups: 

A. Forms breathing air directly. 

a. Living on the surface; 
spring tails, etc. 

b. Resting beneath the surface; foraging down 
below, carrying down a reserve supply 
of air, diving beetles, back swimmers. 

ce. Remaining down below, but in communica- 
tion with the surface; Ranatra, rat-tail 
larve, ete. 

B. Forms breathing the air dissolved 
water (strictly aquatic). 

a. Free swimming—Corethra larve, ete. 

b. Ambulatory. 

1. Climbing and clinging forms. 
2. Sprawling forms. 
3. Burrowing forms. 


water striders, 


in the 


Of the strictly aquatic insects there are: 
1. Gill-less forms (living in well aerated water: 
size small). 
2. Forms with lamellate tracheal gills. 
and damsel fly nymphs. 


May fly 


3. Forms with filamentous tracheal gills, stone fly 
nymphs, ete. 

4. Forms with blood gills, and hemoglobin in the 
blood. 

. Forms with tube gills. 


ou 


Simulium pupe. 


(Discusssed by Messrs. Osborn and Sur- 
face.) 


The Habits of Fresh-water Lampreys 
(with lantern slides): Harvey Apam 
SurFACE, Pennsylvania State College. 
The speaker presented numerous lantern 

slides illustrating his paper ‘Removal of 

Lampreys from Interior Waters of New 

York,’ published in the fourth Annual Re- 


SCIENCE. 


zoology bears to modern medicine. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 400. 


port, Commissioner Fisheries, Game and 
Forests of New York. (Discussed by Dr. 
O. P. Hay.) 


The Significance of the Recent American 
Cases of Hookworm Disease (uncinariasis 
or anchylostomiasis) mm Man: CH. War- 
DELL StiuEs, U. 8. Dept. of Agriculture. 
(Will appear in full in the Annual Re- 
port, Bureau of Animal Industry for 
1902.) 

The speaker maintained that hookworm 
disease in man in this country is due to two 
different organisms; one of these, known as 
Uncinaria duodenalis, has been imported 
from Europe and Africa, and is now being 
imported by the troops who are returning 
from the Philippines; the other organism, 
however, is distinctly American, and is 
known as Uncinaria americana. This 
parasite has thus far been found in Virgin- 
ia, Texas, Cuba and Porto Rico, and the 
indications are that it is more or less wide- 
spread in the southern states. The evi- 
dence at his disposal leads to the  well- 
grounded suspicion that a number of cases 
of anemia in the southern states, which 
have heretofore been attributed to malaria 
and which have not responded to the regular 
treatment for malaria, are in reality cases 
of hookworm disease. He further exhibit- 
ed specimens of allied parasites which cause 
similar diseases in other animals, such as 
dogs, cats, sheep, cattle, wolves, seals, the 
blue fox, ete. The so-called typhoid fever 
of eats, for instance, has been traced to one 
of these parasites, and is totally distinct 
from typhoid fever in man. One of these 
parasites also produces a very serious and 
often fatal disease among dogs, another is 
responsible for the death of many sheep in 
the southern states, and still another is 
responsible for the death of many young 
seals. The paper in question formed an 
illustration of the important relation which 
(Dis- 


AUGUST 29, 1902. ] 


cussed by Messrs. Webster, Ward, Higen- 
mann and Hay.) 


A Remarkable Turtle from the Loup Fork 
Beds of Kansas: Ottver Perry Hay, 
American Museum Natural History. 
(Will appear in full in Bulletin Amer. 
Mus. Nat. Hist.) 

The turtle in question was one of Cope’s 
species, Testudo orthopygia, which possesses 
an armor of bony plates in the skin of the 
legs, tail, ete. (Discussed by Professor 
Ortmann. ) 


MORNING SESSION, JULY 2. PROFESSOR E. L. 
MARK IN THE CHAIR. 


The Harvard Embryological Collection: 
CHARLES SkEpewick Mrnot, Harvard 
Medieal School. 

The speaker described the methods used 
in the formation of the Harvard Embryo- 
logical Collection, the general plan for 
which was laid before the Association at its 
Detroit meeting. The collection since then 
has grown steadily, until it now contains 
527 series, representing carefully chosen 
stages of embryos of nineteen typical verte- 
brates. It has already served as the basis 
cf a series of investigations, and it is hoped 
that workers from other institutions will 
also use the material for their special re- 
searches. The collection is being added to 
at present with considerable rapidity. The 
two types, of which the series at present are 
most complete, are the dog-fish, Squalus 
acanthias and the chick. (Discussed by 
Dr. H. B. Ward.) 


Effects of Altitude on Snails of the Species 
Pyramidula strigosa Gould: Morton 
JoHN Exrop, University of Montana. 
The shells belonging to this species are 

air-breathing and land forms. The species 

is widely distributed west of the Rocky 

Mountains, as yet found in only a few 

places east of the main range. It shows 

very great variation. Formerly many spe- 


SCIENCE. 


DAD 


cles were recognized, but these have lately 
been reduced to varieties. The paper is 
based on specimens collected in western 
Montana. These were taken at altitudes 
varying from 2,300 to 9,000 feet. The to- 
tal number examined was nearly 550. 

The measurements included the greatest 
width, least width, depth, number of whorls, 
weight, volume and markings. The results 
show that the shells have even greater vari- 
ation than was at first supposed. The ex- 
tremes in greatest width are 6 and 25 mm. ; 
in least width, 5 and 22 mm.; in depth, 3 
and 17 mm.; in whorls, 3.5 and 6.5; in 
weight, .1 and 1.2 g.; in volume, .1 and 1.7 
e.c. The greatest variation was found at 
lower altitudes, the high altitude forms 
showing a more fixed condition, with least 
tendeney to deviate from the typical form. 
All the lines of variation shown in the tables 
for lower altitude shells show a tendency to 
vary from the typical form at a given place. 
From a study of the specimens secured it 
seems evident that the species has crossed 
the range and is now descending on the 
eastern slope. Specimens collected from 
the eastern or Atlantic side of the range are 
quite different in appearance from those on 
the Pacific side, being noticeably of greater 
depth, and with characteristic shell appear- 
ance and markings. 


Structure of the Pelvic Girdle in the Sau- 
ropoda: JoHN Bretu HatcHer, Carnegie 
Museum. 

The speaker discussed the various ele- 
ments of the pelvis of Diplodocus, Bron- 
tosaurus and Morosaurus, the three most 
common and characteristic genera of sauro- 
pod dinosaurs. The distinctive characters 
shown in the pelvic girdles of these three 
genera were illustrated and the view main- 
tained that many supposed generic charac- 
ters exhibited in the pelvis of the Sauro- 
poda are in reality due entirely to 
differences of age, hence are of little value 


350 


for purposes of classification. The speaker, 
also discussed the structure of the pelvis of 
the Sauropoda with relation to the theory 
as to the origin of the group from.bipedal 
dinosaurs. (Discussed by Dr. C. 8. Minot.) 


A Record of the Occurrence of Filaria loa, 
a Human Parasite new to the United 
States: Henry Baupwin Warp, Univer- 
sity of Nebraska. 

The speaker cited a case of the occur- 
rence of this thread worm, giving an ac- 
count of the clinical history, the wander- 
ings of the parasite, ete. (Discussed by 
Messrs. MeMillan, Marlatt and Stiles.) 


Notes on Some Cretaceous Fish from Kan- 
sas: OLIVER Perry Hay, American Mu- 
seum Natural History. (Will appear in 
full in Bulletin Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist.) 
The speaker discussed especially the gen- 

era Protorphyrena and Anogmius, men- 

tioning new features in their structure and 
presenting conclusions concerning the rela- 
tionships of the organisms in question. 


Morphology of Insect-galls: MEuYILLE T. 

Coox, Greencastle, Ind. 

The speaker stated that the morpholog- 
ical character of a gall depends upon the 
insect producing it, and not upon the host 
plant. Galls produced by insects of the 
same family show a resemblance, and those 
produced by insects of the same genus show 
a decided resemblance. In some eases galls 
similar in character are produced by in- 
sects of widely separated genera. This is 
probably due to the fact that the insects 
affect corresponding tissues of the host 
plant. The insects always affect the ac- 
tive growing parts of the plant. It was 
stated further that many of the so-called 
‘stem-galls’ are in reality bud-galls. In 
these cases also it seems probable that the 
insects affect corresponding tissues of the 
host plant. The Cecidomyid galls show the 
ereatest variation, both in external charac- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 400. 


ters and in histology. The Cynipidid galls 
show the highest development, both in ex- 
ternal characters and in histology. (Dis- 
cussed by Mr. Marlatt.) 

In the absence of the authors the follow- 
ing papers were read by title: 


Plankton Pulses: CHARLES ATWwoop Koro, 
University of California. (No abstract 
presented. ) 


Fish Remains of Oriskany Sandstone, Chap- 
man Plantation, Aroostook County, 
Maine: Otor O. NyYnLANpeErR, Caribou, 
Maine. 


A New Fresh-water Isopod of the Genus 
Mancasellus, from Indiana: Harriet 
RICHARDSON, Smithsonian Institution. 
(Will appear in full in Proc. U. S. Nat. 
Museum, v. 25, pp. 505-507.) 

The genus Mancasellus was established 
by Harger from the form brachyurus. There 
are, up to the present time, but four known 
species; M. brachyurus Harger, M. macrou- 
rus Garman, M. lineatus (Say) and M. 
tena Harger, and one subspecies M. tenax 
dilata Harger. The genus is not repre- 
sented outside of North America. This 
paper contains a description of Mancasel- 
lus danielsi, which comes from Lily Lake, 
Indiana, and was collected by Mr. L. E. 
Daniels. 


A New Terrestrial Isopod of the Genus 
Pseudarmadillo, from Cuba: HARRIET 
RICHARDSON, Smithsonian Institution. 
(Will appear in full in Proc. U. S. Nat. 
Museum, v. 25, pp. 509-511.) 

The type and only species of the genus 
Pseudarmadillo, P. carinulatus, was de- 
seribed by Saussure. The new species, P. 
gittianus, described in this paper was col- 
lected by Messrs. Palmer, and Riley at 
Neuva Verona, Isla de Pinos, Cuba. The 
description is from a single specimen. 


August 29, 1902.] 


The Axial Skeleton of the Enteropneusta, 
Considered from a Functional Point of 
View: Wiuu1AM Emerson Rirrer, Uni- 
versity of California. (Will appear in 
full in ‘Scientific Results, Harriman 
Alaska Expedition. ’) 

(1) The notochord is not restricted to the 
pouch-like organ present in the adults of all 
species and hitherto regarded as constitu- 
ting the entire organ, but in reality extends 
back to the posterior end of the collar (fully 
developed in the adult of the Harrimaniidee 
and rudimentary in other species). The 
collar notochord is mainly in the form of a 
broad, deep trough on the dorsal side of the 
esophagus, though histologically and func- 
tionally portions of the esophageal wall 
adjacent to the trough must be reckoned 
as belonging to the notochord. (2) The com- 
bined notochord and chondroid skeletal 
elements constitute a structural unit, this 
unit being a true axial skeleton. (3) This 
axial skeleton has a twofold function; (a) 
to serve as a firm rod for giving rigidity and 
strength to the peduncle of the animal, and 
to support, at its anterior end, the heart and 
glomerulus which are situated in the base of 
the proboscis; (b) to serve as the origin of 
the great radio-longitudinal muscles of the 
collar. (4) The important muscles above 
mentioned are attached to the sides of the 
axial skeleton along its entire length from 
the mid-peduncle to near the posterior end 
of the collar. They have an extensive inser- 
tion into the connective tissue of the collar, 
the septum between the collar and abdom- 
inal ecelom, and the collar ectoderm. These 
muscles are practically the only ones in the 
eollar by which the boring and locomotor 
movements of the animal are effected 
there being in this region no body-wall 
muscles at all in some of the species. They 
are consequently true skeletal muscles 
acting on an internal skeleton, and hence 
having no counterpart im any invertebrate, 
but are comparable with the azial 


SCIENCE. 


351 


skeletal musculature of vertebrates. The 
functional significance of the axial skeleton 
as above defined has not been recognized 
heretofore, probably on account of the 
rudimentary condition of its esophageal 
portion in most species. In particular, its 
relation to the skeletal musculature has 
escaped adequate recognition. In the facts 
here briefly set forth we have evidence as 
strong as that furnished by the branchial 
apparatus in favor of the chordate affinities 
of the enteropneusta. 


Evolution and Distribution of the Masto- 
dons and Elephants in North America: 
Henry FairFieELD OssorN, Columbia 
University. (Will appear in full in 
American Naturalist.) 

Cu. WARDELL STILES, 
Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

The Elements of Insect Anatomy, an outline 
for the use of students in entomological 
laboratories. By Joun Henry Comstock 
and Vernon L. Ketuoce. Third edition, re- 
vised. Ithaca, N. Y., Comstock Publishing 
Co. 1901. 

Teachers of entomology will certainly wel- 
come this revised edition of an excellent labo- 
ratory guide. In their selection of easily ac- 
eessible types the authors have had in mind 
the convenience of instructors and classes 
throughout the country. The outlines are 
earefully constructed with a view to insuring 
accuracy of observation and include, perhaps, 
as much material as can be worked over dur- 
ing the time usually allotted to the subject in 
our colleges and universities. The work suf- 
fers somewhat from lack of symmetry. Thus 
before introducing the student to the maze of 
sclerites and other anatomical details, with 
which the outlines begin, it would have been 
desirable to insert a chapter on general mor- 
phology for the purpose of elucidating the 
important principles of metamerism, cephali- 
zation, ete. This could have been accom- 
plished by constructing a number of brief 
comparative outlines of several insects repre- 


352 


senting the different natural orders, together 
with outlines of a few common myriopods and 
arachnids. The cockroach, in the opinion of 
many teachers, would furnish a more satis- 
factory paradigm of insect structure than the 
grasshopper. At any rate, the work would 
gain by including a full outline of both in- 
sects. The chapter on the mouth-parts should 
have been extended to include outlines of the 
alimentary tracts of several different insects 
and of some one holometabolic insect in its 
different instars. Good dissections of the ali- 
mentary tract are easily made by the beginner 
and are eminently instructive both anatomic- 
ally and physiologically. The same is true of 
the reproductive organs of insects. While 
these additions would considerably increase 
the size of the book, they would also increase 
the opportunities for selection on the part of 
the teacher and student. “ Wer Vieles bringt, 
wird Manchem Etwas bringen” is as true of 
insect anatomy as of any other extensive sub- 
ject. 

The chapter on the structure and venation 
of wings is excellent, as would be expected 
from the authors’ valuable researches on these 
organs. This and the chapter on the mouth- 
parts are the only portions of the book in 
which the principles of comparison, which re- 
deem the sterility of anatomical details, are 
really accentuated. The former chapter is 
also the only one that is at all adequately il- 
lustrated with clear, simple figures. The con- 
cluding chapter on histological methods is also 
excellent and will be useful to the student in 
other fields of animal morphology. One notes 
with pleasure that there are still investigators 
bold enough to prefer the cumbersome but 
accurate sliding microtomes to the unreliable 
rotatory machines of our laboratories. The 
authors have unfortunately omitted more than 
a mere reference to the celloidin method, 
which deserves much more attention in insect 
histology than it has received. 

The outlines exhibit few inaccuracies in de- 
tail, and perhaps none as flagrant as those 
which characterize the table of correspond- 
ences between the male and female reproduc- 
tive organs on p. 46. The seminal vesicles do 
not correspond, morphologically at least, to the 


‘SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 400. 


egg calyces, and it is quite erroneous to de- 
seribe the ejaculatory duct as ‘the united vasa 
deferentia’ and the vagina as ‘the united ovi- 
ducts.’ The penis, moreover, is neither anal- 
ogous nor homologous to the ovipositor, and 
it is difficult to see why these organs should 
be made to correspond to each other. 

It is greatly to be regretted that the clear 
and straightforward English of the authors 
should be marred in this, as in the previous 
editions, by a belated propaganda for an ana- 
tomical nomenclature as inelegant as it is un- 
The increasing reluctance of 
American zoologists to use terms like ‘proxi- 
mad,’ ‘ distad,’ ‘ mesad,’ ete., is significant and 
should have been heeded by the authors. The 
instructor is certainly to be commended who 
compels his students to translate all these uni- 
versity provincialisms into normal English be- 
fore beginning to use the otherwise admirable 
outlines. 

The typography, paper and especially the 
binding are all that can be desired in a labo- 
ratory guide. 


necessary. 


W. M. WHEELER. 


Neudrucke von Schriften und Karten wber 
Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus heraus- 
gegeben von Professor Dr. G. Hrtumann. 
No. 14. Meteorologische Optik. Berlin, A. 
Asher and Co. 1902. 4to. Pp. xiv-+107. 
This, the latest and probably the last of the 

reprints of rare meteorological and magnetic 

memoirs to be published by Dr. Hellmann, 
treats of a subject that has not been consid- 
ered before in the series and, since optical 
phenomena were among the earliest to be ob- 
served, the present memoirs extend over the 
long period from 1000 to 1836. The special 
subjects comprise first, four important mem- 
oirs on the rainbow, namely, by Theodoricus 

Teutonicus (1311), Descartes (1637), Newton 

(1704) and Airy (1836); two deseriptions of 

the Brocken spectre and the white fog-bow by 

Ulloa and Bouguer (1744-48); three papers 

on halos, namely, descriptions of remarkable 

phenomena of this kind seen by Hevelius in 

Danzig (1672) and by Lowitz in St. Peters: 

burg (1794), besides the fundamental essay of 

Fraunhofer (1825) on the formation of colored 


AvGust 29, 1902.] 


corone. There follow a memoir on mirages by 
Monge (1797) and an account by Scoresby 
(1820) of some remarkable atmospheric reflec- 
tions and refractions in the Greenland Sea; 


the earliest discussion of twilight by Alhazen 


(about 1000) and the first good account of the 
anti-twilight arch by Mairan (1753). The 
volume contains several illustrations, which 
like some of the text are in facsimile, and is 
enriched with the usual historical and ex- 
planatory notes. Dr. Hellmann’s work is al- 
ways so exact that it is a surprise to find 
slight typographical errors on page 83 in the 
reprint of Scoresby’s paper. Like its prede- 
cessors, the present volume is published with 
the aid of the German Meteorological Society, 
which has fixed the price at 11 marks ($2.75), 
and although it is not on sale in this coun- 
try, two or three copies may be purchased 
at the above price from the Blue Hill Observa- 
tory, Hyde Park, Mass. Before closing my 
reviews of these reprints of rare papers, it 
should be mentioned that already several of 
the preceding thirteen numbers are out of 
print, which shows that Dr. Hellmann’s enter- 
prise has been quickly appreciated by librari- 
ans and private collectors of historic docu- 
ments. 
A. LAwrENCE Rotcu. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 


Bird Lore for July-August opens with an 
entertaining article ‘Concerning the Bad Re- 
pute of Whiskey John’ by Fannie Hardy Eck- 
storm, and this is followed by some well illus- 
trated ‘Nighthawk Notes’ by George H. Sel- 
leck. Ernest Crosby contributes a poem on 
‘The Veery’s Note’ and John Hutchins de- 
seribes in some detail ‘The Nesting of the 
Yellow-Throated Vireo.’ Edith M. Thomas 
commemorates in verse the destructiveness of 
‘The Sapsucker,’ and the instalment of ‘How 
to Name the Birds’ is devoted to the vireos, 
warblers and pipits. The reviews and reports 
of societies are of interest, as is also the edi- 
torial on nomenclature. 

The Plant World for July contains ‘Through 
Desert and Mountain in Southern California’ 
by S. B. Parish, ‘The Protection of Native 


SCIENCE. 


309 


Plants’ by Idelette Carpenter and ‘Plants 
used for Cuban Confectionery’ by Charles 
Louis Pollard. In the supplement devoted to 
the Families of Flowering Plants Mr. Pollard 
continues the descriptions of the families of 
the Polemoniales. 


The Museums Journal of Great Britain be- 
gins its second year with the July number. 
The Report of the Council of the Museums 
Association states that the publication of the 
Journal has been in every way a success and 
that it will soon begin the publication of a 
Directory of Museums as a Supplement. The 
first instalment will probably be in the August 
number. The leading article is the address of 
the president of the Museums Association, 
Mr. W. E. B. Priestly. There is a description 
of a museum microscope which has just been 
placed on the market by Messrs. W. Watson 
and Sons. 
is limited to 12 slides, but we see no reason 
why it could not be so modified as to take 
slides placed on an endless belt after the 
method devised by Dr. J. M. Flint and used 
in the Army Medical Museum. There is a 
too brief account of the opening of the very 
interesting War and Peace Museum at Lu- 
cerne, designed to illustrate the history and 
horrors of warfare with a view to aiding in 
its abolishment. 


As now arranged this instrument 


The American Naturalist for August con- 
tains a description, in some detail, of ‘The 
Anatomy of a Double Calf’ by H. L. Osborn, 
an account of ‘The Metamorphosis of Sisyra’ 
by Maude H. Anthony, which contains as well 
many details of the anatomy of the larva and 
of wing variation in the adult. Henrietta F. 
Thacher describes ‘The Regeneration of the 
Pharynx in Planaria maculata, and William 
A. Hilton ‘A Structural Feature connected 
with the Mating of Diemyctylus viridescens,’ 
these being the small pits on the sides of the 
neck. These are much larger in the male than 
in the female and their secretion is thought 
to attract the female and cause her to follow 
the male after mating. C. R. Eastman gives 
‘Some Hitherto Unpublished Observations of 
Orestes St. John on Paleozoic Fishes’ and 8. 
N. Rhoads presents some observations on ‘The 


304 


Marsh or Rice Field Mice of the Eastern 
United States. The number contains the 
‘Quarterly List of Gifts, Appointments, Re- 
tirements and Deaths.’ 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
SCIENTIFIC NOMENCLATURE. 


To tHe Eprror or Scrence: In Science for 
March 21, 1902, Mr. Frank W. Very writes an 
article on ‘ Scientific Nomenclature’; he says 
that “Scientific descriptions remain unintel- 
ligible to the lazy man who hates to use the 
dictionary. They are free property to all who 
are willing to take this trouble.” Mr. Horace 
White comments on this in the number for 
March 28, and gives the word ‘ ecology’ as one 
which he could not find; the discussion which 
followed has been interesting and instructive; 
Dr. George M. Gould, the learned editor of 
American Medicine, gave it an editorial notice 
in his journal of July 19. I fully indorse Mr. 
Very’s opinion of the ‘lazy man,’ but one who 
hunts up all words that are new to him will 
have many disappointments if he expects to 
find them all; during the past month I have 
been keeping a list of words not in the diction- 
aries that I have; these dictionaries are 
Webster’s International, edition of 1890; the 
Universal or Encyclopedic, 1897, edited by 
Robert Hunter and Charles Morris; and the 
Century, edition of 1902. Following is the list 
of words, with the name of the user, and place 
where I found them: 

Chemotactic, S. J. Meltzer, M.D., American 
Medicine, Vol. IV., p. 61. 

Isotonic (in a chemical or physiological sense) , 
do., p. 63. 

Epeirogenic, Robert T. Hill, National Geographic 
Magazine, July, 1902, pp. 228, 238. 

Electron (in reference to an atom of electricity), 
J. A. Fleming, Popular Science Monthly, May, 
1902, p. 6. 

Micromil, do., p. 10. 

Avalent, do., p. 15. 

Sterochemistry, do., p. 15. 

Catalyzer, Carl H. Eigenmann, Popular Science 
Monthly, May, 1902, p. 39. 

Sedentation, Professor W. H. Holmes, ‘ National 
Museum Report,’ 1900, p. 177. 

Automatograph, Geo. M. Stratton, ScreNcr, 
July 4, 1902, p. 25; Milieu, Geo. M. Stratton, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 400. 


Science, July 4, 1902, p. 25. 
but one meets it occasionally.) 

Tropism, Professor E. B. Titchener, Popular Sci- 
ence Monthly, March, 1902, p. 463. (Also in 
SCIENCE, XV., pp. 793.) 

Chemoreflex, do., p. 463. 

Photo-reception, do., p. 465. 

Pylophore, Professor J. C. Branner, Popular 
Science Monthly, March, 1902, p. 407. 

Garial, Professor 8.. W. Williston, Popular Sci- 
ence Monthly, February, 1902, p. 314. 

Acutiplantar, Robert Ridgway, ‘ Birds of North 
and Middle America,’ Part I., p. 24. 

Esthetology, J. W. Powell, ‘Report of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology,’ 18, Part I., p. 
XXVi. 

Sophiology, J. W. Powell, ‘ Report of the Smith- 
sonian Institution,’ 1898, p. 45. 

Activital, J. W. Powell, ‘Report of the Bureau 
of American Ethnology,’ 18, p. xxvi. 

Conyentionize, -ism, do., pp. Xxx, xxXxl. 

Demonomy, J. W. Powell, ‘ Report of the Bureau 
of American Ethnology,’ 15, p. xix. (In sense of 
“science of humanity.’) 

Accultural, -ed, do., 18, pp. xxxiv, xxxvii. 

Protolithic, do., 18, pp. xxxvli, xxxviii. 

Technolithic, do., 18, p. xxxviii. 3 

Lexie, do., 18, p. xii. 

Peyote (mescal), do., 18, pp. xxviii, xliv. (Also 
Havelock Ellis, Popular Science Monthly, May, 
1902, p. 52.) ‘ 

Prototroch, Robert Payne Bigelow, ‘ Reference 
Handbook of the Medical Sciences,’ 1902, Vol. IV., 
p. 656. 

Biophor, do., p. 654. 

Bionomics, Charles Sedgwick Minot, ScIENcE, 
July 4, 1902, p. 5. 

Ethology (biologic meaning), William Morton 
Wheeler, Sctence, Vol. XV., p. 975. 

Orthogenesis, H. Spencer (quoted from Eimer), 
‘Principles of Biology,’ Vol. L., p. 563. 

Determinant (in Weismann’s_ sense), H. 
Spencer, ‘ Facts and Comments,’ p. 129. 


(A French word, 


These have been noted during the past 
month; many of them are self-explanatory; a 
few are found in the dictionaries, but with no 
meaning given to correspond with that which 
the user wishes to convey; there are no doubt 
good reasons why these are not given in the 
dictionaries, but it seems to me that some of 
them deserve a place therein. 


R. H. Harper. 


AvuausT 29, 1902. ] 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 


MAN IN KANSAS DURING THE IOWAN STAGE OF THE 
GLACIAL PERIOD. 


Two miles southeast of Lansing, Kansas, 
and about twenty miles northwest of Kansas 
City, a human skeleton was found last spring 
by farmers in digging a long tunnel excava- 
tion for use as a dairy cellar. Soon after the 
discovery, the place was visited by M. C. Long 
and Edwin Butts, of Kansas City, the former 
being curator of the public museum there, 
for which they obtained the skeleton. Mr. 
Butts, a civil engineer, made measurements 
of the excavation, which extends 72 feet into 
the bluff. Its floor is a nearly level stratum 
of Carboniferous limestone; and its lower 
part consists of débris of limestone and earth, 
while its upper part is the fine calcareous silt 
ealled loess. The skeleton was found mostly 
in a disjointed and partly broken and decayed 
condition, at the distance of 68 to 70 feet from 
the entrance of the tunnel, about two feet 
above its floor, and 20 feet below the surface 
of the ground exactly above it. Half of the 
lower jaw was found ten feet nearer the en- 
trance, and a foot lower, than the principal 
parts of the skeleton, including the other half 
of the lower jaw. 

About a month ago this locality was care- 
fully examined again by Mr. Long and Pro- 
fessor S. W. Williston, of the Kansas State 
University, and the latter wrote a short article, 
‘A Fossil Man in Kansas,’ which was pub- 
lished in “Science, August 1.- Before this 
article appeared, newspaper accounts had been 
seen by Professor N. H. Winchell, of Minne- 
apolis, and by myself in St. Paul, which had 
led us to plan a journey to Kansas, partly for 
the purpose of examining the Lansing skele- 
ton and the drift section in which it was dis- 
covered. We accordingly visited this tunnel 
excavation, at the house of Martin Concan- 
non, on Saturday, August 9. Professors S. 
W. Williston and Erasmus Haworth, of the 
State University, Lawrence, Kansas, and M. C. 
Long, Sidney J. Hare, and P. A. Sutermeister, 
of Kansas City, accompanied us. Mr. Con- 
cannon, owner of the farm, and his sons, who 
dug the tunnel and found the skeleton, were 


SCIENCE. 


300 


also present and explained again all the cir- 
cumstances of their discovery. 

The entire section of the tunnel, which is 
about 10 feet wide, 7 feet high with arched 
top, and 72 feet long, was examined; addi- 
tional bones, as of the hands and feet, were 
found in the dump outside; and the skele- 
ton, in Kansas City, was inspected. Accord- 
ing to Professor Williston’s measurements of 
the bones, the fossil man was about five feet 
eight inches in stature, and was probably 
more than fifty years of age, as estimated 
from the worn condition of the teeth. The 
skull is dolichocephalic, with receding fore- 
head, strongly developed supraciliary ridges, 
and a markedly prognathous face and chin. 
Most of the vertebre and ribs are wanting, 
probably because of their decay previous to 
the deep inhumation by the overlying loess. 

The skeleton lay in the upper part of the 
earthy débris, including many limestone frag- 
ments of small size and some as large as two 
or three feet in length. Just above it, at an ir- 
regular line a few inches to a foot higher, a 
horizontally stratified water deposit of fine 
loess begins, forms the upper two thirds of the 
tunnel, and extends up to the surface 20 feet 
above the place of the skeleton. The loess 
continues up to Mr. Concannon’s house, which 
is about 100 feet distant, on a slight terrace, 
about 35 feet above the horizon of the skele- 
ton, and 47 feet above the level reached by the 
adjoining Missouri river at its highest flood 
since Mr. Coneannon’s settlement here 35 
years ago. This flood, in 1881, was 25 feet 
above the lowest stage of the river, which is 
735 feet above the sea. The Carboniferous 
limestone outcrops about 50 feet southeast of 
the house, and rises gradually in a spur ridge 
southeastward to a height of 150 feet or more 
above the river. 

Within a quarter of a mile southward, and 
also within a half mile to the west and north- 
west, the loess forms uplands about 200 feet 
above the Missouri; and at the end of the loess 
deposition it doubtless stretched as a broad 
floodplain, 200 or 250 feet above the present 
river level, across the Missouri valley, which 
has re-excavated. The 
skeleton appeared to all our party to have 


been subsequently 


306 


been entombed at the beginning of the loess 
deposition, which would refer it to the lowan 
stage of the Glacial period, long after the ice- 
sheet had receded from Missouri and Kan- 
sas, but while it still enveloped northern Iowa 
and nearly all of Wisconsin and Minnesota. 
In other words, it belonged to a time before 
the prominent moraines of these last-named 
states were formed on the borders of the wan- 
ing ice-sheet. The very old Kansas glacial 
drift, including many boulders of the red 
Sioux quartzite, is very thinly spread on this 
northeastern part of Kansas, under the loess, 
and reaches about 30 miles south of Lansing, 
terminating along an east to west boundary 
12 to 15 miles south of the Kansas or Kaw 
River. 

The loess and the Lansing skeleton are of 
Late Glacial age, but are probably twice or 
perhaps three times as ancient as the traces of 
man in his stone implements and quartz chips 
occurring in glacial gravel and sand beds at 
Trenton, N. J., and Little Falls, Minn. In 
the Somme Valley and other parts of France, 
as also in southern England, stone implements 
in river drift prove that man existed there 
before the Ice age, that is probably 100,000 
years ago, or doubtless four or five times 
longer ago than the date of the skeleton at 
Lansing, Kansas. 

Warren UPHAM. : 


NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 


Ir appears from a recent paper in the 
Berichte that Dr. Marckwald has at last suc- 
ceeded in preparing a specimen of polonium, 
the radio-active element associated with bis- 
muth, in such a way that the question of its 
being a peculiar form of bismuth itself may 
be set aside. The method used was to take a 
specimen of strongly radio-active oxychlorid 
of bismuth, dissolve it in acid, and then pre- 
‘cipitate the metal by a rod of pure metallic bis- 
muth. Under these circumstances the bis- 
muth becomes coated with a black deposit, 
which seems to be nearly pure polonium, inas- 
much as the radio-activity of the solution is 
wholly concentrated in the black deposit, 
which is itself extremely active. The amount 
obtained from several kilos of pitchblende resi- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 400. 
dues was only a few milligrams, from which it 
was estimated that the amount of polonium in 
pitchblende is not over one gram per ton. Dr. 
Marckwald hopes, however, to obtain enough 
of the pure metal by this method to determine 
its atomic weight. : 

K. A. Hofmann has also continued his work 
on radio-active substances from the uranium 
minerals, especially upon radio-active lead. 
The radium so obtained is very much more ac- 
tive upon the photographie plate than is polo- 
nium. A specimen of radio-active lead sulfid, 
which acted powerfully upon a photographic 
plate, was much weaker in discharging the 
electroscope than a specimen of polonium 
oxychlorid, which had no effect whatever 
through a thin gutta percha film upon a photo- 
graphic plate, even after twenty hours’ expo- 
He found that radio-active lead prepa- 
rations gain in activity by preservation in a 
dry condition in closed tubes. A number of 
metals seem capable of robbing uranium of its 
activity. In one experiment a solution of pure 
uranium was mixed with barium and the 
latter precipitated by sulfuric acid. The ura- 
nium thereby lost completely its activity both 
toward the electroscope and toward the photo- 
graphic plate; after standing two days in a 
closed tube the uranium regained its activity. 
The same phenomenon was observed in another 
experiment when bismuth was substituted for 
barium. A number of the rare earths, such as 
thorium, erbium, didymium, cerium and lan- 
thanum, are capable of receiving an induced 


sure. 


activity from uranium, and the same is true, 
not only of barium, but also of strontium 
and calcium. Activity is very slightly induced 
in yttrium and not at all in glucinum and 
zirconium. Lead receives a weak activity 
when precipitated from the uranium solution 
with sulfuric acid, but none at all when the 
precipitant is caustic potash. 

The same number of the Berichte contains 
a paper by Stock and Doht continuing their 
investigations of stibin, SbH,. This hydrid 
of antimony was obtained in the solid state 
some years ago by Olszewski, but great diffi- 
culty had been experienced by him and by 
them in obtaining more than a very small 
trace of the gas from the materials used. The 


AUGUST 29, 1902. ] 


method used by the authors consists in decom- 
posing alloys of antimony with dilute acids, 
but in their experiments with the ordinarily 
used zinc-antimony alloy, the hydrogen evolved 
contains under the most favorable condi- 
tions, less than one per cent. of stibin. After 
experimenting with several alloys, that of 
antimony with magnesium proved to be by 
far the best. With such an alloy containing 
thirty-three per cent. of antimony, the gas 
given off on treatment with cold dilute hy- 
drochloric acid contains upwards of fourteen 
per cent. of stibin, and nearly three fourths 
of the antimony used is obtained as the hy- 
drid. This is readily condensed by liquid air 
to a colorless solid, melting to a colorless 
liquid at —88° and boiling without decompo- 
sition at —17°. When the gas is perfectly 
pure it is fairly stable, but after some hours 
it begins to decompose with the deposition of 
metallic antimony. It decomposes rapidly at 
150°. 

Analyses of two specimens of early Egyptian 
remains have been recently published. The 
first is a vase of the fourth dynasty, and 
from the analysis Berthelot concludes that it 
was originally produced by baking a mixture 
of fine sand with litharge and common salt. 
The other specimen was a cold chisel dating 
from the Thébaines dynasty. This consisted 
of two parts cemented together, the outer por- 
tion being of an alloy containing 92.6 per 
cent. copper and 4.7 per cent. tin. The core 
was much richer in tin, having 84.6 per cent. 


copper and 13.3 per cent. tin. 
J. L. H. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 


Dr. ALEXANDER AGassiz has been appointed 
a member of the Prussian order, ‘pour le 
merite.’ 

THE committee of the fund raised to com- 
memorate the eightieth birthday of Professor 
Virechow announces that it has handed 
over a sum of over $12,000 to the Rudolf 
Virchow Foundation. 


Dr. Cu. Warveti Stites, zoologist of the 
Bureau of Animal Industry, U. S. Depart- 
ment of Agriculture since 1891, has been 


SCIENCE. 


307 


transferred to the U. S. Treasury Department 
as ‘chief of the Zoological Division, Public 
Health and Marine-Hospital Service of the 
United States,’ with permanent headquarters 
at the Hygienic Laboratory in Washington, 
D. C. The Zoological Division is a new divi- 
sion recently authorized by congress for the 
purpose of investigating the practical relations 
of zoology to public health matters. It is 
made a part of the Hygienic Laboratory au- 
thorized by congress several years ago. 

THE advisory committee appointed by King 
Edward in connection with the erection of a 
sanatorium for tuberculosis in England an- 
nounces that 180 essays were sent in in com- 
petition for the three prizes. The first prize, 
of the value of £500, has been awarded to Dr. 
Arthur Latham. 


Tue Society of Arts has awarded the Shaw 
prize for industrial hygiene to Mr. James 
Tonge, Jr., of Westhoughton, Lancashire, for 
his hydraulic mining cartridge. 

Nestor Ponce pe Leon, M.D. (Columbia), 
has been appointed medical inspector for the 
port of Havana. 


THE introductory address of the Medical 
Department of Owens College, Manchester, 
will be given by Sir Dyce Duckworth on Oc- 
tober 1. 


Dr. Grorce Reisner has returned from 
Egypt, where he has been making archeolog- 
ical collections for the Phoebe Hearst Museum 
in the University of California. 

Dr. W. F. Henprickson, instructor in pa- 
thology in the University of Pennsylvania, 
died on August 21, at the age of twenty-six 
years. ; 

Mr. Grorcr M. Hopkins, the author of works 
popularizing science and one of the editors of 
the Scientific American, died on August 17, at 
the age of sixty years. 


Dr. Exite Dunant, curator of the Arche- 
ological Museum at Geneva, was killed on 
August 22 while ascending Mount Pleureur. 


Tue death is announced of Dr. Leopold 
Schenk, formerly professor of embryology at 
the University of Vienna. It will be remem- 
bered that Dr. Schenk published a work on the 


358 


determination of sex which did not meet the 
approval of scientific men. It was claimed 
that it was used for advertising purposes, and 
he was retired from his chair at the University 
at the request of the faculty. 

Tue Civil Service Commission announces 
an examination on September 15 to fill ‘posi- 
tions of physiological chemist and chief of the 
drug laboratory in the Bureau of Chemistry 
of the Department of Agriculture. The sal- 
ary of these positions is $2,000. Applicants 
need not appear at any place for examination, 
the entire weight being laid on education, 
training, experience and scientific papers. On 
October 4 there will be held an examination 
for the position of chemist in the road-material 
laboratory of the Bureau of Chemistry at the 
same salary.. Two examinations for positions 
in the Philippine service are also announced 
on September 30, one for the position of ex- 
pert in animal industry with a salary of $2,500, 
and one for the position of instrument maker 
in the government laboratory with a salary of 
$1,200. 

Ir is stated in Nature that Gilbert White’s 
house at Selbourne is again for sale, and the 
suggestion is made by Mr. KE. A. Martin, mem- 
ber of the council of the Selbourne Society, 
that it should be purchased as a permanent 
memorial of the father of British naturalists. 
The house, known as The Wakes, is situated 
in the main street of the village of Selbourne, 
and is in much the same condition as is was in 
White’s time. The question of the existence 
of a portrait of Gilbert White is discussed 
by Hr. R. Holt-White in .a letter to the 
August number of Nature Notes, with the re- 
sult that there is no good reason to believe 
that any such picture is known. 


Revuter’s AGENcy reports that the Prince of 
Monaco has presented a quantity of deep-sea 
apparatus to Mr. W. S. Bruce for the Scottish 
Antarctic Expedition, including trawls, nets, 
water-bottles for obtaining samples of water 
from great depths for physical examination, 
thermometers and other similar apparatus. 

WE learn from the British Medical Journal 
that the Pasteur Institute of Warsaw, founded 
15 years ago, has during that period performed 


SCIENCE. 


J taxes ar 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 400. 
some 500,000 antirabic inoculations. Recent- 
ly an accident occurred of which there had 
been ‘no previous example. Of 40 persons in- 
eculated on November 29th, 1901, 22 were at- 
tacked with illness. Of these 6 were children, 
4 of whom died with symptoms resembling 
those of scarlatina. ‘The other persons: pre- 
sented only local manifestations. The Insti- 
tute was closed-and disinfected, and the per- 
formance of inoculation was not resumed fill 
December 20th, when fresh spinal*cords. pro- 
cured from St. Petersburg and Cracow were 
employed. Dr. Palmciski, the director of the 
institute, is investigating the cause of the 
outbreak, which is believed to be due to 
secondary infection, and on completion of the 
inquiry the results will be made public. 


We learn from the Botanical Gazette that 
in connection with the Royal Botanical Gar- 
dens at Peradeniya an experiment station has 
recently been established for trying on a large 
scale new products not yet staples. The pur- 
chased estate contains 550 acres. 5 


At a meeting held at the Apothecaries’ Hall, 
says the British Medical Journal, it was re- 
solved to call the new society for investigating 
drugs and their uses the ‘Therapeutical So- 
ciety,’ and to include treatment by natural 
forces and by surgical appliances as well as by 
drugs in the subjects to be discussed. 


~ An International Congress on the care of 
the insane is to be held at Antwerp this year 
from September 1 to 7. The Belgian Minis- 
ter of Justice is the honorary president of the 
congress, and the acting-president is Dr. Pe- 
ters, of Gheel. 


THE newspapers report that news has been 
received of the Nordenskjéld Antarctic ex- 
pedition. The vessel is imprisoned in the 
ice, according to these advices, and prepara- 
tions have begun to proceed in dog sledges. 
The health of the members of the party was 
excellent. 


News has been received at Yokohama that 
the small island of Tori Shima, between the 
Bonin Islands and Hondo, the main island of 
Japan, was overwhelmed by a volcanic erup- 
tion between the 13th and 15th of the month. 


AvuausT 29, 1902.] 


All the houses have been demolished and the 
150 inhabitants killed. 


Tue Berlin correspondent of the Times says 
that the scientific commission sent by the 
German Sea Fisheries League to ascertain the 
‘value of deep sea fishing in the Baltic has not 
yet published its report. It is known, how- 
ever, that large fishing grounds were not found 
and that trawl fishing as practiced in the 
North Sea would not pay. 


~ Aw industrial exhibition is being planned 
for Johannesburg, South Africa. It will em- 
brace mining and agricultural machinery, mo- 
tive powers, tramways and various industries. 
The arts and sciences will be included in the 
scope of the exhibition. 


Tuer Botanical Gazette states that the serial 
publication known as ‘Contributions to. the 
U. S. National Herbarium’ was transferred 
from the Department of Agriculture. to the 
National Museum with a special appropria- 
tion of $7,000. This provides for an editorial 
assistant: and- an artist, and will enable the 
museum to republish certain numbers which 
are out of print and in demand. 


From a letter dated Kechatno River, June 
28, from Mr. A. H. Brooks, geologist in charge 
of the Alaskan work of the Geological Survey, 
the latest information is received regarding 
the progress of exploration in that territory. 
Mr. Brooks is at present leading an exploring 
party which started late in May from near 
the head of Cook Inlet, on the southern coast, 
to explore the unknown region of the western 
Alaska Range and to reach Circle City, on the 
Upper Yukon, before the arrival of cold 
weather. The distance is about 600 miles, 100 
of which had been traversed at the date of the 
letter. The route taken from Cook Inlet was 
northward, partly along the beach and partly 
‘by Indian trail parallel to the shore of the in- 
let. Beluga River, a formidable stream over 
‘which it was necessary to swim the horses by 
‘means of boats, was successfully crossed. 
Thence northwestward a well- forested foothill 
region with abundance of grass was traversed 
fo the Skwentna River, which was crossed with 
difficulty owing to its low temperature and 
rapid current. A portion of the outfit was 


SCIENCE. 


the latter river. 


‘exclusively to cancer research; 


309 


then sent by boat to the Kechatno River, while 
the rest of the party went overland to meet it 
through a region of extensive swamps where it 
was necessary to cut the trail for almost 30 
miles. From Kechatno River the route lies 
across the Alaska Range, partly by the trail 
used by Captain Herron in 1899, thence to the 
Tanana River and northeastward to Circle 
City. If the season is found to be too far 
advanced on reaching the Tanana, the river 
will be descended to the Yukon, and passage 
will be taken on one of the boats going down 
In spite of the difficulties of 
travel experienced to this point, the party is 
reported to be in excellent health and spirits. 
The topographer of the expedition is Mr. D. 
L. Reaburn, and the assistant geologist is Mr. 
L. M. Prindle, who has already made‘a_ valu- 
able collection of plants. 


We learn. from Nature that the text of the 


draft scheme of organized research on cancer, 


adopted by the Royal College of Physicians on 
March.24 and approved by the Royal College 
of Surgeons on April 10, has now been pub- 
lished. The scheme states that in order to pro- 
mote investigations into all matters connected 


‘with, or bearing on, the causes, prevention and 


treatment of cancer and malignant disease, 
steps are to be taken, (1) to provide, extend, 
equip and maintain laboratories to be devoted 
(2) to en- 
courage researches on the subject of cancer 
within the United Kingdom or in the British 


‘dominions beyond the seas; (3) to assist in the 


development of cancer-research departments in 
various hospitals and institutions approved by 
the executive committee; (4) and generally to 
provide means for systematic investigation in 
various other directions into the causes, pre- 
vention and treatment of cancer. Should’ the 
object of the fund be attained by the discovery 
of the cause and nature of cancer, and of an 
effective method of treatment, the Royal Col- 
leges, with the consent of the trustees, are to 


‘be empowered to utilize the fund either. (a) 


for equipping with the necessities for such 
treatment such hospitals as they may select, or 
(b) for forwar ding research into other diseases. 
The fund is to be administered by a president, 
vice-presidents, trustees, honorary treasurer, 


360 


general committee, and executive committee 
consisting of twelve members, one to be nomi- 
nated by the Royal Society. 


Buuuetiww No. 35, entitled ‘ Eucalypts Culti- 
vated in the United States,’ by Professor A. J. 
McClatchie, agriculturist and horticulturist of 
the Arizona Experiment Station, will be ready 
for distribution by August 15, 1902. Forty 
species of Australian Eucalypts, which have 
been successfully grown in the southwestern 
part of the United States for timber, for wind- 
breaks or for ornament, are fully described 
and illustrated in this bulletin. The little- 
known distinguishing characteristics of the 
seedling and older growth of these trees have 
received special attention and illustration; a3 
have their requirements for soil, climate and 
culture. The phenomenally rapid growth of 
the Eucalypts renders them of very great eco- 
nomic importance in suitable climates; and 
tree planters and others who desire informa- 
tion concerning the character, culture and 
economic uses of these trees and their wood 
will find in this bulletin a useful guide. 


Tue Electrical World describes the progress 
toward establishing a John Fritz medal. As 
we have already stated, representative mem- 
bers of the four national engineering societies 
have organized for the purpose of celebrating 
suitably the eightieth birthday of John Fritz, 
the celebrated American ironmaster and in- 
ventor. Under discussion the plan developed 
until it was decided to establish a John Fritz 
medal, to be awarded every year ‘to the orig- 
inators of the most useful scientific or indus- 
trial achievements, in perpetual honor of John 
Fritz and to the glory of engineering.’ In 
order that the subscribers to the fund should 
be numerous, it was decided to permit each 
one to contribute $10. Enough has now been 
subscribed to insure the success of the project, 
but there is still an opportunity for those who 
wish to be enrolled. Several thousand dollars 
have been received. The purpose is that this 
medal shall be awarded by a perpetual com- 
mittee of 16, to be appointed or chosen in equal 
numbers from the American Society of Civil 
Engineers, the American Institute of Mining 
Engineers, the American Society of Mechan- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 400. 


ical Engineers and the American Institute of 
Electrical Engineers. Rules for the award of 
this medal have been prepared. The commit- 
tee may select any person of any nationality. 
No award shall be made until after at least 
one year of consideration, and it must have 
the affirmative vote of at least three fourths 
of the board. The hope and belief is that this 
medal will be a distinction not second to the 
Bessemer gold medal, awarded by the Iron 
and Steel Institute of Great Britain. The 
public celebration of Mr. Fritz’s eightieth 
birthday and of the foundation of this me- 
morial will be held in New York City, October 
31. This celebration will take the form of a 
dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, in which the 
subscribers to the fund will have the first op- 
portunity to participate. Those who may wish 
to be enrolled among the subscribers to the 
medal fund should write for particulars to 
Mr. John Thomson, treasurer, 253 Broadway, 
New York City. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


PRESIDENT PritcHett, of the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, has declined the presi- 
deney of the University of Wisconsin. 


Tue trustees of the University of Chicago 
have again postponed the decision as to the 
segregation of the sexes at the University. It 
is said that a majority of them do not favor 
the plan recommended by President Harper. 


Dr. J. H. Beat, a chemist, has been elected 
president of Scio College, at Scio, Ohio. 


Wituiam Stuart, B.S. (Vermont, ’94), M.Se. 
(Purdue, 796), associate horticulturist of the 
Indiana Experiment Station, has resigned to 
accept the professorship of horticulture in 
the University of Vermont. 


Tue Council of University College, Liver- 
pool, has elected Dr. Benjamin Moore, now 
lecturer in physiology in the Charing Cross 
Medical School, to the chair of bio-chemistry, 
recently founded in the college by Mr. Wil- 
liam Johnston. 


Proressor Hans Srrauu, director of the 
Anatomical Laboratory at Giessen, has been 
ealled to Tiibingen. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: 8. NEwcoms, Mathematics; R. 8S. WOODWARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WatLcortT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. SCUDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessgy, N. L. Brirron, Botany; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


DITCH, Physiology ; 


J. S. Bruuinas, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. We tcH, Pathol- 


ogy ; J. McKkEN CaTTELL, Psychology ; J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Frmay, SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
Doctorates Conferred by American Universi- 
361 


366 
American Association for the Advancement of 
Science :— 
Section I, Economic and Social Science: 
PRANKS RRO LTE vee miiciiciisiclalercecr 
Scientific Books :— 
‘Die deutschen 
und das Universitatsstudium ’: 


372 


Universitaten 
PROFESSOR 
IMRAINK DOREY oie caei sree ere eieiei a Reece ne loins 


Paulsen’s 


381 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
‘So-called Species and Subspecies’: Dr. J. 
A. ALLEN. President Minot on ‘ The Prob- 
lem of Consciousness in its Biological As- 
pects’: Dr. I. Mapison BENTLEY......... 
Shorter Articles :— 
The Salt Marsh Mosquito, Culex sollicitans 
WIk.: * Latent 
Heat’ and the Vapor Engine Cycle: Pro- 
FEssoR R. H. THursToN. 


383 


PROFESSOR JOHN B. SMITH. 


On Bacubirito, 
the Great Meteorite of Sinaloa, Meawico: 
Proressor Henry A. WARD.............. 

Scientific Notes and News.................. 

University and Educational News........... 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intende@ 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


DOCTORATES CONFERRED BY AMERICAN 


UNIVERSITIES. 

For the fifth year we publish statistics 
in regard to the conferring of the degree 
of doctor of philosophy by American 
universities. The figures have been ob- 
tained from official sources; they are cor- 
rect and reasonably complete. Twenty- 
seven institutions are given on the table, 
and replies have been received from as 
many more. Several of our best colleges do 
not give the degree. This appears to be 
wise, at least so long as universities such 
as Kansas, Missouri and Tulane have found 
occasion to grant it but once in five years, 
and Stanford and Princeton have on the 
average granted it but twice a year. The 
figures published, not very promptly, by the 
Bureau of Education indicate a larger 
number of doctorates of philosophy, but 
these must include institutions that have 
no right to confer this degree, giving it for 
work done in absentia or, perhaps for the 
payment of a fee. Our record during the 
past five years shows that the degree has 
been granted by good institutions to 1,158 
candidates, or an average of about 230 
each year. This is a considerable number 
of well-educated men, but after all rather 
insignificant when compared with the pop- 
ulation of the country, or even with the 
number of teachers employed in our 
schools. No statistics are available to show 


362 


the number of doctorates conferred. on 
Americans by German or other foreign 
universities, but as our own universities 
become better, equipped the number of stu- 
dents going abroad tends to decrease. 


DOCTORATES CONFERRED. 


SCIENCE. 


1902 1901 1900 1899 1898 Totil 
Chicas orercct iar 27. 286 -37 24 36 -160 
Vial] eich ee ar 29. 39 26 30 34 158 
Johns Hopkins:.: 17 30 33 38 33 41651 
Harvard ........ 31 29 386 24 26 146 
Columbia ....... By) 0) by PAL SS} 8 OP) aes} 
Pennsylvania .... 14 25 9 20 24 92 
Cornell eee PB} “Vall 19 v9 89 
Clarks jo tccchaes 1 7 9 Bye eP eeyt 
News eWorkes sca 4 6 U 9 Seo 
Michigan ....... 10 3 5 4 een 2.9) 
Wisconsin ....... 6 5 5 u 5. 28 
VAT SIMIAN eee: 6 8 2 2 0 18 
Columbian ...... 2 3 5 0 We. ah 
IBROWNEeaanaeern 2 2 3 3 ere 
‘Bryn Mawr...... 2 2 1 3 3 11 
Minnesota ...... 3 2 3 2 iPS ert 
Princeton ....... 1 3 3 3 0 10 
California ~........ 1 2 2 3 1 9 
Stantords cn je sc 2 2 2 0 2 8 
Nebraska ....... 0 1 1 1 2 5 
Vanderbilt ...:.. 0 1 3 0 0 4 
Washington ..... 0 1 0 2 0 3 
Syracuse .....:.. 1 0 0 1 0 2 
Colorado ....:... 0 0 Over 9 1 
Iansa'signt etree 0 0 0 1 -0 1 
Missouri ........ 0 0 0 1 0 1 
Aan ets sa een 0 0 iL 0 0 1 

214 253 233 224 -234 1158 


It may be seen from the table that the 
twenty-seven institutions are pretty defi- 
nitely grouped. There are five institutions, 
‘Chicago, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Harvard 
and Columbia, whose number of doctorates 
during the past five years range from 160 
to 133. Then come Pennsylvania and Cor- 
nell whose numbers are 92 and 87 respec- 
tively. These seven universities have con- 
ferred just four fifths of all the degrees 
that have been conferred by reputable in- 
stitutions. Clark, New York, Michigan 
and Wisconsin form a group conferring 
about six degrees annually. With Virginia 
intervening, we next come to a group con- 


LN. S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 
sisting of Columbian, Brown, Bryn Mawr, 
Minnesota, Princeton, California and Stan- 
ford, each of which confers about two de- 
grees a year. There is then a drop to 
institutions conferring on the average one 
degree or less. 

During the five years over which the 
statistics extend there has been no marked 
increase in the number of degrees con- 
ferred or alteration in the relative posi- 
tions of the universities. The remarkable 
growth of the state universities is not wit- 
nessed by an increase in the number of de- 
grees, but we may expect to see this in the 
course of the next five years. The 253 
degrees last year were probably the largest 
number in the history of American educa- 
tion. .but this year there is a drop to 214, 
the smallest number during the years cov- 
ered by. the records. ... 


DOCTORATES CONFERRED IN THE SCIENCES. 


1902. 1901 1900 1899 1898 Total 

Johns Hopkins... 9 .19 20 17 19 84 
Chica gon snerne 1) NG ays al IB a6} 
Columbiayesee en. TABS} Vaile} By IO. 7 
Walley ates: 10 18 LO el) 11 64 
Harvard ........ 14 15 15 To UI 62 
Cornell ......... 16 3) WL Ba WAN, VB} 
Pennsylvania .... 5 12 6 8 8 39 
Clarksaae ee. 1 7 9 5 12 34 
Wisconsin ...... 4 3} 1 4 2-14 
Michigan ....... 5 0 1 3 0 9 
Californias yen. “ll 2 1 3 1 8 
Bryn Mawr...... 1 2 1 2 1 7 
Wangimianyy teri. 1 4 0 2 0 7 
Columbian ...... 1 1 3 0 1 6 
Stanford@ee cence 2 1 0 0 2 ee) 
Nebraska ....... 0 1 1 sae?) 5 
IDOWAN coodsosdou 2 1 0 0 1 4 
Minnesota ...... 2 0 1 1 0 4 
Princeton ....... 0 0 1 3 0 4 
New York....... 0 1 0 1 1 3 
Washington ..... 0 1 0 2 0 3 
Vanderbilt ...... 0 1 1 0 0 2 
Colorado ........ 0 0 0 1 0 1 
IKGHIEAR. So Gocnues 0 0 0 1 0 1 
Missouri 0 0 0 1 0 1 
Syracuse ........ Lees Oe NORE Oneual Oa 
104 131 113-115 105 568 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902.]) 


In the seeond table similar statistics are 
given for the sciences. As has been stated 
in previous years, the distinction between 
the sciences and the humanities is somewhat 
arbitrary. In psychology, education, so- 
ciology and anthropology the attempt has 
been made to include the degrees under the 
sciences only when the thesis indicated that 
the subject had been treated as a natural 
science. 
are almost equally divided between the 
natural and exact sciences on the one hand, 
and languages, history, economies, philos- 
ophy, ete., on the other. Some universities 
appear, however, to favor one of the 
egroups.. Thus, Johns Hopkins, Cornell and 
Columbia have conferred more than half 
their degrees in the sciences, and Harvard, 
Yale, Chicago and Pennsylvania more than 
half in the humanities. 


DOCTORATES CONFERRED. IN THE SCIENCES. 


1902 1901 1900 1899 1898 Total 

Chemistry ...... 24.28 26 32 27 137 
IPMS. cooooonn0 12 23 15 Go Mah 3 
Zoology .....-. 2 16 9B a Ail Ip as 
Psychology ...... 8 - 13 9 15 18 68 
Mathematics .... 8 18 11 13. 11 £61 
ISON? beoa6ee5c 11 Qo eb hy G83 
Geology ........ G10 BB 2G ep 
Physiology ...... 8 1 4 1 4 18 
Education ....... 1 2 8 5 0 16 
Astronomy ....:. 2 5 4 25-3) 16 
Sociology ....... 4 3 3 5 0 15 
Paleontology ..... 0 1 2 4 0 7 
Anthropology 0 1 2 0 2 5 
Bacteriology 1 1 a 1 0 4 
Mineralogy ..... 1 0 0 2 0 3 
Agriculture ..... 2 0 0 0 0 2 
Anatomy ....... 0 1 0 0 0 1 
Engineering ..... Q £4 0 0 0 1 
Meteorology ..... 0 0 0 1 0 1 
104 131 113 115 105 568 


It is evident from the third table that 
about again as many degrees are awarded 
in chemistry as in any other science. There 
is then a group of sciences of nearly equal 
rank—physiecs, zoology, psychology, mathe- 
matics and botany—in which the numbers 


SCIENCE. 


It will be seen that the degrees 


363. 


range from 68 to 53. There is then a drop 
to geology with 32 and to physiology with 
18 degrees. Agriculture appears on the 
list this year for the first. time with two 
degrees, and last year one degree was 
awarded in engineering. It is to be hoped 
and expected that research work in these 
applied sciences and in experimental medi- 
cine will increase. In regard to the culti- 
vation of the sciences at different centers 
it appears that this year chemistry was 
relatively favored at Columbia, Johns 
Hopkins, Harvard, Yale and Pennsyl- 
vania; physiological chemistry at Yale; 
physies, zoology and psychology at Cornell; 
geology at Chicago, Harvard and Michi- 
gan, and botany at Chicago. 

The names of those on whom the degrees 
were conferred in the sciences and the 
titles of their, theses are as follows: 


CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 


Frank Allen: ‘The Relation of Color-Blindness 
to the Fundamental Color Sensation.’ 

Leroy Anderson: ‘Some of the Influences af-; 
fecting Milk Production with especial reference 
to the Relation of Food to Milk Fat.’ 

John Wallace Baird: ‘The Relation of Accom- 
modation and Conveyance to the Perception of 
Depth.’ 

Peter Field :. 
Curves.’ 

Charles Stuart Gager: ‘The Development of 
the Pollinium and Sperm Cells in Asclepias Corn- 
uti Decaisne.’ 
~ Elmer Edgar Hall: ‘The Penetration of Totally 
Reflected Light into the Rarer Medium.’ : 

- William Atwood Hilton: ‘The Morphology and 
Development of Intestinal Folds. and Villi in 
Vertebrates.’ : 

George L. Hoxie: ‘The Induction Motor and, 
its Engineering Capabilities.’ 

Carlotta Joaquina Maury: 
gocens of the United States.’ 

Kiichi Miyaké: ‘The Development of the Arana. 
gonium and Fertilization in Picea and Abies. 

Henry Lewis Rietz: ‘On Primitive Groups of 
Odd Order.’ 

-Mary Jane Ross: ‘The Origin and: Development 
of the Gastrie Glands of Desmognathus, Apel 
stoma and Pig.’ 


‘The Forms of Unicursal Quintic 


‘The Marine Qli- 


364 


Augustus Valentine Saph: ‘An Experimental 
Study of the Resistances to the Flow of Water in 
Pipes.’ 

Margaret Everitt Schallenberger: ‘The Growth 
of the Child’s Mind: A Study of the Development 
of Mental Structure.’ 

Lee Barker Walton: ‘ Evidence concerning the 
Double Nature of the Segment in Hexapoda, Chil- 
opoda and Diplopoda.’ 

Floyd Rowe Watson: ‘Surface Tension at the 
Interface of Two Liquids determined Experiment- 
ally by the Method of Ripple Waves.’ 


UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 


Wallace Appleton Beatty: ‘ Action of Sodium 
Aleoholates on Salts of Fatty Acids.’ 

Fred Harvey Hall Calhoun: ‘The Relations of 
the Kewatin Ice Sheet to the Mountain Glaciers 
of Montana.’ 

Katherine Elizabeth Dopp: ‘The Place of In- 
dustry in Elementary Education.’ 

Nevin Melancthon Fenneman: ‘The Develop- 
ment of the Profile of Equilibrium of the Suba- 
queous Shore Terrace.’ 

Arthur White Greely: ‘Studies on the Effects 
of Low Temperatures upon Morphogenetic Pro- 
cesses.’ 

Eugene Howard Harper: ‘History of the Fer- 
tilization and Early Development of the Pigeon’s 
Egg.’ 

Shinkishi Hatai: ‘Studies on the Central Nerv- 
ous ‘System of the Rat and Cat.’ 

Edward Cary Hayes: ‘The Sociologist’s Object 
of Attention.’ 

Frank Baldwin Jewett: ‘A New Method of 
Measuring the Vapor Density of Metals at Low 
Temperatures.’ 

Anstruther Abercrombie Lawson: 
the Morphology of the Nucleus.’ 

Burton Edward Livingstone: ‘The Role of Dif- 
fusion and Osmotic Pressure in Plant Physiology.’ 

Florence May Lyon: ‘ Development of the Spor- 
angium and Gametophyte of Selaginella rupestris.’ 

Thomas Milton Putnam: ‘Concerning the Lin- 
ear Fractional Group on three Variables with 
Coefficients in the Galois Field of order pn,’ 

William George Tight: ‘Origin and Develop- 
ment of the Ohio River.’ 

Frank Alonzo Wilder: ‘The Age and Origin of 
the Gypsum of Webster County, Iowa.’ 


‘Studies on 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 
Benjamin Arthur Bensley: ‘The Evolution of 
the Australian Marsupialia, with Remarks on the 
Relationship of the Marsupials in General.’ 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 


Leopold Boroschek: ‘Some New Derivatives 
of the Mono-nitro-ortho-phthalie Acids.’ 

Robert Henry Bradford: ‘Reactions of the 
Ziervogel Process, and their Temperature Limits.’ 

William Austin Cannon: ‘Studies in Plant 
Hybrids.’ 

Robert Heywood Fernald: ‘ Working Details of 
a Gas-engine Test, Including a Method of Deter- 
mining the Temperatures of Exhaust Gases.’ 

Carl Gundersen: ‘On the Measure or Content 
of Assemblages of Points.’ 

. Cassius Jackson Keyser: ‘The Plane Geometry 
of the Point in Space of Four Dimensions.’ 

George Alfred Lawrence: ‘Studies upon the 
Cerebral Cortex in the Normal Human Brain and 
in Dementia Paralytica.’ 

Charles Edward Lucke: ‘The Heat-engine Prob- 
lem.’ 

Floyd Jay Metzger: ‘A New Separation of 
Thorium from Cerium, Lanthanum and Didymium 
and its Application to the Analysis of Monazite.’ 

Charles Joseph Pretzfeld: ‘A New Separation 
of Mereury from Arsenic, Antimony and Copper.’ 

Austin Flint Rogers: ‘Crystallographic Stud- 
ies.’ 

John Cutler Torrey: 
of Thalassima.’ 

Lewis Addison Youtz: ‘A Study of the Quanti- 
tative Determination of Antimony.’ 


‘The Early Development 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 


Ebenezer Henry Archibald: 
Weight of Cesium.’ 

Robert Stanley Breed: ‘The Metamorphosis of 
the Muscles of a Beetle (Thymalus marginicollis, 
Chevr.).’ 

Frederick Alexander Bushée: 
in the Population of Boston.’ 

George Perkins Clinton: 
Ustilagines.’ 

Otto Dunkel: ‘Regular Singular Points of a 
System of Homogeneous Linear Differential Equa- 
tions of the First Order.’ 

Richard Blair Earle: I., ‘On the Constitution 
of the Colored Compounds obtained from Sodie 
Alecoholates and certain Aromatic Compounds.’ 
II., ‘On the Action of Sodic Sulphite in Alcoholic 
Solution on Tribromdinitrobenzol and Tribrom- 
trinitrobenzol.’ 

William Jay Hale: I., ‘On the Oximes of Ni- 
tromalonic Aldehyde.’ II., ‘On the Condensation 
of Nitromalonie Aldehyde with Benzylmethyl 
Ketone.’ 

Cyrus Ambrose King: ‘Observations on the 
Cytology of Araiosfora pulchra Thaxter.’ 


‘The Atomic 


‘Ethnie Factors 


‘North American 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


*Tnhibition of Ideas.’ 
“A Monograph of the 


Frederick Meakin: 

Edgar William Olive: 
Acrasiee.’ 

Carleton Estey Preston: ‘Structural and Eco- 
logical Studies on Desert Vegetation.’ 

William Martin ‘Smallwood: ‘The Maturation, 
Fertilization and Early Cleavage of Bulla soli- 
taria.’ 

Joseph Edmund Woodman: ‘Geology of the 
Moose River Gold District, Halifax County, Nova 
Seotia; together with the Pre-Carboniferous 
History of the Meguma Series.’ 

Robert Mearns Yerkes: ‘The Psychic Processes 
of the Frog.’ 


YALE UNIVERSITY. 


Alling’ Pruden Beardsley: I., ‘On the Action of 
Phenylhydrazine on Acylthiocarbamic and Acy- 
limidothiocarbonie Esters: Pyro—a, 8’—Diazole 
Derivatives.’ II., ‘On the Action of Phenyl- 
hydrazine on Benzoylpseudothioureas: 1, 5—Di- 
phenyl—3—Amino—Pyro-a, $’—Diazole Deriva- 
tives.’ 

George Barton Cutten: ‘ Psychology of Alcohol- 
ism.’ 

Arthur Lyman Dean: 
the Enzyme Inulase.’ 

Frank Eugene Hale: ‘Starch and the Dextrins 
in Relation to Iodometry.’ 

George Arthur Hanford: ‘Studies on the Phys- 
iological Action of Cesium Compounds.’ 

Julius Olsen: ‘An Experimental Investigation 
into the Existence of Free Ions in Aqueous Solu- 
tion of Electrolytes.’ 

Leo Frederick Rettger: ‘Experimental Studies 
on the Inter-Relation of the Spleen and Pancreas.’ 

Lyman Brumbaugh Stookey: ‘Studies on Gly- 
cogen Formation.’ 

Ralph Gibbs Van Name: ‘ Analytical Applica- 
tions of the Sulphocyanides.’ 

Lynde Phelps Wheeler: ‘On the Reflection of 
Light from Mercury in Water.’ 


‘Studies on Inulin and 


JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 


Friend Ebenezer Clark: ‘The Action of Sub- 
stituted Ammonias of the Aliphatic Series on the 
Chlorides of Orthosulphobenzoic Acid’ 

Arthur Byron Coble: ‘A Study of the Ternary 
Quartic in its Relation to Conies.’ 

Charles Fowler Lindsay: ‘A Study of the Con- 
ductivity of Certain Salts in Water, Methyl, Ethyl 
and Propyl Alcohols, and Mixtures of these Sol- 
vents.’ 

Louis Alexander Parsons: 
Hydrogen.’ 


‘The Spectrum of 


SCIENCE. 


365 


Henry Farnham Perkins: ‘The Development of 
Gonionema Murbachii.’ 

Perey Goldthwait Stiles: ‘On the Rhythmic 
Activity of the @isophagus and the Influence upon 
it of Various Media.’ 

William Stone Weedon: ‘An Investigation of 
the Oxidation Products of Phenylthiosalicylic 
Acid.’ e4 

John Boswell Whitehead, Jr.: ‘The Magnetic 
Effect of Electric Displacement.’ 

Kisaburo Yamaguchi: ‘ An Investigation of the 
Hydrated Oxides of Manganese derived from 
Electrolyticaliy-prepared Permanganic Acid.’ 


UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 

Joseph William Tell Duval: ‘Conditions In- 
fluencing Vitality and Germination of Seeds.’ 

Charles Edward Marshall: ‘The Aeration of 
Milk.’ 

Raymond Pearl: ‘The Movements and Reac- 
tions of Freshwater Planarians.’ 

Raymond Haines Pond: ‘The Biological Rela- 
tions of Aquatic Plants to the Substratum.’ 

Harrison McAllester Randall: ‘The Determina- 
tion of the Coefficients of Expansion of Nickel 
and Quartz at High Temperatures.’ 


UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Alfred Lewis Kammerer: ‘Electrolysis of Bis- 
muth Salts.’ 

Allen Rogers: 
ganic Acids.’ 

Arthur Bertram Turner: ‘Secular Perturba- 
tions Arising from the Action of Jupiter on Mars.’ 

Edwin Burkett Twitmyer: ‘The Normal Knee- 
jerk. 

Levi Parker Wyman: 
Tungstie Acid.’ 


‘Derivatives of Complex Inor- 


‘The Purification of 


UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 

Benjamin Horace Hibbard: ‘The History of 
Agriculture in Dane County, Wisconsin.’ 

Harrison Eastman Patten: ‘Influence of the 
Solvent in Electrolytic Conduction.’ 

Oswald Schreiner: ‘The Sesquiterpenes.’ 

Allyn Abbott Young: ‘Studies in Age Statis- 
ties.’ 

BROWN UNIVERSITY. 

George Ellett Coghill: ‘The Cranial Nerves of 
Amblystoma Tigrinum.’ 

Millett Taylor Thompson: ‘The Metamorphoses 
of the Hermit Crab.’ 


UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA. 
Paul Maurice Glascoe: ‘ Derivatives of Camphor 
Oxime’ 
George F. Wilkin: ‘ Social Control.’ 


366 


LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY. 
Ralph Arnold: ‘The Paleontology and Stratig- 
raphy of the Marine Pliocene and Pleistocene of 
San Pedro.’ 
Thomas Storey: ‘Some Studies on 
Voluntary Muscle Contraction.’ 


Andrew 


BRYN MAWR COLLEGE. 
Margaret Baxter MacDonald: ‘A New Class of 
Disulphones.’ 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
Alice Robertson: ‘The Embryology and Em- 
bryonic Fission in Cyclostomatous Bryozoa.’ 


CLARK UNIVERSITY. 
Andrew J. Kinnaman: ‘Mental Life of two 
Macacus Rhesus Monkeys in Captivity.’ 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 
Nevil Monroe Hopkins: ‘Some Experiments on 
Electrolytic Conductivity with Reference to the 


Ion Theory.’ 
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY. 


William Erastus Taylor: ‘On the Product of 
an Alternant by a Symmetric Function.’ 


UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 


Heber D. Curtis: ‘ Definitive Determination of 
the Orbit of Comet, 1898, I’ 


RECENT PROGRESS IN ASTRONOMY.* 

THE opening years of the twentieth cen- 
tury are full of remarkable and most strik- 
ing evidences of man’s power over the 
forces of nature, and yet with this feeling 
of might there comes to the thoughtful stu- 
dent, and perhaps especially to the astron- 
omer, a deep reverential feeling of man’s 
utter insignificance, and the littleness of his 
knowledge, in comparison with what is 
necessary for the complete mastery of the 
problems that present themselves. 

Heat, light and electricity are the forces 
which have been so grandly made use of by 
the scientific man and the practical engi- 
neer. It is enough for me to refer only to 
the stupendous developments of the ma- 
chinery making use of steam for locomotion 
on land and sea; to the great labor-saving 


* Commencement Address delivered at the Wor- 
cester Polytechnic Institute, June 12, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 


devices used in the manufacture of steel 
and other needed things. 

Still more marvelous are the applications 
of electricity ; and the promises for the near 
future are most startling. I do not desire 
to develop these lines of thought, because 
I am aware that the young men of this in- 
stitution, and especially those of the gradu- 
ating class, have minds well stored with apt 
illustrations; and their imaginations can 
rapidly construct dreams of the future, 
based upon their own intimate knowledge 
of what has been done, and what is just on 
the point of being accomplished, by the 
application of heat and electricity. 

This morning in my short address I wish 
to call your attention to some of the 
triumphs lately achieved by the use of light. 
And inasmuch as my work is mainly 
astronomical you will, I know, permit me to 
dwell entirely on the matter of celestial 
photography. 

The United States has many reasons to 
be proud of what her astronomers have 
done both in the improvement of photo- 
eraphic telescopes, and in the results of 
photographie research; but the whole world 
has been active in applying this compara- 
tively new instrument. The promise of 
future developments is indeed very gratify- 
ing. Every one is deeply interested in the 
study of the make-up of the solar and lunar 
surfaces. To-day photographic telescopes 
supply us with most of our accurate knowl- 
edge of details. 

Exposures on the sun are made, lasting 
one to several thousandths of a second of 
time, which on development bring out the 
texture of the photosphere, the details of 
spots and spot groups, and the facule. 
These plates are taken with great regularity 
at several observatories in the world, and 
are studied at leisure by a trained force of 
observers. Rutherfurd in New York City 
from 1870 to 1874 took many solar photo- 
graphs, the study of which has given us 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902.] 


much valuable information. And since his 
time Greenwich, Paris, Meudon, Mt. Hamil- 
ton (Lick), Harvard, Yerkes and other 
observatories have taken thousands of 
plates. Many of my audience have seen 
such pictures thrown on a screen by the aid 
of a lantern, and thus have been able to 
study sun-spots, photosphere and faculs in 
a most instructive and accurate way. 

The earth’s only visible satellite has 
always stirred the interest of the astron- 
omer. Schmidt, of Athens, Beer and 
Madler, of Germany, and many others have 
spent years of labor in making topograph- 
ical drawings of the moon, and they pub- 
lished very fine maps. Thirty years ago 
Draper and Rutherfurd showed the world 
what excellent photographs could be taken 
with wet plates, and from that time many 
of the great observatories have collected 
hundreds of photographs of the moon on 
the very sensitive dry plates of recent years. 
We have now exquisite plates to study and 
measure. Lately the French government 
has published exact heliogravure copies and 
enlargements of the lunar photographs 
taken by Loewy and Puiseaux. 

In this connection it is proper to call 
attention to the difference between an 
object glass for seeing and one for photog- 
raphy. The yellow rays affect the eyes most 
readily and so the lenses must be ground to 
bring those rays to a focus. But the blue 
and the violet rays affect most the photo- 
graphic film. So that with a telescope 
arranged for seeing, the photographs ob- 
tained, in most cases, are hazy and indis- 
tinct. Rutherfurd, therefore, placed out- 
side of his seeing object glass a lens of flint 
glass, so arranged as to bring the blue rays 
to a focus. It was with such a lens that he 
obtained his fine plates of the sun, moon 
and stars. 

To-day this same system of lenses is 
mainly used, or a system involving the same 
principle. Lately, however, there has been 


SCIENCE. 


367 


discovered at the Yerkes Observatory a new 
method which gives great promise. When 
the University of Chicago bought the forty- 
inch object glass, they were unable to raise 
the money to buy the needed extra lens, 
which would enable them to photograph 
well the moon and other heavenly bodies. 
Fortunately, this was so, for it resulted in 
experiments by Mr. Ritchey which demon- 
strated the fine results to be obtained by a 
screen. This screen of colored glass was 
put in front of the sensitive plate, and al- 
lowed only the yellow and red rays to pass 
through the plate—it kept out the blue and 
violet rays—and, therefore, only those rays 
reached the sensitive plate which were ac- 
curately focused by the object glass. The 
result was some splendid photographs of 
the moon and its details, as fine as anything 
so far obtained. This discovery of the use 
of a proper sereen gives the promise of con- 
verting any good seeing refracting tele- 
scope into a fine photographie instrument 
with very small expense. 

The reflecting mirror when properly 
shaped brings to’ one focus all the rays 
of light; as well those rays which affect the 
eyes best as those which produce the desired 
result on the sensitive film. This fact has 
brought into increasing use the reflectors of 
large and small diameters. Modern methods 
of producing and mounting silver-on-glass 
mirrors have brought into considerable 
prominence the reflector especially for pho- 
tographie work. 

Gathering together all the photographs 
made from the time of Rutherfurd (1874) 
to the present, and later, will put into the 
hands of the selenographer means of deter- 
mining the changes on the moon. Changes 
we most certainly expect. We are not 
aware that there exists anything which does 
not undergo change. But these changes 
may be so small and so slow to us that it 
may take years to discover them. 

The surroundings of the sun—that region 


368 


which comes into view only at the times of 
total solar eclipses—the sun’s ‘ crown of 
glory,’ the corona—at present can be 
studied for about an hour during a cen- 
tury, if we estimate the time the astronomer 
has been able to actually see the corona. 

But photography has here brought us 
most satisfactory results. Many negatives 
are now obtained at every eclipse of the 
sun, and these can be studied and measured 
at leisure. At an observing station for a 
total solar eclipse, the astronomer of fifty 
years ago would be dumbfounded to see 
how few and how small are the instruments 
set aside for the eye observations. All the 
large instruments and most of the observ- 
ers’ time are given to the photographic 
work. How fortunate this is—for not only 
can the originals be studied with great care, 
but copies can be furnished to all astron- 
omers the world over for inspection and for 
comment. 

In the past the discovery of new planets 
always excited a deep interest in the minds 
of men. To-day we are so accustomed to 
the discovery of new minor planets (some- 
times as many as twenty-eight in one year) 
that we pass them by without much notice. 
You no doubt remember that the astron- 
omers of the eighteenth century had great 
faith in Bode’s law. This law stated that 
the planets were arranged in order of dis- 
tance from the sun according to the num- 
bers, 4, 7, 10, 16, 28, 52, ete. These numbers 
were obtained by writing down the numbers 
0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48. All the numbers after 
the second were obtained by multiplying the 
preceding number by two; and then adding 
four to each result. Representing the 
earth’s distance as 10 the other numbers 
represented very fairly the distances of the 
other planets, but there was a break at 28. 
No planets were known at the distance 2.8 
times the earth’s distance from the sun. 
The law was so firmly believed in that in 
the latter part of the eighteenth century a 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 401. 


number of astronomers joined in the search. 
They were dubbed the ‘ celestial police.’ 
The first fugitive planet was found by 
Piazzi, January 1, 1801, an astronomer of 
Sicily, who had not yet received notice of 
his appointment on the force. 

Then the search was later taken up most 
vigorously, and down to 1892 about 325 
were discovered. But in the latter part of 
the preceding year Dr. Wolf, of Heidelberg, 
inaugurated the scheme of photographing 
the heavens. He made his exposures in 
duplicate, and for two or three hours. The 
result was that if a minor planet was in the 
field, as the telescope was guided by follow- 
ing accurately a star, the planet’s moving 
caused a short dash to appear on the plate 
instead of a round star image. 

The plates were measured and from these 
measurements the astronomer could deter- 
mine whether the planet was new or an 
old one. In carrying out this work Dr. 
Wolf, Charlois of Nice, and others have 
been so successful that, simce November 28, 
1891, the list of minor planets, mainly dis- 
covered by photography, has increased to 
nearly five hundred. Wolf’s work attracted 
the attention of the late Miss Catherine 
Wolfe Bruce, of New York City, who has 
done so much for astronomy. Miss Bruce 
gave Wolf the means to build a fine photo- 
graphic outfit. The new apparatus he had 
built in this country, and is now using with 
the most extellent results. He has immor- 
talized that noble, generous woman by 
naming one of the planets Brucia. He 
showed his appreciation of the work of the 
Lick Observatory by giving the appellation 
of California to the planet he discovered on 
September 25, 1892, and he had previously 
named another Chicago, after the city he 
expected to visit during the Exposition of 
1893. _ 

Photography has so rapidly increased the 
number of these little planets that there has 
been some serious discussion as to whether 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


it may not be wise to let them go; the caleu- 
lations and observations necessary to keep 
track of them are considerable and ex- 
pensive. 

This method by the use of larger lenses, 
longer exposures and more sensitive plates, 
may show thousands of little bodies, circu- 
lating not only between the orbits of Mars 
and Jupiter, but even between the orbits of 
all the other planets. 

If celestial photography had been known 
in 1846 and previously, then the discovery 
of Neptune would have been made by Chal- 
lis at Cambridge, England, with great ease. 

It was by photography that Herr Witt 
in 1898 discovered that most interesting 
minor planet named by him Eros. This is 
the first body whose orbit has been proved 
to le mainly within the orbit of Mars— 
moving in such a path that at perihelion the 
earth and planet are separated by about 
15,000,000 miles. Here, then, we have a 
grand opportunity for determining its 
parallax and so getting a new value of the 
sun’s parallax, and hence its distance in 
miles. Such use has already been made of 
Eros. A large number of observatories took 
in 1901 photographs of the planet, and 
these are to be measured and reduced. But 
Eros will be better situated in later years, 
so that during the twentieth century the 
sun’s distance will be obtained with great 
accuracy. To-day we know that distance 
with an uncertainty of about 150,000 miles 
—at the end of the century the uncertainty 
ought to be reduced to 25,000 miles or less. 
Under the most accurate methods of the 
present day base lines on this little earth 
can be measured with an error of even less 
than one part in a million—or one inch in 
a million inches, 7. e., one inch error in 
measuring a line nearly sixteen miles long, 
or half an inch error in measuring a line 
nearly eight miles long. 

Such accuracy we can hardly hope to 
reach during the twentieth century in 


SCIENCE. 369 


obtaining the distance of the sun from the 
earth. Such an error would amount to over 
ninety miles. One mile seems a large unit 
to us, but it is an exceedingly small measur- 
ing unit for sounding the depths of space. 
The business men of the world are prov- 
ing to us that there is a great benefit for 
some one in big combinations of shops and 
men. The effect in some cases has been to 
improve machinery, better the output and 
to reduce prices. This idea of cooperation 
has taken hold of the scientific mind. To- 
day seventeen observatories are engaged in 
making maps of the heavens by photog- 
raphy. Seventeen observatories from Fin- 
land to the Cape of Good Hope have been 
busy for the past ten years in obtaining 
the images of stars on the sensitive plates. 
Their plan is a most interesting one for the 
astronomer. It was arranged by confer- 
ences of astronomers who met several times 
at Paris. The heavens have been divided 
into belts parallel to the equator, and each 
observatory photographs one or more belts 
completely around the sky. In order to 
guard against error a peculiar system has 
been adopted; each plate is exposed for 
twenty seconds, the telescope in the mean- 
time following the star with great nicety. 
Then the plate is moved a trifle and another 
exposure is made lasting three minutes, 
and in a similar way a third exposure is 
made for six minutes. . These three images 
of a star are very close to. each other. 
Every bright star will make three images. 
The faint stars will give only two images 
and the very faint stars one image. This 
enables the astronomer to judge of the 
brightness of the stars, and also to discrim- 
inate between defects on the plate and real 
images. In order to tie a plate to its neigh- 
boring plates they are made to overlap, so 
that twice the number necessary to once 
cover the sky is taken. This makes 22,000 
plates. Many of these have now been made 
and the plates have been measured to de- 


370 


termine the relation of the stars to each 
other. The catalogue to be published is 
likely to contain about 2,000,000 stars down 
to the 11th magnitude. When done, we 
shall have the most valuable and extensive 
star catalogue ever constructed. 

In addition to these plates the observa- 
tories doing this work will also take plates 
with exposures lasting thirty to fifty min- 
utes (depending on the atmospheric condi- 
tions). These plates will probably show 
some 20,000,000 stars. 

To measure their positions and to reduce 
the measurements would require much time 
and money—more than the astronomers 
and their patrons can. afford to give. It 
has been decided, however, to enlarge these 
plates by proper lenses and to make a helio- 
gravure of the enlargement. The liberal 
French government has been the first to 
publish a large number of these charts, 
which show stars down to the fourteenth 
magnitude and are invaluable for studying 
at leisure a given part of the sky. Each 
plate covers about four square degrees. 

In our own country Professor E. C. Pick- 
ering, of Harvard College Observatory, has 
employed the Bruce telescope and other in- 
struments to make photographs of the 
heavens. Pickering by his system is able 
to take a larger area on each plate and 
finish his survey in a shorter time. He has 
thus been able to collect a magnificent ]- 
brary of plates which have proved most 
valuable in the past and are likely to prove 
more precious in the future. Professor 
Barnard and others have given considerable 
time to using instruments which show large 
areas of the heavens with exposures of sey- 
eral hours. The wonder-exciting result is 
obtained showing that the number of stars 
goes on increasing. When will it end? 
What does it mean? The astronomer bows 
his head in awe-full ignorance! 

To-day we are all amazed by the promises 
of wireless telegraphy. Messages across the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 
ocean seem likely to be coming soon from 
every direction without going through 
cables. 


Wireless telegraphic communication with 
the sun, planets and stars the astronomer 
has had for some time past. The messages 
are received by a specially devised appara- 
tus called a photospectroscope, and the 
cipher dispatches are styled spectra. These 
spectra are photographed on glass and are 
measured, reduced and interpreted by the 
expert. In the use of this instrument our 
own country has done much, and the names 
of Young, Pickering, Langley, Keeler, 
Campbell, Hale and others stand high in 
the list of astrophysicists. 

What are the stars made of? What ma- 
terials are in the sun and in comets? in 
nebule? The light from these bodies 
speeds onward with a velocity of over 180,- 
000 miles a second and takes more than 
four years to come from the nearest. star. 
Even to come from the sun requires about 
500 seconds of time. These light vibrations 
enter the telescope and pass into the spec- 
troscope, and proper apparatus enables us 
to obtain a message which tells us what are 
the gases in the sun, stars, comets and neb- 
ule. 

Moreover, this resultful instrument gives 
us the power to determine motion and its 
rate to and from the observer. The stars 
are so distant that a line 93 millions of 
miles in length would look to the inhabitant 
of the nearest star as a line about two- 
tenths of an inch long would appear to you 
when placed a mile away! 

Motion to or from us of an object so far 
away has hitherto been impossible to meas- 
ure. The spectroscope solves the problem. 
If a star is moving toward us then there is 
a displacement of lines in the stellar spec- 
trum toward the blue end, and if it is going 
from us the displacement is to the red end. 
By proper comparison-measurements the 
rate of motion can be worked out. This 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


information is most important for the pur- 
pose of calculating the orbit or path in 
space of the star examined. 

Then, too, the same principle gives us the 
power to measure the rotation times of the 
sun and planets, because we can bring into 
view two opposite sides of the sun or the 
planet’s disk; these opposite sides revolve, 
one toward us, the other away, and the 
spectra of the two sides show displacements 
of lines in opposite directions. The amount 
of displacement gives the velocity of rota- 
tion. For the sun and planets these results 
obtained by the spectroscope are checked 
by independent observations, such as watch- 
ing the spots on the sun and on Jupiter. 

The power of the spectroscope to measure 
motion in the line of sight has recently been 
used by the late director of Lick Observa- 
tory, California, Keeler, and by the present 
director, Dr. Campbell, in solving two most 
interesting problems. When Saturn’s rings 
were first discussed it was thought they 
were solid. Then it was shown that a ring 
system nearly 170,000 miles in diameter and 
about 100 miles in thickness could not en- 
dure, without destruction, the diverse pull- 
ings due to the gravitation of forces exer- 
cised by the planet and the satellites. A 
fluid system of rings was found to be un- 
stable also, and the theory was adopted that 
the rings are composed of millions of small 
satellites so aggregated that they reflected 
sunlight to us and gave the appearance of 
solidity, ike a cloud in the summer sky. 
This theory of the structure of the rings 
was styled the meteoric theory: it rested 
almost entirely on the mathematical argu- 
ment. But Keeler in 1895 confirmed this 
theory in a beautiful manner by the use of 
his spectroscope. The slit of the spectro- 
scope was made to pass through the center 
of the image of the planet and through the 
rings, and he obtained a photograph of 
the spectra of the rings and the planet. 
Then, on examination, the lines in the spec- 


SCIENCE. 


3701 


tra were found to be conspicuously inclined, 
and inchned in such a way that the planet 
was shown to be revolving as a solid body, 
while the rings were revolving only as they 
could revolve if composed of separated 
satellites. Thus we have the final proof 
that the rings are neither solid nor liquid, 
but are meteoric. Keeler’s results have been 
confirmed fully by other observers. 

The question has often been asked, ‘Does 
the solar system as a unit remain fixed in 
space, or is it moving in a known direc- 
tion?’ How can this be determined? When 
we look down a long straight line of rail- 
road track we note that the separate tracks 
appear to come closer together as the dis- 
tance sighted becomes greater, and if the 
distance is long enough the tracks appear 
to actually come together. Now if we walk 
down the track we discover that this com- 
ing-together point moves away from us— 
the tracks open in the direction we are walk- 
ing and on looking back the tracks appear to 
be closing in. An effect similar to this would 
show itself when we look at the stars, if the 
solar system is moving in space. Those 
stars, situated at the point towards which 
we are moving, will gradually open out, 
separate, and those stars in the opposite 
direction would appear to be coming to- 
gether. 

Observations have been made to deter- 
mine these directions; with the result that 
they seem to show that the sun, carrying 
with him his family of planets, is moving 
towards a point near the eastern edge of the 
constellation of Hereules, with a velocity of 
about fifteen miles a second. But observers 
differ quite a little in their results. Camp- 
bell has undertaken to investigate the sub- 


“ject by studying the velocity of stars in the 


line of sight by the use of the spectroscope. 
The examination of many hundreds of stars 
ought to bring out the result, that in the 
direction we are moving the general aver- 
age displacement of lines in the spectra 


372 


should be toward the blue end, and the 
opposite effect would show itself in examin- 
ing stars in the direction from which we 
are moving. Campbell has examined many 
stars in the northern sky, and soon will go 
to Chile to continue his observations. The 
final result will give us both the point 
among the stars toward which the solar sys- 
tem is going and the velocity. These facts 
being known, the astronomer may be able 
in the future to caleulate when the sun and 
his family will come into dangerous proxim- 
ity to other great systems in space. Such 
thoughts need not worry us as the time is to 
be reckoned in thousands of years! 

The spectroscope applied to sun, planets, 
stars, nebule, comets and meteors, has given 
us a splendid record, and the present cen- 
tury is full of promises'of greater results. 

To-day in all great observatories photog- 


raphy is used to obtain permanent records _ 


of sun, planets and stars, ete. When we 
study the photographs taken, we are im- 
pressed with the fact that our sensitive 
plates, when exposed to an object, will show 
on development more and more, depending 
on the time of exposure. The startling in- 
formation is obtained that after from ten to 
twenty-five hours or more exposure we can 
obtain a photograph which will show us 
what we never can hope (as far as we now 
know) to see in our telescope! Let us give 
our imaginations free rein, and we may 
dream of getting only general information 
with our eyes, but by the use of sensitive 
plates in photography we may make amaz- 
ing discoveries all around us of things the 
eye cannot see. 

In conclusion let me quote the words of 
one of our ablest workers in celestial pho- 
tography: 

““Tf we were asked to sum up in one word 
what photography has accomplished, we 
should say that observational astronomy has 
been revolutionized. 

‘““There is to-day scarcely an instrument 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 


of precision in which the sensitive plate has 
not been substituted for the human eye; 
scarcely an inquiry possible to the older 
method which cannot now be undertaken 
upon a grander scale. Novel investigations 
formerly not even possible are now entirely 
practicable by photography, and the end is 
not yet. 

“‘Valuable as are the achievements al- 
ready consummated, photography is richest 
in its promise for the future. Astronomy 
has been called the ‘perfect science’; it is 
safe to predict that the next generation will 
wonder that the knowledge we have to-day 
should ever have received so proud a title.’’ 
J. K. REEs. 


CoLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD- 
VANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. SECTION 
I, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
SCIENCE. 

In the absence of Hon. Carroll D. 
Wright, Commissioner of Labor, Mr. John 
Hyde, Statistician of the Department of 
Agriculture and Vice-president of the sec- 
tion for the Denver meeting, presided over, 
the Section. On the afternoon of June 30 
the vice-presidential address of Mr. Hyde, 
on ‘Some Economie and Statistical Aspects 
of Preventable Diseases,’ was delivered. 
The address will be published in full in 
Screncr. Meetings for, the reading of 
papers were held on the morning and after- 
noon of July 1, the morning and evening 
of July 2 and the morning of July 3. The 
meeting on the afternoon of July 1, at 
which the papers of Messrs. Alvord, Pow- 
ers, Beal and Lazenby were read, was held 
jointly with the Society for the Promotion 
of Agricultural Science. 

Titles and abstracts of the papers read in 
full are as follows: 

Economic Situation of Pittsburgh: Grorce 
H. Anverson, Secretary of Pittsburgh 
Chamber of Commerce. 

Greater Pittsburgh, comprising Alle- 
gheny County, ranks fourth in population 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902.] 


and first in manufacturing industry among 
the cities of the United States. It leads the 
world in the production of steel and iron, 
steel cars, steel and wrought-iron pipe, and 
tin plate; of plate glass, tumblers and win- 
dow glass; of air-brakes and electrical 
machinery; of coal and coke; of petro- 
leum, ete. The freight movement during 
the year 1901 reached over 75,000,000 tons. 
The conditions to which the economic pre- 
eminence of Pittsburgh is due are as fol- 
lows: (1) Cheap and abundant fuel; (2) 
exceptional facilities for railway and water 
transportation; (3) improved machinery 
and scientific methods of production. The 
union of these conditions, in unequaled de- 
gree, explains Pittsburgh’s industrial su- 
premacy. 


The Electrical Industries of Pittsburgh and 
their Economic Influence: Grorce H. 
Gisson, Pittsburgh. 

The most important electrical industry of 
Pittsburgh is the work carried on by the 
Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co., whose 
present plant occupies a site of 40 acres, 
and employs 5,300 men and 1,200 women. 
This immense plant is shortly to be dupli- 
cated. 

The modern industrial age began with 
the advent of the steam-engine, but, in 
order to utilize the power of the latter, some 
means of transmission was necessary. The 
agent par excellence for power distribution 
is electricity. Electricity has furnished, 
also, the most useful means of lighting, and 
electro-chemistry has opened up a new but 
rapidly developing branch of industries. 

Electric traction is an important factor 
in developing cities, redistributing popula- 
tions, building up suburban districts and 
affording convenient transportation for 
farming communities. Some of the in- 
terurban roads are operating ears at fifty 
miles per hour and many carry mail, freight 
and express and even run sleeping cars. 


SCIENCE. 373 


On account of the convenience, frequency 
and cheapness of their service, electric roads 
are making a new field for themselves which 
was not open to and does not compete with 
steam roads. 

In the modern factory the use of electric- 
ity conduces to profitable operation and 
permits the erection of cheaper buildings, 
their easy and convenient. extension with 
the growth of business and an arrangement 
of tools advantageous to increased output. 
The use of electric cranes, hoists, ete., liber- 
ates the workman from the severe and more 
common sorts of labor and tends to raise 
him to a higher grade of intelligence and 
efficiency. 

In mining, electricity as a means of power, 
transmission is unique in possessing all the 
advantages and possibilities of other meth- 
ods and escaping their disadvantages. It 
is adapted to all classes of work and is used 
for hoisting, hauling, drilling and excava- 
ting in general, ventilating and pumping, as 
well as the additional use of lighting, which 
is possible with no other method. Electric 
wires may be run anywhere, they are easily 
laid, occupy small space and may be tapped 
at any moment at any point. The use of 
coal-cutting machines has not only released 
the miner from much severe labor but has 
resulted in a saving of $5,300,000 per year 
in the United States. The extent to which 
electricity is adopted corresponds very 
closely to the extent to which mine owners 
and managers become familiar with this 
new means at their disposal. 

The possibility of transmitting electric 
power over distances as great as 200 miles 
has added resources to such localities as 
Niagara and Messena, N. Y.; Sault Ste. 
Marie, Mich., and Snoqualmie Falls in the 
State of Washington. The largest trans- 
formers used for long distance transmission 
have recently been constructed in Pitts- 
burgh, with a capacity of 2,700 kilowatts. 
In Pittsburgh ‘too have been built the larg- 


oT4 


est dynamos ever made, viz., those for the 
Manhattan Elevated Railway of New York 
City. 

Electro-chemistry has not only made 
aluminum a rival of copper as an electric 
conductor, but nearly all the copper is now 
electrolytically refined. Calcium earbide, 
from which acetylene is generated, is formed 
under the electric are; ordinary bleaching 
powder is manufactured from common salt 
by an electrolytic process; carborundum, 
a new abrasive more effective than emery, 
is made in the electric furnace, which as- 
pires to the manufacture of graphite and 
even diamonds. Electrically generated 
ozone is used for the purification of water, 
and a company has even been formed to 
perfect a process for burning the nitrogen 
in the air for the commercial production of 
nitrates, which may go far to postpone the 
impending wheat famine predicted by Sir 
Wim. Crookes. 

Electric lighting represents an investment 
of $669,000,000 in the United States. Great 
improvements have lately been made in 
electric lamps. These include the Nernst 
lamp, which is a new form of incandescent 
lamp; the Bremer lamp, a new are lamp; 
and the Cooper-Hewitt mereury vapor 
lamp, in which use is made of the incandes- 
cence of a vapor or gas. The development 
of new inventions, often very costly, is car- 
ried on here in Pittsburgh as an adjunct to 
regular manufacturing. 

Mechanical and engineering development 
is a measure of a country’s civilization, and 
the United States possesses 69 per cent. of 
all the electricity available in the world, 
76 per cent. of all that portion available 
for traction, 764 per cent. of all the electric 
railway mileage and 834 per cent. of all the 
trolley cars. 


The Genesis of Pittsburgh as a Seat of 
Tron Manufacture: J. B. JoHNSTON, of 
the Pittsburgh Post. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 


Some Consequences of the Trust Movement: 
H. T. Newcoms, Editor of The Railway 
World, Philadelphia. (Published in 
The Ralway World of July 5, 1902.) 


The Statistics of the Dairy: Henry E. Au- 
vorpD, Chief of Dairy Division, U. S. De- 
partment of Agriculture, Washington. 
(This paper will be printed in full in the 
Proceedings of the Society for the Promo- 
tion of Agricultural Science.) 

The relative importance of this branch of 
agricultural industry in the United States 
is pointed out and the value of accurate 
statistics thereof. The United States Cen- 
sus is regarded as the principal source of 
statistical information on this subject, but 
is by no means the only one. The enumera- 
tion of cows is the basis of reliable dairy 
data, and this count by the twelfth census 
is believed to be more complete and accurate 
than any preceding. It included for the 
first time the cows not on farms and ranges 
—found to be 973,033 in number, or 54 per 
cent. of the entire milking stock of the 
country. The whole number of dairy cows, 
according to the census of 1900, was 18,112,- 
707, and this is accepted as correct. Rea- 
sons are given for believing the enumera- 
tion of cows by the census of 1890 to be 
entirely unreliable and hence all the dairy 
statistics connected therewith. Conse- 
quently, comparisons between the dairy 
data of the eleventh census and the 
twelfth are considered as entirely mislead- 
ing and useless. 

Certain items in the dairy statistics of the 
last U. S. census are pointed out to be much 
more reliable than others. The following 
arrangement is presented as the probable 
order of accuracy: (1) The number of 
dairy cows, (2) the materials and products 
of the condensed milk factories, (3) the 
products of the cheese factories, (4) the 
products of creameries, (5) the cheese made 
on farms and sold therefrom, (6) the milk 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902.] 


received at cheese factories, (7) the butter 
made on farms and sold therefrom, (8) the 
milk and cream received at creameries, (9) 
the butter and cheese made on farms and 
there consumed, (10) the total milk pro- 
duced on farms, (11) the milk and cream 
sold from farms. The first three or four of 
these items are considered approximately 
accurate; the last three or four are easily 
shown to be very inaccurate. 

A number of tables, statements and com- 
putations are given and the deduction there- 
from explained, showing that items num- 
bered above 8, 10 and 11 must be much 
greater than given by the census, and that 
most erroneous conclusions would be 
reached as to the consumption of milk in its 
natural state, unless arbitrary but rational 
modifications were made of the published 
statistics. Two important factors have to 
be supplied by estimates: (1) The milk pro- 
duct of the ‘town cows,’ placed at 4,000 Ibs. 
per year each, and (2) milk consumed by 
dairy calves, the estimate being 15,000,000 
calves at 350 lbs. each, making an im- 
mense total, one twelfth of the entire milk 
product of the country. 

Accepting those census statistics which 
bear tests of reliability, and modifying 
others according to the most reasonable 
probabilities, a table is presented as being 
likely to approximate the truth as to the 
dairy industry for the last census year. 
With further modifications, another table 
is offered as giving the probable facts, in 
round numbers, for the present year, as 
follows: 


ESTIMATES OF DAIRY STATISTICS OF THE UNITED 
STATES. FOR 1902. 


Millions. Millions of Pounds of Milk. 
80 persons, at 65 tbs. per day, consume 
IR LINN 5 ooococoscdoakenAoaOO 18,980 
200 tbs. condensed milk require........ 800 
800 tbs. cheese require................. 3,000 
1550) Tbs! butterssrequineserneerrrr rrr 36,422 
12) gals% (creamy require etree) -t 1-1. 540 
15 dairy calves consume..:........... 5,050 
Total milk used as above...... 64,792 


SCIENCE. 


315 


This is the product of 18,200,000 cows, at 
3,960 lbs. each per year. 

The annual consumption of dairy prod- 
ucts per capita in the United States, based 
upon the census statistics of production, as 
modified and with proper allowances for ex- 
ports and imports, is believed to be very 
nearly as follows: 19 lbs. 3 oz. of butter; 
3 lbs. 7 oz. of cheese; 1 lb. 4 oz. of cream; 
2 Ibs. 4 oz. of condensed milk, and 237 lbs. 
4 oz. of fresh milk. 


The Passing of the Hired Man on Farms: 
L. G. Powers, Chief Statistician, United 
States Census, Washington. 

1. The greater increase of farms than of 
farm population and its significance. 


(a) All farms and population. 

(b) Farms containing over fifty 
population. 

(¢) Farms operated by owners and population. 

(d) Farms operated by tenants and population. 

(e) Farms and agriculturalists other than 
farm owners and tenants. 


acres and 


2. Farm ownership, tenancy and wage 
service at different ages of life. 

(a) Farm owners of specified ages. 

(b) Farm tenants of specified ages. 

(c) Farm laborers of specified ages. 

3. The economic changes of the farm 
and the city contrasted. 

4, Increasing economic independence on 
the farm. 


Observations by a Country Roadside: W. 
J. Bear, Michigan Agricultural College. 
The paper was illustrated by about thirty 

lantern slides and was intended to show the 

objects of interest and of general signifi- 
cance on the road from Okemos to Lansing, 
passing by the Agricultural College—a 
distance of five or six miles. It was in- 
tended as a suitable exercise for a bul- 
letin on elementary science, or nature study. 
The objects illustrated were an old grist 
mill; a country repair shop; a curve in 


376 


the river washing out the bank, where all 
the woody growth had been eut away; a 
country cemetery; a dangerous railway 
crossing concealed by high banks; a flat 
sandy road always bad in dry weather; a 
neat farmhouse with mail-box for free rural 
mail delivery; some old apple trees going 
to decay; fields extending near the high- 
way with no fences; an old log house going 
into decay ; a farm wood-lot where the trees 
are dying because it had been pastured; a 
perfectly graded highway; an old haw- 
thorn; a view of the college campus; a 
deer park; the arboretum, twenty-seven 
years old; a large fine American elm; trees 
disfigured by telephone wires; fine views 
with nature’s planting and the same 
after the woody growth had nearly all been 
removed; a neat modern cottage; a new 
brick school-house; a big split stone, with 
a cherry tree growing between the pieces; 
advertisements on board fences; a watering 
trough: two trees that survived after 
they had broken over; the State Industrial 
School. 


The Timber Trees of Ohio and their Eco- 
nomic Uses: WinuiAmM R. LAzensy, Ohio 
State University, Columbus. 

A scientifically classified list of all the 
timber trees of Ohio with notes on their 
distribution and abundance. The princi- 
pal demands or present economic uses of 
wood are classified under fifteen different 
heads. Among these are building material, 
fencing, railroad cross-ties, poles for elec- 
trie wires, transportation vehicles, cabinet 
ware, agricultural implements, household 
utensils, packages, paper, walks and roads, 
chemical industries, mining purposes, fuel 
and charcoal, miscellaneous uses. 

The amount and kind of timber for each 
of the above uses are briefly discussed and 
a list of woods used for minor but specific 
purposes is appended. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 401. 


The Importance of Cooperation between the 
Federal Census Office and the State Sta- 
tistical Offices: Carrot D. WricHt, 
Commissioner of Labor, Washington. 
(Published in ‘Report on Manufactures,’ 
U.S. Twelfth Census, Pt. I., pp. xl.—xlv.). 
The law creating the permanent Census 

Office provides that in 1905 and every tenth 

year thereafter there shall be a collection 

of the statistics of manufactures; this is in 
addition to the regular decennial census as 
usually taken. The various State offices 
are constantly engaged in collecting data 
relative to manufactures; hence it becomes 
very necessary that duplication should be 
avoided wherever possible, and that the ex- 
pense involved in the work of State and 

Federal governments should be either 

shared by them or, so far as_ possible, 

avoided entirely on the part of one or the 
other. Probably there is not a State in the 

Union that does not collect statistics rela- 

tive to some of the subjects enumerated in 

the law establishing the permanent Census 

Office, and, specifically, there is a great 

chain of State statistical offices, known as 

such, having duties similar to those pre- 
scribed for the permanent Census Office. 

Thus a mass of information is published 

each year, and especially every ten years, 

so great that students and statesmen find it 
difficult to study the details sufficiently to 
enable them correctly to interpret results. 

The fact that the results are open to 
criticism is perhaps the smallest matter, 
but certainly all data should be published 
in as correct a form as possible and properly 
interpreted and systematically and conven- 
iently presented for public use. This de- 
sirable result can be assured only by avoid- 
ing the duplication of work, by systema- 
tizing the methods under which statistics 
are gathered, and by a uniform codification 
of the results, to accomplish which desired 
end it is absolutely essential that there 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902.] 


should be some system of cooperation be- 
tween the State and the Federal offices. 

Another strong argument in favor of 
such cooperation is derived from the fact 
that at present the State and the Federal 
governments are constantly canvassing 
manufacturing establishments and the peo- 
ple generally for statistical data. This du- 
plication, or rather repetition, of attempts 
to secure information is becoming very an- 
noying to the public generally, and causes 
the fear that there will be a revolt on the 
part of some interests, andmakes it essential 
that these canvasses should take place as 
rarely as possible. Constant calls for in- 
formation where no remuneration is pro- 
vided for furnishing it result oftentimes 
not in careless answers but in positive re- 
fusals to comply with official requests. 
Again, while governments are constantly 
requesting manufacturers and others for 
information, the secretaries of trade asso- 
ciations, the editors of almanacs and year- 
books, and the compilers of encyclopedias 
and other works, are also besieging them for, 
specific information for their various pub- 
leations. These calls complicate the work 
of government offices. 


The Change of Position, during the Nine- 
teenth Century, of the Business Corpora- 
tion: Jupee Stmeon EH. Batpwin, Su- 
preme Court of Connecticut, New Haven. 
The close of the nineteenth century found 

the business of the world in the hands of 

private business corporations. It was not 
so in 1800 nor at any previous time in the 
history of the world. How came it? 

The existence of such artificial persons 
was first freely permitted by Rome under 
the republic; but they grew so powerful 
that this could not be tolerated under the 
empire. The only form of Roman corpora- 
tion (wniversitas) which survived to re- 
appear in the beginnings of modern society 
was the university of scholars. Private in- 


SCIENCE. 


377 


corporation at will under general laws, for 
business purposes, remained unknown for 
nearly 1,800 years. The few corporations 
of this kind that did exist existed under a 
special franchise. They were monopolies. 
They often grew inconceivably great. They 
fostered speculation, and were generally 
distrusted by the people. Great commer- 
cial partnerships were resorted to for large 
undertakings. Prior to 1800 there were 
only 225 business corporations in the United 
States, and of these two thirds were to pro- 
mote quasi-public objects like canals, ete. 
The first American general incorporation 
law was for canals, in 1795. New York fol- 
lowed in 1811 with one for certain kinds 
of manufacturing enterprises, and in the 
course of the next seventy years freedom of 
incorporation on equal terms to all became 
the rule in almost all civilized countries. 
The freer and the richer a country is, the 
freer will be its general incorporation laws, 
and the more numerous the corporations 
formed under them. This and the enor- 
mous increase of the world’s wealth since 
1800 are the two factors which have put 
into the hands of the modern corporation 
the business of the world. 

Sentimental considerations largely in- 
fluenced this course of events. Popular 
distrust and jealousy kept men from invest- 
ing in corporations or from wishing them 
well, so long as their character was mo- 
nopolistic. The modern corporation is in- 
dividualistie. It asksnothing from the State 
but to be let alone. The ‘trust’ at first was 
an abandonment of the corporate idea for 
that of partnership. Now it is reverting to 
the corporate type. The mobility of most 
business corporations is as great as is that 
of a natural person. It is greater, for they 
ean choose their birthplace, and incorporate 
where they find incorporation offered on 
the easiest terms. They can also reincor- 
porate subsequently in some other State, 
and so, Phcenix-like, die and revive again. 


378 


Mill said that industry was limited by capi- 
tal. The modern corporation in a world 
with surplus wealth on every side eager for 
investment has removed this limitation. 


Problems and Possibilities of a Depart- 
ment of Commerce: JOHN FRANKLIN 
CroweE.L, Bureau of Statistics, Treasury 
Department, Washington. 

Unexpected difficulties in administrative 
organization, more than anything else, pre- 
vented the enactment of the law creating a 
Department of Commerce at the latest ses- 
sion of Congress. Debate and hearings, 
however, developed the seemingly general 
conclusion that an efficient department 
could not be created out of more or less in- 
coherent and semi-commercial bureaus as 
constituent elements, but that such a de- 
partment would probably have to be started 
de novo and develop its own administrative 
machinery. The field for such a depart- 
ment in domestic commerce is full of un- 
solved problems, such as the railway prob- 
lem, the trust problem, the shipping prob- 
lem, the navigation problem and the prob- 
lem of the development of trolley traffic 
and highway improvement. All of these 
are vital commercial problems which have 
almost no representation in federal admin- 
istration and no direct representation in 
the cabinet. Add to these all those ques- 
tions which are involved in the proposals 
to extend our foreign markets through the 
ageney of the federal administration, and 
we have a _ sufficient scope for a most 
energetic executive department. These 
considerations should put to rest the doubt 
whether there is any place for such a di- 
vision of administrative activity. If our 
commerce is to be reduced to a scientific 
business rather than to remain as a specu- 
lative hazard, then governmental leader- 
ship is necessary to focalize the policy 
which, taking into account both domestic 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Von. XVI. No. 401. 


and foreign trade, would contribute most 
to our permanent prosperity. 


The Development of American Commerce— 
Past, Present and Prospective (accom- 
panied by diagrams): O. P. Austin, 
Chief of Bureau of Statistics, Treasury 
Department, Washington. (Published 
in The World’s Work, August, 1902.) 
The foreign commerce of the United 

States divides itself into three distinct 

periods: (1) That prior to 1870 when the 

erowth was comparatively slow and the im- 

ports usually exceeded the exports, (2) that 

following 1870, in which the growth was 
more rapid and the exports usually ex- 


' ceeded the imports, and (3) that of the last 


decade, in which manufactures form an 
inereasing share of the exports and man- 
ufacturers’ materials an increasing share 
of the imports. Following the construction 
of the transcontinental railway, completed 
in 1869, came the extension of other lines 
through the great Mississippi valley and 
the South, and this resulted in the opening 
of the great agricultural, forest and mineral 
areas whose natural supplies have made 
this the greatest producing country of the 
world and facilitated the assembling of 
these natural products for use in manufac- 
turing. As a result, agricultural produc- 
tion has more than doubled and manufac- 
tures more than trebled. The value of 
farm products inereased from less than 
24 billions of dollars in 1870 to 
about, 4} billions in 1900, and the value of 
manufactures has grown from 44 billions 
in 1870 to 13 billions in 1900; though in 
each ease the figures of value fail to show 
the full growth in production, owing to the 
fall in prices of nearly all articles mean- 
time. The production of coal, a prime ne- 
cessity in manufacturing, grew from 33 
million tons in 1870 to 290 millions in 1901; 
pig iron, from less than 2 million tons to 
over 13 million tons. Meantime the rail- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902.] 


ways have grown from 52,000 miles in 1870 
to practically 200,000 miles at the present 
time, and rates for rail transportation have 
fallen to about one third the rates of 1870. 
The result of all this is that the United 
States has become the greatest exporting 
nation in the world, having risen from 
fourth place in 1870 to first place in 1901. 
The value of our exports was, in 1870, 393 
millions; in 1901, 1,487 millions; imports, in 
1870, 486 millions; in 1901, 823 millions. 

The causes of this development in ex- 
ports are to be found in the fact that the 
United States is the world’s largest pro- 
ducer of the great articles required by man 
for his daily life. The chief requirements 
of man are food, clothing, heat, light and 
manufactures; and of all these the United 
States is the world’s largest producer: for 
food, wheat, corn and meats; for clothing, 
eotton; for heat and light, coal and petrol- 
eum; for manufacturing, iron, copper and 
lead; while in manufactures actually pro- 
duced the United States exceeds any other 
nation. 

This commanding position in the world’s 
commerce seems likely to be retained by the 
United States. The natural production 
shows little if any signs of abatement, while 
we may reasonably expect that the develop- 
ment of science and invention and the ap- 
plieation of American energy will still 
further reduce the cost of manufacture and 
transportation. This high standing of the 
United States as an exporting nation should 
be welcomed by the commercialworld rather 
than antagonized. The commercial world 
buys our products because it requires them 
for daily use and because it can obtain 
them more readily and cheaply from the 
United States than from any other part of 
the world. The effect of the refusal of 
Europe to purchase from the United States 
any of the great articles of which we fur- 
nish so large a proportion of the world’s 
supply would be to cause an advance in the 


SCIENCE. 


379 
price of those articles in other parts of the 
world, while the fact that the United States 
in 1901 sold to Europe alone more manu- 
factures than she ever sold to the entire 
world in any year prior to 1895 shows the 
progress that American manufacturers are 
making. 

It must also be expected that our im- 
ports will continue to grow. The reasons 
are coieident with our growth in manu- 
factures. While the United States is the 
world’s greatest producer in the chief ele- 
ments required in manufacturing, it does 
not produce certain articles of tropical and 
subtropical growth of which the manufac- 
turers are requiring constantly increasing 
quantities, such as raw silk, fibers, Eeyptian 
cotton, india-rubber and many other articles 
of this character. Add to this the tropical 
requirements for food, such as coffee,cocoa, 
tea and such portions of the sugar and trop- 
ical fruits as are not produced at home, and 
it is apparent that the importations must 
increase, and especially those from the 
tropics. This fact of our growing depend- 
ence upon the tropics suggests that the 
events of the past four years have been of 
advantage in the fact that they have 
brought under the American flag an area 
capable of producing a large share of these 
tropical requirements, and taking an equal 
quantity of our products in exchange there- 
for. 


New Light on the Per Capita Wheat Con- 
sumption Problem: Henry FarQquHar, 
U.S. Census Office, Washington. 

The census results recently published 
from the flouring mills of the country in 
the year ending with May, 1900, include 
amounts of flour produced and of wheat 
used in its production, which, taken in con- 
nection with amounts exported during the 
same period, furnish an index to the coun- 
try’s consumption of flour, and hence of 
wheat. The consumption so ascertained 


380 


from the Twelfth Census agrees closely with 
that from the Eleventh, from flour mills; 
and they differ very little from those de- 
duced from the last census for agriculture, 
making allowance in the latter for all wheat 
not consumed for food in this country. But 
the per capita figure from these concurrent 
sources is some twenty per cent. in excess 
of the amount which appeared to result 
from previous inquiries, by the reported 
consumption of representative families, 
converted into an average for the country 
by use of population tables for different 
localities and classes. 

The quantity found by the latter method 
might be deficient in several ways: the 
amount consumed might be underesti- 
mated; or wastes and losses and consump- 
tion other than as human food might be neg- 
lected; or the number of consumers might 
be overstated, owing to absences from home, 
ete. ; or the families considered might be not 
fairly representative. The census deter- 
mination might be excessive through faulty 
methods of supplying imperfect data—for 
example, overestimate of the amount of 
wheat required for a barrel of flour. The 
least improbable source of error in the agri- 
cultural census would be an introduction 
of supposititous farms by the enumerators. 
It is possible also that the per capita rate 
might actually have increased. 


Municipal Insurance against Unemploy- 
ment: Hanry J. Harris, Department of 
Labor, Washington. 

The four causes which force the working- 
man involuntarily to become a burden to 
society are accident, sickness, general in- 
validity and lack of employment. The 
first three of these have been more or less 
successfully removed from the field of 
charitable effort and relief for them placed 
on the basis of insurance; attempts are 
now being made in various European coun- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 


tries to place relief for unemployment on 
a like basis. 

The first attempt to accomplish this was 
made in the city of Bern, Switzerland, in 
1893, by establishing a municipal office for 
voluntary insurance against unemployment. 
The plan finally adopted was to charge the 
members of the Fund the sum of fifty cen- 
times per month as dues, and in ease of a 
member becoming unemployed—through 
no fault of his own—during the months of 
December, January and February, he was 
paid one and one-half franes (or two franes 
if others were financially dependent on 
him) per day for a period not exceeding 
sixty days. With modifications to suit 
local conditions, similar Funds have been 
established in Basel, Cologne and Bologna; 
the four Funds have memberships ranging 
from 160 to 1,200 persons each; the in- 
sured persons pay between thirteen per 
cent. and thirty per cent. of the total cost 
of the insurance, the deficit being met by 
contributions of private persons and mu- 
nicipal subsidies. 

In August, 1901, the city of Ghent, Bel- 
gium, adopted the plan of increasing, under 
certain conditions, by fifty per cent. the 
out-of-work benefits paid by the trades 
unions of the city to their members. The 
plan has met with favor in other localities 
and is used by the city of Dijon, France, 
and the province of Liege, Belgium. 
About 13,000 persons are now insured un- 
der this system. 


Municipal Government in the Philippines: 
CLARENCE R. Epwarps, Chief of Bureau 
of Insular Affairs, War Department, 
Washington. 

The institution of local self-government 
in the Philippines has given the most prac- 
tical evidence of the beneficent intentions 
of the United States. Under General 
Henry W. Lawton, the important town of 
Baliuag, immediately on its capture in May, 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


1899, was permitted to hold a public meet- 
ing and elect a captain municipal, or mayor. 
The plan of electing local administrative 
officials at town meetings was extended 
during the next few months to Santa Ana, 
Pandican, San Pedro, Macato, Pasig, Patero, 
Malabay, Paranque, Los Pinar, Bacoor, 
Imus, San Felipe Neri and a few others. 
The success of this experiment led to the 
installation of similar municipal govern- 
ments in towns that subsequently passed 
under American control. 

Owing to the conditions existing, some 
control over the local governments by army 
officers was necessary, especially in financial 
matters, but that control was gradually 
lessened until it became little more than 
advisory. While in some cases the muni- 
cipal officers elected were in active, though 
secret, sympathy with the insurgents, many 
were assassinated because of their loyalty 
to the United States. 

In 1900 a general order (No. 40) was 
adopted, applicable to any town in the 
archipelago, substituting for supervision by 
local commanding officers the right of ap- 
peal to the military district commander. 
It also provided for election by ballot and 
for limitation of the franchise. That order 
was subsequently modified by the municipal 
code, promulgated by the Taft Commission 
and is now the municipal organic law of the 
islands. The code extended the franchise, 
required expenditure for public schools, 
restricted the forms of local taxation, and 
provided for a centralized system of col- 
lecting the revenues. The early success 
of liberal and progressive local self-gov- 
ernment prepared the way for the civil 
government now auspiciously instituted. 

The following papers were read by title: 


The Progress of Irrigation as disclosed by 
the Returns of the Twelfth Census: F. 
H. Newewu, Hydrographer, U. S. Geo- 
logical Survey, Washington. 


SCIENCE. 


381 


Progress in Insurance Engineering: Ep- 
warp ATKINSON, Boston. 


The Practical Handling of Woodlands: 
Girrorp PincuHot, Forester, U. 8. Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, Washington. 


Public Protection of Prwate Savings: 
JAMES H. Buoperrr, U. 8. Department 
of Agriculture, Washington. 


Local Life by Local Time, Expressed in 
Standard Time: Epwarp S. WARREN, 
Newton, Mass. 


Voluntary Associations 
Working People: 
Washington. 


Among Cuban 
Victor S. CLARK, 


Social Bacteria and Economic Microbes, 
Wholesome and Noxious: A Study in 
Smalls: Epwarp ATKINSON, Boston. 


The Formative Period of a Great City: A 
Study of Greater New York: Wiuu1am H. 
Hate, Brooklyn. 

FRANK R. RurTrer. 
Secretary. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

Die deutschen Universitaten und das Universi- 
tdtsstudium. Von FRIEDRICH PAULSEN. 
Berlin, Verlag von A. Asher & Co. 1902. 
Pp. xii-++ 575. 

Professor Paulsen aims in his new book to 
give a systematic account of the nature, func- 
tion, organization and historical development 
of the German university. Owing to the 
exalted position which the German university 
occupies in the world of education, and the 
universal nature of the problems discussed by 
Professor Paulsen, his work will be of value 
not only to his own countrymen, but to per- 
sons interested in the subject everywhere. It 
ought to be studied by every man who takes 
any part in university legislation, whether as 
president, professor or member of a controlling 
board, and by every student who desires to get 
the most out of his university course. It is so 
rich in valuable information, so full of prac- 
tical suggestions, that it cannot fail to prove 


useful and helpful to all who sincerely desire 
to perform the tasks growing out of their con- 
nection with university life, in the best pos- 
sible manner. Particularly in this country 
where things are in the transition state and 
where, in spite of much that is crude and 
charlatanical, the desire is strong to assimi- 
late all that is good in the higher institutions 
of other countries, will a work like this assist 
us in finding the right path. 

After an introductory chapter (pp. 1-11) in 
which he describes the general character of 
the German university and contrasts it with 
the French and English types, the author 
divides his subject matter into five books. In 
the first (pp. 15-82) he traces the historical 
development of the German universities from 
the Middle Ages down to the present time. 
Professor Paulsen is fond of historical sur- 
veys of this kind, which help us to see things 
in the proper perspective and enable us to give 
them the right values. Such a study of growth 
will show us Americans how primitive many 
of our conditions are, and at the same time 
inspire us with the hope that they must pass 
away. In Book II. (pp. 85-200) Professor 
Paulsen discusses the present organization of 
the German university and its place in public 
life, its legal status, its relation to the State, 
to society and to the Church. Among the 
interesting subjects taken up here are: The 
legal relations of university teachers, salaries 
and fees, the filling of professorships, the legal 
status of private docents, the education of 
women, university extension, the position of 
university men in society, the protestant 
theological faculties, the catholic theological 
faculties, the participation of the different 
religious sects in university study. Book III. 
(pp. 203-835) is devoted to the university 
teacher, university instruction, and Lehr- 
fretheit, considering subjects like the follow- 
ing: The system of private docents, the per- 


sonal relations between teacher and student,, 


the lecture system, seminars and exercises, 
exercises for beginners, medical and scientific 
institutes, university pedagogy, theology 
and Lehrfrethett, philosophy and Lehrfretheit, 
the political and social sciences and Lehr- 
freiheit, the professors and politics, the uni- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vout. XVI. No. 401. 


versity’s function with respect to political 
education and public life. Book IV. (pp. 
339-488) has to do with the student and 


‘academic study,’ discussing, among other 
things, the significance and dangers of 


academic freedom (in the sense of the freedom 
of student life); preparatory training, the 
course of study, the elective system (Lern- 
fretheit) and the ‘compulsory’ system, the 
length of the university course, vacations, 
selecting and changing one’s university, the 
objects and the means of university study, 
how to read and how to work, general culture, 
examinations, state examinations, the student 
and politics, the social mission of university 
students, and student societies. While the 
preceding book will serve as a guide to the 
university teacher, this book will be found to 
be particularly helpful to the student, bringing 
system and order into his academic life. In 
the last book (pp. 495-562) the different 
‘faculties, theology, law, medicine and 
philosophy, are carefully reviewed and their 
aims described. It gives one an insight into 
the nature of the different ‘faculties’ or 
schools, as we often call them, and of the 
professions for which they provide the train- 
ing. 

Our country has learned much from the Ger- 
man universities, and it is largely owing to 
this that we occupy the position in the scien- 
tific world which we already occupy. It is 
safe to say, however, that we still have a great 
deal to learn, and that a book like Professor 
Paulsen’s can point the way to new ideals. 
We have not yet reached the development of 
which we are capable. For one thing we have 
not yet reached that degree of inner freedom 
which the German university enjoys and to 
which Professor Paulsen attributes the 
wonderful advance which has been made in 
higher education in the nineteenth century. 
The one-man power, which exists in many of 
our institutions, the interference of govern- 
ing boards with purely academic matters 
which should be left to faculties or individual 
teachers, the influence of politics and _ sec- 
tarianism, the unhealthy pressure sometimes 
exerted by the fear of losing appropriations, 
all these are problems which have not yet been 


‘ 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


wholly solved, but which must and will be 
solved before the American university will 
become what it can become. Of course, this 
absence of inner freedom of action is often due 
to the primitive condition of many of our uni- 
versities or to the fact that many of them are 
in the transition stage from college to univer- 
sity, and will disappear as these institutions 
more closely approach the university ideal. 
But whatever may be the causes and excuses 
for these conditions, the truth is there is more 
‘paternalism’ in the universities of this 
‘free’ country than in those of military Ger- 
many. There are dangers connected with 
freedom, very true, but these dangers cannot 
be avoided and are the price we must pay for 
the blessings of liberty. 

Another element of strength of the German 
university, one that could not develop without 
the factor just mentioned, and without which 
the university could never have reached its 
present status, is the spirit of investigation 
among its members. The German professor is, 
above everything else, a scientific investigator. 
This phase of development also has its shadow 
sides and dangers, as Professor Paulsen shows. 
But it is true, nevertheless, as he says, that the 
position which the German people at present 
holds in the scientific world, it owes in the 
main to its universities, and these owe what 
they are and what they accomplish to the 
principle on which they are based: they are 
scientific institutions and their teachers are 
scientific investigators. And that is just ex- 
actly the goal at which our own best universi- 
ties are aiming—in spite of the protests of 
small colleges that do not see that the function 
of the university is not identical with that of 
the college—and why they are beginning to 
inspire respect in foreign lands. 

It would, of course, be impossible to touch 
upon all the interesting topics taken up by 
Professor Paulsen, within the narrow compass 
of this review. The most vital questions of 
university education are discussed by the 
author in his usual sensible, quiet and sane 
manner. He tries to see the things as they 
are, their good and bad sides, and he speaks 
as one who knows. His remarks on the lecture 


system, which, when supplemented by 


SCIENCE. 


383 


seminars and practical exercises, he regards 
as the best, on the whole, and his views on the 
elective system (Lernfretheit), will prove 
helpful to many of us, at the present stage of 
our development. His defense of the German 
system of appointing professors, which is fre- 
quently attacked in Germany, is also interest- 
ing. The German plan is not perfect, of 
course; no system can be perfect that is 
applied by imperfect human beings, and 
illegitimate influences will always play their 
part in the selection of professors as long as 
human nature remains what it is. At the same 
time, it seems to me, the Germans are much 
more careful and impartial in their choice and 
maintain a higher standard than we do. 
Local, personal, political and sectarian in- 
fluences are stronger with us than with them. 
It is true also that we are making great im- 
provement along this line, and that the results 
are seen in the greater efficiency of our facul- 
ties, but appointments are frequently made in 
the United States, even in good universities, 
which ‘ outsiders’ do not understand and the 
initiated understand only too well. We shall 
outgrow all that too, but we have not out- 
grown it yet. 

This book of Professor Paulsen’s is, in my 
opinion, the most satisfactory exposition of 
university problems and the most helpful prac- 
tical guide in solving them that has been pub- 
lished in recent years, and cannot fail to find 
an appreciative circle of readers. It will bear 
good fruit in our country and increase the 
debt of gratitude which we owe to the Ger- 
man universities for what they have done for 
our higher education. 


Frank THIyy. 
UNIVERSITY OF MISsoURT. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
“$0-CALLED SPECIES AND SUBSPECIES.’ 


THE article in the issue of Scimmnce for 
August 8 (N. S., Vol. XVI., pp. 229-931), 
under the above caption, is opportune, even if 
the author falls somewhat short of hitting the 
mark. He appropriately takes as his text Mr. 
Oberholser’s recent ‘ Review of the Larks of the 
Genus Otocoris, and presents the layman’s 
view of the deplorable addition of a number 


384 


of new trinomial names ‘to our already over- 
burdened nomenclature.’ Mr. Clark has done 
good work in certain ornithological lines, for 
which he deserves due credit, but his labors, 
so far as his published writings show, have 
been quite foreign to the subject upon which 
he here descants with the confidence becoming 
only to an expert. His statements and point 
of view, however, show lack of experience and 
familiarity with such lines of research as are 
involved in the consideration of trinomials 
and ‘so-called species and subspecies.’ Evi- 
dently he has never attempted to analyze and 
classify 2,150 specimens of larks, or of any 
similar varied and widely distributed group. 
I am not writing to defend the work of Mr. 
Oberholser or of Dr. Mearns, which Mr. Clark 
has chosen as a subject for comment; nor 
to approve of the tendency of fine splitting 
now so much in vogue in certain quarters; but 
to correct certain unwarranted impressions 
that the lay reader may derive from Mr. 
Clark’s statements and criticisms. Mr. Clark 
says: “The important question which this 
(Mr. Oberholser’s) monograph raises is how 
far is it desirable to recognize these varieties 
(of larks) by name? Or better, are the diver- 
sities of size and color in a specified geograph- 


ical area, sufficiently constant to warrant | 


recognition as subspecies?” These are old 
questions, already many times discussed. The 
first question of ‘ how far,’ ete., will ever be a 
matter of personal equation and temperament; 
in reply no hard-and-fast line can be laid down; 
so long as there are ultraists and conservatives, 
su long will there be ‘ splitters’ and ‘lumpers.’ 
To the second question only an emphatic yes 
is admissible; and in Mr. Clark’s contention 
to the contrary he affords conclusive evidence 
that he is writing without possessing that 
familiarity with the facts of the case which 
can only be attained by long experience in a 
field which is yet obviously little known to 
him. This is evidenced by the following, 
among other statements he makes: “ To many 
persons it would seem to be almost an axiom 
that a character which can not be stated in 
language or in figures of any sort is not suffi- 
ciently conspicuous to bear the weight of a 


name.” “Another rule which to the layman 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 401. 


would seem to be axiomatic is that characters 
which can not be recognized regardless of the 
locality where the specimens are collected are 
worthless.” This is naturally the layman’s. 
view of the case, but what are the facts, as 
known to the expert? 

In ornithology, and especially in mamma- 
logy, perfectly ‘good species’ are often so 
similar in size and color that even the expert 
cannot satisfactorily identify them from de- 
scriptions, and hence, almost from time im- 
memorial, direct compariscn with authentic 
material has been necessary in order to settle 
such difficult cases. As all experts in this 
line of study well know, forms that may be 
indistinguishable by descriptions are, when 
brought together, and especially when series 
are compared, so noticeably different that 
there is no trouble in distinguishing them at 
a glance. They present to the eye differences 
that are sufficiently impressive but which, ow- 
ing to the imperfection of descriptive terms, 
cannot be adequately expressed in keys or in 
diagnoses. Hence when new material comes to 
hand from localities the fauna of which is as 
yet imperfectly known, the expert feels com- 
pelled, in a greater or less number of instances, 
to appeal to his confréres for the loan of 
authentic representative specimens of the de- 
scribed forms to which his own doubtful speci- 
mens seem most closely allied. Nor is it any 
disgrace to the expert, nor any reflection on 
present-day methods that constant resort has 
to be made to such aids. 

As Mr. Clark very truly says: “The chief 
value of systematic zoology lies in its service 
as a basis for progress in knowledge of the 
laws of distribution, variation and evolution. 
Recognition of well-defined subspecies is essen- 
tial to accurate knowledge, but bestowing 
names upon all sorts of individual diversities 
and inconstant trivialities is the very worst 
extreme.” And, after quoting some very 
“sensible words’ on this point from Mr. Ober- 
holser’s paper, he goes on to ask “* * * but 
can degrees of variation be properly set forth 
if they cannot be ‘intelligibly expressed on 
paper’?” We submit that the ‘layman,’ who 
is naturally so troubled and confused by the 
modern ways of finding out how and to what 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


extent animals are modified by their environ- 
ment, is not the proper arbiter to determine 
the value and bearing of expert knowledge. If 
in other fields of scientific research it is not 
demanded that the investigator stop his work 
at the point where his results are within the 
comprehension of the lay mind, why should the 
student of birds and mammals be expected to 
refrain from extending his researches be- 
yond the point of convenience for the layman? 
Mammals, being sedentary, are very suscep- 
tive to climate or other physical influences; 
birds being to a greater or less extent migra- 
tory, are perhaps, generally speaking, less so 
although when non-migratory they respond, 
often with great readiness, to environmental 
influences; but in the case of non-sedentary 
species, the fact of migration, combined with 
the ever-varying seasonal conditions of plum- 
age, increase the difficulty of discriminating 
and geographically limiting localized forms. 
The factor of intergradation between neigh- 
boring forms over areas connecting the main 
differentiation regions also complicates the 
problem of identification and leaves a consid- 
erable proportion of connectant specimens that 
cannot be satisfactorily referred to one rather 
than to another of two or more geographically 
adjacent forms. But this is as it should be, 
if environment has any influence in modify- 
ing animals. The real trouble is the tempta- 
tion to indisecreet or over-ambitious special- 
ists to give names to too many connectant 
forms that would be better left unnamed. 
Experience shows that the ‘characters’ 
claimed by describers for their new forms are 
rarely without basis; when the same material 
is independently examined by several different 
experts they generally agree as to whether or 
not certain alleged differences exist, but they 
may, and often do, differ in their estimates of 
the nomenclatorial value of the differences. 
This, as before intimated, is a condition of 
things beyond present remedy. As regards 
North American birds, the aspiring young 
ornithologist has now a comparatively barren 
field so far as the discovery of well-marked new 
forms is concerned and the tendency is to 
name forms not fairly entitled ‘to bear the 
weight of a name.’ His ‘discoveries’ are 


SCIENCE. 385 


often not new zoological facts, but a reestimate 
of the nomenclatorial value of facts long 
known to the older; more experienced, and 
more conservative workers, who have simply 
not deemed them entitled to serve as the basis 
of a name. But there are many exceptions; 
as material collected in the breeding season 
from many and widely separated regions be- 
comes available for comparison, it not infre- 
quently happens that differences previously 
unnoticed, or if noticed incorrectly attributed 
to seasonal or individual variation, are found 
to have a local habitation and to characterize 
distinct geographic areas. Although such dif- 
ferences are commonly slight, at least from 
the layman’s point of view, they are zoological 
facts that may well be recognized by making 
them the basis of a name. 

In this connection it may be well to recall 
the fact that not all of the many new ‘sub- 
species’ of North American birds proposed in 
recent years are admitted to recognition by the 
American Ornithologists’ Union Committee 
on Nomenclature, whose duty it is to examine 
the merits of each and rule upon their admis- 
sibility to the A. O. U. ‘ Check-list of North 
American Birds’; at least one third having 
been ‘turned down’ or disapproved by the A. 
O. U. Committee, while many more are still 
in abeyance awaiting further investigation 
by the Committee. But the adverse ruling of 
the Committee does not always result in their 
effectual suppression, as their authors, with a 
small personal following, sometimes continue 
indefinitely to recognize in their own writings 
some at least of the discredited names. 

As already said, Mr. Clark’s article is timely 
and voices a widespread feeling among lay- 
men, but who, it is not too much to assume, 
are necessarily poorly equipped to render a 
proper verdict in a field where expert knowl- 
edge is necessary. Yet it must be conceded 
that the laymen are in part right; ‘ splitting’ 
is undoubtedly carried too far, and that the 
fact is well recognized, and the practice es- 
teemed a great evil by competent judges, is 
evidenced by the decisions made each year by 
the A. O. U. Committee. On the other hand 
Mr. Clark’s presentation of the case, if allowed 
to pass without comment, might lead to erron- 


386 


eous inferences, prejudicial to a correct under- 
standing of what is really taking place and to 
the setting up of wrong standards in respect 
to the degree of difference legitimately open to 
recognition by name. J. A. ALLEN. 


PRESIDENT MINOT ON ‘THE PROBLEM OF CON- 
SCIOUSNESS IN ITS BIOLOGICAL, ASPECTS.’* 

Sciences, like human beings, are seldom in- 
different to the good opinion of others. Even 
age and great respectability never wholly dull 
the moral consciousness of a science to the 
approval and disapproval of its neighbors. 
This sensitiveness is, however, keenest and 
most easily wrought upon in the younger sci- 
ences, for the reason that these are most fre- 
quently challenged to defend their right to 
exist. Self-consciousness—provided it does 
not approach morbid embarrassment—is by 
no means a misfortune to the youthful sci- 
ence. It clears up its concepts, gives self-con- 
fidence and helps it to get on with its fellows. 
Psychology has had, more than most sciences, 
to give a strict account of itself and of its 
methods, both because it has had an unusual 
amount of prejudice to overcome and because 
it has developed in an unusually critical and 
criticising period of thought. The social 
pressure has, however, served its purpose, so 
far as psychology is concerned; for psychology 
—even as an experimental science—has passed 
its majority and knows perfectly well what its 
task is and how it means to perform it. But, 
while this is true, and while one science is 
never, within its own borders, responsible to 
any other coordinated branch of knowledge, 
there is, as I have intimated, the temptation 
to stop and listen when one’s character and 
obligations are discussed in a convocation of 
the sciences. The temptation is not to be 
withstood when the discussion turns out to be 
the authoritative opinion of a near neighbor 
with whom important and amicable relations 
have, for some time, been sustained. Professor 
Minot, in his recent address at Pittsburgh, in- 
dicates what he conceives to be the most nat- 
ural and the most profitable attitude of the 
biological sciences toward psychology. His 
outline involves a definition of mental phe- 

* Science, July 4, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 


nomena, a statement of the part that con- 
sciousness plays in bionomics, and an appeal 
to psychology to employ the comparative 
method. The argument of the address runs 
as follows: 

Consciousness may be regarded either as a 
real phenomenon in the world or as an epiphe- 
The ‘epiphenomenon hypothesis of 
consciousness’ is, according to the author, ‘an 
empty phrase, a subterfuge.’ ‘‘Consciousness 
ought to be regarded as a biological pheno- 
menon, which the biologist has to investigate 
in order to increase the number of verifiable 
data concerning it. In that way, rather than 
by speculative thought, is the problem of con- 
sciousness to be solved, and it is precisely be- 
cause biologists are beginning to study con- 
sciousness that it is becoming, as I said in 
opening, the newest problem of science.” * * * 
“For the present, it is more important to seek 
additional positive knowledge than to hunt for 
ultimate interpretations.” The ‘younger sci- 
ence of experimental psychology’ is, therefore, 
to be welcomed. ‘It completes the circle of 
the biological sciences.” The most striking 
peculiarity of consciousness—a_ peculiarity 
which is common to biological processes—is 
that it is teleological. ‘We do not know what 
it is, we do not know how it functions, but we 
do know why it exists.” The essential ‘func- 
tion of consciousness is to dislocate in time 
the reactions from sensations.’ The evolution 
of consciousness is a strong indication of its 
usefulness to the organism. If it had not been 
useful it would have disappeared. It is use- 
ful because it permits the individual to react 
on his accumulated experiences. Sensations 
recur in memory and increase the scope of pos- 
sible adjustments. Sensations are only sym- 
bols of ‘objective phenomena.’ We ‘see’ col- 
ors, but light—the ‘external reality’—is undu- 
lations. ‘“Objeectively, red, yellow and green 
do not exist.” These symbols are, neverthe- 
less, convenient labels, for by means of them 
the individual reacts appropriately on every 
occasion. They are ‘bionomically sufficient 
because they are constant.’ ‘They enable con- 
sciousness to prophesy or foresee the results 
of the reactions of the organism,’ and, hence, 
to maintain adjustment. 


nomenon. 


Animal conscious- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


ness is a homologue of human consciousness. 
Its function is the same. Consciousness must 
be posited at least as far down as sense organs 
and nervous systems are to be found. These 
considerations lead to the conclusion that ‘the 
development and improvement of conscious- 
ness has been the most important, really the 
dominant, factor in the evolution of the ani- 
mal series.’ Sensory and motor organs have 
multiplied for the sake of consciousness; to 
supply it ‘with more possibilities of adjust- 
ment to external reality.’ Since mind is teleo- 
logical, it must be primary, and reflexes and 
instinets derivative. Through habit, con- 
sciousness sometimes lapses—for the sake of 
rapidity in reacting—and reflexes and in- 
stincts take its place. If mind has been the 
most important factor in the evolution of the 
animal series, ‘the necessity of treating con- 
sciousness as primarily a problem for biolog- 
ical research to solve’ is obvious. The ‘psy- 
chologists ought now to apply the comparative 
method on a grand scale.’ Psychology is 
extremely backward; but with the new method 
we may come ‘to the understanding of even 
consciousness itself.’ Consciousness is not a 
form of energy; it is as ultimate as force, or 
energy; but it ‘has the power to change the 
form of energy.’ 

There is little doubt that Professor Minot’s 
plea for a closer alliance between biology and 
psychology will be seconded, heartily, by many 
biologists. The advantage promised to the 
sciences of life is certainly alluring. It is 
true that the alliance proposed would affect 
a comparatively small part of the field of biol- 
ogy—that part of zoology which deals with 
the descent of the higher animal forms—and, 
likewise, a comparatively small part of the 
field of psychology. Even if we grant that 
consciousness has as wide a range as the au- 
thor maintains (many investigators in both 
sciences would make the limits much narrow- 
er), there is only a portion of one problem in 
one of the great subdivisions of biology that 
can hope for direct aid from psychology. Nev- 
ertheless, no one can deny either that the 
problem has enormous proportions or that 
the promised aid is worth acquiring. As for 
the other science involved, psychology frankly 


SCIENCE. 


-factor. 


_other part of the cerebrum. 


387 


recognizes the importance of studying mental 
development. But she can scarcely consider 
incidental aid to be rendered another science 
a sufficient excuse for abandoning her work in 
general in order to solve a single problem. 
But, again, let us see whether the biologist’s 
demand for consciousness is as urgent as it 
appears to be. Even though he admit mind as 
a factor in evolution, he is not thereby re- 
lieved from considering the development of 
the nervous system as a likewise important 
He will hardly deny that a complex 
and highly differentiated nervous mechanism 
is an advantage to the organism. If he deny 
this, what becomes of his argument for the 
usefulness of surviving organs? If man 
stands high in the phylogenetic series because 
he has a good mind, he also—by the same argu- 
ment—stands high because he has a good 
brain; a brain that affords him more compli- 
eated and appropriate reactions than other 
animals can compass. And why not go a step 
further? Since there is no question, either in 
psychology or in biology, that new mental 


functions imply new nervous apparatus, or at 


least new nervous functions, why should the 
biologist duplicate his factors and posit a 
double cause for a single effect? If mind 
‘dislocates’ sensations in order to unite the 
past and the present, the brain—much more 
literally—preseryes a dispositon to functionate 
as it has already functionated, and thereby 


brings profit to the organism. If consciousness 
‘lapses’ and is replaced by reflexes, in order 


to insure more rapid adjustment, neural func- 
tions cut corners, follow lines of least resist- 
ance and become simplified to the same good 
end. If one sensation ‘inhibits’ another—a 
dubious doctrine !—activity in one part of the 
cerebrum undeniably checks activity in an- 
It is natural that 
the biologist should make excursions into psy- 
chology when he stands in temporary need of 
links which are missing to his phylogenetic 
chain of causes; but if he wishes to make 
consciousness ‘the dominant factor in the evo- 
lution of the animal series, he should first 
show that consciousness contributes something 
to descent that is not contributed by the phys- 
ical processes underlying consciousness. When 


388 


he has done this and has settled accounts with 
energetics—for introducing an element which 
is not energy, but which changes the form of 
energy—he will be ready to launch his theory 
of psychophysical causation. He may, even, 
found a science of psycho-bionomics, which 
shall stand in precisely the same relation to 
psychology and biology that psychophysics 
now stands to psychology and physics. 

This last point raises, very naturally, the 
question of the scope of the biological sci- 
ences, a question ‘that has been so often dis- 
cussed that one is inclined to apologize for 
raising it. However, Professor Minot’s two- 
fold assumption that ‘scientific psychology’ is 
one of the ‘great divisions of biology’ and that 
‘the biologist must necessarily become more 
and more the supreme arbiter of all science 
and philosophy,’ is sufficient excuse. The first 
part of the assumption is largely a matter of 
definition and need not distress the psycholo- 
gist who shrinks from being lost in a vast 
science of life. If biology can be made to 
cover all systematic knowledge of the whole— 
the psychophysical—organism, then it in- 
cludes psychology; but if it continues to cover 
the structures, the functions and the histories 
of organic bodies, then, just as surely, psy- 
chology lies outside biology. The choice rests 
on the likeness or difference of subject matter 
and the likeness or difference of method. The 
subject matter of psychology is, as Professor 
Minot admits, unique. Consciousness is as 
ultimate as force. As for method, no psychol- 
ogist with reliable instincts ever does confuse 
his method with the method of the embryolo- 
gist or the physiologist, any more than he con- 
fuses it with the method of the physicist. He 
may and does (when it suits his purpose) use 
—as the author advises—the ‘comparative’ 
method, which is ‘method’ in a narrower 
sense. So do the historian and the geologist; 
but they are not, for that reason, accused of 
writing biologies. 

The contention that the biologist must be- 
come the ‘supreme arbiter’ because ‘human 
knowledge is itself a biological function’ is a 
challenge to the epistemologist rather than to 
the psychologist. The epistemologist will not, 
I imagine, find it difficult to prick the vulner- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 


able point in the argument. He may, perhaps, 
reduce the claim to an absurdity by insisting 
that it makes biology the universal science as 
well as the only true philosophy, or he may 
show that the contention is itself a petztio, 
because it assumes but cannot, so far as it is— 
as a bit of knowledge—a mere function, stand 
warrant for its own validity. It is good Ba- 
conian doctrine to advise, ‘observe more and 
more and in the end you will know. A gen- 
eralization is a mountain of observations, from 
the summit the outlook is broad.’ But one 
does not quite see why it is the biologist—of 
all the normally functioning organisms in the 
world!—who is capable of generalization; 
why ‘we must look to biologists for the mighty 
generalizations to come.’ Does, then, the biol- 
ogist monopolize the function of knowing as 
well as the study of that function? Or is - 
this only a specific application of the advice, 
‘know then thyself’? The argument is not 
quite clear on this point. And, as for the ob- 
servations, a mountain can neither see itself 
nor its surroundings. If observations could 
give their own systematic setting, we should 
be more inclined to hold them to account when 
they form a mere heap of dry facts set in a 
waste of words. As the author says much 
more truly in another connection, ‘our men- 
tal wealth * * * consists of the thought into 
which the data of observation are transmitted 
[transmuted ?]’ rather than in the observa- 
tions themselves. We may take it for granted 
that Tyndall’s ‘Tories’ in science, who look 
upon ‘facts’ as alone having value and who 
‘regard imagination as a faculty to be feared 
and avoided rather than employed,’ are an ex- 
tinct class and that even ‘deep meditation’ is 
indispensable alike to science and philosophy. 
On the other hand, the command to ‘observe 
more and more’ will scarcely find a heretic to 
resist it.in these days of loyalty to science. 
I cannot speak for biologists, but I am sure 
that I can speak for psychologists—the class 
to whom Professor Minot especially directs his 
exhortation. Thirty years ago, psychologists 
left off searching for the ultimate nature of 
mind and began to clamor for actual knowl- 
edge about mental experience. Long since, the 
tendency to ‘observe’ has become instinctive, 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902.] 


and for this reason, and this reason only, it is 
seldom discussed. 

The author says that ‘the results of experi- 
mental psychology are still for the most part 
future,’ though we may even now ‘obtain some 
valuable preliminary notions concerning con- 
sciousness from our present biological knowl- 
edge.’ The statement can be accepted only if 
one disregard the mass of psychological ma- 
terial that has been collected since Fechner 
wrote his ‘Elemente der Psychophysik,’ Helm- 
holtz his ‘Physiologische Optik’ and ‘Tonemp- 
findungen’ and Wundt his ‘Grundzuege der 
physiologischen Psychologie.’ With a current 
literature of approximately three thousand 
titles in the year, a literature that covers every 
phase of consciousness, with hundreds of 
trained workers who are making observations 
in scores of laboratories the year round, it is 
plain, at least to any one within the science, 
that disregard of the injunction to observe is 
not psychology’s ruling vice. As for the atti- 
tude toward mind that psychology should take 
—that is, naturally, a problem which the sci- 
ence must solve for herself. For herself, be- 
cause psychology’s first business is to know 
mind quite apart from any special use that any 
other discipline—biology, pedagogy, sociology 
—may wish to make of mental phenomena. A 
science must choose her own way; a vis a tergo 
from a well-wishing friend can only cause her 
to stumble. 

More specifically, the president’s address 
urges a genetic study of mind because the 
‘why’ of mind, its teleological function, can 
be investigated with profit while the study of 
‘what it is’ is ‘recondite, metaphysical, and 
carries us beyond the limits of verifiable hu- 
man knowledge.’ The force of this argument 
depends entirely upon what one understands 
by ‘why’ and ‘what.’ There is, surely, a sci- 
entific ‘what’ as much as there is a scientific 
‘why’; and there is as truly a philosophical 
‘why’ as there is a philosophical ‘what.’ The 
morphologist and the analytical chemist ask 
‘what.’ They deal with structure. On the 
other hand, the biologist is answering a ‘why’ 
when he explains that mind exists for the sake 
of the body’s ‘adjustments to the external con- 
ditions’ and that the body exists—at least ‘a 


SCIENCE. 


389 


large part of our anatomical characteristics 
exist for the purpose of increasing the re- 
sources of consciousness.’ Mind for body and 
body for mind! That is a game of teleological 
‘tag’ that is neither ‘recondite nor metaphys- 
ical.’ But should the biologist ask ‘why ad- 
justment at all? ‘why evolutionary process?’ 
‘why not being without becoming? he would 
find himself as far outside his science as is the 
hypothetical psychologist who is concerned 
with the question of the ultimate nature of 
mind. Surely, observation is, first of all, look- 
ing for what is ‘there’; ‘there’ for psychology 
in one’s own consciousness, in the conscious- 
nesses of one’s fellows and, later, in the con- 
sciousness of the child, the animal, the abnor- 
mal, the savage. It is safe to assert that no 
one can point to a single piece of successful 
genetic work in psychology which is not based 
upon a more or less adequate study of ‘what 
consciousness is’ in the human adult. In- 
deed, this must be the case. The development 
of a thing cannot be described correctly until 
the thing itself is known. It is, one may 
admit, not difficult to construct hypothetical 
consciousnesses for the ameba, the jelly-fish, 
the bee and the beaver; consciousnesses which 
shall explain beautifully the reactions of these 
animals. But the question arises whether these 
hypothetical minds really exist. Oftentimes 
they do not. The recent history of genetic 
psychology is filled with fictitious minds which 
are worse than useless to the psychologist, 
whatever their value may be to the biologist. 
One proof of their unsatisfactoriness, even as 
agents of natural selection, is given, I am in- 
clined to believe, in the well-marked tendency 
within biology to explain reactions of the sim- 
pler organisms in terms of ‘tropism’ and 
‘taxis’ instead of in terms of ‘volition’? and 
‘reason.’ 

The question of the ‘epiphenomenal’ nature 
of mind has little interest for the psychologist. 
‘Epiphenomenalism’ or ‘automatism’ is not a 
psychological concept. Huxley introduced it 
into biology to show that biology has no real 
concern with consciousness, since conscious- 
ness—as he affirms—does not react causally 
upon the body. Psychology rejects the term 
‘epiphenomenon’ not because it denies a 


390 


causal relation between mind and organic proc- 
esses—a majority of psychologists, perhaps, 
refuse to admit such a_ relation—but. be- 
cause it that there is a_ great 
gulf fixed between ‘real’ things in the 
world, phenomena, and epiphenomena, the 
conscious ‘foam’ of existence. For the wide 
use of the term, modern biologists must surely 
share responsibility with modern monists. It 
will interest the psychologist, even if it does 
not instruct him, to hear from biology the 
authentic statement that ‘consciousness is too 
familiar to all men to be summarily cast aside 
and dismissed.’ 


implies 


But, for psychology, mental 
facts are not a whit more important-or more 
valuable if consciousness turns out to have a 
survival value. They are important to their 
own science just because they are a body of 
facts of experience that are capable of being 
worked into a system. The argument from 
the survival value of consciousness—an argu- 
ment that has had at least twelve years of pop- 
ularity—gives, it will be generally admitted, 
some support to the position of the interaction- 
ist. But however relevant the argument may 
appear to biology, it does not persuade the psy- 
chologist that the facts of consciousness are 
one iota more real or more important than he 
had before considered them to be. Even 
though he adopt the theory, he will find no 
reason for making a radical change in his 
attitude toward mind. Hence, should the very 
most ‘essential function’ of consciousness 
prove to be the ‘dislocation’ of reactions, it is 
biology and not psychology that will need to 
be apprehensive of the effect upon the organ- 
ism of so serious a luxation. 

There is one further point in President 
Minot’s address that I shall venture to criti- 
cise, although it is more a matter of general 
methodology and of the science of knowledge 
than of psychology. In reviving the argu- 
ment that sensations are symbols, labels, not 
images; that ‘external reality’ is a ‘series of 
undulations’ or a series of ‘vibrations of the 
air’ and not colors and sounds, which have 
no ‘objective’ existence, the author falls into 
the ancient fallacy that, somehow, men can be 
conscious of an external world that is 
The fallacy 


‘sereened from’ consciousness. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 401. ° 


appears here in an aggravated form. The 
‘dislocation’ argument implies that conscious- 
ness is made up of. sensations, but sensations 
have no objective reality, and yet we know 
through sensations—thanks to the ‘ biological 
study of consciousness ’—‘ that the objective 
world is real’ If we grant that the 
concepts of any single science may be taken as 
representing the ‘ real’ world, we may still ask 
why the exceptional honor should be done to 
physics when it is the biologist who ‘must 
necessarily become more and more the supreme 
arbiter of all science and philosophy.’ Why 
should the biologist, when he is casting about 
for a real world, adopt the ‘ doll-idea’ of the 
physicist? Perhaps it is done in return for the 
service which physics—by the loan of her 
‘real’ undulations—has rendered biology in . 
settling ‘the debate in favor of the view that 
the objective world is real.’ But the logic of 
the article seems to require that the most real 
thing be an organic reaction, or an adjustment, 
or the evolution of species, and not a dis- 
turbance of the air or the ether. However, if 
—as President Minot urges—all science is, 
after all, ‘symbolic’ as ‘all sensations are 
symbols of extreme reality,’ why should we 
“make believe’ in the reality of any of her 
ideas? If sciences as well as sensations display 
a ‘peculiar untruthfulness to the objective,’ 
why deceive ourselves with ‘ pseudo-opinions’ 
—why ‘ come to fight with shadows and to fall’ 
when ‘behind in consciousness’ there ‘is 
the sense of unreality’? The practical advan- 
tages of getting on in the world, of ‘ prophesy- 
ing’ the results of reactions, will hardly atone 
for so gross a self-deception. 

Science, as well as popular belief, still 
cherishes its pseudodoxia epidemica. Of these, 
none is more amazing than the claim of a 
single science to hold the quintessence of 
human knowledge; to stand as the ‘supreme 
arbiter of science and philosophy.’? One ex- 
pects to find this lack of perspective in the 
various forms of occultism, but one is inevi- 
tably dismayed to find it in science. The vari- 
ous borders of knowledge everywhere overlap. 
Were this not true, hope of ever knowing the 
cosmos would be vain. As a consequence, 
there will always be the possibility of dispute 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902.] 


over the relations of one discipline to another. 
But this ought not to hinder any science from 
setting its own limits and doing its own work, 
while it accepts all the aid it can get from 
others. No science is more widely indebted 
than is psychology; but psychology demands, 
no less than others—such is scientific selfish- 
ness !—that she be allowed to work out her own 
destiny in her own way. 
I. Mapison Brentiey. 
CorNELL UNIVERSITY. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 


THE SALT MARSH MOSQUITO, CULEX SOLLICITANS 
WLE. 


Iy Science for January 3, 1902, p. 13, under 
the caption ‘Concerning Certain Mosquitoes’ 
I pointed out that Culex sollicitans was the 
dominant form throughout a large portion of 
the State of New Jersey. Upon our ability to 
control this species depended the riddance of 
the State to any notable extent, and the life 
eycle of the species became, therefore, a mat- 
ter of the greatest importance. I suspected 
even at that time that this species departed 
materially from the stock history given for 
Culex and assumed for this species; but my 
observations had been sufficient only to sug- 
gest the need of closer study. I showed at 
that time that, by breeding in salt water and 
by migrating for long distances the species 
had distinctive characters. And, bye-the-bye, 
there is no more perniciously erroneous popu- 
lar statement than that mosquitoes do not fly 
far from the place they were bred. It is abso- 
lutely untrue of most of the species and not 
entirely true of any. The only case where 
it is practically true is where a species is limit- 
ed in its breeding places, e. g., the species that 
breeds only in the leaves of the pitcher plant. 
Of the salt marsh mosquito it is conspicuously 
incorrect. 

In February and March I started a hunt 
for the adults on the supposition that the 
female hibernated. My assistant, Mr. Dicker- 
son, searched every nook and cranny that 
might shelter a mosquito in a seashore locality 
where, during the summer, the insects had 
driven out all guests. Culex pungens and 


SCIENCE. 


391 


Anopheles were found in numbers; but of 
sollicitans not one! I had no better luck 
when, I took up the search myself, and even a 
reward offered to the natives for every speci- 
men brought to me, failed to produce returns. 
I concluded, therefore, that the insects did 
not winter in the adult stage and began a 
hunt for larve. I knew that Aedes smithii 
wintered in the larval stage and that the wig- 
glers would stand repeated freezings. But I 
failed also to find larve in the very regions 
where they were abundant in 1901, and where 
I had also seen them in 1900. 

A wintering in the egg stage was unknown 
for Culex, but I was driven to that alternative 
and watched carefully for ‘signs.’ They came 
as the water warmed up. First, larve were 
found in pools high up which had been filled 
by the winter tides. The temperature of the 
water was distinctly higher than that of the 
air in the morning and evening and several 
degrees higher than that of sea water. Area 
after area became populated and there were 
millions of larve, growing very slowly, before 
a solitary mosquito was seen. A hibernation 
in the egg stage seemed obvious; but I ran 
against the fact that some of the areas swarm- 
ing with larve were dry during the summer 
and fall of 1901 and became water-filled only 
during the winter storms. If the eggs hiber- 
nated on that ground they must have been 
laid on dry soil or on the grasses! This then 
was the point to which I had arrived at the 
of the breeding College 
duties and other matters prevented a resump- 
tion of the work until July 7, when Mr. 
Dickerson and I spent a week at Five Mile 
beach; I kept him in the field another week 
alone and rejoined him when the experiments 
were expected to produce results. Our out- 
fit consisted of a series of seven tubs sunk 
into the marsh so as to project only a little 
above the level. In five of them was placed 
sod from the marsh and two were left bare. 
Sea water was placed in all save one of the 
tubs in varying quantities. Two tubs were 
left open—one with sod, one without; the 
others were covered with mosquito netting. 
Conditions along shore at this time were very 
dry and breeding places were fast disappear- 


opening season. 


392 


ing. J secured, however, in some remaining 
puddles a large lot of larve and pupe and 
placed these, in jars, under the covered tubs. 
Adult mosquitoes were present in great num- 
bers and, with pools so scarce, it was supposed 
that the uncovered tubs would prove very at- 
tractive. 

A series of glass jars was prepared with and 
without water, with and without grass, and 
captured females were introduced. In almost 
every case eggs were found after twelve hours; 
but as they were laid under all sorts of con- 
ditions, and black mature, as well as white 
immature, specimens occurred, it was obvious 
that this was only the natural tendency of a 
confined female to oviposit at all hazards. 
But it was of real advantage in that it gave 
us the egg so that it might be identified under 
natural conditions. In color it is polished 
black, pointed at both ends, almost perfect 
spindle-shaped from one point of view, a lit- 
tle curved or pod-shaped from another, half 
turned over. In length it is less than one 
millimeter. 

While all these preparations were made by 
Mr. Dickerson, I explored the marshes round 
about and found, to my surprise, that this im- 
mense area which had been supposed to be the 
very breeding stronghold of this species was 
as a matter of fact perfectly safe. There were 
no mosquitoes at all on these great marshes 
and no larve were in any of the ‘salt ponds’ 
formed by natural or artificial methods; not 
until the edge of the upland was reached did 
I find either mosquitoes or larve. It goes 
without saying that if this immense area of 
salt meadow can be practically ignored in 
mosquito extermination plans, we have made 
a very long step toward the simplification of 
the problem. 

Without going into details here it may be 
said that the evidence from the tub experi- 
ments was negative. Under none of the con- 
ditions artificially presented to them did the 
insects lay eggs. Yet egg-laying females were 
present in abundance and some were sent to 
New Brunswick by Mr. Dickerson about July 
15. 

From the dissection of these specimens I 
obtained the following record: 


SCIENCE. | 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 401. 


No. 1. Black eggs 46, gray eggs 17, white 
eges 101; total 164. 

No. 2. White eggs 117, and a little undigest- 
ed blood in crop. 

No. 3. Black and gray eggs only, 148. 

No. 4. White eggs only, 135. 

No. 5. Black and gray eggs 47, white eggs 
35; total 82. It is probable that this last 
specimen had been ovipositing. 

July 20, when the tub experiments were 
closed, all the evidence pointed to an oviposi- 
tion on the sod, or in the dry bottom of old 
breeding pools. Material from dried up pools, 
old and recent, was obtained and examined 
carefully in basins. A few eggs were found 
almost everywhere, but not enough to make 
it at all certain that these were normal points 
for oviposition. Finally in our examinations 
we reached the sods of long marsh grass, form- 
ing the upper edge of a pool that was then 
and for a time had been entirely dry. 

This sod was simply a mass of interlaced’ 
roots and on the surface was a layer of soft, 
black mud. In this mud I saw undoubted 
mosquito eggs in such numbers that I washed 
the surface into a basin and left the material 
until next morning. Then the basin was 
swarming with larve and the eggs must have 
been at the rate of from 50 to 150 on one 
square inch of sod. 

After determining the place of oviposition 
the next questions were under what circum- 
stances do the insects hatch and how long may 
they remain dry during the summer. 

Two sods approximating six inches square 
were cut from the marsh and carried to New 
Brunswick, July 21. One sod was placed in 
a deep glass dish in the bottom of which was 
half an inch of water. The sod was two in- 
ches deep, so the surface was well above the 
water, which was renewed from time to time 
to keep it at about the same level. The other 
sod was put into a porcelain evaporating dish 
and left dry. It fitted loosely and air could get 
on all sides and under it. Absolutely no mois- 
ture was added at any time. 

July 31, ten days after the sod was taken, 
a small piece—about two square inches—was 
cut off late in the afternoon and the sur- 
face mud was washed into a dish. Next morn- 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


ing 117 larvee were counted and some of these 
were carried to maturity, so that the complete 
life cycle from egg to adult was under observa- 
tion. 

August 10, duplicated this experiment but 
began about 8 a.m., to determine the time of 
the appearance of the first larve. Before 10 
4a.M. the dish was swarming with wigglers; 
all the eggs had hatched in less than two hours. 

On the same day I cut off a small section of 
the sod that had been kept continuously moist 
and washed this into a dish. Twenty-four 
hours later no larve had developed and I sub- 
mitted the mud to close examination. Nu- 
merous eggs and egg fragments were found, 
making it certain that the absence of larvze 
was not the natural result of the absence of 
eggs. 

August 11, this last experiment was dupli- 
cated with the same result. The sod had been 
so wet as to induce development and perhaps 
hatching while there was no water to support 
the larva. The latter suggestion is due to the 
large number of broken eggs that were found. 

August 12, Mr. Dickerson washed the mud 
from a small square of dry sod into a large 
dish and began transferring the eggs into a 
watch glass. It was a slow job because the 
black eggs are not readily differentiated from 
the black mud, and in about half an hour he 
began to find broken eggs. Transferring the 
watch glass from a white to a black backing he 
saw several pure white, minute wigglers, just 
out of the egg. Half an hour’s submergence, 
then, was enough to start out the larve, and 
soon afterward it became impossible to find un- 
broken eggs. The piece of washed sod was 
placed in another dish and, an hour later, more 
larvee were obtained. When the larva is ready 
to emerge, about one fourth of the egg lifts 
or breaks off, giving it exit. The small end 
may remain attached to the larger for a time 
by a sort of hinge; but it is detached by the 
least shaking of the water. 

We have then, briefly, the following life his- 
tory. The adult lays eggs, singly, in the mud 
of salt meadows above ordinary high tide 
and where the sod is not soaking wet. It 
probably lays them elsewhere as well, but I 
am stating the mule, as I believe. The eggs 


SCIENCE. 


393 


remain here an unknown length of time until 
an extra tide or a heavy rain covers them with 
water. The eggs hatch almost immediately 
and the larve find their food in the soft, de- 
composing mud. It makes little difference 
whether the water is fresh or salt, so long as 
the proper food is present. The stay in the 
larval and pupal condition varies according to 
temperature, but is not less than a week. The 
males emerge first and rarely, if ever, leave the 
immediate vicinity of the place of hatching. 
It is probable that copulation takes places soon 
after the female emerges, but I have made no 
direct observations, and have been unable to 
secure a pairing in captivity. It is also prob- 
able that the females do not fly to any distance 
until they have been impregnated and it is cer- 
tain that there is no development of the eggs 
until the insect has fed. A long series of 
specimens collected as they came to the attack 
and afterward dissected, all showed an empty 
alimentary canal and undeveloped ovaries. 
Another series, collected by sweeping in the 
natural breeding places showed that wherever 
the ovaries were developing the alimentary 
canal showed food remnants, greater or less, 
according as the eggs were undersized or 
approaching maturity. When the eggs were 
fully developed the food remnants disappeared. 
So far as determined the food was blood in 
all cases; but of what kind was not made out. 
As the collections were made near a settlement, 
it might have been of horse, cow, dog or man. 

I have already referred to the specimens 
sent on July 15. On the 20th I collected a lot 
of about 100 examples by sweeping, and ex- 
amined for ova. Curiously enough, none of 
the examples had fully developed eggs. They 
ran all the way to full size, beginning to turn 
translucent as the shell became differentiated; 
but not a black egg was found. The number 
of eggs varied greatly, but rarely reached 200 
and rarely fell below 125. 

Not all the points of interest in the life cycle 
of the insect are covered, but enough is now 
known to understand the economic problem. 
We know that, so far as this species is con- 
cerned, all permanent water areas, deep or 
shallow, are safe. So are temporary pools in 
very wet salt meadows. All meadows covered 


394 


by ordinary tides are safe, and so are all those 
low enough to be attractive to fiddler crabs. 

Areas covered by the monthly high tides are 
safe, except in midsummer if it has been dry 
enough to kill out the young fish and has then 
rained enough to fill the low places. The 
danger points are such as I pointed out in 
Science and more at length, recently, in 
Special Bulletin T of the New Jersey Agri- 
cultural College Experiment Station. 

Joun B. Surru. 

RutTGERS COLLEGE, 

August 20, 1902. 
“LATENT HEAT’ AND THE VAPOR-ENGINE CYCLE. 

Tue discussion, some time since published 
in Science, relating to the vapor-engines, so- 
called, and the ‘latent heat fallacy’ led to in- 
quiries from various sources regarding the 
exact distribution of the work of thermo- 
dynamic transformation in the case of the 
steam, and other vapor-engines. The follow- 
ing may perhaps make clearer the relation be- 
tween the action of sensible and of ‘latent’ 
heat in such eycles. The discussion of this 
problem has been one of the annual topics in 
the classes of the writer for years past. 

The usual standard form of engine-cycle, in 
all departments of applied thermodynamics 
and with the steam, and other vapor-engines 
employed in the industries, is that known as 
the Rankine cycle with incomplete expansion, 
as in the figure. It consists of a line of con- 
stant maximum pressure, an adiabatic expan- 
sion-line,as nearly as practicable, a line of con- 
stant volume, a line of constant minimum 
pressure, and the cycle is closed by a line of 
constant volume. Assuming unit-weight of the 
working substance to be carried through such a 
eyele, it is easy, by the adoption of one of 
Rankine’s beautifully ingenious mathematical 
devices, to obtain the following expression for 
work of one cycle in which p, T and wu are the 
pressures, the temperatures, absolute, and the 
specific volume of the charge; H is the latent 
heat of vaporization and J is Joule’s factor. 
The subscripts indicate, respectively, values of 
p and T on the expansion line and of p on the 
back-pressure line: 

ABCDE=AFG + ABCFA + CDEG 
=| (0) ete CLT.) + (III. ) 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 401. 


U=J[T, — T, (2+ logeT,/Tr)] 
-+ Hy ( 1, — T,)/T, + (p2— Ds) Mo 


The three parts into which the measure of 
net work, U, divides itself are obviously a func- 
tion of temperature which measures the effect 
of the thermodynamic application of sensible 
heat, a function of temperature and ‘ latent” 
heat which is instantly recognized as the meas- 
ure of the Carnot efticiency of the ‘ perfect en- 
gine,’ and a function of the terminal and back 
pressures and specific volume of the charge at 
the minimum temperature of the expansion- 
line. This latter is obviously, also, the work 
between the terminal and back-pressures, the 
rectangle, CDHG. The intermediate term is 
the work obtainable from the same quantity of 
fluid between the same two temperatures, 7’, 
and 7’, in the Carnot cycle, ABCFA, and it is 
thus evident that the first term must measure 
the remaining area of the Rankine cycle, the 
triangle, AF’G; which is as evidently the work 
alike of the compression in the Carnot cycle 
and that of expansion of unit weight of a mix- 
ture of steam and its liquid between the state: 
of liquid at maximum temperature at A and 
that of mixed vapor and liquid at the lower 
limit of expansion pressure and temperature, 
p, and T,,. 

Noting the proportions of the areas thus. 
measured, it is seen that, with any fixed value 
of the latent heat of vaporization, the last- 
named quantity has a lower relative measure 
as the ratio of expansion and the temperature- 
range decrease, and, vice versa, that the quan- 
tity of work performed within the same tem- 
perature-range is in all cases greater in the 
Rankine than in the perfect engine cycle by 
this amount; that the work in either cycle is 
proportional, in some direct measure, to the 
quantity of the heat of vaporization; that the 
heat entering the fluid during vaporization is 
all converted into work and that none is em- 
ployed to change temperature and thus to be- 
come stored as sensible heat. Observing, also, 
that the Carnot cycle is that of maximum effi- 
ciency, it follows that the work measured by 
the first term, and by AFG, is obtained at a 
comparative loss of efficiency and that, there- 
fore, the work gained in the Rankine cycle, 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


per unit of working fluid, is secured at a loss 
of power per unit of heat supplied. It is still 
further to be seen that the greater, as well 


Sp 
[7% (fF Lowes) 
0 it 
Us > o > 


RATIO OF EXPANSION 


WorK IN RANKINE CYCLES. 


as the more economical, work-production is ef- 
fected by the conversion of the so-called ‘la- 
tent’ heat of vaporization directly into 
mechanical energy or into work. It follows, 
still further, that the larger the quantity of 
‘latent’ heat, the greater the work of a given 
weight of fluid and the lower the weight of 
water or other liquid per unit of power. 
Water has thus a double advantage in low ex- 
penditure per horse-power at a given tempera- 
ture-range and efficiency of cycle, and in small, 
usually insignificant, cost. 

These relations and thevariations, especially, 
of relative magnitudes of the three terms with 
varying expansion-ratios from a given initial 
pressure, with, as is usual, constant back-pres- 
sure, in the ideal case, is well exhibited by the 
accompanying figure. This set of curves in- 
eludes those of total work, of values of the 
several terms, and of relations of rate of 
variation, for such a case, in which the steam- 
pressure is about 7.5 atmospheres, the back- 
pressure one seventh that tension, and the ra- 
tio of expansion, ranging from unity upward, 


SCIENCE. 


395 


im an engine which would be ordinarily rated 
at about 200 horse-power, at 85 revolutions 
per minute with r— 4. 

It is seen that the total work, U, increases 
rapidly from r= 1 to r= 4, passes a maximum 
at about 5 and rather rapidly falls off again, 
after the expansion-line begins to intersect the 
back-pressure line (curve A). 

The work of sensible heat (curve B) in- 
creases slowly throughout the range exhibited, 
and substantially in proportion to r, and is, 
throughout the whole range, small in com- 
parison with the work of ‘latent heat’ (curve 
C). 

The work of the rectangular area below ter- 
minal pressure (curve D) is similarly variable, 
but becomes negative at the point of junc- 
tion of the expansion line with the back-pres- 
sure line. Throughout the whole usual range 
of expansion in the real engine, this quantity 
is small in comparison with that measuring 
the second term. 

The value of the second term, on B, is thus 
the principal element of the total work of the 
cycle and is larger, relatively, as-the diagram 
approximates the form of the Carnot, rather 
than the Rankine cycle. The deduction at 
once follows that ‘latent’ heat, and latent heat 
only, so far as practicable, should be utilized 
in the thermodynamic transformations of the 
vapor-engines.* The ‘latent heat fallacy’ is 
thus clearly disposed of. 

A similar investigation would show that, in 
the gas-engines, the ‘latent’ heat of isothermal 
expansion, rather than the sensible heat pro- 
ducing change of temperature, should be 
utilized in thermodynamic transformations 
and the production of power. 

The final conclusion is thus obvious that 
maximum efficiency of thermodynamic engines 
can only be secured by the utilization, solely, 
of ‘latent’ heat. 

R. H. TuHurston. 


ON BACUBIRITO, THE GREAT METEORITE OF SINA- 
LOA, MEXICO. 

For more than a century the meteorites of 

Mexico have attracted attention and record. 


**Manual of the Steam-Engine,’ Vol. I., §112, 
pp. 437-438. 


396 


In his great work on ‘La Nouvelle Espagne,’ 
published in 1811, Humboldt described in a 
broad and philosophical way the great field of 
the Toluca Irons, and the size of some isolated 
masses in the States of Zacatecas and Duran- 
go. From that day until this naturalists and 
travelers in Mexico have examined and de- 
scribed this product of the country, comment- 
ing particularly upon their frequence and 
their size. Their frequence has been greatly 
overestimated. The total number credited to 
the Republic in Castillo’s catalogue of 1889, 
was 27. To-day we know there are 32 distinct 
localities, omitting the several points em- 
braced in two or three widespread showers. 

Other areas of the same size as this Mexi- 
ean belt in the United States and in India, 
give respectively 67 and 48 falls. 

The preeminence of the Mexican meteorites 
is the vast size of many of them. In this mat- 
ter of bulk they are unapproachable. Taking 
ten of the largest, we find their average weight 
to be 9 1/10 tons. This as against 8 1/3 cwt. as 
the average weight of the ten largest American 
meteorites. 

The Mexican Government has taken an act- 
ive and enlightened part in the protection of 
its meteorites. Twelve years ago it expended 
the sum of $10,000 in bringing five of the larg- 
est of these to the capital, where they are 
mounted on huge iron pillars in the entrance 
court of the School of Mines. 

The largest Mexican iron and one of the 
two largest meteorites in the world is in the 
State of Sinaloa, far in the northwestern por- 
tion of the Republic. This was first brought to 
the notice of the scientific world by Sefior 
Marino Barcena, the noted Mexican astrono- 
mer, in 1876. In a ten-line notice of it to the 
Philadelphia Academy of Science, he says, ‘I 
can assure the Academy that its length is more 
than twelve feet.’ Castillo repeats this re- 
ported measure, adding its breadth as 2 me- 
ters, and its thickness as 1.50 meters. Brezina, 
Cohen and Wiilfing speak of it as weighing 
50 tons and as being the largest meteorite in 
the world. But in all this there was no defi- 
nite description of the mass, and no one who 
mentioned it claimed to have seen it. We 
were anxious to ascertain about all this, to 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 401. 


find out the facts among many rumors. The 
Mexican savants were all interested in having 
this great celestial body investigated. 
Through Seftor José C. Aguilera, the Direct- 
or of the Instituto. Geologico, we obtained 
from the Minister of State letters to the Gov- 
ernor of Sinaloa and to the Director of Mines 
in that State. Western Sinaloa is practically 
impossible to reach in a direct line from the 
capital. The northern route through Arizona 
and Sonora involved a journey of over 2,000 
miles. We took the shorter but harder route 
across the Cordilleras to the port of Manzanillo 
on the Pacific, and thence by steamer up the 
coast of the Gulf of California. There at 
the adjacent city of Culiacan we took a car- 
riage with a four-mule team and an American 
photographer who accompanied us with his 
camera. A drive of 95 miles to the north and 
west took us in three days far up among the 
foothills of the Sierra Madre. SBacubirito is 
a small but very old mining town, situated on 
the road to Sinaloa in latitude 26°, and in west 
longitude 107°. The elevation above sea level 
is some 2,000 feet. The meteorite is seven 
miles nearly due south from there, near the 
hamlet called Palmar de la Sepulveda. Here 
we found it on a farm called Ranchito, which 
fills a narrow mountain valley between two 
spurs of the main range. It was there struck 
by the plow of Crescencio Aguilar in the sum- 
mer of 1871. He soon uncovered enough of 
its bright surface to satisfy himself that he 
had found a silver mine! Its surrounding is 
now a cornfield with a black vegetable soil of 
some two yards in thickness. In this soil we 
found the great meteorite deeply imbedded. 
Its surface was but a little below the surface 
of the ground, but with one end slightly pro- 
jecting above the level. It was a long, mon- 
strous bowlder of black iron, which seemed to 
be still burrowing to hide itself from the up- 
per world. Its surface form was something 
like that of a great ham. We could walk for 
many feet along and across its surface, survey- 
ing these dimensions, but knowing nothing of 
how far the mass penetrated the soil beneath. 
Our first work was excavation. We soon got 
twenty-eight able-bodied persons for this. We 
undertook an area of thirty feet on a side, 


SEPTEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


with the great meteorite lying within. In a 
single day we passed down through nearly four 
feet of the soft vegetable soil, and the meteor- 
ite began to show in its entirety. The gen- 
eral form of the mass seen from the side was 
that of one ramus of a huge jaw. The sur- 
face was entirely covered with ‘pittings,’ very 
regular in size, and about two to three inches 
across; shallow, but with well-defined walls. 
There were no areas which showed the devas- 
tation of deep rust; a fact due both to the 
dryness of the soil and to the large alloy of 
nickel in the iron. On one side there was a 
deep crack, running horizontally through half 
of the mass. At its inception this crack was 
too narrow to insert a knife blade; at the 
other end it was nearly three inches wide. 
Our Mexicans were astonished at the result 
of their own labors; they marveled alike at 
the size of the mass and at our credulity in 
believing that it had ever fallen from space 
above. 

By the end of the second day we had car- 
ried our excavation to an average depth of 
six feet. Over the area the vegetable soil was 
from three to four feet deep, while below it 
was a porphyry rock, common in this part of 
the country, much broken up by natural cleav- 
ages and decomposed in situ. Immediately 
around the meteorite we had dug much lower, 
leaving the great iron mass poised on a pillar 
or pedestal of the undisturbed rock. Finally 
we performed a feat of moving the great 
block. To lift one end with heavy tackle or 
machinery would have been impossible for us; 
but it needed little mechanical aid to make 
the mass move itself. We attacked with our 
long iron bars one side of the supporting ped- 
estal. After long chiseling away one side of 
this, the center of gravity was reached, and, 
with a slow, almost dignified, movement, the 
great meteorite sank at one end and assumed 
a partially vertical position. Looking beneath 
it, we found that its late bed was a clean de- 
pression crushed into the rock, with absolutely 
no soil between it and the mass which had 
lain above it. It would thus seem that the 
meteorite had fallen on the bare rock surface 
of this district at a period before the vegetable 
soil had begun to form here. This would be 


SCIENCE. 


397 


an interesting and astounding fact, carry- 
ing back.the fall of our meteor to a remotely 
distant period, perhaps thousands of years. 
But there are other conditions which would 
need careful consideration before accepting 
so momentous a conclusion. The wonderful 
preservation of the mass, with its little oxida- 
tion, and the clean, sharp-rimmed pittings 
which cover its surface, seem to point to a 
more modern sojourn within the destroying 
influences of our air and moisture. We leave 
this for further consideration. 

It is an interesting fact that this, perhaps 
the largest and heaviest meteorite yet discov- 
ered on our globe, should have fallen so near 
the present borders of our country. Interest- 
ing, too, that Mexico, with all its other extra 
large meteorites, should have received this 
champion mass. The extreme measures of 
Bacubirito, for so our meteorite from the first 
has been called, are: 


Wenkadn Se ssdos0ca00 13 feet and 1 inch. 
AWiidiGhuaiarrjeuerietuse-ver: 6 << 2 inches, 
Thickness ......... ine Semi acc es NAM ce 


The form of the mass is extremely irregular, 
and though measures have been taken around 
the mass at many different points, its cubic 
contents can not be calculated with more than 
an approximation to accuracy. 

The five largest meteorites known to science 
to-day, are: 


Bendego (Brazil)......... 5 1/3 tons. 
San Gregorio (Mexico)....11 1/2 “ 
Chupaderos (Mexico)..... NB) YB) 
Anighito (Greenland)..... 50 Le 
Bacubirito (Mexico)...... 50 Se 


The first three are weights proven on scales. 
The latter two are thus far simple estimates. 
How far estimated weights, based generally 
on simple guessing, may differ from proven 
weights is well illustrated by the case of 
Chupaderos. Fletcher, the noted mineralogist 
of the British Museum, says of it, ‘ According 
to one recent estimate its weight is 15 tons, 
according to another it is 82 tons.’ Anighito, 
the great Greenland meteorite, has been 
guessed at all figures from 30 to 100 tons. A 
late unofficial estimate of it, after careful 
measuring, puts its weight at 46 1/3 tons. 
Should the Mexican Government, as some 


398 


expect, move the great mass, as it has done all 
the others, to the capital, its exact weight will 
be finally and definitely known. Whichever 
meteorite shall, after accurate calculation, 
prove to be the heavier, it will ever remain of 
interest that the two largest meteorites known 
to our earth should have fallen on the North 
American Continent; one far toward its 
northern end, the other toward its southern. 
Henry A. Warp. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 
Lorp AveBury has been made a member of 
the Prussian order ‘pour le merite.’ 


Dr. WitHELM Wunpt, the eminent psycholo- 
gist and philosopher, celebrated his seventieth 


birthday on August 16. A volume of research- 


es carried out by his former students was pre- 
sented to him on the occasion. 


Ir is announced from Berlin that the 
strength of Professor Virchow is unmistakably 
failing. 

Dr. Emin Tietze has been appointed director 
of the Imperial Geological Institute at Vienna. 


AN international marine laboratory is to 
be established at Christiania under the direc- 
torship of Dr. Fridjof Nansen. 


Proressor ALBERT GauprRy, the eminent 
paleontologist, has retired from his chair in 
the Paris Museum of Natural History, and has 
been made honorary professor. 


A CABLE despatch to the daily papers from 
Samoa states that President David Starr Jor- 
dan was in serious danger owing to the cap- 
sizing of a boat, but was rescued by natives. 
He left for home on August 11. Dr. Vernon 
Lyman Kellogg, head of the department of en- 
tomology at Stanford University, who accom- 
panied Dr. Jordan, has returned to the univer- 
sity. 

ASTRONOMER WiLLiAM H. Wricut, of the 
Lick Observatory, has been chosen to take 
charge of the D. O. Mills expedition, now be- 
ing outfitted at Mount Hamilton, to spend two 
years in Chile in making special study of the 
stars of the Southern hemisphere. Director 
W. W. Campbell will go with the party to 
personally direct the erection of the observing 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 401.. 


station and the beginning of the two years’ 
astronomical campaign. Mr. Harold K. Palm- 
er, fellow in the Lick Observatory, will act. 
as assistant. 

A REPORT on the occurrence of copper in the, 
vicinity of Clifton, in southern Arizona, is be- 
ing prepared by Mr. W. Lindgren, of the U. 8. 
Geological Survey. 


One of the three Royal prizes of the Acca-. 
demia dei Lincei, at Rome, has been awarded 
to Professor Cantone, of Pavia, for his re- 
searches in the phenomena of elastic equilib- 
rium outside the limits of Hooke’s Law. The 
ministerial prize for mathematics has been 
divided into two prizes of 1,300 lire, awarded 
to Professors Giuseppe Bagnera (Messina) and — 
Domenico de Francesco (Naples), and a pre- 
mium of 700 lire has been assigned to Profess- 
or Michele de Franchis (Melfi). 


Dr. Max Wotr has been appointed director 
of the astrophysical department of the observa- 
tory at Heidelberg. 

Dr. Winuram Oster, of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity, will deliver a memorial address on 
‘William Beaumont, the first and greatest 
American Physiologist,’ under the auspices of 
the St. Louis Medical Society on October 4. 


Tue Berlin Academy of Sciences has granted 
15,000 Marks to Professor A. Voeltzkow for an 
expedition to East Africa. 


On the occasion of his retirement from the 
curatorship of the Royal Gardens at Kew, Mr. 
George Nicholson has been presented by his 
friends with a suitably inscribed salver. 


THE topographic branch of the United 
States Geological Survey will continue this 
season the mapping of the forested regions of 
Washington in the Cascades, under the gen- 
eral oversight of Mr. Richard U. Goode, geog- 
rapher. 

Proressor Barsosa Ropricues, director of 
the Botanical Garden of Rio Janeiro, is at 
present in England. : : 

Dr. Capy Sratey, who has retired from the 
presidency of the Case School of Applied Sci- 
ence after sixteen years of service, has gone 
abroad, where he expects to remain for several 
years. 


SEPTEMBER = 1902. ] 


Tue London board of trade has commis- 
sioned Lieutenant Colonel Horatio A. Yorke, 
chief inspecting officer of railways for the 
board of trade, to prepare a report on the 
workings of American railways. He will sail 
for New York on September 19. 


THE centenary of the birth of the eminent 
mathematician, Abel, is being celebrated at 
Christiania this week. 

A MONUMENT in memory of Cassini de 
‘Thury, the French astronomer, was unveiled 
at Clermont on July 27. 


A sust of the French naturalist, Ramond, 
known for his explorations in the Pyrenees, 
was unveiled at Bagnéres-de-Bigorre on Au- 
gust 3. 

Tue Reverend Dr. Thomas Gallaudet, widely 
known for his work on behalf of the care 
of the deaf and dumb and until recently pas- 
tor of a church for deaf mutes, died on August 
27, at the age of eighty years. Dr. Gallaudet’s 
father, the Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gal- 
laudet, founded the first permanent school for 
deaf mutes in 1817, and his brother, Dr. Ed- 
ward Miner Gallaudet, has since 1864 been 
president of the Gallaudet College for the deaf 
at Washington. 


Tue death is announced of General A. Fer- 
rero, of Rome, known for his contributions to 
geodesy and mathematics. 


Proressor A. N. Bexetow, the Russian bot- 
anist, has died at the age of seventy-seven 
-years. Dr. Johann Janko, director of the Eth- 
nographical Division of the National Museum 
at Budapesth, has died at the age of thirty- 
four years. 

TuroucH the will of the late John Dolbeer, 
of San Francisco, the Astronomical Society 
of the Pacifie will receive the sum of five 
thousand dollars. Mr. Dolbeer had been a 
member of the Society since 1891 and was one 
‘of its past presidents. He took an active in- 
terest in astronomy and defrayed the expenses 
‘of the expedition sent out from the Chabot Ob- 
servatory of Oakland, to Georgia, to observe 
the total solar eclipse of May 28, 1900. This 
is the second bequest to the society by de- 
ceased members. Mr. Marvin Reimer, of Chi- 


‘SCIENCE. 


399 


eago, left the sum of five hundred dollars. 
These funds will bear the names of the givers 
and will be invested. The income will be used 
by the society in diffusing astronomical 
knowledge. 

Aw exhibit to illustrate the state of educa- 
tion in the British Empire will be sent by the 
government to the St. Louis Exposition. 


It is stated in Nature that Messrs. Cook, the 
tourist agents, have put forward a proposal 
to run an electric railway to the crater of Ve- 
suvius from the Naval Arsenal in Naples to 
take the place of the funicular railway now 
used. The faculty of science in the University 
of Naples has forwarded a strong protest 
against the scheme to the Italian government, 
on the grounds that it would interfere with the 
seismic and magnetic observations and records 
which are made at the university. 

In the House of Commons, as we learn from 
Nature, the decision to close the observatories 
at Ben Nevis and Fort William has been 
brought forward, and the first lord of the treas- 
ury was asked whether he would order an in- 
quiry to be made into the distribution by the 
meteorological council of the annual grant of 
15,3001., so as to secure that an adequate al- 
lowance be made to these observatories. In 
his reply, Mr. Balfour referred to an inquiry 
held about twenty years ago, at the close of 
which the committee recommended that the 
inquiry should be repeated from time to time, 
a recommendation that has not been followed. 
In the circumstances he thought it would be 
right to have an investigation and to repeat it 
from time to time. This would involve no 
slight on the scientific committee which allo- 
cates the funds. 

Tue Baldwin-Ziegler Antarctic excursion 
can searcely be regarded as a scientific expedi- 
tion. We may, however, quote the following 
information, which Mr. Baldwin has given the 
Rueter’s Agency: This year’s work has been 
successful. An enormous depot of condensed 
foods has been established by sledge on Rudolf 
Land within sight of the Italian expedition’s 
headquarters. A second depot has been formed 
in lat. 81° 33’, and a third depot at Kane Lodge, 
Greely Island, which has been newly charted 


400 


as near the 81st degree of latitude. These 
large depots, together with the houses and 
stores left at Camp Ziegler, as well as provi- 
sions for the five ponies and 150 good dogs now 
on board, besides the pack itself, will afford 
means for a large Polar dash party next year. 
The fact that all the channels through Franz 
Josef Land remained blocked by ice during 
the autumn of 1901 prevented the establish- 
ment of depots by steamer last year. The 
breaking up of the ice early in June compelled 
us to use our reserve supply of coal, and hence 
our departure from Camp Ziegler on July 1 in 
order not to imperil the expedition. We dis- 
patched 15 balloons with 300 messages in June. 
We have obtained the first moving pictures of 
Arctic life. We discovered Nansen’s hut, re- 
covering the original document left there and 
securing paintings of the hut. We have also 
secured marine collections for the National 
Museum, new charts, ete. Thirty men, with 
13 ponies, 170 dogs and 60 sledges, were em- 
ployed in field work from January 21 to May 
21, this severe work resulting in the destruc- 
tion of the sledges; this and the depletion of 
the food for the ponies and the dogs rendered 
a return imperative. 


THE water resources of the Great Plains 
will be the subject of continued investigation 
this summer by the United States Geological 
Survey. For the last two or three years Mr. 
N. H. Darton, of the Survey, has been en- 
gaged in tracing the source of the copious 
underground waters which appear in the wells 
of North Dakota and South Dakota. From 
eareful studies of well borings and other geo- 
logical phenomena of the region, it has been 
discovered that extensive water-bearing strata 
underlie the whole plains region and are bent 
upward and reach the surface on the eastern 
flanks of the Rocky and Bighorn Mountains 
and in the Black Hills uplift. This season 
Mr. Darton, assisted by Mr. C. A. Fisher, is 
engaged in continuing the survey of the 
water-bearing rocks in the Black Hills and 
Bighorn Mountains, and in a reconnaissance 
of the Great Plains for the preparation of a 
map showing the general geology and the loca- 
tion of the water-bearing beds of the whole 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 401. 


region. The map will also indicate the dis- 
tance at which the sandstones lie beneath the 
surface, and the probable depths of the wells 
necessary to reach them. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


Tue will of the late Francis B. Loomis, of 
Cincinnati, has been sustained by the courts, 
and the Ohio Wesleyan University will receive 
$150,000. 


Dr. Howarp A. Ketuy, professor of gyne- 
cology in the Johns Hopkins University, has 
given $10,000 for an extension of the gyneco- 
logical ward of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. 


Tuer University of Nebraska has adopted a 
course of study in forestry, which will be open 
to students this year for the first time. It is 
four years in length, and the conditions for 
admission to the freshman year are the same 
as for admission to other university courses. 


Tue University of Nebraska Medical Col- 
lege will be opened this fall. It provides for 
two courses, one six years, and the other four 
years, in length, the first leading to the degrees 
B.Se. and M.D., and the second to M.D. En- 
trance to these courses requires the work of 
four years in a good high school or academy. 

A couRSE in practical physiology, commen- 
cing on October 10, 1902, is offered to public 
school teachers at the University and Bellevue 
Hospital Medical College (26th street and 
First avenue). The course includes much ex- 
perimental work on nervous physiology which 
is of advantage for the comprehension of psy- 
chology. An exercise of two hours or more is 
given once a week for thirty weeks. The exer- 
cise commences at half past three on Fridays 
and may last until six o’clock. The students 
perform the experiments themselves. A short 
talk precedes each exercise and a conference 
over the results obtained follows the comple- 
tion of the day’s work. This course is one 
authorized for obtaining a degree in the grad- 
uate school of the New York University. It 
is identical with the course prescribed for sec- 
ond year medical school students. It will not 
be given to more than thirty applicants. The 


course is conducted by’ Professor Graham 
Lusk. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: 8S. NEwcoms, Mathematics; R. S. WoopWaRD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; k. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. Hart MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BessEY, N. L. BRITTON, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


DITCH, Physiology ; 


J. S. BrInLInas, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. WetcH, Pathol- 


ogy ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. PowrLL, Anthropology. 


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


Scientific Research—the Art of Revelation 
and of Prophecy: Proressor R. H. Tuurs- 


HOW soqdoodpodcounan ach yoodoonaonoeu ss 401 
On Some Recent Advances in the Fireproof- 

ing Treatment of Wood: SAMUEL P. Sapt- 

WD guecodoudoadacosounsoeeoapodeacudEs 424 


American Association for the Advancement 
of Science :— 
Twentieth Annual Report of the Committee 
on Indexing Chemical Literature....... 428 


Scientific Books :— 
Jahrbuch der Chemie: E. TT. ALLEN. 
Kiikentha’s Leitfaden fiir das zoologische 
Praktikum: PrRoressor Henry F. Nacu- 
TETRIS 6 6 OOOO OIG OES OLE OLE ERO Rol ee ee as 431 
Scientific Journals and Articles............ 431 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
“Effective Forces’: Proressor L. M. Hos- 
KINS. Reference Books in Nomenclature: 
labo s 1D, IVMUINEG G coco oa oonopooDOeoen eon 
Shorter Articles :— 
The Physiology of Sea Water: Ropney IH. 
True. Bertiella, New Name for the Cestode 
Genus Berthia Blanchard: Dr. CH. War- 
DELL STILES and ALBERT HASSALL. Notes 
on Canker and Black-rot: P. J. O’GARA.. 433 


432 


Paleontological Notes :— 


The Generic Name Omosaurus; A New Gen- 
eric Name for Stegosawrus Marshi: F. A. 


THUCASieeler Mey peepee eT Mate eel heii een 435 
Anthropology in America.................. 436 
Forestry in the Hawaiian Islands........... 436 
Scientific Notes and News.................. 437 
University and Educational News.......... 440 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: THE ART OF 
REVELATION AND OF PROPHECY.* 


I. 


ScIENTIFIC research is the highest work 
undertaken by the man of science, and it 
can be undertaken with confidence only by 
him who has made himself familiar with 
the state of his art, to date, or by the genius 
whose inspiration may, now and then, make 
learning, for the time and the occasion, less 
essential. Yet it is particularly true, in 
science, that genius involves a talent for 
hard work. That talent first achieves 
learning, then seeks further knowledge 
through research, skillfully interrogating 
Nature. 

Scientific research may be defined as 
‘the Art of Revelation and of Prophecy.’ 
By investigation, commonly experimental, 
the research is directed toward the ac- 
quirement of new facts in a field in which, 
at the moment, earlier gleaners either have 
done little or, having explored the field 
extensively, yet lack knowledge of certain 
fundamental elements of the problem of 
formulation of the laws relating to its phe- 
nomena. It is sought to reveal a new 
system of scientific phenomena, of natural 
science, or to complete the partly developed 
theory. When the facts are thus learned, - 

* An address delivered before the Pennsylvania 


Chapter of Sigma Xi, by Robert H. Thurston, 
Philadelphia, June 14, 1902. 


402 


they are studied in their mutual relations 
and, those relations being ascertained, the 
law underlying them may be identified. 
When that law is determined, and in such 
manner as to make it possible to formulate 
it, verbally, perhaps algebraically or graph- 
ically, its general operation may become 
discoverable and its action may often be 
traced backward into an indefinitely ex- 
tended past and even forward into an 
equally unlimited future. Revelation and 
propheey are thus fruits of science. It 
may perhaps be said, with truth and liter- 
ally, that we to-day know no other method 
of either revelation or prophecy. 

It is thus that Leverrier and Adams 
prophesied the discovery of an outer planet 
previously unseen. Thus the statistician, 
observing the growth of a population, or 
the development of industry during earlier 
years, predicts the filling of the valley of 
the Mississippi with a teeming population 
or the transfer of the financial center of 
the world into a new metropolis. Darwin 
revealed a past world history and Laplace 
indicated the process of organization of a 
universe. Lodge showed the way to com- 
municate through the intermediate space 
over an indefinite distance and Marconi and 
Slaby have talked across a state or an ocean 
without tangible connections. Rumford 
and Davy revealed the transmutation of 
energies, and Morse and Watt and Bell and 
their fellow-physicists produced national 
and international systems of utilization and 
transformation, giving us the steam-engine, 
the telegraph, the telephone, the electric 
light and the electric railroad. Hertz and 
Roentgen introduced us into a new depart- 
ment of energy-transmission in which light 
penetrates the opaque, and Daguerre gave 
us an art which permits exact picturing of 
our surroundings and enables even invisible 
stars or nebule to imprint their portraits 
upon the photographie plate, and previously 
unknown worlds thus to reveal themselves. 


SCIENCE. 


LN. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


Lyell, Hugh Miller, and the later geolo- 
gists gave us our knowledge of the past his- 
tory of the globe and a prophecy regarding 
its future; while the astronomer watching 
the developments in Perseus now sees and 
describes to us the destruction of the world, 
‘of which the heavens are seen to melt with 
fervent heat,’ and the simultaneous begin- 
ning of the new heaven and the new world, 
the process and the sequence prophesied 
alike by Laplace and the inspired seer. 
When it was discovered that the brain 
was capable of being marked off into defi- 
nite and located sections, each of which 
related itself to a defined process or, func- 
tion, it became possible to predict that the 
surgeon might thus determine the point at 
which to operate, the place at which a tu- 
mor might be found; ultimately, perhaps, 
finding safe ways of excision, of promotion 
of healthy growths or of reproduction of 
degenerated tissue. When, after scientific 
investigation, the bacteriologists showed the 
physician how to look for a cause of dan- 
gerous diseases and of world-devastating 
plagues, it became evident that a method 
of remedy could be intelligently sought 
through ‘research.’ Thus the revelation of 
that extraordinary action of microscopic 
forms of vegetable life had, as its almost 
axiomatie corollary, the prophecy of con- 
trol, if not of entire extinction, of the most 
vicious and intimidating and fatal diseases, 
and of relief from the scourges of diphthe- 
ria, malaria and yellow fever and even from 
consumption and intestinal poisons. The 
previous triumphs of Lister and his col- 
leagues in rendering internal surgery safe 
and successful were but the forerunners of 
other triumphs in every branch of medi- 
cine and surgery. When the action of al- 
cohol upon the tissues was scientifically 
demonstrated, and it was assigned its prop- 
er place in the pharmacopceia with coffee, 
tea and other substances of its class, the 
revelation of its true action, value and 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


funetions permitted the prophecy that it 
would cease to be employed under govern- 
mental sanction for improper uses, and 
that, ultimately, the definition of temper- 
ance would be scientifically obtained and 
that the cause of good morals and good man- 
ners would be thus everywhere promoted. 

That mightiest of seers and prophets, 
Darwin, has taught us the art of revela- 
tion and of prophecy in every field of scien- 
tific development. His study of the origin 
of species first compelled a recognition of 
the facts that all life and all movement at 
the moment is but the exhibition, at the in- 
stant of observation, at a single minutest 
point in its path, of the present stage in a 
constant progression, dating back to an in- 
finite past and to continue into an infinite 
future. The present is but the infinitesi- 
mal in time dividing the past from the fu- 
ture into which the past continuously flows. 
Darwin called attention to an obvious fact, 
at once recognized, that there is no solution 
in the continuity of natural phenomena, 
whatever may be the catastrophe affecting 
an atom, a body, an individual or a country 
or a nation. Every existing noumenon, in 
whatever realm of nature, in whatever uni- 
verse, seen or unseen, has a life-history 
extending continuously and with defined 
sequence to the farthest past; it may be 
assumed that its later life-history will be 
developed, in whole or in elementary parts, 
by a no less absolute continuity and a no 
less perfect sequence, into an indefinite if 
not infinite future. 

This is now seen to mean that the univer- 
ses, all the universes, will continue to 
evolve their infinite forces and forms, and 
that energies will continue to exhibit their 
protean characteristics and to construct 
worlds, life, nature, art, minds, industries, 
with constant evolutions of sequenceand the 
revelation of a lengthening curve of pro- 
gress that shall at every instant point along 


SCIENCE. 


403 


a terminal; the direction of the momentary 
tendency revealing a future by its past. 
Mendeléef, with his table of the chemical 
elements arranged in series and in groups, 
illustrates the possibilities of prophecy in 
an interesting and striking manner. Clas- 
sifying the known elements, he discovered 
the law which controls their relations of 
atomie weight and predicted that the miss- 
ing figures, 44, 69 and 72, would later 
be found to attach themselves to the atoms 
of elements yet to be discovered. Scan- 
dium, gallium and germanium were later 
found in accordance with his prophecy, 
much as computed elements of missing 
planets of our solar system were the sources 
of the discovery of previously unknown 
heavenly bodies. Mendeléef, Adams and 
Leverrier were prophets of the same high 
order. It may now be anticipated that 
similar researches, prompted by the discov- 
ery of the divisibility of the formerly sup- 
posed indivisible atom, may reveal a new 
order, of elementary matter, and revelation 
and prophecy combine to open to the chem- 
ist and the physicist a new world and a 
new universe. There still remain other as 
yet undiscovered elements in the ‘Table of 
the Periodic System’ of Mendeléef, and 
possibly new orders and new series as yet 
unpredicted may remain to be revealed by 
the researches of later men of genius of 
this type. Every new element possesses 
new and peculiar properties and each new 
discovery gives rise to unique possibilities, 
both in the use of the new element and in 
its compounds. Scientific research still 
has here wonderful opportunities and the 
fortunate author of new revelations will 
achieve, not only fame hardly less than 
his predecessors, but vastly more impor- 
tant to the truly great mind, also advantage 
to his fellow-men in ways and to a degree 
as yet unsuspected by the average mind. 
Huxley, greatest among seers and proph- 
ets of science since Darwin, nowhere illus- 


404 


trates his quality more perfectly than when 
insisting, in the great debates of his time, 
on the necessarily and essentially perfect 
accordance of all truths and the universal 
evolution of all the worlds. Truths are al- 
ways mutually consistent and invariably 
reinforce each other, without limitation. 
The truths of science and the truths of re- 
ligion, of morals, of humanity, can never, 
conflict. Should it appear that an incon- 
sistency exists between what are asserted 
to be facts of science and what are declared 
to be truths in theology, it would simply 
compel the deduction that one or the other, 
perhaps both, must be wrong; forcing the 
honest and earnest man to the more com- 
plete and detailed study of both, with 
manifest and inevitable advantage to both 
and to himself, compelling the reconcilia- 
tion of both formulations by ascertaining 
the real facts, the common truth. We daily 
find ourselves on opposite sides of the 
shield and most frequently discover, on in- 
vestigation, that the substance is neither 
the gold of the one side nor the silver of 
the other, but something oftentimes more 
precious than either. 

There is as certainly no ground for con- 
flict between those who seek to promote 
pure science and those who as earnestly and 
honestly endeavor to advance applied sci- 
ence. The laws of the universe are ours 
to study and so to utilize as to promote, in 
highest possible degree, the welfare of our 
country, our neighbors, our families, our- 
selves. The revelation of the facts and laws 
of natural science, the upbuilding of the 
framework and the filling in of the con- 
struction called a science, is a first step and 
its fortunate discoverers are the pioneers of 
a large body of later investigators, these, in 
turn, of a still larger body of men interested 
in making useful the knowledge thus ac- 
quired, in every field. All are needed, 
each helps the other and all are helpful to 
the world. We do not discuss the relative 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


importance of heart and stomach to brain 
and muscle, or of the pendulum to the dial 
of the clock. 

All men gravitate toward their positions 
of maximum usefulness in this world and 
no two have precisely the same value or 
power of achievement or adaptation to 
place and task. Let each do the best possible 
in the place and in the work thus coming 
to each, and a maximum efficiency of pro- 
duction, of utilization, of final accomplish- 
ment will be achieved. 

The term ‘revelation’ has an entirely cor- 
rect signification in this connection. Not 
the most brilliant genius and_ brightest 
mind that ever adorned this world, lacking 
that scientific knowledge and _ training 
which is essential to scientific progress and 
to the discovery of the great facts of nature 
and the ascertainment of nature’s law; not 
the meditations of the wisest and most 
thoughtful mind that ever Buddhist or 
Brahmin possessed, prolonged through all 
eons constituting the Hindoo chronological 
eyele; not the highest inspiration of any 
sage of ancient or of modern times; not all 
nor, any of these sources of wisdom could 
reveal the characteristics of an element, the 
nature of gravitation or its law, the ther- 
modynamie quantivalence, the simplest 
fact or the most elementary principle in 
any science or achieve the fundamental 
Knowledge of its youngest and least ex- 
perienced novice. It is only science that 
can give us a true revelation of the nature 
of phenomena, the essential facts of life 
and motion, or the real basis of evolutionary 
changes; far less could either or all predict 
the position at a stated time of a distant 
star, the coming eclipse, the penetrative ef- 
fect of a shot to be discharged from an as 
yet unconstructed piece of ordnance, the 
fieures of the next decennial census, the 
atomie weight of an undiscovered element, 
or the time of high water at any future 
time in the harbor of New York, Liverpool 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


and Cape Town. It is the lteral fact that 
revelation and prophecy are to-day re- 
served for science. 

The revelation of a single fundamental 

fact, the discovery of one primary princi- 
ple, by the intelligent application of a scien- 
tific method in‘ research, may supply the 
firm basis of important and far-reaching 
prophecy. When Count Rumford reveal- 
ed the fact of the identity of energies, mo- 
lecular and mass, the almost axiomatic prin- 
ciple that all energy is simply the product 
of the weight into a function of velocity, 
regardless of the magnitude of the mass or 
the character of the movement, it was the 
assertion of the intertransformability of all 
the energies of movement, whether of stars 
and planets and comets in their, orbits, of a 
flying shot, of a falling stone, of thermal 
or electrical vibrations or of chemical com- 
binations, whether of masses, of molecules, 
of atoms or of the recently announced ele- 
ments of the atoms, if such there prove to 
be. That one fact of the identity of the 
energies permitted the predictions of Car- 
not, serving, later, as the foundation of a 
new science. It justified the prophecy of 
an all-comprehending science of Energetics, 
as Rankine afterward denominated it, 
which should serve as the common funda- 
mental basis of all physical, chemical and 
mechanical sciences; bringing molecular 
and atomic motions and relations into the 
same field with those of all telluric masses 
and of every stellar world, comprehending 
all phenomena of movement, whether of the 
ether or of a universe gliding through a 
ereater infinity of space. 


II. 


The purposes of scientific research, im- 
mediate or ultimate, are the revelation of 
previously unknown facts and natural 
phenomena, the discovery of that quali- 
tative relation amongst them which is recog- 
nized as the result of the operation of law, 


SCIENCE. 


405 


the formulation of the law, and its quanti- 
tative connection with the facts and their 
sequence. The immediate purpose is the 
discovery of the facts and of the phe- 
nomena and their quantitative measure- 
ment; the later purpose is their grouping, 
their orderly arrangement, the expression 
of the law of such arrangement and of 
their interaction in the production of phe- 
nomena and, finally, the construction of 
systems of fact and law, quantitatively ex- 
pressed, such as we designate as the sci- 
ences, as, for example, the mathematical 
and physical sciences, mechanics, ther- 
modynamics, physics and chemistry, geol- 
ogy and astronomy. Ultimately must come 
the correlation of the sciences. 

All this means, first of all, the applica- 
tion of scientific method to the advance- 
ment of science itself.* It assumes the 
planning of a scientific method of advance- 
ment of science, of a scientific process of 
development of each department and of the 
complex whole which constitutes a pantol- 
ogy, the breadth and the depth and the 
limits of either the larger or the lesser in 
which no man knows nor perhaps ever can 
know or conceive. 

When knowledge, in greater or in lesser 
amount, is thus acquired, classified and re- 
corded, the outcome, whatever the intent of 
its authors, will always be found to be the 
advancement of humanity in material and, 
no less, in intellectual and moral ways. In 
fact, a material foundation is always re- 
quired for advancement in morals, in man- 
ners, in culture and in happiness, by any 
nation. Education in science, in litera- 
ture, in language, in the professional basis 
of a vocation, and in wisdom, learning, eul- 
ture, morals and religion, is all one. 

**The Scientific Method of Advancement of 
Science;’ Vice-President’s address, American 


Association for the Advancement of Science, St. 
Louis Meeting, 1878, by R. H. Thurston. 


406 


The fundamental element of the methods 
of scientific research is the fact, the phe- 
nomenon. Facts, individual or in groups, 
independent or related, are revealed by the 
investigator and are grouped by the genius, 
or by the expert in that branch of science. 
But facts and phenomena are the products 
of nature’s laws and are their expression. 
A law is the expression of the relation of a 
group or a series of related facts or phe- 
nomena; it is the thread upon which the 
discovered pearls of truth are strung. It 
has continuity; the facts themselves are 
discontinuous, or may be so; the natural 
world is one great system of phenomena 
and fact thus bound together, in multiples 
or in various series, to constitute a single 
tremendous complex fact. 

As I have elsewhere expressed this rela- 
tionship of fact and laws* ‘‘ All science is 
thus made up from the infinite number of 
facts which are comprehended in the uni- 
verse of the known and the to-be-known. 
Its existence is assured by the stability of 
all those principles of philosophy which are 
woven into the connecting web. * * * The 
man of science, the philosopher whose task 
it is to create and to advance all human 
knowledge of the great kingdom of nature, 
is therefore a discoverer of facts, an obser- 
ver of phenomena, a student of nature’s 
laws. He is a systematic recorder of facts, 
a codifier of laws.’’ é 

As is now well understood, the ‘Law of 
Substance,’ as Haeckel proposed to eall it, 
provides the foundation of the whole code 
of scientific formulation of natural law. As 


I expressed it, in the discussion just refer- — 


red to, ‘‘the fundamental principle of the 
indestructibility of ‘the two products of 
creation, matter and force, and the fruit 
of their union, energy,’ the principle of the 
indestructibility of all that has been cre- 

* Vice-President’s address; J’ransactions Ameri- 


can Association for the Advancement of Science, 
St. Louis meeting, 1878. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


ated, supplies a basis for all sciences and 
for all scientific work.’’* 

This ‘Law of Substance’ was thus stated 
by me at that time (1878) : 

‘“At the basis of the whole science of 
energetics les a principle which was enun- 
ciated before science had a birthplace or a 
name. 

“All that exists, whether matter or force, 
and in whatever form, is indestructible ex- 
cept by the infinite power which has created 
Ta 

But the statement of this fundamental 
and universal law was, in fact, made cen- 
turies before and possibly by many wise 
men of earlier times. Cicero says ‘one 
eternal and immutable law embraces all 
things and all times,’ and he might per- 
fectly well have added: That law is per- 
sistence of all the elements of creation. 

The purpose of scientific research is thus, 
immediately and ultimately, the building 
up of a complete system, or of a section of 
this great edifice, as the case may be, on the 
foundation thus established. The work 
to be done in applied science must always 
involve the utilization of the work of the 
scientific investigator in the realms of pure 
science, and the task of making applica- 
tion of scientific knowledge and of re- 
search-revelations, in the promotion of 
the industrial and higher interests of 
the people, will be certain of performance 
when the scientific system is perfected as 
a code of natural law. 


III. 


The fields of scientific research extend 
into every department of present human 
knowledge and, probably ultimately, will 


* Vice-President’s address, American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science, Philadelphia 
meeting, 1884. 

{ Transactions American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, 1878; Vice-President’s 
address on the ‘Philosophic Method of Science 
Advancement.’ 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902.] 


reach into departments still unknown and 
undreamt of by even scientific men. As en- 
gimeering is systematizine and correlating 
all the industries and making even agricul- 
ture a branch of chemical and mechanical 
engineering, so science is gradually com- 
ing to comprehend all worlds and it may 
even be confidently hoped that what 
have been the speculative philosophies 
may, in time, become admittedly depart- 
ments of positive science and subject of 


_ fruitful research. 


These fields will undoubtedly continue 
to be simply extensions of the old and long- 
cultivated areas first discovered in the ear- 
liest times of which history preserves the 
records. Astronomy, astrology, the de- 
partment of alchemistry, mechanics, phys- 
ies, all the Alexandrian learning, all the 
later acquisitions of the Saracens and of 
the later ages in Europe, remain still incom- 
plete as sciences and still afford opportuni- 
ties of still increasing extent to every in- 
vestigator. The nineteenth century saw 
developed the whole thermodynamic theory 
of the heat-engines and of energy transfor- 
mation. The improvement of these prime 
movers—the Archimedean levers which 
move the world—in their construction and 
the revelation of the scientific principles of 
their action, the progress of invention and 
of science, the sole guide toward perfection, 
the sole competent judge of approxima- 
tion to perfection and of the perfect work, 
through all that century went hand in hand, 
and once the thermodynamic theory of the 
engines became fully supplemented by a 
theory of wastes by extra-thermodynamic 
processes and by a financial theory of ap- 
plication, the work of Watt and Carnot 
may be said to have been completed. The 
commencement of the twentieth century 
sees the whole theory of the steam-engine 
practically completed and the structure of 
the machine, either as a reciprocating en- 
gine or as a steam-turbine, substantially 


SCIENCE. 


407 


perfected; while the engineer is now tak- 
ing up the gas engine, also a century old, 
and reducing its theory and its mechanism 
to similar perfection. Henceforth we must 
expect exceedingly slow progress in this 
field and, as the outlook now appears, early 
and complete interruption—unless, indeed, 
the inventor and the man of science can 
find ways of entrance into a new field. 
And why should they not? 

During the nineteenth century the en- 
gineer, made steady progress by inereas- 
ing his steam pressure from one atmosphere 
to fifteen, and, experimentally, to a hun- 
dred atmospheres by increasing piston 
speeds from 100 to 1,000 feet per minute 
and by placing his engine-cylinders in 
series to intercept still unconquered wastes. 
Now he is still moving forward, though 
cautiously, in the same lines, and is increas- 
ing the thermodynamic temperature-range 
by superheating steam and the ratio of 
expansion by adopting the steam-turbine; 
thus, also, evading the heavy tax of so- 
called ‘eylinder condensation.’ External 
conduction and radiation and friction are 
minimized and we still gain, though the ap- 
proximation of the real to the now per- 
fectly defined ideal has come to be fairly 
close in our best work.* A new path must 
be sought, and it is for the engineer and 
man of science together, or both in one, to 
show us the way. 

Among all the problems of the twentieth 
century, none are more seductive, more 
glorious in aspect, more fruitful of good 
to the race, than those assigned the man of 
science in this field and to his partners, the 
engineer, the inventor, the mechanician. 

**Manual of the Steam Engine,’ New York, 
J. Wiley & Sons, R. H. Thurston. See Chap. 
VIL, Vol. I, for the ‘Financial Theory’ and 
Chap. VIII. for a summary of thermodynamic and 
applied theory of the steam-engine; Chap. VIL., 


Vol. II., for the ultimate commercial outcome of 
theory and art, conspiring. 


408 


The ‘next great problems of science,’ as I 
have called them, involve some which are 
extraordinarily important and curious, 
genius-provoking and talent-utilizing : prob- 
lems which can presumably be only solved 
through the cooperation of all those forms 
of native talent, perhaps combined in the 
one man, perhaps in all—the engineer, or 
the man of science, or the inventor and the 
mechanician. 

‘The progress of the race and the ad- 
vancement of civilization, whether in the 
direction of industrial improvement or of 
intellectual growth, depend, the first 
mainly, the second largely, upon the ex- 
tent and the success of man’s utilization of 
the four great natural forces, or ‘energies,’ 
as the man of science calls them: heat, 
light, electricity, mechanical or dynamic 
power. 

“‘The engineer, to whom is confided this 
duty of utilizing all the forces of nature 
for the benefit of his fellows, has, however, 
now apparently reached a point beyond 
which he can see but little opportunity for 
further improvement, except by slow and 
toilsome and continually limited progress. 
He seems to have come very nearly to the 
limit of his advance in the directions which 
have, up to the moment, been so fruitful 
of result. 

““™he living body is a machine in which 
the ‘law of Carnot,’ which asserts the neces- 
sity of waste in every heat-engine, and 
which shows that waste to be the greater 
as the range of temperature worked 
through by the machine is the more re- 
stricted, is evaded; it produces electricity 
without intermediate conversions and 
losses; it obtains heat without high-tem- 
perature combustion, and even, in some 
eases, light without any sensible heat. In 
other words, in the vital system of man 
and of the lower animals, nature shows us 
the practicability of directly converting 
one form of energy into another, without 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 402. 


those losses and unavoidable wastes charac- 
teristic of methods the invention of which 
has been the pride and the boast of man. 
Every living creature, man and worm alike, 
shows him that his great task is but half 
accomplished; that his grandest inventions 
are but crudest and most remote imitations; 
that his best work is wasteful and awkward. 
Every animate creature is a machine of 
enormously higher efficiency as a dynamic 
engine than his most elaborate construction, 
illustrated in a 10,000 horse-power engine. 
Every gymnotus living in the mud of-a 
tropical stream puts to shame man’s best 
efforts in the production of electricity; and 
the minute insect that flashes across his 
lawn on a summer evening, or the worm 
that lights his path in the garden, exhibits 
a system of illumination incomparably su- 
perior to his most perfect electric lights.’’ 

Here we have a single example of the 
opening of a new field of research of tre- 
mendous importance to the human race, yet 
unexplored and hardly recognized. 

It seems more than probable that it is 
to the mysteries and lessons of life that 
the chemist, the physicist, the engineer, 
must turn in seeking the key that shall 
unlock the still unrevealed treasures of 
coming centuries. These constitute na- 
ture’s challenge to the engineer. 

Nature in each of these cases converts 
the energy of chemical union, probably of 
low-temperature oxidation, into just that 
form of energy, whether of mechanical or 
of a certain exactly defined and required 
rate of ether vibration, that is best suited 
to the intended purpose, and without waste 
in other force, utilizing even the used-up 
tissue of muscle and nerve for the produc- 
tion of the warmth required to retain the 
marvelous machine at the temperature of 
best efficiency, whatever the environment, 
and exhaling the rejected resultant carbonic 
acid gas at the same low temperature. Man 
wastes one fourth of all the heat of his 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


fuel as utilized in his steam boiler, and 
often ninety per cent. as used in his open 
fire-places; nature, in the animal system, 
utilizes substantially all. He produces 
light by candle, oil lamp or electricity, but 
submits to a loss of from one fifth to more 
than nine tenths of all his stock of available 
energy as heat; she, in the glow-worm and 
fire-fly, produces a lovelier light without 
waste measurable by our most delicate in- 
struments. He throws aside as loss nine 
tenths of his potential energy when at- 
tempting to develop mechanical power; she 
is vastly more economical. But in all 
cases her methods are known to be radi- 
eally different from his, though as yet ob- 
secure. Nature converts available forms of 
energy into precisely those other forms 
which are needed for her purposes, in ex- 
actly the right quantity, and never wastes, 
as does invariably the engineer, a large 
part of the initial stock by the production 
of energies that she does not want and 
cannot utilize. She goes directly to her 
goal. Why should not man? He has but 
to imitate her processes. 

‘*Should the day ever come when trans- 
formations of energy shall be made in na- 
ture’s order, and when thermo-electric 
changes shall be a primary step toward 
electrodynamie application to purposes now 
universally attained only through the unsat- 
isfactory processes of thermodynamics as 1l- 
lustrated in our wasteful heat-engines, the 
engineer, following in his work the prac- 
tice of nature, which has been so successful 
throughout the life of the animal kingdom, 
will find it easy to drive his ship across the 
ocean in three days; will readily concen- 
trate in the space now occupied by the en- 
gines of the Majestic a quarter of a million 
of horse-power; will transfer the millions 
horse-power of Niagara to New York, Bos- 
ton, Philadelphia, to be distributed to the 
mills, shops, houses, for every possible use, 


SCIENCE. 


409 


furnishing heat, ight and power wherever 
needed.’’* 


IV. 


Methods of planning scientific investiga- 
tions involve, first, the precise definition of 
the problem to be solved; secondly, they 
inelude the ascertainment of the ‘state of 
the art,’ as the engineer would say, the re- 
vision of earlier work in the same and re- 
lated fields, and the endeavor to bring all 
available knowledge into relation with the 
particular case in hand; thirdly, the inves- 
tigator seeks information which will per- 
mit him, if possible, to frame some theory or 
hypothesis regarding the system into which 
he proposes to carry his experiment, his 
studies and his logical work, such as will 
serve as a guide in directing his work most 
effectively. The first step is thus the ac- 
quirement of a complete knowledge of the 
essential work of investigation which has 
been accomplished by others, to date. 
This eliminates the primary work and per- 
mits avoidance of repetition, as well as 
reveals the suggestions of every great mind 
which has attacked the question in its pre- 
liminary stages, and places the investigation 
on the level from which further advance 
becomes directly and effectively practi- 
eable. It also gives the proposing investi- 
gator a firm and ample foundation on which 
to build higher and exhibits to him the 
trend of the work, in advance. He will 
have ascertained the locus and direction of 
what I have called a ‘curve of progress’and 
it may give him the needed data from 
which, if quantitative measures and defi- 
nite relations are available, to construct the 
eraphie history of the case throughout its 
earlier periods. 

The research may next be undertaken 
intelligently and with definitely arranged 
strategic predisposition of detailed plans 
of operation. The condition of the work 


* The Forum, R. H. Thurston, September, 1892. 


410 


is known to date and the direction of cur- 
rent progress is ascertained. The investi- 
gator loses no time or energy in following 
false leads. 

The empirical, the imaginative and even 
the guéss-work systems, or perhaps lack of 
of system, more accurately speaking, have 
their place, however, even in scientific re- 
search. The work of Copernicus, of Kepler, 
Newton, even, must be thus classed in im- 
portant parts. 

“The dim Titanic figure of the old monk 
seems to rear itself out of the dull flats 
around it, pierces with its head the mists 
that overshadow them and catches the first 
elimpse of the rising sun 


‘* * * like some iron peak, by the Creator 


Fired with the red glow of the rushing morn.’ ” 


But Copernicus first made a shrewd guess 
and then followed scientific and logical 
mathematical work and confirmation. This 
illustrated what Tyndall called ‘the scien- 
tific use of the imagination’; it was not a 
scientific beginning. 

Kepler, also, was ‘strong almost beyond 
competition in speculative subtlety and 
innate mathematical perception.’ His 
method of procedure was illustrative of 
that of ‘trial and error’ without scientifi- 
cally established premises or Euclidian 
sequences. For nineteen years, he guessed 
at the solution of a sufficiently well- 
defined problem, finding his speculation 
erroneous every time, until, at last, a 
final trial of a last hypothesis gave rise to 
deductions confirmed by observation and 
the laws of Kepler were established. His 
first guess had been that the orbits of the 
planets were circular, his next that they 
were oval, his last that they might be el- 
liptical. Only in the latter case could the 
observed data be reconciled with the as- 
sumption of Kepler. 

In somewhat similar manner, Galileo 
sought to prove the correctness of his hy- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


pothesis regarding gravitation; consistency 
with which would compel falling bodies, 
unresisted, to fall at the same rate, what- 
ever their magnitude. He proved this 
fact by an experiment, taking two iron 
shot, the one large and the other small, to 
the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and 
showing that their fall occupied the same 
time. The ‘guinea and feather tube’ in 
which, within a vacuum, the two drop with 
similar rapidity, is but a refinement of that 
first experimental confirmation of Galileo’s 
idea. 

‘The simultaneous clang of those two 
weights sounded the death-knell of the old 
system of philosophy and heralded the 
birth of the new,’ not as condemning specu- 
lation and guess-work or the ‘scientific use 
of the imagination,’ but as enforcing the | 
principle that no hypothesis can be accept- 
ed until given raison d’étre by an experi- 
mental or observational appeal to nature. 

Even Newton, witnessing the fall of the 
apple—an apocryphal but not improbable 
story—and thus set thinking, necessarily 
began by speculating upon the probable 
eause of the phenomenon and its laws. 
Kepler had shown how the planets moved 
in their orbits; Galileo had discovered the 
method of action of gravitation and had 
revealed the Laws of Motion now adopted 
by Newton. The time was ripe for another 
step. Newton conceived the idea that the 
eravitational force must be universal and 
must affect every substance throughout 
space, its laws being without limit, the con- 
stants in the formulas expressing them hav- 
ing the same value. The law of gravity is 
that of a central force acting throughout 
space with an intensity varying inversely 
as the square of the distance from the cen- 
ter of attraction. Newton at once applied 
his hypothesis to the solar system, and 
proved that the motions of the planets, as 
revealed by Copernicus, were consistent 
with this new ascertained fact. The sun 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


was the central attracting body and every 
planet and each satellite was obedient to 
this all-controlling force. 

Thus, while the correct sequence is, 
logically, the deduction of Kepler’s Laws 
from the Laws of Gravitation, the fact is 
that the relation was discovered by scientific 
use of the imagination and the confirmation 
by deduction from an assumed accuracy of 
those primary laws followed. 

Newton’s estimate of his work, as that 
of ‘a child playing on the seashore’ while 
‘the immense ocean of truth extended it- 
self unexplored’ before him, in the light 
of these considerations seems less remark- 
able. Newton did indeed play on the 
shore of the great ocean of truth, and 
mused and speculated as he played; but he 
also did what the greatest of the ancient 
philosophers declined to do—he speculated 
with the aid of all his reasoning power, and 
then submitted his deductions to the touch- 
stone of direct test by experiment and by 
comparison with the facts revealed by re- 
search. 

Again and later: Lagrange and Laplace 
discovered and enunciated the two ‘ Laws 
of Stability,’ the ‘Magna Charta of the 
planetary systems’; but the discovery was 
brought about by a scientific use of the 
speculative faculty, and the laws were con- 
firmed by reference to the whole system of 
gravitational mechanics founded by Galileo 
and Newton, proved by experiment and 
confirmed by long years of accurate obser- 
vation. lLaplace’s ‘Nebular Hypothesis’ 
was a ‘sublime speculation.’ Its accept- 
ance or rejection 1s made by every man 
of science, subject to its confirmation or 
disproof by direct appeal to fact. 

Scientific prophecy, illustrated by the 
magnificent work of Adams and Leverrier 
in their computation of the elements of the 
orbit of Neptune, from the known meas- 
ures of variation of other planets in their 
orbits produced by disturbances set up by 


SCIENCE. 


411 


the unknown planet, is the loftiest of all 
forms of product of the mind of man. 
Prediction was a common fact in science at 
an early date; but it never before had been 
the fact that a great mathematical astrono- 
mer, in his study, with tabulated figures of 
irregular motions of heavenly bodies before 
him, had even attempted to compute the 
position of that disturber of the harmony 
of the spheres and to say to the observer 
at the telescope: ‘ Direct your glass at the 
infinitesimal point in all the sky indicated 
by these computed measures and you shall 
see a new world.’ It was thus, however, 
that Neptune was found. 


NE 


The methods of conduct of experimental 
research are in general simple and have one 
common system. The preliminary survey 
having been made, the work of earlier in- 
vestigations having been collated and ar- 
ranged with reference to the purpose in 
view, and the plan of the work having been 
in a general way settled, the first step is to 
determine what apparatus is needed in the 
prosecution of that plan and what is avail- 
able. The plan and the aim of the research 
give the necessary basis of judgment re- 
garding needed apparatus, and it may often 
happen that it is all obtainable without 
difficulty or delay. It oftener occurs, how- 
ever, that old apparatus must be modified 
to meet the precise requirements of the 
work in hand, and that, in many eases, en- 
tirely new must be devised. Sometimes an 
important, or, at least quite novel and in- 
genious, instrument or machine must be 
invented to meet a special need. The plan 
itself has given opportunity for the exer- 
cise of both invention and imagination; the 
selection, the construction and the assign- 
ment to specific work of the apparatus will 
be found to demand in most eases even 
more of both these attributes of genius. 

The apparatus having been thus selected, 


412 


catalogued and assigned to duty, the plan 
is revised to make sure that every step in 
its series of proposed tasks is provided 
with the needed apparatus and material, 
direct and accessory. The scheme of the 
work may then be written out in full, and 
the memorandum should inelude a refer- 
ence to the apparatus selected for use at 
every successive step and a statement of 
the kind and quantity of material to be 
provided. The materiel of the campaign 
may next be assembled or, .if extensive, 
located, and its availability assured. It is 
sometimes embarrassing to reach an im- 
portant point in such work and to find that 
a piece of apparatus or certain material 
needed, possibly immediately and impera- 
tively, is not to be had. It may be neces- 
sary to set about the design and construc- 
tion of special apparatus at once in order 
that the investigation shall not be delayed 
at a later stage by its non-completion. 

My own experience yields an illustration 
of this point. I had been intrusted with 
the exploration of the whole field of those 
ternary alloys of most importance in the 
arts, those of copper, zine and tin, the 
‘kalchoids,’ as I called them, and could see 
no way of systematically and economically, 
yet completely, accomplishing what seemed 
the impossible task of determining the 
strength, elasticity, ductility and other 
properties of the useful alloys in all the 
infinite number of possible compositions. 
The task proved simple, easy and inex- 
pensive, comparatively, when I had, after 
some months of delay awaiting a satisfac- 
tory scheme, hit upon the system of plan- 
ning the representation of the results of re- 
searches involving such measurements of 
three coordinate dimensions.* To-day, the 


**On a Method of Planning Researches involv- 
ing Three Dimensions,’ Transactions of the 
American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, 1877. ‘Strongest of the Bronzes,’ 
Transactions Am. Soc. C. E., 1881. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Voz. XVI. No. 402. 


principal characteristics of that whole class 
of useful alloys are not only determined, 
but are represented by graphic and glyptic 
and algebraic forms permitting their com- 
putation or measurement, whatever the 
alloy sought. 

The outcome was also, as obviously might 
have been prophesied, the identification of 
what I denominated the ‘maximum alloy’ 
—the strongest alloy that man can make 
by combination of those three metals—its 
composition, its strength and its every 
important characteristic. An alloy which 
has been on the market now for many years 
and has proved to be of extraordinary 
value is one of these ‘kalchoids,’ closely 
approximating the ‘maximum alloy’ in its 
proportions and properties. 

By patiently waiting until a satisfactory 
system could be adopted, it thus became 
possible to select intelligently a few repre- 
sentative alloys and by the results of their 
examinations construct the curve or the 
surface, the diagram or the model, of which 
the ordinates should give the values of the 


‘characteristic by them measured of all pos- 


sible alloys of the metals employed, whether 
the alloy be binary or ternary.* 

One of the best illustrations of the scien- 
tific method of planning the investigation 
of an as yet unexplored field, and of the 
endeavor to discover a method of utilization 
of as yet undiscovered means of obtaining 
a desirable and defined result, is the case of 
the invention of the new general method of 
production of aluminium. 

The investigator was an undergraduate 
student at Oberlin. He recognized the 
probable value of aluminium in the arts, 
could it be produced in large quantity for 
market and at a low cost. He believed 
that electrolysis would prove the most con- 
venient, perfect and inexpensive method; 

*“Graphic Diagrams and Glyptic Models’; R. 


H. Thurston, Transactions As. M. E., Vol. XIX., 
1898. : 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902.] 


but there was at the time no known process 
by which it could be applied to this ele- 
ment. The problem as enunciated by the 
investigator was this: To find a form of 
electrolyte rich in aluminium which should 
be comparatively easily separated into its 
elements, and to discover a substance for 
the solvent which should prove a satisfac- 
tory ‘bath.’ To meet the requirements of 
the case, this latter substance must be a 
good conductor, of electricity, must readily 
dissolve the proposed electrolyte and must 
have a higher resistance to electrolytic dis- 
ruption than the electrolyte. This was 
the scientific statement of the fundamental 
facts to be brought into use, and, these re- 
quirements being met, it was obvious that, 
if the current should not prove too ex- 
pensive, the process would unquestionably 
produce the then rare and costly metal at 
a remarkably low cost. 

To discover the needed substances for 
electrolyte and solvent was a problem of a 
different sort; it involved the examination 
of all available compounds of aluminium, 
so far as obviously not suitable, the study 
of the various possible solvents for the 
compound selected and the determination 
of electric conductivities—a series of solu- 
tions of problems by ‘trial and error.’ By 
virtue of rare familiarity with the chem- 
istry and the physics of the subject, the 
search was, after a time, rewarded by com- 
plete success. It was discovered that 
beauxite—the oxide of aluminium, alumina, 
in fact—is dissolved by molten eryolite, the 
double silicate of aluminium and sodium, 
and that the latter, while dissolving the 
former freely and serving as an ideal sol- 
vent, also itself broke up under the action 
of the electric current at a much higher 
voltage than alumina. So far as known, 
these are the only substances in nature 
which stand to each other in such relations 
as to permit commercial production of the 
metal, and Charles M. Hall, the inventor of 


SCIENCE. 


413 


the process which now practically gives to 
the world its whole annual product of 
thousands of tons of aluminium, was at 
once inventor, discoverer and scientific and 
successful investigator. The incident of 
the discovery of a method of production of 
a new commercial metal for, employment in 
the useful arts in enormous and rapidly in- 
creasing quantity thus illustrates the char- 
acteristic element of each of the great de- 
partments of research. 

The instrumentalities of successful re- 
search are essentially three, genius, appa- 
ratus, organization; yet valuable work may 
be done, where the problem is simple and 
definite, by the steady worker, well-in- 
formed, intelligent and industrious, even 
though not a genius. The first and high- 
est class of work is illustrated by that of 
a Davy, a Faraday or a Rowland or a 
Rankine; the second is daily exemplified 
by the investigations of the engineer, the 
metallurgist, the industrial chemist or 
even by the average business man collecting 
facts relating to his vocation and reducing 
to practical application the results of ordi- 
nary every-day investigations of the state 
of the market, the condition of the crops, or 
the accumulated stocks of the trade. The 
now common method of graphical record of 
the course of prices, wages and production 
permits every business man to discover the 
trend of change and the probable values of 
the immediate future. This is as truly 
research as is much of the scientific work 
of the chemist, the physicist or the astron- 
omer. 

Yet, for successful revelation of the pre- 
viously mysterious secrets of nature, the 
highest genius, the most complete equip- 
ment for investigation and the perfect 
organization of a staff must often be made 
to conspire. 

The provision of extensive organizations 
for the special work of research is now 
coming to be an established and recognized 


414 


modern method of systematic attack upon 
the still unrevealed treasures of the natural 
world, and the foundation of associations 
and the provision of large capital for the 
work of research are the most recent in- 
strumentalities. The Royal Institution of 
Great Britain, built up by the great Amer- 
ican, Count Rumford, the Smithsonian In- 
stitution, established in the United States 
by a famous Englishman, and the Carnegie 
Institution, now just founded by the great- 
est of organizers, a Scotch American, are 
illustrations of the latest and greatest of 
modern systems of deliberate preparation 
for, and of systematic prosecution of, scien- 
tific promotion of the advancement of 
selence. 
VI. 

Results obtained, whether in the imme- 
diate work of solution of the problem in 
hand or incidentally and as bearing upon 
other more or less related questions, should 
be very carefully and systematically col- 
lated, systematized with reference to their 
respective relations to the problem, and, 
where practicable, tabulated in such man- 
ner as will permit their convenient use at 
all times and for any purpose. The data 
and the results of investigation will thus 
be brought into natural relations and pro- 
pinquity, and the whole outcome of the 
work thus brought into relief and given 
available form for study. 

Tt will often be found possible to employ 
the figures thus obtained in the identifica- 
tion of constants in already known rational 
equations forming part of the previously 
constructed theory of the case, or in empir- 
ical expressions improvised for the ocea- 
sion. Wherever numerical and mathe- 
matical relations ean be identified and ex- 
pressed, and even when analysis does not 
lend itself readily to the work, it will 
often be found practicable to express the 
law relating new data and new facts to one 
another and to the already established sys- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


tem, so far, as complete, by graphical 
methods. In fact, for many, if not for most, 
purposes, it is much easier to comprehend 
and to employ a law exhibited by lines and 
curves than when it is stated algebraically. 
Many problems which are difficult, if not 
impracticable, of solution by algebraic 
analysis, may be readily, conveniently and 
fruitfully solved graphically. 

Wherever practicable, the rational ex- 
pression of the law is far, preferable to the 
approximate and the empirical formula 
representing the relation of data obtained 
experimentally, and without reference to 
the underlying law; yet it often happens 
that the first, and in fact only practicable, 
system is that of plotting curves on 
‘squared paper,’ ‘section paper,’ and ob- 
taining their equations as the algebraic 
representation of relations and sequence. 
This was done by Regnault in constructing 
his still standard and classic ‘steam-tables.’ 

The laboratory for research, devoted 
especially to that work, equipped with 
every known device for weighing, for 
measuring, and for recording data, fur- 
nished with a staff of trained and scientifi- 
cally learned men, directed by one supreme 
directing mind, is the latest and greatest 
of mechanisms for working those inex- 
haustible mines in all departments of sci- 
ence. But the laboratory for research, how- 
ever well equipped and manned, must 
usually have its special field, and many 
laboratories must be employed in the 
development of the innumerable lines of 
scientifie research already opened and par- 
tially explored. Any one organization must 
invariably find itself drawn by a sort of 
erativation into some special field, and 
specialization is as natural, and as neces- 
sary, in fact, in research as in any other 
business. The laboratory of one great in- 
vestigator becomes absorbed in the study 
of the coal-tar, products; that of another in 
the investigation of the conductibility and 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902.] 


non-conduetibility of various substances 
and in their employment in the transmis- 
sion-systems of electric light and power 
‘plants’; still another is given up largely 
to the examination of the properties of the 
materials of construction and to tests of 
columns and beams of steel and iron. 
There must thus be many laboratories, and 
no one institution, however well endowed, 
ean hope to cover the whole realm of 
selence. 

So it happens that there is room and 
opportunity for all, and the laboratories 
directed by a single administration, as of 
the Royal Institution of Great Britain, may 
direct their energies under the eye of a 
Dewar toward the discovery of the proper- 
ties of the gases near the absolute zero and 
to the determination of the temperature 
of the interstellar spaces; while another, a 
more widely extended, field may be cov- 
ered, as by the Smithsonian Institution, 
under a Langley, supervising and aiding 
effectively the extension of human knowl- 
edge in all departments of science by 
publication, by exchanging the papers of 
men of science and transactions of learned 
societies throughout the world, at the same 
time prosecuting research-work in impor- 
tant fields. Still another method may be 
illustrated by a Carnegie Institution, with 
its center of action fixed at the capital of 
the nation, reaching out into every corner 
of the land and promoting research in 
every laboratory in which a competent 
expert and a genius of sufficient caliber 
may appear. It provides this investigator 
with apparatus, lifts that famous inventor 
or discoverer out of the depths of routine 
and sets him free to carry on his glorious 
enterprise at his own sweet will, rising to 
the full height of his potentiality while 
discovering and utilizing already initiated 
researches of previously unknown and 
perhaps otherwise never-to-be-known men 
of genius. It provides apparatus and 


SCIENCE. 


415 


funds to enable such men to carry investi- 
gations to ultimate, fruitful and important 
ends. 

There is room and there is need for all 
these, and for every other device for the 
acquisition of knowledge that may be con- 
ceived by the mind of man. Nature is infi- 
nite in her variety and in character of 
manifestation, and the universes are bound- 
less In microcosm as in macrocosm. No 
laboratory, no investigator, nor any num- 
ber or combination of laboratories, in the 
hands of however many men of superlative 
genius for research, can ever exhaust either 
of these still unimagined fields or reach the 
end of discovery of new realms; nor, can 
any amount of capital appropriated to the 
promotion of research in pure and applied 
science ever bring about a state of affairs 
analogous to that of an industry outreach- 
ing the market by its overproduction. 
There will never be overproduction either 
of men of genius or of contributions to 
human knowledge, or to the comforts, the 
intelligence or the moral advance of a 
world like ours, capable of infinite progress. 

The laboratories of the colleges and the 
ereat universities, the world over, have 
been the most prolific sources of scientific 
discovery and revelation. Recently, how- 
ever, the industrial establishments of the 
great nations of Europe and of the United 
States have discovered that it is greatly to 
their advantage to prosecute such investi- 
gations for themselves in their own special 
fields of work. The German chemists and 
the electricians of the United States, and 
in this country also, the faculties of the 
engineering schools, perhaps more than any 
other, departments, have been thus engaged 
in the promotion of the industrial move- 
ments of their respective countries. 

Planning a curriculum for engineering 
schools in 1871, my conviction was so strong 
that the advancement of the applied sci- 
ences through systematic and carefully 


416 


planned research must soon come to be a 
recognized and a most important duty of 
such schools that I made the laboratory for 
research a leading feature of the scheme. 
Gradually its scope and its work have ex- 
tended until it has ultimately become one 
of the most fruitful of all the adjuncts of 
such institutions. To-day, in every engi- 
neering school of importance, it is con- 
sidered no less desirable and necessary to 
provide for systematic research than for 
laboratory instruction of students. Pro- 
gress in the industries is now very greatly 
promoted by the work of this department 
of the professional school. 


VII. 


Study of the data and results of the in- 
vestigation, thus collated and placed in a 
form suitable for convenient and accurate 
examination and comparison, once the 
work is complete so far as experiment is 
concerned, is the final step of the investiga- 
tion proper. If the object has been the 
identification of an important datum, as 
when our old friend, Rowland, measured 
the relation of mechanical and thermal 
energy, or as when my former pupil, 
Michelson, measured the velocity of light, 
the main work is that of correction of 
minor errors and of standardization of ap- 
paratus. When the purpose is the deter- 
mination of laws as well as facts, as when 
my former colleague, Langley, studied the 
resistances of the air as a problem in avia- 
tion, the numerical values must not only be 
checked and corrected, but the numerical 
relations of those facts and the law repre- 
sented must be formulated. The former 
task involves skill in mechanical construc- 
tion, the latter talent in the production of 
a scientific theory; both, when well per- 
formed, testify to genius in the investi- 
gator. 

Formulation, tabulation and systematic 
presentation for study thus may be so 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 402. 


performed as to make the work of sur- 
vey, of collaboration and of detection of re- 
lations of law and of quantivalence com- 
paratively easy. Lacking experience, or 
talent, or system, the imperfect tabulation 
of data, the inaccurate representation of 
relations or the unintelligent grouping and 
imperfect systematization of quantities by 
the investigator may conceal rather than 
reveal the solution of the problem in hand. 
The best and principal protection against 
such hindrance is correct and precise for- 
mulation of the problem at the start. 
Where a curve of results can be laid down, 
or where any graphic or glyptic presenta- 
tion can be made, it is usually easy to per- 
ceive hitherto concealed relations and to 
secure desired deductions and conclusions. 
The production of lines and surfaces thus 
exhibiting these smoothly continuous varia- 
tions of value also has an exceedingly im- 
portant use in the detection of individual 
errors and the establishing of correct fig- 
ures. 

Rumford, Davy, Mayer, Joule and Row- 
land, thus establishing the measure of the 
‘mechanical equivalent of heat,’ made reve- 
lation of a fundamental datum on which, 
coupled with the principle of the quantiv- 
alence of the energies, it became possible 
to build up a new science which should give 
prophecy both of paths of progress and of 
limits of improvement and of efficiency for 
the heat-engines which have proved of in- 
valuable service to the engineer and, 
through him, to the world. Carnot, seer 
and prophet, formulated in outline the new 
science. Rankine, studying the facts and 
data and fundamental principle thus re- 
vealed, from the standpoint of the engi- 
neer; Clausius, as a mathematical physicist 
making a similar study, the single fact and 
the single datum, combined with a single 
law, that of the equivalence of thermal and 
dynamic energy, enabled them, independ- 
ently, each to accurately construct the new 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


science and to furnish the engineer the 
guiding principles of construction and op- 
eration of all heat-engines. To-day the en- 
gineer is following Rankine in the study 
of all new lines of improvement of efficiency 
of the heat-motors, and the chemist and the 
physicist are similarly following the guid- 
ing hand of Clausius in tracing the course 
of modern science in thermodynamic, in 
electro-dynamic and in electro-chemical 
branches of energetics. Hach great pioneer 
revealed the processes of treatment of the 
subject best adapted to his own field of 
work, and each became a revealer and a 
prophet, pioneer in revelation and proph- 
ecy, in a new world.~ All contemporary 
and future workers will follow, confirm 
and utilize the scientific development of 
energetics as formulated by these great 
leaders at the middle of the nineteenth 
century. 

Sir Humphrey Davy, Michael Faraday 
and their contemporaries and later repé- 
titeurs, gave us that tremendous power in 
modern industrial development, electrol- 
ysis. They revealed the facts and the 
laws controlling the operation of electrical 
energy in its action upon chemical com- 
pounds and elements and electro-chemical 
science, now but a century old, is doing 
its marvelous work in a thousand ways. It 
enables new and cheap methods to be em- 
ployed in the reduction of the oldest of 
‘useful’ metals, copper, at times clogging 
the market by thousands of tons of surplus; 
it gives us new elements and new and use- 
ful metals, and thousands of tons of alu- 
minium are poured into the marts of trade 
and uneounted miles of conducting wire 
utilized in transportation of intelligence. 
The laws of this new science are now well- 
established and it needs no prophet to fore- 
see that it is to play a wonderful part in 
the industrial operations and the general 
progress of the twentieth century. 

Electricity, as hand-maiden with steam, 


SCIENCE. 


417 


through a chain of experimental researches 
by the later physicists and their utilization 
by contemporary engineers and electricians, 
has been made accessory to the primary 
source of energy in the distribution of that 
energy to distant points of application; 
while the efficiency with which this form 
of energy may be transformed and em- 
ployed as lght gives enormous gains in 
the economics of out-of-door and in-door 
lighting. The indications that may now be 
detected in many directions of still further 
progress through common methods of sci- 
entific development, encourage us to ex- 
pect, and soon, a multiplication of the 
amount of illumination which may be ob- 
tained by the unit of power thus trans- 
formed. 

Even beyond this promised perfection of 
energy-transformation may be dimly, per- 
haps, but very positively, seen the indica- 
tions of a probable entrance of the chemist 
into this field as rival of the physicist and 
of chemico-dynamic processes to be yet thus 
utilized. 

VIII. 


Facts and law, data and their relations, 
phenomena and the sciences, are always 
paired, and the study of the one element 
of the pair involves at least the recognition 
of the other. The natural and commonly 
inevitable order in research is the discovery 
of new facts, their correlation with those 
already known, the revelation of the re- 
lations of magnitude of their quantities, 
the anticipation, the prophecy, often, of 
the underlying and connecting law, the 
statement of that law qualitatively, the 
final identification of the numerical values 
of the terms in which the law is expressed, 
and the precise statement of principles in 
quantitative terms. 

This statement of law within its limited 
range becomes, in turn, a newly revealed 
fact of nature and of the science attacked 


418 


by the investigator, and it, in turn also, 
is next studied, in its relations to other 
similarly circumscribed laws, with a view 
to further combinations and extension; 
and thus gradually a science is built up. 
This process is well illustrated by the work 
of Rankine and of Clausius in the construc- 
tion of the modern science of thermody- 
namics. The earlier work of Carnot as 
well illustrates the different work, the 
radically different work, the radically dif- 
ferent methods, of the investigator conduct- 
ing a research in his study on the simple 
basis of an ascertained principle or a broad 
and probable assumption. The one inves- 
tigation results in the construction of a 
science upon two fundamental principles, 
revealed by a series of experimental studies 
extending from the time of Rumford to 
the time of Joule and the builders of the 
science; the other is a logical construction 
based upon an assumed, but later fully re- 
vised and substantially confirmed, prin- 
ciple; which being admitted, the series of 
deductions follow as directly, as definitely 
and as certainly, as the propositions of 
Euclid, once the axioms are recognized.* 
The spectroscope and the telescope co- 
operate in the revelation of facts and data 
of singular interest and importance in as- 
tronomy; permitting, often, the prediction 
of a future likely to embrace hundreds of 
thousands of years. They determine the 
number, the periods and the magnitudes of 
visible stars, and through the revelation of 
their movements lead to the detection, and 
even the weighing, of invisible companions. 
It is not inconceivable that predetermina- 
tion of the location, orbit and direction and 
velocity of the stars may ultimately lead to 
the prediction of events of enormous impor- 
tance. The occasional sudden appearance of 


* Compare Rankine’s ‘Manual of the Steam 
Engine’ with Clausius’s ‘ Mechanical Equivalent 
of Heat,’ and both with Carnot’s ‘ Reflections on 
the Motive Power of Heat.’ 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 402. 


new stars lends at least some confirmation 
to the idea of Haeckel that the renewal of 
kinetie stores of energy throughout the uni- 
verse, and throughout all time, may be a re- 
sult of collision of masses moving across the 
fields of travel of other heavenly bodies, 
causing by their inconceivable and immeas- 
urable impacts increase of temperature and 
such reconstruction of systems as at once 
accounts for the appearance of the newstars 
and the reconstitution of universes. The 
new star, in Perseus very possibly thus il- 
lustrates this renewal of long latent and 
potential energy and the possibly eternal 
life of the universe in its essentials as we 
now know it. 

When sufficient data have been revealed 
by these wonderful instruments, it may be 
found that some ‘runaway star’ is direct- 
ing its course toward our own solar system 
and threatening the extinction of existing 
life and the rebirth of a new system, with 
renewed evolutions from a new beginning. 
There is nothing inconceivable in the notion 
that at some future time, science may thus 
predict the impending catastrophe and the 
time when ‘the heavens shall melt with 
fervent heat,’ confirming an old, and giv- 
ing a new and more exact, revelation. 
When the exact direction, distance, course 
and velocity of ‘1830 Goombridge’ shall 
have been thus ascertained, it may possibly 
give us intelligence of a coming catastrophe 
among distant worlds more astounding and 
awe-inspiring than was ever before con- 
ceived by the mind of man, thus predicted 
by contemporary science and perhaps actu- 
ally illustrated by many an earlier world- 
collision, as by that impact, beyond meas- 
ure of our understanding, which has but 
just now produced Nova Perseus and its 
fast-forming new nebula. Such a world- 
history would exhibit a eycle in which but 
one instant is catastrophic and of which the 
complete tracing measures an eternity. A 
series of such eternities, of infinite num- 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


ber, would be implied as the chronology 
of one universe, in which chronology, to 
its historian, a day is as a thousand years 
and a thousand years is but a day. The 
course of the ‘flying star,’ 61 Cyegni, or the 
inconceivably rapid flight of the runaway 
star, measuring off two hundred miles each 
second, as it speeds across our universe and 
perhaps toward another in the unknown 
depths of space, when thus viewed, becomes 
only an incident in the infinitely great. The 
life and movements of the gnat or of the 
minutest bacillus affords hardly less attract- 
ive and impressing studies of the micro- 
cosm. 

The known and weighed and measured, 
but never yet seen, companion of Procyon 
may yet be found, as has been already the 
similar companion of Sirius, and, found, 
may illustrate a phase in the life-history 
of the worlds as instructive, as impressive, 
as suggestive, as either of these other phe- 
nomena of the heavens; but all, near or 
far, microcosmic or macrocosmic, simple or 
mysterious and complex, all are but parts 
of one infinite whole, and there exists, 
though perhaps never to be fully revealed, 
a larger science which includes and governs 
all facts and all natural laws and within 
which every fact and every law has rela- 
tions exact, defined and permanent. It 
is for the scientific investigator to reap, 
in this unbounded harvest field, just as ex- 
tensively as his own finite powers give him 
means and opportunity, leaving to later 
generations of followers a clean and well- 
gleaned field as far as he may be permitted 
to go. 


Ix. 


The building of a science is admirably il- 
lustrated by the work of Rankine and of 
Clausius, supplemented in details by Kel- 
vin, Zeuner, Rontgen, Hirm and the later 
investigators and students of the outlined 
science. 


SCIENCE. 


419 


Rumford and Davy, Meyer,.and Joule, 
supplied the numerical value of the factor 
relating the recognized thermal and dynam- 
ic energies, and the identity of these en- 
ergies in their essential nature, suspected 
by the ancients, had been sufficiently proved 
by the first named. Rankine made his 
foundation the two principles: 

1. Heat and mechanical energy are inter- 
convertible and with a definite quantiv- 
alence. 

2. Any single effect of the action of 
thermal energy is proportioned definitely 
to the quantity of such energy present and 
acting in the production of the phenome- 
non. 

Clausius made his fundamental proposi- 
tions: 

1. The thermal and dynamic energies 
have a definite and measured quantivalence. 

2. It is impossible for a self-acting ma- 
chine to derive mechanical energy by trans- 
fer of heat from a body of lower tempera- 
ture to one of a higher temperature. 

The latter principle is variously stated 
by these authors and still differently by 
others; but the deductions are the same 
whatever the verbiage. The one principle 
states the quantivalence of the energies; 
the other gives a means of determining 
what amount of energy, under specified 
conditions, shall be transformed, at the 
quantivalence stated, from one to another 
class. The first permits the immediate con- 
struction of the algebraic expression of the 
law: 

Such mechanical energy as is transformed 
im any case has the measure: heat-energy 
in thermal units multiplied by Joule’s 
equivalent. This is universally recognized 
as ‘the first law of thermodynamics.’ 

The second statement leads, directly or 
indirectly, to the expression of the algebraic 
relations of work transformed out of heat, 
or the reverse, to total energy expended in 
the process studied; the work obtained by 


420 


transformation of thermal ito dynamic 
energy in any defined case is measured by 
the product of the rate of variation of work 
with temperature into the measure of the 
absolute temperature at which the observa- 
tion or the computation is assumed to be 
made. If the work-effeet is exhibited in 
change of temperature, in change of volume 
at constant temperature, or by any single 
phenomenon in energetics, the formula 
will have the same form. 

It is now easily practicable to obtain the 
fundamental equation of the science of 
thermodynamics. 

Thus, on two simple propositions, based 
upon scientific deductions from observa- 
tions of natural phenomena, and with the 
facts obtained by scientific research regard- 
ing specific heats, volumes, pressures and 
tensions, the whole great and wonderfully 
important and productive science of ther- 
modynamies was by these two men of geni- 
us, independently and with entire original- 
ity, constructed, and their results were pub- 
lished practically and simultaneously. Had 
it been possible to measure the internal 
forces of the non-gaseous substances, this 
important science might have been con- 
structed upon the basis of the first law 
alone. It is not at all certain that it may 
not yet prove practicable to eliminate the 
second law as an essential primary proposi- 
tion; means being discovered of reducing 
the perfect gas and the vapor, the liquid 
and the solid, to a common form of ana- 
lytical expression involving the four fun- 
damental factors. The one now impassable 
obstruction to this simplification of the sei- 
ence is our inability to measure internal 
forees and to discover their law of varia- 
tion. 

Since Thomson has discovered evidence 
of the possibility of the divisibility of the 
cnee supposedly indivisible atom, and since 
the employment of the electric forces in 
the analysis and synthesis of substance in 


SCIENCE. 


{[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 402. 


every form, even the production of a new 
science, remains apparently among the op- 
portunities and in the future, perhaps, 
many new sciences. The reduction to meas- 
ure and to law of Thomson’s ‘corpuscles’ 
may prove to be the first step toward the 
solution of many remaining problems other- 
wise beyond our, powers of analysis. This 
new fact, if it so prove, may reveal to us the 
real nature of the luminiferous ether, al- 
ready studied by Herschel, by Wood and 
others. 

The extraordinarily interesting and won- 
derfully ingenious investigation of the 
thermodynamies of the luminiferous ether, 
made by De Volson Wood, in 1885 or ear- 
ler, which study, however, seems to have 
attracted little attention as yet, admirably 
illustrates the fact that, given a certain 
definitely known system of facts and prin- 
ciples, a single thought of the man of 
genius may open a new and wonderful 
vista to the mind of man.* 

The essential properties of every ‘per- 
fect gas’ had long been known. It was 
known that two essential physical charac- 
teristics of the ether had been determined 
quantitatively—the velocity with which en- 
ergy was transmitted by its vibrations and 
the quantity of energy transmitted by it 
from the sun to the earth per unit of its 
section. It transmits energy at the rate of 
186,300 miles, 982,000,000 feet per second 
(299,838 kilometers per second), and de- 
livers heat energy from the sun at the rate 
of about 2.8 calories per square centimeter 
of the section of the beam, 133 foot-pounds 
per square foot, per second. 

Taking the evidence as wholly in favor 
of the conclusion that the luminiferous 
ether is a perfect gas, if a perfect gas in 
the thermodynamic sense exists at all, Wood 

*<«The Luminiferous Ether, by De Volson Wood, 
Philosophical Magazine, November, 1885; Van 
Nostrand’s Magazine, January, 1886; Wood’s 
‘Thermodynamics,’ Appendix I. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


shows that what he denominates the 
‘modulus of the gas,’ the product of two 
measurable factors for all gases, is a con- 
stant, Wood finds no difficulty in deter- 
mining the physical characteristics defining 
such an ether with at least approximate 
accuracy. He finds them, as would natu- 
rally be expected, most extraordinary, as 
must needs be in a gas transmitting vibra- 
tions at the rate of nearly two hundred 
thousand miles a second. His conclusions 
are thus expressed : 

A medium which has density such that a 
volume of it is equal to about twenty vol- 
umes of the earth would weigh one pound; 
whose tension is about 1.1 pound on the 
square mile; whose specific heat is 46>< 101, 
water being unity—would ‘satisfy the re- 
quirements of nature, im respect to trans- 
mission of heat-energy and light. This 
conclusion from facts of observation and a 
probable theory differs from Herschel’s re- 
sult in giving a high value of specific heat, 
rather than of tension; substituting a more 
probable for an entirely improbable con- 
clusion. This extraordinary but always es- 
sential element of the universe, it is found, 
must have a practically uniform tension 
and density throughout space, changing Lit- 
tle between the surface of a star and the 
depths of infinity. It at once follows, we 
further conelude from Wood’s data, that 
if the ether be of limited quantity, at a 
finite distance from the center of attraction 
of the universe it must have a definite limit, 
as of a fog-bank, out of which no ray of 
light and no stream of heat-energy can 
pass to other worlds. From Wood’s strik- 
ing yet simple analysis we may derive thus 
the conclusion that, should it prove correct, 
there may exist other universes than ours, 
from which no heat or light or other ethe- 
real messenger may come to us, but yet that 
it is possible that, some day, two universes 
may come together, to unite as one or, in 
inconceivable violence of world-collision, to 


SCIENCE. 


421 


disperse into a single nebula, subsequently 
to condense again into a single universe. A 
runaway star from outer space may un- 
expectedly appear to cause similar results. 

At the height of 127 miles, the atmos- 
phere would have the density of such an 
ether, and this constitutes a measure of the 
altitude of the atmosphere in close accord- 
ance with a variety of other determinations 
on other and different bases. Everywhere 
the ether is practically diathermous, non- 
resisting, and constant in all physical prop- 
erties. 

An assumption made by Wood was that 
of the temperature of space, taken by him 
at 20° F. (11.1° C.) above absolute zero, 
not far from the temperature of solidifica- 
tion of hydrogen. But no important 
change that could be accepted as consist- 
ent with our knowledge of the temperature 
of the interstellar space would greatly 
alter the conclusions reached; nor, in fact, 
would any probable admissable assump- 
tion of an independent measure of the 
‘modulus’ of this wonderful gas. It is, 
however, probable that this intensely se- 
ductive case is not yet closed. 


X. 


The opportunities of the investigator and 
of the collaborator are beyond our recog- 
nition, and probably, in our present state 
of incomplete evolution, even our concep- 
tion. They may certainly be expected to 
furnish problems, indefinitely, for research 
in all fields and for all the immediate fu- 
ture of science. The resolution of all the 
recognized sciences, and of possibly as yet 
unclassified or even unsuspected sciences, 
into one great system is a final problem to 
be approximated with the passage of the 
centuries. 

That such an unlimited range is per- 
mitted in the work of the man of science 
is easily seen. In the first place, man, from 
the beginnings of scientific study and in- 


422 


vestigation, has steadily advanced into the 
unknown; secondly, his progress has been 
an acceleration which has been increasing 
in its rate from the beginning; thirdly, all 
progress has been made by a continuity of 
path which indicates no limit to its reach; 
finally, we know that the various fields of 
scientific work are all exhibiting, as far, as 
we have gone, a perfect continuity. It 
would seem most probable, if not absolutely 
certain, that, once we have secured a foot- 
hold upon any new field, we may anticipate 
complete ultimate exploration. Once we 
have gained firm hold upon any one link in 
the logical chain of law controlling any 
class of phenomena, we may expect to be 
able, in due time, to pass, link by link, to 
either end, or, if endless, either through its 
eyclical configuration or indefinitely to- 
wards its infinity of development, and 
to gain as much of its length as finite time 
may permit. So much may we prophesy. 

It is also true that scientific investiga- 
tion and general observation show that the 
process of scientific deduction is always 
as simple and as direct as a child’s logic. 
It necessarily depends upon the following 
of a chain of reasoning, based upon inter- 
linked, ascertained, facts, every step from 
link to link of which is an axiomatic deduc- 
tion. This is true of all reasoning, and in 
no department of human knowledge or in- 
vestigation is this a more absolute and im- 
perative general condition of assurance of 
certainty of results than in each step in 
scientific research. 

When it was first observed that the glow- 
worms and the fire-flies produced a light 
within their own bodies, it became an 
axiomatic inference that it was a ‘cold 
light’ and that it could not be accompanied 
by any heat of higher temperature than 
that of the cold-blooded creature from 
which it emanated. When Langley proved 
by means of his bolometer that the light 
of the fire-fly, instead of producing a 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


candle-temperature of 2000° Fahr. (above 
1100° C.) was quite free from sensible 
heat, it became obvious that this must be 
the ‘cheapest form of light’ and that, could 
we find a way of imitating nature in this 
direction, instead of wasting 99 per cent. 
or more of our expended energy, as in the 
ordinary gas-flame, we might secure nearly 
a hundred times as much light from the 
same cost in energy supplied, and thus 
practically without waste.* As stated by 
Langley and Very, this light ‘is a result of 
cettain chemical combinations and nothing 
forbids us to suppose that it may some 
day be produced by the processes of the 
laboratory.’ Perhaps we may go further 
and say that, as a product of a chemical 
process, it may prove to be possible to 
reproduce it by the direct application of 
the elementary energies which there oper- 
ate. This is one of the great problems still 
challenging the chemist, the electrician and 
the engineer. It will be solved when we 
learn to produce any part of the spectrum, 
heat and light in any proportion, from 
zero to unity, at will. 

Nature’s ‘cheapest light,’ according to 
Langley and Very, involves heat-production 
about one four-hundredth that of the can- 
dle-flame and has an insignificant cost, 
so measured, as compared with the most 
economical light yet employed for indus- 
trial purposes by man. Nature produces 
light and almost no heat; man produces 
light with a hundred times as much energy 
wasted in form of accompanying heat, even 
with his best lights. Nature, through an 
evolution extending over countless cen- 
turies, millenniums, probably, has brought 
about the perfection of energy-utilization. 
Man, guided by nature, should be able, in 


*§. P. Langley and F. W. Very, ‘ Cheapest 
Form of Light,’ Smithsonian Coll., XLI., 1901. S. 
P. Langley, Scrmncr, June 1, 1883; Proce. National 
Academy. President’s Inaugural, Am. Soc. Mech. 
Engrs., 1880, R. H. Thurston. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902.] 


a comparatively brief period, to reach the 
same end. Nature causes to conspire all 
the energies and all the forces with all the 
materials of creation in the production of 
her purposes with most perfect efficiency. 
Man should be able, studying her ways, to 
do the same. Nature makes all the uni- 
verses obey her single law.. Man should 
be able to not only detect, define and re- 
duce to rule and measure that universal 
law, but he should be able to compel the 
universal law to his service and to produce 
as complete and consistent a world of his 
own—so far as it goes, at least—as is ex- 
emplified-in the natural world about him. 
Directing every energy precisely to the ac- 
complishment of its prescribed purpose, ap- 
plying every substance in its right place 
and in the right manner in his construc- 
tions, and bending every law to his aid in 
the building of a world, he may profit in 
maximum degree by every force, energy 
and substance, by all material and all 
spiritual laws and phenomena, by all op- 
portunities of advancing himself to loftier 
and loftier planes, perfecting himself and 
perfecting life by continuous gain. 

The solidification of hydrogen by Pro- 
fessor Dewar, April 6, 1900, before the 
Royal Institution, brought us, at the begin- 
ning of the twentieth century, to the con- 
clusion of a series of brilliant researches 
which had for their outcome evidence that 
all known forms of elementary matter are 
capable of assuming either of the three 
principal states, gaseous, liquid or solid, 
to this degree reducing all matter to com- 
mon rules and an all-comprehending law. 
It now only remains to ascertain whether, 
as De Volson Wood assumed, the lumin- 
iferous ether, perhaps ‘corpuscular,’ may 
be classed with the more ponderable forms 
of matter. This seems possible, even prob- 
able. This series of investigations of the 
effect of low temperature upon the elements 
completes that line of study, and it will 


SCIENCE. 


423 


presumably, ere long, be seen that this, like 
every other great victory over nature in 
the domain of pure science, will have its 
ultimate and practical value as well in the 
opening of the way to other, and perhaps 
no less splendid, researches, as in the in- 
troduction of new methods of application 
of the forces of nature to the use of man. 

The recent and richly fruitful discovery 
of the so-called ‘radio-activity’ of certain 
forms of matter brings forward new facts 
of quite another class and provokes the in- 
vestigator into new fields of research. This 
mobility of energy, or matter, whichever 
it may prove, taken together with the 
Roberts-Austen proof of the mobility of 
solids and their interflow, even the densest 
of them all, opens the way to the applica- 
tion of a new form of theory of glacier- 
like flow in the field of metallurgy, and pos- 
sibly with even more widely reaching em- 
ployment. Perhaps it may align itself 
with the current theory of electric ioniza- 
tion. 

A wonderfully simple experiment will 
sometimes result in a no less wonderfully 
important deduction. When Roberts-Aus- 
ten placed lead and gold in contact, fitting 
their adjacent surfaces nicely to insure per- 
fect contact, and later found that mole- 
cules of gold had started off on a journey, 
independently, into the lead, some of them 
reaching a distance from their original 
positions of two inches in as many years, 
that simple test was sufficient to prove the 
propositions that alloys may be formed 
without heat or fusion, that glacial flow is 
not characteristic of the glacier alone, that 
osmose in solids may occur as in liquids 
and in gases, only requiring a longer time 
for its accomplishment, and that new in- 
dustries may perhaps be organized on this 
simple basis of fact. The conclusion, enor- 
mous in its scientific importance, unimag- 
inable in its extent of deduction, may be 
drawn from this one experiment, accord- 


424 


ing to Riicker, that all matter is atomic in 
plan, that it ‘consists of discrete parts 
capable of independent motions,’ * that the 
atomic theory has a basis of fact. This 
conclusion is regarded as positive and nec- 
whatever the characteristics of 
those parts may prove to be. Such simple 
facts probably led Lord Kelvin to con- 
elude, as he wrote to Professor Holman, 
“‘we may expect the time to come when we 
may understand the nature of the atom. 
With great regret I abandon the idea that 
a mere configuration of motion suffices.’’ + 

Wiedemann’s deduction from his study 
of the light from sodium vapor and incan- 
descent platinum, that the energy needed 
for producing ‘pendulous movement’ of 
atoms or molecules giving light-effects must 
be very insignificant in comparison with 
the total energy employed, may throw some 
light both on this question and on that re- 
lating to the ‘cheapest form of light.’ 

It is by this scientific method of gradual 
revelation of the secrets of nature and this 
foresight of the coming knowledge, this 
discovery of methods and this apprehension 
of the continuity of law, that the chemist 
has come to such perfection in the analysis 
of all known substances and in the syn- 
thesis of many valuable and useful com- 
pounds; as in his production of all the coal- 
tar products, in the reinforcement of nature 
in the production of artificial madder and 
increasingly numerous lists of other ma- 
terials of commerce. It is through this 
art of revelation and of prophecy that the 
physicist has shown the way to the engi- 
neer in the utilization of electrical energy 
and the distribution of hght, power and in- 
telligence, and has given the astronomer the 
means of analysis of’ the most distant 
stars and measurement of their rate of ap- 
proach or recession. Thus the geologist 


essary, 


* President’s address before the British Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science, 1901. 
; Science, June 22, 1900, p. 988, E. H. Hall. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


learns the history of the earth, the lesson 
of its construction and the tale of a com- 
ing time of progressive decline in all its 
forms of life, and even roughly computes 
the past and the future period of its life, 
from superheated to a cold and dead estate. 
The building of a science gives progress to 
civilization, reinforces real learning and 
advances the individual man to higher life.* 
R. H. THurston. 
CorNELL UNIVERSITY. 


(To be continued.) 


ON SOME RECENT ADVANCES IN THE FIRE- 
PROOFING TREATMENT OF WOOD.f 

THE saturation of wood with chemical 
solutions has mainly two objects in view, 
either to prolong the life of the wood by 
rendering it as resistant as possible to de- 
eay, or to make it resistant to the attack of 
fire and to cause it when exposed to flame 
to carbonize as slowly as possible without, 
of or from itself, contributing to the in- 
erease of the flame. We will take up the 
second of these two lines of treatment for, 
present discussion. 

The treatment of wood with a view of 
making it fire-resistant is not a matter of 


*The use of the ‘curve of progress’ some- 
times finds curious and unexpected application. 
The study of the curve of progress of the speed 
of the horse was years ago attempted by this 
method, and it was found by the author of this 
address that the ‘two-minute horse’ might be 
expected at about the commencement of the 
twentieth century. Several periods of smooth 
progress, broken, ‘ catastrophically,’ by improve- 
ments or by inventions, were observed, as when the 
four-wheeled ‘wagon’ was superseded by the 
‘sulky’ and when the pneumatic tire was intro- 
duced. In each curve the trend has, at the break, 
become approximately asymptotic. The horse had 
nearly reached his limit and the reduction of load 
was the only recourse, in further promotion of 
progress.—Sci. American Supplement, December 1, 
1894. 

+ Read before Section C of the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, Pitts- 
burgh meeting, June, 1902. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


recent years. The Bavarian chemist Fuchs 
in 1820 applied the newly discovered sili- 
cate of soda to the fireproofing of wood and 
employed it in the rebuilding of the Munich 
theater for the treatment of both the wood 
work and the hangings of the theater. Gay 
Lussae in 1821 suggested the salts of ammo- 
nia and borax. Tungstate of soda also 
figured at an early day in the list. of fire- 
proofing salts as well as the salts of zine 
and the chlorides of the alkalies and eal- 
cium and magnesium. Antedating all of 
these, however, going back indeed to the 
records of ancient Greece and Rome, was 
alum, which has always been a favorite fire- 
proofing material, used both alone and in 
admixture with other compounds. 

All of these materials can under cireum- 
stances exert a notable fire-retarding effect 
and have served as the basis of a variety of 
patented processes for the treatment of 
wood. 

But we must not lose sight of the fact 
that the problem of satisfactorily impreg- 
nating wood for fireproofing purposes is a 
mechanical as well as chemical one and it 
will be best to look at the mechanical side 
of it for a few moments. The typical ap- 
paratus until recently employed every- 
where wherewith to saturate lumber with 
fireproofing solutions was a large cylinder, 
running from 60 in. diameter and 70 to 80 
ft. long to 84 in. diameter and 105 ft. long; 
closed at one end, with a movable head at 
the other, swinging horizontally or lifting 
vertically to open or close. It was fastened 
when closed by a complicated system of 
radial bolts to the external end of the eyl- 
inder. The eylinder itself, composed of 
steel plates riveted together, was intended 
to be filled with truck loads of lumber and 
when the entrance door, was closed and lock- 
ed, the wood was subjected, after some pre- 
liminary treatment, to hydraulic pressure 
through the medium of the treating solu- 
tion, which envelopes the surface of each 


SCIENCE. 


425 


piece of lumber and which the pressure was 
intended to force into it at every point. 

With cylinders of such enormous diam- 
eters and riveted plates, the pressure that 
can be withstood is relatively light and as 
a consequence the time of saturation is 
necessarily long. 

The preliminary treatment before re- 
ferred to is usually a steaming of the wood, 
followed by application of a vacuum for the 
purpose of facilitating the final step of im- 
pregnation. A pressure of 150 lbs. is quite 
as much as can be maintained as an aver- 
age in such a cylinder and to effect a com- 
plete saturation, even with soft woods one 
inch thick, requires in such a case from 36 
to 40 hours. A core saturation in heavier 
timbers such as 4 x 4 in. or 6 x 6 in. is rare- 
ly if ever obtained even in soft woods, and 
never in the hard woods. 

A radical improvement upon this meth- 
od of working was effected by Mr. Jos. L. 
Ferrell, of Philadelphia, in the invention 
of the apparatus now in use by the U. 8. 
Fireproof Wood Co. of Philadelphia, and 
which was deseribed and figured in the 
Scientific American of July 28, 1900. By 
the replacement of the hinged gate by a 
heavy gate, sliding between vertical guides 
against a phosphor-bronze bearing and 
placed in a massive gate housing near the 
end of the cylinder, which is of heavy east 
tubing, he was able to use pressures rang- 
ing from 400 to 1,500 pounds in extreme 
eases. By the intervention of a hydraulic 
accumulator he was able to perfectly cush- 
ion the shock of the high-pressure pumps 
so as to prevent all bruising of the wood 
when under strong pressure. No prelimin- 
ary steaming or vacuum is necessary, but 
after the receiver is full of liquid and the 
pressure is applied, the liquid penetrates 
and, in what seems an ineredibly short 
space of time, has followed the medullary 
rays from end to end of the lumber and ef- 
feeted what is bound to be a thorough core © 


426 


saturation. One hundred per cent. satura- 
tion (weighed wet) is readily effected in 
ten minutes and after the kiln drying the 
permanent gain in the weight of the wood 
will be found to be from 5 to 10 per cent., 
distributed throughout its whole cellular 
structure and not on the surface or in the 
exterior layers only. 

Hard woods.in large sizes up to 12 by 
12 in. have been so treated, and upon being 
sawed through have been found to have 
perfect heart saturation. 

With the mechanical side of the fire- 
proofing treatment thus perfected, let us 
turn again to the choice of a chemical which 
shall prove as fire-resistant as possible and 
impart this quality to the wood. Some of 
the qualities that such a chemical should 
possess may be briefly reviewed. 

1. It must not be of a hydroscopie na- 
ture, because in such case it would destroy 
paint and keep the surface of the wood in 
an undesirable moist condition. For this 
reason the chlorides of calcium, magnesium, 
and zine are excluded, although an attempt 
has been recently made in a German patent 
to produce for this purpose a basic chloride 
of calcium which it is claimed is free from 
this drawback and is recommended for fire- 
proofing of wood. 

2. It must not be a volatile substance, 
because in such ease it will gradually be 
liberated from the cells of the wood and 
show as an efflorescence, besides leaving the 
wood after a time weaker in its fire resist- 
ant character. The ammonia salts, notably 
the sulphate and chloride, will not stand 
this test at all satisfactorily. In the dry 
kiln, the liberation of ammoniacal gas be- 
gins already at 125° F’. and the efflorescence 
is frequently recognizable even when the 
surface has been varnished if the wood has 
been exposed to strong sunshine for any 
leneth of time. Of course such efflores- 
cence speedily ruins the appearance of a 
varnished wood. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


3. The chemical used must not allow of 
fungus growth, for in such case the wood 
will decay more rapidly than untreated 
wood. Here again the ammonia salts, in- 
eluding the phosphate as well as sulphate, 
are unsatisfactory, as when the conditions 
of warmth and moisture are favorable the 
treated wood develops a fungus rapidly and 
deteriorates in strength. 

4. If possible the chemical should have 
exactly the opposite character, viz., a dis- 
tinct preservative effect, so that the life of. 
the treated wood should exceed that of 
untreated wood. 

5. There should be no noxious gas liber- 
ated in the heating or carbonizing of the 
wood. 

6. The chemical used must not be poison- 
ous in character, so that splinters impreg- 
nated with it, if by accident run into the 
flesh or wounding it, shall not endanger life 
or health. 

7. It should not cause the corrosion or 
rusting of metal ,;which in the form of 
screws or bolts are passed through it. 

8. The cost must be moderate, as its 
practical utilization will be barred if the 
materials be such as to make the process 
an expensive one. 

After a most exhaustive series of experi- 
ments, extending over several years with a 
wide range of compounds, Mr. Ferrell, the 
inventor of the fireproofing method just 
referred to, has found in sulphate of alum- 
ima a compound that appears to answer all 
the requirements as stated. It has the ad- 
ditional feature of no slight importance in 
its bearing upon the fireproofing effect, that 
when strongly heated it leaves an infusible 
and non-conducting residue to cover and 
protect the cellular structure throughout 
the wood. It absolutely prevents the pro- 
pagation not only of flame throughout the 
wood-but even of a glow because of its non- 
conducting and unalterable character. 

Sulphate of alumina in concentrated 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902.] 


solution is far more efficient than an alum 
solution; in fact it would seem as if the 
alkaline sulphate of the alum simply de- 
tracted from the power of the aluminum 
sulphate in the matter of making wood fire- 
resistant. 

I have before referred to the way in 
which sulphate or phosphate of ammonia 
act to make wood fire-resistant, viz., by 
rapidly liberating ammonia gas, which has 
the effect of checking the flames on the sur- 
face of the wood. The fiercer the flame 
which plays against such wood the more 
rapid the liberation and exhaustion of 
the protecting vapor. There is no residual 
protective substance remaining in the wood 
and the carbonization of the fiber proceeds 
apace. 

On the other hand, so soon as the sulphate 
of alumina of the superficial layer of the 
wood impregnated with this chemical is 
decomposed by the heat of a flame, a depos- 
it of alumina is formed, the non-conducting 
properties of which make it a barrier 
against the propagation of the ecarbonizing 
effect and protect the interior in a very no- 
table degree. An actual experiment, one 
of a large number which I carried out joint- 
ly with the inventor, will illustrate this. 
If a piece of wood be saturated with a solu- 
tion of sulphate of alumina of 30° B. 
strength to a depth of not more than three 
eighth inch from the surface and the point 
of the inner blue cone of a strong Bunsen 
flame be made to impinge upon it and kept 
in such a position, a boring effect takes 
place while an abundant separation of 
alumina will be observed. The average re- 
sistance of a piece of one-inch white pine 
so treated to the complete boring result, 
with final penetration of the flame to the 
other side, will be over three hours. If a 
similar piece of one-inch white pine be 
‘heart-saturated’ with ten times the quan- 
tity of sulphate of ammonia and the same 
Bunsen flame be applied under exactly 


SCIENCE. 427 


similar conditions, the average resistance 
to complete penetration will not be over 
seventy minutes. These results have been 
obtained repeatedly and in instances the 
disproportion was much greater. 

Some very interesting observations have 
been made on the physical changes which 
the fireproofing material undergoes on the 
continued application of heat. As a result 
of repeated measurements, it is found that 
the residual alumina occupies a space from 
two and a half to three times as great as the 
dried salt from which it is formed. Hence 
in forming it apparently expands to fill out 
the air spaces and intercellular spaces of 
the wood very fully. This results in the 
formation of a very compact non-conduct- 
ing barrier which interposes itself to the 
action of the flame and protects the layers 
of woody tissue upon which it is formed. 
The protection is therefore a real and much 
more lasting one than that which could 
come from the liberation of a gas whose ac- 
tion, from the nature of things, could be 
evanescent only. 

In working on a large scale, where heavy 
timbers or boards in the rough are treated, 
the saturation with the sulphate of alum- 
ina solution is always carried out until 
complete ‘heart saturation’ is attained as 
the wood has to be sawed, planed, mortised 
and otherwise worked and cut into and all 
surfaces that will be exposed later must be 
fire-resistant to the fullest degree. 

As, irrespective of the large number of 
both soft and hard woods that, because of 
their practical value, had to be tested, the 
same kind of wood will differ greatly in its 
physical characters, according as it may 
be heart-wood or sap-wood, and according 
as it may be young wood or thoroughly ma- 
tured, a vast number of saturation tests 
have been made in establishing the effi- 
ciency of the different methods of working 
and the value of different solutions. No 
deduction has been thought to be of value 


428 


that was not based upon a large number of 
tests carried out under similar conditions so 
as to obtain an average that could be relied 
on. The immensity of the task may be un- 
derstood when it is stated that 88,000 sat- 
urations and fire tests with complete attend- 
ing records have been made of different 
thicknesses of 19 different varieties of wood 
and 46 chemical formule, requiring the con- 
stant application of the inventor and his 
assistants and running through a period of 
over SIX years. 

One remaining question and a very im- 
portant one is what effect has the fire- 
proofing treatment upon the structural 
streneth of the wood. When the older 
methods of saturation whereby the wood 
was steamed and then subjected to pressure 
for long periods was the only one available, 
it was recognized that a compression of the 
cellular structure of the exterior layers of 
the wood took place so that the wood was 
distinctly weakened and the results for 
tensile strength and bending and _ break- 
ing tests were accepted as necessarily lower 
than for the same wood untreated. With 
the superior method of impregnation now 
adopted, however, no such allowance is 
necessary and the treated wood is in no way 
inferior in streneth to the untreated. Pro- 
fessors Mason and Bliss, of the University 
of New York, have made a large number of 
physical tests upon the wood treated by the 
Ferrell process and have established this 
important fact very fully. The whole mat- 
ter however of the fire-resistant properties 
of wood treated by different processes to- 
gether with physical tests upon the same is 
now under investigation by a Commission 
appointed by the ‘Bureau of Building Con- 
struction of the City of New York’ and I 
have no doubt that its report when pub- 
lished will throw much additional light 
upon this most important subject. 


SAMUEL P. SADTLER. 
PHILADELPHIA, July, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 402. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD- 
VANCEMENT OF SOIBNCE. 


TWENTIETH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 
ON INDEXING CHEMICAL LITERATURE, 


Tue Committee on Indexing Chemical Lit- 
erature, appointed by your body in 1882, re- 
spectfully presents to the Chemical Section 
its Twentieth Annual Report, covering the ten 
months ending June 1, 1902. 


WORKS PUBLISHED. 


A Bibliography of the Analytical Chemistry 
of Manganese, 1785-1900. By Henry P. 
Tatpor and Joun W. Brown. City of 
Washington, published by the Smithsonian 
Institution. 1902. 8vo. Pp. viii 124. 
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 
XLI. (Number 1313.) 


Index to the Literature of the Spectroscope 
(1887-1900, both dates inclusive) [continua- 
tion of the previous index by the same au- 
thor published in 1888]. By Atrrep TucKk- 
ERMAN. Washington City, published by the 
Smithsonian Institution. 1902. Svo. Pp. 

ili ++ 373. 

Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 

XLI. (Number 1312.) 


Chemical Societies of the Nineteenth Century. 
By Henry Carrincron Bouttron. City of 
Washington, published by the Smithsonian 
Institution. 1902. 8vo. Pp. 15. 
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 
XLI. (Number 1314.) 

This contains a list of the serials published 
by the societies, fifty-six in number, statistics 
of membership for 1900, ete. 


On a System of Indexing Chemical Literature, 
adopted by the Classification Division of the 
U. S. Patent Office, by Epwin A. Hinu. J. 
Am. Chem. Soc., XXII, No. 8; also Chem. 
News, Vol. 84, 202 et seq.  Oct.—Nov., 1901. 


A Bibliography of Photography. By Miss 
ApELAIDE M. CHAse, was begun in the 
February number of the Photo Era, pub- 
lished at Boston. It is confined to literature 
in English and does not include articles in 
photographic and chemical journals. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


NOTES OF FOREIGN BIBLIOGRAPHIES. 
Russkaya chast Khimicheskoy Bibliographiw. 

A. K. Krupsxy. St. Petersburg. 1900. 

4to. Pp. 62. 

This is a reprint by the Imperial Academy 
of Sciences, St. Petersburg, of the Russian 
titles in Bolton’s Select Bibliography of Chem- 
istry. (Vols. 1-3.) 

Index to the Literature of Colloids. W. R. 

Wuirney and J. E. Oper. J. Am. Chem. 

Soc., Vol. XXIII, p. 842. (Nov. 1901.) 


Sammelkatalog der in Hamburger offentlichen 
Bibliotheken vorhandenen Litteratur aus 
der Chemie und aus verwandten Wissen- 
schaften. Guinzer, LancrurTH und Vorat- 
LANDER. Hamburg. 1901. 8vo. Pp. 108. 

Répertoire général ow Dictionnaire méthodique 
de bibliographie des industries tinctoriales 
et des industries annexes JULES GaARCON. 
Paris. 1900-1901. 3 vols., roy. Svo. Pp. 
1978 in the 3 volumes. 

This completes the work noticed in the 

Highteenth Annual Report. 


WORKS IN PROGRESS. 

The MS. of an ‘ Index to the Literature of 
Thorium,’ by Cavalier H. Jotiet, Ph.D., of 
Columbia University, New York, has been ex- 
amined by each member of your committee, 
and recommended for publication to the Smith- 
sonian Institution. It is now being prepared 
for printing. 

Mr. Benton Dales, of Cornell University, 
has in preparation ‘An Index to the Litera- 
ture of the Yttrium Group of the Rare Earths.’ 

Reports of progress have been received from 
Messrs. Frank R. Fraprie and H. Carrington 
Bolton. 

It is the sad duty of the committee to record 
the death of one of its original members, Pro- 
fessor Albert R. Leeds, Ph.D., long professor 
of chemistry in the Stevens Institute. of 
Technology, Hoboken, N.J. His contributions 
to chemical bibliography include ‘ Indexes to 
the Literature of Ozone,’ and of ‘ Peroxid of 
Hydrogen.’ 

It is gratifying to note the increasing and 
continued interest in bibliography on all sides, 
and the committee stands ready to encourage 
the movement in chemistry by practical assist- 


SCIENCE. 


429 


ance to those desirous of contributing to the 
now considerable list of indexes. Address 
correspondence to the Chairman, at the Cosmos 
Club, Washington, D. C. 

H. Carrincron Bourton (in Europe), 

F. W. Ciarke, 

A. B. Prescort, 

ALFRED TUCKERMAN, 

H. W. Witey, 


Committee. 


APPENDIX.—BIBLIOGRAPHIES NAMED IN REPORTS 
I.-xx., 1883-1902. 

The following list includes only those bib- 
liographies that have been published under the 
auspices of the committee, or independently, as 
monographs and separates. 

Copies may be obtained, so far as available, 
on application to the Society or Institution 
issuing them, or in some cases by addressing 
the authors. 


Aceto-Acetic Hster, Bibliography of. By Pau 
H. Seymour. Smithsonian Miscellaneous 
Collection, No. 970. Washington. 1894. 
8yvo. 


Carbides, Review and Bibliography of the 
Metallic. By J. A. MatHews. Smithsonian 
Miscellaneous Collections, No. 1090. City 
of Washington. 1898. 8vo. Pp. 32. 


Cerium and Lanthanum, Indexes to the Litera- 
ture of. By W. H. Macrr. Smithsonian 
Miscellaneous Collections, No. 971. Wash- 
ington. 1895. S8vo. Pp. 43. 


Chemistry, A Select Bibliography of; 1492- 
1892. By Henry Carrineron Bourton. 
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, No. 
850. Washington. 1893. 8vo. Pp. 1212. 
‘First Supplement,’ S. M. C., No. 1170, 1899. 
Section VIII., ‘Academic Dissertations,’ S. 
M. C., No. 1253. 1901. 


Columbium, Index to the Literature of ; 1801- 
1887. By Frank W. TrapHacen. Smith- 
sonian Miscellaneous Collections, No. 663. 
Washington. 1888. 8vo. Pp. iv+ 97. 


Didymium, Index to the Literature of ; 1842- 
18938. By A. C. Lanemuir. Smithsonian 
Miscellaneous Collections, No. 972. Wash- 


ington. 1895. 8vo. Pp. 20. 


430 
Explosives, Index to the Literature of. Part 
I. By Cuartes E. Muyror. Baltimore. 


1886. S8vo. Pp. 42. Part IL, Baltimore. 
1893. Svo. Pp. 438-195. 

Electrolysis, Index to the Literature of ; 1784- 
1880. By W. Watrer Wess. Annals of 
New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. IL., 
No. 10, 1882. 8vo. Pp. 44. 

N. B. This has been translated into French 

by Donato Tommasi, Paris, 1889. 

Heat, Dictionary of the Action of Heat upon 
certain Metallic Salts, including an Index 
to the Principal Literature upon the Subject. 
Compiled and arranged by J. W. Bairp; con- 
tributed by A. B. Prescorr, New York. 
1884. 8vo. Pp. 70. 

Light, Chemical Influence of, A Bibliography 
of. ALFreD TUCKERMAN. Smithsonian 
Miscellaneous Collections, No. 785. Wash- 
ington. 1891. 8vo. Pp. 22. 


Manganese, Index to the Literature of; 1596- 
1874. By H. Carrincron Botton. Annals 
of the Lyceum of Natural History, New 
York, Vol. XI., November, 1875. 8vo. Pp. 
44. 

Manganese, Analytical Chemistry of, A Bib- 
liography of the. By Henry P. Tatpot and 
Joun W. Brown. Smithsonian Miscellane- 
ous Collections, No. 1313. City of Wash- 
ington. 1902. 8vo. 


Morphine, Chemical Bibliography of; 1875- 


1897. By H. Brown. Pharmaceutical 
Archives. Vol. I., No. 3. No date, no 
place. 8vo. Pp. 60. 


Ozone, Index to the Literature of; 1785-1879. 
By Apert R. Leeps. Annals of the New 
York Academy of Sciences, Vol. I., No. 12, 
1880. S8vo. Pp. 32. 


Ozone, Index to the Literature of ; 1879-1883. 
Accompanied by a Historical, Critical 
Résumé of the Progress of Discovery since 
1879. By Atpert R. Leeps. Annals N.Y. 
Academy of Sciences, Vol. IIL, p. 187. 1884. 
8vo. Pp. 16. 

Peroxid of Hydrogen, Index to the Literature 
of; 1818-1878. By Atperr R. Lerps. An- 
nals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 
Vol. I., No. 18, 1880. 8vo. Pp. 11. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


Peroxid of Hydrogen, Index to the Literature 
of; 1879-1883. By Apert R. Lreeps. -An- 
nals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 
Vol. III., p. 158, 1884. 8vo. Pp. 3. 


Platinum Group, A Bibliography of the Metals 
of the. Platinum, Palladium, Iridium, 
Rhodium, Osmium, Ruthenium, 1748-1896. 
By James Lewis Howr. Smithsonian Mis- 
cellaneous Collections, No. 1084. City of 
Washington. 1897. 8vo. Pp. 318. 


Spectroscope, Index to the Literature of. By 
ALFRED TucKERMAN. Smithsonian Miscel- 
laneous Collections, No. 658. Washington. 
1888. 8vo. Pp. x + 423. 

The same, 1887-1900, both dates inclusive. 
S. M. C., No. 1312. Washington City. 1902. 
8vo. Pp. iii + 3738. 


Starch-sugar Bibliography of. By Epw. J. 
Hatitocx. Appendix E to Report on Glu- 
cose prepared by the National Academy of 
Seiences, in response to a request made by 
the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. U. 
S. Internal Revenue, Washington, D. C. 


1884. 8vo. Pp. 44. 

Tannins, Index to the Literature of. By 
Henry Triste. The Tannins.  Philadel- 
phia, 1892. Vol. I., Appendix. Vol. IL, 
Philadelphia, 1894. 

Thallium, Index to the Literature of. By 


Marrua Doan. Smithsonian Miscellaneous 
Collections, Vol. XLI., No. 1171. Washing- 
ton. 1899. Pp. 26. 


Thermodynamics, Index to the Literature of. 
By Aurrep TucKERMAN. Smithsonian Mis- 
cellaneous Collections, No. 741. Washing- 


ton. 1890. S8vo. Pp. vi-+ 329. 
Thorium, Index to the Literature of. By 
Cavauirr H. Jotrr. Smithsonian Mis- 
cellaneous Collection, No. —. [In press.] 


Titanium, Index to the Literature of; 1783- 
1876. By Evw. J. Hatiocrn, Annals of the 
New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. I., Nos. 
2 and 3, 1877. Pp. 22! 

Uranium, an Index to the Literature of ; 1789- 
1885. By H. Carrineron Botton. Smith- 
sonian Report of 1885. Washington. 1885. 
8vo. Pp. 36. 


Syo. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902.] 


Vanadium, Index to the Literature of. By G. 
Jewrerr Rocxwetu. Annals of the New 
York Academy of Sciences, Vol. I., No. 5, 


1877. Svo. Pp. 32. 


Zirconium, Index to the Literature of. By A. 
©. Lanemuir and CuHarnes BaskmRVILLE. 
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, No. 
11738. City of Washington. 1899. 8vo. 
Pp. 29. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 
JAHRBUCH DER CHEMIE FOR 1900. 


Tue latest volume of this familiar work, 
edited by Richard Meyer, with the cooperation 
of other well-known chemists, contains an ac- 
count of the progress of pure and applied 
chemistry for the year 1900. Here are repre- 
sented some fifteen hundred investigators, of 
whom, as nearly as can be determined, about 
fifty-five per cent. are German, over eleven per 
cent. French, ten per cent. American, and 
nine per cent. English. From this it appears 
that America is next to France and Germany 
in the number of chemical investigators, and 
the great prestige of Germany stands out very 
strikingly. 

The subject matter of the book is divided 
into fourteen sections. In a division so nearly 
complete geological and mineralogical chemis- 
try should find a place. The sense of propor- 
tion is, on the whole, well kept. The amount 
of work done in the organic field still greatly 
preponderates all others, a fact which may be 
judged sufficient reason for devoting 104 pages 
to this section, as against 66 to inorganic, and 
50 to physical chemistry, but it may perhaps 
be questioned whether the coal-tar and color 
industry deserves, in a work of this kind, a 
greater space than any other branch of the 
science. 

The preface to the first volume of the Jahr- 
buch (1891) distinctly sets forth that the ob- 
ject of the book is to present a connected ac- 
eount of the work in each field, disclaiming 
any effort to be exhaustive. It is for the read- 
er, not for the reference hunter. From this 
view-point, the work meets a well-recognized 
need. To judge how well the editors have suc- 
ceeded in their task would require an amount 


SCIENCE. 


431 


of labor little less than their own. A com- 
parison of the Jahrbuch with the abstracts of 
the Centralblatt in one or two fields, shows 
that the work is pretty comprehensive—quite 
so in inorganic chemistry: In the physical 
section more has been omitted, though pre- 
sumably not overlooked. 

After some experience with the book, I ven- 
ture to suggest that its use would be greatly 
facilitated if the names of the authors in the 
text were printed in a heavy-face type. 

E. T. AuiEn. 


Leitfaden fiir das zoologische Praktikwm. 
Von Dr. Witty Kixenruan. Zweite, Um- 
gearbeitete Auflage. Jena, Verlag von 
Gustay Fischer. 1902. Mit 169 Abbil- 
dungen im Text. 

The first edition of this guide for the 
beginner in the study of zoology was reviewed 
in Science for November 17, 1899, Vol. X., 
No. 255. 

This, the second edition, does not differ 


essentially from the first edition though it has 


been materially improved by abbreviating some 
of the descriptions of the systematic surveys, 
rearranging the matter in some of the chap- 
ters, making small but more or less important 
additions here and there and introducing two 
new chapters of eleven pages on the Cestoda 
and Nematoda. A number of the figures of 
the first edition have been discarded and some 
of the borrowed figures have been replaced by 
original drawings. The latter are not always 
equal to those replaced. There have also been 
added a few good new original figures. 

The original 284 pages with 172 figures have 
become 304 pages with 169 figures. The 
typographical work is good, what one ac- 
quainted with Fischer’s work would expect. 
The price of the book unbound is placed at 6 
Marks. 

Henry F. Nacutrirs. 

University or MINNESOTA. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

The Popular Science Monthly for Septem- 
ber begins with an article on ‘Aerography’ 
by Percival Lowell, which gives a résumé of 
the mapping of the surface of Mars and shows 


432 


how the irregular shadows visible with low 
power telescopes have led up to the present 
network of lines seen through glasses of high 
power. J. J. Stevenson discusses ‘University 
Control,’ pleading for a reorganization of the 
present system and for a separation of eduea- 
tional and management. ‘The 
World-view of a Scientist: Ernst Haeckel’s 
Philosophy, by Frank Thilly, coneludes that 
so far as philosophy is concerned Haeckel is 
still in his first childhood. M. C. Marsh treats 
of ‘Eels and the Eel Question,’ showing the 
many misapprehensions that have been held 
concerning these fishes and their reproduc- 
tion. It is a pity that he did not round out 
the interesting article by telling what is ac- 
tually known regarding their history. Theo. 
Gill gives ‘The Story of a Word—Mammal,’ 
showing that the etymology commonly given 
is incorrect and that it was coined by Lin- 
neus to denote that class of animals marked 
by having mamme. In ‘A Year of Weather 
and Trade in the United States’ R. DeC. 
Ward shows how intimately the two are con- 
nected. Frederick Adams Wood continues the 
discussion of ‘Mental and Moral Heredity in 
Royalty’ and there is a reprint of Sir Isaac 
Newton’s ‘A New Theory of Light and Col- 
is an ex- 


business 


ours.” In ‘ The Progress of Science’ 
tremely good article on ‘Science in American 
Journals’ which makes plain the need of in- 
telligent supervision of scientifie articles of 
a popular character. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
“EFFECTIVE FORCES.’ 

To tae Eprror or Science: In a review of 
“Some Recent Works on Mechanies,’ in Scr 
ENCE, October 11, 1901, reference is made to 
the use of the terms ‘force of inertia’ and 
“effective forces’ in two of the books under 
consideration, and the opinion is expressed 
that these terms ‘are properly going, if not 
well nigh gone, out of fashion,” and that 
“they seem doomed to be replaced by the more 
suggestive term ‘“kinetie reaction,” or “mass 
reaction.’ It is to be feared that nothing 
is gained by argumentation upon questions of 
this kind, and I have no desire to revive a con- 
troversy which long ago occupied much space 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 402. 


in the pages of Science and elsewhere. But 
since the question has been raised in connec- 
tion with my own use of the term ‘ effective 
forces,’ I would be glad to record my reason 
for preferring this to the more modern and 
‘suggestive’ terms favored by the reviewer. 
This reason is that it seems unwise to replace 
an established term by another unless the 
latter is a better deseription of the thing 
designated. And however imperfectly the 
term effective force describes the quantity to 
which it is applied, no term has been sug- 
gested which serves the purpose any better. 
‘Kinetic reaction’ and ‘mass reaction’ are, 
indeed, suggestive, but it is for this very 
reason that they are objectionable, for they 
seem to suggest an erroneous conception of 
the third law of motion. In this respect they 
must, I think, be classed with the term ‘ force 
of inertia.’ 

May I add a word regarding the reviewer’s 
remarks upon the theory of dimensions. He 
rightly emphasizes the value of this theory 
as a means of avoiding and of detecting 
errors in physical equations, but in citing a 
sentence from my book as an example of an 
erroneous interpretation of a constant which 
is immediately detected by the theory of 
dimensions he has, I think, been over hasty. 
The sentence quoted is strictly correct. 

L. M. Hosnins. 

Stanrorp University, CAt., 

August 19, 1902. 


REFERENCE BOOKS IN NOMENCLATURE. 

To tHe Eprror or Scrence: In the issue of 
Science for August 29, 1902 (p. 354), under 
the heading ‘Scientific Nomenclature,’ Mr. R. 
H. Harper gives a list of thirty-two words 
used in current scientific papers which he was 
not able to find in Webster’s International 
(1890), the Century Dictionary (1902) or the 
Universal or Eneyelopedie (1897). Being 
loath to believe that some of the words listed 
had wholly escaped the lexicographer refer- 
ence was made to a 1901 edition of the Stan- 
dard and to the Supplement of Webster’s 
International (1900), resulting in the finding 
of definitions for thirteen of the terms. 
Eleven of these definitions are given after the 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


same form of the word as appears in Mr. Har- 
per’s list, while the other two are obviously 
identical in structure with forms given in 
the dictionaries. Thus epetrogenic becomes 
epirogenic while the accultural of the list has 
undoubted affinity with accultwration as de- 
fined in the works consulted. 

Mr. Harper noted, however, that a few of 
his words were to be found in the dictionaries, 
but without meanings corresponding to their 
obvious application by the authors quoted. 
In three cases out of five, however, this objec- 
tion has seemingly been met, at least, so 
far as can be determined without consulting 
the original references. 

Peyote, also, does not seem to constitute a 
fair test for an English dictionary, as it is 
the native Mexican name for a cactus (Ario- 
carpus fissuratus) better known as ‘mescal 
button’ or ‘dry whiskey.’ 

Tt would thus seem that success in reading 
with understanding the modern Carylean 
writers on scientific subjects depends in a 
measure, at least, on the reference books avail- 
able. Henry E. Baum. 


SHORTER ARTIOLES. 
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SEA WATER. 


For a number of years the writer has been 
studying the physiological action of various 
substances in simple and in mixed solutions. 
For two years the physiology of sea water has 
been given especial attention. A study of 
synthetic solutions variously prepared has 
seemed to indicate that such a solution when 
properly made is capable of replacing sea 
water in some instances in a very satisfactory 
way. 

Experiments made at the Woods Hole Ma- 
rine Biological Laboratory last summer by 
the writer and by Miss Susie Nichols, of Clin- 
ton, N. Y., working under the writer’s direc- 
tion, seemed to indicate that a synthetic solu- 
tion prepared in such a manner as to contain 
the six chief substances present in the sea in 
the proportion there present, differed in a 
very marked way in its physiological proper- 
ties from sea water. It seemed at the time 

that this difference disappeared to a large 


SCIENCE. 433 


degree when a considerable excess of salt over 
that given in analysis was added, and some 
structural differences in the molecular consti- 
tution of the two media were suggested as a 
possible explanation. A study of the conduc- 
tivities and freezing points of the solutions 
concerned has been made under the writer’s 
direction during the present season at the labo- 
ratory of the United States Fish Commission 
at Woods Hole by Dr. Joseph 8S. Chamberlain, 
expert in physiological chemistry of the De- 
partment of Agriculture. The evidence pre- 
sented fails to sustain the experiments of a 
year ago. It is clearly indicated that through 
some error, perhaps due to insufficient allow- 
ance for water present in the salts used, a less 
quantity of salts was introduced than was sup- 
posed; hence the necessity for adding the sup- 
posed excess. In the correct concentration, 
Miss Nichols has been able to carry marine 
alge for a large part of the year, in which 
time they have passed from spore stage to 
spore stage. It is a pleasant duty to state 
that, through the kindness of Professor A. D. 
Morrill, Miss Nichols has enjoyed laboratory 
facilities at Hamilton College for this work. 

Experiments now in progress indicate that 
not only is it possible to prepare an artificial 
sea water in which certain marine alge can 
develop, but it appears that many very sensi- 
tive marine animals can also be kept for long- 
er or shorter periods of time, and often carry 
out a considerable part of their development 
in artificial mixtures. 

Among forms that have been 
tested in this respect may be mentioned the 
following: The Ctenophore (Mnemiopsis Ley- 
du WL. Ag.), common in Woods Hole waters; 
Gonionemus Murbachii May., found in the eel 
pond at Woods Hole now being studied in this 
connection, I believe, by Dr. H. F. Perkins; 
a nudibranch mollusk which has apparently 
developed from the egg in an artificial medi- 
um; and the scup, stickleback and silver-sides 
among the fishes. 

A further study of the subject both in its 
chemical and in its physiological phases is 
now in progress. Ropney H. True. 

Bureau or PLrant Inpustry, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


animal 


434 


BERTIELLA, NEW NAME FOR THE CESTODE GENUS 
BERTIA BLANCHARD, 1891. 


Tue generic name Bertia was proposed by 
Ancey, 1888, with Nanina cambodgiensis 
Reeve, a member of the family Limacide, as 
type. Bertea is a genus of diptera. 

In 1891, R. Blanchard, overlooking the fact 
that the name Bertia was preoccupied, pro- 
posed it as a name for a cestode genus which 
has Bertia, Studeri as type species. 

In place of Bertia Blanchard, 1891, we here- 
with propose Bertiella Stiles & Hassall, 1902; 
which takes Bertiella Studeri (Blanchard 
1891) as type. 

On a former occasion, we changed the name 
Levinsenia to Levinseniella on the same no- 
menclatural grounds (rule of homonyms), and 
several colleagues have expressed surprise that 
the new name should be so similar to the old. 
This selection of the old name as the initial 
portion of the new name is made deliberately 
and with a certain definite purpose, namely, 
in order to produce as little change as possible, 
both in the name itself and in the position of 
the generic and specific names in an alphabeti- 
eal index. It is in line with the change of 
Trichina to Trichinella, Dicrocelium lanceo- 
latum to D. lanceatum, Hematolachus similis 
to H. similigenus, and with many other 
In dealing 
with a large number of names, we find that 
such a plan saves much time and trouble, and 
is not an inconsiderable aid to the memory. 
These points, in our opinion, greatly outweigh 
the objection that the genus T'richinella is not 
a small insect closely related to T'richina. 

The species which should be placed in Ber- 
tiella are Bertiella Studeri (Blanchard, 1891), 
B. americana (Stiles, 1895), B. americana 
leporis (Stiles, 1895), B. conferta (Meyner, 
1895), B. Delafondi (Railliet, 1892), B. edulis 
(Zschokke, 1898), B. mucronata (Meyner, 
1895), B. obesa (Zschokke, 1898), B. plastica 
(Sluiter, 1896), B. Sarasinorum (Zschokke, 
1898) and B. satyri (Blanchard, 1891). 

Cu. WarDELL STILEs, 
ALBERT HASSALL. 


changes which have been made. 


Wasuineron, D. C. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 402. 


NOTES ON CANKER AND BLACK-ROT. 


Durine the summer of 1901 the leaves on 
some of the upper branches of several sumacs 
(Rhus glabra L.) growing on the university 
campus, were observed to be withering in 
much the same way as though they had been 
by a blight. An examination of the 
revealed nothing, but the twigs were 
found to be affected with ‘canker’ caused by 
Spheropsis rhoina (Schw.) Starb. Some of 
the larger limbs, too, had been completely 
girdled by the attacks of the fungus, and this 
accounted for the drying up and withering 
of the leaves. Wery careful examinations were 
made in the search for some other cause of 
the trouble, but none could be found. Cross- 
and longi-sections of the diseased twigs were 
made, but aside from the fact that the bark 
and cambium were injured, they appeared to 
be in a perfectly normal condition. No borers 
were found in the specimens examined. 


struck 
leaves 


During the present summer I have been 
carrying on some experiments to determine 
whether Spheropsis rhoina of the sumac and 
Spheropsis malorum of the apple may not be 
the same fungus. The work is not yet com- 
pleted, but the results so far obtained are 
very interesting. 

Very briefly, the experiments were carried 
out as follows: he first thing done was to 
compare the growth and development of pyec- 
nidia in both species. This was accomplished 
by making poured plates of apple bark agar. 
Pyenidia obtained from diseased sumac and 
apple branches were washed in a one-per-cent. 
aqueous solution of corrosive sublimate, and 
finally in distilled water before being broken 
Spores were then transferred to Petri 
dishes by the ordinary dilution process. Both 
species germinated and grew very rapidly, and 
in fourteen days typical pyenidia and spores 
were formed. The cultures proved to be pure 
and their behavior was identical in every par- 
ticular. 

At the same time perfectly sound apples 
were inoculated with spores obtained in the 
same way. The apples were carefully steril- 
ized before being inoculated, by immersing 
them for thirty minutes in a one-per-cent. 
solution of corrosive sublimate. After inocu- 


open. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902.] 


lating them they were placed in sterile glass 
chambers having close-fitting covers. In six 
days the apples showed signs of rotting and 
in ten days pycnidia had begun to form. On 
the fourteenth day after inoculation the entire 
epidermis was blackened and densely dotted 
with the protruding pycnidia. Here again no 
difference was observed either in the manner 
of growth or the decay produced by the two 
species of Sph@ropsis. An examination of the 
inoculated apples showed that they were en- 
tirely free from other fungi. Apples treated 
in the same way and put under similar condi- 
tions but stabbed with a sterile scalpel did not 
decay. 

Finally, spores obtained from the inoculated 
apples were used to inoculate healthy branches 
of both the apple and the sumac. So far no 
difference can be observed in the growth of 
Spheropsis rhoina and Spheropsis malorum 
on the apple tree, but the fact that growth has 
gone on from the points of inoculation is estab- 
lished. In the sumac, growth has not been 
so rapid. 

The facts already established in these ex- 
periments go to show that Spheropsis rhoina 
will cause black-rot in the fruit of the apple 
and will also produce the typical ‘canker’ on 
the branches and limbs just as readily as 
Spheropsis malorum. Although the evidence 
is not yet complete it is probable that the two 
species are identical. 

P. J. O'Gara. 
Tur UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA, 
August 27, 1902. 


PALEONTOLOGICAL NOTES. 
THE GENERIC NAME OMOSAURUS. 


THe name Omosaurus armatus was applied 
by Owen in 1874 to a dinosaur from the Kim- 
meridge Clay described by him in ‘A Mono- 
graph on the Fossil Reptilia of the Mesozoic 
Formations,’ issued by the Paleontographical 
Society. The name first occurs on page 46 
of the part printed in 1875. 

The same generic name had, however, been 
used by Leidy in 1856 for a crocodilian de- 
scribed by him on page 256 of the Proceedings 
of the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Phila- 


SCIENCE. 


435 


delphia, for that year, to which he gave tho 
name Omosaurus perplexus. 

Omosaurus Owen is thus preoccupied, and 
for the genus of Stegosaurs included under 
that name I propose the name Dacentrurus in 
allusion to the powerful spines with which the 
tail was armed. 


A NEW GENERIC NAME FOR STEGOSAURUS MARSHI. 


In Vol. XXIII. of the Proceedings of the 
U. 8S. National Museum, pp. 591, 592, I de- 
scribed a new dinosaur from South Dakota 
under the name of Stegosawrus marshi, stating 
that it probably represented a distinct genus, 
although owing to lack of material generic 
characters could not be stated. Curiously 
enough, failure to give a new generic name 
has resulted in the creation of a synonym. 
Better acquaintance with dinosaurs in gen- 
eral and Stegosaurs in particular has shown 
that the species is not a Stegosaur, but is 
nearly related to the English Polacanthus. 
With the present material it is only possible 
to say that the main apparent differences 
between Polacanthus and Stegosaurus marshi 
are the greater size of the latter and the 
larger and more varied dermal spines with 
which it was clad. In the light of my past 
experience, I shall, however, take the liberty 
of giving a new generic name to the species, 
and for that purpose propose Hoplitosawrus in 
allusion to its heavy armature. 

This genus and the English Polacanthus 
and Acanthopholis are characterized by the 
sudden and considerable expansion of the long 
bones at their articular faces, a feature par- 
ticularly noticeable in the humerus at its 
distal. extremity. It may be said that in the 
Stegosauride not more than two pairs of 
spines appear to be present and these are near 
the end of the tail. The main dermal armor 
is in the form of very large and thin plates 
running from the head to near the end of the 
tail. In the three genera named above, placed 
by Mr. Lydekker in the Scelidosauride, the 
dermal armor consists of numerous flattened 
scutes and many large variously shaped 
spines. 


F. A. Lucas. 


436 


ANTHROPOLOGY IN AMBRICA, 

Dr. A. C. Happon’s presidential address be- 
fore the British Anthropological Institute was 
entitled ‘What the United States of America 
is doing for Anthropology.’ The address was 
printed in the Journal of the institute and is 
quoted in Nature. It reviews field work, mu- 
seums and teaching at the universities, and 
concludes as follows: 

It would be impossible to include within 
the limits of a brief address an account of all 
the work that is being done in anthropology 
by the government, by public and private in- 
stitutions, or by individual effort in the United 
States of America. Much as I should have 
liked to have emphasized the interest exhibited 
in the subject and the wonderful activity that 
is being displayed, the bare enumeration of all 
this activity would make a very weary chron- 
icle. 

I must confess that I felt a not inconsider- 
able amount of envy when on every hand I 
witnessed this energy and then recalled the 
apathy which pervades our own country. 

The American public is more intelligently 
alive to the interest and importance of anthro- 
pology than is our public. The exponents of 
the science are energetic, enthusiastic and 
competent, and they sueceed in gaining the 
practical sympathy of wealthy merchants, 
who are not averse to spending money freely 
when they see that the money will be wisely 
spent for the good of the state or of the city. 
One cannot say that the wealthy Americans 
are more intelligent than are our rich men, 
but they do seem to appreciate the value of 
learning to a much greater extent than do 
ours. At all events, they respond more readily 
to the very pressing need there is for the en- 
dowment of research and of those institutions 
which bring the knowledge of the expert down 
to the comprehension of the masses. 

I am quite willing to admit that the fault 
in this country may lie as much with the 
specialist as with the capitalist. In any case 
we have an inspiriting demonstration in the 
United States of America of what can and 
should be done in Great and Greater Britain, 
and I venture to thank our American col- 
leagues in the name of anthropological science 


SCIENCE. [N. 8. 


Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


for this good example of strenuous effort and 
praiseworthy accomplishment. 


PORESTRY IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 

A press bulletin of the Bureau of Forestry 
says that the Hawaiian Islands are in need of 
foresters, and eager to secure them. Governor 
Dole, who sees the immediate necessity of 
caring for the island forests, has applied to 
the Bureau of Forestry for expert men, to be 
sent as soon as they can be spared. The 
mountains are overrun by both wild and tame 
eattle, which graze and trample on young 
trees and destroy the ferns that protect the 
ground. When this ground cover is removed 
the soil rapidly loses its moisture and the 
forest dies. Great areas of Hawaiian forest 
have been utterly destroyed in this way. The 
disappearance of so much forest on the island 
of Hawaii has caused remarkable changes in 
the flow of the streams. There are freshets 
and floods now, followed by long, dry seasons 
when the water does not run. Since much of 
the sugar crop depends entirely on irrigation, 
and since the irrigating ditches must draw 
their water from the mountain streams, the 
damage done the forest affects the prosperity 
of the whole island. Forestry in Hawaii has 
never been attempted by the government, and 
the field will be an entirely new one. It will 
have the support and confidence of the people, 
who are eager for relief from the harm done 
them by the failure of their irrigating ditches 
to supply the sugar crops. 

On the island of Molokai—the leper island 
—still more remarkable conditions prevail in 
the forest. There the timber is grazed and 
trampled to death not by wild cattle alone 
but by herds of red deer, descended from a 
few that were imported from England to stock 
parks. The deer imported propagated beyond 
the calculations of the inhabitants, escaped 
to the woods, and, since there are no animals 
to prey upon them, have increased to many 
thousands. The American forester who un- 
dertakes the care of the timber of Molokai 
will have a problem entirely novel to his ex- 
perience—the protection of forests from wild 
animals. 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


E. M. Griffith, of the Bureau of Forestry, 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, who visited 
the Hawaiian Islands on his way to the Phil- 
ippines last winter, returned a report to Gov- 
ernor Dole in which he said the mountain 
forests of Hawaii must be fenced, on the 
lower slopes to protect them from the tame 
eattle, on the upper slopes to keep out the 
wild ones. 
lishment of a forest force, consisting of a 
forest inspector, who should have charge of 


He also recommended the estab- 


all government forest lands and direct the 
work of the forest rangers; and four forest 
rangers, one for the island of Oahu, one for 
Hawaii, one for Kauai, and one for Maui and 
Molokai. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 
Prorressor Rupotpn Vircnow died at 2 
o’clock on the afternoon of September 5. A 
public funeral was given by the City of Ber- 
lin on September 9. 


M. Levasseur, professor of agriculture ‘at 
the Collége de France, has been elected presi- 
dent of the French Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science. The Association will 
hold its meeting in 1903 at Angiers. 


Tue Iron and Steel Institute of Great Brit- 
ain held its meeting at Diisseldorf last week. 
Among those who made addresses at the open- 
ing meeting was Professor Henry M. Howe, 
of Columbia University. Mr. Andrew Carnegie 
has been elected president of the Institute. 


Proressor S. W. Srrarron is at present in 
Berlin studying the Reichsanstalt with a view 
to the buildings to be erected at Washington 
for the newly established Bureau of Standards. 


Tue Accademia dei Lincei, at Rome, has 
elected the following members: Hieronymus 
Zeuthen, Hendrich Anton Lorentz, Robert 
Thalén, Julius Wiesner and Hugo de Vries. 


Str Henry THompson, well known for his 
numerous publications on medical topics and 
also for astronomical studies, has recently 
celebrated his eighty-second birthday. 


Srcrerary Hay has appointed Dr. H. C. 
Wood and Dr. F. B. Power to represent the 


SCIENCE. 


437 


United States at the International Conven- 
tion for the Unification of the Formulas for 
Heroie Medicines, which is to be held at 
Brussels, beginning on September 15. 


Dr. Nictotas Senn, professor of surgery in 
the Rush Medical College, has returned to 
Chicago from a journey to the Orient. 

Dr. W. W. Keen, professor of surgery in 
the Jefferson Medical College of Philadel- 
phia, who has been making a tour round the 
world during the past fifteen months, is ex- 
pected to arrive in New York on September 
19. Dr. Keen will resume his teaching and 
practice. 

Dr. C. H. Winn, of Groningen, has been ap- 
pointed director of the Royal Dutch Meteoro- 
logical Institute at De Bilt. 


Dr. Hinrner, of the Berlin Bureau of 
Health, has been called to the directorship of 
the néwly established Agricultural Institute 
at Munich. 


Tur centenary of the birth of Hugh Miller 
was celebrated at Cromarty on August 22. 
The principal address was made by Sir Arch- 
ibald Geikie. An address was also made by 
Dr. John M. Clarke. 


Tue death is announced of Dr. Paul Plosz, 
professor of physiological and pathological 
chemistry in the University of Budapest, aged 
fifty-seven, and Dr. Mare Micheli, the botanist, 
at Geneva, at the age of fifty-seven years. 


Kine Epwarp has granted a charter incor- 
porating the new British Academy for the 
promotion of historical, philosophical and 
philological studies, with forty-nine original 
fellows. 


Ir will be remembered that the plan of en- 
larging the scope of the Royal Society to in- 
clude representatives of the humanities was 
seriously discussed. 


Tur New York Aquarium was during July 
and August visited by 512,625 persons. 


Tue Civil Service Commission will hold an 
examination on October 21 for the position of 
assistant engineer in the Hydrographie Divi- 
sion of the Geological Survey and to fill three 


vacancies in the position of topographic 


438 


draftsman in the Coast and Geodetic Survey— 
two at a salary of $900 per annum each, and 
one at a salary of $700 per annum. 


Av the meeting of the Corporation of the 
Marine Biological Laboratory held in Wood’s 
Holl, August 12, 1902, it was voted to raise 
the fee to $4.00 a year, and to send the Bio- 
logical Bulletin to all members in good stand- 
ing. The Bulletin will be published as here- 
tofore, under the auspices of the Marine Bio- 
logical Laboratory. and its scope will include 
zoology, general biology and physiology. It 
will contain original articles in these fields, 
and also occasional reviews, and reports of 
work and lectures at the Marine Biological 
Laboratory. Preliminary statements of im- 
portant results will be made a special feature. 


Tue Marine Biological Station of the Uni- 
versity of California at St. Pedro has had a 
successful session. The laboratory has been 
under the direction of Professor W. E. Ritter, 
Professor C. A. Kofoid and Dr. H. B. Torrey. 


Proressor C. D. PERRINE discovered a comet 
at the Lick Observatory on September 1. It 
is in the constellation Perseus and is moving 
slowly northwest. It is slightly elongated, 
4’ in diameter, with a tolerably well defined 
nucleus and a tail less than 30’ long. 


THE expedition under the leadership of Col. 
Willard Glazier, of New York, which left St. 
John’s on July 10 on the steamer Virginia 
Lake to explore the unknown parts of Labra- 
dor, has returned. 

Tue Census Bureau has issued a statement 
showing the increasing age of the population 
from decade to decade. The median age of 
the total population in 1900 was 22.8 as com- 
pared with 21.9 in 1890. The median age of 
the white population in the last census year 
was 23.4 and the colored, including Negroes, 
Indians and Mongolians, was 19.7, while in 1890 
that of the white population was 22.4 and the 
colored 18.3. The report shows that there 
was an increase in the median age of the white 
population in each decade from 1810 to 1890, 
amounting in the ninety years to 7.4 years, 
The statement says: Many complex influences 
have cooperated in producing as a resultant 
this steady change in the age composition of 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 402. 


the population. Three may be mentioned— 
the rapid progress of medical and sanitary sci- 
ence, which has tended to increase the aver- 
age length of life; the decrease in the relative 
number of children born, which has made the 
earlier age periods less preponderant numer- 
ically in the total population, and the influx, 
especially since 1840, of great numbers of 
adult immigrants, increasing the number in 
the older age periods. 


The Medical News gives an account of 
the Pathological Museum, established by 
Professor Virchow at Berlin, which con- 
tains 23,066 preparations. A similar institute 
does not exist in the world, and the well- 
known and doubtless as prominent Musée 
Depuytren in Paris, in comparison with 
Virchow’s creation, is but a fragment. How 
completely throughout and in what minute de- 
tail the pathological museum has been planned 
can be seen by the fact that besides the apart- 
ments for the director, assistants and drafts- 
man, microphotographic rooms have been 
built, workrooms provided for the mounting of 
preparations and their. temporary conserva- 
tion, and even a bathroom furnished for the 
laboratory attendants. Self-dependent as in 
certain respects this new pathological mu- 
seum is, it yet stands in organic and local 
connection with the pathological institute, 
which, like the whole Hospital of the Charité, 
will be remodeled in compliance with modern 
demands, and will also in a short time be re- 
built in new and more splendid form. Besides 
the relation which exists between the patho- 
logical institute and the clinical divisions of 
the hospital, because the necropsies are per- 
formed there, various physical, clinical and 
bacteriological sections will be added separ- 
ately in the new institute for scientific pur- 
poses. 


Tue Journal of the American Medical As- 
sociation gives the following statistics in re- 
gard to students in the United States: One 
hundred and fifty-six medical colleges, with 
6,776 instructors, enrolled 27,501 students and 
graduated 5,002 students in the school year 
1901-2. In the year previous, 1900-1, 156 
colleges, with 5,958 teachers, enrolled 26,417 


\ 


SEPTEMBER 12, 1902.] 


students and graduated 5,444. Twenty years 
ago there were 89 medical schools with 14,934 
students and 4,115 graduates. The increase 
in the number of schools and students is far 
in advance of the increase in the number of 
graduates. The graduates twenty years ago 
were 4,115; in 1900, 5,314; in 1901, 5,444, and 
in 1902, 5,000. The attendance in twenty 
years has therefore increased nearly 200 per 
cent. and the number of graduates has in- 
creased less than 25 per cent. The decrease 
in the number of graduates in the last year 
is assigned to the increased length of course 
of study and increased requirements by state 
boards. It is considered by many a temporary 
decrease and one that will be changed to an 
increase as soon as the temporary -check is 
overcome. The decrease in graduates is classi- 
fied thus: There were 4,879 graduates from 
the regular colleges in 1901; 387 from the 
homeopathic; 148 from the eclectic, and 30 
from the physio-medical and nondescript; 
total, 5,444. In 1902, 4,498 graduated from 
regular schools; 336 from the homeopathic; 
138 from the eclectic, and 27 from the others; 
a decrease in every class. The increase in 
students is classified thus: There were 23,846 
students registered at the regular colleges 
during the year ending July 1, 1901; 1,688 at 
the homeopathic; 664 at the eclectic, and 224 
at the physio-medical and nondescript; a to- 
tal of 26,417. During the year ending July 
1, 1902, 24,878 students registered at the regu- 
lar colleges; 1,617 at the homeopathic; 765 
at the eclectic, and 241 at the physio-medical 
and nondescript; total, 27,501. This is an in- 
crease among all but the homeopathic schools. 
In the year the regular schools increased in 
enrolment 1,032 and decreased in number of 
graduates 381. The homeopaths lost in en- 
rolment 66 and in graduates 51; the eclecties 
gained in enrolment 99 and lost 10 in gradu- 
ates; all other schools gained 17 in enrolment 
and lost 3 in graduates, 


Tuer EHlectrical World gives details as to the 
award of the Galileo Ferraris award, to which 
we have already called attention. The com- 
mission for the award, which was instituted 
in 1898, composed of representatives of the 
executive committee of the Association of the 


SCIENCE. 


439 


General Italian Exposition, in Turin, 1898, of 
the Chamber of Commerce and Arts, of the 
Royal Academy of Sciences and of the Royal 
Italian Industrial Museum of Turin, has de- 
cided to reopen an international competition 
for the conferring of this premium on the 
oceasion of the inauguration, which will take 
place in the second half of September next, of 
the monument to be erected in Turin in honor 
of Galileo. The premium consists of 15,000 
lire and interest from 1899 up to the date of 
the assignment, and will be conferred upon the 
author of any invention from which results a 
notable progress in the industrial applications 
of electricity. Competitors can present papers, 
projects and drawings, as well as machines, 
apparatus or constructions relating to their in- 
ventions. The jury nominated by the associa- 
tion above named will have most ample powers 
to execute practical experiments with the in- 
ventions presented. Competitors must present 
their requests and deliver their works, ma- 
chines, apparatus or anything else connected 
with their inventions, not later than the 18th 
day of September, 1902, at the office of the 
secretary of the association, in the palace of 
the Chamber of Commerce and Arts of Turin, 
via Ospedale, No. 28. 

THE topographic survey of the eastern part 
of the state of Washington, commenced by the 
U.S. Geological Survey, will be continued this 
season under the general direction of Mr. R. 
U. Goode. Two parties from the geological 
survey will be engaged in the work. One of 
them will be under Mr. L. C. Fletcher, with 
Messrs. J. G. Hefty and J. B. Bond as assist- 
ants. The work of the party will be an ex- 
tension westward of that commenced last sea- 
son in the vicinity of Republic, the area to be 
surveyed extending along the international 
boundary for about 30 miles and including 
the valley of the Okanogan River and the 
region adjacent to the Osoyoos Lake. The 
second party will be under Mr. G. T. Hawkins. 
The work assigned to this party is the exten- 
sion of the existing triangulation in the vicin- 
ity of Spokane southward through Whitman, 
Garfield and Asotin counties. This triangula- 
tion will be followed as soon as may be prac- 


440 


ticable by a detailed topographic survey, and 
the resulting maps will in turn form a basis 
for the investigation of the important eco- 
nomic problems in this region. 

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Tue Carnegie Trust for the universities of 
Seotland, in addition to payment of the fees 
of students, has now made appropriations for 
buildings and teaching. The sum of £40,000 
a year for five years is to be distributed among 
the universities as follows: Edinburgh, £11,- 
500; Glasgow, £11,000; Aberdeen, £9,000; and 
St. Andrews, £8,500. Under buildings and 
permanent equipment Glasgow receives £8,000 
per annum for the period of five years; Aber- 
deen (which has recently greatly extended its 
buildings), £1,000 a year for apparatus; St. 
Andrews, £3,000 a year; and Edinburgh, £8,000 
a year. The grants for teaching, which are 
partly only for present expenditure, and main- 
ly to establish a fund which at the end of the 
five years’ period will constitute the nucleus 
of a permanent endowment in each case, are 
as follows: Glasgow, £2,000 a year; Aber- 
deen, £7,000 a year; St. Andrews, £4,500 a 
year; Edinburgh, £2,500 a year. To each of 
the university libraries an annual sum of 
£1,000 is given. 

Tue value of the estate of the late Dr. Levi 
Cooper Lane, San Francisco, has been ap- 
praised at over $300,000. His widow, who 
died on August 9, has left the bulk of the es- 
tate to Cooper Medical College. 


Tue chair of pathology at Johns Hopkins, 
held by Professor Welch, will hereafter be 
known as the ‘Boxley Professorship of Pathol- 
ogy,’ in memory of Dr. Henry Willis Boxley, 
an eminent surgeon of Baltimore, who died in 
1876, leaving a bequest for the founding of a 
chair in pathology. 


Avr the University of Colorado, at Boulder, 
John B. Ekeley, M.A. (Colgate), Ph.D. (Frei- 
burg), has been elected professor of chemistry 
to succeed Dr. Chas. S. Palmer, who has been 
called to the presidency of the Colorado State 
School of Mines. 


Present E. R. Nicuors, of the Kansas 
State Agricultural College, has declined the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vox. XVI. No. 402. 


presidency of the Rhode Island College of 
Agriculture and Mechanie Arts. 


Dr. F. P. Graves has resigned the presidency 
of the University of Washington. Professor 
T. F. Kane, professor of Latin, has been 
elected acting-president. 


Sir Grorce Sroxes, since 1849 Lucasian 
professor of mathematics at Cambridge, has 
been elected master of Pembroke College. 


Mr. James Brack Bainum, B.A. Camb., 
M.A. and D.Phil. Edin., lecturer on philoso- 
phy at University College, Dundee, has been 
appointed professor of moral philosophy in 
the University of Aberdeen, in succession to 
Professor Latta, who was recently called to 
Glasgow. 

Dr. Bengzamin Moors, lecturer in physiology 
in Charing Cross Medical School, has been 
elected to the Johnston chair of bio-chemistry 
in University College, Liverpool. Dr. Moore 
until recently held the chair of physiology in 
the Medical School of Yale University. 


Mr. J. Granam Kerr, of Christ’s College, 
Cambridge, has been appointed professor of 
natural history in the University of Glasgow, 
in succession to Professor John Young, who 


‘has resigned. 


Dr. Herman MinxowskI1, of the Polytechnic 
School at Zurich, has been called to a pro- 
fessorship of mathematics at Gottingen. 


Proressor Scuorky, of Marburg, has been 
called to a full professorship of mathematics 
at Berlin. 


Dr. IsHiro Miyake has been appointed on 
the faculty of the new Waseda University 
(Japan), which has just opened this month 
under the presidency of Dr. Hatoyama. Dr. 
Miyake was formerly a student in Yale Uni- 
versity, having taken his degree in experi- 
mental psychology with a thesis entitled ‘Re- 
searches on Rhythmic Action.’ 


Errata: In the article by Mr. A. Lawrence 
Rotch on the International Aeronautical Con- 
gress, page 297, second column, nineteenth line, 
‘ten kilometers thick,’ read ‘fourteen kilometers 
high’; second line from bottom, ‘or registration 
balloon, ballon sonde,’ read ‘ registration balloon, 
or ballon sonde, 


oCTENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANZTEMENT OF SCIENCE, 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE : S. NEwcomB, Mathematics; R. S. WoopwaRD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALcorT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooxs, C. Hart MrRriAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BessEy, N. L. Brirron, Botany; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. Brnuinas, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. WELCH, Pathol- 
ogy ; J. McKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


Fripay, SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
Rudolf Virchow’s Anthropological Work: 
ProFessor FRANZ BOAS.............--.. 441 
Scientific Research: The Art of Revelation 
and of Prophecy, II.: Proressor R. H. 
LLIKIATHON,) Ghoonnidcooshbecanaopoono sob 445 
Attenuation and Distortion on Long Distance 
Telephone and Power Transmission Lines 
Regarded as Hydrodynamic Phenomena: 
_Proressor Henry T. Eppy.............. 457 
The Carnegie Institution: Proressor J. Mc- 
Imi? OUMNH eWogobboooraaeonuopewagS 460 
Scientific Books :— 
Netto’s Lehrbuch der Combinatorik: Pro- 
FESSOR FLORIAN CAJORI................. 469 


Discussion and Correspondence :— 
The Opportunity for Further Study of Vol- 
canic Phenomena: Dr. Rosert T. Hiv. 
Mr. Borchgrevink on the Eruption of Mt. 


Pelee: Dr. EpmMunp OtTIs Hovey. Pata- 

gonian Geology: Dr. A. E, ORTMANN. 

Velocity of Light in an _ Electrostatic 

Field: Dr. Reginatp A. FESSENDEN...... 470 
Shorter Articles :— 

The Formation of Dewbows: Lyman J. 

IBRIGGS)) rca terre tere eaeesen eas eae see eeleleiores 474 


Notes on Inorganic Chemistry :— 
Census Bulletin of Chemicals and Allied 
IEROCMKHOS ‘do ik, Ilo cuodscobsauboooudcdas 
Botanical Notes :— 
A Word as to Indexes; The Preservation 
of Wild Flowers; The Shrubs of Wyoming ; 
An Old Brown Cedar: PROFESSOR CHARLES 


475 


a BESSEY:.\\..\-\clie eee eee 476 
Scientific Notes and News................. 478 
University and Educational News.......... 480 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


RUDOLF VIRCHOWS ANTHROPOLOGICAL 
WORK. 

In Rudolf Virchow science has lost one 
of its great leaders, Germany one of her 
great citizens, the world one of its great 
men. Hor sixty years Virchow has devoted 
his strong mind and his indefatigable en- 
ergies to advancing the work of mankind. 
The science of medicine, anatomy, pathol- 
ogy and anthropology count him as one 
of their great men. For long years he has 
been a power in German political life, al- 
ways upholding the cause of personal free- 
dom. 

The beginnings of his anthropological 
work almost coincide with the beginnings of 
modern physical anthropology in Germany. 
Among the men who laid the foundation of 
this science no one has done more to shape, 
euide and foster it than Rudolf Virchow. 
His interest in anthropology, which was des- 
tined to impress the mark of his personality 
upon the young science, developed during 
the time when he investigated the causes of 
eretinism and the conditions determining 
the growth of the skull. The similarities 
between pathological forms of the skull 
and those found among different races of 
man probably led him to researches on the 
variations of form of the human body. The 
scope of his anthropological interests ex- 
panded rapidly and the impetus which he 
gave to anthropological work, particu- 


442 


larly in physical anthropology and in pre- 
historic archeology, was so great that the 
development of these two branches of 
science in Germany may be said to center 
in Virchow’s activity. 

At the time when Virchow took up his 
work, anthropology was still in its first 
beginnings. During the eighteenth cen- 
tury Von Scmmering and Blumenbach 
in Germany, and Camper in Holland, had 
directed their attention to a study of the 
anatomical characteristics of the races of 
man, but the new anthropology did not 
arise until the second half of the past cen- 
tury. The strong impetus which the theory 
of evolution gave to all sciences, combined 
with the immediate interest in the early 
history of European nations, and the in- 
creasing knowledge of foreign races were 
the principal factors that contributed to the 
formation of modern anthropology. 

Virchow, through his eminent faculty 
for organization, has advanced the whole 
field of anthropology. He took a leading 
part in the formation of the German An- 
thropological Society, of the Berliner Ge- 
sellschaft fiir Anthropologie, Ethnologie 
und Urgeschichte, and in the establishment 
of the monumental Archiv fiir Anthropol- 
ogie which occupies a high rank in anthro- 
pological literature. The two societies soon 
became the centers of anthropological ac- 
tivity in Germany. The German Anthro- 
pological Society devoted its energies to the 
study of the physical characteristics and of 
the earliest history of the Germans. Under 
Virchow’s lead this society undertook to 
collect statistics relating to the distribution 
of the color of skin, eyes and hair in Ger- 
many, and observations were collected in 
all the public schools of the country. The 
results of this extended inquiry, which in- 
elude a cartographic representation of the 
distribution of types in Germany and a 
discussion of their probable history, were 
published by Virchow. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


The Berliner Gesellschaft fir Anthropo- 
logie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte soon be- 
came a center to which flowed a flood of 
anthropological material from all parts of 
the world, and where important scientific 
questions were discussed by the most com- 
petent authorities. Through its intimate 
relations with German travellers the society 
became of valuable assistance in the devel- 
opment of the Berlin Ethnographical Mu- 
seum, which owes its origin and greatness to 
Adolf Bastian. Owing to Virchow’s in- 
fluence the society gradually acquired a 
large and valuable collection of human cra- 
nia and skeletons. Among the subjects dis- 
cussed before the society European arche- 
ology always held a prominent place, and 
Virchow took a lively part in this work 
which has contributed much to the growth 
of the prehistoric collections in Berlin. 

As director of the Pathological Institute 
and Museum of the University of Berlin, 
Virchow had further, opportunities to ad- 
vance our knowledge of the anatomy of 
races, and he accumulated much valuable 
anthropological material in this Institute. 
His studies of prehistoric archeology 
brought him also into close contact with 
students of folk-lore and he became one 
of the founders of the Museum fiir Volks- 
trachten. 

Tt will thus be seen that Virchow took 
the leading part in the organization of an- 
thropological work in Germany. There- 
fore, it is no wonder that his views have 
wielded a far-reaching influence, so much 
so, that without a knowledge of his work the 
peculiarity of German physical anthropol- 
ogy and of German prehistoric archeology 
ean hardly be understood. 

Most important is his attitude toward the 
theories relating to the descent of man. His 
views regarding this question were deter- 
mined by his fundamental researches on 
the functions of the cell in the animal or- 
ganism. He formulated his views in the 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902.] 


words that every cell is derived from an- 
other cell. No matter how much the forms 
of the cells may vary, every new form is 
derived from a previous form. Cells, in 
the course of their lives, may change their 
forms according to age and according to 
the influences to which they are subjected. 
Such changes take place both in the healthy 
and in the sick organism, and often it is 
impossible to draw a sharp line between 
normal or physiological, and abnormal or 
pathological, changes. Virchow himself ex- 
presses these views in the words that in 
reality there is no distinct line of demar- 
eation between physiological and patholog- 
ical processes, that the latter are only phys- 
iological processes which take place under 
difficult conditions. The cell which changes 
its form during its lifetime may, there- 
fore, be said to be variable; or, in Virchow’s 
words, it possesses mutability. From his 
point of view the whole question of the ori- 
gin of species centers in the problem of the 
relation between the mutability of the or- 
ganism and the mutability of the cell. 
The comparison of the forms of organisms 
and organs may form the starting point of 
researches on variability, but the study of 
the variations of the whole organism or or- 
gan must be based on the study of the vari- 
ations of the constituent cells, since the phys- 
iological changes of the whole body depend 
upon the correlated physiological changes 
that take place in the cells. Without a 
knowledge of the processes that take place 
in varying cells, it is impossible to deter- 
mine whether a deviation from the normal 
form is due to secondary causes that af- 
fect during their period of development or- 
gans already formed, or if it is due to pri- 
mary deviations which develop before the 
first formation of the varying organ. 

Two questions, therefore, arise: the first, 
if secondary deviations may become hered- 
itary. For this no convineing proof has 
been found. The second question is 


SCIENCE. 


443 


whether primary variations do occur, and 
if so, whether they are hereditary. 

Led by these points of view Virchow de- 
mands that researches on the origin of spe- 
cies be based on researches on the mutabil- 
ity of cells and groups of cells, and he de- 
clines to speculate on the origin of species, 
until through researches on tissues a sound 
foundation has been laid. Sometimes it 
would seem as though Virchow doubted the 
scientific value of the theory of evolution. I 
do not think this is the case. He merely em- 
phasizes again and again the methodolog- 
ical point of view, that the understanding 
of the forms of the body must be based on 
a knowledge of the forms, mutual relations, 
and functions of the cells and that, there- 
fore, the question of ‘mutability’ must be 
settled by researches on these lines. 

Furthermore his position rests on the 
general scientific principle that it is dan- 
gerous to classify data that are imperfectly 
known under the point of view of general 
theories, and that the sound progress of 
science requires of us to be clear at every 
moment, what elements in the system of 
science are hypothetical and what are the 
limits of that knowledge which is obtained 
by exact observation. To this principle Vir- 
chow has adhered steadfastly and rigidly, 
so much so that many an impetuous stud- 
ent has felt his quiet and cautious criticism 
as an obstacle to progress. On this account 
he has suffered many hostile attacks—until 
generally the progress of research showed 
that the cautious master was right in re- 
jecting the far-reaching conclusion based on 
imperfect evidence. There are but few 
students who possess that cold enthusiasm 
for truth that enables them to be always 
clearly conscious of the sharp line be- 
tween attractive theory and the observation 
that has been secured by hard and earnest 
work. 

There are two anthropological problems 
which are important in their relation to the 


444 


theory of evolution; the one that of the an- 
tiquity of man, the other that of the inter- 
pretation of anatomical characteristics of 
the lower, races. The evidence in regard to 
the anatomical form of early man is very 
scanty, and for many years the discussion 
centered in the interpretation of the Nean- 
derthal skull, which possesses a number, of 
peculiar characteristics, particularly an ex- 
ceedingly low head and very large super- 
ciliary ridges. Virchow demonstrated that 
the skull had undergone many pathological 
changes, and he took the position that it was 
unsafe to base on this single specimen a 
new race which might be considered a pre- 
cursor of man. He preferred to consider 
the skull as an individual variation until 
other similar, finds would give corroborative 
evidence. Virchow was equally cautious 
in the interpretation of theromorphie vari- 
ations in the forms of the human body. He 
maintained that such forms are not neces- 
sarily cases of atavism, but that they may 
be due to peculiar physiological processes ; 
and that without special investigation of 
their origin they cannot be considered as 
proof of a low organization of the races 
among which they are found with particular 
frequency. There is no proof that such 
forms are connected with a low stage of 
culture of the people among whom they 
are found. They occur, for instance, 
among the Malays and among the ancient 
Peruvians, both of which races have at- 
tained high stages of culture. 

We cannot, in the scope of these notes, 
enter upon Virchow’s numerous investiga- 
tions bearing upon the anatomy of the races 
of man. Many of them contain discussions 
of general principles. His researches on the 
physical anthropology of the Germans and 
his description of American crania may be 
mentioned as specially important. 

His investigation of the anatomical char- 
acteristics of the Germans led him naturally 
to studies in prehistoric archeology to which 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


he devoted much of his time and energies. 
For a long time forms of the body were 
considered a characteristic of nationalities. 
Forms of skulls were described as Teutonic 
and Slavic; there were Turanian and many 
other kinds of skulls. Nobody has done 
more than Virchow to show that this view 
is untenable. The question of the history 
of the Slavie settlement of eastern Germany 
has received much attention on the part 
of German archeologists and is still far 
from being entirely cleared up. While 
methods of burial, prehistoric objects, 
names of places, plans of villages and hous- 
es are good indications for ancient Slavic 
settlements, the anatomical forms of the 
present population and of ancient skele- 
tons do not allow us to draw any inference 
regarding the nationality of the ancient in- 
habitants, because neither Germans nor 
Slavs present a uniform and characteristic 
anatomical type. Virehow has always 
maintained that the limits of human types 
do not coincide with the dividing lines of 
cultures and languages. People who be- 
long to the same type may speak different 
languages and possess different forms of 
culture; and on the other hand—as is the 
case in Germany—different types of man 
may be combined to form one nation. 
These phenomena are intimately con- 
nected with the intricate migrations of the 
races of Europe; with the invasions of 
southern Europe by Teutonic peoples and 
the development of north European culture 
under the influence of the cultures of the 
eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. 
The gradual introduction of metals and the 
disappearance of the culture of the stone 
age is one of the phenomena that are of 
creat assistance in clearing up the relations 
between the ancient inhabitants of Europe. 
The change of culture indicated by the in- 
troduction of bronze indicates that the new 
culture arose in the far Hast. This is the 
reason which induced Virechow to under- 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902.] 


take extensive prehistoric studies in Asia 
Minor and in the region of the Caucasus. 
His studies in prehistoric archeology, which 
apparently are so remote from his original 
anatomical work, are in reality closely con- 
nected with his researches on the early his- 
tory of the races of Europe. Anatomical 
data alone cannot solve these intricate prob- 
lems, and Virchow’s extensive activity in 
the field of prehistoric archeology is anoth- 
er proof of his thorough and comprehensive 
method which utilizes all the available 
avenues toward the solution of a scientific 
problem. 

Physical anthropology and prehistoric 
archeology in Germany have become what 
they are largely through Virchow’s in- 
fluence and activity. His method, views 
and ideas have been and are the leading 
ones. His greatness as a scientist is due 
to the rare combination of a critical judg- 
ment of greatest clearness and thorough- 
ness with encyclopedic knowledge and a 
genius for grasping the causal relation of 
phenomena. His critical judgment was so 
strong that, in an address delivered in the 
summer of 1900, he was even led to doubt 
the desirability of the strong preponder- 
ance of his influence upon current opinion. 
With profound admiration and gratitude 
we regard his life’s work which has deter- 
mined the course of a new science. 


FRANZ Boas. 
CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY. 


SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: THE ART 
OF REVELATION AND OF 
PROPHECY, II. 


xls 

Collaboration of all sciences, physical 
and metaphysical, must ultimately be the 
task of the investigator and the end of 
research. The several sciences are the 
formulated expressions of nature’s law of 
a universe, and all are functions of force, 
movement, energy, of life and its material 


SCIENCE. 


445 


foundations. To discover the relations of 
the sciences and to reduce them all to de- 
partments of one all-comprehending system 
will prove, if it can be achieved, the highest 
result of research. Already, the thermal, 
luminiferous, electrical, mechanical, chem- 
ical, and to a certain extent the biological, 
sciences are known to be divisions of the 
more comprehensive science of energetics; 
all treat of manifestations of energy and 
its conversion from form to form and its 
transfer from point to point. Already it 
is known that other manifestations of force 
and energy, if not still-disguised illustra- 
tions of familiar forms, are existent in 
the animal machine, and it is suspected by 
some, believed by others, admitted to be 
possible by yet others, that those energies 
which pervade the more ethereal atmos- 
pheres, the vital and perhaps other ener- 
gies, are transformations of the familiar 
kinds. The question has even been seri- 
ously and honestly asked whether spiritual 
life and energies may not have definite 
relations of quantity, and even of trans- 
formability, with those characterizing the 
physical world. Vital energy, moral force, 
the efforts of genius, exhibit themselves in 
the individual in larger or lesser degree as 
his supply of potential energy in form of 
food varies from excess to deficiency and as 
his physical powers fluctuate. 

Are there two universes, the seen and the 
unseen? How is the seen related to the 
unseen? Are there definite quantitative 
equivalences among the forces and the 
energies of the one and of the other? 
What are these equivalences among the 
energies of, the unseen, if they exist, and 
what the facts and laws, the algebraic state- 
ments of law, and the values of the con- 
stants representing facts at the points, the 
surfaces, of junction? 

These and other questions. constitute 
problems for the coming investigator, fa- 
miliar with the phenomena of the seen and 


446 


the unseen. Their solution will, if proved 
possible and practicable, furnish the ele- 
ments of the Universal Science of Ener- 
getics for all these worlds. 

Over ten years ago, addressing the 
Alpha Chapter of Sigma Xi, I took ocea- 
sion to refer to the still unsolved problems 
of this nature.* These problems have been 
solved, here and there, and occasionally a 
great step has been made, as when the di- 
visibility of the so-called atom of the chem- 
ist was shown to be possible, or where 
wireless telegraphy has become practicable ; 
but the impression made during these ten 
years upon the great body of the unknown 
has been comparatively small, and the op- 
portunities for further revelation and the 
scientific use of the imagination, of scien- 
tific prophecy, are larger than ever. 

Unquestionably there exist energy rela- 
tions amongst all phenomena of motion, re- 
lations of potential energy amongst all 
groupings of atoms, molecules and masses. 
The fundamental law of energetics is al- 
ready known, as is the law of the quan- 
tivalence of all the energies, and as is the 
fact of the persistence of energies and of 
matter. It needs but the discovery of the 
mechanism of matter and of motion, and of 
its action in production and transfer of 
energy-effects, to furnish the essentials for 
the establishment of a complete and uni- 
versal science of the material universe as 
we know it. We may even perhaps hope 
to enter at least the borders of the unseen 
universe, now apparently closed to us. But 
we have studied and weighed and meas- 
ured the unseen atom and molecule; we 
have discovered the movement of unseen 
particles as ions; we have even determined 
the size, form and orbit of an unseen stel- 
lar world: why should we despair of ulti- 


**The Man of Science, his Methods and his 
Work,’ address before the Alpha Chapter of Sigma 
Xi, Cornell University, June 14, 1891. Scientific 
American Supplement, January 2, 1892, No. 835. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


mately finding ways of tracing the laws 
and the phenomena of the grander Unseen ? 
Cicero’s declaration becomes more convine- 
ing as the years go by and as science be- 
comes more easy of comprehension and 
more nearly all-comprehending. 


XII. 

A later Newton, Galileo, Bacon or 
Compte, with learning sufficient to per- 
ceive the relations of the fundamental 
facts and laws of allied sciences, possibly 
comprehending the common features of alk 
natural science, will find here the greatest 
of opportunities for the greatest of all great 
minds. The progress of the sciences, in- 
dividually, is continuing to exhibit gain in 
rate of gain; the boundary between chem- 
istry and physics, between both, and applied 
mechanics, between all phases of nature and 
all movement, is constantly becoming more 
and more obscured. The time is evidently 
steadily approaching when chemistry and 
physies will have a common and smoothly 
shaded, if not obliterated, junction, when 
energetics will comprehend all phenomena, 
and all laws of mass and molecular and 
atomie motion, alike. Mighty minds will 
certainly come forward, in due time, each 
familiar with the learning of each of a 
pair of divisions having thus adjacent lim- 
its, to join the two sections together with a 
perfect and indistinguishable weld. With 
our present knowledge of the tendency 
toward the simplification and the union of 
the sciences, it is even possible to imagine 
the appearance, at some future day, of 
minds capable of thus reducing to continu- 
ity and unity the whole area. There is the 
more reason for conviction that such a re- 
sult may be sometime attained as we real- 
ize the fact that it is through such unity 
and conspiring of the forces and the laws of 
the universe that nature accomplishes her 
great purposes and that man must, by sim- 
ilar extension and union of his codes of 


SEPTEMBER 19, 190? 


scientific law and his use of forces and 
energies, attain the solution of the greatest 
of the problems now confronting him. 

Scientific research is only just beginning 
to be appreciated and to be understood, 
even by those engaged in the great work. 
The ‘scientific method of advancement of 
sciences,’ as I have elsewhere called it,* is 
hardly yet beginning to be fully recognized 
as a method to be developed and formally 
and systematically promoted. The organi- 
zation of the Smithsonian, the later founda- 
tion of the Carnegie Institution, and the ad- 
ministrations of the scientific associations 
generally, are hardly yet beginning their 
real work—that of placing this fundamen- 
tal basis of all scientific research on its 
proper and only correct footing. The or- 
ganization of laboratories for research is 
only just beginning to be recognized as the 
real economic foundation of all human pro- 
gress in scientific and industrial fields. Here 
and there a great mind is now coming to see 
the opportunity that thus offers for invest- 
ment of capital in a manner most fruitful 
and productive of return to the world. 
Hereafter this revelation of the scientific 
method of the promotion of science will 
find many Carnegies to promote the work 
thus pioneered. 

The perfected pantology, seen from afar 
by a few great souls, known already in some 
details by men of genius, will take form, as 
time passes, by the gradual collaboration of 
science with science and of congeries of 
sciences with other aggregations, indefinite- 
ly. The trend is already definite and the 
progress made, during the nineteenth 
century alone, has been enormous. Its rate 
has been and still remains an acceleration. 


XIII. 
The progress of a nation, the progress 
of the world of civilization, is coming to be 
* Vice-President’s address before the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, 1878, 
St. Louis meeting. 


SCIENCE. 


447 


seen to be dependent upon the advance- 
ment of science by deliberate, scientific, 
wise planning of investigation by learned 
men, each in his chosen department. The 
study of ‘Curves of Progress’* of all the 
various departments of human knowledge 
and of all the material movements of mod- 
ern life, can now be seen to promise the 
revelation of new facts, their groupings to 
illustrate, graphically, usually, the under- 
lying law, and to permit the prophecy of 
future progress and its essential and con- 
trolling conditions. The comparison of the 
trend of the various curves of progress of 
intelligence, of production of trained and 
cultured men, of the steel and the iron man- 
ufactures, of accumulation of wealth, of 
advances in earning power of producers, 
of the development of a material civiliza- 
tion and of the highest civilizations, shows 
very clearly the fact of a correspondence 
amongst them all in method and rate, and 
of acceleration of advance, and reveals the 
law that all progress must be traced to the 
more or less scientific development of uni- 
versal application of scientific methods of 
advancement of science. 

The graphical representation of the sta- 
tistics of Mulhall, which IT employed in the 
first illustrations, the similar exhibition of 
the constant growth of production, as, for 
example, in the copper industry,+ may be 
used to exhibit the universal fact that all 
real progress, materially, involves the ex- 
tension of a market and the steady and 
accelerated growth of production, with syn- 
chronous increase in the efficiency of meth- 
ods of production through invention and 
improved methods, the equally steady rise 
in wages of producers availing themselves 
of such improvements in the art, and the 
steady decrease of costs and prices as meas- 

**The Trend of National Progress, North 
American Review, September, 1895.—R. H. T. 


+ ‘The Modern Law of Supply and Demand,’ 
Science, December 4, 1896.—R. H. T. 


448 


ured by the buying power of the wage of 
the worker. As I have somewhere said: 

““The world has made greater progress 
in the last century than in all the earlier 
ages. This progress it owes to the in- 
ventor, the mechanie and the engineer. 
Modern material advancement practically 
dates from the time of the general recog- 
nition of the inventor’s rights, and the 
formulation of the first rough outlines of 
our modern system of patent law, at the 
commencement of the seventeenth century. 
But all progress is an acceleration, and, 
slow at first, it becomes increasingly rapid, 
until, after a time, all the world is as- 
tounded by its mighty rush.’’ 

Morals, manners, culture, develop with 
the progress of the age and the progress 
of the age depends upon the advancement 
of science and the promotion of a material 
civilization with its concomitants of intel- 
ligence, leisure and opportunity, by the 
development of methods of useful employ- 
ment of every department of the applied 
science. The progress which has been made, 
for example, during the two centuries just 
past, has been due in large part to general 
progress in intelligence; progress in intel- 
ligence has been due to advancement in 
education and to that splendid contagion 
of civilization which comes with increasing 
contact of class with class and general dis- 
tribution of the privileges of enlightened 
eivil life. Such forward and upward move- 
ments come of the growth of production 
and that inerease in wealth and leisure 
which allow of the more general distribu- 
tion of opportunity and of education and 
of the comforts of civilized life. The foun- 
dation of all progress, spiritual, intellec- 
tual and material, alike, for the nation 
always, for the individual usually, is ma- 
terial. Only with aggregation of property 
and inerease in comfort with decreasing 
hours of labor, ean liberty be secured for 
thought and for care of others, for educa- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou; XVI. No. 403. 


tion and for aspiration, and for either moral 
or material gain. Wealth will demoralize 
individuals; it may even, with a rude peo- 
ple, stimulate crime and vice; it is yet the 
fundamentally essential element of human 
progress, and the nation or the individual 
taking full advantage of its opportunities 
and privileges gains in maximum degree in 
morals, manners and culture. 

Among the ancients, a high degree of 
civilization and a corresponding lofty plane 
of morals, manners and culture were pos- 
sible to the few and an aristocracy of in- 
telligence, as of the limited wealth of time, 
was a natural consequence; but it was not 
possible to have a satisfactory condition 
of the people as a whole until they were 
emancipated by advancing material civili- 
zation from the bondage of continuous toil. 

Many problems still loom up in the im- 
mediate future, and some of them, outside 
the domain of scientific research as com- 
monly restricted to a definite field and 
scope, of vastly greater importance than 
any known unsolved question in scientific 
departments of physical work. The great- 
est of problems for civilization, that of an 
efficient and profitable and generous educa- 
tion of all people upon whom is fixed the 
responsibility, in however small degree, of 
self government, and in such manner that . 
the risk to people and to government shall 
be least, while the opportunities of the 
youth of the nation shall be the greatest 
possible in acquirement of wisdom and 
learning, of knowledge and culture, and of 
the fundamental principles underlying the 
best practice in the arts in which they are 
engaged. 

‘The modern educations,’ as I have called 
them,* are many in detail, but all are under- 
laid by the fundamental, scientific, princi- 

**The Mechanic Arts and Modern KEduca- 
tions.’ An address before the Virginia Mechanics’ 
Institute, Richmond, Va., May 18, 1894. Scien- 


tific American Supplement, November 3, 1894, p. 
15,705, 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


ples which are the essential elements, also, 
of successful scientific research ; the efficient 
revelation to the growing and maturing 
mind of the great facts and the principal 
data of all branches of knowledge or of 
philosophy proposed to be taught, and this 
discovery, to the youth of sufficient capa- 
city, of the great laws of nature which re- 
late those facts to one another and to the 
great scheme of the universe. Finally 
comes the deduction, from the trend of 
movements controlled by those laws, of the 
most direct line of present and future pro- 
gress and the best methods of promoting, 
of profiting by, scientific progress in later 
times. There may be hardly a less exact 
science of education than of astronomy or 
geometry or mechanics, and there is but a 
mathematical line of ideal, perfect ad- 
vance. Our grandest problem is to find 
and to follow that line and to show the 
way to later generations. 

We are not called upon simply to ascer- 
tain what, for our time, is the most desir- 
able system of school and college work, or 
even what is the most ‘complete and gener- 
ous,’ the most truly Miltonian, education ; 
but rather to discover and reveal the best 
system of teaching a people what a people 
should know, effectively and with cer- 
tainty. This problem being solved, we 
may reveal the principles and all their corol- 
laries and show the way to ‘educate a people 
for the life and work of the people.’ Proph- 
ecy then will become simple and certain 
respecting the ideal educations, and the 
results of their formulation and introduc- 
tion by great minds devoted to the greatest 
of all human tasks in the fields of human 
knowledge. 

pxGINVE 

Revelation and prophecy are thus the 
characteristics of the work of the scientific 
investigator and the outcome of research. 
The revelation of the facts and the laws 
of the phenomena witnessed in the various 


SCIENCE. 


449 


kingdoms of nature, their mutual relations, 
the control of the movements of all cycles, 
and all progress in the orderly evolution 
of the natural world, by law, the motions 
of atoms, changes of compounds, growth 
and life-histories of creation and its worlds, 
giving the human mind the power to look 
back upon the centuries and the ages, is but 
the first part of the task of science. A 
prophecy of a future of progress in the 
infinite evolution, discovering the trend of 
every continuous movement up to date and 
indicating the direction of further develop- 
ment, is the second and consequent task. 
In science, more than in any other depart- 
ment of knowledge, is it possible to judge 
the future by the past and, as the move- 
ments of sun, stars, planets and all satel- 
lites may be now predicted by the astrono- 
mer, so the evolutions of geology, of botany, 
of biology, of the races themselves, man and 
animals, are coming more and more within 
the purview of the seer. The life-histories 
of worlds and systems and perhaps of uni- 
verses are to steadily reveal themselves in 
coming time. Already it is possible that 
the long uncertain question of the method 
of restoration of kinetic energy and all 
life, within a universe, run down, appa- 
rently dead and cold, and whose energies 
of motion have been converted into poten- 
tial forms, is beginning to find answer; the 
significant hint of the new star and the new 
nebula in Perseus may prove the first of 
the revelations throwing light upon this 
immense enigma. 

Wherever the path of time may be traced 
and represented by its ‘curve of progress’ 
its terminal in the present may be with 
certainty projected forward into a future, 
and prophecy becomes as accurate, approxi- 
mately, as the line of the immediate past. 

It is science only that can read the oracle 
of the future. 

Knowing, from an experience extending 
far back into the past, that all the phenom- 


450 


ena of nature are simply parts of one great 
movement, each event a consequence of an 
earlier trend and a natural, necessary and 
obvious sequence of a next preceding event, 
it becomes easy to understand that every 
coming event might be foreseen by an all- 
comprehending mind, and that even the 
least learned and the most commonplace 
among scientific men may predict with cer- 
tainty within its limits, the man of genius 
and learning simply having a more exten- 
sive range within individual bounds than 
his fellow. 

Certainty and accuracy of these oracles 
thus are approximated as the conditions are 
the more simple, the phenomenon the less 
involved with other sequences, the trend 
the more definite and the period over which 
the curve of progress must be extended in- 
to the future the shorter. The rise and fal] 
of the tides, the instant of an eclipse, the 
motions of the companion of Sirius, the 
form of every definite cycle, may be deter- 
mined and their future predicted accurate- 
ly. The growth of a great population, the 
progress of civilization as measured by 
erowth of manufactures, or by advances in 
education, or by the gifts of philanthropy, 
may be traced along a curve of the imme- 
diate future, at least approximately. The 
coming events of the seismic period just 
reached in the West Indian seas cannot be 
even approximately predicted. The trend 
of progress of our own country may be per- 
fectly determined and the future may be 
as clearly indicated— provided no change, 
catastrophie or other, in the controlling 
forces which determine its path, meantime, 
occurs. The astronomer deals with positive 
and exact prophecy; the economist and sta- 
tistician must content himself with approxi- 
mations and_ probabilities 
values. 

Yet, even the economist and the student 
of history may declare assent to the fol- 
lowing code and, in this general way, re- 


of varying 


SCIENCE. 


[N.8. Vou. XVI. No. 403. 


duce economies and history to the form of 
a science with capacity for prophecy. 

1. The laws of social and economic phe- 
nomena and movement control all human 
progress and determine the advance of all 
nations, and give form to their ‘curves of 
progress’ in wealth, education and culture 
and morals. 

2. These laws are found to insure steady 
progress with acceleration and without 
much regard to so-called ‘crises’ or good 
or bad times. 

3. The ‘trend of progress’ in past de- 
cades, for example, in our own country, and 
this acceleration, constitute a guide in pre- 
dicting the immediate future of our indus- 
trial and social system. 

4. This ‘curve of progress’ being drawn 
for the past history of the nation, its direc- 
tion at the moment indicates the certain 
trend for the immediate future, its prob- 
able trend for later dates, and its progress 
in future decades with a degree of probable 
approximation which lessens as the remote- 
ness of the time of fulfilment of the proph- 
ecy increases. 

5. The means and methods of progress 
are through the steady improvement of 
the arts and sciences and the constant re- 
duction of the proportion of the working 
power of the world which is wasted, or at 
least employed with no permanent effect, 
with as constant increase in the proportion 
appled to the increase of our stores of de- 
sirable and permanent forms of wealth. 

6. Culture, and all desirable things, will 
come to the nation, in the future, in increas- 
ing proportion, so long as the present con- 
ditions of production are maintained and 
a whole nation is kept employed in increas- 
ing proportion and with increasing produc- 
tiveness and with constant gain in the pro- 
portion of labor which is applied to the 
supply of other products than those of im- 
mediately perishable character. The less 
the labor required for production of food- 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


stutts, for example, the more becomes appli- 
cable to the manufacture of the comforts of 
hife.* 

The same simple principles apply to the 
industries generally and individually, to 
the advances observed in the economic 
progress of the arts, to the development of 
every science. The thermodynamist traces 
the history of the heat-engines and finds 
that he may plot a curve of their gain in 
efficiency, in that of increasing steam-pres- 
sures, expansion ratios, speeds of piston 
and of rotation, ‘duties’ and even financial 
returns. He predicts the approximate 
values of these quantities for the engineer, 
and the engine-designer and builder know 
practically what to anticipate in the im- 
mediate future and how to modify their 
designs in the direction of further improve- 
ment. The spinning of cotton and the 
weaving of cloth, even, follow similar gener- 
al laws and the expert traces the curve of 
their progress and knows that increasing 
speeds of rotation of spindle, a more rapid 
beat of the loom, simplification of mech- 
anism, all tending to make the day’s work 
ot the expert operator more productive, 
will carry out the curve of progress with 
further and constant tendency to elevation. 
The superposition of the two curves insures 
still more rapid rise, and the gain of the 
Olympia Mill in the South over the most 
ancient in operation in the North comes 
thus largely of the fruition of a visible and 
measurable and steady past progress. 

The resultant of all the curves of mod- 
ern progress in superposition is seen in 
those of the nation and, studying these, we 
may assert that given, in the immediate 
future as in the immediate past, that quiet 
and peace essential to maximum efficiency 
of industry, to the maintenance of produc- 
tion on the part of the whole working pop- 


**The Trend of National Progress, R. H. 
Thurston, North American Review, September, 
1895. 


SCIENCE. 


451 


ulation, through unintermitted labor with 
highest skill, through maximum time con- 
sistent with a wholesome and healthful life, 
the trend of national progress will con- 
tinue onward and upward with further ac- 
celeration, even though already far ahead 
of anything ever before seen in any part of 
the world. Unimpeded by folly, demagog- 
ism or international troubles, our total 
wealth should at least double each genera- 
tion; the earnings of the average worker 
should nominally double each forty years or 
less, and, measured in buying power, at a 
much higher rate. The next generation, 
all going smoothly, will see the average 
skilled workman enjoying as much of com- 
fort and luxury as the average member of 
the college faculty to-day, and probably 
more. 

The trend of production of the industrial 
arts, and especially of those which contrib- 
ute most to the comfort and pleasure and 
moral and intellectual profit of the people, 
will be found to exhibit the most impres- 
sive advances, and already the wealth of the 
country in this form is equal to the total 
of all our houses and lands—and is increas- 
ing at a double rate; which, ‘being inter- 
preted,’ means that, our necessities being 
practically fully supplied, our people are 
now accumulating the comforts of life and 
all its good things by application to the pro- 
duction of new wealth in these forms an 
already large and a rapidly increasing 
proportion of the productive energy and 
ability of their ablest minds and most high- 
ly skilled artisans. Ability, capital and 
mechanical energy and brute forces are con- 
spiring. as never before to give the great 
body of the people of the United States 
and, in less degree, of other civilized na- 
tions, a large and increasing proportion of 
the growing product of these three factors 
of progress. We are fifty per cent. more 
comfortable than were our people in 1880, 
sixteen times as comfortable as were our 


452 


parents in 1850, and our children in the 
rising generation will have twice as many 
luxuries and live twice as easy and com- 
fortable lives, if they so choose, in their 
later time as do we to-day.* The oracle 
may sometimes be in error; but it remains 
the fact that ‘‘science, and science only, 
often can and frequently does, by a per- 
fectly accurate and correct method, give us 
clairvoyant views of the immediate, if not 
of the remote, future. Of the trend of 
modern progress, in the direction and in 
rate of movement, there is no reasonable 
_ doubt.”’ 

XV. 


Finally, en résumé, to our time,y all life 
and movement, whether of man, animals, 
vegetation, seasons, suns and planets, arts, 
commerce, civilization, intellectual, moral 
or physical worlds, depend upon transfor- 
mations of preéxisting energy. All stud- 
ies, all work in the domain of the physical, 
the natural sciences, relate to transforma- 
tions of energies and their mutual interac- 
tions and modifications. We have learned 
to compute the velocity, to determine the 
methods of refraction and reflection of 
light; but we still know little of its exact 
character as motion of molecules. We know 
the related form, heat-energy, in its sensi- 
ble effects; but.we are still unable to differ- 
entiate the one from the other. We can 
produce and utilize electricity in many 
ways, but we, as yet, do not even know what 
it is or how its transformations from other 
energies are effected. We work with these 
three forms of power, they are the amuse- 
ment of the ignorant, the wonder of the 
sage, the slaves of humanity; but we do 
not even know what is the nature of the sub- 
stance through which they act to produce 
their beautiful, their marvelous, their 


*«The Trend of National Progress,’ Conclu- 
sions. 

+ This section is abstracted from the earlier 
address already referred to. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


world-impelling effects. The ether is still 
to us an enigma, unsolved by the wisest, 
a riddle to the most expert investigator. 

The chemist knows much of the composi- 
tion of ‘compounds,’ but he has never 
seen, felt or identified an ‘atom’ and still 
vaguely dreams of a single first element 
into which all shall be resolved. He counts 
with unseeing eyes the number of atoms 
in a ‘molecule,’ but has never yet learned 
their form or grouping. Even with the aid 
of the physicist he loses track of their 
transformations in the furnace of the sun 
and the stars, and finds in the spectro- 
scopic lines a strange language of which he 
lacks the key. He can isolate and weigh 
the phosphorus in a gram of steel, but 
he cannot give us the phosphorescent fuel, 
the source of light, of the fire-fly. He can 
reduce the muscle, fat, and nerve matter 
of the human system into their elements, 
but he cannot produce the storage bat- 
teries of brain and spine, or the gymnotus’ 
cells. 

The astronomer weighs and measures the 
sun, the moon, the planets, and the nearer 
stars; but he stands aghast and amazed by 
that flying sphinx, ‘1830 Goombridge,’ the 
‘runaway star,’ flying 200 miles a second, 
faster than it could fall from infinite space, 
and its origin, course, destiny are to him 
questions of the oracles. He has, as yet, 
no solution. He is lost amid the depths 
of space, he knows not where to look for 
a limit, or how to prove its non-existence. 
He asks, with the believing and the unbe- 
lieving among the simple, How and when 
shall the ‘Heavens melt with fervent 
heat’ ? and, How long shall this wandering 
handful of worlds traverse the infinite 
safely and without that conflagrating col- 
lision with other systems or other worlds 
that, as it seems possible, now and then, at 
intervals of years or of centuries, causes 
a star to blaze out in the midst of darkness 
with a brilliancy greater than that of the 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902.] 


sun? His little span of life is too short 
to permit him to follow the evolution of the 
worlds from their initial nebule, too brief 
to give him access to the secrets of their 
Maker. 

The geologist tells us of the past history 
of all that lives, and of this spinning globe 
on which it has found foothold, falling 
into life from unknown space, and time, and 
depths; but he cannot tell us whence came 
all life, whence all spirits, all human and 
divine souls now constituting its living 
freight, as it wanders with unguessed des- 
tiny through an unmeasured universe. He 
roughly traces its superficial changes from 
the day of mist, through the ages of crea- 
tion and growth of all that has come into 
life; but he and the physicist and the 
astronomer are alike uncertain whether it 
shall endure a thousand million of years or 
a single day. The physicist predicts a limit 
of a few million years, the geologist be- 
lieves many millions, but no man knows 
when life shall perish from the face of the 
earth. 

The biologist can give microscopic meas- 
ures and microphotographic pictures of the 
tissues, and can trace a nerve to its min- 
utest ramifications; but we have yet to 
learn the secrets of the source of life, of 
method of production and application of 
energies, of those transformations that 
give form, structure, life, and power to the 
organism of monad or of man. He exhibits 
the mechanism of the fish, but finds not 
the secret of separation of oxygen from 
the medium in which he lives, and cannot 
produce a submarine vessel. He knows the 
shape and movement of the bird, but flight 
remains to him a mystery. He measures 
the heat of the animal body, but biologist, 
chemist, physicist and engineer, all to- 
gether, give us no hint of the method of 
its production. They know, to an ounce, 
the power per cubic inch or per pound of 
the muscle, but neither one nor all can 


SCIENCE. 


453 


say how that power is originated, how 
transferred or how exerted by the trans- 
mitting threads of working muscle. 

The engineer has, for a century, made 
steady progress in the adaptation of ma- 
chinery to every purpose of modern life. 
He converts the potential energy of the 
vegetable life of a myriad earlier ages into 
steam power, and apples it to the im- 
pulsion of railway carriage, of steamship, 
and of mill; but, in the process, he wastes 
four-fifths or nine-tenths of it, and pays 
out principal where he might, perhaps, pay 
only interest. He turns the elastic force 
of expanding steam into an electric cur- 
rent and sends it out to relieve the bur- 
den of the overworked horse; but he allows 
as much to slip from his grasp, often, as 
he usefully applies to his proposed work. 
He diverts the energy of combustion or of 
fallmg water into the new form, and the 
electric light, through his genius, gives 
illumination to street, and dwelling, and 
hall; but every light ray goes forth to its - 
task carrying with it a sheaf of heat rays; 
and the glow-worm shames the man, pro- 
ducing light without heat, and heat apart 
from light, and all researches exhibit only 
our ignorance and comparative inefficiency. 
He measures the speed and power of the 
albatross, the eagle, and the swallow; but 
he only marvels the more at their beautiful 
movements and rapid flight. He captures 
the dolphin and overcomes the whale when 
they traverse the surface of the ocean, but 
he knows not how to follow them into the 
depths of the sea. He crowds his fellows 
into mills and factories, but sees no way 
of giving each an individual life and work, 
comfort and health in equal and fair quan- 
tity. The man of science, whatever his 
chosen task, whatever his field of labor, 
however high his attainments and what- 
ever the magnitude of his accomplishments, 
finds that acquisition of learning, gain in 
knowledge of the ways of nature, increas- 


454 


ing appreciation of, and familiarity with, 
God’s ways, only bring to his dazed eyes 
greater and more novel marvels, grander 
and wider sweep of opportunity, mightier 
and mightier mysteries, all challenging him 
to nobler aspirations, more earnest labor, 
higher aims. Every step towards higher, 
better, brighter life gives him reason for 
ereater humility, larger faith, and stronger 
sense of the infinitude of duty and oppor- 
tunity. 

The work of the man of science is present 
still, and is never-ending. But, glancing 
at the past, he sees that he has no reason for 
discouragement, every reason for enthusi- 
astic ambition. He sees a wonderful, a 
glorious, a fruitful work just begun, and 
his the privilege of taking part in it. His 
work is the basis of present highest human 
existence, the potential foundation of still 
nobler life. Great problems have been 
solved; greater. and grander remain, which 
shall certainly be solved by him. His 
. is the task of showing the way to make all 
the powers of nature genii aiding man; of 
giving comforts of every kind to his fellow, 
and powers of accomplishment of great 
work for public good; pointing out the 
way to give widely distributed enjoyment 
of life, leisure for moral development, for 
intellectual growth, opportunity for study 
of the universes, the attainment of highest 
physieal, intellectual, moral ideals. He will 
yet penetrate the secrets of the living ma- 
chine, learn how to evade the law of Car- 
not, to produce and apply the energies of 
chemical combination to the generation of 
heat without light, light without heat, 
power without waste; to transform thermal 
from chemical energy, without combustion 
at high temperature, as does the meanest 
animal ; to convert it into mechanical power 
without the thermodynamic loss inherent 
in our heat engines, as does beast, bird, and 
worm; to obtain its equivalent of electric 
energy, as does the nervous system of every 


SCIENCE., 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


living creature; to intelligently select and 
sort out the radiant energies into luminous, 
thermal, or other etheric forms, at his will, 
as does the unconscious bit of hardly living 
jelly floating in the spume of the wave 
crest of every tropical sea. 


XVI. 


Our anticipations for scientific research, 
and for the future of its noble band of men 
of genius, may confidently be affirmed to be 
justified, however sanguine, by the history 
of the past and by the reasonable proph- 
ecy, in the light of the past, of its great- 
est seers. It may well be doubted if any 
living soul can realize, in full, the tremen- 
dous portent of that prophecy, and it is 
likely that its fulfillment will transcend the 
most ambitious and vigorous imaginings of 
our day. As the advances of the nineteenth 
century have inconceivably. transcended 
the most enthusiastic prediction of the 
eighteenth, the revelations of the twentieth 
century may be expected to still further ex- 
ceed the anticipations of the most far-see- 
ing and sanguine prophets among men of 
science of our own time. 

Genius and learning may be expected to 
persist in the coming times and courage is 
never lacking. The later Newtons will ex- 
hibit as great prescience as the earlier, the 
coming Davys and Faradays will aceumu- 
late no less learning than the great minds 
of the past, and the nerve of Heilprin,’ 
standing amidst lightnings, fire and smoke, 
and falling rains, mud, and lava, studying 
the processes of voleanie action from the 
edge of the roaring crater of Mt. Pelée, is 
as characteristic of the modern scientific 
investigator as was that of a Pliny, in a 
similar adventure, two thousand years ear- 
her. ‘With intelligence to guard his life 
against every needless risk, and yet with 
constancy and professional zeal to make 
him face cheerfully all inevitable danger,’ 
such a man will always illustrate the ‘un- 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. | 


conscious courage and heroism of the scien- 
tifie spirit..* The true scientific spirit, 
however, is quite as often and as impres- 
sively shown by the investigator who pub- 
lishes conclusions at variance with the be- 
liefs of the world or of his own colleagues, 
and the physical suffering of a Galileo and 
the moral crucifixion of the promoters of 
almost every new discovery or new philos- 
ophy afford illustrations of this fact. But 
courage best appears in toleration. 

The past, the present and the future have 
their special interests to the student of the 
trend of human progress, and it is easy, 
a general way, to follow the line of the 
curve. Compare what is known of the 
older civilizations with the present of our 
own and the promise of the future for com- 
ing generations of civilized men! 

In the days of the prehistoric races, 
whose only records are now found in the 
few relies here and there discovered by the 
geologist and the antiquarian, centuries 
passed without important changes, and 
progress was inconceivably slow as meas- 
ured by the movement of the later days. 
Progress in the most enlightened countries 
was comparable to that of China during 
recent centuries and the barbarian stood ab- 
solutely still and remains, even to-day, 
as with his ancestors and forefathers of a 
thousand generations before science or civ- 
ilization had a home or a name. The ‘curve 
of progress’ was practically rectilinear and 
horizontal through centuries and millen- 
niums. 

With the appearance of manufactures, 
trade and widening commerce and ex- 
change, a rise became observable and the 
trend of progress during the periods of the 
history of the East Indian, the Babylonian, 
the Assyrian, and the old Greek was slow- 
ly but steadily upward. The discoveries 
and philosophies of Aristotle and his con- 
temporaries and successors, the introduction 

* The Nation, June 5, 1902, p. 437. 


SCIENCE. 


455 


of the Aristotelian methods of study of na- 
ture and of the sciences generally, the in- 
ventions of Hero and the other Alexandri- 
ans, of the mechanicians of the Museum 
and the Serapion, the revelations of the 
Ptolemys and the Euclids, the alchemists 
and the naturalists of the Egyptian period 
and of Greek mastery of the Nile: these 
events and these inventors in science, phi- 
losophy and mechanics produced the first ob- 
servableacceleration andupward curvature. 
The Saracens, driving out the Greeks, sub- 
stituting their own for the older civilization, 
but yet seizing and carrying forward the 
torch of knowledge and preserving every 
spark of the older light, promoting all the 
sciences, cherishing, learning all and caring 
for men of science, brought about a still 
more marked acceleration, and the upward 
trend of the curve continually became more 
observable until, by transfer into Italy, and 
in the hands of Leonardo, by importation 
into Spain through Moorish enterprise and 
wisdom, learning and the modern arts, so 
far as then known, all the sciences 
found safe and permanent home in Europe, 
despite the later opposition and persecution 
of the pioneers in science by the all too 
human elements of the dominant church. 
But it was not until about the beginning 
of the seventeenth century, at a time when 
all the arts and all the sciences took a sud- 
den start upward like the flowers of spring, 
that any rapid progress commenced. Then 
astronomy and physics and chemistry and 
all the applied sciences began to contribute 
to the advancement of learning, and Ba- 
con’s aspiration and Milton’s cheerful lead- 
ing, gradually bringing about a systemati- 
zation of knowledge and a scientific method 
of advancement of science, began to illus- 
trate the wonderful power of systematic 
work in well determined courses in accel- 
erating all human progress. From the in- 
troduction of the inventions which gave 
firm foundation to the iron and steel manu- 


456 


facture, supplied the world with a reliable, 
powerful and cheap prime mover, made 
the factory system practicable and modern 
systems of manufacture feasible, the curve 
of progress has been rapidly, and more and 
more rapidly, mounting upward. Its co- 
ordinates may, from that date, be accu- 
rately measured and its locus precisely fol- 
lowed by collating the statistics of iron 
or the textile or the educational progress 
of the world’s leading nations. They all 
follow a similar course and one is a gauge 
quite as much as another. The output of 
our colleges and especially of our colleges 
of engineering now follows the trend of 
progress of the nation and the output of 
men learned in applied science and that 
of our blast furnaces alike afford us a 
measure and a gauge of the advancement 
of the nation toward a still higher civiliza- 
tion. 

A study of the curve of progress to date, 
and especially of the trend of progress at 
date, thus shows that we may find, in this 
revelation the rise and the advance of civ- 
ilization into our own times, evidence which 
is convincing to the extent of proof that we 
are entered upon a stage in which the char- 
acteristic features are intelligent and sys- 
tematic development of every department 
of human knowledge and of human skill, 
a stage in which scientific investigation is 
assuming constantly a more and more con- 
trolling share in the perfection of the sci- 
ences, the applied sciences and the arts of 
life. It is becoming constantly more and 
more productive of results favoring the 
progress of the race in its every depart- 
ment of life and growth. 

Organized investigation of the problems 
of the industries is thus becoming as ob- 
viously useful and as generally employed 
in those fields as in pure science itself. 
‘The scientific method of science-advance- 
ment’ is the method of every worker in 
every direction. The universities give 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 403. 


large attention to research; it is cultivated 
by the colleges; it is the object of pro- 
fessional and industrial associations and of 
great endowed institutions founded for 
this special purpose. 

The beginning of the twentieth century 
will probably become marked in history as 
that also of the organized industry of in- 
vestigation, in all the departments of na- 
ture, of industry and of life, as that of 
the commencement of a rapid rate of accel- 
eration of fruitful production, and as that 
of the firm establishment of science and of 
the scientific method as recognized ele- 
ments of human progress. 

In the promotion of this movement, no 
influence should be more potent and more 
general than that of Sigma Xi. This or- 
ganization of the most brilliant minds dé- 
voted to science for science’s sake—minds 
selected with care from among the choicest 
intellects coming forth from all schools, 
educated, learned, enthusiastic and capa- 
ble, trained and expert—must, if it is main- 
tained at its original and its present high 
standard, prove a mighty force for good in 
every field of most intelligent human activ- 
ity, of highest scientific achievement. 

Charles Sumner once said: ‘‘ This is our 
talisman: Give us Peace! And population 
will increase above all experience, resources 
of all kinds will embellish the land with 
immortal beauty; the name of the Republic 
will be exalted until every neighbor, yield- 
ing to irresistible attraction, seeks new life 
in becoming part of the great whole and 
the national example will be more puis- 
sant than army or navy for the conquest of 
the world.’’* 

““Give us Peace!’’ And science, art, in- 
dustry and ability, conspiring, shall insure 
growth of population in numbers, wealth, 
comfort and intelligence and the revelation 
of nature’s secrets, the utilization of na- 


** Prophetic Voices concerning America,’ Lee 
and Shepard, 1874. 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902.] 


ture’s energies; and the inventions of a 
new century shall justify every one of 
Charles Sumner’s ‘ prophetic voices,’ from 
those of Seneca to those of Cobden, De 
Toequeville and that orator, seer and 
prophet, Sumner himself. Seneca’s conti- 
nent has appeared and there are no more 
geographical worlds to conquer; but there 
are greater worlds still accessible to the sci- 
entific explorer. The prophecy of the 
“bought servant,’ George Webb, became 
true with the birth of a new nation: 

Rome shall lament her ancient fame declined 
And Philadelphia be the Athens of mankind. 
Meantime, the nation, as prophesied by 
Sheridan, shall thus maintain a ‘name and 
government rising above the nations of 
Europe with a simple but commanding dig- 
nity that wins at once the respect, the con- 

fidence and the affection of the world.’ 

And, in all this, the man of science, seer, 
revealer and prophet, shall play the noblest 
part. 


R. H. THursTon. 
CoRNELL UNIVERSITY. 


ATTENUATION AND DISTORTION ON LONG- 
DISTANCE TELEPHONE AND POWER 
TRANSMISSION LINES REGARDED 
AS HYDRODYNAMIC PHE- 
NOMENA.* 

THE analogy between a steady flow of 
water in a long pipe under the action of 
the constant head and a continuous current 
of electricity under some constant pressure 
such as is furnished by one or more cells 
of a battery, has often been employed to 
give a clear elementary physical conception 
of the mathematical relations expressed by 
Ohm’s law. In this case the applied pres- 
sure is gradually consumed by the resist- 
ance experienced by the current, and in 
strict analogy with the flow of water, the 

* Abstract of paper read before the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science by 


Professor Henry T. Eddy, University of Minne- 
sota, Pittsburgh meeting, June, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


457 


loss per unit of length is proportional to the 
product of the square of the current and 
the first power of the resistance. So far 
as the mathematical relations are concerned 
the two problems are identical. 

It is the object of this paper to extend 
this hydrodynamic analogy to the more 
complicated case of long-distance trans- 
mission by alternating currents in general. 

Telephone transmission has been specifi- 
cally mentioned in the title in order to 
include the general case of variable fre- 
quency. The importance of thus extending 
and enlarging this analogy will be evident 
when we reflect that all the complicated 
phenomena of long-distance electrical 
power transmission, by any combination of 
land lines and cables with their sending 
and receiving apparatus, may be completely 
reproduced in all its details of operation 
by simple pumping machinery with its 
transmission pipes and air chambers, whose 
manner of operation may be made clear to 
any one without the aid of higher analysis. 
Let us first take the case of a double-acting 
pump cylinder and piston in which the two: 
ends of the cylinder are connected by a. 
simple pipe or by-pass without valves.. 
When this apparatus is filled with water 
and the piston is moved back and forth by 
a uniformly rotating crank, the water is 
forced through the by-pass alternately 
from one end of the cylinder to the other. 
If the by-pass is short, the resistance to 
motion may be taken as due to fluid frie- 
tion only, since the inertia of the water 
may then be disregarded. This is in every 
particular analogous in the manner of its 
operation to a sinusoidal electromotive 
force acting in a circuit whose induction 
and capacity may be disregarded in com- 
parison with its ohmic resistance. 

But in ease the pipe connecting the ends 
of the pump cylinder be made very long 
and the size sufficient to greatly reduce the 
friction, we may disregard this in com- 


458 


parison with the resistance due to the 
inertia of the water. The resistance due to 
inertia is proportional to the product of 
the mass of the water moved by its accelera- 
tion. Since this acceleration is greatest 
at the beginning of the stroke and vanishes 
at the middle of the stroke, where it 
changes to a retardation of amount increas- 
ing to the end of the stroke, it is evident 
that the phase of the current lags a quarter 
of a revolution or period behind that of 
the pressure, the pressure being a maxi- 
mum at the beginning of the stroke, and 
the current a maximum at the middle of 
the stroke. During the retardation of the 
piston the inertia of the water acts to drive 
the piston forward, and (disregarding 
friction) as much energy is returned to the 
piston during retardation as is exerted by 
it during acceleration, so that on the whole 
no loss of energy occurs during the stroke. 
In these particulars this case differs from 
that previously considered, where the 
pressure is in phase with the current and 
energy is expended against resistance dur- 
ing the entire stroke. 

Now suppose that fluid friction and 
inertia coexist in the connecting pipe; it is 
evident that their coexistence does not 
affect the separate actions which have been 
described. The current or flow back and 
forth is that due to the reciprocating 
motion of the piston, and the pressure is 
the resultant of the two pressures already 
deseribed, differing in phase by a quarter 
of a period. The lag of the current will, 
therefore, be less than a quarter of a 
period. 

The inertia of the water is entirely anal- 
ogous to the self-induction of an electric 
circuit and the case of combined fluid fric- 
tion and inertia is mathematically in every 
particular the same as an alternating cur- 
rent circuit havine distributed ohmic re- 
sistance and self induction. 

Next let us imagine the short by-pass 


SCIENCE. 


[N.s. Vou. XVI. No. 403. 
first considered to be sufficiently increased 
in diameter to make it a globular chamber 
as large or larger than the eylinder. itself, 
and let it be furnished with an elastic dia- 
metral diaphragm (of sheet rubber, for 
example) which occupies a diametral posi- 
tion whenever the piston is at the middle 
of the stroke. It is evident that when the 
piston is at the beginning of the stroke the 
tension of the stretched diaphragm exerts 
a negative pressure or suction to force the 
piston forward in its stroke, which vanishes 
at the middle of the stroke, after which the 
pressure exerts a retardation whose amount 
increases to a maximum at the end of the 
stroke. But the total energy exerted by 
the diaphragm and restored to it is equal. 

The action of the diaphragm differs from 
the action of the inertia of the water pre- 
viously considered in the one particular 
only: it exerts its greatest forward pres- 
sure at the instant the inertia exerts its 
greatest back pressure, consequently when 
we disregard fluid friction, the phase of 
the current is one quarter of a period in 
advance of the pressure. 

It thus appears that the effect of such a 
diaphragm is opposite to that of the inertia 
of the water, so that a diaphragm having 
sufficient tension would completely destroy 
the effect of the inertia of the water. The 
general effect of this arrangement is to re- 
lieve to a greater or less extent the greater 
pressures, positive or negative, at each end 
of the stroke arising from the inertia of 
the water. Furthermore it may be noticed 
that a somewhat different device from that 
just mentioned might be employed, whose 
resultant action would nevertheless be of 
the same nature. For example, instead of 
enlarging the by-pass let two equal air 
chambers be placed on it, one at each end 
of the eylinder. This is, in fact, the man- 
ner in which relief is actually obtained in 
pumping machinery, from the shock and 
greatly increased pressure at the beginning 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


and end of the stroke arising from the 
inertia of the water. Mathematically the 
effect is the same as that of the diaphragm 
previously described. 

The operation of the diaphragm and air 
chambers just considered is strictly anal- 
ogous to that of capacity in an alternating- 
current circuit, the diaphragm to capacity 
in series, and the two air chambers to ca- 
pacity in shunt, and by these self induction 
may be neutralized to a greater or less ex- 
tent, according to their relative amounts. 

We have thus far considered merely the 
peculiarities of the transmitting or, connect- 
ing pipes in their relation to the double- 
acting force pump regarded as the source 
of energy. We need next to consider a re- 
ceiving pump which shall take and utilize 
the energy not expended in fluid friction. 
Let the receiving pump be assumed at first 
to be exactly like the foree pump, and to 
actuate a crank, fly wheel and other ma- 
chinery on which energy is expended uni- 
formly. The crank end of this second 
cylinder is connected directly by a pipe 
with the crank end of the force pump, and 
- the other ends likewise. In this case the 
energy expended in fluid friction and iner- 
tia may be neglected in comparison with 
the energy transmitted; this arrangement 
will transmit power from the driving crank 
to the driven crank much as would a belt 
or train of cog wheels. But suppose now 
that the second eylinder is connected to 
the first by very long pipes, miles long, 
for example, in which the inertia of the 
water becomes a controlling facter of the 
transmission. It would evidently become 
practically impossible to make the water 
oscillate with any rapidity in such a closed 
pipe under ordinary circumstances. But 
let there be a series of air chambers uni- 
formly distributed along the entire length 
of the connecting pipes, or, what would 
amount to nearly the same thing, let the 
pipe be an elastic hose requiring pres- 


SCIENCE. 


459 
sure to diminish its 
section. 

This will at once entirely change the 
circumstances of the case, for the air cham- 
bers near the foree pump will readily re- 
ceive the water as it flows from the force 
pump and transmit it to those next along 
the line and so on, so that a wave of pres- 
sure will pass along the pipe and at the 
same velocity a wave of current will pass 
havine its maximum flow at points where 
certain high pressure air chambers are dlis- 
charging into those next along the line. 
By these progressive pressure and current 
waves, energy will be transmitted to the 
working eylinder which need not in this 
ease be of the same cubic capacity as the 
force pump. Several complete waves may 
be in progress of transmission along the 
pipe at once. The frequency of oscillation 
in the working cylinder will be equal to that 
of the foree pump, a number which may 
be computed in any given case. But the 
waves will lag in phase behind those of the 
force pump to an amount due to the num- 
ber of waves and fractions thereof in pro- 
eress of transmission along the line, and to 
the inertia of the working piston, ete. 

It is evident that when the two cylinders 
are equal in every respect, except that the 
piston of the second eylinder is of such 
large mass that its inertia is great and 
when in addition we may disregard fluid 


enlarge or cross 


‘friction, and the fly wheel of the second 


eylinder is running idle, that no work is 
expended in the system. In this case the 
second piston will originate transmission 
waves precisely as does the first but in op- 
posite direction. The resultant of these 
equal and opposite progressive waves will 
be a system of stationary waves along the 
line. Whenever the amount of energy 
used at the working cylinder is small com- 
pared with the total energy, kinetic and po- 
tential, at and near the receiving apparatus 
the waves originating there will approach 


460 


the magnitude of those received by it. Any 
discontinuity of mass in the current flowing 
in the pipe, as for example, mercury in 
place of water for some part of the length 
of the pipe, will originate reflected or re- 
turn waves. To insure good transmission, 
little or no discontinuity in the distribution 
of the inertia along the pipe should occur 
at any point such as would be due to 
changes of size or otherwise. 

All these results are equally true of al- 
ternating-current circuits. 

It may be shown from elementary con- 
siderations that the progressive velocity of 
the waves in the transmission pipe under 
consideration is constant for all frequencies 
of oscillation in case of a pipe in which the 
friction may be disregarded, but that the 
velocity increases as the square root of the 
frequency in any case where the inertia of 
the current may be disregarded. The case 
of the unequal velocity of the waves propa- 
gating the harmonic components of sounds 
in telephonictransmission by reason of their 
difference of pitch, which is one cause of the 
distortion of sound in long-distance tele- 
phone transmission, has been treated at 
length in the researches of Dr. Pupin who 
has investigated very fully the inductive 
(or inertia) loading necessary to render 
lines practically distortionless. This is 
equally a hydrodynamic phenomenon. 

The one question remaining for elucida- 
tion is that of the attenuation or gradual 
diminution of amplitude of waves as they 
progress along the line. 

It may be readily shown that in both of 
the two extreme cases already considered, 
viz., those in which either friction or iner- 
tia is disregarded, that the logarithm of 
the reciprocal of the amplitude, or intensity 
of the wave at any point, varies directly as 
the product of the distance of the point 
from the source of the wave by its velocity. 
Since this velocity has already been shown 
to be constant in ease the fluid friction may 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 408. 


be disregarded and to increase with the fre- 
quency in case the inertia is disregarded, 
it is evident that attenuation depends upon 
frequency in ease of fluid friction without 
inertia, but it is independent of frequency 
in case of inertia without fluid friction. 
Such unequal attenuation in the telephone 
obliterates to a greater or less extent tones 
of high pitch before it does those of lower 
pitch. It is therefore necessary to distinct 
transmission that the self induction of the 
line should be large enough to store a large 
amount of kinetic and potential energy in 
the wave motion along the line, which in all 
its aspects is strictly analogous to the wave 
motion propagated in the water in the ap- 
paratus just described. 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 


THE officers of the Carnegie Institution 
have appointed advisory committees and 
have invited suggestions from men of sci- 
ence. The executive committee has there- 
fore under consideration a large number of 
reports and recommendations, but as these 
must in large measure be regarded as confi- 
dential, it is probable that the committee 
would welcome a public discussion of the 
entire question of the endowment of scien- 
tifie research. ScrENcE appears to be the 
best place for such discussion; and it would 
doubtless be for the common good if those 
who are interested in the subject would 
make known their views before the meeting 
of the trustees in November. At that time 
a definite policy may be adopted, which can- 
not thereafter be altered. There are so 
many diverse possibilities and conflicting 
interests that these can only be sifted and 
reconciled by full and free discussion. 


It appears that the Carnegie Institu- 
tion can either undertake certain large 
plans for the promotion of science or can 
assist a great number of special researches, 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


and it is probable that both methods will 
be adopted. The trustees will doubtless 
follow the principle laid down for the 
Smithsonian Institution by Henry and will 
not undertake anything that can be done 
equally well by other agencies. They will 
cooperate with existing institutions and 
promote new and independent centers 
of research, rather than establish any 
institution that might rival those al- 
ready in existence, or undertake the 
control of the agencies that they may 
assist. Thus the Smithsonian Institution 
performed a service of immense value in 
inaugurating investigations in meteorology 
and fish culture and then letting these 
develop into the Weather Bureau and the 
Fish Commission. It has done work of 
equal importance in fostering the National 
Museum, the Bureau of American Ethnol- 
ogy and the Zoological Park, but in my 
opinion the time has now come when these 
institutions should be released from their 
leading strings. 

It appears to me that neither of the two 
plans which I have heard especially dis- 
eussed for the Carnegie Institution is ad- 
visable—namely, the erection of a geo- 
physical laboratory at Washington and the 
acquirement of the Marine Biological Lab- 
oratory at Woods Hole. I should suppose 
that a geophysical laboratory at Washing- 
ton would do work that might be under- 
taken by the Coast and Geodetic Survey 
and the Geological Survey, and would 
prevent the government from doing such 
work. It would seem to be better for the 
Carnegie Institution to employ a commis- 
sion to outline the geophysical researches 
most needed, and then to promote them by 
providing equipment and making it possi- 
ble for those most competent to undertake 
the work, always looking forward to the 
time when it can be handed over to the 
government. Even the great income of 
the institution, if divided among the 


SCIENCE. 


461 


sciences, is limited when compared with 
the $1,000,000 appropriated by the govern- 
ment for the Geological Survey. 

The acquirement of the Marine Biolog- 
ical Laboratory at Woods Hole is, it seems, 
being seriously considered by the execu- 
tive committee of the institution, and this 
plan may therefore with advantage be 
discussed in some detail. It appears that 
the corporation has voted to transfer the 
laboratory to the Carnegie Institution. It 
was stated at the meeting of the corporation 
that the executive committee would recom- 
mend to the trustees the acceptance of the 
laboratory, the erection of buildings and 
an annual allowance of $20,000. It was 
the preference of nearly all the members 
of the corporation that the laboratory 
should be assisted by the Carnegie Insti- 
tution without being made a branch of it; 
but the alternative was placed before them 
of giving away the laboratory or losing the 
large support of the Carnegie Institution 
and perhaps witnessing the establishment 
of a rival laboratory. 

Now the Woods Hole laboratory has been 
dear to many biologists of the country 
exactly on account of its independent posi- 
tion and democratic organization. It is 
the only institution of national importance 
that is controlled by scientific men. There 
is a corporation composed chiefly of those 
who have carried on research in the labora- 
tory, and this corporation elects trustees 
who represent different universities. The 
results have been what might have been 
anticipated from this democratic organiza- 
tion; there have, on the one hand, been 
financial troubles, and, on the other hand, 
there have been great enthusiasm, loyal 
devotion and much self-sacrifice. It seems 
that this is a case where the Carnegie Insti- 
tution might relieve the financial difficul- 
ties without suppressing the public spirit 
and service of those who now conduct the 
laboratory. If the institution should offer 


462 


to contribute for the present $10,000 a year, 
on condition that those interested in the 
laboratory contribute an equal sum, the 
condition would be met, and the funds of 
the institution would go twice as far as if 
it assumed control. They would indeed go 
further ; for example, the director and other 
scientific men serve the laboratory without 
salary; should a director be appointed 
from Washington, he would naturally ex- 
pect and should receive a salary of $5,000 
or $10,000. If the laboratory is continued 
as an independent institution, it will soon- 
er or later receive adequate endowments, 
and the Carnegie Institution can then use 
its funds for other purposes. If the lab- 
oratory is made equal to the station at 
Naples, and nothing less has always been 
intended by those interested in it, an an- 
nual appropriation of $50,000 will be re- 
quired; should branches be established and 
an experimental farm added, this appropri- 
ation will need to be doubled, and no money 
would remain for purposes equally impor- 
tant for the advancement of biology. It 
seems that as a branch of the Carnegie In- 
stitution the laboratory would either be less 
adequately supported than if it had re- 
mained an independent institution, or it 
would be aggrandized at the cost of other 
biological laboratories, exploring expedi- 
tions, ete. In either case the centralized 
power of money would crush the only seri- 
ous attempt of scientific men to conduct an 
institution for research. 

The fact that the erection of a geophys- 
ical laboratory at Washington or the ac- 
quirement of the Marine Biological 
laboratory at Woods Hole does not seem 
to be the best use of the endowment of the 
Carnegie Institution, does not mean that 
the institution should not conduct any 
laboratory. There are undoubtedly serious 
difficulties in the way of simply distributing 
the entire income among existing institu- 
tions. These institutions might depend on 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 403. 


subsidies rather than on their own efforts, 
and they might transfer to other uses funds 
that are now spent on the objects that the 
Carnegie Institution would support. It is 
reported that one small college has asked 
that its share of the fund be forwarded. 
Asa matter of fact there are not urgent and 
important demands on the funds for re- 
search already existing—the Elizabeth 
Thompson Science Fund, th2 trust funds 
of the National Academy of Sciences and 
of the Smithsonian Institution, and the re- 
search fund of the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science. 

The Carnegie Institution. can not with 
advantage be an Elizabeth Thompson 
Seience Fund on a large scale; neither 
should it abandon its individuality to merge 
its Income in existing agencies. The na- 
tional government spends $10,000,000 a 
year on its scientific departments, and 
universities spend annually in their vari- 
ous activities a much greater sum. The in- 
come of the Carnegie Institution, if merged 
with other agencies or made coordinate 
with them, would simply add 1 or 2 per 
cent. to the scientific activity of the coun- 
try, which is already increasing at the rate 
of perhaps 10 per cent. each year. 

The endowment of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion if invested in government bonds would 
yield an income of $200,000; if invested in 
securities approved by the courts for trust 
funds, from $300,000 to $350,000. Per- 
haps one fifth of the income will be required 
for the expenses of administration. It may 
be that Mr. Carnegie will enlarge the fund; 
this will doubtless depend on his judgment 
as to whether or not the money is used 
more effectively for the public good than it 
could be in any other way. It seems that 
for the present at least one half of the in- 
come might be used to best advantage in 
assisting researches and existing institu- 
tions throughout the country, and in es- 
tablishing new agencies that would become 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


independent. The other half might be 
used for the establishment of an institu- 
tion at Washington that would promote 
scientific research in a way that would not 
interfere with existing agencies, but would 
rather set them a standard. 

I should like to see at Washington a Car- 
negie Institution somewhat on the plan of 
the Royal Institution of London, which, as 
we all know, was founded by an American. 
Such an institution might be made the cen- 
ter for the scientific life and activity of the 
country. The government should provide 
the site for the building as part of the plans 
for the improvement of Washington, and 
half the income of the institution for the 
next three or four years could be spent for 
its erection. It should contain rooms for 
the meetings of national and local societies, 
for boards and committees, and for lec- 
tures. It should contain comparatively 
small but admirably equipped laboratories 
for the three fundamental sciences—phys- 
les, chemistry and psychology.* There 
should be a professor or director for each 
of these sciences with a salary of $10,000, 
whose duties it would be to conduct and 


direct research work in the laboratory, to 


coordinate and promote the research work 
of the country and to give a few lectures. 
He should have suitable assistants, compu- 
ters and instrument makers at a cost per- 
haps of $10,000, and about $5,000 annually 
should be allowed for apparatus, with oc- 
casional special grants if needed. Efficient 
investigators, perhaps not more than five 
or six in each science, should be encouraged 
to carry on research in the laboratories for 
a year or less; these men should have leave 
of absence from their own institutions and 
would in most cases receive subsidies from 


* Tn ranking psychology with physics and chem- 
istry I may be influenced by the direction of my 
own work. I believe, however, that I am logically 
correct. The fact that psychology is at present 
more immature than physics or chemistry appears 
to be a reason for giving it opportunity. 


SCIENCE. 


463 


the general funds of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion. They should give short courses of 
publie lectures, and other men of science 
should be invited to present the results of 
their researches in lectures or articles. 
These should be well paid for and should 
not be published exclusively by the institu- 
tion, but distributed freely to newspapers 
and journals. Then there should be a board 
of managers, representing each science 
or important branch of a science. In the 
exact and natural sciences there might be 
perhaps twenty of these managers, who 
would inelude the directors of the labora- 
tories. With the president and secretary 
they should be given full and com- 
plete control of the scientific work of 
the institution, subject only to the veto 
of the board of trustees. Membership in 
this board of managers should be the chief 
distinction in American science, being con- 
ferred on those who unite eminence in re- 
search with public spirit and executive 
ability. The members should receive a sal- 
ary of say $2,500 a year; they should meet 
together at Washington for a week once a 
year, and perhaps should be present on 
one other occasion as chairmen of honorary 
committees on each science. Hach should 
present a lecture or paper annually before 
the institution, perhaps reviewing the pro- 
gress in the United States of the science 
that he represents. On the plan outlined 
the annual charge for the laboratories 
would be $75,000 and for the board of man- 
agers, $50,000. The expenses of the cen- 
tral institution would thus be $125,000, to 
which must of course be added the cost of 
administration. I see no other way by 
which an equal sum could so effectively 
contribute to the advancement of science. 
A considerable amount of research of the 
highest class would proceed directly from 
the institution and would become quickly 
and widely known. The directors of the 
laboratories would in the character of their 


464 


work and in their, salaries set a standard 
that universities and other institutions 
would endeavor to meet. These positions 
and membership in the board of managers 
would be a recognition of eminence and 
efficiency in scientific work; they would en- 
courage men of science and make scientific 
work a more attractive career to young men 
of promise. 

In connection with the central institution 
the question of publication should be con- 
sidered. It seems to me that it would be 
far better to coordinate and assist exist- 
ing series and journals rather than to es- 
tablish new ones controlled by the institu- 
tion. The present difficulties in the pub- 
lication of scientific research are certainly 
lamentable. The proceedings of learned 
societies, in which subjects of all sorts are 
treated in a single volume, are a survival 
from the eighteenth century. The cost of 
printing, engraving and distribution, as 
compared with the conditions abroad, is 
a serious drawback to science in America. 
A series of monographs published by the 
Carnegie Institution might be of use, but 
would take from rather than contribute to 
the activity of other institutions. The pub- 
lications of the Geological Survey cost 
$300,000 annually, and the funds of the 
Carnegie Institution would go but a small 
way in this direction. Much more, it seems 
to me, would be accomplished by establish- 
ing in Washington as part of the central 
institution a press which would employ 
competent draughtsmen, engravers and 
proof-readers and would offer its services 
at such charges as are made in Germany 
and France. The academies of the country 
might then unite in publishing their pro- 
ceedings in series devoted to the several 
sciences, and our various scientific journals 
could secure publication on terms as favor- 
able as those of foreign nations. The au- 
tonomy of existing publications and their 
support would thus be maintained, while 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S Von. XVI. No. 403. 


the fact that they came from the press of 
the Carnegie Institution would at a com- 
paratively small cost contribute greatly to 
the prestige of the institution. 

If one half the income of the institution 
were expended as indicated, a considerable 
sum would remain with which the trustees 
or board of managers could play the part 
of a special providence throughout the 
country. This would allow annually one 
or two large appropriations and a great 
number of smaller subsidies. It seems that 
the institution might in some cases with ad- 
vantage give endowments rather than 
money for current uses. Such endow- 
ments would certainly tend to make widely 
and permanently known the _ beneficent 
work of the institution. The erection of 
a laboratory at Woods Hole, costing $100,- 
000 and called the Carnegie Biological Lab- 
oratory, or an endowment fund of equal 
amount, to be known as the Carnegie Re- 
search Fund for Biology, would in my 
opinion be of more value to the laboratory 
and to the cause of science in America than 
any annual subsidy. One large grant each 
year or two, or two or three smaller ones, 
either establishing permanent agencies or 
carrying forward projects of some magni- 
tude, would perform an inestimable service 
and would stimulate and not inhibit similar 
cifts from other sources. Supposing the 
turn of psychology to come once in ten 
years, I ean easily outline work for a cen- 
tury—for example, a station for the study 
of living animals in connection with a zoo- 
logical park; a laboratory for the study of 
children as part of a foundling or orphan 
asylum; another in connection with asylums 
for the blind and deaf; a clinic for the psy- 
chological study of the insane; another for 
diseases of the nervous system and organs 
of sense; an expedition to collect psycholog- 
ical data regarding savages before they 
disappear; a shop where psychological in- 
struments can be made and instrument- 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


makers trained; a bureau for statistics and 
computations. These and other agencies 
would add greatly to the efficiency of ex- 
isting laboratories of psychology and would 
in no wise conflict with them. Each could 
be established with a fund of from $50,000 
to $100,000, and if made independent it 
would continually grow in resources and 
usefulness. There are doubtless in other 
sciences objects equally deserving and ur- 
gent, so that if the endowment of the Car- 
negie Institution were doubled or quad- 
rupled the income could be used economic- 
ally and advantageously. 

If one half the income were expended on 
the central institution at Washington and 
one fourth on large objects, there would 
remain $75,000 to $125,000 for smaller 
grants and special researches. This sum 
could easily be spent to great advantage 
without interfering with other agencies. 

There are certain international under- 
takings in which the United States should 
share and for which no money is available. 
We may hope that the general government 
will ultimately recognize its obligations in 
this direction, but for the present our na- 
tional self-respect and usefulness are im- 
paired because we ean not join on equal 
terms with other nations. Thus we were 
unable to send delegates to the third con- 
ference on an international catalogue of 
scientific literature, with unfortunate re- 
sults, as some of the measures adopted by 
the first and second conferences on the 
recommendation of our delegates were re- 
considered by the third conference.* We 
have now no adequate means to do our 
share in seeing that the publications of 
the United States are adequately included 
in the international catalogue, whereas 


*To give a case in which I am interested, psy- 
chology was included in the catalogue at the 
recommendation of Dr. Billings, but was made a 
‘branch of physiology at the third conference, when 
no psychologist or American delegate was present. 


SCIENCE. 


465 


most foreign nations have made appropri- 
ations for this purpose. In like manner we 
are unable to assist in the work of the 
Concilium Bibliographicum conducted at 
Zurich as an international undertaking by 
an American. Funds for sending dele- 
gates to the International Association of 


‘Academies were secured with much diffi- 


culty ; and in general delegates to such in- 
ternational conferences and congresses 
must pay their own expenses. There are 
various international institutions, and more 
are continually being established, toward 
which the United States should contribute 
its share. In these directions the Carnegie 
Institution can perform large services at 
comparatively small expense. 

There are also certain national or more 
local institutions which might be assisted 
without interfering with their autonomy, 
and in such a way that the aid would en- 
courage rather than discourage other re- 
sources. The laboratory at Woods Hole 
appears to be the best type of these; there 
are numerous other marine and fresh-water 
stations, similar in character if less national 
in scope. The Blue Hill Meteorological 
Observatory or the Dudley Astronomical 
Observatory may be mentioned as examples 
of institutions that are doing excellent 
work with small resources. Should the 
Carnegie Institution make an appropriation 
on condition that it be duplicated locally, 
its funds would be spent to advantage. 

It would be perhaps more difficult to as- 
sist directly the work undertaken by the 
national government, the states and munici- 
palities, or by our richly endowed univer- 
sities, observatories, museums, ete. If the 
funds were unlimited a laboratory of phys- 
ical chemistry given to Harvard or Cornell, 
a needed collection given to the National 
Museum and the like, would certainly con- 
tribute to scientific advance; but such gifts 
would not be the most economical use of a 
limited income. There are, however, cir- 


466 


cumstances where cooperation with other 
great agencies for scientific investigation 
might be most fertile in results. Thus, if 
at present the Carnegie Institution would 
offer to equip an antarctic expedition to 
cooperate with those of Great Britain and 
Germany, on condition that the government 
furnish ships and officers, the offer might 
be accepted. Or to take a modest case 
within my immediate experience—we need 
urgently in the psychological laboratory of 
Columbia University a computer who could 
also act as a trained subject for psycholog- 
ical measurements. Such computers and 
aids are as much needed in psychology as 
in astronomy, but they do not at present 
exist, and it is difficult to persuade the 
trustees of a university that this is really 
a pressing demand. Should the Carnegie 
Institution offer to give $500 a year for 
three years toward the salary of a compu- 
ter on condition that Columbia University 
contribute an equal sum, it would doubtless 
do so. After three years the support of the 
computer would probably be assumed by 
the university, and similar offices would 
be established in other universities here and 
abroad. In a case such as this a very 
small sum would contribute greatly to the 
advance of psychology as an experimental 
science. This case is given simply as an 
example of the way in which the Carnegie 
Institution could accomplish results by co- 
operating with existing institutions. 

Two of the most important agencies for 
the advancement of science are societies and 
journals. Whatever can be done to promote 
their efficiency will contribute greatly to 
scientific progress. In many cases grants 
made to scientific societies might be ad- 
ministered more effectively than if the Car- 
negie Institution undertook the direct con- 
trol. Thus the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, with an en- 
dowment fund of about $10,000, is able to 
appropriate annually about $300 for re- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


search. This insignificant sum is divided 
among five or six committees who super- 
vise work of importance. If the resources 
of the association were increased, they 
might under the auspices of its committees 
be expended more economically than direct 
grants from the institution. Or, to take 
again an example from my own science, the 
American Psychological Association has 
gradually acquired from the dues of mem- 
bers a fund of about $1,000. The proposal 
has been made that this money be used for 
a psychological bibliography, which does 
not at present exist and is urgently needed. 
It is estimated that such a bibliography 
will cost $2,000, and it will be necessary to 
wait some years before this sum will ac- 
cumulate from the dues of members. 
Should the Carnegie Institution add $1,000 
to the equal sum in the possession of the 
association, it would be possible to proceed 
with the bibliography. The money would 
be spent economically, as only clerical work 
and printing would be paid for, while the 
skilled labor would be given by the associa- 
tion. 

The great area of this country interposes 
a serious obstacle to scientific organization. 
If means could be found for paying the 
railway expenses of delegates to the meet- 
ings of our national scientific societies, a 
forward step of great importance would be 
taken. I scarcely see how the Carnegie 
Institution could undertake this large proj- 
ect, but it might cooperate with societies and 
educational institutions in forwarding it. 

In the case of scientific journals I can 
speak with some experience. Our scientific 
journals are absolutely essential to the pro- 
eress of science. Those devoted to pure 
science are in all eases scientific and eduea- 
tional institutions, not commercial enter- 
prises; most of them are in need of sup- 
port and deserve it as much as universities 
or museums. It is, however, difficult to 
give such support in a useful and economic- 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


al way. Thus to illustrate from the jour- 
nals that I edit—Scimnce when liberally 
subsidized by Mr. Bell and Mr. Hubbard 
was conducted at an annual loss of $20,000; 
The Popular Science Monthly, established 
in part as a commercial enterprise and 
fairly successful as such when the doctrine 
of evolution was treated as a religious rath- 
er than as a scientific question, was latterly 
conducted by the publishers at an annual 
loss of $10,000 and finally relinquished by 
them; The Psychological Review has always 
been published at a loss, which would be 
large if money were at hand to lose. I 
give these illustrations to indicate that if 
the Carnegie Institution undertook to own 
or control our scientific journals, the ex- 
pense would be very great; whereas I be- 
heve that there would be no appreciable 
improvement in their contents, but, in the 
end, injury to the cause of science. It 
seeins that in connection with the plan for 
the aequirement of the Woods Hole labora- 
tory, the officers of the Carnegie Institution 
have asked for an option on the American 
Journal of Morphology. 1 trust that the 
institution will not undertake to own and 
control a journal of this character, and 
that those at present responsible for this 
journal will not abandon it. Our scientific 
journals should be controlled by the scien- 
tifie men of the country, preferably in con- 
nection with their societies. 

The fact that the Carnegie Institution 
should not assume control of scientific jour- 
nals does not mean that it should not assist 
them. It will as a matter of fact do so in- 
directly by every action that increases the 
quantity or improves the quality of scien- 
tifie research. I have already mentioned 
the great gain that would accrue if an of- 
fice for printing and engraving were es- 
tablished that would permit the manufac- 
ture of scientific journals and books on 
terms of equality with foreign nations. 
Without direct subsidies the institution 


SCIENCE. 


467 


could assist in the support of scientific 
journals by advertising in them those of 
its activities that should be made public, 
and by subscribing for copies to be sent 
to the smaller libraries and institutions of 
learning. 

In addition to such special agencies as it 
inay establish and to cooperation with in- 
stitutions, societies and journals, the Car- 
aegie Institution can assist directly imdi- 
viduals and their researches. Mr. Car- 
negie has specified as one of the main ob- 
jects of his foundation, ‘‘To discover the 
exceptional man in every department of 
study whenever and wherever found, in- 
side or outside of schools, and enable him 
to make the work for which he seems spe- 
cially designed his life work.’’ This as a 
matter of fact should be the chief function 
of society and has indeed been the course 
of nature since the beginning of organic 
life; but the time may now have come when 
we ean do consciously and economically 
what has hitherto been done blindly and 
with boundless waste. It is evidently pos- 
sible for the Carnegie Institution either to 
aid those who are beginning research or 
those who have already proved their abil- 
ity; and it seems that both classes should 
be assisted in so far as the means of the in- 
stitution permit. 

Several university presidents have re- 
cently stated that our system of fellowships 
has been sufficiently extended; but in this 
I do not coneur. It is certaily not true 
for my own science and my own institu- 
tion. One fellowship in psychology is an- 
nually awarded at Columbia University, 
whereas ten could now be given with ad- 
vantage, and the number needed would 
probably always increase in more rapid 
ratio than the number supplied. We can 
only find the exceptional man by selecting 
him from a considerable number who un- 
dertake research work. Those who prove 
themselves incompetent for important orig- 


468 


inal investigations have not wasted their 
time, but are better prepared for teaching 
or other kinds of work. To pass beyond 
the limits of the already known, to discover 
new truth and new methods by relhance on 
individual initiative and judgment, to do 
and give and not merely learn and receive, 
is an educational method incomparably bet- 
ter than any other. Those who have ac- 
complished this either at the university or 
in active life are the world’s leaders. The 
student is in no sense pauperized because 
he receives a fellowship. His research is 
worth on the average far more than it costs; 
he gives to the world more than he receives 
and earns his living by honest work. 

If I may venture to suggest a definite 
plan for the award of fellowships, it would 
be that each university be permitted to 
nominate for a Carnegie fellowship, one of 
every ten of those on whom it confers the 
doctorate of philosophy. These men—who 
at present would number about fifteen in 
the sciences—would be well prepared for 
research and could carry it forward for a 
year to great advantage at Washington or 
elsewhere. The value of the fellowships 
should be $1,000. 

The Carnegie Institution will doubtless 
also undertake to promote scientific re- 
search by enabling men to devote them- 
selves to investigation who have already 
proved themselves competent, but who are 
prevented by various causes from doing 
the work for which they are fit. The great- 
est obstacle to the advancement of science 
is, IN my opinion, the circumstance that 
scientific men are not directly rewarded for 
their investigations and discoveries. The 
lawyer, physician or engineer can command 
a fee commensurate with the value of his 
services, the artist can sell his picture for 
what it is worth, the novelist receives a 
royalty on as many copies of his book as the 
publie will buy; but the man of science as 
a rule gives his research work to the public. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 403. 


He earns his living by teaching or other- 
wise, and is thus an amateur, not a profes- 
sional investigator. In a few eases the pat- 
ent office intervenes, and we see what it 
can accomplish, for example, in Mr. Hdi- 
son’s inventions. But the field covered by 
the patent office is small, and as a rule it 
is more likely to divert from than to en- 
courage research in pure science. If some 
method could be devised by which society 
would pay the man of science even one 
tenth of the value of his investigations, 
science would enter a new era of progress. 
Possibly the Carnegie Institution may find 
some means to accomplish this end, for ex- 
ample, by paying an investigator for his 
research at the same rate that a magazine 
pays for a short story; but the problem is 
complicated and difficult. The offering 
of prizes is an obvious, but I fear not very 
satisfactory or effective, method. 

I am sufficiently optimistic to believe 
that the combination of teaching or econom- 
ie work with research is on the whole an 
advantage. The authorities of Columbia 
University expect me to give one under- 
graduate course with laboratory work and 
one advanced course with the supervision 
of research work. This amount of teach- 
ing, I think, improves the quality of the re- 
search work that I am able to do and does 
not seriously limit the quantity. Indeed 
the cooperation with students may increase 
the quantity. It would, however, doubt- 
less be an advantage for men engaged in 
teaching or economic work to have occa- 
sionally a year free, devoted entirely to 
research, at Washington or abroad. Col- 
umbia University does not demand an ex- 
cessive amount of teaching and allows a 
leave of absence one year in seven with 
half salary. Some other institutions are 
less fortunate or less wise, and the Carnegie 
Institution could accomplish results of im- 
measurable importance by permitting 
those engaged primarily in teaching or 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902.] 


economic work to devote a year to pure re- 
search. The results would extend far be- 
yond the single year or the single individ- 
ual. If the Carnegie Institution can ar- 
range to pay half the salary of an investi- 
gator, giving him at the same time the 
best facilities for research at Washington, 
at one of our well-equipped universities or. 
abroad, requiring the institution with 
which he is connected to pay the other half, 
its funds would be spent wisely and eco- 
nomieally. 

There are certain men of genius or talent 
who for one reason or another have not 
been able to find a place in our organized 
social machinery. Such men might per- 
form work of value if given the opportu- 
nity, and the Carnegie Institution could 
here assist in a way that is not possible for 
any other institution. 

The two general principles which I have 
kept in mind in writing the above are that 
the Carnegie Institution should do (1) what 
it only can do, working whenever possible 
with existing institutions; and (2) should 
aim to increase the influence of men of 
selence, working with them and through 
them. 


The executive committee and the trus- 
tees of the Carnegie Institution will have 
before them reports prepared by those 
most competent to give advice, and their 
final decisions will be better considered 
than the views of any individual. I have 
ventured to print these remarks, based 
‘chiefly on the science with which I am en- 
gaged and the institutions with which I 
am more or less familiar, on the supposition 
that suggestions from all quarters will be 
welcomed by the officers of the institution. 
I have of course expressed only my indi- 
vidual opinions and have in no wise at- 
tempted to represent the policy of the jour- 
nal in which they happen to appear. As 
responsible editor of this journal, however, 


SCIENCE. 


469 


I urge men of science to join in a discussion 
of the problem as to how endowments for 
research, and especially the great endow- 
ment of the Carnegie Institution, can best 
be used for the advancement of science. 
J. McKeen Cartre.u. 
CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY. 


SOIENTIFIOC BOOKS. 


Lehrbuch der Combinatorik. Von Dr. EucEen 
Nerto. Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1901. 
Pp. viii 260. 

At the present time neither European nor 
American universities offer lecture courses 
on the subject of combinatorial analysis. 
This fact is the more noteworthy when we 
remember that during the first quarter of the 
nineteenth century nearly every mathematic- 
al chair in Germany was occupied by a 
specialist in that field. This Combinatorial 
School of Germany has passed into deserved 
oblivion. Under the leadership of C. F. Hin- 
denburg it represents the culmination of an 
unfortunate tendeney of eighteenth century 
mathematicians to develop analysis, particu- 
larly the subject of infinite series, with ref- 
erence to form only, and to pay little or no 
attention to the actual contents of formule. 
The polynomial theorem was hailed as ‘the 
most important theorem of all analysis.’ In 
combinatorial analysis (combinatoric) the 
German school was contented with the deduc- 
tion of rules for the writing down of all the 
combinations and permutations that are pos- 
sible under given restrictions. The simple 
fact that the able and fairly complete treatise 
now under review hardly mentions the work 
of Hindenburg shows that what are now con- 
sidered the substantial parts of combinatoric 
have been developed outside of the German 
Combinatorial School. Associated with the 
early development are the great names of 
Paseal, Leibnitz, Wallis, James Bernoulli and 
De Moivre. 

While combinatorie is not now made the 
subject of lectures in our universities, it is 
nevertheless of importance. The student ac- 
quires much of it during the pursuit of other 
branches. It is touched upon in the study 


470 


of ordinary algebra, of determinants, of sub- 
stitution and group theory, of the theory of 
numbers, and of the theory of probability. 
Netto’s book is of value as a reference book, 
especially as no text of importance on com- 
binatoric has been published for sixty-five 
years. In arrangement and selection of mate- 
rial it resembles somewhat Netto’s brief article 
‘Kombinatorik’ in the ‘Eneyklopidie der 
Mathematischen Wissenschaften.’ The book 
takes notice of researches of recent date, in- 
cluding several papers by American authors. 
Starting out with the fundamental defini- 
tions the author treats of combinations, per- 
mutations, and variations under different 
limiting conditions, leading up to various 
problems, as, for instance, Tait’s problem of 
knots. Combinations and variations are con- 
sidered under the restriction of a definite sum 
or a definite product of the elements. The 
partition of numbers and Durfee’s graphs are 
taken up. In the course of further combina- 
torial operations the author studies systems 
of triads arising in connection with Kirk- 
mann’s and Steiner’s problems.  Steiner’s 
queries have not yet been fully answered. 
Kirkmann’s is the ‘Fifteen School Girl Prob- 
lem’: ‘To walk out fifteen girls by threes, 
daily for a week, without ever having the 
same two together.’ In the discussion of this 
it is to be regretted that Netto overlooked E. 
W. Davis’s pretty ‘geometric picture,’ given 
in the Annals of Mathematics, Vol. XI., 1897, 
where a one-to-one correspondence is estab- 
lished between the fifteen girls and fifteen 
points on a cube; eight points at the corners, 
six at the mid-points of the faces, one at the 
cube-center; the thirty-five triads are then 
easily found. 

Netto’s book is substantial food for the 
average reader. Yet some topics in combina- 
toric were originally suggested by questions 
propounded for amusement. The ‘problem of 
the eight queens’ is of this nature. Eight 
queens are to be placed upon a chessboard so 
that none of them can capture any other. It 
was first propounded in Berlin in 1848 and 
has 92 solutions. J. Bernoulli, in his ‘Ars 
Conjectandi’ (1713), gives certain hexameter 
lines in which the words were to be changed 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


about in every possible way, yet so that every 
new arrangement still conformed to the laws 
of verse. Thus the hexameter, 

Tot tibi sunt dotes, Virgo, quot sidera ccelo, 


studied by several pious mathematicians, ad- 
mits, according to Bernoulli, of 3,312 such 
arrangements. An interesting recent book, 
taking up combinatorial and other mathe- 
matical topics for the purpose of recreation, 
is W. Ahrens’ ‘Mathematische Unterhaltungen 
und Spiele’ (Teubner, 1901). 
FLortan Casort. 
CoLoRADO COLLEGE, 
CoLoRADO SPRINGS. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


THE OPPORTUNITY FOR FURTHER STUDY OF VOL- 
CANIC PHENOMENA. 


To tHE Eprror or Science: It has been just 
four months to-day since the terrible calamity 
at St. Pierre occurred. Much has been writ- 
ten and said concerning it. Many able scien- 
tifie men—French, British and American— 
have examined the locality and published 
thereon, but so far as I am aware their obser- 
vations and conclusions only point to one 
deduction—that the terrible secret of Pelée’s 
destructive clouds is still unsolved, and that 
the voleano still exhibits a deadly unex- 
plained force, as attested by two thousand ad- 
ditional victims last week. 

I think I may speak correctly, when I say 
that all the visiting geologists agree upon 
the major geological facts and only diverge 
seriously when they reach the field of specu- 
lation concerning the nature and behavior of 
the mysterious gases and clouds of lapilli, 
which descend instead of arising, which de- 
veloped marvelous electric effects, after pass- 
ing away from the crater, and which create 
powerful destructive forces. 

So far as I am aware there was not a single 
member of the American scientific corps who 
did not leave the scene with a knowledge of 
the incompleteness of his studies and the 
lack of facilities for study during the brief 
time he was there. One of these, Professor 
Heilprin, has returned to the scene at his own 
expense, but, alas, even if he has survived 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


last week’s eruption, he was not equipped 
with means to complete the work. 

While more geological study is needed, the 
chief problem of Pelée is the nature of its 
gaseous ejecta, and it is no longer within the 
power of a geologist single-handed to solve 
it, but a carefully planned and equipped co- 
operative expedition accompanied by physical, 
chemical and photographic apparatus is 
needed. 

In order to advance knowledge a_ party 
should be sent to Martinique for an indefinite 
stay of several months, with spectroscope, 
seismographs, chronographs, special photo- 
graphic apparatus and all necessary equip- 
ment to study the eruptions with special refer- 
ence to their electrical, magnetic, gaseous and 
other physical behavior. Furthermore, some 
society or individual should have seismo- 
graphic stations established throughout the 
West Indies and our southern coastal plain— 
and this could be probably aided by our Coast 
and Geological Surveys, or by the Weather 
Bureau. 

A temporary and healthful observatory and 
laboratory could be established on the slopes 
of Carbet overlooking Pelée, from which studies 
could be made with perfect safety. The talk 
about the danger of the annihilation of the 
island is all wrong. The recent deaths were 
all within the previous zone of danger coin- 
cident with the slopes of Montagne Pelée 
proper, but the rest of Martinique, except 
villages at sea level in reach of tidal waves, 
is perfectly secure. 

Never was there a time so propitious or 
concerted effort to secure 
new and important light upon the behavior 
of voleanoes, and some society or individual 


important for 


sould immediately raise the funds to con- 
duct and direct this important work. 

Americans are letting a great opportunity 
pass to add to knowledge, and I humbly beg 
that those who are in a position to equip such 
an expedition or to influence our learned so- 
eieties or individuals, give this subject their 
serious consideration. 

INsien, NS JatiE. 
U. S. GEoLocicaL Survey. 


SCIENCE. 


471 


MR. BORCHGREVINK ON THE ERUPTION OF MT. 
PELEE. 


To tHE Epiror or Science: There are cer- 
tain features of the article ‘ History’s Greatest 
Disaster,’ by C. E. Borchgrevink, descriptive 
of the eruption of Mt. Pelée, Martinique, in 
May of the present year, and published in the 
July number of rank Leslie’s Monthly, which 
are so inaccurate or misleading that they 
should be corrected. 

On page iii of the ‘ Martinique Supple- 
ment’ referred to there is an illustration with 
the caption: “This remarkable photograph 
was taken during the grand eruption [of Mt. 
Pelée] of May 20th. The camera was knocked 
from the photographer's hand and was 
not recovered till the following day. The fate 
of the photographer is unknown.” The facts 
are that this photograph was not taken on 
May 20; it does not represent an eruption 
of Mt. Pelée; the photographer did not lose his 
eamera; he is still doing business in Kings- 
town, St. Vincent. The photograph was taken 
by J. C. Wilson, photographer, of Kingstown, 
St. Vincent, and it represents an eruption 
of La Soufriére. 

On page iv there is an illustration with the 
caption, ‘The smoking lava beds of Pelée.’ 
This illustration was not made from a photo- 
graph of any part of Mt. Pelée, but from a 
photograph of the mouth of the gorge of the 
Wallibou river, St. Vincent, with Richmond 
Peak (a part of Morne Garou) in the back- 
ground. 

On page xiii of this article on Martinique 
there is a picture labelled, ‘ The two craters of 
La Soufriére.’ These so-called craters are not 
on Martinique. The illustration was made 
from a photograph of the Pitons of St. Lucia, 
which is a stock picture in all photographers’ 
shops. 

The last instance to be noted is one on page 
xvi,whichis called ‘General view of the island’ 
—presumably of Martinique, since the article 
deals solely with that island. This illustration 
is not of Martinique. It is a composite, made 
up from two photographs of La Soufriére, St. 
Vincent, taken from nearly the same point of 
view. In the middle distance we have, be- 


472 


ginning at the left, Chateaubelair island, strait 
and point, and the same repeated. The is- 
land in the middle of this illustration is com- 
posed of Chateaubelair point on the left and 
Chateaubelair island on the right.* 

There are some statements in the article 
which would not have been made by the au- 
thor had he spent more time in the study of 
the voleanoes which he was sent by the Na- 
tional Geographic Society to investigate as a 
scientist. 

It seems to the writer that Mr. Borchgre- 
vink should explain such very inaccuratestate- 
ments as those cited regarding four important 
illustrations accompanying his article. These 
corrections are particularly important at the 
present time, because Mr. Borchgrevink is now 
trying to raise funds for another expedition to 
the Antarctic regions and the public should 
be satisfied as to the scientific accuracy of 
one who desires to undertake such enter- 
prises. 

The writer feels qualified to make the pre- 
ceding criticisms because he spent nearly 
seven weeks on Martinique and St. Vincent 
studying the phenomena of these eruptions. 

Epmunp Otis Hovey. 

AMERICAN MuseuM oF NATuRAL History. 


PATAGONIAN GEOLOGY. 


In a recent publication,t F. Ameghino gives 
again a new table of the geological succession 
of the different Cretaceous and Tertiary beds 
found in Argentina. This scheme differs from 
those published by him previously in several 
respects, but, as in all his former publications, 
he fails to give any evidence whatever for the 
succession of the respective beds, and thus this 
new scheme has only the same negative value 
as all the previous ones. 

Moreover, in some respects, the present 
scheme is entirely opposed to some of the ob- 


* Compare this picture with the second one on 
page 790 of September Century Magazine. 

fj Ameghino, F., ‘Cuadro Sinéptico de las for- 
maciones sedimentarias, Terciarias y Cretéceas de 
la Argentina an relacion con el desarrollo y descen- 
denia de los Mamfferos,’ Anales del Mus. Nac. de 
Buenos Aires, vol. 8, 1902, pp. 1-12. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 403. 


servations made by J. B. Hatcher* in southern 
Patagonia, and the results obtained by the 
present writer in studying the Tertiary inver- 
tebrates collected by Hatcher.t 

This discrepancy is most evident in Ame- 
ghino’s conception of the so-called Patagonian 
formation, which is regarded by Hatcher and 
the present writer as a geological and paleon- 
tological unit of marine beds, while Ameghino 
divides it into no less than six marine hori- 
zons, which, in part, correspond to four conti- 
nental horizons. 

The general trend of our demonstration that 
Ameghino’s divisions are untenable, is that 
the so-called characteristic fossils of the latter 
do not actually characterize them, but are 
found associated in the same layers. 

It may be said that the fact that some of 
the characteristic fossils are found in more 
than one of Ameghino’s horizons does not al- 
ter the general character of difference of the 
various faunas. But I wish to emphasize here 
that I have shown this not for some or a few 
of the ‘characteristic’ species, but for prac- 
tically all of them. The few exceptions are 
formed by comparatively rare species which 
are altogether unfit to be used for the dis- 
crimination of horizons (see Ortmann, l. c¢., p. 
284). 

But it is not only the lack of all evidence 
for his views that we have to complain of in 
Ameghino’s paper, but it is the way in which 
he treats some of the deposits that have been 
closely investigated by us, by adding to and 
taking away from the evidence given by us. 

I shall mention only the most striking in- 
stances. 

The Cape Fairweather beds are placed by 
Ameghino, in his table, in the Lower Pliocene, 
between the Lower Tehuelche and the Ensena- 
dense beds. He says of the fauna of these de- 
posits that it contains 50 per cent. extinct mol- 
lusks, and gives the following characteristic 
fossils: Ostrea ferrarisi, Chlamys (Pecten) 
actinodes, Turritella innotabilis, Trophon in- 
ornatus, ete. 

*See Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. 4, 1897, pp. 827-354, 
and ibid., vol. 9, 1900, pp. 85-108. 

7 “Rep. Princeton Univers. Exped. Patagonia,’ 
vol. 4, part 2, 1902. 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902.] 


The facts concerning these beds, which were 
discovered by Hatcher, and the fauna of which 
was studied by Pilsbry (Proc. Acad. Philad., 
1897) and the present writer, are as follows 
(see Ortmann, l. c., p. 307 f.): 

The Cape Fairweather beds are supposed to 
be Pliocene. They lie uncomformably on top 
of the Santacruzian beds (Miocene according 
to Hatcher, Eocene according to Ameghino). 
This is all that is known of their stratigraphy. 
They contain a fauna of fourteen species, 
among which Ostrea ferrarisi is not found, and 
of which 57 per cent. are recent.* The most 
characteristic (and abundant) species are 
Pecten actinodes, of Ameghino’s list; but, 
besides, several others must be mentioned, 
namely, Terebratella gigantea,t Meretrix ros- 
trata, Galerus mamillaris and Trophon lacinia- 
tus (the variety inornatus of the latter is com- 
paratively rare). Ostrea ingens, although very 
abundant, is not characteristic. 

Aside from the incompleteness and incor- 
rectness of the paleontological characters as 
given by Ameghino, how is it at all possible 
to place these beds where he does within his 
scheme? What does Ameghino know about 
the relation of the Cape Fairweather beds to 
the Lower Tehuelche and the Ensenadense 
beds? Does he possess any evidence on this 
point beyond that furnished by Hatcher? 
These are questions to which an answer is 
requested, and, unless Ameghino gives satis- 
factory explanation, we cannot put any faith 
in his stratigraphic reference of the Cape Fair- 
weather beds. ; 

A second instance is Ameghino’s treatment 
of the ‘Arenaense’ formation. This he puts 
into the Upper Eocene, on top of the ‘Super- 
patagoniense,’ and below the Oligocene ‘Para- 


* This percentage is of no value at all on ac- 
count of the small number of species. 

} This very characteristic form described by my- 
self for the first time from Cape Fairweather, 
which, consequently, is its type locality and forma- 
tion, is removed by Ameghino from its associa- 
tion with the other ‘Fairweatherense’ fossils, 
and mentioned as characteristic for the horizon 
below, the ‘Lower Tehuelche.’ There is no ex- 
cuse whatever for this arbitrary change of facts, 
and this course cannot be too strongly condemned. 


SCIENCE. 


473 


nense,’ and mentions seven characteristic fos- 
sils. 

This formation, no doubt, has been created 
to receive the uppermost marine horizon dis- 
covered by Hatcher near Punta Arenas, from 
which I have described seven species; but the 
latter do not correspond to those mentioned by 
Ameghino. Five of the species of my list 
are also found at the type locality of the 
Patagonian beds at Santa Cruz (see Ortmann, 
l. c., p. 280), and, consequently, I have drawn 
the conclusion that these beds are contempo- 
raneous. Of these five species, not a single one 
has been mentioned by Ameghino by name, 
and only three de facto, but under different 
names (Ostrea ingens as O. philippi, Crepidula 
gregaria as C. imperforata, and Sigapatella 
americana as Trochita colchaguensis). The 
other two (Glycimeris tbari and Lucina pro- 
maucana) have been left out entirely, and 
further, Venus chiloénsis is not mentioned, and 
Meretriz iheringi is removed into the horizon 
below (as Cytherea splendida). In their place, 
Ameghino adds four other species: Cardium 
magellanicum, Modiola schythet, Venus rod- 
riguezt, and Psammobia darwint. These are 
taken from Philippi’s list of fossils found near 
Punta Arenas:* some of the species of this 
list have been rediscovered by Hatcher, but 
they are found in different horizons here, 
partly above, and partly below the Punta 
Arenas coal. Thus it is impossible to say of 
any of the other species that have not been col- 
lected by Hatcher, whether they belong to the 
‘Arenaense’ beds, or to the ‘Magellanian,’ by 
which name we have called the beds below the 
coal. And further, why does Ameghino select 
only these four species out of Philippi’s list, 
while there are four more which are entitled 
to the same consideration? 

These two instances may be sufficient. I 
shall not discuss the age assigned to the re- 
spective beds by Ameghino, although Stanton} 
and myself have devoted much time and labor 
to this question, and our final results are at 


* Philippi, R. A., ‘Die tertiaeren und quartaeren 
Versteinerungen Chiles,’ 1887, p. 251. 

+‘ Rep. Princeton Univers. Exped. Patagonia,’ 
Vol. 4, Part 1, 1901. 


474 


variance with Ameghino’s. When he places 
the marine Cretaceous beds of the lower Rio 
Tarde section in the Neocomian, while Stanton 
declares them not older than Gault, and when 
he places the marine Patagonian beds in the 
Eocene, while I assign them to the Lower 
Miocene, he can do so only if he introduces 
new evidence, and shows that our determina- 
tions are incorrect. But he has not done this, 
and has never attempted to do it, and there- 
fore his personal opinion on this question is 
without any scientific value. 

Ameghino may claim that my final report 
on the Tertiary invertebrates had not come 
into his hands when he wrote the present paper. 
But he must have seen Stanton’s report, as 
well as the preliminary notes by Hatcher and 
myself in the American Journai of Science. 
These should have induced him to wait for the 
publication of my final report. 

Dr. A. E. OrtTMANN. 

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, 

September, 1902. 


VELOCITY OF LIGHT IN AN ELECTROSTATIC FIELD. 


To tue Eprror or Science: In a paper, 
‘Determination of the Electric and Magnetic 
Quantities, Phys. Rev., January, 1900, I 
pointed out that light should be accelerated in 
an electrostatic field. I have to announce that 
preliminary experiments made last year show 
that this is the case, though the velocity ac- 
tually observed is only eighty per cent. of that 
predicted in the paper referred to. 

The tests. however, were rough and can be 
made more accurately with improved apparat- 
us. I am desirous of repeating them, and ob- 
taining a closer result. I would be glad to 
know of any one who has worked on inter- 
ference phenomena who would be willing to 
collaborate with me, I of course bearing all 
expense. 

In a recent note to the Toronto Astronom- 
ical Society, I refer to a paper to be published 
in Science, in which I show that by a develop- 
ment of the vortex theory described in the 
above-mentioned paper, the difference between 
positive and negative electricity is explained. 
By some mishap this paper was lost in the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


mails, about last December, and merely the 
letter forwarded with it reached the editor. L 
hope to rewrite it, but at present would say 
that I found that the difference is merely one 
of circulation, 7. e., that the simple vortex 
singularity must be taken as the negative 
electron,and that when a number of the vortex 
singularities are so grouped that their cireu- 
lation is closed, they behave as positive elec- 
trons. Hence the positive electron is simply 
an agglomeration of negative electrons, so 
grouped as to have a closed circulation. 


RecinaLtp A. FESSENDEN. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
THE FORMATION OF DEWBOWS. 


Ir an observer standing on a mountain top 
should view below him, under suitable con- 
ditions, a horizontal stratum of falling rain- 
drops on which the sun was shining, he would 
see a rainbow. This bow would appear as a 
true circle, or a segment of it, depending upon 
the area of the stratum and the position of the 
sun. If, however, he could view this bow 
with reference to its space relations, he would 
no longer see a circle, but some other conic 
section. This latter condition was recently 
observed to be satisfied by the reflection and 
refraction of sunlight in the drops of dew on 
a lawn. The phenomenon appears to be 
unique, and furnishes another interesting 
modification of the familiar rainbow. 

The space in front of one of the Government 
buildings had been recently harrowed and 
then carefully leveled and rolled, and finally 
seeded thickly with Kentucky blue grass. At 
the time the observations were made _ this 
grass was about one and a half centimeters: 
high, covering the ground thickly, and very 
uniform in height, the fine spears being sur- 
mounted with drops of dew. 

On standing with one’s back to the sun, one 
could see the bow on the grass very distinctly, 
which at nine o’clock a.m. was at a distance of 
about one meter at its nearest point, and then 
extended on either side in the form of a conic, 
to a distance of from ten to fifteen meters. 
The red color of the outer portion of the bow 
and the blue of the inner side were well de- 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


fined, although the boundary between the two 
was somewhat indistinct. There was, how- 
ever, no question whatever about the existence 
of the definite colors. 

The appearance of the bow may, perhaps, be 
better understood by reference to the accom- 
panying figure in which the XZ-plane repre- 
sents the ground, while the observer is standing 
at the origin, his head being at H. The shad- 
ow of the observer’s head would then fall upon 
the plane at XZ at H’, and the bow appeared 
on the ground between the feet of the observer 
and the shadow of his head, and extended 
on either side in the manner indicated in the 
sketch. 


s he 


ies 


Assuming the simple explanation of the 
rainbow to apply in this case, the figure of the 
bow would be given by the intersection of the 
XZ-plane with the 42° cone (red rays), gener- 
ated by the rotation of the line HP about 
SHH’ as an axis, at an angle of 21°. The 
form of the bow is, of course, dependent upon 
the altitude of the sun. With the sun at the 
horizon, and for altitudes up to 21°, the figure 
would be a hyperbola; at 21°, it would be a 
parabola. At altitudes of the sun above 21°, 
we would have an ellipse, becoming a circle at 
the zenith with its center at the origin of co- 
ordinates. 


SCIENCE. 


475 


The phenomenon was readily observed on the 
morning succeeding the first observations, but 
three days later, when another heavy dew ap- 
peared, no trace of the bow could be seen. 
During this time the grass had grown consid- 
erably, and the irregularity in height appeared 
to prevent the reflection of a sufficient amount 
of light. The existence of the bow has not 
yet been noted on any lawn on which the grass 
has attained considerable size. 

Lyman J. Brices. 

Wasuineton, D. C. 


NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 
CENSUS BULLETIN OF CHEMICALS AND ALLIED 
PRODUCTS. 

Tus ‘Bulletin, prepared by Professor 
Charles E. Monroe and Dr. T. M. Chatard, 
which has just been issued, is extremely inter- 
esting reading and is full of valuable informa- 
tion. It is in effect a brief review of the 
chemical progress of this country in the last 
decade, with glimpses of the progress else- 
where, when this would seem to have a bear- 
ing upon possible future development here. 
Thus are treated at some length the catalytic 
production of sulfuric acid, the manufacture 
of soda from the natural soda of the West, 
wood distillation, fertilizers, explosives, and 
particularly chemical substances produced by 
the aid of electricity. It is interesting to note 


that the value of the principal products re- 


ported in this ‘ Bulletin’ is $221,217,217 as com- 
pared with $163,547,685 reported in the census 
of 1890. Except in the potash industry, which 
is insignificant, there has been an increase in 
every department, but hardly as great as might 
have been looked for, considering the greatly 
increased attention given to the application of 
science to industry. Possibly this is more 
readily understood from the statistics of chem- 
ists employed in the establishments treated of 
in this report. From this it appears that the 
total number so employed in the United States 
is 276, about half the number employed by six 
coal-tar color firms of Germany. The largest 
number employed in any one industry is 52, 
in paints and varnishes. Those in the coal- 
tar products number 7, to which should prob- 


476 


ably be added a part of the 13 engaged in 
the dye-stuff industry. 

Among all the industries, the largest per- 
centage of increase has been in that of wood 
distillation, including the production of wood 
alcohol, acetate of lime, and charcoal. The 
inerease was from $1,885,469 in 1890 to $5,- 
775,455 in 1900. This is, however, by no 
means so significant as the statistics of the 
soda industry, which increased from five mill- 
ion dollars in 1890 to over ten millions in 
1900. Owing to lower price, this represents 
nearly a quadrupling of production. What is 
more important in this industry is that this 
country is now practically independent of 
foreign supply. In 1890, 60 per cent. of the 
soda ash and sal soda and over 70 per cent. 
of the caustic soda used were imported, while 
in 1900 only 9 per cent. of the former and less 
than 5 per cent. of the latter were manufac- 
tured abroad. 

Considerable emphasis is laid in the ‘Bul- 
letin’ on the possibilities of the alkali lakes 
of the Sierra Nevada as a source of supply. 
The production from this source has been re- 
stricted by the lack of a market, owing to the 
cost of transportation. With the development 
of the industries of the Pacific slope, and the 
demand from the other side of the Pacific 
Ocean, it is probable that these remarkable 
supplies can be utilized to a much greater 
extent than in the past. Mono Lake alone 
contains enough soda to supply this country 
at its present rate of consumption for a hun- 
dred years, Owens Lake enough for fifty years, 
while other smaller lakes could considerably 
more than double this amount. 

Nearly one half of the ‘Bulletin’ is taken 
up with a ‘ Digest of Chemical Patents,’ giving 
an abstract of all chemical patents issued from 
the founding of the United States Patent Of- 
fice up to 1900. This was prepared by Mr. 
Story B. Ladd, and is of great value. Its 
value would be still more increased if it could 
be carefully indexed by subject and by paten- 
tee, and issued as a separate publication. 

In this connection it is worth while to note 
that the ‘Bulletin’ calls attention to the in- 
equitable patent laws of this country, by 
which a foreigner can, by obtaining an Ameri- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


can patent, enjoy the monopoly of sale in this 
country, even though the article in question 
may be manufactured abroad, and owing to 
competition may be sold at a low price every- 
where else in the world (except in England, 
whose laws in this respect resemble ours). 
On such an article the tariff serves only to 
increase the price to the American consumer, 
who is by the patent prevented from enjoying 
any benefit from competition. This is un- 
doubtedly the chief reason which has hindered 
the development of most chemical industries 
in this country except those of the heavy 
chemicals. Uy lly 281, 


BOTANICAL NOTES. 
A WORD AS TO INDEXES. 

Ir is time that reform was made in the in- 
dexing of botanical books. There appears to 
be an impression among index-makers that 
people want their indexes sorted into various 
kinds, so that we find, for example, an ‘ index 
of illustrations,’ an ‘index of English names,’ 
an ‘index of Latin names,’ an ‘index of 
synonyms,’ ete. If this thing goes on we may 
have, in addition to the foregoing, indexes of 
the names of persons cited; indexes of experi- 
ments, descriptions and discussions; indexes 
of original paragraphs; indexes of second- 
hand paragraphs, ete. Probably nearly every 
user of books will agree that more than one 
index is a nuisance. When one takes up a 
book to look for Mahonia it is awkward and 
annoying to find that it is not in the ‘index 
of Latin names’ but must be sought in the 
‘English index.’ How is one to know where 
to look for Sapodilla, and Sassafras? In some 
recent indexes the first is given in the 
English index, while the second occurs only in 
the Latin index. 

It may be said that after all our inveighing 
against indexlessness we ought to be doubly 
thankful for two indexes, instead of making 
complaints, but here, as elsewhere, it is pos- 
sible ‘to have too much of a good thing.’ Let 
not the book-maker, in his zeal to avoid index- 
lessness, inflict upon his readers an evil which 
is only one remove from that in its power of 
annoyance. Give us a good index, and let 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


it include everything which it is desirable to 
list, but do not make separate indexes. 


THE PRESERVATION OF WILD FLOWERS. 


THE movement to preserve the wild flowers 
from the destruction which threatens them at 
the hands of thoughtless persons has taken 
form, and we may now hope for some definite 
results. It is not true that the people are in- 
different to the fate of the wild flowers; they 
are merely ignorant as to any threatened dan- 
ger. When once they find that certain pretty 
plants are in danger of extermination they 
are ready enough to act. In the vicinity of 
Colorado Springs, Colo., the ‘tourists’ have 
for years been at work eradicating the more 
conspicuous plants from the canyons which 
they visit in swarms. In some of these canyons 
one can now find but few of the pretty plants 
which once abounded there, and it has been a 
constant source of irritation to lovers of 
nature visiting these places to see these van- 
dals clutching every beautiful thing within 
reach. At last the residents of Colorado 
Springs have waked to the fact that their 
treasures have been stolen, and they are now 
organizing for the purpose of protecting those 
that remain. Every ‘summer resort’ has 
suffered in like manner, and it will be neces- 
sary for the permanent residents to follow the 
example of Colorado Springs if they hope 
to preserve the plants which adorn the land- 
scape. Wherever the feeling has arisen that 
such work must be done, those interested 
should at once consult with Charles L. Pol- 
lard, Secretary of the Wild Flower Preserva- 
tion Society of America, at Washington, D. C. 


THE SHRUBS OF WYOMING. 


Iy a recent bulletin of the Wyoming Ex- 
periment Station, Mr. Elias Nelson enumer- 
ates the shrubs of the state, and gives such 
popular descriptions as will serve to distin- 
guish the species. One hundred and five 
species are included, of which five are Gym- 
nosperms (of the genus Juniperus) the re- 
mainder being Dicotyledons. No Monocoty- 
ledons are included, apparently indicating that 
there are no woody species in Wyoming. In 
the list there are thirteen willows (Salix) ; 


SCIENCE. 


AT7 


five species of chenopods (Chenopodiacee) ; 
nine of currants and gooseberries (Ribes) ; 
five roses (Rosa); four honeysuckles (Lon- 
icera) ; five sage-brushes (Artemisia) ; and ten 
rabbit-bushes (Chrysothamnus). No less than 
eighteen species of Composite are more or 
less shrubby. 

There is but one shrubby species of the pea 
family (Papilionacew), namely the false in- 
digo (Amorpha fruticosa). So there is but 
one shrubby dogwood (Cornus stolonifera). 
Of the heaths and their allies only three 
species are given. 

On comparing this list of the shrubs of 
Wyoming with Professor Aven Nelson’s 
“Trees of Wyoming’ published two or three 
years ago, we find that of the thirty-one trees 
there given no less than twelve are here intro- 
duced as ‘shrubs.’ However, all these are 


“on the border line between trees and shrubs, 


and it is perhaps better to list them twice 
than to permanently assign them to one or the 
other class. In the flora here represented there 
are about one hundred and twenty-four species 
of woody plants, of which less than one sixth 
are certainly to be ranked as trees. This pre- 
dominance of shrubs is a notable feature of 
the woody vegetation of the highlands of the 
West. 
AN OLD BROWN CEDAR. 

In the Garden of the Gods, near Pike’s 
Peak, Colo., there are many large specimens 
of the brown cedar, Juniperus monosperma 
(Engelm.) Sargent, and in a recent visit to 
that place it occurred to the writer that these 
trees must be very old. On the 13th of 
August he was fortunate enough to find the 
stump of a recently cut tree, on which it was 
easy to distinguish the annual growth-rings. 
These were counted for a section of the trunk, 
care being taken to select a portion in which 
the rings were of average thickness, and on 
this basis the number for the whole stump 
was calculated. In this way it was found that 
this particular tree was between eight hun- 
dred and one thousand years old. In other 
words, this tree was a seedling some time be- 
tween the years 900 and 1100 A. D. 


Cuartes E. Bessey. 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. 


478 


SOCIENTIFIO NOTES AND NEWS. 

Tue University of Christiania has on the 
oceasion of the centenary of the birth of Abel 
conferred honorary degrees on a number of 
mathematicians, including Professor Simon 
Newcomb and Professor J. Willard Gibbs. 

Dr. Emm Fiscrer, professor of chemistry 
at Berlin, and Dr. Carl von Voit, professor of 
physiology at Munich, have been elected cor- 
responding members of the Vienna Academy 
of Sciences. 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL Ropert M. O’REILLY 
assumed the duties of surgeon-general of the 
army on September 8. 

Masor Ronatp Ross, of the Liverpool 
School of Tropical Medicine, expects to visit 
the United States to study malaria. 

Mr. Rozert T. Hitt, of the Geological Sur- 
vey, who was recently sent to Martinique to 
investigate the eruption of Mt. Pelée, will be 
engaged this season in an investigation of the 
Trans-Pecos region of Texas, Arizona and 
New Mexico. Dr. G. H. Girty, paleontolo- 
gist, will be associated with Mr. Hill in the 
work. 

Dr. Lupwic Biro, who has spent six years 
in making zoological and ethnographic studies 
in the Malay archipelago, especially in New 
Guinea, has returned to Buda Pesth. 

M. Borts Feprscuenxo has returned from a 
scientific expedition to the elevated Pamir 
desert with a collection of plants. 

Dr. Luxganorr, professor of pathology at 
the University of Warsaw, and director of the 
Institute of Experimental Medicine in St. 
Petersburg, has been appointed deputy minis- 
ter of public instruction by the Russian Gov- 
ernment. 

M. pve GeruacHeE, leader of the recent Bel- 
_ gian antarctic expedition, has been appointed 
curator in the Natural History Museum at 
Brussels. 

Dr. J. B. Messerscumitt, of Hamburg, has 
been appointed observer in the electro-mag- 
netical laboratory connected with the observa- 
tory at Munich. 

Dr. A. Suapy, professor of electro-mechanics 
in the Technical Institute at Charlottesburg, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 403. 


has received for his researches 20,000 Marks 
from the fund for German industry. Dr. K. 
von Linder, professor of thermodynamics at 
the Munich Technical School, has received 
10,000 Marks from the same fund. 


Dr. Avex. P. Anprrson has resigned his po- 
sition of curator of the herbarium of Colum- 
bia University to become an expert to the 
syndicate now engaged in developing the new 
method of treating starchy grains, ete. re- 
cently discovered by Dr. Anderson in the 
laboratories of the New York Botanical Gar- 
den. Dr. Anderson is fitting up a laboratory 
for the continuance of his work at Minneapo- 
lis. 

A MemorRIAL has recently been erected by 
the German Association of Alienists over the 
grave of the anatomist, Reil. He was buried 
in his garden at Halle, which is now part of 
the Zoological Gardens of the city. 


Proressor Rupotr VircHow was given a 
public funeral by the city of Berlin on Sep- 
tember 9. Services were held in the City 
Hall, addresses being made by representatives 
of the Reichstag and the Town Council, and 


by Dr. Wilhelm Waldeyer, professor of anat- 


omy in the University of Berlin. The body 
was buried in St. Matthew’s Cemetery, which 
is situated in a southwestern suburb of Ber- 
lin. 

Sir Frepertck ABEL, known for his im- 
portant researches on explosives, died on Sep- 
tember 8, at the age of seventy-six years. He 
was one of the most prominent British men 
of science, having been president of the Brit- 
ish Association for the Advancement of Sci- 
ence, the Iron and Steel Institute, the Chem- 
ical Society, the Institute of Chemistry, the 
Society of Chemical Industry, and the Insti- 
tute of Electrical Engineers, and chairman of 
the Society of Arts. ; 


CaBLEGRAMS to the daily papers state that 
the British Association for the Advancement 
of Science opened its seventy-second annual 
meeting at Belfast on September 10, when 
Professor James Dewar made his presidential 
address. The Association has been invited to 
meet in South Africa in 1905. It is said the 
colonial governments have offered to contrib- 


SEPTEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


ute $35,000 towards treveling and other ex- 
penses. 

Tue Chillean Government has issued orders 
that all possible facilities be furnished to the 
expedition from the Lick Observatory, which 
will shortly begin its work in that country. 

Tue American Institute of Mining Engi- 
neers will hold its eighty-third meeting at 
New Haven, Conn., beginning on Tuesday, Oc- 
tober 14, 1902. 

Tur English Arboricultural Society held its 
annual meeting in London on August 18. Mr. 
George Marshall, member of the Royal For- 
estry Commission, was elected president in 
succession to Dr. Somerville, of the Board of 
Agriculture. 

Tue annual conference on the improvement 
of the condition of the insane, which met 
recently at Antwerp, adopted the following 
resolutions: (1) That the confinement of the 
insane henceforth be abandoned except in the 
cases of those recognized as dangerous. (2) 
That the system of boarding insane persons 
with families be carried out whenever possible. 
(3) That it is expedient to renew the wish for- 
mulated at the Congress at Paris for the es- 
tablishment of schools for special classes of 
the mentally weak under medical supervision. 
(4) That the manner of placing patients be 
entirely left to physicians. (5) That forcible 
restraint should be condemned. 


A warcE table, invented by Professor E. C. 
Pickering, has been constructed in the north 
building at the Harvard Observatory. It is 
made in two revolving sections, one above the 
other, and takes the place of six separate 
tables used before. In the upper section the 
annals of the observatory, magnifying glasses, 
and reference books are kept; in the lower, 
letters and files. 


Tue division of mining and mineral re- 
sources of the Geological Survey, under Dr. 
D. T. Day, has issued a chart showing the 
quantity and value of the mineral productions 
of the United States for the ten years ending 
with 1901. The value of the total output of 
metallic ores, such as iron, copper, gold, sil- 
ver, etc., in 1901 was $524,873,284, against 
$307,936,189 in 1892; and the value of the 


SCIENCE. 


479 


nonmetallic products, including coal, petro- 
leum, natural gas, building materials, etc., 
was $566,351,096 in 1901, against $339,958,- 
842 in 1892. From the arrangement of the 
metallic and nonmetallic resources on a single 
sheet, it is possible to follow the yearly change 
in the production of about sixty of the im- 
portant mineral products of the country dur- 
ing the decade. The chart, to be had on ap- 
plication to the director of the United States 
Geological Survey, is issued in advance of the 
report, ‘Mineral Resources of the United 
States, 1901,’ which will be ready for distri- 
bution in the fall. 


ForrIGN papers report that the vessel Ant- 
arctic, of the Swedish South Polar expedition, 
with five scientific members, left Port Stanley, 
in the Falkland Islands, on April 11 for South 
Georgia. The expedition stayed in South 
Georgia from April 22 to June 15, and during 
this time a detailed survey was made of Cum- 
berland Bay, one of the largest bays in South 
Georgia. Investigations into the natural his- 
tory of Cumberland Bay were carried on, and 
zoological collections brought home from 
depths as great as 2,700 meters. Soundings 
have given depths up to 5,997 meters north- 
west from South Georgia. The expedition re- 
turned to Port Stanley on July 4, and will 
up to the end of September carry on work 
around the Falkland Islands and in Tierra 
del Fuego. In October the Antarctic will start 
for Graham Land, in the Antarctic Ocean. 

Tue English journals announce that the 
following prizes have been awarded for es- 
says on subjects connected with tropical dis- 
eases:—(1) A prize of the value of 101., en- 
titled the Sivewright prize, presented by Sir 
James Sivewright for the best article on ‘ The 
Duration of the Latency of Malaria after 
Primary Infection, as proved by Tertian or 
Quartan Periodicity or Demonstration of the 
Parasite in the Blood,’ awarded to Dr. Attilio 
Caccini, assistant physician, Hospital of Santo 
Spirito in Sassia, Rome. (2) A prize of the 
value of 10I., entitled the Belilios prize, pre- 
sented by the Hon. E. R. Beililios, C.M.G., for 
the best article on ‘The Spread of Plague 
from Rat to Rat, and from Rat to Man by 
the Rat-flea,’ awarded to Dr. Bruno Galli- 


480 


Valerio, professor in the University of Laus- 
anne, Switzerland. The prize of the value of 
101. entitled the Lady Macgregor prize, pre- 
sented by Lady Macgregor for the best article 
on ‘The best Method of the Administration 
of Quinine as a Preventative of Malaria 
Fever, was not awarded. The judges were 
Surgeon-General Roe Hooper, president Medi- 
cal Board, India Office, Colonel Kenneth Mac- 
Leod and Mr. Patrick Manson, F.R.S. 


Mr. Cuvier Reynoups, curator of the Al- 
bany Institute and Historical and Art Society, 
and chairman of the committee to collect 
funds for a meorial to Joseph Henry, has sent 
the Electrical World the following resolu- 
tion: 

That this committee favors a memorial where- 
in the sciences shall be taught, in connection with 
the Albany Academy where he taught as a mem- 
ber of the faculty, and within which building he 
performed the experiment that demonstrated the 
correctness of his principle of the electric tele- 
graph, believing that it will be more practical 
than any other type; and thereby holding in 
cherished remembrance the views and character 
of the one who has been long recognized as the 
leading American scientist, and who donated his 
discoveries to the advancement of knowledge and 
the world’s industries. 

Considering the inestimable advantage that the 
inventions of Joseph Henry have been to the 
world, inasmuch as the sum of $4,000,000,000 is 
invested in this country alone in enterprises that 
his study and free gift made possible, which in- 
dustries give employment to more than a million 
persons, and appreciating the honor of his labors 
in connection with the work of this organization, 
we take this step with a feeling that even when 
the efforts shall be crowned with success it will 
be but a slight token of the sincere esteem of the 
country. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


Tue University of Montana is erecting a 
woman’s hall, to accommodate about 70 stu- 
dents, and to cost about $35,000. The build- 
ing will be ready for use by the first of Janu- 
ary, 1903. That portion of Science Hall re- 
cently destroyed by fire has been rebuilt, with 
additional space for a school of pharmacy, not 
yet organized. The foundation is laid for a 
gymnasium to cost $10,000. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 403. 


Vassar ConuEceE receives $10,000 by the will 
of the late Adolph Sutro, of San Francisco. 


Tur Wilson endowment fund of $100,000 
for Washington and Lee University being 
made up, Mr. Herbert Welsh, of Philadelphia, 
who was largely instrumental in raising it, 
recommends that a fund of $500,000 be col- 
lected to endow a scientific and technical 
school for the university. 


Tue four hundredth anniversary of the 
foundation of the University of Halle, for- 
merly at Wittemburg, will be celebrated on 
November 1, when a new auditorium building 


will be dedicated. 


A PARLIAMENTARY committee has made a re- 
port of the finances of Melbourne University, 
from which it appears that the university has 
lost about $120,000 through the frauds of an 
accountant. As the defaleation was in part 
due to the carelessness of the government au- 
ditors, the committee recommends that the 
168% be made good by the government. 

Dr. H. J. WueeEter, director of the Rhode 
Island Agricultural Experimental Station and 
professor of geography and geology in the col- 
lege, has been appointed acting president. 
President Nichols, of the Kansas Agricul- 
tural College, at first accepted and then 
declined the presidency. 

Henry Farnuam Perxins, Ph.D. (Johns 
Hopkins), has been appointed assistant pro- 
fessor of biology in the University of Ver- 
mont. 

Tue following changes have been made in 
the department of physics of the University 
of Nebraska: Mr. Chas. M. Heck, A.M. (Co- 
lumbia, 1901), has been appointed fellow in 
physics vice Mr. W. B. Cortmel, who has re- 
signed to accept appointment with U. S. Bu- 
reau of Standards, Washington.—Mr. John 
Mills (Chicago, 1901), fellow in physics vice 
Mr. S. B. Tuckerman, has been appointed in- 


‘structor in physics, University of Ohio.—Mr. 


S. R. Cook, former fellow in physics, has been 
appointed instructor in physics in the Oase 
School of Science, Cleveland. 

Dr. Grorce T. Parron has been elected pro- 
fessor of moral philosophy at Princeton Uni- 
versity. © 


JoHn WEsLEY PoWELL, eminent in anthropology and in geology, director of the 
United States Bureau of Ethnology, formerly director of the United States Geological 
Survey, past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one 
of the editors of this journal, died on September the twenty-third. 


CIENCE 


& WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE : 8S. NEwcomMB, Mathematics; R. S. WooDWARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Geology; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScUDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessry, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


DITCH, Physiology ; 


J. S. Brntines, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. WELCH, Pathol- 
ogy ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


FriIpAy, SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


The Carnegie Institution: Dr. Grorck M. 
STERNBERG, Dr. H. W. Witry, Dr. Gra- 
HAM Lusk, PRorEssoR Morris LOEB...... 481 

Classification and Arrangements of the Ex- 
hibits of an Anthropological Museum: Dr. 
WAG iylalali da Nora oois} ILIA bisiy ans eld pea aici en boi 

A Biological Farm for the Baperimental In- 
vestigation of Heredity, Variation and Evo- 
lution, and for the Study of Life-Histories, 
Habits, Instincts and Intelligence: Pro- 
FESSOR ©. ©. WHITMAN................. 


487 


504 
Scientific Literature :— 
Young’s Manual of Astronomy: C. L. D.. 510 
Societies and Academies :— 
The Mathematical Society: 
Proressor F. N. Corr. The Society for 
the Promotion of Agricultural Education: 
ID Ie, WW WAS, oocnodoocoscocascnuE 511 


American 


Discussion and Correspondence :— 
Stratigraphy versus Paleontology in Nova 

Dr. G. F. Marrunw. Evidence of 

Recent Blevation of the Gulf Coast along 


Scotia: 


the Westward Bxtensiow of Florida: Dr. 

T. WayLanp VaAuGHAN. The Strength of 

Anis; ARMAND) IRs SMiTGEER reece: eh os 518 
NAGA DN GUneerinG ere enero iicia: 515 
Scientific Notes) and) News 4earnn ae) 516 
University and Educational News.......... 520 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 


No doubt the officers of the Carnegie In- 
stitution fully realize the responsibility 
resting upon them and will refrain from 
making any considerable appropriations 
from the funds placed at their disposal 
until a well-defined policy, having the ap- 
proval of the leading men in various de- 
partments of scientific research, has been 
adopted. I take it for granted that the 
officers and trustees are fully impressed 
with the importance of using the generous 
endowment placed in their hands in the 
most economical manner possible, having in 
view the objects to be attained—that is, 
they will aim to accomplish the greatest 
possible results with the means at their dis- 
posal. This will require very careful con- 
sideration and very exact knowledge of 
what is being done by other institutions 
and endowments for scientific research both 
in this country and in Europe. To go over 
ground that has already been well plowed 
or to undertake investigations for which 
there is already adequate provision would 
be a waste of money and of energy. The 
Carnegie Institution should not come into 
competition with any existing, well-directed 
ageney for research work, but should be 
ready to lend a helping hand wherever it 
is needed for the prosecution of work al- 
ready commenced or projected by compe- 
tent investigators; otherwise it will, to a 


482 


certain extent, have a tendency to restrict 
scientific research in other institutions less 
amply endowed and having other uses for 
their money. So far as the national gov- 
ernment is concerned, there ean be no doubt 
that there would be a strong disposition to 
refuse or cut down appropriations for sci- 
entific work in the various departments if 
it was believed that the funds of the Car- 
negie Institution could be made available 
for such work. 

In my opinion a considerable portion of 
the income should be used in assisting in- 
dividuals who have demonstrated their fit- 
ness for research work in some special 
field of investigation, who have a definite 
object in view and well-considered plans 
for attacking the problem or problems 
which have engaged their attention. A cer- 
tain amount of money may also be profit- 
ably devoted to the publication of scientific 
memoirs, and especially of those relat- 
ing to research work done under the aus- 
pices of, or with the assistance of, the Car- 
negie Institution; also in assisting useful 
scientific periodicals which are not self- 
supporting. I would not encroach upon the 
capital of the Carnegie Institution for the 
erection of buildings or for any other pur- 
pose, but in my opinion a certain portion 
of the income should be devoted to the erec- 
tion of a building in the city of Washington 
which would serve as ‘headquarters’ for 
officers and should be known as the ‘Car- 
-negie Institution.’ This building should 
contain, in addition to the necessary offices, 
suitable rooms for the meetings of the 
various national and local scientific societies 
which meet in the city of Washington, in- 
eluding committee rooms, ete., also well- 
equipped laboratories for research work 
in physies, chemistry and biology. 

In laying out the work and distributing 
available funds I trust that the executive 
committee will give due consideration to 
the claims of that branch of biology which 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 404. 


relates to the health and well-being of man. 
No department of scientific research has 
given more important and brilliant results 
during the past quarter of a century than 
that which relates to the cause and preven- 
tion of infectious diseases, and there is still 
much work to be done in this field of in- 
vestigation. Also in other lines of work 
which may be included under the general 
head ‘hygiene.’ In its broadest significa- 
tion hygiene takes account of climate, soil, 
food, clothing, dwellings, occupations and 
social relations as related to the health and 
longevity of individuals, communities and 
nations. Here is a broad and fruitful field 
which has been partly illumined by the 
light of science with most beneficent results. 
But there are still many dark places where 
truth is hidden from our view or obscured 
by the aeceptance of false conclusions based 
upon tradition or upon mistaken observa- 
tion. While pure science may well be pur- 
sued without any regard for utility, it is 
nevertheless true that the most valued dis- 
coveries of scientific investigators are those 
which have led to practical results of im- 
portance, and I trust that the officers of 
the Carnegie Institution will not be dis- 
posed to look with disfavor upon the line 
of investigation in which I am especially 
interested because the facts demonstrated 
by scientific methods of research have a 
more or less direct bearing upon the wel- 
fare of the human race. 
Go. M. STERNBERG. 


In the discussion of the question of the 
scope of the Carnegie Institution, the chief 
thing, it seems to me, to be kept in mind, is 
that the revenues from this foundation 
should be directed to fields of research not 
provided for by universities, governments 
or other endowments. It is not so much 
‘what should be done’ as ‘what is not do- 
ing.’ Lines of research which are not now 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


followed should receive first attention. In 
every branch of science is found a great 
unknown, an wnexplored desert. Into 
these regions scientific research should pene- 
trate. 

The income of the Carnegie Institution 
is indeed large, but small when compared 
with the sum of private, public and gov- 
ernmental endowments of scientific activity 
in this country. 

It may be assumed that the Carnegie 
fund will yield a half million dollars of 
available money annually. This is only a 
little more than one third of the income of 
Harvard University ($1,416,000), although 
the endowment of that institution is only 
about three million dollars greater than the 
Carnegie gift ($13,120,000). 

The appropriation for the Bureau of 
Standards for the present year is $71,060; 
for the Coast and Geodetic Survey $828.,- 
525; for the Geological Survey $1,066,570 ; 
and the total appropriation for the Agri- 
eulture Department is $4,488,960 not in- 
eluding $720,000 for the agricultural ex- 
periment stations. 

The total income of the agricultural col- 
leges from the Land Grant endowment 
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1901, 
was $708,010.45, and from the direct ap- 
propriation from the Federal Treasury 
($25,000 for each one) $1,200,000. These 
colleges received from the several states 
$3,683,162.34 and from tuition and other 
fees $1,777,069.11, making a total income of 
the agricultural colleges of this country 
$7,386,241.60. The agricultural experi- 
ment stations received during the same 
time from the Congress of the United 
States $720,000, and from the several states 
and other sourees $511,881.55, a total of 
$1,231,881.55. Of all this sum, amounting 
to $15,055,238.15, it is safe to assume that 
fully one third is devoted exclusively to 
scientific purposes—a sum ten times as 
great as the total income from the Carnegie 


SCIENCE. 


483 


fund. In this total no account is taken of 
the great endowments, publie and private, 
to foster scientific research and activity in 
schools, colleges, universities and technical 
institutions. 

It is seen from the above figures that the 
trustees of the Carnegie Institution will 
find a keen competition if they undertake 
any line of investigations already carried on 
under the auspices of the Government. In 
fact, I may be permitted to say here that the 
greatest danger, in my opinion, which now 
threatens the value of scientific work of 
the Government is a plethora of available 
funds. The best work of this kind is not 
necessarily done with access to unlimited 
supphes, and the res anguste which com- 
pel a certain inventive ability to make 
both ends meet are sometimes highly use- 
ful in scientific research. The one mistake 
therefore which the trustees of the Carne- 
gie fund will be certain to avoid is the 
granting of such bounties as will foster 
that hebetude which springs from satiety. 
If science should descend to the mere plane 
of a money maker it would then be time to 
form a trust to limit all activity and con- 
fer the revenues upon a chosen few. But 
that day is, happily, yet far off. 

It appears to me that the life of the na- 
tion and its normal growth are the prob- 
lems of supreme importance. Geography, 
soil, climate and race have conspired to 
make this nation the ruler of the world— 
far more powerful than le Toequeville and 
Creasy ever imagined.* 

Whatever our individual beliefs may be 
our nation is committed to hold the first 
place. We are powerless in the path of 
destiny. This means not only the polit- 
ical hegemony which is inevitable but also 
the physical foree which that leadership 
implies. In this direction lies a_ field 
which the Carnegie trustees will find fer- 


*See battle of Saratoga in Creasy’s ‘ Decisive 
Battles of the World.’ 


484 


tile. We need a fundamental inquiry into 
explosives as to both energy and stability. 
All means for the sudden destruction of life 
in battle should be of the highest efficiency. 
The engines of war should have the power 
and suddenness of a Mount Pelée. Es- 
pecially our navy should be the strongest 
and most efficient of any in the world. 

Of even pace with this development of 
destruction should be progress in the art of 
healing wounds and of preventing disease, 
since the greatest proficiency in war goes 
always hand in hand with the highest hu- 
manity. 

Two of the great problems of a great na- 
tion are education and taxation. In these 
lines we want to get out of party and sect 
and lay deep and broad the foundations 
of true didacties and just taxation. The 
tariff should not be a political question and 
the farmer should not pay more than his 
share of the taxes, as he does at the present 
time. In education are included those prob- 
lems in psychology which you so lucidly set 
forth in your paper. 

Intimately associated with the problem 
of the nation’s life is the question of alco- 
holic beverages. Where could be found a 
more promising field for investigation than 
in the discovery of the best way to avoid 
those awful miseries which the abuse of in- 
toxicating beverages produces? 

War, healing and avoiding disease, edu- 
cation, taxation, the unregulated use of 
alcoholic beverages, seem to me to be fields 
of research in which the Carnegie Institu- 
tion might find almost an illimitable source 
of activity. 

The art of war in its highest development 
is peace. Healing is health and long life. 
Edueation based on truly scientific prin- 
ciples is power. Taxation which is just 
and generous is resource. The use of alco- 
holic beverages properly conditioned is tem- 


perance. Peace, health, power, resource 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 404. 


and temperance are the attributes of the 
ruler among the nations of the world. 
H. W. Winey. 


BUREAU OF CHEMISTRY, 
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


Tue side which appeals most strongly 
to me in connection with the development 
of the Carnegie Institution is the granting 
of research scholarships under the direction 
of existing laboratories. Mr. Carnegie’s 
original intention in his Scottish University 
endowment was to render a liberal educa- 
tion possible to every Scot. It seems to 
me that the many scholarships made pos- 
sible by Mr. Carnegie would permit of 
opportunity for research work by a great 


number of individuals desiring to do 
such work. The work would be valuable 
if its supervision were competent. To be 


a Carnegie research student might become 
a mark of honor and dignity.. I would di- 
vide the scholarships into two classes: 
first, those receiving $1,000 a year devoted 
entirely to research, and second, those of 
$500 a year where half the day is de- 
voted to research and the other half to 
college work. ; 

The great and almost insuperable diffi- 
culty in this matter lies in the choice of 
laboratories to which these scholarships are 
to be allotted. It is practically impossible 
to avoid favoritism. The estimated value 
of work done lies in the current impres- 
sion even though that may be full of er- 
ror. 

The scholarships should be allotted to 
laboratories the heads of which have shown 
themselves competent to do research work. 
It is a mistake to compel men, who are 
presumably competent, to reveal an outline 
of the subject to be investigated. The 
greatest discoveries are often accidental ob- 
servations made by trained minds. The for- 
mer product of their laboratories, or of 
their personal work, should be the erite- 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902.] 


rion. In this way if one line of investiga- 
tion seems fruitless, the scholar can at 
will be turned in another course. Thus the 
Carnegie Institution may endow but not 
control the course of science in San Fran- 
cisco. There must be no limitations to the 
‘akademische Freiheit.’ 

In my own laboratory I have always told 
my students, ‘everything will be bought for 
you and all your breakage will be charged 
against the laboratory, if you will only 
give your time to the work.’ It is the time 
of those capable of working which is the 
laboratory’s most valuable asset. Would 
not scholarships, properly placed, liberate 
for higher uses the maximum of capable 
educated endeavor? GRAHAM LUSK. 


UNIVERSITY AND BELLEVUE HospiTaL MEDICAL 
CoLLeGE, NEw York. 


In response to the request for the views 
of American men of science on the mission 
of the Carnegie Institution, I would first of 
all express the hope that the trustees will 
reject those propositions whieh would most 
seriously menace the free development and 
untrammeled activity of our various scien- 
tific bodies and institutions of learning— 
especially the establishment of a huge re- 
serve fund, with the annual distribution of 
its income among the ‘deserving poor.’ It 
seems to me that, while there may be occa- 
sional demands for large sums to equip ex- 
ploring parties on behalf of some of the 
descriptive sciences, the legitimate demands 
for assistance in research in the exact sci- 
ences ought not to be very large, in any one 
year; in fact, I venture the assertion that 
the existence of large sums to be devoted in 
this way might lead to wastefulness in 
methods, rather than to the development of 
that resourcefulness which has been the 
characteristic of the greatest investigators. 
Favored beneficiaries might choose a field 
of work from which others would be de- 
barred by questions of cost, rather than 


SCIENCE. 


485 


strike out upon lines of greater originality 
and importance. Again, it cannot be de- 
nied that the establishment of a standard 
of measurement with the utmost precision 
is a work well worthy of national support: 
but if the Carnegie Institution were to en- 
courage, by means of its stipends, all our 
most capable physicists to devote them- 
selves to this class of work, advance in this 
department of knowledge would be seri- 
ously hampered. Is it a hardy prediction, 
however, that the votes of a committee on 
distribution would always favor such defi- 
nite projects, as against a proposition to ex- 
plore some vaguely defined problem of 
physics or chemistry ? 

I think, therefore, that the proportion of 
the income to be devoted to the immediate 
subvention of research ought to be small 
at best; the aid would probably be more 
efficient, if administered through existing 
scientific societies, who would receive from 
time to time such additions to their re- 
search funds as would seem commensurate 
with their previous success in promoting in- 
vestigation. The existence of a central re- 
viewing body would act as a wholesome re- 
straint upon these smaller scientific bodies, 
while the relative needs of investigators 
could be better judged by a jury of experts 
in their immediate field of work, than by 
such a heterogeneous committee as would 
be furnished by the trustees themselves. 

On the other hand, the suggestion that 
the institution should play the part of a 
private benefactor to our universities, by 
adding to their endowment, building and 
equipping laboratories, augmenting pro- 
fessors’ salaries or providing them with 
private assistants, seems to me to savor of 
paternalism and to open the way to serious 
abuses, while at the same time it might 
eause colleges to shape their course with 
the sole view of pleasing the guardians of 
the fund, for the time being. 


486 


It seems doubtful whether any salary 
could be paid to a body of academicians, 
sufficient to enable them to devote their 
whole time to research; and it is a fair 
question whether it would really be desir- 
able to set a body of men apart in a scien- 
tific academy, at the present day, without 
that contact with students which a uni- 
versity provides. It must be remembered 
that the Royal Institution of London is not 
an academy in the strictest sense; nor do 
the resident lecturers owe a duty to a foun- 
dation, but rather to the subseribers. With 
the enormous distances separating our edu- 
cational centers, it would not be concelv- 
able that a lecturer, could assemble around 
him so national an audience as would listen 
to a Faraday or a Rayleigh. 

All these plans remind one of the hot- 
house method of stimulating plant-growth ; 
why not attempt the open-air method of 
cultivating the soil? The Carnegie Insti- 
tution might facilitate research for all, in- 
stead of offering incentives to a chosen few. 
For this reason, the satisfactory equipment 
of marine biological stations, open to all 
qualified observers, and of similar, institu- 
tions that would render the natural phe- 
nomena more readily accessible to general 
study, would seem eminently proper; while 
one might doubt the propriety of establish- 
ing observatories simply for the intense 
study of single problems. The efficacy of 
special research laboratories in the phys- 
ical sciences, such as England owes to the 
generosity of Mr. Mond, has yet to be prov- 
en in contrast with that of university labo- 
ratories; to the writer, their establishment 
in this country would appear premature, 
since many of our well-equipped education- 
al laboratories are not so crowded that they 
would be obliged to refuse accommodation 
to an independent investigator who sought 
their hospitality. 

The same general argument would op- 
pose the financial support of periodicals and 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 404. 


publishing organizations, while it would 
strongly favor the equipment of a scientific 
printing office, for the prompt and cheap 
reproduction of the results of research, for 
the account of individuals as well as of as- 
sociations. However, if the trustees de- 
sired to obviate the most serious difficulties 
which beset the American scientist in his 
laboratory work, they would establish 
workshops for the construction of special 
apparatus and the preparation of the more 
recondite materials, such as rare chemicals, 
microscopic mounts, ete. What stipend, for 
instance, could put the American chemist 
on a level with his German colleague, when 
the latter can obtain, within twenty-four 
hours, any preparation that is catalogued, 
while the former, must allow six weeks for 
obtaining anything that is not so commonly 
known as to be literally a ‘drug on the 
market’? By enabling the private investi- 
gator to supply his needs quickly and at 
reasonable cost, without the unjust disecrim- 
ination of ‘duty-free’ importation, a stimu- 
lus would be given to private research, in- 
side and outside the college laboratory. 
Who can estimate the amount of time frit- 
tered away in this country through the lack 
of ready access to the mechanical adjuncts 
to investigation? Workshops to supply 
these would not only improve our immedi- 
ate condition; but, if properly organized, 
they might serve to educate a body of 
mechanicians and preparators, whose help 
would be invaluable in the various scien- 
tifie institutions of the country. 

If these suggestions should illustrate the 
view that the Carnegie Institution can do 
measurable harm by seeking to supplant 
private initiative with artificial stimulus, 
but can do immeasurable good by clearing 
away the obstacles that now trammel the 
general growth of the scientific spirit in 
America, they will best express the opin- 


ions of Morris Logs. 
New York UNIVERSITY. 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


CLASSIFICATION AND ARRANGEMENT OF 
THE EXHIBITS OF AN ANTHRO- 
- POLOGICAL MUSEUM.* 

Scope of the Anthropological Field.—The 
history of man, including all that he is 
and does and all that he has been and has 
done, is a wide and important subject, and 
is fortunately susceptible, in large part, of 
lucid and effective treatment in the mu- 
seum. The available materials are of two 
principal classes; the first relates to man 
himself as a biological unit, and the second 
to the works of his hands, the creations of 
his developing mind. These two divisions 
of the subject are readily separated and 
require independent treatment in the mu- 
seum. The first division is known as Phys- 
ical Anthropology, often called Somatol- 
ogy; the second may in econtradistinction 
be called Culture Anthropology, since it 
embodies the vast range of the essentially 
human activities. 

The Somatic Division._If we discuss 
man independently of his arts—his artifi- 
cial activities—we treat of him from the 
standpoint of the naturalist or biologist. 
Physical anthropology includes the study of 
man as a species of animal, of his races and 
varieties, his external characters, his anat- 
omy, physiology and pathology. It includes 
his ontogeny—the development of the indi- 
vidual—his inception and embryonie evolu- 
tion, his advances to maturity, his descent 
to the grave and return to the elements 
whence he arose. It includes his phylogeny 
—the development of the species from lower 
forms of life; the evolution of every part 
of his frame—the skin, bones, muscles, cir- 
culatory system, nervous system and other 
special organs; and the relation of these 
parts one and all to corresponding parts 
of the lower animals. This is a magnificent 
field for illustration and, in capable hands, 


*The scheme elaborated in this paper is now 
being carried out in the United States National 
Museum as rapidly as conditions will permit. 


SCIENCE. 


487 


may readily fill a museum with exhibits of 
superlative interest and value. It is true 
that man is properly treated along with 
the lower orders of creatures as one of a 
great system of biological units, and he 
should therefore be included in all general 
biological presentations in museums. But 
anthropology requires more than this sys- 
tematic biological treatment. Man’s phys- 
ical evolution and anatomical structure cor- 
relate directly with all his activities; race 
and culture are intimately connected. The 
naturalist could more consistently separate, 
in his museum presentation, the bird from 
her nest or the bee from its comb, than 
could the anthropologist divorce human 
handiwork from the man. There is ex- 
cellent reason, therefore, for making an es- 
pecial study and exhibition of physical man 
in immediate association with culture ex- 
hibits. It is necessary to bring together 
everything that relates to the great human 
unit. The anthropological museum should 
present physical man in the most complete 
and exhaustive manner. However, it is 
not the purpose at present to take up this 
branch in detail, but rather to give almost 
exclusive attention to the phenomena of 
culture. 

The Culture Division.—If the physical 
phenomena of man include all that connects 
him with the brute, his culture phenomena 
include all that distinguishes him from the 
brute. If we wish to realize more fully the 
scope of the latter division of the subject, 
which includes the objective evidences of 
culture, we have only, in imagination, to 
sweep away all the multitude of things 
that it has brought into the world; destroy 
every city, town and dwelling; every ar- 
ticle of furniture, picture, sculpture, book, 
textile fabric, fictile product; every article 
of clothing and ornament; every vehicle, 
machine, utensil and implement—and, in 
fact, every trace of human handiwork; set 
aside the use of fire and cooked food; ban- 


488 


ish all language, social organization, gov- 
ernment, religion, music, literature and in- 
tellectual life generally. When this has 
been done we may behold the real man 
standing in his original nakedness among 
his fellows of the brute world. 

Limitations of Culture Material.—The 
material evidences of culture are thus seen 
to be of vast extent and importance; but it 
should be observed, notwithstanding this 
fact, that all of culture can not be illus- 
trated in the museum, for we can utilize 
material things only. We cannot show 
by its collections the social, moral, relig- 
ious and intellectual traits of man save in 
an indirect way. We can do little to illus- 
trate language save by displaying the 
methods of its expression to the eye in pic- 
tures and letters. We can tell little of re- 
ligion save by assembling the idols and 
devices that represent its symbolism, and 
the paraphernalia which pertains to the 
practice of its rites. We can tell nothing 
of music save by a display of the curious 
array of instruments used in producing 
sound, and society and government are 
even less within the sphere of the museum. 
Yet it is wonderful how much of the imma- 
terial side of the race can be illustrated by 
the material things that man has used and 
made; for the mind is in the things and 
was developed with and by the things more 
than is commonly understood. 

Classification of Culture Materials.—But 
what shall we attempt to show in the cul- 
ture division of our anthropological mu- 
seum, and how shall we classify and place 
our collections? Classification is the first 
essential. Taking a view of the world and 
its inhabitants from a sufficiently distant 
point of view, a few of the greater groups 
of facts attract the eye. First, we observe 
that men are of several distinct races and 
varieties; but a closer look demonstrates 
that these are not separated one from an- 
other, but are intermingled in such ways 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 404. 
as to afford no basis save the most general 
for a grouping of their culture products. 
Second, we observe that nearly all peoples 
are separated into social and_ political 
groups—into clans, tribes and nations—oc- 
cupying distinct areas of the habitable 
globe; looking closer at these, one sees that 
they are not all alike, that the widest pos- 
sible differences in condition and culture 
status exist. Some of the groups are sav- 
ages almost without art and without any 
evidences of higher culture; some are more 
advanced, occupying the barbarian grade; 
while still others are highly cultured and 
surrounded by a thousand evidences of en- 
lightenment and luxury. Shall we then 
classify and display our museum exhibits 
on the basis of this grouping of the peoples 
into tribes and nations? Let us see what 
would be the result. The British Empire 
is a nation of commanding power and 
boundless territory, but its culture ma- 
terials would comprise every variety of pro- 
duet under the sun, from the lowest to the 
highest, and from every known region of 
the globe. The same is true of nearly all 
of the civilized nations. It is evident, there- 
fore, that units of this class are too large 
and too complex to be of use in classifica- 
tion. Besides, civilized nations may well 
be expected each to have and maintain its 
own national museum as an independent in- 
stitution or as a department of its general 
museum. ; 

Let us take another illustration. Sup- 
pose that we decide to arrange our collec- 
tions by the inferior social or, political units 
—as by states or tribes. Investigation 
shows that these units are too small, that we 
should have thousands of exhibition units 
—too many entirely for practical purposes 
of grouping and installation. Besides, some 
are artificial divisions and some are natural 
divisions, and the elassifieation would be 
mixed and wholly unsatisfactory. What is 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


wanted is a simple natural grouping of the 
very diversified ethnic phenomena. 
Glaneing a third time over the field‘ and 
noting especially the culture of the various 
groups of people, we find that it varies with 
the region rather than with the race or na- 
tion, and that there is a significant rela- 
tion between it and environment. What 
uncivilized men do and have done in any 
region depends much on the climate and 
natural productions of that region. The 
aretic provinces have one culture, the trop- 
ical another ; the arid plains have one group 
of activities, the humid region another. The 
inland district has a race of hunters and de- 
velops hunting arts, the maritime people 
becomes a race of fishers and develops fish- 
er’s arts, and so on. Culture is thus so 
much the outgrowth of the region that its 
products may be assembled by geographical 
areas, and these may be large or small as 
occasion demands. The continents, great 
islands and groups of islands are subdi- 
vided into minor areas. These are called 
by anthropologists specialization areas, be- 
cause they have given special characters to 
the culture developed within them. They 
havé nothing to do with political lines and 
they disregard modern civilization, because 
it has broken over all natural limits, and by 
means of railroads and ships carries its 
generalized culture to the ends of the earth. 
But as these areas are largely those in 
which specialized cultures have had their 
inception and early development, it is by 
them that the student can best study and 
the curator best illustrate the phenomena of 
humanity. Within the space assigned to 
each of these geographic groups in the mu- 
seum should be assembled specimens of 
everything ethnical that the area produces, 
no matter what the race, the nation, the cul- 
ture stage or the time represented, except- 
ing always the intrusive generalized ele- 
ments of civilization, which must be treated 
separately in museums of national history 


SCIENCE. 


489 


or in museums covering special limited 
fields, as art museums and industrial mu- 
seums. 


THE GEO-ETHNIC ARRANGEMENT. 


Now the museum materials intended to 
illustrate a given geographic-ethnic terri- 
tory should be such in character and so ar- 
ranged that the student or visitor passing 
through the hall or halls in which they are 
installed may gather quickly a clear impres- 
sion of the people and culture of the area 
represented. I say first people because, after 
all, it is the people we are studying, and a 
display of all the culture phenomena of a 
region without some definite illustration of 
the people concerned would be wholly un- 
satisfactory. The man himself as he ap- 
pears in his every-day life is the best il- 
lustration of his own place in history, for 
his physical aspect, the expression of his 
face, the care of his person, his clothes, his 
occupations, his general appearance and 
social relations, tell the story with much 
clearness. 

So, since we cannot display the people 
themselves, we should begin each of our eth- 
nical exhibits by building a lay-figure 
group showing a typical family of the area 
illustrated—the men, the women and the 
children—engaged in ordinary occupations 
and surrounded by the things they make, 
and use and love. Physical characters 
should be portrayed with all possible accu- 
racy and a correct impression of the dis- 
position and social attitude of the members 
of the group should be given. Then around 
this family group should be arranged in 
separate cases series of objects illustrating 
their arts, industries and history. 

Following the family group, the next 
most important culture unit is the dwell- 
ing group, which may be modeled in minia- 
ture (say one twelfth or one twenty-fourth 
actual size), and illustrate their houses and 
constructions of all kinds as well as some- 


490 


thing of the home arts and life. Miniature 
figures of men, women and children may be 
introduced into the dwelling group to 
graphically illustrate the practice of culi- 
nary arts, manufacture of basketry, weav- 
ing, pottery, the use of domestic animals, 
ete. 

Illustrations of other activities should 
follow the dwelling group in the order of 
their importance or significance, each ex- 
hibit (consisting of the actual objects or of 
models) being of sufficient extent to serve 
as a synopsis of the work of the area rep- 
resented. The method of arranging these 
series is discussed in detail further on. 
Along with these exhibits should be taken 
up the archeology of the area, the prehis- 
toric cultural relics and remains, carrying 
the story back to the earliest times. The ex- 
hibit of each area should be supplemented 
by maps, pictures and labels, thus comple- 
ting an attractive synopsis of its culture 
phenomena. If a particular area should 
happen to contain two or more distinct 
peoples or cultures, additional exhibits 
could be added according to space and 
needs, rounding out the presentation. If 
several tribes are included and require sep- 
arate attention, the less typical may be 
represented by simple costumed figures in- 
stead of by family groups. 

It would prove instructive to add to each 
of these ethnic exhibits illustrations of the 
physical characteristics of the peoples of 
the area. These may comprise casts of the 
face, or even of the entire figure; the skele- 
ton, or parts of it, and especially the skull, 
which presents wide and significant vari- 
ations; examples of artificial deformations 
and mutilations; and collections of such 
remains of fossil man as are found in the 
area. This exhibit may also include pic- 
tures, diagrams and maps, completing a syn- 
opsis of the somatic characters. 

The geo-ethnic units, thus described, 
should be assembled in the museum some- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 404. 


what as represented in Fig. 1. Here a por- 
tion of the ground plan of the exhibition 
hall is presented. An ordinary, somewhat 
limited ethnic unit occupies space J. of this 
diagram. The lay figure group stands at 
A and the associated exhibits extend across 
the hall, fillmg a single row of cases, and 
the wall cases of the aleoves. A larger unit 
is provided for in J/J., where besides the 
single family group, A, additional lay 
figures are introduced (a, b, c, d) to repre- 
sent the less conspicuous peoples. In sec- 
tion JII., two minor groups are placed, one 
on the right and the other on the left of the 
main aisle, with the family lay-figure 
eroups in front (BB). 


OOOO0 ted O00de 


O0000 oo DOGO 
H0000 [1 oooo0 
oo000 °° Doooe 


Fie. 1. Assemblage of geo-ethnic units of dif- 


ferent sizes. 


I. A small unit extending the full width of the 
hall and occupying a single line of cases. JI. A 
large unit, also extending across the hall and 
occupying triple tiers of cases. JJIZ. A small unit 
confined to one side of the hall, with two rows 
of cases. JV. Similar to the preceding, with three 
tiers of cases. The wall cases in each instance 
are also utilized. 


In many instances the lack of well- 
rounded collections will necessarily prevent 
the building of family groups, and, if cos- 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


tumes are at hand, single figures may take 
their place. 

Since these proposed exhibition units are 
to represent terrestrial areas, it follows 
that their order in the museum should ap- 
proximate as nearly as may be the geo- 
eraphical order. If, for example, we are 
dealing with North America, the most 
northern group or unit should come first, 
and the groups to the south follow accord- 
ing to degree of intimacy in geographical 
relations. In this way neighboring environ- 
ments, cultures and peoples come together, 
and their interrelations may be presented 
and studied to advantage. 

Assuming that the museum space to be 
occupied is an ordinary hall or series of 
halls having a convenient width of say 120 
to 150 feet, the several members of each 
series would be assembled somewhat as 


| 
Ae 


H 
c | 
I 


SCIENCE. 


491 


ordinary visitor would thus be able to pass 
down the central aisles, observing the vari- 
ous peoples as represented by the lay- 
figures, giving slight attention perhaps to 
the associated exhibits; while the student of 
a particular branch, as, for example, 


-weapons of war and the chase, could pass 


from section to section, examining and com- 
paring in geographical order the successive 
exhibits illustrative of this branch. The 
thing most to be desired in conducting the 
visitor through such a great series of exhib- 
its is to bring the various features before 
him in logical order. The world is pre- 
sented to him in miniature and the arrange- 
ment is such as to teach definite and impor- 
tant lessons. 

It frequently happens that a particular 
ethnic area contains a cultural feature of 
exceptional importance, which is repre- 


(i a 


Fig. 2. Section of museum building, showing central sky-lighted hall, A, with galleries, B, and 
side-lighted halls, C. This grouping of halls seems well adapted to the great body of anthropologie 


exhibits. 

shown in the diagram. The lay-figure cases, 
A, A, would be ranged down the center of 
the space with wide aisles at right and left, 
the associated exhibits, a, b, c, d, e, coming 
at the sides in whatever order seems most 
advantageous, each series extending en- 
tirely across the hall, as shown in J. and II. 
or otherwise, standing at the sides as indi- 
eated in J/Z. and IV., where B and C are 
the family groups facing the main aisle. 
The order and relative positions of the 
separate exhibits in each exhibition unit 
should be approximately uniform. The 


sented by such a large body of material 
that to display it in the systematic series 
would be to throw the whole representation 
out of symmetry. This exigency would be 
most happily provided for by arranging 
the plan and section of the 'museum build- 
ing as indicated in Figs. 2 and 3. While 
the systematic geographical series are pro- 
vided for in the main sky-lighted hall (A), 
and its lateral gallery spaces (B), say 140 
feet in total width, lateral tiers of inferior 
side-lighted halls (C’), properly connected 
by doorways with the main hall, may 


492 


accommodate the overflow of unusually 
developed features. This idea would apply 
most satisfactorily, for example, in the 
California area, where a great series of 
basketry products, so prominent a feature 
of the ethnology of that region, could be 
installed in one of the lateral halls (C), the 
systematic exhibit of the area occupying the 
full width of A. Or again, in the case of 
the Mississippi Valley area, the great body 
of archeological material could be placed 
in one or more of the side halls in suitable 
relationship with the central exhibits, which 
would consist of the systematic ethnic col- 
lections from that area. 

The floor plan of the installation pro- 
posed above appears in Fig. 3. The ar- 
rangement of halls suggested is probably 
the best that can be made for general cul- 
ture exhibits. ; 


100 000 


O0O00 


000 000 


Fie. 3. 


Floor plan of extensive geo-ethnic unit 
showing overflow into lateral halls, C, C. One full- 
sized family group and two auxiliary lay-figure 
groups are provided for besides a large number of 
associated and auxiliary exhibits. 


It may be asked whether some other ar- 
rangement of geo-ethnic or of other simple 
ethnic units may not afford superior, facili- 
ties for examining the whole field of anthro- 
pological phenomena. If, for example, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 404. 


exhibits illustrating the various groups of 
people in the world should be assembled ac- 
cording to grade of culture rather than with 
respect to geographical order, the lowest 
group taking first place and the others fol- 
lowing according to culture status, would 
not the survey of the field be easily and 
advantageously made? Would one not be 
able through this arrangement, employing 
the lay-figure groups and the attendant ex- 
hibits as before described, to study not only 
the peoples and compare their culture to 
good advantage, but to have in orderly 
view the full range of culture achievement 
from lowest to highest the world over? 
This especial concept is illustrated in Fig. 
4, in which, instead of the lineal arrange- 
ment, a radiate grouping is suggested. The 
inner concentrie space A could be occupied 


Fie. 4. Concentric arrangement of entire ethnic 


exhibit. 


by the most primitive peoples, the succeed- 
ing concentric space B by the next higher 
peoples, and so on out to the periphery, 
while the various activities would occupy 
the radial spaces A, B, C, D. These latter, 
would be few in number toward the center 
where peoples are simple and arts few 
(a, b, c,d), and numerous farther out where 
peoples are advanced and activities numer- 
ous (1, 2, 3, 4). To study a particular 
people, the visitor would follow the con- 
centric lines (a, b, c, d; 1, 2, 3, 4), examin- 
ing each of the activities of that people in 
turn. To study a particular grade of eul- 
ture the world over he would follow the 
same plan. To study a particular branch 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


of culture in all its phases, he would pass 
from center to circumference, noting what 
each people had done in that branch (A, B, 
C, D). In doing this he would ascend the 
culture-ladder from the lowest to the high- 
est round, traversing the full range of 
human accomplishment in the various 
activities. At the same time, if the exhibits 
were numerous and properly arranged, he 
could form a fair idea of what the race as 
a whole had accomplished, following the 
development of culture from beginning to 
end. 

This seems at first glance a most com- 
plete and comprehensive scheme, for, fully 
worked out, it would present the peoples of 
the world, their activities and history, in a 
single view. But on closer inspection it 
is found to have numerous shortcomings, 
apparently unfitting it for general museum 
use. (1) In applying it, the important 
factor of the relations of peoples to one 
another in the world and to their environ- 
ment must be disregarded; (2) the ques- 
tion of the order of the ethnic units would 
be difficult to settle, since many peoples are 
of one grade or nearly the same grade; 
while some occupy various grades in part; 
a tribe or nation may be advanced in one 
direction or activity calling for an outer 
place on that account, and backward in 
another, calling for an inner place; (3) 
such a grouping would be unsatisfactory 
save where collections are comprehensive 
and full; besides, (4) a building of un- 
usual design and dimensions would be re- 
quired; (5) a most serious objection is that 
this concentric arrangement of a compre- 
hensive exhibit, consisting of thousands of 
units, would be highly perplexing to any 
but the trained museum student and wholly 
beyond the grasp of the ordinary visitor. 
Ninety out of every hundred persons would 
utterly fail to comprehend the arrange- 
ment. On the other hand, the straight-away 
succession of geo-ethnic units seriated ac- 


SCIENCE. 


493 


cording to geographic position (Fig. 1), 
though necessarily falling short in some 
minor respects, presents the great advan- 
tage of simplicity and directness. Units 
of all sizes are accommodated with equal 
facility —if a group be small a limited space 
can be assigned ;if a group be large, a larger 
space or even an entire hall may be devoted 
to it. Comparative studies in the various 
culture-branches are carried on with rea- 
sonable ease, since a particular subject or 
class of exhibits has, as far as may be, the 
same relative place in each of the groups. 
Kach culture feature may be studied to 
best advantage in actual contact with the 
other features of its own group, that is to 
say, the pottery of a particular group can 
better be studied in its own setting of re- 
lated arts—basketry, sculpture, wood carv- 
ing, ete.—than it can if separated from 
them. 

The geo-ethnie assemblage of exhibits is 
generally applicable and affords many 
advantages, giving at once to ordinary 
visitors and to students a comprehensive 
notion of the peoples of the world and 
their culture in their true proportions and 
relations. It should be the fundamental 
arrangement in every general anthropolog- 
ical museum. 


THE CULTURE-HISTORY ARRANGEMENT. 

But this is not all that the museum can 
do to illustrate the history of man. Per- 
haps the greatest fact of humanity is its 
evolution. By the geo-ethnic arrangement 
just described we may amply present the 
peoples of the world, ancient and modern, 
and yet fail to convey any definite notion 
of the development of culture—of the 
progress of arts and industries, and the 
gradual unfolding of the human mind. 
These lessons of evolution may be conveyed 
by assembling artifacts representing the 
various activities, and seriating them ac- 
cording to the stage of culture which they 


494 


happen to represent. These series may be 
ealled culture-history, or culture-develop- 
ment series, and although they are not true 
genetic series, since the forms cannot be 
said to have arisen one out of another, they 
may in a general way stand for the genetic 
order, suggesting forcibly the manner in 
which one step necessarily gave rise to an- 
other from the lowest to the highest 
throughout all culture history. 

These culture history series may be 
numerous and extremely varied in charac- 
ter. They may be mere synopses, giving 
only the great or epoch-making steps of 
progress, or they may embody many objects 
brought together from every part of the 
world. The curator may select only those 
branches susceptible of ready and effective 
illustration, the steps of progress being 
represented by the tools, utensils and de- 
vices employed in the practice of the art, 
or by the products where such exist. 

A number of the more important series 
are included in the list which follows, where 
they are classified under a dozen or more 
heads.. A majority of these series are now 
included in the exhibits of the National 
- Museum. 

In the first group are placed all those 
activities whose function is that of acquir- 
ing or producing the raw materials of sub- 
sistence or culture. 

1. Plant gathering, agriculture, horticulture, 
forestry, ete. Illustrated by the implements and 
utensils used in (a) collecting, (b) cultivating the 
soil, (c) harvesting the crops. 

2. Hunting and fishing and zooculture.  Illus- 
trated by (a) weapons, (b) traps and snares, (c) 
hooks and tackle, (d) appliances of domestica- 
tion and culture. 

3. Mineral collecting, quarrying and mining. 
Illustrated by mining implements and machinery. 

In the second group are included the 
activities that prepare the raw materials 
for use, a few of which are as follows: 


1. The building arts. Illustrated by (a) mod- 
els of the house, (b) models of furniture, (c) 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 404.; 


models of water craft, (d@) models of machinery, 
(e) devices used in construction. 

2. The textile arts. Illustrated by (a) basket- 
ry-making appliances and products, (b) spin- 
ning appliances, and products, (¢) the loom and 
loom products, (d@) sewing and netting appliances, 
and products. 

3. The sculptural arts. Illustrated by (a) 
implements for shaping stone, and products, (6) 
implements for carving wood, and products. 

4. The plastic arts. Illustrated by (a) imple- 
ments for modeling in clay, wax and other plas- 
tic substances, and products, (6) utensils and ap- 
pliances for glass-making, and products. 

5. The metallurgic arts. Illustrated by (a) 
metal-producing appliances, (0) 
tools and utensils, and products. 

6. The graphic arts. Illustrated by (a) draw- 
ing and painting, (b) writing, (¢) engraving, (d) 
printing, (¢) photography. (Appliances and 
products in each case.) 

7. Food-preparing arts. Illustrated by (a) 
contrivance for milling, (6) cooking appliances. 

In the third group are the arts employ- 
ing natural forces, as: 


metal-shaping 


1. The use of light and heat. Illustrated by 
(a) devices for striking fire, (6) lighting appli- 
ances, (c) heating appliances. 

2. Use of animal power. Illustrated by (a) 
devices for harnessing men, (b) devices for har- 
nessing animals. 

3. Use of water power. Illustrated by (a) 
water-wheel, (b) the hydraulic engine. 

4. Use of wind power. Illustrated by (a) the 
sail, (b) the wind-mill, (c) the kite, (d) the 
flying-machine. 

5. Use of steam power. 
steam-engine. 


Illustrated by the 


6. Use of electric power. Illustrated by (a) 
the magnet, (b) telegraphic transmitters, receiv- 
ers and insulators, (c) telephone apparatus, (d) 
the motor. 

In the fowrth group are implements of 
general use. Illustrated by (a) the ham- 
mer, (b) the knife, (c) the scraper, (d) 
the saw, (e) the ax, (f) the adz, (g) the 
drill, ete. 


In the fifth group are the metric arts: 

1. Counting. 
puting devices. 

2. Time-keeping. Illustrated by (a) sun-dials, 
(b) hour-glasses, (¢) watches and clocks, (d) 
chronographs. 


Illustrated by tallies and com- 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


3. Weighing. Illustrated by (a) balance scales, 
(b) spring scales. 

4. Measuring (linear). 
linear scales, (0) dividers. 

5. Surveying. Illustrated by (a) 
(0) theodolite. 

In the siath group are transportation 
arts: 

1. Land transportation. 


Illustrated by (qa) 


compass, 


Illustrated by (a) 


burden-bearing devices, (6) sliding vehicles, (c) , 


rolling vehicles, (d) wheeled vehicles. 

2. Water transportation. Illustrated by (q@) 
the vessel, (b) the sail, (c) the propeller, (d) 
the rudder. 

3. Air transportation. Illustrated by (a) the 
sail, (b) the balloon, (c) the flying-machine. 

In the seventh group are the arts of war. 
Illustrated by (a) weapons, (b) armor, 
(c) fortifications. 

_ In the eighth group are alimentary arts: 

1. Eating and drinking. Illustrated by uten- 
sils and appliances. 

2. Use of nicotine and narcotics. Illustrated 
by utensils and appliances for smoking, chewing, 
snufiing. 

In the ninth group are costume arts. 
Illustrated by (a) dress, (b) jewelry, (c) 
tattooing. 

In the tenth group are diversional arts, 
a few of which can be illustrated: 

1. Games of skill, ball, ete. 

2. Games of chance, playing cards, etc. 

3. Toys, dolls, ete. 

In addition, other, groups may be men- 
tioned as follows: 

Eleventh, the art of music. Illustrated 
by musical instruments. 

Twelfth, religious and other ceremonials. 
Illustrated by idols, symbols and parapher- 
nalia. 

Thirteenth, arts of commerce. Illustrated 
by coins and other forms of money. 

Fourteenth, pathological arts. Illustrated 
by devices employed in medical practice 
and surgery. 

These series may, when properly selected 
and arranged, afford striking and easily 
understood illustrations of the history of 


SCIENCE. 


495 


culture as recorded in material things. 
Some of the branches are of primordial 
origin, covering the whole range of prog- 
ress, such as building, weaving and adorn- 
ment arts, while others have arisen in 
recent times, such as printing, photography, 
the use of steam, electricity, ete.; but all 
alike furnish faithful records of the intel- 
lectual evolution of humanity. 

The degree of elaboration in any branch 
of the exhibits must depend on the space 
available and on the materials at hand. A 
few specimens may form a most instruc- 
tive synopsis, emphasizing the great steps 
of progress; while on the other hand, a 
single branch may embody extensive series 
of objects, as well illustrated in the collec- 
tions of the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford, 
where every available form of artifact is 
exhibited, covering not only the full range 
from lowest to highest, but mdicating the 
forms peculiar to distinct peoples. 

These series of exhibits, arranged to il- 
lustrate the development of culture in gen- 
eral, do not relate to any particular people 
or area, but represent all peoples and all 
areas. They cannot, therefore, be installed 
in direct association with the geo-ethnic 
series, but must occupy a separate space in 
the museum. 


SPECIAL CULTURE SERIES. 


Two great classes of culture exhibits 
have now been described. First, the geo- 
ethic series illustrating groups of men and 
their works assembled by geographical 
areas, and second, the cultwre-history series 
illustrating the achievements of the race 
in various important branches of activity. 
Now it happens that there are numerous 
subjects worthy of museum illustration 
that cannot be presented in either of these 
series of exhibits without confusion, and 
these, therefore, call for independent or 
isolated installation. It is proposed to 
eroup them under the head of special ex- 


496 


hibits, and they may be as numerous and 
varied as we choose. Some of them may 
cover limited portions of the culture field, 
while others are general, comprehending a 
wide range. They may be classified and 
arranged in various ways, according to the 
nature of the concept to be developed; 
some may be chronologic, some compara- 
tive, others cyclopedic, and so on. A na- 
tional exhibit, that is to say one intended 
to illustrate the history of a nation may 
be arranged chronologically, as in the his- 
torical exhibit of our National Museum. 
Here the successive periods, marked by im- 
portant episodes, are as follows: 

(1) Discovery, (2) Colonization, (3) 
Revolution, (4) War of 1812, (5) Mexican 
war, (6) Civil war, (7) War with Spain, 
ete. Within this series and forming part 
of it are special exhibits, as those repre- 
senting public personages. In the section 
illustrating the revolutionary period, for 
‘example, there is a minor exhibit relating 
to Washington, and consisting of various 
articles, personal and otherwise, arranged 
for effect or according to relative impor- 
tance of the relics. This national exhibit 
is not a true geo-ethnic unit since it covers 
only three of four centuries of the ethnic 
history of the area included, and although 
arranged chronologically, it is not illus- 
trative of culture in the broadest sense. 

A collection of paintings is susceptible of 
varied special treatment. It may be ar- 
ranged (1) chronologically, (2) by coun- 
tries, (3) by schools or (4) by painters. 
An exhibit of book-bindings might repre- 
sent the work of (1) an individual, (2) a 
firm, (3) a school, (4) a period, and so on. 

Special comparative exhibits may be of 
much interest and value. They may be 
synoptical or eyclopedic. An exhibit of 
bows and arrows, for example, may be 
synoptic, containing only typical examples 
from the various regions and peoples, or 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S Von. XVI. No. 404. 


eyclopedic, containing all available speci- 
mens from all sources. 

The culture exhibits for a museum of 
anthropology may thus best be assembled 
in at least three distinct divisions, each 
illustrating a different kind of unit of cul- 
ture and serving to convey distinct classes 
of information, or the same kind of infor- 
mation in different ways. So the museum 
space allotted to culture is separated into 
three parts, accommodating the geo-ethnic 
groups, the culture-history series, and the 
special exhibits. 


GEO-FTHNIC GROUPING ILLUSTRATED. 

The significance of the geo-ethnie exhibits 
already described will be readily under- 
stood by referring to Fig. 5, a map of North 
America, on which are outlined in the most 
general way some of the principal geo- 
ethnic or geographical culture districts— 
the characterization-areas of the continent. 
These areas are not always well defined 
and there is a good deal of overlapping 
and ethnie intermingling. In some eases it 
is difficult to say of a particular area which 
tribe should be taken as a type, and the 
materials at hand must decide this, since 
only those tribes can be systematically 
shown from which collections are ample. 
In the main, however, the delimitations are 
sufficiently definite for all practical pur- 
poses. The areas suggesting themselves are 
as follows: 

1. Eastern Arctic area (Eastern Eski- 
mo). 

2. Western Arctic area (Western Hski- 
mo). 

3. MeKenzie-Yukon area (Tinneh). 

4. Northwest coast area (Tlinkit, Salish). 

5. Columbia River area (Nez Pereé, 
Chinook). 

6. California area (Klamath, Tulare). 

7. Great Basin area (Bannock, Ute). 

8. Colorado-Rio Grande arid area 
(Pueblo, Apache). 


‘SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] SCIENCE. 497 


9. Great Plains area (Blackfoot, Kiowa). 16. South Mexican area (Zapotec, 
10. Great Lakes and North Atlantic area Miztec). 

(Chippewa, Iroquois). 17. Yueatan-Guatemalan area (Maya, 
11. South Atlantie and Gulf area (Sem- Maya-Quicha). 

inole, Choctaw). 18. Costa Rican Isthmian area (Mos- 
12. Arkansas-Texas area (Wichita, quito, Chibché). 

Caddo). 19. West Indian area (Carib, Arawak). 


NORTH AMERICA. 


we ~ 20 20 0 _{e 10 


Fic. 5. Map of North America, indicating in a general way the ethnic provinces. 


13. Northeast Mexico and Rio Grande In all these cases we deal exclusively with 
area. the native ethnology, as the superposed 
14. Sonoran area (Mojave, Huichol). European culture is too widely distributed 


15. Central Mexican area (Aztec, to be treated by limited districts, and trans- 
Otomi). portation from region to region is now so 


498 


easy that a particular or peculiar environ- 
ment is no longer capable of impressing 
its stamp upon its people and _ art. 
Modern culture has to be treated by arti- 
ficial, not natural, areas, and is becoming 
so generalized that distinctions of art are 
disappearing, and we must illustrate it, 
if we illustrate it at all, in one cosmopoli- 
tan group. But let us see what these cul- 
ture areas mean. 

It must have been an untoward chain 
of circumstances that drove the Eskimo 
peoples into the frozen zone (areas 1 and 
2, Fig. 5) oceupied by them, for at first 
glance it would seem that human creatures 
could not survive even for a year in such 
an environment; but they found means of 
living, and withal are a healthy and ener- 
getic people. But their culture is neces- 
sarily very circumscribed and exceptional, 
developed as it was in, or modified by, 
the peculiar surroundings. These people 
necessarily have clothing, but as the gar- 
ments are of skins and furs, the textile 
art is almost unknown. They must also 
have fire, but their fuel is fat. They ven- 
ture out in boats to capture the seal, but 
as they have little wood their boats are 
made of skins, and are distinct from the 
boats of other groups. They travel by 
land also; but their vehicles are on run- 
ners and made of driftwood and bone. 
They hunt game, but as this consists largely 
of marine animals, they have invented pe- 
culiar weapons and appliances. They 
build houses, but these are unlike those 
of any other climate in the world, being 
often made of whale bones or of frozen 
snow. They carve curious figures in ivory, 
bone and wood, but these have no paraliel 
among other peoples. They have no pot- 
tery, because the climate is not favorable 
to its development, but also largely be- 
cause they do not commonly cook their food. 
Notwithstanding their most dreary and in- 
hospitable surroundings, they are a clever 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 404. 


people and invent and use the most cun- 
ning traps, snares and weapons in the 
world. ‘They are a cheerful people, and 
enjoy existence in their way as keenly per- 
haps as the more favorably situated 
peoples. 

Can the culture phenomena of any other 
region or chmate be as peculiar and re- 
markable as this? Strange to say, this is 
not a rare instance of individuality in 
culture development and characteristics. 
Take the area marked 4 on the map and 
note what strange contrasts occur. Area 
1 has no wood, but in area 4 wood abounds; 
there the great cedar and the shapely 
spruce grow, and the ingenious tribes of 
Indians have used them extensively. So 
important a feature of this environment 
are they that the culture phenomena—the 
arts—are largely regulated by them. The 
people go to sea in boats, but they are not 
boats of skin; they are made of the noble 
cedar trunk, and the stable craft are well 
shaped and beautifully carved and painted. 
The people live in houses, but these are not 
of snow or whale bones, but of wood of the 
hemlock. Their houses are also works of 
art, with carved and painted ornaments, and 
supplemented by wonderful totem poles 
sculptured in the most fanciful forms. The 
hemlock and the spruce have made these 


- peoples a race of builders and sculptors. 


They do not wear skins exclusively, but 
have woven garments, because the cedar 
bark and the wool of the mountain goat 
make the textile art easy. They do not 
make pottery, but they carve the yellow 
spruce into wonderful vessels, spoons and 
chests, and they have transferred their skill 
in carving to stone, and now are veritable 
sculptors, made so because the forest trees 
of this particular environment dictated the 
lines in which many features of their cul- 
ture should grow. 

It is unnecessary to go further into de- 
tails, as the reasons are clear for assem- 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902.] 


bling our ethnical collections by geographic- 
al areas, and it only remains to indicate in 
some detail how these collections are to be 
grouped and displayed in the museum. 


Fie. 6. Geo-ethnic unit. A, Lay-figure group, 
case S by 12 feet; B, House models; OC, Boat 
models; D, Sledge models, harness, snow-shoes, etc. 


In the accompanying diagram (Fig. 6) 
we have a scheme for arranging one of the 


SCIENCE. 


499 


6), showing how the people look and, as 
far as possible, what they think and do 
and have. This is the key to the ex- 
hibit—the most essential feature, and one 
from which the most casual observer can 
get a definite conception of the people and 
their culture. The particular episode de- 
picted in the group, shown in Fig. 7, was 
selected for the purpose of illustrating, 


amongst other things, the cheerful dispo- 


sition of those farthest-north people. Then 
ranged around this group should be cases 
containing everything that will serve to 
indicate more fully and accurately the na- 
ture of their activities and culture. Case B 
should contain models of the various forms 
of dwellings—the snow-house, the earth- 
covered hut and the improvised shelter, 
with all varieties of attendant structures; 


My 


WW 


Fig. 7. 


geo-ethnic units. The area selected is that 
of the Eastern Eskimo (area 1 on the map). 
In the center of the exhibition hall we 
place the group of life-size figures, A (Fig. 


Pan 
Br) \ wr Su: 


aa 


KOA 


SUNT > 
ANS = fer 


SRR 


Lay-figure family group of Greenland Eskimo. 


Case C, models of their boats, while actual 
examples may be placed near at hand if 
space permits; Case D, their sledges, snow- 
shoes, ete., the sledges represented mainly 


500 


by small scale models; Case EZ, their hunting 
Weapons, traps and snares; Case F, their 
fishing implements and apparatus; Case G, 
their knives and other tools of general use; 
Case H, their lamps; Case J, their carvings 
and graphic art; Case J, their clothing and 


(a) 


Aborigines of North America 


The Eskimo 


personal ornaments in detail; Case K, their 
toys, dolls and masks; and so on. A reason- 
able space should be devoted to crania, 
casts from life, and pictures showing phys- 
ical characters. Such archeological ma- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 404. 


terial as pertains to the region should also 
be shown. Where there are striking 
distinctions between the northern, the cen- 
tral and the Labrador group of these Es- 
kimo, duplicate exhibits should be installed 
and separate lay figures of men, women and 


(0) 


The Eastern Eskimo 


Family Group of Smith Sound 


children prepared to illustrate important 
variations in physique and costume. The 
manner of arranging the specimens of the 
several exhibits in their eases is necessarily 
much varied, and it does not seem advis- 


FAMILY GROUP OF THE SMITH SOUND ESKIMO. 


TYPE OF THE EASTERN ARCTIC REGION. 


This exhibit shows an Eskimo family of Smith Sound, in north- 


western Greenland. The Smith 


Sound Eskimo are called the Arctic 


Highlanders and are the most northern people in the known world. 
On account of the prevalence of ice they do not have the kaiak, or skin 


| SM 


ISAS, 


p= fl ea 
BERGE 
MISMZia 


iA 
ey 


and the hardships of their life. 


canoe, but use the dog sled for trans- 
portation. Their clothing is from skins 
of seal, reindeer, birds and dogs, and 
their houses are of snow. Nearly all of 
their activities are associated with the 
struggle for existence, and little atten- 
tion is given to art work. 

This group represents the family as 
it might appear in the spring, moving 
across the ice fields. The young man 
has succeeded in clubbing a small seal, 
and the others are having a laugh at 
his expense for calling on the dog team 
to haul it home when he could have car- 
ried it on his back. It is remarkable 
that these farthest north people are ex- 
ceptionally cheerful in disposition, not- 
withstanding the rigor of the climate 

The woman who carries a babe in her 


hood is about to help attach the seal to the sledge; and the girl who 
plays with the dogs, and the boy who clings’to the back of the sledge, 
enjoy the confusion of the young hunter. 

Designed by W. H. Holmes; modeled by H. J. Ellicott. 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


SCIENCE. 


able to enter further into the details in this 


place. 

The labels required in this ethnic unit 
are as follows: (a) A sign, about 12 by 24 
inches to be suspended above the exhibit, 
serving to correlate it with the associated 


DWELLING GROUP OF THE CENTRAL ESKIMO. 
TYPE OF THE ARCTIC REGION. 
The Central Eskimo live on the area between Hudson Strait and 


Baffin Bay. Their winter houses are built of blocks of snow laid up 
in a spiral manner, 


jackets (those of the women havi 


socks made of light deer skin or 


(d) 


501 


deseriptive label, which go with each ex- 
hibit, referring to it as a whole, all save 
the family group require labels for the in- 
dividual specimens. One example of these 
specimen labels (d), taken from the dwell- 
ing group series may be given: 


forming a dome. 


The blocks are about three feet long, 
two feet high and six inches thick. 
The main chamber of the house va- 
ries from five to twelve feet in 
height, and from seven to fifteen feet 
in diameter. Over the entrance a 
square is cut out and covered with 
seal intestine for a window. The 
dome is connected by passageways 
with one or more outbuildings or 
packing rooms. In the summer the 
natives fish in the open water; in 
winter seals are taken by nets set 
under the ice. Dogs are attached to 
the sled by separate lines. The cloth- 
ing of the men and women is made 
from skins of seal and deer, and con- 
sists of outside and inside trousers, 
ng hoods), boots, and inside boots or 
bird skin. 


a 


This group forms one of a series designed to set forth the dwell- 
s I g 


ings and home life of native tribe 


s in the Western Hemisphere. 


units in the Museum series. (0) Case label, 
about 5 by 16 inches, to be framed and 
placed on or immediately above each case to 
designate its contents in a general way and 
expressive of the broadest classification. 
The case label for the family group is as 
shown above. 

(c) Descriptive label, about 8 by 10 
inches, two copies to be framed and hung in 
each exhibition case near the level of the 
eye. That for the family group is shown. 

Beside the case label and the general 


CULTURE-HISTORY SERIES ILLUSTRATED. 


The nature of the geo-ethnic or specializa- 


tion area assemblage of the culture materi- 
als of the world has been sufficiently shown — 
in the preceding pages. It is the first and 
most important method for a general mu- 
seum. It remains now to explain briefly 
the nature of the cultwre history installa- 
tion, a partial list of the available exhibition 
units of this class having already been giy- 
en. 

In Fig. 8, we have a scheme for, placing 


502 


and labeling a series of exhibits illustrating 
progressive steps in the art of sculpture. 
The other series are to be treated in like 
manner. This art began very early in the 
eareer of the race and in forms so simple 
that they would not at first be recognized 
as belonging to the art of sculpture by the 


SCIENCE. 


12.13 14 15 | 


11 12 13 


J 


OOoOooOoO; 


COMI earon Fata) 


Miele eee 


LOPE EMSAM SN 


Fig. 8. 


Arrangement of a synoptic exhibit il- 
lustrating the history of sculpture as elaborated 
in the U. S. National Museum. I., Series of tools 


II., Series of aboriginal Ameri- 
can sculptures. JII., Series of oriental sculptures. 
IV., Series of Mediterranean sculptures. a, Case 
label. 0b, General descriptive label. cccc, Series 
labels. 1, 2, 3, 4, etce., Specimen labels. 


and appliances. 


unscientific student. We are able to trace 
it more fully than any other art because its 
products are in stone which is not seriously 
affected by lapse of time. Then again, the 
tribes and nations of to-day are found to 
be practicing every known step in the art, 
from the most elementary to the most high- 
ly perfected, so that its whole history comes 
well within the range of present observa- 
tion, and examples of the tools and the 
work are available. The first conscious 
step in the art was probably that of frac- 
turing one flinty stone with another, with 
the view of securing a sharp edge for cut- 
ting and scraping. Three other processes 
that must have come early into use are 
those of shaping by pecking, by grinding 
and by cutting, and for a long period of 
human progress the only sculpture con- 


y 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 404. 


sisted of shaping useful implements by 
these methods. Even to-day these are the 
processes mainly used, the tools and appli- 
ances being simple with primitive people 
and more highly developed among cultured 
nations. Mechanical aids of considerable 
complexity are sometimes employed by our 
modern sculptors. 

The first group of exhibits illustrating 
the history of the art may well consist of a 
progressive series of the shaping imple- 
ments and devices, while two or more ad- 
ditional series may show the sculptured 
products. 

In the first stages of the art only simple 
useful articles were made; later these were 
elaborated esthetically and personal orna- 
ments were added; then gradually the pro- 
cesses were applied to working out the 
rude block-like, imperfectly proportioned 
figures of animals and men; these were to- 
tems, fetiches and idols, and illustrate a 
third stage in our progressive series. Later 
still, portraiture was attempted and a kind 
of rigid formal likeness was worked out, 
marking a fourth step. Then with the 
higher nations, correct form and expression 
came into being, and finally the realistic 
and ideal work represented by the highest 
Greek art was developed. Exhibits illus- 
trating the more advanced phases should 
embody originals of the smaller objects and 
small-scale reproductions of the larger. If 
collections are ample, it will prove interest- 
ing to treat the development of the art on 
each continent or in each great cultural 
provinee separately, as indicated in Fig. 8, 
thus affording facilities for interesting com- 
parative studies. America may furnish one 
series of exhibits in which the course of de- 
velopment through the several primitive 
grades up to the stage of well relieved fig- 
ures and rude portraiture is traced (16 
numbers). The Orient may afford a series 
somewhat more complete (18 numbers), 
and the Mediterranean province yields il- 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] SCIENCE. 


(a) 


History of the Arts and Industries. 
Synopsis of the Art of Sculpture. 


(0) 


SERIES 2. ABORIGINAL AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 


The American tribes displayed a strong predilection for sculpture. 
They shaped their stone implements with great skill, and delighted in 
representing animal forms. Religious motives inspired most of the 
more elaborate work, although esthetic appreciation was not wanting. 

The series of objects here presented covers nearly the full range 
of native achievement, although the best examples shown fall short of 
the highest types of Aztec and Maya work. The simpler forms are 
placed at the left, and a series of progressive steps lead up to the 
higher forms at the right. It is believed by some that germs of culture 
have occasionally reached America from other lands and that sculpture 
on this continent is not wholly of native growth. 

The practice of the art in its higher forms has, for the most part, 
been abandoned by the native tribes, but stone implements and utensils 
are still made in some remote districts. 


(c) 


HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 


The term sculpture is here applied to the whole range of processes 
and products pertaining to the shaping of stone, but does not extend 
to the carving of wood, bone, ivory, or other like substances, the model- 
ing of plastic materials or the shaping of metals. The products of the 
art, briefly epitomized in this exhibit, constitute a most important 
record of human progress, for they tell not only a story of technical 
and industrial development but throw many side lights on the his- 
tory of religion, esthetics and general culture. It is observed that 
with very primitive peoples the shaped forms are implements and uten- 
sils merely, but that with advancing culture ornaments are made and 
life forms gradually appear, and that in civilization realistic and ideal 
phases of the art are dominant. 

In this exhibit we have to deal with two classes of artifacts; first, 
the implements and appliances used in manufacture, and second, the 
shaped product. The shaping processes include flaking, pecking, cutting 
and grinding in their various forms, and the implements and devices 
used are in the main extremely simple even in the advanced stages of 
the art. The implements are arranged in progressive order in Series 
1, and the seulptured product in some of its varied phases appears in 
Series 2, 3 and 4. Series 2 indicates the range of native American 
work; Series 3, the sculpture of the Orient; and Series 4, the full scope 
of the art as developed on the shores of the Mediterranean. 


50 


oO 


504 
(d) 


No. 13.—Human and animal figures com- 
bined in a miniature totem 


pole, sculptured in partial re- 
lief, 


material black 
shaped with metal 
Northwest Coast 
Period recent. 


slate, 
tools. 
Indians. 
178,064 


No. 14—Human figure, fully relieved, 
but falling short of the best 
Central American work. Ma- 
terial lava. 


gray, 
Probably shaped with stone 


porous 


tools. Precolumbian __peri- 
od. 61,814 


lustrations covering the same ground and 
besides furnished additional steps up to the 
highest achievements of human genius in 
this art (20 numbers). 

Four. kinds of labels are required for the 
sculpture exhibits as follows: 


(a) Case label, about 4 by 16 inches; framed 
and placed at the top of the case A (Fig. 8). 

(b) Group label descriptive of the entire ex- 
hibit; size about 8 by 10 inches; framed and 
hung at a suitable height within the case (B, 
Fig. 8). 

(c) Series label, to be placed at the beginning 
of each series. The example given pertains to 
Series 2 of the sculpture exhibit (C, Fig. 8). 

(d) Specimen label, briefly describing the speci- 
men, and placed with it in each instance. The 
examples given belong to specimens 13 and 14 
of the American Series (D, Fig. 8) as installed 
in the National Museum. 


The sculpture exhibit as installed in 
the National Museum occupies a space 5 
feet high, 8 feet 6 inches long and 12 inches 
deep. It includes about 100 specimens and 
60 labels. 

The ends to be subserved by the exhibits 
of a general anthropological museum are 
mainly those of education, and the aim of 
the classification and arrangement here 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 404. 


proposed is to so present the collections that 
the student as well as the ordinary museum 
visitor may secure the maximum benefit 
from them. As indicated at length in the 
preceding pages, the three great ideas cap- 
able of satisfactory presentation are: (1) 
the biology of the race—the origin, evolu- 
tion and present characteristics of physical 
man; (2) the ethnology of the race—the 
various groups of people and their culture; 
(3) the history of culture—the evolution 
of arts and industries. To these three 
series a fourth is added, which consists of 
various special exhibits, each teaching its 
individual lesson. The anthropological 
collections are thus assembled in four grand 
divisions separately installed. 
W. H. Houmes. 


U.S. Nationan Museum. 


A BIOLOGICAL FARM FOR THE EXPERI- 
OF HERED- 


MENTAL INVESTIGATION 
ITY, VARIATION AND EVOLUTION, 
AND FOR THE STUDY OF LIFE- 
HISTORIES, HABITS, IN- 
STINCTS AND INTEL- 
LIGENCE.* 

Tue biological laboratories of to-day, in 
design, equipment and staff, are almost ex- 
clusively limited to the study of dead ma- 
terial. Living organisms may find a place 
in small aquaria or vivaria, but they are 
reserved, as a rule, not for study, but for 
fresh supplies of dead material. It is no 
disparagement of the laboratory to point 
out a broad limitation in its ordinary fune- 
tions and the pressing need of new facilities 
for observation and experiment on living 
organisms. 

The fundamental problems of heredity, 
variation, adaptation and evolution cannot 
be wholly settled in the laboratory. They 
concern vital processes known only in living 
organisms—processes which are slow and 


* Read to the Corporation of the Marine Bio- 
logical Laboratory, at the annual meeting, Au- 
gust 12, 1902. 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


cumulative in effects, expressing themselves 
in development, growth, life-histories, spe- 
cies, habits, instincts, intelligence. These 
problems require, therefore, to be taken to 
the field, the pond, the sea, the island, 
where the forms selected for study can be 
kept under natural conditions, and where 
the work can be continued from year to 
year without interruption. Such a field, 
combining land and water, and stocked 
with animals and plants, and provided with 
a staff of naturalists, would have the essen- 
tials of a biological farm, now justly con- 
sidered to be one of the greatest desiderata 
of biology. 

This great need (pointed out in all our 
annual programs since 1892, and named 
as one of the three leading purposes of the 
Culver endowment) has been felt ever since 
Darwin’s time, and has been strongly urged 
by such evolutionists as Romanes, Varigny, 
Galton, Weismann and Meldola. Thus far 
the project has not been realized, except on 
a small seale through individual effort. 

The most notable move in this direction 
is that of Professor Cossar Ewart, of the 
University of Edinburgh. ‘The Penycuik 
Experiments’—the first product of Pro- 
fessor Ewart’s enterprise—form a brillant 
illustration of the kind of fruit to be ex- 
pected from a farm devoted to experi- 
mental research. Single-handed, Professor, 
Ewart attacks the problems of heredity, 
and quickly shows how decisive are direct 
experiments in dealing with such subjects 
as telegony, prepotency, reversion, inbreed- 
ing, etc. 

The plans proposed by Romanes and 
Varigny had as chief ends in view demon- 
strative tests of the theory of the origin of 
species by natural selection. But the con- 
test between the old belief in the immuta- 
bility of species and the new doctrine of 
descent has been decided, and the original 
idea of the farm has consequently ceased 
to have great influence. 


SCIENCE. 


505 


The functions to be fulfilled by a farm 
are no longer prescribed by the exigencies 
of theories, but by the deeper and broader 
needs of pure research on living organisms. 
The problems of heredity and variability 
are fundamental, and naturally form the 
center of interest. Variability is the source 
of new species and the fountain of all 
progressive development in the organic 
world. In heredity lies the power of prop- 
agation and continuity of species. These 
are inexhaustible subjects, from the inves- 
tigation of which must flow rich accessions 
to knowledge, which will redound to the 
advancement of human welfare. 

These subjects are in some aspects and 
details amenable to laboratory research; 
but for the most part they can only be 
effectively dealt with under conditions rep- 
resented in the farm. This holds, for ex- 
ample, in that most promising branch of 
experimental biology—hybridisation. Bo- 
tanical gardens and zoological parks have 
been utilized to some extent in this work, 
but they are adapted to show-purposes, 
and are of little value for research of this 
kind. The far-reaching importance of 
this subject, for both science and practical 
breeding purposes, is well attested in Mr. 
Ewart’s experiments, in those of Hugo de 
Vries, as recorded in his monographs on 
the origin of species in the plant world, 
and again in Mr. Bateson’s ‘Experimental 
Studies in the Physiology of Heredity.’ 

The functions of a biological farm are 
not all summed up in experimentation. 
That old and true method of natural his- 
tory —observation—must ever have a large 
share in the study of living things. Obser- 
vation, experiment and reflection are three 
in one. Together, they are omnipotent; 
disjoined they become impotent fetiches. 
The biology of to-day, as we are beginning 
to realize, has not too much laboratory, 
but too little of living nature. The farm 
will certainly do much to mend this great 


506 


deficiency. The farm would enable us to 
work out life-histories, bring us face to 
face with instinet, put it under control 
so that we could handle it, photograph it, 
analyze it, read its history, and extort from 
it an answer to the question, Whence and 
how came intelligence? 

It would enable us to extend the study of 
development beyond the stages represented 
in the egg and the embryo to those leading 
up to mature age, and thus bring within 
reach vast series of most important data 
for the study of evolution. 

In such data we might expect to see to 
what extent individual development re- 
capitulates race development, and to get 
important clues to the meaning of this so- 
called biogenetic law. The whole meaning 
of development and heredity is involved 
in these phenomena of ‘recapitulation.’ 
That the first step in recapitulation is the 
germ-cell, we know. The fertilized germ, 
or ege, passes through a series of form- 
stages, leading through the morula, blas- 
tula, gastrula, embryo, larva, ete. Whether 
these stages epitomize the ancestral series 
is a question very difficult to decide, and 
opinion is much divided. This obscure but 
fundamental problem of development can 
probably never be solved by embryological 
data alone. Paleontology throws much 
light on the general question, but deals 
entirely with non-living remains. If there 
be recapitulation, it should certainly be 
discoverable in post-embryonic — stages, 
where characteristic features are slowly 
elaborated and brought to a completion in 
detail quite beyond the possibilities in ear- 
lier life. Strange to say, these later stages 
have been but little studied in living forms, 
museum morgues having been the chief 
reliance. It is in these stages that reeapitu- 
lation may be actually seen as a life-pro- 
cess, successive steps in evolution repeating 
themselves with sufficient fullness to satisfy 
the most skeptical. Such sequences are 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 404. 


often manifest in the development of in- 
stinctive behavior, and even in  voice- 
changes and food-instincts at certain life- 
epochs correspondingseeminely to evolution 
epochs. Remembering that the distant an- 
cestors of land animals were undoubtedly 
aquatic, the history of individual develop- 
ment in amphibious forms of to-day be- 
comes intelligible as an abbreviated and 
variously modified record of race develop- 
ment. Making all allowance for secondary 
adaptive changes, it is nevertheless safe 
to say that race evolution is sketched in 
the development of the individual— 
sketched not only in fundamental features 
of structure, but also in the accompanying 
physiological and psychological changes.. 

Reminiscences of aquatic life are seen 
not only in land animals that return to the 
water to deposit their eggs, but also in all 
the higher animals, since they begin life 
in the unicellular stage and require for 
their first development to be bathed in 
fluid. 

Sequence in color-patterns, so charac- 
teristic of young animals of almost all spe- 
cies, and especially so of birds, furnishes 
innumerable illustrations of the biogenetie 
law, and in many cases, where only two 
extremes of the sequence are present, it is 
possible by simple experiment to bridge 
the gap, and thus to show that the two ex- 
tremes are really two stages of a continuous 
development. For example, in some wild 
species of pigeons we find that the color- 
pattern of the first plumage succeeding 
the down is so different from that of the 
second (adult) plumage, as to appear to 
have no direct developmental relation to it. 
By plucking one or more feathers from the 
first plumage at different times before the 
first molt, intermediate stages can be ob- 
tained, showing precisely how the first pat- 
tern can be progressively converted into 
the second. Such experiments enable us 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


to foree from nature more complete records 
of her past and present doings. 

Work on living organisms, dealing with 
such subjects as heredity, variation, adap- 
tation, correlation, development, recapitu- 
lation, hybridisation, origin of species, na- 
ture of specific characters, life-histories, 
habits, instincts, intelligence, ete., requir- 
ing uninterrupted continuance from year 
to year for long periods, under conditions 
that secure most favorable control for ex- 
perimentation and study, calls for facilities 
which have yet to be provided. 

There is no quite satisfactory name for 
the new plant required for such work, and 
no one has suggested a practical method 
of developing it. Biological Farm, broadly 
defined, is perhaps the best we can do for 
a name, as the work would be, so far as 
possible, upon plants and animals under 
cultivation. A considerable tract of land, 
of varied surface, including woods, fresh- 
water ponds, some brackish water, and a 
stretch of sea-shore that could be utilized 
in the cultivation and study of marine ani- 
mals, would represent the essentials of the 
farm headquarters. 

The best location for the farm would be 
in the immediate vicinity of a laboratory 
_ holding the position of a national center 
of biological research. The Marine Bio- 
logical Laboratory has a good prospect of 
becoming such a center, if it is not one 
already, and its proximity to the United 
States Fish Commission Station only in- 
sures additional advantages, of great im- 
portance to the farm. The farm, the lab- 
oratory, and the station would be recip- 
rocally helpful and stimulating, and in 
many problems the three could work hand 
in hand, each supplementing the work of 
the others. These three establishments 
would form a most comprehensive biolog- 
ical center, such as has never. been equaled. 

In dealing with the problems of heredity 
and variation, it is of the highest impor- 


SCIENCE. 


507 


tance to know the history of the material 
to be investigated. It is this prime essen- 
tial that is so conspicuously missing in most 
of the work hitherto done in these lines. 
Curves and formule may be all right 
mathematically and yet all wrong biolog- 
ieally. Even Galton, the father of the 
statistical school, warns us that ‘no pursuit 
runs between so many pitfalls and unseen 
traps as that of statistics.” (‘ Biometrika,’ 
I., p. 8.) 

The farm will furnish material with ea- 
act records, and will thus render a most im- 
portant service to laboratory workers. A 
single illustration will suffice. It has been 
discovered that the paternal and maternal 
chromosomes in the ecross-fertilized egg re- 
main distinct, at least in the earlier stages 
of development. This seems to account 
for the fact that hybrids of the first gen- 
eration between distinct species are gener- 
ally ‘intermediates.’ When these hybrids 
breed inter se or with the parent species, 
we often get so-called ‘reversions.’ Hitherto 
we have not found any explanation for 
these ‘reversions.’ The solution of this 
most interesting problem in heredity only 
waits for the right material with precisely 
defined origin, and for this the laboratory 
could look to the farm. But the farm 
would do more than supply the needed ma- 
terial; its records and experiments would 
suggest the theory and give the physiolog- 
ical test, while the laboratory work would 
find the morphological test. The coopera- 
tion between laboratory and farm would 
thus be intimate and of inestimable value 
in a multitude of ways. 

It must be remembered, moreover, that 
Wood’s Holl has great natural advantages 
as a location for the farm. Ever since 
Baird’s time it has been generally known 
that this is the best place on the Atlantic 
coast for the study of marine biology. In- 
deed, Wood’s Holl has become a strong 
biological center. by virtue of the excep- 


508 


tional opportunities for work here offered 
in a varied and extensive shore fauna and 
flora, in numerous accessible islands rich 
in forms of peculiar interest, and in many 
perfectly isolated fresh-water ponds, brack- 
ish ponds, and salt-water ponds of easy con- 
trol. These attractive features, together 
with a climate suited to both winter and 
summer work, certainly comprise the es- 
sentials of a good location. 

A further consideration in favor of this 
location is the fact that here for the first 
time in this country the farm project was 
definitely formulated; and, what is more 
to the point, it is here that the first step in 
the development of a farm has been taken, 
and the work earried forward for some 
six years by individual endeavor. The 
birthplace of an enterprise is not likely to 
be a pure accident. In the present case 
it was certainly determined by the various 
eauses which have conspired to make 
Wood’s Holl a biological center. This 
center has at least fifteen years of growth, 
and every year makes it stronger and in- 
creases its importance as a location for the 
headquarters of a biological farm. 

The argument for location has already 
suggested that the farm is not necessarily 
limited to a single tract of land. It is 
designed to supplement, and cooperate 
with, a laboratory, and hence must have 
its headquarters conveniently near. There 
is no reason, however, for limiting its ter- 
ritory to the ground selected for this pur- 
pose. If, to take a familiar example, a 
study of the terns were to be undertaken, 
we should undoubtedly resort to Penikese, 
taking advantage of the headquarters se- 
lected by the birds. If we were to take up 
some groups of migratory birds, we might 
find it desirable to migrate with them, 
changing our location to suit their summer 
and winter predilections. For forms set- 
tled in tropical regions, longer excursions 
might be necessary, and this might lead to 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 404. 


the development of a new farm. These 
possibilities do not in the least conflict 
with the plan proposed for Wood’s Holl. 
No matter where a farm be located, it must 
have headquarters, and occasionally ex- 
tend its field of work to more or less dis- 
tant points of interest. 

The headquarters must be in close touch 
with a laboratory, and both should be 
in a place where the natural advantages 
and the organization are such as to draw 
a large number of investigators—most em- 
phatically not in a place that invites a 
large number of spectators, as in the pub- 
lic parks of cities. In this latter respect 
Wood’s Holl is most perfectly adapted to 
the purpose, and the prospect is good that 
we shall never be troubled with throngs 
of summer visitors. This is an ideal fea- 
ture in the situation that it would be hard 
to dupheate. 

The practical question arises as to how 
to proceed with the development of a farm. 
Our hmited experience strongly confirms 
the opinion with which we set out, namely, 
that the best method is to develop the farm 
slowly, section by section. Each section 
should be a group of related species, se- 
lected with a view to combining a wide 
range of problems. It should be devel- 
oped and directed by an investigator pre- 
pared to make it his life-work. This in- 
vestigator or director should have the 
support of a number of assistants compe- 
tent to deal with special problems, one or 
two artists, a photographer, a keeper and 
a business superintendent. 

Developed in this way, the cost of main- 
tenance would not be heavy at first. Ten 
thousand dollars a year would support a 
large and thriving section. The multipli- 
cation of sections and the gradual growth 
of the work would call for a larger income. 
A farm of ten large sections would require 
an endowment of a million, and it is easy 
to see room for many millions. 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. | 


If the scheme here outlined approaches 
the ideal which science is waiting to see 
realized, it will be seen that the farm does 
not find its chief purpose in demonstrations 
of the truth of evolution or in testing the 
theory of natural selection. It is not a 
project designed simply to turn out curves 
and formule for the delectation of the 
knight-errants of statistical lore, nor is it 
the particular pet of any school or fad. 
Moreover, the prevailing idea that it has 
something in common with a zoological or 
botanical park rests on a total misappre- 
hension. The organization, management 
and all the conditions obtaining in the 
public park are incongruous with those re- 
quired for a research farm. Heterogeneous 
collections of animals, exhibited for the 
amusement of people, are wholly unsuited 
to the purposes of investigation in time, 
place and character. For the kind of work 
contemplated, the investigator must have 
forms of his own selection, collected, ar- 
ranged and kept for his special purposes. 
He must have complete and permanent 
control of his quarters and the forms he 
is to study, and above all, complete isolation 
from the public. Only under such condi- 
tions could he have the unbroken quiet re- 
quired in delicate observation, or expect 
natural behavior from the forms occupying 
his attention. 

The farm project, let me say in conclu- 
sion, is one we cannot afford to see drawn 
away from Wood’s Holl. It is an under- 
taking born and nurtured here, on a small 
scale to be sure, but still sufficient to give 
results and make clear the direct path to 
a large and most important development. 


SUMMARY STATEMENT. 


Laboratories.—The biological labora- 
tories of to-day are almost exclusively de- 
voted to the study of ‘pickled’ animals and 
plants. They have very few and inadequate 
facilities for the study of living organisms. 


SCIENCE. 


509 


This is a limitation for which no remedy 
has thus far been provided. 

Fureld-work.—For the study of develop- 
ment, growth, life-histories, species, habits, 
instincts, intelligence, heredity, variation, 
adaptation, hybridisation, ete., we can 
depend neither upon the laboratory nor 
upon the field-work of naturalists. A 
world-wide field in which there can be no 
control of the forms to be studied, and no 
possibility of continuity in observation or 
opportunity for experiment, obviously does 
not meet the requirements of science. 

Biological Farm.—The laboratory is too 
narrow, and the world too wide for the con- 
tinuous study of living organisms, under 
conditions that can be definitely known and 
controlled. For such study, selected groups 
of organisms and a limited territory, with 
favorable conditions of land, water and 
food, are needed. Territory, living organ- 
isms and scientific staff would constitute 
a new plant, which might be called a Bio- 
logical Farm. 

Grounds.—The grounds of a biological 
farm would vary in extent with the growth 
of the work, from ten to a hundred or more 
acres. Land, woods, fresh-water ponds, 
sea-shore and islands would make a good 
combination. 

Location.—The location of headquarters 
should be at a biological center, near labo- 
ratories drawing a large number of investi- 
gators, but at a safe distance from any 
large city or summer resort. These prime 
advantages of situation superadded to the 
exceptional natural advantages of avail- 
able grounds are represented at Wood’s 
Holl. 

Natural Conditions.—A biological farm 
should include the largest possible diversity 
of natural conditions to insure wide free- 
dom of development and opportunity for 
experimentation. Water is the first essen- 
tial, and three forms of this element are 
needed, namely, sea-water, brackish water, 


510 


and fresh water. All three forms abound 
at Wood’s Holl, and vicinity. The fresh- 
water ponds are numerous, and many of 
them, both on the mainland and on the 
neighboring islands, are completely isolated 
and stocked with forms in-bred for cen- 
turies. Brackish water in almost every de- 
eree, pure sea-water and tide-currents are 
right at hand. 

Land is the next essential, and here we 
have hill, plain, marsh, swamp, shore and 
islands, and some of these islands are in- 
imitable biological farms of nature’s own 
make. 

A seasonable range of temperature is 
essential to the existence of a majority of 
the forms best suited to cultivation and 
study; and in this are supplied very im- 
portant conditions for experimental work. 
The surrounding sea protects Wood’s Holl 
from extremes of heat and cold. 

Tsolation.—The most favorable combina- 
tion of conditions may be utterly worthless, 
unless the farm can be made secure in its 
isolation from the public. Its work must 
go on in a quiet environment, where all 
the conditions are under control, and the 
investigator is free from the danger of in- 
trusion. 

Mode of Development.—The work should 
be developed slowly, section by section, each 
section consisting of a group of related 
species, or a single species, offering a wide 
range of problems. 

Each section should be in charge of a 
director, prepared to continue the work 
during life, and supported by assistants 
and help for all routine and mechanical 
service. The staff would consist of direct- 
ors, assistant investigators, artists, photog- 
rapher, clerical help, keepers and a busi- 
ness manager. 

Outlay and Maintenance.—The original 
outlay for land, stock, buildings, equipment, 
inclosures of land and water for, isolation 
purposes, would vary according to the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 404. 


forms selected for study. From $50,000 
to $100,000 would suffice for this. The 
maintenance of the first section, including 
salaries, accessions to stock, library, ete., 
may be estimated at $10,000 a year. The 
cost of additional sections would be about 
$5,000 each. 

Ideal Center.—The association of three 
such institutions as the Marine Biological 
Laboratory, the U. S. Fish Commission 
Station, and a Biological Farm would 
form an ideal biological center. Each 
would help and be helped by the other 
two. 

Cooperation.—There should undoubtedly 
be several biological farms in the country. 
The larger universities might well have 
their own farms, and thus very extensive 
and effective cooperative work be carried 
on. 

Use to Science.—The farm would enable 
us to approach all the fundamental prob- 
lems of life from the two sides of observa- 
tion and experiment on living organisms. 
It would furnish material for study with 
precise records, and make it possible to 
keep up continuity in the experimental 
study of heredity and variation. 

Practical Utility.—The utility of such 
work is seen when we reflect on the prac- 
tical results already realized in the multi- 
plication and improvement of domestic spe- 
cies of animals and plants through eross- 
breeding, hybridisation and selection. We 
have very meager and uncertain knowledge 
of the laws of heredity and variation—laws 
which underlie all progress of the race. 

C. O. WHITMAN. 


SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 


Manual of Astronomy, a ‘text-book. By 
Crartes A. Youne, Ph.D., LL.D. New 
York, Green & Company. 

The preface to this volume informs us that 
it has been prepared in response to a rather 
pressing demand for a text-book intermediate 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902.] 


between the author’s ‘Elements of Astronomy’ 
and his ‘General Astronomy.’ 

It is perhaps an open question whether the 
fact that a text-book contains more matter 
than can be mastered in the time allotted to 
the subject constitutes a valid objection to its 
use, or a legitimate demand for a book of less 
dimensions. To bring home to the student in 
this practical way the fact that some things 
still remain to be learned undoubtedly has a 
salutary effect in some cases. 

Be that as it may, we have here an excellent 
book. To those acquainted with the author’s 
“General Astronomy,’ the pages present a fa- 
miliar appearance, suggestive of a simple 
abridgment of the larger work. A more care- 
ful_examination, however, shows that we have 
much more than this. No inconsiderable por- 
tion has been rewritten with the introduction 
of new matter and illustrations and all 
brought strictly up to date. We mention a 
few of the many cases in point. The very 
satisfactory account of the planet Eros; the 
reference to Belopolsky’s spectroscopic re- 
searches on the rotation period of Venus; the 
application of the results of the investiga- 
tions of Nichols, Hall and Lebedew on the 
repulsive action of the solar radiation to the 
formation of comets’ tails, and the story of 
the Nova Persei. 

If any mistakes or errors exist they have 
escaped the notice of the reviewer. 


C. L. D. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY. 


Tue Ninth Summer Meeting of the Ameri- 
can Mathematical Society was held at North- 
western University, Evanston, Ill., on Tuesday 
and Wednesday, September 2-8, 1902. About 
fifty persons were in attendance, including 
thirty-nine members of the Society. Two 
sessions were held on each day. The Presi- 
dent of the Society, Professor Eliakim Hast- 
ings Moore, occupied the chair at the opening 
session, being succeeded by Professor T. S. 
Fiske and Professor H. 8. White. The fol- 
lowing persons were elected to membership in 
the Society: Professor T. J. Va. Bromwich, 
Queen’s College, Galway, Ireland; Mr. J. S. 


SCIENCE. 


511 


Brown, New York City; Professor G. C. 
Edwards, University of California, Berkeley, 
Cal. Eight applications for membership in 
the Society were received. 

A committee consisting of Professors H. W. 
Tyler, T. S. Fiske, W. F. Osgood, J. W. A. 
Young and Alexander Ziwet was appointed 
to consider and report on standard definitions 
of requirements in mathematical subjects for 
admission to college and scientific schools. 
This committee will cooperate with those re- 
cently appointed by the National Educational 
Association and the Society for the Promotion 
of Engineering Education. 

President Moore, Professor F. Morley and 
Dr. Emory McClintock were appointed a com- 
mittee on the nomination of officers of the 
Society for the coming year. 

The recently organized Pacific Section of 
the Society received the official designation of 
the ‘San Francisco Section.’ 

Pleasant social features of the meeting were 
the dinner at Northwestern University on 
Tuesday evening and a gathering in Chicago 
on Wednesday evening. Resolutions appre- 
ciative of the hospitality of the University 
were adépted at the close of the meeting. 

The scientific program comprised the fol- 
lowing thirty-two papers: 

(1) Dr. F. R. Movurron: ‘A method of con- 
structing general expressions for the elements of 
the planetary orbits which are valid for a definite 
time.’ 

(2) Professor A. S. HarHaway: ‘The quater- 
nion treatment of the problem of three bodies.’ 

(3) Dr. J. V. Cotrins: ‘A general notation 
for vector analysis.’ 

(4) Professor L. E. Dickson: ‘ Definitions of 
a linear associative algebra by independent pos- 
tulates.’ 

(5) Professor L. E. Dickson: ‘ Two definitions 
of a field by independent postulates.’ 

(6) Dr. E. V. Huntrneron: ‘ Definitions of a 
field by sets of independent postulates.’ 

(7) Dr. Orro Dunxet: ‘Regular singular 
points of a system of homogeneous linear differen- 
tial equations of the first order.’ 

(8) Professor Oskar Boxtza: ‘Some instruc- 
tive examples in the calculus of variations.’ 

(9) Professor J. B. SHaw: ‘On linear associa- 
tive algebras.’ 


512 


(10) Dr. W. B. Frre: ‘Concerning the com- 
mutator subgroups of groups whose orders are 
powers of primes.’ ‘ 

(11) Dr. J. W. Youne: ‘On a certain group 
of linear substitutions and the functions belong- 
ing to it’ (preliminary report). 

(12) Professor JAcop WerstLunp: ‘On the 
class number of the cyclotomic number field k 
(e2mi[p") 2 

(13) Professor L. E. Dickson: ‘ Announcement 
of new simple groups’ (preliminary communica- 
tion). 


(14) Professor ALFRED Lorzwy: ‘Ueber die 
Reducibilitiit der Gruppen linearer homogener 
Substitutionen.’ 


(15) Professor H. 8. Wurte: ‘ A special twisted 
cubie with rectilinear directrix.’ 

(16) Professor F. Morury: 
properties of the plane m-line.’ 

(17) Dr. Vrrein Snyper: ‘Forms of sextie 
serolls of genus greater than 1.’ 

(18) Professor Prrer FIeLp: 
for which p=1.’ 

(19) Dr. C. J. Keyser: ‘Concerning the line 
and plane geometries of point four-space, and 
allied theories.’ 

(20) Professor ARNoLD Emcu: ‘A linkage for 
Ue i0g.’ 

(21) Dr. 


* Orthocentric 


*“Quintie curves 


Epwarp Kasner: ‘The _ bilinear 


point-line connex in space; an extension of 
Clebsch’s connex.’ 
(22) Mr. E. A. Hook: ‘Multiple points of 


Lissajous’s curves in two and three dimensions.’ 

(23) Dr. L. P. Etsennart: ‘Infinitesimal de- 
formation of the skew helicoid. 

(24) Professor Jonn Erestanp: ‘ Null systems 
in space of five dimensions.’ 

(25) Professor E. D. Ror: ‘ Note on a partial 
differential equation.’ 

(26) Dr. Saut Epsteen: ‘On integrability by 
quadratures.’ 

(27) Mr. W. B. Forp: ‘On the possibility of 
differentiating term by term the developments for 
an arbitrary function of one real variable in terms 
of Bessel functions.’ 

(28) Professor T. F. Horcate: ‘ Apolar triads 
on a straight line and on a conic.’ 

(29) Professor H. B. Newson: ‘List of con- 
tinuous groups of collineations in space.’ 

(30) Miss HELEN Brewster: ‘Group of col- 
' lineations with invariant quadric surface.’ 

(31) Professor ALEXANDER PELL: ‘On the 
generalized Beltrami problem.’ 

(32) Professor L., HErrrer: ‘ Ueber die Curven- 
integrale im m-dimensionalen Raum.’ 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 404.. 


The next meeting of the Society will be. 
held at Columbia University, October 25. 
F. N. Cots, 
Secretary. 


SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF AGRICULTURAL 


EDUCATION. 


THE Proceedings of the 22d meeting of the 
Society, held in Pittsburgh, June 30 to July 2, 
1902, is now in press and will contain the follow- 
ing papers: ‘The Promotion of Agricultural Sci- 
ence,’ by the President, Dr. W. H. Jordan, Director 
New York Experiment Station, Geneva, N. Y.; 
“Notes on the Poisonous Plants of Nebraska,’ Dr. 
C. E. Bessey; ‘The Individuality of Plants an 
Important Factor in Plant Nutrition Studies,’ 
Professor E. B. Voorhees; ‘Some Soil Problems 
in the Dakotas,’ Professor E. F. Ladd; ‘The Re- 
sults of Applying Crude Petroleum to Peach Trees 
in Ohio to Suppress San José Scale’ (illustrated) , 
F. M. Webster; ‘The Available Energy in Timothy 
Hay’ (illustrated), Dr. H. P. Armsby; ‘The 
Composition of the Combustible Gases Excreted 
by Cattle’ J. A. Fries; ‘The Statistics of the 
Dairy,’ Maj. H. E. Alvord; ‘The Aicidium as a 
Device to Restore Vigor to the Fungus,’ Dr. J. C. 
Arthur; ‘Crude Petroleum as an Insecticide,’ Dr. 
E. P. Felt; ‘ Views of a Country Roadside’ (illus- 
trated), Dr. W. J. Beal; (1) ‘The Use of the 
Centrifuge in Diagnosing Disease of the Cereal 
Grains, (2) ‘Preliminary Notes on a Contin- 
uous Process of Disinfecting Seed Grain with 
Formaldehyde Vapor’ (illustrated), Professor H. 
L. Bolley; ‘Some Variations in Introduced Gar- 
den Vegetables,’ H. C. Irish; ‘ Plant Depredations 
and Plant Culture,’ Professor F, W. Rane; ‘The 
Mushrooms of Iowa, their Chemical Composition 
and Food Value,’ Dr. J. B. Weems; ‘Soil Bac- 
teriology,’ Professor IF. B. Chester; ‘The Relation 
of the Water Control of Certain Plants to their 
Hardiness,’ Professor W. R. Lazenby; ‘The Im- 
portance of Considering Previous Environment 
in Conducting Variety Tests,’ Professor T. L. 
Lyon; ‘Observation on Manure Sampling,’ Dr. 
William Frear. 

The next meeting of the society will be 
held in Washington, D. C., in connection with 
the American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, during the first week in 
January, 1903. 

F. M. Wesster, 
Secretary. 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


‘STRATIGRAPHY VERSUS PALEONTOLOGY IN NOVA 
SCOTIA.’ 


To tue Eprror or Science: May I ask your 
space for a few words in reply to remarks by 
my friend Mr. David White on ‘ Stratigraphy 
versus Paleontology in Nova Scotia’ (Science, 
August, 1902, page 232). 

While I cannot pretend to the wide and 
varied acquaintance with the Paleozoic flora 
which he possesses, I may have a closer local 
knowledge of ‘the conditions attending the 
occurrence of the floras that form the sub- 
ject of his communication, than he has, and 
so be in a position to offer some suggestions 
that may have value in deciding the age of 
these floras. 

I fully agree with him, however, in saying 
that a more thorough study of the paleontolog- 
ical question is desirable; but not in his 
claim that this will settle the question of age 
—unless the stratigraphy is considered as well. 

As attention has lately been called to the 
remarkable resemblance of the fossil floras 
in certain basins in Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick to those of the Coal Measures, and 
to each other, and arguments deduced from the 
Nova Scotia organic remains are applied to 
those in the neighboring province in assigning 
their age, we should not forget that there 
are very considerable differences both litholog- 
ical and paleontological in the two districts 
and overlooking these tends to ‘confuse the 
issue.’ 

The Nova Scotia deposits may or may not 
be of the same age as those in New Brunswick, 
but until there is a full agreement that they 
are contemporaneous, it seems unwise to apply 
arguments deduced from the former to fix the 
age of the latter. The basins are 150 to 200 
miles apart. 

At page 232 Mr. White gives a list of about 
a dozen reptiles, crustaceans and molluscs 
found in the Nova Seotian beds, which he 
claims are Carboniferous types. Not one of 
these except the worm, Spirorbis eriensi, has 
been found in the New Brunswick beds, and 
yet they are used (page 235) to show that 
the latter beds are Carboniferous. If Mr. 
White will reread my article to which he re- 


SCIENCE. 


513 


fers at page 234, he will find that it is based 
entirely on the New Brunswick beds, the flora 
of which was first described; and to which 
those of the neighboring province of Nova 
Scotia were referred, by Messrs. Fletcher and 
Ells, as to a standard. 

Now if we take the evidence of the fauna 
actually found in the New Brunswick beds 
we find that it cuts the opposite way from 
that cited by Mr. White from the Nova Sco- 
tian beds. Of numerous insects and myria- 
pods found in the New Brunswick (St. John) 
plant beds none are known in the Carbon- 
iferous. Of the forms referred to the Crus- 
tacea all are different from the Carboniferous 
forms, and the genera also differ. The two 
land molluses are unknown in the Carbon- 
iferous. 

That Carboniferous types of plants should 
be found as low down as the Devonian need 
not create surprise. Has not Waleott found 
Devonian fishes in the Silurian, and Silurian 
corals in the Ordovician ? 

We await the discovery in other parts of 
the world of plants in pre-Carboniferous strata 
which shall sustain Sir William Dawson’s 
reference of the St. John plant beds to the 
Devonian, certainly the latest system to which: 
they can be assigned. When Mr. White or 
some other geologist shall find in the wide do- 
main of the United States, or some other part 
of the world, a Devonian of Silurian lagoon 
and marsh deposit, with plants, insects, myria- 
pods, isopods, ete., of quite different type from 
those of the St. John plant beds, then we may 
consider whether the Canadian paleophytolo- 
gists and stratigraphers have been at fault. 

Mr. White refers, at page 235, to the ‘ thor- 
oughly studied magnificent section of De- 
vonian near the Gulf of St. Lawrence’ as 
having no signs of ‘the extraordinary paleon- 
tological anomaly’ of the St. John plant beds. 
I fear that in this case he has not considered 
the importance of habitat in modifying the 
distribution of plants. Presuming that in the 
reference to a Devonian section he alludes to 
that at the head of the Baie Chaleur, the com- 
parison is quite out of place; that was a 
lacustrine and estuarine deposit with fishes, 
ete., and some plants. It cannot be too 


514 


strongly stated that the plant remains at St. 
John are numerous and are in a marsh 
and lagoon deposit. The ecological conditions 
were different, and so are the plants. The 
Baie Chaleur beds hold very few species for 
comparison, and it is not surprising that most 
are different. 

There is no ‘isolated Carboniferous mol- 
lusean fauna’ in the St. John plant beds, and 
to them therefore Mr. White’s argument from 
this fauna does not apply. 

As regards the Megalopteris argument, it 
has to my mind as much force now as before 
Mr. White’s statement in this article that the 
genus is known to be only as old as the Potts- 
ville. Professor Andrews shows it to have 
been only twenty or thirty feet above the lower 
Carboniferous limestone; and it did not 
spring, like Minerva, ready armed and helmed 
from the brain of Jove, 7. e., it had closely 
related ancestors of earlier date. And that 
author described several species, none of which 
is identical with Hartt’s species of the St. 
John beds. 

But, after all, paleontology must bow to 
stratigraphy, and until it can be shown that 
the geological structure at St. John has been 
wholly misunderstood and misinterpreted, this 
supposed anomaly of plants, generally con- 
sidered as Carboniferous, occurring in beds as 
old at least as the Devonian Age, must remain. 

G. F. Marruew. 

St. Jonn, N. B., 

September 11, 1902. 


EVIDENCE OF RECENT ELEVATION OF THE GULF 
COAST ALONG THE WESTWARD EXTENSION 
OF FLORIDA. 


To tue Eprror or Science: During the 
spring of the present year, while doing field 
work along the Gulf shore south of Tallahas- 
see, Fla., I obtained some facts which seem 
to show perceptible elevation of the coast in 
that vicinity within the memory of man. The 
data upon which the following remarks are 
based were furnished by Mr. J. L. Oliver, of 
Wakulla, Florida. 


At St. Marks, Wakulla Oo., Fla., is an old - 


store or warehouse formerly occupied by a 
Mr. Harrell. 


SCIENCE. 


This old house is built on piles, 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 404. 


and in the ‘fifties’ there was an old field 
with a little pond in it just north of the house. 
During the ‘ fifties,’ except at neap tide, the 
water at high tide passed under this house and 
into the pond. Since that time the pond has 
been drained, so that now rain water never 
stands in it, and its present connection with 
the tides is less obstructed than in the ‘ fifties,’ 
but, notwithstanding this, the water at spring 
tide no.longer comes under the house or 
reaches the old site of the pond unless a strong 
southeast or south wind has been blowing for 
two or more days. 

A neap tide overflows the banks of the St. 
Marks River only in low places, and an aver- 
age tide will lack three hundred yards of 
reaching where the pond was. Brush is tak- 
ing portions of the marsh, where it had never 
been known to grow before. 

Mr. Oliver’s estimate is that the land has 
been elevated from one foot to eighteen inches 
since the ‘fifties.’ At first I thought that 
filling in with sediment might cause the change 
of level, but that does not seem probable. 
Therefore, if this evidence is trustworthy, the 
Gulf coast in the vicinity of St. Marks, Fla., 
is rising at the rate of two to three feet per 
century. 

These notes seem interesting, and it is hoped 
that they may incite others to make observa- 
tions, or even lead to some attempts by estab- 
lishing bench marks to measure the rate of 
change of level. 

T. WayLanp VAUGHAN. 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 

Wasuineton, D. C., 
September 11, 1902. 


THE STRENGTH OF ANTS. 


To tHe Eprror or Science: While walking 
on the university campus the other day, my 
attention was arrested by what appeared to be 
a grasshopper moving along the sidewalk with- 
out using his hind legs. Upon closer examina- 
tion, I saw that the grasshopper was dead and 
was being dragged along by a small ant. 

The difference between the size of the little 
laborer and his load was so extraordinary that: 
I thought it might be of interest to know the 
exact weight of each. I accordingly weighed 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902.] 


them carefully on an analytical balance and 
obtained the following figures: 
Weight of ant.......=........ 3.2 mg. 
Weight of grasshopper....... 190.0 mg. 
Thus, the ant was dragging a load that 
weighed approximately sixty times his own 
weight. This is equivalent to a man whose 
weight is 150 Ibs. dragging a load of 44 tons, 
or a horse of 1,200 tbs., a load of 36 tons! Is 
this not somewhat remarkable ? 
ArMaAND R. MILLER. 


NAVAL ENGINEERING. 

THE most extraordinary achievement in the 
domain of fast yacht or torpedo-boat con- 
struction has lately been reported as the out- 
come of Mr. Chas. D. Mosher’s work in de- 
signing the high-speed steam-yacht, Arrow, 
for Mr. Chas. R. Flint, of New York. On 
the 7th of September this craft made a speed 
of above 45 miles an hour on the Hudson 
River, making the mile in less than one min- 
ute and twenty seconds. The measured mile 
was established by the Coast Survey, which 
sent its steamer Bache to fix its location some 
time since. This performance exceeds by 
three miles, nearly, that of the British tor- 
pedo-boat destroyer Viper, with engines of the 
Parsons type of steam-turbine. The latter 
made 42.25 miles an hour, a mile in one min- 
ute and twenty-five seconds. The Arrow is 
but 130 feet over all, 12 feet 6 inches beam, 
displacing 66 tons, on a draft of 4 feet 7 
inches. The water-tube boilers contain 5,540 
square feet of heating surface and the 
quadruple-expansion engines are capable of 
producing 4,000 horse-power. Maximum 
steam-pressure is reported to be 400 pounds at 
the boilers and 390 at the engines. The fol- 
lowing table presents the records of recent 
fast craft of this’ type: 


SCIENCE. 


515 


Consut J. E. Kent sends to the Depart- 
ment of State, from Stettin, a description of 
the new North German Lloyd steamship 
Kaiser Wilhelm IT., recently launched at the 
Vulean yards in that city. The cost was 
16,000,000 marks, and she is scheduled to sail 
during the early part of April, 1903, between 
Bremen and New York. He says: The 
Kaiser Wilhelm IT. is built according to the 
German Lloyd requirements for the highest 
register of the four-deck ship class. Her 
double bottom is divided into 26 water-tight 
compartments, while the hull proper is di- 
vided by 17 bulkheads into 19 water-tight 
compartments, each compartment having sep- 
arate outlets to the promenade decks. Her 
17 pumps are said to be capable of discharg- 
ing 9,360 tons of water per hour. The con- 
struction of the stern is very similar to that 
of Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, excepting that 
the plating below the water line, inclosing the 
serew shafts, and above the rudder is cigar- 
shaped, leaving a large arched space on each 
side between the center line and screw shafts, 
running forward and gradually tapering for a 
distance of about 25 feet into the common 
hull shape. This has been done in accord- 
ance with the requirements of the German 
Admiralty, at whose disposal the ship will be 
placed in the event of war. 

There are 4 sets of 4-cylinder expansion 
vertical engines, with surface condensers, each 
set working on 3 cranks, 2 sets for each pro- 
peller shaft. The engines are balanced after 
Mr. Schlick’s patent and will indicate alto- 
gether 38,000 to 40,000 horse-power. They are 
set up in pairs, one behind the other, so as to 
bring a water-tight bulkhead between each 
pair, thereby increasing the safety of the 
The steam will be produced by 12 
double-end and 7 single-end boilers, which will 


vessel. 


Boat. Type. Mile. Knot. Miles per Hour. Knots per Hour. 
INTONo bob 04606 Mach treater: it sacs as.c 1:19 9-10 1:32 45.06 39.13 
Wis ono dooce cos English Torpedo Destroyer....| 1:25 1:38 | 42.25 36.50 
Mumba eee Wachter eee sities ou keuele 1:28 1:44 | 40.00 34.50 
Mako cp eeeeye French Torpedo Destroyer....| 1:32 1:52 37.50 32.00 
MENG go boo00000 German Torpedo Destroyer...| 1:32 1:52 37.50 32.00 
IDG eoccccone PEK None ioo.c Bob oo ACTOR TEE 1:34 1:55 36.50 31.00 
Bailey. -ieeeeere U. S. Torpedo Destroyer...... 1:40 2:00 35.00 30.00 
Murakumo....... Japanese Torpedo Destroyer..| 1:40 2:00 35.00 30.00 


516 SCIENCE. [N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 404. 
= = 
Name of Ship. Date. Reneta Beam. Depth. Draft. Displece Speed 
Feet. Feet. Feet. Feet. Tons. Knots: 
Gneatiebastermyn mercies 1858 692 83 57} 253 27,000 14.5 
IPN EIA ng Height eisc claw culniolS Ono D 1888 560 63 42 263 15,000 20.5 
ILE MES basiooeeaobKosmooSaboD oS 1893 | 620 65 43 28 19,000 22.1 
Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse...... 1897 649 66 43 29 20,000 23 
COREE HORM CE aIee aie Mine e craig eye 1899 704 68 49 323 28,500 20.7 
Deutschland erect ake klaenere 1900 684 67 44 30 23,200 23.5 
Kronprinz Wilhelm............. 1901 663 64 43 30 21,280 23.53 
(OARISS aeaomaicd nea mo secrd did ccc 1901 700 75 49 363 37,700 16 
Kaiser Wilhelm Tie rotor ceustoets 1902 7063 72 Qa Mallieeseesesseree 26,000 *23 
work at 225 pounds per square-inch pressure. (meteorologist), Dr. Bay (zoologist), Dr. 


The ship’s accommodations are for 775 first- 
cabin passengers, 343 second-class passengers, 
and 770 steerage passengers. It may be in- 
teresting in this connection to give dimen- 
sions of existing leviathans, to afford com- 
parison with the Kaiser Wilhelm II.; also to 
note the size of the famous Great Eastern, 
now broken up._ 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES -AND NEWS. 


Str Norman Lockyer has been elected presi- 
dent of the British Association for 1894, 
when the meeting will be held at Cambridge. 
The meeting next year, as already announced, 
will be held at Southport. 


Proressor W. H. Wetcu, of the Johns 
Hopkins University, sailed last week for Eng- 
land where he delivers the Huxley lecture 
before the Charing Cross Hospital on October 
first. 


Lirutenant Ropert FE. Peary, the 
Windward, arrived at Nova Scotia on Septem- 
ber 18, and Captain O. N. Sverdrup, on the 
Fram, arrived in Norway on September 19. 
Both expeditions doubtless accomplished valu- 
able work for geography, natural history and 
ethnology, the results of which will be subse- 
quently published. The Fram had a corps of 
scientific observers, consisting of Naval Lieut. 
Victor Baumann (astronomer), Lieut. G. Y. 
Ysachsen (cartographer), Dr. Svendsen 


on 


* Contract calls for no less than 23 knots, like 
the Kronprinz and Deutschland, which do almost 
1 knot better than their contract. It is confi- 
dently expected that the Kaiser Wilhelm II will 
break all records by going 24 knots and possibly 
more. 


Herman G. Simmons (botanist), and Dr. P. 
Schel (geologist). 

Proressor ANGELO Hemprin has returned to 
Philadelphia from Martinique, having been 
on Mount Pelee on the afternoon of the recent 
eruption. This occurred at 9:10 in the even- 
ing, and the area of destruction was much 
greater than in the eruption of May 8. 


Proressor ArtHuR MicHart, who has been 
making a tour of the world during the past 
year, will resume the duties of the chair of 
chemistry at Tufts College at the opening of 
the college year. 


Dr. Jacques Lors, professor of physiology 
at the University of Chicago, is at present in 
San Francisco. It is said that he is still con- 
sidering the call he recently received to the 
University of California. 


Proressor F. Haper, of the Institute of 
Technology, Karlsruhe, and Professor R. S. 
Hutton, of Owens College, Manchester, are 
visiting this country to study the electro- 
chemical industries. 


Tue German commissioner, Captain Her- 
mann, has reached Europe, bringing with him 
a large amount of new material for the map- 
ping of the Kivu region. 


For the study of the density of the earth, 
President F. W. MeNair, of the Michigan 
College of Mines, and Dr. John F. Hayford, 
chief of the computing department of the 
United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, are 
conducting experiments at the Tamarack 


amine, near Calumet. 


Proressor THEopore Boveri, of Wiirzburg, 
has received the Stiebel prize of the Sencken- 


‘SEPTEMBER 26, 1902.» 


berg foundation for his work ‘Ueber die 
Natur der Centrosomen.’ 


Lyman B. Srooxry, Ph.D. (Yale), has been 
appointed assistant in physiological chemistry 
in the laboratory of the N. Y. State Patho- 
logical Institute at Ward’s Island, New York 
City. 

Raymonp A. Pearson, for the past seven 
years assistant chief of the dairy division of 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture, has left 
that position to enter upon scientific com- 
mercial dairy work in New York City and 
Philadelphia. 

A committer has been appointed at Déle, 
where a statue of Pasteur has recently been 
erected, to collect funds to purchase the house 
in which he was born, as a permanent me- 
morial, 

M. Boucuarp delivered a eulogy on the late 
Professor Virchow at the Paris Academy of 
Sciences on September 9. 

Tue funeral of Sir Frederick Abel took 
place on Sept. 11. The London Times states 
that many of the scientific societies and pub- 
lic institutions with which he was connected 
were represented. The Imperial Institute was 
represented by Sir Stewart Bayley, Colonel 
Makins, Professor Wyndham Dunstan, F.R.S., 
the director of the scientific department, and 
Lieutenant G. R. Maltby, assistant secretary ; 
the Royal Society by Sir W. Huggins, the 
president, and Mr. A. B. Kempe, the treas- 
urer; the Senate of the University of London 
by the Rey. Dr. Robertson, the vice-chancel- 
lor, and Professor Silvanus Thompson, F.R.S.; 
the Chemical Society by Professor II. Me- 
Leod, F.R.S., and Dr. A. Scott, F.R.S., hon. 
secretaries; the Board of Trade by Mr. 
Llewellyn Smith; the Atheneum Club by Mr. 
H. R. Tedder, the secretary; and the Cold- 
smiths’? Company by Mr. R. Montagu Tabor, 
the prime warden, and Sir Walter Prideaux, 
the clerk. 

Tue civil service commission announces ex- 
aminations as follows: on October 21, inspec- 
tor of textile fabrics, in the New York Navy 
Yard, at a salary of $1,252; on October 18, 
geometrical lathe operator in the Bureau of 
Engraving and Printing, at a salary of $1,- 


SCIENCE. 


517 


500; on November 1, scientific aid in the Bu- 
reau of Forestry and Bureau of Agriculture 
in the Philippine Service, at salaries of $300 
and $480 respectively; on November 4, for 
preparator in the Division of Insects, U. S. 
National Museum, at a salary of $480; on No- 
vember 11, for forestry inspectors in the 
Philippine service, it being wished to fill two 
positions, one at a salary of $800 and one at a 
salary of $1,200. 


We have already called attention to the In- 
ternational Congress of Plant Breeding and 
Hybridization which will be held under the 
auspices of the Horticultural Society of New 
York, on September 30 and October 1 and 2. 
The sessions will open at 10 a.m. and 3 P.M. 
and will be in the rooms of the American In- 
stitute, 19 West 44th St. The program con- 
tains the titles of 61 papers, many of which are 
of great scientific interest. 


Tue Tenth National Irrigation Congress 
will be held at Colorado Springs from the 
sixth to the ninth of October. The National 
Association of Irrigation Engineers will meet 
at the same time and place. 

Tue International Mining Congress met at 
Butte, Mont., from September 1 to 5, under 
the presidency of Mr. E. L. Schaffner, of 
Cleveland. Resolutions were adopted advo- 
cating a government department of mines and 
mining with a cabinet officer. The congress, 
which will hereafter be known as the American 
Mining Congress, will meet a year hence at 
Deadwood, S. Dakota. 

Tue fifth International Congress for Ap- 
plied Chemistry will be held in Berlin from 
June 2 to 8, 1903. The honorary president 
is Professor A. Winkler; the president, Pro- 
fessor O. N. Witt; and the secretary, Dr. G. 
Pulvermacher, Marchstrasse 21, Charlotten- 
burg. 

We learn from Electrochemical Industry 
that an informal meeting to discuss a British 
Electrochemical Society was held on March 
4, 1902, at which a committee consisting of 
the following gentlemen was chosen to con- 
sider the subject: J. Swinburne (the present 
president of the British Institution of Elec- 
trical Engineers), Dr. F. M. Perkin, Dr. Don- 


518 


nan, W. R. Cooper, S. Cowper-Coles and H. 
V. Simpson. This committee has held meet- 
ings from, time to time at which the best 
methods of procedure have been discussed. 
The question of working in conjunction with 
one of the existing societies has been con- 
sidered, and several societies have been ap- 
proached on the matter, but the committee 
takes the view that such an arrangement is 
not likely, at any rate for the present, to 
have the desired effect. Steps in the direction 
of organizing an independent society have 
therefore just been taken. 

THE season at the Minnesota Seaside Sta- 
tion on the Straits of Juan de Fuca was 
brought suecessfully to a close late in Au- 
gust. Thirty-eight botanists and zoologists 
were in attendance, only four of whom were 
from the Pacific slope. A new laboratory 
building, 24x40 feet, two stories high, was 
opened and this afforded space for the work 
in advanced and elementary botany. The old 
laboratory was devoted to the department of 
zoology. Courses, with lectures, laboratory 
and field work, were conducted by Professors 
Conway MacMillan and Raymond Osburn, 
and by Miss Josephine E. Tilden. Out-door 
lectures on plant and animal ecology, given 
in the forest and on the shore, were a feature 
of the season. 

Proressor LANNELONGUE, of Paris, has pre- 
sented $7,500 to the Paris Académie de Méde- 
cine for the endowment of a triennial prize. 


Mr. James N. Jarvir, who has erected a 
library building for Bloomfield, N. J., at a 
cost of $100,000, has added an endowment 
fund of $50,000. 

A press dispatch from Alexandria says the 
total number of fresh cholera cases in Egypt 
in the week just ended was 6,587. There were 
5,983 deaths. In the previous week there were 
9,805 fresh cases and 8,497 deaths. Since the 
commencement of the epidemic, July 15, to 
the present time there have been 30,931 cases 
and 25,734 deaths. 

A Reuter telegram from Rome states that 
the Italian postal authorities have examined a 
scheme submitted by an engineer, named Pis- 
cicelli, for the establishment of an electric 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 404, 


postal service. It is proposed, by means of 
this system, to transmit letters in aluminium 
boxes, traveling along overhead wires at the 
rate of 400 kilometers an hour. A letter could 
thus be sent from Rome to Naples in 25 min- 
utes and from Rome to Paris in five hours. 
Signor Galimberti has appointed a technical 
commission to report on the system before 
instituting a series of experiments between 
Rome and Naples. 


Tue Scottish National Antarctic expedi- 
tion, under the leadership of Mr. William S. 
Bruce, will sail for the Antarctic regions on 
the Scotia early in October. 


THE managing director of Marconi’s Wire- 
less Telegraph Co., writes to the London 
Times that Mr. Marconi, who left England on 
August 23 on the Carlo Alberto, the flagship of 
the Italian Navy, has been in daily communi- 
cation by wireless telegraphy with their long- 
distance station at Poldhu, Cornwall. They 
have received from him from Spezia a tele- 
gram in which he says that he has received 
perfect messages direct from Poldhu inside 
Gibraltar Harbor, and throughout the entire 
course of the Mediterranean tour. A reference 
to the map of Europe shows that the messages 
must have passed across the Bay of Biscay and 
Spain, across France, and across the Alps. 
Telegrams for the King of Italy and the Ital- 
ian Minister of Marine have been sent from 
Poldhu and correctly received on the tape of 
the wireless telegraph receiving apparatus on 
the Carlo Alberto in Spezia harbor. Mr. Mar- 
coni has been commanded to visit the King of 
Italy, and has been informed by the Italian 
Minister of Marine that the Carlo Alberto is 
at his disposal for taking part at once in a 
transatlantic test of long-distance stations. 
The ship will, therefore, take him to Cape Bre- 
ton, where the Canadian station for transat- 
iantie telegraphy is installed, and subsequently 
to the long-distance station installed on Cape 
Cod, and now owned by the Marconi Wireless 
Telegraph Company of America. 


Tue British Sanitary Institute opened its 
annual congress in Manchester on Sept. 9, 
with two thousand delegates in attendance. 
The president, Lord Egerton, said in his ad- 


SEPTEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


dress, according to the report in the London 
Times, that he could only speak as a landowner 
in a populous district and as one responsible 
for dealing with the dwellings of the poor 
and the buildings on his estate connected 
with the farms, and as one who had taken an 
humble part in the various legislative meas- 
ures which had been passed to improve the 
sanitary condition of our towns and the health 
of the people during the last 40 years. He 
could certify to the great sanitary improve- 
ments which had been made in the cottages, 
farms and farm buildings in his recollection, 
and in the water supply of our country dis- 
tricts. Yet they had been hardly sufficiently 
alive to the storage of rain water. The sanitary 
authorities still kept a watchful eye on the nec- 
essary supply of fresh air to their agricultural 
buildings, the cubical contents of their cow- 
houses, and the supply of pure milk. He pro- 
ceeded to refer to the efforts made to purify 
the rivers, mentioning in particular the work 
of the Mersey and Irwell Joint Committee. 
They had in that great city of Manchester tri- 
umphs of engineering and mechanical art 
applied to various industries, but the popu- 
lation which inhabited it had, as in other large 
towns, degenerated in size and physical power 
from the ancestor or progenitor who was 
attracted into the town by higher wages from 
the country districts. The same process was 
still going on, the large percentage of rejec- 
tions from physical disabilities among those 
who offered themselves as recruits even in 
Manchester itself giving an alarming proof of 
the degeneracy of the town population. One 
of their great problems was to arrest this de- 
terioration and to make up for the necessary 
drawbacks of town life by greater care in the 
physical education of the young and in teach- 
ing them the principles of hygiene or the pres- 
ervation of health. Though it was given to 
many of no great physical strength to succeed 
in the race of life and by sheer brain power to 
triumph over physical weakness, yet in most 
cases a strong physical frame was necessary 
to supplement the endowment of the mind in 
most of the careers open to man. This brought 
him to the question of the need for physical 


training. He agreed with Lord Meath, in the 


SCIENCE. 


519 


address which he recently delivered in Man- 
chester, as to the introduction of physical: ex- 
ercise in our elementary schools as the best 
way of improving the physical and moral 
training of our youth. 


Tur Ohio State Board of Health is this 
season continuing the investigation of the 
pollution of the important streams of the 
State. The Geological Survey is cooperating 
with the State Board of Health by measuring 
the flow of the rivers under investigation. The 
work is one of particular importance on ac- 
count of the large number of towns which use 
water for municipal supply from streams 
already polluted by the sewage and manufac- 
turing refuse of cities located at higher points 
upon them. Problems of this nature are being 
presented to all of the central western states, 
but the Ohio State Board of Health has taken 
the lead in the investigation of its polluted 
streams, and is taking preliminary steps to do 
away with this menace to the public health. 
Among the more important rivers under in- 
vestigation are the Sandusky, Maumee, 
Scioto and Olentangy. In addition to these 
a number of smaller streams whose waters are 
now used, or may soon be used, for municipal 
purposes will also receive investigation. 


Ty his report on the production of coal in 


-1901, now in press, in Mineral Resources of 


the United States, 1901, U. S. Geological Sur- 
vey, Mr. EK. W. Parker presents the statistics 
of fatal and non-fatal accidents which oc- 
curred in the process of mining coal in eigh- 
teen states and territories during 1901. In 
these eighteen states and territories the total 
number of lives lost in 1901 was 1,467, and 
the total number of men injured was 3,643. 
The number of tons of coal mined for each 
life lost varied from 426,094 in Maryland to 
49,424 in Indian Territory. The average num- 
ber of tons mined for each of the 1,467 lives 
lost in these eighteen states and territories 
was 188,668. It is interesting to note that in 
Pennsylvania the number of tons of bitu- 
minous coal mined per life lost was a little 
more than double the amount mined per life 
lost in the anthracite mines in the same state. 
Maryland enjoys the distinction of the largest 


520 


tonnage per life lost, while the Indian Terri- 
tory has the largest percentage of deaths for 
the tonnage mined. The total number of men 
employed in the coal mines of the United 
States in 1901 was 485,544, who made an 
average of 216 working days, as compared 
with 448,581 men, with an average of 212 
working days, in 1900. The distribution of 
this labor in 1901 was as follows: In the an- 
thracite mines, 145,309 men, with an average 
working time of 196 days; in the bituminous 
mines, 340,235 men, with an average working 
time of 235 days. 


Forestry and Irrigation gives details in re- 
gard to the seven new forest reserves which 
have been established recently by presidential 
proclamation. These include three new re- 
serves in Arizona: The Mount Graham For- 
est Reserve, 118,600 acres in extent, located in 
Graham county; the Santa Catalina Forest 
Reserve of 155,520 acres, in Pima county, and 
the Chiricahua Forest Reserve, in Cochise 
county, of 169,600 acres in extent. In Mon- 
tana two new reserves, the Madison Forest 
Reserve of 736,000 acres and the Little Belt 
Mountains Forest Reserve of 501,000 acres, 
have been established. The first-named re- 
serve is in Madison and Gallatin counties, 
‘bordering on the western side of the Yellow- 
stone National Park. The Little 
serve is located in Meagher and Fergus coun- 
ties. A large new reserve has also been set 
apart in New Mexico, to be known as the 
Lincoln Forest Reserve. It is 500,000 acres 
in extent and is located in Lincoln county. 
An unusually large reserve has just been set 
aside in Alaska, to be known as the Alexan- 
dria Archipelago Forest. Reserve; it contains 
4,506,240 acres. 
new reserves, a number of changes have been 


In addition to the foregoing 


made in the reserves established. 
Lands have been added on the eastern side 
of the Yellowstone Forest Reserve, increasing 
its area by 24,960 acres. The Medicine Bow 


Forest Reserve, in Wyoming, has had recent 


already 


additions made to the amount of 20,533 acres. 

The White River Reserve, in Colorado, has 

been decreased in area by 68,160 acres along 
the headwaters of the White and Yampa Riy- 


SCIENCE. 


Belt Re-_ 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 404. 


-ers. The Crater Lake National Park of 164,- 


560 acres, which was established by Congress 
at its last session, reduces the size of the Cas- 
cade Forest Reserve, in Oregon, by 152,680 
aeres. The total area of all the forest re- 
serves is now 58,850,925 acres. It is interest- 
ing to note that the total area of the United 
States, exclusive of island possessions, is 
2,362,960,000 acres. Thus it will be seen that 
the forest reserves now amount to about one 
fortieth of the entire area of the United 
States. In square miles the area of the re- 
serves is 91,954, or almost twice the size of 
Pennsylvania. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

A Reuter telegram, states that, as the 
result of the investigations of a party of Brit- 
ish educationalists who have been making in- 
quiries in Canada, it has been decided to es- 
tablish a training farm in connection with 
Berkhampstead School. A site has been 
selected between Calgarry and Edmonton, in 
western Canada. Upon its success depends 
the opening of several other farms where Brit- 
ish youths will receive training. 


Proressor R. S. Suaw, son of Professor 
Thomas Shaw, of the Minnesota College of 
Agriculture, has been elected professor of 
agriculture of the Michigan Agricultural Col- 
lege. Professor Shaw has been professor of 
agriculture in Montana. 


Mr. Raymonp BurNHAM, graduated from 
Cornell University in 797, has been appointed 
professor of experimental engineering at the 
Armour Institute, Chicago. He is the son of 
the well-known astronomer, Professor S. W. 
Burnham. 


Dr. F. H. Sarrorp, formerly instructor in 
Harvard University and assistant professor in 
the University of Cincinnati, has been ap- 
pointed instructor in mathematics in the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. 


Dr. Witty Wren, of Wiirzburg, has been 
called to the chair of physics at Leipzig, to 
succeed Professor Ludwig Boltzmann. 


Dr. O. ScuMipr, professor of chemistry at 
Stuttgart, has retired. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EpIToRIAL ComMiTTEE : S. NEwcomsB, Mathematics; R. S. WoopwaRkbD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THurRstTon, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALcort, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooxs, C. Hart Merriam, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessey, N. L. Brirron, Botany; C. S. Minor, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 
piItcH, Physiology; J. S. BinLinas, Hygiene ; WiLL1am H. WELcH, Pathol- 
ogy ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology ; J. W. POWELL, Anthropology. 


? Fripay, OcToser 3, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
The Carnegie Institution: PRroressor Hueco 
MUNSTERBERG, PROFESSOR SIMON HENRY 
GAGE, Proressor J. C. BRANNER, PRESI- 
DENT DAvip STARR JORDAN............... 521 
The Impending Orisis in the History of the 
Marine Biological Laboratory: PROFESSOR 
CEO R AWE NEAING jer peierartonee eieharetene teste 529 
The Address of the President of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Sci- 
ence, I.: PRroressor JAMES DEWAR....... 533, 
Scientific Books :— 


Thorpe’s Essays in Historical Chemistry: 


PRESIDENT T. M. DRownN........:.....-- 551 
Scientific Journals and Articles............ 552 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 

Investigation versus BHrudition: O. F. 

QW Gdosboosoouspbour Gs logo ouCAdOCO 582 
Shorter Articles :— 

Prepotency in Polydactylous Cats: Dr. 

PARR Ye 93H Ae ORRE Wet ettras eh iter rele 554 
Magnetic Work of the United States Coast 

and Geodetic Survey: Dr. L. A. BAUER.. 555 
The Hugh Miller Centenary................ 556 
The British Association. ..-.....-..........- 556 
Scientific Notes and News.................. 557 
University and Educational News.......... 560 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 

Tue situation that confronts the Car- 
negie Institution seems to me this: We do 
not desire a break with the historical devel- 
opment; the energies which have brought 
about the rise of American scholarship to 
the present level must work toward its fur- 
ther advance. We are bound to the special 
conditions and limits of those energies if 
we do not wish to lose their benefits. Their 
characteristics, it seems to me, are deter- 
mined by two factors, utterly unknown, for 
instance, in Germany. First, the supporting 
activity in the periphery of the national 
circle as over against the German govern- 
mental support. Im Germany the aid came 
in centrifugal paths, in America in cen- 
tripetal ones. Secondly, the order of the 
five hundred higher educational institu- 
tions in a sliding seale as over against the 
sharp demarcation lines of German schools 
and universities. These two factors belong 
of course together; both were necessary 
under the conditions of American history, 
and their influence must not be impaired, 
but rather turned to use in planning new 
progress. 

For our conerete question the first factor, 
the activity in the periphery, seems to me 
to work in a negative way, as a limitation 
on all those plans which suggest themselves 
at the first glance. Everywhere we see de- 
partments, laboratories, whole institutions, 


————EE 


RE OTS SSE 


522 


in need, scholars complaining that their 
means for work and research and publica- 
tion are inadequate, students sighing for 
fellowships: happy the day when some hun- 
dred thousand dollars more every year 
appear on the horizon. And yet that hap- 
piness is a delusion; the loss would be 
greater than the gain: the help from the 
inside would stop not the willingness to 
help, but the willingness to make a strong 
effort to help on the outside, and just this 
strong effort in the local groups not only 
sums up in the long run to a much greater 
result than any single central aid, but it is 
also more wholesome, more educative, more 
adjustable, more American. 

I do not speak as a spectator; I feel the 
want deeply myself. As chairman of the 
Harvard Philosophical Department I know 
our desire for the two hundred thousand 
dollars for Emerson Hall, the corner stone 
of which we wish to lay next May on the 
hundredth anniversary of Emerson’s birth; 
we have only sixty thousand at present; 
how grateful should I be for a Carnegie 
check of a hundred thousand! As director 
of the Harvard Psychological Laboratory I 
should like to have an appropriation of ten 
thousand every year and should feel sure 
that, spent for apparatus and equipment 
for psychological research which I am anx- 
ious to make, not a cent of it would go for 
superfluous luxuries. As editor of the 
Harvard Psychological Studies I should 
need just one thousand dollars a year to 
print the material we gather, of which so 
much has been lost from lack of funds for 
publication. I need, thus, the large and the 
small sums like any one else, and if it be 
decided that the institution shall take up 
such patchwork I shall of course look out 
for my share of the spoil: but if I had to 
make the decision, I should ignore my small 
and my large needs and should prefer to 
20 on with my suffering in the higher in- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 405. 


terest of the scholarly life of the whole 
country. The institution might build our 
Emerson Hall, but that would not only take 
away the pride of all lovers of Emerson in 
having done their duty, but it would frus- 
trate the hopes of all my colleagues in Har- 
vard who need new buildings or libraries 
or laboratories or collections for their de- 
partments and who would hear in future 
everywhere the stereotyped answer: why do 
you not ask the Carnegie Institution? We 
want to stimulate the trustees, the alumni, 
the local friends, to build up their institu- 
tions by their generosity, by their enthu- 
siasm, by their sacrifice; just such friendly 
rivalry has built up the intellectual life of 
the land. Every cent from Washington 
which disburdens the local officials is an 
opiate for this feeling of responsibility. It 
would be the gain of the moment and the 
ruin for the strongest factor of progress in 
the long run. The alumni would simply 
turn to other fields. We know how the aids 
for the church have slowly decreased and 
those for scholarship increased ; just such a 
diversion from scholarship would take 
place, to other good things perhaps, but 
when we discuss the progress of scholarship 
we must ignore the fact that other, good 
things stand waiting. And the trustees 
would imitate the alumni; to-day they 
seratch their funds together to find some 
hundreds for a new instrument or for print- 
ing expenses; to-morrow when the research- 
ers are considered as provided for from 
Washington, all ready cash of the college 
treasurer will flow back again to the under- 
eraduate needs and the higher work will 
soon be worse off than before. 

The only centrifugal help which could be 
given without harm for the whole system is 
to be sought in such an arrangement as 
would aid not special individuals or. insti- 
tutions but the totality of scientific workers. 
A large printing establishment which un- 


OCTOBER 3, 1902. | 


dertakes work on a commercial basis but 
without profit and with a yearly subven- 
tion of one or two hundred thousand dol- 
lars would bring down the costs of publica- 
tion to the moderate expenses usual in 
Germany. If no text-books, but merely 
monographs, were printed there,an immense 
gain for the productive scholarship of the 
whole country might be expected. Large 
prizes for the solution of certain problems 
might be another, probably less helpful, 
scheme which would stimulate all alike 
without undertaking to support special in- 
stitutions. 

But, as I said, the life in the periphery 
works essentially as inhibition for central 
activity; it is the second characteristic 
feature, the system of smallest differences, 
the sliding seale of the institutions, which 
offers positive chances. In Germany where 
definite types are separated by sharp lnes 
no new development is probable; in Ameri- 
ca, where the strength has always lain in the 
possibility of steady progress to higher and 
higher, forms, the same energies must lead 
beyond the present state. Just as the prin- 
ciple of the sliding seale allowed the gradu- 
ate school of to-day to grow out of the col- 
lege of yesterday, we may expect that a 
higher form, an overgraduate school of to- 
morrow, will grow from the forms of to-day. 
And here is the place where the Carnegie 
Institution might hasten progress. Not a 
national university which should be in com- 
petition with the existing universities, but 
a higher type standing above all universi- 
ties, and which, just like the graduate 
schools twenty years ago, might begin very 
modestly but might grow in some decades 
to a great national institution. 

The students, or better, fellows, of this 
school would be young men beyond the 
doctor examination, young college instruct- 
ors, men who wish to live some time in the 
atmosphere of pure research. The teachers 
would be the masters of the craft, the lead- 


SCIENCE. 


523 


ing scholars of the country, men of undis- 
puted energy and of original thought. The 
beginning might be small indeed: all our 
universities would be greater if half of the 
professors were left out. 
versity a few great men without any doubt- 
ful second class would do, say, fifteen men 
with a salary of ten thousand dollars each. 
They would have to come all either for life 
or for one year; if the one-year system were 
chosen, they would remain in their own 
universities and go to Washington on leave 
of absence. Of course the establishment of 
such a highest honor in the profession 
would make necessary some measure of 
self-government, and herein the institution 
might become a model for the universities 
in which the autocratism of the trustees is 
clearly a relic of the college period but 
quite unsuited to a university. The Ger- 
man system is much more democratic; 
scholars choose the scholars, and this au- 
tonomie feature belongs to the research- 
making character of the German institu- 
tion. The faculty chooses three, of whom 
the government elects one. In a similar way 
for instance the physics professors of the 
thirty largest institutions might propose a 
candidate for the physics chair, and the 
trustees of the institution be bound to ap- 
point one of the three who received the 
three largest votes. There might be fifty 
fellowships of one thousand dollars to be 
distributed by the universities. 

All this would demand two hundred 
thousand dollars,and the same sum for labo- 
ratory equipments after spending the whole 
income ofthe first year for a building. 
But while of course first-class research labo- 
ratories in physics, chemistry, biology, psy- 
chology, are essential, I venture even here 
in the columns of Scrmence the heresy that 
the scientific experimental work of such 
highest institution would not be so impor- 
tant as the synthetic thought which is the 
one need in our age of scattered specialized 


In our overuni- 


524 


activities. The great problems of principle 
in all departments of knowledge, not only 
in natural science, need their temple. The 
method of the most intimate seminary 
where in the discussion with mature schol- 
ars the thoughts of the leaders develop 
themselves, would be still more important 
there than the laboratory method. 

The honor of such a supreme court as the 
highest goal of a scholar would add essen- 
tially to the dignity and attractiveness of 
the academic eareer. As I said in my 
‘American Traits,’ there are three ways to 
gain first-class men for productive scholar- 
ship, first, advancement in the academic 
career must be made entirely dependent 
upon printed achievement; secondly, the 
beginner must have a chance to remain in 
the atmosphere of real universities instead 
of being obliged to go as teacher to inferior 
colleges, and thirdly, the career must be 
made more attractive by great social pre- 
miums. My words have been sometimes mis- 
construed to mean only that a scholar would 
be a better scholar if he had more of the 
luxuries of life. Even that I believe to be 
true within certain limits; a larger income 
would keep more men free from the evil 
temptations of cheap, paying outside work 
and other functions ruinous to real scholar- 
ly production. But a second-class scholar 
would not produce first-class work with a 
steel trust salary. The chief point is not 
that the men who are inside the fence shall 
have a better time, but that better men shall 
go inside because they see what good times, 
what honors and premiums and laurels 
await them. And as in every profession 
the young men are always attracted by the 
few great premiums at the top, such an 
overuniversity might do much to gain the 
first-class men who to-day prefer too often 
law and business. 

That is the point; we have not enough 
fine men at work and it is not true that the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 405. 


trouble lies in our not discovering them. 
More than in any other country it is easy 
in America to discover the first-class man 
in scholarship if he is really on the ground 
and has not preferred to go over into bank- 
ing or law or industry. The American uni- 
versity gives to every man the fullest 
chance, much more than in Germany, to 
show his powers, and yet the men are not 
found. I know one department in which 
last year three of our leading universities 
wanted to fill full professorships with first- 
class young men; two of the places are still 
unfilled because in spite of the most care- 
ful search the men could not be found; and 
from the most different departments in the 
country I get every year inquiries concern- 
ing German scholars, on account of the lack 
of really productive men in those special 
fields here. There is no need of new 
schemes to discover the extraordinary man; 
there is need only of schemes to keep him, 
in the midst of American surroundings, in 
the field of scholarship, and a new crown at 
the top of all our universities would be the 
strongest power. Scholarship would get a 
new standing in the land and it would be 
the logical development of the characteris- 
tie American factors. American scholar- 
ship has suffered enough from the necessary 
defects of its system; let us not ruin the 
strength of the system by patchwork inter- 
positions which paralyze the peripheral en- 
ergies and let us not have unused the tre- 
mendous powers of our system, which, 
through its principle of the sliding scale, 
allows at every point reached a noble devel- 
opment to a higher creation. 


Huco MUNstTerBeraG. 
HarvarpD UNIVERSITY. 


AFTER the first feeling of happiness over 
the foundation of the Carnegie Institution, 
probably every one really interested was 
foreed, consciously or uneonsciously, to 
ask himself in what way this splendid en- 


OcTOBER 8, 1902. ] 


dowment could best accomplish its pur- 
pose. 

In order to answer the query it seems 
necessary to take account of the present 
condition of education and research in our 
country. If it is taken for granted that 
the average intelligence and education of 
our people are fairly satisfactory, and the 
opportunities for advanced education 
abundant, there must be some good reason 
for the paucity of the researches of the 
highest order. That the country is inimic- 
al to the development of high intelligence 
is negatived in the fields of statesmanship, 
invention and industry. The reason for 
the fewness of researches of high order I 
think is to be found in our governmental 
and educational institutions . themselves. 
If one looks at the ideal of education in 
America, it will be found to be that the 
greatest number shall receive its benefits; 
and its success, from the smallest country 
school-house to the foremost university, is 
measured by the numbers which flock to 
receive its elementary and advanced in- 
struction. Naturally and inevitably the 
teacher is overwhelmed by the administra- 
tive and teaching duties going with the 
large numbers of students and the small 
instructing staff. The few hours he can 
command on Sundays and in vacations 
must be used for renewing his strength to 
meet the every-day routine, or if he is 
blessed with abounding health and energy 
he feels that it is only the small investiga- 
tions that can be undertaken with a hope of 
bringing them to a conclusion. The great- 
er problems which are ever with him must 
wait till a hoped-for day when sufficient 
time, means and facilities are at his com- 
mand; and these in most cases never come. 
In institutions not primarily educational 
the conditions are almost as discouraging. 
Holders of such positions must also attend 
to administrative work, and must produce 


SCIENCE. 


525 


reports to show a reason for being, and 
immediate results are demanded. 

Here then, as pointed out by the found- 
er, is the field for the Carnegie Institu- 
tion. By supplementing existing insti- 
tutions and making it possible to free from 
excessive routine a few who know what 
ought to be done, and who know how to un- 
dertake and carry on researches of the high 
character contemplated, and who can be- 
gin and continue with enthusiasm research- 
es that will require five years to a lifetime 
even, before results can hope to be ob- 
tained. And some also should receive en- 
couragement who will undertake investiga- 
tions where apparently only negative re- 
sults will be gained; for often these results 
are negative only in appearance, and fur- 
nish the data by which the most positive 
results may not be missed. 

I am aware that the feeling is quite 
strong that a considerable share of the in- 
eome could be most advantageously used in 
establishing additional fellowships at ex- 
isting institutions. This would not be 
wise, for the work done by the holders of 
such fellowships is, with rare exceptions, 
more in the nature of education than of 
research. The young people who fill these 
fellowships are just learning how to do 
advanced work, and are by no means pre- 
pared to undertake researches of a high 
character independently. The process of 
selection has not gone far enough to sepa- 
rate the able student from the one with a 
genius for research. 

While additional fellowships are not ad- 
voeated, the desirability of finding the ex- 
ceptional young persons who shall ulti- 
mately become capable of assuming ‘leader- 
ship in discovery’ has not been lost sight 
of. It is believed that the plan proposed 
of dealing generously with those who have 
already proved themselves, would most 
safely and certainly accomplish the de- 
sired end. Naturally the older investiga- 


526 


tor with a specifie problem to solve would 
select more rigidly than any committee of 
a faculty, where it is understood that the 
selection really means the giving of an op- 
portunity to gain a little more education, 
get a taste of research perhaps, and prolong 
for a year or two the pleasure of collegiate 
life. If selected by the investigator for a 
definite piece of work in the furtherance 
of the large research, the young man would 
have opportunity to continue long enough 
at the work to find out whether or not he 
could become one of the leaders; and under 
the wise conservatism of the older man he 
would gain a safe but powerful moment- 
um which could never be lost. 

If, then, it is granted, following the con- 
ception of the founder, that the first aim 
of this institution is to foster research, the 
practical question for the administrators of 
the trust is to determine in what way this 
can be most satisfactorily accomplished. 

From my own experience and observa- 
tion, I think that one of the most impor- 
tant aids it can render is to make it possi- 
ble for the scientific journals and proceed- 
ings of societies in our country, to publish 
in proper form and with adequate illustra- 
tions the scientific results which are actu- 
ally being produced each year. If one 
compares the beautiful illustrations in for- 
sign periodicals with most of those in our 
own, the contrast is certainly painful. 
How frequently does one see in a scientific 
journal, or hear through the editor, that 
illustrations costing over a given—usually 
very small—sum must be paid for by the 
author. That is, the author must in the 
beginning meet most of the cost of his re- 
search, and then pay for its adequate pub- 
lication. 

In the second place, as the fund is to 
supplement existing institutions, the per- 
sons selected to carry on researches would 
naturally work at those institutions where 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 405. 


the main part of the plant needed for the 
investigation is already available. When 
the person is once selected for a given re- 
search, he should be granted absolute lib- 
erty of procedure, be given abundant time 
and generous financial aid. 

The specific problem in biology, giving 
promise of the largest results, it seems to 
me, is the working out to completion of the 
entire life eyele of a few forms, rather 
than the investigation of a detail of struc- 
ture or of physiology in a great many 
forms. 

It is believed that the thorough investi- 
gation of the structure and physiology of 
a few forms from the ovum to birth, from 
birth to maturity, and from maturity to old 
age and death, would most rapidly advance 
biologic knowledge, and furnish the basis 
for truly safe and great generalizations. 
As such research should form part of a 
solid and enduring structure, it would be 
of great advantage if the investigator 
would preserve a complete series—embry- 
ologic, histologic and anatomic—of the 
form whose life cycle was the subject of 
the research. This series should be depos- 
ited in some institution—naturally the one 
where the work was done—and be open for 
inspection by competent observers. Such 
a series would serve not only as a voucher 
for the validity of the published results, 
but also to correct errors of interpretation 
made evident by increased knowledge; and 
finally it would serve as a basis for further 
researches. 

To briefly summarize: It seems to the 
writer that (1) The Carnegie Institution 
is not needed for educational purposes. 

(2) Its true place is expressed in the 
first aim given by the founder—‘to pro- 
mote original research.’ 

(3) It can most effectively promote re- 
search by utilizing as far as possible the 
facilities of existing institutions. 


OcTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


(4) Its support of the men selected to 
undertake researches should be generous, 
and abundant time should be allowed. 

(5) The researches most demanded in 
biology at the present time are complete 
investigations of the embryology, structure 
and function of a few forms from the 
ovum to old age and death. 

Smon Henry Gace. 


LABORATORY OF HisToLoGy AND EMBRYOLOGY, 
CoRNELL UNIVERSITY. 


THe fundamental principles which 
ought to control the Carnegie Institution 
ean hardly be better stated than Dr. Cat- 
tell puts the matter in the last paragraph 
but one of his article. It should cooperate 
with, not interfere with, men and institu- 
tions already engaged in scientific work. 
And I take it that such is the intention 
both of Mr. Carnegie and of the trustees. 
The practical question of how this can be 
done is doubtless the chief problem that 
confronts the trustees at the outset. 

It is my opinion that a modus operandi 
will be found in judicious attempts to meet 
specific cases. Good as Dr. Cattell’s pre- 
sentation of the whole matter is, nothing 
he says would appeal to me so forcibly, if 
I were a trustee, as what he says about 
work that could be advantageously under- 
taken in psychology and in the support of 
scientific publications. For the same rea- 
son I should expect from the active work- 
ers in every branch of science in the coun- 
try suggestions regarding their own work 
and how it could be most effectively ad- 
vaneed. It goes without saying that many 
requests for help must be denied by the 
trustees. The perpetual-motion man is 
bound to turn up, and he will have to be 
turned down. But between the perpetual- 
motion enthusiast and the scientific man 
of established reputation there are many 
little known but competent workers whose 
requests for help should receive careful 


SCIENCE. 


527 


consideration by committees of special- 
ists. 

Cooperation will mean different things, 
according to cireumstanees. Dr. Cattell’s 
scheme of having the Institution appro- 
priate five or ten thousand dollars for this 
and that bit of work, on condition that an 
equal sum be raised, reminds one of the es- 
tate that might have been bought with a 
pair of boots—if only the boots had been 
forthcoming. I want very much to un- 
dertake a certain piece of geologic work 
that would require about $10,000, but if 
the Carnegie Institution offered to give 
$5,000 for the work on condition that I 
raised the other, $5,000, I should get no 
help. And there are very few men en- 
gaged in university work who could meet 
such conditions; as a rule university pro- 
fessors are but little in touch with the busi- 
ness world that furnishes the money for 
investigations of this kind. 

Dr. Cattell’s suggestion regarding the 
teacher’s sabbatical year seems worthy of 
attention. The sabbatical year is a great 
blessing to education and to science, but 
in many cases with which I am acquainted 
professors are unable to avail themselves 
of their leave of absence, because half of 
their salaries will not support their fami- 
lies and allow them to utilize their vaca- 
tions in scientific work either at home or 
abroad. If the Institution could utilize 
these sabbatical years and pay the men 
enough to make up the deficiency in their 
salaries, it would effectively utilize this class 
of men and would at the same time carry 
out Dr. Cattell’s second principle by im- 
proving the condition ‘of men of sci- 
ence. 

My suggestions would, therefore, be as 
follows: 

I. The Institution should try to help: 
wherever help is needed and can be advan- 
tageously used. 


528 


II. It should refrain from unnecessary 
or unweleome interference in work already 
being done by individuals and by other in- 
stitutions. 

III. Care should be taken to encourage 
selentifie work all over the country. 

IV. Applieations for aid should be re- 
ceived from men engaged in_ scientific 
work, and these applications should be re- 
ferred to committees of specialists for 
advice. 

V. The national government should co- 
operate with the Institution by providing 
the necessary buildings at Washington and 
by permitting, so far as convenient and 
under proper restrictions, the utilization 
of the scientific bureaus of the various 
departments. 

VI. Some means should be sought to 
utilize the sabbatical years of university 
professors engaged in scientifie work. 

I have no doubt, however, but that the 
Institution contemplates doing all these 
things and many more. 

J. C. BRANNER. 


STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIF., 
September 15, 1902. 


J HAVE read with great interest the proof- 
sheets of the article on the Carnegie 
Institution. I approve of most of the 
suggestions. The directors of the Institu- 

‘tion must feel their way for a time, and 
relative values will be made clearer by 
experience. 

The vital principles should be, as stated 
in the article: 

(a) To work in harmony with existing 
institutions, not conflicting with them, and 
not relieving them from any present neces- 
sity of effort. 

(b) To make the work of scientific in- 
vestigators freer and more effective. 

_. I should place first in present importance 
among the many possible lines. of work 
that of helping men who have important 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 405- 


investigations or important compilations 
(as bibliographies) well begun to carry 
their efforts to a successful end. There are 
many cases of this kind, in which the 
worker needs not salary, but help, books, 
materials, and more often clerk-hire, artist- 
hire or means of final publication in proper 
form. Here the exceptional man is already 
at hand. He will do his work whether en- 
couraged or not. He will bring it to a sue- 
cessful end, if he can have time, help and 
opportunity. 

The establishment of laboratories at 
Washington for special investigations not 
yet well provided for seems to me most 
legitimate. One example of such an insti- 
tution would be a _ breeding house or 
vivarium for the study of heredity and 
variation on a large scale and with a com- 
petent foree for observation and record. 
Such an establishment should be in charge 
of the man who, whatever. his nativity, 
could make the most out of it. In every 
branch of knowledge there is some real 
demand for help of this kind. 

I trust that no part of the fund will be 
used to pay the expenses of students as 
such, as distinguished from tried investi- 
gators. The university fellowship, a fund 
for paying the board bills of those who 
may turn out to be scholars, is not gaining 
in esteem. Doubtless a Carnegie fellowship 
to one doctor in nhilosophy out of every 
ten would help scientific research somewhat, 
and it could be used—as few fellowships 
are now used—without danger of pauperi- 
zing embryo investigators. But so long as 
so many better uses for money exist, this 
one need not be considered. 

I do not underrate the value of oppor- 
tunity to the eager but impecunious stu- 
dent. The free use of a room in the old 
Smithsonian Tower was once the most 
valued ‘fellowship’ open to young natural- 
ists in America. The present. writer, among 
others, feels the sincerest gratitude for the 


OCTOBER 3, 1902.] 


hospitable ‘fellowship’ thus extended to 
him at Washington by Professor Henry and 
Professor Baird. But its value lay in the 
acquaintance with scientific men and in the 
free access to specimens. The reduction of 
Washington board bills was a mere inci- 
dent. One duty of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion should be to make the scientific re- 
sources of the Capital available to those 
who can use them. 

In this connection the word scientific 
should have the broadest definition. It 
should include historical, economie, literary 
and linguistic research, all that has a 
foundation in exact methods. 

Davip STARR JORDAN. 


THE IMPENDING CRISIS IN THE HISTORY 
OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL 
LABORATORY. 

THE action of the corporation of the 
Marine Biological Laboratory, at its recent 
meeting, August 12, leaves the fate of the 
laboratory to be decided by the trustees 
of the Carnegie Institution. It was not a 
welcome step to surrender the laboratory, 
but the financial situation seemed to offer 
no other solution. Some felt very strongly 
that further deliberation was much needed, 
but there was danger that delay would 
prejudice our case with the Carnegie trust- 
ees. Compulsory as were the circum- 
stances, it is certain that the corporation 
and the trustees would have said no to the 
proposition to surrender, had they felt that 
our work and plans for the development of 
a biological center of a national character 
would thereby be hampered or, curtailed. 
As the matter now stands, it only remains 
for the trustees of the Carnegie Institution 
to decide whether they will consummate the 
steps already taken towards acquiring the 
laboratory and making it a ‘department’ 

of the institution. 

In spite of the assurances to the contrary 
which we have received through one or 


SCIENCE. 


529 


two of our trustees, I think we may al- 
ready see that the organization of the Car- 
negie Institution will necessarily limit our 
freedom of action and perhaps deprive us 
of the most essential thing in our independ- 
ence, namely, the power to decide wpon 
the nature and scope of our work. Had 
such a danger been seen even as a possi- 
bility, it is doubtful if the corporation 
could have been persuaded to transfer the 
ownership of the laboratory; and had it 
been seen as a probability, it is certain, I 
believe, that the vote to transfer would 
never have passed. 

The vote was essentially a vote of con- 
fidence in our hoped-for supporters. Only 
our part of the situation was entirely defi- 
nite. What the Carnegie Institution 
would develop as an organization was too 
largely a matter of conjecture to permit 
of clear vision. Some points had come out 
in personal conferences with members of 
the Carnegie executive committee, but 
these had not been definitely enough for- 
mulated to bring before the corporation. 
The visible portion of the situation was a 
debt of about $10,000, doubled by the pur- 
chase of land just completed, and an offer 
of money-relief, contingent on a complete 
surrender of property rights. It was 
known, of course, that the transfer of prop- 
erty would make the laboratory a ‘depart- 
ment’ or ‘branch’ of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion, centered at Washington. It was not 
realized that becoming a ‘department’ 
might in some fundamental respects en- 
danger our control of the future develop- 
ment of the laboratory. In fact, we were 
told by some of those who had formulated 
the scheme of amalgamation that we should 
lose nothing essential to our independence, 
while we should gain a permanent support 
that was ‘almost beyond the dream of ava- 
rice’! We were told that if we delayed 
decision, it would look like lack of con- 


fidence, and that we might thus lose 


530 


not only the support but also ’ the 
good-will of the Carnegie trustees. Un- 
ripe as the situation was, and unpre- 
pared as the corporation was for the final 
action, circumstances were so compelling 
that we said no to our doubts and prefer- 
ences and yes to the Carnegie offer. 

Although we have neither asked nor re- 
ceived any guarantees that our freedom 
of development shall remain unimpaired, 
it is nevertheless certain that our ‘yes’ 
implied trust in the fulfillment of this 
condition. Few of us, perhaps, had 
reflected upon the situation sufficiently 
to realize that barriers might inter- 
vene between trust and fulfilment which 
could not have been anticipated on 
either side at first. An organization once 
inaugurated on a permanent endowment 
is a thing of power. It holds even its 
authors to a logical development. It be- 
comes law to them and to all who have ac- 
cepted its authority. The organization of 
the Carnegie Institution is still in ovo in 
many respects, but as it gradually unfolds 
it will create classifications and standards 
to which departments and future develop- 
ments will have to conform. It is conceiv- 
able, even certain I think, that the nature 
and scope of our plans for development 
have not been fully grasped by the Carne- 
gie trustees. Can we expect them to shape 
their organization in such a way as to leave 
us masters of our own development? If 
they do not do this, what becomes of the 
‘trust’ and the ‘fulfilment’? 

We may have the fullest trust in the men 
behind an organization, and the deepest 
distrust of the influence which the organi- 
zation will have on the development of our 
plans. The organization which they create 
will define their policy and attitude 
towards all departments. It will control 
them and us, and decide for us all what 
departments shall receive support, and 
where they shall be located. It requires 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


no prophetic vision to predict that the part 
will not- assimilate the whole. 

Hitherto we have been independent. 
That means that we have been a whole, with 
the center of interest and the center of 
authority at Wood’s Holl. No one could 
dispute with us our right to say what de- 
partments of biology should be represented 
here. We could follow our own ideals to 
the extent of ability and means. Al! di- 
rections of development were open to us. 
All avenues of support were ours to culti- 
vate and make tributary to an unfettered 
enterprise. It was on this independence 
as a foundation that our interests in the 
present and faith in the future rested. It 
was the same foundation that sustained the 
cooperative spirit and the national charac- 
ter of the laboratory. It was our ground 
of appeal in all emergencies, and the basis 
of every claim to a wide financial support, 
the first. realizations of which were already 
at our doors. 

The proposition to merge the laboratory 
in another institution after a fifteen years’ 
struggle for independent existence, at a 
moment when a strong financial support 
was on the point of realization, could 
hardly be expected to satisfy those who had 
led the struggle, or those who had given 
the cause unrequited aid and never-failing 
sympathy. I venture to say that the per- 
sonal sacrifices already made in the devel- 
opment of the laboratory, the work it has 
done in research and instruction, the ex- 
ample it has given of the efficacy of cooper- 
ation in science, the ideals it has upheld, 
the national character of its organization, 
the promising increase of its financial sup- 
port, all entitle it to hold its independence 
above any price. 

Our attitude towards the proposition 
has been determined mainly by the desire 
to secure an immediate and permanent sup- 
port. While we all agree in the desire, we 
certainly do not all agree that we can sur- 


OcTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


render, the independence of the laboratory 
with either honor or safety. 

It is an undeniable fact that we should 
all much prefer to have the needed support 
come to the laboratory rather than see the 
laboratory go to the support. Why should 
the support, if it be deserved, not be given 
to the laboratory, rather than the laboratory 
to it? Would not the first alternative ac- 
cord with the declared policy of the Car- 
negie Institution better than the second? 
and would it not also better accord with 
the judgment and expectations of men of 
science ? 

It is due to the trustees of the Carnegie 
Institution to say that the proposition to 
acquire the laboratory as a condition to 
supporting it did not originate with them. 
This is the humiliating side of the situation 
in which we now find ourselves. ‘They 
were told that the laboratory was in dire 
financial distress, that some local western 
institution was machinating to get posses- 
sion; in short, that there was an emergency 
requiring immediate action to save the in- 
stitution. They were asked on what terms 
they would consent to own and support it. 

When at the conference with the Carne- 
gie Committee the question was asked if 
they would be willing to support the labo- 
ratory without owning it, the reply was that 
they should have preferred to give support 
without taking the whole responsibility of 
ownership. It was the ‘emergency’ that 
induced them to make the offer of support 
contingent on our surrender of the owner- 
ship to them. It was made clear to us, 
however, that support without ownership 
might be considerably less than support 
with ownership, and that it would have to 
take the form of a grant to run for a limited 
time, which might or might not be renewed. 

The practical question for us then is: Is 
our independence plus the possible support 
by grant from the Carnegie Institution plus 
the possible outside support, of greater mo- 


SCIENCE. 


531 


ment to us than a permanent support minus 
independence and minus outside support? 
The four elements when taken in the com- 
binations given should be ranked, I believe, 
in the following order: (1) Independence, 
(2) outside support, (3) grants, (4) contin- 
gent permanent support. Holding independ- 
ence first, contingent permanent support, 
which excludes it, must be placed at the foot 
of the list, as the last resort. The other, two 
elements stand for unknown sums that may 
be realized on the basis of independence. 
Outside support, including (1) a definite 
annual gift pledged for a series of years, 
(2) cooperative subscriptions from univer- 
sities, colleges and societies, and (3) indi- 
vidual donations, may be estimated at 
from $10,000 to $15,000 a year, with pros- 
pect of indefinite increase from year to 
year. 

In deciding a question that involves the 
whole future of the laboratory, it is but the 
part of wisdom to take a long look ahead. 
A source of unlimited support, that has an 
ever-improving prospect for increase, must 
count for more in the long run than the 
largest sum to be expected from the Car- 
negie Institution. Starting with $10,000, 
which was the annual donation pledged for 
five years at the beginning of this year, it 
is next to certain that this sum could have 
been increased to $20,000 within three to 
five years. That sum once reached, would 
not be henceforth a non-growing quantity, 
shutting out possibilities of endowment and 
further donations, but rather one with ever- 
improving chances of enlargement. 

This unlimited prospective growth of our 
present support is as much a certainty as 
that we shall deserve it. With this growth 
the cooperative policy hitherto cultivated 
will remain the best guarantee of the na- 
tional character of the laboratory. We 
cannot afford to relinquish the possibilities 
before us for the sake of an immediate re- 
lief which is far from being equal to a per- 


532 


manent laboratory, and which, if accepted 
with all the conditions implied, will prove 
only a,temporary relief, barring the way 
for greater assistance. 

What is $20,000 a year for, an all-the- 
year station, when we are now spending at 
least $13,000 for a summer’s work? If 
Dr. Dohrn requires not less than $40,000 
to $50,000 to meet the annual expenses of 
the Naples Station, with an average of not 
over twenty-five investigators, the same 
plant here would cost about double that 
sum. At Naples they can charge $500 a 
year for a single investigator’s table. 
Here there are too many free laboratories 
to admit of any price on our tables. More- 
over, we have to provide for three times as 
many investigators as they have at Naples, 
at least for the summer months. 

The glowing anticipations of a permanent 
laboratory rivaling anything in the world, 
with which we have been regaled, rise far 
above the $20,000 a year. For the present, 
at any rate, they are but chateaux en Es- 
pagne, calculated only to console a prema- 
ture optimism, which can forsake the larger 
weal in the distance for the nearer allure- 
ment that fetters and mortgages the whole 
future. 

Much as we need now, we have larger 
needs ahead, for which all avenues of sup- 
port should be kept permanently open. 
The support that is given to support, that 
has the potentials of unlimited growth, that 
asks not to possess, but only to promote, is 
something incomparably more precious 
than any support to which is prefixed the 
sine qua non of absolute possession and 
authority. It 1s more precious, not only 
for all the qualities of disinterested benef- 
icence, but also for the reason that it is 
essentially cooperative in character, and is 
thus in harmony with the policy of the 
laboratory. 

Cooperation has been the law and the 
gospel of our whole scheme of organization. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 405, 


It is the one thing that has given the labor- 
atory unique distinction among marine sta- 
tions. The prime condition of honest and 
effective cooperation is an independent or- 
ganization, representing fairly all interests 
concerned. Independence has therefore 
been no meaningless word with us, and 
hitherto no embarrassments of poverty 
have tempted us to purchase relief through 
annexation to another institution. 

It is difficult to see how independence 
can be exchanged for money and coopera- 
tion still remain unimpaired. Cooperative 
support and independence will certainly 
go, as they have come, together. Can we 
lose cooperative support and yet keep the 
cooperative spirit? We can hardly ex- 
pect to perform the miracle of separating 
body and spirit. 

Cooperative support is a means to an 
end. It presupposes need, and its realiza- 
tion is possible only under inviting condi- 
tions and persistent cultivation. The need 
alone cannot eall it into activity; indepen- 
dence alone cannot bring it forth; and eul- 
tivation has no point without the need, and 
no hope of suecess under conditions that 
abridge either the motives or the purposes 
in view. 

The ‘atmosphere’ or ‘spirit’ that pre- 
vails in the laboratory emanates chiefly 
from the interaction of sympathies enlisted 
in a common eause. Cause, responsibility, 
free initiative, free development, untram- 
meled policy, all go with independence. 
The surrender of the ownership of the 
laboratory reduces it at once to the level of 
an annex, subordinates its individuality, 
strips it of final authority, robs it of power 
to control its own destiny, and subjects its 
present owners permanently to the condi- 
tion of petitioners. 

If the situation has been fairly stated in 
its essentials; if the history of the labora- 
tory points the way to its future welfare; 
if support is deserved at no sacrifice of 


OcToBER 3, 1902.] 


independence; if to aid without taking pos- 
session would accord with the policy of the 
Carnegie Institution as well as with the 
preference of the laboratory people; if 
this would better meet the expectations of 
men of science generally, then the trust 
we have placed in the Carnegie trustees 
will surely find its best justification in the 
suggested modification of their proposition 
to us. 
C. O. WHITMAN. 


ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD- 
VANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.* 


I. 


THE members of an association whose 
studies involve perpetual contemplation of 
settled law and ordered evolution, whose 
objects are to seek patiently for the truth 
of things and to extend the dominion of 
man over the forces of nature, are even 
more deeply pledged than other men to 
loyalty to the Crown and the Constitution 
which procure for them the essential con- 
ditions of calm security and social stabil- 
ity. I am confident that I express the sen- 
timents of all now before me when I say 
that to our loyal respect for his high office 
we add a warmer feeling of loyalty and 
attachment to the person of our Gracious 
Sovereign. It is the peculiar felicity of 
the British Association that, since its foun- 
dation seventy-one years ago, it has always 
been easy and natural to cherish both these 
sentiments, which indeed can never be dis- 
sociated without peril. At this, our second 
meeting held under the present reign, these 
sentiments are realized all the more vivid- 
ly, because, in common with the whole em- 
pire, we have recently passed through a 
period of acute apprehension, followed by 
the uplifting of a national deliverance. 


‘The splendid and imposing coronation cere- 


* Given on September 10, at the Belfast meet- 
ing. 


SCIENCE. 


533 


mony which took place just a month ago 
was rendered doubly impressive both for 
the King and his people by the universal 
consciousness that it was also a service of 
thanksgiving for escape from imminent 
peril. In offering to His Majesty our most 
hearty congratulations upon his singularly 
rapid recovery from a dangerous illness, 
we rejoice to think that the nation has re- 
ceived gratifying evidence of the vigor of 
his constitution, and may, with confidence 
more assured than before, pray that he 
may have length of happy and prosperous 
days. No one in his wide dominions is 
more competent than the King to realize 
how much he owes, not only to the skill of 
his surgeons, but also to the equipment 
which has been placed in their hands as the 
combined result of scientific investigation 
in many and diverse directions. He has 
already displayed a profound and saga- 
cious interest in the discovery of methods 
for dealing with some of the most intracta- 
ble maladies that still baffle scientifie pene- 
tration; nor can we doubt that this interest 
extends to other forms of scientific inves- 
tigation, more directly connected with the 
amelioration of the lot of the healthy than 
with the relief of the sick. Heredity im- 
poses obligations and also confers aptitude 
for their discharge. If His Majesty’s roy- 
al mother throughout her long and benefi- 
cent reign set him a splendid example of 
devotion to the burdensome labors of State - 
which must necessarily absorb the chief 
part of his energies, his father no less 
clearly indicated the great part he may 
play in the encouragement of science. In- 
telligent appreciation of scientific work and 
needs is not less but more necessary in the 
highest quarters to-day than it was forty- 
three years ago, when His Royal Highness 
the Prince Consort brought the matter be- 
fore this Association in the following mem- 
orable passage in his Presidential Address: 


5384 


“We may be justified, however, in hoping 
that by the gradual diffusion of science 
and its increasing recognition as a princi- 
pal part of our national education, the 
public in general, no less than the legisla- 
ture and the State, will more and more 
recognize the claims of science to their 
attention; so that it may no longer require 
the begging box, but speak to the State like 
a favored child to its parent, sure of his 
paternal solicitude for its welfare; that the 
State will recognize in science one of its 
elements of strength and prosperity, to 
protect which the clearest dictates of self- 
interest demand.’’ Had this advice been 
seriously taken to heart and acted upon 
by the rulers of the nation at the time, 
what splendid results would have accrued 
to this country! We should not now be 
painfully groping in the dark after a sys- 
tem of national education. We should not 
be wasting money, and time more valuable 
than money, in building imitations of for- 
eign educational superstructures before 
having put in solid foundations. We 
should not be hurriedly and distractedly 
casting about for a system of tactics after 
confrontation with the disciplined and co- 
ordinated forces of industry and science 
led and directed by the rulers of powerful 
States. Forty-three years ago we should 
have started fair had the Prince Consort’s 
views prevailed. As it is, we have lost 
ground which it will tax even this nation’s 
splendid reserves of individual initiative 
to recover. Although in this country the 
King rules, but does not govern, the Con- 
stitution and the structure of English so- 
ciety assure to him a very potent and far- 
reaching influence upon those who do goy- 
ern. It is hardly possible to overrate the 
benefits that may accrue from his intelli- 
gent and continuous interest in the great 
problem of transforming his people into a 
scientifically educated nation. From this 
point of view we may congratulate our- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


selves that the heir to the Crown, follow- 
ing his family traditions, has already de- 
duced from his own observations in differ- 
ent parts of the empire some very sound 
and valuable conclusions as to the national 
needs at the present day. 


GRIFFITH — GILBERT— CORNU. 


The saddest yet the most sacred duty 
falling to us on such an occasion as the 
present is to pay our tribute to the mem- 
ory of old comrades and fellow-workers 
whom we shall meet no more. We miss 
to-day a figure that has been familiar, con- 
spicuous, and always congenial at the 
meetings of the British Association during 
the last forty years. Throughout the 
greater part of that period Mr. George 
Griffith discharged the onerous and often 
delicate duties of the assistant general sec- 
retary, not only with conscientious thor- 
oughness and great ability, but also with 
urbanity, tact and courtesy that endeared 
him to all. His years sat lightly upon him, 
and his undiminished alertness and vigor 
caused his sudden death to come upon us 
all with a shock of surprise as well as of 
pain and grief. The British Association 
owes him a debt of gratitude which must 
be so fully realized by every regular at- 
tender of our meetings that no poor words 
of mine are needed to quicken your sense 
of loss, or to add to the poignancy of your 
regret. 

The British Association has to deplore 
the loss from among us of Sir Joseph Gil- 
bert, a veteran who continued to the end 
of a long life to pursue his important and 
beneficent researches with untiring energy. 
The length of his services in the cause of 
science cannot be better indicated than by 
recalling the fact that he was one of the 
six past presidents boasting fifty years’ 
membership whose jubilee was celebrated 
by the Chemical Society in 1898. He was 
in fact an active member of that Society 


OCTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


for over sixty years. Early in his career 
he devoted himself to a most important but 
at that time little cultivated field of re- 
search. He strove with conspicuous suc- 
cess to place the oldest of industries on a 
scientific basis, and to submit the complex 
conditions of agriculture to a systematic 
analysis. He studied the physiology of 


-plant life in the open air, not with the 


object of penetrating the secrets of struc- 
ture, but with the more directly utilitarian 
aim of establishing the conditions of suc- 
cessful and profitable cultivation. By a 
long series of experiments alike well con- 
ceived and laboriously carried out, he de- 
termined the effects of variation in soil, 
and its chemical treatment—in short, in 
all the unknown factors with which the 
farmer previously had to deal according 
to empirical and local rules, roughly de- 
duced from undigested experience by un- 
eritical and rudimentary processes © of 
inference. Gilbert had the faith, the in- 
sight, and the courage to devote his life 
to an investigation so difficult, so unprom- 
ising, and so unlikely to bring the rich 
rewards attainable by equal diligence in 
other directions, as to offer no attraction 
to the majority of men. The tabulated re- 
sults of the Rothamsted experiments re- 
main as a benefaction to mankind and a 
monument of indomitable and disinterested 
perseverance. 

It is impossible for me in this place to 
offer more than the. barest indication of 
the great place in contemporary science 
that has been vacated by the lamented 
death of Professor Alfred Cornu, who so 
worthily upheld the best traditions of sci- 
entific France. He was gifted in a high 
degree with the intellectual lucidity, the 
mastery of form, and the perspicuous 
methods which characterize the best expon- 
ents of French thought in all departments 
of study. After a brilliant career as a 
student, he was chosen at the early age of 


SCIENCE. 535 


twenty-six to fill one of the enviable posi- 
tions more numerous in Paris than in Lon- 
don, the professorship of physics at the 
Keole Polytechnique. In that post, which 
he occupied to the end of his life, he found 
what is probably the ideal combination for 
a man of science—leisure and material 
equipment for original research, together 
with that close and stimulating contact 
with practical affairs afforded by his duties 
as teacher in a great school, almost ranking 
as a department of State. Cornu was ad- 
mirable alike in the use he made of his 
opportunities and in his manner of dis- 
charging his duties. He was at once a 
great investigator and a great teacher. I 
shall not even attempt a summary, which 
at the best must be very imperfect, of his 
brilliant achievements in optics, the study 
of his predilection, in electricity, in acous- 
tics, and in the field of physics generally. 
As a proof of the great estimation in which 
he was held, it is sufficient to remind you 
that he had filled the highest presidential 
offices in French scientific societies, and 
that he was a foreign member of our Royal 
Society and a recipient of its Rumford 
medal. In this country he had many 
friends, attracted no less by his personal 
and social qualities than by his command- 
ing abilities. Some of those here present 
may remember his appearance a few years 
ago at the Royal Institution, and more re- 
cently his delivery of the Rede Lecture at 
Cambridge, when the University conferred 
upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of 
Science. His death has inflicted a heavy 
blow upon our generation, upon France, 
and upon the world. 


THE PROGRESS OF BELFAST. 


‘ 


A great man has observed that the ‘in- 
telligent anticipation of events before they 
occur’ is a factor of some importance in 
human affairs. One may suppose that in- 
telligent anticipation had something to do 


536 


with the choice of Belfast as the meeting- 
place of the British Association this year. 
Or, if it had not, then it must be admitted 
that circumstances have conspired, as they 
occasionally do, to render the actual selec- 
tion peculiarly felicitous. Belfast has 
perennial claims, of a kind that cannot 
easily be surpassed, to be the scene of a 
great scientific gathering—claims founded 
upon its scientifie traditions and upon the 
conspicuous energy and success with which 
its citizens have prosecuted in various di- 
rections the application of science to the 
purposes of life. It is but the other day 
that the whole nation deplored at the grave 
of Lord Dufferin the loss of one of the most 
distinguished and most versatile public 
servants of the age. That great statesman 
and near neighbor of Belfast was a typical 
expression of the qualities and the spirit 
which have made Belfast what it is, and 
have enabled Ireland, in spite of all draw- 
backs, to play a great part in the Empire. 
I look around on your thriving and pro- 
gressive city giving evidence of an enor- 
mous aggregate of industrial efforts in- 
telligently organized and directed for the 
building up of a sound social fabric. I 
find that your great industries are inter- 
linked and interwoven with the whole eco- 
nomic framework of the Empire, and that 
you are silently and irresistibly compelled 
to harmonious cooperation by practical 
considerations acting upon the whole com- 
munity. It is here that I look for the real 
Ireland, the Ireland of the future. We 
cannot trace with precision the laws that 
govern the appearance of eminent men, 
but we may at least learn from history that 
they do not spring from every soil. They 
do not appear among decadent races or in 
ages of retrogression. They are the fine 
flower of the practical intellect of the na- 
tion working studiously and patiently in 
accordance with the great laws of conduct. 
In the manifold activities of Belfast we 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


have a splendid manifestation of individ- 
ual energy working necessarily, even if not 
altogether consciously, for the national 
good. In great Irishmen like Lord Duf- 
ferin and Lord Roberts, giving their best 
energies for the defense of the nation by 
diplomacy or by war, we have comple- 
mentary evidence enough to reassure the 
most timid coneerning the real direction 
of Irish energies and the vital nature of 
Trish solidarity with the rest of the Em- 
pire. 

Belfast has played a prominent part in 
a transaction of a somewhat special and 
significant kind, which has proved not a 
little confusing and startling to the easy- 
going public. The significance of the ship- 
ping combination lies in the light it throws 
on the conditions and tendencies which 
make such things possible, if not even in- 
evitable. It is an event forcibly illustra- 
ting the declaration of His Royal Highness 
the Prince of Wales, that the nation must 
‘wake up’ if it hopes to face its growing 
responsibilities. Belfast may plead with 
some justice that it, at least, has never gone 
to sleep. In various directions an immense 
advance has been effected during the 
twenty-eight years that have elapsed since 
the last visit of the British Association. 
Belfast has become first a city and then a 
county, and now ranks as one of the eight 
largest cities in the United Kingdom. Its 
municipal area has been considerably ex- 
tended, and its population has increased 
by something like seventy-five per cent. 
It has not only been extended, but im- 
proved and beautified in a manner which 
very few places can match, and which prob- 
ably none can surpass. Fine new thor- 
oughfares, adorned with admirable public 
institutions, have been run through areas 
once covered with crowded and squalid 
buildings. Compared with the early fif- 
ties, when iron shipbuilding was begun on 
a very modest scale, the customs collected 


OcToBER 8, 1902.] 


at the port have increased tenfold. Since 
the introduction of the power-loom, about 
1850, Belfast has distanced all rivals in 
the linen industry, which continues to 
flourish notwithstanding the fact that most 
of the raw material is now imported, in- 
stead of being produced, as in former 
times, in Ulster. Extensive improvements 
have been carried out in the port at a cost 
of several millions, and have been fully 
justified by a very great expansion of trade. 
These few bare facts suffice to indicate 
broadly the immense strides taken by Bel- 
fast in the last two decades. For an Asso- 
ciation that exists for the advancement of 
science it is stimulating and encouraging to 
find itself in the midst of a vigorous com- 
munity, successfully applying knowledge 
to the ultimate purpose of all human ef- 
fort, the amelioration of the common lot 
by an ever-increasing mastery of the pow- 
ers and resources of Nature. 


TYNDALL.AND EVOLUTION. 


_ The presidential address delivered by 
Tyndall in this city twenty-eight years ago 
will. always rank as an epoch-making de- 
liverance. Of all the men of the time, 
Tyndall was one of the best equipped for 
the presentation of a vast and complicated 
scientific subject to the mass of his fellow- 
men. Gifted with the powers of a many- 
sided original investigator, he had at the 
same time devoted much of his time to an 
earnest study of philosophy, and his liter- 
ary and oratorical powers, coupled with 
a fine poetic instinct, were qualifications 
which placed him in the front rank of the 
scientific representatives of the later Vic- 
torian epoch, and constituted him an ex- 
ceptionally endowed exponent of scientific 
thought. In the Belfast discourse Tyndall 
dealt with the changing aspects of the long 
unsettled horizon of human thought, at 
last illuminated by the sunrise of the doc- 
trine of evolution. The consummate art 


SCIENCE. 


537 


with which he marshalled his scientific 
forces for the purpose of effecting convie- 
tion of the general truth of the doctrine 
has rarely been surpassed. The courage, 
the lucidity, the grasp of principles,- the 
moral enthusiasm with which he treated 
his great theme, have powerfully aided in 
effecting a great intellectual conquest, and 
the victory assuredly ought to engender 
no regrets. 

Tyndall’s views as a strenuous support- 
er and believer in the theory of evolu- 
tion were naturally essentially optimistic. 
He had no sympathy with the lugubrious 
pessimistic philosophy whose disciples are 
for ever intent on administering rebuke 
to scientific: workers by reminding them 
that, however much knowledge man may 
have acquired, it is as nothing compared 
with the immensity of his ignorance. That 
truth is indeed never adequately realized 
except by the man of science, to whom it is 
brought home by repeated experience of 
the fact that his most promising excursions 
into the unknown are invariably termi- 
nated by barriers which, for the time at 
least, are insurmountable. He who has 
never made such excursions with patient 
labor may indeed prattle about the vast- 
ness of the unknown, but he does so with- 
out real sincerity or intimate conviction. 
His tacit, if not his avowed, contention is 
that since we can never know all it is not 
worth while to seek to know more; and 
that in the profundity of his ignorance 
he has the right to people the unexplored 
spaces with the phantoms of his vain im- 
agining. The man of science, on the con- 
trary, finds in the extent of his ignorance 
a perpetual incentive to further exertion, 
and in the mysteries that surround him 
a continual invitation, nay, more, an in- 
exorable mandate. Tyndall’s writings 
abundantly prove that he had faced the 
ereat problems of man’s existence with 
that calm intellectual courage, the lack of 


538 


which goes very far to explain the nervous 
dogmatism of nescience. Just because he 
had done this, because he had, as it were, 
mapped out the boundaries between what 
is knowable though not yet known and 
what must remain forever unknowable to 
man, he did not hesitate to place implicit 
reliance on the progress of which man is 
capable, through the exercise of patient and 
persistent research. In Tyndall’s scheme 
of thought the chief dicta were the strict 
division of the world of knowledge from 
that of emotion, and the lifting of life by 
throwing overboard the malign residuum 
of dogmatism, fanaticism and intolerance, 
thereby stimulating and nourishing a plas- 
tic vigor of intellect. His ery was ‘Com- 
motion before stagnation, the leap of the 
torrent before the stillness of the swamp.’ 

His successors have no longer any need 
to repeat those significant words, ‘We 
claim and we shall wrest from theology the 
entire domain of cosmological theory.’ 
The claim has been practically, though 
often unconsciously, conceded. Tyndall’s 
dictum, ‘Every system must be plastic to 
the extent that the growth of knowledge 
demands,’ struck a note that was too often 
absent from the heated discussions of days 
that now seem so strangely remote. His 
honorable admission that, after all that 
had been achieved by the developmental 
theory, ‘the whole process of evolution is 
the manifestation of a power absolutely in- 
serutable to the intellect of man,’ shows 
how willingly he acknowledged the neces- 
sary limits of scientific inquiry. This res- 
ervation did not prevent him from express- 
ing the conviction forced upon him by the 
pressure of intellectual necessity, after ex- 
haustive consideration of the known rela- 
tions of living things, that matter in itself 
must be regarded as containing the promise 
and potency of all terrestrial life. Bacon 
in his day said very much the same thing: 
‘He that will know the properties and pro- 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


ceedings of matter should comprehend in 
his understanding the sum of all things, 
which have been, which are, and which 
shall be, although no knowledge can extend 
so far as to singular and individual beings.’ 
Tyndall’s conclusion was at the time 
thought to be based on a too insecure pro- 
jection into the unknown, and some even 
regarded such an expansion of the crude 
properties of matter as totally unwar- 
ranted. Yet Tyndall was certainly no ma- 
terialist in the ordinary acceptation of the 
term. It is true his arguments, like all 
arguments, were capable of being dis- 
torted, especially when taken out of their 
context, and the address became in this 
way an easy prey for hostile criticism. The 
glowing rhetoric that gave charm to his 
discourse and the poetic similes that clothed 
the dry bones of his close-woven logic were 
attacked by a veritable broadside of erit- 
ical artillery. At the present day these 
would be considered as only appropriate 
artistic embellishments, so great is the un- 
conscious change wrought in our surround- 
ings. It must be remembered that, while 
Tyndall discussed the evolutionary prob- 
lem from many points of view, he took up 
the position of a practical disciple of Na- 
ture dealing with the known experimental 
and observational realities of physical in- 
quiry. Thus he accepted as fundamental 
concepts the atomic theory, together with 
the capacity of the atom to be the vehicle 
or repository of energy, and the grand gen- 
eralization of the conservation of energy. 
Without the former, Tyndall doubted 
whether it would be possible to frame a 
theory of the material universe; and as to 
the latter he recognized its radical signifi- 
cance in that the ultimate philosophical 
issues therein involved were as yet but 
dimly seen. That such generalizations are 
provisionally accepted does not mean that 
science is not alive to the possibility that 
what may now be regarded as fundamental 


OcTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


may in future be superseded or absorbed 
by a wider generalization. It is only the 
poverty of language and the necessity for 
compendious expression that oblige the 
man of science to resort to metaphor and to 
speak of the Laws of Nature. In reality, 
he does not pretend to formulate any laws 
for Nature, since to do so would be to as- 
sume a knowledge of the inscrutable cause 
from which alone such laws could emanate. 
When he speaks of a ‘law of Nature’ he 
simply indicates a sequence of events which, 
so far as his experience goes, is invariable, 
and which therefore enables him to pre- 
dict, to a certain extent, what will happen 
in given circumstances. But, however 
seemingly bold may be the speculation in 
which he permits himself to indulge, he 
does not claim for his best hypothesis more 
than provisional validity. He does not 
forget that to-morrow may bring a new 
experience compelling him to recast the 
hypothesis of to-day. This plasticity of 
scientific thought, depending upon reverent 
recognition of the vastness of the unknown, 
is oddly made a matter of reproach by the 
very people who harp upon the limitations 
of human knowledge. Yet the essential 
condition of progress is that we should 
generalize to the best of our ability from 
the experience at command, treat our 
theory as provisionally true, endeavor to 
the best of our power to reconcile with it 
all the new facts we discover, and abandon 
or modify it when it ceases to afford a co- 
herent explanation of new experience. 
That procedure is far as are the poles 
asunder from the presumptuous attempt to 
travel beyond the study of secondary 
causes. Any discussion as to whether mat- 
ter or energy was the true reality would 
have appeared to Tyndall as a futile meta- 
physical disputation, which, being com- 
pletely dissociated from verified experi- 
ence, would lead to nothing. No explana- 
tion was attempted by him of the origin 


SCIENCE. 


539 


of the bodies we call elements, nor how 
some of such bodies came to be compounded 
into complex groupings and built up 
into special structures with which, so far 
as we know, the phenomena characteristic 
of life are invariably associated. The evo- 
lutionary doctrine leads us to the concelu- 
sion that life, such as we know it, has only 
been possible during a short period of the 
world’s history, and seems equally destined 
to disappear in the remote future; but it 
postulates the existence of a material uni- 
verse endowed with an infinity of powers 
and properties, the origin of which it does 
not pretend to account for. The enigma 
at both ends of the scale Tyndall admitted, 
and the futility of attempting to answer 
such questions he fully recognized. Never- 
theless, Tyndall did not mean that the man 
of science should be debarred from specu- 
lating as to the possible nature of the sim- 
plest forms of matter or the mode in which 
life may have originated on this planet. 
Lord Kelvin, in his presidential address, 
put the position admirably when he said 
‘Science is bound by the everlasting law 
of honor to face fearlessly every problem 
that can fairly be presented to it. If a 
probable solution consistent with the ordi- 
nary course of Nature can be found, we 
must not invoke an abnormal act of Crea- 
tive Power’; and in illustration he forth- 
with proceeded to express his conviction 
that from time immemorial many worlds 
of life besides our own have existed, and 
that ‘it is not an unscientific hypothesis 
that life originated on this earth through 
the moss-grown fragments from the ruins 
of another world.’ In spite of the great 
progress made in science, it is curious to 
notice the occasional recrudescence of meta- 
physical dogma. For instance, there is a 
school which does not hesitate to revive 
ancient mystifications in order to show that 
matter and energy can be shattered by 
philosophical arguments, and have no ob- 


540 


jective reality. Science is at once more 
humble and more reverent. She confesses 
her ignorance of the ultimate nature of 
matter, of the ultimate nature of energy, 
and still more of the origin and ultimate 
synthesis of the two. She is content with 
her patient investigation of secondary 
causes, and glad to know that since Tyn- 
dall- spoke in Belfast she has made great 
additions to the knowledge of general 
molecular mechanism, and especially of 
synthetic artifice in the domain of organic 
chemistry, though the more exhaustive ac- 
quaintance gained only forces us the more 
to acquiesce in acknowledging the inseru- 
table mystery of matter. Our conception 
of the power and potency of matter has 
erown in little more than a quarter of a 
century to much more imposing dimen- 
sions, and the outlook for the future as- 
suredly suggests the increasing accelera- 
tion of our rate of progress. For the 
impetus he gave to scientific work and 
thought, and for his fine series of re- 
searches chiefly directed to what Newton 
called the more secret and noble works of 
Nature within the corpuscles, the world 
owes Tyndall a debt of gratitude. It is 
well that his memory ‘should be held in 
perennial respect, especially in the land of 
his birth. 


THE ENDOWMENT OF EDUCATION. 

These are days of munificent benefac- 
tions to science and education, which how- 
ever are greater and more numerous in 
other countries than in our own. Splendid 
as they are, it may be doubted, if we take 
into account the change in the value of 
money, the enormous increase of popula- 
tion, and the utility of science to the build- 
ers of colossal fortunes, whether they bear 
comparison with the efforts of earlier days. 
But the habit of endowing science was so 
long in practical abeyance that every evi- 
dence of its resumption is matter for sin- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 405. 


cere congratulation. Mr. Cecil Rhodes has 
dedicated a very large sum of money to 
the advancement of education, though the 
means he has chosen are perhaps not the 
most effective. It must be remembered 
that his aims were political as much as 
educational. He had the noble and worthy 
ambition to promote enduring friendship 
between the great English-speaking com- 
munities of the world, and knowing the 
strength of college ties he conceived that 
this end might be greatly furthered by 
bringing together at an English univer- 
sity the men who would presumably have 
much to do in later life with the influ- 
encing of opinion, or even with the direc- 
tion of policy. It has been held by some a 
striking tribute to Oxford that a man but 
little given to academic pursuits or modes 
of thought should think it a matter of high 
importance to bring men from our colonies 
or even from Germany, to submit to the 
formative influences of that ancient seat 
of learning. But this is perhaps reading 
Mr. Rhodes backwards. He showed his 
affectionate recollection of his college days 
by his gift to Oriel. But, apart from the 
main idea of fostering good relations be- 
tween those who will presumably be infiu- 
ential in England, in the colonies and in 
the United States, Mr. Rhodes was prob- 
ably influenced also by the hope that the 
influx of strangers would help to broaden 
Oxford notions and to procure revision of 
conventional arrangements. 

Dr. Andrew Carnegie’s endowment of 
Seottish universities, as modified by him 
in deference to expert advice, is a more 
direct benefit to the higher education. 
For while Mr. Rhodes has only enabled 
young men to get what Oxford has to give, 
Dr. Carnegie has also enabled his trustees 
powerfully to augment and improve the 
teaching equipment of the universities 
themselves. At the same time he has pro- 
vided as far as possible for the enduring 


OCTOBER 3, 1902.] 


usefulness of his money. His trustees 
form a permanent body external to the 
universities, which, while possessing no 
power of direct control, must always, as 
holder of the purse-strings, be in a posi- 
tion to offer independent and weighty erit- 
icisms. More recently Dr. Carnegie has 
devoted an equal sum of ten million dollars 
to the foundation of a Carnegie Institu- 
tion in Washington. Here again he has 
been guided by the same ideas. He has 
neither founded a university nor handed 
over the money to any existing university. 
He has created a permanent trust charged 
with the duty of watching educational ef- 
forts and helping them from the outside 
according to the best judgment that can 


be formed in the circumstances of the - 


moment. Its aims are to be—to promote 
original research; to discover the excep- 
tional man in every department of study, 
whether inside or outside of the schools, 
and to enable him to make his special 
study his life-work; to increase facilities 
for higher education; to aid and stimulate 
the universities and other educational 
institutions; to assist students who may 
prefer to study at Washington; and 
to ensure prompt publication of s¢i- 
entific discoveries. The general purpose 
of the founder is to secure, if possible, for 
the United States leadership in the domain 
of discovery and the utilization of new 
forces for the benefit of man. Nothing 
will more powerfully further this end than 
attention to the injunction to lay hold of 
the exceptional man whenever and wher- 
ever he may be found, and, having got him, 
to enable him to earry on the work for 
which he seems specially designed. That 
means, I imagine, a scouring of the old 
world, as well as of the new, for the best 
men in every department of study—in fact, 
an assiduous collecting of brains similar 
to the collecting of rare books and works 
of art which Americans are now carrying 


SCIENCE. 


541 


on in so lavish a manner. As in diplomacy 
and war, so in science, we owe our reputa- 
tion, and no small part of our prosperity, 
to exceptional men; and that we do not 
enjoy these things in fuller measure we owe 
to our lack of an army of well-trained 
ordinary men capable of utilizing their 
ideas. Our exceptional men have too often 
worked in obscurity, without recognition 
from a public too imperfectly instructed 
to guess at their greatness, without as- 
sistance from a State governed largely by 
dialecticians, and without help from aca- 
demic authorities hidebound by the pedan- 
tries of medieval scholasticism. For such 
men we have to wait upon the will of 
Heaven. Even Dr. Carnegie will not 
always find them when they are wanted. 
But what ean be done in that direction will 
be done by institutions like Dr. Carnegie’s, 
and for the benefit of the nation that po- 
sesses them in greatest abundance and 
uses them most intelligently. When con- 
templating these splendid endowments of 
learning, it occurred to me that it would 
be interesting to find out exactly what 
some definite quantity of scientific achieve- 
ment has cost in hard cash. In an article 
by Carl Snyder in the January number of 
the North American Review, entitled 
“America’s Inferior Place in the Scientific 
World,’ I found the statement that ‘it 
would be hardly too much to say that dur- 
ing the hundred years of its existence the 
Royal Institution alone has done more for 
English science than all of the Enelish 
universities put together. This is cer- 
tainly true with regard to British industry, 
for it was here that the discoveries of Fara- 
day were made.’ I was emboldened by 
this estimate from a distant and impartial 
observer to do what otherwise I might have 
shrunk from doing, and to take the Royal 
Institution—after all, the foundation of 
an American citizen, Count Rumford—as 
the basis of my inquiry. The work done 


542 


at the Royal Institution during the past 
hundred years is a fairly definite quantity 
in the mind of every man really conver- 
sant with scientific affairs. I have ob- 
tained from the books accurate statistics 
of the total expenditure on experimental 
inquiry and publie demonstration for the 


whole of the nineteenth century. The 
items are: 
Professors’ salaries—physics and chem- 

TEIsMy (Ra camooodopadudUe ooo dDaAGKD £ 54,600 
Laboratory expenditure.............-- 24,430 
EASSIStANtSE ISALALLeSs spvatcierietsctreternertener: 21,590 

Total for one hundred years...... £100,620 


In addition, the members and friends of 
the Institution have contributed to a fund 
for exceptional expenditure for Experi- 
mental Research the sum of 9,5801. It 
should also be mentioned that a Civil List 
pension of 3001. was granted to Faraday 
in 1853, and was continued during twenty- 
seven years of active work and five years 
of retirement. Thirty-two years in all, 
at 3001. a year, making a sum of 9,600L., 
representing the national donation, which, 
added to the amount of expenditure just 
stated, brings up the total cost of a century 
of scientific work in the laboratories of the 
Royal Institution, together with public 
demonstrations, to 119,8001., or an aver- 
age of 1,2001. per annum. I think if you 
recall the names and achievements of 
Young, Davy, Faraday and Tyndall, you 
will come to the conclusion that the ex- 
ceptional man is about the cheapest of 
natural products. It is a popular fallacy 
that the Royal Institution is handsomely 
endowed. On the contrary, it has often 
been in financial straits; and since its 
foundation by Count Rumford its only 
considerable bequests have been one from 
Thomas G. Hodgkins, an American citizen, 
for Experimental Research, and that of 
John Fuller for endowing with 95l. a year 
the chairs of Chemistry and Physiology. 
In this connection the Davy-Faraday 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI? No. 405. 


Laboratory, founded by the liberality of 
Dr. Ludwig Mond, will naturally occur to 
many minds. But though affiliated to the 
Royal Institution, with, I hope, reciprocal 
indirect advantages, that Laboratory is 
financially independent and its endow- 
ments are devoted to its own special pur- 
pose, which is to provide opportunity to 
prosecute independent research for worthy 
and approved applicants of all nationali- 
ties. The main reliance of the Royal Insti- 
tution has always been, and still remains, 
upon the contributions of its members, 
and upon corresponding sacrifices in the 
form of time and labor by its professors. 
It may be doubted whether we can reason- 
ably count upon a succession of scientific 
men able and willing to make sacrifices 
which the conditions of modern life tend 
to render increasingly burdensome. 
Modern science is in fact in something of 
a dilemma. Devotion to abstract research 
upon small means is becoming always 
harder to maintain, while at the same time 
the number of wealthy independent search- 
ers after truth and patrons of science of 
the style of Joule, Spottiswoode and De 
la Rue is apparently becoming smaller. 
The installations required by the refine- 
ments of modern science are continually 
becoming more costly, so that upon all 
grounds it would appear that without en- 
dowments of the kind provided by Dr. 
Carnegie the outlook for disinterested re- 
search is rather dark. On the other hand, 
these endowments, unless carefully ad- 
ministered, might obviously tend to impair 
the single-minded devotion to the search 
after truth for its own sake, to which sci- 
ence has owed almost every memorable 
advance made in the past. The Carnegie 
Institution will dispose in a year of as much 
money as the members of the Royal In- 
stitution have expended in a century upon 
its purely scientific work. It will at least 
be interesting to note how far the output 


OCTOBER 3, 1902.] 


of high-class scientific work corresponds to 
the hundredfold application of money to 
its production. Nor will it be of less in- 
terest to the people of this country to ob- 
serve the results obtained from that 
moiety of Dr. Carnegie’s gift to Scotland 
which is to be applied to the promotion of 
scientific research. 


APPLIED CHEMISTRY, ENGLISH AND FOREIGN. 

The Diplomatic and Consular reports 
published from time to time by the Foreign 
Office are usually too belated to be of much 
use to business men, but they sometimes con- 
tain information concerning what is done 
in foreign countries which affords food for 
reflection. One of these réports, issued a 
year ago, gives a very good account of 
the German arrangements and provisions 
for scientific training, and of the enormous 
commercial demand for the services of 
men who have passed successfully through 
the universities and technical high schools, 
as well as of the wealth that has accrued 
to Germany through the systematic appli- 
eation of scientific proficiency to the ordi- 
nary business of life. 

Taking these points in their order, I have 
thought it a matter of great interest to ob- 
tain a comparative view of chemical equip- 
ment in this country and in Germany, and 
I am indebted to Professor Henderson, of 
Glasgow, who last year became the secre- 
tary of a committee of this Association of 
which Professor Armstrong is chairman, 
for statistics referring to this country, 
which enable a comparison to be broadly 
made. The author of the consular report 
estimates that in 1901 there were 4,500 
trained chemists employed in German 
works, the number having risen to this 
point from 1,700 employed twenty-five 
years earlier. It is difficult to give per- 
feetly accurate figures for this country, 
but a liberal estimate places the number 
of works chemists at 1,500, while at the 


SCIENCE. 


543 


very outside it cannot be put higher than 
somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000. In 
other words, we cannot show in the United 
Kingdom, notwithstanding the immense 
range of the chemical industries in which 
we once stood prominent, more than one 
third of the professional staff employed 
in Germany. It may perhaps be thought 
or hoped that we make up in quality for 
our defect in quantity, but unfortunately 
this is not the case. On the contrary, the 
German chemists are, on the average, as 
superior in technical training and acquire- 
ments as they are numerically. Details 
are given in the report of the training of 
633 chemists employed in German works. 
Of these, 69 per cent. hold the degree of 
Ph.D., about 10 per cent. hold the diploma 
of a technical high school, and about 5 
per cent. hold both qualifications. That 
is to say 84 per cent. have received a thor- 
oughly systematic and complete chemical 
training, and 74 per cent. of these add the 
advantages of a university career. Com- 
pare with this the information furnished 
by 500 chemists in British works. Of 
these only 21 per cent. are graduates, while 
about 10 per cent. hold the diploma of a 
college. Putting the case as high as we 
can, and ignoring the more practical and 
thorough training of the German universi- 
ties, which give their degrees for work 
done, and not for questions asked jand 
answered on paper, we have only 31 per 
cent. of systematically trained chemists 
against 84 per cent. in German works. It 
ought to be mentioned that about 21 per 
cent. of the 500 are fellows or associates of 
the Institute of Chemistry, whatever that 
may amount to in practice, but of these a 
very large number have already been ac- 
counted for under the heads of graduates 
and holders of diplomas. These figures, 
which I suspect are much too favorable on 
the British side, unmistakably point to the 
prevalence among employers in this coun- 


544 


try of the antiquated adherence to rule of 
thumb, which is at the root of much of the 
backwardness we have to deplore. It 
hardly needs to be pointed out to such an 
audience as the present that chemists who 
are neither graduates of a university, nor 
holders of a diploma from a technical col- 
lege, may be competent to carry on existing 
processes according to traditional methods, 
but are very unlikely to effect substantial 
improvements, or to invent new and more 
efficient processes. I am very far from de- 
nying that hereand there an individual may 
be found whose exceptional ability enables 
him to triumph over all defects of training. 
But in all educational matters it is the 
average man whom we have to consider, 
and the average ability which we have to 
develop. Now, to take the second point— 
the actual money value of the industries 
carried on in Germany by an army of 
workers both quantitatively and qualita- 
tively so superior to our own. The Con- 
sular report estimates the whole value of 
German chemical industries at not less than 
fifty millions sterling per annum. These 
industries have sprung up within the last 
seventy years, and have received enormous 
expansion during the last thirty. They 
are, moreover, very largely founded upon 
basic discoveries made by English chem- 
ists, but never properly \appreciated or 
scientifically developed in the land of their 
birth. I will place before you some figures 
showing the growth of a single firm en- 
gaged in a single one of these industries— 
the utilization of coal tar for the produc- 
tion of drugs, perfumes and _ colorine- 
matters of every conceivable shade. The 
firm of Friedrich Bayer & Co. employed 
in 1875, 119 workmen. The number has 
more than doubled itself every five years, 
and in May of this year that firm employed 
5,000 workmen, 160 chemists, 260 engineers 
and mechanies, and 680 clerks. For many 
years past it has regularly paid 18 per 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. VoL. XVI. No. 405. 


cent. on the ordinary shares, which this 
year has risen to 20 per cent.; and in ad- 
dition, in common with other and even 
larger concerns in the same industry, has 
paid out of profits for immense extensions 
usually charged to capital account. There 
is one of these factories, the works and 
plant of which stand in the books at 1,500,- 
OOOl., while the money actually sunk in 
them approaches to 5,000,000. In other 
words, the practical monopoly enjoyed by 
the German manufacturers enables them to 
exact huge profits from the rest of the 
world, and to establish a position which, 
financially as well as_ scientifically, is. 
almost unassailable. I must repeat that 
the fundamental discoveries upon which 
this gigantic industry is built were made 
in this country, and were practically de- 
veloped to a certain extent by their au- 
thors. But in spite of the abundance and 
cheapness of the raw material, and in spite 
of the evidence that it could be most re- 
muneratively worked up, these men 
founded no school and had practically no 
successors. The colors they made were 
driven out of the field by newer and better 
colors made from their stuff by the de- 
velopment of their ideas, but these im- 
proved colors were made in Germany and 
not in England. Now what is the explana- 
tion of this extraordinary and disastrous 
phenomenon? I give it in a word—want. 
of edueation. - We had the material in 
abundance when other nations had com- 
paratively little. We had the capital, and 
we had the brains, for we originated the 
whole thing. But we did not possess the 
diffused education without which the ideas 
of men of genius cannot fructify beyond 
the limited scope of an individual. I am 
aware that our patent laws are sometimes. 
held responsible. Well, they are a con- 
tributory cause; but it must be remem-- 
bered that other nations with patent laws. 
as protective as could be desired have not 


OcTOBER 3, 1902.] 


developed the color industry. The patent 
laws have only contributed in a secondary 
degree, and if the patent laws have been 
bad the reason for their badness is again 
want of education. Make them as bad as 
you choose, and you only prove that the 
men who made them, and the public whom 
these men try to please, were misled by 
theories instead of being conversant with 
fact and logic. But the root of the mis- 
chief is not in the patent laws or in any 
legislation whatever. It is in the want 
of education among our so-called educated 
classes, and secondarily among the work- 
men on whom these depend. It is in the 
abundance of men of ordinary plodding 
ability, thoroughly trained and method- 
ieally directed, that Germany at present 
has so commanding an advantage. It is 
the failure of our schools to turn out, and 
of our manufacturers to demand, men of 
this kind, which explains our loss of some 
valuable industries and our precarious hold 
upon others. Let no one imagine for a 


moment that this deficiency can be rem-. 


edied by any amount of that technical 
training which is now the fashionable 
nostrum. It is an excellent thing, no 
doubt, but it must rest upon a foundation 
of general training. Mental habits are 
formed for good or evil long before men 
go to the technical schools. We have to 
begin at the beginning: we have to train 
the population from the first to think cor- 
rectly and logically, to deal at first hand 
with facts, and to evolve, each one for him- 
self, the solution of a problem put before 
him, instead of learning by rote the solu- 
tion given by somebody else. There are 
plenty of chemists turned out, even by our 
universities, who would be of no use to 
Bayer & Co. They are chockfull of for- 
mule, they can recite theories, and they 
know text-books by heart; but put them to 
solve a new problem, freshly arisen in the 
laboratory, and you will find that their 


SCIENCE. 


545 


learning is all dead. It has not become a 
vital part of their mental equipment, and 
they are floored by the first emergence of 
the unexpected. The men who escape this 
mental barrenness are men who were some- 
how or other taught to think long before 
they went to the university. To my mind, 
the really appalling thing is not that the 
Germans have seized this or the other in- 
dustry, or even that they may have seized 
upon a dozen industries. It is that the 
German population has reached a point of 
general training and specialized equip- 
ment which it will take us two generations 
of hard and intelligently directed educa- 
tional work to attain. It is that Germany 
possesses a national weapon of precision 
which must give her an enormous initial 
advantage in any and every contest de- 
pending upon disciplined and methodized 
intellect. 


iN 


HISTORY OF COLD AND THE ABSOLUTE ZERO, 


It was Tyndall’s good fortune to appear 
before you at a moment when a fruitful 
and comprehensive idea was vivifying the 
whole domain of scientific thought. At 
the present time no such broad generaliza- 
tion presents itself for discussion, while on 
the other hand the number of specialized 
studies has enormously increased. Science 
is advancing in so broad a front by the 
efforts of so great an army of workers that 
it would be idle to attempt within the 
limits of an address to the most indulgent 
of audiences anything like a survey of 
chemistry alone. But I have thought it 
might be instructive, and perhaps not un- 
interesting, to trace briefly in broad out- 
line the development of that branch of - 
study with which my own labors have been 
recently more intimately connected—a 
study which IJ trust I am not too partial in 
thinking is as full of philosophical interest 
as of experimental difficulty. The nature 
of heat and cold must have engaged think- 


546 


ing men from the very earliest dawn of 
speculation upon the external world; but 
it will suffice for the present purpose if, 
disregarding ancient philosophers and even 
medixval alchemists, we take up the sub- 
ject where it stood after the great revival 
of learning, and as it was regarded by the 
father of the inductive method. That this 
was an especially attractive subject to 
Bacon is evident from the frequency with 
which he recurs to it in his different works, 
always with lamentation over the inade- 
quacy of the means at disposal for obtain- 
ing a considerable degree of cold. Thus 
in the chapter in the ‘Natural History,’ 
‘Sylva Sylvarum,’ entitled ‘Experiments 
in consort touching the production of cold,’ 
he says, ‘The production of cold is a thing 
very worthy of the inquisition both for the 
use and the disclosure of causes. For heat 
and cold are nature’s two hands whereby 
she chiefly worketh, and heat we have in 
readiness in respect of the fire, but for cold 
we must stay till it cometh or seek it in 
deep caves or high mountains, and when 
all is done we cannot obtain it in any de- 
gree, for furnaces of fire are far hotter 
than a summer sun, but vaults and hills 
are not much colder than a winter’s frost.’ 
The great Robert Boyle was the first ex- 
perimentalist who followed up Bacon’s 
suggestion. In 1682 Boyle read a paper 
to the Royal Society on ‘New Experiments 
and Observations touching Cold, or an 
Experimental History of Cold,’ published 
two years later in a separate work. This 
is really a most complete history of every- 
thing known about cold up to that date, 
but its great merit is the inclusion of 
numerous experiments made by Boyle 
himself on frigorific mixtures, and the gen- 
eral effects of such upon matter. The 
agency chiefly used by Boyle in the con- 
duct of his experiments was the glaciating 
mixture of snow or ice and salt. In the 
course of his experiment he made many 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


important observations. Thus he observed 
that the salts which did not help the snow 
or ice to dissolve faster gave no effective 
freezing. He showed that water in be- 
coming ice expands by about one ninth of 
its volume, and bursts gun-barrels. He 
attempted to counteract the expansion and 
prevent freezing by completely filling a 
strong iron ball with water before cooling ; 
anticipating that it might burst the bottle 
by the stupendous forces of expansion, or 
that if it did not, then the ice produced 
might under the circumstances be heavier 
than water. He speculated in an ingenious 
way on the change of water into ice. Thus 
he says, ‘If cold be but a privation of heat 
through the recess of that ethereal substance 
which agitated the little eel-like particles 
of the water and thereby made them com- 
pose a fluid body, it may easily be con- 
ceived that they should remain rigid in the 
postures in which the ethereal substances 
quitted them, and thereby compose an un- 
fluid body like ice; yet how these little eels 
should by that recess acquire as strong an 
endeavor outwards as if they were so many 
little springs and expand themselves with 
so stupendous a force, is that which does 
not so readily appear.’ The greatest de- 
eree of adventitious cold Boyle was able to 
produce did not make air exposed to its 
action lose a full tenth of its own volume, 
so that, in his own words, the cold does not 
‘weaken the spring by anything near so 
considerable as one would expect.’ After 
making this remarkable observation and 
commenting upon its unexpected nature, 
it is strange Boyle did not follow it up. 
He questions the existence of a body of 
its own nature supremely cold, by partici- 
pating in which all other bodies obtain that 
quality, although the doctrine of a primum 
frigidum had been accepted by many sects 
of philosophers; for, as he says, ‘if a body 
being cold signify no more than its not 
having its sensible parts so much agitated 


OcTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


as those of our sensorium, it suffices that 
the sun or the fire or some other agent, 
whatever it were, that agitated more 
vehemently its parts before, does either 
now cease to agitate them or agitates them 
but very remissly, so that till it be deter- 
mined whether cold be a positive quality 
or but a privative it will be needless to con- 


tend what particular body ought to be 


“esteemed the primum frigidum.’ The 
whole elaborate investigation cost Boyle 
immense labor, and he confesses that he 
‘never handled any part of natural phi- 
losophy that was so troublesome and full 
of hardships.’ He looked upon his results 
but as a ‘beginning’ in this field of in- 
quiry, and for all the trouble and patience 
expended he consoled himself with the 
thought of ‘men being oftentimes obliged 
to suffer as much wet and cold and dive as 
deep to fetch up sponges as to fetch up 
pearls.’ After the masterly essay of Boyle, 
the attention of investigators was chiefly 
directed to improving thermometrical in- 
struments. The old air thermometer of 
Galileo being inconvenient to use, the in- 
troduction of fluid thermometers greatly 
aided the inquiry into the action of heat 
and cold. For a time great difficulty was 
encountered in selecting proper fixed 
points on the scales of such instruments, 
and this stimulated men like Huygens, 
Newton, Hooke and Amontons to suggest 
remedies and to conduct experiments. By 
the beginning of the eighteenth century 
the freezing-point and the boiling-point of 
water were agreed upon as fixed points, 
and the only apparent difficulties to be 
overcome were the selection of the fluid, 
accurate calibration of the capillary tube 
of the thermometer, and a general under- 
standing as to seale divisions. It must be 
confessed that great confusion and inac- 
curacy in temperature observations arose 
from the variety and erudeness of the in- 
struments. This led Amontons in 1702-3 


SCIENCE. 


547 


to contribute two papers to the French 
Academy which reveal great originality in 
the handling of the subject, and which, 
strange to say, are not generally known. 
The first discourse deals with some new 
properties of the air and the means of 
accurately ascertaining the temperature in 
any climate. He regarded heat as due to 
a movement of the particles of bodies, 
though he did not in any way specify the 
nature of the motion involved; and as the 
general cause of all terrestrial motion, so 
that in its absence the earth would be with- 
out movement in its smallest parts. The 
new facts he records are observations on 
the spring or pressure of air brought about 
by the action of heat. He shows that 
different masses of air measured at the 
same initial spring or pressure, when 
heated to the boiling-point of water, ac- 
quire equal increments of spring or pres- 
sure, provided the volume of the gas be 
kept at its initial value. Further, he proves 
that if the pressure of the gas before heat- 
ing be doubled or tripled, then the addi- 
tional spring or pressure resulting from 
heating to the boiling-point of water is 
equally doubled or tripled. In other 
words, the ratio of the total spring of air 
at two definite and steady temperatures and 
at constant volume is a constant, independ- 
ent of the mass or the initial pressure of the 
air in the thermometer. These results led 
to the inereased perfection of the air ther- 
mometer as a standard instrument, Amon- 
tons’ idea being to express the temperature 
at any locality in fractions of the degree of 
heat of boiling water. The great novelty 
of the instrument is that temperature is 
defined by the measurement of the length 
of a column of mercury. In passing, he 
remarks that we do not know the extreme 
of heat and cold, but that he has given the 
results of experiments which establish 
correspondences for those who wish to con- 
sider the subject. In the following year 


548 


Amontons contributed to the Academy a 
further paper extending the scope of the 
inquiry. He there pointed out more ex- 
plicitly that as the degrees of heat in his 
thermometer are registered by the height 
of a column of mereury, which the heat is 
able to sustain by the spring of the air, 
it follows that the extreme cold of the ther- 
mometer will be that which reduces the air 
to have no power of spring. This, he says, 
will be a much greater cold than what we 
eall ‘very cold,’ because experiments have 
shown that if the spring of the air at boil- 
ing-point is 73 inches, the degree of heat 
which remains in the air when brought to 
the freezing-point of water is still very 
great, for it can still maintain the spring 
of 514 inches. The greatest. climatic cold 
on the scale of units adopted by Amontons 
is marked 50, and the greatest summer 
heat 58, the value for boiling water being 
73, and the zero being 52 units below the 
freezing-point. Thus Amontons was the 
first to recognize that the use of air as a 
thermometrie substance led to the infer- 
ence of the existence of a zero of tempera- 
ture, and his scale is nothing else than the 
absolute one we are now so familiar with. 
It results from Amontons’ experiment that 
the air would have no spring left if it were 
cooled below the freezing-point of water to 
about 24 times the temperature range which 
separates the boiling-point and the freez- 
ing-point. In other words, if we adopt 
the usual centennial difference between 
these two points of temperature as 100 
degrees, then the zero of Amontons’ air 
thermometer is minus 240 degrees. This 
is a remarkable approximation to our 
modern value for the same point of minus 
273 degrees. It has to be confessed that 
Amontons’ valuable contributions to 
knowledge met with that fate which has 
so often for a time overtaken the work of 
too-advanced discoverers ; in other words, it 
was simply ignored, or in any ease not 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 405. 


appreciated by the scientific world either 
of that time or half a century later. It 
is not till Lambert, in his work on ‘Pyro- 
metrie’ published in 1779, repeated Am- 
ontons’ experiments and endorsed his re- 
sults that we find any further reference to 
the absolute scale or the zero of tempera- 
ture. Lambert’s observations were made — 
with the greatest care and refinement, and 
resulted in correcting the value of the 
zero of the air scale to minus 270 degrees 
as compared with Amontons’ minus 240 
degrees. Lambert points out that the .de- 
gree of temperature which is equal to zero 
is what one may call absolute cold, and that 
at this temperature the volume of the air 
would be practically nothing. In other 
words, the particles of the air would fall 
together and touch each other and become 
dense like water; and from this it may be 
inferred that the gaseous condition is 
caused by heat. Lambert says that Amon- 
tons’ discoveries had found few adherents 
because they were too beautiful and ad- 
vanced for the time in which he lived. 
About this time a remarkable obser- 
vation was made by Professor Braun at 
Moscow, who, during the severe winter of 
1759, sueceeded in freezing mereury by 
the use of a mixture of snow and nitric 
acid. When we remember that mercury 
was regarded as quite a peculiar substance 
possessed of the essential quality of fiuid- 
ity, we can easily understand the universal 
interest created by the experiment of 
Braun. This was accentuated by the ob- 
servations he made on the temperature 
given by the mercury thermometer, which 
appeared to record a temperature as low 
as minus 200° C. The experiments were 
soon repeated by Hutchins at Hudson’s 
Bay, who conducted his work with the aid 
of suggestions given him by Cavendish and 
Black. The result of the new observations 
was to show that the freezing-point of 
mercury is only minus 40° C., the errors 


OcToBER 3, 1902.] 


in former experiments having been due to 
the great contraction of the mercury in the 
thermometer in passing into the solid state. 
From this it followed that the enormous 
natural and artificial colds which had gen- 
erally been believed in had no proved ex- 
istence. Still the possible existence of a 
zero of temperature very different from 
that deduced from gas thermometry had 
the support of such distinguished names 
as those of Laplace and Lavoisier. In 
their great memoir on ‘Heat,’ after making 
what they consider reasonable hypotheses 
as to the relation between specific heat and 
total heat, they caleulate values for the 
zero which range from 1,500° to 3,000° 
below melting ice. On the whole, they 
regard the absolute zero as being in any 
ease 600° below the freezing-point. Lavoi- 
sier, in his ‘Elements of Chemistry’ pub- 
lished in 1792, goes further in the direction 
of indefinitely lowering the zero of tem- 
perature when he says, ‘We are still very 
far from being able to produce the degree 
of absolute cold, or total deprivation of 
heat, being unacquainted with any degree 
of coldness which we cannot suppose cap- 
able of still further augmentation; hence 
it follows we are incapable of causing the 
ultimate particles of bodies to approach 
each other as near as possible, and thus 
these particles do not touch each other in 
any state hitherto known.’ Even as late 
as the beginning of the nineteenth century 
we find Dalton, in his new system of ‘Chem- 
ical Philosophy,’ giving ten calculations of 
this value, and adopting finally as the nat- 
ural zero of temperature minus 3,000° C. 

In Black’s lectures we find that he takes 
a very cautious view with regard to the 
zero of temperature, but as usual is admir- 
ably clear with regard to its exposition. 
Thus he says, ‘‘We are ignorant of the 
lowest possible degree or beginning of heat. 
Some ingenious attempts have been made 
to estimate what it may be, but they have 


SCIENCE. 


549 


not proved satisfactory. Our knowledge 
of the degrees of heat may be compared to 
what we should have of a chain, the two 
ends of which were hidden from us and the 
middle only exposed to our view. We 
might put distinct marks on some of the 
links, and number the rest according as 
they are nearest to or further removed 
from the principal links; but not knowing 
the distance of any links from the end of 
the chain we could not compare them to- 
ether with respect to their distance or say 
that one link was twice as far from the 
end of the chain as another.’’ It is inter- 
esting to observe, however, that Black was 
evidently well acquainted with the work of 
Amontons and strongly supports his in- 
ference as to the nature of air. Thus, in 
discussing the general cause of vaporiza- 
tion, Black says that some philosophers have 
adopted the view ‘“‘that every palpable 
elastic fluid in nature is produced and pre- 
served in this form by the action of heat. 
Mr. Amontons, an ingenious member of the 
late Royal Academy of Sciences, at Paris, 
was the first who proposed this idea with 
respect to the atmosphere. He supposed 
that it might be deprived of the whole of 
its elasticity and condensed and even frozen 
into a solid matter were it in our power to 
apply to it a sufficient cold; that it is a 
substance that differs from others by being 
incomparably more volatile, and which is 
therefore converted into vapor and pre- 
served in that form by a weaker heat than 
any that ever happened or can obtain 
in this globe, and which, therefore, cannot 
appear under any other form than the one 
it now wears, so long as the constitution of 
the world remains the same as at present.’’ 
The views that Black attributes to Amon- 
tons have been generally associated with 
the name of Lavoisier, who practically ad- 
mitted similar possibilities as to the nature 
of air; but it is not likely that in such mat- 
ters Black would commit any mistake as 


50 SCIENCE. 


to the real author of a particular idea, es- 
pecially in his own department of knowl- 
edge. Black’s own special contribution to 
low-temperature studies was his explana- 
tion of the interaction of mixtures of ice 
with salts and acids by applying the doc- 
trine of the latent heat of fluidity of ice 
to account for the frigorifie effect. In a 
similar way Black explained the origin of 
the cold produced in Cullen’s remarkable 
experiment of the evaporation of ether 
under the receiver of an air-pump by point- 
ing out that the latent heat of vaporization 
in this case necessitated such a result. 
Thus, by applying his own discoveries of 
latent heat, Black gave an intelligent ex- 
planation of the cause of all the low-tem- 
perature phenomena known in his day. 
After, the gaseous laws had been def- 
initely formulated by Gay-Lussae and 
Dalton, the question of the absolute zero 
of temperature, as deduced from the prop- 
erties of gases, was revived by Clement and 
Desormes. These distinguished investi- 
gators presented a paper on the subject to 
the French Academy in 1812, which, it ap- 
pears, was rejected by that body. The 
authors subsequently elected to publish it 
in 1819. Relying on what we know now to 
have been a faulty hypothesis, they deduced 
from observations on the heating of air 
rushing into a vacuum the temperature of 
minus 267 degrees as that of the absolute 
zero. They further endeavored to show, 
by extending to lower temperatures the 
volume or the pressure coefficients of gases 
given by Gay-Lussae, that at the same 
temperature of minus 267 degrees the gases 
would contract so as to possess no appre- 
ciable volume, or, alternatively, if the pres- 
sure was under consideration, it would be- 
come so small as to be non-existent. Al- 
though full reference is given to previous 
work bearing on the same subject, yet, 
curiously enough, no mention is made of 
the name of Amontons. It certainly gave 


[N. 8S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


remarkable support to Amontons’ notion 
of the zero to find that simple gases like 
hydrogen and compound gases like am- 
monia, hydrochloric, carbonic and sul- 
phurous acids should all point to substan- 
tially the same value for this temperature. 
But the most curious fact about this re- 
search of Clement and Desormes is that 
Gay-Lussae was a bitter opponent of the 
validity of the inferences they drew either 
from his work or their own. The mode in 
which Gay-Lussac regarded the subject 
may be succinctly put as follows: A quick 
compression of air to one fifth volume 
raises its temperature to 300 degrees, and 
if this could be made much greater and in- 
stantaneous the temperature might rise to 
1,000 or 2,000 degrees. Conversely, if air 
under five atmospheres were suddenly di- 
lated, it would absorb as much heat as it 
had evolved during compression, and its 
temperature would be lowered by 300 de- 
erees. Therefore, if air were taken and 
compressed to fifty atmospheres or more, 
the cold produced by its sudden expansion 
would have no limit. In order to meet 
this position Clement and Desormes 
adopted the following reasoning: They 
pointed out that it had not been proved 
that Gay-Lussae was correct in his hypoth- 
esis, but that in any case it tacitly involves 
the assumption that a limited quantity of 
matter possesses an unlimited supply of 
heat. If this were the case, then heat 
would be unlike any other measurable thing 
or quality. It is, therefore, more con- 
sistent with the course of nature to suppose 
that the amount of heat in a body is like 
the quantity of elastic fluid filling a ves- 
sel, which, while definite in original 
amount, one may make less and less by 
getting nearer to a complete exhaustion. 
Further, to realize the absolute zero in the 
one case is just as impossible as to realize 
the absolute vacuum in the other; and as 
we do not doubt a zero of pressure, 


OcTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


although it is unattainable, for the same 
reason we ought to accept the reality of the 
absolute zero. We know now that Gay- 
Lussae was wrong in supposing the incre- 
ment of temperature arising from a given 
gaseous compression would produce a cor- 
responding decrement from an identical 
expansion. After this time the zero of 
temperature was generally recognized as a 
fixed ideal point, but in order to show that 
it was hypothetical a distinction was drawn 
between the use of the expressions, zero 
of absolute temperature and the absolute 
zero. 

The whole question took an entirely new 
form when Lord Kelvin, in 1848, after the 
mechanical equivalent of heat had been 
determined by Joule, drew attention to 
the great principles underlying Carnot’s 
work on the ‘Motive Power of Heat,’ and 
applied them to an absolute method of 
temperature measurement, which is com- 
pletely independent of the properties of 
any particular substance. The principle 
was that for a difference of one degree on 
this scale, between the temperatures of the 
source and refrigerator, perfect engine 
should give the same amount of work in 
every part of the scale. Taking the same 
fixed points as for the Centigrade scale, 
and making 100 of the new degrees cover 
that range, it was found that the degrees 
not only within that range, but as far be- 
yond as experimental data supplied the 
means of comparison, differed by only 
_ minute quantities from those of Regnault’s 
air thermometer. The zero of the new 
seale had to be determined by the consider- 
ation that when the refrigerator was at the 
zero of temperature the perfect engine 
should give an amount of work equal to 
the full mechanical equivalent of the heat 
taken up. This led to a zero of 273 degrees 
below the temperature of freezing water, 
substantially the same as that deduced 
from a study of the gaseous state. It was 


SCIENCE. 


501 


a great advance to demonstrate by the ap- 
plication of the laws of thermodynamics 
not only that the zero of temperature is a 
reality, but that it must be located at 273 
degrees below the freezing-point of water. 
As no one has attempted to impugn the 
solid foundation of theory and experiment 
on which Lork Kelvin based his thermo- 
dynamic scale, the existence of a definite 
zero of temperature must be acknowledged 
as a fundamental scientific fact. 
JAMES Dewar. 
(To be concluded.) 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

Essays in Historical Chemistry. By T. E. 
Tuorer, LL.D., F.R.S., Principal of the 
Government Laboratory, London. London 
and New York, Macmillan Co. 1902. 8vo. 
Pp. 582. 

This book, as explained in the preface, con- 

sists mainly of lectures and addresses given 
at various times to audiences of very different 
type during the last twenty-five years. . Al- 
though the author says his book has no pre- 
tensions to be considered a history of chemis- 
try, even of the time to which the narratives 
relate, it is in reality a most interesting and 
charmingly written account of chemical dis- 
covery and of the development of chemical 
theory of the past century as connected with 
the lives of the great men who have made the 
science of chemistry what it is to-day. 
_ It is true that none of these essays deals 
directly with Black, Dalton, Berzelius or Lie- 
big, yet there is so much incidental mention 
of the work of these investigators that their 
places in the growing science are amply indi- 
cated. 

Boyle, Priestley, Cavendish, Watt, Faraday 
and Graham are the English subjects of these 
addresses, and from the Continent we have 
Scheele, Lavoisier, Wéohler, Dumas, Kopp, 
Victor Meyer, Mendeleeff and Cannizzaro, and 
the latter group are as sympathetically treated 
as the former. 

The author has the happy gift of making 
the subjects of his study stand out vividly 
as individuals, and we follow their careers, 


502 


from their student days to the high positions 
which they all attained, with an interest which 
never flags. The personal relations of those 
who were contemporaries are also happily 
stated, and the book, as a whole, gives us a 
living picture of the growth of chemical sci- 
ence which differs, most fortunately, from 
most of the systematic treatises on the history 
of chemistry. 

In the controversial address, inspired by 
Berthelot’s ‘La Révolution Chimique,’ in 
which he claimed for Lavoisier the right to 
the discovery and coordination of those gen- 
eral ideas relating to the composition of air 
and water, Dr. Thorpe is a sturdy and con- 
vincing defender of the claims of Priestley and 
Cavendish. And yet we cannot help feeling 
that his task would have been an easier one 
if the English chemists had not held on so 
tenaciously to the fantastical idea of phlogis- 
ton, which prevented them from grasping the 
true and simple relation of oxygen and nitro- 
gen in air and oxygen and hydrogen in water. 
That this controversy does not blind the au- 
thor to seeing Lavoisier in his true position as 
the founder of modern chemistry is shown in 
his article on Lavoisier in the Contemporary 
Review of December, 1900, in which he speaks 
of him as ‘the dominant figure in the chemical 
world of the last century.’ 

The addresses are all of such great interest 
and value that it is not easy to select one or 
more of especial merit. And yet it is perhaps 
noticeable that the author is most attracted 
by the personality of Graham among the Eng- 
lish chemists and of Wohler, Kopp and Victor 
Meyer among the German. Admirable they 
all are, and well worthy of collection in the 
permanent form now before us. 

The concluding addresses on ‘The Rise and 
Development of Synthetic Chemistry,’ ‘On 
the Progress of Chemistry in Great Britain 
and Ireland during the Nineteenth Century,’ 
and ‘On the Development of the Chemical 
Arts during the Reign of Queen Victoria’ are 
worthy of a place in the volume, but they lack 
the life of the addresses which deal with the 
personality of the masters of the science. 

The history of chemistry is not often suc- 
cessfully taught in our technical schools, for 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vor. XVI. No. 405. 


the reason, perhaps, that not many teachers 
are able to make it interesting. With this 
collection of essays as a basis for reading, the 
average teacher would find his students much 
more receptive of systematic instruction in 
the subject. 


T. M. Drown. 
LeHIGH UNIVERSITY. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 


Contents of September, 1902, number of 
Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Elec- 
tricity : 

Portrait of General Sir Edward Sabine, Frontis- 
piece; ‘Ueber Die Meteorologische Natur der 
Variationen des Erdmagnetismus,’ A. Nippoldt; 
‘Work in Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric 
Electricity in South Africa, J. C. Beattie; ‘ Wilson 
and Gibbs’s Vector Analysis, E. W. Hyde; ‘ Note 
Sur L’Amplitude de L’Oscillation Diurne de la Dé- 
clinaison Magnetique et Son Inégalité Mensuelle,’ 
J. de Moidrey; ‘ Note Sur la Variation Séculaire 
de la Déclinaison 4 Zi-ka-wei (Chine), J. de 
Moidrey; ‘ Biographical Sketch of General Sir Ed- 
ward Sabine, F.R.S., K.C.B.’; ‘Magnetic Deflec- 
tion of Long Steel Wire Plumb-lines,’ W. Hallock; 
‘Divergence of Long Plumb-lines at the Tama- 
rack Mine,’ F. W. McNair; Notes, Abstracts and 
Reviews, Recent Publications. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
INVESTIGATION VERSUS ERUDITION. 


To tue Eprror or Scrence: It is very 
natural and desirable that scientific men of 
experience should give counsel upon the edu- 
cation of those to whom their labors, finished 
and unfinished, must be bequeathed. On the 
other hand, it will be a misfortune if they who 
have surrounded themselves with facilities for 
investigating their respective subjects forget 
the condition of the beginner and mislead him 
either with vain hopes or with unwarranted 
discouragement. Both these dangers seem to 
inhere in a proposition advanced in many of 
the addresses before scientific bodies, with 
which the columns of ScreNcE abound. Pro- 
fessor Thurston’s able paper furnishes a 
recent and excellent example of the bogus 
educational axiom to which exception is taken. 


OcTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


Scientific research is the highest work under- 
taken by the man of science, and it can be under- 
taken with confidence only by him who has made 
himself familiar with the state of his art, to date, 
or by the genius whose inspiration may, now and 
then, make learning, for the time and occasion, 
less essential. 

* * * The first step is thus the acquirement of 
a complete knowledge of the essential work of in- 
vestigation which has been accomplished by others 
to date. This eliminates the primary work and 
permits avoidance of repetition, as well as reveals 
the suggestions of every great mind which has at- 
tacked the problem in its preliminary stages, and 
places the investigation on the level from which 
further advance becomes directly and effectively 
practicable. It also gives the proposing investi- 
gator a firm and ample foundation on which to 


build higher and exhibits to him the trend of the 
work, in advance.* 


Researches directed toward the increase of 
detailed knowledge might be contrasted with 
those concerned with generalization. Professor 
Thurston’s argument would apply to the for- 
mer far better than to the latter. 

That we should first learn everything known 
about a subject before trying to find out any- 
thing new may appear self-evident, but it is 
no more true for young investigators than for 
ordinary students whom we are now at such 
pains to instruct by ‘laboratory methods.’ 
The investigator who has become familiar 
with a specific problem may sometimes obtain 
valuable suggestions from the failures of his 
predecessors, but to canvass all the literature 
of a department of research may not only in- 
volve an enormous waste of time and energy, 
but does not constitute a preparation for the 
work of investigation. The academic simple- 
ton will, of course, consider this the same as 
to allege that the more ignorant one may be 
the better he can investigate, but there is a 
difference which patient analysis may enable 
him to appreciate. 

“A little learning is a dangerous thing,’ and 
more is more dangerous. For learning, as 
such, the investigator has no use. Knowledge 
is valuable to him—the more the better—but 
it is as suicidal folly for him to cumber his 
brain with a miscellaneous assortment of the 

** Scientific Research: The Art of Revelation and 
of Prophecy,’ Scrmnce, N. 8. Vol. XVI., pp. 401— 
409, September 12, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 593 


observations and theories of others as for the 
athlete to surfeit his stomach before a foot- 
race. 

The first and most essential preliminary for 
a successful investigation is an interest in the 
question, and any method of procedure which 
tends to diminish or relax interest is false 
and futile. Diligence in learning the facts of 
a science is a distinctly unfavorable symptom 
in a would-be investigator when unaccom- 
panied by a vital constructive interest. That 
a student hoards facts does not mean that he 
will build anything with them. Intellectual 
misers are common, and are quite as unprotit- 
able as the monetary variety. A scientific 
specialist may have vast knowledge and life- 
long experience, and yet may never entertain 
an original idea or make a new rift in the 
wall of the unknown which baffled his pre- 
decessors. Indeed, such men commonly resent 
a readjustment of the bounds of knowledge as 
an interference with their vested capital of 
erudition. 

Investigation is a sentiment, an instinct, a 
habit of mind; it is man’s effort at knowing 
and enjoying the universe. The productive 
investigator desires knowledge for a purpose; 
he may not be eager for knowledge in general, 
nor for new knowledge in particular. He 
values details for their bearing upon the prob- 
lem he hopes to solve. He can gather and sift 
them to advantage only in the light of a 
radiant interest, and his ability to utilize them 
for correct inferences depends on the delicacy 
of his perception and the strength of his 
mental grasp. The trainers put the athletes 
on a restricted diet with copious practice, but 
the efforts of the professors are directed 
toward the production of a flabby intellectual 
corpulence. 

The investigator, like the athlete, must first 
be born; he can not be made to order, but his 
training determines the degree of excellence 
to which he can attain. No amount of train- 
ing can remove organic defects, but bad train- 
ing may be worse than none in lessening the 
attainment of the most capable. That educa- 
tion is false and injurious which puts the 
matter first and retards or prevents the 
development of constructive mental ability, a 


5o4 


power not peculiar to the investigator, but in 
him reaching the greatest scope and freedom 
of action. 

The investigator must not only be born, he 
must be permitted to grow up. He needs 
nourishing food, but equally needs to retain 
the power of securing and digesting it for 
himself. Twenty years is long enough to 
acquire or lose any habit, and it is not strange 
that after a youth consumed in our modern 
and efficient system of kindergartens, primary, 
grammar and high schools, colleges and uni- 
versities, the graduate, and even the post- 
graduate, continues to expect somebody to tell 
him what to do next. In Germany it has 
been found necessary to offset the goose-liver- 
stuffing experience of the primary schools and 
gymnasia by a return to social barbarism in 
the university, but the self-assertion secured 
through rowdyism and immorality is no true 
substitute for the lost integrity of the intel- 
lect. The German’s confidence in a highly 
developed governmental and educational ma- 
chinery gives him little opportunity to per- 
ceive what is very apparent in our pioneer 
country where a large proportion of productive 
investigators have not suffered the disad- 
vantage of too intensive education. Many are 
not even college men, and of those who are 
many come from small, poorly equipped insti- 
tutions whose intellectual and social demands 
did not completely monopolize the time and 
interest of the period of intellectual growth. 
These men did not take their colleges too 
seriously, and did not cease to feel responsible 
for their own intellectual salvation. Modern 
philanthropy has reared palaces of learning in 
which all the supposed needs of the human 
mind are anticipated and supplied; the ques- 
tion now is whether an endowed education has 
not the same dangers as an endowed religion. 

O. F. Coox. 


Wasuineton, September 22, 1902. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
PREPOTENCY IN POLYDACTYLOUS CATS. 

Ir has long been one of the common notions 
in post-Darwinian speculations that the varia- 
tions which produce new species have small 
beginnings and increase very gradually, varia- 
tions sufficiently striking to be classed as sports 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


being considered practically incapable of 
modifying the species, since the number of 
individuals with the same abnormality would 
be relatively small, and the abnormal varia- 
tion would be swamped by a few generations 
of crossing with normal, that is, average in- 
dividuals. This notion seems to be based on 
the assumption that the characters of the off- 
spring are the average of the characters of the 
two parents—that, in other words, an abnor- 
mality in either parent (the other being nor- 
mal) is reduced one half in each succeeding 
generation. 

The following observations, however, do not 
support this view. Not only do abnormal 
variations persist from generation to genera- 
tion, but they even become more conspicuous, 
although one parent is always normal. The 
facts accord with Poulton’s observations on a 
family of polydactylous cats (Nature, 1883 and 
1887). 

Some weeks ago my attention was called to 
three generations of cats in the possession of a 
Los Angeles family, many of the cats being 
furnished with an abnormal number of toes 
on both manus and pes. All are descended 
from a stray female of unknown pedigree, 
which possessed twenty-two toes, six (instead 
of five) on each manus, and five (instead of 
four) on each pes. This female, crossing with 
normal males, has produced several litters. In 
one litter there were five kittens, four of which 
were normal, the other having the normal 
number of five toes on each manus, but not 
the normal arrangement, the hallux being on 
a line with the others and equalling them in 
size. Each pes had six toes. The phalanges 
were apparently well formed, the same number 
to every toe. 

Another litter contained several abnormal 
kittens (no accurate account was kept of the 
ratio of normal to abnormal), one of which 
survives and has been examined by me, as 
have all the other abnormal cats to be men- 
tioned. It has six toes on the right manus, 
seven on the left manus, and the normal num- 
ber, four, on each pes. Such a condition may 
be represented in the following manner: 


ZAG 
4\4 


OcTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


This cat is a female and has borne three lit- 
ters with normal fathers. Fifty per cent., as 
the owners remembered, were abnormal in one 
litter. The sole survivor has twenty-four toes, 
six on each manus and pes, all practically 
equivalent. In another litter more than 
fifty. per cent. were abnormal; the sole sur- 
‘vyivor- a male, has the digit formula of 
716 
616 
with a total of twenty-five toes. In the third 
litter there are five kittens. Three are ab- 
normal, with the following formule: 
GIG BIG aie 
Ble? 2122 Bis” 


The last formula represents the number of 
digits when the kitten was a few days old. 
The first (inside) digit on one pes has now 
totally disappeared, and the corresponding one 
on the other pes is fast shriveling away; so 
that the normal number on each pes is being 
secondarily established by a resorption of 
No. 1, the toe which is normally absent on the 
pes and reduced on the manus. 

In each of the four instances in which seven 
toes appear on one foot they are arranged in 
two groups. Toes Nos. 7, 6, 5, 4 (7 being the 
outermost toe) resemble the main four toes of 
the normal manus (7. e., 5, 4, 3, 2). Of 
the three constituting the second group No. 
2 is larger than any of the other six toes. 
Nos. 1 and 3 are of about equal size and 
smaller than any of the other five. Nos. 1, 2 
and 3, taken together, seem to form a second 
(supernumerary) foot. It is interesting that 
seven toes occur only on a manus, which had 
normally more toes than the pes. The fact 
that the fifth toe degenerated in one case on 
the inside of the pes indicates that the super- 
numerary toes are added on the inside of the 
foot. This probably does not hold when there 
are two supernumeraries on the manus (seven 
in all), where, as Poulton held, the innermost 
toe may represent the hallux, or the super- 
numeraries may be interpreted as Freeland 
Howe, Jr., has recently (Am. Nat., July, 1902) 
interpreted them in six-toed feet. According 
to this interpretation the outermost three toes 
are comparable to digits 3, 4, 5, of the normal 


SCIENCE. 


5d5 


pes. None of the other three individually 
represent Nos. 1 or 2, but collectively they re- 
place No. 1 plus No. 2. This seems to me the 
more probable view in the present instance. 
A review of the above facts shows the marked 
prepoteney of the sport. The grandmother 
generation I.) had 
6|6 


5/5 


or 22 toes. In generation II., one litter con- 
tained but one abnormal kitten among five 
(twenty per cent.), with a total of 22 toes. 
The other litter contained several abnormal 
ones, the sole survivor possessing seven toes 
on one manus, though with a total of but 21. 
From this cat have arisen the three litters of 
generation III., in which one has 25 toes (one 
manus having 7), two have 24 (one of these 
having 7 on each manus), and all three litters 
possessed not less than fifty per cent. of ab- 
normal individuals, the last having sixty per 
cent. It is clear that the total number as 
well as the number on each manus and pes is 
increasing from generation to generation. 

There seems to be a no less remarkable pre- 
potency of sex. The male cat with 25 toes, 
when crossed with normal females, seems to 
have had no influence on the number of toes 
in the offspring, so far as information could 
be obtained. This result is not in harmony 
with Poulton’s observations, however, and may 
not be borne out by further information. 

I have obtained several of these cats for 
breeding and future study. 

Harry Beau Torrey. 
ZOOLOGICAL LABORATORY, UNIV. oF CAL., 
BERKELEY, CAt., Sept. 6, 1902. 


MAGNETIC WORK OF THE UNITED STATES COAST AND 
GEODETIC SURVEY PLANNED FOR JULY 1, 
1902, To JUNE 30, 1903. 


(a) Land Magnetic Survey Work.—The de- 
termination of the three magnetic elements at 
four hundred to five hundred stations dis- 
tributed principally in Virginia, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, Ne- 
braska, Texas, Arkansas and Florida. 

(b) Magnetic Observatory Work.—The con- 
tinuous operation of the four magnetic observ- 


556 


atories situated at Cheltenham (Maryland), 
Baldwin (Kansas), Sitka (Alaska) and near 
Honolulu (Hawaiian Islands). Also the selec- 
tion of sites and preparations of plans for an 
observatory in Porto Rico or vicinity and 
another in the extreme western part of the 
United States. 

(c) Ocean Magnetic Survey Work.—The 
inauguration of magnetic work on board ship 
in connection with regular trips of vessels 
engaged in coast survey work. 

(d) Special Investigations conducted at the 
observatories and at educational institutions 
by persons available as ‘associate magnetic 
observers.’ 

(e) At the Office at Washington a special 
effort will be made to bring all computations 
of field work performed and investigations con- 
ducted since July 1, 1899, up to date and to 
prepare results for publication. [The results 
for magnetic declination referred to January 
1, 1902, embracing all observations up to 
June 30, 1902, are contained in the ‘ United 
States Magnetic Declination Tables for 1902, 
now passing through the press. The results 
for magnetic dip and intensity up to June 30, 
1902, are being prepared for publication and 
will appear in Report of the Superintendent of 
the Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1902.] 

L. A. Baurr. 


THE HUGH MILLER CENTENARY. 


Tue celebration of the centenary of Hugh 
Miller, the Scotch geologist and litterateur, 
took place in the picturesque little village of 
Cromarty, his native place, on August 22, and 
was the occasion of a large and enthusiastic 
gathering. Those present were very largely 
Scotsmen and the day was made one of spe- 
cial rejoicing in view of the extraordinary 
service rendered by Miller as a layman to the 
ecclesiastical disestablishment in Scotland, 
yet his services to geologic science and his 
unequalled achievement in clothing geologic 
facts in alluring literary garb were kept in 
the foreground. The ceremonies of the occa- 
sion began with an outdoor meeting at the 
foot of the fine shaft which bears at its sum- 
‘mit a statue of Miller. This meeting was 
opened by the Provost of the town, Mr. Junor, 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


and was presided over by Mr. Bignold, M.P. 
Addresses were delivered by Sir Archibald 
Geikie, former director of the Geological Sur- 
vey of the United Kingdom; Dr. Rainy, prin- 
cipal of the Free Church College, Edinburgh; 
and Dr. J. M. Clarke, of Albany, who with 
Dr. C. R. Eastman represented the Geological 
Society of America. A luncheon followed in 
the largest hall the village afforded, though 
this was altogether insufficient to accommodate 
those who desired to attend, and while 250 sat 
down at table, as many more were turned 
away. At this function Sir Thomas Han- 
bury presided and speeches were made by Dr. 
John Horne, chief of the Geological Survey 
of Scotland; Rev. Dr. Muir, of the Glasgow 
Cathedral; Dr. Carnegie; Professor Middle- 
ton, of Oxford; Sir James Grant, president 
of the Royal Society of Canada, and others. 
The occasion was closed by an elaborate and 
elegant address by Sir Archibald Geikie on 
Miller’s work and influence as a geologist. 
The effort which has been made by the people 
of Cromarty to raise a memorial to Miller in 
the form of a library and museum has not 
thus far been as successful as was anticipated, 
though the contribution from America has 
been substantial. It is believed, however, that 
this celebration which called forth widespread 
interest, great enthusiasm and strong edito- 
rials from all parts of Great Britain, will help 
to further the project which appeals to all who 
honor the memory or have felt the influence 
of this great man. 


THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 


Tue Belfast meeting of the British Associa- 
tion is said by the British journals to have 
been one of the most interesting in its history. 
The programs were full, and there were a 
number of addresses and papers of special 
importance. The attendance was about 1,600 
which was about 300 less than that of the pre- 
ceding meetings at Bradford and Glasgow, 
and the meeting at Belfast in 1874 presided 
over by Tyndall. The meeting at Bristol in 
1898, had an attendance of 2,446 and that of 
Liverpool in 1896 of 3,181. The attendance 
at the meetings of the British Association is 


OcTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


about equally divided between members and 
local associates, who subseribe for the meet- 
ing, and is consequently not very much larger 
than that of our own association. We publish 
above the first part of the address of the presi- 
dent, Professor Dewar, and hope to publish 
subsequently several of the addresses of the 
presidents of the sections and a report of the 
scientific proceedings. As already reported 
Sir Norman Lockyer was elected president, 
Dr. J. S. Garson, was made assistant general 
secretary in the room of the late Mr. G. Grif- 
fith, and Major P. A. McMahon, general secre- 
tary, in succession to Sir William Roberts- 
Austin. New members of the council are Sir 
W. Abney, Professor A. C. Haddon, Mr. C. 
Hawksley, Professor G. B. Howes, Professor 
W. W. Watts and Professor D. J. Cunning- 
ham. The meeting next year will be at South- 
port, and the following year at Cambridge. 
It is expected that the meeting in 1905 will 
be in South Africa. 

Grants to committees for scientific purposes 
were made as follows: 


MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS. 


Rayleigh, Lord—Electrical Standards....... £35 
Judd, Professor J. W.—Seismological Obser- 


VAG susgosbctokansooooeaoobosoooODOD 40 
Shaw, Dr. W. N.—Investigation of the Upper 

JNTTIOGVIGH® ooceceocsocooboudbansoq0sddo 75 
Preece, Sir W. H.—Magnetic Observations... 40 


CHEMISTRY. 


Divers, Professor E.—Study of Hydroaro- 
maticn Substancesy jay: 2-1) -/-y-ie/eleiel-|s ene) ste < ee) 20 
Roscoe, Sir H. E—Wave-length Tables of 


SCO soocopedgsoccobennvoodbaannaoDoe 5 
GEOLOGY. 
Herdman, Professor—Fauna and Flora of 
British, SEriaspets a cqyeeeieiccisscvesae weenie 5 
Marr, Mr. J. E.—Erratic Blocks............ 10 


Scharff, Dr. R. E.—To Explore Irish Caves.. 40 


Watts, Professor W. W.—Underground 
Waters of Northwest Yorkshire.......... 40 

Marr, Mr. J. E.—Life-zones in British Car- 
boniferousmRoOcKsE ee erenneerner incr cc 5 


Geikie, Professor J.—Geological Photographs. 10 


ZOOLOGY. 
Herdman, Professor W. A.—Table at the 
Zoological Station at Naples............. 100 
Woodward, Dr. H.—Index Animalium...... 100 


SCIENCE. 


507 


GEOGRAPHY. 
Keltie, Dr. J. S.—Tidal Bore, Sea Waves and 


Beaches! 12g sip a < speek Lyte 15 
Holdich, Sir T.—Scottish National Antarctic 
EGU OM Soowalcs Godoadodwabonteoanose 50 
ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 
Brabrook, Mr. E. W.—Economiec Effect of 
Womanis labors. 93sec acer cee 25 
MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 
Preece, Sir W. H.—Screw Gauges.......... 5 
Binnie, Sir A.—Resistance of Road Vehicles 
CoM Mractioniy tse cinty cine euete ee a ap eae 90 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 
Evans, Sir J.—Researches in Crete......... 100 
Read, Mr. C. H.—Exploration of Stone 
@IMCLE SRM My scares: LO er a Yeates 5 
Cleland, Professor J.—Anthropometric In- 
VOSUIEEIGOM "Soong Soedogaamnacopolddadoe 56 5 
Ridgeway, Professor—Anthropology of the 


Todas and Tribes of Southern India...... 50 


Read, Mr. C. H.—Anthropological Photo- 
graphs (balance in hand)............... = 
PHYSIOLOGY. 

Halliburton, Professor W. D.—The State of 
Solution of “Proteids)\:\)... 242 .c2sces ss 20 
BOTANY. 

Miall, Professor L. C.—Registration of Bo- 
tanical Photographs..................... 3 
Farmer, Professor J. B.—Investigation of the 
Cyanophycer mane te nein ace errieeene 25 
Ward, Professor Marshall—Respiration of 
ADE IES laa Wa ciad ano na a a oloen on GORE Goa ne 12 
EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 
Sherrington, Professor—Conditions of Health 
Essential for School Instruction.......... 10 


CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 
Whitaker, Mr. W.—Preparing Report, ete.. 20 


£960 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 


Dr. D. C. Gruman, president of the Carnegie 
Institution, has returned to the United 
States. 

Dr. ANprEw D. Wurre, Ambassador to Ger- 
many, will present his letters of recall at about 
the middle of the month. His successor, Dr. 
Charlemagne Tower, is also interested in lit- 
erary and scientific subjects, being a member 
of the American Philosophical Society and 
of the American Institute of Mining Engi- 
neers. 


558 


Dr. Henry C. McCoor, known to scientific 
men for his publications on ants and spiders, 
has retired after a service of about thirty- 
three years from the pastorate of a Presby- 
terian church in Philadelphia owing to ill 
health. 

Proressors Jostan Royce and George H. 
Palmer, of the philosophical department of 
Harvard University, have leave of absence for 
the present year. Professor Palmer has sailed 
for England. 

BriGADIER-GENERAL WitirAm H. Forwoop, 
U.S. A., who was recently retired as surgeon- 
general, was tendered a banquet on Septem- 
ber 19 at Washington. 

Proressor WitHELM Wuwnpt, the eminent 
psychologist, has, on the occasion of his seven- 
tieth birthday, been made an honorary citi- 
zen of the city of Leipzig. 

Proressors JuLius Wiesner and Karl 
Goebel, who hold: respectively the chairs of 
botany at Vienna and Munich, have been 
elected corresponding members of the Go6t- 
tingen Academy of Sciences. 

Dr. Epuarp Ricuter, professor of geography 
at Graz, has been made a member of the Vien- 
na Academy of Sciences. 

Dr. Avotr Encier, professor of botany at 
Berlin, is at present engaged in an expedition 
to Africa. 

AN expedition from the Liverpool School 
of Tropical Medicine under Major Ronald 
Ross, has gone:to the Suez Canal to institute 
preventive measures against malaria. 

Dr. WitnetmM Mutuman, of the Munich 
Institute of Technology, has received a grant 
of 3,000 Marks for researches in inorganic 
chemistry, from the fund for German indus- 
try. 

Present PritcHett, of the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, has accepted the invi- 
tation of the trustees of the Lowell Textile 
School to deliver the address at the dedication 
of its new buildings, the date of which has not 
yet been announced. 

Masor Goraas, chief of the sanitary depart- 
ment at Havana during the American occu- 
pation, has returned to the United States. Be- 
fore leaving Cuba he was given a dinner by 


SCIENCE. 


1 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


President Palmer, who expressed the gratitude 
of Cuba for the efficient services rendered the 
island and the city, especially in the suppres- 
sion of yellow fever. 

Dr. G. M. Gurreras, yellow fever expert of 
the Marine Hospital Service, has returned to 
the United States after an absence of three 
years in Cuba. He has been ordered to Phila- 
delphia. ; 

Proressor C. R. Van Hisz, who for a num- 
ber of years has devoted himself particularly 
to the investigation of the metamorphic for- 
mations has been placed by the U. 8. Geolog- 
ical Survey in charge of its studies of this im- 
portant group. He is being assisted by Mr. 
C. Kx. Leith in the preparation of a compre- 
hensive monograph of the Lake Superior re- 
gion, by Dr. W. S. Bayley in the completion of 
field work in the famous Menominee district, 
by Dr. W. H. Hobbs in the continuation of 
surveys in Connecticut, where the metamor- 
phie problems are of decided interest, and by 
Dr. Florence Bascom in areal and structural 
studies in the Pennsylvania district. 


Proressor Henry §S. Wituiams, of Yale 
University, is devoting this season to the con- 
tinuation of his studies, for the U. S. Geolog- 
ical Survey, of problems of the Devonian for- 
mations in Pennsylvania, New York and 
Maine, looking to a systematic correlation of 
the present knowledge of all the rocks of the 
country of Devonian age. He is being assisted 
by Mr. E. M. Kindle. 


Proressor Dr. Apotr Scumipt, of Gotha, 
has been appointed director of the Potsdam 
Magnetic Observatory in succession to the 
late lamented Professor Eschenhagen. He 
takes charge on October 1. 


Mr. Epwarp R. Smart, in charge of trigono- 
metric work in the Island of Trinidad, spent 
some time at the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 
familiarizing himself with the instruments 
and methods in use in the geodetic and mag- 
netie work. Father Edmond Goetz,’ S.J., 
likewise familiarized himself at the Coast and 
Geodetic Survey with magnetic instruments 
and methods, preparatory to work he con- 
templates undertaking, starting out at Bul- 
wayo, Rhodesia. 


OcTOBER 3, 1902. ] 


Dr. L. A. Bauer left Washington on Sep- 
tember 15 for a six weeks’ inspection trip of 
magnetic work in the western states and to 
make the necessary preliminary observations 
for special magnetic investigations during the 
coming winter and spring in the northern part 
of Michigan in the vicinity of the Great Lakes. 


Ir is stated in Nature that letters received 
from Uganda give a good account of the 
progress of Mr. Budgett, Balfour traveling 
student of Cambridge, on his zoological mis- 
sion to the Semliki. On July 13, he writes 
that he was proposing to start next day from 
Kampala for Lake Albert, where he would 
probably stay at Batyaba, near the Nile end, 
the Polypterus which he was in quest of being 
stated to be abundant at this spot. Afterwards 
his plans were to proceed southward to Fort 
Portal and thence to the Semliki valley, where 
he would make a general collection and look 
after the okapi in the neighboring forest. Mr. 
Jackson has most kindly allowed Mr. Budgett 
to have the assistance of one of his trained 
taxidermists. 


Ir has been decided to erect the statue of 
Pasteur by Falguiére in the Avenue de Bre- 
teuil, Paris. 


Mr. Witwiam Neate Locrineron died at 
Worthing in Sussex,’ England, on the 3d of 
August, at the age of about sixty years. Mr. 
Lockington was from 1878 to 1881 curator of 
fishes in the California Academy of Sciences. 
At this time he published a number of papers 
on the fishes and the crabs of the Pacific coast, 
the most important being a review of the 
flounders of California. He was the dis- 
coverer of a considerable number of interest- 
ing new forms. Before coming to California 
he had traveled somewhat widely in Spain and 
other parts of Europe and had achieved some 
reputation as a naturalist. After returning 
to England he was obliged by failing health 
to give up scientific work, but always retained 
a deep interest in natural history and in the 
affairs of California.—D. 8S. J. 


Dr. P. Pxiész, professor of physiology and 
pathological chemistry at Buda Pesth, has 
died at the age of fifty-seven. 


SCIENCE. 


559 


Nature reports the death of Professor J. J. 
Hummel, principal of the dyeing department 
of the Yorkshire College, Leeds; and of Mr. 
Alexander Sutherland, registrar of the Univer- 
sity of Melbourne, author of ‘The Origin and 
Growth of the Moral Instinct.’ 

Tur Academy of Science at Cracow has 
received from the state an appropriation of 
61,000 crowns. 

Ir will be remembered that it was decided 
to close the meteorological observatory on Ben 
Nevis, owing to lack of funds, and the staff 
were told that their services would not be re- 
quired after October. It has now, however, 
been decided to keep the Observatory open dur- 
ing the present winter, and it is hoped that the 
government will provide for it permanently. 

Tue board of health of San Francisco has 
issued a report reaffirming the existence of the 
plague in San Francisco. The mayor of the 
city dismissed the board last March, owing to 
its making a truthful report in regard to the 
plague, but the action of the mayor was not 
upheld by the courts. 


Tue International Congress on Tuberculosis 
meets at Berlin from October 22-26. The sub- 
jects suggested for special discussion are: (1) 
position of Governments with regard to the 
prevention of consumption; (2) obligation to 
give information to the police; (3) organiza- 
tion of dispensaries; (4) the task of schools 
with regard to the prevention of consumption; 
(5) precautions against the dangers of milk; 
(6) tuberculosis during infancy; (7) protec- 
tion of labor and prevention of consumption; 
(8) classification and different modes of ac- 
commodating consumptives. 

THE society for the protection of the inter- 
ests of the German chemical industry, recently 
in session at Frankfort, has unanimously 
passed a resolution against the prohibition of 
the use of boric acid for the preservation of 
meats, and has appealed to the Bundesrath to 
reverse its decision. 

Dr. Louris Exnxinp writes to the London 
Times: “It is rather curious that, though 
Professor Virchow’s name has been well 
known throughout the civilized world for a 
long period, very few people know how to pro- 


560 


nounce it, Germans themselves being almost 
as mistaken in their pronunciation as foreign- 
ers. Never was this general error as plainly 
emphasized as at the celebrations held in hon- 
or of the great scientist’s 80th birthday. The 
delegates whom he received on that occasion 
had each his own way of pronouncing V-i-r- 
c-h-o-w, Lord Lister, for instance, speaking as 
if the word were spelled Wirtschau, Signor 
Baceelli, Wirkoff, while his French and Rus- 
sian colleagues pronounced his name in such 
a way that it was by no means easy to under- 
stand whom they meant—Wirschoff, Wirhoff, 
and Wirchoft respectively. At the banquet 
which was given by Count von Bilow in the 
late Professor Virchow’s honor, and which 
practically brought the festivities to a close, 
Professor Harnack addressed the guest of the 
evening as Herr F-i-r-ch-o—that is to say, 
the F is accentuated as softly as possible, as 
in the English ‘fair’ and the Russian ‘ Feo- 
dor,’ while the ‘w’ is dispensed with. This 
greatly delighted the veteran pathologist, and 
he remarked that never before had he heard 
his name pronounced properly. Subsequently, 
he dwelt upon the origin of his name, saying 
that he had been able to trace it to a small 
village and a lake in Pomerania, both of 
which are named Virchow, which word the na- 
tives pronounce exactly as Professor Harnack 
had done. It may be of interest if I add that 
a leading German philologist devoted consid- 
erable time to the subject of the origin of 
Virchow’s name, and came to the conclusion 
that it was Slavonic. The Slavs, he thought, 
who bore it, were settled in Pomerania about 
the fifth century of the Christian era, and 
gave one of their names to the village and the 
lake.” 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Ir is announced that the bequest to the 
Princeton Theological Seminary made by 
Miss Mary Winthrop, of New York, will 
amount to $1,400,000. 


Av Harvard University students can here- 
after complete the requirements for the A.B. 
degree in three years without other require- 
ments than that the necessary number of 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 405. 


courses should have been taken. Hitherto 
students who received honors could do this, 
others being required to wait a year before 
the degree was conferred. 

Tue Hon. John D. Long, formerly secretary 
of the navy, has been elected president of the 
board of overseers of Harvard University. 

SUPERINTENDENT Epwin G. Cooney, of the 
Chicago public schools, has been offered the 
presidency of the University of the State of 
Washington. 

Proressor THomas F. Houcare, head of the 
department of mathematics of Northwestern 
University, has been elected dean of the Col- 
lege of Liberal Arts. 

Dr. JoHN MarsHatu, professor of chemistry 
and toxicology and dean of the medical de- 
partment of the University of Pennsylvania, 
has declined reelection to the office of dean, a 
position he has held for eight years, in order 
to devote himself more exclusively to scientific 
work. Dr. Charles Frazier has been appointed 
dean of the department. 

Dr. Winiiam B. Savery, of Fairmount Col- 
lege, Kansas, has been elected to fill the chair 
of philosophy at the Washington State Uni- 
versity, left vacant by the resignation of Dr. 
F. W. Colegrove. 

Dr. Frank 8. Wrinco, Ph.D. (Leipzig), of 
Toronto, has been appointed demonstrator in 
experimental psychology in Princeton Univer- 
sity. 

Dr. J. W. L. Jones, Ph.D. (Princeton), has 
been appointed professor of philosophy and 
education in Heidelberg University, Ohio. 

Dr. WiLtHELM WINDELBAND, professor of 
philosophy at Strassburg, has received a call 
to Heidelberg. 

Dr. Hetricu Mair, associate professor of 
philosophy at Zurich, has been called to 
Tiibingen as successor to Professor E. von 
Pfleiderer. 

Dr. WitHELM Trapert has been appointed 
to a full professorship of cosmical physics at 
University of Innsbruck. 

Dr. Oscar Zotu, professor of physiology at 
Graz, has been called to Innsbruck as successor 
to Professor M. von Vintschgau. 


SCIENC 


& WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANZEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE : S. NEwcoms, Mathematics; R. S. WoopwaRp, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WaALcoTT, Geology; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; Henry F. Osgorn, Paleon- 
tology ; W: K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScupDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Brssgy, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Mtnot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


DITCH, Physiology ; 


J. S. Brnuines, Hygiene; WiLLIAM H. WELCH, 


Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Fray, OctosErR 10, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


John Wesley Powell (with plate): G. Ks. 
BERT 
The Address of the President of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, 
II.: PRoressor JAMES DEwaR............ 
The Bureau of Government Laboratories for 
the Philippine Islands, and Scientific Posi- 
tions under it: PROFESSOR PAuL C. FREER. 
The Carnegie Institution: PROFESSOR EDWIN 
O. JorDAN, PRoressor J. L. Hower, Dr. H. 
N. Stokes, Proressor Epwarp S. HoLpen, 
Epwarp ATKINSON, PRESIDENT HENRY S. 
IE IHUGI SOI Oe go dO ESo S DU ICBO CSOD RIS 
Membership of the American Association.... 588 
Scientific Books :— 
Jones’s Elements of Physical Ohemistry: 
IDs ABE Tats OW AIEA ia We ip eta nies Webs ken ev be gina ereienoe 589 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
The Marine Biological Laboratory and the 
Carnegie Institution: Proressor E. B. 
Witson. The Cooling of Gases by Expan- 
sion and the Kinetic Theory: PROFESSOR 
R. W. Woop. The Law of Physics: Pro- 
Fessor T. D. A. Cockprety. Lichens on 
Rocks: SAmMuEL T. Henset. Bones of a 
Mastodon Found: REGINALD GorRDON..... 591 
The Americanist Congress in New York..... 594 
The British and American Associations...... 
The Metric System in Great Britain........ 595 
Scventific) Notes and News. ere eee ec 
University and Educational News.......... 


567 


579 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N.Y. - 


JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 

JoHN WESLEY POWELL was born March 
24, 1834, at Mount Morris, New York. He 
died September 23, 1902, at his summer 
home in Haven, Maine. He was married in 
1862 to Emma Dean, of Detroit. His wife 
and daughter, an only child, survive him. 

His parents were English, having 
reached this country only a few months 
before his birth. His father was a Metho- 
dist preacher and soon removed from New 
York, living successively in Ohio, Wiscon- 
sin and Illinois. His father’s occupation 
took him much from home, and upon the 
son, while yet a boy, devolved the duty of 
conducting the farm from which the fam- 
ily derived its principal support. Powell’s 
early schooling was that ordinarily obtain- 
able in a rural community. His scientific 
bent was acquired by association with an 
old man by the name of Crookham, and 
studies in natural history were begun at 
an early age. His later education was 
largely independent of schools, but he at- 
tended Jacksonville College for a short 
time, and was at Oberlin two years pur- 
suing a special course. In early manhood 
he supported himself by teaching, being: 
at the same time a hard student and pur- 
suing natural history studies with enthu- 
siasm. He traversed portions of Wiscon- 
sin, [llinois, Iowa and Missouri on foot. 
He made a voyage of the Mississippi River 


562 


in a skiff, starting from the falls of St. 
Anthony; a voyage of the Ohio from Pitts- 
burg, and a voyage of the Ilhnois from 
Ottawa. In these various excursions he 
was a collector of plants, shells, minerals 
and fossils, and these collections brought 
him into relation with various colleges of 
Illinois. At the outbreak of the Civil War 
he enlisted in the Twentieth Regiment of 
Illinois volunteers, and abruptly changed 
the course of his studies to military sci- 
ence. His successive commissions ranged 
from second lieutenant to colonel, but the 
rank of major gave the title by which he 
was known colloquially in later years. His 
service was chiefly with artillery, but some 
of his most important work was of a char- 
acter commonly assigned to engineer of- 
ficers. In the battle of Shiloh he lost his 
right arm, and the resulting physical dis- 
ability affected his life in important ways. 
On the one hand, the wounded arm caused 
him at various periods much pain, and thus 
weakened an exceptionally strong constitu- 
tion. On the other, he was led in early 
manhood to employ an amanuensis, and 
the resulting freedom from the mechanical 
factor in writing was a distinct advantage 
to his literary work. 

At the close of the war he promptly re- 
turned to civil life, dropping the study of 
military science as abruptly as he had be- 
eun it. A business opening, and an attrac- 
tive opportunity to enter political life, were 
declined in favor of scientific work. He 
became professor of geology at Bloom- 
ington, Illinois, and lecturer on geology at 
Normal, Illinois. In 1867 he organized and 
led the first important geological excursion 
of American students, taking a party of 
sixteen to the mountain region of Colo- 
rado. This was before the building of 
transcontinental railways, and the journey 
across the plains was long. He remained 
among the mountains as an explorer after 
the party had returned east, and in the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


following years organized a second expedi- 
tion, with geologic and geographic explora- 
tion and research as its chief objects. The 
necessary funds were furnished by various 
educational institutions in Illinois and by 
the Smithsonian Institution, and Con- 
gressional authority was obtained for sup- 
plying the party with provisions from the 
military posts of the West. His expedi- 
tion wintered west of the Rocky Mountains 
in the valley of White River, and the long 
period thus spent in a permanent camp 
was occupied in the scientific study of In- 
dians. In the following spring four boats 
were brought from Chicago to the point 
where the newly constructed Union Pacific 
Railway crossed Green River, and a party 
was organized for the exploration of the 
canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers. 
When this work was begun it was known 
that the rivers here descend in a distance 
of 700 to 1,000 miles through the vertical 
space of 5,000 feet, coursing most of the 
way between unsealable walls, but the na- 
ture of the rapids, cascades and cataracts 
by which the water falls from the upper to 
the lower level was altogether unknown. 
The undertaking was therefore of phenom- 
enal boldness and its successful accomplish- 
ment a dramatic triumph. It produced a 
strong impression on the public mind and 
gave Powell a national reputation which 
was afterwards of great service, although 
based on an adventurous episode by no 
means essential to his career as an inves- 
tigator. 

The voyage through the canyons was a_ 
reconnaissance in an unexplored area and 
led to the organization of a geographic and 
geologic survey, for which appropriation 
was asked and obtained from Congress, 
the work being initially placed under the 
supervision of the Smithsonian Institution. 
By the advice of Professor Henry the gath- 
ering of ethnologic data was made a lead- 
ing function of the organization. In 1869 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


a boat party began a second voyage through 
the canyons, the plan being to spend two 
years in their mapping, and land parties 
were at the same time organized to cooper- 
ate with them. The river was abandoned 
as a base of operations in the middle of the 
second season, but the land work contin- 
ued, with progressive development of plan, 
for a period of ten years. About the mid- 
dle of this period the study of the problem 
of the utilization of the arid region through 
irrigation and otherwise became a function 
of the organization, and a special investi- 
gation was made of the water supply of 
the territory of Utah. 

Of parallel growth were the surveys de- 
veloped under the initiative of Dr. Hay- 
den, Clarence King and Lieutenant Wheel- 
er. Their functions were similar and, with 
the exception of the work by King which 
had a definite limit, their ambitions in- 
eluded the exploration and survey of all 
the western domain of the United States. 
They thus became rivals and there was need 
of reorganization. After unsuccessful ef- 
forts to arrange for the partition of the 
field and friendly cooperation between the 
different corps, Powell advocated their 
merging into a single bureau of the Inte- 
rior Department, and it was _ largely 
through his initiative that the work was 
finally reorganized in 1879. The Powell, 
Hayden and Wheeler surveys were abol- 
ished and the present U. S. Geological Sur- 
vey created, Mr. King becoming by presi- 
dential appointment its first director. At 
the same time the Bureau of Ethnology 
was created to carry forward the ethno- 
logic work, and of this Powell became di- 
rector. The Geological Survey was made 
a bureau of the Interior Department, and 
the Bureau of Ethnology was attached to 
the Smithsonian Institution. 

The study of water supply in relation 
to irrigation led to the conelusion that the 
land laws of the United States were ill 


SCIENCE. 


563 


adapted to the conditions obtaining in all 
the drier portion of the country, and Pow- 
ell became much interested in the legisla- 
tive problems thus arising. Partly at his 
instance a commission was appointed to 
codify the land laws and recommend such 
modifications as seemed to be required. 
Powell gave much of his time for two years 
to the work of this commission and a com- 
prehensive report was prepared, which 
however led to no legislation. 

In 1881 Mr. King resigned the director- 
ship of the Geological Survey and Powell 
was immediately named as his successor. 
He retained the direction of the Bureau 
of Ethnology and conducted both bureaus 
until 1894, when he resigned from the 
Geological Survey. During his administra- 
tion the work of the Survey was greatly 
enlarged, especially in its geographic 
branch, and the investigation of water sup- 
ply with special reference to utilization 
for irrigation was added to its functions. 

In the last years of his life Powell prac: 
tically relinquished administrative respon- 
sibility, entrusting the management of the 
Bureau of Ethnology to his principal as- 
sistant, Mr. MeGee, and devoting his time 
to personal studies which passed gradually 
from anthropology into the fields of psy- 
chology and general philosophy. 

In summarizing the results of his active 
life it is not easy to separate the product 
of his personal work from that which he 
accomplished through the organization of 
the work of others. He was extremely fer- 
tile in ideas, so fertile that it was quite 
impossible that he should personally de- 
velop them all, and realizing this he gave 
freely to his collaborators. The work which 
he inspired and to which he contributed the 
most important creative elements, I believe 
to be at least as important as that for which 
his name stands directly responsible. As 
he always drew about him the best ability 
he could command, his assistants were not 


064 


mere elaborators, but made also important 
original contributions, and the ideas which 
he gave the world through others are thus 
so merged and mingled with theirs that 
they can never be separated. If we count 
the inspiration of his colleagues as part of 
his work of organization then the organi- 
zation of researches may properly be placed 
first in the list of his contributions to the 
progress of science. Other terms of the 
list pertain to the fields of geology, physical 
and economic geography, anthropology and 
philosophy. 

The creation of the U. S. Geological Sur- 
vey belonged to the logic of events and 
would undoubtedly have taken place with- 
in a few years without Powell’s assistance, 
but his active advocacy hastened the change 
and his ideas had greater influence than 
those of any other individual in determin- 
ing the mode of reconstruction of the na- 
tional scientific work. He was so .promi- 
nent as a promoter, of reorganization that 
when it had been accomplished he felt that 
his motives might be impugned if he be- 
came a candidate for the directorship of 
the Survey, and he therefore declined to 
have his name presented. It is proper to 
add that the scheme of reorganization 
which he advocated was not adopted in 
full. His plan included the organization 
of three bureaus to conduct investigation 
in the fields of geology, geography and 
ethnology, but Congress created only two 
bureaus, leaving geography without spe- 
cial provision. The work of geographic 
mapping was taken up by the Geological 
Survey as a means for providing base maps 
for the use of geologists, and thus the Sur- 
vey has become a bureau of geography as 
well as geology. 

Two years later, when Powell succeeded 
King in the administration of the Geolog- 
ical Survey, he found the subdivision of 
the work arranged largely on geographic 
lines. There were branch offices at Denver, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


Salt Lake City and San Francisco, each in 
charge of a chief who directed the geologic 
and topographic work of a large district. 
For this classification Powell eradually 
substituted one based upon funetion, abol- 
ishing the districts and separate offices and 
creating divisions of topography, general 
geology, and economic geology, coordinate 
with divisions of paleontology, physics and 
chemistry. Areal or geographie classifica- 
tion was still used, but was subordinated to 
a subject classification. 

Careful attention was given to the finan- 
cial system of the bureau, the machinery 
by which the public funds were paid out 
and accounted for, and the wisdom of this 
attention was afterward fully justified. 
When in later years the affairs of the Sur- 
vey were subjected to unfriendly and 
searching investigation the accounts were 
found in such perfect condition as to elicit 
the highest praise of the Comptroller of 
the Treasury, to whom the results of the 
investigation were finally referred. The 
reputation of the Survey for good business 
methods inspired the confidence of legis- 
lators and led them to provide for the 
growth of the bureau, not only by the in- 
crease of appropriations for existing func- 
tions, but through the gradual enlargement 
of function. The most important single 
addition to its duties was that of studying 
the water supply of the country with ref- 
erence to various economic problems. 

Except for the original suggestion or 
instruction by Professor Henry, and ex- 
cept for the votes of funds by Congress, 
the Bureau of Ethnology may be regarded 
as Powell’s creation. Work on American 
ethnology had previously been discursive, 
unorganized, and to a large extent dilet- 
tanti. He gave to it definite purposes con- 
formable to high scientific standards, and 
personally trained its corps of investiga- 
tors. To men who had previously inter- 
ested themselves in the study of Indians 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


he gave new methods and a new point of 
view, and he succeeded in diverting to 
ethnology men already trained in scientific 
method by work in other fields of research. 
He realized, as perhaps few had realized 
before him, that the point of view of the 
savage is essentially different from that 
of the civilized man, that just as his music 
cannot be recorded in the notation of 
civilized music, just as his words cannot be 
written with the English alphabet, so the 
structure of his language transcends the 
formule of Aryan grammars, and_ his 
philosophy and social organization follow 
lines unknown to the European. He also 
realized most fully that the savage is the 
embryo of the man of highest culture, and 
that the study of savagery is therefore a 
fundamental contribution to the broadest 
study of humanity. With these ideas he 
informed his ethnologic corps, and in con- 
sequence of them the organization of the 
bureau marks the most important epoch in 
American ethnology. 

The same personal influence extended to 
the work of the Anthropological Society 
of Washington. Over the proceedings of 
this society Powell presided for many 
years, taking part in all its discussions and 
making it his special function to point out 
the bearing and relation of each communi- 
cation to the greater problems and broader 
aspects of the science. As the bureau was 
and is a laboratory of ethnology, devoted 
to the study and record of the character 
and culture of the fading tribes of North 
America, so the society, including the same 
eroup of students, was and is an arena for 
the discussion of the broader science of 
anthropology. I but echo the general sen- 
timent of those students in saying that the 
high intellectual and scientific plane on 
which the work of this society is conducted 
is a result, direct and cumulative, of Pow- 
ell’s influence and example. 

Before turning to Powell’s direct con- 


SCIENCE. 


565 


tributions to science, mention should be 
made of his studies in biology. In early 
manhood he was an assiduous collector, of 
plants, fresh-water shells and reptiles, and 
this work was accompanied by studies in 
distribution. But the results of such 
studies do not constitute a contribution to 
botany and zoology. The work was prop- 
erly a part of his education, a training in 
the art of observation, which bore fruit only 
when his attention was turned to other 
branches. 

His contributions to geology include a 
certain amount of descriptive work. He 
published the stratigraphy, structure, and 
part of the areal geology of the Colorado 
Plateaus and the Uinta Mountains. In 
connection with the field studies in these 
districts he developed a new classification 
of mountains, by structure and genesis, a 
structural classification of dislocations, a 
classification of valleys, and a genetic clas- 
sification of drainage systems. His classi- 
fication of drainage recognized three modes 
of genesis, of which two were new. With 
the novel ideas involved in the terms 
‘superimposed drainage’ and ‘antecedent 
drainage’ were associated the broader idea 
that the physical history of a region might 
be read in part from a study of its drain- 
age system in relation to its rock structure. 
Another broad idea, that since the degra- 
dation of the land is limited downward by 
the level of the standing water which re- 
ceives its drainage, the types of land seulp- 
ture throughout a drainage area are con- 
ditioned by this limit, was formulated by 
means of the word ‘base-level.’ These two 
ideas, gradually developed by a younger 
generation of students, are the funda- 
mental principles of a new subscience of 
geology sometimes called geomorphology, 
or physiographic geology. 

The scientific study of the arid lands of 
our western domain in relation to human 
industries practically began with Powell. 


566 


Early in his ‘governmental work he issued 
a volume on the lands of the arid region, 
and he continued their discussion in one 
way or another for twenty years, setting 
forth the physical conditions associated 
with aridity, the paroxysmal character of 
rainfall, the dependence of arable lowlands 
on the rainfall and snowfall of uplands, 
and the generous response of the vegetation 
of arid regions to the artificial application 
of water. Emphasizing the necessity of 
irrigation to successful agriculture, he 
pointed out the need of conserving storm 
waters by artificial reservoirs, the need of 
applying new principles in legislation for 
the regulation of water rights, and the need 
of a new system of laws for the control of 
title in arid lands. These ideas when first 
advanced were the subject of hostile eriti- 
cism because they antagonized current 
opinions as to the availability of our west- 
ern domain for settlement; but he after- 


ward found himself part of a general move- | 


ment for the intelligent development of the 
West, a movement whose latest achievement 
is the so-called reclamation law. 

He pointed out also that our land laws 
did not permit the lean pasture lands of 
the West to be acquired by private owners 
in tracts large enough for economic man- 
agement, and that overstocking and peri- 
odie disasters were the logical results of 
public ownership; and his ideas as to 
remedial legislation were embodied in’ the 
unheeded report to the Public Lands Com- 
mission. 

In descriptive ethnology Powell’s pub- 
lished contributions are meager in com- 
parison with his body of observations and 
notes. They are comprised in a magazine 
article on the Mokis, an essay on the Wyan- 
dots, and a few myths, chiefly Shoshonian, 
introduced in various writings for illustra- 
tive purposes. In his ‘Introduction to the 
Study of Indian Languages’ he gives in- 
structions for American ethnologice obser- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou.. XVI. No. 406. 


vation, covering not only the subject of 
language, but arts, institutions and mythol- 
ogy. Other writings belong more properly 
to anthropology, and deal with its broader 
principles. In a series of essays, designed 
as chapters of a manual of anthropology 
but actually published. as. occasional ad- 
dresses and never assembled, he points out 
the lines of evolution in the various fields 
of human thought and activity, philo- 
sophie, linguistic, esthetic, social and in- 
dustrial. The ground covered by these 
essays is so broad that a brief summary is 
impossible. They include the ideas which 
have directed the work of the Bureau of 
Ethnology, and they include also much 
which has found no immediate application, 
belonging to fields of thought as yet un- 
touched by others. As to their ultimate 
value future generations must decide, but 
they stand nearly or quite unique as a com- 
prehensive body of philosophic thought 
founded on the comparison of aboriginal 
with advanced culture. 

In later years attention was gradually 
turned from anthropology to psychology 
and the fundamental concepts of natural 
philosophy. His interest in these subjects 
began in early manhood, and they are 
briefly touched in various writings; but he 
gave the last eight years of his life almost 
wholly to their study. Two books were 
written and a third planned. ‘Truth and 
Error,’ which appeared in 1899, treats of 
matter, motion and consciousness as related 
to the external universe or the field of fact. 
‘Good and Evil,’ printed as a series of es- 
says in The Anthropologist with the inten- 
tion of eventual assemblage in book form, 
treats of the same factors as related to 
humanity or to welfare. The field of the 
emotions was assigned to the third volume. 
His philosophy was also embodied in a 
series of poems, of which only one has re- 
ceived publication. 

In much of his scientific writing Pow- 


OcToBER 10, 1902.]) 


ell’s style is terse to a fault. Usually he is 
satisfied with the simplest statement of 
his conclusions. Sometimes he adds illus- 
trations. Only rarely does he explain them 
by setting forth their premises. It has thus 
happened that some of his earlier work, 
though eventually recognized as of high 
importance, was at first either not appre- 
ciated or misunderstood. The value of his 
anthropologic philosophy, though now 
widely appreciated, was recognized but 
slowly outside the sphere of his personal 
influence. His philosophic writings belong 
to a field in which thought has ever found 
language inadequate, and are for the pres- 
ent, so far as may be judged from the re- 
views of ‘Truth and Error,’ largely mis- 
understood. Admitting myself to be of 
those who fail to understand much of his 
philosophy, I do not therefore condemn it 
as worthless, for in other fields of his 
thought events have proved that he was not 
visionary but merely in advance of his 
time. 

To the nation he is known as an intrepid 
explorer, to a wide public as a conspicuous 
and cogent advocate of reform in the laws 
affecting the development of the arid West, 
to geologists as a pioneer in a new province 
of interpretation and the chief organizer 
of a great engine of research, to anthro- 
pologists as a leader in philosophic thought 
and the founder, in America, of the new 
régime. 


G. K. GrmBert. 


THE ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD- 
VANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


Il. 
LIQUEFACTION OF GASES AND CONTINUITY 
OF STATE. 


In these speculations, however, chemists 
were dealing theoretically with tempera- 
tures to which they could not make any but 
the most distant expérimental approach. 


SCIENCE. 


567 


Cullen, the teacher of Black, had indeed 
shown how to lower temperature by the 
evaporation of volatile bodies such as 
ether, by the aid of the air-pump, and the 
later experiments of Leslie and Wollaston 
extended the same principle. Davy and 
Faraday made the most of the means at 
command in liquefying the more condens- 
able gases, while at the same time Davy 
pointed out that they in turn might be 
utilized to procure greater cold by their 
rapid reconversion into the aeriform state. 
Still the chemist was sorely hampered by 
the want of some powerful and accessible 
agent for the production of temperatures 
much lower than had ever been attained. 
That want was supphed by Thilorier, who 
in 1835 produced liquid carbonic acid in 
large quantities, and further made the 
fortunate discovery that the liquid could be 
frozen into a snow by its own evaporation. 
Faraday was prompt to take advantage of 
this new and potent agent. Under ex- 
haustion he lowered its boiling-point from 
minus 78° C. to minus 110° C., and by 
combining this low temperature with pres- 
sure all the gases were liquefied by the year 
1844, with the exception of the three ele- 
mentary gases—hydrogen, nitrogen, and 
oxygen, and three compound gases—ear- 
bonic oxide, marsh gas, and nitric oxide; 
Andrews some twenty-five years after the 
work of Faraday attempted to induce 
change of state in the uncondensed gases 
by using much higher pressures than Fara- 
day employed. Combining the tempera- 
ture of a solid carbonic acid bath with 
pressures of 300 atmospheres, Andrews 
found that none of these gases exhibited 
any appearance of liquefaction in such high 
states of condensation; but so far as change 
of volume by high compression went, An- 
drews confirmed the earlier work of Nat- 
terer by showing that the gases become 
proportionately less compressible with 
growing pressure. While such investiga- 


568 


tions were proceeding, Regnault and 
Magnus had completed their refined in- 
vestigations on the laws of Boyle and Gay- 
Lussac. A very important series of ex- 
periments was made by Joule and Kelvin 
‘On the Thermal Effects of Fluids in 
Motion’ about 1862, in which the ther- 
mometrical effects of passing gases under 
compression through porous plugs fur- 
nished important data for the study of the 
mutual action of the gas molecules. No 
one, however, had attempted to make a 
complete study of a liquefiable gas through- 
out wide ranges of temperature. This 
was accomplished by Andrews in 1869, and 
his Bakerian Lecture ‘On the Continuity 
of the Gaseous and Liquid States of Mat- 
ter’ will always be regarded as an epoch- 
making investigation. During the course 
of this research Andrews observed that 
liquid earbonie acid raised to a temperature 
of 31° C. lost the sharp coneave surface of 
demarcation between the liquid and the 
gas, the space being now occupied by a 
homogeneous fluid which exhibited, when 
the pressure was suddenly diminished or 
the temperature slightly lowered, a peculiar 
appearance of moving or flickering strie, 
due to great local alterations of density. 
At temperatures above 31° C. the separa- 
tion into two distinct kinds of matter 
could not be effected even when the pressure 
reached 400 atmospheres. This limiting 
temperature of the change of state from 
gas to liquid Andrews ealled the critical 
temperature. He showed that this tem- 
perature is constant, and differs with each 
substance, and that it is always associated 
with a definite pressure peculiar to each 
body. Thus the two constants, critical 
temperature and pressure, which have been 
of the greatest importance in subsequent 
investigations, came to be defined, and a 
complete experimental proof was given that 
‘the gaseous and liquid states are only 
distinct stages of the same condition of 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


matter and are capable of passing into one 
another by a process of continuous change.’ 

In 1873 an essay ‘On the Continuity of 
the Gaseous and Liquid State) full of new 
and suggestive ideas, was published by van 
der Waals, who, recognizing the value of 
Clausius’ new conception of the virial in 
dynamics, for a long-continued series of 
motions, either oscillatory or changing ex- 
ceedingly slowly with time, applied it to 
the consideration of the molecular move- 
ments of the particles of the gaseous 
substance, and after much refined investi- 
gation, and the fullest experimental caleu- 
lation available at the time, devised his 
well-known Equation of Continuity. Its 
paramount merit is that it is based entirely 
on a mechanical foundation, and is in no 
sense empiric; we may therefore look upon 
it as having a secure foundation in fact, 
but as being capable of extension and im- 
provement. James Thomson, realizing 
that the straight-line breach of continuous 
curvature in the Andrews isothermals was 
untenable to the physical mind, pro- 
pounded his emendation of the Andrews 
curves—namely, that they were continuous 
and of S form. We also owe to James 
Thomson the conception and execution of a 
three-dimensional model of Andrews’ re- 
sults, which has been of the greatest service 
in exhibiting the three variables by means 
of a specific surface afterwards greatly 
extended and developed by Professor Wil- 
lard Gibbs. The suggestive work of James 
Thomson undoubtedly was a valuable aid 
to van der Waals, for as soon as he reached 
the point where his equation had to show 
the continuity of the two states this was 
the first difficulty he had to encounter, and 
he succeeded in giving the explanation. He 
also gave a satisfactory reason for the ex- 
istence of a minimum value of the product 
of volume and pressure in the Regnault 
isothermals. His isothermals, with James 
Thomson’s completion of them, were now 


OcToBER 10, 1902.] 


shown to be the results of the laws of 
dynamics. Andrews applied the new 
equation to the consideration of the coeffi- 
cients of expansion with temperature and 
of pressure with temperature, showing that 
although they were nearly equal, neverthe- 
less they were almost independent quan- 
tities. His investigation of the capillarity 
constant was masterly, and he added 
further to our knowledge of the magni- 
tudes of the molecules of gases and of their 
mean free paths. Following up the ex- 
periments of Joule and Kelvin, he showed 
how their cooling coefficients could be de- 
duced, and proved that they vanished at a 
temperature in each case which is a con- 
stant multiple of the specific critical tem- 
perature. The equation of continuity de- 
veloped by van der Waals involved the 
use of three constants instead of one, as 
in the old law of Boyle and Charles, the 
latter being only utilized to express the re- 
lation of temperature, pressure, and vol- 
ume, when the gas is far removed from its 
point of liquefaction. Of the two new 
constants one represents the molecular 
pressure arising from the attraction be- 
tween the molecules, the other four times 
the volume of the molecules. Given these 
constants of a gas, van der Waals showed 
that his equation not only fitted into the 
general characters of the isothermals, but 
also gave the values of the critical temper- 
ature, the critical pressure, and the critical 
volume. In the case of carbonic acid the 
theoretical results were found to be in re- 
markable agreement with the experimental 
values of Andrews. This gave chem- 
ists the means of ascertaining the crit- 
ical constants, provided sufficiently ac- 
curate data derived from the study of a 
few properly distributed isothermals of the 
gaseous substance were available. Such 
important data came into the possession of 
chemists when Amagat published his valu- 
able paper on ‘The Isothermals of Hydro- 


SCIENCE. 


569 


gen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Ethylene, etc.,’ in 
the year 1880. It now became possible to 
calculate the critical data with comparative 
accuracy for the so-called permanent gases 
oxygen and nitrogen, and this was done by 
Sarrau in 1882. In the meantime a great 
impulse had been given to a further attack 
upon the so-called permanent gases by the 
suggestive experiments made by Pictet and 
Cailletet. The static liquefaction of oxy- 
gen was effected by Wroblewski in 1883, 
and thereby the theoretical conclusions de- 
rived from van der Waals’ equation were 
substantially confirmed. The liquefaction 
of oxygen and air was achieved through 
the use of liquid ethylene as a cooling 
agent, which enabled a temperature of 
minus 140 degrees to be maintained by its 
steady evaporation in vacuo. From this 
time liquid oxygen and air came to be re- 
garded as the potential cooling agents for 
future research, commanding as they did 
a temperature of 200 degrees below melt- 
ing ice. The theoretical side of the ques- 
tion received at the hands of van der Waals 
a second contribution,, which was even 
more important than his original essay, 
and that was his novel and ingenious de- 
velopment of what he calls ‘The Theory 
of Corresponding States.’ He defined the 
corresponding states of two substances as 
those in which the ratios of the temperature, 
pressure, and volume, to the critical 
temperature, pressure, and volume respec- 
tively were the same for the two substances, 
and in corresponding states he showed that 
the three pairs of ratios all coincided. From 
this a series of remarkable propositions 
were developed, some new, some proving 
previous laws that were hitherto only em- 
pirie, and some completing and correcting 
faulty though approximate laws. As ex- 
amples, he succeeded in calculating the 
boiling-point of carbonic acid from obser- 
vations on ether vapor, proved Kopp’s law 
of molecular volumes, and showed that at 


570 


corresponding temperatures the molecular 
latent heats of vaporization are propor- 
tional to the absolute critical temperature, 
and that under the same conditions the 
coefficients of liquid expansion are in- 
versely proportional to the absolute eriti- 
eal temperature, and that the coefficients 
of liquid compressibility are inversely pro- 
portional to the critical pressure. All 
these propositions and deductions are in 
the main correct, though further experi- 
mental investigation has shown minor dis- 
erepancies requiring explanation. Various 
proposals have been made to supplement 
van der Waals’ equation so as to bring it 
into line with experiments, some being en- 
tirely empiric, others theoretical. Clausi- 
us, Sarrau, Wroblewski, Batteli, and oth- 
ers attacked the question empirically, and 
in the main preserved the co-volume (de- 
pending on the total volume of the mole- 
ecules) unaltered while trying to modify 
the constant of molecular attraction. 
Their success depended entirely on the fact 
that, instead of limiting the number of 
constants to three, some of them have in- 
creased them to as many as ten. On the 
other hand, a series of very remarkable 
theoretical investigations has been made 
by van der Waals himself, by Kammerlingh 
Onnes, Korteweg, Jaeger, Boltzmann, Die- 
terici, and Rienganum, and others, all 
directed in the main towards an admitted 
variation in the value of the co-volume 
while preserving the molecular attraction 
constant. The theoretical deductions of 
Tait lead to the conclusion that a substance 
below its critical point ought to have two 
different equations of the van der Waals 
type, one referring to the liquid and the 
other to the gaseous phase. One important 
fact was soon elicited—namely, that the 
law of correspondence demanded only that 
the equation should contain not more than 
three constants for each body. The sim- 
plest extension is that made by Rein- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


ganum, in which he increased the press- 
ure for a given mean kinetic energy of 
the particles inversely in the ratio of the 
diminution of free volume, due to the 
molecules possessing linear extension. 
Berthelot has shown how a ‘reduced’ iso- 
thermal may be got by taking two other 
prominent points as units of measurement 
instead of the critical coordinates. The 
most suggestive advance in the improve- 
ment of the van der Waals equation has 
been made by a lady, Mme. Christine Mey- 
er. The idea at the base of this new devel- 
opment may be understood from the fol- 
lowing general statement: van der Waals 
brings the van der Waals surfaces for all 
substances into coincidence at the point 
where volume, pressure, and temperature 
are nothing, and then stretches or com- 
presses all the surfaces parallel to the 
three axes of volume, pressure, and tem- 
perature, until their critical points coin- 
cide. But on this plan the surfaces do not 
quite coincide, because the points where 
the three variables are respectively noth- 
ing are not corresponding points. Mme. 
Meyer’s plan is to bring all the eritical 
points first into coincidence, and then to 
compress or extend all the representative 
surfaces parallel to the three axes of vol- 
ume, pressure, and temperature, until the 
surfaces coincide. In this way, taking 
twenty-nine different substances, she com- 
pletely verifies from experiment van der 
Waals’ law of correspondence. The theory 
of van der Waals has been one of the great- 
est importance in directing experimental 
investigation, and in attacking the difficult 
problems of the liquefaction of the most 
permanent gases. One of its greatest tri- 
umphs has been the proof that the critical 
constants and the boiling-point of hydro- 
gen theoretically deduced by Wroblewski — 
from a study of the isothermals of the gas 
taken far above the temperature of lique- 
faction are remarkably near the experi- 


OcTOBER 10, 1902. ] 


mental values. We may safely infer, 
therefore, that if hereafter a gas be dis- 
covered in small quantity even four times 
more volatile than liquid hydrogen, yet by 
a study of its isothermals at low tempera- 
ture we shall succeed in finding its most 
important liquid constants, although the 
isolation of the real liquid may for the 
time be impossible. It is perhaps not too 
much to say that as a prolific source of 
knowledge in the department dealing with 
the continuity of state in matter, it would 
be necessary to go back to Carnot’s cycle 
to find a proposition of greater importance 
than the theory of van der Waals and his 
development of the law of corresponding 
states. 

It will be apparent from what has just 
been said that, thanks to the labors of 
Andrews, van der. Waals, and others, 
theory had again far outrun experiment. 
We could calculate the constants and pre- 
dict some of the simple physical character- 
istics of liquid oxygen, hydrogen, or nitro- 
gen with a high degree of confidence long 
before any one of the three had been ob- 
tained in the static liquid condition per- 
mitting of the experimental verification of 
the theory. This was the more tantaliz- 
ing, because, with whatever confidence the 
chemist may anticipate the substantial cor- 
roboration of his theory, he also anticipates 
with almost equal conviction that as he 
approaches more and more nearly to the 
zero of absolute temperature, he will en- 
counter phenomena compelling modifica- 
tion, revision, and refinement of formulas 
which fairly covered the facts previously 
known. Just as nearly seventy years ago 
chemists were waiting for some means of 
getting a temperature of 100 degrees below 
melting ice, so ten years ago they were 
casting about for the means of going 100 
degrees lower still. The difficulty, it need 
hardly be said, increases in a geometrical 
rather than in an arithmetical ratio. Its 


SCIENCE. 


571 


magnitude may be estimated from the fact 
that to produce liquid air in the atmos- 
phere of an ordinary laboratory is a feat 
analogous to the production of liquid water 
starting from steam at a white heat, and 
working with all the implements and sur- 
roundings at the same high temperature. 
The problem was not so much how to pro- 
duce intense cold as how to save it when 
produced from being immediately levelled 
up by the relatively superheated surround- 
ings. Ordinary non-conducting packings 
were inadmissible because they are both 
eumbrous and opaque, while in working 
near the limits of our resources it is essen- 
tial that the product should be visible and 
readily handled. It was while puzzling 
over this mechanical and manipulative 
difficulty in 1892 that it occurred to me 
that the principle of an arrangement used 
nearly twenty years before in some ealori- 
metric experiments, which was based upon 
the work of Dulong and Petit on radia- 
tion, might be employed with advantage as 
well to protect: cold substances from heat 
as hot ones from rapid cooling. I there- 
fore tried the effect of keeping liquefied 
gases in vessels having a double wall, the 
annular space between being very highly 
exhausted. Experiments showed that 
liquid air evaporated at only one fifth of 
the rate prevailing when it was placed in 
a similar unexhausted vessel, owing to the 
convective transference of heat by the gas 
particles being enormously reduced by the 
high vacuum. But, in addition, these ves- 
sels lend themselves to an arrangement by 
which radiant heat can also be cut off. It 
was found that when the inner walls were 
coated with a bright deposit of silver the 
influx of heat was diminished to one sixth 
the amount entering without the metallic 
coating. The total effect of the high 
vacuum and the silvering is to reduce the 
ingoing heat to about three per cent. The 
efficiency of such vessels depends upon get- 


572 


ting as high aivacuum as possible, and cold 
is one of the best means of effecting the 
desired exhaustion. All that is necessary 
is to fill completely the space that has to be 
exhausted with an easily condensable va- 
por, and then to freeze it out in a receptacle 
attached to the primary vessel that can be 
sealed off. The advantage of this method 
is that no air-pump is required, and that 
theoretically there is no limit to the degree 
of exhaustion that can be obtained. The 
action is rapid, provided liquid air is the 
cooling agent, and vapors like mereury, 
water, or benzol are employed. It is obvi- 
ous that when we have to deal with such an 
exceptionally volatile liquid as hydrogen, 
the vapor filling may be omitted because 
air itself is now an easily condensable 
vapor. In other words, liquid hydrogen, 
collected in such vessels with the annular 
space full of air, immediately solidifies the 
air and thereby surrounds itself with a 
high vacuum. In the same way, when it 
shall be possible to collect a liquid boiling 
on the absolute scale at. about five degrees, 
as compared with the twenty degrees of 
hydrogen, then you might have the annu- 
lar space filled with the latter gas to begin 
with, and yet get directly a very high 
vacuum, owing to the solidification of the 
hydrogen. Many combinations of vacuum 
vessels can be arranged, and the lower the 
temperature at which we have to operate 
the more useful they become. Vessels of 
this kind are now in general use, and in 
them liquid air has crossed the American 
continent. Of the various forms, that va- 
riety is of special importance which has a 
spiral tube joining the bottom part of the 
walls, so that any liquid gas may be drawn 
off from the interior of such a vessel. In 
the working of regenerative coils such a 
device becomes all-important, and such 
special vessels cannot. be dispensed with 
for the liquefaction of hydrogen. 

In the early experiments of Pictet and 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 406. 


Cailletet, cooling was produced by the sud- 
den expansion of the highly compressed 
gas, preferably at a low temperature, the 
former using a jet that lasted for some 
time, the latter an instantaneous adiabatic 
expansion in a strong glass tube. Neither 
process was practicable as a mode of pro- 
ducing liquid gases, but both gave valuable 
indications of partial change into the liquid 
state by the production of a temporary 
mist. Linde, however, saw that the contin- 
uous use of a jet of highly compressed gas, 
combined with regenerative cooling, must 
lead to liquefaction on account of what is 
called the Kelvin-Joule effect; and he suc- 
ceeded in making a machine, based on this 
principle, capable of producing liquid air 
for industrial purposes. These experi- 
menters had proved that, owing to molecu- 
lar attraction, compressed gases passing 
through a porous plug or small aperture 
were lowered in temperature by an amount 
depending on the difference of pressure, 
and inversely as the square of the absolute 
temperature. This means that for a steady 
difference of pressure the cooling is great- 
er the lower the temperature. The only 
gas that did not show cooling under such 
conditions was hydrogen. Instead of being 
cooled it became actually hotter. The rea- 
son for this apparent anomaly in the Kel- 
vin-Joule effect is that every gas has a 
thermometric point of inversion above 
which it is heated and below which it is 
cooled. This inversion point, according to 
van der Waals, is six and three-quarter 
times the critical point. The efficiency of 
the Linde process depends on working with 
highly compressed gas well below the in- 
version temperature, and in this respect 
this point may be said to take the place of 
the critical one, when in the ordinary way 
direct liquefaction is being effected by the 
use of specific liquid cooling agents. The 
success of both processes depends upon 
working within a certain temperature 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


range, only the Linde method gives us a 
much wider range of temperature within 
which liquefaction can be effected. This 
is not the case if, instead of depending on 
getting cooling by the internal work done 
by the attraction of the gas molecules, we 
force the compressed gas to do external 
work as in the well-known air machines of 
Kirk and Coleman. Both these inventors 
have pointed out that there is no limit of 
temperature, short of liquefaction of the 
gas in use in the circuit, that such machines 
are not capable of giving. While it is 
theoretically clear that such machines 
ought to be capable of maintaining the 
lowest temperatures, and that with the 
least expenditure of power, it is a very 
different matter to overcome the practical 
difficulties of working such machines un- 
der the conditions. Coleman kept a ma- 
_ chine delivering air at minus 83 degrees for 
hours, but he did not carry his experiments 
any further. Recently Monsieur Claude, 
of Paris, has, however, succeeded in work- 
ing a machine of this type so efficiently 
that he has managed to produce one liter 
of liquid air per horse power expended per 
hour in the running of the engine. This 
output is twice as good as that given by the 
Linde machine, and there is no reason to 
doubt that the yield will be still further 
improved. It is clear, therefore, that in 
the immediate future the production of 
liquid air and hydrogen will be effected 
most economically by the use of machines 
producing cold by the expenditure of me- 
chanical work. 


LIQUID HYDROGEN AND HELIUM. 

To the physicist the copious production 
of liquid air by the methods described was 
of peculiar interest and value as affording 
the means of attacking the far more diffi- 
cult problem of the liquefaction of hydro- 
gen, and even as encouraging the hope that 
liquid hydrogen might in time be employed 


SCIENCE. 


573 


for the liquefaction of yet more volatile 
elements, apart from the importance which 
its liquefaction must hold in the process 
of the steady advance towards the absolute 
zero. Hydrogen is an element of especial 
interest, because the study of its properties 
and chemical relations led great chemists 
like Faraday, Dumas, Daniell, Graham and 
Andrews to entertain the view that if it 
could ever be brought into the state of 
liquid or solid it would reveal metallic 
characters. Looking to the special chem- 
ical relations of the combined hydrogen in 
water, alkaline oxides, acids, and salts, to- 
gether, with the behavior of these substances 
on electrolysis, we are forced to conclude 
that hydrogen behaves as the analogue of 
a metal. After the beautiful discovery of 
Graham that palladium can absorb some 
hundreds of times its own volume of hy- 
drogen, and still retain its luster and gen- 
eral metallic character, the impression that 
hydrogen was probably a member of the 
metallic group became very general. The 
only chemist who adopted another view 
was my distinguished predecessor, Pro- 
fessor Odling. In his ‘Manual of Chem- 
istry,’ published in 1861, he pointed out 
that hydrogen has chlorous as well as basie 
relations, and that they are as decided, 
important, and frequent as its other rela- 
tions. From such considerations he arrived 
at the conclusion that hydrogen is essen- 
tially a neutral or intermediate body, and 
therefore we should not expect to find liquid 
or solid hydrogen possess the appearance 
of a metal. This extraordinary prevision, 
so characteristic of Odling, was proved to 
be correct some thirty-seven years after it 
was made. Another curious anticipation 
was made by Dumas in a letter addressed 
to Pictet, in which he says that the metal 
most analogous to hydrogen is magnesium, 
and that probably both elements have the 
same atomic volume, so that the density of 
hydrogen, for this reason, would be about 


574 


the value elicited by subsequent experi- 
ments. Later on, in 1872, when Newlands 
began to arrange the elements in periodic 
groups, he regarded hydrogen as the low- 
est member of the chlorine family; but 
Mendeleef in his later classification placed 
hydrogen in the group of the alkaline met- 
als; on the other hand, Dr. Johnstone 
Stoney classes hydrogen with the alkaline 
earth metals and magnesium. From this 
speculative divergency it is clear no definite 
conclusion could be reached regarding the 
physical properties of liquid or solid hy- 
drogen, and the only way to arrive at the 
truth was to prosecute low-temperature re- 
search until success attended the efforts to 
produce its liquefaction. This result I 
definitely obtained in 1898. The case of 
liquid hydrogen is, in fact, an excellent 
illustration of the truth already referred 
to, that no theoretical forecast, however 
apparently justified by analogy, can be 
finally accepted as true until confirmed by 
actual experiment. Liquid hydrogen is a 
colorless transparent body of extraordinary 
intrinsic interest. It has a clearly defined 
surface, is easily seen, drops well, in spite 
of the fact that its surface tension is only 
the thirty-fifth part of that of water, or 
about one fifth that of liquid air, and can 
be poured easily from vessel to vessel. The 
liquid does not conduct electricity, and, if 
anything, is slightly diamagnetic. Com- 
pared with an equal volume of liquid air, 
it requires only one fifth the quantity of 
heat for vaporization; on the other hand, 
its specific heat is ten times that of liquid 
air or five times that of water. The coeffi- 
cient of expansion of the fluid is remark- 
able, being about ten times that of gas; it 
is by far the lightest liquid known to exist, 
its density being only one fourteenth that 
of water; the lightest liquid previously 
known was liquid marsh gas, which is six 
times heavier. The only solid which has so 
small density as to float upon its surface is 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


a piece of pith wood. It is by far the 
coldest liquid known. At ordinary atmos- 
pherie pressure it boils at minus 252.5 de- 
erees or 20.5 degrees absolute. The critical 
point of the liquid is about 29 degrees 
absolute, and the critical pressure not more 
than fifteen atmospheres. The vapor of the 
hydrogen arising from the liquid has nearly 
the density of air—that is, it is fourteen 
times that of the gas at the ordinary tem- 
perature. Reduction of the pressure by an 
air-pump brings down the temperature to 
minus 258 degrees, when the liquid becomes 
a solid resembling frozen foam, and this 
by further exhaustion is cooled to minus 
260 degrees, or 13 degrees absolute, which 
is the lowest steady temperature that has 
been reached. The solid may also be got in 
the form of a clear transparent ice, melt- 
ing at about 15 degrees absolute, under a 
pressure of 55 mm., possessing the unique 
density of one eleventh that of water. 
Such cold involves the solidification of 
every gaseous substance but one that is at 
present definitely known to the chemist, 
and so liquid hydrogen introduces the in- 
vestigator to a world of solid bodies. The 
contrast between this refrigerating sub- 
stance and liquid air is most remarkable. 
On the removal of the loose plug of cotton- 
wool used to cover the mouth of the vacu- 
um vessel in which it is stored, the action is 
followed by a miniature snowstorm of solid 
air, formed by the freezing of the atmos- 
phere at the poimt where it comes into 
contact with the cold vapor rising from 
the liquid. This solid air falls into the 
vessel and accumulates as a white snow at 
the bottom of the liquid hydrogen. When 
the outside of an ordinary test-tube is 
cooled by immersion in the liquid, it is 
soon observed to fill up with solid air, and 
if the tube be now lifted out a double 
effect is visible, for liquid air is produced 
both in the inside and on the outside of 
the tube—in the one ease by the melting 


OcTOBER 10, 1902. ] 


of the solid, and in the other by condensa- 
tion from the atmosphere. A tuft of cot- 
ton-wool soaked in the-liquid and then held 
near the pole of a strong magnet is at- 
tracted, and it might be inferred therefrom 
that liquid hydrogen is a magnetic body. 
This, however, is not the case: the attrac- 
tion is due neither to the cotton-wool nor 
‘to the hydrogen—which indeed evaporates 
almost as soon as the tuft is taken out of 
the liquid—but to the oxygen of the air, 
which is well known to be a magnetic body, 
frozen in the wool by the extreme cold. 
The strong condensing powers of liquid 
hydrogen afford a simple means of pro- 
ducing vacua of very high tenuity. When 
one end of a sealed tube containing ordi- 
nary air is placed for a short time in the 
liquid, the contained air accumulates as a 
solid at the bottom, while the higher part 
is almost entirely deprived of particles of 
gas. So perfect is the vacuum thus formed 
that the electric discharge can be made to 
pass only with the greatest difficulty. An- 
other important application of liquid air, 
liquid hydrogen, ete., is as analytic agents. 
Thus, if a gaseous mixture be cooled by 
means of liquid oxygen, only those con- 
stituents will be left in the gaseous state 
which are less condensable than oxygen. 
Similarly, if this gaseous residue be in its 
turn cooled in liquid hydrogen a still fur- 
ther separation will be effected, everything 
that is less volatile than hydrogen being 
condensed to a liquid or solid. By pro- 
ceeding in this fashion it has been found 
possible to isolate helium from a mixture 
in which it is present to the extent of only 
one part in one thousand. By the evapora- 
tion of solid hydrogen under the air-pump 
we can reach within 13 or 14 degrees of 
the zero, but there or thereabouts our pro- 
gress is barred. This gap of 13 degrees 
might seem at first sight insignificant in 
comparison with the hundreds that have 
already been conquered. But to win one 


SCIENCE. 


575 


degree low down the scale is quite a dif- 
ferent matter from doing so at higher 
temperatures; in fact, to annihilate these 
few remaining degrees would be a far 
greater achievement than any so far ac- 
complished in low-temperature research. 
For the difficulty is twofold, having to do 
partly with process and partly with mate- 
rial. The application of the methods used 
in the liquefaction of gases becomes con-- 
tinually harder and more troublesome as 
the working temperature is reduced; thus, 
to pass from liquid air to liquid hydrogen 
—a difference of 60 degrees—is, from a 
thermodynamic point of view, as difficult 
as to bridge the gap of 150 degrees that 
separates liquid chlorine and liquid air. 
By the use of a new liquid gas exceeding 
hydrogen in volatility to the same extent 
as hydrogen does nitrogen, the investigator 
might get to within five degrees of the 
zero; but even a second hypothetical sub- 
stance, again exceeding the first one in 
volatility to an equal extent, would not 
suffice to bring him quite to the point of 
his ambition. That the zero will ever be 
reached by man is extremely improbable. 
A thermometer introduced into regions 
outside the uttermost confines of the 
earth’s atmosphere might approach the ab- 
solute zero, provided that its parts were 
highly transparent to all kinds of radia- 
tion, otherwise it would be affected by the 
radiation of the sun, and would therefore ~ 
become heated. But supposing all difficul- 
ties to be overcome, and the experimenter 
to be able to reach within a few degrees 
of the zero, it is by no means certain that 
he would find the near approach of the 
death of matter sometimes pictured. Any 
forecast of the phenomena that would be 
seen must be based on the assumption that 
there is continuity between the processes 
studied at attainable temperatures and 
those which take place at still lower ones. 
Is such an assumption justified? It is true 


576 


that many changes in the properties of 
substances have been found to vary stead- 
ily with the degree of cold to which they 
are exposed. But it would be rash to take 
for granted that the changes which have 
been traced in explored regions continue 
to the same extent and in the same direc- 
tion in those which are as yet unexplored. 
Of such a breakdown low-temperature re- 
search has already yielded a direct proof 
at least in one case. A series of experi- 
ments with pure metals showed that their 
electrical resistance gradually decreases as 
they are cooled to lower and lower tem- 
peratures, in such ratio that it appeared 
probable that at the zero of absolute tem- 
perature they would have no resistance at 
all and would become perfect conductors 
of electricity. This was the inference that 
seemed justifiable by observations taken at 
depths of cold which ean be obtained by 
means of liquid air and less powerful re- 
frigerants. But with the advent of the 
more powerful refrigerant liquid hydrogen 
it became necessary to revise that conelu- 
sion. <A discrepancy was first observed 
when a platinum resistance thermometer 
was used to ascertain the temperature of 
that liquid boiling under atmospherie and 
reduced pressure. All known lquids, 
when foreed to evaporate quickly by being 
placed in the exhausted receiver of an air- 
pump, undergo a reduction in tempera- 
ture, but when hydrogen was treated in 
this way it appeared to be an exception. 
The resistance thermometer showed no 
such reduction as was expected, and it be- 
came a question whether it was the hydro- 
gen or the thermometer that was behaving 
abnormally. Ultimately, by the adoption 
of other thermometrical appliances, the 
temperature of the hydrogen was proved 
to be lowered by exhaustion as theory in- 
dicated. Hence it was the platinum ther- 
mometer which had broken down; in other 
words, the electrical resistance of the metal 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


employed in its construction was not, at 
temperatures about minus 250° C., de- 
ereased by cold in the same proportion as 
at temperatures about minus 200°. This 
being the ease, there is no longer any rea- 
son to suppose that at the absolute zero 
platinum would become a perfect conductor 
of electricity; and in view of the similar- 
ity between the behavior of platinum and 
that of other pure metals in respect of tem- 
perature and conductivity, the presump- 
tion is that the same is true of them also. 
At any rate, the knowledge that in the case 
of at least one property of matter we have 
succeeded in attaining a depth of cold suf- 
ficient to bring about unexpected change 
in the law expressing the variation of that 
property with temperature, is sufficient to 
show the necessity for extreme caution in 
extending our inferences regarding the 
properties of matter near the zero of tem- 
perature. Lord Kelvin evidently antici- 
pates the possibility of more remarkable 
electrical properties being met with in the 
metals near the zero. <A theoretical inves- 
tigation on the relation of ‘electrions’ and 
atoms has led him to suggest a hypothetical 
metal having the following remarkable 
properties; below one degree absolute it is 
a perfect insulator of electricity, at two de- 
grees it shows noticeable conductivity, and 
at six degrees it possesses high conductiv- 
ity. It may safely be predicted that liquid 
hydrogen will be the means by which many 
obseure problems of physies and chemistry 
will ultimately be solved, so that the lique- 
faction of the last of the old permanent 
gases Is as pregnant now with future con- 
sequences of great scientific moment as was 
the liquefaction of chlorine in the early 
years of the last century. 

The next step towards the absolute zero 
is to find another gas more volatile than 
hydrogen, and that we possess in the gas 
occurring in elevite, identified by Ramsay 
as helium, a gas which is widely distrib- 


OcToBER 10, 1902.] 


‘uted, like hydrogen, in the sun, stars, and 
nebulx. A specimen of this gas was sub- 
jected by Olszewski to liquid air tempera- 
tures, combined with compression and sub- 
sequent expansion, following the Cailletet 
method, and resulted in his being unable 
to discover any appearance of liquefaction, 
even in the form of mist. His experiments 
led him to infer that the boiling-point of 
the substance is probably below nine de- 
grees absolute. After Lord Rayleigh -had 
found a new source of helium in the gases 
which are derived from the Bath springs, 
and liquid hydrogen became available as a 
cooling agent, a specimen of helium cooled 
in liquid hydrogen showed the formation 
of fluid, but this turned out to be owing to 
the presence of an unknown admixture of 
other gases. As a matter of fact, a year 
before the date of this experiment I had 
recorded indications of the presence of 
unknown gases in the spectrum of helium 
derived from this source. When subse- 
quently such condensable constituents were 
removed, the purified helium showed no 
signs of liquefaction, even when compressed 
to eighty atmospheres, while the tube con- 
taining it was surrounded with solid hy- 
drogen. Further, on suddenly expanding, 
no instantaneous mist appeared. Thus 
helium was definitely proved to be a much 
more volatile substance than hydrogen in 
either the liquid or solid condition. The 
inference to be drawn from the adiabatic 
expansion effected under the circumstances 
is that helium must have touched a tempe- 
rature of from nine to ten degrees for a 
short time without showing any signs of 
liquefaction, and consequently that the 
eritical point must be still lower. This 
would force us to anticipate that the boil- 
ing-point of the liquid will be about five 
degrees absolute, or liquid helium will be 
four times more volatile than liquid hydro- 
gen, just as liquid hydrogen is four times 
more volatile than liquid air. Although 


“SCIENCE. 


577 


the lquefaction of the gas is a problem 
for the future, this does not prevent us 
from safely anticipating some of the prop- 
erties of the fluid body. It would be twice 
as dense as liquid hydrogen, with a eritical 
pressure of only four or five atmospheres. 
The liquid would possess a very feeble sur- 
face-tension, and its compressibility and 
expansibility would be about four times 
that of liquid hydrogen, while the heat re- 
quired to vaporize the molecule would be 
about one fourth that of liquid hydrogen. 
Heating the liquid one degree above its 
boiling-point would raise the pressure by 
one and three fourth atmospheres, which is 
more than four times the increment for 
liquid hydrogen. The liquid would be only 
seventeen times denser than its vapor, 
whereas liquid hydrogen is sixty-five times 
denser than the gas it gives off. Only 
some three or four degrees would separate 
the critical temperature from the boiling- 
point and the melting-point, whereas in 
liquid hydrogen the separation is respec- 
tively ten and fifteen degrees. As the 
liquid refractivities for oxygen, nitrogen, 
and hydrogen are closely proportional to the 
gaseous values, and as Lord Rayleigh has 
shown that helium has only one fourth the 
refractivity of hydrogen, although it is 
twice as dense, we must infer that the re- 
fractivity of liquid helium would also be 
about one fourth that of liquid hydrogen. 
Now hydrogen has the smallest refractiv- 
ity of any known liquid, and yet lquid 
helium will have only about one fourth of 
this value—comparable, in fact, with 
liquid hydrogen just below its critical 
point. This means that the liquid will be 
quite exceptional in its optical properties, 
and very difficult to see. This may be the 
explanation of why no mist has been seen 
on its adiabatic expansion from the lowest 
temperatures. Taking all these remarkable 
properties of the liquid into consideration, 
one is afraid to predict that we are at 


578 


present able to cope with the difficulties 
involved in its production and collection. 
Provided the critical point is, however, not 
below eight degrees absolute, then from the 
knowledge of the conditions that are suc- 
cessful in producing a change of state in 
hydrogen through the use of liquid air, we 
may safely predict that helium can be 
liquefied by following similar methods. 
If, however, the eritical point is as low as 
six degrees absolute, then it would be al- 
most hopeless to anticipate success by 
adopting the process that works so well 
with hydrogen. The present anticipation 
is that the gas will succumb after being 
subjected to this process, only, instead of 
liquid air under exhaustion being used as 
the primary cooling agent, liquid hydrogen 
evaporating under similar circumstances 
must be employed. In this case the re- 
sulting liquid would require to be col- 
lected in a vacuum vessel, the outer walls 
of which are immersed in liquid hydrogen. 
The practical difficulties and the cost of 
the operation will be very great; but on 
the other hand, the descent to a tempera- 
ture within five degrees of the zero would 
open out new vistas of scientific inquiry, 
which would add immensely to our knowl- 
edge of the properties of matter. To com- 
mand in our laboratories a temperature 
which would be equivalent to that which 
a comet might reach at an infinite distance 
from the sun would indeed be a great tri- 
umph for science. If the present Royal 
Institution attack on helium should fail, 
then we must ultimately succeed by adopt- 
ing a process based on the mechanical pro- 
duction of cold through the performance 
of external work. When a turbine can be 
worked by compressed helium, the whole 
of the mechanism and circuits being kept 
surrounded by liquid hydrogen, then we 
need hardly doubt that the liquefaction 
will be effected. In all probability gases 
other than helium will be discovered of 


SCIENCE. 


[N: S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


greater volatility than hydrogen. It was 
at the British Association Meeting in 1896 
that I made the first suggestion of the 
probable existence of an unknown element 
which would be found to fill up the gap 
between argon and helium, and this antici- 
pation was soon taken up by others and 
ultimately confirmed. Later, in the Bak- 
erian Lecture for 1901, I was led to infer 
that another member of the helium group 
might exist having the atomic weight about 
2, and this would give us a gas still more 
volatile, with which the absolute zero might 
be still more nearly approached. It is to 
be hoped that some such element or ele- 
ments may yet be isolated and identified 
as coronium or nebulium. If amongst the 
unknown gases possessing a very low crit- 
ical point some have a high critical press- 
ure, instead of a low one, which ordinary 
experience would lead us to anticipate, 
then such difficultly liquefiable gases would 
produce fluids having different physical 
properties from any of those with which 
we are acquainted. Again, gases may ex- 
ist having smaller atomic weights and den- 
sities than hydrogen, yet all such gases 
must, according to our, present views of the 
gaseous state, be capable of liquefaction 
before the zero of temperature is reached. 
The chemists of the future will find ample 
scope for investigation within the appa- 
rently limited range of temperature which 
separates solid hydrogen from the zero. 
Indeed, great as is the sentimental interest 
attached to the liquefaction of these refrac- 
tory gases, the importance of the achieve- 
ment lies rather in the fact that it opens 
out new fields of research and enormously 
widens the horizon of physical science, en- 
abling the natural philosopher to study the 
properties and behavior of matter under 
entirely novel conditions. This department 
of inquiry is as yet only in its infancy, but 
speedy and extensive developments may be 
looked for, since within recent years sev- 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


eral special eryogenic laboratories have 
been established for the prosecution of 
such researches, and a liquid-air plant is 
becoming a common adjunct to the equip- 
ment of the ordinary laboratory. 

JAMES DEwar. 


(To be concluded.) 


THE BUREAU OF GOVERNMENT LABORATO- 
RIES FOR THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, 
AND SCIENTIFIC POSITIONS 
UNDER IT. 

Tue Bureau of Government Laboratories 
for the Philippine Islands has now been 
organized for nine months and is at present 
quartered in a temporary building. The 
commission contemplates the erection of a 
comprehensive and fitting structure for. sci- 
entifie work, the detailed plans of which are 
about completed, and the government archi- 
tect is ready to begin work as soon as the 
title to the land desired for the edifice is 
secured. ‘This new structure will be fitted 
with all modern appliances for thorough 
scientific work. The individual working 
desks of the laboratory will be supplied 
with gas, water, vacuum and steam and air 
pressure; electric power is to be furnished 
wherever it is needed, and the equipment 
will be complete. 

The scheme of the bureau contemplates 
a central institution in which laboratory 
work shall be done for all the bureaus 
which may need scientific assistance, so that 
a scattering of individual laboratories and 
a consequent loss of efficiency and equip- 
ment are avoided. The work is separated 
into two divisions, the chemical laboratory 
and the biological laboratory, each occupy- 
ing a wing of the new building, with the 
Serum Institute located to the rear, in con- 
junction with the power house. 

The building is divided into sixty rooms 
so that separate lines of work can be ecar- 
ried on in individual quarters, each person 
engaged in scientific investigation being 


SCIENCE. 


579 


thus enabled to have his apparatus and ap- 
pliances in the most convenient form. The 
division of the space is as follows: 


GROUND FLOOR. 


Physical laboratory with constant temperature 
room below. 

Assay laboratory. 

Balance room. 

Combustion room. 

Distilling room. 

Research room for vegetable products. 

Chemical stores. 

Apparatus stores. 

Storekeeper’s office. 

Bacteriological diagnosis, two rooms. 

Animal parasites. 

Culture media. 

Mechanic. 

Incubator and cold storage. 


FIRST FLOOR. 
Mineral analysis. 
Director chemical laboratory. 
Director’s office. 
Sugar and food analysis. 
Library. 
Plant pathology. 
Biological director’s office. 
Biological director’s laboratory. 
Biological research. 
Spectroscopic rooms. 
Chemical research. 
Pharmacology. 
Balance room. 
Photography. 
Collections. 
Pathology. 
Physiological chemist. 
Three research rooms. 
Outdoor laboratory. 

POWER HOUSE. 


Cold-storage plant and cold-storage rooms. 
Serum packing room. 

Serum laboratory. 

Serum kitchen. 

Crematory. 

Engine room. 

Boiler room. 


The plans of the bureau contemplate re- 
search work not only in the resources of 
the islands, but also in the realm of tropical 
diseases. The work during the past year 
has included a large number of analyses for 


580 


the Custom House, Mining Bureau, Forest- 
ry Bureau, Agricultural Department and 
Board of Health; diagnostic work for the 
hospitals and others interested, and re- 
searches in gutta-percha, rubber and gums 
found in the islands, as well as investiga- 
tions of some previously unknown forms 
of tropical diseases. The scope of the work 
is continually widening, and there is no 
doubt but that the bureau offers large op- 
portunities for young men who desire to 
acquaint themselves with the products of 
the tropics and to advance our knowledge 
of lines of work which are each year con- 
centrating more and more of the interest of 
the scientific world. 

The positions in the bureau, outside of 
the directors, are all under the Civil Ser- 
viee, and qualifications can be obtained 
through the Civil Service Commission at 
Washington. The scheme of the bureau 
contemplates the following additions to the 
laboratory force during the next year: 


1 Soil and water analyst............ 


1 Plant pathologist...............--- 2,500 
1 Physical chemist............-..--- 2,400 
1 Analytical chemist for mineral 
ANALYSIS a s2tavelaperere! + cdetsieetenen- olteseh 2,000 
IDIACEP Ra Goeb nooo didimoD DoboN on UDC 1,500 
1 Entomologist ........-.----.++-05- 2,500 
1 Animal parasitologist.............- 2,500 
1 Pathologist ........--...2...4-0:- 2,400 
1 Drug assayer and toxicologist...... 1,800 


The candidates for the higher salaried 
positions by understanding will not be sub- 
jected to a rigid examination, but their pre- 
vious research work, experience, university 
degrees and general knowledge will qualify 
them, after the facts have been submitted 
to the Civil Service Board and found satis- 
factory. 

The salaries for young men are good, and, 
although expenses in Manila are higher 
than in the United States, nevertheless, the 
difference in salaries is large enough so 
that prospective workers will be better paid 
here than they would in the beginning po- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


sitions in the United States. It is the in- 
tention to engage none but the most efficient 
workers in the corps, and it is hoped, in 
the course of a few years, a connection with 
the Bureau of Government Laboratories 
will be equivalent to a certificate of the su- 
perior attainments. 

The plan of the institution contemplates 
the reservation of a certain number of re- 
search rooms in the laboratory building. 
These are to be at the disposition of inde- 
pendent investigators who wish to come to 
the islands for a temporary period as the 
guests of the laboratories. These workers 
will be furnished: all the laboratory facili- 
ties they desire, and it is hoped that the 
opportunities offered will render scientific 
study in the tropics easy of access to all 
who have planned to undertake certain 
lines of work in which they are interested. 


Pau C. FREER, 
Superintendent of Government Laboratories. 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 

Ap to research may be given either to 
individuals or to groups or organizations 
of individuals. 

One of the chief obstacles in this country 
at present to research by individuals is the 
lack of time for continuous, well-adjusted 
work. The majority of the persons engaged 
in active scientific investigation in the 
United States are connected with colleges 
or universities, and in nearly every instance 
definite accomplishment is expected from 
them in the way of instruction and admin- 
istration. The exigencies—real or fancied 
—of university administration often lead to 
wasteful repetition of courses and to the 
exhaustion of energy in barren details of 
executive routine and elementary instruc- 
tion. The most common complaint heard 
from American men of science is not re- 
garding inadequate salaries, but regarding 
the scanty time afforded them for the work 
of investigation. While in some cases this 


OcToBER 10, 1902.] 


attitude may be temperamental and not to 
be remedied by the acquisition of greater 
leisure, In a great many instances it rep- 
resents the real barrier to be removed. 
More ample time for research can be 
afforded highly qualified individual workers 
by provision for research assistants, pro- 
vision for the purchase or manufacture of 
special or expensive apparatus, or possibly 
by arrangement with university authorities 
for relief from an undue burden of elemen- 
tary instruction. 

In addition to the assistance that may 
be afforded individual workers of maturity 
and position, there is a scarcely less im- 
portant field open in the granting of assist- 
ance to those just entering upon a profes- 
sional career. It is no longer true that the 
attainment of the degree of doctor of phi- 
losophy carries with it the immediate offer 
of a college chair or indeed of any position 
whatever. The period intervening between 
the obtaining of the doctorate and the 
securing of a satisfactory academic position 
is often the most critical in the whole career 
of the young investigator. American con- 
ditions have not favored the engrafting of 
the docent system, and as matters stand at 
present there is nothing to bridge over, this 
difficult transition period. Men with 
promise of high capability for investiga- 
tion are often forced at this stage into the 
premature preparation of text-books or into 
other still less permanently valuable activi- 
ties. It is of course not true that all young 
men receiving the degree of doctor of phi- 
losophy are equally worthy of assistance, but 
there are always some among each year’s 
graduates who should not be smothered with 
routine or with bread-and-butter work be- 
fore they have been allowed to develop their, 
powers to the fullest extent. The whole 
future of research depends upon these be- 
ginning investigators, and the best of them 
should be earefully sought for, and when 


SCIENCE. 581 


found given every opportunity to make the 
most of themselves. 

Organized groups or associations of scien- 
tific men may further the interests of re- 
search in a somewhat different way. Un- 
dertakings impossible for the individual 
workers may be set on foot and carried 
through to a triumphant conclusion by the 
cooperation of many workers in different 
localities; extended series of experiments 
may be carefully planned and coordinated, 
and a system for the rapid interchange of 
results and methods may be made to accel- 
erate greatly the work in hand without in 
any way curtailing the independence or 
freedom of the individual worker. There 
are already instances—as in the study of 
the physiological action of aleohol—where 
such cooperative, coordinated methods have 
been effectively applied. - This tendency is 
apparent in many directions. Special insti- 
tutes for the study of cancer and of scarlet 
fever, special committees for the study of 
biological variation, of atomic weight, of 
water analysis and of many other topics 
appealing to considerable groups of workers 
are utilizing the services of many individu- 
als and are greatly facilitating concentra- 
tion along effective lines. The impulse to- 
wards economy of energy that has led to 
industrial concentration is forcing upon 
scientifie work the same necessity. Isolated, 
desultory work is becoming distinctly less 
effective ; researches by groups of investiga- 
tors, whether of master and pupils or of lar- 
ger groups, are playing an increasing part 
in the advancement of science. Some 
branches of scientific work are especially 
fortunate in possessing already well-organ- 
ized associations for the advancement of 
research. The eminent group of natural- 
ists who have founded and maintained the 
Marine Biological Laboratory is one of the 
most notable of these associations. It would 
seem most natural that the Carnegie Institu- 


582 


tion should first of all take advantage of the 
existing organizations for research without 
destroying their independence, and it would 
also follow that it might properly aid in 
the opening up of fields of work hitherto 
not so well supplied with opportunities for 
investigation. National societies repre- 
senting well-defined territories of scientific 
endeavor might well be asked to appoint a 
‘Committee on Research’ whose function it 
should be to represent the society in con- 
ference with the authorities of the Carnegie 
Institution, and perhaps to suggest not 
merely the nature of assistance it is desir- 
able to render to the individual investi- 
gators that it represents, but to formulate 
plans for a comprehensive and protracted 
study of definite fundamental problems. 

It would seem as if existing agencies for 
promoting research should be fully utilized 
before any attempt is made to create an- 
other organization. These agencies may be 
found in and directed through the several 
national societies whose avowed aim is the 
promotion of research. Practically all the 
workers in the different natural sciences are 
organized in some way, and while the de- 
tails of the organization are quite different, 
the controlling purpose is the same. In 
some sciences the number of societies is ex- 
cessive and illustrates the national tend- 
ency toward multiplication of executive 
mechanism, but, as is well known, various 
plans for unification and centralization are 
even now being considered. By inviting the 
cooperation and advice of these societies of 
national scope and by stimulating their 
activities the solidarity of scientific organi- 
zation will be increased and enthusiasm for 
research greatly stimulated. More would 
probably be accomplished in this way than 
by adding another set of wheels to the exist- 
ing machinery for transacting scientific 
business. 

Epwin O. JORDAN. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


-In complying with the request of the 
editor of Science for an expression of 
opinion regarding the work of the Carnegie 
Institution, I must speak solely from the 
standpoint of my own specialty, though 
possibly the suggestions are capable of a 
wider application. 

First of all, it is important that the funds 
of this great donation should be utilized 
for the furtherance of work which cannot 
be accomplished in any other way. Sec- 
ondly, it is understood that these funds are 
to be used primarily for the furtherance of 
research. 

What is the greatest hindrance to chem- 
ical research in this country? There go 
out from our different universities each 
year men well equipped for research, and 
this number is increased by others return- 
ing from German and other foreign uni- 
versities. After perhaps the publication 
of a résumé of their theses, little is heard 
from most of these men, yet many of them 
have begun the study of interesting prob- 
lems. The reason for this is not far to 
seek. Those who have entered upon a 
career of teaching have found themselves 
so burdened with class-room work. that 
they have neither time nor energy for con- 
tinuing their researches. In many posi- 
tions research work means to the trustees 
that the teacher is not devoting the time 
he should to his classes. In a compara- 
tively few institutions there are positions 
as assistant, where a man has time for re- 
search and is possibly expected to engage 
in it, but such positions are generally tem- 
porary, and the incumbent, if successful, 
is soon promoted to a place where he re- 
ceives adequate salary and spends most, if 
not all, his time in teaching. Every 
chemist will recall numerous examples of 
men who have given great promise, but 
have soon had a quietus put upon their re- 
search work. There are comparatively few 
teachers in this country so situated that: 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


they can carry on such work, and still 
fewer who are in a position to direct such 
work, for it must be borne in mind that if 
one man has to earry out all the manipula- 
tion of a line of research, it will of neces- 
sity be rather limited in its scope. 

These conditions it is practically impos- 
sible for most of the universities of the 
country to improve, limited as they are in 
their funds. Would it not accomplish the 
aims of the donor if a portion of the in- 
come of the Carnegie funds were used as 
fellowships, which would enable men who 
had already given good promise to go on 
with their work at some university of their 
choice, the income from the fellowships 
being large enough to support them ade- 
quately, and being renewable for several 
years if deemed wise in individual in- 
stances? In some cases it might be well to 
award these fellowships to older men, that 
they might be enabled to employ assistants 
to carry out lines of research, which it 
would be an impossibility for them to ac- 
complish alone on account of their peda- 
gogical duties. Many a teacher of chem- 
istry could bring forth valuable results 
if he had an assistant to carry on manipula- 
tions, for which he himself cannot find the 
time. As far as I know, none of the re- 
search funds now available could be 
legitimately used for the purpose of em- 
ploying assistants. 

There is another direction in which the 
Carnegie committee on research in chem- 
istry, should such be appointed, could ren- 
der valuable aid to the cause of chemical 
research, and that without the expenditure 
of any considerable sum beyond their own 
salaries. This is in pointing out desirable 
directions of research. Many young men, 
just starting on their careers as teachers, 
are anxious to take up some line of investi- 
gation but do not know just what to select: 
On the other hand, there are many lines 
upon which it is desirable that work should 


SCIENCE. 


583 


be done, with no one to undertake it. Such 
a committee could render invaluable ser- 
vice by acting as a sort of chemical research 
clearing-house. The whole field of inor- 
ganic chemistry, for example, is full of 
gaps which need to be filled out, as well as 
of old material which needs to be reex- 
amined. Professor F. W. Clarke has else- 
where called attention to the assistance 
which could be rendered by a suitable com- 
mittee in this direction. It would doubt- 
less secure the immediate cooperation of 
scores of young chemists, and the possibili- 
ties in this direction are almost limitless. 
T am well aware of the fact that there must 
be a spontaneity about research, but nine 
young men out of ten will be wisely guided 
by older heads when setting out upon a 
career of investigation. 

There is one other direction in which a 
portion of the Carnegie funds might be 
turned, with the assurance of accomplish- 
ing much for chemical research. This is 
the establishment of an American counter- 
part of the Davy-Faraday Research Labo- 
ratory of the Royal Institution, and its ade- 
quate endowment. This would, however, 
probably require more than the proportion 
of the funds that should justly be allotted 
to chemistry, unless the province of the 
Institution should be confined to a few 
sciences only; but its value would be un- 
questionable. 

J. L. Howe. 


In my opinion the final policy of the 
Carnegie Institution can only develop with 
time, and at the outset a tentative plan 
should be adopted which would not involve 
the investment of a considerable sum in a 
working plant of any kind, and especially 
in duplicating plants already in existence. 
I would, therefore, suggest that for the 
present the income be devoted mainly to 
subsidizing such researches and such in- 
vestigators as seem to be worthy, utilizing 


584 


existing laboratories and cooperating with 
existing institutions for the purpose. It 
would then be possible to modify the plan 
at any time without loss, if the erection 
of special buildings or laboratories should 
appear desirable. 

From the statistics of doctorates con- 
ferred during the past five years (SCIENCE, 
Sept. 5, 1902, p. 363) it appears that twice 
as many degrees were given in chemistry 
(137) as in any other subject, physics fol- 
lowing with 68. We certainly have now 
enough chemical and physical laboratories 
to meet present requirements, and money 
expended in these sciences should be de- 
voted, not to equipping new ones, but 
rather in assisting existing ones to do bet- 
ter work, by aiding the purchase of appa- 
ratus and supplies (including books) with 
a view to special work, and in encourag- 
ing the most promising men to continue 
their investigations. Most of the new doc- 
tors will never again appear as producers 
of works of pure science, not always be- 
cause of disinclination or incapacity, but 
because of the necessity of earning a living 
by devoting themselves to more profitable 
pursuits. Probably few scientific men 
work with the view of disinterestedly -pro- 
moting science. More powerful motives 
are the desire of approbation and of 
wealth. The best men are quite as desirous 
as others of attaining social standing, and, 
as every one knows, social standing in this 
country depends not so much on what one 
does or attains, as on what one spends, and 
few men are so constituted that the pleas- 
ures of scientific discovery or the appro- 
bation of perhaps a dozen specialists is 
sufficient compensation for poverty and 
social neglect, and this feeling is likely to 
increase rather than diminish with advan- 
cing age. 

The Carnegie Institution should, there- 
fore, do as much as possible to render life 
socially endurable to the best investigators 


‘SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 406. 


by offering liberal assistance, in the form 
either of salaries or of subsidies for inves- 
tigation, with the understanding that they 
are to accept no expert work requiring 
much time, and conduct no researches the 
results of which are not to become public 
property, and then only when it is clear 
that they would otherwise be driven to 
other occupations. The awarding substan- 
tial prizes for good work would afford a 
further means of encouraging research, 
care being taken that it does not lead to 
duplication, as may happen when special 
problems are proposed for solution. Of 
course all immediately practical problems 
for the solution of which there exists a 
sufficient financial inducement should be 
avoided. 

With regard to publication, my opinion 
is that no encouragement whatever should 
be given to such composite publications as 
the Proceedings of Academies, or those col- 
lege or university journals of mixed char- 
acter, the object of which is clearly to ad- 
vertise the institutions at the expense of a 
wide circulation of the results among spe- 
cialists concerned. These have their own 
reward. The publication of monographs 
might well be undertaken, and assistance 
given to special journals in the case of 
meritorious papers which would clearly 
otherwise go unpublished. The establish- 
ment of a printing and engraving plant, 
however, would seem inadvisable at pres- 
ent, for reasons given above. 

The organization and direction of re- 
search, while offering a field of usefulness, 
might easily be carried too far. The best 
scientific minds are intensely individual- 
istic, and the attempt to place a really orig- 
inal investigator under the direction of 
another man would only result in detri- 
ment to his work. Unless, therefore, it 
should clearly appear in any ease that di- 
rection is indispensable the institution 
should limit itself to bringing investigators 


OcToBER 10, 1902.] 


together for the purpose of deciding the 
nature of the most important problems to 
be attacked, and the best men to undertake 
the work, but beyond affording the means 
it should leave them with as little super- 
vision as possible, judging them by the re- 
sults. 

In conclusion, I heartily coneur with 
other writers as to the desirability of es- 
pecially encouraging work in the hygienic 
sciences, psychology, physical and chem- 
ical geology and other subjects which have 
as yet obtained but little foothold in our 
educational institutions. 


H. N. SToxKEs. 
U. S. GroLogicaL SURVEY. 


I THINK that Professor Cattell has done 

a public service in setting forth at length 
his views of the best ways to employ Mr. 
Carnegie’s gift. I thoroughly agree with 
the two general principles he lays down: 
(1) That the institution must work in har- 
mony with existing establishments, and (2) 
that it should aim to improve the condition 
of men of science, working with them and 
through them. We want no popes in sci- 
ence, nor any councils of ten with supreme 
‘power. The past history of some of our 
scientific societies and the present preten- 
sions of some of our too-numerous scientific 
congresses show what. is to be avoided. 
First of all let the man of science be free. 
Then assist him if you can. To the para- 
graph beginning ‘I should like to see at 
Washington a Carnegie Institution some- 
what on the plan of the Royal Institution 
of London’ I give assent qualified by the 
remark that the Smithsonian Institution 
should do the work proposed, and gain the 
time for it by giving up its grip on the 
National Museum, the Zoological Park, and 
the Bureau of Ethnology. Its proper busi- 
ness is to assist those institutions when it 
can, not to petrify them into units of a 
rigid administrative machine. The Car- 


SCIENCE. 


585 


negie funds would provide the necessary 
income, building, ete.; the slight adminis- 
trative machinery needed should be the 
work of the Smithsonian Institution clerks. 
The secretary of the institution should be, 
ex officio, a member, of the board of mana- 
gers with a voice and one vote. The salary 
of the members need not be above $1,000 
per year—just enough to pay their travel- 
ling expenses, hotel bills, and a reasonable 
fee for their lectures, ete. 

- The suggestion as to the establishment of 
an endowed scientific press seems to be ad- 
mirably adapted to cure abuses which have 
long existed and especially to stimulate the 
prompt publication of first-class work. Pro- 
vision should be made to assist the printing 
of original work, as is now done by the Ox- 
ford authorities, ete. 

A small addition to the income of an es- 
tablishment will often produce results that 
are out of all proportion to the amount. 
For instance, the gift of even $1,000 a year 
to the Lick Observatory funds in 1886-97 
would havemade many-rough placessmooth. 
A single computer added to the staff would 
have relieved our best men from much 
drudgery and left them free to do the work 
for which they were fitted. Subsidies 
should be given to astronomical observa- 
tories already established; and they should 
be given only for a limited term of years— 
during good behaviour. If after a reason- 
able time the subsidies produced little or 
nothing they should be discontinued. The 
very best way to assist research in astron- 
omy is to pay salaries to young astrono- 
mers. An effective form of assistance is 
to establish fellowships with incomes of 
$1,000 or less. 

Small grants in aid of the publications 
of worthy scientific societies or journals 
would have an immediate and far-reaching 
effect. 

If a plan can be devised to utilize men 
of talent or genius, ‘who for some reason or 


586 


other have not found a place in our social 
machinery’ great things might follow. We 
all know such men. What might not come 
from some of them if their lives were made 
a little easier? 

Perhaps the foregoing sentences may 
serve a useful purpose in emphasizing Pro- 
fessor Cattell’s proposals. If the two gen- 
eral principles he lays down are frankly 
adopted and adhered to, most of the rest 
of the business will be a matter of detail. 

Epwarp 8. Honpen. 


U. 8. Minirary ACADEMY, 
West Point, Sept. 15, 1902. 


Eprror or Science: I have read your 
suggestions on the Carnegie Institution 
with much interest, but my thought does 
not run in the same line with your own. 
All that you say is true about the lack of 
support to the development of abstract sci- 
ence, but in one way or another the man who 
possesses the capacity to develop science 
along the lines of the highest investigation 
finds the way to do it. True, it may be 
like many inventors, he cannot stop if he 
tries to. In the end he works out the 
results. 

However or by whom begun in very 
many branches of applied science and in- 
vention, the work gets done, either in spite 
of or by means of patent laws, which I am 
inclined to think rather retard than pro- 
mote invention. The practical application 
of scientific methods to arts that pay large 
profits works out in some way; often the 
inventor gets little or nothing, the pro- 
moters get all, but the community has the 
benefit of the invention. 

According to my observation, there is a 
middle term in which there is an enor- 
mous gap which neither inventor, pro- 
moter nor the masters of higher branches 
of science have attempted to fill. A great 
amount of mental energy has been given 
to the development of the steam-engine, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 406. 


and yet the steam-engine is the most 
wasteful machine now in existence; until 
lately we have been far behind in the gas- 
engine. Invention has been given to cook- 
ing apparatus, yet the waste of food and 
fuel is the biggest waste of the whole 
country. Invention has been applied to pro- 
viding all the apparatus for extinguishing 
fire, and yet the fire waste of this country 
is a disgrace to the nation. 

I attribute this fire waste in large meas- 
ure to ignorance, stupidity and criminal 
negligence on the part of the owners, build- 
ers and architects of existing buildings. I 
have chosen that line in extending the ap- 
plieation of science to the Prevention of 
Loss by Fire, as will duly appear in the 
documents which I send you under separate 
cover. But there is another line hardly 
yet touched, to which, in my judgment, the 
attention of the trustees of the Carnegie 
fund might well be called. 

Invention has been applied to the fullest 
extent to the development of agricultural 
implements and to the working of the soil; 
but is not the art of using the soil itself 
as a mere instrument of production rather 
than as a mine subject to exhaustion, yet 
in its infancy? We have but lately learned, 
almost by accident, the power of certain 
plants to draw nitrogen from the atmos- 
phere. We know as yet but little about 
hybridizing food plants, although we know 
a great deal about the development of fancy 
flowers by that method. We know in this 
country but little about the cross-breeding 
of sheep. The waste of skimmed milk is 
something enormous, and the excellent food 
property of cooked skim cheese common in 
Italy is almost unknown to us. 

The beginnings have been made in a 
quiet way; the agricultural experiment 
stations of the country have grown up 
almost unbeknown to the mass of the 
people. They occupy an anomalous con- 
dition, partly supported by the National 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


Government, partly by the States, often by 
auxiliaries, colleges or universities. I 
think there is no body of men performing 
so great service as the experts connected 
with many of these agricultural experiment 
stations. I have had occasion to corre- 
spond with them in dealing with the wheat 
supply and the cotton supply of the 
eountry, and in making an effort to get the 
people of the Piedmont plateau and of the 
Atlantic Cotton States to renovate their 
soil by pasturing sheep upon the cotton 
field, admitted to be feasible, were it not 
for the cur-dog; where there is not suffi- 
cient intelligence to muzzle the cur-dog it 
is hopeless to expect any intelligent method 
of agriculture of any kind that can be 
widely extended. In my judgement one of 
the greatest services that managers of the 
Carnegie fund could work at would be 
aiding those agricultural stations in which 
the best work has been done. There are 
two by which the whole standard of dairy 
products of their respective states has been 
raised to a very high point; one or two in 
which varieties of Indian corn have been 
generated containing as much or a larger 
element of protein than is found in the 
average of wheat. 

Another, where the production of sugar 
has been dealt with, whether any efforts 
have been made to hybridize sugar-cane 
and maize, I know not. A very moderate 
aid, especially in the matter of laboratory 
and libraries, might be of immense service 
in guiding the revolution in agriculture of 
this country which is now going on; 
mainly from extensive ignorant dealing 
with the soil as a mine subject to exhaus- 
tion, to an intelligent and intensive method 
of using the soil as an instrument of pro- 
duction, responding in its abundant yield 
in just proportion to the measure of mental 
energy and practical skill that may be ap- 
plied to it. 


SCIENCE. 


587 


If you think this missive will be of any 
service, you are at liberty to print it. 
Epwarp ATKINSON. 


Epiror oF Science: Your letter of 
September 8 asking an expression of opin- 
ion as to the most effective way in which 
the Carnegie Institution can contribute to 
the advancement of science, has just 
reached me in the North Woods, where I 
am spending my vacation. 

The question which you suggest. and 
which is now before the trustees of the 
Institution, appeals strongly to all men 
who have at heart the advancement of sci- 
ence, and I suppose that all such have given 
the subject some thought. So far as I have 
been able to consider it, my thinking has 
led toward the following conclusions. 

I understand the purpose of the Carnegie 
Institution to be the promotion of scientific 
research. At the present moment three 
directions seem to me open to the Institu- 
tion, along which it may proceed to carry 
out its purpose: 

1. By establishing and maintaining, 
under the direction of the trustees, an in- 
stitution devoted to research. 

2. By assisting men in universities, col- 
leges and other existing institutions to 
carry to conclusion researches already be- 
gun or planned. 

3. By seeking out men of extraordinary 
ability, outside of regular institutions, and 
putting them in the way to conduct re- 
searches or to perfect discoveries. 

Of these three methods of procedure the 
first is the direct one. My own experience 
in the scientifie work of the Government 
and of private institutions of learning 
long ago led me to think that an institution 
in Washington, modeled somewhat after 
the Royal Institution, and independent of 
gvovernment support, would have a great 
opportunity for usefulness. Should the 
Carnegie Institution provide such an es- 


588 


tablishment, and bring to it a limited num- 
ber of the ablest investigators and student 
assistants, it would thereby give, in my 
judgment, the most direct and powerful 
stimulus to research which could be ren- 
dered. 

The promotion of research by assisting 
investigators in existing institutions con- 
stitutes a means which will doubtless re- 
ceive the most careful consideration at the 
hands of those who direct the Carnegie 
Institution. Undoubtedly great possibili- 
ties for stimulating research are to be found 
in our universities and colleges. Neverthe- 
less the’ wise use of funds in this way is 
beset with many difficulties. In most 
American institutions of learning the con- 
ditions which obtain are not favorable to 
the development of the research spirit, and 
it would be entirely possible to expend the 
entire income of the Carnegie Institution 
in this way and obtain no other results 
than those of a mediocre and routine na- 
ture. In no other direction will the man- 
agers of the Institution be called upon for 
a greater measure of that good judgment 
which couples keen discrimination with 
sympathetic appreciation, than in their en- 
deavor to assist research in existing insti- 
tutions. 

The third line of activity to which I 
have alluded has its peculiar difficulties 
also, though of a different sort from those 
just referred to. 

An institution founded for the promotion 


of research will not be content to get in’ 


touch only with those already fairly known 
and started in the work of investigation. 
It will seek to introduce the new sciences 
as well as to stimulate the old to new tri- 
umphs. It will desire to discover the dis- 
eoverer, to keep a door always accessible 
to. the unknown and obscure investigator. 
By such a door an army of cranks will seek 
to enter, but so also will the unheralded 
genius. Now and then a Thomson, an 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 406.° 


Edison or a Marconi will knock for admis- 
sion; mayhap a Henry or a Pasteur. It 
is here—in the endeavor to come in touch 
with the unknown struggling man of 
genius—that those who direct the Institu- 
tion will find at the same time their keenest 
disappointments and their greatest suc- 
cesses; and here again is a wise sympathy 
no less needed than a keen scrutiny. 

Of the three plans of procedure here 
suggested the first is, to my thinking, the 
prop and the inspiration of the other two. 

If the Carnegie Institution succeeds not 
only in bringing to accomplishment certain 
useful researches, but also in awakening 
the spirit of research itself, its success will 
have momentous consequences for the 
whole world. No other project has at this 
moment so fully the attention of all men 
of science. In their effort to execute the 
delicate and important task committed to 
them the directors of the Institution are 
sure to receive the cordial cooperation, as 
they already have the keen attention, of 
those who are interested in science and in 
the progress of men. 

Henry S. PRITCHETT. 


MEMBERSHIP OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIA- 
TION. 

Tue following is a list of persons who 
have completed membership in the Asso- 
ciation during August, 1902. 

Thos. L. Armitage, M.D., Physician and Sur- 
geon, Princeton, Minn. 

Oscar P. Austin, Chief of Bureau of Statistics, 
Treasury Department, Washington, D. C. 

Theodore Baker, Box 44, Haskell, N. J. 

Howard J. Banker, Professor of Biology, South- 
western Normal School, California, Pa. 

John Barlow, State College, Kingston, R. I. 

John E. Best, M.D., Physician, Arlington 
Heights, Il. 

Mrs. Josephine Hall Bishop, 2309 Washington 
St., San Francisco, Cal. 

James Hall Bishop, 2309 Washington St., San 
Francisco, Cal. 

Anson W. Burchard, 44 Broad St., New York 
City. 


OcTOBER 10, 1902. ] 


Flemming Carrow, M.D., University of Mich- 
igan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 

Ira J. Dunn, M.D., Physician, 810 Peach St., 
Erie, Pa. 

Ernst Fahrig, Chief of Laboratories, Philadel- 
phia Commercial Museums, Philadelphia, Pa. 


Geo. H. Gibson, 268 Shady Ave., E. E., Pitts- 
burgh, Pa. ; 


Ozni P. Hood, Professor of Mechanical and 
Electrical Engineering, School of Mines, Hough- 
ton, Mich. : 

G. Wilbur Hubley, Electric Light Co., Louis- 
ville, Ky. 


Herman C. Jungblut, M.D., Physician, Tripoli, 
Towa. 


Orran W. Kennedy, General Superintendent, 
Frick Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa. 

Palmer J. Kress, M.D., Physician, 636 Hamilton 
St., Allentown, Pa. 


Benjamin Lee, M.D., Secretary State Board of 
Health, 1420 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Daniel Lichty, M.D., Physician, Masonic Tem- 
ple, Rockford, Ill. 

Ernest H. Lindley, Professor of Psychology, 
University. of Indiana, Bloomington, Ind. 

Robert E. Lyons, Professor of Chemistry, Uni- 
versity of Indiana, Bloomington, Ind. 


George C. Martin, Assistant Geologist, Mary- 
land Geological Survey, Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity, Baltimore, Md. 


Henry F. Naphen, Member of Congress, 311 
Pemberton Building, Boston, Mass. 


Wm. R. Roney, Mechanical Engineer, 10 Bridge 
St., New York City. 


Saml. P. Sadtler, Consulting Chemist, N. E. 
corner Tenth and Chestnut Sts., Philadelphia, Pa. 

George S. Seymour, 11 Broadway, New York 
City. 

Lee H. Smith, M.D., Physician, Mus. Soc. Nat. 
Sciences, Buffalo, N. Y. 

Fred D. Snyder, M.D., Physican, 10 Center St., 
Ashtabula, Ohio. 

Robert W. Stewart, M.D., Physician, The Ortiz, 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Lucius S. Storrs, Geologist, N. P. Ry. Co., St. 
Paul, Minn. 


Henry L. Ward, Secretary Board Trustees, 
Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wis. 

Homer D. Williamson, 133 W. 
Columbus, Ohio. 


10th Ave., 


SCIENCE. 


589 


Chas. E. A. Winslow, Instruetor of Biology, 
Mass. Inst. Tech., Boston, Mass. 

Walter Wyman, M.D., Surgeon-General, Public 
Health and Marine Hospital Service, Washington, 
D. C. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


The Elements of Physical Chemistry. By 
Harry C. Jones. New York, The Macmil- 
lan Company, 1902. 14x21. Pp. x-+ 565. 
Bound, $4. 

In this, the most pretentious book on phys- 
ical chemistry which has appeared in English, 
the author has not departed from the orthodox 
German school in arrangement of the subject 
matter; in the treatment, however, many pas- 
sages show a style which is peculiarly his own. 
A brief review will show what he believes 
should be taught in a university course in 
physical chemistry. 

The reader is introduced to the atom and the 
molecule—the fundamental ideas of the chem- 
ist; the laws of combination, determination 
of atomic weights and then the periodic law 
are given in detail. In separate chapters are 
then discussed the various laws, theories and 
disconnected facts bearing on the physical 
properties of pure gases, liquids and solids. 
There is here given much of the work which, 
prior to.1885, had engaged the attention of 
chemical philosophers—the discovery of rela- 
tions between physical properties and constitu- 
tion. These chapters will afford interesting 
reading to many who wonder why the chemist 
requires all the physics he can obtain. There 
is little in these chapters, however, illustrative 
of the use of these properties in analysis. 

In the fifth section the subject of solutions 
is considered. This chapter deals with 
the classical work of Pfeffer on osmotic pres- 
sure, of van’t Hoff on the analogy between os- 
motic and gas pressures, of Raoult on the vapor 
pressures, the origin of the theory of electro- 
lytic dissociation and the arguments in its 
favor, and a discussion of properties of dilute 
solutions. 

The thirty pages which are devoted to ther- 
mochemistry indicate the development of the 
subject and give methods and results. Electro- 
chemistry requires and merits four times this 
space for its treatment, since the remarkable 


590 


development which modern physical chemis- 
try has experienced in the past fifteen years 
has been in very large measure due to advances 
made in electrochemistry. The explanation 
of the many conflicting results, such as the con- 
ductivities of solutions, electromotive force 
of primary cells, etc., which the modern theory 
attempts, makes the section very interesting 
and instructive—almost comparable to the 
small text-book of LeBlanc. 

The chapter on photochemistry deals with 
actinometry and gives the results of photo- 
chemical measurements and an interesting 
section on the action of the newly discovered 
radium and polonium. The next chapter, on 
chemical dynamics and equilibrium, has among 
its topics the law of mass action and the phase 
rule of Gibbs, both of which are of modern 
development. The idea of chemical affinity 
and activity as affected by modern theories 
forms the theme of the final pages. 

The author is an ardent supporter of the 
theory of electrolytic dissociation. He states 
(p. 299): ‘We shall see that this theory is 
fundamental if we hope to raise chemistry 
from empiricism to the rank of an exact 
science.’ Such is the unfortunate idea which 
pervades the work. This theory explains more 
or less satisfactorily various phenomena con- 
nected with dilute solutions, mainly aqueous; 
but it is extremely unfortunate that the con- 
centrated solutions of our daily experience are 
ignored. So long as authors of texts on phys- 
ical chemistry take the position that the part 
is greater than the whole, so long will critical 
observers be justified in declaring that the sub- 
ject may be of theoretical importance only. 

The method of presentation calls frequently 
for forward references which will embarrass 
the student. The theory of electrolytic dis- 
sociation is given before the chapter on elec- 
trochemistry, the law of mass action is used 
before it is presented, critical phenomena dis- 
cussed apart from the phase rule relation for 
one-component distillation before 
two-component, etc. This leads to duplication, 
examples of which are to be found in para- 
graphs on the thermochemical and volume- 
chemical methods. 


systems, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


The discussion of the physical properties of 
bodies even when presented historically should 
not be restricted to relations connected with 
constitution. An extension of this chapter to 
include more of the properties of gases, such 
as refractive index, viscosity, thermal and 
electrical conductivity, ete., would be welcomed. 
A few paragraphs indicating modern work on 
solid solutions, isohydric solutions, fused salts, 
decomposition voltages, alloys, velocities of 
phase formation, false equilibria, crystalliza- 
tion, ete., would have added materially to the 
interest and value of the book. 

A few of the errors must be noted. Ethyl 
alcohol and water are not separable by frac- 
tional distillation (p. 175). All calcium salts 
are not more soluble in cold than in hot water 
(p. 179). The freezing-point of a solvent is 
not always lowered on the addition of another 
substance (p. 203). The following statements 
are open to objection or proof: ‘ A eutectic is 
the lowest freezing-mixture of two metals: a 
eryohydrate is the lowest freezing-mixture of 
two substances’ (p. 222); ‘the best conductors 
of heat energy, however, as compared with the 
worst hardly exceed the ratio of 100 to 1’ (p. 
320); ‘the potential of the normal electrode 
is 0.56 volt,’ and ‘a solution has a smaller 
vapor pressure than the pure solvent’ (p. 499). 
There is no excuse for having given the Ost- 
wald-Nernst proof of free ions (p. 367) nor for 
assuming that sodium chloride and potassium 
nitrate cannot exist together (pp. 506-508). 

In some places loose definitions or desecrip- 
tions are given, e. g., the volume of one gram 
of hydrogen (p. 326), the silver voltameter 
(p. 325), unit of resistance (p. 337), concen- 
tration of zine chloride (p. 329), ete. 

The apparatus and methods employed in the 
laboratory are frequently described. Trans- 
lations of pertinent sections from classical 
papers are inserted and reference made to 
some of the prominent contributors to the 
science, the name of Jones not being forgot- 
ten. 

‘The book will find its public.’ In the 
hands of a discriminating and very careful 
teacher it may be of considerable value. 

H. R. Carverx. 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY AND THE 
CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. SOME MATTERS 
OF FACT. 


Tue article by Professor Whitman in the 
issue of Science for October 3d, entitled 
‘The Impending Crisis in the History of the 
Marine Biological Laboratory,’ contains much 
that is excellent by way of statement of gen- 
eral principle, but raises certain questions of 
fact that should be clearly understood by the 
general scientific public. The discussion car- 
ried on during the negotiations with the Car- 
negie Institution turned largely on the propo- 
sition that the existing property of the labo- 
ratory should be transferred to the Carnegie 
Institution, and was especially concerned with 
the question whether, under the reorganiza- 
tion thus necessitated, the scientific inde- 
pendence and representative cooperative char- 
acter of the laboratory would be surrendered. 

As chairman of the executive committee of 
the laboratory during the course of the nego- 
tiations I ask attention to two principal points 
in regard to which Professor Whitman’s letter 
ereates, I think, a wrong impression concern- 
ing the action of our own trustees and those 
of the Carnegie Institution. 

The first is contained in the following pas- 
sage (p. 511): 

“Tt is due to the trustees of the Carnegie In- 
stitution to say that the proposition to acquire 
the laboratory as a condition to supporting it 
did not originate with them. This is the humili- 
ating side of the situation in which we now find 
ourselves. They were told that the laboratory 
was in dire financial distress, that some local 
western institution was machinating to get pos- 
session; in short, that there was an emergency 
requiring immediate action to save the institu- 
tion. They were asked on what terms they would 
consent to own and support it.” (Italics mine.) 


I desire to state that, by the insertion of the 
words ‘ to own’ in the above passage, the form 
in which the matter was laid before the Car- 
negie Institution by our committee is changed 
in an essential particular.. No such question 
was asked or suggested in any of the official 
correspondence, all of which passed through 
my hands; and if such a request or suggestion 


SCIENCE. 


591 


was privately made by anyone connected with 
the laboratory it was without the authoriza- 
tion, and without the knowledge of the execu- 
tive committee. On the contrary, the opinion 
was expressed to the Carnegie trustees that 
“An organization similar to the existing one 
would be preferable if compatible with ade- 
quate financial support’ (quoted from a letter 
to Secretary Walcott dated March 8); and 
in communications addressed to President 
Gilman, Secretary Walcott and others the Car- 
negie trustees were only invited to offer sug- 
gestions as to ‘the best practicable organiza- 
tion that would commend itself to the Car- 
negie Institution assurance of its 
national representative character’ (quoted 
from the same letter to Secretary Walcott). 

The suggestion that the Carnegie Institu- 
tion should own the property of the laboratory 
first came to the Marine Biological Laboratory 
‘trustees from a subcommittee appointed by 
the Carnegie executive committee to consider 
and report upon the general proposition to 
support the laboratory; to the best of my 
knowledge and belief it originated with mem- 
bers of this subcommittee. It was based on 
the ground that a guarantee of permanent and 
continuous support, involving the purchase of 
land, erection and equipment of buildings, 
and the regular contribution of funds for run- 
ning expenses, could only be promised the 
laboratory by placing the Carnegie trustees in 
a position of financial control and responsi- 
bility. The grounds for taking this position 
were fully and repeatedly explained to the 
representatives of the laboratory as an obvi- 
ous necessity of good business management; 
and at no time during the negotiations was 
the least ground given for the suspicion that 
an unfair advantage was being taken of the 
emergency created by the financial difficulties 
of the laboratory. In the various discussions 
which took place the line was clearly drawn 
between financial control and scientific con- 
trol. 

The second point, therefore, to which atten- 
tion is directed is the nature of the guarantee 
of scientific independence offered the labora- 
tory by the Carnegie committee. From Pro- 
fessor Whitman’s letter it might be inferred 


as an 


592 


that the only*dssurance of freedom of action 
lay in the personal statements of ‘one or two 
of our trustees.’ His meaning will doubtless 
be clear to those familiar with the basis of 
agreement, but as a statement to scientific 
men in general, who are not fully cognizant of 
the true situation, it is somewhat misleading. 
It is due alike to the Carnegie Institution and 
to the scientific public to state that the entire 
scientific management of the laboratory, under 
the proposed arrangement, is placed in the 
hands of a representative board of scientific 
men, the constitution, powers and functions of 
which are fully defined in a set of by-laws 
roughly drafted by our own representatives in 
consultation with those of the Carnegie Insti- 
tution, submitted in writing to every member 
of our board of trustees, discussed and modi- 
fied in subsequent meetings of conference com- 
mittees, and finally adopted by unanimous 
vote of the board at their last meeting before 
action by the corporation. Nominated to the 
Carnegie trustees by members of the labora- 
tory, and subject only to the limits of the 
appropriations made by the Carnegie Institu- 
tion and of income from other sources, this 
board of managers is given entire control of 
the scientific management of the laboratory 
and its dependencies, and is by the by-laws 
constituted an advisory council to the Car- 
negie Institution. The only conditions limit- 
ing the action of this board were that it should 
include one representative of the Carnegie 
trustees, and that, in accordance with the 
terms of Mr. Carnegie’s endowment, the Car- 
negie funds were not to be devoted to purposes 
of elementary instruction. To many of the 
trustees and members of the corporation it has 
seemed that this organization not only gave 
the scientific management the utmost freedom 
consistent with sound financial management, 
but by the constitution of the board as an 
advisory council to the institution gave it full 
opportunity to exert its influence in molding 
the future policy and development of the labo- 
ratory. 

Whether the working plan thus outlined is 
adequate to the present needs and future de- 
velopment of the laboratory is no doubt open 
to discussion; and it may be stated on good 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 406. 


authority that it will not be consummated, 
either in its present form or with modifica- 
tions, without giving abundant further oppor- 
tunity for such consideration. To maintain, 
however, that such a plan involves the aban- 
donment of the principles of scientific repre- 
sentation, cooperation and freedom, would I 
think be at variance with the facts. That the 
laboratory has hitherto stood for these prin- 
ciples, and owes its success largely to their 
successful application, is undeniable; and that 
such cooperation has been possible in so large 
a measure is a lasting honor to American 
biologists. But before adopting a pessimistic 
view of the prospects of retaining the real 
substance of these much-to-be-desired bless- 
ings under the proposed Carnegie reorganiza- 
tion, it may be well to ask ourselves, in all 
candor, whether the history of the laboratory 
under its existing organization has left us 
above criticism. 

Epmunp B. Witson, — 
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Ma- 


rine Biological Laboratory during the period of 
the negotiations with the Carnegie Institution. 


THE COOLING OF GASES BY EXPANSION AND THE 
KINETIC THEORY. 

In Science for August 22 there appears an 
abstract of a communication presented by Mr. 
Peter Fireman at the last meeting of the 
American Association, in which the cooling 
and heating effects in the classical experiment 
of Joule are referred to a sort of fractioning 
process of the slow and swift molecules. How 
rigorous a treatment he has given the subject 
I am unable to judge from the abstract, in 
which it is merely stated that, if a molecule 
enters the vacuum receiver at a high velocity, 
it will retain this velocity, while if a slower 
moving one enters, it will soon meet with ‘a 
swifter one and exchange velocities with it. 
Just how the fractioning process occurs is not 
very clearly stated. 

This same explanation, only in a much more 
complete form, was given by Natanson more 
than thirteen years ago. His treatment will 
be found in Wiedemann’s Annalen, Vol. 
XXXVIL., page 341. R. W. Woop. 


San FRANCISCO, 
September 8, 1902. 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. 

Proressor C. R. Van Hise, in his excellent 
address on the training and work of a geol- 
ogist (Science, August 29), criticises the 
spiritualistic views of Dr. A. R. Wallace (p. 
333) on the ground that they show an igno- 
rance of physical laws. If Professor Van Hise 
were more familiar with Dr. Wallace’s wri- 
tings, he would know that that naturalist is no 
mere biologist, but is well acquainted with 
the currently accepted laws of physics. If he 
should remain unconvinced of this, he could 
not say that Professors Crookes and Oliver 
Lodge, who hold similarly heterodox opinions, 
are not familiar with the principles of physics! 
It seems to me that Professor Van Hise might 
just as well have claimed that believers in 
magnetism were unacquainted with the laws 
of gravitation. 

Some years ago I had the pleasure of dis- 
cussing these matters with Dr. Wallace, and 
in my innocence I ventured to ask if he had 
sufficiently considered the laws of physics, and 
so forth. I can recall his smile as he said that 
of course he had considered them, and then 
went on to say that all phenomena were 
equally natural and in accordance with natural 
laws, only some had received a theoretical 
explanation, while others had not. 

Dr. Wallace’s views may or may not be 
absurd, but it Seems clear that Professor Van 
Hise’s criticism is without justice or validity. 

T. D. A. CocKERELL. 

September 12, 1902. 


LICHENS ON ROCKS. 


To tHe Eprror oF Science: A few days 
ago, I visited a point along Chicago Creek 
near Idaho Springs, Colorado, and on ex- 
amining the massive rock (gneiss) to ascer- 
tain the cause of the apparent weathering, I 
found the rocks literally covered with lichens 
of a uniform black color. 

My observations were made in the vicinity 
of an abandoned tunnel site, in fact at the en- 
trance, and while standing on the ‘dump’ my 
eye fell upon a piece of porphyritic rock which 
proved to be covered with arborescent figures 
closely resembling the imprint made by the 
lichens observed on the rocks above. 


SCIENCE. 


593 


My first impressions were that the figures 
were simply those characteristic of ‘ dendrites,’ 
but on further examination and reflection I 
discovered that the deposit on my specimen 
was upon the surface of a conchoidal frac- 
ture, the latter being evidently the result of 
a shot made prior to the removal of the rock 
from the fissure vein, and consequently the 
arborescence could not be the result of the in- 
filtration of a mineral solution along a cleav- 
age plane or fissure, which is generally sup- 
posed to be the cause of such deposits. 

This conclusion was seemingly corroborated 
by a discovery made a few moments later on 
the opposite side of the cafion and at the 
base of another mountain. Here I found a 
magnificent hand specimen of porphyry 
which was evidently derived from a porphyry 
dyke which I know to be located several hun- 
dred feet above the creek. The entire surface 
of the specimen which had been exposed to the 
light was covered with beautiful forms of li- 
chens of a brown, green, gray and black color, 
brown and green predominating. 

The ground or main mass of the porhyry, 
consisting of a beautiful brown color in which 
were embedded the crystals of feldspar, led me 
to think that perhaps the differentiation in 
the color of the lichens was due to the mineral 
content of the underlying constituents of the 
rock; for the greater percentage of the browns 
were found growing in the brown main mass. 
Here was also evidenced their corrosive and 
etching effect upon the rock, the black li- 
chens being evidently in a state of decomposi- 
tion; their corrosive and penetrating effect was 
also quite apparent upon the massive rocks, 
resulting in beautiful arborescence similar to 
that found in the specimen first alluded to 
above. 

I might add that the specimen was consid- 
erably mineralized, iron pyrites being dissemi- 
nated throughout and readily observed by the 
naked eye. The presence of this accessory 
together with that of the essential oligoclase 
which might possibly contain manganese as 
one of its constituents leads me to ask, first, 
whether either one or both of these minerals 
could have influenced the color of the plant 
during life, second, whether the arborescence 


594 


of the specimen first alluded to was not en- 
tirely due to organic action. 
SamuE.t T. HENSEL. 


BONES OF A MASTODON FOUND. 

Laporers engaged in digging out muck have 
recently found in a swamp near Newburgh, 
N. Y., some of the bones of a mastodon. So 
far, there have been secured the lower jaw, 
with teeth in place; the teeth of the upper 
jaw; one tusk; eighteen ribs, or seven com- 
plete ones and fragments of four others; 
fifteen sections of the vertebra; bones of the 
foot; and what is probably the skull, though in 
many small fragments. These bones laid at a 
depth varying from two to eight feet below the 
surface of the ground, a few in the muck, but 
most of them in the shell marl that underlies 
it. The swamp, about two acres in extent, is 
three quarters of a mile west of the Hudson 
River, one mile north of the northern limit of 
the city of Newburgh, and about one hundred 
and eighty feet above the river level. There 
is gently rising ground on the north and east, 
but directly west of the swamp the hills rise 
quite abruptly to a height of eighty or 
one hundred feet. The underlying rock be- 
neath this muck bed appears to have a general 
slope to the southeast. The muck averages 
two feet in thickness, below which is marl, 
varying from a few inches to twelve feet in 
thickness, and under this, boulders and pebbles 
that form a solid bottom. 

The bones found were scattered over an area 
about fifty by twenty feet, and in this respect 
they differ from those of the three mastodons 
found in Orange County in former years, and 
which were exhumed in almost the relative 
places they occupied when the animal was 
alive. The tusk found is curved, seven feet 
long and nearly seven inches in diameter at the 
root, and is in fair condition, though it showed 
signs of disintegration soon after removal 
from its resting place. Owing to the accumu- 
lation of water in the excavation, the progress 
of finding and removing the bones is very 
slow; but in a few days it may be possible to 
announce the finding of some other parts of 
the skeleton. 

REGINALD. GORDON. 


- SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 406. 


THE AMERICANIST CONGRESS IN NEW 
YORK. 

Tue 13th session of the International Con- 
gress of Americanists will open at noon, 
Monday, October 20, and continue during the 
week, in the halls of the American Museum 
of Natural History. The hotel headquarters 
will be the Hotel Majestic. Lunch will be 
served daily at the Museum to all members. 
Thursday will be devoted to a trip through the 
parks, and visits to Columbia University, the 
Botanical Garden and Zoological Garden. More 
than eighty papers have already been offered 
to the Congress from nearly all the active 
students of Americanist subjects. The mem- 
bership fee is three dollars which entitles one 
to all of the privileges of the meeting and to 
the volume of proceedings to be published 
later. The address of the general secretary 
is M. H. Saville, American Museum of Natu- 
ral History, New York. It is expected that a 
large number of the anthropologists of the 
country will be present, and among the official 
foreign delegates are: Professor Dr. Seler, 
Professor Dr. von der Steiner, of Berlin, rep- 
resenting Prussia; Professor Dr. Stolfe, of 
Stockholm, Sweden; Professor Dr. Schmeltz, 
of Leiden, Holland; Professor Lejeal, of Paris, 
France; Alfredo Chavero Chavero, Dr. 
Leon, Francisco Belmar, of Mexico; Dr. Pit- 
tier, Dr. Ferraz, of Costa Rica. After the 
meeting the foreign guests will be given an 
excursion to Philadelphia, Washington, Pitts- 
burg, Cincinnati and Chicago to visit the 
scientific and educational institutions of those 
cities. A visit will be made to the ancient 
fort in Ohio known as Fort Ancient. As this 
is the first meeting of the Americanist Con- 
gress in the United States it is hoped that 
there will be a large attendance of those inter- 
ested in the work of this organization, namely, 
to bring together students of the archeology, 
ethnology and early history of the two Ameri- 
cas, and by the reading of papers and by dis- 
cussions to advance knowledge of these sub- 
jects. 

THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN ASSOCIA- 

TIONS. 

In its report of the Belfast meeting of the 

British Association Nature says: 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


A noteworthy event of the meeting was the 
speech given by Professor C. S. Minot, Presi- 
dent of the American Association, in which 
he invited members of the British Association 
to attend the meeting to be held early next 
January at Washington. Professor Minot 
said he had been directed by the council of his 
Association to express the hope that as many 
members .as possible of the British Association 
would attend the' Washington meeting. A 
vote had been passed to the effect that all 
members of the British Association would be 
received upon presenting themselves at the 
meetings in America as members of the 
American Association without further require- 
ments. In future, as has already been an- 
nounced in these columns, the annual meet- 
ings of the American Association will begin 
on the first Monday after Christmas and ex- 
tend throughout the week. The scientific 
societies affiliated with the Association have 
agreed to this arrangement, and the universi- 
ties have consented to the establishment of 
this ‘Convocation Week,’ in which the meet- 
ings of seientific societies are to be held. It is 
expected that the first meeting to be held next 
January under this rule will be the most im- 
portant scientific gathering ever held in 
America. In the course of his remarks, Pro- 
fessor Minot said: ; 

It was the duty, he believed, which they should 
all perform to attend these gatherings and take 
part in international intercourse. Many Ameri- 
cans had come to the British Association, and 
they had always been treated with the greatest 
hospitality. _They arrived strangers and went 
away friends; they brought expectations, and 
took back realizations and a grateful memory. 
He asked for one moment in which to remind 
them of a new historic condition never existing 
in the world before. It was the first time that 
two great nations existed with a common speech, 
a common past, a common history; would they 
not therefore so work together that they might 
build up a common future? And for the scien- 
tific man this duty came first. Each nation was 
governed not by the government, but by the men 
of learning and above all by the universities. 
Nowhere, he believed, in the Anglo-Saxon world 
had science yet taken its place in the universities. 
Nowhere in the Anglo-Saxon world had the full 
value of scientific knowledge throughout the 


SCIENCE. 


595 


whole range of life, from the university down to 
every practical affair—nowhere, he said, had the 
full power of the world of science been estab- 
lished. 


Professor Dewar, in replying on behalf of 
the Association, said: 

They were all delighted to hear the kind invi- 
tation which had been extended to the members 
of the Association by their brother workers on the 
other side of the Atlantic. The great blunder we 
in the United Kingdom were perpetrating for 
many years past was in remaining ignorant of 
what was being done on the other side of the 
Atlantic. He had again and again said to manu- 
facturers and those interested in industrial prog- 
ress that if they would subsidize their chief of- 
ficials by a donation which would enable them 
to spend their short holiday by going to see what 
could be seen during a three weeks’ residence in 
the United States, to note how they economize 
time there, how a person could be transferred 
from place to place, the freedom with which one 
is allowed to see the great internal organization 
—if they did that they would be repaid one- 
hundredfold. He did not know of anything that 
had occurred to himself personally which had 
affected him so much as a short visit which he 
had the honor of paying to America. Both in 
the universities and in applied industries it was 
a revelation to him, and he was sure it would 
be a personal gratification to every member of 
that association, and an entirely new revelation 
to them, if they took advantage of the invitation 
offered. He hoped some of the officials of the 
British Association would be present on the great 
occasion in Washington. 


THE METRIC SYSTEM IN GREAT BRITAIN. 

ConsuL-GengeraL H. Cray Evans sends to 
the Department of State from London, Au- 
gust 30, 1902, a letter from the secretary of 
the Decimal Association, showing the progress 
of efforts to have the metric system of weights. 
and measures adopted in England. The letter 
says: 

It has come to my knowledge that there is a 
considerable feeling in favor of the adoption 
of the metric weights and measures in the 
United States of America, and with this in 
mind, I am sure that you will be interested in 
information regarding the prospect of this 
country adopting metric weights and measures 
also. 


596 


I therefore venture to lay before you the 
following information: There are 290 members 
of the present House of Commons so thor- 
oughly in accord with our aims that they have 
given me authority to publish their names as 
supporters. If we add to this the number of 
members of Parliament who would be influ- 
enced by a debate in the House of Commons 
to vote in our favor, we are convinced that we 
are now strong enough to carry a bill. 

During the last four or five weeks, no less 
than sixty city, town, and county councils 
have passed resolutions to the effect that it is 
desirable that the reform should be made in 
the interest of commerce and education. 

One of the most definite results, in fact, I 
think I may say, the most definite result, of 
the conference of the colonial premiers was 
the passing of a resolution in favor of the 
adoption of the metric weights and measures 
throughout the British Empire. This will 
have a most important result, and will render 
certain the early passing of a bill to give effect 
to those views. 

All the chambers of commerce in this coun- 
try, nearly all the school boards, the trades 
unions, and a great number of societies of 
various kinds have for a long time been active 
supporters of my association. 

The attitude of our premier may be gath- 
ered from some remarks he made to the depu- 
tation which waited upon him in regard to 
this question in 1895. He said: 

“Tf I may express my own opinion upon 
the merits of the case, there can be no doubt 
whatever that the judgment of the whole 
civilized world, not excluding the countries 
which still adhere to the antiquated systems 
under which we suffer, has long decided that 
the metric system is the only rational sys- 
tem.” 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 


A coMMITTEE has been formed for the erec- 
tion of a public memorial of the late Professor 
Virchow in Berlin, with Professor Waldeyer 
as chairman. 


A MONUMENT, consisting of a pedestal and 
a bust by the sculptor, Marqueste, is to be 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 406, 


erected in the Paris Museum of Natural His- 
tory, in memory of Alphonse Milne-Edwards. 


Mr. Wituiam Bareson, fellow of St. John’s 
College, Cambridge, and author of important 
contributions to zoology, is at present in the 
United States. 

Dr. F. Y. Epcewortu, professor of political 
economy at Oxford University, known for his 
important contributions to statistics and 
mathematics, will give a course of lectures at 
Harvard University, beginning about the 
middle of the present month. 

Cou. H. A. Yorxe, of the British Royal En- 
gineer Army Corps, is at present in the United 
States, for the purpose of inspecting the elec- 
trical railway system. 

Mr. James Mooney, of the Bureau of Eth- 
nology, recently returned from studies among 
the Kiowa Indians and expects to leave shortly 
to resume his work which will be continued 
through the coming winter. He is now engaged 
in the preparation of a set of models of 
Kiowa shields and tipis. Each of the latter 
is being made by the man who alone has a 
right to use it. The former are all by native 
artists working under direct instruction of the 
owner of the shield. Mr. Mooney is having a 
similar set of models of Cheyenne shields and 
tipis prepared for the Field Columbian Mu- 
seum, Chicago. 

Proressor CHARLES E. Bressry has been ap- 
pointed by the University of Nebraska to be 
its delegates to the inaugural exercises of 
Chancellor Strong, of the University of Kan- 
sas, October 17. ; 

Proressor J. P. Ippines, professor of pet- 
rology in the University of Chicago, has been 
elected a Foreign Member of the Scientific 
Society of Christiania, Norway. 

Tue King of Italy has conferred the cross 
of a grand officer of the Italian Order of the 
Crown on Mr. G. Marconi. 


Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE will be installed as 
rector of the University of St. Andrews on 
October 22. Dr. Andrew D. White will at the 
same time receive the degree of LL.D. Dr. 
White will also receive the degree of D.C.L. at 
Oxford, where he will attend the three hun- 
dredth anniversary of the Bodleian Library. 


OcTOBER 10, 1902.] 


Mr. A. R. Rucewes, a graduate of Cornell 
University, has been elected assistant to the 
state entomologist of Minnesota. 


Mr. Witt S. Myers, until last year asso- 
ciate professor of chemistry at Rutgers Col- 
lege and now director of the Chilean Nitrate 
Works, has been elected a trustee of Rutgers 
College. 


Lirutenant Rosert E. Peary has been ad- 
vanced to the rank of commander. 


Proressor Sapper, of Tiibingen, has under- 
taken an expedition to study earthquakes in 
Guatemala and Martinique. 


Tne Harveian Oration before the Royal 
College of Physicians of London will be de- 
livered by Dr. David Ferrier, F.R.S., on Octo- 
ber 18. 


Aw association has been formed to buy the 
house in Nantucket in which Maria Mitchell, 
the astronomer, was born. It is proposed to 
place there her library and to establish a mu- 


seum. 


We regret to note the death of M. Damour, 
the eminent French chemist, aged ninety-four 
years; of Dr. Theodor von Heldreich, director 
of the Botanical Gardens at Athens, at the 
age of eighty years; and of Professor O. G. 
Nordenstrém, professor at the Stockholm 
School of Mines. 


Iy connection with the recent death of Pro- 
fessor H. Wild, we learn that his widow, 
Madame R. von Wild (56 Englischviertel 
Zurich, Switzerland), is willing to sell her 
husband’s large library, bearing chiefly on 
meteorology, magnetism, metrology and phys- 
ics. These subjects are generally not well 
represented in American libraries, and we 
hope that Professor Wild’s collection will be 
secured for the United States.—C. A. 


Owine to the fact that the educational au- 
thorities of New Orleans found themselves 
unable to provide satisfactory hotel and other 
accommodations for the Department of Super- 
intendence during the Mardi Gras festival, 
the executive committee of the department 
have, by authority of the action of the depart- 
ment at the Minneapolis meeting, changed 


SCIENCE. 


597 


the meeting to Cincinnati, Ohio, February 
24, 25 and 26. 

ForrigN journals announce that a donation 
of 50,000 rupees has been made by the govern- 
ment of India to the Pasteur Institute of In- 
dia at Kasauli, and the Punjab government 
has handed over to the central committee of 
the institute as a free gift Drumbar House 
at Kasauli for the accommodation of the 
poorer class of European and Eurasian pa- 
tients, while Sir Charles Rivas has given 
10,000 rupees to the institute for the years 
1902-3; grants have also been made by the 
governments of Burma and the United Prov- 
inces of Agra and Oudh, and the chief com- 
missioners of the Central Provinces and As- 
sam. 

Nature reports that the zoological station 
of Arcachon, under the direction of M. le Dr. 
F. Jolyet, professor of medicine in the Uni- 
versity of Bordeaux, is now in full work, but 
that the laboratories are not fully occupied. 
A new subsidiary station has recently been 
opened at Guethary, a small bathing place 
near St. Jean de Luz, which is stated to have 
an excellent beach for dredging operations. 

A New institute, built by the Danish govern- 
ment for the production of serum and for the 
prosecution of bacteriological research, was 
opened on September 9 at Copenhagen. 

-A THERAPEUTICAL society has been organized 
in Great Britain with Sir W. T. Thiselton- 
Dyer as the first president. 

Nature states that part of an expedition for 
the survey of the Gold Coast has set sail from 
Liverpool. The remaining members of the 
expedition, numbering between thirty and 
forty, consisting of trained surveyors from 
the Ordnance Survey and surveyors from 
Queensland and New Zealand, will leave for 
West Africa on October 4. 

Tue medical inspectors last week excluded 
from the schools of New York City 6,524 chil- 
dren afflicted with contagious diseases. 

A CIVIL service examination will be held on 
October 21, to fill the positions of irrigation 
engineer and assistant engineer or hydrog- 
rapher under the Geological Survey at a sal- 
ary of $1,000 to $2,000 per annum, according 


598 


to experience and results of examination. We 
may again call attention to the examination 
to be held on the same day for the position of 
aid in the Coast and Geodetie Survey, where 
fourteen vacancies are to be filled. Aids are 
appointed at a salary of $720 per year. The 
next step in the line of promotion is to the 
salary of $900 as aid, and thence to assistant 
at $1,200 and then upward by steps of $200 
each. These statements of salary are mislead- 
ing unless taken in connection with the fact 
that necessary traveling expenses incurred in 
the line of duty are paid by the government, 
and that in addition to his salary he is paid an 
allowance for subsistence to cover the ordinary 
living expenses while on field duty. 

Nature gives the following comparison of 
the attendance at the Belfast meetings of the 
British Association in 1874 and 1902: 


1874. 1902. 
Old Life Members........... 162 243 
New Life Members.......... 1183 21 
Old Annual Members........ 232 86314 
New Annual Members....... 85 84 
INSSOCIALES! jeacilchictcis chlor S17 647 
1 BE XCHY Seles See ica eae eee cee 630 305 
Foreign Members......:..... 12 6 

1951 1620 


It will be noticed that there were more men of 
science in attendance this year than twenty- 
eight years ago, but fewer tickets were pur- 
chased by local citizens. Natwre remarks, “ It 
has been questioned whether this falling off, 
especially in the number of ladies’ tickets, may 
not be ascribed in a considerable degree to the 
educational methods of Ireland and their effect 
on the tastes of those brought up under their 
influence within the last thirty years.” The 
fact, however, probably is that in Great Brit- 
ain, as in America, a meeting of the Associa- 
tion, as it becomes more important scientif- 
ically, becomes less interesting socially. It is 
becoming increasingly difficult to bridge the 
gap between the professional man of science 


and the amateur scientist. 

Tue Bureau of Forestry has established a 
dendro-chemical laboratory in cooperation 
with the Bureau of Chemistry. The plans for 
the organization of the new laboratory were 
prepared by Dr. H. W. Wiley, chief of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 406. 


Bureau of Chemistry, of the U. 8. Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, and were approved by 
Secretary Wilson and Mr. Pinchot, chief of 
the Bureau of Forestry. Mr. Wm. H. Krug 
has been put in charge of this laboratory, 
which is the first of its kind in the United 
States, if not in the world. 


A VALUABLE work of reference to the publi- 
cations on North American geography, geol- 
ogy, paleontology, petrology and mineralogy 
covering the last nine years of the century, 
from 1892 to 1900, inclusive, has recently been 
issued by the United States Geological Survey 
as Bulletins Nos. 188 and 189. These books 
of reference contain a full list of the papers, 
numbering over 6,500, on the above subjects 
which have appeared during the period; they 
are taken from nearly 200 different American 
and foreign publications. The papers cover 
a wide range of subjects, and for convenience 
are classified both by topics and by the names 
of the authors. The compilation is the work 
of F. B. Weeks, of the Geological Survey. 


A coursr of nine lectures on science and 
travel has been arranged by the Field Colum- 
bian Museum, Chicago, for Saturday after- 
noons in October and November at 3 o’clock. 
The subjects, dates and lecturers are: 


October 4, ‘Past and Future of the South 
Appalachian Mountains, Dr. J. A. Holmes, State 
Geologist, North Carolina. 

October 11, ‘The Salmon and Salmon Fisheries 
of Alaska,’ Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, Chief of the De- 
partment of Fish and Fisheries, St. Louis Exposi- 
tion, 1904. 

October 18, ‘ Flying Reptiles,’ Dr. S. W. Willis- 
ton, Professor of Paleontology, University of Chi- 
cago. 

October 25, ‘ Invisible Stars,’ Professor Edwin 
B. Frost, Yerkes Observatory, University of Chi- 
cago. 

November 1, ‘The Insect Life of Ponds and 
Streams,’ Dr. Jas. G. Needham, Lake Forest Col- 
lege. 

November 8, ‘A Naturalist’s Visit to Cuba,’ Dr. 
C. H. Eigenmann, Director, Biological Station, 
Bloomington, Indiana. 

November 15, ‘The Mythologie Age—The In- 
dian and the Buffalo, Dr. George A. Dorsey, 
Curator of Anthropology, Field Columbian Mu- 
seu. 


OcToBER 10, 1902. | 


November 22, ‘The Fishes of Mexico—A Study 
in Geographical Distribution,’ Dr. 8S. E. Meek, 
Assistant Curator, Department of Zoology, Field 
Columbian Museum. 

November 29, ‘The Navaho, Mr. C. L. Owen, 
Assistant Curator, Division of Archeology, Field 
Columbian Museum. 

We learn from the British Medical Journal 
that an Institute of Colonial Medicine has 
recently been established in Paris, which is 
open to foreign as well as to French medical 
practitioners. Courses of theoretical instruc- 
tion and laboratory demonstrations will be 
given in the laboratories of the faculty of 
medicine, while clinical teaching will be given 
in the Hépital d’Auteuil. The scheme of in- 
struction comprises a course on bacteriological 
and hematological technique given by Pro- 
fessor Chantemesse; one on parasitology by 
Professor Blanchard; one on tropical surgery 
by Professor Le Dentu; one on tropical oph- 
thalmology by Professor de Lapersonne; one 
on tropical pathology and hygiene by Pro- 
fessor Wurtz; and one on tropical skin dis- 
eases by Dr. Jeanselme. The director of the 
institute is Professor Brouardel; the dean, 
Professor Debove. 


Ir is stated in Nature that the following 
rewards are offered by the government of 
South Australia for the discovery and work- 
ing within the state of a deposit or deposits 
of marketable mineral manure—500l. if found 
on crown lands; 2501. if found on freehold 
lands. It is stipulated (1) that the deposit is 
easily accessible and within a reasonable dis- 
tance of a railway or seaport, and not within 
twenty-five miles of any discovery on account 
of which any bonus has been paid; (2) that 
the deposit is sufficiently abundant and is 
available at a price which will allow of it 
being remuneratively used for agricultural 
purposes; (3) that the product is of a good 
marketable quality, averaging not less than 
40 per cent. of phosphate of lime. In the 
event of a phosphate of a lower average com- 
position being discovered, it may be recom- 
mended that a portion of the reward be paid. 
Applications must reach the Minister for Agri- 
culture, Adelaide, not later than December 
31. 


SCIENCE. 


599 


THE rapid progress which the U. 8. Geo- 
logical Survey is making in the topographic 
survey of New York, conducted in coopera- 
tion with the state, is indicated by a recent 
report of this work by Mr. H. M. Wilson, 
geographer in charge for the Geological Sur- 
vey, to the Hon. E. A. Bond, state engineer 
and surveyor. Hight parties were in the field, 
engaged in the mapping of twenty different 
sections or ‘quadrangles. Among the sec- 
tions mapped in whole or in part were the 
Hobart, Kingston, Gilboa, Orwell, Boonville, 
Carthage, and Highmarket quadrangles, 
which were mapped under the supervision of 
Topographer J. H. Jennings, with KE. G. Ham- 
ilton as chief assistant. Other quadrangles in 
which topographic work was carried on were 
the Nineveh, Greene, Richmond, Copake, and 
Bainbridge, also the Wayland, Bethany, and 
Chautauqua, the work being in charge, re- 
spectively, of EK. G. Hamilton, W. R. Harper, 
C. C. Bassett, A. H. Bumstead, A. C. Roberts, 
and Gilbert Young. On Long Island the 
Setauket quadrangle was partially completed 
by G. H. Guerdrum, topographer, assisted by 
G. S. Smith, topographer, and in the Adiron- 
daeks work was done on the St. Regis, Saranac 
Lake, and Long Lake quadrangles under 
George H. Guerdrum and G. 8S. Smith, topog- 
raphers, and W. R. Harper, T. F. Slaughter, 
and J. M. Whitman, Jr., assistant topog- 
raphers. The total result of the work of these 
parties was the mapping of 452 square miles 
and the running of 395 miles of spirit levels 
and 460 miles of road traverse. In addition 
to the above topographic work, three parties 
under Professor A. H. Thompson, geographer, 
and Messrs. E. L. McNair and Oscar Jones, 
topographers, were engaged in primary trian- 
gulation and traverse; they occupied eight 
stations, erected signals, and ran 63 miles of 
primary traverse. Topographic maps em- 
bodying the results of this and subsequent 
work of the season will be prepared during 
the coming fall and made available as soon 
as possible. 

M. pr Fonvrette informs Nature that M. 
Camille Pelletan, Minister of the French Ma- 
rine and of the Colonies, has placed the Hpée, 
a torpedo destroyer, 306 tons, 62 men, at the 


600 


disposal of Comte de la Vaulx for purposes of 
aeronautical manceuvres on the Mediterra- 
nean, with a new balloon. It may be remem- 
bered that last year Comte de la Vaulx tried 
to cross the Mediterranean from Toulon with 
a large balloon made captive by floating pieces 
of wood. The experiment, although interest- 
ing, proved a failure, owing to the wind blow- 
ing eastward. This year the experiments are 
likely to begin from Palavas, a point near the 
place where, in 1901, the trip ended. The 
Epée is to join the balloon there on Septem- 
ber 10. The new balloon will carry in its car 
a propelling petroleum engine, which, how- 
ever, will be used only in the second series of 
manceuvres. On Sunday, August 24, M. Heu- 
reux, a young and promising aeronaut, tried 
on a smaller scale similar performances in 
the Channel. He proved by an ascent at 
Dunkerque that a tug-boat ean conduct a bal- 
loon against a strong wind. The balloon Alcor 
was sent up in the direction of the sea and for 
some time was lost to view in the clouds; but, 
after having run some miles, the valve was 
opened and the balloon descended close to the 
M. Heureux dropped his cone-anchor 
and waited until a tug-boat, sent out especial- 
ly from Dunkerque, threw a rope to the ear, 
by which the balloon was tugged easily and 
reached Dunkerque fully inflated. 


waves. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

S. W. Ropryson, professor emeritus of me- 
chanical engineering in the Ohio State Uni- 
versity, has given $5,000 to that institution 
to endow a scholarship in engineering. Under 
the laws of Ohio this money goes into the 
state treasury, where it becomes a part of the 
irreducible debt of the state, and commands 
six per cent. interest, payable semi-annually. 


CotumBia Untversiry has purchased, with 
the fund given by Mr. Adolph Lewisohn, 50,- 
000 dissertations presented for the doctorate 
at German Universities. 

AN institute of pedagogy, under the auspices 
of the Catholic University at Washington, has 
been opened in New York City. 

M. A. Francois Monop has been appointed 
fellow by the French Department of Public 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 406. 


Instruction to pursue his studies at Columbia 
University, and it is expected that another 
fellow will be appointed. Columbia Univer- 
sity will in turn appoint two fellows to carry 
on researches in France. The student may 
study science or any subject that he may 
select. : 

Tue following appointments have been made 
in the zoological department of the Univer- 
sity of Nebraska: Dr. Robert H. Wolcott, 
advanced to an assistant professorship; Mr. 
W. A. Willard (Harvard), who had charge of 
the biological work at Grinnell College last 
year, instructor, vice A. B. Lewis, resigned 
to continue graduate work in anthropology at 
Columbia University; Dr. R. 8. Lillie, last 
year assistant in physiology, Harvard Medical 
School, instructor in physiology and histology; 
Mr. Geo. T. Hargitt, former assistant in biol- 
ogy, Syracuse University, fellow vice B. H. 
Ransom, who becomes assistant in the Hy- 
gienic Laboratory, Marine Hospital Service 
(Washington); Miss C. E. Stringer, scholar 
vice H. W. Graybill, who takes charge of nat- 
ural science in the Columbus (Nebr.) High 
School; Mr. S. Fred Prince, formerly at the 
Missouri State Normal, as artist. 

Dr. Raymonp Peart has been appointed in- 
structor in zoology in the University of Michi- 
gan. 

SUPERINTENDENT Cooney, head of Chicago’s 
public schools, has declined to accept the 
presidency of the University of the State of 
Washington, which had been tendered to him. 

J. W. Minter, M.A., Ph.D. (Columbia), has. 
been appointed instructor in mathematics and 
astronomy in Lehigh University. 

_ Miss Daisy F. Bonnet, having resigned the 
fellowship in botany in the University of 
Nebraska in order to accept the position of 
assistant in biology in the Omaha High 
School, the vacancy has been filled by the 
appointment of Patrick J. O’Gara, B.Se. (Ne- 
braska, 1902), to a schlarship in botany, and 
George F. Miles, of the senior class, to the 
position of undergraduate assistant in botany. 

Mr. H. W. Matcoum, M.A., B.Se. (Aber- 
deen), has been appointed lecturer in physics. 
in University College, Bristol. 


SCIENCE 


4 WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE : S. NEwcomB, Mathematics; R. 8. Woopwarpb, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALcortT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Brssrky, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. 8. BinLinas, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. WerLcH, 

Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Fripay, Octoper 17, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


Dr. W. J. Hot- 
LAND, PROFESSOR CHARLES E. BrssEy, PRo- 


The Carnegie Institution: 


Fessor Turo. D. A. CocKERELL, PROFESSOR 

W. F. Ganone, Proressor E. B. TrrcHENER, 

DRA Wis WAVICG Re tancrtie shecleaeeysuncensicne « 601 
Professional Schools and the Length of the 

College Course: PRESIDENT NIcHOLAS Mur- 

VAG UTUERS stelae ta evateneie ofaiaiss sje evn ean a sevese tone © 613 
The Address of the President of the British 

Association for the Advancement of Science, 

III.: PrRoressorn JAMES Dewar.......... 621 
Scientific Books :— 


Notes on Naval Progress: Proressor R. H. 


INEISINON, soa osooocecneodnsoaonbgockane 631 
Scientific Journals and Articles............ 632 
Shorter Articles :— 

On the Structure of the Nucleus: Pro- 

MISO Ob IDNs 5 on cgoaacdodno wes caecdG 6338 
Current Notes on Physiography :— 

Rivers of Southern Indiana; Rivers of 

South Wales; Dissection of Laccoliths: 

IPRORESSOR) Win Me DAVISEer erence 626 
Scientific Notes and News... ...5........- 637 
University and Educational News.......... 639 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 


To THE Epiror oF ScteNcE: I certainly 
appreciate your kind letter inviting me to 
join with you and others in publicly dis- 
cussing in the columns of Science the 
question of the endowment of scientific re- 
search with special reference to the possi- 
bilities which are wrapped up in Mr. Car- 
negie’s recent gift to the institution in 
Washington. Without such an invitation 
coming from you I should have hesitated 
to give utterance to any of the thoughts 
which naturally have arisen in my mind 
in this connection. I feel delicacy in mak- 
ing suggestions touching matters in refer- 
ence to which my opinion has not been 
solicited. But when the editor of Sctmncr 
asks me to speak I cannot refuse to comply 
with his request. 

There is but one truly scientific mind in 
the universe, whose vision sweeps from Sol 
to Aleyone, which notes the sparrows as 
they fall, and numbers the hairs of our 
heads. Every effort of the human intel- 
lect to ascertain the unknown as to the 
whole of things is an effort to apprehend 
the thought which lies in the great Syn- 
thetic Mind. As a philosopher I have 
long ago been taught the folly of calling 
anything great or anything little which In- 
finite Wisdom has planned and ealled into 
being. Nothing knowable is in certain as- 
pects fundamentally more important than 


602 


any other thing which is knowable. When 
the astronomer undertakes, with the refine- 
ments of modern instrumental equipment, 
to photograph the visible heavens from pole 
to pole, to count the stars, and, if not nam- 
ing them, to at least give them numerical 
designations, I respect his work, little as 
it bears to-day upon the practical life of 
man, because it is taking him and with 
him all mankind into communion with the 
all-ereative Spirit. And when a friend of 
mine sits down to count the number of 
feathers which grow upon the belly of a 
duck, or another to trace the origin of 
the phyle of the insect world through 
the bristles on the backs of larve, I 
feel for him in his laborious researches 
as profound a respect as I do for my as- 
tronomieal friends with their vast and 
costly equipments. A fund given for the 
promotion of scientific research if well 
administered must be administered in the 
full consciousness of the fundamental fact 
that all knowledge is important and that 
all the sciences are but so many facets 
which bound the white diamond of eternal 
truth. The point which I mean to make 
is simply this, that the administration of a 
great fund like that established by Mr. 
Carnegie will ultimately fail of its aim 
unless those who are charged with the 
work are broad, learned and wise enough 
to avoid discriminating unduly in favor of 
one set of scientific investigators over 
against others. All the sciences should be 
treated impartially, and every honest 
worker seeking to add something to the sum 
of human knowledge should at least be 
treated sympathetically and aided, if pos- 
sible, in the accomplishment of any feasible 
task. To devote the income of this great 
endowment to the promotion exclusively of 
a few things, the friends and advoeates of 
which may be potent in argument, and in- 
fluential by reason of personal acquaint- 
ance with those who are the administrators 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vox. XVI. No. 407. 


of the trust, would ultimately create in the 
minds of multitudes serious dissatisfaction. 
If I understand the attitude of the gener- 
ous giver of this endowment it is an atti- 
tude of thorough impartiality toward the 
friends and advocates of scientific progress 
everywhere throughout the land. 

In common with yourself, in view of 
what I have said I fear the result at the 
outset of the assumption by the Carnegie 
Institution of the control of existing agen- 
cies for research and for the education of 
students in research. To take up a few 
existing institutions and put them upon a 
satisfactory basis would be comparatively 
an easy matter, but such a course would 
inevitably in the end tie up the fund to 
the continued maintenance of such favored 
institutions, and the broader helpfulness of 
the fund would very probably be ultimately 
greatly impaired. Had I any voice in the 
administration of this fund I would plead 
for the avoidance at the outset of ‘entang- 
ling alliances,’ but I suppose that the wise 
men who have been selected to manage the 
affairs of this institution in Washington 
cannot fail to see the importance of this 
point. 

As to various schemes which have been 
suggested of creating in the city of Wash- 
ington an institution equipped with build- 
ings and laboratories for the prosecution 
of special researches, I am inclined to think 
that such a course is, in view of all that 
already exists, of very doubtful expediency. 
There are already so many agencies for 
research at work which are not accomplish- 
ing all that might be expected from them, 
in many eases because of lack of sufficient 
resources, as to make it doubtful to my 
mind whether the creation of another 
supplementary piece of machinery promises 
as much as the application of lubricant to 
machinery already in existence. What is 
needed for the advancement of American 
science it seems to me is not multiplication 


OCTOBER 17, 1902.] 


of agencies, but the nourishment and up- 
building of those which already exist. I 
say, without any fear of being successfully 
controverted, that there are already in 
America quite enough colleges, universi- 
ties, scientific societies, laboratories and 
associations of scientific men. Scientific 
men should learn wisdom from men of 
affairs. This is the age of consolidation, 
in which the importance of union in effort 
is recognized. Plans now outrun accomplish- 
ment. Schemes for the accomplishment of 
the possible outnumber potent actualities. 
A hundred dream where one man acts. 
The land is full of abortive enterprises. 
The Carnegie Institution will do good just 
so far forth as it serves to be the fountain 
from which life-giving power shall be 
poured into those things that need strength- 
ening lest they die. With this fund to 
ereate an institution which, by reason of 
its magnificent endowment, shall simply 
eclipse all others as the seat of original 
research, would, if I understand the views 
of the donor, fail utterly to carry out his 
intention. The attitude of the Carnegie 
Institution, if I understand the thought 
of the founder, is to be that of the gracious 
handmaid of learning, intelligently min- 
istering to those who need, and without 
such agency could not have, help. 

As everybody knows, the donor of this 
fund had in his mind not so much institu- 
tions as individuals. His thought could 
not be more felicitously expressed than he 
has himself expressed it in the words which 
you quote, in which he states the main 
object of his foundation to be ‘to discover 
the exceptional man in every department 
of study whenever and wherever found, 
inside or outside of schools, and enable 
him to make the work for which he seems 
specially designed his life work.’ Mr. 
Carnegie’s large knowledge of men has 
taught him that there are ‘exceptional 
men,’—very often men poor in purse, but 


SCIENCE. 


603 


rich in enthusiasm and in mental power, 
who need but the helping hand to enable 
them to achieve great things, not only for 
themselves, but for mankind, and nowhere 
are such exceptional men more numerous 
than in the ranks of the scientific investi- 
gators of this country. They would not 
be scientific investigators were they not 
possessed of power and filled with the love 
of truth. Even as I write I can think of 
a score of such men, who are struggling 
in the midst of adversity and prevented by 
the res angusta domi from achieving tasks 
the doing of which would bring luster upon 
their names and honor to the nation whose 
sons they are. Such men deserve to be 
helped, and in helping such men the Car- 
negie Institution will place the highest 
crown of glory upon its head. To hold the 
Institution more or less rigorously to this 
phase of activity seems to me to be the plain 
duty of those who are charged with its ad- 
ministration. 

A few quite practical and concrete sug- 
gestions based upon personal experience as 
to the manner in which this fund might be 
utilized to promote the advancement of 
science in America in cooperation with ex- 
isting institutions may not be wholly out 
of place. I am emboldened to throw out 
sthese suggestions by your example, seeing 
that you have appealed to your own ex- 
perience in your own line of special re- 
search. 

In order to enable scientific men to 
work rapidly and successfully to their 
ends, especially in the field of the biolog- 
ical sciences, it is of prime importance to 
them to have access to collections which 
embody in themselves the results of the in- 
vestigations of those who have gone before 
them. This is particularly true in min- 
eralogy, botany, and zoology in its various 
branches: When a student has devoted 
himself to the study of one of these 
branches of science and has, by years of 


604 


labor and effort, amassed collections which 
are determined with absolute scientific cor- 
rectness, and which contain the ‘types’ 
upon which he has founded his published 
descriptions, these collections become at 
once classic as a court of last appeal in all 
eases of doubt. The retention of such col- 
lections, especially when they relate to the 
mineralogy, botany and zoology of a 
country, within easy access of the students 
of that country, is a matter of incalculable 
importance. American science has suffered 
severely in past years because of the fail- 
ure of American institutions, often because 
of lack of money, to keep within the limits 
of the United States scientific collections, 
reference to which on the part of the stu- 
dent is necessary. The most eminent. stu- 
dent of certain groups in entomology in this 
country a number of years ago was Alex- 
ander R. Grote, to-day connected with the 
Roemer Museum at Hildesheim. Mr. Grote 
was the first man who began systematically 
to study the moths of America and to name 
and describe them. His ‘types’ were con- 
tained in his collection for the most part. 
Pressed by financial necessities, Mr. Grote 
sold this collection to the trustees of the 
British Museum. The consequence of this 
fact is that to-day pilgrimages are annually 
performed across the Atlantic Ocean at 
considerable expense of time and money 
by American students in order to consult 
this classic collection. The trustees of the 
British Museum, I believe, paid something 
like three thousand dollars for the collec- 
tion. I am aware that American students 
of entomology have already spent out of 
their private purses many times this 
amount in traveling across the seas to con- 
sult it. A few years ago the great collec- 
tion of William H. Edwards was on the 
point of going in the same way. Personally 
I determined to save it for the students of 
America, and I purchased it myself, and 
it is to-day accessible in the Carnegie Mu- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 407. 


seum. One function of the Carnegie In- 
stitution, it seems to me, might well be to 
aid the great reference museums of Amer- 
ica to retain within easy reach of our scien- 
tifie workers collections of this character, 
the loss of which to the land is practically 
irreparable. As a rule such collections are 
not vastly expensive, but their loss to the 
American student is a positive calamity, 
and I trust that the trustees of the Car- 
negie Institution will make it a point to 
cooperate with the heads of our great 
museums in preserving for the students of 
American science the types of all Ameri- 
ean species. . Nothing more positively bene- 
ficial in the direction of the advancement 
of science could be done than this, as I am 
sure all botanists and zoologists will agree 
with me in unanimously declaring. 

Finally, I wish to assert my unqualified 
subseription to your statement that the 
Carnegie Institution should do only that 
which will not conflict with existing insti- 
tutions, but aid them, and secondly, should 
aim to improve the condition of men of 
science, working with them and through 
them. The only men in this connection 
whom we have to fear are, I think, the class 
whom I am pleased to call the ‘political 
scientists,’ the men who look upon scien- 
tifie positions as ‘jobs.” There are a few 
such men, to the honor of science be it 
said not many. 

W. J. Ho“uanp. 


CARNEGIE MUSEUM, PITTSBURGH, 
September 23, 1902. 


To THE Epiror oF Science: It may as 
well be conceded first as last that the Car- 
negie Institution will have a definite loca- 
tion. However much any of us might wish 
to see the experiment made of a great insti- 
tution managed from an obscure little office 
on a side street, it is extremely unlikely 
that any such thing will be done. The 
Institution must have office and other 


OcToBER 17, 1902.] 


rooms for the transaction of its business. 
These should be commodious, and adapted 
to the needs of the officers, and the building 
as a whole should have a dignity com- 
mensurate with the rank of the Institution. 
In the second place, I venture to say that 
the Institution must be a wt. Neither its 
founder nor its managers are likely to con- 
sent to a policy which will result in such 
- subdivision of the income as will fritter it 
away in many ineffectual driblets. There 
is not enough money to endow research 
along many lines. It is impossible to endow 
scientific journals, support marine and 
other laboratories, aid considerable num- 
bers of worthy individuals, and conduct 
original investigations along several lines. 
Many people have been dazzled with the 
size of the principal, and talk as if the ten 
millions of dollars were available annually, 
forgetting that it is only the income from 
this sum which is available. This income, 
after all, is not so very large. Already many 
of the universities of this country greatly 
exceed it. 

Evidently the work undertaken must be 
definitely limited. It must be concentrated 
upon certain phases of investigation and 
instruction, and in this way it may hope 
to aid the progress of human knowledge. 
It seems to me that many of the suggestions 
as to the policy to be pursued by the trus- 
tees of the Carnegie Institution fail in 
that they appear to be based on the supposi- 
tion that it is to be over and above all 
existing ones—a sort of supreme educa- 
tional establishment of the university type. 
Yet it can be no such thing. Had the fund 
been ten times ten million dollars, the Car- 
negie Institution might have overtopped 
Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago, Stan- 
ford and all the rest of the universities of 
the country. But it is idle to think of any 
such thing with the income which the pres- 
ent fund will yield. 

What, then, can be done? Clearly the 


SCIENCE. 


605 


trustees should avoid duplicating what is 
already fully provided for in existing insti- 
tutions. In the institution which they 
establish they should contribute something 
to education and educational thought. The 
Smithsonian Institution taught us the 
value of original research, and its ‘Con- 
tributions to Knowledge’ will stand for all 
time as evidence of the high standard set 
by it. Johns Hopkins University has made 
one contribution of the greatest importance 
—namely, graduate study in the American 
University. It may be said to have fixed 
the standard of graduate work, and every 
educational institution in this country has 
been helped by its example. 

Now let the Carnegie Institution set for 
itself one good piece of work, and concen- 
trate upon that, rather than fritter away its 
income in many little benefactions, all more 
or less worthy and commendable, but 
already under the care of some other insti- 
tution. 

I suggest, therefore, that the trustees 
found an ‘Institute,’ which shall carry the 
work in some rather narrow department of 
knowledge far beyond the boundaries pos- 
sible to be reached by university depart- 
ments. It is impossible to support a great 
university by the income from this bequest, 
but it is possible to maintain an ‘institute’ 
devoted to some branch of investigation. 
This might be a chemical institute, a phys- 
ical institute, a zoological institute, a 
botanical institute, a geological institute, a 
physiological institute, a pathological insti- 
tute, a psychological institute, ete. I cannot 
decide which of these should be maugura- 
ted; that may well be left to the trustees and 
the president of the institution. Let me sup- 
pose (since I am not a chemist, and there- 
fore am not pleading for my own subject) 
that the decision is to found the ‘Carnegie 
Chemical Institute’; we might then hope 
to have in it the best facilities known for 
the solution of chemical problems. Here 


606 


might be brought as professors some of the 
foremost masters of the subject in general, 
as well as many specialists in particular 
fields of the science. Here might be ad- 
mitted as students such men as have made 
marked progress in advanced lines of work 
in the better universities, and who are pre- 
pared to continue work in the institute. I 
should not favor free tuition, nor the estab- 
lishment of stipend-bearing fellowships. 
On the contrary, I should favor the policy 
pursued at Johns Hopkins University of 
making the usual charge for tuition. Men 
who are prepared to continue work in the 
institute always will be able to pay the 
usual academic fees. Fellowships carrying 
stipends would no doubt attract students, 
but it is not numbers which the institute 
wants, as much as students of the highest 
ability—and such rarely, if ever, need to 
be induced to continue work by the promise 
of a stipend. 

With one well-endowed institute in 
Washington on the Carnegie foundation, 
we might hope that ultimately the several 
sciences would be similarly provided 
through the benefactions of liberal-minded 
men of wealth. These institutes would 
then be for the present the highest develop- 
ment of the educational facilities of the 
country, in these lines, and the successive 
steps in the system would be as follows: 
Primary schools, secondary schools (high 
schools and academies), colleges, universi- 
ties, institutes. In these there is a con- 
stantly decreasing number of students, who 
proceed in their educational development 
from the general to the special—from the 
universal to the limited. It is for the 
limited number. of specialists who have 
come up through all the preceding steps 
that the institutes should exist. I suggest, 
therefore, that the trustees inaugurate an 
institute of this highest grade. 

CHARLES EH. BESSEY. 

THe UNIVERSITY oF NEBRASKA. 


SCIENCE. 


-[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 407. 


THERE is undoubtedly a great work to 
be done in starting local investigators 
through correspondence. I have always, 
during a number of years, had several 
such men on my list—have hunted refer- 
ences in works they did not possess, gone 
over their MSS., suggested lines of investi- 
gation, and so forth. The result has on 
the whole been most gratifying. These 
men have not always been isolated in the 
ordinary sense of the word; not rarely 
they have been graduate students in our 
best colleges and universities. I need 
hardly say that I have received much help 
of the same kind. I believe that any man 
who is familiar with a particular branch 
of study can do this sort of helping work, 
and that it is extremely worth while. But 
of course it brings no pay, and it could, I 
think, very well be subsidized in some way. 

There are many good investigators seat- 
tered about the country, who don’t accom- 
plish anything for lack of help and kindly 
criticism. Often the mere fact of not hav- 
ing some expensive work seems to put a 
stop to an investigation. But the specialist 
of long standing can look up references 
and take away this difficulty. To merely 
offer the beginner money would not meet 
the ease at all; he needs guidance. 

Please understand that I don’t propose a 
plan whereby young men may have their 
work done for them. Directly they show 
a desire to build their ‘researches’ out of 
other people’s brains they should be 
dropped. But this does not apply to those 
who are really doing all they can and are 
hindered by circumstances beyond their 
control. Frequently the cireumstances are 
such that the work can only be brought to 
a fruitful state through a good deal of 
cooperation; then the published results 
should indicate the fact, and the two or 
more names appear on the title page. 

I think some.special regard should be 
had for the thinly settled parts of the 


OcTOBER 17, 1902. ] 


country. In these regions we find, (1) 
that the scientific men are extremely few, 


(2) the means for their support are still 


fewer, (3) and that there is a superabun- 
dance of opportunities for study. In New 
Mexico I am the only zoologist, so far as 
I know (unless the paleontologists Springer 
and St. John are regarded as zoologists*). 
There is no support of pure science any- 
where in the territory. Yet the opportuni- 
ties for research are innumerable. (Of 
course they are so anywhere, but there are 
so many almost or quite virgin fields in New 
Mexico; so many whole groups of animals 
unstudied, whole mountain ranges unex- 
plored by the biologist. ) 

My ideal is to have the means to invite 
a dozen or more young men (or women) 
out here to take up some of the lines of 
work I see open in every direction. I try 
to do what I can, but the things I can’t do 
are never out of my mind. 

I think your remarks on the subject of 
publication are very wise. This is a sub- 
ject of the first importance. In zoology 
and botany great good could be done by 
publishing catalogues, bibliographies, ete. 
For example, I understood that Mr. S. 
Henshaw, of the Mus. of Comp. Zool., has 
in MSS. a work giving references to the 
whole of the literature on North American 
Coleoptera, with localities. I understand 
that he cannot find any one to publish it. 
It would be simply invaluable to the stu- 
dent of geographical distribution and to 
the coleopterist. 

Faunal works also deserve support. I 
believe Dr. J. B. Smith, of New Jersey, 
stands ready to publish a work on the 
noctuid moths of North America, if any 
one will relieve him of the cost of print- 
ing. 

I hope, however, that the Carnegie Insti- 
tution will give us most of its publications 


*C. L. Herrick has formerly published on 
zoology, but is not now working on this branch. 


SCIENCE. 


607 


at reasonable prices and with as little paper 
as may be needful for good printing. The 
bulky quartos so often published are quite 
too costly and too heavy to carry about. 
These remarks are of course only meant 
to cover a small amount of ground, in 
which I happen to be interested. I have 
no disposition at present to discuss the Car- 
negie Institution as a whole. 
Turo. D. A. CocKERELL. 


THE problem before the trustees of the 
Carnegie Institution is not simply that of 
the profitable administration of the fund 
in the promotion of research—this would 
be easy enough; but it is to secure the 
greatest possible enlargement of the bounds 
of human knowledge from an income, 
which, large though it seems, is but small 
in comparison with the amount being spent 
upon research the world over. Now there 
is but one well-spring of new knowledge, 
and that lies in certain rare individual 
minds with an inborn aptitude, needing to 
be supplemented by a special training and 
a favorable environment, for scientific re- 
search. Knowledge is advanced in depth, 
if not in breadth, far more by the single 
oceasional genius than by many lesser 
minds. To find out, and especially to give 
full play, to these few rare minds, seems 
to me the true ideal of the Carnegie Insti- 
tution, and the object to which the greater 
part of its fund may most profitably be 
devoted. There are two ways, practically, 
along which to work towards this end. 
First, wherever there is known to be a man 
who had proven a marked capacity for re- 
search, but who has been forced by cireum- 
stances into an unfavorable environment, 
he should be offered a stipend, not lavish, 
but ample for the support of himself and 
family in ordinary comfort, to enable him to 
remove for a year or two to any center of 
research he may choose; if then his work 
goes well, he should be granted a second 


608 


year, and a third, and, finally, if it seem 
profitable, even a lifetime. Second, the 
Carnegie Institution should take up trained 
and promising young investigators where 
our universities leave them. The univer- 
sity is the natural and efficient, though by 
no means the exclusive, selection and train- 
ing ground for investigators; it is in the 
ability to permit these men to continue 
their investigations that our American uni- 
versities are weak, and need to be supple- 
mented. A few of the best of these young 
men, the ones most highly recommended by 
the faculties of the leading universities, 
should be offered stipends large enough to 
permit them to live in comfort at any cen- 
ter of research they may select, for a 
year, or for two, or for three, or for a life- 
time, according as their results show to 
be profitable. From the many called to a 
year or two of such honorable activity few 
would be chosen for a lifetime, but those 
few would form a priceless possession to 
humanity. 

To provide a favorable environment for 
minds adapted to research seems to me, 
therefore, the best use for the greater part 
of the Carnegie fund. But, second to this, 
there are certain other profitable uses for 
a part of it—the purchase or construction 
of apparatus for use in promising investi- 
gations by private investigators, grants to 
scientific expeditions or in aid of bibliog- 
raphies, subsidies to investigating labora- 
tories and to scientific publications, and 
many minor worthy objects of like sort. 

There are two uses to which I think none 
of the funds of the Carnegie Institution 
should be put. First, they should not be 
used to duplicate any existing institutions 
for research, and especially not for the eree- 
tion or purchase of laboratories of any kind 
in Washington or. elsewhere. In this coun- 
try, it seems to me, our material facilities 
for scientifie research already far exceed 
our capacity to utilize them profitably. In 


SCIENCE. ne 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 407. 


botany, for example, the development of 
institutions is out of all proportion to the 
importance of the results which are com- 
ing from them. The Missouri (Shaw) 
Botanical Garden, the New York Botanical 
Garden, and in lesser degree several other 
institutions, are offering freely to all in- 
vestigators facilities for botanical investi- 
gation which money can hardly improve 
upon; what is now wanted is not more such 
institutions, but more men capable of mak- 
ing proper use of them. I cite botany be- 
cause I know it better than the other sci- 
ences, but I presume the same is true in 
this country of most, if not all, of the other 
sciences. 'l'o duplicate facilities not already 
fully utilized would be most wasteful. 
There is, moreover, another reason why I 
think the Carnegie Institution should not 
own any laboratories of its own, including 
such an one as that at Woods Hole, namely, 


the temptation to aggrandize those particu- 


lar, laboratories would be so great, and the 
capacity of any laboratory in the endlessly 
expanding sciences to absorb money is so 
nearly boundless, that all of the fund avail- 
able for each particular science would in 
time, if not soon, be absorbed to that par- 
ticular use, and other objects, however 
worthy, would be no better off than at pres- 
ent. Second, the funds should not be used 
for any form of gratuities, rewards or 
prizes, or to pay to investigators salaries or 
stipends larger than needful for comfort- 
able living and the successful prosecution 
of their researches. Prizes have their uses 
in the lower, grades of intellectual activity, 
but to suppose that pure scientific research 
of the highest type is appreciably pro- 
moted by them seems to me to involve an 
erroneous idea of the mental attitude of 
the investigator towards his results. At all 
events the utility of such rewards is, on 
the one hand, not demonstrated by the his- 
tory of scientific progress, while, on the 
other, the efficiency of prizes is being ex- 


OCTOBER 17, 1902.] 


perimentally tested on a gigantic scale by 
' the Nobel bequest, and the Carnegie Insti- 
tution can well afford to await the results. 
I take it the chief reward of the genuine 
investigator consists in the accomplishment 
of the work itself, in the moments of ex- 
hilaration when truth new to the race first 
dawns upon him, in the approbation of his 
peers. If he does not do the best there is 
in him for these, he will not do it for the 
trappings which a salary larger than need- 
ful for comfortable living will enable him 
to buy. 

The wisdom of devoting the most of the 
funds of the Carnegie Institution to the 
selection and cultivation of individual in- 
vestigators seems to me the more important 
in view of the fact that. Americans appear 
to be weak in the investigating instinct, or 
temperament. The genius of the American 
people is rather for affairs than for that 
patient persistent microscopic application 
which is the soul of research. It is all the 
more needful, then, to seek out and eculti- 
vate such investigating talent as there may 
_ be. To suppose that it is money alone that 
is now needed to give this country the 
primacy in research is to share the attitude 
of the man who, become suddenly rich, said 
to his son, ‘My son, we are now very rich 
and you ean realize your ambition to be- 
come an author; yes, we are rich enough 
so that if you wish you can become a great 
author.’ It will call for much from the 
Carnegie Institution besides its great in- 
come to make this country great in pro- 
found scientific research. 

I think, therefore, that the highest use- 
fulness of the Carnegie Institution will lie 
in acting as a special providence to men, 
institutions and events, concerned in the 
advancement of human knowledge. As 
such it must be content with the rewards of 
the spirit, and willing to forego structures 
and furnishings visible to the physical eye, 
which in this case should be so much the 


SCIENCE. 


609 


easier for the reason that the munificent 
founder of the Institution is already 
amply honored in the many sightly and 
serviceable structures with which the land 
so happily abounds. W. F. Ganonea. 


SMITH COLLEGE, 
NorTHAMPTON, MAss. 


I suppose that every scientific man, who 
has at any time been hampered in his work 
by lack of funds—as which of us has not ?— 
allowed himself, when he heard of Mr. Car- 
negie’s millions, to dream of what could be 
done, with unlimited money, for his own 
science. My own thoughts turned at once 
to the building and equipment of adequate 
laboratories of experimental psychology. 
For we psychologists have no laboratories 
that can at all compare with those of phys- 
ies or chemistry or biology, or that at all 
worthily represent the range and complex- 
ity of our science. The student of physics, 
at any one of the larger institutions, is im- 
pressed as he enters the laboratory with the 
dignity and importance of the work before 
him; physics is largely housed and richly 
equipped. It is very different with psy- 
chology. An old building that has outlived 
its original usefulness, a private house that 
the university does not need, a set of rooms 
in the corner of some building devoted to 
miscellaneous purposes—these are our lab- 
oratories. No museum rooms for the dis- 
play of historical instruments; no pri- 
vate laboratories for the instructing staff; 
no proper separation of teaching and inves- 
tigation. What I should most of all like to 
see, then, is a special laboratory building, 
specially designed for psychological ends, 
adequately officered, and ample enough to 
accommodate all the many branches of psy- 
chological work. It would not much mat- 
ter where the building was placed, provid- 
ed that it existed, and were reasonably ac- 
cessible. Once a model was made, improve- 
ment would follow all round. 


610 


I realize, however, that psychology has 
more immediate and pressing needs, that 
can also be more easily satisfied. Furst 
among these I should place the need of help 
in publication. There can be no question, 
as Professor Cattell has said (Scrmnceg, Sep- 
tember, 19, 464), that the present difficul- 
ties in the way of publication are lament- 
able. Every year we have, in my own lab- 
oratory, to make some sacrifice to the cost 
of printing: dropping out an_ historical 
chapter here, cutting out tables there, and 
what not. We all know, of course, that the 
doctorate thesis is likely to be spun out to 
an unnecessary length; and I am not sure 
that the fulness of detail affected by certain 
of the continental journals of psychology 
is not a distinct hindrance to the science. 
But it is an indisputable fact that, in 
America, really good work, work that has 
been condensed to its limit and that ought 
to be published, is time and time again held 
back from the printer because the author 
or the journal is too poor to print it. Hence 
IT heartily endorse all that Professor Cattell 
has said under this heading. 

In the second place I should put the 
need of scholarships and fellowships, and 
of subsidies to students and professors. 
There is much to be said for and against 
our present system of graduate scholar- 
ships. One thing must, however, be borne 
in mind: that the appointment of a man, 
in his last undergraduate year, to a gradu- 
ate scholarship always carries with it some- 
thing of arisk. Undergraduate promise is 
not always fulfilled, and testimonials are 
slippery things. So that the number of 
scholarships. available for a particular 
science should be large enough to allow of 
a good percentage of failures. Failures, I 
mean, from the point of view of the science; 
for any man of decent intelligence must be 
helped towards his life-work by a year of 
graduate study, whether he continue it fur- 
ther or not. If the science is ultimately 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 407. 


to get a fair share of good men, it must 
have a large number of students to select 
from. I should, therefore, see no harm, 
but rather good, in an increased number of 
graduate scholarships and fellowships. But 
I regard two possible modifications of the 
existing system as more important than its 
mere enlargement. On the one hand, we 
need at each university a few really valu- 
able fellowships, say of $750 or $1,000 for 
two or three years; endowments that should 
allow the exceptional man to do an elaborate 
piece of investigation before he enters on 
his teaching career. And on the other, we 
need, I think, a certain fund for subsidies 
that should not be looked upon as university 
honors, but should simply give opportunity 
of graduate work to men who are too poor 
to undertake it on their own account and 
yet too promising to be let slip: subsidies of, 
perhaps, $300 or $400 for one year. I be- 
leve that both of these forms of endowment 
are sorely needed by psychology,—and one 
can speak primarily only for one’s own 
science; and I believe that they would do 
much more good than the establishment of 
additional scholarships on the present basis. 

I have put the student before the profess- 
or. I regard, however, the helping of the 
professor by occasional subsidy as of equal 
importance with the helping of the gradu- 
ate student. My colleagues will bear me out 
that there are often times when a gift of 
$500 or $1,000 would ensure the accomplish- 
ment of a bit of personal work for which one 
is reluctant to draw upon the general fund 
of the laboratory, even if the general fund 
would stand the drain. There has been 
some discussion in Scrence of the reason 
for lack of appeal to existing research 
funds. There are two obvious reasons. 
The one is that the professor, with the pres- 
sure of teaching and of routine depart- 
mental work upon him, cannot as a rule see 
his way clear enough ahead (say, for two 
or three years) to justify his asking for a 


OcToBER 17, 1902.] 


definite sum for a definite purpose; and 
the other is that though one may see where 
work needs to be done, where there is a 
promising opening, one cannot (I speak 
again for psychology) guarantee results or 
even formulate one’s program until the in- 
vestigation is well started. Nevertheless, 
scientific moneys can hardly be placed in 
better hands than in those of men whose 
lives are devoted to science, and who have 
proved their competence by their own work 
and by that of their pupils. 

In summary, then,I should advocate: (1.) 
increased facilities of scientific publication, 
and (II.) scientific endowments of three 
kinds. These are (1) the establishment of a 
few valuable fellowships; (2) the granting 
of a living wage for one year to men of 
promise; and (3) the unhampered gift of 
sums of money to men of scientific eminence 
—passed upon, perhaps, by a committee of 
their peers—on their personal guarantee to 
do with the gift what it lies in their power 
to do for the advancement of science. 

E. B. TitcHENER. 

CorNELL UNIVERSITY. 


In response to the general invitation and 
a special request from the editor of 
ScIENCE, it is a pleasure to suggest two or 
three lines of policy which seem worthy of 
consideration. 

It may be premised that the suggestions 
erow out of the express intent of the 
founder to promote science by affording 
opportunities for men; and it may be noted 
in passing that this intent is so far dis- 
tinctive as to permit the development of an 
institution occupying an essentially unique 
plane: It is the function of the university 
to mold men according to the image; it is 
the function of the official bureau to have 
ready-molded men mold and apply Inowl- 
edge according to accepted standards; but 
it would seem to be the Carnegie idea to 
permit and help men to mold both them- 


SCIENCE. 


611 


selves and knowledge in the light of their 
own genius as well as in that of current 
experience—an idea precisely in line with 
the course of human development as seen 
by the anthropologist. In conformity with 
this idea, it would seem clear that the new 
establishment should scrupulously avoid 
fields already occupied by universities and 
colleges on the one hand, and by federal 
and state bureaus of scientific character on 
the other hand; and it would seem to fol- 
low, as already pointed out by Professor 
Cattell, that the new institution should 
dispense with plant and other material 
encumbrances to the fullest possible extent. 
The suggestions are made in accordance 
with this view. 

1. The first suggestion (which is but a 
repetition of one made by Professor 
Cattell) is that the purposes of the founder 
be carried out largely through the creation 
of fellowships in special lines of research. 
It may be added that the lines of work 
should be adapted to the ambitions and 
capabilities of particular candidates or 
nominees for fellowship, and that novel 
lines of inquiry should be tolerated no less 
kindly than the conventional lines pursued 
in the purely educational institutions. The 
fellowships might be either fixed or varia- 
ble, or might be graded, e. g., at $600, 
$1,000 and $1,500; but in any event the 
financial measure should be determined by 
the primary object of the Institution, 7. e., 
that of giving the man an opportunity of 
pursuing knowledge. The fellowships 
might properly continue over two, three or 
five years, but should not be regarded as 
permanent. 

2. The second suggestion is that every 
fellow should be allowed and expected to 
gain distinctive permanent recognition for 
excellent work in his special line, in the 
form of some honorary degree or designa- 
tion. A single order (which might be styled 
master) might suffice; while the classes 


612 


should be special, unlike those conferred by 
institutions of learning, and determined by 
special work. Thus, there might be master- 
ates of agriculture, of paleontology, of 
terrestrial physics, of mineralogy, of ento- 
mology, of ethnology, ete., but not of arts, 
or philosophy, or laws, or science. The 
degrees should be special, the well-earned 
reward for special work; they should be 
credentials rather than titles; and the num- 
ber of classes should be unlimited, in con- 
formity with the modern multiplication of 
specialties as well as the fundamental idea 


of developing individuality—of making 


men rather than schoolmen. The master- 
ates should, of course, be permanent, and 
should not involve financial relations with 
the Institution—7. e., masters should be 
neither entitled to, nor debarred from, sup- 
port by the Institution. 

The terms ‘fellow’ and ‘master’ are not 
without objection, chiefly on the score of 
current use in other connections; they 
merely serve the purpose of these sugges- 
tions. The two classes would correspond 
roughly with the apprentices (or perhaps 
rather the journeymen) and masters of an 
important stage in industrial progress ; they 
would seem to bridge and unite the two 
ereat buttresses of human advancement, 
i. e., the intellectual development of the 
schools and the manual development of the 
shops. 

The advantages of the masterates would 
be twofold: In the first place, they would 
afford incentive and stimulus to hard-work- 
ing fellows; in the second place, they would 
form a permanent bond between the Insti- 
tution and its beneficiaries and among the 
beneficiaries themselves, producing an 
esprit de corps by which the usefulness of 
the Institution would be most effectively 
extended and perpetuated. 

3. The third suggestion is partly an ex- 
tension of the second, partly the outcome 
of current needs. Among the means of 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 407. 


promoting science in this and other coun- 
tries, conferences among scientific men take 
a high if not the leading rank; and the 
demand for such meetings has been met by 
the creation of a large number of voluntary 
organizations. In this country, at present, 
there is a tendency to form special societies 
of national character (such as the Ameri- 
can Chemical Society, the Geological So- 
ciety of America and the American Anthro- 
pological Association), and more general 
societies or academies of largely local mem- 
bership; and the effect is to increase the 
need for such more general organization 
among scientific societies as will lead to 
better coordination of effort among scien- 
tific workers. It has already been pointed 
out that this great and growing need would 
be met by a general delegate organization 
which might be called a Senate of Science 
(Scrence, Vol. XIV., pp. 277-280), and it 
was also pointed out that the chief obstacle 
in the way of organization of such a body 
would be the cost of the requisite journeys 
by delegates. Now it would seem appro- 
priate for the Carnegie Institution to 
become a nucleus for such a general scien- 
tifie organization, to be made up of dele- 
gates chosen for fixed terms by the scientific 
societies of the country, and to be main- 
tained for the purpose of fostering and 
encouraging scientific activity; and that a 
fraction of the current funds available 
through the munificence of the founder be 
so expended as to place all delegates on an 
equal footing by the payment of necessary 
traveling expenses to the points selected 
for the meetings. Such an arrangement 
would undoubtedly kindle the interest and 
sympathy of scientists and scientific asso- 
ciations generally, and, like the establish- 
ment of masterates, serve to extend and 
perpetuate the influence of the Institution. 

The foregoing suggestions of course 
imply the creation and maintenance of an 
executive mechanism with the least prac- 


OcTOBER 17, 1902. ] 


ticable expenditure for material or admin- 
istrative purposes, and with the idea of 
allowing the light of a noble institution to 
shine afar, to enter the darkest corners of 
the land, to stir dormant genius every- 
where, to awaken every germ of scientific 
activity. 
W J McGeez. 


PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS AND THE LENGTH 
OF THE COLLEGE COURSE.* 
STANDARD OF ADMISSION TO THE PROFES- 
SIONAL AND TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. 

I HAVE pointed out that it is held to be 
settled policy at Columbia University that 
the several technical and professional 
schools shall rest upon a college course of 
liberal study as a foundation (although 
not necessarily upon a course four years 
in length), either at once or as soon as 
practicable. The School of Law has al- 
ready been placed upon the basis of a 
graduate school, to take effect July 1, 1903. 
On December 20, 1898, the University 
Council recommended that the College of 
Physicians and Surgeons be made a gradu- 
ate school as soon as such a step is finan- 
cially practicable. The Schools of Applied 
Science have constantly in mind a similar 
step, and much consideration has been 
given by the faculty to the best way of 
bringing about the change without undue 
sacrifice. This policy, however, does not 
pass unchallenged. It has recently been 
criticised and opposed in a cogent and 
noteworthy argument by President Had- 
ley, of Yale University, in his annual re- 
port for the year 1901-02, on the grounds 
(1) that it tends to make the professions 
exclusive in a bad sense, (2) that it leads 
to a remodeling of the college course to 
meet the needs of intending professional 
students, which remodeling is at least a 

* From advanced sheets of the annual report of 


President Butler to the trustees of Columbia 
University. 


SCIENCE. 


613 


doubtful experiment, and (3) that it estab- 
lishes an unfortunate distinction between 
the universities which require a bachelor’s 
degree as a condition of admission to the 
professional schools and those which make 
no such requirement. This policy is also 
criticised and opposed by many intelligent 
persons, trusted leaders of public opinion, 
not university teachers or administrators, 
who are impressed by the fact that the 
whole tendency of our modern educa- 
tional system is to prolong unduly the 
period of preparation or, studentship, with 
the result that an increasing number of 
young men are held back from active and 
independent participation in the practical 
work of life until they are nearly, or quite, 
thirty years of age. In the face of such 
objections as these it is obvious that we at 
Columbia must consider carefully the 
probable social and educational effects of 
the policy upon which we have entered. 

The questions raised in the discussion of 
this policy are to be decided, it seems to 
me, from the standpoint of the duty of 
the university to the public and to its own 
educational ideals. Two interests are im- 
mediately at stake: the standards of pro- 
fessional study in a university, and the 
place of the American college in the 
higher education of the twentieth century. 
I doubt whether the two interests can be 
separated in any adequate consideration 
of the subject. 

President Eliot, of Harvard University, 
impressively set forth the responsibilities 
and the opportunities of the learned pro- 
fessions in his address at the installation 
ceremonies on April 19 last, when he said: 

It is plain that the future prosperity and 
progress of modern communities is hereafter going 
to depend much more than ever before on the 
large groups of highly trained men which consti- 
tute what are called the professions. The social 
and industrial powers, and the moral influences 


which strengthen and uplift modern society are 
no longer in the hands of legislatures, or polit- 


614 


ical parties, or public men. All these political 
agencies are becoming secondary and subordinate 
influences. They neither originate nor lead; they 
sometimes regulate and set bounds, and often im- 
pede. The real incentives and motive powers 
which impel society forward and upward spring 
from those bodies of well-trained, alert, and pro- 
gressive men known as the professions. They 
give effect to the discoveries or imaginings of 
genius. All the large businesses and new enter- 
prises depend for their success on the advice and 
cooperation of the professions. 


With such an ideal as this held up be- 
fore the student of law, of medicine, of 
divinity, of teaching, of architecture or 
of applied science, what standard of excel- 
lence shall the university require of him 
when he enters upon his professional stud- 
ies? Three answers seem to be possible: 
The university may require (1) the com- 
pletion of a normal secondary school course 
of four years, and so put admission to the 
professional and technical schools on a 
plane with admission to college, or (2) the 
completion of the present college course of 
four years, or (3) the completion of a 
shortened college course. 

When weighing the advantages and dis- 
advantages of these several lines of action, 
it should be borne in mind that a uniform 
policy on the part of all universities in 
dealing with this question is not necessary 
and may not be desirable. We are directly 
concerned with the question so far as it 
concerns the duty and the interest of Co- 
lumbia; but the universities having differ- 
ent social and educational needs to meet, 
and somewhat different ideals to labor for, 
may be wise in reaching a conclusion quite 
different from that which most commends 
itself to us. This consideration seems to 
me to meet the third of President Hadley’s 
objections already referred to. Further- 
more, the universities do not control admis- 
sion to the practice of the professions, and 
it is not in their power, as it is certainly 
not their wish, to shut out from his chosen 
profession any competent person, whatever 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 407. 


his training or wherever it has been had. 
If the standards of professional study re- 
quired by the universities are higher than 
the minimum fixed by law, no one will 
attend a university for professional study 
unless its standards appeal to him and un- 
less he hopes to find ultimate gain by con- 
forming to them at some expense of both 
time and money. On the other hand, if the 
universities make the minimum standards 
fixed by law their own—and only by so 
doing ean they avoid discriminating 
against some one—then they seem to me to 
have abdicated their functions as leaders 
in American intellectual life. The result 
would quickly be seen, I am sure, in the 
falling off of popular favor and support. 
These facts appear to meet the first of 
President Hadley’s objections. His second 
objection involves a discussion of the sig- 
nificance of the college course, a subject 
which I shall consider, in its proper place. 

Columbia University cannot be satisfied 
with a requirement of only secondary 
school graduation for admission to the pro- 
fessional and technical schools for several 
reasons. 

1. Such students at 17. or 18 years of 
age (or, as should be the case, at 16 or 
164 years) are too immature to carry on a 
severe course of professional study with 
profit. 

2. When such students predominate, or 
form a large proportion of the total num- 
ber attending any given professional 
school, the teaching deteriorates and the 
instruction tends to become either super- 
ficial or unduly long drawn out and waste- 
ful of time. 

3. Other institutions in various parts of 
the country afford the fullest opportunity 
for students who are compelled to remain 
satisfied with the shortest possible prepara- 
tion for the practice of a profession, and 
Columbia would not be justified in using 
its funds merely to add to a provision 


OcTOBER 17, 1902. ] 
only LB" 
which is already ample. Columbia offers 
the most generous assistance to students 
who are able and willing to meet its stand- 
ards and who need help in order to carry 
on their studies, but is not willing to lower 
those standards at the cost of social and 
educational effectiveness. 

4. Secondary school graduates, however 
well taught, are necessarily without the 
more advanced discipline in the study of 
the liberal arts and sciences and without 
that wider outlook on ‘the world of nature 
and of man which it is the aim of the 
college to give. It is our hope and wish 
that those who hold. professional or tech- 
nical degrees from Columbia University 
will be not only soundly trained in their 
chosen professions, but liberally educated 
men as well. No stress is laid upon the 
college degree as a mere title, but it is 
held to stand, in the vast majority of cases, 
for greater maturity of mind and broader 
scholarship. 

5. For Columbia University to admit 
students to the professional and technical 
schools upon the same terms as those by 
which admission to the college is gained, 
would be to throw the weight of our in- 
fluence against college education in gen- 
eral and against Columbia College in par- 
ticular. After a few years, no student who 
looked forward to a professional career 
would seek admission to Columbia College, 
or to any other, except those who had 
ample time and money to spare. 

On the other hand, while I hold a sec- 
ondary school education to be too low a 
standard for admission to professional 
study at Columbia University, personally 
T am of opinion that to insist upon gradua- 
tion from the usual four years’ college 
course is too high a standard (measured in 
terms of time) to Insist upon, and an 
unsatisfactory one as well. My view of 
the matter is concurred in by the dean of 


TOo9M PRI 


SCIENCE. 


615 


Columbia College, by the dean of the Fac- 
ulty of Law, and by the dean of Teachers 
College, as will be seen by reference to their 
annual reports, which accompany this docu- 
ment and are a part of it. 

My objections to making graduation 
from a four years’ college course a pre- 
requisite for professional study at Colum- 
bia University are mainly two: 

1. I share the view, already alluded to, 
that the whole tendency of our present 
educational system is to postpone unduly 
the period of self-support, and I feel cer- 
tain that public opinion will not long sus- 
tain a scheme of formal training which in 
its completeness includes a kindergarten 


_ course of two or three years, an elementary 


school course of eight years, a secondary 
school course of four years, a college course 
of four years, and a professional or tech- 
nical school course of three or four years, 
followed by a period of apprenticeship on 
small wages or on no wages at, all. 

2. Four years is, in my opinion, too long 
a time to devote to the college course as 
now constituted, especially for students 
who are to remain in university residence 
as technical or professional students. 
President Patton, of Princeton University, 
voiced the sentiments of many of the most 
experienced observers of educational tend- 
encies when he said that: ‘‘In some way 
that delightful period of comradeship, 
amusement, desultory reading, and’ choice 
of incongruous courses of what we are 
pleased to call study, which is characteris- 
tic of so many undergraduates, must be 
shortened in order that more time may be 
given to the strenuous life of professional 
equipment.’’ For quite twenty years 
President Eliot has advocated this view 
and in arguments which have seemed to me 
unanswerable, under the conditions exist- 
ing at Harvard, has urged that the degree 
of bachelor of arts be given by Harvard 


616 


College after three years of residence.* 
At Columbia, and elsewhere, the practice 
of counting a year of professional study 
as a substitute for the fourth or senior 
year of the college course has in effect 
established a three years’ college course for 
intending professional and technical stu- 
dents. The degree has been withheld until 
a year of professional study has been com- 
pleted, in deference to tradition rather 
than from sound educational principle. In 
this way new conditions have been met 
without the appearance of shortening the 
college course. While the policy hitherto 
pursued in this regard was justified as a 
beginning toward a readjustment of the 
relations between the college and the pro- 
fessional and technical schools, it is hardly 
to be upheld as a final solution of the prob- 
lems presented. From my point of view it 
is open to criticism in that it (1) shortens 
the college course without appearing to do 
so, (2) divides the interest of the student 
in a way that is satisfactory neither to the 


college nor to the faculties of the profes- 


sional schools, and (3) fails to give the full 
support to a college course of purely liberal 
study which is so much to be desired. 
There remains a third line of action, 
namely, that of basing admission to the 
professional and technical schools of the 
university upon a shortened course in Co- 
lumbia College or its equivalent elsewhere. 
This I belheve to be the wisest plan for 
Columbia University to adopt, as well as 
the one whose general adoption would re- 
sult in the greatest public advantage. 


* After this report was in type it was an- 
nounced that hereafter the degree of A.B. will be 
conferred by Harvard College upon students who 
complete the requirements for the degree in three 
years at once and without an additional year’s 
delay, as heretofore. Somewhat similar announce- 
ments have also been made by the University of 
Pennsylvania and by Brown University. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 407. 


LENGTH OF THE COLLEGE COURSE. 

One consideration of vital importance 
appears to have been overlooked in the 
numerous discussions of this whole matter, 
and that is the fact that there is no valid 
reason why the college course should be of 
one uniform length for all classes of stu- 
dents. The unnecessary assumption of the 
contrary view has greatly complicated the 
entire question, both in the public and in 
the academic mind. It must be remem- 
bered that for the intending student of 
law, medicine or applied science who goes 
to college, three or four additional years 
of university residence and study are in 
prospect after the bachelor’s degree has 
been obtained. For the college student 
who looks forward to a business career, on 
the other, hand, academic residence closes 
with graduation from college. For the lat- 
ter class, therefore, the college course may 
well be longer than for the former. While 
two or three years of purely college life 
and study may be ample for the man who 
proposes to remain in the university as a 
professional or as a technical student, 
three, or even four, years may be desirable 
for him who at college graduation leaves 
the university, its atmosphere, its opportu- 
nities, and its influence, forever. 

It must be remembered, too, that the 
four years’ college course is merely a mat- 
ter of convention, and that there are many 
exceptions to the rule. The Harvard Col- 
lege course was at one time but three years 
in length, and the collegiate course at the 
Johns Hopkins University has been three 
years in length from its establishment. The 
normal period of residence for an under- 
graduate at both the English and the Scot- 
tish universities is three years. President 
Wayland, of Brown University, who was 
in so many ways a true prophet of educa- 
tional advance, devised a plan for a nor- 
mal three years’ college course over half 


OcTOBER 17, 1902.] 


a century ago. The question is not so 
much one of the time spent upon a college 
course as it is one of the quality of the 
work done and the soundness of the mental 
and moral training given. The peculiar 
service which the college exists to perform 
may be done in one ease in two years, in 
another in three, in another in four, and in 
still another not at all. 

Since 1860 the changes in American edu- 
cational conditions have been revolution- 
ary, and as one result the content of the 
A.B. degree has been wholly altered and 
that degree has been elevated, at Columbia 
College at least, to a point almost exactly 
two years in advance of that at which it 
then was. In other words, despite the fact 
that college admission requirements have 
been raised and much of the instruction 
once given in college is now given in the 
secondary schools, particularly the public 
high schools, the bachelor’s degree has been 
held steadily at a point four years distant 
from college entrance, with the result that 
the average age of college students at grad- 
uation has greatly increased. Since 1880 
the average age of the students entering 
Columbia College has increased exactly one 


year, and while no adequate statistics for” 


1860 are available, it appears to be true 
that the average age of admission in 1880 
was one full year higher than in 1860. The 
registrar has made a careful examination 
of the official records, and reports that in 
Columbia College we are demanding two 
years more of time and work for the degree 
of bachelor of arts than was required in 
1860, and one year more of time and work 
than was required in 1880. President 
Hyde, of Bowdoin College, has recently 
said that ‘Nearly all the distinguished 
alumni of Bowdoin College graduated at 
about the present average age of entrance, 
and were well launched on their profes- 
sional careers at about the age at which our 
students now graduate.’ He cited the 


SCIENCE. 


617 


eases of Jacob Abbott and William Pitt 
Fessenden, who were graduated before they 
were seventeen; Longfellow, who was grad- 
uated at eighteen; Franklin Pierce, John 
A. Andrew, Fordyce Barker, and Egbert 
Smyth at nineteen; and William P. Frye 
and Melville W. Fuller at twenty. In- 
stances might readily be multiplied from 
the records of the American colleges. The 
recent statistics compiled by Dean Wright, 
of the academical department of Yale Uni- 
versity, which show the average age of 
graduation of the members of the class of 
1863 at Yale to have been 22 years, 10 
months, and 17 days and that of the mem- 
bers of the class of 1902 to have been 22 
years, 10 months, and 20 days, point to 
what appears to be a striking exception, 
not yet explained, to the general rule. 

So long as there were no graduate 
schools, and therefore no genuine universi- 
ties, in the United States, and when the 
bachelor’s degree was the highest academic 
distinction to be gained in residence, it was 
sound academic and public policy to make 
the requirements for the degree of bache- 
lor of arts as high as possible. It was the 
only mark of scholarship that the colleges 
could give. As a result, the average age at 
graduation increased. Now, however, con- 
ditions have entirely changed. Nearly, or 
quite one half of the work formerly done 
in college for the degree of bachelor of arts 
is now done in the rapidly increasing num- 
ber of secondary schools, particularly pub- 
he high schools, and no small part of it is 
required for admission to college. This 
does not appear if the comparison be re- 
stricted to admission requirements in 
Greek, Latin and mathematics; but it is 
clearly evident when the present admission 
requirements in English, history, the mod- 
ern European languages and the natural 
sciences are taken into account. The stand- 
ard of scholarship in this country is no 
longer. set by the undergraduate courses in 


618 


the colleges or by the time devoted to them, 
but by the post-graduate instruction in the 
universities and by the requirements de- 
manded for the degree of doctor of phi- 
losophy. 

These being the undisputed facts, it 
would appear to be wise, and possible, to 
treat the length of the college course and 
the requirements, both in time and in ac- 
complishment, for the degree of bachelor of 
arts from the standpoint of present-day 
needs and the largest social service. 

In my opinion it is already too late to 
meet the situation by shortening the col- 
lege course for all students to three years, 
although such action would be a decided 
step forward so far as the interests of in- 
tending professional and technical students 
are concerned. When President Eliot first 
proposed a three years’ course for Harvard 
College, the suggestion was, I think, a wise 
one. But in the interval conditions have 
changed again. If we at Columbia should 
be willing to go no farther than to reduce 
the length of the college course from four 
years to three, we should (1) find it im- 
practicable both on financial and on educa- 
tional grounds to require that course as 
prerequisite for admission to the Schools 
of Applied Science, and, possibly, to the 
School of Medicine, and (2) we should be 
unable to resist the pressure for further 
reconstruction and rearrangement that 
would be upon us before our work was com- 
pleted and in operation. My own belief is 
that Columbia University will perform the 
greatest public service if it establishes two 
courses in Columbia College, one of two 
years and one of four years—the former 
to be included in the latter—and if it re- 
quires the satisfactory completion of the 
shorter course, or its equivalent elsewhere, 
for admission to the professional and tech- 
nical schools of the university. By taking 
this step we should retain the college with 
its two years of liberal studies as an in- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 407- 


tegral element in our system, shorten by 
two years the combined periods of second- 
ary school, college, and professional school 
instruction, and yet enforce a standard 
of admission to our professional schools 
which, both in quantity and in quality, is 
on a plane as high as the Columbia degree 
of bachelor of arts of 1860, which was ree- 
ognized as conforming to a very useful 
standard of excellence. At the same time 
we should retain the four years’ course with 
all its manifest advantages and opportuni- 
ties for those who look forward to a schol- 
arly eareer, and for as many of those who 
intend to enter upon some active business 
after graduation as can be induced to fol- 
low it. 

Under, such a plan we should have in 
Columbia College four different classes of 
students: (1) those who were taking the 
shorter course of two years in preparation 
for a technical and professional course, and 
who would therefore look forward to a 
total university residence of five or six 
years; (2) those who were taking the 
shorter course of two years, but without 
any thought of subsequent professional or 
technical study; (3) those who felt able to 
give the time necessary to take the longer 
course of four years before entering a pro- 
fessional or technical school; and (4) those 
who, as now, take the four years’ college 
course without any intention of technical 
or professional study. The second class of 
students would be a new and highly desira- 
ble class, and would be, for the most part, 
made up of earnest young men seeking a - 
wider and more thorough scholarly train- 
ing than the secondary school can offer, but 
unable to devote four years to that end. 
The third class of students would be able, 
by a proper selection of studies in the later 
years of their college course, either to enter 
a professional school with advanced stand- 
ing or to anticipate some of the preliminary 
professional studies and to devote the time 


OcToBER 17, 1902.] 


so gained to more intensive professional 
work. Undoubtedly many students who 
now take a four years’ undergraduate 
course with no professional or technical end 
im view would take the shorter course, and 
that only, but, on the other hand, numbers 
of students would come to college for a 
course of two years who when obliged to 
choose between a four years’ course and 
none at all are compelled to give up col- 
lege altogether. The final result of the 
changes would certainly be to increase the 
total number of students taking a college 
course of one length or another. 

The dean of Columbia College is of the 
opinion that sucha shortened course of 
two years as is contemplated by this sug- 
gestion could readily be made to include 
all the studies now prescribed at Colum- 
bia for candidates for the degree of bache- 
‘lor of arts. This shortened course would, 
therefore, take on something of the de- 
finitiveness and purpose which in many 
cases the rapid developments of recent 
years have removed from undergraduate 
study; for it goes without saying that no 
effort would be spared to make such a two 
years’ course as valuable as possible, both 
for intellectual training and for the devel- 
opment of character. The student would 
be a gainer, not a loser, by the change. 


THE DEGREES OF BACHELOR OF ARTS AND OF 
MASTER OF ARTS. 

If Columbia College should offer two 
courses in the liberal arts and sciences, one 
of two years and one of four years in 
length, the second including the first, the 
question would at once arise as to what 
degrees or, other marks of academic recog- 
nition would be conferred upon students 
who had satisfactorily completed them. 

Two answers appear to be possible. 
First, we may withhold the bachelor’s de- 
eree until the completion of the longer 
course, and grant some new designation to 


SCIENCE. 


619 


those. who _ satisfactorily complete ; the 
shorter course. This has been done at the 
University of Chicago, where graduates of 
the junior college course of two years are 
made associates in arts. Or we may de- 
grade—as it is called—the bachelor’s de- 
gree from the artificial position in which 
the developments of the last forty years 
have placed it, and confer it upon the 
graduates of the shorter course of two 
years, and give the degree of master of 
arts for the longer course of four years. . 
The latter alternative would be my own 
preference. Such a plan would bring the 
degree of bachelor of arts two years earlier 
than now and would place it substantially 
on a par with the bachelor’s degree in 
France, the Zeugniss der Reife in Ger- 
many, and the ordinary degree in course as 
conferred by the English and the Scottish 
universities. It would also be substantially 
on a par with the Columbia College degree 
of 1860. 

In this connection it must be remembered 
that it is not the A.B. degree of to-day 
which is so much extolled and so highly 
esteemed as the mark of a liberal education 
gained by hard study and severe discipline, 
but that of one and two generations ago. 
The A.B. degree of to-day is a very uncer- 
tain quantity, and time alone will show 
whether it means much or little. 

The degree of master of arts is an en- 
tirely appropriate reward for the comple- 
tion of a college course, under the new 
conditions proposed, four years in leneth. 
This degree has been put to many varied 
uses and has no generally accepted sig- 
nificance. In Scotland it is given in place 
of the degree of bachelor of arts at the 
close of three very short years of under- 
eraduate study. In England it signifies 
that the holder is a bachelor of arts, that 
he has lived for a certain minimum num- 
ber of terms after obtaining the bachelor’s 
degree, and that he has paid certain fees. 


620 


In Germany it is usually“ineladed! tn the 
degree of doctor of philosophy. In the 
United States the degree is more often than 
not a purely honorary designation; al- 
though in recent years the stronger univer- 
sities have guarded it strictly and now 
grant it for a minimum period of graduate 
study for one year in residence. At the 
meeting of the Association of American 
Universities in February last there was a 
very interesting discussion on the subject 
of this degree, and the divergence of policy 
in regard to it was made plainly evident. 
As an intermediate degree between those 
of bachelor of arts and doctor of philoso- 
phy, that of master of arts has been and is 
very useful at Columbia. It marks the 
close of a period of serious resident grad- 
uate study, and is an appropriate reward 
for. the work of those university students 
who have neither the inclination nor the 
peculiar abilities and temperament to fit 
themselves for successful examination for 
the degree of doctor of philosophy. At 
the same time it must be admitted that the 
rapid development of the elective system 
and the widely different standards of the 
scores of colleges from which our graduate 
students come, have almost wiped out the 
distinction between the senior year in Co- 
lumbia College and the first year of grad- 
uate study. To the best of my knowledge 
and belief, the fixing of the degree of mas- 
ter of arts at the close of a four years’ 
undergraduate course would involve no 
real alteration in the standard required on 
the part of those coming to Columbia from 
other institutions. For students of Co- 
lumbia College it would bring the degree 
within reach after four years of residence 
instead of five. 

In the case of candidates for the degree 
of doctor of philosophy, the completion of 
the longer college course, or its equivalent 
elsewhere, would of course be required, 
and also the same minimum period of post- 


SCIENCE. 


{N.S. Vout. XVI. No. 407. 


‘graduate residentostudy as mowioi There 


would be no alteration in the time neces- 
sary or the standard now set for that de- 
gree, which as conferred at Columbia is 
recognized as conforming to the highest 
and best standards. 

With the courses in applied science and 
in medicine fixed at four years, to base. 
them upon a two years’ college course would 
be to elevate them to a proper university 
standard and to ensure the best possible 
class of students. The Law School and the 
professional course in Teachers College 
could easily be put upon the same basis. 

Reflection and a careful study of the 
facts will make it apparent that these sug- 
gestions are less radical than seems to be 
the case on first sight. They at least offer 
a solution to a generally recognized prob- 
lem, one which has often been pointed to 
but toward the solution of which little 
progress has been made. I shall seek an 
early opportunity of bringing them before 
the university council and the several fac- 
ulties for full consideration and discus- 
sion. 


THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE. 

Should Columbia University adopt such 
a poley as has been outlined, and should 
the same or a similar policy commend it- 
self to the governing bodies of any other 
American universities whose problems are 
similar to ours, a development already in 
progress throughout the country would be 
hastened. As the public high schools mul- 
tiply and strengthen they will tend more 
and more to give the instruction now of- 
fered in the first year, or first two years, 
of the college course. In so far, they will 
become local colleges, but without the 
characteristic or the attractiveness of stu- 
dent residence. Furthermore, the time 
would sooner come when colleges, excellent 
in ideals and rich in teaching power but 
without the resources necessary to carry 


OcToBER 17, 1902.] 


on a fouroyears’ coursejof instruction sat- 
isfactorily, will raise the requirements for 
admission to a proper point and then con- 
eentrate all their strength upon a thor- 
oughly sound course of two years leading 
to the bachelor’s degree. More depends 
upon the strict enforcement of proper stand- 
ards of admission to college than is gen- 
erally believed; that is at present the weak- 
est point in college administration. The 
general standard of college education in 
the United States would be strengthened 
more if the weaker colleges would fix and 
rigidly enforce proper entrance require- 
ments and concentrate all their money and 
energies upon two years of thorough col- 
lege work than if they continue to spread 
a college course over four years with ad- 
mission secured on nominal terms or on 
none at all. 

The policy outlined would, I think, 
largely increase the number of students 
seeking a college education, and many who 
might enter one of the stronger colleges for 
the two years’ course would remain for 
four years. The loss of income due to the 
dropping out of students after two years 
of residence would be more than made good 
very soon by the large increase in college 
attendance. 

As the system of higher education in the 
United States has developed it has become 
apparent that we have substituted three 
institutions—secondary school, college and 
university—for the two—secondary school 
and university—which exist in France and 
Germany. The work done in the United 
States by the best colleges is done in France 
and Germany one half by the secondary 
school and one half by the university. The 
training given in HKurope differs in many 
ways from that given here, but from an 
administrative point of view the compari- 
son just made is substantially correct. The 
college, as we have it, is peculiar to our 
own national system of education, and is 


SCIENCE. 


621 


perhaps its strongest, as it certainly is its 
most characteristic, feature. It breaks the 
sharp transition which is so noticeable in 
Europe between the close surveillance and 
prescribed order of the secondary school 
and the absolute freedom of the university. 
Its course of liberal study comes just at 
the time in the student’s life to do him 
most good, to open and inform his intelli- 
gence and to refine and strengthen his char- © 
acter. Its student life, social opportuni- 
ties, and athletic sports are all additional 
elements of usefulness and of strength. It 
has endeared itself to three or four genera- 
tions of the flower of our American youth 
and it is more useful to-day than at any 
earlier time. 

For all of these reasons I am anxious to 
have it preserved as part of our educa- 
tional system and so adjusted to the social 
and educational conditions which surround 
us that a college training may be an essen- 


‘tial part of the higher education of an 


American whether he is destined to a pro- 
fessional career, or to a business occupa- 
tion. It seems to me clear that if the col- 
lege is not so adjusted it will, despite its 
recent rapid growth, lose its prestige and 
place of honor in our American life, and 
that it may eventually disappear entirely, 
to the great damage of our whole educa- 
tional system. 
NicHouas Murray Burtier. 


ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE 
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 

III. 

THE UPPER AIR AND AURORAS. 

THE present liquid ocean, neglecting 
everything for the moment but the water, 
was at a previous period of the earth’s 
history part of the atmosphere, and its con- 
densation has been brought about by the 
gradual cooling of the earth’s surface. 
This resulting ocean is subjected to the 
pressure of the remaining wncondensed 


622 


gases, and as these are slightly soluble they 
dissolve to some extent in the fluid. The 
gases in solution can be taken out by dis- 
tillation or by exhausting the water, and 
if we compare their volume with the vol- 
ume of the water as steam, we should find 
about one volume of air in 60,000 volumes 
of steam. This would then be about the 
rough proportion of the relatively perma- 
nent gas to condensable gas which existed 
in the case of the vaporized ocean. Now let 
us assume the surface of the earth gradu- 
ally cooled to some 200 degrees below the 
freezing-point; then, after all the present 
ocean was frozen, and the climate became 
three times more intense than any arctic 
frost, a new ocean of liquid air would 
appear, covering the entire surface of the 
frozen globe about thirty-five feet deep. 
We may now apply the same reasoning to 
the liquid air ocean that we formerly did 
to the water one, and this would lead us 
to anticipate that it might contain in solu- 
tion some gases that may be far less con- 
densable than the chief constituents of the 
fluid. In order to separate them we must 
unitate the method of taking the gases out 
of water. Assume a sample of liquid air 
cooled to the low temperature that can be 
reached by its own evaporation, connected 
by a pipe to a condenser cooled in liquid 
hydrogen; then any volatile gases present 
in solution will distil over with the first 
portions of the air, and can be pumped off, 
being uncondensable at the temperature of 
the condenser. In this way, a gas mixture, 
containing, of the known gases, free hydro- 
gen, helium and neon, has been separated 
from liquid air. It is interesting to note 
in passing that the relative volatilities of 
water and oxygen are in the same ratio as 
those of liquid air and hydrogen, so that 
the analogy between the ocean of water and 
that of liquid air has another, suggestive 
parallel. The total uncondensable gas 
separated in this way amounts to about one 


SCIENCE. 


{[N. S. VoL. XVI. No. 407. 


fifty-thousandth of the volume of the air, 
which is about the same proportion as the 
air dissolved in water. That free hydro- 
gen exists in air in small amount is con- 
clusively proved, but the actual proportion 
found by the process is very much smaller 
than Gautier has estimated by the combus- 
tion method. The recent experiments of 
Lord Rayleigh show that Gautier, who es- 
timated the hydrogen present as one five- 
thousandth, has in some way produced 
more hydrogen than he can manage to ex- 
tract from pure air by a repetition of the 
same process. The spectroscopic examina- 
tion of these gases throws new lhght upon 
the question of the aurora and the nature 
of the upper air. On passing electric dis- 
charges through the tubes containing the 
most volatile of the atmospheric gases, 
they glow with a bright orange light, which 
is especially marked at the negative pole. 
The spectroscope shows that this light con- 
sists, in the visible part of the spectrum, 
chiefly of a succession of strong rays in the 
red, orange and yellow, attributed to hy- 
drogen, helium and neon. Besides these, 
a vast number of rays, generally less 
brilliant, are distributed through the 
whole length of the visible spectrum. The 
ereater part of these rays are of, as yet, 
unknown origin. The violet and ultra- 
violet part of the spectrum rivals in 
strength that of the red and yellow rays. 
As these gases probably include some of 
the gases that pervade interplanetary 
space, search was made for the prominent 
nebular, coronal and auroral lines. No 
definite lines agreeing with the nebular 
spectrum could be found, but many lines 
oceurred closely coincident with the cor- 
onal and auroral spectrum. But before 
discussing the spectroscopic problem it will 
be necessary to consider the nature and 
condition of the upper air. 

According to the old law of Dalton, sup- 
ported by the modern dynamical theory of 


OcToBER 17, 1902. ] 


gases, each constituent of the atmosphere 
while acted upon by the force of gravity 
forms a separate atmosphere, completely 
independent, except as to temperature, of 
the others, and the relations between the 
common temperature and the pressure and 
altitude for each specific atmosphere can 
be definitely expressed. If we assume the 
altitude and temperature known, then the 
pressure can be ascertained for, the same 
height in the case of each of the gaseous 
constituents, and in this way the percentage 
composition of the atmosphere at that place 
may be deduced. Suppose we start with a 
surface atmosphere having the composition 
of our air, only containing two ten- 
thousandths of hydrogen, then at thirty- 
seven miles, if a sample could be procured 
for analysis, we believe that it would be 
found to contain 12 per cent. of hydrogen 
and only 10 per cent. of oxygen. The 
carbonic acid practically disappears; and 

by the time we reach forty-seven miles, 
- where the temperature is minus 132 de- 
grees, assuming a gradient of 3.2 degrees 
per mile, the nitrogen and oxygen have so 
thinned out that the only constituent of 
the upper air which is left is hydrogen. 
If the gradient of temperature were 
doubled, the elimination of the nitrogen 
and oxygen would take place by the time 
thirty-seven miles was reached, with a tem- 
perature of minus 220 degrees. The per- 
manence of the composition of the air at 
the highest altitudes, as deduced from the 
basis of the dynamical theory of gases, has 
been discussed by Stoney, Bryan and oth- 
ers. It would appear that there is a con- 
sensus of opinion that the rate at which 
gases like hydrogen and helium could es- 
cape from the earth’s atmosphere would 
be excessively slow. Considering that to 
eompensate any such loss the same gases 
are being supplied by actions taking place 
in the crust of the earth, we may safely re- 
gard them as necessarily permanent con- 


SCIENCE. 


623 


stituents of the upper air. The tempera- 
ture at the elevations we have been 
discussing would not be sufficient to cause 
any liquefaction of the nitrogen and oxy- 
gen, the pressure being so low. If we 
assume the mean temperature as about the 
boiling-point of oxygen at atmospheric 
pressure, then a considerable amount of 
the carbonic acid mast solidify as a mist, 
if the air from a lower level be cooled to 
this temperature; and the same result 
might take place with other gases of rela- 
tively small volatility, which occur in air. 
This would explain the clouds that have 
been seen at an elevation of fifty miles, 
without assuming the possibility of water 
vapor being carried up so high. The tem- 
perature of the upper air must be above 
that on the vapor pressure curve corre- 
sponding to the barometric pressure at the 
locality, otherwise liquid condensation must 
take place. In other words, the tempera- 
ture must be above the dew-point of air at 
that place. At higher elevations, on any 
reasonable assumption of temperature dis- 
tribution, we inevitably reach a tempera- 
ture where the air would condense, just as 
Fourier and Poisson supposed it would, 
unless the temperature is arrested in some 
way from approaching the zero. Both 
ultra-violet absorption and the prevalence 
of electric storms may have something to 
do with the maintenance of a higher mean 
temperature. The whole mass of the air 
above forty miles is not more than one 
seven-hundredth part of the total mass of 
the atmosphere, so that any rain or snow 
of liquid or solid air, if it did oceur, would 
necessarily be of a very tenuous descrip- 
tion. In any ease, the dense gases tend to 
accumulate in the lower strata, and the 
lighter ones to predominate at the higher 
altitudes, always assuming that a steady 
state of equilibrium has been reached. It 
must be observed, however, that a sample 
of air taken at an elevation of nine miles 


624 


has shown no difference in composition 
from that at the ground, whereas, accord- 
ing to our hypothesis, the oxygen ought to 
have been diminished to 17 per cent., and 
the earbonic acid should also have become 
much less. This can only be explained by 
assuming that a large intermixture of dif- 
ferent layers of the atmosphere is still ta- 
king place at this elevation. This is con- 
firmed by a study of the motions of clouds 
about six miles high, which reveals an aver- 
age velocity of the air currents of some 
seventy miles an hour; such violent winds 
must be the means of causing the inter- 
mingling of different atmospheric strata. 
Some clouds, however, during hot and 
thundery weather, have been seen to reach 
an elevation of seventeen miles, so that we 
have direct proof that on occasion the low- 
er layers of atmosphere are carried to a 
great elevation. The existence of an atmos- 
phere at more than a hundred miles above 
the surface of the earth is revealed to us 
by the appearance of meteors and fireballs, 
and when we can take photographs of the 
spectrum of such apparitions we shall learn 
a great deal about the composition of the 
upper air. In the meantime Pickering’s 
solitary spectrum of a meteor reveals an 
atmosphere of hydrogen and helium, and 
so far this is corroborative of the doctrine 
we have been discussing. It has long been 
recognized that the aurora is the result of 
electric discharges within the limits of the 
earth’s atmosphere, but it was difficult to 
understand why its spectrum should be so 
entirely different from anything which 
could be produced artificially by electric 
discharges through rarefied air at the sur- 
face of the earth. Writing in 1879, Rand 
Capron, after collecting all the recorded 
observations, was able to enumerate no 
more than nine auroral rays, of which but 


one could with any probability be identified . 


with rays emitted by atmospheric air un- 
der an electric discharge. Vogel attributed 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 407. 


this want of agreement between nature and 
experiment, in a vague way, to difference 
of temperature and pressure; and Zollner 
thought the auroral spectrum to be one 
of a different order, in the sense in which 
the line and band spectra of nitrogen are 
said to be of different orders. Such state- 
ments were merely confessions of igno- 
rance. But since that time observations of 
the spectra of auroras have been greatly 
multiplied, chiefly through the Swedish 
and Danish Polar Expeditions, and the 
length of spectrum recorded on the ultra- 
violet side has been greatly extended by 
the use of photography, so that, in a recent 
discussion of the results, M. Henri Stas- 
sano is able to enumerate upwards of one 
hundred auroral rays, of which the wave- 
length is more or less approximately 
known, some of them far in the ultra- 
violet. Of this large number of rays he is 
able to identify, within the probable limits 
of errors of observation, about two thirds 
as rays, which Professor Liveing and my- 
self have observed to be emitted by the 
most volatile gases of atmospheric air un- 
liquefiable at the temperature of liquid 
hydrogen. Most of the remainder he 
ascribes to argon, and some he might, with 
more probability, have identified with 
krypton or xenon rays, if he had been 
aware of the publication of wave-lengths 
of the spectra of those gases, and the iden- 
tification of one of the highest rays of 
krypton with that most characteristic of 
auroras. The rosy tint often seen in au- 
roras, particularly in the streamers, ap- 
pears to be due mainly to neon, of which 
the spectrum is remarkably rich in red and 
orange rays. One or two neon rays are 
amongst those most frequently observed, 
while the red ray of hydrogen and one red 
ray of krypton have been noticed only 
once. The predominance of neon is not 
surprising, seeing that from its relatively 
greater proportion in air and its low den- 


OcToBER 17, 1902. ] 


sity it must tend to concentrate at higher 
elevations. So large a number of probable 
identifications warrants the belief that we 
may yet be able to reproduce in our labo- 
ratories the auroral spectrum in its entirety. 
It is true that we have still to account for 
the appearance of some, and the absence 
of other, rays of the newly discovered gases, 
which in the way in which we stimulate 
them appear to be equally brilliant, and 
for the absence, with one doubtful excep- 
tion, of all the rays of nitrogen. If we 
cannot give the reason of this, it is because 
we do not know the mechanism of lumi- 
nescence—nor even whether the particles 
which earry the electricity are themselves 
luminous, or whether they only produce 
stresses causing other particles which en- 
counter them to vibrate; yet we are certain 
that an electric discharge in a highly rare- 
fied mixture of gases lights one element 
and not another, in a way which, to our 
ignorance, seems capricious. The Swedish 
North Polar Expedition concluded from a 
great number of trigonometrical measure- 
ments that the average above the ground 
of the base of the aurora was fifty Ikilo- 
meters (thirty-four miles) at Cape Thors- 
den, Spitzbergen; at this height the pres- 
sure of the nitrogen of the atmosphere 
would be only about one tenth of a milli- 
meter, and Moissan and Deslandres have 
found that in atmospheric air at pressures 
less than one millimeter the rays of nitro- 
gen and oxygen fade and are replaced by 
those of argon and by five new rays which 
Stassano identifies with rays of the more 
volatile gases measured by us. Also Collie 
and Ramsay’s observations on the distance 
to which electrical discharges of equal po- 
tential traverse different gases explosively 
throw much light on the question; for they 
find that, while for helium and neon this 
distance is from 250 to 300 mm., for argon 
it is 454 mm., for hydrogen it is 39 mm., 
and for air and oxygen still less. This in- 


SCIENCE. 


625 


dicates that a good deal depends on the 
very constitution of the gases themselves, 
and certainly helps us to understand why 
neon and argon, which exist in the atmos- 
phere in larger proportions than helium, 
krypton or xenon, should make their ap-— 
pearance in the spectrum of auroras almost 
to the exclusion of nitrogen and oxygen. 
How much depends not only on the consti- 
tution and it may be temperature of the 
gases, but also on the character of the 
electric discharge, is evident from the dif- 
ference between the spectra at the cathode 
and anode in different gases, notably in 
nitrogen and argon, and not less remark- 
ably in the more volatile compounds of the 
atmosphere. Paulsen thinks the auroral 
spectrum wholly due to cathodic rays. 
Without stopping to discuss that question, 
it is certain that changes in the character 
of the electric discharge produce definite 
changes in the spectra excited by them. It 
has long been known that in many spectra 
the rays which are inconspicuous with an 
unecondensed electric discharge become 
very pronounced when a’ Leyden jar is in 
the circuit. This used to be ascribed to a 
higher temperature in this condensed 
spark, though measurements of that tem- 
perature have not borne out the explana- 
tion. Schuster and Hemsalech have shown 
that these changes of spectra are in part 
due to the oscillatory character of the con- 
denser discharge which may be enhanced 
by self-induction, and the corresponding 
change of spectrum thereby made more 
pronounced. Lightning we should expect 


‘to resemble condensed discharge much 


more than aurora, but this is not borne out 
by the spectrum. Pickering’s recent an- 
alysis of the spectrum of a flash obtained 
by photography shows, out of nineteen 
lines measured by him, only two which 
ean be assigned with probability to nitro- 
gen and oxygen, while three hydrogen rays 
most likely due to water are very conspicu- 


626 


ous, and eleven may be reasonably ascribed 
to argon, krypton and xenon, one to more 
volatile gas of the neon class, and the 
brightest ray of all is but a very little less 
refrangible than the characteristic auroral 
ray, and coincides with a strong ray of eal- 
cium, but also lies between, and close to, an 
argon and a neon ray, neither of them 
weak rays. There may be some doubt 
about the identification of the spectral rays 
of auroras because of the wide limits of 
the probable errors in measuring wave- 
lengths so faint as most of them are, but 
there is no such doubt about the wave- 
lengths of the rays in solar protuberances 
measured by Deslandres and Hale. Stas- 
sano found that these rays, 44 in number, 
lying between the Fraunhofer line F and 
3,148 in the ultra-violet agree very closely 
with rays which Professor Liveing and my- 
self measured in the spectra of the most 
volatile atmospheric gases. It will be re- 
membered that one of the earliest sugges- 
tions as to the nature of solar prominences 
was that they were solar auroras. This 
supposition helped to explain the marvel- 
lous rapidity of their changes, and the 
apparent suspension of brilliant self-lumi- 
nous clouds at enormous heights above the 
sun’s surface. Now the identification of 
the rays of their spectra with those of the 
most volatile gases, which also furnish 
many of the auroral rays, certainly sup- 
ports that suggestion. A stronger support, 
however, seems to be given to it by the 
results obtained at the total eclipse of May, 
1901, by the American expedition to Su- 
matra. In the Astrophysical Journal for 
June last is a list of 339 lines in the spec- 
trum of the corona photographed by Hum- 
phreys, during totality, with a very large 
coneave grating. Of these no fewer than 
209 do not differ from lines we have meas- 
ured in the most volatile gases of the atmos- 
phere, or in krypton or xenon, by more 
than one unit of wave-length on Arm- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 407. 


strong’s scale, a quantity within the limit 
of probable error. Of the remainder, a 
good many agree to a like degree with ar- 
gon lines, a very few with oxygen lines, 
and still fewer with nitrogen lines; the 
characteristic green auroral ray, which is 
not in the range of Humphreys’ photo- 
graphs, also agrees within a small fraction 
of a unit of wave-length with one of the 
rays emitted by the most volatile atmos- 
pherie gas. Taking into account the 
Fraunhofer lines H, K and G, usually as- 
eribed to calcium, there remain only fifty- 
five lines of the 339 unaccounted for to the 
degree of probability indicated. Of these 
considerably more than half are very weak 
lines which have not depicted themselves 
on more than one of the six films exposed, 
and extend but a very short distance into 
the sun’s atmosphere. There are, however, 
seven which are stronger lines, and reach 
to a considerable height above the sun’s 
rim, and all have depicted themselves on 
at least four of the six films. If there be 
no considerable error in the wave-leneths 
assigned (and such is not likely to be the 
case), these lines may perhaps be due to 
some volatile element which may yet be 
discovered in our atmosphere. However 
that may be, the very great number of close 
coincidences between the auroral rays and 
those which are emitted under electric ex- 
citement by gases of our atmosphere al- 
most constrains us to believe, what is in- 
deed most probable on other grounds, that 
the sun’s coronal atmosphere is composed 
of the same substances as the earth’s and 
that it is rendered luminous in the same 
way—namely, by electric discharges. This 
conclusion has plainly an important bear- 
ing on the explanation which should be 
given of the outburst of new stars and of 
the extraordinary and rapid changes in 
their spectra. Moreover, leaving on one 
side the question whether gases ever be- 
come luminous by the direct action of 


OcToBER 17, 1902. ] 


heat, apart from such transfers of energy 
as occur in chemical change and electric 
disturbance, it demands a revision of the 
theories which attribute more permanent 
differences between the spectra of different 
stars to differences of temperature, and a 
fuller consideration of the question wheth- 
er they cannot with better reason be ex- 
plained by differences in the electric condi- 
tions which prevail in the stellar atmos- 
phere. 

If we turn to the question what is the 
cause of the electric discharges which are 
generally believed to occasion auroras, but 
of which little more has hitherto been 
known than that they are connected with 
sunspots and solar eruptions, recent studies 
of electric discharges in high vacua, with 
which the names of Crookes, Rontgen, Len- 
ard and J. J. Thomson will always be asso- 
ciated, have opened the way for Arrhenius 
to suggest a definite and rational answer. 
He points out that the frequent disturb- 
ances which we know to occur in the sun 
must cause electric discharges in the sun’s 
atmosphere far exceeding any that occur 
in that of the earth. These will be at- 
tended with an ionization of the gases, 
and the negative ions will stream away 
through the outer atmosphere of the sun 
into the interplanetary space, becoming, 
as Wilson has shown, nuclei of aggrega- 
tion of condensable vapors and cosmic dust. 
The liquid and solid particles thus formed 
will be of various sizes; the larger, will 
eravitate back to the sun, while those with 
diameters less than one and a half thou- 
sandths of a millimeter, but nevertheless 
greater than a wave-length of hght, will, 
in accordance with Clerk-Maxwell’s elec- 
tromagnetic theory, be driven away from 
the sun by the incidence of the solar rays 
upon them, with velocities which may be- 
come enormous, until they meet other celes- 
tial bodies, or increase their dimensions by 
picking up more cosmic dust or diminish 


SCIENCE. 


627 


them by evaporation. The earth will catch 
its share of such particles on the side which 
is turned towards the sun, and its upper 
atmosphere will thereby become negatively 
electrified until the potential of the charge 
reaches such a point that a discharge oc- 
eurs, which will be repeated as more 
charged particles reach the earth. This 
theory not only accounts for the auroral 
discharges, and the coincidence of .their 
times of greatest frequency with those of 
the maxima of sunspots, but also for the 
minor, maxima and minima. The vernal 
and autumnal maxima occur when the line 
through the earth and sun has its greatest 
inclination to the solar equator, so that 
the earth is more directly exposed to the 
region of maximum of sunspots, while the 
twenty-six days’ period corresponds closely 
with the period of rotation of that part of 
the solar surface where facule are most 
abundant. J. J. Thomson has pointed out, 
as a consequence of the Richardson obser- 
vations, that negative ions will be con- 
stantly streaming from the sun merely re- 
garded as a hot body, but this is not incon- 
sistent with the supposition that there will 
be an excess of this emission in eruptions, 
and from the regions of facule. Arrhe- 
nius’ theory accounts also, in a way which 
seems the most satisfactory hitherto enun- 
ciated, for the appearances presented by 
comets. The solid parts of these objects 
absorb the sun’s rays, and as they approach 
the sun become heated on the side turned 
towards him until the volatile substances 
frozen in or upon them are evaporated and 
diffused in the gaseous state in surround- 
ing space, where they get cooled to the 
temperature of liquefaction and aggregated 
in drops about the negative ions. The 
larger of these drops gravitate towards the 
sun and form clouds of the coma about the 
head, while the smaller are driven by the 
incidence of the sun’s light upon them 
away from the sun and form the tail. The 


628 


curvature of the tail depends, as Bredichin 
has shown, on the rate at which the par- 
ticles are driven, which in turn depends 
on the size and specifie gravity of the par- 
ticles, and these will vary with the density 
of the vapor from which they are formed 
and the frequency of the negative ions 
which collect them. In any case Arrhenius’ 
theory is a most suggestive one, not only 
with reference to auroras and comets, and 
the solar corona and chromosphere, but also 
as to the constitution of the photosphere 
itself. 


VARIOUS LOW-TEMPERATURE RESEARCHES. 
We may now summarize some of the re- 
sults which have already been attained by 
low-temperature studies. In the first 
place, the great majority of chemical inter- 
actions are entirely suspended, but an ele- 
ment of such exceptional powers of com- 
bination as flourine is still active at the 
temperature of liquid air. Whether solid 
fluorine and liquid hydrogen would inter- 
act no one can at present say. Bodies nat- 
urally become denser, but even a highly 
expansive substance like ice does not appear 
to reach the density of water at the lowest 
temperature. This is confirmatory of the 
view that the particles of matter under 
such conditions are not packed in the clos- 
est possible way. The force of cohesion is 
greatly increased at low temperatures, as 
is shown by the additional stress required 
to rupture metallic wires. This fact is of 
interest in connection with two conflicting 
theories of matter. Lord Kelvin’s view is 
that the forces that hold together the par- 
ticles of bodies may be accounted for with- 
out assuming any other agency than gravi- 
tation or any other law than the Newton- 
ian. An opposite view is that the phenom- 
ena of the aggregation of molecules de- 
pend upon the molecular vibration as a 
physical cause. Hence, at the zero of abso- 
lute temperature, this vibrating energy 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 407. 


being in complete abeyance, the phenomena 
of cohesion should cease to exist, and mat- 
ter generally be reduced to an incoherent 
heap of cosmic dust. This second view 
recelves no support from experiment. 

The photographie action of light is di- 
minished at the temperature of liquid air 
to about twenty per cent. of its ordinary 
efficiency, and at the still lower tempera- 
ture of liquid hydrogen only about ten 
per cent. of the original sensitivity re- 
At the temperature of liquid air 
or liquid hydrogen a large range of organic 
bodies and many inorganic ones acquire 
under exposure to violet light the property 
of phosphorescence. Such bodies glow 
faintly so long as they are kept cold, but 
become exceedingly brilliant during the 
period when the temperature is rising. 
Even solid air is a phosphorescent body. 
All the alkaline earth sulphides which 
phosphoresce brilliantly at the ordinary 
temperature lose this property when 
cooled, to be revived on heating; but such 
bodies in the first instance may be stimu- 
lated through the absorption of light at 
the lowest temperatures. Radio-active 
bodies, on the other hand, like radium, 
which are naturally self-luminous, main- 
tain this luminosity unimpaired at the very 
lowest temperatures, and are still capable 
of inducing phosphorescence in bodies like 
the platino-ecyanides. Some crystals be- 
come for a time self-luminous when cooled 
in liquid air or hydrogen, owing to the in- 
duced electric stimulation causing dis- 
charges between the crystal molecules. 
This phenomenon is very pronounced with 
nitrate of uranium and some _platino- 
cyanides. 

In conjunction with Professor Fleming 
a long series of experiments was made on 
the electric and magnetic properties of 
bodies at low temperatures. The subjects 
that have been under investigation may be 


mains. 


OcTOBER 17, 1902. ] 


classified as follows: ‘The Thermo-Hlectric 
Powers of Pure Metals’; ‘The Magnetic 
Properties of Iron and Steel’; ‘Dielectric 
Constants’; ‘The Magnetic and Electric 
Constants of Liquid Oxygen’; ‘Magnetic 
Susceptibility.’ 

The investigations have shown that elec- 
trie conductivity in pure metals varies al- 
most inversely as the absolute temperature 
down to minus 200 degrees, but that this 
law is greatly affected by the presence of 
the most minute amount of impurity. 
Hence the results amount to a proof that 
electric resistance in pure metals is closely 
dependent upon the molecular or atomic 
motion which gives rise to temperature, 
and that the process by which the energy 
constituting what is called an electric cur- 
rent is dissipated essentially depends upon 
non-homogeneity of structure and upon 
the absolute temperature of the material. 
It might be inferred that at the zero of 
absolute temperature resistance would 
vanish altogether, and all pure metals be- 
come perfect conductors of electricity. 
This conclusion, however, has been ren- 
dered very doubtful by subsequent obser- 
vations made at still lower temperatures, 
which appear to point to an ultimate finite 
resistance. Thus the temperature at which 
copper was assumed to have no resistance 
was minus 223 degrees, but that metal has 
been cooled to minus 253 degrees without 
getting rid of all resistance. The reduc- 
tion in resistance of some of the metals at 
the boiling-point of hydrogen is very re- 
markable. Thus copper has only one per 
cent., gold and platinum three per cent., 
and silver four per cent. of the resistance 
they possessed at zero C., but iron still re- 
tains twelve per cent. of its initial resist- 
ance. In the case of alloys and impure 
metals, cold brings about a much smaller 
decrease in resistivity, and in the ease of 
carbon and insulators like guttapercha, 


SCIENCE. 


629 


glass, ebonite, ete., their resistivity steadily 
increases. The enormous increase in re- 
sistance of bismuth when transversely mag- 
netized and cooled was also discovered in 
the course of these experiments. The study 
of dielectric constants at low temperatures 
has resulted in the discovery of some inter- 
esting facts. A fundamental deduction 
from Maxwell’s theory is that the square 
of the refractive index of a body should be 
the same number as its dielectric constant. 
So far, however, from this being the case 
generally, the exceptions are far more nu- 
merous than the coincidences. It has been 
shown in the case of many substances, such 
as ice and glass, that an increase in the 
frequency of the alternating electromotive 
force results in a reduction of the dielectric 
constant to a value more consistent with 
Maxwell’s law. By experiments upon 
many substances it is shown that even a 
moderate increase of frequency brings the 
large dielectric constant to values quite 
near to that required by Maxwell’s law. 
It was thus shown that low temperature 
has the same effect as high frequency in 
annulling the abnormal dielectric values. 
The exact measurement of the dielectric 
constant of liquid oxygen as well as its 
magnetic permeability, combined with the 
optical determination of the refractive in- 
dex, showed that liquid oxygen strictly 
obeys Maxwell’s electro-optic law even at 
very low electric frequencies. In magnetie 
work the result of greatest value is the 
proof that magnetic susceptibility varies 
inversely as the absolute temperature. 
This shows that the magnetization of para- 
magnetic bodies is an affair of orientation 
of molecules, and it suggests that at the 
absolute zero all the feebly paramagnetic 
bodies will be strongly magnetic. The 
diamagnetism of bismuth was found to be 
increased at low temperatures. The mag- 
netic moment of a steel magnet is tempo- 


630 


rarily increased by cooling in liquid air, 
but the increase seems to have reached a 
limit, because on further cooling to the 
temperature of liquid hydrogen hardly any 
further change was observed. The study 
of the thermo-electrie relations of the met- 
als at low temperatures resulted in a great 
extension of the well-known Tait thermo- 
electric diagram. Tait found that the 
thermo-electriec power of the metals could 
be expressed by a linear function of the 
absolute temperature, but at the extreme 
range of temperature now under considera- 
tion this law was found not to hold gen- 
erally; and further, it appeared that many 
abrupt electric changes take place, which 
originate probably from specific molecular 
changes occurring in the metal. The 
thermo-electrie neutral points of certain 
metals, such as lead and gold, which are 
located about or below the boiling-point of 
hydrogen, have been found to be a conven- 
ient means of defining specific tempera- 
tures in this exceptional part of the scale. 

The effect of cold upon the life of living 
organisms is a matter of great intrinsic in- 
terest, as well as of wide theoretical im- 
portance. Experiment indicates that mod- 
erately high temperatures are much more 
fatal, at least to the lower forms of life, 
than are exceedingly low ones. Professor 
McKendrick froze for an hour at a tem- 
perature of 182° C. samples of meat, milk, 
ete., in sealed tubes; when these were 
opened after being kept at blood heat for 
a few days, their contents were found to be 
quite putrid. More recently some more 
elaborate tests were carried out at the Jen- 
ner Institute of Preventive Medicine on a 
series of typical bacteria. These were ex- 
posed to the temperature of liquid air for 
twenty hours, but their vitality was not 
affected, their functional activities re- 
mained unimpaired, and the cultures which 
they yielded were normal in every respect. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 407. 


The same result was obtained when liquid 
hydrogen was substituted for air. A sim- 
ilar persistence of life in seeds has been 
demonstrated even at the lowest tempera- 
tures; they were frozen for over a hundred 
hours in liquid air, at the instance of 
Messrs. Brown and Esecombe, with no other 
result than to affect their protoplasm with 
a certain inertness, from which it recovered 
with warmth. Subsequently commercial 
samples of barley, pea, vegetable marrow, 
and mustard seeds were literally steeped 
for six hours in liquid hydrogen at the 
Royal Institution, yet when they were sown 
by Sir W. T. Thiselton Dyer at Kew in the 
ordinary way, the proportion in which ger- 
mination occurred was no less than in the 
other batches of the same seeds which had 
suffered no abnormal treatment. Bacteria 
are minute vegetable cells, the standard of 
measurement for which is the ‘mikron.’ 
Yet it has been found possible to completely 
triturate these microscopic cells, when the 
operation is carried out at the temperature 
of liquid air, the cells then being frozen 
into hard breakable masses. The typhoid 
organism has been treated in this way, and 
the cell plasma obtained for the purpose 
of studying its toxic and immunizing prop- 
erties. It would hardly have been antici- 
pated that liquid air should find such im- 
mediate application in biological research. 
A research by Professor Macfadyen, just 
concluded, has shown that many varieties 
of microorganisms can be exposed to the 
temperature of liquid air for a period of 
six months without any appreciable loss of 
vitality, although at such a temperature the 
ordinary chemical processes of the cell 
must cease. At such a _ temperature 
the cells cannot be said to be either 
alive or dead, in the ordinary  ac- 
ceptation of these words. It is a 
and hitherto unobtained condition 
of living matter—a third state. A final in- 


new 


OCTOBER 17, 1902. ] 


stance of the application of the above meth- 
ods may be given. Certain species of bac- 
teria during the course of their vital proc- 
esses are capable of emitting light. If, 
however, the cells be broken up at the tem- 
perature of liquid air, and the crushed con- 
tents brought to the ordinary temperature, 
the luminosity ‘function is found to have 
disappeared. This points to the luminosity 
not being due to the action of a ferment— 
a ‘Luciferase’-—but as being essentially 
bound up with the vital processes of the 
cells, and dependent for its production on 
the intact organization of the cell. These 
attempts to study by frigorifie methods the 
physiology of the cell have already yielded 
valuable and encouraging results, and it is 
to be hoped that this line of investigation 
will continue to be vigorously prosecuted 
at the Jenner Institute. 

And now, to conclude an address which 
must have sorely taxed your patience, I 
may remind you that I commenced by re- 
ferring to the plaint of Elizabethan sci- 
ence, that cold was not a natural available 
product. In the course of a long struggle 
with nature, man, by the application of in- 
telligent and steady industry, has acquired 
a control over this agency which enables 
him to produce it at will, and with aimost 
any degree of intensity, short of a limit 
defined by the very nature of things. But 
the success in working what appears, at 
first sight, to be a quarry of research that 
would soon suffer exhaustion, has only 
brought him to the threshold of new laby- 
rinths, the entanglements of which frus- 
trate, with a seemingly invulnerable com- 
plexity, the hopes of further progress. In 
a legitimate sense all genuine scientific 
workers feel that they are ‘the inheritors 
of unfulfilled renown.’ The battlefields of 
science are the centers of a perpetual war- 
fare, in which there is no hope of final 
victory, although partial conquest is ever 


SCIENCE. 


631 


triumphantly encouraging the continuance 
of the disciplined and strenuous attack on 
the seemingly impregnable fortress of Na- 
ture. To serve in the scientific army, to 
have shown some initiative, and to be re- 
warded by the consciousness that in the 
eyes of his comrades he bears the accredited 
accolade of successful endeavor, is enough 
to satisfy the legitimate ambition of every 
earnest student of Nature. The real war- 
ranty that the march of progress in the 
future will be as glorious as in the past lies 
in the perpetual reinforcement of the sci- 
entific ranks by recruits animated by such 
a spirit, and proud to obtain such a re- 
ward. 
JAMES DEWAR. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


Notes on Naval Progress. July, 1902. Office 
of Naval Intelligence. Washington, Goy- 
ernment Printing Office. 1902. 8vo. 
Paper. Pp. 502; over 100 illustrations, 
plates, maps, tables, ete. 

This very large and exceedingly valuable 
document constitutes No. XXI., General In- 
formation Series, of the Office of Naval In- 
telligence, a division of the Naval Organiza- 
tion which has now for many years been 
justifying its existence by great and increasing 
efficiency. Under the supervision of Captain 
Sigsbee, the present Chief Intelligence Officer, 
it is evidently fully maintaining its standing. 
The contributors to this bulky volume are 
usually young officers of the navy who exhibit 
that talent for exact, concise and comprehen- 
sive composition which is the distinguishing 
characteristic of a good official report, and that 
excellence in style which seems so common a 
talent with military and naval officers. The 
two probably necessarily go together and are 
the outcome of familiarity with, often a min- 
ute study of, the reports and writings of great 
commanders quite as much as of careful drill 
at the governmental technical schools. 

The volume in hand contains notes on ships 
and torpedo-boats, on ordnance and armor, 
on engineering progress, electricity, wireless 


632 


telegraphy, the naval mancuvres of 1901, the 
naval budgets of great powers for 1902-8, and 
on modern battle-ships, including particularly 
the Vittorio Emanuele. The papers are all 
written by experts in their several departments 
and are as full of information as is an egg of 
meat. 

Foreign naval powers are still increasing 
the magnitude and the offensive and defen- 
sive values of their battle-ships and cruisers 
and the big British and French navies espe- 
cially are making progress with their ‘subma- 
rines’ and their ‘submersibles.’ Both report 
favorably on the types already constructed and 
indicate steady improvement. The former is 
testing the Holland craft. ‘No. 1’ is afloat 
and performs well. She can travel four hun- 
dred miles unexposed to fire. A ‘ periscope’ 
permits a lookout being kept when completely 
submerged. The French Triton made a 
twenty-four hour trial, largely submerged, and 
during a part of the time in bad weather, and 
worked well. Many torpedo-boat destroyers 
are reported as attaining thirty knots on their 
contract trials. These vessels seem to be sub- 
ject to large risk of accident. 

In ordnance the tendency continues toward 
larger sizes of quick-firing guns and toward 
greater length for all classes of ordnance. In 
armor, the progress reported is in the direction 
of more efficient hardening and of a reduction 
in the thickness demanded to resist a stated 
impact of shot. In small arms, the small 
calibers persist and the ‘ automatic’ system of 
continuous self-operation is being steadily 
perfected. A smokeless powder is now adapted 
for each class of ordnance, large and small, 
and this kind of explosive has become stand- 
ard. The chemist is still seeking new and still 
more manageable and powerful compositions. 
Capped projectiles for heavy ordnance are suc- 
cessful, and a new device permits the produc- 
tion of a dense smoke at the point of explosion 
of the shell to confuse the enemy and discon- 
cert his batteries. Torpedoes are still holding 
an important place in the field of investiga- 
tion as well as in warfare, and there are no 
indications of the abandonment of this 
weapon. 

Water-tube - boilers, 


high steam-pressures 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 407. 


(fifteen to twenty atmospheres and upward), 
with triple and quadruple expansion engines, 
are the rule and triple screws are gaining 
ground under the stimulus of the example set 
by our own navy and the arguments of its 
Engineer-in-Chief, Admiral Melville. The 
steam-turbine is being steadily developed 
and reduced to useful service on a large 
seale in both the naval and the merchant ser- 
vice. Liquid fuels are being exploited, and 
coal-handling devices, for use at sea as well 
as in port, are being brought into practicable 
forms. 

There has been ‘a striking extension’ of 
the use of electricity in the internal minor 
services of the naval vessels of all nations, for 
the distribution of light and in the operation 
of guns and of machinery generally. The 
alternating current does not seem as yet suc- 
cessful. Voltages are usually low, but with a 
tendency toward elevation above the usual 
standard, which is about 80 volts minimum. 
Voltages of 120 and upward have been em- 
ployed with a tendency toward 200 as a maxi- 
mum limit. 

Wireless telegraphy has progressed wonder- 
fully, particularly in its range of action. 
The system is still imperfect, but is constantly 
being brought into practicable and useful 
form. All nations are experimenting with 
one or another of five best-known systems. 

Comparison of the type-ships of existing 
navies seems to be favorable to the naval engi- 
neering and architecture of the United States, 
as illustrated in its latest constructions; but 
it is evident that competition is developing 
sharply in all leading navies, and the outcome 
among’ those of the greater powers seems likely 
to prove to be almost as largely dependent upon 
the liberality permitted by the legislative de- 
partment as upon the genius of engineers, 
constructors and combatant officers. 

R. H. Tuursron. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

Tue closing (October) number of volume 
3 of the T'’ransactions of the American Mathe- 
matical Society contains the following papers: 
‘On the groups of order p”, which contain 
operators of order p™~, by G. A. Mil- 


OcTOBER 17, 1902.] 


ler; ‘On the circuits of plane curves,’ by C. 
A. Scott; ‘ Note on the real inflexions of plane 
curves, by C. A. Scott; ‘La théorie des 
plaques élastiques planes,’ by J. Hadamard; 
‘Covariants of systems of linear differential 
equations and applications to the theory of 
ruled surfaces,’ by E. J. Wilezynski; ‘On the 
rank, order and class of algebraic minimum 
curves, by A. S. Gale; ‘On superosculating 
quadric surfaces,’ by H. Maschke; ‘Algebraic 
transformations of a complex variable realized 
by linkages,’ by A. Emch; ‘ On the determina- 
tion of the distance between two points in 
space of m dimensions,’ by H. F. Blichfeldt; 
‘A definition of abstract groups,’ by E. H. 
Moore; notes and errata: volumes 1, 2, 3. 


THE opening (October) number of volume 
9 of the Bulletin of the American Mathemat- 
ical Society contains: ‘Some instructive exam- 
ples in the calculus of variations,’ by Oskar 
Bolza; ‘On the sufficient conditions in the eal- 
culus of variations,’ by E. R. Hedrick; ‘Some 
recent books on mechanies,’ by E. B. Wilson; 
‘On a new edition of Stolz’s Allgemeine Arith- 
metik, with an account of Peano’s definition 
of number,’ by E. V. Huntington; ‘ Lazarus 
Fuchs,’ by E. J. Wilczynski; ‘ Notes’; ‘ New 
Publications.’ The November Bulletin con- 
tains: ‘The Ninth Summer Meeting of the 
American Mathematical Society, by Edward 
Kasner; ‘The Meeting of Section A of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, Pittsburgh, Pa., June 28 to July 


3, 1902,’ by E. S. Crawley; ‘Second report 


on recent progress in the theory of groups of 
finite order, by G. A. Miller; ‘Shorter No- 
tices’; ‘Notes’; ‘New Publications.’ 


Tue September number of the Botanical 
Gazette contains the following papers: Dr. E. 
B. Copeland begins an historical and critical 
discussion of ‘The Rise of the Transpiration 
Stream,’ based upon an extended series of ex- 
periments that he carried on at the Hull 
Botanical Laboratory. The paper will be no- 
ticed more fully upon its completion. Harley 
P. Chamder publishes a revision of Nemophila, 
a genus which has occasioned considerable 
difference of opinion among Californian botan- 
ists. The author defines eighteen species and 


SCIENCE. 


633 


varieties, giving full discussion of critical 
points, synonymy, and citation of collections. 
Mr. W. C. Worsdell gives an account of his 
views concerning ‘The Evolution of the Vascu- 
lar Tissue of Plants,’ beginning with the solid 
stele, which he thinks was derived from some 
bryophytie ancestry, and which is displayed 
among the most primitive ferns, and also in 
the juvenile stages of all ferns. The various 
stages in the evolution of the vascular tissue 
from this condition the author describes and 
illustrates. Professor Conway MacMillan sug- 
gests a classification of seeds in accordance 
with modern ideas of their structure and func- 
tion. He gives general, structural, and genetic 
classifications. D. G. Fairchild describes 
Mimosa pudica as a weed in Ceylon, and re- 
produces a photograph of a large patch of it 
between Peradeniya and Colombo. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE NUCLEUS. 


1. Hiruerro the only irrefragable evidence 
showing that condensation is promoted by 
ionization, or in other words that negative 
ions are somewhat more active as condensation 
nuclei than positive ions, is the brilliant ex- 
periment devised by C. T. R. Wilson.* 
Nuclei are here produced by the X-rays in 
communicating condensation chambers, on the 
two sides of a vertical earthed metal plate, 
which receives electrical current normally on 
one side, through the ionized air, saturated with 
water vapor, and transmits the current in the 
same way and through the same medium on 
the other side. Necessarily there was an ex- 
cess of negative ions on one side of the plate 
and an excess of positive ions on the other 
side. It was found, on producing condensation 
by exhaustion simultaneously on both sides 
under like conditions, that the fogs subsided 
on the positive side many times as rapidly as 
they did on the negative side, or that the 
negative ions are in correspondingly greater 
number. The effect is increasingly marked 
for smaller supersaturations. 

9. On extending my work with shaken 
nuclei to solutions of non-conductors in non- 
conductors, such as naphthalene and of paraf- 

* Phil. Trans. Lond., Vol. 193, pp. 289-308, 1899. 


634 


fine in benzol, etc., I obtained results leading 
to the same interpretation as those already 
summarized for aqueous saline solutions in 
my last article. The nucleus is to be regarded 
as an exceedingly small droplet of concen- 
trated solution, which persists, inasmuch as the 
decreased vapor pressure due to solution, at a 
certain specific radius, is exactly counter- 
balanced by the increased vapor pressure due 
to convexity. Thus, as my direct experiments 
have long ago shown, the nucleus depends for 
its size, cet. par. on the medium in which it 
is produced or is generated; or in other words, 
on the medium into which any emanation is 
introduced or is generated. For if the nuclei 
are solutions, then the critical density and 
the diameter at which evaporation ceases for 
a given nucleus will depend on the quantity 
and kind of solute entrapped and on the vapor 
pressure equation in the broadest sense (in- 
volving temperature, surface tension, densi- 
ties, etc.) of the given medium. 

Tf this is true, then it seems doubtful to my 
mind whether the experiments of C. T. R. 
Wilson on the specific condensation effect of 
ionization can further be regarded as crucial. 

3. If one introduces nuclei or makes nuclei 
by aid of the X-rays, in what is virtually the 
acid and the alkaline side of a battery, even 
if the ionized moist air is the electrolyte, one 
is surely conveying nuclei inte, or making 
nuclei out of, different media. The stuff out 
of which solutes are to be fashioned may be 
available in different degrees on the two sides. 
Whatever chemical effect is produced on one 
side by the rays, need not at all be the same 
as on the other side, any more than the effect 
of shaking a very dilute solution need be the 
same as the effect of shaking a stronger solu- 
tion, where the results have been shown to be 
enormously different as to the number, the 
velocity and persistence of nuclei produced. 
Hence from the accumulating evidence which 
I have brought forward, I am led to infer that 
the two species of nuclei in Wilson’s experi- 
ment are, for mere chemical reasons, liable to 
be of different degrees of permanence, sizes 
and numbers, quite apart from the electric cir- 
cumstances involved. One cannot, therefore, 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 407. 


affirm that the difference (respectively posi- 
tive and negative) of ionization is the imme- 
diate and sole cause of the difference of pre- 
cipitation rates specified, or briefly that nega- 
tive ions precipitate more effectively than 
positive ions, because both a difference of 
ionization and a chemical difference is in- 
volved; and the right to assert that ionization 
and not the chemical difference is the vera 
causa may be called in question, when in every 
other case the phenomena may be explained in 
terms of the latter. 

I refer, of course, to immediate causes. 
Remotely, affinities and cohesions have the 
well-known electrical relations; but with re- 
mote causes I am not here concerned. 

4. Finally, if a marked difference in effi- 
cieney as condensation nuclei of positive and 
negative ions is granted, then any ionized 
emanation, neutral as a whole, like that from 
phosphorus, should produce two groups of 
nuclei. On condensation there should be two 
groups of coronal particles, interpenetrating 
and subsiding through each other in the way 
I have frequently witnessed in other experi- 
ments. No such effect has been observed. 
Phosphorus nuclei are rather remarkable for 


their identity, and the regular coronas ob- 


served even after twenty-five or fifty exhaus- 
tions. If there is any variation of size of 
nucleus, it is graded as seen in the haziness of 
planes of demarcation after long lapses of 
time. 

5. While these conclusions as to the origin 
of the different nuclei involve a theoretical 
difference from Wilson’s deductions, they are 
not at variance with his practical conclusions; 
for if, through any radiation agency two dif- 
ferent emanations are generated (with oppo- 
site charges or not), they would in a satu- 
rated medium correspond to two different 
nuclei, and the number of each kind and their 
diffusion rates in general, would also be dif- 
ferent. If they should, at the same time, be 
opposed in ionization, a separation of charges 
will result. Indeed if two or more groups of 
ionized nuclei be generated in any manner 
whatever, they are liable to have different 
number and speed constants and lead to a 
separation of charges, be it only by diffusion. 


OcToBER 17, 1902. ] 


But the case is much more definite, as the fol- 
lowing paragraphs may indicate. 

6. In this place I may again call attention 
to the fact that if retarded evaporation were 
effective in giving the nucleus permanence, if 
the observed dissipation of the nuclei of solu- 
tions were in any way dependent on evapora- 
tion, and not on the motion of nuclei, then 
those nuclei which are produced by shaking 
solutions of hygroscopic solutes like CaCl,, 
H,SO,, ete., which can not wholly evaporate 
their water, should be more stable than other 
saline nuclei. The results show emphatically 
that this is not the case. Nuclei generated 
from hygroscopic bodies and their rate of 
evanescence is not exceptional and is no 
greater in the first case nor less in the second 
than that of saline bodies in general. Hence 
if the nucleus is necessarily a solution in case 
of the former solutes (CaCl, etc.), it is reason- 
able to suppose it always to be. I have found 
that the pressure decrement 6 p <2 cm. of 
mercury (the limit is lower, but my apparatus 
in its present form does not allow me to go 
below this) is more than sufficient to precipi- 
tate the nuclei produced by shaking. For 
such small decrements the equation .29 
dp/p=60/ (273-++- 4), where @ is the temperature 
in degrees Centigrade, may be assumed. Now 
the decrement of vapor pressure, oz, corre- 
sponding to 60, is at 20° about dz=.11 00; 
whence dz —.25 em. for the observed excessive 
dp. In other words, the vapor depression of 
a few millimeters is certainly much more than 
is required to stop the evaporation of the 
nucleus; so that if this depression is to be 
due to the solute, the solution need not even 
be very concentrated. For the case of H,SO, 
at 20°, the nucleus would hold more than 
seventy-five per cent. of water in a saturated 
atmosphere, and at lower temperatures much 
greater dilution would suffice. 

7. Inasmuch, therefore, as the nucleus, from 
my point of view, occurs under conditions of 
potential growth from a few molecules of dry 
solute to a relatively weak solution, as the air 
becomes more and more saturated, this growth 
and diminution must be a common occurrence 
in nature. The persistent atmospheric nuclei 
will be more dilute from the surface of the 


SCIENCE. 


635 


earth upward. The question then arises wheth- 
er such growth or change of concentration is 
accompanied by electric charge quite apart 
from what is usually known as ionization 
(demonstrable presence of non-saturated 
chemical valencies); in other words, whether 
any change of size of these excessively fine par- 
ticles is reciprocally accompanied by surface 
electrification. To be more specific: In an inves- 
tigation published in 1892, Lenard showed that 
in presence of air pure water is electropositive, 
a circumstance which he attributes to a mere 
Volta contact effect. It needs but a trace of 
saline solute to reverse the potential. Solu- 
tions in presence of air are electronegative, 
and more so as a rule, as the concentration 
increases up to_a definite value (6.5 per cent. 
in case of NaCl) for which the negative charge 
is a maximum. After this as concentration 
increases the potential gradually tends toward 
zero (attained for a solution stronger than 
about twenty-five per cent., in case of NaCl). 
Removal of nuclei by condensation and sub- 
sidence is then virtually a removal of nega- 
tive electricity, provided the positive air 
charge is not simultaneously removed. Here 
then the possibility of a mechanism, in virtue 
of which growth or increasing dilution is 
associated with increased negative charge for 
the nucleus, is actually at hand; but the diffi- 
culty at present rests with the removal of the 
air charge. 

8. Briefly then, the point which I wish to 
make is that the occurrence of charge is inci- 
dent and not causal to the existence of the 
nucleus. What conditions its persistence and 
condensational activity is purely thermo- 
dynamic. What conditions the efficiency of 
electric transfer is a secondary property, open 
to investigation though as yet but little under- 
stood, and which even in the same nucleus is 
present in very variable amount or may even 
be quite absent. The phenomenon in its elec- 
tric aspects depends, therefore, fundamentally 
on the critical density at which evaporation 
ceases. 

In the above paragraphs I have endeavored 
to indicate how the current lines of argument 
bearing more or less remotely on atmospheric 
electricity at present stand; to point out that 


636 


none of them have as yet, to my thinking, 
been traced to an issue; and to show the direc- 
tion in which I hope myself to contribute. 
C. Barus. 
Brown UNIVERSITY, 
PROVIDENCE, R. I. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 
RIVERS OF SOUTHERN INDIANA. 

CERTAIN recent essays that might be gathered 
under the general title, ‘Studies of River 
Development,’ are of interest beyond that 
which concerns the locality that they treat, 
inasmuch as they illustrate the degree to 
which one of the most important divisions of 
physiographic theory finds practical applica- 
tion. 

The ‘ Drainage of Southern Indiana,’ largely 
outside of the glaciated area, is explained by 
Newsom (Jowr. Geol., Vol. X., 1902, pp. 166- 
180, map) as ‘such as would be logically devel- 
oped in a country of such combination of hard 
and soft southwestward dipping strata’ as 
are here found; that is, there are two north- 
south cuestas formed by the Niagara lime- 
stone and the Knobstone standstone, with re- 
spect to which the streams are rather system- 
atically arranged, in what seem to be conse- 
quent, subsequent and-obsequent courses. The 
author implies an improbably close agreement 
between the original extent and the present 
outcrops of certain formations in suggesting 
that a certain stream, which follows a longi- 
tudinal course on weak strata, was deflected 
into such a course by the sandstones of the 
next west-lying cuesta when the ‘region was 
first elevated.’ The explanation offered for 
the behavior of one of the master consequents 
(East White river) in gathering a number of 
branches from the back (western) slope of the 
low Niagara cuesta and leading them westward 
through a notch in the next following Knob- 
stone cuesta, would have been- strengthened if 
it had been presented as exemplifying a type- 
pattern of drainage well known elsewhere. 
Indeed, inasmuch as this essay is addressed to 
professional readers, the essential features of 
the streams might have been more tersely pre- 
sented in several instances, had they been 
named in accordance with a consistent termi- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 407. 


nology and thus shown to belong to well-recog- 
nized classes, rather than described in para- 
phrases as if they had no relatives elsewhere. 
The close approach of the Ohio to one of the 
headwaters of East White river seems to indi- 
cate a great and relatively recent increase in 
the volume of the Ohio, such as has been in- 
ferred from other evidence elsewhere. 


RIVERS OF SOUTH WALES. 

THE most notable characteristic of Stra- 
han’s ‘Origin of the River-system of South 
Wales’? (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., LVIIL., 
1902, 207-225, map) is the neglect of the cap- 
ture of headwaters of initial consequent 
streams by the growth of associated subse- 
quent streams along belts of weak strata. It 
is shown on good evidence that many streams 
in the Paleozoic area of South Wales pay no 
attention to the strong east-west folding or 
to the pronounced north-northwest faulting 
of the region; and it is reasonably inferred 
that they were superposed on the previously 
much denuded Paleozoic area through a cover 
of Chalk; but in certain localities where the 
streams follow a northeast-southwest system 
of disturbances, a late date is given to the 
disturbances and the streams are made local- 
ly consequent upon them. It is recognized 
that since superposition there has been great 
denudation, whereby strong relief has been 
developed appropriate to the resistance of 
the rocks; but no accompanying adjustment 
of streams to structures (except in an alto- 
gether minor case) is considered, although it 
is rather clear that a number of captures must 
have taken place, as in the growth of the Usk 
headwaters on the Old Red sandstones north 
of a resistant Carboniferous escarpment and 
in the associated beheading of several streams 
south of the Usk. The theory of the adjust- 
ment of streams to structures is altogether too 
well demonstrated to be set aside as ‘ trans- 
eressing the limits of legitimate speculation.’ 
Yet in accordance with the tacit postulate 
that all rivers are of consequent origin, Stra- 
han reverts to Ramsay’s theory of an anti- 
cline to form the divide between the Thames 
and the Severn. Much of the evidence against 
this obsolescent solution of the Thames-Severn 


OcTOBER 17, 1902. | 


problem is presented in a somewhat polemical 
reply by Buckman, entitled ‘River Develop- 
ment’ (Geol. Mag., Vol. IX., 1902, pp. 366— 
375). 

DISSECTION OF LACCOLITHS. 

AN ingenious use of physiographic methods 
has been made by Jaggar in discussing the 
former size of the laccolith of which the fa- 
mous butte, Mato Tepee, northwest of the 
Black Hills, is believed to be a remnant (The 
Laccoliths of the Black Hills,’ 21st Ann. Rep. 
U.S. Geol. Surv., Pt. III, pp. 163-303). Suc- 
cessive stages in the dissection of laccoliths 
are summarized about as follows: An early 
stage produces a dome-shaped hill with radial 
drainage. One radial stream gains adyan- 
tage over its fellows and eats out the soft 
stratum beneath the central portion of the 
dome; the outward dipping hard beds are 
undermined and drainage formerly radial 
outward (consequent) becomes radial inward 
(obsequent); a former mountain becomes a 
quaquaversal basin inclosed by a horseshoe 
ridge. Recession of this ridge and continued 
erosion on the soft bed uncover a deeper 
dome of harder rock. Monoclinal shifting of 
the streams on the soft bed becomes easier 
than deep cutting into the dome, and thus 
an encircling (subsequent) valley is devel- 
oped with a new series of radial streams (re- 
sequent) from the stripped mountain core. 
This alternation from mountain to basin will 
continue until the igneous mass is discovered; 
if its upper surface is strongly convex, mono- 
clinical shifting will withdraw the encircling 
valley from it, leaving an igneous dome 
with radial ravines; if the upper surface is 
but slightly convex, the innermost annular 
streams may be superposed on the laccolith 
somewhat within its periphery; and still later 
they may be superposed on the bedded rocks 
beneath the laccolith. The last condition is 
thought to oceur around Mato Tepee, whose 
bold column is therefore interpreted to be 
the remnant of a laccolithic sill about a mile 
and a half in diameter. W. M. Davis. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 
Dr. Cuarzes 8S. Minot, professor of histology 
and embryology in the Harvard Medical 
School, was given the degree of Doctor of 


SCIENCE. 


637 


Science at Oxford University, on the occasion 
of the tercentenary of the Bodleian Library. 


We learn from the Naturwissenschaftliche 
Rundschau that, on the oceasion of the jubilee 
of Abel at Christiania, the honorary doctorate 
was conferred on the following German mathe- 
maticians: Professor Georg Cantor (Halle), 
Professor J. W. R. Dedekind (Brunswick), 
Professor David Hilbert (Géttingen), Profess- 
or Felix Klein (Géttingen), Professor Leo 
Konigsberger (Heidelberg), Professor H. A. 
Schwarz (Berlin), Professor Heinrich Weber 
(Strassburg), Professor Ludwig Blotzmann 
(Vienna). 

Av the first autumn meeting of the Ameri- 
can Academy of Arts and Sciences, of Boston, 
Professor Luigi Cremona, of Rome; Professor 
J. J. Thomson, of Cambridge, England; Pro- 
fessor Emil Behring, of Marburg, and John 
Morley, Esq., of London, were elected foreign 
honorary members; and President Hadley, of 
Yale University, was elected an associate fel- 
low. President Agassiz gave an account of 
his observations on the coral reefs of the Mal- 
dives in the Indian Ocean, and Mr. H. H. 
Clayton spoke on the observed movements of 
the dust from the volcanic eruptions in the 
West Indies and their bearing on theories of 
atmospheric circulation. 


Dr. S. P. Lancury, secretary of the Smith- 
sonian Institution, has returned to Washing- 
ton from Europe. 


Mr. Frepertck V. Covinir, of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, has returned to Washing- 
ton from a botanical expedition to the Klamath 
country, Oregon. It is understood that a 
part of his work has been ethno-botanical. 


V. I. JocHretson, one of the explorers of the 
American Museum of Natural History, has 
arrived at Moscow on his way to New York. 
He has been making ethnographical studies 
and collections in the Amur and Yakoust ter- 
ritories for two years. 

Proressor B. E. Fernow, professor of for- 
estry of Cornell University, has been requested 
to advise the New York park commissioners as 
to the best policy to pursue in regard to the 
trees in Central Park, which are thought to be 
suffering from lack of sufficient earth. 


638 


Mr. Epwiy C. Ecxret has resigned from the 
staff of the New York State Museum at Al- 
bany to accept a position under the U. S. 
Geological Survey at Washington. 

Kucut Miyaxr, Ph.D. (Cornell, 1902), has 
recently received an appointment from the 
government of Formosa for two years’ travel 
and study in Europe. Dr. Miyake is a gradu- 
ate of the Doshisha College in Japan, after- 
wards spending four years at the Tokyo Im- 
perial University. He entered Cornell Uni- 
versity in September, 1899, where he spent 
two years in continuing his graduate work, 
giving especial attention to fertilization and 
embryology in the Phycomycetes and in the 
Abietine. He sailed from New York for 
Bonn on October 7. 


Dr. Max Prorpst has been advanced, by 
royal decree, from the position of director of 
the Royal Statistical Bureau of Bavaria to 


that of an independent chief directorship, and_ 


the Order of Merit has been bestowed on him 
in recognition of his services. Dr. Karl Trutz- 
er now assumes the position formerly held by 
Dr. Proebst. 


Kina Oscar, of Sweden, has bestowed the 
Grand Cross of St. Olaf on Capt. Otto Sver- 
drup, the arctic explorer, and has given him 
an annual allowance of $800. 


Tue eightieth birthday of John Fritz, iron- 
master and inventor, of Bethlehem, Pa., will 
be celebrated by a dinner given in his honor 
at the Waldorf-Astoria, in the ballroom, on 
Friday, October 31. The dinner will also sig- 
nalize the founding of the John Fritz gold 
medal, for achievement in the industrial sci- 
ences, the medal to be awarded annually by a 
committee of members of the American So- 
ciety of Civil Engineers, the American Society 
of Mechanical Engineers, the American Insti- 
tute of Mining Engineers and the American 
Institute of Electrical Engineers. The organ- 
izing committee having the matter in charge 
on behalf of these societies has already raised 
$6,000, representing the contributions of some 
500 members of the engineering professions 
in this country and in Europe. The medal has 
been entrusted to the American sculptor, Vic- 
tor D. Brenner. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 407. 


Mr. Jacosp Ricnarps DopGE, connected with 
the department of agriculture from its organi- 
zation in 1862 until he retired in 1893, and 
known for his contributions to agriculture and 
statistics, died at Woburn on October 7, at the 
age of seventy-nine years. 

Tue death is announced of two well-known 
American physicians: Dr. John Bryne, past 
president of the American Gynecological So- 
ciety, and Dr. Abel M. Phelps, past president 
of the American Orthopedic Society. 

Dr. Joun Hatt Guiapstone, F.R.S., known 
for his researches on chemical combinations 
and the relations of chemical and optical sci- 
ence, formerly professor of chemistry at the 
Royal Institution, died on October 7, at the 
age of seventy-five years. 


Dr. B. J. Stoxvis, professor of pharmacology 
and general pathology at the University of 
Amsterdam, died on September 29, at the age 
of sixty-eight years. 

Dr. Jean Hapet, of Berlin, known for his 
explorations in the Andes and in Canada, 
died on September 11. 


M. Vincent LecHe CHESNEVIEUX, the French 
traveler and geologist, has died at the age of 
eighty-six years. 

Tue twelfth annual meeting of the Ohio 
Academy of Science will be held at Columbus, 
November 28 and 29. Members desiring to 
present papers are requested to send titles and 
time required to the secretary on or before 
November 1. 

Av the first meeting of the Geological Con- 
ference of Harvard University, informal 
reports were made by officers of the Division 
of Geology on their summer work. Professor 
Shaler spent part of the summer in Alaska, 
noting especially the mountain forms and 
fiords of our northwestern coast. Professor 
Davis, accompanied by two advanced stu- 
dents, made an excursion through southern 
Utah and northern Arizona, visiting the 
Colorado Canyon at Toroweap valley, and 
making special study of the Hurricane fault; 
he afterwards examined some of the Basin 
ranges and the Tertiaries at Green river. Pro- 
fessor Wolff completed the Franklin folio, New 
Jersey, for the U. S. Geological Survey, and 


OcTOBER 17, 1902. ] 


continued his field work on the ancient crystal- 
line rocks of Berkshire county, Mass. Pro- 
fessor Smyth made a brief visit to the Lake 
Superior district, and then went to Colorado, 
where he made an extended reconnaissance 
of the mining camps on the Yukon and at 
Cape Nome. Professor Jackson and Mr. 
Cushman spent some time collecting fossils in 
the Helderbergs and Catskills of eastern New 
York. Professor Woodworth continued his 
work for the N. Y. State Geological Survey on 
the glacial geology of the Hudson and Cham- 
plain valleys and around the northern side of 
the Adirondacks. Professor Palache was 
engaged on office work following field studies 
of a year ago on the geology of Bradshaw 
mountains, Arizona, for the U. S. Geological 
Survey. Dr. Jaggar went to Martinique and 
St. Vincent in May on the U. S. relief ship, 
Dixie, and remained in the West Indies until 
the end of July. Mr. Raymer conducted a 
summer course for students in mining, making 
practical study of mines and works in and 
about Denver, Silverton, Telluride, Leadville 
and Salt Lake City. Mr. White led a party 
of geological and mining students through 
southern Colorado, visiting La Plata moun- 
tains, Animas Canyon and the San Juan dis- 
trict; after the party disbanded, Mr. White 
examined various mining and reduction plants 
in Colorado and Utah. 


An Intercollegiate Geological Excursion, 
similar to the one a year ago at Westfield, 
Mass., in which six colleges and as many pre- 
paratory secondary schools were represented 
by forty-six participants, is proposed for Sat- 
urday, November 1, under the leadership of 
Professor B. K. Emerson, of Amherst Col- 
lege. The party will gather on Friday even- 
ing at the Cooley House, Springfield, Mass. 
On Saturday morning the 8:30 train will be 
taken to Holyoke, and the day will be spent 
on the Mount Tom trap range, returning to 
Holyoke in time for evening trains in all 
directions. The chief features to be seen are 
the structure of the Triassic trap sheets and 
sandstones; contacts of the trap with the un- 
derlying and overlying sandstones; fossil foot- 
prints in the sandstones, glacial deposits and 
terraces along the Connecticut river. Teach- 


SCIENCE. 


639 


ers and students of geology who desire to 
join the excursion are requested to communi- 
cate with Professor Emerson not later than 
October 26. 

Dr. F. L. Ransome has just completed a 
comprehensive report on the geology and ore 
deposits of the Globe copper district, Arizona, 
for the United States Geological Survey. 
The region is dissected by a remarkable net- 
work of faults, of various geologic ages, and 
the occurrence of the ores is related to some 
of the older of these fissures. The copper ores 
hitherto mined in the district have been oxi- 
dized and are consequently free from sulphur, 
but the exploitation of the deeper sulphide 
ores 1s yet in its infancy. The district has 
produced in the neighborhood of 120,000,000 
pounds of copper. The greater part of this 
output has come from the Old Dominion 
mine, which has for years been working large 
bodies of oxidized ore found in limestone oc- 
curring by the side of a strong fault. Dur- 
ing the present season Dr. Ransome is to 
continue the investigation of the copper de- 
posits of Arizona by undertaking a detailed 
geologic study of the Bisbee district, in which 
is the well-known Copper Queen mine. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

THERE will be erected this year for Wesleyan 
University a physical laboratory, given by the 
alumni. It is expected that this and a new 
college hall will be ready for dedication in 
July, 1903, when the college will celebrate the 
tercentenary of the birth of John Wesley. It 
is also announced that a new astronomical 
observatory will be erected at a cost of $40,000, 
the money having been provided by a brother 
of Professor J. M. Van Vleck, professor of 
mathematics and astronomy and vice-president 
of the University. 

At the recent meeting of the board of trus- 
tees of Columbia University it was announced 
that $7,500 had been given by citizens of New 
York to support the chair of social and polit- 
ieal ethies, to which Dr. Felix Adler has been 
called. $10,000 has been given anonymously 
for the purchase of books for the library and 
$1,300 has been given by Mr. J. H. Hyde and 
Mr. F. R. Coudert, Jr., for two scholarships 


640 


for students studying in France, the arrange- 
ments for which we have already announced. 
Presipent Harper has announced that plans 


are being made for a school of technology as 


part of the University of Chicago. 

Tue Hon. Carroll D. Wright, U. S. Com- 
missioner of Labor, was installed as president 
of the new collegiate department of Clark 
University on October 9. Addresses were 
made by Senators Hoar and Lodge and by Dr. 
Hall, president of the University. President 
Wright made an address on the relations be- 
tween college training and citizenship after 
having outlined the purposes of the new col- 
lege, which, he said, opened auspiciously with 
an entering class of seventy-nine students. It 
is expected that President Wright will take 
up his residence in Worcester in about two 
years. 

Tue inauguration of Dr. Frank Strong, for- 
merly of the University of Oregon, as chan- 
cellor of the University of Kansas, will take 
place on Friday, October 17. On the Thurs- 
day afternoon preceding there will be a meet- 
ing of the Kansas City Section of the Ameri- 
can Chemical Society at Lawrence, with the 
reading of papers, and in the evening Dr. Har- 
vey W. Wiley, of Washington, D. C., will deliv- 
er the address of dedication of the chemistry 
building, his subject being ‘ The Réle of Chem- 
istry in University Education.’ At the inau- 
guration exercises President Arthur Hadley, of 
Yale, Chancellor Strong, Governor Stanley, 
Regent Scott Hopkins, President Murlin, of 
Baker University, Principal Whittemore, of 
Topeka, Professor W. H. Carruth, A. C. Scott 
and others will participate. In the evening it 
is proposed to have an inauguration luncheon 
in the new natural history museum, which is 
nearly completed, with after-dinner speeches 
by numerous college presidents and educators. 

Tue Rey. Dr. G. M. Ward has resigned the 
presidency of Rollins College, Winter Park, 
Florida. 

Dr. D. W. Herine, professor of physics in 
New York University, has been elected dean of 
the graduate school. 

Dr. Joun H. Haumonp, recently appointed 
professor of mining at Yale University, will 
not reside at New Haven. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Von. XVI. No. 407. 


Ar Yale University, Dr. Milton B. Porter 
has been promoted to an assistant professor- 
ship in mathematics, and Dr. William R. Coe 
to an assistant professorship in anatomy. 


W. G. Capy, Ph.D. (Berlin), now in the 
Coast and Geodetic Survey, has been ap- 
pointed to an associate professorship of physics 
at Wesleyan University, vacant by the resig- 
nation of Professor EK. B. Rosa, to accept a 
position in the Bureau of Standards. 


At the State School of Mines, Golden, Colo., 
Mr. C. W. L. Filkins, of the engineer’s staff 
of Cornell University, has been appointed 
professor of civil and mining engineering. 
Mr. H. C. Berry has been appointed instructor 
in algebra and field surveying, and Mr. E. W. 
Gebhardt has been appointed instructor in 
trigonometry and analytical and descriptive 
geometry. Professor W. C. King, of the Mon- 
tana School of Mines, has been appointed 
professor of a new chair, metallurgy and min- 
ing. Professor King will not begin his work 
until about the middle of the year. 

In the University of Michigan Dr. M. Gom- 
berg has been advanced to the rank of junior 
professor of organic chemistry. 


Dr. Harotp Penner, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins, 
1901), has been appointed instructor in phys- 
ics in Syracuse University. In the same de- 
partment, Dr. Frederick A. Saunders, Ph.D. 
(Johns Hopkins, 1899), formerly instructor, 
has been made associate professor. 

Mr. Wituram A. Hamitron, of Chicago Uni- 
versity, has been appointed to the instructor- 
ship in astronomy and mathematics at Beloit 
College, left vacant by the resignation of 
Professor George Bacon, who has been called 
to the chair of physics in Worcester Univer- 
sity. 

Tue chair of hygiene at McGill University, 
vacant by the death of Dr. Wyatt Johnston, 
has been offered to Dr. E. A. Hankin, bac- 
teriologist to the government of India, but has 
been declined by him. 


Dr. JoHANNes OrtH, professor of patho- 
logical anatomy at the University of Gdot- 
tingen, succeeds the late Professor Virchow in 
the chair of pathological anatomy at the Uni- 
versity of Berlin. 


Sele NCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE : S. NEwcomB, Mathematics; R. S. WoopwaRp, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THuRsToN, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BrssEY, N. L. Brirron, Botany ; C. S. MINot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. BILLINGs, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. WELCH, 

Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Fray, Octoper 24, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


The Carnegie Institution: PROFESSOR BASH- 
FoRD DEAN, PROFESSOR GEORGE BRUCE 
Hatstep, Dr. A. S. Packarp, Henry HELM 
Ciayton, AKSEL G. S. Josepuson, Dr. A. 

C. Trun, Proressor JoHN M. Coutter.... 641 
The British Association. A Retrospect..... 653 
Scientific Books :— 

Brlich’s Seitenkettentheorie: Dr. Gro. M. 

SLERNBERGHE Pre cinbiyAtrrctskeiomietcielsieiental 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 

Some Matters of Fact Overlooked by Pro- 

fessor Wilson: PRoFEssor C. O. WHITMAN. 

The Marine Biological Laboratory and the 

Carnegie Institution: Dr. Epw. G. Gar- 

DINER, PRoFESssoR J. McK®rEN CATTELL. 

Orange County Mastodons: F. A. Lucas.. 
Shorter Articles :— 

The Bitter Rot Disease of Apples: Dr, Hrr- 

MAN VON SCHRENK, PERLEY SPAULDING. The 

Tertiary of the Sabine River: E. T. Dum- 

BLE. A Note on Methods of Isolating Colon 

Bacilli: §S. C. Prescorr. The Eggs of 

Mosquitoes of the Genus Culex: Harrison 


664 


669 
Recent Zoopaleontology :— 


New Vertebrates of the Mid-Oretaceous: 


Instruction Offered in the Pishery Commis- 

sion Laboratory at Bergen: 
The Bureau of Ethnology.................. 676 
Scientific Notes and News...........<..... 
University and Educational News.......... 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 

OnE of the cardinal difficulties which 
must, I take it, be met speedily by the 
administrators of the Carnegie Fund (and 
the present discussion may aid in showing 
what some of the difficulties are) is the 
problem how to divide its benefits fairly. 
For, according to the deed of the bene- 
factor, the purpose of the gift is evidently 
to stimulate science in its widest accepta- 
tion, in all of its branches, applied, no 
less than theoretical. And to expend its 
goodly income on lines which will be in 
fullest keeping with the trust is by no 
means an easy task. Its trustees are bound 
to distribute its benefits fairly, but they 
may well be puzzled by the number and 
kinds of questions which require a practical 
answer. They have thus immediate oppor- 
tunities for investment, which are legiti- 
mate, attractive, and which may never 
befall them again—e. g., the acquisition of 
the Woods Hole station. They have also 
to deal with the importunate and well- 
deserving (colleges, societies, experimental 
stations, journals and individuals), some 
of whom, I faney, are aggrieved at not 
having already received an annual sop from 
the Carnegie funds. 

As a matter of fact, however, the Insti- 
tution, in spite of its ten millions of dol- 
lars, is yet too poor to yield the immediate 
and miraculous draught of scientific results 


642 


which many of us expected. For science 
in these days has so many branches that 
the Carnegie funds will be able to increase 
—as far as funds can—the yearly scientific 
activity, as Professor Cattell estimates, by 
only about one per cent. There are, roughly 
speaking, about thirty main departments of 
scientific work, and computing the income 
of the Institution at $300,000, the 
share of each department could hardly 
equal $10,000 a year. Moreover there is 
the important question of expense of ad- 
ministration to be considered. Some have 
even suggested that a central organization 
be amply housed, and at considerable ex- 
pense. But I for one fail to see that such 
an outlay would be for the greatest good 
of the scientific community. It would be 
rather, a delectable than an all-important 
thing to have a well-built and splendidly 
equipped Carnegie headquarters in Wash- 
ington, with a corps of high-salaried officials 
to give public lectures and to supervise 
select laboratories—at an expense of at 
least half the income of the institution. The 
main benefit in such a plan would, it seems 
to me, be too nearly local and individual to 
prove in best accord with the highest pur- 
poses of benefiting science. On the one 
hand the officials, chosen for eminence after 
they have done their major work, would, 
before many years, become quasi-pen- 
sioners, and unless they were removed ruth- 
lessly, say by an age limit, they would soon 
cause the Institution to lose touch with 
recent developments and recent needs in 
science. And on another hand the Institu- 
tion is not wealthy enough to run any risk 
of acquiring a political environment, or of 
evolving a highly specialized bureaucracy. 
And this risk is the less needful since the 
average investigator is apt to work for the 
benefit of the cause, unaffected by the stimu- 
lant possibility of some day being promoted 
to Washineton with a salary of $10,000, to 
sit in a conspicuous chair, and perhaps as 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 408. 


time goes on to have a gold-braided coat, 
frogged with gold acorns. Contrariwise, I 
feel strongly that the great purpose of the 
Institution would be best served if there 
were as little salaried officialdom as pos- 
sible for the actual administration of its 
affairs. And I faney that very few of the 
eminent scientists who are invited to be- 
come members of the committee, will refuse 
to act, and to act zealously and effectively, 
because they are not paid. 

The fair-division problem of the trustees, 
then, narrows itself down to this: What 
branches of science are to be looked upon 
as equivalent candidates for benefits? And 
which ones are to be favored to the detri- 
ment of others? And for what reasons? 
Looking over a classified list of the ‘sci- 
ences’ one can readily select thirty 
branches, each of which, like electrical 
physies, or morphology, or organic chem- 
istry, or psychology, or paleontology, would 
make the best of use of a Carnegie dividend. 
And a trustee would probably be em- 
barrassed to have to pare down one of these 
branches for the benefit of the others. There 
is something to be said in favor of estab- 
lishing a pro rata scheme of appropriations 
for the branches in accordance with a 
census of the number of worthy investi- 
gators which each branch includes. But, 
on the other hand, there are weighty rea- 
sons why such a plan would be inexpedient, 
since the number. of workers may be out of 
proportion to the importance of their re- 
sults, tested from the scientific standpoint. 
But here again is the difficulty of setting 
up an accurate standard of comparison. In 
any event there could be made a satisfae- 
tory division of science into approximately 
equivalent branches, say to the number of 
twenty-five or thirty, and for each of these 
an honorary committee be chosen. And the 
Institution, by the testimony of such expert 
committees, could be reasonably sure that 
its annual appropriations would find their 


OcTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


way where they would do a maximum of 
good. And each sub-committee could, it 
seems to me, best decide what share of its 
grant should be used for publication, in- 
dividual grants, exploration, prizes for 
special themes of research, ete. So, too, to 
what degree a new or retarded division of 
its activities should be fostered to the detri- 
ment of an older and better equipped one. 

In the matter of the character of work 
which it should be the general policy of 
the Institution, 7. e., in every branch, to 
provide for, I would suggest as most im- 
portant: (1) publishing, (2) facilitating 
bibliographical work, (3) procuring ma- 
terial for research, (4) granting funds or 
fellowships. And the list could be readily 
increased. 

1. Publishing.—One estimates conserva- 
tively, I believe, in affirming that there are 
to-day enough worthy researches of Ameri- 
can investigators to warrant the expendi- 
ture of the entire income of the Carnegie 
funds for purposes of switable publication. 
Tt has recently been suggested that Amer- 
ican publications would be greatly aided 
by the establishing of a Carnegie bureau 
of engraving and printing which should 
execute at favorable rates the work of 
various societies. Such  well-intended 
means, however, would bring with them cer- 
tain practical drawbacks, and, judging 
from precedents, one would not be sur- 
prised if the output of the establishment 
became more costly and less efficient than 
that of skilfully directed private enterprise. 
More useful in practice, I fancy, would be 
direct grants for publication, say to peri- 
odicals of the stamp of the American 
Journal of Morphology, and permission of 
Congress for lithographic work to be 
brought through the customs free of duty 
when sanctioned by the Institution. The 
longer, more important, elaborately illus- 
trated and carefully selected memoirs might 
appropriately be brought out by the Insti- 


SCIENCE. 


643 


tution, and a splendid series of quarto and 
folio volumes would be a fitting fruit of 
our national work, to be to us in time what 
the Philosophical Transactions are to the 
British. And such publication I place 
among the very foremost needs of Ameri- 
ean science. We need hardly recall that 
for publication of zoological memoirs, to 
take an example, American authors have 
had either to accept the charity of foreign 
journals or to allow their researches to re- 
main unprinted. 

2. Bibluography.—All workers in science 
need skilful and energetic help in the 
thankless drudgery of reference hunting. To 
give them necessary aid the Institution 
should at once subsidize the Concilium 
Bibhographicum, an American enterprise, 
supported largely by the charity of Switzer- 
land. The Concilium lacks only funds to 
enable it to extend its excellent work into 
various departments of biological science. 
Its work in zoology is invaluable. In con- 
nection with such a bureau it may be pos- 
sible for the Institution to publish a series 
of bibliographical volumes (on the lines of 
the recent paleontological work of Dr. Hay) 
which will be a permanent boon to students 
in all branches of science. Another biblio- 
graphical development, in connection pos- 
sibly with the Concilium, is a bureau to 
provide applicants with necessary literature 
lists; also a bureau in correspondence with 
libraries to place in the hands of investi- 
gators works of reference which cannot be 
procured by local means. 

3. Research Material._In some lines of 
research this can be secured only with con- 
siderable outlay. Thus for an important 
embryological study a sum of from five 
hundred to ten thousand dollars is not an 
uncommon expenditure. In this country 
such expense has usually been borne by 
generous outsiders or by investigators 
themselves; in rare cases universities or 
societies have contributed. In Europe, 


644 


however, societies have usually fur- 
nished appropriations, and in America, 
other calls permitting, the Carnegie Insti- 
tution might justly follow their example. 
On the other hand, the maintenance of lab- 
oratories appears to me of less immediate 
value in encouraging research, for there 
now exist many and well-equipped labora- 
tories in connection with university work 
throughout the country, open, too, on gen- 
erous terms to any qualified investigator. 
The question of the Woods Hole station is, 
I think, exceptional, since nowhere else in 
the United States can marine investigations 
in all fields be carried on to similar advan- 
tage. Special experimental stations, how- 
ever, for statistical and other variational 
studies are not as immediate a need since 
most of their work can be carried on in con- 
nection with the agricultural schools of 
many states. In this regard the history of 
foreign universities teaches us that research 
will flourish in spite of the lack of modern 
and splendidly equipped buildings. Men 
and books are at present less prevalent in 
our country than are tolerable quarters in 
which to house them. In no event would 
a Carnegie laboratory, I believe, be war- 
ranted in supporting classes for instruc- 
tion as long as worthy investigators are in 
need of books, research material and means 
of publication. 

4. Grants and Fellowships.—When the 
foregoing needs are suitably provided for 
the creation of fellowships would give very 
desirable means of stimulating activity in 
research. And in this matter one endorses 
heartily the suggestion of Professor Cat- 
tell in his recent paper in Sctencr. None 
the less it is still a question whether, money 
being limited, more productive results 
would not follow the system employed by 
various trust funds of granting definite 
sums to deserving investigators to enable 
them to complete definite pieces of work. 


Cotumera University. BASHFORD DEAN. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 408. 


Most startling was President Harper’s 
statement that Mr. Carnegie’s gift of ten 
millions to it had injured Scottish edu- 
cation. Most disquieting was his view of 
the Carnegie Institution as a possible peril 
to science. 

I venture to make public some brief 
hints of views as to how this great Car- 
negie Institution can contribute most. ef- 
feetively to the advancement of science. 
We speak of the endowment of research, 
but the real object is to bring to pass in 
the highest degree, to get started and car- 
ried to fruition, scientific creation, creative 
scientific achievement. 

The payment for, the reward of, scien- 
tifie productivity after it is over, is only 
a comparatively worthless parody of this 
supremely important aim. ‘T'o have given 
Lord Rayleigh, already very wealthy, ten 
thousand dollars for having discovered 
argon was a pitiful waste of the money, 
almost painfully puerile. 

Suppose the Fish Commission should 
spend its appropriation in pampering cer- 
tain especially agile and powerful fish? 
What it did was to seek the point of dan- 
ger, destruction and waste in the life- 
history, and in safeguarding these, make 
valuable its energies. 

With the possible scientific creators also 
the loss is greatest just at the start. 

Of those gifted with scientific genius, 
many allow that genius to atrophy, the 
potential never becomes actual; perhaps 
the scientific career is deliberately rejected 
in favor of money-making. 

This choice of career is largely, almost 
instinctively, a matter of attractiveness and 
safety. 

Such a spectacle as the ejectment of the 
Cincinnati professors, such a recurring 
spectacle as one of them passing through 
the streets and known to be unable, though 
highly worthy, to regain a foothold in the 


OCTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


on-go of paid science, strangles local sci- 
entific research unborn. 

And if the keenest, brightest, most gifted 
of the young people reject the scientific 
eareer, then fellowships serve only a dull, 
stale, tired clique of incompetents. 

Even after the possession of the rare and 
precious gift of scientific genius has been 
clearly, competitively proven, the possessor 
may choose what he considers a safer, more 
paying, more attractive career. I was 
twice Fellow of the Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity and among my contemporaries two, 
unsurpassed in gifts for scientific crea- 
tivity, deliberately went over to money- 
making. 

And finally among the sifted few who 
have the divine gift and the divine appre- 
ciation of their gift, the exquisite bud in 
its tender incipiency may be cruelly 
frosted. 

Of the great Hilbert’s ‘betweenness’ as- 
sumptions one was this year proved re- 
dundant by a young man under twenty 
working with me here, and by a demonstra- 
tion so extraordinarily elegant and unex- 
pected that letters from high authorities 
came congratulating the university on the 
achievement. Professor E. H. Moore, 
of the University of Chicago, has published 
his congratulatory letter spontaneously 
written (Amer. Math. Monthly, June-July, 
1902, pp. 152, 153). 

This young man of marvellous genius, 
of richest promise, I recommended for 
continuance in the department he adorned. 
He was displaced in favor of a local school- 
marm. ‘Then I raised the money necessary 
to pay him, only five hundred dollars, and 
offered it to the President here. He 
would not accept it. 

The Carnegie Institution is bound,. I 
think, in order to promote most manifoldly 
scientific productivity, to consider such 
prenatal influences molding, making or un- 
making the potential man of science. 


SCIENCE. 


645 


As a practical application of such line 
of thought, this would favor the Woods 
Hole laboratory retaining its independent 
position and popular organization. 

Men of science should never voluntarily 
take away from men of science the highest 
and finally responsible direction of scien- 
tifie productivity. 

The bane of the state university is that 
its regents are the appointees of a poli- 
tician. 

If he were even limited by the rule that 
half of them must be academic graduates, 
there would be some safety against the 
prostitution of a university, the broadest 
of human institutions, to politics and sec- 
tionalism, the meanest provincialism. 

Just so scientific journals should be 
absolutely controlled by scientific men, in- 
dependently or in connection with scien- 
tifie societies. 

So the purchase by the Carnegie Institu- 
tion of the American Journal of Morphol- 
ogy would appear ill-advised. The para- 
mount aim should be to help, not to 
dominate. 

Everything in a completely subsidized 
journal is taken at a discount. Judicious, 
delicate, sympathetic help for every de- 
veloping scientific mind, for every wise 
scientific enterprise, should be the watch- 
word. 

Science is remodelling the life and 
thought of the world. Mere acquirement 
must give place to active production. 

The spring is spontaneity. With this 
the Carnegie Institution must never inter- 
fere. Original work has ever been largely 
connected with teaching. 

We have reached the position that, to be 
of the highest quality, teaching must come 
from a creator. What of the inverse? 
Ts teaching a benefit to productivity? This 
is a vital question for the Carnegie Insti- 
tution. 


646 


Sylvester held that the two functions 
sould never be divorced. 

I believe it is largely on this point that 
President Harper thinks the Carnegie In- 
stitution a peril. 

But the great scientific work of our gov- 
ernment has been dissociated from teach- 
ing, and on the other hand some of our 
well-known institutions of learning are 
dragging far behind the times. 

For example, it seems to me that a 
school of science which requires Latin 
could not properly be given a general 
subsidy. 

Mathematics, that general instrument 
and servant of all the sciences, would be 
chiefly helped just now by translating the 
results of the experts into form compre- 
hensibile to all men of science. 

The mass of mathematics published in 
analytic and symbolic form, in hiero- 
elyphies, is disheartening, is almost stupe- 
fying, while the great results, though eap- 
able of elegant, interesting and easy pre- 
sentation, remain unknown even to men 
of science. 

For example, of geometry Hilbert says: 
‘The most suggestive and notable achieve- 
ment of the last century in this field is the 
discovery of non-Euclidean geometry.’ 

Then should not every man of science 
know what it is and what it has settled? 

GEORGE Bruce HALsrep. 

AUSTIN, TEXAS. 


In answer to a request of the editor of 
ScrENCE we would suggest that a primary 
and natural function of the Carnegie In- 
stitution would be ‘to lend a helping hand’ 
to investigators already at work in our 
colleges, universities and scientifie socie- 
ties. This need for aid in research is 
more pressing than the foundation of 
numerous scholarships for unfledged or im- 
mature students, except for the few who 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Vou. XVI. No. 408. 


have already shown a remarkable capacity 
for original work. 

The president and trustees of the Car- 
negie Institution, so far as they have yet 
gone, have acted wisely in appointing com- 
mittees of scientific men to consider the 
claims for aid already received, and this 
seems to be the primary and most impor- 
tant as well as natural course to pursue. 

The tendency in this country, not only 
in national and state governments, but 
also in municipal governments, as also per- 
haps in the management of our public 
libraries, is towards a marked dispropor- 
tion between the cost of maintenance, and 
the amount, in the case of libraries, for 
example, devoted to the purchase of books. 

It is to be hoped that at present at least 
the income of the Carnegie Institution will 
not in very large part be devoted to build- 
ings and laboratories to be erected in 
Washington, but be given directly to the 
promotion of researches in physical and 
natural science now being planned or ecar- 
ried on by officers of existing institutions, 
by members of scientific societies and other 
investigators. 

We would venture to suggest, as doubt- 
less others have, that a fair proportion of 
the income should be expended in appro- 
priations or grants, such as are made by 
the British and the French Associations for 
the Advancement of Science on such a con- 
siderable scale, and in a smaller way by the 
National Academy of Sciences of. the 
United States and by the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, 
through funds given or bequeathed by the 
friends of science for the furtherance of 
scientific investigations. 

This has been effected by committees, 
who have and are gratuitously doing their 
work with care, faithfulness and discrim- 
ination. 

The applications for aid in research re- 
ceived by the trustees of these funds from 


OcToBER 24, 1902. ] 


investigators in this and other countries are 
already, in some eases at least, more numer- 
ous than can possibly be granted, and if 
we mistake not their number is annually 
increasing. 

It seems scarcely necessary to make very 
exhaustive search for the exceptional 
genius, for already there are hundreds of 
investigators of fair training and ability 
who are more or less hampered for want 
of time and means to carry on and com- 
plete original work already begun. 

While in physical science work has to be 
earried on in fixed, permanent, elaborately 
and expensively equipped laboratories 
the case is somewhat different in the natural 
sciences. The geologist, paleontologist and 
biologist need to make collections, to travel, 
to work in marine or fresh-water labora- 
tories, and in laboratories for experimental 
evolution studies. Hence funds are needed 
for traveling expenses, for preparing and 
setting up specimens, for artists, assistants 
in breeding and making other experiments, 
for microscopic apparatus, for aid in pre- 
paring bibliographies, and in making trans- 
lations of articles and memoirs in foreign 
languages not generally taught or. studied, 
as Russian, ete. Finally the Carnegie In- 
stitution might lend its aid in publishing, 
with suitable illustrations, the results of 
such investigations. 

These are the lines along which it ap- 
pears to us this noble benefaction will ac- 
complish the greatest results. 

From the writer’s point of view the press- 
ing needs in pure, unapplied biology, and 
for which pecuniary help is urgently re- 
quired, are the following: Further re- 
searches in the life-histories of the lowest 
organisms, in the growth and metamor- 
phoses of insects, erustacea, molluses and of 
the lower vertebrates, in temperature ex- 
periments in the line of the splendid re- 
searches of Dallinger, Weismann, Stand- 
fuss, Merrifield, Dixey and others, who have 


SCIENCE. 


647 


wellnigh demonstrated the actual process 
of species, variety and race-making; in ex- 
tended researches on the problems of vari- 
ation, heredity, telegony, phylogeny and 
zoogeography. To carry out such re- 
searches as these we need much larger 
grants than any which have yet been 
possible. 

To further and carry on such investi- 
gations, there is not yet needed an elaborate 
corps of officials and workers localized at 
Washington, whose climate is unfavorable 
for research nearly a third of the year, but 


' the appointments of trustees or committees 


who shall make the grants, leaving to the 
investigators in all parts of this or any 
other country the opportunity of carrying 
on original scientific work. 

A. S. PACKARD. 


I READ with much interest the article on 
the above subject in Sctencr of September 
19. I agree with many of Professor Cat- 
tell’s views, but I feel very strongly that the 
keynote of the activity of the Institution’ 
should be, in the words of the founder, 
‘To discover the exceptional man in every 
department of study whenever and wher- 
ever found, inside or outside of schools, 
and enable him to make the work for which 
he seems specially designed his life work.’ 

Whenever the directors depart from this 
wise policy it seems to me the step will be 
a backward one. The best way in my 
opinion to stimulate research is not to en- 
dow or build laboratories or institutions 
of any kind, but to endow competent men. 
Not elaborate apparatus is the prime nec- 
essity, but the mind to understand what is 
seen. The fall of an apple may suggest 
to a Newton a great generalization, but he 
needs the time and the opportunity to 
think and work out the law in his own 
way. 

My idea is that men _ seeking en- 
dowment for research should present their 


648 


plans to the scientific society or college to 
which they belong, and that, on approval 
of the society or college, the plan of re 
search be submitted to the trustees of the 
Carnegie Institution and, if approved by 
the trustees, a grant of money be made to be 
spent in any way needed by the investi- 
gator himself and at his own discretion. 
He can judge better than any one else 
how the money can be spent to advantage. 
The only requirement should be that he 
should give a detailed account of the ex- 
penditure at stated intervals, and these ac- 
counts should be open to public inspection. 
It may be found, however, that the most 
competent investigators will object to dis- 
closing plans which they may not be able to 
execute and also object to the attitude of 
beggars. 

A second plan would be for the trus- 
tees of the Carnegie fund to send state- 
ments to certain well-known colleges and 
selentifie societies, and say that certain 
funds are available for research in certain 
departments of science, furnish us the best 
available man who is willing to :do this 
work. Then give that man perfect free- 
dom as to the how and why within the 
limits of the funds available for the special 
purpose. This would be similar to scholar- 
ship endowment which Professor Cattell 
recommends, except that I would not make 
it contingent on the attainment of any given 
college degree unless it be some special de- 
gree based on success in original work. 
Unfortunately a college degree is not a test 
of capacity for research. Huxley is re- 
ported to have said that he would have been 
floored by a civil service examination, and 
Darwin was not considered a_ brilliant 
student at school. The brilliant work of 
Faraday would have been lost to the Royal 
Institution if its support had only been 
given to doctors of philosophy. 

If neither of these plans is considered 
feasible or sufficient, then I think the en- 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Vou. XVI. No. 408. 


dowed laboratory, observatory or institu- 
tion in each department of science should 
be of very moderate cost and be considered 
merely the workshop of the investigator. 
This plan might be found the most feasible 
way of obtaining investigators because it 
would suggest permanency of work and 
arouse pride in the institution; but I wish 
to urge that in all cases the institution 
should be considered only an appendage to 
the investigator, and no great amount of 
money should be absorbed in its construc- 
tion. As Dewar pointed out in his recent 
address before the British Association for 
the Advancement of Science the remark- 
able work of the Royal Institution of Lon- 
don has been carried on at a very small 
cost. 
Henry Hetm Crayton. 


Proressor CaTTELL’s article in a previ- 
ous number of ScreNcE contains many ad- 
mirable suggestions as to what the Car- 
negie Institution might do for the advance- 
ment of science, especially where he shows 
the need of a fund to pay the expenses of 
the cooperation of this country in inter- 
national undertakings of scientific charac- 
ter, and of more substantial aid to imdi- 
vidual investigators than the small prizes 
and fellowships that are granted at present 
by learned societies and universities. But 
he seems to take for granted that the Car- 
negie Institution will confine itself to what 
is called ‘science’ in a narrow sense, to the 
exclusion of the humanities and of applica- 
tions of science. This can hardly be the 
intention of the founder of the Institution 
and of its trustees. The other branches of 
knowledge, especially the humanities, are 
certainly as important for the welfare of 
man and as worthy of support as pure sci- 
ence, while they have infinitely less re- 
sources in the way of endowment of 
research. It seems to me that if the trus- 
tees of the Carnegie Institution intend to 


OcTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


give substantial and permanent aid to re- 
search in all directions, they cannot accom- 
plish this better in any other way than by 
instituting bibliographical research and 
publication on a large scale. By endowing 
a Bibhographical Institute along the lines 
suggested by the present writer in an 
article in Science for, October 18, 1901, 
and in an address before the American 
Library Association this summer, printed 
in their ‘Papers and Proceedings,’* the 
trustees would in fact endow all scientific 
and literary research 

The bibliographical question needs a 
thorough solution if it shall be possible for 
future students and investigators to keep 
informed of what has been written in their 
lines of study. The ‘International Cata- 
logue of Scientific Literature’ solves the 
problem for pure science only, leaving out 
altogether both the applied sciences and 
the humanities, and it does not at all touch 
the literature of past centuries. It is par- 
ticularly unfortunate that the immense lit- 
erature of the nineteenth century has been 
allowed so long to remain an unorganized 
mass. Here, it seems to me, is the greatest 
opportunity for the Carnegie Institution. 
The cost would not exceed fifty thousand 
dollars a year. 

An entirely new institution is needed to 
take care of the bibliographical interests of 
the new century, as none of the agencies 
that have attempted to systematize it so 
far, in this country at least, will be likely 
to cover the field in a way that would 
satisfy scientific research. I may mention 
four such agencies, first among them the 
office of the Publishers’ Weekly, from 
where a series of trade bibliographies have 
issued for more than twenty-five years. 
Mr. Bowker has certainly systematized this 
work in a very efficient way, but his office 
being a business house, he must of, course 
see that his undertakings are put on. a, 


*See Library Journal, July, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


649 


paying basis (and bibliographical work of 
scientific nature can hardly ever be put on 
such a basis), and, furthermore, the work 
of his office is almost exclusively restricted 
to trade bibliography. The Publishing 
Board of the American Library <Associa- 
tion has for years with very limited means, 
seconded, it is true, in a very remarkable 
way by Mr. George Iles,and with the partial 
cooperation of certain libraries, carried on 
effective cataloguing, indexing, and even 
bibliographical work, in aid of our public 
libraries; now, with the interest of the 
Carnegie endowment, the board will extend 
its work, but undoubtedly keep on in the 
lines already laid out. The interests of the 
Smithsonian Institution in bibliography is 
merely incidental, and although it has 
shown not a little activity in this field, it 
has with few exceptions stuck to the 
field of chemical bibliography (besides 


_Pillings’s bibliographies of Indian lan- 


guages). The most hopeful agency for 
scientific bibliography at present is the 
Library of Congress, which, especially 
through the printed cards prepared by the 
catalogue division, will do excellent service 
to bibliography; its division of bibliog- 
raphy seems at present to be more or less 
restricted by the duties of the library to 
Congress, but will undoubtedly as the years 
go on develop its very interesting work of 
indexing the resources of the library more 
fully and more minutely than the cata- 
logue division; but it is doubtful whether 
it will be able to, or even ought to go out- 
side of the library’s own collections. At 
least, it has been the experience of some 
libraries who have tried to do more ex- 
tended researches in the bibliographical 
field, that by doing so they have encroached 
upon the time and the forces that were ex- 
pected to be utilized in the immediate in- 
terest of those who were using the libraries. 
We need a separate institution, devoted 
exclusively to purely bibliographical work, 


650 


and there would be no better opportu- 
nity for the Carnegie Institution to serve 
the whole field of science and scholarship 
than by establishing such an institute. 
AKSEL G. S. JOSEPHSON. 


THE National and State Governments are 
now devoting considerable amounts of 
money annually to scientific investigations, 
the results of which promise to be of direct 
and immediate economic value. Such in- 
vestigations have been so far successful that 
it is now comparatively easy to secure liber- 
al appropriations of public funds for such 
purposes. In our colleges and universities, 
the professors and their assistants are indi- 
vidually devoting themselves more and more 
to original research and are being encour- 
aged to do this by boards of management. 
The funds at the disposal of these investi- 
gators are as yet comparatively limited and 
their amount depends very largely on the 
personal activity of the investigator, but 
there is nevertheless good reason to believe 
that in the future it will grow easier for 
such individual investigators to secure the 
financial backing they need to make their 
own investigations successful. And it seems 
desirable that our institutions for higher 
education should make the support of such 
research a part of their regular business, 
and should seek endowment for it in the 
same way that they seek funds to maintain 
their courses of instruction. 

Leaving out of account, then, economic 
investigations supported by public funds 
and such relatively limited researches as 
can be conducted by individuals connected 
with colleges and universities, there remains 
a class of large and fundamental in- 
vestigations which require special endow- 
ment. With the development of science in 
modern times it is clear that many funda- 
mental problems cannot be satisfactorily 
studied except by the cooperation of scien- 
tists trained in different lines, the use of 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 408. 


complicated and costly apparatus, and in- 
vestigations conducted for a long time and 
on a large seale. Take, for example, the 
fundamental problems in biology regarding 
the origin of life, or the principles underly- 
ing the breeding and nutrition of animals. 
Our agricultural experiment stations can 
easily secure funds for breeding and feed- 
ing experiments which seem likely to prom- 
ise results of immediate practical value, and 
they are now engaged in making numerous 
such experiments, but it has been difficult 
for them to devote even a small portion of 
their funds to the more fundamental studies 
of breeding and nutrition. Wherever they 
have ventured to attempt these, the work 
has as a rule been on too small a scale to 
give the best results. Instead of the few 
hundred dollars spent annually in such 
researches, it should be thousands of dol- 
lars; instead of experiments with a few 
subjects, there should be experiments with 
a considerable number of subjects in order 
that general rather than special conclusions 
may be drawn from the work. 

For example, the most elaborate investi- 
gations on the nutrition of man yet con- 
ducted are those of Atwater with a respira- 
tion calorimeter, in which a single subject 
was studied during periods of three to 
twelve days. While the results of these in- 
vestigations have been valuable, they are 
from the nature of the case not thoroughly 
satisfactory. Not only should the appa- 
ratus and methods for such investigations 
be further improved, but there should 
be opportunity for carrying them on 
with a number of calorimeters at the 
same time and for longer periods. This 
would necessitate the expenditure of rela- 
tively large sums of money in this kind of 
research, but it would be money well spent, 
for there would be a much larger chance 
of securing some definite and final results 
than present conditions of research in that 
line afford. 


OCTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


As regards the breeding of animals, 
almost all the work thus far done by the 
experiment stations has been empirical in 
character. There is at present no satisfac- 
tory manual on the breeding of animals 
written from a scientific standpoint, and I 
am informed that the data for such a 
treatise are not available. To make a thor- 
ough study of the science of animal breed- 
ing would require the maintenance of con- 
siderable numbers of animals and studies 
continuing over many years. 

I have cited nutrition and animal breed- 
ing as among the subjects on which elabo- 
rate and costly scientific investigations are 
needed, because I happen to be somewhat 
familiar with the nature of investigations 
in these lines. There are of course many 
other lines in which similar investigations 
are equally needed. 

From what I have said it is plain that, 
as regards the Carnegie Institution, I am 
in favor of the expenditure of its income 
in relatively large blocks for the mainte- 
nance of elaborate investigations on a 
limited number of fundamental problems 
of science, and especially those fundamental 
problems on the solution of which largely 
depends the improvement of the conditions 
of human life, industry and society. 

A. C. TRUE. 


Ir would be presumptuous for any one 
to suppose that he has solved the difficult 
problem that is before the trustees of the 
Carnegie Institution. They are to be com- 
mended for the free expression of opinion 
they have invited, and doubtless the policy 
they adopt will represent a fair resultant 
of the varying competent opinions of 
American men of science. In any discus- 
sion of a general policy one eannot deal 
with details except by way of illustration, 
and illustrations are taken most naturally 
from one’s own department of work. 

I have taken for granted that the pur- 


SCIENCE. 


6ol 


pose of the Carnegie fund’ is to increase 
the opportunities for scientific research, so 
that the results may be more commensurate 
with the number and ability of investi- 
gators. This means that it is to supple- 
ment the efforts made by existing institu- 
tions, which in the main are the goyvern- 
ment scientific bureaus and the universities. 
To duplicate what these institutions are 
already equipped to do would seem to be a 
waste of this particular fund. There is 
probably no diversity of opinion in refer- 
ence to this proposition, and the real prob- 
lem is to discover wise methods of supple- 
menting the opportunities for research. 

My own constant thought has been that 
no single costly enterprise should be un- 
dertaken at first which might pledge per- 
manently a large amount of the income, 
and might prove presently to be either 
unprofitable or too narrow. For example, 
the expenditure involved in the purchase 
and development of the Marine Biological 
Laboratory at Woods Hole would certainly 
lock up all the funds available for biology, 
and this would be a narrow view to take 
of the opportunities needed for biological 
research. Speaking for my own subject, 
fundamental as are the problems that must 
be investigated in a marine laboratory, 
there are botanical investigations of equal 
importance that must be made over the 
general surface of the country. It has 
seemed to me, therefore, that the first ex- 
periment to be conducted by means of the 
Carnegie fund is to discover how it may 
be expended so as to yield the largest re- 
sults. As laboratory students we know that 
no amount of discussion will result in this 
discovery, but that trials must be made 
before ‘the trail is struck.’ This means 
the absence of any detailed and rigid pol- 
icy at present, but one of such great flexi- 
bility that retreat is possible at every 
point. 

To make this endowment perennially 


652 


effective and free to be applied as the needs 
of scientific research develop, it would seem 
wise to stimulate every worthy enterprise 
to self-support as rapidly as possible, and 
to help it no longer than it needs help to 
be effective. I am sure that a good deal 
that is undertaken can be gradually un- 
loaded upon universities, state and national 
governments, or even upon other, private 
endowments, leaving the Carnegie fund 
free to turn to the new fields that need 
cultivation. 

In my own mind there are at least three 
categories in which the needs of increased 
opportunities for scientific research may 
fall, and these suggest methods of supple- 
menting the opportunities offered by ex- 
isting establishments. Other. departments 
of work may have different needs, but I 
am speaking under the pressure of the 
needs of my own subject. 

1. There are competent investigators, 
whose ability is well known, who need in 
the main more leisure for work, and in 
some cases perhaps more equipment. Any- 
thing that will meet this need is sure of 
results. Just how these investigators can 
be selected, and how their needs may be 
met without any relaxation of effort on the 
part of the institutions to which they be- 
long are matters of detail. From such men 
no outline of work or promise of results 
can be exacted, for it is the unexpected 
that often leads to their most important 
discoveries. Perhaps in this same general 
category may be placed the needs of those 
who give promise of becoming competent 
investigators, but to whom lack of means 
has denied the opportunity for advanced 
training. This opens up the whole ques- 
tion of fellowships, and it may be urged 
that this is the business of the universities. 
It is a notorious fact, however, that not 
one-fourth of the promising candidates 
that apply for fellowships can obtain them. 

2. There are well-defined general prob- 


SCIENCE. 


> (N.S. Von. XVI. No. 408. 


lems that need a corps of investigators to 
collect data, which no existing institution 
is hkely to provide for. Speaking in the 
largest sense, competent and prolonged 
biological surveys of various kinds, over 
various areas, are sadly needed to reduce 
our loose empirical statements to definite 
statements of facts. Such work can be 
definitely outlined in scope and purpose, 
and the results are assured. 

3. Students of botany have no greater 
need at present than a good station in the 
American tropics, where tropical material 
and conditions are available. The highest 
and most varied expression of plant life is 
found in the rainy tropics, and the labora- 
tories of temperate regions are only on the 
border-land of their subject. To establish 
such a laboratory and to make it possible 
in the way of transportation for competent 
investigators to visit it when their prob- 
lems demand would be one of the greatest 
opportunities that could be offered to 
American botany. The important results 
that have been obtained in the Dutch sta- 
tion at Buitenzorg, Java, visited by com- 
paratively few investigators, prove what 
an American station, near at hand and in- 
expensive to reach, would do for botany. 
It is probable that in the establishment 
of government stations in the tropics for 
practical purposes such cooperation could 
be arranged that the only need would be 
a modest equipment and reduced transpor- 
tation. 

Even if such a general outline were 
adopted, the most effective selection and 
methods would have to be discovered 
through trial. 

Of course, in all sciences facilities for 
starting new work would be desirable, but 
the greatest present need in botany is to 
make it possible to do in a better way and 
upon a larger scale what we already have 


in hand. JoHN M. Couuter. 


Hutt BoranicaL LABoraTory, 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 


OCTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. A RETRO- 
SPECT.* 

THE third Belfast meeting, in respect of 
attendance, has been very considerably be- 
low the average, the numbers being a little 
over 1,600, or about 300 less than in the 
ease of the previous meeting, 28 years ago. 
This falling off is mainly due, we believe, 
to the fact that the people of the neighbor- 
hood did not take an active interest in the 
meeting by becoming associates to any- 
thing like the extent that might have been 
expected. The number of old life mem- 
bers and old annual members, as well as of 
new life members and new annual sub- 
seribers from a distance, was not below 
that of the previous Belfast meeting and 
was up to a fair average. There may be 
other reasons to account for the diminished 
attendance. Although the Saturday ex- 
eursions were numerous and attractive 
enough, and the garden parties and other 
receptions of daily recurrence, still there 
were no official excursions following the 
meeting. It is to be hoped that these will 
never be revived. There is no reason to 
regret the falling off, if it is mainly due to 
the fact that the attractions to unscientific 
trippers were fewer than in the past. It 
is true that the diminished attendance led 
to the cutting down of the grants for sci- 
entific research to an unusually low figure; 
but, after all, there are nowadays many 
other ways of obtaining pecuniary support 
for such purposes. The afternoon recep- 
tions especially have a serious effect on the 
attendance of such sections as meet after 
lunch. This practice of holding afternoon 
meetings is likely to spread among the sec- 
tions, and it is deserving of consideration 
whether some modification should not be 
made in what is, after all, no necessary 
part of the functions of the Association. 

At Belfast, as at previous meetings, prob- 
ably some of the most useful work of the 


* From the London Times. 


SCIENCE. 


Association was done outside the section 
rooms, at the informal gatherings that take 
place among the working members. <A 
staple subject of. discussion at such meet- 
ings is that of the functions of the Associa- 
tion in relation to modern conditions so 
very different from those which existed 
even half a century ago. The scientific 
work of the Belfast meeting was certainly 
up to the average in most of the sections, 
although in many cases the papers read 
were of restricted and very special interest. 
The new section which deals with educa- 
tion, as well as the section of economies, 
set a good example by arranging before- 
hand to have only a very few subjects of 
wide interest on their programs, to be dealt 
with on the four or five real working days 
of the meeting, and to be thoroughly dis- 
cussed by men capable of treating the sub- 
jects with knowledge and intelligence. It 
would be well if the other sections would 
follow this admirable example. It would 
give the British Association much more of 
a raison d’étre than it has at present, all 
the more if it could also be arranged that 
two or more sections should combine for 
the consideration of important subjects in 
which they have a common interest. It is 
also felt that one important object of these 
meetings should be to bring the younger 
workers in the different departments of 
science into personal relations with those 
who have already made their reputations 
and who, by a few kindly words of encour- 
agement and guidance, might do much to 
inspire the younger men with confidence 
and enthusiasm. At present the younger 
workers in science, who come from all parts 
to attend these meetings, as well as those 
who may be working at serious disadvan- 
tage in the locality, may spend the whole 
week diligently attending the meetings of 
the sections and never exchange a word 
with their distinguished seniors. The large 
receptions that are held during the meet- 


654 


ings are of little avail for this purpose; but 
there are other and more informal ways 
which it would not be difficult to devise. 
These are some of the topics which were 
freely discussed at the informal gatherings 
of the permanent members of the Associa- 
tion, most of them men of distinetion in 
the scientifie world. It must be admitted 
that the chilly and rainy weather which 
prevailed during most of the week may have 
had no inconsiderable etfeet upon the at- 
It must be said, however, that 
the hospitality of Belfast was thoroughly 
Trish in its warmth; and, as has been 
stated, the scientifie work of the meeting 
was quite up to the average, on the lnes 
on which that work is at present conducted. 
In most of the sections one or two subjeets 
of considerable importance were brought 
forward for consideration and discussion, 
although, as we have said, Sections F’ and 


tendanee. 


L earried off the palm in this direction. 
The attendance at the Educational Section 
was always large; the Anthropologieal Sec- 
tion was often crowded; while the section 
of geography, although unfortunately 
loeated at a considerable distanee from the 
center, had no reason to complain of being 
negleeted. Although the proposal that the 
meeting of 1905 should be held in Cape 
Colony was mentioned at the general meet- 
ing, the matter was not discussed. The 
serious consideration of the proposal will 
no doubt take place next year, when prob- 
ably the invitation will be brought forward 
formally. It is to be hoped that nothing 
in the meantime will oeceur to plaee the 
matter in abeyance. 

- We shall now give a brief résumé of 
what may be regarded as the most impor- 
tant results of the meeting. The address 
of the president, Professor Dewar, will be 
of permanent value as a history of the 
efforts which, up to the present, have been 
made to investigate the effeets of extreme 
low temperatures upon gases. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 408. 


In a review of the work of Section A 
(Mathematical and Physical Science), two 
of the subjects dealt with stand out promi- 
nently. Professor Schuster, chairman of 
the department of astronomy and cosmiecal 
physies, called attention to the great waste 
of power which is taking place in sciences 
like meteorology, where those working at 
the subject are devoting their energies 
almost collection of 
observations. Those engaged in reducing 
the observations, and in deducing from 
them the physical laws which underlie 
meteorological phenomena, are few. As a 
result, undigested figures are being aceumu- 
lated to an extent which threatens to erush 
future Professor Schuster 
pointed out that observations taken without 
a view to the solution of some definite prob- 
lem were of comparatively little value, and 
pleaded that a larger proportion of the 
time at present devoted to the collection of 
observations should be given up to their dis- 


exclusively to the 


generations. 


eussion. This, he thought, should be done 
even at the expense of discontinuing 


observations whieh, like those of the mag- 
netie elements at Kew, have been carried on 
for many years without a break. In the 
discussion of these suggestions that fol- 
lowed, Dr. Shaw, head of the Meteorological 
Office, pointed out that many of the pro- 
posed changes could best be carried out by 
the establishment in one or more of our 
universities of professorships of meteor- 
ology. Such a course would lead in a few 
years to the existence of a body of trained 
meteorologists capable of discussing, from 
a physical point of view, the observations 
taken by the organizations at present at 
work. The other prominent question which 
has been referred to was brought forward 
by Lord Rayleigh, who asked, Does motion 
through the ether cause double refraction 
of light in transparent bodies? He re- 
viewed the evidenee which has led phys- 


icists to econelude that the earth in its 


OCTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


motion does not drag the ether along with 
it. Thus each body on the earth’s surface 
is, In virtue of its motion with the earth, 
traversed by a stream of ether, and the 
question arises—Does light travel through 
such a body with the same speed along the 
stream of ether as it does against or across 
it? The experiments of Michelson . and 

Morley lead to an affirmative answer for 
air; those carried out recently by Lord 
Rayleigh now enable the same answer to be 
given in respect of liquids; and it is hoped 
they will soon decide the question in the 
ease of solids. 

In Section B (Chemistry) considerable 
interest was taken in the discussion of two 
monographs on hydro-aromatic compounds 
with single nucleus (Dr. A. W. Crossley) 
and our present knowledge of aromatic 
diazo-compounds (Dr. G. F. Morgan). The 
subject of the first of these contributions 
derives interest from the fact that hydro- 
aromatic compounds form a starting-point 
in the study of the camphors and the con- 
stituents of turpentines and many essential 
oils. The diazo-compounds are important, 
not only because their study has led to 
theoretical results of the utmost value in 
connection with the mechanism of chemical 
change, but because they are used indus- 
trially in the manufacture of most of the 
coal-tar dyes. The two monographs re- 
ferred to are to be published at length in 
the annual report. They constitute very 
complete résumés of branches of organic 
chemistry, of which the literature is dis- 
tributed through many different journals. 
If for no other reason than this, they will 
prove of great service to both teachers and 
students of the two subjects. The paper 
on the alkylation of sugars, by Professor 
T. Purdie and Dr. J. C. Irvine, deserves 
special notice; the method which it de- 
seribed for exchanging hydroxilie hydrogen 
atoms in the molecules of certain sugars by 
methyl groups should prove of great value. 


SCIENCE. 


655 


Dr. E. F. Armstrong contributed an im- 
portant paper on the synthetical action of 
enzymes, in which the formation of a 
disaccharide by the action of the enzyme 
lactase on milk sugar was described. The 
new disaccharide, isolactose, is a true sugar 
and its synthesis is one of the first steps 
taken in synthetic work upon disaccharides. 

No one of the papers brought before Sec- 
tion C (Geology) was of very great impor- 
tance; but nearly all were records of valu- 
able work. A paper by Mr. George Barrow, 
on the prolongation of the Highland border 
rocks into county Tyrone, gave rise to the 
best discussion of the meeting. The paper 
dealt with rocks termed the ‘green rocks,’ 
found by the author in the neighborhood of 
the great fault which crosses Scotland from 
sea to sea. This line of disturbance has 
now been traced across Ireland to Clew 
Bay and Clare Island, and Mr. Barrow 
believes that he can identify rocks in the 
neighborhood of Omagh with the ‘green 
rocks’ of Scotland. He considers them to 
be of pre-Cambrian age, and with this con- 
clusion Professor Grenville Cole agrees. 
Papers of considerable importance were 
read by Dr. Traquair and Mr. H. Kynaston. 
The former described some fossil fishes of 
the lower Devonian roofing-slate of Gmiin- 
den, in Germany. They belong to the class 
with mailed bodies, and the fact that they 
are there found associated with fossils of a 
thoroughly marine character shows that 
these mailed fishes lived in the sea. Mr. 
Kynaston, who has been mapping the 
northern part of Argyllshire for the Geo- 
logical Survey, brought forward satisfac- 
tory evidence proving that the sheets of 
voleanie rocks in the neighborhood of Glen- 
coe and the Black Mount are, like the vol- 
eanic series of Lorn, of lower old red sand- 
stone age, and that the great granite mass 
of Ben Cruachan is of newer date than 
these voleanic sheets. This was probably 
the most important paper brought before 


656 


the section. The rocks of Hocene age at- 
tracted more attention from the members 
in the field than in the section room. They 
were dealt with at some length by Pro- 
fessor Grenville Cole in his lecture on the 
geology of the neighborhood of Belfast, and 
Mr. Horace B. Woodward contributed a 
valuable note, describing a section on the 
new railway between Axminster and Lyme 
Regis. The Pleistocene and recent periods 
received a large share of the attention of 
‘the section. Mr. Teall, director of the Geo- 
logical Survey, exhibited a late proof of 
a new drift map of the Dublin area, which 
will be the first sheet of the Geological Sur- 
vey map on the seale of one inch to the 
mile, printed in colors, instead of, as has 
hitherto been the custom, colored by hand. 
It is to be hoped that more of these color- 
printed sheets will be issued, as they are 
both cheaper and clearer than the hand- 
colored maps. The post-glacial deposits of 
the Belfast districts were dealt with in an 
interesting paper by Mr. Lloyd Praeger. 
He described the ‘peat bed,’ an old land 
surface now twenty feet below low-water 
mark at Belfast, but between tide marks at 
other places. In it the Irish elk has been 
found. 

In Section D (Zoology), as in the other 
sections, no startling or epoch-making dis- 
coveries were brought to ight; but most of 
the papers were quite equal to the average 
of former years in interest and importance, 
and were solid contributions to zoological 
science. In his opening address the presi- 
dent, Professor Howes, traced in a masterly 
summary the marvelous advances made 
since the last Belfast meeting in our knowl- 
edge of the animal kingdom and in the 
precision given to our ideas of the inter- 
relationships of its various groups, thanks 
to the morphological method. Of great 
practical importance were the papers by 
Professor McIntosh and Mr. Garstang on 
the international scheme for the protection 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 408. 


and increase of the North Sea fisheries. 
Considerable divergence of opinion existed 
as regards the over-fishing of certain parts 
of the North Sea. Professor McIntosh held 
that it was practically impossible to over- 
fish; but this is not the view of Mr. Gar- 
stang nor of the majority of marine biolo- 
gists. The committee which is investiga- 
ting the migration of various British birds 
this year presented an interesting summary, 
by Mr. Eagle Clarke, of Edinburgh, of 
observations on the migrations of the field- 
fare and lapwing. This was drawn up in 
the same masterly manner as his previous 
reports on the migrations of the song- 
thrush, white wagtail, skylark and swallow. 
It is certain that, if we are ever to fathom 
the mystery of migration, it will be only 
by the methods employed by Mr. Clarke. 
The zoological collections obtained by Pro- 
fessor Herdman among the pearl-oyster 
beds in the Gulf of Manaar were described 
by various specialists; and in this connec- 
tion it must be remarked that to the ordi- 
nary naturalist it does seem that some re- 
straint is called for in the description of 
new species, especially among some of our 
amateur workers. Upon minute differences 
in characters subject to great variation 
numbers of unique specimens have been 
added to an already overburdened litera- 
ture, many of which ean be only individual 
variations. Professor Poulton’s exhibition 
of a series of the predaceous flies of the 
family Asilide, taken in Spain, was spe- 
cially interesting. Each was shown with 
its prey in its grasp. The prey consisted 
mainly of bees and ants, but extended to 
bugs and beetles, often several times the 
size of the assailant. The females, which 
are larger than the males, apparently also 
prey upon the males of their own or a 
nearly related species. Very interesting, 
too, among several interesting contributions 
on the subject of mimicry, were Professor 
Poulton’s slides, prepared by the three- 


OcTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


color process, showing the protective re- 
semblance and seasonal forms of butterflies, 
and the natural attitudes of British insects. 
There is an undoubted tendency on the 
part of insects, and also of many other ani- 
mals, not only to adopt the color tone of 
their, immediate surroundings, but also to 
imitate the appearance of other insects so 
as to escape the dangers threatening their 
own species. Professor Poulton lucidly ex- 
plained how the phenomena exemplified by 
the slides can best be interpreted by the 
theory of natural selection. Professor Mc- 
Bride and Dr. Masterman summarized the 
results of their investigations, extending 
over several years, of the development of 
the starfish. But on several important 
points the two authors appear to have ar- 
rived at opposite conclusions, and further 
investigation is evidently needed. Pro- 
fessor Hwart continued the interesting con- 
tributions he has made to this section on 
the subject of the inter-crossing of animals, 
with an account of his experiments on dogs. 
His main contention was that in the second 
generation a purer offspring was obtained 
than in the first; but the general opinion 
was that this conclusion was scarcely war- 
ranted after so limited a number of experi- 
ments. 

The address of the president, Sir Thomas 
Holdich, in Section E (Geography) ought 
to be of great service in this department, 
insisting as it did on the necessity for the 
introduction of more scientific methods in 
geoeraphieal work, and especially in the 
work of exploration, which may now be 
said to have passed beyond its pioneer stage. 
Mr. R. B. Buckley, in his paper on ‘Colo- 
nization and Immigration in British East 
Africa,’ gave an excellent example of the 
practical uses to which geographical in- 
vestigation may be put, if only conducted 
on rigidly scientific lines; while Professor, 
Libbey, in the account which he gaye— 
admirably illustrated as it was by photo- 


SCIENCE. 


657 


graphs taken with intelligence and dis- 
crimination—of his recent work in the 
Jordan Valley, showed the instructive re- 
sults which may be achieved by the scien- 
tific method applied to pure geographical 
investigation. Other examples pointing in 
the same direction were the papers of Dr. 
Herbertson on the windings of the Even- 
lode; Mr. Lloyd Praeger on geographical 
plant groups in the Ivish flora; Mr. Porter 
on the Cork Valleys; and especially that 
of Professor, Watts on a buried Triassic 
landscape, Charnwood Forest. Professor 
Milne’s brilliant account of his investiga- 
tions into world-shaking earthquakes 
showed the perfection to which his seismo- 
logical records have attained, and the im- 
portant discoveries which he has thus been 
able to make as to the part played by these 
disturbances in altering, not only the face 
of the dry land, but also the bed of the 
ocean. As might have been expected, the 
subject of Antarctic exploration formed a 
prominent feature in the meetings of this 
section. Nothing could have been more 
admirable than Dr. Mill’s exposition of the 
various stages of our knowledge of the 
South Polar region and of the actual re- 
sults of exploration up to the present time; 
while Mr. Bruee, the leader of the Scottish 
Antaretic Expedition, had a hearty and 
thoroughly sympathetic reception when he 
eame forward to explain the objects and 
equipment of that expedition, which, as 
distinguished from others now at work in 
the Antaretic, will be mainly oceanograph- 
ical. The communication from Sir Clem- 
ents Markham, with reference to a possible 
search expedition for Captain Sverdrup, 
was highly instructive—though, happily, 
now that Captain Sverdrup has arrived 
home, no such expedition will be required. 
Dr. Johnston’s account of the Survey of 
the Scottish Lakes, which is being con- 
ducted under the direction of Sir John 
Murray, showed what a vast amount of ex- 


658 


cellent work has been accomplished in con- 
siderably less than a year’s time. 

By regular attendants at Section F 
(Eeonomiecal Science) the Belfast meeting 
will be remembered chiefly for its presi- 
dent’s address and for the large and atten- 
tive audience which followed the papers of 
local interest. Dr. Cannan in his address 
struck the keynote of the meeting—the re- 
inforceement of the most elementary 
economic principles and their immediate 
application to the complex problems now 
to the fore in popular discussion. The 
meeting did not elucidate any important 
new contributions to economic theory, but 
appeared to be educative in its character. 
Again and again professed economists 
emphasized, apparently to the complete 
satisfaction of a well-filled room, the teach- 
ing of the most orthodox masters in refuta- 
tion of badly-conceived proposals. It would 
be untrue to say that Dr. Cannan’s simple 
and conclusive application of the theory 
of rent to the question of municipal hous- 
ing and other municipal ventures com- 
manded the immediate and unqualified 
approval of a section which has been in 
the habit of debating municipal policy year 
by year with the accredited representatives 
of local governing bodies through the 
length and breadth of the land. When Mr. 
Porter, on the Friday, condemned unhesi- 
tatingly all productive municipal enter- 
prises, speakers from Nottingham and 
Manchester were in disagreement with his 
conclusions; but the general audience ap- 
peared to be in sympathy with the reader, 
and the discussion was not sufficiently long 
or representative to cover the ground ade- 
quately. Those who agree with the reader 
of one of the weakest papers ever presented 
to the section, that a large body of educated 
thinkers are weakening on the strict theory 
of free trade, should have been present on 
the day devoted to Irish questions. The 
representatives of Belfast industries were 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 408. 


completely at one with the platform in de- 
nying the practicability of an Imperial 
Zollverein, as emphatically as -they ridi- 
culed the proposal for a ‘moderate measure 
of protection for Ireland.’ The advantage 
to the home-country of a differential duty 
in its favor on the part of a colony was 
generally admitted; but the question 
whether such a relaxation was to the real 
interest of the colony was not discussed. 
Judge Shaw’s paper, which introduced and 
dominated the discussion, was deservedly 
applauded; for it put in a simple, accurate, 
and intelligible form, caleulated to appeal 
to the ordinary educated man, the fallacies 
and difficulties inherent in current pro- 
tective proposals. The plan, introduced at 
former meetings, of allotting a day to those 
subjects which are of special interest to the 
locality was continued and expanded. The 
‘free trade’ day began with a valuable 
historical essay on the linen trade; and, 
to judge from the local press, this was cal- 
culated to be of considerable use to those 
engaged in the industry, as well as of im- 
portance to the statistical historian. <A 
previous morning had been devoted to the 
consideration of trusts, with particular 
reference to the shipping combination. 
Though this excited much local interest, it 
cannot be said that the audience was really 
representative, nor that much was added to 
the theory or the facts in question; but, so 
far as it went, the tone was optimistic. Bel- 
fast does not stand to lose by recent 
developments; it was expected that the 
British shipping interest would survive 
without damage; and, on the more general 
question, it was held that trusts did not 
flourish in a free-trade atmosphere, and 
that, even where their existence could be 
maintained, prices would not rise nor 
wages fall; but there was a lamentable 
absence of reasoned statistical verification. 
Education was to the fore in Section F, as 
well as elsewhere; and, in the presence of 


OCTOBER 24, 1902.] 


teachers from Dublin, Belfast, St. Andrews, 
Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge and Lon- 
~ don, a discussion as to the possibilities and 
future of commercial education had to be 
closured when the luncheon hour was far 
passed. As is always the case, the few 
papers which were of definite value for the 
clearing up of disputed points in theory 
attracted little attention. Among these 
were Professor Morison’s demonstration 
that the prices of cereals measured in silver 
in India had fluctuated at least as much as 
English gold prices through the nineteenth 
century, and Professor Chapman’s careful 
analysis of the possibilities and use of 
shding seales and other means of regulating 
wages in relation to profits and of minimi- 
zing their fluctuations. There were very 
few statistical papers. The practical work 
of the section is for the present concen- 
trated in the investigation, which now 
enters on its third year, of its committee on 
the ‘Economic Effect of Legislation Regu- 
lating Women’s Labor.’ <A long interim 
report was presented, and two careful 
papers were contributed on the recent his- 
tory of administration. It seems probable 
that the committee will accumulate a large 
amount of first-hand evidence; and it is so 
constituted that all phases of opinion are 
represented. On the whole, the section 
shows signs of renewed vitality; the plat- 
form and the room were generally well- 
filled, the discussions were well sustained, 
though not informing, and the communica- 
tions showed careful and well-reasoned 
work. 

The subjects which occupied most of the 
time of the Section G (Engineering) were 
‘education’ and ‘power.’ The president, 
Professor John Perry, professor of me- 
chanics in the Science School at South 
Kensington, has actively demanded for 
some years past that the methods of teach- 
ing young engineers should be improved. 
Mathematics has been the point on which 


SCIENCE. 


659 


he has been most urgent; and a committee 
was appointed, with Professor Forsyth as 
chairman, on his initiative, to consider how 
mathematics can be better taught. This 
year the address from the presidential 
chair, dealt with the subject of an engi- 
neer’s education more generally, and in- 
sisted particularly on the continual use of 
experiment by the student himself as dis- 
tinguished from oral lecture or demonstra- 
tion by the professor. Professor Perry’s 
address was subsequently made the subject 
of discussion at a joint meeting of the 
Engineering and LEdueational sections, 
under the presidency of Professor Arm- 
strong, in which several well-known scien- 
tific men and engineers took part. In a 
highly suggestive paper in this section Mr. 
W. Taylor raised the question of what he 
termed ‘the science of the work-shop.’ It 
is the application of scientific knowledge 
of the properties of matter to work-shop 
processes, and the examination of the many 
curious and important problems raised by 
them. Instruction in this branch of science 
is necessary for the mechanical engineer 
and the artisan, in just the same way that 
mathematics and dynamics are for the civil 
engineer or the electrician. The questions 
which have to be dealt with are in many 
eases minute and abstruse, information on 
them is scarce, and they do not form part 
of any generally useful educational subject. 
It is evident, however, that accurate knowl- 
edge on such subjects as the properties of 
cutting tools, of lubrication, of the thermal 
treatment of steel, and the numberless other 
processes carried on in our workshops, too 
often only by rule of thumb, is of first-rate 
importance to mechanical industries. In 
the subject of power important papers were 
read on gas-engines, on the combustion of 
coal, and on the standing question of water- 
tube boilers. Most of the considerations 
were of a highly technical kind; but two 
broad facts were clearly brought out—viz., 


660 


the rapid development that is taking place 
in the use of gas-engines for very large 
powers, and the advantages possessed by 


the water-tube boilers over the tank boilers, 


which justify perseverance in trying to 
remedy their present defects. The Hon. 
C. A. Parsons attracted a large audience 
to hear a paper on the recent progress of 
the steam turbine. Besides the above sub- 
jects, a very able and judicial paper on 
the difficult question of competition in 
telephony was contributed by Mr. J. E. 
Kingsbury, which deserves to be widely 
read both on account of the author’s inti- 
mate knowledge of the subject and of the 
calm temper of his review. He concluded 
that the telephone service was essentially 
not a proper field for competition. An 
account by Professor George Forbes of the 
practical trials in the South African war 
of his beautiful range-finder excited great 
interest. 

So far as Anthropology (Section H) is 
concerned, the Belfast meeting will rank as 
one of the most efficient for some years past. 
The average quality of the communications 
was high, and the tone of the discussions 
uniformly business-like and judicial. The 
president’s address, which was devoted to 
the much-debated question of the nature 
and origin of ‘totemistic’ observances 
among wuneivilized peoples, certainly con- 
tributed much, by its cautious and learned 
survey of the evidence, to clear a somewhat 
thorny field; and its suggestion that many 
if not all of these customs may be primarily 
related to the all-important subject of the 
food supply of primitive man will probably 
be found to have suggested a profitable field 
of fresh inquiry. With this encouragement 
from the chair, it is not surprising that the 
other papers on points of custom and folk- 
lore were numerous and of good quality; 
the most important of them, Mr. Hart- 
land’s discussion of the modes of appoint- 
ment of Kings by augury, being further 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 408. 


made appropriate to the season by its ex- 
amination of the significance of the Stone 
of Destiny at Tara and our own Corona- 
tion-stone. Archeological papers were 
numerous. Some of those of local origin 
were perhaps hardly up to the general 
level, but gave indication of intelligent and 
systematic work on the antiquities of the 
neighborhood. Mr. Aberecromby’s classifi- 
cation, on the other hand, of the earliest 
pottery of the Bronze Age in these islands, 
and Mr. Coffey’s identification of objects 
in Ireland analogous to those of ‘Hallstatt’ 
and ‘La Tene’ style on the continent, were 
pieces of original research of a high order, 
and each provoked a well-sustained dis- 
cussion. The Cretan Report brought up to 
date the record of Mr. Evans’s discoveries 
at Knossos; and other papers on Mediter- 
ranean archeology, though not so numerous 
as of late, showed that efficient work is 
being carried on by other students also. 
The Cretan Exploration Committee was 
reappointed, with enlarged terms of refer- 
ence and a fresh grant; and it has instruc- 
tions to make the examination of the phys- 
ical type of the ancient and more recent 
population one of the objects of the forth- 
coming campaign. The discussions which 
arose on paleolithic matters, though, as 
usual, not very conclusive, raised a num- 
ber of interesting points, and were well 
illustrated from the collections of Mr. W. J. 
Knowles and other contributors; and two 
little reports, on Roman sites at Silchester 
and at Gellygaer, near Cardiff, showed that 
the Association regards even ‘classical’ 
archeology as lying on the margin of its 
domain. Papers reporting recent explora- 
tions abroad were fewer than usual, South 
Africa claiming still the majority of the 
men of adventure. But Mr. Henry’s paper 
on the tribes of the Yun-nan border showed 
well what opportunities frontier officers 
have about them, if they will use them; and 
its description of the new pyemy folks 


OcTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


there offered an instructive parallel even 
in detail to the legends of the ‘little people’ 
in the west of Europe. Messrs. Annandale 
and Robinson added considerably to the 
materials collected in the Malay Peninsula 
by the Skeat expedition of two years ago; 
and the account which Dr. Furness gave of 
his work among the Nagas showed well to 
what extent photography can now be 
applied in recording these vanishing 
aborigines. The committees appointed to 
prosecute research on the sense perception 
of the Todas and on the surviving lan- 
guages and peoples of the Pacific illustrate 
still further the urgent necessity of gather- 
ing in such material before it is too late. 
Human anatomy and physical anthro- 
pology were somewhat better represented 
than in recent years; but it is much to be 
regretted that this side of the section’s 
work is not better attended on both sides 
of the table. Professor Cunningham’s ex- 
hibit of the skeleton of Cornelius Mac- 
Grath, the Irish giant, raised an interesting 
point in the study of abnormal stature, by 
connecting it with abnormal states of the 
pituitary body in the brain; and Professor 
Dixon, who followed him, was able to sup- 
port his view on independent grounds. 
The reports of the measurements taken by 
Dr. Myers of the native troops in Egypt, 
and by Mr. Gray of the Indian Coronation 
contingent, showed well how much might 
easily be done, with very small trouble, 
with large bodies of individuals accustomed 
to obey simple instructions. In Egypt, in- 
deed, the Government offered every facility 
for the investigation; but at Hampton 
Court, as well as at the Alexandra Palace, 
the European officers hardly seem to have 
taken the inquiry seriously, and displayed 
a regrettable indifference to a matter in 
which, after all, they are themselves the 
most nearly concerned. The last session, 
devoted to questions of classification, organ- 
ization and method, was well worth imita- 


SCIENCE. 


661 


tion elsewhere; and suggests that the an- 
thropologists are becoming well alive to 
the necessity of coordination and _ sys- 
tematic outlook in their, work. 

Although the meetings of Section I 
(Physiology) were confined to the fore- 
noons of three days, the proceedings were 
enlivened by a number of contributions of 
undoubted physiological value. Professor 
Halliburton’s presidential address, which 
emphasized the importance of chemical 
physiology, did not prevent experimental 
and morphological contributions from re- 
ceiving their share of attention and criti- 
cism. The opening day witnessed a dis- 
cussion following a paper by Dr. Edridge- 
Green on color-vision. Dr. Edridge-Green 
has a theory of his own on this subject 
which he has brought forward with great 
persistence and under various titles before 
physiological circles for some years back. 
This time he supported his theory by de- 
scribing some experiments the results of 
which are at variance with those recorded 
by previous observers. He was then and 
there challenged by Professor McKendrick 
to repeat his experiments before a com- 
mittee of experts. The challenge was ac- 
cepted by Dr. Edridge-Green, whose theory 
has therefore every prospect of being soon 
put to the test. Professor Schifer’s two 
contributions were of exceptional value. 
In one he showed that the epithelial part 
of the pituitary body, which preponderates 
over the nervous part and to which no fune- 
tion has hitherto been assigned, in reality 
elaborates an internal secretion which acts 
powerfully on the kidney, producing. in- 
ereased urinary flow. In his second com- 
munication he added an important chapter 
to the physiology of those puzzling strands 
of nerve fibers in the spinal cord known 
as the anterior columns, assigning to them 
the maintenance of tone in the muscles, 
without which volitional movement would 
be impossible. Equally important, as new 


662 


and unlooked-for discoveries, are those 
cases in which problems long the subject of 
debate and contention are solved or, dis- 
missed. If finality is ever attaimable in 
physiological debates the question of 
fatigue in nerve has surely reached that 
stage; for Professor Gotch showed by the 
results of his ingeniously simple but con- 
vincing experiments that functional fatigue 
does not exist in a medullated nerve. Much 
the same may be said of the paper by Pro- 
fessor Halliburton and Dr. Mott, in which 
strong evidence was brought forward in 
support of the contention that when a 
divided nerve grows again and heals the 
erowth takes place from that end which 
is connected with the nerve center. Dr. 
John Turner’s paper on the human brain 
was both morphological and physiological. 
Professor Schifer accepted as accurate the 
morphological part, but dissented from Dr. 
Turner’s physiological interpretations. It 
will be seen, even from this succinct 
sketch, that the Physiological Section en- 
joyed a successful, if brief, career, and 
that physiology has been enriched by con- 
tributions of importance. 

In his presidential address to Section K 
(Botany) Professor J. R. Green em- 
phasized the study of vegetable physiology, 
not merely on account of its intrinsic im- 
portance in special botanical problems, but 
as a subject of fundamental economic im- 
portanee, especially in relation to agricul- 
ture. The papers read in this branch of 
the subject were of considerable interest, 
one of the most important being that by 
Professor Bose, who showed by experiments 
that plant tissues respond to stimulation in 
much the same way that muscle fiber does. 
Mrs. D. H. Scott also described the curious 
movements of the flowers of Sparmannia 
in relation to its environment. Professor 
Macfadyen deseribed experiments on the 
exposure of bacteria to intense cold, which 
demonstrate that their vitality is not de- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 408. 


stroyed even after an exposure to a tem- 
perature of 250° C. below zero. In the 
department of fossil plants great interest 
was shown in the papers contributed by 
Mr. Seward, Miss Benson, D.Sec., and Mr. 
Lomax; and Dr. Scott submitted observa- 
tions on Sporangiphores, which indicate 
that they may afford an important clue to 
affinities among groups of recent and fossil 
plants. One of the important papers was 
that by Professor Oliver and Miss Chick on 
Torreya, which raised many points of mor- 
phological importance, especially in connec- 
tion with the evolution of the seed. Mr. 
Stirling, in a paper on the flora of the 
Australian Alps, pointed out that the evi- 
dence now available confirms the original 
forecast of Sir J. D. Hooker, that the 
affinity between the Antarctic and South 
African floras indicates them as members of 
one great vegetation. Some valuable papers 
on fungi were contributed from the Cam- 
bridge botanical laboratory, and Miss 
Lorrain-Smith read a paper of economic 
importance on a fungus disease of the 
gooseberry. Mr. Lloyd Praeger contributed 
a valuable paper on the composition of the 
flora of the northeast of Ireland. The 
arrangements made by the local secretaries 
were excellent; and interesting excursions 
to the new fernery at the Botanic Gardens 
and to Colin Glen were well attended by 
the botanists present at the meeting. 

In the second year of its existence the 
infant section of the Association—L (Edu- 
cation) —has justified the efforts of those 
primarily responsible for its appointment 
by the extraordinary interest that has been 
evineed in its proceedings. The papers and 
discussions have reached a high level, and 
have given a_ stimulus to educational 
thought which has already borne valuable 
fruit and provided many constructive sug- 
gestions. The section is naturally exposed 
to the grave danger. of becoming the happy 
hunting ground of educational faddists. 


OCTOBER 24, 1902. | 


But the committee have from the first real- 
ized this danger, and in order to avoid it 
have adopted a procedure somewhat differ- 
ent from that of other sections; broad sub- 
jects of discussion have been laid down by 
the committee, and those papers arranged 
for that form valuable contributions to 
such discussions. It is thus possible to 
obtain the succinct opinions of a consider- 
able number of educationists ‘without 
occupying the time of the meetings with 
the elaboration of formal papers. On few 
other platforms can educational problems 
be discussed from so thoroughly independ- 
ent and scientific a point of view by men 
representative of all types of culture and 
imbued with the spirit of progress. The 
section should in the future play an im- 
portant part in directing public opinion 
towards a solution of the numerous prob- 
lems of British education. The selection of 
Professor H. H. Armstrong as president of 
the section was but a fit and proper recogni- 
tion, not only of his efforts in establishing 
the section, but of his persistent and 
unwearying advocacy of reform in the 
methods and ideals of English education. 
In his discourse on ‘The Scientific use of 
the Imagination’ he showed in eloquent 
and forcible language that the long domi- 
nation of the schools by the classic and the 
cleric has led to a serious disuse of the 
imagination in education. Time-honored 
curricula in the puble schools have re- 
tained their autocratic influence, in spite 
of the fact that in the meantime science has 
revolutionized every sphere of industrial 
and social activity; he laid down a doc- 
trine of education and an ideal of the func- 
tion of the school which are far removed 
from those at present accepted by the great 
body of schoolmasters. 

If there is one paper more than another 
that will make the Belfast meeting of the 
Association remembered, it is that of Dr. 
Starkie, the Resident Commissioner of 


SCIENCE, 


663 


national education. Occupying the prin- 
cipal official educational appointment in 
Treland, he ruthlessly laid bare the in- 
sidious causes that have stunted the de- 
velopment of education in that country. 
The vast majority of Irish schools are con- 
trolled by one manager—the minister of 
religion of the denomination to which the 
school is attached—who has absolute power 
over the appointment and dismissal of the 
teacher, but who provides no part of the 
teacher’s salary; the department of na- 
tional education pays the full salary of 
every teacher, and has no voice whatever 
in appointing or dismissing him. As there 
is no local taxation for primary education 
in Ireland, except for those few schools 
vested in, and therefore maintained by, the 
commissioners, there is no satisfactory 
means of keeping the school buildings in a 
habitable condition, or of supplying the 
necessary equipment. The funds the man- 
ager can raise seldom stray from the path 
to the church, and the upkeep of the school 
is too often chargeable to the underpaid 
teacher. The courageous attitude of the 
Resident Commissioner has already pro- 
foundly stirred educational thought in Ire- 
land, and, it is to be hoped, has aroused 
a public opinion on the subject which it is 
indispensable should be created before an 
attempt can be made to find a remedy. 
The partial reforms that have recently been 
made in intermediate education in Ireland 
were condemned by Mr. Jones and Father 
Murphy on account of their incomplete and 
unsatisfactory character; and the discus- 
sion which arose on this subject must have 
an important influence on future policy. 
The new Department of Agriculture and 
Technical Instruction, for which Mr. 
Plunkett has labored so long and so earn- 
estly, met with almost unqualified approval 
as to its educational policy. 

It will be remembered that Professor 
Perry’s vigorous onslaught upon the mathe- 


664 


matical teachers last year resulted in the 
appointment of a very strong committee to 
inquire into the matter. The report of 
this committee and the discussion upon it 
amply justified Professor Perry’s action. 
Both professor and schoolmaster came for- 
ward to advocate reforms in secondary 
schools suggested in the report; definite 
constructive proposals have been made as 
to the curriculum and conduct of examina- 
tions; and, though it is obvious that reform 
cannot stop at this stage, a valuable step 
in the right direction has been taken. ‘The 
Teaching of English,’ which the great pub- 
he schools, accepting the traditional classic- 
al curriculum, have seriously neglected, 
received considerable attention. Mr. P. J. 
Hartog, in an able paper, drew attention 
to the method of teaching style in composi- 
tion adopted in the principal French 
schools, and urged that the classical master 
is wrong in assuming that the only method 
of teaching English composition and style 
must be through the medium of Greek and 
Latin, of which languages the average 
school boy has not obtained a real grasp. 
The training of teachers is, undoubtedly, 
the problem of paramount importance in 
educational affairs to-day, and the debate 
on this subject was valuable in directing 
attention to the shortcomings of existing 
arrangements for training. Miss Walter’s 
plea for a secondary school career for the 
future teachers of primary schools is one 
admitted by every one dealing with pri- 
mary schools. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 
EHRLICH’S SEITENKETTENTHEORIE. 

THE recently published work of Professor 
Aschoff (Ehrlich’s ‘ Seitenkettentheorie und 
ihre Anfwendung auf die Kiinstlichen Im- 
munisierungsprozesse’) will be of great use 
to those who desire to keep abreast with the 
progress of science in this fruitful field of 
investigation. It is, indeed, an intelligent 
review of the whole subject of acquired im- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 408. 


munity, and includes a statement of the prin- 
cipal facts which have been developed by ex- 
periment, as well as a discussion of the vari- 
ous theories which have been advanced in 
explanation of these facts. The great interest 
attached to the subject and the extent of the 
field of investigation which has been developed 
since the epoch-making discovery of the anti- 
toxins of diphtheria and of tetanus by Beh- 
ring and Kitasato (1890) are shown by the ex- 
tent of the literature given by Aschoff at the 
close of his review (‘ Zusammenfassende Dar- 
stellung’). This covers 41 pages and includes 
nearly 900 titles. Of these Ehrlich has con- 
tributed no less than 22. His first paper, 
published in 1891, demonstrated the remark- 
able fact that animals can be made immune 
against certain vegetable poisons (ricin and 
abrin), and that the blood serum of such ani- 
mals contains an antitoxin which has a spe- 
cific action in neutralizing the toxic effects of 
these poisons, when injected into non-immune 
and susceptible animals. In prosecuting his in- 
vestigations Ehrlich has had the advantage 
over many others who have devoted them- 
selves to similar researches in the fact that he 
is a most accomplished chemist, and has given 
special attention to that difficult branch ot 
organic chemistry which is concerned with 
bodies of the class to which the antitoxins 
belong. 

“Tn a paper published in 1897 Ehrlich 
advanced his ‘side-chain’ theory. He consid- 
ers the individual cells of the body to be 
analogous, in a certain sense, to complex or- 
ganic substances, and that they consist essen- 
tially of a central nucleus to which secondary 
atom-groups having distinct physiological 
functions are attached by ‘side chains ’— 
such as chemists represent in their attempts 
to illustrate the reactions which occur in the 
building up or pulling down of complex or- 
ganic substances. The cell-equilibrium is sup- 
posed to be disturbed by injury to any of its 
physiological atom-groups—as by a toxin— 
and this disturbance results in an effort at 
compensatory repair during which plastic 
material in excess of the amount required is 
generated and finds its way into the blood. 
This Ehrlich regards as the antitoxin, which 


OcTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


is capable of neutralizing the particular toxin 
to which it owes its origin, if this is subse- 
quently introduced into the blood. In this 
theory a specific combining relation is 
assumed to exist between various toxic sub- 
stances and the secondary atom-groups of 
certain cellular elements of the body. The 
atom-groups which, in accordance with this 
theory, combine with the toxin of any par- 
ticular disease germ, Ehrlich calls the ‘ toxi- 
phorie side chain.’* 

The fact that the toxin produced by the 
tetanus bacillus has an elective aftinity for the 
cells of the nervous tissues seems to be well 
established. The wonderful toxic potency of 
this toxin is shown by the researches of 
Kitasato and by those of Brieger and Cohn 
(1893). According to the last-named authors 
the chemical reactions of the purified toxin 
show that it is not a true albuminous body. 
When injected beneath the skin of a mouse 
weighing fifteen grams, in the dose of 
0.00000005 gram, it caused its death, and 
one-fifth of this amount gave rise to tetanic 


symptoms. The lethal dose for a man weigh- 
ing seventy kilograms is estimated by 
Brieger and Cohn to be 0.00023 gram 


(0.23 milligram). Comparing this with the 
most deadly vegetable alkaloids known, it is 
nearly six hundred times as potent as atropin 
and one hundred and fifty times as potent as 
strychnin. [Ehrlich’s explanation of the 
origin of antitoxins is opposed by Buchner 
. and others. According to Buchner the anti- 
toxins are to be regarded not as reactive pro- 
ducts developed in the body of the immune 
animal, but as modified, changed and ‘ ent- 
giftete’ products of the specific bacterial cells. 
He insists that they do not neutralize toxins 
by direct contact, but only through the 
medium of the living organism. 

On the other hand, Ehrlich insists that the 
antitoxin neutralizes the toxin directly, in a 
chemical way, and that such neutralization 
occurs when they are mixed in a test-tube, 
even more effectually than when they are 
injected separately into the body of a suscep- 


* Quoted from the writer’s ‘ Text-book of Bac- 
teriology,’ second edition, 1891. 


SCIENCE. 


665 


tible animal. The experimental evidence 
appears to me to be in favor of Ehrlich’s view, 
but neither time nor space will permit me to 
present this evidence or to review the experi- 
mental data upon which Ehrlich bases his 
side-chain theory. The reader is referred to 
Professor Aschoff’s work for a full discussion 
of the subject. Certainly Ehrlich’s views are 
entitled to great consideration, but it is evi- 
dent that his theory, however plausible it may 
appear, especially to chemists, is far from 
being established upon a reliable experi- 
mental basis. For us, the numerous facts 
which have been brought to light by his 
painstaking researches have a far greater 
scientific value than his ‘ Seitenkettentheorie.’ 
Gro. M. STERNBERG. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
SOME MATTERS OF FACT OVERLOOKED BY PRO- 
FESSOR WILSON. 

Proressor WILSON seems to think that the 
general scientific public is in danger of getting 
“a wrong impression’ of the situation at 
Wood’s Holl from my article in Science of 
October 3; and in order to prevent this he 
offers some criticisms and insinuations which, 
I think, may produce a worse impression than 
the one he desires to correct. Let me say, 
therefore, to begin with, that our different 
standpoints and opinions have been, and will 
doubtless continue to be held on perfectly 
friendly terms. 

Professor Wilson has favored merging the 
laboratory in the Carnegie Institution, and he 
has insisted very strongly that the independ- 
ence of the laboratory would not be thereby 
endangered in any essential respect. This view 
was naturally seductive, for what friend of 
the laboratory would not weleome a permanent 
support which could be had without the sacri- 
fice of a single principle or condition of vital 
importance? The financial difficulties under 
which we have so long labored predisposed all 
to accept relief and forget the risk. The assur- 
ance that there was no real risk from the one 
who had carried on most of the negotiations for 
our side, and the conditions proposed by the 
Carnegie committee all tended to allay doubt. 
Our organization was to remain essentially as 


666 


it is, our work was not to be interfered with, 
we were to direct the policy of the laboratory 
as hitherto, and our needs in the way of land, 
buildings, boats, libraries, ete., were to be pro- 
vided for; in short, we were to have a per- 
manent laboratory with staff and equipment 
for work throughout the year, a laboratory that 
would rival the best in the world. So bright 
did the prospect appear to Professor Wilson 
that he could speak of it as “ beyond the dream 
of avarice. With all my faith in Dr. Wilson’s 
sagacity, I cannot escape the suspicion that 
he has been under the spell of some trance- 
like illusion, which, for the time being, ex- 
cludes a calm consideration of ‘matters of 
fact.’ 

If the latest communication from the Car- 
negie committee does not dispel the illusion, 
I do not know what will. This communication 
has gone to all our trustees and will probably 
be announced at the proper time. It is suf- 
ficient to say, that it conclusively confirms the 
position I have taken, namely, that the labor- 
atory should remain forever independent, but 
always ready for cooperation and always grate- 
ful for such support as its work may deserve. 

This is the main point of my paper, which 
Professor Wilson criticises in a spirit that 
seems to me to fall a little short of amiable; 
but I hope I am mistaken in this. 

As the matter now turns, we may rejoice 
that our trust and our mistakes have not been 
confounded by the Carnegie trustees; and we 
are most deeply indebted to their wisdom, 
frankness and generosity. It is now, I believe, 
needless to follow Professor Wilson further on 
this point, as he has been answered by the 
communication above mentioned more effect- 
ively than by any arguments that I could offer. 

There is just one incident bearing on this 
point, which I wish to reeall as a significant 
matter of fact. After our corporation meet- 
ing, August 12, a petition was drawn up by 
one of the members and presented to Pro- 
fessor Wilson for approval. That part of the 
petition which concerns us here was as fol- 
lows: ‘We, therefore, hope that the trustees 
of the Carnegie Institution may find it pos- 
sible to support the Marine Biological Labora- 
tory in the manner proposed, without requir- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 408. 


ing it to become a branch of the Carnegie 
Institution. Professor Wilson read the peti- 
tion, and at once declared that he was willing 
to sign it. When the petition was presented 
a few days later, Professor Wilson, for rea- 
sons that need not be given here, declined 
to give his signature, and the petition was 
consequently abandoned. The incident is sig- 
nificant as showing that at that time Pro- 
fessor Wilson was willing to endorse a prefer- 
ence for preserving the independence of the 
laboratory. I believe every member of the 
corporation would have been glad to sign such 
a petition, had it seemed safe and proper to do 
so. The fact throws light on the situation as 
a whole, and as it is no secret, I feel justified 
in bringing it forward. 

I regret that Professor Wilson does not 
seem to approve of the publication of my 
paper in Science. I felt that the time had 
come for me to remove the misunderstanding 
in regard to my position. I stated the situa- 
tion as I understood it, and frankly avowed 
my desire to preserve the independence of the 
laboratory. I submitted the paper to a num- 
ber of the trustees and finally to Dr. Billings, 
who consented to its publication. Professor 
Wilson stigmatizes my view as ‘ pessimistic’ 
and closes with a reference to past criticisms 
of the laboratory which might well have been 
omitted as wholly unprovoked and uncalled 
for. This is the most unkind cut of all, that 
a friend of the laboratory should thus covertly 
countenance its ealumniators. | 

One point more. Professor Wilson objects 
to my saying that the plan of acquiring the 
laboratory as a condition to supporting it did 
not originate with the trustees of the Carnegie 
Institution. I stated the matter as I under- 
stood it and as I still see it. Professor Wilson 
was not the only one on our side who at first 
had a hand in determining events. 

We have been repeatedly told by the Car- 
negie committee that they should have pre- 
ferred to recommend support without owner- 
ship, and one of them distinctly stated in 
Professor Wilson’s presence that it was the 
“emergency” placed before them which led 
them to the proposition finally made to us. It 
is little to the point to refer to the official 


‘OCTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


correspondence, for there were preliminary 
discussions. We all know who formulated the 
proposition, and I have authority which no 
one will dispute for saying that its author did 
not originate the plan, but simply formulated 
it as the result of the preliminary discussions 
between the members of our and of their 
‘special committee. 

IT can not, and have not, asserted that Pro- 
fessor Wilson originated the plan; but I think 
it safe to say that he knew of the plan before 
it was presented, that he approved it, pre- 
sented it, and opposed the alternative plan of 
support without ownership, which was the 
preference of the Carnegie trustees. By all 
this Professor Wilson made himself its god- 
father. 

Jn the passage quoted by Professor Wilson, 
the statement is made that ‘they were asked 
on what terms they would consent to own and 
support it. ‘No such question,’ says Pro- 
fessor Wilson, ‘ was asked or suggested in any 
of the official correspondence.’ I did not pre- 
tend to give exact words, nor did IJ assert that 
the question occurred in the official corre- 
spondence. It is a mistake however to say 
that this correspondence did not suggest it. 
Tt did suggest it to me, and I think my state- 
ment fairly summarizes the attitude assumed 
on our side. 

If Professor Wilson asked or suggested sup- 
port that involved ‘an obvious necessity’ of 
ownership by the Carnegie Institution, and if 
he has never objected to such ownership, but 
has objected to support that did not involve 
ownership, the objection to my words cannot 
be very serious. CO. O. WHITMAN. 
Curcaco, October 14. 


THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY AND THE 
CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 


To tue Evrror oF Science: In your article 
in Scipnce, September 19, 1902, on the ‘ Car- 
negie Institution,’ you make statements in re- 
gard to this laboratory on which I beg to 
comment. You say that ‘the corporation of 
the Marine Biological Laboratory is a corpora- 
tion composed chiefly of those who have ecar- 


ried on research in the laboratory.’ 


SCIENCE. 


667 


Pardon me if I express doubt as to the ex- 
actness of this statement. The corporation 
has three hundred and fifty-two members. Of 
these sixty-five are residents of Boston or its 
vicinity, and most of them are personally 
known to me. Very few of them have ever 
carried on research in this laboratory. They 
have aided the laboratory by donations, but 
not by work. 
who have carried on research in this laboratory 
are members of the American Society of Nat- 


I think a large per cent. of those 


uralists. A comparison of the lists of mem- 
bers of that society and of the corporation 
shows that but seventy-one (about twenty per 
cent.) of the corporation belong to the so- 
ciety; further, that the society has but half a 
dozen female members, while one hundred and - 
seventeen (about twenty-four per cent.) of 
Still further, 
over fifty per cent. of the corporation give no 


the corporation are women. 


university or college address, but simply town, 
street and number. Persons holding univer- 
sity or college positions generally give their 
official addresses. All these facts tend to con- 
firm me in the opinion that the corporation is 
not ‘composed chiefly of those who have ear- 
ried on research in the laboratory.’ 

In the past several attempts have been made 
to secure to this laboratory large financial sup- 
‘port, but on every occasion we have been told 
by those to whom appeals have been made, 
that the defects in our business organizations 
were deterrent to those who might otherwise 
contribute. We were told that before acquir- 
ing endowment, land and permanent buildings, 
all property should be vested in a smaller and. 
more select body. What our advisers have told 
us in the past, the executive committee of the 
Carnegie Institution has but repeated. The 
matter of support by the Carnegie Institution 
was considered at two largely attended trus- 
tees’ meetings, and it was voted unanimously 
to recommend to the corporation that on a 
promise of support by the Carnegie Institu- 
tion, the corporation should convey its prop- 
erty to that institution. 

At the annual meeting of the corporation, 
August 12, 1902, a deed conveying the prop- 
erty was read, and a motion was made in- 


668 


structing and empowering the treasurer to so 
convey the property. 

You moved that the following amendment 
be appended to the motion: ‘ That the corpor- 
ation of the Marine Biological Laboratory 
request the trustees of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion to consider the possibility of assisting the 
laboratory without making it a branch of the 
Carnegie Institution.’ A large majority voted 
against this amendment. It was made a 
second time in a slightly altered form, but 
received still less support. 

The original motion was then put before the 
meeting, and by an overwhelming majority it 
was 

Vorep: That the Treasurer, D. Blakely Hoar, 
be and he is hereby authorized and instructed to 
execute, acknowledge, and deliver, in the name 
and behalf of this corporation, the deed which 
has just been read, conveying to the said Car- 
negie Institution, all and singular, the properties 
of this corporation, and also any and all other 
documents of title in the opinion of counsel neces- 
sary or expedient fully to vest the title to such 
property in said Institution. 

You and two others cast the only opposing 
votes. Yet, in your article in SclENCE you 
state that ‘It was the preference of nearly all 
the members of the corporation that the labo- 
ratory should be assisted by the Carnegie In- 
stitution without being made a branch of it.’ 
I do not know on what this statement can be 
based. 

In another part of the same article you 
say, ‘the director and other scientific men 
serve the laboratory without salary.’ The di- 
rector, yes. The other scientific men, no. All 
members of the staff who need or wish it 
receive remuneration for services rendered. 

In 1901 the salaries of the scientific staff 
amounted to $2,625. The income was $8,448.22, 
so that the salaries were about thirty per cent. 
of the income. In 1902, the salaries were 
$3,700. This, of course, does not include 
the curator, collector, janitors, boatmen, ete. 
These are the figures given by the treasurer. 

Before the annual meeting of the corpora- 
tion, the question was freely discussed, whether 
teaching would be continued under Carnegie 
Institution control, and how that would affect 
the numerous small salaries now paid. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 408. 


It is to the credit of these men who receive 
salaries that when they were called on to con- 
sider the advancement of the laboratory, they 
forgot their salaries and helped to form the 
great majority in favor of Carnegie Institu- 
tion control. Epw. G. GARDINER, 

Secretary. 

MariInE BroLogicaL LABORATORY, 

Woops Hote, Mass. ; 

I rrust that Dr. Gardiner will permit me to 
reply briefly to his remarks: 

1. I am not correctly quoted in his first 
paragraph, as may be seen, by reference to my 
article (p. 461 above). Instead of saying that 
the members of the corporation are ‘ chiefly’ 
those who have carried on research in the 
laboratory, it would have ,been more accurate 
if I had said that ‘the chief members of the 
corporation’ or ‘nearly all those who attend 
meetings of the corporation’ have carried on 
research in the laboratory. .The inexactness 
appears to be rather slight. 

2. I think I was correct in stating that ‘It 
was the preference of nearly all the members 
of the corporation that the laboratory should 
be assisted by the Carnegie Institution with- 
out being made a branch of it.? The members 
have never been permitted to make known 
their real preference. Professor Whitman, the 
director, and Professor Wilson, the chairman 
of the executive committee, who both voted for 
the transfer, have stated in Scrence that (to 
quote the latter) ‘An organization similar to 
the existing one would be preferable if com- 
patible with adequate financial support.’ If 
Dr. Gardiner had quoted the second as well as 
the first half of my sentence, it seems to me 
that the matter would have been sufficiently 
explained. I continued ‘but the alternative 
was placed before them of giving away the 
laboratory or losing the large support of the 
Carnegie Institution and perhaps_ witnessing 
the establishment of a rival laboratory.’ 

3. My statement that ‘ the director and other 
scientific men serve the laboratory without 
salary’ is correct. Dr. Gardiner and I myself 
are among the many scientific men who have 
so served the laboratory. Dr. Gardiner has 
given a large part of his time to it for many 
years. Should the Marine Biological Labora- 


OCTOBER 24, 1902.] 


tory become a branch of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion and should Dr. Gardiner be retained as 
secretary, he should receive a salary. 

Dr. Gardiner sends his letter to the ‘ Editor 
of Science,’ but addresses me personally. The 
editor of ScrrNCcE, as representing the policy of 
the journal, is responsible for the acceptance 
of my article for publication, but not for the 
opinions expressed in it. 

J. McKeen Carre... 

CotuMBIA UNIVERSITY. 


ORANGE COUNTY MASTODONS. 

Mr. Gorpon will, I trust, pardon me for 
saying that he is mistaken in supposing that 
the bones of the last three mastodons discov- 
ered in Orange County were found in their 
proper relative positions. The Schaeffer spec- 
imen was scattered over about thirty by fifty 
feet and the greater portion of three legs was 
never found. The Monroe specimen is sadly 
incomplete and there is reason to suppose that 
part of it is a hundred yards away from 
where the tusks were discovered. Finally, the 
entire hind legs of the otherwise fine animal 
at Yale have never been recovered. There is 
also a specimen at Vassar that I believe came 
from the vicinity of Newburgh, and this too 
is incomplete. 

It is possible, however, that Mr. Gordon 
has reference to the Peale specimens, and 
these, I believe, were fairly complete. If it is 
to these that Mr. Gordon refers, the mistake 
is on my part. F. A. Lucas. 

WASHINGTON, D. C., 

October 10. 
SHORTER ARTICLES. 
THE BITTER ROT DISEASE OF APPLES. 

On July 10, of this year, Mr. R. A. Simpson, 
an agent in the employ of this laboratory, 
called our attention to the fact that the bitter 
rot spores which infected the apples in his 
orchard at Parkersburg, Ill., seemed to come 
from canker-like formations on the limbs of 
the apple trees. The bitter rot was first 
observed by him July 9. An examination of 
the trees on which the rot had appeared showed 
that in almost every instance it was possible to 
trace the infection to such a canker. ‘The 
tracing was comparatively an easy matter, as 


SCIENCE. 


669 


the first lot of infected fruit usually occurs 
distributed in the form of a cone, with its apex 
towards the top of the tree. Although it 
seemed probable from Mr. Simpson’s dis- 
covery, which was verified and extended by us 
several days later, both in the orchard at 
Parkersburg and elsewhere in Illinois and 
Missouri, that a causal relation existed 
between the cankers and the bitter rot disease 
of the apples, it was not thought sufficiently 
well proven at that time to warrant publica- 
tion. Examinations of the cankers showed the 
presence of pycnidia containing the charac- 
teristic pale bitter rot spores, likewise of 
numerous spores of Spheropsis malorum, of a 
species of Alternaria and spores of several 
other fungi. In the cultures made from 
numerous cankers Gleosporium fructigenum 
appeared in every instance.* 

At first conidia borne free on short hyphal 
branches appeared in the pure cultures, and 
later on the pink masses of spores usually 
found on diseased fruits. When kept for some 
time, the fungus in these pure cultures pro- 
duced perfect perithecia and asci. Mycelium 
which produces perithecia and asci when trans- 
ferred to fresh apple agar, will continue form- 
ing perithecia, the latter appearing in such 
fresh cultures seven to eight days after the 
transfer. Inoculations were made into the . 
bark of healthy apple trees about the middle 
of July, with spores from pure cultures ob- 
tained from the cankers. At the same time 
apples were inoculated with these same spores. 
In the course of a week the infected apples 
showed every sign of the bitter rot disease as 
found out of doors. Inoculations were like- 
wise made with Gleosporiwm spores taken 
from apples recently attacked in the orchard, 
both into healthy apples and into growing 
apple branches, at the Missouri Botanical 
Garden. Inoculations into the branches were 
made by making shallow cuts through the 
bark, and inserting a needle point covered 
with spores into the cut. Control cuts were 
made for every inoculation, distant but two 
to three inches from the infected cut. At 
first little difference was noticeable between 


* Most of the cultures were made by Mr. Geo. 
G. Hedgecock, assistant in pathology. 


670 


infected cuts and the control cuts. After a 
week or more the bark around the infected 
cuts turned brown and black; it gradually 
dried and became more or less depressed. ‘The 
branches inoculated with Glewosporium spores 
from apples showed unmistakable signs of 
canker formation about four or five weeks 
after the inoculation. Small black acervuli 
were noticeable about the edges of the shriveled 
bark, which were found to be true Glao- 
sporium pyenidia. Inoculations were there- 
upon made with spores from these cankers, 
into apples, and these showed the characteristic 
bitter rot disease a week later. 

The branches inoculated with Glewosporium 
spores from pure cultures (made from cankers 
taken from orchards) showed the formation of 
exceedingly striking cankers by the beginning 
of September. These cankers had numerous 
pyenidia with mature spores, which, when 
inoculated into apples, produced the character- 
istic bitter rot disease with pyenidia. One 
must add that, with the very large number of 
inoculations made, not a single control cut or 
puncture showed any signs of disease. 

The cycle of infections made may be re- 
capitulated briefly, as follows: 

1. Spores of Gleosporium fructigenum from 
apples affected with the bitter rot disease, 
inoculated into living apple branches produced 
an apple canker with Gleosporium fructi- 
genum spores, and the latter inoculated into 
healthy apples produced the bitter rot disease. 

2. Pure cultures of Glwosporium fructige- 
num were obtained from apple cankers in the 
orchard. The spores from such pure cultures, 
when inoculated into living apple branches, 
gave rise to apple cankers with pyenidia and 
spores of Glewosporium fructigenum. These 
spores, inoculated into apples, produced the 
bitter rot disease. 

It appears from these preliminary studies, 
that there is a causal relation between apple 
eankers found in numerous orchards and the 
bitter rot disease, and that it is very probable 
that this fungus is capable of living both in 
the bark and the fruit of the apple. This fact 
will be an important one in assisting apple 
growers to combat the disease. 

The details of the cultures and the observa- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vot. XVI. No. 408. 


tions, together with illustrations, and a dis- 
cussion as to the relationship of the various 
stages of this fungus and its host, are to be 
published in full before long. 
HERMAN VON SCHRENK, 
PerRLEY SPAULDING. 
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY LABORATORY, VEG. PATH. 
AND Puys. INVESTIGATIONS, BUREAU OF PLANT 
Inpustry, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


THE TERTIARY OF THE SABINE RIVER. 

Tuer results of Dr. Veatch’s work in the 
Tertiary deposits along the Sabine River, as 
published in the ‘Report of the Louisiana 
Geological Survey,’ 1902, are of great value in 
clearing up the stratigraphy of that region and 
in showing the presence of deposits of Jackson 
age in the Eocene of Texas, where they had 
not been recognized with certainty by earlier 
observers. 

In his correlation of these deposits with 
the general Texas section, on page 141, he 
uses Kennedy’s table. In this the reference 
of certain east Texas materials to the Fayette 
and Frio beds was made entirely on account 
of lithological similarity and supposed strat- 
igraphic equivalency, but subsequent work 
has shown that they do not belong to those 
horizons, but to others of much later date. 

In Texas, the area occupied by the outcrop 
of deposits of Lower Claiborne is so immense 
that it has been found convenient to break 
it up into four substages: The Marine, Yegua, 
Fayette and Frio. These four substages out- 
crop for more than thirty miles on the Brazos 
river and for no less than one hundred and 
thirty miles on the Rio Grande. They are 
all fossiliferous, and the great number of fos- 
sils collected from the first three, and deter- 
mined by Professor Harris, proves their Lower 
Claiborne age conclusively. Professor Harris 
also placed the Frio clays in the same stage 
on the basis of such fossils as we obtained 
in it, and we so hold it. 

These beds are usually overlain directly by 
Neocene deposits. 

Loughridge, in his report on Cotton Pro- 
duction in Texas (Tenth Census Report), 
gave a brief description of the Miocene beds 
as then known, and outlined the northern 


OCTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


boundary very correctly. In fact it is more 
nearly correct than some of the later ones. 
The beds which he refers to this period had 
been previously noted by Shumard, Buckley 
and others, and their age determined to some 
extent by vertebrate remains found in their 
upper portion. In 1894 I described these 
beds * as they occur in southwest Texas and, 
on the basis of Professor Cope’s determina- 
tions, separated the Neocene into Oakville 
(Miocene), Lapara, Legarto and Reynosa 
(Pliocene). Later I traced these beds to east 
Texas and proved their identity with Lough- 
ridge’s beds,t and thus found that the clays 
and sands east of the Trinity, which Kennedy 
has called the Fayette and Frio, are in fact 
Oakville and Lapara-Lagarto. The only ex- 
ception to this which I now recall is the 
sandstone north of Corrigan, which Professor 
Harris first thought was Lower Claiborne, but 
after study of fuller collections decided to be 
Jackson. 

Therefore the true correlation of the two 
sections would probably be more like this: 


Texas Section. Sabine Section. 


Lapara-Lagarto, 


Oakville ? Neocene. Burkville beds. 
Oakville. Grand Gulf. 
Jackson. 
Wanting. 
_@ Frio. Wanting. 
£6 Fayette. Eocene. | Cooksfield Ferry. 
Om | Yegua. Lower Claiborne. 
Hs ©) a 
© | Marine. Wanting as such. 
Basal Lignitic. 
2 Carrizo Sands (Queen . 
6 City). 
3 Lignitic. 


My interpretation would be that the Sabine 
section shows an overlap of the Lower Clai- 
borne on the Lignitic, entirely covering the 
sandy, unfossiliferous Carrizo beds, which else- 
where in Texas form so prominent a feature 
at the top of the Lignitic beds. Also an over- 
lap of the Jackson on the Yegua ? (Cocks- 
field Ferry beds), covering both the Fayette 
and the Frio. 

* Journal of Geology, Vol. II., pp. 549, ete. 


7 Trans. Tex. Ac. Sc., 1894, pp. 23. Trans. Am. 
Inst. Min. Eng., Vol. XXXI. 


SCIENCE. 


671 


The Oakville is stratigraphically the cor- 
relative of the Grand Gulf, and it is possible 
that closer work in Texas may yet show that 
the lower portion, in which we have found no 
fossils as yet, is the extension of the Oligocene 
portion of the formation. From Harris’ de- 
termination of the age of the Burkeville beds, 
I suspect them to be a part of the Oakville 
beds, as they are certainly older than any La- 
para we know west of the Trinity. It will 
require still further field work, however, to 
determine its exact relation to these beds. 

E. T. Dumste. 


A NOTE ON METHODS OF ISOLATING COLON BACILLI. 

Iv often happens that bacteriologists wish 
to obtain fresh cultures of Bacillus coli for 
experimental purposes and they sometimes find 
that the methods of isolation in general use 
are unsuccessful or inconvenient. The rea- 
sons for the latter fact have not hitherto, so 
far as 1 am aware, been satisfactorily ex- 
plained. In some comparative bacteriological 
studies made in cooperation with one of my 
students, Mr. William J. Mixter, I found it 
necessary to obtain a large number of fresh 
cultures of B. coli and soon learned that the 
two methods in common use, viz. (1) ‘ plating 
out’ the aqueous suspension of fresh feces 
in agar, litmus-lactose-agar, or gelatin, or (2) 
inoculating from such a suspension into dex- 
trose broth and incubating eighteen to twenty- 
four hours with subsequent plate cultivation, 
while giving a plentiful supply of bacteria 
gave, for the most part, negative results as 
regards B. coli. 

After considerable experimenting we finally 
hit upon the following method with satisfac- 
tory results. A very small portion of fresh 
feeces is inoculated directly into dextrose broth 
in the fermentation tube, and allowed to de- 
velop at 87°. At the end of from two to six 
hours the culture medium becomes turbid 
throughout and gas formation is generally 
proceeding rapidly. If inoculation is now 
made into litmus-lactose-agar plates and incu- 
bation continued at blood heat, colonies of B. 
colt develop abundantly and with great rapid- 
ity. Isolation, purification and cultural tests 
can then be carried on by the usual methods, 


672 


and in some eases the colonies obtained by 
plating on litmus-lactose-agar represent an 
almost pure growth of B. coli. If, instead of 
plating after the short period of growth, the 
original culture is allowed to develop for 
twenty-four, or even for eighteen, hours, B. 
coli is isolated only with much greater 
difficulty. 

The explanation of these facts is apparently 
simple. In the first few hours a rapid develop- 
ment of colon bacilli oceurs, while other micro- 
organisms present multiply more slowly, but 
if a longer incubation period is allowed, the 
other microorganisms, especially the strepto- 
coeci recently described in Sctence by Mr. C. 
E. A. Winslow and Miss Hunnewell, develop 
abundantly and overgrow the colon bacilli. 
This over-growth is probably to be explained 
by a study of the products of the two kinds of 
microorganisms. The colon bacilli produce 
lactic acid, but also under favorable condi- 
tions carry on putrefactive processes with the 
ultimate formation of alkaline matters which 
partially or entirely neutralize the acid 
formed. The streptococci flourish only in the 
presence of sugars, but produce abundant acid 
and, while, therefore, perhaps growing more 
slowly at the start, eventually produce much 
more lactic acid than does B. coli. Moreover, 
colon bacilli appear to be extremely sensitive 
to lactic acid of some strength and are there- 
fore inhibited, if not actually killed, by the 
acid produced by the streptococci. 

The method of procedure here outlined has 
given satisfactory results not only in the Insti- 
tute laboratories, but also at the hands of 
other investigators than ourselves who at my 
request have kindly tested it. 

S. C. Prescort. 

BroLoGicAL LABORATORIES, 

Massacuusetts INSTITUTE oF TECHNOLOGY. 


THE EGGS OF MOSQUITOES OF THE GENUS CULEX. 


THE conventional description of the oviposi- 
tion of Culex has been rendered obsolete by 
recent observations. This description was 
based on the eggs of Culex pipiens Linn., a 
species which deposits them in large, boat-like 
masses, floating on the surface of water. The 


eggs do not hibernate. This has been assumed 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 408. 


to be the general manner of oviposition in the 
genus Culex, but such is not the case. So far 
as at present known, Culex pipiens is the only 
Culea that so deposits its eggs. 

The species of Culea may be divided into 
two groups, the first comprising those species 
in which the legs are unbanded, the second 
those in which the tarsal joints are banded 
with white rings. The method of egg laying 
is different in these groups. In the first group, 
the eggs are generally laid floating on water 
and apparently they do not hibernate. Culex 
pipiens belongs to this group, but its boat- 
shaped masses of eggs represent the extreme 
form of development of the floating type of 
ege. In Culex melanurus Coq., the eggs are 
laid singly, floating on the surface of water; 
in ©. territans Walk., they are laid in little 
groups of two or three, side by side and also 
floating; finally, in C. pipiens Linn. we have 
the well-known boat-shaped mass. However 
this type is not exclusive for the dark-legged 
species of Culex, for C. trisertatus Say lays its 
eges singly, adhering firmly to objects at the 
extreme edge of the water, and the species 
doubtless hibernates in this state. 

In the ring-legged species of Culex, the gen- 
eral type of egg described by Professor John 
B. Smith (Science, N. S., XV., 391, 1902) 
obtains. C. sollicitans Walk., described by 
Professor Smith, laid its eggs dry at the edges 
of places where water was likely to collect 
and the larve hatched when water appeared. 
C. canadensis Theob. lays its eggs singly and 
they do not float on the water, but mostly sink 
to the bottom. In this species the eggs will 
hatch in part in the presence of water, but 
most of them remain unhatched till the winter 
is passed. There seems to be a full brood of 
these mosquitoes early in spring from hiber- 
nated eggs, after which only scattering eggs 
hatch, most of them going over to the next 
season, whether wet or dry. In (. sylvestris 
Theob., the eggs are laid similarly and sink in 
water, but the species breeds continuously all 
the summer, practically all the eggs hatching 
when covered by rain water. But a set of eggs 
obtained in September all hibernated, although 
they were kept wet. 

There remain many species of Culea whose 


OcTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


eges are unknown, but it seems probable that 
we now know the principal types of eggs. 
Harrison G. Dyar. 
U. S. Narionat Museum, 
October 1, 1902. 


RECENT ZOOPALEONTOLOGY. 


NEW VERTEBRATES OF THE MID-CRETACEOUS. 


THE report just published on ‘ Vertebrata 
from the Mid-Cretaceous rocks of the North- 
west Territory of Canada’* by Henry F. 
Osborn and Lawrence M. Lambe, forms the 
second part of a ‘series of descriptive and 
illustrated quarto memoirs’ begun in 1891. 
The first part, by the late Professor E. D. 
Cope, is on ‘ The Species from the Oligocene 
or Lower Miocene Beds of the Cypress Hills.’ 

The determination by the Canadian Survey 
of a Mid-Cretaceous and fresh-water fauna, 
including fishes, batrachians, reptiles and 
mammals, is a forward step of great impor- 
tance in vertebrate paleontology. The Survey 
had established beyond question, geologically, 
that the Belly River series is Mid-Cretaceous, 
that it underlies the Montana or Ft. Pierre- 
Fox Hills group, and overlies the Ft. Benton 
and Dakota groups; and at the outset of the 
paleontological investigation for this report, 
the question arose, What stages of vertebrate 
evolution are represented by the Belly River 
fauna? It soon appeared to Professor Os- 
born in the study of the fine collection made by 
Mr. Lambe that the Belly River vertebrates of 
the Northwest Territory were of decidedly 
different and apparently of older type than 
those from the Laramie beds, of Converse 
Co., Wyoming, described by Marsh, and were 
rather to be compared with those described by 
Leidy, Cope and Marsh, from Montana, 
chiefly from the Judith River beds, which 


**Contributions to Canadian Paleontology,’ 
Vol. III. (4to), Pt. IL, ‘ Vertebrata of the Mid- 
Cretaceous of the Northwest Territory.’ (1) 
‘Distinctive Characters of the Mid-Cretaceous 
Fauna,’ by Henry Fairfield Osborn, Vertebrate 
Paleontologist (Honorary) of the Survey; (2) 
“New Genera and Species from the Belly River 
Series (Mid-Cretaceous),’ by Lawrence M. Lambe, 
Assistant Paleontologist. Ottawa, September, 
1902. 


SCIENCE. 


673 


overlie the Ft. Pierre in a region by no means 
distant geographically. 

The Belly River or Mid-Cretaceous fauna 
is distinguished from that of the Upper 
Jurassic (Como Beds, Purbeckien) by the en- 
tire absence of Sauropoda and by the presence 
of Ceratopsia in great variety. It is affiliated 
with that of the Jurassic, and, so far as we 
know, separated from that of the Laramie by 
the presence of highly specialized Stegosauria 
or plated dinosaurs,* by numerous turtles of 
the Jurassic family Pleurosternide, and by 
numerous large Plesiosaurs. There is very 
little in common between the Belly River 
fauna and the Laramie fauna of Wyoming 
and Colorado so far as described, except the 
dinosaur Ornithomimus and the very per- 
sistent chelonian Baéna. Most of the dino- 
saurs will probably be found to be separated 
generically. 

A comparison between all the Belly River and 
Judith River or rather Montana and Laramie 
(Colorado and Wyoming) vertebrates, so far 
as named (111 species including many syn- 
onyms), leads to the conclusion: (1) that the 
Belly River fauna is more ancient in char- 
acter both as to the older types of animals 
which it contains and as to the stages of 
evolution among animals which are also rep- 
resented in the Laramie; (2) the geological 
interval represented by the Ft. Pierre-Fox 
Hills marine beds was accompanied by the 
extinction of certain Jurassic types and pro- 
gressive evolution of the persistent types; (3) 
finally, the fossil land vertebrates hitherto de- 
scribed from Montana probably are, in part 
at least, of Mid-Cretaceous or Belly River age, 
although the true Judith River beds certainly 
overlie the Ft. Pierre and are of more recent 
age. 

The descriptive section of the memoir by 
Mr. Lambe is illustrated by twenty-one plates 
and numerous text figures. The principal re- 
sults are as follows: 

Numerous vertebree of a large plesiosaur 
from the Belly River are provisionally re- 
ferred to the New Jersey species Cimoliasaurus 

* The only published evidence of Stegosauria in 


the Laramie of Wyoming and Colorado is the 
tooth of Paleoscincus. 


674 


magnus Leidy. From Moreau River, South 
Dakota, Leidy has described two plesiosaurs, 
Nothosaurops occiduus and’ Ischyrosaurus 
antiquus; whether these animals are of Belly 
River age or more recent is not known. 

Turtles of the suborder Trionychia are 
abundant. One species, Trionyx foveatus, is 
common .to the Judith and Belly River series; 
another, 7’. vagans, to the Belly River and sup- 
posed ‘ Ft. Union’ beds. The order Cryptodira 
is represented in the Cretaceous by large 
swamp turtles related to the Dermatemydide, 
but belonging to the family Adocide; these are 
Adocus lineolatus Cope, A. (Basilemys, or 
‘royal turtle,’ Hay) variolosus and A. (Basil- 
emys) imbricarius; the royal turtle is very 
large and elaborately sculptured. It is im- 
portant to note that the two species first 
named are found both in the Belly River and 
in Montana (?‘ Ft. Union’), testifying to the 
Mid-Cretaceous age of the latter. The pres- 
ence of numerous species of the Jurassic fam- 
ily Pleurosternide (order Pleurodira or Am- 
phichelydia) is another distinctly ancient feat- 
ure of this fauna; two of these, Compsemys 
victus and C. obscurus Leidy, are described 
from Montana. A third member of the same 
family, Baéna hatcheri, is noteworthy as the 
only species of vertebrate thus far recorded 
which is common to both the Belly River and 
Laramie. A fourth new species, B. antiqua, is 
described from the Belly River. Polythorax 
missuriensis from Montana is also referred by 
Hay to the Pleurosternide. Mr. Lambe pro- 
poses the new genus and species, Neurankylus 
eximius, a new chelydroid turtle, distinguished 
by a supernumerary costal. 

Belonging to the rhynchocephalia, Champ- 
sosaurus, according to Cope is represented by 
five species of the Judith River, one of which, 
C. annectens, is also determined in the Belly 
River. As Cope has identified this genus in 
the basal Eocene, it is not distinctive as to age. 

The sculptured tooth named T'roddon formo- 
sus by Leidy is common to the Belly River 
and Judith River beds; it is 
whether this is a lizard or a stegosaur, probably 
the former. Palaoscincus costatus Leidy is 
also common to the Judith and Belly River 


uncertain 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 408. . 


series. A clearly distinct species is P. asper 
Lambe from the Belly River. 

_ The species Crocodilus humilus of the Ju- 
dith River is provisionally identified by Mr. 
Lambe in the Belly River. These beds also 
contain another Montana crocodile, Bottosau- 
rus perrugosus, Cope. 

Passing to the dinosaurs, as stated above, 
the presence of Stegosauria is an ancient char- 
acteristic. From the ‘Middle Cretaceous of 
Wyoming, Marsh determined the Stegosaur 
Nodosaurus (‘ The Dinosaurs of North Amer- 
ica, p. 225). Probably allied to this or to 
the Polacanthus of the English Wealden, is 
the remarkable new animal, Stereocephalus 
tutus, in the Belly River series, with solid 
skull armature and a ring of posteranial, 
pointed ossicles. 

The carnivorous dinosaurs and the collateral 
families will probably be greatly elucidated 
by the separation of the Mid- from the Upper 
Cretaceous types. Among the former the 
genera Deinodon and Aublysodon Leidy and 
Ornithomimus Marsh, all Montana types, de- 
serve first mention. After Marsh had substi- 
tuted the name Dryptosaurus for the preoccu- 
pied name Lelaps (which Cope had employed 
for an Upper Cretaceous of New Jersey carni- 
vore) it was generally supposed that all large 
Cretaceous carnivores should be referred to 
Marsh’s genus. If, however, the large Judith 
River type, which has its counterpart in the 
Belly River, is older than the true Laramie 
type, it is in all probability generically distinct 
and Leidy’s name Deinodon should be applied 
to it.* This name was securely founded on 
megalosaurian teeth, and those first mentioned 
in both Leidy’s descriptions and first figured 
in his memoir on the Judith River vertebrates 
must be regarded as valid types irrespective of 
the following facts: (1) that Leidy expressed 
some uncertainty as to his separation of 
Deinodon from the English Jurassic genus 
Megalosaurus ; (2) that he associated with the 
types a number of large serrate incisor teeth, 
truneate posteriorly, which probably belong 
with Deinodon; (8) also smaller non-serrate 

* Dr. O. P. Hay (Amer. Geologist, XXIV., 1899, 
p- 346) is of the opinion that Cope was justified 
in rejecting the name Deinodon. 


OcTOBER 24, 1902.] 


teeth truncate posteriorly, which certainly do 
not belong with Deinodon; (4) that he subse- 
quently selected the two latter (2 and 3) as the 
types of Aublysodon. The Cretaceous carniy- 
orous dinosaur of the Judith River beds 
should, therefore, be named Deinodon. Be- 
longing to this is the type species D. horridus 
Leidy; probably also the species D. cristatus 
Cope and D. levifrons Cope, from Montana. 
To Dryptosaurus, on the other hand, may well 
belong the large Upper Cretaceous carnivore 
D. incrassatus Cope, from the Edmonton 
series of Alberta. 

The discovery of additional remains of Orni- 
thomimus in the Belly River series, as repre- 
sented by a large new species, is of great in- 
terest. Mr. Hatcher states that he found 
Marsh’s type of this genus, consisting of a foot 
and a portion of a limb, on Cow Island, Mis- 
souri River, at a level which he estimates from 
1,500 to 1,600 feet below the summit of the 
Judith River beds, and 500 to 600 feet below 
the level of Marsh’s type of Ceratops mon- 
tanus. 

Ornithomimus altus is probably a successor 
of a comparatively small and lightly built 
dinosaur recently discovered by the American 
Museum parties in the Como Beds of Wy- 
oming.* Ornithomimus is more progressive 
than its supposed ancestor, in the development 
of cursorial rather than prehensile phalanges 
in the pes, these elements having nearly lost 
the recurved megalosauroid structure. 

One of the distinguishing features of the 
Belly River fauna is the great number and va- 
riety of the Ieuanodonts. The separation of 
Mid- from Upper Cretaceous iguanodonts, 
will, if confirmed by closer examination and 
determinationof geological horizonsand levels, 
greatly increase our understanding of this 
most interesting group. Without professing 
to have made an adequate investigation, Pro- 
fessor Osborn is strongly of the opinion that 
the Cretaceous includes.a number of distinct 
genera, representing a wide adaptive radiation 
and probably a number of successive phyla. 
The wide differences in the mode of succession, 
general shape and border sculpturing of the 


* Tt will shortly be described in a bulletin of the 
American Museum. 


SCIENCE. 


ous. 


675 


teeth, indicate profound changes which re- 
quired an enormous period of time for their 
development. There are also indications of 
a separation of the Iguanodonts into light- 
and heavy-limbed series, smaller and larger, 
swifter and clumsier, of great variety in tooth 
structure. 

In the Belly River series we find the new 
species T'rachodon selwyni Lambe, an animal 
nearly double the size of the Iguanodon man- 
tella of the English Wealdon (Upper Jurassic). 
A more delicately built iguanodont P. margin- 
atus Lambe resembles the less robust. iguano- 
dont Pteropelyx grallipes Cope, but is specifi- 
cally distinet in the border sculpture of the 
teeth. A third new species, or even genus P. 
(Didanodon) altidens Lambe, is distinguished 
by. exceptionally high narrow teeth. 

In the order Ceratopsia, perhaps more than 
in any other, the resemblance between the 
Belly River and Montana stages and the con- 
trast between these and the Wyoming Laramie 
stages, so far as known, are distinctly marked. 
In general the contrast in the Ceratopsia is as 
follows: Belly and Judith River Ceratopsia, 
of smaller size; nasal horns very large; small 
frontal or supraorbital horns; widely open 
supratemporal fosse; teeth single (? Mono- 
clonius) and double fanged. Laramie Upper 
Cretaceous, Ceratopsia, of larger size; na- 
sal horns relatively smaller (Triceratops) or 
even vestigial; greatly developed frontal 
horns; supratemporal fosse open (Torosaurus) 
or nearly closed (Triceratops). 

Monoclonius Cope is the first name applied 
to a Montana ceratopsid. The apparently new 
species, M. dawsoni, M. canadensis and M. 
belli, discovered by Mr. Lambe in the Belly 
River series, add to the variations in the 
Monoclonius type of skull in the Mid-Cretace- 
It will be observed that all of these 
species are known to possess large nasal and 
small supraorbital horns. This stage of horn 
evolution. may be contemporaneous with and 
independent of that in the southern Laramie 
dinosaurs, in which the nasal horns are invari- 
ably smaller than the frontal horns, but 
coupled with the smaller size and open tempo- 
ral fosse, it would appear to be more primi- 


tive. The new genus Stegoceras, proposed in 


676 


this memoir, may represent a type with small 
nasal horns, as in some of the Laramie 
Ceratopsids, such as Sterrholophus. 

It is not at all improbable that the horned 
dinosaurs will prove to be diphyletic, one line 
with persistent open fosse leading from Mono- 
clonius to Torosaurus, the other leading to 
Triceratops with closed fosse. 

Of the two mammals discovered in the Belly 
River, Ptilodus primevus, judging by the con- 
dition of the grooves upon its premolars and 
tubercles upon its molar teeth, is undoubtedly 
more primitive than the Laramie plagiaul- 


acids. H. F. O. 


INSTRUCTION OFFERED IN THE FISHERY 
COMMISSION LABORATORY AT BERGEN. 
A nove departure on the part of Fishery 

Commission authorities is announced in Nor- 

way. The scientists of the Norwegian Board of 

Fisheries in Bergen have arranged for the 

opening of a winter school of biology to be 

held in the laboratory in Bergen beginning 

January 12, 1903, and ending April 1. The 

course will be offered freely to students of 

all countries, and there can be little doubt, 
judging from the rich results that the Norwe- 
gian research steamer ‘ Michael Sars’ has 
been gathering, that such an opportunity for 
marine studies will be of the greatest value. 

Dr. Johan Hjort, the director of the station, 

will have charge of matters relating to fishes 

—hiology, spawning habits, growth and mi- 

gration—and fisheries, and in connection with 

this work will give instruction in the prac- 
tical side of oceanic investigation on board of 
the ‘ Michael Sars.’ Dr. B. Helland-Hansen 
is to give a course in hydrography, chemical 
and physical, Dr. H. H. Gran in planktology, 
and Dr. A. Appelloef in the zoology of inverte- 
brates and in geographical distribution. The 
development of this laboratory, it may be 
noted, is a logical outcome of the recent work 
which the Norwegian investigators Have been 
carrying on in connection with the Fishery 

Commission. And if it bears the fruit 

which such an undertaking deserves, there 

ean be little doubt that the Norwegian sta- 
tion will become an important adjunct to the 
university training of many of the younger 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 408. 


men, in both Europe and America. One fears, 
however, that a Norwegian winter will prove 
an unfavorable season for the popularity of 
this work, and we may hope that a summer 
course on similar lines will later be arranged. 


B. D. 


THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.* 

Proressor W. H. Houmes, curator for an- 
thropology of the National Museum, was 
formally appointed director [the title has 
been altered to ‘chief’] of the bureau of 
ethnology by S. P. Langley, secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution. This announcement 
caused inexpressible disappointment among 
the associates of Professor W J McGee, eth- 
nologist in charge of the bureau, whose 
appointment had been looked for daily since 
the death of John W. Powell, formerly direc- 
tor of the bureau of ethnology, on September 
23. Secretary Langley said to a reporter of 
the Times that it would be more decorous for 
Professor Holmes or Professor McGee to 
speak of the installation of the new director 
than for him to remark upon it. Neither one 
of these men had anything to say more than 
that the less said about it the better. It is 
the opinion of scientists that Professor 
Holmes did not seek the appointment. He is 
interested and contented in his scientific 
duties at the National Museum, and so much 
so that he will in all likelihood continue in 
that office, where he has gained the reputation 
of being one of the foremost anthropologists 
in America, in addition to performing the 
new work which he has been selected to do. 
Assigning and appointing scientists in the 
national scientific institutions lies wholly 
within the discretion of the secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution by virtue of its regu- 
lations and custom. 

Professor McGee was informed of the sec- 
retary’s choice over the telephone shortly 
after three o’clock in the afternoon. Secretary 
Langley said that he would drive to the 
bureau of ethnology with Professor Holmes 
and introduce him to Professor McGee and 
his little coterie of workers and friends. De- 
pressed feelings were noticeable immediately 


* From the Washington Times. 
t=) 


OcTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


in the offices of the bureau of ethnology on the 
fifth and sixth floors of the Adams Building. 
This was not so because there was any ill- 
feeling toward Professor Holmes, but because 
by careful and even scientific study and treat- 
ment Professor McGee was responsible for 
shaping a working system in the bureau of 
ethnology—each man and woman being fitted 
in the right place—that things ran, as it were, 
in a spirit such as that of Barnum’s happy 
family. Secretary Langley and Professor 
Holmes arrived at 3:30 o’clock. They walked 
into the office room formerly occupied by Pro- 
fessor Powell. Scientists, stenographers and 
colored messengers formed a 
around the desk where Secretary Langley 
stood prepared to pay a befitting tribute to 
Professor Powell, and then introduced the new 
director. He referred with praise to the com- 
petency of Professor Powell. Professor 
Holmes was installed into the office. He 
greeted the persons in the bureau, inviting 
them to become better acquainted with the 
National Museum. He was welcomed in his 
new place in behalf of the employees of the 
bureau in a brief address by Professor McGee. 
After Professor Holmes shook hands with 
every person in the room Secretary Langley 
went away. The office force then left the 


semi-circle 


room one by one and tears were in the eyes of © 


nearly every person who witnessed the unusual 
ceremonies. Professor Holmes and Professor 
McGee, who are the closest friends profes- 
sionally and personally, remained in the 
director’s room for a consultation and left the 
building together, both more or less affected 
by what had taken place. a 

Professor Holmes began his scientific career 
in 1889, when he entered the illustration 
division of the United States Geological Sur- 
vey. He is a water color painter, having won 
highly valued medals in District exhibits. 
While painting in the Geological Survey he 
equipped himself for an office in the archeolog- 
ical department and in 1892 he became an 
ethnologist in the bureau of ethnology. He 
resigned this place afterward to accept a re- 
sponsible office in the Columbian Museum at 
Chicago. About seven years ago he was 
offered the head curatorship in the National 


SCIENCE. 


677 


Museum and came to Washington to fulfill the 
appointment that he has since held. Pro- 
fessor Holmes has published various papers of 
scientific importance, and his discoveries and 
investigations of aboriginal pottery have con- 
tributed much enlightenment to the study of 
the habitat of groups of American Indian 
tribes. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 


Dr. W. H. Wetcn, of the Johns Hopkins 
University, is attending the International 
Congress on Tuberculosis at Berlin. 

We learn from the Botanical Gazette that 
Mr. M. J. C. Willis, of the Royal Botanie 
Gardens at Peradeniya, Ceylon, proposes to 
make a tour through England, the United 
States and Japan for the purpose of studying 
agricultural and botanical institutions. 

Tue Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 
has sent an expedition to inquire into the 
health conditions of the Gold Coast. Dr. 
Logan Taylor is in charge of the expedition. 


Dr. Epwarp Patmer, of the U. S. Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, is now in Mexico, ma- 
king collections illustrating the economic 
botany of that country. 

Tue British government has appointed Mr. 
W. F. King, chief astronomer, a commissioner 
to mark the forty-ninth parallel from the 
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast. Mr. 
Otto H. Tittmann, superintendent of the 
United States Coast and Geodetie Survey, has 
been appointed by the United States as com- 
missioner for the same purpose. 

A COMMEMORATIVE tablet has been placed 
on the house at Faviéres in which Professor 
A. A. Liébeault was born. It states that he 
opened a new era in the medical sciences by 
his discovery of the systematic application of 
suggestion and induced sleep in the treatment 
of disease. The tablet was unveiled in the 
presence of Professor Liébeault on his seventy- 
ninth birthday. 

Nature states that at the opening ceremony 
of the new session of the Royal College of 
Science, held in the lecture theater of the 
Victoria and Albert Museum on October 2, 
the Huxley gold medal was for the first time 


678 


awarded to Mr. J. E. S. Moore, associate of 
the college, in recognition of work which he 
has already’ carried through and is still con- 
tinuing in the Huxley Research Laboratory, 
in connection with his investigations into the 
African lake fauna and his studies in cytology 
and nuclear metamorphosis, commenced at the 
Naples Zoological Station. The medal is in- 
tended as an award for research carried out 
in the Huxley Laboratory in some branch of 
natural science in which Huxley was distin- 
guished. The recipient has the option of a 
silver-gilt medal, and the award is in either 
case accompanied by the balance of the inter- 
est on the capital sum invested for the pur- 
chase of books, instruments or as an aid to 
research. 

Avr a recent meeting of the Geographical 
Society of Christiania, at which Captain 
Sverdrup and other members of his recent 
expedition were entertained, it was announced 
that the Grand Cross of the Order of St. 
Olaf had been conferred upon Captain Sver- 
drup, that the Fram medal in gold was to be 
bestowed upon Peter Henriksen, and that the 
other members of the expedition were to re- 
ceive the same in silver. 


Mr. J. Auten Howe has been appointed 
curator and librarian of the Museum of Prac- 
tical Geology in succession to Mr. F. W. Rud- 
ler, who has retired. 

Dr. Wittiam Rippick WHITEHEAD, author of 
many works on medicine and surgery, died at 
Denver on October 13, aged seventy years. 
He established the departments of medicine in 
the University of Colorado and the University 
of Denver. 

Cuter Encryeer Henry Scuuyier Ross, U. 
S. N., retired, died in Lugano, Italy, on 
October 13. 

Dr. Apotro Tareiont-Tozzert, emeritus 
professor of comparative anatomy at 
Florence, died at Careggi, on September 18, 
aged seventy-nine. 


Dr. Atexanprer W. M. van Hassett, for 
many years president of the Dutch Entomolog- 
ical Society, one of the oldest medical officers 
of the Dutch Army, has died in Amsterdam, 
aged eighty-eight years. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 408. 


Dr. Rupotr Finxener, professor of chem- 


istry in the School of Mines at Berlin, died 


on September 14, aged sixty-eight years. 

Tur Harpwell Laboratory was open during 
the past summer from June 14 until Septem- 
ber 12. Seventeen persons availed themselves 
of the facilities afforded. Considerable atten- 
tion was devoted to the surface fauna and 
some of the forms collected prove interesting. 
Among them are a Copelate tunicate allied to 
Appendicularia, but with separate sexes, indi- 
viduals with eggs and sperm being taken one 
evening. An actinotrocha differing consid- 
erably from that of more southern waters ap- 
peared on several evenings in small numbers. 
During a few evenings Mitraria was very 
abundant and on three nights large numbers 
of the small pteropod, Spirialis gouldi, were 
found. Later in the season (September) the 
young of some gymnosomatous pteropod (pos- 
sibly Clione) were common. Polygordius, in 
all stages, was abundant, while the young of 
various annelids were present in great va- 
riety and enormous numbers. A few Tomop- 
teris, one with ripe eggs, were taken late in 
the season, but these were smaller than those 
found farther down the coast. The whole sea- 
son was very late. Echinoderm larvee were 
very few and, except in the case of the sand 
dollar, Echinarachnius, attempts at artificial 
impregnation were unsuccessful. 


Ir is reported that by the sale of a building 
at the corner of Madison Avenue and Forty- 
second Street to Dr. Andrew H. Smith and 
Davison H. Smith for $250,000, another por- 
tion has been added to the site on which the 
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research is 
to be erected. 

Ir is reported that M. Robert Lebaudy, the 
French traveler, has sent the vice-rector of 
the University of Paris $1,600 to maintain 
two students at the University of Chicago for 
a year. j 

Dr. Sven Henry, the Asiatic explorer, has 
presented his zoological, botanical and geo- 
logical collections to the University of Stock- 
holm. 


THe German government has presented the 
official reports of the German Deep Sea Expe- 


OcTOBER 24, 1902. ] 


dition in the ship Valdivia to the Scottish 
National Antarctic Expedition. The expedi- 
tion has also been presented by the Belgian 
government with the official reports of the 
Belgian Antarctic Expedition. 

Tue Twentieth Congress of the American 
Ornithologists’ Union will convene in Wash- 
ington, D. C., on Monday, November 17, at 8 
o’clock p.m. The evening session will be de- 
voted to the election of officers and members 
and the transaction of other routine business. 
The meetings, open to the public and devoted 
to the reading and discussion of scientific 
papers, will be held in the United States Na- 
tional Museum, beginning on Tuesday, No- 
vember 18, at 11 a.m., and continuing for 
three days. : 


We learn from the London Times that the 
government of India is about to form a 
board of scientific advice, comprising the 
heads of the meteorological, geological, botan- 
ical, forest, survey, agricultural, and veterin- 
ary departments, and other scientific officers 
of special attainments. This board is to pre- 
pare every year a general program of research, 
and a report describing what has been done. 
The main object of the scheme is to promote 
the economic development of the country. 
The resolution mentions the various scientific 
officers appointed in recent years, and says that 
the development of machinery in the differ- 
ent departments has rendered more essential 
than ever the coordination of scientific inquiry. 
Experiments and investigations of a similar 
or cognate character are being independently 
carried on—chemistry, economic entomology, 
and economic botany are given as examples— 
and this should be prevented. Further, it is 
expected that the board will check a natural 
tendency on the part of the government scien- 
tifie officers to give the claims of abstract 
science precedence over the demands of eco- 
nomic or applied science, which are of more 
practical importance. ‘The Indian govern- 
ment, it is pointed out, owns the largest landed 
estate in the world, and the prosperity of the 
country is mainly dependent upon agriculture; 
hence practical research is the predominant 
consideration. The board will also act as 
advisers to the government. 


SCIENCE. 


679 


AN account of the operations carried out 
during the first season by the French expedi- 
tion for the re-measurement of an arc of the 
meridian in Ecuador was lately communicated 
to the Paris Geographical Society by M. Bour- 
geois, head of the survey party, whose paper 
is printed in La Géographie. According to an 
abstract in the Geographical Journal the mis- 
sion reached Guayaquil in June of last year, 
and the difficult task then commenced of 
transporting the whole impedimenta of the 
expedition, weighing in all some ten tons, by 
the primitive mule-paths which still form, for 
the greater part of the distance, the only 
means of communication between the coast 
and the elevated ‘Inter-Andine’ region, in 
which the operations were to be carried on. 
Here the first place visited was Riobamba, 
where, during a stay of three months, the pri- 
mary work of measuring a base-line and carry- 
ing out determinations of latitude, longitude 
and azimuth was satisfactorily accomplished. 
The base-line chosen measured some 6 miles, 
and such was the precision with which the 
measurement was effected that the two sepa- 
rate results differed only by 7 mm., or a quar- 
ter of an inch. When this had been done, the 
expedition divided, one part continuing the 
triangulation in the neighborhood of Riobam- 
ba, while the other measured a subsidiary base 
north of Quito, and determined the latitude 
of the northern extremity of the are; the same 
being done for the southern extremity by an 
officer despatched for that purpose to Peru. 
During the stay at Tulcan, the northern sta- 
tion on the Columbian frontier, violent earth- 
quake shocks were experienced, the whole 
region having been the scene of more than ordi- 
nary manifestations of voleanic activity dur- 
ing the last year. Eruptions both of Coto- 
eachi, which had been regarded as extinct, 
and of Cumbal, in the Colombian territory, 
were observed. Although nominally Catho- 
lics, the Indians of the Inter-Andine region 
are very superstitious, and viewed the opera- 
tions of the mission with great distrust, which 
they even manifested by acts of vandalism. 
During M. Bourgeois’s absence the operations 
have been actively prosecuted under the direc- 
tion of Captain Maurain. 


680 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Ir is said that Yale University will receive 
about $171,000 as the residuary legatee of the 
estate of Edward Wells Southworth. 


Tur jubilee of Sydney University was cele- 
brated on October 1. Chancellor MacLaurin 
presided, and addresses of congratulation 
were presented from British, colonial, and 
foreign universities. Professor Tucker, of 
Melbourne, delivered an address on behalf of 
the Australian universities, and Professor 
Baldwin Spencer spoke for the English uni- 
versities. 

Tur fourth annual conference of the Asso- 
ciation of American Universities will be held 
at Columbia University on December 29, 30, 
and 81. The preliminary program ineludes 
the presentation of papers and reports on 
‘The Certificate Method of Admission to Col- 
leges and Universities (a) from Accredited 
Schools and (b) from Schools not Examined 
by the Admitting University or Formally 
Accredited’; ‘ Uniformity of University Sta- 
tistics (a) of Enrolment and (b) of Expendi- 
tures’; ‘The Report of the Executive Com- 
mittee on Membership,’ and ‘The Require- 
ments for Admission to Professional Schools.’ 


Gen. ALEXANDER Strewart Wess has_ re- 
signed the presidency of the College of the 
City of New York which he has held since 
1869. 


Tue Rev. Edward A. Pace, Ph.D., has been 
appointed director of the Institute of Peda- 
gogy which the Catholic University of Wash- 
ington has established in New York City. 
The Rev. Thomas E. Shields, Ph.D., of St. 
Paul, has been appointed instructor of physio- 
logical psychology in the Catholic University 
of Washington, fillmg the place vacant by 
Professor Pace’s removal to New York. 

Dr. Francis L. Parron, formerly president 
of Princeton University, has been elected 
president of the Princeton Theological Sem- 
inary. 

Dr. Henry A. Pernins has been elected 
protessor of physics in Trinity College. 

Dr. AppineLt Hewson, demonstrator of 
anatomy in Jefferson Medical College, Phila- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 408. 


delphia, has been promoted to an assistant 
professorship. 

THE following appointments have recently 
been made in the medical school of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania: Dr. J. L. Gates, 
assistant demonstrator of pathology; Dr. 
Hidaya Noguchi, assistant in pathology; and 
Dr, John T. Carpenter, Jr., instructor in oph- 
thalmology. 


Mr. Dr Pencter, B.Se., has been appointed 
to a newly established assistant professorship 
of mining in McGill University. 

Mr. C. F. Myers Warp, professor of physi- 
ology at University College, Sheffield, has 
been appointed lecturer in physiology in the 
Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, in 
succession to Mr. Benjamin Moore, who has 
recently been elected to the newly-established 
chair of biological chemistry in the Univer- 
sity College, Liverpool. 

In consequence of the removal of Mr. Gil- 
christ, the head of the agricultural depart- 
ment at Reading College, to a similar posi- 
tion at Neweastle College, the department has 
been reorganized, and, after a series of sit- 
tings, the executive on Saturday made the fol- 
lowing appointments: To be lecturer in 
agricultural botany and director of the agri- 
cultural department, Mr. John Percival, vice- 
principal of the South-Eastern Agricultural 
College at Wye; to be lecturer in the practice 
of agriculture, Mr. J. O. Peet; to be lecturer 
in dairy farming and dairy bacteriology, Mr. 
C. W. Walker-Tisdale; to be director of the 
horticultural department, Mr. Frederick 
Keeble, lecturer in botany at University Col- 
lege, Reading; to be lecturer in horticulture 
and keeper of the gardens, Mr. William H. 
Patterson. 


Dr. E. Conren, of Amsterdam, has been 
called to the professorship of inorganic and 
physical chemistry at Utrecht. 


Dr. Hermann Kurimy has been appointed 
professor of astronomy at the University of 
Cologne. 


Dr. Evcen Dusors has been called to the 
professorship of paleontology in the Univer- 
sity of Amsterdam. 


CIENC 


& WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE : 8S. NEwcoms, Mathematics; R. §. WoopDWARD, Mechanios; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALcort, Geology ; W. M. DAvis, Physiography ; Hmnry F. OsBorN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessry, N. L. Brrrron, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. BILLINGS, Hygiene; WiLLIAM H. WELCH, 

Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Fripay, Octoser 31, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
Some Features of American Higher Educa- 
tion: PRESIDENT EpMUND J. JAMES...... 681 
On the Position of the Northern Circum- 
polar Stars: Minton UPpEGRAFF......... 689 
The Carnegie Institution: PROFESSOR JOSEPH 
Jastrow, Dr. CHARLES WARDELL STILES, 
Proressor E. H. Ricuarps, Battery WIL- 
THIS) S diode bf Relece RoC n og DIRE ceRe eee ee 693 
Scientific Books :— 
Hay’s Bibliography. and Catalogue of the 
Fossil Vertebrata of North America: Pro- 
Fessor Basurorp Dgran. Hardesty on 
Neurological Technique: PrRorrssor G. 
CART MENUBER eae ctetvateins cy selva cnaumeilene ys 701 


Scientific Journals and Articles............. 704 
Societies and Academies :— 
Research Club of the University of Michi- 
gan: PROFESSOR FREDERICK C. NEWCOMBE.. 704 


Discussion and Correspondence :— 
A Question of Terminology: PROFESSOR 
Dovucras HoucuTon CAMPBELL. The Ea- 
pansion of Gas into a Vacuum and the 
Kinetic Theory of Gases: PETER FirEMAN. 705 
Shorter Articles :— 
Bacterium Trutte, a New Species of Bac- 
terium Pathogenic to Trout: M. C. Marsn. 
Discovery of a Musk-ox Skull (Ovibos cavi- 
frons Leidy) im West Virginia: J. B. 
Harcner. Laceptions to Mendel’s Law: 
W. J. Spmiman. A Realistic Dream: 
(Cio NPAs \WENEUD SG oo cod eer soobedoedene 706 
Recent Zoopaleontology :— 
A Remarkable New Mammal from Japan; 
Hocene Sirenians in Egypt; Progress in the 


BDeploration for Fossil Horses: H. F. Os- 

HORM copoapsauasaconuenddcoancccnoadeaG 718 
Scientific Notes and News.........:........ 715 
University and Hducational News,.......... 720 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


SOME FEATURES OF AMERICAN HIGHER 
EDUCATION.* 

Tue first characteristic, then, of our 
American system of higher education is the 
hearty cooperation of state, church and 
private effort in the work of founding and 
developing a group of institutions which 
taken as a whole should supply the need 
of higher training. And the educational 
welfare of the country demands that this 
cooperation shall continue, at least for an 
indefinite time to come. 

We, as a people, cannot afford to let the 
interest of the state, of the church, or of 
private individuals in higher education 
languish or die. It is a striking testimony 
to the essential oneness of. the American 
people, to the essential soundness of our 
educational life that all these different in- 
stitutions are working consciously toward 
the same ends; that the fundamental quali- 
ties of American citizenship are developed 
in all alike and that the ideals of all these 
various institutions in this respect are the 
same. The alert, wide-awake, conscien- 
tious, devoted lover of his country and his 
kind, the prudent, painstaking, truth- 
loving scholar is the product of all alike. 

Another peculiarity of American univer- 


sities distinguishing them from _ their 


*¥From the inaugural address of Dr. Edmund 
J. James as president of Northwestern University, 
given on October 21, 1902. 


682 


European counterparts in a very striking 
way is the form of government—the non- 
professional, non-expert board of trustees. 
English institutions of higher learning are 
in the control of their faculties or their 
alumni or both with now and then in cer- 
tain cases a cooperation in appointments 
by the government. On the continent they 
are nearly universally under the control in 
many important respects of the govern- 
mental departments of education with cer- 
tain cooperation on the part of the faculty. 

With us they are nearly all, legally at 
any rate, entirely under, the control of a 
body outside of the faculty, outside of the 
alumni and outside of the state depart- 
ments of education. Even the state uni- 
versities are usually directly under the 
control of a special board appointed for 
this particular purpose and not subject in 
any other way to the regularly constituted 
state authorities. These boards are either 
—as in the ease of state universities— 
appointed by the governor or elected by 
the legislature or the people, or appointed 
by the church, or more often are self- 
elective, fillmg vacancies in the board by 
the votes of the board itself. These trus- 
tees are often business men, sometimes not 
college graduates themselves; often profes- 
sional men—nearly always men who have 
had no other connection with educational 
work than that involved in their duties as 
trustees. 

To these boards is entrusted by law full 
authority to prescribe courses of study, to 
appoint and dismiss professors at pleasure 
and to prescribe their duties in detail if 
they so desire. The foreign student looks 
at this delegation of one of the most im- 
portant functions of society to a set of 
busy men who cannot be expected to have 
expert knowledge of the subject with 
amazement not unmixed with amusement. 

Does it not often happen he says that an 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


ignorant trustee, imagining that he knows 
more about the business than the faculty, 
interferes like a bull in a china shop, dis- 
arranging the machinery, bringing every- 
thing to naught by his ignorance, his 
officiousness and his obstinacy? What 
good do they do anyhow? How ean you 
check their, pernicious activity ? 

Well, we have all heard of such trustees 
—perhaps we have known such individuals 
personally, not in our own institutions, of 
course, but in others. The trustee who 
thinks the faculty is made up of men try- 
ing to get the largest possible salary for 
doing the least possible work, and who re- 
gards it as his duty to see that they do the 
largest possible amount of work for, the 
least possible remuneration; the trustee 
who undertakes to pass upon each individ- 
ual item of college business as if he were 
the expert and the faculty the mere em- 
ployee to carry out his plans. The exist- 
ence of such a person I shall not undertake 
to deny; the existence of whole boards of 
such trustees is at least possible logically 
speaking and certainly the fancied knowl- 
edge of the practical man can assume most 
offensive and irritating forms—dangerous 
in proportion to the ignorance and obsti- 
nacy which he behind it. I think it is 
highly probably that if we were blocking 
out anew in an old civilization a method of 
government for higher institutions of learn- 
ing no one would think of resorting to such 
a device as that of a non-expert board of 
trustees.as the chief organ of control. 

But to-day through the evolution of 
American conditions we have elaborated 
such an organ and to my mind this fact has 
had a profound significance for our educa- 
tional life. 

Universities tend to become caste and 
class institutions. They tend to become 
pharisaic in sentiment and action. As self- 
governing bodies, if they have great endow- 


OcToBER 31, 1902. ] 


ments they learn to regard themselves as 
existing primarily for the benefit of the 
people who happen to be in control at the 
time. English eduecationists tell us that 
such were Oxford and Cambrdge at one 
time in their existence; such were nearly 
all the continental universities wherever 
they secured complete autonomy and con- 
trol of adequate foundations. 

The absolute governmental control of 
universities on the continent to-day was 
necessary in order to rescue them from the 
dry rot which universally sets in where 
they are purely self-governing bodies. 

If higher institutions of learning are to 
serve their real purpose they must at some 
point be brought under the influence of 
public opinion; they must come in contact 
with the daily life about them. Some 
means must be provided by which the life 
blood of the great pulsating world around 
them can flow in and through them, puri- 
fying, cleansing and purging them. Some 
common organ must be developed which 
can bring the university and the world of 
outside activity together. This end has 
been attaimed in our American device of 
boards of trustees and I believe that a large 
part of the extraordinary development of 
our higher schools is due to the fact that 
through these boards of trustees it has been 
possible to bring outside influences to bear 
on the internal management and spirit of 
these institutions. All this is aside from 
the very significant fact that they have been 
most important elements in securing that 
public interest which has turned such 
streams of wealth into the treasuries of our 
schools without which our recent progress 
would have been impossible. All this is 
aside, moreover, from the fact that many of 
these trustees have themselves provided the 
necessary funds out of their own resources. 

When we add to this the circumstance 
that these trustees have often brought to 


SCIENCE. 


683 


the university in the management of its 
business affairs a devoted service which 
could not have been bought for any money 
you can readily realize what an important 
part in this magnificent development has 
been taken by the hundreds and thousands 
of publie-spirited men who have at great 
expense of time and effort given their best 
services to this cause. I may add that in 
my own opinion such boards perform a 
most valuable additional service in that 
they offer an opportunity to have every 
question of general university policy sub- 
mitted to the bar of an earnest, sympa- 
thetic impartial jury, before undertaking 
any comprehensive changes. 

Another unique institution characteristic 
of our American system of higher educa- 
tion is that of the presidency. The Ameri- 
can university president has no exact coun- 
terpart in the educational scheme of any 
other country. He is a development pecul- 
iar to the United States, an outgrowth of 
peculiar educational and financial condi- 
tions. He is theoretically supposed to be 
an educational leader, a financial leader 
and a practical business manager combined 
in one. He is not only expected to outline 
an educational policy in a broad way, but 
also to keep aw fait with the educational 
administration of the university even into 
its very details. It is ordinarily made his 
duty to enforce the rules and orders of the 
board of trustees and see that every instruc- 
tor is performing his duty toward the in- 
stitution and the students. 

He is expected, moreover, to plan a 
scheme of financial support for the institu- 
tion and devise methods of keeping its 
needs before the public. If he is president 
of a state university he must know how to 
impress the legislature; if of a private 
university he must be able to get the atten- 
tion of the church or of private individuals 
who are able to contribute to the endow- 


6384 


ment or current support of the institution. 
He must also see that this money once ob- 
tained is wisely spent. He must be able 
to prepare a budget in which security is 
offered for the wise expenditure of every 
dollar and that the total outlay be kept 
within the total income. In many cases he 
must, furthermore, supervise and be gen- 
erally responsible for, the actual adminis- 
tration of the business affairs of the univer- 
sity. 

In the public mind, at any rate, he is 
entrusted with responsibility for all the 
details of discipline, from providing safe- 
guards against the silly pranks of freshmen 
or the wild excesses of upper classmen en- 
eaged in celebrating athletic victories, to 
determining the attitude of the institution 
toward fraternities and sororities. 

In fact, the position in its functions and 
responsibilities has become an almost ab- 
surd one. No man, however able, however 
experienced, ean possibly perform all its 
duties. I have had the rare good fortune 
to work in the very closest relations with 
two of the ablest university presidents 
whom this country has ever produced— 
remarkable not only as educational leaders 
of the first rank but as men of extraordi- 
nary powers for general effectiveness in 
anything they undertake—Dr. William 
Pepper, late provost of the University of 
Pennsylvania, the ablest native-born citizen 
of Philadelphia, a man of extraordinary 
insight and far-reaching mental powers, 
and President Wilham R. Harper, whom 
you all know as facile princeps in this field. 
I have known several other able university 
presidents and I am sure that I am not 
reflecting upon their ability or their good 
will when I say that I have never known a 
university president who fulfilled even ap- 
proximately the functions which his posi- 
tion theoretically placed upon him; for the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 409. 


simple reason among others that it tran- 
scends human ability. 

I need not say that I have no hopes of 
succeeding where these men and such as 
they have failed. I mean by failing that 
they failed to do the things which the logic 
of their positions foreed upon them; which 
under the circumstances nobody else could 
do; which they had no time or strength to 
do and which, therefore, went undone. 

I believe the time is rapidly approach- 
ing, if it is not already here, when this 
office must be put into commission; when 
its functions shall be separated and when 
the duties now entrusted in theory to one 
man will be divided among several. 

The office, as said before, is an outgrowth 
of our peculiar educational conditions and 
will probably disappear in its present form 
when we pass from the pioneer to the 
settled state of society. 

More than one foreign critic has re- 
marked upon the strange forces which in a 
republic have evolved such an anomalous 
officer—strangest of all in the republic of 
letters and science—an officer with vague 
but real powers of discipline over faculty 
and students—chosen not by faculty or 
students but by an outside and irresponsi- 
ble body—the anomalous organ before re- 
ferred to—the board of trustees. Some- 
body has defined the government of Russia 
to be a despotism tempered by assassina- 
tion. Somebody else has remarked that 
this is almost an exact description of the 
government of an American college or uni- 
versity. The president of the institution 
backed up by the board of trustees can 
drive out not only any particular professor 
but an entire faculty or several faculties— 
such an occurrence is not unknown in our 
educational history. The president keeps 
on in his course of change—reformation or 
deformation as the ease may be—until the 
rising tide of opposition finally overwhelms 


OcToBER 31, 1902.] 


him and a new experiment is made with 
another man. The comparison of the func- 
tion of an American university president 
with that of a king or despot, is, however, 
an unfortunate and misleading one. Much 
more illuminating would be the comparison 
with the responsible head of an English 
cabinet. As long as he proposes plans 
which command the assent of his board of 
trustees—representing in this case the par- 
hament—the lawgiving authority—he is all 
powerful. He has behind him the entire 
force of the country so to speak. He can 
build and rebuild; extend and contract; 
raise up and cast down. But the instant 
he loses the confidence of this board for 
any reason, good or bad, his power is gone; 
his position becomes untenable. He goes 
to join the ever-lengthening list of ex- 
ministers always willing to criticize, always 
willing to give their advice and counsel. 

The American system of higher educa- 
tion would probably never have developed 
with such astonishing rapidity if it had not 
been for these two peculiar organs of life 
.and expression—the trustees and the presi- 
dent; but it is hardly conceivable that either 
of them is destined permanently to play 
such an important part in the educational 
economy of the country as they have done 
in the past and are doing now. 

If time permitted, I might discuss many 
other interesting peculiarities of the Ameri- 
can system of higher education which dis- 
tinguish it from its counterparts in other 
countries; but I must content myself with 
a mere glance at one or two other aspects 
of it. ' 

Our American system of higher educa- 
tion is evangelistic in character. Our in- 
stitutions—at least in the last generation— 
have never been satisfied with merely offer- 
ing their facilities to the public, content to 
let those who wished such opportunities 
avail themselves of them. They have gone 


SCIENCE. 


685 


forth into the community in one form or 
another and preached the gospel of a higher 
education; they have gone out into the 
highways and hedges and compelled the 
guests to come to the feast which has been 
prepared for them. They have all engaged 
in this form of university extension work 
and the result.is seen in the ever-rising 
tide of university attendance. We have, 
generally speaking, in this country not com- 
pelled attendance at universities as they do 
on the continent. We have not made at- 
tendance at a university a condition of 
admission to the bar, to the church, to 
medicine or other professions or callings. 
We have left it free to our young people 
to attend these institutions or not as they 
saw fit. What the government has failed 
to do in this respect, private parties must 
do for it, if the standards of education and 
culture are to keep pace with our. growing 
wealth and population. Hence the will- 
ingness on the part of our higher schools 
to preach this doctrine of the desirability, 
nay, necessity of university training. 
This campaign for higher education—we 
can really call it nothing else—takes on 
different forms in different parts of the 
country. The president in a small college 
not a thousand miles from Chicago told me 
of a missionary tour he made one summer 
which doubled the attendance at his col- 
lege. He hired a large covered wagon and 
a strong team of horses for three months. 
He loaded in his college glee club and a 
few cooking utensils and started across a 
section of country from which as far as he 
could learn no candidates for any college 
had ever emerged. He would drive into a 
village, tether his horses and making ar- 
rangements for food and drink begin his 
campaign. The glee club would sing a 
series of all-compelling college songs on the 
space in front of the wagon or on the vil- 
lage green. After a suitable crowd had 


686 


gathered the president would deliver an 
address on the desirability of a higher edu- 
cation. This would be followed up by a 
meeting in the church or churches, by an 
address before the town schools, etc., ete. 
Before he was through with his three days’ 
meeting the whole town was as excited on 
the subject of colleges and universities and 
higher education as it was in the habit of 
becoming only over polities and religion. 

This may be a somewhat crude form of 
preaching the gospel of higher culture, 
though it was doubtless effective. It is the 
salvation army plan of getting into the 
educational depths. The greater institu- 
tions have pursued more subtle methods— 
oftentimes with even greater effect. The 
system of accrediting schools with the peri- 
odical visitation by a member of a univer- 
sity faculty ; the system of affiliating schools 
and making them to feel themselves a part 
of the university—thus leading many 
youths to look toward higher schools who 
would not otherwise have thought of it; the 
building up of great alumni associations 
with one of their chief objects the increase 
of attendance at alma mater; the publica- 
tion of alumni magazines and semi-scientific 
periodicals of various kinds; the sending 
out of news letters to the press; the organi- 
zation of university extension work in all 
its various forms; the trips of the college 
associations like glee clubs, football elevens 
and baseball nines, intercollegiate debates, 
the annual tours of university presidents 
through the country, the offering of scholar- 
ships and fellowships, ete., etc., all con- 
tribute to the same end of popularizing the 
university and of accomplishing by differ- 
ent methods and methods more consonant 
with our American life the same end of 
bringing large numbers of people in con- 
tact with higher education as the compul- 
sory methods of European countries do for 
them. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 409, 


Some critically inclined people have 
called this evangelistic work by the cruel 
term of advertising, and have denounced 
it as unworthy the institutions and educa- 
tional policy of a great country, have re- 
ferred in scathing terms to the strenuous 
competition of our universities and colleges 
for students. Such a conception fails to 
grasp the vital elements in the situation. 

The whole movement has undoubtedly 
assumed the form of a strenuous competi- 
tion. It would, of course, be easy for such 
a strife to degenerate and to assume a ruin- 
ous and destructive form. 

But the actual fact is the contrary. And 
this leads me to the further proposition in 
regard to our. American system of higher 
education; viz: that it has been character- 
ized during the past fifty years in all its 
parts by an earnest desire for improvement 
in every direction. Our institutions have 
competed with one another in improving 
their facilities, striving to see which one 
could offer the best libraries, the best labo- 
ratories, the most learned and_ skillful 
teachers, the best opportunities for physical 
culture, the best chance for an all-round, 
well-developed manhood and womanhood. 
And the story of advance along this line is 
marvelous. 

They have competed with one another in 
raising their standards of admission and 
their requirements for graduation until 
now many of our able educators think that 
this progress has gone too far, that we are 
making unreasonable requirements for ad- 
mission to college, for graduation from col- 
lege, for admission to graduate work and 
for the higher degrees. 

This competition has been along the very 
highest times. It has led, as modern com- © 
petition so often does, to various forms of 
cooperation. Our higher schools have 
united for common action on many things. 
They are rendering service to the secondary 


OcTOBER: 31, 1902. ] 


schools by helping to fix their standards 
and maintain a high quality of work. 

Another peculiarity of the American sys- 
tem of higher education is the unparalleled 
extent to which it provides for the educa- 
tion of women. No system of higher edu- 
cation in any country at any time has ever 
made such liberal provision for the higher 
education of women as our own. This has 
taken different forms according to the local 
conditions prevailing in different parts of 
the country. In the state universities as 
might be expected it has assumed the form 
of coeducation in the fullest sense of the 
term—absolute equality and similarity of 
treatment of both sexes in all respects, 
practically no recognition that either sex 
requires or would care for any special pro- 
vision for its peculiar wants or needs. In 
the Mississippi Valley most of the church 
institutions and other schools under non- 
state control have, naturally enough, fol- 
lowed the example of the state universities, 
and established as a principle anyhow the 
complete parity of the sexes in higher edu- 
cation. 

In the east the older universities like 
Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Pennsylvania, 
ete., have adopted a somewhat different 
plan. Starting as a mere scheme of pri- 
vate tutors for women under a certain 
supervision of the university, these plans 
have worked out into a system of women’s 
colleges affiliated with or annexed to the 
university in which many of the facilities 
accorded to the men may be enjoyed by the 
women. And finally the system of women’s 
colleges, pure and simple, has been elabo- 
rated which beginning with Vassar now 
numbers east and west more than half a 
dozen institutions of the first rank of which 
we may well be proud. 

What the ultimate form of female edu- 
cation is to be in this country I think no 
wise man would venture to predict with 


SCIENCE. 


687 


any confidence. It is safe, however, to say 
that in all probability the various forms 
now in existence will continue to flourish 
and other forms may be added as our 
society develops. The typical form, how- 
ever, that which will ultimately embrace the 
vast majority of institutions and students 
will be, in my opinion, for a long time to 
come at any rate in the Mississippi Valley 
the system of coeducation, simple, com- 
plete and unadulterated; if for no other 
reason, for the simple one that for the com- 
plete education of women as our American 
society conceives it the entire range of edu- 
cational institutions must be provided and 
for a long time to come we shall not be able 
financially to build and maintain two en- 
tirely different systems of education, one 
for women and one for meh. Nor, I may 
add, will such a duplication of educational 
faculties ever be justified by the fancied 
evils of coeducation. 

There is still another feature of our 
American system of higher education which 
ought not to be omitted in even a cursory 
view of the subject. That is the peculiar 
way in which we have combined the work 
of technical instruction with that of the 
humanities and the professions in one insti- 
tution. We have united, to use a German 
term, the Polytechnicum and the university. 
This has had a marked effect upon instruc- 
tion in both branches of the institution. 
The technical school has made university 
work more practical, compelled it to meas- 
ure itself by new and healthful standards 
and brought a new spirit into much of its 
activity. The university has humanized 
the technical work. 

A technical school bodies forth in its 
very aim and spirit an idea which is at 
times in danger of being lost in the pursuit 
of pure science and the humanities, viz: 
that the ultimate test of all knowledge is 
being good for something besides itself. 


The presence of the professors of technical 
subjects in a faculty where all other sub- 
jects of college and university instruction 
are represented has proved to be a health- 
ful and inspiring influence. Contact with 
the culture side of education has in its 
turn reacted upon the technical instructors 
and thus the way is paved for a mutual 
action and reaction of these two great 
forces in education much to the benefit of 
both and to the lasting improvement in 
spirit and method of every grade of Ameri- 
ean education. I am aware that some 
aeute erities of American education have 
lamented this very fact. But it seems to 
me that their view of education is erro- 
neous. It is not necessary, as has been well 
said, by one of our great scholars, that 
every man in the community should study 
Latin and Greek for ten or twelve years; 
it is not necessary that every man should 
have an adequate conception of Greek and 
Roman civilization. It is very necessary, 
however, to national welfare that some 
members of our society should give time 
and attention to these things; that some 
scholars should give strength and power to 
the mastery of this ancient civilization and 
thus interpret for our day and generation 
the imperishable experiences of Greece and 
Rome, live over for us their history and be 
able to rewrite and reinterpret it for us 
all. 

Now there has never, been a time in this 
country when the facilities for the study of 
the humanities have been greater, or the 
ardor in their. pursuit more intense than 
to-day. Never has the study itself been 
more practical and useful than at present. 
And it seems to me apparent that the very 
emphasis which pure and applied science 
has received in our modern educational sys- 
tem by the union of technical school and 
university has made its contribution to the 
revolution in the study of the humanities 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


which has marked the last generation in 
this country. Technical students leave our 
universities defenders of the importance of 
the study of the humanities—a justification 
in itself of the union of the polytechnicum 
and the university. 

As a result of all these things and many 
more which time does not permit me to 
discuss I believe that the American system 
of higher education is nearer to the people, 
commands more completely their sympathy, 
is better understood by them and conse- 
quently more admired and loved than ever 
before. 

The general public is far more interested 
in everything relating to our colleges and 
universities; our newspapers give more 
space to chronicling the events in the 
academic world, take a livelier interest in 
the discussion of college and university pol- 
icy than ever before. All these things 
point to the firm hold which this depart- 
ment of education has taken of the average 
man, developing in him an interest in and 
affection for our higher institutions which 
argues well for their future. 

And this has come about among other 
things because we have secured the coopera- 
tion of state, church and private initiative, 
thus bringing in all classes of the commu- 
nity; because we have secured a close con- 
taet with the community in our very 
scheme of organization because our institu- 
tions have conceived it to be a part of their 
duty to beget by conscious activity an inter- 
est in the great public for their work; be- 
cause we have cared for the education of 
women and thus enlisted the support of an 
enormously large and ever more important 
element of our society; and because we 
have emphasized the great departments of 
apphed. science in our scheme of higher 
education as well as the traditional training 
for the learned professions. 

I cannot let such an oceasion as this pass 


OcTOBER 31, 1902.] 


without thanking you one and all for your 
presence here. I am well aware that it is 
no personal testimonial to me. Many of 
you I have met to-day for the first time 
and although I shall hope to have many 
opportunities of cultivating an acquaint- 
ance so pleasantly begun yet it is possible 
that many of us may never, meet again. 

Your presence here, however, is a testi- 
mony to the essential oneness in aim and 
in spirit of our American institutions of 
higher learning; it is an evidence of sym- 
pathy and good fellowship; it is earnest of 
cooperation and emulation for all good 
things. 

We who are gathered together here as 
students, professors, trustees, benefactors, 
friends, of American colleges and universi- 
ties may congratulate ourselves. We have 
surely followed Emerson’s injunction and 
hitched our wagons to the stars. Every 
one of us may be glad that it has been per- 
mitted to him to take a part, however hum- 
ble, in the great work of laying the founda- 
tion and erecting the superstructure for a 
series of institutions from the Atlantie to 
the Pacific, from the Great Lakes to the 
Gulf, which shall do for us and our eivili- 
zation what the universities of the Old 
World have done for Europe. 

Surely we may rejoice if we can help to 
win for our country the same proud posi- 
tion in education and science which our 
fathers and brothers have won for it in 
industry and commerce. 


ON THE POSITIONS OF THE NORTHERN 
CIRCUMPOLAR STARS.* 

THE importance of knowing the positions 
of the fixed stars has been recognized from 
the time of the early Greek astronomers, and 
the accuracy demanded has increased with 
the progress of the science. During the 

* Paper read before Section A, American Asso- 


ciation for the Advancement of Science, Pitts- 
burgh meeting, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


689 


past two hundred years an enormous 
amount of labor has been expended in 
forming catalogues of the stars, and fur- 
ther progress in this direction is recognized 
to-day as one of the principal needs of as- 
tronomy. Not only ought a larger number 
of stars to have their places accurately 
measured, but the positions of many of the 
so-called fundamental stars should be more 
precisely determined. 

Since the motions of the Sun, Moon and 
larger planets are confined to the region of 
the sky known as the Zodiac, the equatorial 
and zodiacal stars have been more frequent- 
ly observed and their positions more accu- 
rately determined than is the case in gen- 
eral with the cireumpolar stars. Compari- 
son stars are needed near the pole only on 
those rare occasions when a comet crosses 
that region of the sky. 

Beginning with the epoch-making obser- 
vations of Bradley about one hundred and 
fifty years ago, the work of determining 
fundamentally, that is with reference to the 
equator and equinox, the places of a limited 
number of equatorial and cireumpolar stars 
has been carried on continuously at Green- 
wich. Since its foundation about 1840, 
work of the highest value has been done by 
the National Observatory of Russia at Pul-. 
kowa, near St. Petersburg. Fundamental 
work of this kind has also been done. at 
various other observatories, mostly HEuro- 
pean, and by professional astronomers, no- 
tably by Bessel and Struve. 

Valuable differential work on the circum- 
polar stars has been done by amateur as- 
tronomers, whose work has been based on 
the positions of fundamental stars previous- 
ly determined. Some of the noblest ex- 
amples of devotion to science are found in 
the history of this subject. 

Perhaps the most remarkable ease is that 
of Stephen Groombridge, a linen draper of 
London, who about 1802 set up a transit 
circle by Troughton of three and one half 


690 


inches aperture and five feet focal length 
at Greenwich, near the Royal Observatory. 
Groombridge labored for several years in 
observing the stars of the northern heavens. 
After his death in 1832, the reduction of 
these observations was superintended by 
Airy and a valuable catalogue of 4243 stars 
reduced to 1810.0 was formed. Airy pro- 
nounees the work ‘one of the greatest which 
the long-deferred leisure of a private indi- 
vidual has ever produced.’ This catalogue 
is not exclusively cireumpolar, as many 
stars of forty or even fifty degrees of north 
polar distance are included. The Groom- 
bridge stars were reobserved by Johnson at 
the Radcliffe Observatory of Oxford Uni- 
versity during the years 1840 to 1853 and 
the results form a part of the Radcliffe 
Catalogue of 6,317 stars for 1860.0. More 
than 85 per cent. of the Groombridge stars 
were observed at Greenwich during the 
years 1887 to 1896, and are contained in the 
second Greenwich 10-year Catalogue for 
1890.0. 

Another useful piece of amateur work 
is the Redhill Catalogue of 3,735 circum- 
polar stars for 1855.0 by R. C. Carrington, 
an astronomer otherwise well known for his 
work on the sun. His observatory was situ- 

‘ated at Redhill in the southern suburbs of 
London, and his instrument, now at the Rad- 
cliffe Observatory, Oxford, was a transit 
circle by Sims of 5 inches aperture and 66 
inches focal length. Carrington extended 
the zones of Bessel and Argelander from 
80° north declination to the pole. It was 
his intention to observe all stars within this 
region down to the tenth magnitude. In 
the introduction to the catalogue Carring- 
ton states ‘I will establish the rule that of 
the class of stars included in my plan, none 
shall be excepted from sufficiently repeated 
observation,’ and this resolution seems to 
have been faithfully: carried out. 

Another work of importance is that of F. 
M. Schwerd, a professional astronomer of 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 409. 


Speyer in Rhenish Bavaria, not far from 
Heidelberg. Schwerd observed, during 
the years 1826-8, 1,397 stars within fifteen 
degrees of the pole, with a small but ‘ vor- 
treffliche’ meridian circle by Ertel of 1.7 
inches aperture and 42 inches focal length. 
The divided circle was 20 inches in diameter 
and the power of eye-piece used was 126 
diameters. Schwerd’s observations reduced 
to 1828.0 were published by Wilhelm 
Oeltzen, of Vienna, in 1856. 

The observations of circumpolar stars by 
Lalande at the Paris Observatory have been 
collected into a catalogue by Fedorenko, of 
Pulkowa, which, like the catalogue of 
Groombridge, contains many stars forty 
degrees or more from the pole. This cata- 
logue contains 4673 stars for 1790.0. 

A valuable recent work is the catalogue 
of 123 cireumpolar stars for 1893.0 by M. 
Ditchenko, of Pulkowa. The stars of this 
catalogue are all within ten degrees of the 
pole and mostly of the 7.0 magnitude or 
brighter. The observations were made with 
the Repsold Meridian Circle of the Pul- 
kowa Observatory and are differential, be- 
ing based on the nine fundamental cireum- 
polar stars of the Berliner Jahrbuch. The 
stars have been observed from four to six 
times each. 

During the past twenty years good differ- 
ential work on the cireumpolar stars has 
been done in the United States with Rep- 
sold meridian circles at the Williams Col- 
lege Observatory, Williamstown, Mass. ; at 
the Washburn Observatory, Madison, Wis. ; 
and at the Lick Observatory. A few obser- 
vations of cireumpolar stars on a funda- 
mental basis have within recent years been 
made at the Naval Observatory in Washing- 
ton, but very little really fundamental work 
on the fixed stars seems to have been done 
in this country. 

Dr. Auwers, of Berlin, published in 1897 
(see A. N. Nr. 3440) a list of 21 circum- 
polar stars, with a request for observations 


OcTOBER 31, 1902. ] 


with a view to increase the number of well- 
determined stars near the pole. The great 
scheme of the Astronomische Gesellschaft 
of Leipzig for observing the stars of the 
northern heavens down to the ninth mag- 
nitude does not go beyond 80 degrees 20 
minutes of north declination. The well- 
known need of additional work—especially 
fundamental work—in this part of the 
heavens has led me to outline a plan for 
fundamental observations of the circum- 
polar stars, which has not, as far as I know, 
been hitherto suggested or put into practice. 

One of the chief difficulties in making 
fundamental determinations of the right 
ascensions of the stars at low declinations 
is in securing sufficiently accurate time 
keeping. This difficulty almost disappears 
near the pole, where an error in time means 
a much smaller error in space. The possi- 
bility of making observations at both up- 
per and lower culminations is an impor- 
tant advantage in cireumpolar work in both 
right ascension and declination. Those 
circumpolar stars which are bright enough 
to be seen in the daytime with meridian in- 
struments are frequently observed by as- 
tronomers at both culminations at all times 
of the year. During the fall and winter 
months when in middle latitudes there are 
from twelve to fifteen hours of darkness 
daily, it is practicable to observe the 
fainter circumpolar stars at both upper 
and lower culminations. For six months 
of the year it is possible to work for 
an hour or two in the evening, be- 
tween five and seven o’clock, observing a 
certain list of cireumpolar stars as they 
come on the meridian at either upper or 
lower culmination. In the morning, twelve 
hours later, the same stars may be observed, 
each at the other culmination. In this way 
it is possible to observe with one instrument 
in a single year, at both upper and lower 
culmination, nearly all stars down to the 


SCIENCE. 


691 


seventh magnitude within ten degrees of 
the pole. 

With a meridian circle provided with the 
usual accessories, including suitable meri- 
dian marks, the work may be made pract- 
ically fundamental in both right ascension 
and declination. The right ascensions of 
ephemeris stars near the equator, used as 
clock stars, are known with sufficient ac- 
curacy so that the effect of their systematic 
errors may be neglected without serious 
error in observations of stars within 10 
degrees of the pole. 

Each pair of observations of the same 
star at both upper and lower culminations 
on the same day gives a fundamental deter- 
mination of the azimuth of the meridian 
mark and the latitude of the place of ob- 
servation, the observations in declination 
being made from the nadir. The observa- 
tions of each night should be reduced with 
the azimuth of the mark and the latitude as 
found from the observations of that night, 
as in this way the effect of the recently 
discovered slight motion of the zenith-point 
is eliminated from the observed places. 
The more troublesome errors of personal 
equation will be eliminated from the final 
results of a year’s work. In declination, 
the effect of errors of flexure of the instru- 
ment and of the refraction tables will be 
small. They will be somewhat smaller per- 
haps the higher the latitude of the place. 
Accidental errors of observation will be re- 
duced to a minimum since the atmospheric 
conditions are usually best in the early 
morning and evening, and will be smaller 
at the higher latitudes. Observations made 
in this way will give the variation of the 
latitude as well as its mean value, and also 
the variation of the azimuth of the meri- 
dian mark. By observing, in addition to 
the cireumpolar stars, stars which are se- 
lected for the purpose, corrections may be 
found to the refraction tables and to the 
constant of aberration. 


692 


The clock should be a good one, but need 
not be of unusual excellence. The instru- 
ment should be of the best quality, and its 
errors in both right ascension and declina- 
tion should be investigated as completely 
and as rigorously as possible. The work 
should be done in both positions of the 
clamp of the instrument, and with the ob- 
ject glass and eye-end interchanged. All in- 
strumental constants should be determined 
when the observations are made. In short 
all expedients should be resorted to to 
eliminate accidental and systematic errors 
—especially the latter—as it is only in this 
way that fundamental work ean be made 
of value as such in the present state of 
astronomy. 

The observations may be corrected for 
elock and instrumental error by either 
Mayer’s or Bessel’s formula. If the latter, 
which is perhaps the more convenient of 
the two, is used it may be put in the form, 


a=T+47T+m+(n+c) tand 
+ ¢(sec 6 — tan 0) 


in which the quantity n is computed from 
values of the level constant found with the 
spirit level and a from observations on 
the meridian mark. The term c (see 6 — 
tan 6) may be used in the forms c/(see 6 + 
tan 3) if more convenient. As is the case 
with all astronomical work, the value of the 
results will depend on the perfection and 
power of the instrumental outfit, and the 
skill with which the various processes are 
earried out. This plan of observation is 
of course applicable to the southern as well 
as to the northern cireumpolar stars. 

It may not be out of place to speak in 
this connection of the need of an extended 
series of fundamental observations of the 
brighter stars at all declinations, to supple- 
ment the work being done at Greenwich and 
Pulkowa. Astronomers who are interested 
in this subject feel the desirability of such 
an addition to the material at present avail- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


able, from which to construct a general eat- 
alogue of several thousand stars whose 
places are based on an absolute system. The 
stars should be selected with reference to 
distribution, magnitude, color and other 
characteristics which affect their suitability 
to serve as standard points of reference. 
Such a catalogue is needed for a variety of 
purposes, among which may be mentioned: 

1. As a basis for determining the posi- 
tions of the fainter stars, by differential 
meridian cirele observations or by photog- 
raphy. 

2. For more convenient and accurate de- 
termination of longitude and latitude in 
geodetic work. 

3. To make possible a more accurate and 
extensive determination of the proper mo- 
tions of the stars in all parts of the heavens, 
which together with spectroscopic measure- 
ments of motions in the line of sight, likely 
to be greatly increased in the near future, 
will increase our knowledge of the proper ~ 
motion of the solar system and also the 
motions and distribution of the stars in 
space. 

4. To serve as a universal standard to 
which the great mass of existing star-cata- 
logues, systems of star-places and series of 
observations may be reduced by the appli- 
cation of systematic corrections, thus har- 
monizing and making available for use a 
large amount of nonhomogeneous material. 

There is perhaps no observatory in the 
world better located geographically for 
earrying out a series of observations of 
this kind than the Naval Observatory at 
Washington. While not an ideal climate for 
astronomical work in general, the climate of 
Washington is very good for work of this 
kind. The ground on which the observa- 
tory is situated was chosen with special 
reference to its suitability for the stable 
support of instruments and also with re- 
gard to freedom from unfavorable local 
conditions. As regards its latitude, 38 de- 


OcTOBER 31, 1902. ] 


grees 55 minutes, Washington is admirably 
situated for, making observations intended 
to supplement the work of the European 
observatories and at the same time that of 
the observatories of the southern hemi- 
sphere. It is twelve and one half degrees 
south of Greenwich, twenty degrees south 
of Pulkowa and seven and one half degrees 
south of the new branch of the Pulkowa Ob- 
servatory at Odessa. Stars of thirty de- 
grees south declination are observed on the 
meridian at Washington at an altitude of 
twenty-one degrees and very near, the 
zenith at Cordoba and the Cape of 
Good Hope. Being ten to fifteen de- 
grees south of the observatories of central 
Europe, and yet far enough north for ac- 
curate observation of the cireumpolar stars, 
perhaps no location better in this respect 
could be found for extending the accurate 
star places of the northern hemisphere 
thirty degrees or more south of the equator 
for comparison with the results of observa- 
tions made in the southern hemisphere. 
The value of the great work on the posi- 
tions of the stars which has been carried 
on at Greenwich during the two hundred 
years which have elapsed since Flamsteed’s 
time is recognized by every astronomer. As 
an example of continuous activity directed 
toward a definite end it is perhaps without 
a parallel in the history of science. Until 
1850 a transit instrument of five inches 
aperture and a mural circle six feet in 
diameter, both by Troughton, were used. In 
that year the present Greenwich transit 
cirele of eight inches aperture and twelve 
feet focal length was mounted by Airy. The 
axis is six feet long and the divided circle 
is six feet in diameter. While one of the 
most powerful instruments of its kind in 
the world, its construction is such as to 
make it liable to systematic error. No 
meridian mark is provided, although the 
north collimator was at one time used as 
such, and the spirit level is not used. Fur- 


SCIENCE. 


693 


thermore, the instrument cannot be re- 
versed. 

The great value of the fundamental work 
which the Pulkowa Observatory has done 
during the past sixty years is generally 
recognized. The instruments used have 
been of the best quality and their construe- 
tion has been improved from time to time. 
The methods of observation are of the high- 
est class and the systematic errors of the 
results have been found to be very small. 
But at the extreme north latitude of Pul- 
kowa, the altitude of the sun on the meri- 
dian at the winter solstice is only seven 
degrees, and stars at the celestial equator 
are observed at an altitude of only thirty 
degrees. As a consequence the best work of 
that observatory is limited to stars of north 
declination. With the good judgment and 
enterprise which have from the first charac- 
terized the management of the Pulkowa 
Observatory, the branch observatory, men- 
tioned above, was established in 1898 at 
Odessa, thirteen degrees further south, 
where valuable work is no doubt being 
done. 

But all instruments and all methods of 
observing have their peculiar forms of 
error, and it seems clear that the establish- 
ment of a third center in the northern 
hemisphere for continuous fundamental 
observations of the stars is very desirable. 


Minton UppEGRAFF. 
U.S. NAVAL OBSERVATORY, 
WASHINGTON, D. C., 
June 15, 1902. 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 

THE provision for research constitutes a 
supremely important part of the intellec- 
tual organization of a great nation. A 
profound recognition of this fact has 
brought into existence the Carnegie Insti- 
tution. JI have elsewhere recorded (The 
Dial, February 16, 1902) my appreciation 
of the general aims and purposes of this 


694 


notable foundation. The immediate prob- 
lem, to which the editor of SctmncE invites 
attention, is the inauguration of measures 
that shall most effectively aid the cause of 
original investigation; that shall relieve 
such obstacles as now beset the free devel- 


opment of the spirit of research in our 


midst; that shall encourage and promote 
the realm of scientific discovery, and give 
to research as a profession the dignity, 
appreciation and outward marks of suc- 
cess to which, as a potent contributor to 
vital interests of our civilization, it is un- 
questionably entitled. 

It would be unwise for everyone whose 
coneern in this problem is deep enough to 
induce him to give expression to it, to sug- 
gest ways and means of spending the in- 
come of ten millions of dollars. From 
what I have been permitted to learn of 
the intentions of the Carnegie authorities, 
I have inferred that they would regard as 
helpful, first, concrete suggestions as to the 
kind of expenditure which would do most 
for the cause of research, and the prin- 
ciples of inclusion and exclusion that. shall 
be operative in determining the field of 
practical endeavor which the institution 
shall make its own; and, second, the sug- 
gestion of special researches for which 
funds are needed—which this or that in- 
dividual is ready to undertake, and which 
an appropriate committee would be willing 
to endorse. The second portion of this 
program presents little that is novel; 
provisions for such endowment of research 
already exist, though to a very inadequate 
extent, and the Carnegie Institution will 
be able to offer more of such assistance and 
to maintain a directive oversight of such 
research in a far more comprehensive way 
than has been possible hitherto. The first 
part of the problem is at once more funda- 
mental and more difficult; it requires a 
broad consideration of the actual condi- 
tions of research, of the relations of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


Carnegie Institution to the universities, to 
the governmental bureaus, to academies, to 
scientific associations, ete., as well as a con- 
sideration of the kind of encouragement 
which research requires, the deficiencies in 
the organization of research that demand 
correction, the direction in which future 
progress is to be shaped. It is to a few 
aspects of this problem that I shall ad- 
dress myself. 

The direction in which, in my opinion, 
greatest utility lies is in the endowment of 
men rather than of projects: Hitherto in 
grants for research in America the em- 
phasis has been decidedly in the opposite 
direction. There are, indeed, some grants 
to which a condition is attached that no 
part of the fund shall be used for personal 
expenses, nor for anything but apparatus 
and materials. The expert service in- 
volved, both of the investigator and of such 
assistance as he might require, must be 
freely offered. As a consequence, only 
those who have private means or who hold 
other positions yielding them alike suffi- 
cient income for a living and the requisite 
leisure for investigation, have been able to 
avail themselves of such aid. There will 
always be a number of persons of this class 
ready to engage in most desirable and im- 
portant investigation, to whom substantial 
encouragement should be given; this is 
good as far as it goes, but it does not go 
far enough. If this were to be the sole or, 
the chief function of the foundation, there 
would be a Carnegie Fund, but not a Car- 
negie Institution. There are many investi- 
gations that require not so much costly 
apparatus as extensive cooperation; the 
service of computers; clerical aid; oppor- 
tunity for conference between leaders in 
related investigations; opportunities for 
travel and collection of material; and be- 
yond all, leisure, release from instructional 
duties or other occupation necessary for 
gaining a livelihood. While research is an 


OcToBER 31, 1902.] 


avocation with many, it is a vocation with 
few; and the many pursue their investiga- 
tions amid needlessly unfavorable condi- 
tions. 

Tf this description of the status of affairs 
is approximately correct, the remedy would 
seem to lie in the direct endowment of men. 
If we have men who are precisely fitted by 
training, bent, devotion and ability for the 
work of research, why not provide the means 


for their support and leave them financially , 


free, at all events, to devote their energies in 
the direction in which they promise greatest 
success? Undoubtedly they will require ma- 
terials and apparatus—in some cases a 
most expensive equipment—but in nearly 
all cases they will first and foremost require 
a secure living and leisure. The elevation 
of the career, of the devotee to research to 
a worthy professional standing would seem 
to be the special function which the Car- 
negie Institution can serve in behalf of 
learning in America. 

In pursuance of such a policy there 
would be at once recognized the danger of 
interfering with the growth of the provi- 
sions for research now established or likely 
to be established at the universities. Such 
a possibility must be carefully guarded 
against. If it were to become the vogue 
for the university authorities, when the 
‘question of provision for research came up 
for discussion, to transfer such responsi- 
bility to the Carnegie Institution, quite as 
much harm as good would be done. The 
various ways in which the spirit of research 
is not only helpful but vital to the flourish- 
ing of true university work have been re- 
peatedly and ably set forth; it will continue 
to require zealous protection until it be- 
comes firmly established as an integral 
factor of our educational system. As a 
means of fostering the cause of research 
without needlessly releasing the universi- 
ties from their true responsibilities, the 
suggestion is near at hand that the Car- 


SCIENCE. 


695 


negie funds shall, here and there, be used 
to pay a portion of the salary or supple- 
ment the salary of this professor or that, on 
condition that he be relieved from all but 
a minimum of teaching, and thus be able 
to devote much of his energies to special 
research. An arrangement effecting sub- 
stantially the same result exists in the case 
of geologists who hold an academic and a 
governmental position, and are able to 
minimize the instructional obligations of 
the former, while utilizing to the full 
the research facilities of the’ latter 
position. The university funds thus re- 
leased would naturally be used for the en- 
gagement of an assistant, upon whom would 
fall the instructional and other work so 
frequently the serious obstacles to success- 
ful investigation. I do not advocate, ex- 
cept in special cases, the complete separa- 
tion of instruction and investigation; on 
the contrary, I am convinced that each is 
helpful to the other, and that even the syn- 
optic. survey of one’s science which an in- 
troductory course makes necessary is a use- 
ful task for the professor occasionally to 
assume, while the opportunity to serve as a 
leader to able young men is both stimulat- 
ing and profitable. It is only to the extent 
that instructional and administrative rou- 
tine interfere with the scholar’s advance- 
ment along the lines of his special fitness, 
that provision should be made to prevent 
the sacrifice of the latter for the former. 

In this connection a reference seems per- 
missible to the special conditions under 
which the professor (for we may assume 
that in this country the typical man of re- 
search is a professor) must live and work. 
He is not independent; he is not free to 
follow his own inclinations; he has pre- 
seribed and absorbing duties. As with most 
men his income conditions his activity. 
He must first do that which is necessary to 
gain a living for himself and family, and 
to occupy that place in society which his 


696 


position makes proper. To accomplish this, 
an undue amount of care and effort is 
now expended; many a professor would 
have pursued a eareer of research had the 
necessity not been presented to him of in- 
creasing his income, owing to the insuffi- 
ciency cf his salary. With a larger salary, 
he would have felt free to engage such 
clerical assistance as was needed to release 
his own time, he would have refused offers 
of publishers to write text-books, of editors 
to prepare articles, would have provided 
himself liberally with books and the tools 
of his trade, and lived a life of greater ap- 
proximation to his ideals than proved to 
be possible. Considered merely from a 
practical point of view, I have no doubt 
that the employment of a secretary in one 
ease, of a laboratory assistant in another, 
of an increase in salary for household ex- 
penses in a third case, would really prove 
to be the most efficient, though indirect, aid 
to research. For when reduced to the low- 
est terms, the factors of which successful 
research is a function are these: the capac- 
ity for it, the material equipment, the time 
and energy. Assuming the first, and rec- 
ognizing the various efforts which our edu- 
cational institutions are putting forth to 
develop it, we have acknowledged the de- 
cided aid that comes from the provision of 
the second, and yet place the greater em- 
phasis upon those measures which, with dis- 
cernment and adaptation to actual. econdi- 
tions, make possible the enthusiastic devo- 
tion of time and energy to the field of re- 
search. Asa fourth factor should be added 
the honors and attractions of the investi- 
gator’s career, and the consequent induce- 
ment for the ablest young men to follow 
such a career. That the Carnegie Institu- 
tion has the possibility of doing much in 
this last direction I have already main- 
tained. 

In other words, it is my conviction that 
the most serious obstacle to the proper 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 409. 


development of original research in 
America lies in the circumstance that those 
with greatest capacity for it do not make 
strenuous efforts to secure the material 
equipment they require (in so far as they 
do require it), because of the fundamental 
difficulty that the time and energy they 
have to give to the work are inadequate. 
The primary remedial measure must ac- 
cordingly be the readjustment of their 
personal status, which shall make it un- 
necessary for them for the sake of in- 
come to devote their energies to other pur- 
suits. In so far as such other pursuits are 
directly helpful to the intellectual career 
of the investigator, they should unques- 
tionably be maintained; in so far as they 
contribute little or nothing to his investiga- 
ting efficiency, they should be transferred to 
others, who, though occupying an equally 
important position in the educational world, 
find their greatest sphere of usefulness in 
another field. There is no implied dis- 
paragement of the professor’s career as a 
teacher ; that phase of his activity is for the 
present not under discussion. We are dis- 
cussing the career of the investigator, and 
believe that the university furnishes an 
admirably suitable atmosphere for his de- 
velopment; and that it is very fortunate for 
the university to have among its members 
a considerable group who are primarily in- 
vestigators. One of the principles of mod- 
ern organization by which the services of 
individuals of decided ability are distrib- 
uted as comprehensively as possible is that 
the director shall not do that which any of 
his assistants can do as well. This is the 
true economy of time and energy. My plea 
is for the more adequate extension of the 
same principle to the academic life; it is 
on account of the lack of proper assistants, 
and of a lack of a proper income to em- 
ploy them, that the energies of some of our 
ablest men in the higher educational in- 
stitutions are not utilized to the best ad- 


OcToBER 31, 1902.] 


vantage, are, indeed, in extreme instances, 
shamefully wasted. 

' Having ventured so far in the presenta- 
tion of this point of view, I shall venture 
farther to defend it against one form of 
objection to which, in the opinion of some, 
it seems to lie open. We are told that a 
fellowship may degenerate into a form of 
almsgiving, that men need not be paid to 
study or to investigate, that grants to in- 
dividuals smack of paternalism, and so on. 
To my thinking these positions are entirely 
false; and when a college president main- 
tains that ‘great gifts to education have 
been for the purpose not of feeding men 
but of furnishing means of study and in- 
vestigation beyond the reach of individual 
effort,’ he expresses a strangely perverse 
view of the situation. If we can only feed 
the right man—to hold for the moment to 
this needlessly brusque form of statement 
—we cannot perform a more notable serv- 
ice than by thus supplying at least one of 
the conditions for a career of greatest po- 
tential value to the nation. In one sense 
the greater portion of all educational en- 
dowments goes towards the maintenance of 
men. Fortunate, indeed, is the state of 
affairs that in some cases makes such en- 
dowment unnecessary. In reading the his- 
tory of science in England one is repeatedly 
thankful that this man and that were so 
situated financially that they could devote 
their whole time and energy towards con- 
tributing to the world’s knowledge. As we 
read the life of Huxley we share with him 
the feeling of relief when a comfortable 
living was at length assured him. It will 
hardly do to say that the true investigator 
will come to the front and create the con- 
ditions needed for his work despite all per- 
sonal hardships and deprivations. The 
question is always painfully apropos: 
Where are the ships of those who were not 
saved and whose gratitude is not recorded 
by the models suspended from the church 


SCIENCE. 


697 


beams? The eases of successful achieve- 
ment despite inadequate facilities and en- 
couragement should never be forgotten; 
but the great unknown mass of possibili- 
ties that lie buried beneath the waves of 
adversity likewise tell to the imaginative a 
suggestive story. 

From the initial encouragement of a fel- 
lowship up to the highest honors of the 
scientist’s career there should be rewards 
and appreciations, equal at least to those 
that invite men of exceptional talent in 
comparable spheres of intellectual activity. 
When the editor of Scrpnce tells us that 
‘the greatest obstacle to the advancement 
of science is, in my opinion, the circum- 
stance that scientific men are not directly 
rewarded for their investigations and dis- 
coveries,’ he is not implying any special 
lack of altruistic sentiment on the part of 
men of science; he is forcibly pointing out 
the essential disparity between the attrac- 
tion to men of rare powers of the scientific 
and of comparable careers. 

I have not left myself space to speak of 
other practical suggestions deducible in 
conformity with my main thesis. This is, 
perhaps, the less necessary, as the editor 
of ScreNcE has already indicated some of 
them. The establishment of at least a few 
notable prizes and cf supplementary and 
adequate salaries for the encouragement of 
researchare more ambitious but equally log- 
ical deductions from the principle of the 
direct endowment of men. The establish- 
ment of research fellowships is another. The 
creation of a board of managers fer the in- 
stitution, membership in which shall consti- 
tute a great honor and be suitably re- 
warded, is again in conformity with this 
view. It would be a great aid to the status 
of the university professor if there were 
some great prizes in the educational world 
outside of the administrative field. As it 
is, the college presidencies! offer the most 
attractive incomes to men seeking the edu- 


698 


cational career. This is doubly unfortu- 
nate, as it has served to overvalue the par- 
ticular grade of ability which such work 
demands, and to undervalue the intrin- 
sically superior capacity needed for emi- 
nent success in the field of investigation. 

I have likewise omitted direct reference 
to the question of a distinctive Carnegie 
Institution at Washington. I have made it 
clear that such an institution is indispen- 
sable to the realization of the larger national 
place for research which I have advocated. 
It is because I feel that the immediate 
danger is that the Carnegie Institution may 
become a great subsidiary agency and 
nothing more, that I have selected the 
opposition to that plan for my major thesis. 

To bring my plea to a focus, let me at- 
tempt to repeat briefly the points of empha- 
sis: 

1. That the Carnegie funds shall be de- 
voted primarily to the endowment of men, 
without neglect of the fact that many 
projects demanding cooperative* energy 
and special equipment are worthy of en- 
couragement. 

2. That the Carnegie Institution shall 
distinctly supplement and in no way dimin- 
ish or discourage or absorb the existing pro- 
visions for research. 

3. That the path of endeavor and plans 
for the inauguration of progressive meas- 
ures be determined by an inquiry in regard 
to the obstacles and difficulties that now 
beset the career of the investigator and be 


*T have omitted for lack of space any concrete 
illustrations of the cooperative or centralizing 
functions which the Carnegie Institution might 
serve. A good instance would be found.in the 
establishment of a central instrument works. 
Most professorial inventors carry their inventions 
up to the just-workable and barely-presentable 
stage. If at this point the apparatus could be 
sent to a central bureau where it would be tech- 
nically perfected by mechanical specialists, repro- 
duced and supplied to laboratories at cost of 
production, a very great boon would be offered to 
the devotees of almost all the sciences. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


directed to the removal of those difficul- 
ties. 

4. That the Carnegie Institution adopt 
as one of its peculiar missions the estab- 
lishment both of general conditions and of 
special attractive rewards for the success- 
ful investigator and the encouragement 
of the man of promise, and in this and 
other ways place the career of the pro- 
fessional investigator upon a more secure 
and more honored footing than it now oc- 
cupies. 

JOSEPH JASTROW. 


To THe Epiror oF Science: Referring 
to your interesting article on the Carnegie 
Institution, and responding to your re- 
quest for suggestions as to how the fund 
might be utilized, I would respectfully 
submit that a portion of the income might 
well be made available to enable members 
of the faculties of the smaller, but poorly 
endowed, colleges to enjoy the advantages 
of a sabbatical year. Smaller colleges can- 
not, as a rule, afford to give their faculties 
this much-needed change, and the men 
eannot afford to spend the year without 
salary. In fact, they can hardly afford to 
take even a vacation trip to the great edu- 
cational centers. 

An arrangement might be feasible 
whereby a college would guarantee, say, 
one fourth of a man’s salary, and the Car- 
negie Institution might guarantee one half, 
or better still, three fourths, on the condi- 
tion that the year be spent in actual work 
at one of the well-equipped universities or 
in one of the government laboratories. If 
the man went abroad the condition should 
be made that his time should be spent in a 
country the language of which he under- 
stands. 

By this plan, not only would many an 
underpaid and overworked college teacher, 
now isolated from proper library facilities 
and from contact with men in his own line 


OCTOBER 31, 1902. ] 


of study, be able to ‘work up’ interesting 
and valuable material collected during his 
isolation, but he would enjoy a much- 
needed and revivifying change of scene 
and association, and the advantages gained 
by him would be of direct value to his col- 
lege, to his students, and to the general 
education of the country. At the same 
time, he could count upon fourteen months 
for research. 

Should such a plan meet with approval, 
it would perhaps not be unreasonable to 
ask the prominent and more wealthy uni- 
versities to establish free Carnegie fellow- 
ships, thus relieving the men in question 
from the payment of tuition, laboratory 
fees, ete. 

Cu. WARDELL STILES. 


U. S. Pusrtic HratraH AnD Marine-Hosprran 
SERVICE. 


THERE are two points not yet brought out 
in the discussion: (1) The stamp of ap- 
proval of the Carnegie Institution is likely 
to act as a patent of nobility and to make 
certain lines of research creditable, that is, 
acceptable to authorities who are influenced, 
not infrequently, by what ‘is made in Ger- 
many.’ (2) The most ‘conspicuous waste’ 
to-day is that of the man who might be the 
“exceptional man’ if he and his parents 
before him had lived up to the possibilities 
of perfect manhood which scientific knowl- 
edge now offers to those who value it enough 
to work as steadily to attain it as the busi- 
ness man does to gain the power to build a 
palace. 

It is not enough to attain to great ad- 
ministrative ability, control over other men. 
The exceptional man now in demand is the 
one most ethically efficient as a man among 
men, as an exponent of what the human 
race is capable. 

That is the kind of man it is the noblest 
privilege of mankind to study: that is the 
new humanities. 


SCIENCE. 


699 


Two years of time in the secondary school 
and one year of time in college might be 
saved to at least one third the students in 
the country if they understood human 
cekology—the science of right living. 

Dr. Sternberg’s closing paragraph indi- 
eates one of the directions in which help 
must come, but there is needed a philo- 
sophical basis for the improvement of the 
race before the work will proceed far. 


E. H. RicHarps. 
LABoRATORY or SANITARY ‘CHEMISTRY, 
Mass. INSTITUTE or TECHNOLOGY. 


In response to an invitation from the 
editor of ScteNcE to express my views on 
the question how can the Carnegie Institu- 
tion best advance science, I would repeat 
substantially the terms of the deed of trust: 
By sustaining original research, by up- 
holding exceptional men, by increasing 
facilities for higher education, by cooperat- 
ing with existing institutions, by promoting 
prompt publication; and by doing all these 
things on a business basis. 

Though not expressed in the deed of 
trust, the last clause is sufficiently implied 
by the character of the donor, and it states 
a consideration which must control any 
action of the trustees. It is here em- 
phasized because it serves to explain, to 
the writer at least, some of the differences 
of opinion which have recently been pub- 
lished. 

To conduct research on a business basis 
is difficult, and, if the experience of the 
U. S. Geological Survey be a safe guide, 
requires the application of certain prin- 
ciples, which, though commonly recognized, 
have not always been applied in profes- 
sional work. The first: Authority and 
responsibility are inseparable, is so familiar 
and fundamental as searcely to need state- 
ment; but in practice it often requires 
subordination of one individual to another 
in a manner antagonistic to scientific inde- 


700 


pendence, and just consideration of the 
right to opinion leads to the conclusion that 
authority should be restricted to the domain 
of business and should not intrude in the 
realm of knowledge. 

From this follows a distinction which 
may be stated as the second principle of an 
organization for research: Administrative 
control should be separate from scientific 
direction. The former then allots funds, 
supervises accounts, provides assistants 
and facilities, refers’ questions, gets out 
accepted results; in a phrase, its function 
is to run the machinery efficiently. Its con- 
trol over and responsibility for moneys 
should be absolute. On the other hand, 
scientific direction consists in planning and 
approving plans, suggesting investigators, 
aiding them through broader knowledge, 
considering results and approving them for 
pubheation. Its control and responsibility 
are both partial and also widely variable, 
according to the relations existing between 
the director and the directed. In the Car- 
negie Institution this second principle ap- 
pears to be recognized in the relation of an 
executive board and of a president who 
executes the purposes of that board to the 
several advisory committees composed of 
specialists in different branches of science. 

In an organization thus built up of 
workers, advisers and administrators, co- 
operation becomes a vital principle to be 
not only accepted but cordially adopted 
and practiced. By cooperation in these re- 
lations I mean entering into one another’s 
views and plans with an intelligent, sym- 
pathetic, though judicial understanding, 
with the one object of advancing the pur- 
pose of the organization. We may confi- 
dently hope that the Carnegie trustees and 
the scientists who are or may be associated 
with them will act with such breadth and 
liberality of opinion that cooperation will 
not fail. 

Again, from the business point of view, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vot. XVI. No. 409. 


the trustees bear a heavy responsibility for 
the administration of the trust fund, and 
must necessarily view any proposition from 
a side other than that from which a sci- 
entist may regard it. In weighing the 
relative merits of the many demands which 
are being and will be made upon them, the 
members of the executive board must have 
ever in.mind the purpose to promote science 
as distinguished from the opportunity to 
aid individuals or institutions. To the 
specialist who is ideally a man of single 
purpose their conclusion may not always 
seem obviously just, but it will be a safe 
basis of action. The case of the exception- 
al man who may be most liberally sup- 
ported does not conflict with the general 
rule, since if he be the exceptional man—a 
Huxley, for example—his advancement is 
the advancement of knowledge. 

I am indebted to the editor for oppor- 
tunity to read in proof his own contribution 
to the discussion of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion, but he covers much ground with which 
I am too little familiar to tread securely, 
and I regret that in those items where my 
opinion is based on experience in organiza- 
tion, I must differ from him. The Marine 
Biological Laboratory at Woods Holl, 
known for the high standard of its work, 
has a claim upon the interest even of those 
who, like myself, had no personal knowl- 
edge of its management, but the statement 
which admits the handicap of financial 
difficulties as a result of democratic or- 
ganization is an indictment of that organ- 
ization, and the fact that the members 
possessed high qualities of enthusiasm, de- 
votion and capacity for self-sacrifice does 
not relieve the organized body of respon- 
sibility for inefficient administration if 
such there was; nor does that fact relieve 
the trustees of the Carnegie Institution of 
responsibility as trustees for the most 
efficient use of any fund they might allot 
to the work of the Laboratory. The as- 


OcTOBER 31, 1902.] 


sumption that large expenditures for ad- 
ministration must follow from their man- 
agement appears gratuitous, and the charge 
that they may crush out the public spirit 
of the Laboratory is not warranted by any 
facts made public. 

A geophysical laboratory, as an object 
of investment on the part of the Carnegie 
Institution, does not commend itself to the 
judgment of the editor, but a laboratory for 
psychology does. Will I be understood if 
I plead inability to render an unbiased 
Opinion in a case where my interests as a 
geologist are so nearly concerned ? 

The establishment of a board of man- 
agers consisting of twenty eminent scien- 
tists, as suggested by the Editor of Sctmncz, 
is a feature of a plan which perhaps should 
be discussed as a whole if at all; but with 
regard to such a board it may be suggested 
that it will in time develop, if it is needed, 
from the cooperative relations of the special 
scientific committees. And until the ob- 
vious need leads to evolution of additional 
organs, those which the Carnegie Institu- 
tion now has may well be allowed to dem- 
onstrate their fitness to accomplish the ends 
of its generous founder. 


Batuey WILLIS. 
LAMPASAS, TEXAS, 
September 23, 1902. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


Bibliography and Catalogue of the Fossil 
Vertebrata of North Ameriea. (To the end 
of the year 1900.) By Ottver Perry Hay. 
Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. 179, pp. 868, 
1902. 

The present volume represents several years’ 
diligent work on the part of a writer who has 
faced the hapless task of unraveling the 
literature of American fossil vertebrates. Of 
course such a task is by no means that of such 
a Hercules as C. Davies Sherborn, who is 
indexing no less than all species of animals; 
but I faney it has been found tedious enough. 
It is missionary work certainly, and its author 


SCIENCE. 


701 


deserves the gratitude of paleontologists, who 
would otherwise have had to have searched 
through 667 references for a species of Cope’s, 
225 for one of Marsh’s, 221 for one of Leidy’s. 
And the reviewer speaks feelingly, for he has 
occupied himself en amateur in a far smaller 
bibliographical study during the past half- 
dozen years, and can picture better than a lay- 
man the roomful of closely written cards 
which the author must have accumulated, and 
the mere physical labor of hunting up, hand- 
ling and thumbing a mass of books which if 
put on a single shelf would extend over a mile. 
Dr. Hay has not merely ransacked libraries to 
complete the bibliographical writings of all 
authors who have meddled with American fos- 
sil vertebrates, but he has aimed to introduce 
a complete list of the anatomical and embryo- 
logical references which bore upon the theme 
in hand. Then he has picked out the species 
and fitted them together in systematic arrange- 
ment, and finally made the names accessible 
by means of an elaborate index. 

Before criticizing such a work as this, one 
must evidently bear in mind that absolute ac- 
curacy or completeness cannot be hoped for. 
Oversights, omissions and even proof errors 
are inevitable, and a fair critic, appreciating 
the volume’s general tone of painstaking accu- 
racy, cannot but feel that it deserves good wish- 
es and scant blame. Its bad mistakes are rare, 
but minor omissions, points of disagreement 
and small errors are not uncommon. Its 
greatest defect is in the matter of cross-refer- 
ences to paleontology which occur in embryo- 
logical and anatomical papers,—a defect 
which, however, would be naturally expected 
in a work of this kind. Its bibliographical 
lists, on the other hand, are generally accurate 
and well chosen, and are so complete indeed 
that one regrets that they are not perfect. 
Running over the names with which I am 
most familiar I find, for example, such omis- 
sions as these: A. A. Wright, a °97 Dinich- 
thys paper; Keyes, Geology of Polk County 
(97 Report of Iowa Geol. Survey); Hmerson, 
Geology of Old Homestead County, Mass. ; 
Vaughan, Geology of N. W. Louisiana; Red- 
lich, on Ptychodus; Seely, on Ceratodus; Dol- 
lo, on Lepidosteus; Leydig, on Koprolithen u. 


702 


Urolithen; Scupin, important reference to 
Rhynchodont dentition; Manigault, on the 
source of the S. C. phosphate deposits; and a 
number of omitted references in the case of 
such authors as Priem, Rohon, Sauvage (of 
this author no titles given after ’88), Traquair 
and Smith Woodward. And so on through the 
book, doubtless, if a critic chooses to use a 
microscope. I note, by the way, no reference 
at all to the Devonian ‘lamprey’ Palewospon- 
dylus, upon which much has been written 
during the past decade. Probably this omis- 
sion is due to the absence of this vertebrate in 
American localities, a reason which would be 
valid, even in the case of so interesting a 
form, had the author not repeatedly violated 
his rule and given prominent reference to such 
exotics as Archewopteryx, Pareiosaurus and 
monotremes. Also there is no reference to 
conodonts, which are surely American enough, 
but omitted, doubtless, on account of their 
questionable kinship to vertebrates. Certainly 
they at least deserve mention, since some of 
them, as Hinde has shown, are strikingly simi- 
lar in structure to the dental cusps of hag- 
fishes. 

Dr. Hay has of course made a number of 
name changes on the score of priority, a result 
which was to be expected and dreaded in such 
a work, for it is a sad trial to have a long- 
known friendly name whisked away and a 
strange one, archaic, often intrinsically objec- 
tionable, substituted. Sometimes, though, we 
have to be grateful for an accustomed name 
even in bad Greek or misspelled, and the 
purists’ use of Lepisosteus and Crocodylus is 
the smaller thorn in our flesh. I think, how- 
ever, that Dr. Hay has overdone the matter in 
certain cases, for my feeling is that the com- 
munity at large will resist any name-change 
where there is the slightest chance of mistaken 
identity, or where an older group-name is made 
useful only by torturing its definition into 
shapes which its author never dreamed of. As 
a pertinent example of a change of the former 
kind take the use of Acanthoéssus for the 
well-known paleozoic shark Acanthodes. Both 
are names given by Louis Agassiz, who, having 
received better material, rejected Acanthoés- 
sus, which may have been based upon congen- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 409. 


eric specimens: but as Agassiz, who was in a 
position to decide the matter, does not assure 
us that the forms were the same, I can see no 
adequate reason for resurrecting the. earlier 
name, especially since the types of Acanthoés- 
sus are lost! As an example of a change of 
the latter class observe the dilatation of Cope’s 
order of sharks, Ichthyotomi, so as to include 
the cladodont sharks of Ohio (Pleuropterygii). 
Now as a matter of fact this term, even in its 
restricted sense, can be used only by twisting 
the definition heroically, for, as many know, 
it was based upon some Permian shark heads 
in which Cope mistook artifacts for separate 
bones, and his definition of Ichthyotomi has 
in consequence been found to be erroneous on 
every count; but as it happened that the 
sharks in question were Pleuracanths, well 
known in the Permian of Europe, there grad- 
ually filtered into the collapsed definition the 
facts of Pleuracanth vertebral column and fins 
—but no facts or modifications which could 
warrant placing within this group the clado- 
selachian sharks when later these became 
structurally known. In this connection J may 
note that Claypole’s Ohio ‘ Cladodus’ is the 
same as Oladoselache, for although Claypole 
did not give reasons for his position, he failed 
to acknowledge the validity of the newer 
genus. So it comes about that Dr. Hay has 
one half of the Pleuropterygians arranged 
under one order and the other half under 
another. A second instance of the use of a 
term insufficiently defined to be of legitimate 
value is the resurrected Aspidoganoidei of 
Gill. On the other hand, in creating a new 
group-term, Aristoselachii, it seems to me that 
Dr. Hay does not practice what he preaches in 
this very matter of priority. For this term 
includes precisely the forms for which Selacha 
was used by Bonaparte about 1840. Another 
inconsistency is in his use of Pisces for fishes 
not including sharks, rays and chimeroids: 
for this rather startling use of the term he 
cites as authority the X. éd. of Linné, but I 
fancy that priority itself does not require us 
to hold fast to this misconcept of Linné for 
since the time of Aristotle or even Ray and 
Artedi, the term Pisces has just about the 
same meaning in which it is accepted to-day. 


+ OCTOBER 31, 1902. | 


But the especial inconsistency is this: if Dr. 
Hay wishes to use Linné’s Pisces so as to ex- 
elude the sharks, why has he the right to put 
back into this term of Linné such forms as 
sturgeons, anglers, sea-porecupines, pipe- 
fishes and the like, which Linné himself cast 
out with the sharks? If this can be done, evi- 
dently the sharks also can be restored, and 
Pisces reacquires its normal use. 

The present volume touches upon a number 
of points in which judgments may differ— 
when one author treads perilously near an- 
other’s vagaries. Thus I note that Dr. Hay 
has no scruples in associating such obscure 
forms as Coccosteans and Pteraspids with true 
fishes (while ejecting sharks!). Also that the 
Arthrodiran Placoderms are still grouped with 
the lung-fishes, as also for the first time are 
Pterichthyids—and for the latter annexation 
no reasons are given. These forms are alto- 
gether grouped as Azygostei, a new subclass, 
equivalent to Teleostomi, based doubtless on 
the presence of a median row of cranial bones; 
in this event it is evidently a nomen delendum, 
for a similar row of bones occurs admirably 
in Teleostomes, Acipenser, for example. 
Within the latter subclass the use of Rhipi- 
distia, p. 857, as a superorder equivalent to 
Crossopterygii, is evidently an oversight. 

On all scores, though, returning to our 
original text, Dr. Hay’s volume is a mine of 
gold to the paleontologist, and the officials of 
the Geological Survey are to be congratulated 
on having secured it and given it publication. 
Such works cannot be too plentiful or too 
welcome. In another case, however, the pub- 
lishing authorities would add a helpful favor 
to specialists if they gave the book a wider 
margin—say, of two inches at the bottom of 
the page—so as to facilitate the insertion of 
addenda and corrigenda. 

Basurorp Dran. 


Neurological Technique. By Irvina Har- 
pEsty, Ph.D. University of Chicago Press, 
1902. Pp. 185; 4 figures. 

Professor Henry H. Donaldson, in his short 
introduction to this little volume, states that 
its object is to serve as an introduction and 
laboratory guide to the study of the architec- 


SCIENCE. 


703 


ture of the nervous system. The material 
considered falls into three divisions: (1) Lab- 
oratory methods; (2) an outline for the exam- 
imation of the central nervous system; (3) a 
classified list of the neurological nomenclature 
(BN A) accepted by the German Anatomical 
Society. 

Excellent judgment has been shown in the 
selection of the laboratory methods, and care 
has been exercised to bring to the notice of the 
student only such methods as may be employed 
with some assurance of obtaining satisfactory 
results. In case a number of methods are at 
hand, which bring out, differentially stained, 
certain elementary constituents of the central 
nervous system, only the most important are 
considered or several methods aré combined 
into one workable method, thus avoiding con- 
fusion and, at the same time, enabling a stu- 
dent to employ his time most economically. 
The methods selected are given in full. The 
descriptive account of each method is prefaced 
by a statement in which are enumerated the 
reagents which will be required in each step 
of the method and in the descriptive account 
each reagent used and the time during which 
it should act are printed in heavy type. The 
student may thus at a glance ascertain the 
steps of a method. This portion of the vol- 
ume, while compiled primarily for the begin- 
ner, will prove of service to the investigator 
and teacher as presenting in compact form the 
essentials of neurological technique. 

In the outline for the dissection of the cen- 
tral nervous system, the (B N A) nomencla- 
ture is used almost exclusively. This outline 
is based on the human central nervous system 
and consideration is given only to the macro- 
scopic anatomy of the organ; with the excep- 
tion of certain external features, it may, how- 
ever, be used for the study of the nervous 
system of the larger mammals. The outline 
presupposes that the brain and cord used have 
been fixed in formalin, and that only one speci- 
men is at the disposal of the student. Atten- 
tion is drawn to the external features of each 
region, after which the student is directed to 
make sections along certain planes located by 
surface markings, each section thus obtained 
being considered seriatim. A number of fig- 


TOL 


ures are added to facilitate the location of the 
section planes. 

Timely emphasis is given to the (BNA) 
nomenclature, and it is hoped that this may 
hasten its wider adoption. The volume: as a 
whole should prove useful to the student and 
will no doubt aid teachers in formulating 
courses in neurology. The typography and 
press-work are to be commended. 

G. Cart Huser. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 


Journal of Physical Chemistry. May. 
‘Synthetic Analysis in Ternary Systems,’ by 
A. W. Browne. This is the description of 
several experimental applications of Bancroft’s 
new method for analyzing the solid phase ap- 
pearing in three component systems without 
removing it from the mother liquor. ‘ On In- 
different Points,’ by Paul Saurel. ‘ Studies in 
Vapor Composition, II.,’ by H. R. Carveth. A 
study of simple experimental methods discov- 
ered by the application of the phase rule. 
‘Note on the Optical Rotatory Power of 
Cane-sugar when Dissolved in Amines,’ by 
Guy Maurice Wilcox. In such solutions sugar 
is found to have a much higher specifie rota- 
tory power than in water. 

June. ‘The Rate of the Reaction between 
Arsenious Acid and Jodin in Acid Solutions; 
the Rate of the Reverse Reaction; and the 
Equilibrium between Them,’ by J. R. Roe- 
buck. An experimental study of the law of 
the rates at which chemical reactions take 
place in homogeneous systems. ‘On the 
Triple Point,’ by Paul Saurel. ‘On the The- 
orem of Tammann,’ by Paul Saurel. ‘ Ex- 
periments on the Electrolytic Reduction of 
Potassium Chlorate,’ by G. H. Burrows. 


The Journal of Comparative Neurology for 
September contains a memoir of 85 pages and 
two plates by Professor G. E. Coghill, of 
Pacific University, entitled ‘The Cranial 
Nerves of Amblystoma tigrinum, in which the 
components of the cranial and first two spinal 
nerves are described in detail and plotted after 
microscopic reconstruction. This is followed 
by an exhaustive comparative discussion of 
these nerves in the light of other Urodela. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 409 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
RESEARCH CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 

Tue first meeting of the club was held on 
the evening of October 8. Mr. Alfred H. 
White gave the first paper, speaking on the 
‘Theory of the Incandescent Mantle,’ 

Data were presented of temperature meas- 
urements made upon two kinds of mantles. 
A pure thoria mantle attained a temperature 
of 1510° C. and its illuminating value was 1.2 
eandle power. A mantle with one half per 
cent. ceria showed a temperature more than 
one hundred degrees lower and gave thirteen 
times the light. The conclusion was drawn 
that the illumination of a mantle was to a 
greater extent dependent upon the composition 
of the mantle than upon the temperature. 
This opposes the conclusions of Le Chatelier 
and Nernst, who hold that the thoria-ceria 
mantle attains a higher temperature than a 
mantle of any other material, and that this 
eauses the unusual illumination: The theory 
was advanced that the substance of the mantle 
was a solid solution of ceria in thoria which 
was capable of transforming the heat of the 
flame into light more economically than any 
other substance yet known. 

Professor F. Haber, of the Carlsruhe Poly- 
technicum, who was present as a guest, said 
that investigations as yet unpublished, con- 
ducted by his colleagues Bunte and Eitner, 
had established the same fact, that a mantle 
of pure thoria attained a higher temperature 
but gave less light than one of the usual 
thoria-ceria mantles. 

The second paper was given by Dr. Huber, 
and represented work done in his laboratory by 
himself and Mr. Adamson on the ‘ Morphology 
of the Sudoriparous and Allied Glands.’ 

The observations presented were based on 
models made after the Born plate reconstruc- 
tion method. The glands reconstructed in- 
cluded ordinary sudoriparous glands, glands 


from the circumanal and axillary regions, 


ceruminous glands and glands of Moll. The 
tubule constituting the coiled portions of the 
sudoriparous glands studied varies in length 


from 4.25 mm. to 10 mm., the excretory duct. 
forming one fourth to about one half of its. 


length. The end of the secretory portion of 


a 


OcToBER 31, 1902. ] 


the tubule is situated near the duct as it enters 
the coil. Models from embryonic glands show 
that the coiled portion of the sudoriparous 
glands is developed by a folding and knuck- 
ling of the tubule, after the first loop is 
formed. In the cireumanal region are found 
four quite distinct types of sweat glands: (1) 
Ordinary sudoriparous glands; (2) the large 
circumanal glands of Gay; (8) branched 
tubulo-alveolar glands; (4) a modification of 
type 38. A large axillary gland reconstructed 
consists of a single tubule measuring 30 mm. 
in length, much coiled and folded. In this 
region are also found branched tubulo-alveolar 
sweat glands. The glands of Moll are tubulo- 
alveolar glands, with relatively short but large 
secreting tubules presenting quite regular 
alternate enlargements and constrictions, from 
which arise a relatively small number of short 
tubules ending in large saccular alveoli. The 
ceruminous glands are similar to the glands of 


Moll. Frepertck C. Newcomse, 
Secretary. 
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


A QUESTION OF TERMINOLOGY. 

In his review in Yorreya of the writer’s 
recent university text-book, Professor L. M. 
Underwood criticizes severely the use of the 
termination ‘ales’ in class names, the special 
ease cited being ‘ Anthocerotales,’ which was 
used in conformity with the termination 
‘ales,’ employed in the classes of the Pteri- 
dophytes, e. g., ‘ Filicales.? Professor Under- 
wood says: ‘The name [Anthocerotes] is 
changed to class Anthocerotales, thus improp- 
erly using a termination reserved for a group 
of ordinal rank alone.’ 

Without referring to other botanists who 
have also sinned against Professor Under- 
wood’s rule, we should like to ask him to ex- 
plain certain apparent inconsistencies of his 
own in this connection. 

In the sixth edition (1900) of his little 
manual of the fern-allies, Professor Under- 
wood uses (p. 65) the same names (Filicales, 
etc.) to indicate the primary divisions of the 
Pteridophytes that the writer does in the text- 
book criticized. Professor Underwood, how- 
ever, calls these orders and not classes as they 


SCIENCE. 705 


are usually considered to be. Looking for the 
corresponding class names, we find that Pro- 
fessor Underwood does not, apparently, recog- 
nize any classes of Pteridophytes, although he 
ranks the group as a whole as one of the four 
subkingdoms of plants. It certainly is not 
customary among either botanists or zoolo- 
gists to consider the primary divisions of a 
subkingdom as of ordinal rank, and it is not 
quite plain how the employment of the ter- 
mination ‘ales’ is sufficient to convert a rec- 
ognized class into an order. All of the stand- 
ard authorities consulted (e. g., Coulter, Sachs, 
Seott, Warming, Van Tieghem, Vines) agree 
in calling the Filicales (or Filicine) a class; 
what reason Professor Underwood can give 
for reducing them to an order is not clear. 
He ean scarcely claim that his ‘order’ Fili- 
eales is of equal rank with the order Mar- 
chantiales, for example. 

Moreover, Professor Underwood is not as 
elear as he might be in distinguishing fami- 
lies and orders. Thus, on page 63 we find 
order Equisetaces, order Calamariacer; on 
page 65, order Equisetales; on page 126, family 
Equisetacer. A similar confusion is evident 
in the discussion of the classification of the 
other subkingdoms (pp. 56-58). Algxe and 
Fungi are divided into ‘ classes’; Bryophytes 
into ‘ groups’; Pteridophytes into ‘ orders’ ! 

Perhaps Professor Underwood, as a _ pro- 
fessed systematist, will explain the principles 
upon which his classification is based. 

Dovetas Houcuron CAMPBELL, 

SranrorD UNIVERSITY. 


THE EXPANSION OF A GAS INTO A VACUUM AND 
THE KINETIC THEORY OF GASES. 


In number 406 of this journal (for October 
10) Mr. R. W. Wood ealls attention to the 
fact that the subject of a communication pre- 
sented by me before the chemical section of 
the American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science at the last meeting and of 
which communication an abstract* under the 

* The abstract was made without my knowl- 
edge and, although it is not bad, there are some 
loose statements in it. The full article will 
shortly appear in the Journal of Physical Chem- 
istry. 


706 


above title appeared in Science for August 
22, had been discussed long ago by L. Natan- 
son in Wredemann’s Annalen; and he adds: 
“This same explanation [referring to mine], 
only in a much more complete form, was given 
by Natanson more than thirteen years ago.” 

I am glad to learn of the very interesting 
article which treats of the same subject and 
which was not known to me. 

But the treatment and even the object of 
L. Natanson’s article and of my communica- 
tion are, contrary to Mr. Wood’s opinion, 
widely different. Natanson treats the subject 
in an elaborate quantitative manner, leaving 
practically out of consideration the qualitative 
side of the phenomenon (7. e., the question 
how it happens that the slow and quick mole- 
cules become separated), while I direct my 
attention only to its qualitative aspect, having 
attempted to form a simple idea of the 
mechanism of the phenomenon. 

From a statement in his note I see that Mr. 
Wood misread the abstract; this made it 
difficult for him to understand its contents. 


PETER FIREMAN. 
WASHINGTON, D. C., 
October 16, 1902. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 


BACTERIUM TRUTTA, A NEW SPECIES OF BAC- 
TERIUM PATHOGENIC TO TROUT. 


THIS organism was obtained from the blood 
of diseased brook trout and stands in specific 
causal relation to the disease. The following 
characterization will be followed by a more 
extended description. 

It is a pleomorphic form which appears in 
the blood and local lesions of its host as longer 
or shorter rods, with occasional spherical 
forms. The rods grow out infrequently into 
filaments of 6 », but average much less, and 
may be scarcely 0.5 » in length. The width 
is 0.5 to 1.0 ». On nutrient agar-agar it 
assumes the form of a spherical or subspherical 
coccus, with occasional rods, the cocci 0.5 to 
1.0 » in diameter. Microscopically the field 
gives the impression of cocci, but the rods are 
not infrequent and reach a maximum length 
of 1.5 ~. In liquid media rods greatly pre- 
dominate, often arranged in pairs, of a length 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 409. 


from that of the diameter of a coccus up to a 
maximum of 2.35 », and 0.48 to 0.83 » wide. 
Many of the single rods, when stained, show 
a slight constriction indicating their separa- 
tion into cocci, while many give no sign what- 
ever of such a structure. Agar plates made. 
from the blood contain apparently pure cul- 
tures of the organism as colonies chiefly of 
cocci, which: become chiefly rods when trans- 
ferred to bouillon, or when inoculated into 
trout. In the latter case they reproduce the 
disease, appear in the blood and lesions as 
rods recoverable upon agar as cocci. ‘This 
pleomorphism in different media and the 
variety of form in the same culture are not 
reduced by repeated plating. 

The organism is non-motile, does not form 
spores, and a capsule has not been demon- 
strated. It stains readily by aqueous solutions 
of the ordinary aniline dyes, and faintly by 
Gram’s method, but its reaction with this 
stain is not of much value. It grows aerobic- 
ally on ordinary nutrient media, luxuriantly 
on agar of a reaction* neutral or +0.5 to 
phenolphthalein, and will not grow or but 
very slightly at +1.5; at —0.5 growth is 
inhibited and at —1.0 to —1.5 searcely occurs. 
On agar slants growth is moderately abundant, 
of a grayish-white color, with age grayish- 
brown. On usually the third day a production 
of a soluble pigment becomes evident, which 
diffuses itself in the medium and does not 
reside in the growth itself. It is a brown 
shade and deepens gradually, becoming very 
dark brown after two or three weeks, and the 
growth itself taking on a brown tinge. This 
pigment is produced in agar, bouillon, Dun- 
ham’s pepton solution, and coagulated blood 
serum but not in gelatine or upon potato. It 
is produced in alkaline, neutral and acid 
media and is inhibited by extremes of reaction 
as the growth itself of the organism is in- 
hibited. It is produced at the room tempera- 
ture. Higher temperatures inhibit the color 
faster than they do the growth. 

Agar plate surface colonies are round, 
slightly convex, outline well defined, micro- 
scopically granular, after two days grumose 

* Report Committee of Bacteriologists, Journ. 
Amer. Pub. Health Assoc., January, 1898. 


OcTOBER 31, 1902. ] 


near the center. Well-developed colonies are 
translucent and yellowish under the micro- 
scope by transmitted light. Colonies not 
crowded may reach 3 mm. in diameter before 
ceasing to increase. In bouillon a marked 
growth is visible after eighteen hours, with- 
out pellicle or clouding, the sedimenting white 
growth clinging to the sides of the tube. After 
ten or fifteen days the brown pigment makes 
its appearance, diffusing throughout the 
medium and the sediment takes on a dirty- 
brownish color. Gelatine is liquefied, the 
liquefaction in tubes at first crateriform or 
funnelform, but may become  stratiform, 
reaching the walls of the tube and extending 
down horizontally. Occasionally the lower 
end of the stab liquefies the faster and pro- 
duces a terminal sac of liquefaction. Blood 
serum is liquefied, with production after three 
or four days of the brown color, which be- 
comes much darker with age than in old agar 
cultures. On ordinary acid potato no growth 
occurs. On neutral potato a very scanty 
growth takes place, becoming visible about the 
third day, not increasing after four or five 
days and never producing color. It grows 
abundantly in neutral milk, without coagula- 
tion, reaction unchanged or becoming slightly 
acid, the milk peptonizing and becoming 
nearly clear in from one to two weeks. 

The optimum temperature is not far from 
20°C. In the refrigerator between 3° and 
6°C., no visible growth occurs, but the organ- 
ism is not injured. A temperature of 31°C. 
inhibits somewhat the growth and of 37.5°C. 
arrests it entirely and the organism is killed 
by an exposure to it of seventeen hours. 
Bouillon cultures are sterilized by an exposure 
to 42°C. for ten minutes. A culture on a 
sealed agar slant was still alive at the end of 
The rate of growth and 
chromogenic property were markedly inhibited, 
but. both were restored by repeated transfers. 

In vacuo, by exhaustion with a Chapman 
pump and absorption of oxygen by pyrogallic 
acid and caustic potash a slight multiplication 
occurs, apparently due to a trace of oxygen 
at the beginning of the experiment. The 
growth does not increase and the organism is 
probably an obligate aerobe. It does not fer- 


seven months. 


SCIENCE. 


107 


ment glucose, lactose or saccharose, and does 
not produce indol, phenol, ammonia (in 
bouillon), invertin or diastatic ferments. It 
reduces nitrates to nitrites and finally to 
ammonia. Cultures in one per cent. glucose 
bouillon acquire an acidity or increase of 
acidity of 1.2 per cent to 1.6 per cent. in 
fifteen days, without production of the brown 
color; while in lactose or saccharose bouillon 
a very slight or no development of acidity 
occurs, and the pigment is produced much as 
in plain bouillon. : 

It is pathogenic particularly to the brook 
trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and has been 
isolated from the Loch Leven (Salmo trutta 
levenensis) in epidemic, and in a few cases 
from the lake trout (Cristivomer namaycush). 
It has been found only in domesticated or 
aquarium fish and never in wild trout from 
the natural waters. It is not pathogenic to 
warm-blooded animals, and trout dead of the 
disease may be eaten after cooking, without 
harm. 

After several months and repeated transfers 
on artificial media, it may slightly cloud 
bouillon, and exhibit a more pronounced 
Brownian movement to a degree suggesting 
motility. Attempts to stain flagella have had 
negative results, and the species is placed in 
Bacterium and named trutte for the group 
of fishes that apparently contains its chief 
hosts. M. C. Marsa. 

U.S. FisH ComMMIssIon. 


DISCOVERY OF A MUSK OX SKULL (OVIBOS CAVI- 
FRONS LEIDY), IN WEST VIRGINIA, NEAR 
STEUBENVILLE, OHIO. 

Ar the fifty-first meeting of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, 
held in Pittsburgh, June 28 to July 23, 1902, 
Mr. Sam Huston exhibited a portion of the 
skull of a musk ox recently found near Steu- 
benville, Ohio, at the same time making a ver- 
bal communication relative to the discovery 
of the specimen. Mr. Huston has lately sent 
to the writer for publication the following ac- 
count of the finding of this skull, together 
with the accompanying sketch of a cross- 
section of the Ohio River valley at the point 
where the skull was: found: 


708 


“The Glacial terrace in the vicinity of 
Steubenville, Ohio, consists of gravel and sand 
in varying proportions from fine sand up to 
small boulders of about six inches in diam- 
eter, the large proportion of the material, 
however, is from the size of wheat grains down. 
The material is partly derived from local 
rocks, but a large percentage, varying in dif- 
ferent localities, is from the granitic and re- 
lated material transported from the north of 
the lakes, the character of the latter being so 
distinctive as to convince geologists of its der- 
ivation as indicated above, and that it came 
from the grist of the glacier once covering the 
northern part of the continent. The material 
has been transported by water action from the 
farthest limit southward of the glacier, whose 
nearest approach to the locality under con- 
sideration was at Lisbon in Columbiana Coun- 
ty, twenty-five miles northward. 

“The terrace material is supposed to reach 
in places over one hundred feet in depth below 
high water of the Ohio River, and rises 
in the vicinity in places over seventy feet above 
low-water mark, or about thirty-five or forty 
feet above high water. 

“The skull of the musk ox exhibited at the 
Pittsburgh meeting of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science was 
found in the glacial terrace above described, 
the locality being on the West Virginia side of 
the Ohio, opposite and over one mile below 
Steubenville, Ohio, in the sand pit of the Steu- 
benville Sand Co. on the Thomas Mahan farm, 
Brook Co., West Va., and at the east side of 
the Wheeling Branch of the P. C. C. and St. 
L. R. R. (Panhandle). 

“The find consists of the major part of the 
skull, with brain cavity and portions of horn 
cores, and appears to be that of a musk ox. 
The skull was found by a laborer in the pit 
on the face of the talus slope, and therefore 
out of its original position. The contents of 
the brain and other cavities were the same as 
the terrace in general. The skull was first 
seen in the face of the slope of the pit above 
the level of the railroad, which is several. feet 
alove the highest level the river has ever 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


reached since the vicinity has been inhabited 
by the whites. As any movement of the skull 
must necessarily have been downward, its orig- 
inal position before the sand was disturbed 
must have been well above high water, al- 
though the preservation of the skull must be 
held to indicate considerable covering, as it has 
lain for thousands of years in the terrace. 
The surface of the terrace is covered with a 
layer of clayey material that would be quite 
an element in the preservation of the skull. 
Near the position of the skull and under sim- 
ilar circumstances has since been found the 
nearly complete shoulder blade of a mammoth, 
which is now in my possession. The original 
position of the skull and shoulder blade as to 
geological horizon, was probably somewhat 
lower than that of the knife presented at the 
Springfield meeting of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science, and 
found five miles below and on the opposite side 
of the Ohio River, but in the same glacial 
deposit. The accompanying sketch indicates 
the approximate cross-section of the Ohio 
River valley at the point under consideration.” 


WHEELING BRANCH PCC, OTLIRR, 


Pefueu 


TL aan sao’ canes, 
Baceunrive ON 

I have examined with some care this skull, 
which, through the kindness of Mr. Huston, 
is now in the loan collection of this Museum. 
Only the posterior portion of it is preserved, 
and this appears to have pertained to a not very 
old though fully adult individual, as is evi- 
denced by the nature of the sutures of the 
inferior region. of the cranium.. All that re- 
gion anterior to the orbits is wanting. The 
zygomata and inferior processes (pterygoids, 
postglenoids, paroccipitals) are likewise broken 
away. The rounded and polished nature of 
many of the surfaces indicates that it was 
transported for some distance before. becoming 


OcToBER 31, 1902.] 


finally imbedded in the terrace from which it 
was recovered after the manner detailed by 
Mr. Huston. The bones of the cranium are 
exceptionally heavy and massive, indicating 
that the skull pertained to an adult male. 
The frontoparietal surface is gently but regu- 
larly concave, the depth of the concavity being 
18 mm. This surface is likewise very rugose. 
The horn cores are directed abruptly down- 
ward and a little inward distally, in so far as 
they are preserved. The extremities of both 
horn cores are wanting. The expanse of the 
horn cores equals but does not exceed that of 
the orbits. There are rather large frontal 
sinuses. These, as well as the various foram- 
ina, contain a considerable number of peb- 
bles, nearly all of which are of local origin. 
Among them are two rather large fragments 
of coal. The character of the enclosed peb- 
bles would seem to indicate that the specimen 
had not come much in contact with glacial 
detritus from the north. 

The characters of the skull are such that I 
have no hesitancy in referring it to Ovibos 
cavifrons Leidy, first described by Dekay in 
1828 as Bos pallassi in the Annals of the Ly- 
ceum of Natural History of New York. The 
_ chief interest attached to the present specimen 
comes from the additional evidence it affords 
as to the faunal changes brought about over 
this region during the glacial period. The 
remains of this animal have now been authen- 
tically reported from Fort Gibson, I. T.; St. 
Louis, New Madrid and Benton Co., Mo.; 
Trumbull Co., Ohio; Big Bone Lick, Ky.; 
from two different localities in Pennsylvania; 
and from Council Bluffs, Iowa and West Vir- 
ginia. In every instance these remains have 
been recovered either directly from glacial de- 
posits or from deposits that have been corre- 
lated with some stage of the glacial period. 
Since there would seem no good reason for 
assuming that the musk ox at that time pre- 
ferred climatic conditions very different from 
those with which they are at present sur- 
rounded, the reasonable inference would seem 
to be that with the advancing ice they moved 
southward until their range reached an ex- 
treme limit averaging a few degrees, perhaps 


SCIENCE. 709 


three or four, beyond the southern limit of 
the ice. J. B. Hatcuer. 
CARNEGIE MUSEUM. 


EXCEPTIONS TO MENDEL’S LAW. 

De Vries, Correns, and some other writers 
have called attention to a number of appar- 
ently important exceptions to Mendel’s law. 
In order to show the relation of these excep- 
tions to the law, the law itself may be illus- 
trated as follows: A and B are two plants, 
each of which is self fertile and which may be 
hybridized. Regarding any single respect in 
which these two plants differ, the resulting 
hybrid is’ a mono-hybrid. We will assume 
that the character B is recessive in the hybrid, 
representing the character by a small letter 
in cases where it is latent. The following dia- 
gram shows the results of hybridization, as far 
as the second generation. 


Types 
of plant 
Y Pollen. Ovules. produced. 
Male parent A AVX Al A 
» Ab Aan Ab 
(Hybrid)|]B xX A Ab 
Female parent B B xX B B 


This diagram shows that from the two 
kinds of pollen and two kinds of ovules pro- 
duced by the hybrid plant Ab we get four 
fertilizations: A> A, which gives plants of 
the type of the parent A; BX B, which gives 
plants like the parent B; A&B and BX A, 
which give again the hybrid Ab. 

It should also be stated that since each of 
these four crosses will occur an equal number 
of times according to the law of probabilities, 
the type A will constitute one fourth of the 
second generation, B one fourth, and Ab one 
half. 

Mendel’s law, as first stated independently 
in this country (Bul. 115, Off. Ex. Sta., p. 
93) and essentially as stated by himself, is as 
follows: In the second and later generations 
of a hybrid there occur all the possible com- 
binations of the characters of the parents, 
and in definite proportions. 

But hybrids have been found in which this 
seems not to be the case. The explanation of 
a number of these is here offered. Millardet, 
De Vries, Correns and others report cases of 


710 


so-called false hybrids, in which in the second 
generation the hybrid splits up into the parent 
forms only. It is easily seen from what fol- 
lows that this will necessarily be the case 
when two plants are crossed each of which 
responds to its own pollen more readily than 
to that of the other. Cases like this are not 
infrequent. Referring to the above diagram, 
we get the hybrid Ab in the first generation 
by offering to ovules of B pollen of A only. 
But when the hybrid produces pollen and 
ovules, both A and B ovules are supplied with 
both kinds of pollen; hence we get no hybrids 
in the fertilization of the ovules on the hy- 
brid. That is, AX A and B& B give fertile 
seed and AX B and B& A fail because their 
ovules are supplied with both kinds of pollen 
and each responds more readily to its own than 
to that of the other. Instead, therefore, of 
being an exception to Mendel’s law, Millar- 
det’s false hybrids fully conform to that law 
and are explained by it. Correns’ proposed 
explanation of this case (See Ber. Deutsch. 
Bot. Gesel., April 24, 1901) as a limiting case 
of a series, which is itself not satisfactorily 
accounted for, cannot be accepted. 

Another case: sometimes a hybrid, instead 
of showing progeny made up of plants, one 
fourth of which are like the male parent, one 


fourth lke the female parent, and one half: 


like the hybrid, as is the case under Mendel’s 
law, seems at once to be fixed in type, and pro- 
duces progeny of its own type only. From 
what follows it will be seen that this is neces- 
sarily the case, if Mendel’s law is true, when 
the two plants are each self-sterile or when 
each responds to the pollen of the other more 
readily than to its own, which is not infre- 
quently the case. Referring again to the above 
diagram illustrating Mendel’s law: A&A 
fails in this case because A ovules are offered 
both A and B pollen and they fertilize only 
with B pollen. Similarly, B ovules are offered 
both A and B pollen and they fertilize only 
with A pollen. We get therefore the fertiliza- 
tions AX B and B>& A, both of which pro- 
duce only the hybrid. Again we see that Men- 
del’s law offers a perfectly rational explanation 
of what has been stated as an important ex- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


ception to it. In this case I would suggest to 
those who are in a position to do so that the 
above explanations, which I present only as 
hypotheses as yet, may be easily put to test, 
by taking those cases in which these excep- 
tional hybrids occur and ascertaining whether 
or not the hypotheses here proposed accord 
with the facts regarding the relative sterility 
of the plants towards their own pollen and 
that of the other party to the cross. 

Many other apparently abnormal cases are 
to be explained on similar grounds; for in- 
stance, if one plant is self sterile or responds 
more readily to pollen of the other plant than 
to its own, while the other responds with equal 
readiness to both kinds of pollen, we would 
have a case like the following (see diagram): 
A> A would not occur, because A being of- 
fered pollen of both A and B, all the A ovules 
fertilize with B pollen. AX B and BXB 
will occur as in the diagram. BX B will 
constitute one fourth the progeny, while three 
fourths will consist of the hybrid Ab; such 
apparent anomalies are therefore entirely con- 
sistent with Mendel’s law. 

Some time in the near future I shall pre- 
sent another case which seems to be a real 
exception to this law (Correns’ series above 
referred to) and shall offer an explanation for 
it and the results of experimental data. 

W. J. SPILLMAN. 

BuREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY, 

U. 8S. Dept. Acric. 


A REALISTIC DREAM. 


Tue following statement concerning a re- 
markably realistic dream was written in the 
form of a personal letter by Dr. Charles A. 
White to his friend Mr. Arnold Burges John- 
son, of Washington, D. C. 


A VISION. 
My Dear Friend: 

In compliance with your request I herewith 
send you an account of the visional dream to 
which I referred in our conversation a few 
days ago, together with some remarks upon it 
and upon certain circumstances connected 
with its occurrence. 


OcToBER 31, 1902.] 


During the five years from and after 1859, 
Rev. Dr. W. H. Barris and I were neighbors 
at Burlington, Iowa, and, owing to a common 
interest in geological and _ paleontological 
studies, our acquaintance become quite inti- 
mate. He frequently called upon me at my 
home to discuss our latest observations and 
discoveries, our region having been a remark- 
ably favorable one for those studies. His 
ealls were usually brief; his conversation was 
generally limited to the subjects referred to 
and to related topics, and I soon learned to 
admire him for his comprehensive knowledge, 
and to love him for his kindly nature. That 
association was broken by the removal of both 
of us to other places of residence, he going 
to the professorship of Greek and Hebrew in 
Griswold College at Davenport. There, also 
he continued his scientific studies, became 
one of the founders of the Davenport 
Academy of Sciences and, in due time, its 
president. 

Our friendly acquaintance was continued 
by correspondence but after our separation at 
Burlington we seldom met. Indeed, so com- 
pletely were we separated that I did not see 
him during the last thirty years of his life. 
I occasionally sent him copies of my publica- 
tions, the receipt of which he acknowledged 
by letter, always in an appreciative manner. 
In 1900 I published two articles in ScreNncr, 
wherein I gave my views as to the proper 
construction and use of certain scientific 
terms derived from the Greek, and sent him 
a copy of each. I got no reply from him on 
that occasion, and some months afterward a 
letter from his daughter told me of his death, 
which occurred at Davenport, Iowa, on June 
10, 1901. I was naturally grieved at the loss 
of my old friend, and, wishing to perpetuate 
the memory of so good a man, I wrote as 
appreciative a sketch of his life and character 
as I was able, and it was published at Des 
Moines in the Annals of Iowa for October, 
1901. 

Early in that month I received by mail at 
my home in Washington, D. C., a copy of the 
magazine containing the sketch and, after 
re-reading it, I went to my room to take my 
usual afternoon nap. Upon such occasions I 


SCIENCE. 


qual 


frequently repeat to myself verses, or parts of 
poems, which I committed to memory in my 
youth. The rhythm and cadence have a 
soothing effect and I soon fall asleep. As I 
lay thinking of my friend I began repeating 
to myself Halleck’s well-known lines: 


Green be the turf above thee, 
Friend of my early days. 

None knew thee but to love thee 
Nor named thee but to praise. 


Just as I finished the last line I heard a 
voice on the further side of an arras near my 
bed which I recognized as no other than his 
own. I did not distinguish what he was then 
saying, but he seemed to me to be speaking to 
my wife, who had admitted him for a eall 
upon me, just as she had often done in the old 
days. He then stepped into full view and I 
observed that he was dressed in his usual 
black walking suit and that he carried a book 
under his arm. After giving me a pleasant 
greeting he said archly, “ Don’t you think you 
rather overdid that sketch?’ I knew he re- 
ferred to the one I had written of himself 
and said quickly, “No, by no means.” He 
replied, “ Well I thought some persons might 
regard it as supererogatory.” JI said, “ How 
can they? It is all true, and I wrote it in all 
sincerity.” When he saw that I took the 
matter so seriously he, with his characteristic 
tact, at once changed the subject and said, 
“By the bye, I called to speak to you about 
the two articles you published in Sctence last 
year. I read them before I went away and 
ought to have written you about them, but I 
neglected it. You were quite right in your 
strictures upon the misuse of Greek words in 
the construction of scientific terms. That 
article was a grand, good thing.” I replied, 
“That is indeed praise from one who taught 
Greek twenty-five years”? “Well, that is 
what I thought of it,” he said. Then, pausing 
as if he was thinking of something else, he 
said, “ But I must be going,” and moved away 
a little. I called out, “Don’t go, Doctor, I 
have a lot of things I want to say to you.” 
He turned and looked at me and said, “ Yes, 
I must go”; and with a gentle laugh, just an 
audible smile, he was gone. His going so 


712 


agitated me that I rose quickly, fully awake, 
and so realistic had been my dream that for 
a time I could hardly believe that I had been 
asleep. Indeed, I think I had slept only a 
few moments, because I had not that feeling 
of lassitude which one has upon awaking from 
profound sleep. Wishing to preserve a record 
of such a strange dream I wrote out the fore- 
going account of it within a few hours after 
its occurrence. 

The few dreams I have are usually of a 
perplexing and irrational character, and have 
little relevaney to any of my past or present 
waking experiences. But this one was visional 
in form, wholly pleasing, without irrelevant 
deflection, and entirely rational in character 
except that it involved an inconspicuous 
anachronism, the scene of the vision being 
laid for more than thirty years before the 
occurrences which formed the subjects of our 
conversation. That is, the personal appear- 
ance of my friend and my apparent surround- 
ings were those of more than thirty years 
before, and not those of our later years, for 
he was nearly eighty when he died, we had 
long dwelt apart and in surroundings unlike 
those of our earlier years; and his latest 
photograph, since received, shows that he had 
a very different appearance in his later years 
from that which I saw in the visional visita- 
tion. But I did not observe that discrepancy 
then, and the visitation seemed entirely 
natural and purposeful. 

I have always admired the definiteness of 
your faith and that of our friend H., in the 
future life, and I can well understand how it 
is that you are more disposed to regard my 
vision as an objective, than as a subjective, 
occurrence. Indeed, the dream was so dis- 
tinetly visional in character that it is difficult 
for me to avoid taking the same view of it 
that you do, for even now the shadowy inter- 
view with my reverend friend seems as real 
to me as any that I ever had with him in the 
flesh. It was so pleasing that I can only regret 
that I have not had similar visional inter- 
views with other departed friends, and that 
others whom he loved have not been thus 
visited since his departure. I am sure that I 
take less pleasure in a subjective than an 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


objective view of my vision, but it is only 
proper that I should state the facts which 
favor the former view. I shail do little more 
than state those facts because I have never 
made myself familiar with psychic subjects. 
When considering this vision subjectively 
reference must necessarily be made to my own 
physical and mental condition, but for the 
purpose of comparison it is necessary first to 
note the personal characteristics of the one 
whose shadowy form was the chief figure in it. 
I have already mentioned a part of them, but 
so far as they relate to the visional inter- 
view they may be summed up as follows: He 
was of an extremely genial disposition, 
although his manner in general was that of 
proper reserve. He was earnest but tactful in 
conversation and prompt to express approval 
of what he thought commendable. His usual 
garb was recognizably clerical, and he often 
carried a book or a small portfolio under his 
arm when he came to see me. His calls were 
often brief and sometimes closed abruptly, 
but always in a kindly manner. The expres- 
sions ‘by the bye’ and ‘a grand, good thing’ 
were habitual with him in conversation. All 
these characteristics, as well as his personal 
appearance and distinguishing tones of voice, 
were clearly brought out in the vision ‘and 
made it harmonize completely with my dis- 
tinet recollection of his personality, and of 
the many real interviews I had with him in 
those early years. It was really a composite 
representation of many of those interviews, 
and not a duplication of any one of them. 
As to my own personality with reference 
to this vision it is perhaps enough to say that 
I am in good health although I am past the 
years of active life. My surroundings are 
congenial, and among my pleasantest merno- 
ries are those concerning my early friends, 
most of whom I have outlived. I have written 
for publication biographical sketches of no 
less than six of them, but I have never 
received a visional call from any other than 
Dr. Barris; and I have never hada similar 
vision before or since. The sketch of his life 
before referred to was written while I was 
keenly sensible of the loss occasioned by his 


death, and while mentally reviewing his 


OCTOBER 31, 1902.] 


admirable character, and it was plainly in 
connection with the state of mind thus in- 
duced that the vision occurred. I am, there- 
fore, not surprised that he should have 
modestly suggested that that I had ‘ over- 
done’ the sketch, but I could not then, and 
can not now, admit the correctness of that 
suggestion. His visional call upon me to 
acknowledge the receipt of the articles I had 
sent him was in exact accord with what he 
would surely have done if we were yet living 
as neighbors. His commendation of those 
articles may perhaps be regarded by some 
persons as a reflection of my own egotism; but 
I prefer to regard it as a reflection of my 
foreknowledge of what his opinion would be 
when he read them, and of his manner of 
expressing it personally. 

Nothing is more common than the appear- 
ance of absent and deceased friends in dreams, 
but noteworthy features of the one here 
recorded are its coherence, congruity and 
absence of every unpleasant feature except the 
disappointment occasioned by the sudden 
termination of the interview. In these re- 
spects it was equal to any that I have ever 
known or heard of, and even Coleridge’s 
vision of Kubla Khan was not more remark- 
able in those features. But Coleridge was in 
ill health when he saw that vision; my health 
was normal. His sleep and vision were esti- 
mated by himself to have been three hours 
long; mine was so short as to cause me to 
suspect that it was almost momentary. His 
vision was wholly fanciful; 
counterpart of © ordinary 
actually occurred long ago. 


mine was a 
interviews which 
The chief subject 
of his vision was, in a sense, accidental; the 
chief subject referred to by my shadowy 
visitor was precisely that which he would have 
introduced had he been living. In short, it 
is the matter-of-fact character of this vision, 
coupled with the distinctness and long con- 
tinuance of impressions caused by friendly 
intercourse that gives to it peculiar interest. 
Faithfully yours, 
Cuarues A. WHITE. 


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 
' October 2, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


713 
RECENT ZOOPALEONTOLOGY. 
A REMARKABLE NEW MAMMAL FROM JAPAN. ITS 
RELATIONSHIP TO THE CALIFORNIAN GENUS 
DESMOSTYLUS, MARSH.* 

In a recent number of the Journal of the 
College of Science, Imperial University, 
Tokyo, S. Yoshiwara and J. Iwasaki give a 
full and well-illustrated description of a re- 
markable fossil skull discovered in 1898 
in apparently marine beds of Miocene age, 
in the province of Mino. Photographs and 
sketches of this skull were sent to the writer 
of the present notice about a year ago, the 
authors at the time referring the animal to 
the Sirenia; it seemed to the writer to present 
more resemblances to the Proboscidia, and this 
view is adopted by the authors. 

A study of this more complete account of the 
fossil, and comparison with a supposed fossil 
Sirenian described by Marsh from California 
in 1888, under the name Desmostylus hesperus, 
lead to the belief that the reference of this 
animal at present is somewhat uncertain; it 
is possibly Proboscidian, it is possibly Siren- 
ian. The possible community of origin of 
these two orders of ungulates was, in fact, 
suggested by De Blainville, and has received 
some support from the recent discoveries of 
ancient types of Mastodon and Sirenians in 
Egypt. The authors fully recognize the Siren- 
ian as well as Proboscidian resemblances in 
this animal, and rightly conclude that these 
may be primitive characters due to the remote 
common ancestry of these two orders of un- 
gulates. 

Whatever its affinities, this new fossil mam- 
mal is certainly most remarkable. The skull 
is about eighteen inches in length; the upper 
and lower jaws are greatly produced anteri- 
orly, as in the Proboscidia and Sirenia, the 
premaxille bearing two forwardly directed 
tusks, while the lower jaw bears two pairs of 
tusks—a larger outer incisor and a smaller 
median incisor. These tusks point forward, 
and are completely invested with enamel. The 
enamel is also extremely thick upon the grind- 

**Notes on a New Fossil Mammal,’ by S. 
Yoshiwara and J. Iwasaki, Jour. of the Coll. of 
Science, Imperial Univ. of Tokyo, Vol. XVI., Art. 
6, 1902. 


\ 


714 


ing teeth, which consist of two rows of verti- 
cal columns or cylinders, quite separate above 
but uniting below into one or two roots. “The 
crown,” the authors observe, “is an aggrega- 
tion of long, cylindrical, column-like tuber- 
cles, which are generally arranged in two 
longitudinal rows, parallel to the longer axis 
of the crown, and in three tranyerse rows at 
right angles to it. The enamel is extraordi- 
narily thick, and the dentine, which occupies 
the center of the column, appears as a round 
section on the masticating surface.” The 
authors conclude that the animal had four 
premolars and four molars [?] in the upper 
jaw, and four premolars and two or four mo- 
lars in the lower; the number of teeth is ren- 
dered very uncertain, however, by the imma- 
ture condition of this individual. 

Marsh described the teeth of Desmostylus as 
consisting of nearly round columns loosely 
united, and more or less polygonal in cross 
section, thickly invested with enamel. He 
stated that the nearest affinities of this Siren- 
ian are with the Tertiary Metarytherium of 
Christol, and the living Halicore. The num- 
ber of columns in a single tooth of Desmosty- 
lus is uncertain, but there are indications, 
according to Marsh, of at least twelve or fif- 
teen. The Metaxytherium described by Chris- 
tol (Ann. d. Sc. Nat., 1841, Vol. XV., Series 
TI., p. 338, Pl. VII.) was compared by him 
with Hippopotamus medius Cuvier (‘ Osse- 
mens Fossiles,? Ed. 1825, Vol. I., pp. 338, 334, 
Pl. VII.) ; its molars are brachyodont or short- 
crowned, resembling those of Hippopotamus 
and not at all similar to those of Desmostylus. 
Dr. Matthew recently examined the Desmo- 
stylus teeth, and agreed with Professor 
Beecher that they are probably Proboscidian, 
belonging to the anterior part of the jaw of a 
young mammoth; somewhat similar teeth 
have been figured by Leidy in his later studies 
of the Florida mammoths. 

Just as this notice was going to press, 
Professor John C. Merriam, of the Univer- 
sity of California, kindly sent the following 
very interesting note, entitled ‘The Geo- 
graphic Range of Desmostylus Marsh’: “ Ex- 
cellent figures of the teeth accompanying the 
text show the unknown form to be practically 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


identical with the problematical Desmostylus 
of Marsh, which was described from several 
teeth and a few vertebre obtained in Califor- 
nia; the associated fauna is that of the 
Quaternary or the late Pliocene. Since the 
discovery of the type specimens, several teeth 
of Desmostylus have been found on this coast. 
The California State Mining Bureau has in 
its Museum a fine tooth from Canores Cajfion, 
in the foothills of the west side of the lower 
end of the San Joaquin Valley. In the Uni- 
versity of California Museum is a slightly 
worn tooth with a fragment of the jaw lab- 
eled San Jose. A third specimen, unfortu- 
nately of unknown origin, is in the Museum 
of the California Academy of Sciences. A 
fourth from Yaquina Bay, Oregon, is in the 
private collection of Professor Thomas Con- 
don, at the University of Oregon. It is a 
matter for regret that we have not become 
acquainted with the exact occurrence of any of 
these specimens. Those from California ap- 
pear to have come from fresh water beds of 
late Tertiary or Quaternary age. Regard- 
ing the tooth from Yaquina Bay, Professor 
Condon writes me: ‘It was picked up on the 
Yaquina Beach which is throughout marine. 
* * * Tt was not the original finder who gave 
it to me so I missed the opportunity to learn 
whether it was loose on the surface or im- 
bedded in the rock.’ 

“ All of the teeth mentioned have the same 
structure as the type. In some of the Amer- 
ican material there is practically a duplication 
of the form of specimens figured by Yoshiwara 
and Iwasaki. While a comparison of isolated 
teeth in forms so imperfectly known as these 
should hardly be considered as sufficient for 
indicating specific identity, there can be no - 
doubt that the group represented by Desmo- 
stylus hesperus Marsh inhabited both the 
eastern and western shores of the Pacific. In 
all probability it will be shown to have had a 
much wider distribution than that now 
known.” 

The authors are certainly to be congratu- 
lated upon this discovery, which is one of the 
most important, if not the most important, 
paleontological discovery ever made in Japan. 


OcTOBER 31, 1902.] 


EOCENE SIRENIANS IN EGYPT. 


Dr. C. W. Anprews published in July his 
third paper* on extinct vertebrates of Egypt, 
including a fuller description of a new 
species of Sirenian belonging to the genus 
Eosiren. The specialization of Hosiren is very. 
notable. The author concludes: “It is 
remarkable that, except in the presence of pos- 
terior incisors and canines, this early (Middle 
Kocene) Sirenian is scarcely at all more gener- 
alized than the later Halithertwm, and it ap- 
pears that the Sirenia must have branched off 
from their parent stock at an extremely early 
period. In some respects, particularly in the 
structure of the teeth and of the humerus, 
there is a certain similarity with Meritherium, 
and it seems not improbable, therefore, that 
the relationship between the Sirenia and the 
Proboscidea suggested by Blainville and oth- 
ers may have a real existence. 


PROGRESS OF THE EXPLORATION FOR FOSSIL 
Dn HORSES. 


Tuis is the second year of exploration by 
the -American Museum of Natural History 
from the fund presented by William C. Whit- 
ney especially for researches on the evolution 
of the horse. Last year a number of Upper 
Miocene skulls and feet were found in Texas, 
‘but the chief discovery was the nearly complete 
skeleton of Anchitherium, the three-toed, 
marsh-living horse, which has just been mount- 
ed in the Museum. A nearly complete skele- 
ton of Mesohippus bairdi was secured from a 
Western collector during the winter. The 
Montana expedition from the Museum during 
the present summer has fortunately secured a 
specimen of the little-known Mesohippus 
westont, the horse of the Lower Oligocene, or 
Titanothere beds proper, a_ species first 
named by Cope from the Swift Current 
Creek region of Canada. Word has just been 
received of the very fortunate discovery in 
Nebraska of the remains of a small herd of 
Hipparion. They consist of one skull, which 
promises to be fine, parts of others, eight hind 
limbs and feet, mostly complete, four fore 

*< Extinct Vertebrates from Egypt,’ III., Geo- 
logical Magazine, N. S., Decade IV., Vol. IX., pp. 
291-295, July, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


715 
limbs and feet, one pelvis, and enough verte- 
bre and ribs to make up one complete verte- 
bral column. Altogether there is no doubt 
that a complete animal can be mounted. The 


feet are of the very long, slender type, termina- 
ting in narrow, pointed phalanges. 


THE PERISSODACTYLES TYPICALLY POLYPHYLETIC. 


THE study of the fossil horses of this coun- 
try, so far as it has progressed, proves conclu- 
sively that there were at least three and prob- 
ably four parallel phyla, of which Anchithert- 
um, Protohippus and Hipparion are the most 
conspicuous representatives in the Miocene, 
thus confirming results previously reached by 
Scott, Pavlow and others. This accords with 
the demonstration recently ‘made by Osborn 
of four parallel phyla of Titanotheres, and of 
the long-known existence of two parallel phyla 
of Palzotheres. The theory that the Rhinocer- 
oses included at least six parallel phyla is 
now finding fresh confirmation. The Lophio- 
dons are certainly diphyletic, including the 
extremely light-limbed and the heavy-limbed 
forms. It thus appears that the Tapirs alone 
failed to conform to this law. This law is 
nevertheless a matter of comparatively recent 
recognition, the genealogy of the Horses, Rhi- 
noceroses and Titanotheres having been wide- 
ly treated as if they were monophyletic, ever 
since Huxley placed Anchitherium, Hipparion 
and Hquus in a linear series. 

H. F. Osporn. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

Dr. Wooprow WILson was installed as presi- 
dent of Princeton University on October 25, in 
the presence of many distinguished educators 
and other prominent men. Addresses were 
made by ex-President Cleveland, by Dr. Fran- 
cis L. Patton, the retiring president of the 
University, and by Dr. Wilson. We hope to 
publish the inaugural address of Dr. Wilson 
next week. 

Tue degree of LL.D. was conferred on Dr. 
Alexander Graham Bell at St. Andrew’s Uni- 
versity on October 23, on the occasion of the 
installation of Mr. Andrew Carnegie as rector. 

Ar the centennial celebration of the found- 
ing of Washington and Jefferson College, held 


716 


on the 15th inst., the degree of Doctor in Sci- 
ence was conferred upon Dr. W. J. Holland, 
the director of the Carnegie Museum in Pitts- 
burgh, and upon Dr. John A. Matthews, of 
New York City. 


A census of the Philippines will be taken 
on March 1. It will be under the direction 
of General Joseph S. Sanger, who will be as- 
sisted by Mr. Henry Gannett, of the Geolog- 
ical Survey, and Mr. G. H. Armstead, of the 
Department of Agriculture. They will leave 
for Manila without delay. 


A BACTERIOLOGICAL laboratory has been 
created by the Prussian government at Pots- 
dam and placed under the charge of Dr. Behla, 


known for his researches on cancer. 


Magsor W. CO. Goraas, surgeon, U. S. A., has 
been designated by Surgeon-General O’Reilly 
to represent the United States at the First 
Egyptian Medical Congress which opens at 
Cairo on December 16. 


Dr. James Bryce will give at Cambridge 
University on November 29 the first of the 
Henry Sidgwick memorial lectures. His sub- 
ject is ‘The Philosophie Life among the An- 
cients.’ 


Proressor Erp, of Heidelberg, known for his 
work on the nervous system, gave last month 
‘the inaugural address of the winter session of 
the Post-graduate College of the West London 
Hospital. 


Ir is announced that lectures will this winter 
be given before the Royal Geographical So- 
ciety by Captain Otto Sverdrup on his four 
years’ Arctic work in the Fram, and by Dr. 
Sven Hedin on his three years’ expedition to 
Central Asia. 


Dr. Hans FriepericH Gapow, lecturer on 
zoology at Cambridge University, has passed 
through the United States on his way home 
from an expedition to Central America. 


Caprain Boyp Axexanper has recently left 
England to pursue his ornithological investi- 
gations in the island of Fernando Po and 
other places in the Bight of Benin; and he 
intends to explore the country around Lake 
Chad, in order to acquire further knowledge 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 409. 


as to the affinity existing between the West 
African and East African fauna. 

Dr. Max Wotr, director of the Observatory 
at Heidelberg, Germany, has appointed Mr. 
Raymond S. Dugan his assistant for one year, 
on the recommendation of Professor Todd, 
whose pupil and assistant at Amherst he for- 
merly was. For the past three years Mr. 
Dugan has had charge of the Beirit Observa- 
tory, which was built for the Syrian Protestant 
College by D. Stuart Dodge, Esq. 


Proressor Huco Kanu, formerly of the 
faculty of the University of Kansas, and 
latterly connected with the Agricultural Ex- 
periment Station of the University of Illinois, 
succeeds Mr. Herbert H. Smith as a custodian 
in entomology at the Carnegie Museum, under 
Dr. W. J. Holland, the curator of that depart- 
ment. 

Tue council of the British Institution of 
Civil Engineers has, in addition to the medals 
and prizes given for communications discussed 
at the meetings of the institution in the last 
session, made the following awards in respect 
of other papers dealt with in 1901-02: A Tel- 
ford gold medal to J. McFarlane Gray (Lon- 
don); a George Stephenson gold medal to R. 
Price-Williams (London); a Watt gold medal 
to W. Bell Dawson, M.A., D.Se. (Ottawa) ; 
Telford premiums to W. R. Cooper, M.A., 
B.Se. (London); E. M. De Burgh (Sydney, 
N.S. W.);George Wilson, D.Se. (Manchester) ; 
Frank Oswell, B.A. (Buenos Ayres); A. W. 
Brightmore, D.Se. (London); a Crampton 
prize to C. D. H. Braine (Mowbray, Cape 
Colony); the Manby premium to B. W. Ritzo 
(Cape Town). 

Ir is proposed to create a memorial to Pro- 
fessor Virchow in Great Britain, the move- 
ment having been inaugurated by Lord Lister. 


Proressor. SypNEY H. SHorr, formerly pro- 
fessor in Denver University, known for his 
researches in electricity, has died in London, 
at the age of forty-four years. 


Tue International Congress of American- 
ists held last week its fourteenth session at 
the American Museum of Natural History, 
New York City. The program contained the 
titles of ninety-two papers contributed by dis- 


OcToBER 31, 1902. ] 


tinguished representatives from Europe, South 
America, Mexico and the United States. We 
hope to publish shortly a full account of the 
proceedings. 

Tux International Congress on Tuberculosis 
opened in Berlin on October 23 with about 
one hundred delegates in attendance. Pro- 
fessor Brouardel, of Paris, was chosen chair- 
man. The press despatch quoted by us last 
week that Dr. W. H. Welch was one of the 
American delegates may have been correct as 
far as the appointment is concerned, but Dr. 
Welch has returned to Baltimore after deliver- 
ing the Huxley lecture at London. 


Tue seventh International Congress of 
Agriculture will be held at Rome in the spring 
of 1903. It will be divided into ten sections. 
(1) Rural economy, agrarian and land credit, 
cooperation, insurance, international commer- 
cial relations. (2) Agronomy (application of 
science to agriculture, amelioration of agricul- 
ture and pasturing). (8) Agricultural in- 
struction (schools, colleges, agricultural ex- 
periment stations, ete.). (4) Economy of 
farm animals and related industries (bees, 
birds, silkworms, ete.). (5) Rural engineering 
(construction, hydraulics, ete.). (6) Special 
culture and related industries (fecula, oil, 
sugar, fruit, vegetables, flowers, essences, ete.). 
(7) Vegetable pathology, destruction of para- 
sites, protection of useful animals (interna- 
tional measures). (8) Forests (preservation, 
replanting, ete.). (9) Water and pisiculture. 
(10) Wine growing and making. This special 
section will be considered as a continuation 
of the International Congress of Wine Grow- 
ers inaugurated in Paris in 1900. 


_Tue collection of the birds of Holland, 
formed by Baron Snouckaert van Schauburg 
and mounted by Tar Meer, the celebrated 
Dutch taxidermist, has been purchased by the 
Carnegie Museum. It numbers about eight 
hundred specimens and contains nearly all the 
species of Western Europe. Each species is 
represented by both sexes in adult plumage, 
and in many instances by the young also. 
There are over three hundred species found in 
the collection. The collection of the lepidop- 
tera of Western Pennsylvania made by Mr. 


/ 


SCIENCE. ly 


Henry Engel, of Pittsburgh, has also been 
purchased by the museum. It contains nearly 
twelve thousand specimens, representing ap- 
proximately two thousand species. The speci- 
mens are in beautiful condition. 

Ir is announced that the entomological col- 
lection of the late John Ackhurst, of Brook- 
lyn, containing some 50,000 specimens, has 
been purchased for the zoological department 
of the University of Chicago. 

Miss Mary H. Tarnatn has presented the 
herbarium of her father, the late Edward Tat- 
nall, to Colorado College. 

Mr. Jonn Mortry has given the library of 
the late Lord Acton to Cambridge University. 
It will be remembered that this valuable his- 
torical library of some 70,000 volumes was 
purchased some time ago by Andrew Carnegie 
from Lord Acton, who was allowed to retain 
it until his death. Upon Lord Acton’s death 
Mr. Carnegie gave the library unconditionally 
to Mr. Morley. 

THE expeditions sent by the Carnegie Mu- 
seum to the fossil fields of the west report 
unusual suecess during the past summer and 
fall. Mr. W. H. Utterbach has succeeded in 
recovering in Wyoming a nearly complete 
skeleton of diplodocus in beautiful condition, 
as such things go. The bones are free from 
erushing and the matrix is of such a character 
as to enable them to be easily freed from their 
surroundings. Mr. O. A. Peterous and Mr. 
C. W. Gilmore were very successful in their 
labors in western Nebraska and eastern Wyo- 
ming, where they made considerable collec- 
tions of mammalian remains. Mr. Karl Doug- 
las in Montana has had excellent success. 
Some four or five weeks ago he reported that 
he had already taken up fifty-eight skulls, ac- 
companied by more or less complete skeletons, 
representing the peculiar fauna of the deposits 
in which he has been working. Mr. C. W. 
Gilmore, who has been working in the Freeze- 
out mountains of Wyoming, has collected a 
large quantity of material representing the 
carnivorous dinosaurs, hitherto lacking in the 
collections at the Carnegie Institute. 

Mr. H. J. Eusracr sends notice from the 
New York Agricultural Experiment Station 


718 


at Geneva that an unusual and serious trouble 
with harvested apples has appeared in western 
New York. It is confined entirely to scabby 
apples. A white or pinkish mildew appears 
upon the seab spots and transforms them into 
brown, sunken, bitter, rotten spots. On very 
scabby apples these rotten spots soon coalesce 
and ruin the fruit. The damage done is enor- 
mous. In Niagara, Orleans, Monroe and 
Wayne counties thousands of barrels of apples 
have been ruined. The varieties most affected 
are Greening and Fall Pippin. Upon inves- 
tigation it was found that the white mildew 
on the scab spots is the cause of the rot, and 
that it is a distinct fungus having no connec- 
tion with the scab fungus. The scab itself 
will not rot a fruit, but it breaks the skin 
wherever it grows and thereby makes an open- 
ing for this other fungus to get into the apple 
and rot it. Traces of the rot are sometimes 
found upon apples while still on the trees, but 
the greatest damage is done during the sweat- 
ing process, either in piles on the ground or 
in barrels. Apples barreled immediately after 
picking and placed at once in cold storage 
seem to escape the trouble, but it is liable to 
appear later when the fruit is placed upon 
the market. A preventive of the rot is much 
to be desired, but at present none is known. 
Investigations in this line are now in progress 
at the station. The whole trouble can be 
traced back to a lack of thorough spraying. 
Had the apples been kept free from scab by 
spraying, the white rot fungus could do them 
no harm in storage. However, the past season 
has been exceptionally favorable for scab and 
spraying has been less effective than usual. 


Tue College of Physicians of Philadelphia 
announces that the next award of the Alva- 
renga prize, being the income for one year of 
the bequest of the late Sefor Alvarenga, and 
amounting to about $180, will be made on July 
14, 1903. Essays intended for competition 
may be upon any subject in medicine, but 
can not have been published, and must be re- 
ceived by the secretary of the college on or 
before May 1, 1903. 


Tr is said that the commission appointed by 
the New York Legislature to report on the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 409. 


plans for establishing a state electrical labora- 
tory at Schenectady, consisting of State Engi- 
neer Bond, A. C. Buck, of Niagara Falls, and 
©. P. Steinmetz, of Schenectady, will report 
favorably on the plan. 

The Electrical World states that it 1s pro- 
posed to use electric light signals at night and 
flags by day to warn the fruit growers of the 
Santa Clara Valley as to the approaching 
weather conditions. Professor A. G. McAdie, 
of the Weather Bureau, at San Francisco, has 
suggested that during the months of February, 
March and April the orchardists be warned 
by colored lights of the approach of frosts, 
which would enable them to smudge by burn- 
ing oil, ete. During September, October and 
November the approach of showers could be 
indicated. An electric tower, 220 feet in 
height, located in San Jose, Calif., can be seen 
over the greater part of the county. 

Tue volume containing the physical papers 
of the late Professor Henry A. Rowland, the 
preparation of which for publication we have 
already announced, is now nearly ready for 
distribution to its subscribers. It has been 
edited under the direction of a committee, 
consisting of President Remsen, Professor 
Welch and Professor Ames, who have made 
every effort to present to the world, in a suit- 
able form, this memorial of their colleague. 
In this book, which contains about 750 pages, 
royal octavo, are collected not alone Professor 
Rowland’s strictly scientific papers and his 
public addresses, but also a detailed description 
of his ruling engine, with plates and photo- 
graphs. The memorial address of Professor 
Mendenhall serves as a biographical sketch, 
which is accompanied by a portrait of Pro- 
fessor Rowland. The subjects treated in these 
papers cover a wide range. In heat there is 
the great memoir on the mechanical equiva- 
lent of heat, with several shorter articles on 
thermometers. In electricity and magnetism 
there are the fundamental researches on mag- 
netization, on the magnetic effect of electrical 
convection, on the value of the ohm, on the 
theory and use of alternating currents, ete. In 
light there are the renowned discovery and 
theory of the concave grating and the long 
series of investigations made in the field of 


OcTOBER 31, 1902. ] 


spectroscopy. Lists of wave-lengths will not 
be reprinted in this volume, as they are readily 
aecessible elsewhere; and any subscriber to 
this volume may obtain, by application to the 
Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, a copy of 
Rowland’s ‘ Preliminary Table of Solar Wave- 
Lengths.’ The price set is five dollars net per 
copy for orders sent in advance of publication, 
after which the price will be $7.50. Orders 
may be sent to Professor Joseph S. Ames, Sec- 
retary of the Committee of Publication, Johns 
Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. 


Tue board of visitors to the Melbourne Ob- 
servatory in their report to the Governor of 
Victoria express their regret that the position 
of chief assistant has not yet been filled, “for 
it has become more and more urgent from the 
fact, among other reasons, that new and im- 
portant duties will shortly devolve on the as- 
tronomer in connection with the bureau of 
standard weights and measures, which, we are 
informed, is to be placed in Mr. Baracchi’s 
charge. Mr. Baracchi’s predecessor always 
had two trained astronomers as assistants, but 
now what was formerly the work of three men 
falls entirely on his shoulders. All the pres- 
ent staff except Mr. Baracchi are either ob- 
servers or computers, each doing the work he 
has been trained to do accurately and well, 


but among them all there is no one competent ~ 


to take charge of an observatory even for 24 
hours. The observatory, one of the most im- 
portant in the Southern Hemisphere, is pri- 
marily a place for astronomical research, and 
its existence can only be justified by research 
work carried on in it. Mr. Baracchi has al- 
ready proved himself to be eminently qualified 
to conduct astronomical research, but he is 
practically unable to attempt such investiga- 
tions, as his time is more than fully occupied 
with the routine work of administration and 
detail that could equally well be done by a 
chief assistant. We cannot expect the repu- 
tation of our observatory to be maintained if 
we compel the director to spend his time con- 
ducting correspondence, arranging details of 
the work, supervising computers, and travel- 
ling about the country inspecting barometers 
and rain-gauges.” 


SCIENCE. 


719 


A SPECIAL sub-committee of the Technical 
Edueation Board of the London County Coun- 
cil has recently published a report on ‘The 
Application of Science to Industry.’ The 
Electrical World states that the committee 
has arrived at the conclusion that “ various 
branches of industry have during the past 20 
or 380 years been lost to this country, owing 
to the competition of foreign countries; that 
in many others our manufacturers have fallen 
seriously behind their foreign rivals; and that 
these losses are to be attributed in no small 
degree to the superior scientific education pro- 
vided in foreign countries.” In this connec- 
tion, reference is made to the transfer from 
England to Germany of numerous depart- 
ments of manufacturing chemistry, the best- 
known instance of loss being the manufacture 
of aniline dyes and many other valuable prod- 
ucts from coal tar. Whereas the original in- 
vestigations and discoveries on which the in- 
dustry is based were made almost entirely in 
England, there are not now a thousand work- 
people employed in the industry in the King- 
dom. On the other hand, it is a most lucra- 
tive and flourishing business in Germany. 
Then the manufacture of high-class lenses for 
photographic cameras, microscopes, telescopes 
and field-glasses, as well as of thermometer- 
glass tubes for making thermometers for accu- 
rate physical measurements, has practically 
been lost to the country. Thirdly, the com- 
mittee points to the rapid development in the 
United States, Germany and Switzerland of 
the various branches of the manufacture of 
electrical machinery, as compared with the 
relatively slow progress made in the United 
Kingdom. In 1890 the imports of electrical 
appliances and scientific apparatus were too 
insignificant to be separately scheduled. In 
1900 they amounted to £1,174,000 and £522,- 
000, respectively. While some of the wit- 
nesses examined attributed the relative back- 
wardness of England in scientific industries 
partly to other causes, they were practically 
all agreed in considering it due, in the main, 
to the deficiencies of the British educational 
system. It did not appear that the training 
of the workmen was at fault. It is believed 
that the opportunities now open to the Lon- 


720 


don workman for obtaining technical eduea- 
tion in his trade are actually superior to those 
enjoyed by the German or American work- 
man. Summing up all the evidence, the com- 
mittee is convinced that the main causes of 
British failure in the chemical, optical and 
electrical industries are the following: (a) 
The lack of scientific training of the manu- 
facturers themselves, and their consequent 
inability to recognize the importance of sci- 
entifie assistance; (b) the defective condition 
of secondary education, and the consequent 
lack of sufficiently prepared recruits for ad- 
vanced technological training; (c) the lack 
of a sufficient supply of young men who have 
been trained, not only in scientific principles 
and method, but also in the application of 
science to particular industrial processes; 
(d) the lack of any institution providing ad- 
vaneed technological training which is sufi- 
ciently equipped and endowed to enable it to 
give adequate attention to post-graduate or 
advance work. There is a consensus of opin- 
ion that the highest grade of technical edu- 
cation must be carried on in an institution 
of university rank during the day. The few 
hours which can be given in the evening by 
those who are engaged in business during the 
day are insufficient for training in research. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Mr. Jonn D. Rockeretter has offered to 
give $500,000 to Teachers College, Columbia 
University, on condition that the sum of 
$440,000 be collected from other sources— 
$190,000 to pay the outstanding debts and 
$250,000 for further endowment. It was also 
announced at the meeting of the trustees on 
October 23 that the college had received from 
Mr. and Mrs. B. Everett Macy $175,800 for 
the increase of the endowment funds and $98,- 


709 for the completion of the Horace Mann 
School. 


Princeton Universiry has been made the 
residuary legatee under the will of the late 
Mrs. Susan Dod Brown, and will, it is said, 
receive $140,000. 

Ar a meeting of the governors of University 
College, Liverpool, on October 14, it was an- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 409. 


nounced that the sum of £170,000 had been 
promised for the endowment of an independent 
university when created. 


Leipzig Universiry will celebrate the five 


hundredth anniversary of its establishment in 
1909. 


Tue following is a list of appointments in 
the Scientific Departments of the University 
of Maine for the present year: Perly F. 
Walker (University of Missouri, Cornell), 
professor of mechanical engineering; J. E. 
Burbank (Bowdoin, Harvard), instructor in 
physics; Walter Rantenstrauch (University of 
Missouri), instructor in mechanical engineer- 
ing; F. H. Mitchell (University of Missouri), 
instructor in chemistry; H. W. Britcher (Syra- 
cuse and Johns Hopkins), instructor in zool- 
ogy; W. A. Mitchell (Trinity), tutor in phys- 
ies; H. E. Cole (University of Missouri), tutor 
in electrical engineering; T. Buck (University 
of Missouri, Chicago), tutor in mathematics; 
W. A. Lambert (Harvard), tutor in mathe- 
matics; H. H. Hanson (Pennsylvania State 
College), assistant chemist in experiment sta- 
tion; H. P. Hamlin (University of Missouri), 
assistant in civil engineering; C. C. Alexander 
(University of Missouri), assistant in civil 
engineering. 

Miss Anice W. Wiucox, B.A. (of Vassar), 
and for two years fellow at Chicago Univer- 
sity, has been appointed instructor in zoology 
at Wellesley College. Miss Frances E. Foote, 
B.A., of Wellesley College, and lately gradu- 
ate student at Columbia University, has also 
been appointed to a partial instructorship. 
These additions: to the department are made 
necessary partly by increase in number of stu- 
dents and partly by the fact that Miss Mary 
A. Bowers, senior instructor in the depart- - 
ment is this year doing but half work. 


M. Lirp has succeeded M. Gréard as vice- 
reetor of the University of Paris. 


Mr. R. P. Grecory, of St. John’s College, 
has been appointed demonstrator in botany at 
Cambridge University. 


Dr. H. W. Tuomas, of Montreal, has been 
appointed fellow in pathology at McGill Uni- 
versity. 


ClLENC 


& WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: S. NEWcomB, Mathematics; R. S. WooDwaRD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WAtcort, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BrssEY, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. Bintines, Hygiene ; WiLL1AM H. WELCH, 

Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Frmay, Novemper 7, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
Princeton for the Nation’s Service: PRESIDENT 


WOODEO! MADISON, Go bbiencoccdccaascocoas 721 
The Carnegie Institution: PRorEssor Wm. E. 

Rirrer, Epwin A. Hitt, Dr. Guy Monr- 

ROSE WHIPPLE, PROFESSOR M. ALLEN STARR, 

PROFESSOR WM. TRELEASE, GENERAL A. W. 

(CH DISS Soro aa NOOO aS Daa aC ani 731 
Scientific Books :— 

French’s Animal Activities; Kellogg’s Zool- 

ogy; Hodge’s Nature Study and Life: J. P. 

McM. Wilcox on Irrigation Farming: W. 

Tels + BYOVATU)< Rsk Gai trees eROR Oho tear He eng 739 
Scientific Journals and Articles............ 742 


Societies and Academies :— 
Biological Society of Washington: F. A. 
Lucas. The Philosophical Society of Wash- 
GCOS: Co ISS WANDS pa opamodadbebhedpooc 743 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
Guesses on the Relative Weights of Bills 
and Coins: PRroressor A. H. Pierce. A 
Point in Nomenclature: PRoressor T. D. A. 
COCKERELL. Comparative Strength of Ani- 
mals: PrRoressor F. P. DUNNINGTON. 
A Biographical Index of the Men of Science 
of the United States: PRoressor J. Mc- 
Keen CATTELL 
Shorter Articles :— 
The Parasitism of Cephalothecium Rosewm : 
TBE, od fo CUAUSHDANGI a} mais Winckel eeapto os COI ORC ERO 747 
Current Notes on Physiography :— 
The Mississippi in Southeastern Missouri; 
Lakes in the Glarner Alps; The Lakes of 
Wales: Proressor W. M. Davis.......... 748 
Recent Zoopaleontology :— 
Triassic Ichthyosaurs from California and 
Nevada; Relation of the Ostracoderm and 
Arthrodiran Fishes; Origin of the Turtles ; 
Abandonment of the Oligocene.and Miocene 
Lake Basin Theory ; Studies of Eocene Mam- 
malia in the Marsh Collection, Peabody Mu- 
seum,; A new Pleistocene Rhinoceros related 
to the Sumatran Form; Relations of 
Ohnyjnnng TWh WE Onsucoseovaccoocooe0pa0e 
Field Work in Vertebrate Paleontology at the 
Carnegie Museum for 1902: J. B. HarcuEr. 752 


749 


Inauguration of Chancellor Frank Strong at 

the University of Kansas: Proressor E. H. 

(Shi) Anuar ey olbecia eicleccie a Aig pic aa Meese cla Cemanere 752 
The Australasian Association for the Advance- 

NLC tan O ime S CLENGED ee tare aceite ae 753 
ScventujicwNiotessand (Newsies «cis te 754 
University and Educational News.......... 760 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


PRINCETON FOR THE NATION’S SERVICE.* 

Srx years ago I had the honor of stand- 
ing in this place to speak of the memories 
with which Princeton men heartened them- 
selves as they looked back a century and a 
half to the founding of their college. To- 
day my task is more delicate, more difficult. 
Standing here in the light of those older 
days, we must now assess our present pur- 
poses and powers and sketch the ereed by 
which we shall be willing to live in the 
days to come. We are but men of a single 
generation in the long life of an institution 
which shall still be young when we are 
dead, but while we live her life is in us. 
What we conceive she conceives. In plan- 
ning for Princeton, moreover, we are plan- 
ning for the country. The service of insti- 
tutions of learning is not private, but pub- 
lic. It is plain what the nation needs as its 
affairs grow more and more complex and 

* Address given by Dr. Woodrow Wilson on the 


occasion of his installation as president of Prince- 
ton University. 


722 


its interests begin to touch the ends of the 
earth. It needs efficient and enlightened 
men. The universities of the country must 
take part in supplying them. 

American universities serve a free nation 
whose progress, whose power, whose pros- 
perity, whose happiness, whose integrity 
depend upon individual initiative and the 
sound sense and equipment of the rank and 
file. Their history, moreover, has set them 
apart to a character and service of their 
own. They are not mere seminaries of 
scholars. They never can be. Most of 
them, the greatest of them and the most 
distinguished, were first of all great col- 
leges before they became universities; and 
their task is twofold: the production of a 
great body of informed and thoughtful men 
and the production of a small body of 
trained scholars and investigators. It is 
one of their functions to take large bodies 
of young men up to the places of outlook 
whence the world of thought and affairs is 
to be viewed; it is another of their func- 
tions to take some men, a little more ma- 
ture, a little more studious, men _ self- 
selected by aptitude and industry, into the 
quiet libraries and laboratories where the 
close contacts of study are learned which 
yield the world new insight into the pro- 
cesses of nature, of reason, and of the hu- 
man spirit. These two functions are not 
to be performed separately, but side by 
side, and are to be informed with one 
spirit, the spirit of enlightenment, a spirit 
of learning which is neither superficial nor 
pedantic, which values life more than it 
values the mere acquisitions of the mind. 

Universities, we have learned to think, 
include within their scope, when complete, 
schools of law, of medicine, of theology, 
and of those more recondite mechanic arts, 
such as the use of electricity, upon which 
the skilled industry of the modern world 
is built up; and, though in dwelling upon 
such an association of schools as of the gist 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


of the matter in our definitions of a uni- 
versity, we are relying upon historical acei- 
dents rather than upon essential principles 
for our conceptions, they are accidents which 
show the happy order and system with 
which things often come to pass. Though 
the university may dispense with profes- 
sional schools, professional schools may not 
dispense with the university. Professional 
schools have nowhere their right atmos- 
phere and association except where they 
are parts of a university and share its 
spirit and method. They must love learn- 
ing as well as professional success in order 
to have their perfect usefulness. This is 
not the verdict of the universities merely, 
but of the professional men themselves, 
spoken out of hard experience of the facts 
of business. It was but the other day that 
the Society for the Promotion of Engineer- 
ing Education endorsed the opinion of their 
president, Mr. Eddy, that the erying need 
of the engineering profession was men 
whose technical knowledge and proficiency 
rest upon a broad basis of general culture 
which should make them free of the wider 
worlds of learning and experience, which 
should give them largeness of view, judg- 
ment, and easy knowledge of men. The 
modern world nowhere shows a closeted 
profession shut in to a narrow round of 
technical functions to which no knowledge 
of the outside world need ever penetrate. 
Whatever our calling, our thoughts must 
often be afield among men of many kinds, 
amidst interests as various as the phases 
of modern life. The managing minds of the 
world, even the efficient working minds of 
the world, must be equipped for a mastery 
whose chief characteristic is adaptability, 
play, an initiative which transcends the 
bounds of mere technical training. Tech- 
nical schools whose training is not built 
up on the foundations of a broad and 
general discipline cannot impart this. The 
stuff they work upon must be prepared for 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


them by processes which produce fiber and 
elasticity, and their own methods must be 
shot through with the impulses of the uni- 
versity. 

It is this that makes our age and our 
task so interesting: this complex interde- 
pendence and interrelationship of all the 
processes which prepare the mind for effec- 
tual service: this necessity that the mer- 
chant and the financier should have trav- 
eled minds, the engineer a knowledge of 
books and men, the lawyer a wide view of 
affairs, the physician a familiar acquaint- 
ance with the abstract data of science, and 
that the closeted scholar himself should 
throw his windows open to the four quar- 
ters of the world. Every considerable un- 
dertaking has come to be based on knowl- 
edge, on thoughtfulness, on the masterful 
handling of men and facts. The univer- 
sity must stand in the midst, where the 
roads of thought and knowledge interlace 
and cross, and, building upon some coign 
of vantage, command them all. 

It has happened that throughout two 
long generations—long because filled with 
the industrial and social transformation of 
the world—the thought of studious men has 
been bent upon devising methods by which 
special aptitudes could be developed, de- 
tailed investigations carried forward, in- 
quiry at once broadened and deepened to 
meet the scientific needs of the age, knowl- 
edge extended and made various and yet 
exact by the minute and particular re- 
searches of men who devoted all the ener- 
gies of their minds to a single task. And 
so we have gained much, though we have 
also lost much that must be recovered. We 
have gained immensely in knowledge, but 
we have lost system. We have acquired 
an admirable, sober passion for accuracy. 
Our pulses have been quickened, moreover, 
by discovery. The world of learning has 
been transformed. No study has stood 
still. 


SCIENCE. 


Scholars have won their fame, not - 


723 


by erudition, but by exploration, the con- 
quest of new territory, the addition of in- 
finite detail to the map of knowledge. And 
so we have gained a splendid proficiency 
in investigation. We know the right meth- 
ods of advanced study. We have made 
exhaustive record of the questions waiting 
to be answered, the doubts waiting to be 
resolved, in every domain of inquiry; thou- 
sands of problems once unsolved, appar- 
ently insoluble, we have reduced to their 
elements and settled, and their answers 
have been added to the commonplaces of 
knowledge. But, meanwhile, what of the 
preliminary training of specialists, what 
of the general foundations of knowledge, 
what of the general equipment of mind, 
which all men must have who are to serve 
this busy, this sophisticated generation ? 
Probably no one is to blame for the 
neglect of the general into which we have 
been led by our eager, pursuit of the par- 
ticular. Every age has lain under the re- 
proach of doing but one thing at a time, of 
having some one signal object for the sake 
of which other things were slighted or 
ignored. But the plain fact is, that we 
have so spread and diversified the scheme 
of knowledge in our day that it has lost 
coherence. We have dropped the threads 
of system in our teaching. And system 
begins at the beginning. We must find the 
common term for college and university ; 
and those who have great colleges at the 
heart of the universities they are trying to 
develop are under a special compulsion to 
find it. Learning is not divided. Its king- 
dom and government are centered, unitary, 
single. The processes of instruction which 
fit a large body of young men to serve their 
generation with powers released and fit for 
ereat tasks ought also to serve as the initial 
processes by which scholars and investiga- 
tors are made. They ought to be but the 
first parts of the method by which the crude 
force of untrained men is reduced to the 


724 


expert uses of civilization. There may 
come a day when general study will be no 
part of the function of a university, when it 
shall have been handed over, as some now 
talk of handing it over, to the secondary 
schools, after the German fashion; but that 
day will not be ours, and I, for one, do 
not wish to see it come. The masters who 
guide the youngsters who pursue general 
studies are very useful neighbors for those 
who prosecute detailed inquiries and devote 
themselves to special tasks. No investiga- 
tor can afford to keep his doors shut against 
the comradeships of the wide world of let- 
ters and of thought. 

To have a great body of undergraduates 
crowding our class rooms and setting the 
pace of our lives must always be a very 
wholesome thing. These young fellows, 
who do not mean to make finished schol- 
ars of themselves, but who do mean to 
learn from their elders, now at the outset 
of their lives, what the thoughts of the 
world have been and its processes of prog- 
ress, in order that they may start with light 
about them, and not doubt or darkness, 
learning in the brief span of four years 
what it would else take them half a life- 
time to discover by mere contact with men, 
must teach us the real destiny with which 
knowledge came into the world. Its mis- 
sion is enlightenment and edification, and 
these young gentlemen shall keep us in 
mind of this. 

The age has hurried us, has shouldered 
us out of the old ways, has bidden us be 
moving and look to the eares of a practical 
generation; and we have suffered ourselves 
to be a little disconeerted. No doubt we 
were once pedants. It is a happy thing 
that the days have gone by when the texts 
we studied loomed bigger to our view than 
the human spirit that underlay them. But 
there are some principles of which we must 
not let go. We must not lose sight of that 
fine conception of a general training which 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


led our fathers, in the days when men knew 
how to build great states, to build great 
colleges also to sustain them. No man who 
Knows the world has ever supposed that a 
day would come when every young man 
would seek a college training. The college 
is not for the majority who carry forward 
the common labor of the world, nor even 
for those who work at the skilled handi- 
erafts which multiply the conveniences and 
the luxuries of the complex modern life. 
It is for the minority who plan, who con- 
ceive, who superintend, who mediate be- 
tween group and group and must see the 
wide stage as a whole. Democratic nations 
must be served in this wise no less than 
those whose leaders are chosen by birth 
and privilege! and the college is no less 
democratic because it is for those who 
play a special part. I know that there are 
men of genius who play these parts of cap- 
tainey and yet have never been in the class- 
rooms of a college, whose only school has 
been the world itself. The world is an ex- 
cellent school for, those who have vision and 
self-discipline enough to use it. It works 
in this wise, in part, upon us all. Raw lads 
are made men of by the mere sweep of their 
lives through the various school of experi- 
ence. It is this very sweep of hfe that 
we wish to bring to the consciousness of 
young men by the shorter processes of the 
college. We have seen the adaptation take 
place; we have seen crude boys made fit in 
four years to become men of the world. 
Every man who plays a leading or con- 
ceiving part in any affair must somehow 
vet this schooling of his spirit, this quicken- 
ing and adaptation of his perceptions. He 
must either spread the process through his 
lifetime and get it by an extraordinary gift 
of insight and upon his own initiative, or 
else he must get it by the alchemy of mind 
practiced in college halls. We ought dis- 
tinetly to set forth in our philosophy of 
this matter the difference between a man’s 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


preparation for the specific and definite 
tasks he is to perform in the world and 
that general enlargement of spirit and re- 
lease of powers which he shall need if his 
task is not to crush and belittle him. When 
we insist that a certain general education 
shall precede all special training which is 
not merely mechanic in its scope and pur- 
pose, we mean simply that every mind needs 
for its highest serviceability a certain pre- 
liminary orientation, that it may get its 
bearings and release its perceptions for a 
wide and catholic view. We must deal in 
college with the spirits of men, not with 
their fortunes. Here, in history and phi- 
losophy and literature and science, are the 
experiences of the world summed up. 
These are but so many names which we 
give to the records of what men have done 
and thought and comprehended. If we be 
not pedants, if we be able to get at the 
spirit of the matter, we shall extract from 
them the edification and enlightenment as 
of those who have gone the long journey of 
experience with the race. 

There are two ways of preparing a 
young man for his life work. One is to 
give him the skill and special knowledge 
which shall make a good tool, an excellent 
bread-winning tool, of him; and for thou- 
sands of young men that way must be fol- 
lowed. It is a good way. It is honorable, 
it is indispensable. But it is not for the 
college, and it never can be. The college 
should seek to make the men whom it re- 
celves something more than excellent ser- 
-vants of a trade or skilled practitioners of a 
profession. It should give them elasticity of 
faculty and breadth of vision, so that they 
shall have a surplus of mind to expend, 
not upon their profession only, for its lib- 
eralization and enlargement, but also upon 
the broader interests which he about them, 
in the spheres in which they are to be, not 
bread-winners merely, but citizens as well, 
and in their own hearts, where they are to 


SCIENCE. 


720 


grow to the stature of real nobility. It is 
this free capital of mind the world most 
stands in need of—this free capital that 
awaits investment in undertakings, spirit- 
ual as well as material, which advance the 
race and help all men to a better life. 
And are we to do this great thing by the 
old discipline of Greek, Latin, mathematics 
and English? The day has gone by when 
that is possible. The circle of liberal stud- 
ies is too much enlarged, the area of gen- 
eral learning is too much extended, to make 
it any longer possible to make these few 
things stand for all. Science has opened 
a new world of learning, as great as the 
old. The influence of science has broad- 
ened and transformed old themes of study 
and created new, and all the boundaries of 
knowledge are altered. In the days of our 
grandfathers all learning was literary, was 
of the book; the phenomena of nature were 
brought together under the general terms 
of an encyclopedic natural philosophy. 
Now the quiet rooms where once a few 
students sat agaze before a long table at 
which, with a little apparatus before him, 
a lecturer discoursed of the laws of matter 
and of force are replaced by great laborato- 
ries, physical, chemical, biological, in which 
the pupil’s own direct observation and ex- 
periment take the place of the conning of 
mere theory and generalization, and men 
handle the immediate stuff of which nature 
is made. Museums of natural history, of 
geology, of paleontology, stretch themselves 
amidst our lecture rooms, for demonstra- 
tion of what we say of the life and struc- 
ture of the globe. The telescope, the spec- 
troscope, not the text-book merely, are our 
means of teaching the laws and movements 
of the sky. An age of science has trans- 
muted speculation into knowledge and 
doubled the dominion of the mind. Heavy- 
ens and earth swine together in a new 
universe of knowledge. And so it is im- 
possible that the old discipline should stand 


726 


alone, to serve us as an education. With 
it alone we should get no introduction into 
the modern world either of thought or of 
affairs. The mind of the modern student 
must be carried through a wide range of 
studies in which science shall have a place 
not less distinguished than that accorded 
literature, philosophy or politics. 

But we must observe proportion and re- 
member what it is that we seek. We seek 
in our general education, not universal 
knowledge, but the opening up of the mind 
to a catholic appreciation of the best 
achievements of men and the best processes 
of thought since days of thought set in. 
We seek to apprise young men of what has 
been settled and made sure of, of the think- 
ing that has been carried through and 
made an end of. We seek to set them 
securely forward at the point at which the 
mind of the race has definitively arrived, 
and save them the trouble of attempting 
the journey over again, so that they may 
know from the outset what relation their 
own thought and effort bear to what the 
world has already done. We speak of the 
‘disciplinary’ studies through which a boy 
is put in his school days and during the 
period of his introduction into the full 
privileges of college work, having in our 
thought the mathematics of arithmetic, ele- 
mentary algebra, and geometry, the Greek 
and Latin texts and grammars, the ele- 
ments of English and of French or Ger- 
man; but a better, truer name for them 
were to be desired. They are indeed dis- 
ciplinary. The mind takes fiber, facility, 
strength, adaptability, certainty of touch, 
from handling them, when the teacher 
knows his art and their power. But they 
are disciplinary only because of their defin- 
itiveness and their established method: 
and they take their determinateness from 
their age and perfection. It is their age 
and completeness that render them so ser- 
viceable and so suitable for the first proe- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVL No. 410. 


esses of education. By their means the 
boy is informed of the bodies of knowledge 
which are not experimental, but settled, 
definitive, fundamental. This is the stock 
upon which time out of mind all the 
thoughtful world has traded. These have 
been food of the mind for long genera- 
tions. 

It is in this view of the matter that we 
get an explanation of the fact that the 
classical languages of antiquity afford bet- 
ter discipline and are a more indispensable 
means of culture than any language of our 
own day except the language, the intimate 
language, of our own thought, which is 
for us universal coin of exchange in the 
intellectual world, and must have its values 
determined to a nicety before we pay it out. 
No modern language is definite, classically 
made up. Modern tongues, moreover, carry 
the modern babel of voices. The thoughts 
they utter fluctuate and change; the 
phrases they speak alter and are dissolved 
with every change of current in modern 
thought or impulse. They have, first or 
last, had the same saturations of thought 
that our own language has had; they carry 
the same atmosphere; in traversing their 
pleasant territory, we see only different 
phases of our own familiar world, the world 
of our own experience; and, valuable as 
it is to have this various view of the world 
we live in and send our, minds upon their 
travels up and down the modern age, it is 
not fundamental, it is not an indispensable 
first process of training. It can be post- 
poned. The classical literatures give us, - 
in tones and with an authentic accent we 
can nowhere else hear, the thoughts of an 
age we cannot visit. They contain airs of 
a time not our own, unlike our own, and 
yet its foster parent. To these things was 
the modern thinking world first bred. In 
them speaks a time naive, pagan, an early 
morning day when men looked upon the 
earth while it was fresh, untrodden by 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


crowding thought, an age when the mind 
moved as it were without prepossessions 
and with an unsophisticated, child-like 
curiosity, a season apart during which those 
seats upon the Mediterranean seem the first 
seats of thoughtful men. We shall not 
anywhere else get a substitute for it. The 
modern mind has been built upon that cul- 
ture and there is no authentic equivalent. 

Drill in the mathematics stands in the 
same category with familiar knowledge of 
the thought and speech of classical an- 
tiquity, because in them also we get the 
life-long accepted discipline of the race, the 
processes of pure reasoning which lie at 
once at the basis of science and at the basis 
of philosophy, grounded upon observation 
and physical fact, and yet abstract, and of 
the very stuff of the essential processes of 
the mind, a bridge between reason and 
nature. Here, too, as in the classics, is a 
definitive body of knowledge and of reason, 
a discipline which has been made test of 
through long generations, a method of 
thought which has in all ages steadied, per- 
fected, enlarged, strengthened and given 
vrecision to the powers of the mind. Math- 
ematical drill is an introduction of the 
boy’s mind to the most definitely settled 
rational experiences of the world. 

I shall attempt no proof that English 
also is of the fundamental group of studies. 
You will not require me to argue that no 
man has been made free of the world of 
thought who does not know the literature, 
the idiomatic flavor and the masterful use 
of his own tongue. 

But, if we cannot doubt that these great 
studies are fundamental, neither can we 
doubt that the circle of fundamental stud- 
ies has widened in our day and that educa- 
tion, even general education, has been ex- 
tended to new boundaries. And that 
chiefly because science has had its creden- 
tials accepted as of the true patriciate of 
learning. It is as necessary that the lad 


SCIENCE. ~ 


727 


should be inducted into the thinking of the 
modern time as it is that he should be eare- 
fully grounded in the old, accepted thought 
which has stood test from age to age; and 
the thought of the modern time is based 
upon science. It is only a question of 
choice in a vast field. Special develop- 
ments of science, the parts which lie in 
controversy, the parts which are as yet but 
half built up by experiment and hypothesis, 
do not constitute the proper subject. matter 
of general education. For that you need, 
in the field of science as in every other 
field, the bodies of knowledge which are 
most definitively determined and which are 
most fundamental. Undoubtedly the fun- 
damental sciences are physics, chemistry 
and biology. Physics and chemistry af- 
ford a systematic body of knowledge as 
abundant for instruction, as definitive al- 
most, as mathematics itself; and biology, 
young as it is, has already supplied us 
with a scheme of physical life which lifts 
its study to the place of a distinctive dis- 
cipline. These great bodies of knowledge 
claim their place at the foundation of lib- 
eral training, not merely for our informa- 
tion, but because they afford us direct 
introduction into the most essential ana- 
lytical and rational -processes of scientific 
study, impart penetration, precision, can- 
dor, openness of mind, and afford the 
close contacts of conerete thinking. And 
there stand alongside of these geology and 
astronomy, whose part in general culture, 
aside from their connection with physics, 
mechanics and chemistry, is to apply to the 
mind the stimulation which comes from’ 
being brought into the presence and in 
some sort into the comprehension of stu- 
pendous, systematized physical faet—from 
seeing nature in the mass and system of 
her might and structure. These, too, are 
essential parts of the wide scheme which 
the college must plot out. And when we 
have added to these the manifold discipline 


728 


of philosophy, the indispensable instruc- 
tions of history, and the enlightenments of 
economic and political study, and to these 
the modern languages which are the tools 
of scholarship, we stand confused. How 
are we to marshal this host of studies with- 
in a common plan which shall not put the 
pupil out of breath? 

No doubt we must make choice among 
them, and suffer the pupil himself to make 
choice. But the choice that we make must 
be the chief choice, the choice the pupil 
makes the subordinate choice. Since he 
cannot in the time at his disposal go the 
grand tour of aecepted modern knowledge, 
we, who have studied the geography of 
learning and who have observed several 
generations of men attempt the journey, 
must instruct him how in a brief space he 
may see most of the world, and he must 
choose only which one of several tours that 
we may map out he will take. Else there 
is no difference between young men and 
old, between the novice and the man of 
experience, in fundamental matters of 
choice. We must supply the synthesis and 
must see to it that, whatever group of 
studies the student selects, it shall at least 
represent the round whole, contain all the 
elements of modern knowledge, and be it- 
self a complete circle of general subjects. 
Princeton can never have any uncertainty 
of view on that point. 

And that not only because we conceive it 
to be our business to give a general, liberal- 
izing, enlightening training to men who 
do not mean to go on to any special work 
by which they make men of science or 
scholars of themselves or skilled practition- 
ers of a learned profession, but also be- 
cause we would create a right atmosphere 
for special study. Critics of education have 
recently given themselves great concern 
about over-specialization. The only special- 
ists about. whom, I think, the thoughtful 
critic of education need give himself any 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 410. 


serious concern are the specialists who have 
never had any general education in which 
to give their special studies wide rootage 
and nourishment. The true American uni- 
versity seems to me to get its best charac- 
teristic, its surest guarantee of sane and 
catholic learning, from the presence at its 
very heart of a college of liberal arts. Its 
vital union with the college gives it, it seems 
to me, the true university atmosphere, a 
pervading sense of the unity and unbroken 
cirele of learning—not so much because of 
the presence of a great body of undergrad- 
uates in search of general training (because 
until these youngsters get what they seek 
they create ideals more by’ their lack than 
by their achievement), as because of the 
presence of a great body of teachers whose 
life-work it is to find the general outlooks 
of knowledge and give vision of them every 
day from quiet rooms which, while they 
talk, shall seem to command all the pros- 
pects of the wide world. 

I should dread to see those who guide 
special study and research altogether ex- 
cused from undergraduate instruction, 
should dread to see them withdraw them- 
selves altogether from the broad and gen- 
eral survey of the subjects of which they 
have sought to make themselves masters. 
I should equally despair of seeing any stu- 
dent made a truly serviceable specialist who 
had not turned to his specialty in the spirit 
of a broad and catholic learning—unless, 
indeed, he were one of those rare spirits 
who once and again appear amongst us, 
whose peculiar, individual privilege it is to 
have safe vision of but a little segment of 
truth and yet keep their poise and reason. 
It is not the education that concentrates 
that is to be dreaded, but the education 
that narrows—that is narrow from the first. 
I should wish to see every student made, 
not a man of his task, but a man of the 
world, whatever his world may be. If it be 
the world of learning, then he should be a 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. | 


conscious and a broad-minded citizen of it. 
If it be the world of letters, his thought 
should run free upon the whole field of it. 
If it be the world of affairs, he should 
move amidst affairs like a man of thought. 
What we seek in education is a full lib- 
eration of the faculties, and the man who 
has not some surplus of thought and energy 
to expend outside the narrow circle of his 
own task and interest is a dwarfed, unedu- 
cated man. We judge the range and ex- 
eellence of every man’s abilities by their 
play outside the task by which he earns 
his livelihood. Does he merely work, or 
does he also look abroad and plan? Does 
he, at the least, enlarge the thing he 
handles? No task, rightly done, is truly 
private. It is part of the world’s work. 
The subtle and yet universal connections of 
things are what the truly educated man, 
be he man of science, man of letters, or 
statesman, must keep always in his thought, 
if he would fit his work to the work of the 
world. His adjustment is as important as 
his energy. 

We mean, so soon as our generous 
friends have arranged their private finan- 
ces in such a way as to enable them to 
release for our use enough money for the 
purpose, to build a notable graduate col- 
lege. I say ‘build’ because it will be not 
only a body of teachers and students, but 
also a college of residence, where men shall 
live together in the close and wholesome 
comradeships of learning. We shall build 
it, not apart, but as nearly as may be at 
the very heart, the geographical heart, of 
the university; and its comradeships shall 
be for young men and old, for the novice 
as well as for the graduate. It will con- 
stitute but a single term in the scheme of 
coordination which is our ideal. The win- 
dows of the graduate college must open 
straight upon the walks and quadrangles 
and lecture halls of the studiwm generale. 

In our attempt to escape the pedantry 


SCIENCE. 


729 


and narrowness of the old fixed curriculum 
we have, no doubt, gone so far as to be in 
danger of losing the old ideals. Our utili- 
tarianism has earried us so far afield that 
we are in a fair way to forget the real 
utilities of the mind. No doubt the old, 
purely literary training made too much of 
the development of mere taste, mere deli- 
eacy of perception, but our modern train- 
ing makes too little. We pity the young 
child who, ere its physical life has come to 
maturity, is put to some task which will 
dwarf and narrow it into a mere mechanic 
tool. We know that it needs first its free 
years in the sunlight and fresh air, its 
irresponsible youth. And yet we do not 
hesitate to deny to the young mind its irre- 
sponsible years of mere development in 
the free air of general studies. We have 
too ignorantly served the spirit of the age 
—have made no bold and sanguine attempt 
to instruct and lead it. Its call is for effi- 
ciency, but not for narrow, purblind 
efficiency. Surely no other age ever had 
tasks which made so shrewdly for the test- 
ing of the general powers of the mind. No 
sort of knowledge, no sort of training of 
the perceptions and the facility of the mind 
could come amiss to the modern man of 
affairs or the modern student. A general 
awakening of the faculties, and then a close 
and careful adaptation to some special 
task, is the program of mere prudence for 
every man who would succeed. 

And there are other things besides mere 
material success with which we must supply 
our generation. It must be supplied with 
men who care more for principles than for 
money, for the right adjustments of life 
than for the gross accumulations of profit. 
The problems that call for sober thought- 
fulness and mere devotion are as pressing 
as those which eall for practical efficiency. 
We are here not merely to release the facul- 
ties of men for their own use, but also to 
quicken their social understanding, instruct 


730 


their consciences, and give them the catholic 
vision of those who know their just rela- 
tions to their, fellow men. Here in Amer- 
ica, for every man touched with nobility, 
for every man touched with the spirit of 
our institutions, social service is the high 
law of duty, and every American univer- 
sity must square its standards by that law 
or lack its national title. It is serving the 
nation to give men the enlightenments of 
a general training; it is serving the nation 
to equip fit men for thorough scientific 
investigation and for the tasks of exact 
scholarship, for science and scholarship 
earry the truth forward from generation 
to generation and give the certain touch of 
knowledge to the processes of life. But 
the whole service demanded is not rendered 
until something is added to the mere train- 
ing of the undergraduate and the mere 
equipment of the investigator, something 
ideal and of the very spirit of all action. 
The final synthesis of learning is in phi- 
losophy. You shall most clearly judge the 
spirit of a university if you judge it by the 
philosophy it teaches; and the philosophy 
of conduct is what every wise man should 
wish to derive from his knowledge of the 
thoughts and the affairs of the generations 
that have gone before him. We are not 
put into this world to sit still and know; 
we are put into it to act. 

It is true that in order to learn men must 
for a little while withdraw from action, 
must seek some quiet place of remove from 
the bustle of affairs, where their thoughts 
may run clear and tranquil, and the heats 
of business be for the time put off; but 
that cloistered refuge is no place to dream 
in. It is a place for the first conspectus 
of the mind, for a thoughtful poring upon 
the map of life; and the boundaries which 
should emerge to the mind’s eye are not 
more the intellectual than the moral bound- 
aries of thought and action. I do not see 
how any university can afford such an out- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 410. 


look if its teachings be not informed with 
the spirit of religion, and that the religion 
of Christ, and with the energy of a positive 
faith. The argument for efficiency in edu- 
cation can have no permanent validity if 
the efficiency sought be not moral as well 
as intellectual. The ages of strong and 
definite moral impulse have been the ages 
of achievement; and the moral impulses 
which have lifted highest have come from 
Christian peoples—the moving history of 
our own nation were proof enough of that. 
Moral efficiency is, in the last analysis, the 
fundamental argument for liberal culture. 
A merely literary education, got out of 
books and old literature, is a poor thing 
enough if the teacher stick at grammatical 
and syntactical drill; but if it be indeed an 
introduction into the thoughtful labors of 
men of all generations it may be made the 
prologue to the mind’s emancipation: its 
emancipation from narrowness—from nar- 
rowness of sympathy, of perception, of 
motive, of purpose and of hope. And the 
deep fountains of Christian teaching are 
its most refreshing springs. 

I have said already, let me say again, 
that in such a place as this we have charge, 
not of men’s fortunes, but of their spirits. 
This is not the place in which to teach men 
their specific tasks—except their tasks be 
those of scholarship and investigation; it 
is the place in which to teach them the rela- 
tions which all tasks bear to the work of 
the world. Some men there are who are 
condemned to learn only the technical skill 
by which they are to live; but these are not 
the men whose privilege it is to come to a 
university. University men ought to hold 
themselves bound to walk the upper roads 
of usefulness which run along the ridges 
and command views of the general fields 
of life. This is why I believe general train- 
ing, with no particular occupation in view, 
to be the very heart and essence of univer- 
sity training, and the indispensable founda- 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


tion of every special development of knowl- 
edge or of aptitude that is to lift a man to 
his profession or a scholar to his function 
of investigation. 

I have studied the history of America; 
I have seen her grow great in the paths of 
liberty and of progress by following after 
ereat ideals. Every concrete thing that 
she has done has seemed to rise out of some 
abstract principle, some vision of the mind. 
Her greatest victories have been the vic- 
tories of peace and of humanity. And in 
days quiet and troubled alike Princeton 
has stood for the nation’s service, to pro- 
duce men and patriots. Her national tra- 
dition began with John Witherspoon, the 
master, and James Madison, the pupil, and 
has not been broken until this day. I do 
not know what the friends of this sound 
and tested foundation may have in store 
to build upon it; but whatever they add 
shall be added in that spirit, and with that 
conception of duty. There is no better 
way to build up learning and increase 
power. A new age is before us, in which, 
it would seem, we must lead the world. 
No doubt we shall set it an example unprec- 
edented not only in the magnitude and 
telling perfection of our industries and 
arts, but also in the splendid scale and 
studied detail of our university establish- 
ments: the spirit of the age will lift us to 
every great enterprise. But the ancient 
spirit of sound learning will also rule us; 
we shall demonstrate in our lecture rooms 
again and again, with increasing volume 
of proof, the old principles that have made 
us free and great; reading men shall read 
here the chastened thoughts that have kept 
us young and shall make us pure; the 
school of learning shall be the school of 
memory and of ideal hope; and the men 
who spring from our loins shall take their 
lineage from the founders of the repub- 
he. 

Wooprow WILSON. 


SCIENCE. 


‘of events make tt best to do so. 


73) 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 

Tue trustees of the Carnegie Institution 
obviously have an exceedingly difficult task 
on their hands. The difficulty is not so 
much due to the magnitude of the endow- 
ment as to the uniqueness of what they 
have to do. They are launched in very 
imperfectly charted waters where there are 
many hidden dangers, and they will have 
to drive their ship forward much of the 
time under a slow bell and probably will 
have to reverse her engines occasionally. 
But this method of navigating will meet the 
approval of a great majority of the scien- 
tific men of the country, just because they 
will recognize the conditions under whieh 
it is being done and will see it to be the 
best method. 

The trustees would be justified in put- 
ting a plank into their policy to the effect 
that nothing shall be undertaken, for some 
years at least, that cannot be easily 
changed or even gwen up should the course 
In fact I 
imagine that about this policy is tacitly ex- 
pected by most scientific men. For exam- 
ple, I suspect my own surprise at the 
announcement that the institution had 
aequired the Woods Holl Laboratory and 
had pledged itself to erect an expensive 
building and spend $20,000 a year in run- 
ning it was rather widely shared by those 
like myself who are keenly interested on- 
lookers. 

This remark is not at all intended as a 
eriticism, for although it is difficult to see 
from the distance of California how the 
move could have been the wisest that might 
have been made, yet I do not doubt that, 
seen from within, there were good and 
sufficient reasons for making it. My only 
point is that the announcement surprised 
me because I had not supposed it would be 
the policy of the institution, at the outset 
of its career at any rate, to do that sort of 
thing. 


732 


It may not be unprofitable to consider 
briefly what in accordance with the policy 
here suggested the attitude of the trustees 
might be expected to be in a specific case. 

To help along that great class of scien- 
tific publication which cannot be carried by 
publishing houses on a strictly commercial 
basis would be one of the very important 
aids that the institution might render sci- 
ence. Supposing it were resolved by the 
trustees to give a hand here, how shall this 
be done would of necessity be a foremost 
question. A number of courses would be 
found open, all promising well. One would 
be to build and operate a large publishing 
house at some central point. This might 
either establish its own journals and series 
of monographs for the various departments 
of learning; or it might act merely as a 
printing house for reputable journals, ete., 
now existing, but whose existence is a con- 
stant struggle for life. 

A second general method would be to 
grant sums of money, of course under care- 
fully considered conditions, to existing pub- 
lications, permitting the managers of these 
to use the money as they best might for 
broadening the scope and improving the 
quality and efficiency of the publications 
for which they are responsible. 

Hither of these general plans of aid well 
earried on would work great improvement 
to the present highly unsatisfactory state 
of scientific publication in this country. 
If one of them were to be adopted, which 
should it be? Were there absolute cer- 
tainty that either would be best, that of 
course would answer the question. Cer- 
tainty, however, would not be possible. 
On the whole the probabilities would rather 
favor the first plan, it seems to me. Never- 
theless since the second plan would be 
almost as likely to succeed as the first, it 
would be adopted as it could accord better 
with the cut-and-try policy. The first plan 
would involve the permanent investment of 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 410. 


a large sum of money in a plant, and this 
plant, unusual as it would have to be in 
much of its equipment, could not be readily 
disposed of should it be found desirable to 
do this. Furthermore, should series of pub- 
ications be inaugurated by the institution 
itself it would be a serious matter to dis- 
continue them. On the other hand, money 
grants of the sort contemplated in the sec- 
ond plan could be easily modified or dis- 
continued at any time should they be found 
by the trustees not to be producing satisfac- 
tory results. More than this the adoption 
of the second plan would be favored by the 
considerations that it would be supplement- 
ing and not supplanting experience and 
well-directed effort ‘in the periphery’; and 
further that it is greatly to the advantage 
of both libraries and users of libraries that 
long-established journals should be kept up 
and improved rather than that new ones 
should be established. 

But the most fundamental difficulty con- 
fronting the trustees will be that of so using 
the funds and influence in their hands as 
to make them contribute most to the pro- 
motion of science, and of accomplishing 
this without impairing ‘activity in the 
periphery,’ to use Professor Miinsterberg’s 
happy phrase. 

It is easily conceivable that the ranking 
of our nation among others on the basis of 
scientific research might be advanced many 
points, but that this might be accompanied 
by an actual falling off in such peripheral 
activity. Promotion at such a cost would, 
I think, be regarded by most American 
men of science as having been bought at a 
price above its worth. Local initiative, 
wherever found, rewarded solely according 
to its merit is, after freedom, the most 
sacred thing to American science as it is to 
everything else American. Centralization 
of the sort that produces a weakening of 
peripheral effort and responsibility is hate- 
ful to us; hateful not merely from a na- 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


tional sentimentalism, but because we know 
it means the acceptance of one or the other 
of nature’s two alternative penalties for 
such relief: death or the transformation 
into a new species. For neither of these 
are we ready. 

But the trustees understand all this. It 
is not because they need instruction con- 
cerning their duties in this regard that so 
many of the scientific workers voice the 
conviction here emphasized. Rather it is 
because we hope it may be assuring to them 
to have our own declaration that we do 
not want to be relieved from the efforts 
we are now constantly making to obtain the 
means for pushing on our scientifie enter- 
prises, but that what we should like would 
be such a dispensation that our worthy 
efforts might count for something—might 
count for as much as they deserve. 

Without making the rule a hard and fast 
one, I should certainly say that aid should 
be granted on condition that the sum 
granted be duplicated by those asking it. 
Professor Branner makes the objection that 
this condition would usually bar the possi- 
bility of getting the needed help since sci- 
entific men are rarely in touch with busi- 
ness men of wealth. My reply to this is 
let us get into touch with such men. It 
will do both us and them good, whether we 
succeed in getting their financial assistance 
or not. I speak from considerable experi- 
ence here. 

For, the present I believe the aiding of 
researches already well planned, frequently 
_ far on the way to results, but which are 
struggling against hope almost for the 
funds necessary to carry them forward, 
might advantageously compass the aims of 
the institution. It is just in the midst of 
such undertakings that the exceptional man 
whom Mr. Carnegie is after will be found. 

Of course many difficulties beset the way 
here, such as that of deciding on the merits 
of the undertakings for which aid is so- 


SCIENCE. 


733 


heited; and of making sure that the money 
is being used to the very best advantage 
after it has been granted. But these diffi- 
culties are far from insurmountable. The 
institution might well profit by the expe- 
rience and methods of the scientific depart- 
ments of the national government in send- 
ing experts to the localities to get informa- 
tion as to the merits of particular schemes 
by actual inspection and conference. 

It may be noted incidentally that a stren- 
uous application of the helping hand policy 
would almost inevitably carry with it the 
making more available for investigators the 
treasures of material and literature at the 
national capital. It seems, however, as 
though the government itself might do this. 
But if it will not, the institution would 
have to do it to the extent of its ability. 

Wm. EH. Rirrer. 


UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
October 14, 1902. 


I wave already, in a written communi- 
cation to its trustees, partially expressed 
my views upon this subject, having sug- 
gested that it be made a center for the sys- 
tematic collection and classification of sci- 
entifie literature. In brief that suggestion 
was that there be organized at once a 
working force, drawn largely from the 
needy and worthy post-graduate students 
of our leading universities (who, while 
doing this work at Washington, and there- 
by becoming self-supporting, could also 
avail themselves of the many opportunities 
there offered for advanced study both by 
day and night), and that this particular 
undertaking should be the preparation of 
an extended series of scrap books, or rather 
special binder files, into which could be 
inserted clippings and excerpts from the 
various text-books, periodicals, transactions 
of learned societies, ete., classified as to 
chemistry both by the individual chemical 
bodies, and also by some suitable subject- 


734 


title scheme; and as to physical and other 
sciences, both by broad general titles, and 
by physical data and properties as well. 

The plan would mean much clipping 
from several copies each of such works as 
the Berichte, the journals of the various 
chemical and physical societies, the Philo- 
sophical Magazine, ete., and would be a 
work of great magnitude, requiring for its 
accomplishment a large force, and it would 
be a permanent undertaking. - 

If the Carnegie Institution is to main- 
tain a research laboratory at Washington, 
the uses of such a collection of specially 
classified literature would be invaluable and 
obvious, and even if not, it would seem 
that one such great reference collection 
(and it is not likely that there would ever 
be another) would certainly be well lo- 
cated at such a center of scientific inquiry 
as the national capital. 

To go a step further, however. To what 
uses could such a collection be put by this 
institution ? 

Evidently when once made, it would be 
invaluable in the preparation of a series 
of volumes for widespread distribution, 
along the same lines, but in a much more 
extended way, of the very excellent com- 
pilations on the constants of nature al- 
ready published by the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, with which the name of Professor 
F. W. Clarke is already associated. 

Such subjects as boiling’ points, melting 
points, specific gravities, specific heats, elec- 
trical constants, thermochemical constants, 
constants of refraction, coefficients of ex- 
pansion, ete., would each form seperate 
volumes of a complete and uniform series, 
and then a series of annual volumes would 
naturally be issued, bringing them all up 
to date from year to year; and the prepara- 
tion and publication of such an invaluable 
encyclopedia of physical and chemical con- 
stants, would be a work well worthy the 
attention of the Carnegie Institution, and 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


one not at all likely to be accomplished by 
any other agency ; and of its great practical 
value, scientific as well as industrial, there 
can be no question whatever. 

Moreover, an annual series of volumes 
on the progress of the year in chemical, 
physical and other scientific research would 
also be very acceptable. 

All such work would naturally bring out 
very clearly the numerous determinations 
of physical and chemical constants, which 
have either never yet been made, or else 
have been made in such a manner as not 
to inspire one with confidence in the accu- 
racy of the published results, and it is 
along these lines of research that there 
would seem to be a great need for an ex- 
tensive and well-equipped research labora- 
tory, located at Washington, and having in 
hand the determination of chemical and 
physical constants, wherever the researches 
of former investigators have passed them 
by undetermined. One would hardly cred- 
it how very incomplete existing data are, 
unless he has been engaged in some re- 
search work and by actual investigation 
has learned how few comparatively are the 
known constants, as compared with those 
still awaiting determinations, and which 
are only too often so badly wanted. 

Naturally this institution would also be- 
come a head center, through the good offices 
of which the work of independent colabor- 
ers, at the many laboratories of this and 
other countries, could be so regulated and 
planned as to secure cooperation along im- 
portant lines of research while avoiding 
unnecessary duplication of work. Such a 
research laboratory would also naturally 
take up, from time to time, special lines 
of original research work, but its regular 
every-day routine work would be largely on 
the determination of those chemical and 
physical constants, particularly of the rarer 
and very expensive elements and com- 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


pounds, which are at present so greatly 
needed but so little known. 

The institution would of course always 
stand ready to afford to competent workers, 
pursuing special lines of research of gen- 
eral scientific interest, special laboratory 
facilities, aiding them with grants of ex- 
pensive material and the loan of costly 
apparatus in all cases where the circum- 
stances justified it. 

This in short is what I think the Car- 
negie Institution ought to become, viz., a 
ereat center for the classification and pub- 
lication of past and current scientific litera- 
ture, on a seale never before attempted. A 
great center of physical and chemical re- 
search on the various constants of nature, 
as well as a place where special chemical, 
physical and other scientific research on 
any subject of sufficient importance could 
be initiated, fostered, and aided, and finally 
a bureau of publication, where the ultimate 
results of all these activities could be pub- 
lished and widely distributed, for the gen- 
eral benefit of mankind. 

Epwin A. Hi. 


WASHINGTON, D. C., 
October 14, 1902. 


To THE EprTror oF ScIENCcE: As one who 
has recently been concerned with labora- 
tory research, who has had to encounter 
the difficulties incident to the publication 
of a doctorate thesis and who is now pro- 
fessionally interested in educational work, 
may I be pardoned for expressing my opin- 
ion in regard to the application and dis- 
tribution of the Carnegie fund? 

It is a fact that in America the scientific 
eareer holds out no such inducements of a 
social or civic sort as does a similar career 
abroad, notably in England and Germany, 
where decorations, titles and various pub- 
lic honors both furnish an incentive and 
reward within professional cireles and 
bring men of science and the public into 


SCIENCE. 


735 


closer touch, to the mutual advantage of 
both. However true it may be that the 
investigator’s work is its own reward, it is 
probably equally true that the cause of 
science across the water has profited by the 
existence of such honors. It has seemed to 
me that the Carnegie Institution, if devoted 
to a single purpose, might bring about 
similar conditions on this side of the At- 
lantie. 

The first thing, therefore, that the an- 
nouncement of the fund suggested to me, 
and I doubt not to others, was the estab- 
lishment of a great institution not only 
for the purposes of administration but also 
for the prosecution of research, a Mecca 
for men of science, a university of univer- 
sities, controlled by a body of men of ac- 
knowledged ability and peopled by grad- 
uate students (perhaps solely by men who 
had already received their doctorate) whose 
merit had been tested. Appointments for 
a term of years (for I presume that rota- 
tion would be the most desirable policy) 
to the chairs and instructing staff of such 
an institution would go far toward a rem- 
edy of the existing deficiencies in the 
incentives for honors in American science. 
The students might be selected by competi: 
tive examination from a list of candidates 
indorsed by the universities or chosen with- 
out actual examination by a tribunal of 
competent authorities after inspection of 
their credentials. 

I am aware that the idea of a central 
institution for the prosecution of actual 
research has been condemned by men whose 
Opinions are far weightier than mine. 
President Harper, for instance, has said 
that if the Carnegie fund, instead of en- 
couragine and strengthening the work 
where it already exists, ‘undertakes to 
establish new foundations, independent of 
these institutions, in order that its own 
work may be more tangible, it will prove 
to be the greatest curse of higher educa- 


736 
tion in this country instead of a blessing.’ 
While it may seem overbold to question 
the conclusions of one who has attained 
an inside view of the problems of the 
American university, I cannot but feel that 
the coming generation, of the scientific in- 
vestigators at least, would be cheered by 
the prospect of a great Carnegie institution 
of research. 

If, on the other hand, the fund is to be 
bestowed upon various objects, there can be 
no doubt, from the student’s point of view, 
as to what directions the expenditure 
should take in the main. The assistance of 
publication is, I believe, one of the defi- 
nitely marked out avenues for the distribu- 
tion of the fund. I believe that such assist- 
ance should be accorded not only to those 
who conduct research by the aid of the 
fund, but also to those who conduct inde- 
pendent investigations. The publication 
of the doctorate thesis seems unnecessarily 
difficult. It seems odd, at first thought, 
that the results of two or three years of 
research not only do not command any 
financial return, but are actually, as pub- 
lished, sources of expense to the author. If 
some journal undertakes to publish the 
research, the writer has often to pay extra 
charges of various sorts—excess for proof 
corrections, excess for tables, excess for fine 
print, excess for over-length—and the off- 
prints and their distribution add to his in- 
debtedness to the publisher. Even so, I-am 
informed that certain scientific journals 
are actually conducted at a financial loss, 
and hence at the personal expense of the 
editors, unless subsidized by some univer- 
sity. Here, then, are two matters which 
are not as they should be, and might well 
concern the Carnegie fund. Could not 
these difficulties be met in two ways: (1) 
By the restriction of the number of exist- 
ing scientific journals, especially by amal- 
gamating the numerous scattered ‘studies’ 
of various universities with the leading 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 410. 


journals, and (2) by the establishment of 
a Carnegie Bureau of Printing and En- 
eraving where these standard journals 
should be printed at an expense no greater, 
than that of the European journals? The 
cost of publishing could thus be removed 
from the investigator and assumed by the 
fund, while the journal, if not then self- 
supporting, could be aided, possibly, by 
judicious subsidizing. 

I believe, further, that much good would 
come if these journals, thus amalgamated 
and thus placed upon a satisfactory finan- 
cial basis, were supplemented by the pub- 
lication, for each science, of a ‘Carnegie 
year-book,’ giving a full account of the 
work of the various laboratories (résumés 
of published articles, description of new 
apparatus, ete.). This work might profit- 
ably, perhaps, include some record of work 
abroad. Finally, the journals and year- 
books might be supplemented further by 
a series of authoritative monographs, pub- 
lished under the auspices of the fund, upon 
topics within each science. There seems 
to be a place now for comprehensive his- 
torical résumés as complete, even if not at 
all original, as Helmholtz’s ‘Handbuch der 
physiologischen Optik.’ 

Another obvious avenue of disbursement 
is the establishment of fellowships and 
scholarships for graduate students in the 
universities. If the universities would 
agree to remit the tuition of all Carnegie 
fellows and scholars, five hundred and 
three hundred dollars respectively would 
give ample provision for the bodily wants 
of the holders. The scholars might be re- 
garded as presumptive fellows, to be pro- 
moted in accordance with the reeommenda- 
tion of their university instructors. Both 
scholars and fellows might be appointed 
simply as Carnegie fellows and Carnegie 
scholars, and allowed to select the univer- 
sity at which they would conduct their 
studies. 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


Finally, I believe that there is need of 
assistance to existing laboratories for the 
purchase of equipment for new lines of 
research too extensive to be undertaken by 
the university, and also for the establish- 
ment of small typical laboratories in insti- 
tutions that can not afford to provide for 
them. There are few universities that deal 
so bountifully with every department of 
research that further material acquisitions 
are not earnestly desired. Nor is there any 
reason why, as some have intimated, it 
should be considered in any sense an indica- 
tion of incapacity or niggardliness for any 
university to allow its departmental dis- 
tributions to be supplemented by donations 
from the Carnegie fund. The wealthiest 
university has unsatisfied needs, and Mr. 
Carnegie’s generosity has no flavor of 
charity. 

If I may be allowed to plead for the form 
of investigation in which I am just now 
personally interested, I should mention the 
establishment of psycho-educational labora- 
tories as a subject worthy of the considera- 
tion of the administrators of the fund. 
However great were the differences of opin- 
ion which the discussion in 1898 revealed, 
there was a striking unanimity in the 
utterances of Professors Titchener, Royce 
and Miinsterberg, all three of whom inde- 
pendently urged the necessity of a lmking 
science between psychology and education. 
I believe that the plan of establishing 
psycho-educational laboratories in con- 
junction with the psychological and edu- 
cational departments of universities is one 
of the obvious means for the practical exe- 
cution of these plans. If, for instance, sev- 
eral such laboratories could divide between 
them such a question as the methods and 
values of ‘psychometric’ tests upon stu- 
dents, a very important problem could be 
satisfactorily settled. And this is but one 
of a host of problems. 

To summarize, I have advocated (1) 


SCIENCE. 


737 


that, if practically the whole fund is to be 
devoted to a single purpose, the establish- 
ment of a central institution for the trans- 
action of research would best meet the needs 
of science in America (especially by supply- 
ing some inducement and visible reward 
for service which would attract men of 
ability to the profession), (2) that, if the 
fund is to be, for the most part, divided, 
its objects should include (a) the assist- 
ance of publication by the amalgamation of 
journals, the establishment of a Bureau of 
Printing and Engraving, the publication 
of ‘year-books’ and monographie reviews, 
(b) the establishment of fellowships and 
scholarships in existing institutions for 
graduate students, (c) the assistance of ex- 
isting laboratories and the foundation of 
new laboratories in the universities—a need, 
especially felt in the application to educa- 
tional theory of the results of the science on 
which it is in part based. 
Guy Montrose WHIPPLE. 


To THE Eprror oF ScrIENCE: Scientific 
research in the past has been made by men 
who have been workers in college or uni- 
versity laboratories and who have in many 
eases taught at the same time. This is true 
of such research the world over. It does 
not seem to me necessary, in order to pro- 
mote research, to build new laboratories, 
to found a special institution or to spend 
money on a plant. Let present facilities 
which are open to all and are available in 
all parts of this country be utilized. There 
is to-day no lack of laboratory space. If 
there were it would be far better to in- 
erease the size of existing laboratories by 
moderate appropriations than to create a 
new one by a large expenditure. Let us 
have all the money for the direct purpose 
of aiding research. 

Scientific research progresses slowly, 
each step being a short one, making a little 
advance from the previous position. It is 


738 


the man already at work who sees the open- 
ing and makes the step. He is the man to 
be helped. It is a waste of money to em- 
ploy new men untried in work. No 
amount of money will produce scientific 
discovery. But when the man is known 
money may help him. Such men are 
known and are now at work in every labo- 
ratory in the country. Some are the heads 
of the laboratory. These men can employ 
others to do work of a tiresome necessary 
kind to help their own work. Others are 
younger workers with bright ideas which 
may be worked out under the direction of 
the head of the laboratory. I believe that 
every scientist to-day knows of two or more 
men whom he could select to do good work 
and who need help. I know two in my 
department who could do far more than 
they are doing if I could give each $2,500 
a year and thus relieve them of some 
drudgery of teaching. I would not have 
them give up teaching. It is the best 
stimulus to work. Let each head of a 
laboratory or head of a department in our 
universities have permission to present the 
claims of workers known to them, whose 
quality of work is good, and who need 
assistance, to the board of managers of 
the Carnegie fund. Let that board decide 
the relative value and need of the claims 
presented and place the money where it 
will do most good. In this manner re- 
search can be aided directly, without any 
machinery. 

The publication of the results of re- 
search is much hampered in this country 
by the expense of illustration. There are 
plenty of magazines in each department 
ready to publish work, if the cost can be 
met. Let the board of managers have the 
power to make appropriations to individ- 
uals to cover the cost of publication, after 
the particular work in question receives 
the approval of some recognized authority, 
e. g., the head of the laboratory where the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


work is done. No new printing-office is 
needed. Let present facilities, open to all 
and ample, but expensive, be utilized. 

It seems to me a waste of funds to 
put up a building for the use of scientific 
associations. They can hire halls, as 
they have always done, and thus meet, 
as they should, in different localities at 
different times. 

Nor do I think the worthy members of 
such associations need or would accept free 
tickets to such meetings. 

It seems to me, therefore, that the board 
of managers of the Carnegie fund should 
apply the fund to aid men now working in 
science along the regular lines which have 
hitherto been found practicable, and to 
utilize facilities which have been found 
ample in the past. 

M. ALLEN STarr. 


I HAVE not given the organization of the 
Carnegie Institution sufficient thought to 
warrant me in offering advice as to the 
best manner in which the fund ean be used, 
and I do not like to go into the discussion 
of so important a matter with less prepara- 
tion than would have been necessary if the 
directors had asked my help; so I am sure 
you will understand why I do not feel like 
complying with your request for an article 
for Scrmnce. The results of the steps taken 
at the start are likely to be so far-reaching, 
and the possibility of adequate considera- 
tion is so untrammeled, that I hardly think 
that the trustees will commit themselves 
until they are sure that they have formed 
a right opinion—except that they may 
take some isolated step, like the acquisition 
of the Wood’s Hole laboratory, that may 
subsequently embarrass them as a prece- 
dent, without, however, committing them 
if, in their own judgment, it is not in line 
with their final policy when this is erystal- 
lized. 

I have read the proof slips of your 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


article with a good deal of interest, and I 
do not at all question your feeling that the 
discussion of the possibilities of the gift 
while the organization is yet forming can 
hardly result in embarrassment, and ought 
to materially help the trustees. I quite 
agree with you that there ought to be found 
a better plan than the permanent shoulder- 
ing of the burden of a large research estab- 
lishment, and particularly of one devoted 
to one department of science if this is to 
prevent the reaching of a helping hand in 
other directions, as time brings their needs 
to light. And I quite agree with you that 
it would be unfortunate in the long run if 
the fund, which, though large, is not un- 
limited, were to be invested in any project 
which the Government or any of the better 
equipped existing institutions could under- 
take, perhaps with the temporary aid that 
you suggest. To come into the field of any 
of the Government bureaus that have ample 
publication funds would, as you well say, 
result in little if any good, and might ac- 
tually do harm. 
In a nutshell, while I have not given the 
matter enough thought to warrant the pub- 
‘lication of a suggestion even, I have sup- 
posed that the opportunity of the Institu- 
tion lies in the day-to-day and year-to-year 
use of its funds for the furtherance of the 
work of any earnest worker in need of aid 
—whether an individual or an institution. 
This presupposes the conservation of any 
sum not needed at any given time, against 
the day of its real need, with an unusual 
amount of earnest search for the best place 
of using it at any given time—for there 
is no doubt that the most worthy indi- 
viduals and institutions that could use it 
are likely to be least forward in applying 
for aid, either from pride or modesty.* 
Wm. TRELEASE. 


* The above letter was not written for publi- 
cation, and was received before the current dis- 
cussion had been begun, but is printed with the 
consent of the writer. 


SCIENCE. 


739 


Pressure of official duties makes it im- 
possible for me to write at present an 
article on the Carnegie Institution. You 
are, however, at liberty to quote me to 
the effect that it would be inadvisable for 
the institution to erect either a geophysical 
laboratory at Washington or to acquire the 
Marine Laboratory at Wood’s Hole. I 
think that the policy should be followed 
of promoting geophysical researches along 
lines not specifically treated by govern- 
mental institutions. Men of parts and 
ability should be encouraged by grants, 
under such restrictions as to continuance 
from year to year as would produce re- 
sults. Many permanent officials should be 
discouraged; it is difficult to get rid of a 
man when he once holds office, no matter 
if it is evident to every one that his mental 
powers and physical energy are waning. 
I do not believe that there should be any 
large laboratory built by the institution, 
believing that more effective work and bet- 
ter results could be obtained by subsidiz- 
ing laboratories now in existence. In 
short, I hold that the activities of the in- 
stitution should be kept well in hand under 
the control of the central commission, so 
that the rapidly shifting phases of re- 
search may receive timely attention through 
the abandonment of some lines and the 
taking up of others. This would make the 
Carnegie Institution in a way the center 
of the spirit of scientific investigation of 
the United States. 


A. W. GREELY. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


Animal Activities. A First Book in Zoology. 
By Naruanie. S. Frencu, Ph.D. New 
York, Longmans, Green & Co. 1902. Pp. 
xxi + 262, with illustrations. 


Elementary Zoology. By Vernon L. KeEt- 
toca, M.S. New York, Henry Holt & Co. 
1901. Pp. xv -+ 492, with illustrations. 


740 


Nature Study and Life. By Curton F. 
Hopcr, Ph.D. Boston, Ginn & Co. 1902. 
Pp. xv + 514, illustrated. 

The teaching of the sciences in schools is 
justified largely by the unequaled possibilities 
they afford for the development of the powers 
of observation, but in addition to this primary 
quality they are by no means lacking in others 
of great pedagogic importance. Judiciously 
treated, they may serve also in the training of 
the powers of deduction and, furthermore, may 
not 
only by imparting information of the kind 
generally spoken of as ‘useful,’ but also by 
awakening in the mind of the child an intel- 
ligent interest in nature and a desire to dis- 
cover nature’s laws. 

Three elementary text-books of zoology (one 
of them really pertaining to the wider field of 
biology) have recently appeared, and it is pro- 
posed briefly to consider to what extent each is 
possessed of the qualities just mentioned. 
The first of these books is by Dr. Nathaniel 
French and is entitled ‘Animal Activities’ 
(Longmans, Green & Co.). The volume opens 
with introductory chapters devoted to instruc- 
tions for the collection and preservation of 
material for study and to the exposition of 
some general physiological principles, and then 
proceeds to an examination of the structure 
and activities of crickets and grasshoppers, the 
pupil being guided toward the observations 
desired by questions. Then follows an inter- 
rogational guide to other insects, then to 
spiders and then to the crayfish and other 
erustacea, after which the remaining animal 


possess distinct utilitarian advantages 


groups are considered in succession, beginning 
with the protozoa. 

Subjected to the observational test, the book 
gives a decided and, on the whole, a satisfac- 
tory response, although the criticisms may 
justly be made that frequently the guiding 
questions are too leading and that occasionally 
the pupil is tempted toward decidedly inaccu- 
rate observations. But with the deductive and 
utilitarian tests the reactions are disappoint- 
ing, contrary to what might be expected from 
the chosen title. Not that the desired quali- 
ties are entirely lacking, but that they are not 
more equally developed in proportion to the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


training afforded in observation. A competent 
teacher who would supply the deficient quali- 
ties might use the book with advantage, though 
it must be confessed that in the treatment of 
some of the groups it fails to reach the stand- 
ard which should be demanded in a high school 
text, which it is intended to be. It is unfortu- 
nate that the sources from which some familiar 
illustrations are borrowed are not acknowl- 
edged. 

The second book, ‘Elementary Zoology’ 
(Henry Holt & Co.), by Professor Vernon L. 
Kellogg, is of a more thorough character and 
attains much more perfectly the proper high- 
school standard. It starts with directions, to 
a certain extent stated interrogatively, for the 
study of the toad, the crayfish, the amceba and 
paramecium and the hydra, presenting the 
general principles which may be deduced from 
each, and then proceeds to the study of each 
of the great groups of the animal kingdom, 
beginning with the protozoa. One or more 
species of each group are selected for study 
and a clear and interesting account is given of 
other important members of the group. Then 
follow brief but generally excellent chapters 
on natural selection, parasitism, coloration, 
distribution and similar topics, and finally 
there are added chapters, again excellent, on 
the methods for collecting, rearing and pre- 
serving material. 

The book is throughout deserving of praise. 
To the observational test it responds most 
satisfactorily and the author shows an admira- 
ble appreciation of the proper perspective in 
the selection of points to be especially empha- 
sized. It furnishes, perhaps, too many deduc- 
tions ready made, but this failing is to a 
large extent compensated by the suggestive- 
ness of much of the descriptive portion of the 
text and of the chapters treating the more 
general topics. Especial attention is not 
drawn to the directly practical side of zoology, 
although reference is made to many forms of 
economic importance, but the interesting de- 
scriptions of habits and life-histories which 
occur abundantly throughout the book and the 
wealth of striking illustrations can hardly fail 
to arouse in the pupil a deep and lasting inter- 
est in ‘ Nature’s children’ and to stimulate a 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


desire for more intimate acquaintance with 
them. 

The third book, ‘Nature Study and Life’ 
(Ginn & Co.), by Professor C. F. Hodge, be- 
longs to a different class than the other two, 
being intended for the teacher rather than for 
the pupil and for the teacher of younger 
classes. It may be said at once that it is a 
book which will be welcomed not only by such 
teachers, but by all who are called upon to 
find occupation for the busy little fingers and 
active, eager minds of children. It is a guide 
to nature study in its best sense and, as Presi- 
dent Stanley Hall properly points out in an 
introduction, it is entirely free from that 
effeminization which too often detracts from 
the usefulness of nature study books. 

It presents an abundance of just the kind 
of material a child should study, the fullest 
and yet most simple methods for facilitating 
its observation, admirable suggestions for 
arousing the reasoning faculties concerning it, 
a wealth of practical application of the knowl- 
edge acquired, and running through the whole 
there is manifest a love of nature for nature’s 
self which cannot fail to impart itself to both 
teacher and pupil. To describe in detail the 
contents of the volume is out of the question, 
but a citation of the headings of some of the 
chapters will give some idea of its scope: ‘ In- 
sects of the Household,’ ‘ Insects of the Gar- 
den,’ ‘ Beneficial Insects,’ ‘Elementary Bot- 
any,’ ‘ Home and School Gardens,’ ‘ The Propa- 
gation of Plants,’ ‘Our Common Birds,’ ‘ The 
Domestication of Wild Birds,’ ‘ Elementary 
Forestry,’ ‘Aquaria,’ ‘Flowerless Plants.’ 
And all these and other topics are treated so 
clearly and suggestively that he who runs may 
read and have plenty of food for thought when 
he sits down to rest. Indeed the book pos- 
sesses a special charm from the freshness and 
enthusiasm of the author’s style, qualities, 
which, when combined with fascinating photo- 
graphic reproductions, make the reader forget 
that he is reading a book and not listening to 
the author in person discoursing interestingly 
and convincingly from the fullness of his 
knowledge. 

The information which the book imparts 
and the training it aims to give are the infor- 


SCIENCE, 741 


mation and training which educate. For, as 
the author rightly says: “To do our duty by 
our neighbors we need a large body of knowl- 
edge of the common things that surround the 
home,” and the acquisition of a knowledge of 
our duty by our neighbors, using that term in 
the broader Scriptural sense, and an idea of 
how best to fulfill that duty is the aim of edu- 
cation. Would that this book were in the 
hands of every teacher of children and every 
school trustee throughout the land! 


J. P. McM. 
Irrigation Farming. By L. M. Witcox. New 
York, Orange Judd Co. 1902. Pp. 494, pl. 


al, soverst,/ 11S}, 

The first edition of this book appeared in 
1895. Since that date irrigation farming has 
rapidly extended in both arid and humid re- 
gions and many improvements have been made 
in methods, as a result of a better understand- 
ing of the principles involved. The author in 
this revised edition in a measure takes cogni- 
zance of these advances by adding a number 
of new sections and four new chapters, namely, 
seepage and drainage, electricity and irriga- 
tion, irrigation in humid climates, and winter 
irrigation. It is to be regretted, however, that 
the revision has not been more thorough and 


‘ineluded the correction of the numerous in- 


accurate, and in some eases absurd, statements 
regarding certain scientific features of the 
subject, which are left in this edition just as 
they were in the original edition. The follow- 
ing, relating to the acids of the soil, is an 
example: 

In all soils we find two essential acids, known 
scientifically as humic and ulmic. The first is the 
acid in the humus, or vegetable and animal mat- 
ter, in the soil. As animal life is built by vege- 
table matter, it must eventually turn back to 
vegetable matter. Ulmic acids are those that 
exude from the roots of some plants. We should 
remember that nitrogen is the costliest of all plant 
foods and the most difficult to retain in the soil, 
and plants must have it, for it corrects this humie 
acid in the plant as well as in the soil. The 
ulmic acids are seldom in sufficient quantity to do 
harm. But the humie acids when shut off from 
the proportions of nitrogen or potash—both alkalis 
—hbecome too concentrated, or the dead microbes 


742 


become poisonous to plant life, as the great 
French chemist Pasteur would have it. Now 
humic acid has the same effect both in plant life 
and in the soil—for all nature was torn off the 
same bolt. 

While it must not be inferred that the whole 
book is on a par with the extract quoted, there 
is enough of such reckless writing in it, espe- 
cially regarding scientific matters, to render it 
almost worthless from a scientific standpoint 
and to impair seriously its usefulness from a 
W. H. Brat. 


practical point of view. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 


Tue Botanical Gazette for October contains 
the following papers: Dr. E. B. Copeland con- 
eludes his paper on ‘The Rise of the Trans- 
piration Stream.’ It is based upon a series 
of experiments conducted by the writer in the 
Hull Botanical Laboratory. Water moved 
upward in an artificial ‘tree’ of plaster of 
Paris more than forty feet high, but no defi- 
nite conclusions could be obtained. The 
paper, therefore, is rather an historical and 
eritical discussion of the subject. The theo- 
ries which ascribe the rise of water in trees to 

-either the cohesive power of water or the 
activity of living cells are thoroughly invalid. 
There is some sound evidence in support of 
the view that the pressure of the atmosphere 
forces the water upward. The water travels 
a large part of the way in a film between 
bubbles and the wall of the conducting vessels ; 
but the physical properties of such a film are 
unknown. Not the least valuable part of the 
paper is the complete bibliography of the sub- 
ject containing one hundred and seventy-four 
titles. Mr. W. J. G. Land publishes an ac- 
count of the essential morphology of Thuja, 
which throws additional light upon the pecul- 
iar morphology of the Conifere. No ventral 
canal cell is organized, but its nucleus appears 
and is not separated from the egg cell by a 
cell wall. This nucleus remains in the upper 
part of the ege and may divide and give rise 
to several nuclei, the group resembling a pro- 
embryo. These results make Arnoldi’s conclu- 
sions in regard to the absence of ventral canal 
cells in Cupressinee very doubtful. In the 
formation of the proembryo eight free nuclei 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 410. 


are formed before cell walls appear. Miss 
Laetitia M. Snow publishes the results of 
her studies of the ecology of the Delaware 
coast in the region of Rehoboth Beach. This 
paper is designed to fill a gap in our knowl- 
edge of the vegetation of the Atlantic coast, 
connecting the work of Harshberger in New 
Jersey with that of Kearney in Virginia and 
North Carolina. There is general agreement 
with their conclusions, as with the work of 
Cowles on the Lake Michigan dune flora. 
Several characteristic northern species reach 
here their southern limit. The formations 
and character species are the usual ones of 
dune regions. Dr. J. M. Greenman describes 
a new western Camasia from Washington. 

In The American Naturalist for September 
VY. L. Kellogg discusses at some length ‘ The 
Development and Homologies of the Mouth 
Parts of Insects’ and Carlo Emery furnishes 
“An Analytical Key to the Genera of the 
Formicide, for the Identification of the 
Workers.’ C. E. Preston describes some ‘ Pe- 
euliar Stages of Foliage in the Genus Acacia’ 
and ©. ©. Trowbridge considers the subject 
of ‘The Relation of the Wind to Bird Migra- 
tion,’ the author believing that temperature 
is a less important factor than is usually be- 
lieved and that wind is more important. 

The Popular Science Monthly for October 
has as frontispiece a portrait of the late Ru- 
dolf Virchow. The first article, by J. W. 
Toumey, is ‘A Study in Plant Adaptation,’ 
with special reference to the cholla, Opuntia 
fulgida. O. F. Cook discusses ‘The Amer- 
ican Origin of Agriculture,’ adducing evi- 
dence in support of his theory of a westward 
migration from America to the Pacific Islands. 
F. A. Woods continues his study of ‘ Mental 
and Moral Heredity in Royalty’ and John 
Waddell discusses ‘The (Commercial) Com- 
petition of the United States with the United 
Kingdom.’ Arthur E. Bostwick offers a study 
of ‘Scientific Reading in a Public Library’; 
Alja R. Cook deseribes ‘An Ascent of Mt. 
Orizaba’ and David Starr Jordan reviews the 
various theories of the ‘Origin of the Fins 
of Fishes,’ considering that none of them is 
yet definitely proved. Calvin M. Woodward 
has a good discussion of ‘Domestic and Inter- 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


collegiate Athletics’ and the final article is a 
reprint of Virchow’s lecture in 1898 on ‘ Re- 
cent Advances in Science, and their Bearing 
on Medicine and Surgery.’ In the November 
number James R. Angell presents ‘Some Re- 
flections upon the Reaction from COoeduca- 
tion,’ the general tone of the article being 
decidedly favorable to coeducation, and W. D. 
Halliburton states ‘The Present Position of 
Chemical Physiology,’ being one of the Presi- 
dential addresses before the British Associa- 
tion. ‘Scientific Palmistry’ by Harris H. 
Wilder is a plea for the use of impressions 
of the palms and soles for the purposes of 
identification. ‘Towards the North Pole,’ 
reprinted from the London Times shows the 
work that has been done, but impresses one 
with the high latitudes reached by the early 
navigators in their small vessels. Waldon 
Faweett describes ‘The Development of Eco- 
nomical Utilities for Handling Raw Material’ 
and Frederick A. Woods presents the fourth 
of his studies of ‘Mental and Moral Heredity 
in Royalty, while David Starr Jordan tells 
‘How to Collect Fishes,’ an art with which 
he has had long acquaintance. 


Bird Lore for September—October contains 
“The Destructive Effects of a Hailstorm Upon 
Bird Life’ by H. MclI. Morton, ‘A Goldfinch 
Idyl’ by Ella Gilbert Ives, the three best lists 
of birds observed by members of the Massa- 
chusetts Audubon Society and the sixth in- 
stalment of ‘How to name the Birds’ by 
Frank M. Chapman, besides Notes, Reviews 
and reports of the Audubon Societies. From 
this last it appears that there is to be a re- 
vival in the use of birds in millinery and 
that renewed efforts must be made by friends 
of the birds. 


The Museums Journal of Great Britain 
contains a description of the Oceanographic 
Museum of the Prince of Monaco, reviews of 
various museum reports and a large number 
of notes on museums at home and abroad. 
It also contains the first instalment of a 
“Directory of the Museums of Great Britain 
and Ireland,’ which is intended to give a very 
considerable amount of information concern- 
ing each institution. 


SCIENCE. 


743 


In The American Naturalist for October 
Bashford Dean considers the ‘ Historical Evi- 
dence as to the Origin of the Paired Limbs 
of Vertebrates, concluding that this supports 
the view that they are derived from a con- 
tinuous lateral fold. D. H. Campbell gives 
a summary of ‘ Recent Investigations upon the 
Embryo Sae of Angiosperms’ and Leonard 
W. Williams describes ‘The Vascular System 
of the Common Squid, Logo Pealii’ F. 
M. Webster shows the importance of ‘ Winds 
and Storms as Agents in the Diffusion of 
Insects’; D. S. Jordan tells of ‘The Colors 
of Fishes,’ not only the permanent colors, but 
those temporarily assumed, and T. D. A. 
Cockerell gives some notes on ‘Flowers and 
Insects in New Mexico.”? This paper is likely 
to prove a stumbling block to bibliographers 
for it contains descriptions of several new 
species of bees, although there is no hint of 
this either in the title or introduction. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 


Tue 358th meeting of the society was held 
Saturday evening, October 28. 

Mr. W. H. Dall stated that in examining 
some Corbiculas from Uruguay it was found 
in several species that the females contained 


.a large number of young shells of various 


ages; some were developed so far as to show 
traces of the radiating color markings which 
characterize the adult. The palearctie Cor- 
biculas have been abundantly collected and 
described, but no record of their incubation 
of the young in the maternal body appears in 
the manuals or such works on the Corbiculide 
as he had been able to consult. It is probable, 
therefore, that they do not retain the young 
in this manner. If this inference be correct, 
the separation by Fischer, on conchological 
characters, of the South American species un- 
der the name of Neocorbicula would receive 
additional support from the difference indi- 
cated. 

A similar discovery was also announced by 
Mr. Dall in the common boreal shell known 
as Cardita (Venericardia) borealis, Conrad, 


744 


females of which were found crowded with 
young shells in a marsupium similar to that 
of Spherium, not resembling that of Thecalia, 
and other Carditide in the ventral portion of 
the mantle, but in the dorsal region of the 
bedy. Specimens from the Aleutian Islands 
were in this condition about June 1, while in 
the Polar Sea, near Point Barrow, it occurs in 
August. 

Dr. R. E. B. McKenney spoke on ‘ Luminous 
Bacteria.’ He briefly reviewed the work done 
on the luminous bacteria during the past quar- 
ter of a century and recorded some of his own 
observations. In all cases the temperature 
limits for light production are within those 
for growth. As soon as the temperature passes 
beyond limits for normal light production, 
light instantly disappears. Bacillus phos- 
phorescens, Fischer, when grown for a number 
of generations at 35° C., which is 5° above 
the maximum temperature for light produc- 
tion, develops a race which emits light at this 
temperature. Ether to the amount of .1 per 
cent. in the culture media at once destroys 
light emission, but not the life nor growth of 
the bacteria. If the bacteria are grown for a 
number of generations subject to the effect 
‘of .1 per cent. ether in culture, they develop 
a race which gives forth a light fully as bright 
if not more brilliant than normally occurs. 


The nutrition of these bacteria is of excep- _ 


tional interest. It was found that a consider- 
able amount of either a sodiwm salt or a 
magnesium salt was essential to growth and 
to light emission. The amount required for 
light production was greater than that re- 
quired for life. Sodium and magnesium are 
best utilized in the form of their chlorides or 
nitrates. Other salts of these elements can 
be utilized, but not to the same advantage as 
those mentioned. Salts of the other alkali 
and alkaline-earth metals cannot replace sodi- 
um. 

Dr. McKenney’s conclusion was that the 
light production was an intracellular phe- 
nomenon. He held, however, that this did not 
necessarily mean that light production was 
inseparably bound up with life and incapable 
of explanation on a physico-chemical basis. 
The observations of Rodziszewski were cited 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 410. 


as evidence of a possible physico-chemical ex- 
planation. 

Mr. Frederick V. Coville spoke on the 
‘Plants of the Klamath Indians.’ He stated 
that the country inhabited by these Indians 
was situated where the wooded western region 
extended upward and into the plains country 
east of the Sierras, and that favorable sur- 
roundings had made this tribe decidedly su- 
perior to their neighbors. The speaker dwelt 
at some length on the Indian names for the 
plants, stating that the origin of many was 
obscure, as they were not derived from roots 
of other words, but were used only for this 
class of names. Mr. Coville then described 
some of the plants most extensively used and 
stated that the Indians distinguished the 
plants by their properties rather than by bo- 
tanical characters. Thus they recognized the 
differences between two very similar species of 
Cornus, while they had but two names for 
several species of willows. 

F. A. Lucas. 


THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

Tue 555th regular meeting was held Octo- 
ber 11, 1902, President Rathbun in the chair. 

Mr. J. F. Hayford gave a brief account of 
recent gravity experiments at the North 
Tamarack Mine, Michigan, in which he had 
assisted, and spoke of the anomalous plumb- . 
line divergences and the failure of steel balls 
dropped down the 4,600-foot shaft to reach 
the bottom. 

The first regular paper was by Professor F. 
W. Clarke on ‘A New Law in Thermochem- 
istry.’ 

This paper is an extension of one which 
was presented at the Pittsburgh meeting of 
the American Association for. the Advance- 
ment of Science, and of which an abstract 
appeared in Scrence for August 22. The gen- 
eral conclusions are as follows: 

1. The absolute heat of formation of any 
chemical compound is a function of the num- 
ber of atomic linkings or unions in the mole- 
cule. 

2. In the group of substances represented by 
the aliphatic hydrocarbons, their halides, sul- 
phides, amines and ethers, the absolute heat 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902.] 


of formation is directly proportional to the 
number of atomic unions in the molecule. 

3. The absolute heat of formation of any 
organic compound is a multiple, by a whole 
number, of a single constant. The latter is 
identical with the neutralization constant, and 
has a value somewhere between 13,700 and 13,- 
800 calories. 

4. The thermal value of a union between 
two atoms is independent of their masses. 

5. The absolute heats of formation of cor- 
responding chlorides, bromides and iodides are 
equal. 

The last conclusion at once suggests a cor- 
relation between thermochemical data and 
Faraday’s law. From this point of view, the 
latter may become part of a wider generaliza- 
tion whose details are yet to be worked out. 

Mr. J. D. Thompson then explained the 
principles of the ‘ Reclassification of the Sci- 
ence Section at the Library of Congress.’ All 
the books in the library are to be grouped in 
twenty-six classes, lettered A to Z; Q is as- 
signed to science; a second letter gives the 
first subdivision, and then follow numbers, as 
Q A 508; in a second line the familiar Cutter 
author-abbreviations are given. The division 
is to be rather minute since access to the 
shelves will be liberally granted to students. 
It is expected that ultimately the library will 
have a ecard catalogue of all the other Wash- 
ington libraries. 


C. K. Weap, 


Secretary. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


GUESSES ON THE RELATIVE WEIGHTS OF BILLS AND 
” COINS. 


Iv Science for April 25 an account was given 
by Mr. J. Franklin Messenger of certain re- 
sults obtained in reply to the question, ‘ How 
many one-dollar bills will equal in weight a 
five-dollar gold piece?’ The answers revealed 
a quite startling notion either of the heaviness 
of the coin or of the lightness of the bill, the 
average guess being 2,291 for 97 students of 
Columbia University and 2,749 for a class of 
students in the University of Kansas. The 
correct answer should have been about 7. The 


SCIENCE. 745 


writer of the article used only those results 
that were obtained from male students, some- 
what disparagingly remarking that he had 
omitted the replies of the women because of 
their great variation. Since the feminine 
power to make reliable, or at least utilizable, 
estimates of this nature was thus called in 
question, I determined to put the same query 
to a class of 175 students in Smith College. 
The results were by comparison so gratifying 
that it may be of interest to state them. 

A few had heard of the question before and 
were more or less sure of the correct answer. 
Their replies were, of course, excluded, leaving 
162 replies for consideration. The average 
estimate was 108, as compared with the above 
given figures, 2,291 and 2,749. But, as Mr. 
Messenger rightly says, it is not so much the 
average as the median that is here significant. 
This was found to be 25, as compared with 45 
for the Columbia students and 99 for the stu- 
dents of the University of Kansas. 

Since a five-dollar gold piece is a relatively 
unknown quantity to those of us who live in 
this part of the country, a further question 
was asked as to the number of one-dollar bills 
requisite to equal in weight a fifty-cent piece. 
The average of 162 replies was 161.7, the me- 
dian 50. The correct number is between 9 
and 10. Familiarity with the coin seems not 
to have added materially to the correctness 
of the estimate. 

I am not at all sure that such investigations 
as this disclose any profound psychological 
laws, but the results here given may serve to 
correct the error that women are less capable 
than men to make estimates of this sort. 

A. H. Pierce. 

SMITH COLLEGE. 


A POINT IN NOMENCLATURE. 

More than once lately, lacking time to ex- 
plain my views on zoological nomenclature in 
detail, I have stated to correspondents that 
they agreed with those of Dr. D. S. Jordan, 
supposing the latter to be well known. I am, 
therefore, somewhat distressed to find Dr. 
Jordan and Mr. Fowler (Proc. U. 8S. Natl. 
Mus., XXV., pp. 266-268) adopting a course 
in nomenclature which seems to me inadvis- 


746 


able. As the case is similar to others which 
have to be decided one way or the other, it is 
worth while to discuss it briefly. 

Schlegel in 1846 described a fish from Japan 
as Monacanthus oblongus. It turned out, how- 
ever, that his description really covered two 
entirely different fishes. The description of 
the adult related to a Pseudomonacanthus, 
that of the supposed young, and also the figure, 
to a Stephanolepis. Now, I should say that 
in such a case the description purporting to 
relate to the adult fish should go with the 
name, although as a matter of fact the alleged 
young may also have been adult. This would 
be because (1) the author’s conception of the 
species would surely be primarily based on the 
adult, and (2) the description of the adult 
presumably would in all such cases have pri- 
ority of place over that of the supposed young 
or of the plate figuring the latter. 

Supposing, however, that these contentions 
are not held valid, I would then say that the 
first name given to one of the two species 
should hold, the residue (2. e., the other species) 
carrying the original name. Now it happens 
that the first new name given was Monacan- 
thus Broeki, Bleeker, 1857.* This name per- 
tains to Schlegel’s supposed young, so on both 
counts the name given by Schlegel belongs to 
the fish described as adult. Nevertheless, Dr. 
Jordan and Mr. Fowler, following Dr. Giin- 
ther, give the Schlegelian name to the fish de- 
scribed as the young, and call the other by 
Giinther’s name, modestus, proposed as late as 
1877. According to my view, the fishes should 
be: 

1. Stephanolepis 
Broeki, Bleeker. 

2. Pseudomonacanthus oblongus = Mona- 
canthus oblongus, Schlegel (part) ;=M. mo- 
destus, Giinther. 

It is also to be remarked that the name 
oblongus is more suggestive of the latter than 
of the former fish, judging from the figures. 

T. D. A. CocKERELL. 


Broekt = Monacanthus 


East Las VEGAS, 
New MExico. 
* According to Jordan and Fowler, M. frenatus, 
Peters, 1855, is possibly applicable; if so, it is 
an earlier name for the same fish. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 410. 


COMPARATIVE STRENGTH OF ANIMALS. 


To tHe Eprror or Science: In the letter 
entitled ‘The Strength of Ants,’ in your issue 
of September 26, it was observed that an ant 
weighed 3.2 mg. and a grasshopper which it 
was dragging weighed 190 mg. If one desires 
to magnify the ant and calculate the corre- 
sponding strength which might be expected, it 
appears that if the animal be doubled in 
lineal dimensions its weight will be multiplied 
by the cube of two or 8; while its strength, 
which is doubtless determined by the cross- 
section of its muscles, will be multiplied by 
the square of two or 4. Now suppose that 
this small animal is multiplied in size 300 
times in length and correspondingly in 
breadth and height, so that its weight will 
approximaté to 3.2 mg. multiplied by 300 
cubed = 86.4 kg. Whereas if its strength is 
represented by a weight of 190 mg., this multi- 
plied by 300 squared =17.4 kg. These figures 
will correspond to a man weighing 190 pounds 
dragging 38.5 pounds, a proportional strength 
with which we are very familiar. 


F. P. DunnineTon. 
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 
October 20, 1902. 


A BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF THE MEN OF SCIENCE 
OF THE UNITED STATES. 


Ar the request of the executive committee 
of the Carnegie Institution I am compiling a 
biographical index of the men of science of the 
United States. It is intended in the first 
instance for the use of the institution, but it 
will probably also be published. The index 
should include all those who have carried on 
research in science, the term, however, being 
used in its narrower sense so as not to include 
on the one hand philology, history, economics, 
ete., nor on the other hand medicine, engineer- 
ing, education, ete., except in so far as these 
applied sciences may contribute to pure 
science. 

During the summer I sent to a large list 
of names (some 8000) a blank with the re- 
quest that it be filled in and returned. The 
blank asked more especially for information 
in regard to the scientific career and work of 
those to whom it was addressed. The re- 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902.] 


sponse has been very gratifying, but as the 
circular was sent with a one cent stamp, it 
did not reach immediately some of those absent 
from home during the summer holidays. I 
shall be glad if those who have received this 
blank will fill it in and return it to me. It 
will be necessary to send a second request by 
letter postage to those who have not replied; 
but time and money will be saved if those who 
see this note will be so kind as‘to fill in and 
return the blank in case they have not already 
done so. 

The list of those to whom the blank was 
sent was compiled with care, and includes the 
members of the scientific societies of the 
United States requiring research as a qualifi- 
cation (some fifty), the scientific staffs of the 
leading institutions of learning (some seventy), 
the scientific men included in ‘Who’s Who 
in America’ and others whose names were 
accessible. There are, however, many con- 
nected with smaller institutions and in 
private life, not members of scientific so- 
cieties, who have published research work of 
value, and I shall be glad to have assistance in 
securing their names and addresses. I shall 
be under obligations to any readers of this 
journal who have carried on research in the 
sciences, but who have not received the blank, 
if they will send me their names; and I shall 
be glad to receive the names and addresses of 
any who have carried on research, but whose 
names would not be discovered from the lists 
of societies, larger institutions of learning 
and existing biographical dictionaries. 

J. McKeen Carre... 

Garrison-on-Hupson, N. Y. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
THE PARASITISM OF CEPHALOTHECIUM ROSEUM. 


In discussions of the numerous fungi that 
are known to cause the rotting of apples and 
other fruits Cephalothecium roseum, Corda, has 
had but brief mention. It is generally regarded 
as a saprophyte, and Clinton* reports it as 
such on badly rotted apples. However, Ader- 


* Clinton, G. P., ‘Apple Rots in Illinois,’ Il. 
Agr. Exp. Station Bul. 69: 193. F. 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


747 


hold* observed a case in which it caused a 
rotting of pears by growing through F'usi- 
cladium pirinum spots. But it has never been 
classed as a rot fungus of any economic im- 
portance. 

In New York State during the past season 
it has proved to be a true parasite and the 
cause of an apple rot of great economic im- 
portance. In some sections of the State thou- 
sands of barrels of apples have been ruined by 
it. Apple scab, Pusicladium dendriticum, has 
been unusually common this year. In Sep- 
tember and October it was noticed that on 
many of the scab spots there appeared a white 
or pinkish growth which transformed them 
into brown, sunken, bitter, rotten spots. 
Upon investigation it was found that this 
white growth was Cephalothecitum roseum, 
Cda., and inoculations made upon many dif- 
ferent varieties of apples and pears under anti- 


-septic conditions, with pure cultures, have 


proved that it is parasitic, and the cause of 
the rot. In every inoculation the characteris- 
tic rot developed while the same number of 
check fruits remained sound. 

The common occurrence of this fungus upon 
the Fusicladiwm spots while it is wholly absent 
from other portions of the fruit is due to the 
fact that Fusicladium ruptures the epidermis 
and thus furnishes a means of entrance for 
the Cephalothecium, which could not other- 
wise attack the fruit, since it appears to be 
incapable of penetrating the unbroken epider- 
mis. 

It is often found on apples while still on 
the trees; but after they have been harvested 
and left in piles on the ground or barreled 
and allowed to remain where the sweating 
process can take place, it has become so 
abundant on certain varieties as to ruin the 
fruit for storage. 

Further investigations are in progress; and 
when completed they will be published: in a 


* Aderhold, Rud., ‘Arbeiten der botanischen 
Abteilung der Versuchsstation des Kgl. pomo- 
logischen Instituts zu Proskau,’ Centralbl. f. Bakt. 
Parasitenk. wu. Infektionskr., II. Abt., 5: 522. 


1899. 


748 


bulletin of the New York Agricultural Ex- 
periment Station. H. J. Eustace. 
GENEVA, N. Y., 
October 24, 1902. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 
THE MISSISSIPPI IN SOUTHEASTERN MISSOURI. 


THERE is a narrow belt of lowland in south- 
eastern Missouri that is separated from the 
broad lowland flood plain of the Mississippi 
by a low upland known as Crowley ridge. 
Marbut gives an interesting explanation of 
these features (‘The Evolution of the North- 
ern Part of the Lowlands of Southeastern 
Missouri,’ Univ. of Missouri Studies, I., 1902, 
No. 3, vili+ 63 p., 5 pl, 2 maps). The two 
lowlands have been eroded by the Mississippi 
and the Ohio rivers, whose confluence origin- 
ally lay south of Crowley ridge. <A series of 
changes, well worked out by the author, re- 
sulted in two successive captures of the Missis- 


sippi, whose flood plain was at a higher level, 


by the Ohio, whose flood plain was at a lower 
level. The first capture was at the head of 
Crowley ridge; and here the river ran long 
enough to open a flood plain thirty miles wide. 
The second capture was fifteen miles farther 
northeast, at the head of a smaller upland 
called Benton ridge, where the new twenty- 
mile course of the great river has been so 
lately assumed that it is still a narrow gorge 
without bordering flood plain. Crowley and 
Benton ridges are, therefore, in a certain 
sense examples of that peculiar class of hills 
which results from the isolation of the term- 
inal part of a ridge between two rivers when 
a new point of confluence is developed, up- 
stream from the former point; the notable 
feature of this case being the unusual length 
of the first (Crowley) isolated portion of the 
ridge. This origin of the ridge had been sug- 
gested in general terms by earlier writers; but 
to Marbut belongs the credit of demonstrating 
the changes involved and of explaining closely 
the processes by which they were brought 
about. 
LAKES IN THE GLARNER ALPS. 

Tue origin of the small lakes in the higher 
valleys of the Glarner Alps, southeast of 
Zurich, is discussed in a doctorate thesis of the 


SCIENCE. ; 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


University of Basel by 8. Blumer (‘ Zur Ent- 
stehung der Glarnerischen Alpenseen,’ Hclog. 
geol. helvet., VIL., 1902, 208-244, 4 pl.). He 
concludes that the lake basins are all closely 
associated with the former glaciation of their 
valleys. Most of the basins are described as 
relatively insignificant depressions due to 
glacial erosion in an old valley floor; but some 
of them are enclosed, in part at least, by tor- 
rential fans,.and others are associated with 
underground discharge in limestones. 

This essay shares with many others a plan 
of treatment that seems, in view of recent 
studies of glacial erosion, to give a too limited 
consideration to the problem in hand. It is 
tacitly implied that the rock barriers next 
below the basins have not suffered any signifi- 
cant amount of erosion; and hence that prac- 
tically the whole measure of glacial erosion is 
seen in the depth of the basins above the 
barriers. Many recent studies indicate, on the 
other hand, that both basins and barriers in 
glaciated valley floors have suffered severe 
erosion, and that the excess of erosion in the 
basin over that on the barrier is a relatively 
small fraction of the total erosion by which 
the valley trough—the glacial channel—as a 
whole was deepened. The origin of lake basins 
in glaciated districts therefore calls for a gen- 
eral study of the entire valley in whose floor. 
the lake occupies only a ‘relatively insignifi- 
cant depression’; just as the origin of a pool 
in a dry river bed involves the explanation of 
the whole river channel, and not merely of the 
pool alone. It may also be noted that the tor- 
rential fans by which so many of the Swiss 
valleys are obstructed, in some cases to the 
point of barring lakes, are best explained as 
indirect consequences of glacial erosion; the 
stream in the over-deepened main valley being 
unable to sweep away the abundant detritus 
washed in by the over-steepened side streams 
that leap down from their hanging valleys. In 
a word, the study of Alpine lakes demands a 
more general treatment than it is given in 
Blumer’s essay. 


THE LAKES OF WALES. 


Tuer deficiency just pointed out is largely 
remedied in ‘A Bathymetrical and Geological 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


Study of the Lakes of Snowdonia and Eastern 
Oarnarvonshire’ by T. J. Jehu (Trans. Roy. 
Soc. Edinb., XL., pt. 2, 1902, 419-467, 8 pl.). 
Twenty-six pages are given to an account of 
the lake basins, illustrated by contoured maps 
and true-seale sections. The lakes are of two 
kinds: the larger ones lying in the main val- 
leys, the smaller occupying cirques (ewms). 
After discussing the origin of the lakes, it is 
concluded that they are relatively subordinate 
results of the glacial erosion by which the 
valleys of the Welsh mountains have been 
strongly scoured. As seems to be generally 
the case in such regions, the main valleys are 
preglacial, but now ‘the more important val- 
leys are at places over-deepened as compared 
with the lateral valleys and * * * have a 
trough-like form with flat bottom and steep 
eliff-like walls.’ 
eade into the main valleys. Cirques, with or 
without lakes, occur at the valley heads. “If 
the glaciers have thus * * * eroded the chan- 
nels along which they flowed, the excavation 
of rock basins below the general level of the 
valley floor * * * need no longer excite sur- 
prise or be looked upon as anything more than 
subordinate incidents in the general history of 
ice erosion.” 

It is suggested that ‘the lakes occupy in 
their respective valleys just those positions in 
which the glaciers might be expected to have 
carried on most actively the work of erosion,’ 
and these positions are said to be next above 
narrows, presumably due to harder rocks, 
where the glacier would be retarded in its 
flow; but this last point seems open to ques- 
tion. The erosion of a lake basin in a valley 
floor just above a hard-rock narrows would not 
be inconsistent with a maximum erosion fur- 
ther up the valley where the glacier was 
thicker, for erosion might depend on the maxi- 
mum pressure of the ice, rather than on its 
retardation. The height of hanging lateral 
valleys should be considered along with the 
depth of lake basins in determining the places 
of greatest glacial erosion in main valleys. 


Tributary streams often cas- 


W. M. Davis. 


SCIENCE. 


749 


RECENT ZOOPALEONTOLOGY. 
TRIASSIC ICHTHYOSAURS FROM CALIFORNIA AND 
NEVADA. 

IcHTHYOSAURS are so rare in America and 
Triassic ichthyosaurs are so rare everywhere, 
that these discoveries in Nevada and in Shas- 
ta County, California, are particularly wel- 
come. Professor John C. Merriam* describes 
very fully the Shastasawrus of the Upper Trias- 
sie of California from considerable portions of 
seven individuals, together with many isolated 
bones and teeth representing nearly the whole 
of the skeleton, but lacking the very important 
distal portions of the paddles. These remains 
are placed in six species. From the Middle 
Triassic of Nevada, the Oymbospondylus of 
Leidy, including three species, is more fully 
defined and characterized. 


RELATION OF THE OSTRACODERM AND ARTHRODIRAN 
FISHES. 


Dr. Orro JAEKEL contributes a new discus- 
siont of this group decidedly at variance with 
the views of Smith Woodward and Dean. He 
unites the Arthrodira and Ostracodermata, 
which have been separated by Cope, Smith, 
Woodward and Dean, into the single order of 
Placoderms. Among the Ostracoderms he be- } 
lieves that the Pteraspids have retained a 
larval character, whereas the Asterolepids have 
become somewhat more specialized. The Coe- 
costeid arthrodires including Coccosteus, Din- 
ichthys and T itanichthys, have attained a 
higher organization, and, owing to their freer 
motions, have a completely segmented skeleton 
provided with limbs, which enables us to com- 
pare them with other vertebrates. He gives 
a partial restoration of Coccosteus, the chief 
feature of which is the prominent pelvie gir- 
dle, the existence of which has been questioned 
by Dean. The Coccosteids exhibit parallels 
with the ancient types of sharks and crossop- 


* Triassic Ichthyopterygia from California 
and Nevada,’ University of California Publica- 
tions, Bulletin of the Department of Geology, 
Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 63-108, pls. 5-18. 

+‘ Coccosteus und die Beurtheilung der Placo- 
dermen,’ Gesells. naturf. Freunde zu Berlin, 20 
Mai, 1902. 


750 


terygians, with the Chimeroid fishes, and even 
with the tetrapod Stegocephalia. He con- 
eludes that the Placoderms in this larger sense 
are true fishes, and that among them the Coc- 
costeids occupy an ancestral position, on the 
one hand to the ancient Ganoids and to the 
Chimeroids; on the other hand, they show 
relationships to the Stegocephalia and Am- 
phibia. 

These views differ very widely from those 
recently presented afresh by Patten in the 
American Naturalist, who regards the Ostra- 
coderms, especially as seen in the Tremataspis 
form, as intermediate between crustacea some- 
what of Limulus type and vertebrates. 


ORIGIN OF THE TURTLES. 


StTiLt more important is Dr. Jaekel’s de- 
scription of a new Placodont* from the Upper 
Triassic, which he names Placochelys placo- 
donta, owing to the fact that he believes it 
constitutes a toothed ancestor or collateral of 
the turtles. Since Placodus and the related 
form of Cyamodus have hitherto been placed 
by Zittel and others near the Anomodont rep- 
tiles, the discovery of an animal which unites 
the skull of the Placodus type with the armor- 
ed skeleton of the Chelonian type is most 
interesting. Dollo had already predicted the 
existence of toothed turtles, and the present 
reviewer was strongly of the opinion that Placo- 
dus belonged much nearer the turtles than the 
Anomodonts. This new animal, Placochelys, 
suggests to the author the ancient Rhyncho- 
cephalian Hyperoadapedon. The structure of 
the skull and other parts of the skeleton is not 
at all like that of the Anomodonts; on the other 
hand, it is more similar to that of primitive 
Plesiosaurs such as Nothosawrus and Pisto- 
saurus. This would confirm Baur’s opinion 
of the strong original relations between Ple- 
siosaurs and Chelonia. The carpus, as well as 
the skull structure and spread of the ribs, 
points to resemblances especially to Chelonia 
of the order Pleurodira. 


**Ueber Placochelys n. g. und ihre Bedeutung 
fiir die Stammesgeschichte der Schildkréten,’ 
Sep.-Abd. a. d. Neuen Jahrb. f. Min., Geol. wu. 
Pal., 1902, Bd. I. 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


ABANDONMENT OF THE OLIGOCENE AND MIOCENE 
LAKE BASIN THEORY. 

Harcuer’s recent discussion* of the origin 
of the Oligocene and Miocene deposits of the 
great plains, following the argument strongly 
presented by Dr. W. D. Matthew in his memoir 
“Fossil Mammals of Northeastern Colorado,’ 
appears to give the death blow to the lake 
basin theory of most of the great deposits east 
of the Rocky Mountains. The earlier writers, 
including David Dale Owen, King, Hayden, 
Leidy, Cope, Marsh and others, were always 
accustomed to speak of these deposits as lacus- 
trine, and they are at present, or were until 
very recently, so considered by many authori- 
ties, such as Todd, Scott, Dalton. While the 
Lower Oligocene or White River series are 
largely composed of river and flood-plain de- 
posits, Mr. Hatcher shows the absence of any 
evidence of the existence of a great lake. He 
adds to the observations of Matthew numerous 
geological and faunal observations of his own, 
such as the occurrence of shallow water forms 
of plants and animals, characteristic of small 
springs, shallow ponds and brooks, remains of 
forests, and the absence of remains of croco- 
diles, turtles and fresh-water fishes. He con- 
cludes: “ The above facts, together with those 
brought forward by Dr. Matthew, have driven 
me, contrary to my earlier opinion, to reject 
the theory of a great lake and accept that of 
small lakes, flood-plains, river channels and 
higher grass-covered pampas as the conditions 
prevailing over this region in Oligocene and 
Miocene times.” 


STUDIES OF EOCENE MAMMALIA IN THE MARSH 
COLLECTION, PEABODY MUSEUM. 

Tue first part of these very interesting and 
important studies by Dr. J. L. Wortmant+ have 
now been published in collected form, making 
a bulletin of 144 pages, abundantly illustrated 
with pen drawings, including the description 


** Origin of the Oligocene and Miocene De- 
posits of the Great Plains.’ Proc. Am. Phil. Soe., 
xli., Apr., 1902, p. 113. 

7 ‘Studies of Eocene Mammalia in the Marsh 
Collection, Peabody Museum, Part I., Carnivora,’ 
Amer. Jour. of Science, Vols. XI—XIV., 1901— 
1902. 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


of a large number of new species as well as 
full and accurate definitions of the species 
proposed by Professor Marsh, and setting forth 
a number of original views regarding the 
relationship of these animals. As regards 
the larger relationships of the earliest Ameri- 
ean Carnivora or Creodonts, Wortman believes 
that they sprang from Metatheria or primitive 
Marsupials in Huxley’s sense, rather than that 
the Marsupials and primitive Placentals 
sprang alike from a common marsupio-placen- 
tal stock, as defined by Osborn. Among the 
Mesonychidez especially are found numerous 
illustrations of the Marsupial relationship, 
such as evidence of the extreme helplessness 
of the young at the time of birth. The dogs 
are clearly carried back into the Kocene, and 
it is shown that they split up into several 
series, one type leading to the Amphicyon 
series of Europe and America. A new genus 
Oodectes, is proposed; and the position is 
taken that the descent of the modern Viver- 
rines is probably traceable to these Eocene 
types. Similarly the Felide, or cats, are 
provisionally traced back to Hlurotheriwm. 
The author rejects the homologies of the 
dental cusps established by Osborn on Cope’s 
tritubercular theory, concluding as follows: 
“The manner of origin of these cusps having 
been incorrectly determined, it follows that 
the homologies are wrong, and the names ap- 
plied inappropriate and misleading.’ Even if 
this statement were supported by subsequent 
discovery, it would not justify the further 
conclusion of the author that the names of the 
cusps ‘should, therefore, be abandoned, since 
they can be productive only of confusion and 
error in any attempt at further progress in 
the subjects’ (p. 98). Similarly the author 
rejects Osborn’s views regarding the value of 
the articular facets in determining the posi- 
tion of the feet in the early clawed animals, 
concluding that the ‘planes of the articular 
facets, as applied to the feet of the Carnivora, 
have little or no value in determining whether 
a given animal is plantigrade or digitigrade.’ 
Altogether this paper is of exceptional value, 
and the authorities of the Yale Museum are 
to be congratulated upon its publication. It 
does full justice to the early observations of 


SCIENCE. 


751 


Professor Marsh, which for lack of time were 
never amplified. Attention may again be di- 
rected to the extreme importance of inserting 
museum catalogue numbers of the fossils in 
connection with all figures and descriptions, 
especially because this purports to be a more 
or less final revision of the material. 


A NEW PLEISTOCENE RHINOCEROS RELATED TO THE 
SUMATRAN FORM. 

Dr. Franz Touna, of Vienna, gives a very 
full description* of a new species of rhinoc- 
eros (R. hundsheimensis) found in Austria 
in 1900, and very closely related to the Suma- 
tran rhinoceroses. Unfortunately the diagnos- 
tic anterior portion of the nasal bones is 
wanting. An especially valuable feature of 
the memoir is a comparison of a very large 
series of skulls of the Sumatran rhinoceros, 
showing the extreme variability in the shape 
of the anterior horn and in the development 
of its bony supports; also the variations of the 
occiput, and of the teeth. The author con- 
cludes that this species undoubtedly belongs in 
the series (subfamily Ceratorhine Osborn) 
including R. etruscus, R. megarhinus and R. 
schleiermacheri. These rhinoceroses are char- 
acterized by long skulls, somewhat elongate 
limbs, and a pair of widely separated horns 
on the nasals and frontals. This is further 
confirmation of the polyphyletic character of 
the Perissodactyles in general. 


RELATIONS OF OKAPIA. 


Dr. FE. Ray Lanxesrer has recently com- 
pleted his memoirt on Okapia, giving the his- 
tory of the discovery, an account of the 
region it occupies, a complete description of 
the skull and jaws and of the characters pre- 
sented by the skin and notes on the nature 
and origin of horns in the Pecora. Thea 
memoir is illustrated by three beautiful 
plates. He concludes that the genus may 
be characterized as a member of the Giraffide, 


* Das Nashorn von Hundsheim,’ Abd. d. K. K. 
Geol. Reichs, Bd. XIX., Heft 1, Vienna, April, 
1902. 

+*On Okapia, a new Genus of Giraffide, from 
Central Africa,’ Trans. Zool. Soc. of London, Vol. 
XVI., Pt. VI., August, 1902. 


a2, 


but contrasted with (a) Giraffa, by its pair of 
supraorbital or frontal horn-bosses, which in 
Girajffa are parietal instead of frontal, and 
with (b) Helladotherium, in which there are 
no paired horn-bosses. It is closely related to 
Samotherium, especially in the presence of 
these suprafrontal ossicusps (conical bony 
horns). Dr. Forsyth Major, of the British 
Museum, is making an examination of these 
rudimentary or possibly vestigial horns in 
regard to their bearing on the whole question 
of the origin of horns. Jake 184); 


FIELD WORK IN VERTEBRATE PALEON- 
TOLOGY AT THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM 
FOR 1902. 

TuroucH the continued generosity of Mr. 
Carnegie, the founder of this institution, the 
Department of Vertebrate Paleontology has 
been enabled to continue the work of explora- 
tion in the fossil fields of the West, which was 
undertaken some three years ago and the 
prosecution of which has been attended 
throughout with almost phenomenal success. 

Early in the season the present writer, under 
whose direction the work has been carried on, 
planned and organized four parties for ex- 
ploration. One of these, under Mr. O. A. 
Peterson, was sent first into the White River 
Tertiaries of Sioux County, ‘Neb., and later 
into the adjacent Laramie deposits of Con- 
verse County, Wy. In the White River beds 
the party under Mr. Peterson secured, among 
other material, five Titanothere skulls, a con- 
siderable portion of the skeleton of Elothe- 
rium, and material which it is thought -will 
be sufficient ‘to mount the skeletons of 
Hyracodon and Hoplophoneus. In the Lara- 
mie portions of the skulls and skeletons of 
both Triceratops and Dryptosaurus 
secured. 

Mr. C. W. Gilmore was returned to south- 
ern Wyoming to continue the work com- 
menced in that region in the season of 1899 
by Dr. J. L. Wortman, and since carried on 
with such splendid results by Mr. O. A. Peter- 
son in 1900 and Mr. Gilmore in 1901. The 
bone quarries on Sheep Creek were worked 
until about the middle of the season, when 
they were abandoned and a new quarry opened 


were 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 410. 


up in the Freeze Out Mountains. From this, 
valuable collections, especially of the remains 
of Morosaurus and some of the carnivorous 
forms of Jurassic Dinosaurs, were recovered. 

Mr. W. H. Utterback was sent to explore 
the Mesozoic deposits about the slopes of the 
Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. He was 
successful in discovering, in the Jurassic de- 
posits on Powder River, the skeleton of a 
Sauropod dinosaur in which the bones are in 
an excellent state of preservation and which, 
moreover, gives promise of being the most 
perfect skeleton of any member of the Sauro- 
poda yet discovered. 

Mr. Earl Douglass undertook an exploration 
of the various Tertiary horizons and localities 
recently discovered by him in Montana and 
reports most gratifying results, having secured 
more than fifty skulls of Tertiary mammals, 
many of them associated with considerable 
portions of the skeleton. Mr. Douglass was 
also fortunate in discovering in one locality, 
in beds belonging to the White River forma- 
tion, a horizon where fossil fishes were both 
abundant and well preserved. 

J. B. Hatcuer, 

Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, Car- 
negie Museum. 


INAUGURATION OF CHANCELLOR FRANK 
STRONG AT THE UNIVERSITY OF 
KANSAS. 

For the Inauguration Exercises of the new 
Chancellor at the University of Kansas, three 
days, October 16, 17 and 18, were set apart. 
This was a notable event in the history of edu- 
cation in the middle west. On Thursday, 
October 16, occurred the dedication of the 
chemistry building, recently completed. The 
dedicatory exercises were under the auspices 
of the Kansas City Section of the American 
Chemical Society. The following papers were 
read and discussed: ‘The New Reaction of the 
Formamidines,’ by Professor F. B. Dains of 
Washburn College, and ‘Ionic Velocities in 
Liquid Ammonia,’ by Professor E. C. Frank- 
lin, of the University. In the evening a 
large audience assembled to listen to the 
formal dedicatory address by Dr. Harvey W: 
Wiley, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, De- 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902.] 


partment of Agriculture, his subject being 
“The Role of Chemistry in University Educa- 
tion.’ 

On Friday the inauguration exercises proper 
took place in the hall of the Natural History 
Museum which is-nearly completed. There 
were distinguished visitors, faculty, students 
and alumni, to the number of over 1500 in the 
procession. The inauguration exercises con- 
sisted of an address on behalf of the state by 
Gov. Wm. E. Stanley; an address which was 
largely reminiscent by Ex-Chancellor F. H. 
Snow; an address on ‘The Purposes of the 


American University,’ by President Arthur T. ° 


Hadley, of Yale University. Hon. Scott Hop- 
kins, a member of the Board of Regents, for- 
mally handed over the University to the new 
Chancellor, Dr. Frank Strong, who made the 
Inaugural Address on ‘The Relation of Edu- 
cational Development to the Problems before 
the University of Kansas.’ He was followed 
by Professor W. H. Carruth on behalf of the 
Faculty of the University; Chas. L. Faust, 
of the Law School, on behalf of the students; 
A. C. Scott, President of the Oklahoma Agri- 
eultural and Mechanical College, for the 
alumni; L. D. Whittemore, of the Topeka 
High School, for the Kansas High Schools; 
Dr. L. H. Murlin, of Baker University, for the 
Colleges of Kansas. An audience of nearly 
3000, was present at these exercises. In the 
evening, the same auditorium, which had been 
elaborately decorated by different classes and 
organizations of the university and brilliantly 
lighted with electric lights, was used for the 
inauguration luncheon, for which over 1100 
covers were provided. With Chancellor Strong 
in the capacity of toast-master, the audience 
listened to short after-dinner speeches, by 
Dean L. B. Briggs, of Harvard University; 
President Benj. I. Wheeler, of the University 
of California; President W. F. Slocum, of 
Colorado College; President R. H. Jesse, of the 
University of Missouri; Hon. W. Y. Morgan, 
State Printer of Kansas; Professor C. E. 
Turner, representing the University of Wis- 
consin; Dean A. F. Burton, representing the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 
Hon. Gardner Lathrop, of Kansas City; Rey. 
W. J. Dalton, of Kansas City; Professor 


SCIENCE. 


193 


Albion W. Small, representing the University 
of Chicago; Professor Chas. DeGarmo, repre- 
senting Cornell University; Dr. C. E. Bessey, 
of the University of Nebraska; Dean David 
Kkinley, of the University of Illinois; President 
P. B. Nichols, of Colorado Agricultural Col- 
lege; Chancellor W. S. Chaplin, representing 
Washington University, St. Louis; Professor 
Hi. W. Richmond, of Wm. Jewell College, Mis- 
sourl; Hon. Frank Nelson, State Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction; President D. R. 
Boyd, University of Oklahoma; President 
Nichols, of the University of Colorado; Pro- 
fessor J. N. Wilkinson, of Kansas State Nor- 
mal School; Professors F. W. Blackmar, E. 
Haworth and A. M. Wilcox, of the University 
of Kansas; Ewing Herbert, of Hiawatha; and 
Dr. Harvey W. Wiley of Washington, D. C. 

Saturday was devoted to athletic sports, con- 
sisting of tennis tournaments by representa- 
tives of Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas Uni- 
versities, a golf tournament on the Oread 
Links; a hare-and-hounds run by the students 
of Haskell Institute and the University; and 
finally a foot-ball game on McCook Field. The 
exercises of this installation mark an epoch 
in the history of this University, which began 
its work in 1866 with one building, and now 
has ten. It also has a faculty of 80 members, 
and more than 1200 students in attendance, 
and instruction is given in the Schools of Arts, 
Engineering, Law, Fine Arts, Pharmacy, 
Medicine and in the Graduate School. 

E. H. S. Bainey. 


THE AUSTRALASIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE 
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 

THE next meeting of the Association will 
be held in Dunedin, New Zealand, in January, 
1904. Dr. L. O. Howard, permanent secre- 
tary of the American Association, has received 
a letter from Mr. George M. Thomson, hon- 
orary secretary of the Australasian Associa- 
tion, which reads as follows: 

The next meeting of the Australasian Associa- 
tion is to be held in Dunedin in January, 1904, 
and on behalf of the Local Council I have much 
pleasure in extending to members of your Asso- 
ciation who may be able to afford the time neces- 
sary for such a trip a cordial invitation to attend 


754 


it. With the cooperation of the Government of 
the Colony it is hoped that special facilities will 
be extended to accredited members of your Asso- 
ciation to enable them to see these southern 
islands. 

The present is merely a preliminary notice to 
bring the matter under the observation of your 
members. I hope next year to extend a more 
formal invitation and to be able to state more 
definitely what provision is being made for the 
entertainment of visitors. 


The presidents of the sections of the meet- 
ing are 

B.—Chemistry: J. Brownlie Henderson, Govern- 
ment analyst, Brisbane. 

C.—Geology and mineralogy: W. 
trees, F.G.S8., Hobart. 

D.—Biology: Colonel W. 
Hobart. 

E.— Geography: Professor J. W. Gregory, Mel- 
bourne University. 

F.— Anthropology and philology: A. W. Howitt, 
F.G.S., Melbourne. 

G.—Economies, sub-section 2: Agriculture—J. 
D. Towar, principal Roseworthy Agricultural Col- 
lege, South Australia. 

H.—Architecture, Engineering, and Mining: H. 
Deane, M.A., M.I.C.E., engineer-in-chief Public 
Works Department, Sydney. 

I—Sanitary, science, and hygiene—Dr. Frank 
Tidswell, Department of Public Health, Sydney. 

J.—Mental science and education: John Shirley, 
B.Se., inspector of schools, Brisbane. 


H. Twelve- 


V. Legge, R.A., 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

Tue National Academy of Sciences holds 
its autumn meeting at the Johns Hopkins 
University, Baltimore, beginning on Tuesday, 
November 11. 

Proressor KouLrauscH, president of the 
Reichsanstalt, has been elected a foreign mem- 
ber of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. 

Dr. Wituetm Forster, director of the 
Royal Observatory at Berlin, has announced 


his intention of retiring a year hence. He’ 


will, however, retain his professorship in the 
University of Berlin. 

A comMMITTEE of prominent physicians of 
Philadelphia and Baltimore have arranged 
for a complimentary dinner to Drs. W. W. 
Keen and H. C. Wood in honor of their 


recent return from their long sojourn abroad. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


The dinner will be given at the Bellevue 
Hotel, Philadelphia, November 6. 


A DINNER in honor of the eightieth birth- 
day of Mr. John Fritz, the eminent steel mas- 
ter, and to commemorate the medal established 
in his honor, was held in New York City on 
October 31 under the auspices of the American 
Society of Civil Engineers, the American In- 
stitute of Mining Engineers, the American So- 
ciety of Mechanical Engineers and the Ameri- 
can Institute of Electrical Engineers. In the 
presence of about 400 engineers and others 
interested in the manufacture of iron and steel 
the following program of speeches, with one 
by Mr. Fritz, was presented: 

Salutatory, Henry Goslee Prout, C.E., M.A., 
Toastmaster. 

Presentation of the Medal, John Thomson, C.E. 

‘The Fathers of the Art, Hon. Abram §&. 
Hewitt, LL.D. 

‘The Navy,’ Rear-Admiral George W. Melville, 
U.S. N. 

‘The Army,’ Brig.-Gen. Eugene Griffin, U. S. V. 

Messages of Congratulation, Chairman Dinner 
Committee. 

‘The American Society of Civil Engineers,’ 
George Shattuck Morison, C.E., M.A. 

‘The American Institute of Mining Engineers,’ 
Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond, E.M. 

‘The American Society of Mechanical Engi- 
neers,’ Capt. Robert W. Hunt, C.E., M.E. 

‘The American Institute of Electrical Engi- 
neers, Professor Elihu Thomson, E.E. 

‘The Valley and the Neighbors,’ Oliver Wil- 
liams. 

‘John Fritz’ Old Boys,’ Daniel A. Thompkins, 
M.E. 

Proressor Hans Vircuow, son of the late 
Rudolf Virchow and professor of anatomy in 
the University of Berlin, has celebrated his 
fiftieth birthday. 

Dr. K. Gaver, professor at Munich and 
known for his contributions to forestry, has 
celebrated his eightieth birthday. 

MM. Lippmann and Radeau have been ap- 
pointed members of the council of the Ob- 
servatory of Paris, filling the places vacant by 
the deaths of MM. Cornu and Faye. M. Bayet 
has also been appointed a member of the coun- 
cil of the Observatory of Paris and a member 
of the council of the Astrophysical Observa- 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


tory of Meudon in place of M. Liard, recently 
made vice-rector of the University of Paris. 


Tue Swedish explorer, Sven Hedin, has be- 
gun a tour of the principal cities of Germany 
to lecture on his travels in Central Asia. 


Miss Exiza R. Scrpmore, foreign secretary 
of the National Geographic Society, is a dele- 
gate from the Society to the Thirteenth Inter- 
national Oriental Congress meeting in Ham- 
burg. 

Ar a meeting of the Cold Storage and Ice 
Association, held at the Institution of Me- 
chanical Engineers on November 5, Dr. Carl 
Linde, of Munich, read a paper on ‘The 
Technical Application of Liquid Air.’ 


Tue Mayor of Ealing has unveiled a me- 
morial, which has been erected by public sub- 
scription, in the Ealing Public Library to the 
late Professor Huxley, who was born at Ealing 
on May 4, 1825. The memorial consists of a 
mural tablet with a portrait medallion of Hux- 
ley by Mr. Frank Boucher. Among those pres- 
ent were Mrs. Huxley, widow of the distin- 
guished scientist, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard 
Huxley, Professor George Henslow (who pre- 
sided), and representatives of several of the 
learned societies with which Huxley was asso- 
ciated. 


Aw effort is being made by the mayor and 
municipal council of St.-Just-en-Chaussée, 
Oise, France, to raise a memorial to two 
famous men who were born in that town, the 
brothers Haiiy-René Just, founder of mineral- 
ogy as an exact science, and Valentin, the phil- 
anthropist, who founded the first school for 
the blind. A sum of 7000 franes has already 
been raised, mostly in the locality; 25,000 
francs is the sum required to carry out the 
project. American subscriptions may be sent 
to M. Léon Bourgeois, 1 boulevard Henri IV., 
Paris. 

Major James CO. Merrit, surgeon, U.S. A., 
librarian of the Army Medical Museum, and 
known for his contributions to ornithology, 
has died at the age of forty-nine years. 


Mr. Perer BrornerHoop, a British me- 
chanical engineer, the inventor of an important 
steam motor, has died in his sixty-fifth year. 


SCIENCE. 


759 


Dr. Hermann EULENBERG, an eminent Ger- 
man psychiatrist, has died in Bonn at the age 
of eighty-nine years. 

THe mathematician, Professor Nikolaus 
Budajew, of St. Petersburg, has died at the 
age of sixty-nine years. 

THE visiting Society of Americanists passed 
through Washington on Tuesday, October 21, 
spending the entire day there. In the morn- 
ing they were received by the President, after 
which they were driven to various places of 
interest, scientific and otherwise, ending at 
the Congressional Library, where lunch was 
served. In the afternoon they were received 
at the Smithsonian Institution by Secretary 
Langley and spent most of the remainder of 
their time there and at the National Mu- 
seum. Smaller parties visited other points of 
scientific interest, but all met at the Arling- 
ton Hotel for dinner at 5:30. This was pre- 
sided over by Professor C. D. Walcott, who 
introduced Professor W J McGee as toast- 
master, and short speeches were made by the 
vice-presidents of the society. At 7:30 the 
visitors left for Pittsburg and Chicago. 


Tue eleventh International Congress of 
Hygiene and Demography will be held at 
Brussels from September 2 to September 8, 
1903. The office of the secretary-general of 
the Congress is 1 Rue Forgeur, Liége. 


Tue Belgian Surgical Society, which re- 
cently held a meeting in Brussels,has appointed 
a committee, consisting of prominent surgeons 
from all parts of the world, to draw up plans 
for the foundation of an international sur- 
gical society. 


Tue International Congress of Tuberculosis 
adjourned on October 26 to meet next year at 
Paris. 

Tur state and provincial boards of health 
at their meeting at New Haven on October 
29 passed the following resolution: “That 
the conference of State and Provincial 
Boards of Health of North America views 
with abhorrence the irretrievable disgrace of 
the present State Board of Health of Cali- 
fornia, and pronounces the plague situation 
in California a matter of grave national con- 


cern. That the National Conference of State 


706 


and Provincial Boards of Health of North 
America does hereby advise the various State 
Boards of Health of the United States to con- 
sider the propriety of calling upon the Sur- 
geon General of the United States Public 
Health and Marine Hospital Service to ar- 
range at the earliest possible date a joint 
conference for the purpose of eradicating the 
plague from the United States. 


Ir is stated in Nature that the office of 
Meteorological Reporter to the Government of 
India will become vacant in about a year by 
the retirement of Mr. J. Eliot, F.R.S., who 
has administered the office with great success 
for a long series of years. The selection of 
suitable names for consideration, with a view 
to the filling of the prospective vacaney after 
a preliminary period of training in Europe 
and in India, is now occupying the attention of 
an advisory committee of the Royal Society, 
nominated at the request of the government 
of India. The problem of the future admin- 
istration and scientific development of the 
department is also under consideration by the 
committee, in conjunction with Mr. Eliot, 
who is now in England for that purpose. 


Tue British Museum of Natural History 
has recently acquired a valuable collection of 
birds and animals secured by an expedition to 
the north and northwest of Ethopia. 


Tue federated Malay states have opened a 
pathological laboratory for the study of trop- 
ical diseases at Kuala Lumpur. It is open to 
students of all nations. 


Dr. Cyrus W. Tuomas, of the Bureau of 
Ethnology, announces the discovery that that 
part of Lederer’s account which deals with 
explorations in Carolina in 1670 is an inyen- 
tion and that his map of the country between 
‘ Akenatzy’ and the head waters of the Neuse 
is practically worthless. 

Tue copies of Part I. of the Nineteenth 
Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology 
have been received at the latter institution 
from the Government Printing Office. 


Tue Scottish Antarctic expedition in the 
Scotia under the leadership of Mr. W. B. 
Bruce has sailed, its first destination being the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


Falkland Islands. Before sailing Mr. Bruce 
and the principal members of the expedition 
were entertained to dinner in Edinburgh by 
the president of the Royal Scottish Geograpk- 
ical Society, Sir John Murray. According to 
the account in the London Times the presi- 
dent, in proposing success to the expedition, 
said that when Mr. Bruce came to him with 
his first proposal of an Antarctic expedition it 
was one which was to consist of two ships, and 
was to extend to two winters in the Antarctic, 
and was to cost £35,000. Mr. Bruce had not 
succeeded in raising £30,000, and he had found 
it necessary to limit his expedition to one ship 
and to about one year’s cruise. The men in 
a day or two would start through the fiery 
zone of the tropics to the frigid zone of the 
Far South, there to do battle with the fiercest 
forces of nature and to fight with the most for- 
bidding region that our planet afforded. He 
hoped they would come out of that struggle 
victorious. Mr. Bruce, replying, said that 
there had been a good deal of misconception 
about the purpose of the Scottish National Ex- 
pedition. There had been an idea in some 
quarters that they were, starting it as a rival 
to the others in the field. The idea was not 
that it should be a rival, but a supplementary 
expedition. There were three expeditions 
working in the Antarctic, one sent out largely 
with the assistance of the British Government, 
one German, and the other Swedish. They 
were all more or less associated with the land. 
The Scottish expedition was especially asso- 
ciated with the sea. The Scottish expedition 
concentrated on the oceanographical side. 
Their region would be that part of the Antare- 
tic where Sir James Ross, 60 years ago, took 
attaining a depth of 4,000 
fathoms, and reaching no bottom. Captain 
Robertson, master of the Scotia, also replied. 


one sounding, 


Park CommissioNnER WiLuIamM R. WiILucox, 
on October 31, formally turned over to the New 
York Zoological Society the Aquarium in Bat- 
tery Park. The legal transfer was accomplished 
several days ago. Professor H. F. Osborn, 
chairman of the executive committee and vice- 
president of the Zoological Society, received 
the city’s gift. Commissioner Willcox in mak- 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


ing the transfer, told how the building had 
been erected originally upon the rocks and con- 
nected with the shore by bridge, and how the 
structure had been used successively as a bat- 
tery, a place of amusement, and a landing 
place for immigrants, until finally in 1896 
it was opened to the public as an aquarium 
by the Department of Parks. Charles H. 
Townsend, recently appointed director of the 
Aquarium, and formerly a member of the 
United States Fish Commission, said in part: 
“The possibilities of an aquarium as an 
institution for the instruction of the people 
have never been properly understood. What 
we want to do is to make it a part of the city’s 
educational system. It should be a place for 
study and investigation. Fish culture is fast 
becoming a profession. We could establish a 
fish hatchery in the building. This would be 
interesting, and it could be arranged with 
glass sides so that the fish could be seen.” 
Professor Osborn said it would be the aim 
of the Zoological Society to make the 
Aquarium even more popular than it had 
been, and added: “ We have chosen as di- 
rector Mr. Charles H. Townsend, widely 
known for his services in the United States 
Fish Commission, and the fact that a man 
of his character and scientific reputation ac- 
cepts this position signalizes our determina- 
tion to increase not only the attractiveness, 
but the educational value of the Aquarium to 
the masses of the people who visit it. Mr. 
Townsend will have full authority here; but 
we are fortunate in associating with him as an 
advisory board three experts in marine life— 
Professor Charles L. Bristol, of the New York 
University, Dr. Alfred G. Mayer, of the Brook- 
lyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and Pro- 
fessor Bashford Dean, of Columbia University. 


The British Medical Journal states that 
the Huxley memorial lecture of the Anthro- 
pological Institute of Great Britain and Ivre- 
land was delivered in the lecture theater of 
the building formerly occupied by the Uni- 
versity of London in Burlington Gardens by 
Dr. D. J. Cunningham, F.R.S., professor of 
anatomy in Trinity College, Dublin, who se- 
lected the subject of right-handedness and 


SCIENCE. 


757 


He pointed out that the 
characteristic was one of vast antiquity, and 
argued that it had been attained in the or- 
dinary course of the evolution of man by 
natural selection; but the condition thus es- 
tablished and transmitted from one individual 
to another did not reside in the right upper 
limb itself or in the yessel which conveyed 
the blood to it. All the evidence went to 
show that right-handedness was due to a 
transmitted functional preeminence of the left 
brain. This preeminence was not a haphazard 
acquisition picked up during the life of the 
individual, it was not the result, but through 
evolution it had become the cause, of right- 
handedness. The superiority of the left cer- 
ebral hemisphere rested upon some structural 
foundation transmitted from parent to off- 
spring, and the exceptional cases of right- 
brainedness and left-handedness were due to 
the transference of this structural peculiarity 
from the left to the right side, or more prob- 
ably to a transposition of the two cerebral 
hemispheres in the same way that transposi- 
tion either partial or complete of the thoracic 
and abdominal viscera sometimes occurred. 
At the conclusion of the address the Huxley 
memorial medal was presented to Professor 
Cunningham by the president, Dr. A. C. 
Haddon. 


The Electrical World states that during the 
passage of the special train on the Grand 
Trunk Railway, between Toronto and Mon- 
treal, on October 18, bearing the members 
of the American Association of General Man- 
agers and ticket agents from Chicago to Port- 
land, wireless telegraphic signals were received 
by the party as the train passed St. Dominique 
station, at the rate of sixty miles an hour. 
No special attempt was made to signal to a 
great distance, but the train remained in 
touch with the station for from eight to ten 
miles. Two vibrators, ten by twelve feet, con- 
nected with an induction coil of the usual 
pattern (eight-inch spark), served to trans- 
mit the waves from the station, while on the 
train itself the waves were received by a co-~ 
herer of the ordinary type. A relay rendered 
the signals audible to the passengers by ring- 
ing bells in three cars. The collecting wires 


left-brainedness. 


708 


were run through the guides for the signal 
cord inside of the train, and extended about 
one-car length on either side of the coherer. 
Owing to the natural vibration of the train 
it was impossible to have the relay at the 
most sensitive point, but the distance to 
which it was possible to keep the train in 
touch with the station was considered very 
satisfactory by the various officials. The 
apparatus was loaned for the experiments by 
the physical department of McGill Univer- 
sity, Professor E. Rutherford and Professor 
H. T. Barnes, assisted by Mr. H. L. Cooke, 
being present to look after the adjustments. 
Dean Bovey and Professor C. H. McLeod, of 
the engineering department of McGill, also 
witnessed the experiments. 

Tue department of revenue and _ agricul- 
ture of the government of India has recently 
published the seventeenth issue of ‘ Agricul- 
tural Statistics of India for the years 1896- 
97 to 1900-01. According to an abstract in 
Nature the numerical data have been com- 
piled under the supervision of the director- 
general of statistics and are issued in two 
parts, the first dealing with British India and 
the second with native states. The informa- 
tion is tabulated under fourteen headings, in- 
cluding, among others, tables showing the 
total area of districts; the amount of culti- 
vated and culturable land; the gross culti- 
vated area under each crop; agricultural 
stock; the principal varieties of tenure held 
‘direct from the the progress 
made in the production of tea and of coffee; 
and the average yield per acre of the prin- 
cipal crops. The tables are accompanied by 
numerous short, explanatory notes which are 
often of an interesting nature. The follow- 
ing statistics referring to the cultivation and 
production of indigo in British India during 
the past few years show that a remarkable de- 
cline has occurred, doubtless in consequence 
of the competition of the artificial product: 


government ; 


Year. Acres under Production 
E Cultivation. in Cwts. 

US97—1S898 ssc. we. TESS! 6b Boca cage 166,812 
NS 9 S8= N89 Ole ieserccie yeep: OVO TS Rea eeeeceties 139,320 
1899-1900 .......... 10265900 tease 111,890 
1900-1901 .......... CUO e vob ooo be 148,029 
UXO METS Mors Goo ob G 8035697) cee 121,475 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


Tur U. 8. Geological Survey has recently 
made public the results of a series of measure- 
ments which the division of hydrography con- 
ducted in 1901 on a large number of streams 
in the United States to determine the volume 
of their flow. The work with which these 
records deal is unique in character and ex- 
tent, and consists in the daily record of the 
height of water, together with the estimated 
maximum, minimum and average monthly 
flow in cubic feet, in upwards of two hundred 
and fifty of the important rivers of the 
United States. Accompanying these data are 
important facts concerning the physical as- 
pects of their watersheds, the extent and man- 
ner to which their natural powers are utilized, 
and other information of value to engineers 
and water users. The report of the investi- 
gation of the New York streams is particu- 
larly full, an interesting feature being the 
results of measurements on streams in the 
Catskill and adjacent regions suggested as a 
possible source for the supply of New York 
city. Of interest also are the results of meas- 
urements of the streams in the west upon 
which depend the construction of the contem- 
plated irrigation works under the new irriga- 
tion law. The water-power streams of Maine, 
the drainage from the vast watershed of the 
southern Appalachians, and the rivers of the 
central states are all represented in the in- 
vestigation. 

Tue thirteenth annual general meeting of 
the Mining Institute of Great Britain was 
opened on September 16, in Neweastle-on-Tyne, 
and simultaneously with it was held the jubilee 
meeting of the North of England Institution 
of Mining and Mechanical Engineering, upon 
whose foundation the Mining Institute was 
built up. Sir Lindsay Wood presided and in 
his address, according to the report in the 
London Times, reviewed the past history of 
the institute, and showed that the objects of 
the founders had been carried out and that the 
results they anticipated had been realized. 
He called attention to the great loss of life 
which oceurred in the working of the coal 
mines of Great Britain previous to 1851, and 
said it was a universal desire to stop or reduce 


NOVEMBER 7, 1902. ] 


to a minimum this loss of life that in 1835 a 
committee of the House of Commons was ap- 
pointed to inquire into the cause of the acci- 
dents that were taking place. That committee 
reported, with regret, that the result of their 
inquiry had not enabled them to lay before the 
House any particular plan by which the acci- 
dents might be avoided with certainty, and 
consequently they made no decisive recommen- 
dation. In spite of subsequent committees 
and investigations, both official and private, 
the loss of life from accidents in mines did not 
decrease, and it was under these circumstances 
that a meeting of mining engineers and gen- 
tlemen connected with the working of the 
mines in the North of England was held at 
Neweastle on July 3, 1852, for the purpose of 
forming a society to meet at fixed periods and 
discuss the means of ventilation of coal mines 
with a view to the prevention of accidents and 
for general purposes connected with the min- 
ing and working of collieries. The society so 
formed was the beginning of the Mining In- 
stitute. He held that by an interchange of 
practical experience and by a united and com- 
bined effort to improve themselves in the 
science of their profession they had raised the 
art and science of mining engineering to a 
higher state of efficiency than it was in 50 
years ago. The good work of the institute 
was recognized by the government in 1876, 
when it was granted a royal charter. Similar 
institutions were formed in various mining 
districts of the country, and in 1889 these 
were federated under the title of the Institute 
of Mining Engineers. He referred to the 
great part taken by the institute in the forma- 
tion of the Durham University College of 
Science in 1871, and said there had been an 
enormous reduction in the number of fatali- 
ties in mines in consequence of the proceedings 
of the institute and to the education of its mem- 
bers. During the last 50 years the coal trade 
of the country had greatly increased, the out- 
put having more than quadrupled in the 
period. From 1851 to 1855 the number of 
deaths caused by explosions in mines averaged 
231 per annum, whereas the average of the 
last five years was 64; if the difference in the 


SCIENCE. 


709 


number of men employed was taken into con- 
sideration, the deaths, calculated at the same 
rate as in the earlier period, would have been 
765. The number of fatal accidents from the 
falls or roof and sides and from accidents in 
and about the shafts had also greatly de- 
creased. The total loss of life from all sources 
on the average of the five years from 1851 to 
1855 was 985 per annum, whereas the average 
of the five years from 1896 to 1900 was 1,001 
per annum, or 16 more than in the first period, 
although there were 525,297 more men and 
boys employed in and about the mines. If 
the earlier death-rate had continued during 
the latter period there would have been a loss 
of 3,146 lives. There was still much to be 
accomplished, however, particularly in the re- 
duction of the number of accidents due to falls 
of roof and sides in mines. 


In a recent paper published by the U. 
S. Geological Survey, on Wells and Wind- 
mills in Nebraska, mention is made of the 
phenomena of the breathing or blowing wells 
which are found distributed throughout a 
large portion of the State of Nebraska.. These 
wells are of the driven type mostly in use upon 
the Plains, but are distinguished from those 
of ordinary character by a remarkable and un- 
explained egress and ingress of currents of air 
which produce distinctly audible sounds and 
give the names variously applied to them of 
breathing, sighing, blowing, or roaring wells, 
according to their characters in different 
places. The air currents are readily tested 
with the flames of candles, or by dropping 
chaff or feathers into the well tubes. There 
are periods when these wells blow out for sev- 
eral days, and equal periods when their air 
currents are reversed. It has been observed 
that the blowing oceurs with changes of the 
barometer. Some wells are found to be most 
audible when the wind is from the northwest, 
with a rise in water level; but with a change 
of wind air is drawn in and the water is ob- 
served to sink. During the progress of a low- 
barometer area over one of these regions, wind 
is violently expelled from the wells, with a 
noise distinctly audible for several rods. Pro- 
fessors Loveland and Swezey, of the University 


760 


of Nebraska, have made observations on a well 
of this nature in Perkins County, and found 
that its breathing periods were exactly coin- 
cident with the barometric changes. The 
material through which the wells are driven 
may throw some light on their peculiarities. 
In southeastern Nebraska a layer of dense 


limestone about four inches thick lies be- 
neath 50 to 100 feet of subsoil. Below the 
limestones is found water-bearing gravel. 


When the limestone covering the water-bear- 
ing beds is penetrated water under slight pres- 
sure rises about one foot. The water-bearing 
layer is very porous and must always contain 
more or less air. As the air above and the 
air inclosed in the gravels below are alike sub- 
ject to the fluctuations of the barometer, it 
follows that if the surface air is rendered less 
dense the air below will pass out through the 
well openings until equilibrium between the 
rarer air and denser air is established, and the 
opposite effect will follow during a period of 
high pressure. Still, this explanation, plaus- 
ible as it is, hardly accounts for the force with 
which the air is expelled from some of the 
wells, and a more comprehensive study of the 
problem is needed to satisfactorily explain all 
the phenomena. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


Ir appears that Clark University will re- 
ceive the sum of $1,577,000 from the estate 
of the late Jonas G. Clark. This we under- 
stand is in addition to the $500,000 already 


paid on aecount of the collegiate department. 


Art a recent meeting of the board of trus- 
tees of Cornell University plans were author- 
ized for the purchase of sixteen additional 
acres of land and for the erection of new 
buildings. A site was assigned for the Hall 
of Physies, for which Mr. John D. Rocke- 
feller gave $250,000, and for a Hall of Arts 
and Humanities, to cost $250,000. A plan 
for retiring and pensioning professors was 
discussed. 


Tue trustees of the College of the City of 
New York have authorized the adoption of 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 410. 


the architect’s plans for the new buildings to 
be erected at a cost of $2,100,000. 


Stir Wittum MacDonaup has given the de- 
partment of physics of McGill University an 
installation for making liquid air. 


A DEVELOPMENT of the equipment of the 
University of California’s College of Medi- 
cine, to consist of a clinical hospital that will 
cost $400,000, has been proposed in a report 
submitted by a committee. 


Tue daily papers state that M. Michonis, a 
French millionaire, has bequeathed $120,000 
as a fund to enable French students to study 
philosophy and religious sciences in German 
universities. 


Dr. T. H. Srarxey, of University College 
Hospital, London, England, has been recom- 
mended by the Dean of the medical faculty 
as professor of hygiene at McGill University, 
in succession to the late Dr. Wyatt Johnston. 


At Prague Dr. F. Vejdovsky, professor of 
embryology and comparative anatomy, has 
been appointed professor of zoology, replacing 
Dr. Anton Fric, recently retired. 


Tue sixteenth annual meeting of the Asso- 
ciation of Colleges and Preparatory Schools 
in the Middle States and Maryland will be 
held in Baltimore on November 28 and 29 
next. Among the subjects to be discussed are 
‘The Educational Value of Examinations as 
the Culmination of Preparatory Courses’ and 
“The Relative Functions and Powers of Presi- 
dent, Trustees and Faculty. On the latter 
subject President Ira Remsen, of the Johns 
Hopkins University, will speak on the college 
presidency; Dr. S. J. McPherson, a trustee: . 
of Princeton University, will speak on the 
duties of the trustee, and Professor George 
8. Fullerton, of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, will explain the position of the faculty. 


Mr. E. D. Bett, M.S., has been elected to 
the chair of animal biology in the Utah Agri-- 
cultural College, Logan, Utah. 


Proressor Wuapistaw Roruert, of Char- 
kow, has been elected professor of botany im 
the University of Odessa. 


SCIENCE 


& WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: S. NEWcoMB, Mathematics ; R. S. WooDWARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; [RA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALcoTT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBoRN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooxs, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BrsszY, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. BILLINGS, Hygiene; WILLIAM H. WELCH, 

Pathology ; J. McCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Fripay, November 14, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
Address to the Engineering Section of the 
British Association: PRoressor JOHN 
IPDIRED.. Gio coral hte ante ob oan e ooo na oaoee cred 761 


In Memory of John Wesley Powell: PROFESSOR 
S. P. Langtry, RicHArp RaTHBuUN, Dr. W. 
H. Daty, Dr. D. C. Girman, Dr. CHARLES 
D. Watcott, COMMISSIONER W. T. Harris, 


Marcus Baker, Dr. W J McGEr........ 782 
Scientific Books :— 

Heusler’s Chemistry of the Terpenes: Pro- 

FESSOR EDWARD IXREMERS................ 790 
Societies and Academies :— 

The American Mathematical Society: Pro- 

TUSSOR 1, IN, COW pocadsscanescoeenvaes 791 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 

The Carnegie Institution: Dr. C. H. Etann- 

MANN. Section H, Anthropology, of the 

American Association for the Advancement 

of Science: Rotanp B. DIxon............ 792 
Shorter Articles :— 

Exceptions to Mendel’s Law: W. J. Sprr1- 

INDORE acy oth Bo ler cote se pI vO che IER I eee tae 794. 
Notes on Inorganic Chemistry: J. L. H...... 796 
The Comet B, 1902, and the Mass of Mercury: 

Proressor Epwarp C. PICKERING........ 797 
Scientific Notes and News:................. 798 
University and Educational News.......... 800 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


ADDRESS TO THE ENGINEERING SECTION 
OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.* 

Tuis Section has had sixty-six presi- 
dents, all different types of engineer. As 
each has had perfect freedom in choosing 
the subject for his address, and each has 
known of the rule+ that presidential ad- 
dresses are not subject to debate after- 
wards, and as, being an engineer, he has 
always been a man of originality, of course 
he has always chosen a subject outside his 
own work. An engineer knows that the 
great inventions, the great suggestions of 
change in any profession, come from out- 
siders. Lawyers seem like fish out of water 
when trying to act as law-makers. The 
radical change that some of us hope to see 
before we die in the construction of loco- 
motives will certainly not come from a 
locomotive superintendent, who cannot im- 
agine a locomotive which is not somehow 
a lineal descendant of the Rocket. 

Henee it is that in almost every case the 
President of this Section has devoted a 
small or large part of his address to the 
subject of the education of engineers. I 
grant that every president has devoted his 
life to the education of one engineer—him- 

* Given at the Belfast meeting. 

+ The Committees of Sections G and L have 
arranged a discussion on ‘ The Education of Engi- 
neers,’ this address being regarded as opening the 


discussion. Thus the rule is not in force this 


year. 


762 


self—and it is characteristic of engineers 
that their professional education proceeds 
throughout the whole of their lives. Per- 
haps of no other men can this be said so 
completely. To utilize the forces of na- 
ture, to combat nature, to comprehend 
nature as a child comprehends its mother, 
this is the pleasure and the pain of the en- 
gineer.* A mere scientific man analyzes 
nature: takes a phenomenon, dissects it 
into its simpler elements, and investigates 
these elements separately in his laboratory. 
The engineer cannot do this. . He must 
take nature as she is, in all her exaspera- 
ting complexity. He must understand one 
of nature’s problems as a whole. He must 
have all the knowledge of the scientific 
man, and ever so much more. He uses thé 
methods of the scientific man, and adds to 
them methods of hisown. The name given 
to these scientific methods of his own or 
their results is sometimes ‘ common-sense,’ 
sometimes ‘ character,’ or ‘ individuality,’ 
or ‘ faculty,’ or *‘ business ability,’ or ‘ in- 
stinct.’ They come to him through a very 
wide experience of engineering processes, 
of acquaintance with things and men. No 
school or college can do more than prepare 
a young man for this higher engineering 
education which lasts through life. With- 
out it a man follows only rule of thumb, 
like a sheep following the bell-wether, or 
else he lets his inventiveness or love of 
theory act the tyrant. 

When a man has become a great en- 
gineer, and he is asked how it happened, 
what his education has been, how young 
engineers ought to be trained, as a rule it 

* Of all the unskilled labor of the present day, 
surely that of the modern poet is the most gro- 
tesque. How much more powerful and powerless 
man seems to us now; how much more wonderful 
is the universe than it was to the ancients! Yet 
our too learned poets prefer to copy and recopy 
the sentiments of the ancients rather than try 


to see the romance which fills the lives of engi- 
neers and scientific men with joy. 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Vou. XVI. No. 411. 


is a question that he is least able to answer, 
and yet it is a question that he is most 
ready to answer. He sees that he bene- 
fited greatly by overcoming certain difficul- 
ties in his life; and forgetting that every 
boy will have difficulties enough of his 
own, forgetting that although a few diffi- 
culties may be good for discipline, many 
difficulties may be overwhelming, forget- 
ting also that he himself is a very excep- 
tional man, he insists upon it that those 
difficulties which were personal to himself 
ought to be thrown in the path of every 
boy. It often happens that he is a man 
who is accustomed to think that early edu- 
cation can only be given through ancient 
classics. He forgets the dullness, the weari- 
ness of his school-days. Whatever pleasure 
he had in youth—pleasure mainly due to 
the fact that the average Anglo-Saxon boy 
invents infinite ways of escaping school 
drudgery—he somehow connects with the 
fact that he had to learn classics. Being 
an exceptional boy, he was not altogether 
stupefied, and did not altogether lose his 
natural inclination to know something of 
his own language; and he is in the habit 
of thinking that he learned English through 
Latin, and that ancient classics are the 
best mediums through which an English 
boy ean study anything.* The cleverest 
men of our time have been brought up 
on the classics, and so the engineer who 
cannot even quote correctly a tag from 
the Latin grammar, who never knew any- 
thing of classic literature, insists upon it 
that a classical education is essential for 
all men. He forgets the weary hours he 
spent getting off Euclid, and the relief it 
was to escape from the class-room not quite 

* The very people who talk so much of learning 
English through Latin neglect in the most curious 
ways those Platt-Deutsch languages, Dutch and 
Scandinavian, a knowledge of which is ten times 
more valuable in the study of what is becoming 


the speech of the world. And how they do scorn 
Lowland Scotch! 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902. ] 


stupefied, and he advocates the study of 
pure mathematics and abstract dynamics 
as absolutely necessary for, the training of 
the mind of every young engineer. I have 
Known the ordinary abominable system of 
mathematical study to be advocated by 
engineers who, because they had passed 
through it themselves, had really got to 
loathe all kinds of mathematies higher than 
that of the grocer or housekeeper. They 
said that mathematics had trained their 
minds, but they did not need it in their 
profession. There is no profession which 
so much requires a man to have the mathe- 
matical tool always ready for use on all 
sorts of problems, the mathematical habit 
of thought the one most exercised by him; 
and yet these men insist upon it that they 
can get all their calculations done for them 
by mathematicians paid so much a week. 
If they really thought about what they were 
saying, it would be an expression of the 
greatest contempt for all engineering com- 
putation and knowledge. He was pitch- 
forked into works with no knowledge of 
mathematics, or dynamics, or physics, or 
chemistry, and, worse still, ignorant of the 
methods of study which a study of these 
things would have produced; into works 
where there was no man whose duty it was 
to teach an apprentice; and because he, 
one in a thousand, has been successful, he 
assures us that this pitchforkine process is 
absolutely necessary for every young en- 
gineer. He forgets that the average boy 
leaves an English school with no power to 
think for himself, with a hatred for books, 
with less than none of the knowledge which 
might help him to understand what he sees, 
and he has learned what is called mathe- 
matics in such a fashion that he hates the 
sight of an algebraic expression all of his 
life after. 

I do not want to speak of boys in gen- 
eral. I want only to speak of the boy who 
may become an engineer, and before speak- 


SCIENCE. 763: 


ing of his training I want to mention his. 
essential natural qualification—that he 
really wishes to become an engineer. I 
take it to be a rule to which there are no 
exceptions, that no boy ought to enter a 
profession—or, rather, to continue in a 
profession—if he does not love it. We all 
know the young man who thinks of engi- 
neering things during office hours and 
never thinks of them outside office hours. 
We know how his fond mother talks of her 
son as an engineer who, with a little more 
family influence and personal favor, and 
if there was not so much competition in 
the profession, would do so well. It is 
true, family influence may perhaps get 
such a man a better position, but he will 
never be an engineer. He is not fit even 
to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water 
to engineers. Love for his profession keeps 
a man alive to its interests all his time, 
although, of course, it does not prevent his 
taking an interest in all sorts of other 
things as well; but it is only a professional 
problem that warms him through with en- 
thusiasm. I think we may assume that 
there never yet was an engineer worth his 
salt who was not fond of engineering, and 
so I shall speak only of the education of 
the young man who is likely to be fond of 
engineering. 

‘How are we to detect this fondness in a 
boy? I think that if the general eduea- 
tion of all boys were of the rational kind 
which I shall presently describe, there 
would be no great difficulty; but as the 
present academic want of system is likely 
to continue for some time, it is well to 
consider things as they are. Mistakes must 
be made, and the parent who tries during 
the early years of his offspring to find out 
by crafty suggestion what line his son is 
likely to wish to follow, will just as prob- 
ably do evil by commission as the utterly 
careless parent is likely to do evil by omis- 


sion. He is like the botanical enthusiast 


764 


who digs up plants to see how they are 
getting on. But in my experience the 
Anglo-Saxon boy can stand a very great 
deal of mismanagement without permanent 
hurt, and it can do no kind of boy any 
very great harm to try him on engineering 
for a while. Even R. L. Stevenson, whose 
father seems to have been very persistent 
indeed in trying to make an engineer of 
him against his will, does not seem, to a 
philistine like myself, to have been really 
hurt as a literary man through his attend- 
ance on Fleeming Jenkins’s course at Edin- 
burgh—on the contrary, indeed. It may 
be prejudice, but I have always felt that 
there is no great public person of whom I 
have ever read who would not have bene- 
fited by the early training which is suitable 
for an engineer. I am glad to see that 
Mr. Wells, whose literary fame, great as 
it is, is still on the increase, distinguishes 
the salt of the earth or saviors of society 
from the degraded, useless, luxurious, 
pleasure-loving people doomed to the abyss 
by their having had the training of en- 
eineers and by their possessing the engi- 
neer’s methods of thinking. 

It may be that there are some boys of 
ereat genius to whom all physical science 
or application of science is hateful. I have 
been told that this is so, and if so I still 
think that only gross mismanagement of 
a youthful nature can have produced such 
detestation. For such curious persons en- 
gineering experience is, of course, quite 
unsuitable. I call them ‘curious’ because 
every child’s education in very early years 
is one in the methods of the study of 
physieal science; it is nature’s own method 
of training, which proceeds successfully 
until it is interfered with by ignorant 
teachers who check all power of observa- 
tion, and the natural desire of every boy 
to find out things for himself. If he asks 
a question, he is snubbed; if he observes 
nature as a loving student, he is said to 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 411. 


be lazy and a dunce, and is punished as 
being neglectful of school work. Unpro- 
vided with apparatus, he makes experi- 
ments in his own way, and he is said to 
be destructive and full of mischief. But 
however much we try to make the wild ass 
submit to bonds and the unicorn to abide 
by the crib, however bullied and beaten into 
the average schoolboy type, I cannot in- 
agine any healthy boy suffering afterwards 
from part ef a course of study suitable 
for engineers, for all such study must fol- 
low nature’s own system of observation and 
experiment. Well, whether, or not a mis- 
take has been made, I shall assume the boy 
to be likely to love engineering, and we 
have to consider how he ought to be pre- 
pared for his profession. 

I want to say at the outset that I usually 
care only to speak of the average boy, the 
boy usually said to be stupid, ninety-five 
per cent. of all boys. Of the boy said to 
be exceptionally clever I need not speak 
much. Even if he is pitchforked into 
works immediately on leaving a bad school, 
it will not be long before he chooses his 
own course of study and follows it, what- 
ever course may have been laid down for 
him by others. I recollect that when in 
1863 I attended an evening class held in 
the Model School, Belfast, under the Sei- 
ence and Art Department, on practical 
geometry and mechanical drawing, there 
was a young man attending it who is now 
well known as the Right Honorable Wil- 
liam J. Pirrie. He had found out for him- 
self that he needed a certain kind of knowl- 
edge if he was to escape from mere rule-of- 
thumb methods in shipbuilding work; it 
could at that time be obtained nowhere in 
the north of Ireland except at that class, 
and of course he attended the class. For 
forty-two years the Science and Art De- 
partment, which has recently doubled its 
already great efficiency, has been giving 
chanees of this kind to every clever young 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902. ] 


man in the country, from long before any 
physical science was taught in any English 
public school.* The one essential thing 
for the exceptional boy is that he shall find 
within his reach chances to take advantage 
of; chances of learning; chances of prac- 
tice; and, over and above all, chances of 
meeting great men. It takes me off my 
subject a little, but I should like here to 
illustrate this matter from my own per- 
sonal experience. 

I had already been an apprentice for 
four years at the Lagan Foundry when I 
entered Queen’s College for a course of 
civil engineering. I suppose that there 
never was on this earth a college so poorly 
equipped for a course of engineering study. 
Even the lecture room—this lecture room 
in which you are now sitting—was_ bor- 
rowed from the physics professor. There 
was a narrow passage, ironically called a 
‘drawing-room, ’and this was the only space 
reserved for engineering in a town whose 
engineering work was even then very im- 
portant. There were some theodolites and 
levels and chains for surveying, but noth- 
ing else in the way of apparatus. But there 
was as professor a man of very great indi- 
viduality; he acted as president of this 
Section twenty-eight years ago. I can 
hardly express my obligations to Professor 
James Thomson. It was my good fortune 
to be a pupil both of this great man and of 
his younger brother, Lord Kelvin, as well 
as of Dr. Andrews. It is not because these 
three men were born in Belfast that we 
here call them great. It is not because Tait, 
late of Edinburgh, and Purser, now the 


*T once stated that my workshop at Clifton 
College in 1871 was the first school workshop in 
England. I understand that this is a mistake; 
there had been a workshop at Rossall for some 
years. But I believe I am right in saying that 
my physical laboratory at Clifton was the first 
school laboratory in England. These ideas were 
not mine; they were those of the headmaster, 
now the Bishop of Hereford. 


SCIENCE. 765 


president of Section A, were professors at 
this college that we call them great. All 
the scientific men of the world are agreed 
to call these men very great indeed. ‘To 
come in contact with any of them, even for 
a little while, as a student, altered forever 
one’s attitude to nature. It was not that 
they gave us information, knowledge, facts. 
The syllabuses of their courses of study 
were nothing like so perfect as that of the 
smallest German polytechnic. And yet if 
a youth with a liking for physical science 
had gone to a German gymnasium to the 
age of nineteen, and had become a walking 
encyclopedia on leaving one’s polytechnic 
at the age of twenty-four, the course of 
that life-study would not have done for 
him as much good as was done by a month’s 
contact with one of these men. People call 
it ‘personal magnetism,’ and think there 
is something occult about it. In truth, they 
revealed to the student that he himself was 
a man, that mere learning was unimpor- 
tant, that one’s own observation of some 
common phenomenon might lead to impor- 


‘tant results unknown to the writers of 


books. They made one begin to think for 
oneself for the first time. Let me give 
an example of how the thing worked. 
James Thomson was known to me as the 
son of the author of my best mathematical 
books, but more particularly as the man 
who had first used Carnot’s principle in 
combination with the discovery of Joule, 
and I often wondered why Rankine and 
Clausius and Kelvin got all the credit of 
the discovery of the second law of thermo- 
dynamics. Men think of this work of his 
merely as having given the first explana- 
tion of regelation of ice and the motion of 
glaciers. He was known to me as the in- 
ventor of the Thomson turbine and centrif- 
ugal pump and jet pump. His name was 
to be found here and there in all my text- 
books, always in connection with some thor- 
oughly well-worked-out investigation, as it 


766 


is to be found in all good text-books now; 
for wherever he left a subject, there that 
subject has remained until this day; no- 
body has added to it or found a mistake 
in it. He was to me a very famous man, 
and yet he treated me as a fellow-student. 
One of his early lectures was about. flowing 
water, and he told us of a lot of things 
he had observed, which I also had observed 
without much thought; and he showed how 
these simple observations completely de- 
stroyed the value of everything printed in 
every text-book on the subject of water 
flowing over gauge-notches, even in the 
otherwise very perfect Rankine. I felt 
how stupid I had been in not having drawn 
these conclusions myself, but in truth till 
then I had never. ventured for a moment 
to eriticize anything in a book. I have 
been a cautious critic of all statements in 
text-books ever since. If any engineer 
wants to read what is almost the most in- 
structive paper that has ever been written 
for engineers, let him refer to the latest 
paper written by James Thomson on this 
subject.* The reasoning there given was 
given to me in lectures in this very room 
in 1868, and had been given to students for 
many years previous. 

Again, soon afterwards, he let me see 
that although I had often looked at the 
whirlpool in a basin of water when the 
central bottom hole is open, and although 
I had read Edgar Allen Poe’s mythical 
description of the Maélstrom, I had been 
very much too careless in my observation. 
Among other things, Thomson had observed 
that particles of sand gradually passed 
along the bottom towards the hole. When 
he found out the cause of this, it led him 
at once to several discoveries of great im- 
portance. Indeed, the study of this simple 
observation gave rise to all his work on 
(1) what occurs at bends of pipes and 
channels, and why rivers in alluvial plains 


* Brit. Assoc. Report, 1876, pp. 243-266. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 411. 


bend more and more; (2) the explanation 
of the curious phenomena that accompany 
great forest fires; (3) the complete theory 
of the great wind circulation of the earth, 
published in its final form as the Bakerian 
Lecture of the Royal Society in 1892. 

But why go on? He taught me to see 
that the very commonest phenomenon had 
still to reveal important secrets to the 
understanding eye and brain, and that no 
man is a true student unless he is a dis- 
coverer. And so it was with Kelvin and 
Andrews. Their names were great before 
the world, and yet they treated one as a 
fellow-student. Is any expenditure of 
money too large if we can obtain great men 
like these for our engineering colleges? 
Money is wanted for apparatus, and more 
particularly for men, and we spend what 
little we have on bricks and mortar! 

The memory of a man so absolutely hon- 
est as Professor James Thomson was com- 
pels me to say here that I was in an ex- 
ceptionally fit state to benefit by contact 
with him, for I hungered for scientific 
information.* J do not think that there 


*Some of our most successful graduates went 
direct to works from the Model School, Belfast, 
and afterwards attended this College. No school 
in the British Islands could have given better the 
sort of general education which I recommend for 
all boys. English subjects were especially well 
taught, so that boys became fond of reading all 
manner of books. There were good classes in free- 
hand and machine drawing, classes in chemistry 
and physics (at that time I believe that there 
were no such classes in any English public school), 
and the teaching of mathematics was good. Some 
of the masters started classes also under the Sci- 
ence and Art Department. Some of the masters 
had much individuality, and there was no outside 
examination to restrain it; there was only en- 
couragement. Evidence has been given before a 
committee of the London School Board as to the 
excellence of the teaching at this school forty 
years ago. Foreign languages were not in the 
regular curriculum, but they could be studied by 
boys inclined that way; and in my opinion this 
is the position that all languages other than Eng- 
lish ought to take in any British school. With 
such preparation a boy was eager and able to 
understand what went on in engineering works 
from his first day there. 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902.] 


was so much benefit for the average stu- 
dent whose early education had almost 
unfitted him for engineering studies. To 
work quantitatively with apparatus is good 
for all students, but it is absolutely neces- 
sary for the average student, and, as I said 
before, there was no apparatus. Also the 
average student cannot learn from lectures 
merely, but needs constant tutorial teach- 
ing, and the professor had no assistant. 

Anybody who wants to know what kind 
of engineering school there ought to be in 
such a college as this can see excellent 
specimens (sometimes several in one town) 
in Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool, Lon- 
don, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Notting- 
ham, Edinburgh and other great cities. 
There the fortunate manufacturers have 
given many hundreds of thousands of 
pounds for instruction in applied science 
(engineering). In America the equipment 
of such schools is much more thorough, and 
there are large staffs of teachers, for for- 
tunate Americans have contributed tens 
of millions of pounds for this kind of 
assistance to the rising generation. Ger- 
many and Switzerland compete with Amer- 
ica in such preparation for supremacy in 
manufacture and engineering, and nearly 
every country in the world is more and 
more recognizing its importance as they 
see the great inventions of Englishmen 
like Faraday and Perkin and Hughes and 
Swan developed almost altogether in those 
countries which believe in education. Even 
one hundred thousand pounds would pro- 
vide Queen’s College, Belfast, with the 
equipment of an engineering school worthy 
of its traditions and position, and Belfast 
is a city in which many large business for- 
tunes have been made. 

It is interesting to note that the present 
arrangements of the Royal University of 
Treland, with which this college is affiliated, 
are such that most of the successful gradu- 
ates in engineering of Queen’s University 


SCIENCE. 


767 
would now be debarred from taking the 
degree. Even in London University, Latin 
is not a compulsory subject for degrees in 
science ; Ireland has taken a step backwards 
towards the Middle Ages at the very time 
when other countries are stepping forward. 

Well-equipped schools of applied sci- 
ence are getting to be numerous, but I am 
sorry to say that only a few of the men who 
leave them every year are really likely to 
become good engineers. The most impor- 
tant reason for this is that the students 
who enter them come usually from the 


. public schools; they cannot write English; 


they know nothing of Enelish subjects; 
they do not care to read anything except 
the sporting news in the daily papers; they 
cannot compute; they know nothing of 
natural science; in fact, they are quite 
deficient in that kind of general education 
which every man ought to have. 

I am not sure that such ignorant boys 
would not benefit more by entering works 
at once than by entering a great engineer- 
ing school. They cannot follow the college 
courses of instruction at all, in spite of 
having passed the entrance examination 
by cramming. Whereas after a while they 
do begin to understand what goes on in a 
workshop; and if they have the true engi- 
neer’s spirit, their workshop observation 
will greatly correct the faults due to stupid 
school work.* 

‘Perhaps I had better state plainly my 
views as to what general education is best 
for the average English boy. The public 
schools of England teach English through 
Latin, a survival of the time when only 
special boys were taught at all, and when 
there was only one language in which 
people wrote. Now the average boy is also 

* When I was young I remember that there 
were many agricultural colleges in Ireland; they 
have all but one been failures. Why? Because 
the entering pupils were not prepared by early 
education to understand the instruction; this had 
done as much as possible to unfit them. 


768 


taught Latin, and when he leaves school 
for the army or any other pursuit open to 
average boys he cannot write a letter, he 
cannot construct a grammatical sentence, 
he cannot describe anything he has seen. 
The public-school curriculum is always 
erowing, and it is never subtracted from or 
rearranged. There is one subject which 
ordinary schoolmasters can teach well— 
Latin.* The other usual nine subjects have 


* Only one subject—Latin—is really educational 
in our schools. I do not mean that the average 
boy reads any Latin author after he leaves school, 
or knows any Latin at all ten years after he leaves 
school. I do not mean that his Latin helps him 
even slightly in learning any modern language, 
for he is always found to be ludicrously ignorant 
of French or German, even after an elaborate 
course of instruction in these languages. I do 
not mean that his Latin helps him in studying 
English, for he can hardly write a sentence with- 
out error. Ido not mean that it makes him fond 
of literature, for of ancient literature or history 
he never has any knowledge except that Cxsar 
wrate a book for the third form, and on English 
literature his mind is a blank. But I do mean 
that as the ordinary public-school master is really 
able to give a boy easy mental exercises through 
the study of Latin, this subject is in quite a dif- 
ferent position from that of the others. If any 
proof of this statement is wanted, it will be found 
in the published utterances of all sorts of men— 
military officers, business men, lawyers, men of 
science and others—who, confessedly ignorant of 
“the tongues, get into a state of rapture over 
their school experiences and the efficiency of Latin 
as a means of education. All this comes from 
the fact, which schoolboys are sharp enough to 
observe, that English schoolmasters can teach 
Latin well, and they do not take much interest 
in teaching anything else. It is a power. inherited 
from the Middle Ages, when there really was a 
simple system of education. I ask for a return 
to simplicity of system. English (the King’s 
English; I exclude Johnsonese) is probably the 
richest, the most complex language, the one most 
worthy of philologic study; English literature is 
certainly more valuable than any ancient or 
modern literature of any one other country, yet 
admiration for it among learned Englishmen is 
wonderfully mixed with patronage and even con- 
tempt. At present, is there one man who can 
teach English as Latin is taught by nearly every 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 411. 


eradually been added to the curriculum 


master of every school? Just imagine that Eng- 
lish could be so taught by teachers capable of 
rising to the level of our literature! 

I have often to give advice to parents. I find 
the average parent exceedingly ignorant of his 
son’s character or inclinations or ability. He 
pays a schoolmaster handsomely for taking his 
son off his hands except during holidays. Dur- 
ing the holidays, so terrible to a parent, he sees 
his son as little as possible. One question always 
asked is: Do you think it better to have ‘ theoret- 
ical’ instruction (they always call it by this ab- 
surd name) before or after an actual apprentice- 
ship in works? Of course, such a question cannot 
be answered off-hand. You tell the parent, to his 
great astonishment, that you must see the boy 
himself. When at length you see him, the chances 
are that you will find him to be what the school- 
masters are making of all our average boys. No 
part of his school work has been a pleasure to 
him, and, although he has had to work hard at 
his books, not one of the above three powers is 
his: power to use books and to write his own lan- 
guage; the language of his nurse, his mother, his 
mistress that is to be, his enemies and friends; 
the only language in which he thinks—power 
to compute and a liking for computation—power 
to understand a little of natural phenomena. Hon- 
estly, I practically never find that such a boy has 
had any education at all except what he has ob- 
tained at home or from his school companions 
or from his sports. Even his sports are to keep 
him healthy of body only, and not at all to culti- 
vate his mental powers. Those old games like 
‘prisoners’ base,’ which really develop in a won- 
derful way not only all the muscles of the body, 
but also the thinking power, are scorned in the 
public schools. Think now how such a boy is 
handicapped if we pitchfork him into works where 
it is nobody’s duty to teach him anything, or 
send him to college, where he cannot understand 
the lectures. Of course, if he is very eager to 
be an engineer he will, by hook or by crook, get 
to understand things. I have met some such 
men—clever, successful engineers in spite of all 
sorts of adverse circumstances—but the best of 
them are willing to admit that they are, and have 
always been, greatly hurt by the absence of the 
three powers which I have specified. And if this 
has been so in the past, when the scientific prin- 
ciples underlying engineering have been simple, 
how much more so is it now, when every new dis- 
covery in physics is producing new branches of 
engineering! 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902.] 


for examination purposes; they are taught 
in water-tight compartments—or, rather, 
they are only crammed, and not taught at 
all. Our school system resembles the or- 
dinary type of old-established works where 
gradual accretion has produced a higgledy- 
piggledy set of shops which one looks at 
with stupefaction, for it is impossible to 
get business done in them well and 
promptly, and yet it seems impossible to 
start a reform anywhere. What is wanted 
is an earthquake or a fire—a good fire— 
to destroy the whole works and enable the 
business to be reconstructed on a consistent 
and simple plan. And for much the same 
reason our whole public-school system 
ought to be ‘scrapped.’ What we want to 
see is that a boy of fifteen shall be fond of 
reading, shall be able to compute, and shall 
have some knowledge of natural science; 
or, to put it in another way, that he shall 
have had mental training in the study of 
his own language, in the experimental 
study of mathematics and in the methods 
of the student of natural science. Such a 
boy is fit to begin any ordinary profession, 
and whether he is to enter the Church, or 
take up medicine or surgery, or become a 
soldier, every boy ought to have this kind 
of training. When I have advocated this 
kind of education in the past I have usually 
been told that I was thinking only of boys 
who intended to be engineers; that it was 
a specialized kind of instruction. But 
this is very untrue. Let me quote from the 
recommendations of the 1902 Military Edu- 
cation Committee (‘Report,’ p. 5): 

“The fifth subject which may be con- 
sidered as an essential part of a sound 
general education is experimental science; 
that is to say, the science of physics and 
chemistry treated experimentally. As a 
means of mental training and also viewed 
as useful knowledge, this may be considered 
a necessary part of the intellectual equip- 
ment of every educated man, and especially 


. SCIENCE. 769 


-so of the officer, whose profession in all 


its branches is daily becoming more and 
more dependent. on science.’’ When state- 
ments of this kind have been made by some 
of us in the past, nobody has paid much at- 
tention; but I beg you to observe that the 
headmaster of Eton and the headmaster of 
St. Paul’s School are two of the members 
of the important committee who signed 
this recommendation, and it is impossible 
to ignore it. Last year, for the first time, 


the President of the Royal Society made 


a statement of much the same kind, only 
stronger, in his annual address. I am 
glad to see that the real value of education 
in physical science is now appreciated ; that 
mere knowledge of scientific facts is known 
to be unimportant compared with the pro- 
duction of certain habits of thought and 
action which the methods of scientifie study 
usually produce. 

As to English, the committee say: ‘They 
have no hesitation in insisting that a knowl- 
edge of English,* as tested by composition, 
together with an acquaintance with the 
main facts of the history and geography 


*This committee recommends for the Wool- 
wich and Sandhurst candidates a reform that has 
already been carried out by London University. 
No dead language is to be compulsory, but un- 
fortunately some language other than English is 
still to be compulsory. Those boys, of whom 
there are so many, who dislike and cannot learn 
another language are still to be labeled ‘ unedu- 
eated.? Must there, then, be national defeat and 
captivity before our chosen race gives up its false 
academic-gods? We think of education in the 
most slovenly fashion. The very men who say that 
utility is of no importance are the men who insist 
on the usefulness of a knowledge of French or Ger- 


man. They say that a man is illiterate if he 


_knows only English, although he may be familiar 


with all English literature and with other litera- 
tures through translations. The man who has 
passed certain examinations in his youth and 
never cares to read anything is said to be edu- 
eated. The men of the city of the Violet Crown, 
were they not educated? And did they know any 
other than their own language? 


770 


of the British Empire, ought in future to 
hold the first place in the examination and 
to be exacted from all eandidates.” The 
italics are mine. It will be noticed that 
they say nothing about the practical im- 
possibility of obtaining teachers. As to 
mathematics, the committee say: ‘‘It is of 
almost equal importance that every officer 
should have a thorough grounding in the 
elementary part of mathematics. But they 
think that elementary mechanics and geo- 


metrical drawing, which under the name . 


of practical geometry is now often used 
as an introduction to theoretical instruc- 
tion, should be added to this part of the ex- 
amination so as to insure that at this stage 
of instruction the practical application of 
mathematics may not be left out of sight.’’ 
As Sir Hugh Evans would have said, ‘It 
is a very discretion answer—the meaning 
is good’; but I would that the committee 
had condemned abstract mathematics for 
these army candidates altogether. 

This report appears in good time. It 
would be well if committees would sit and 
take evidence as to the education of men in 
the other professions entered by our aver- 
age boys. It is likely that when an au- 
thoritative report is prepared on the want 
of education of clergymen, for example, 
exactly the same statements will be made 
in regard to the general education which 
ought to precede the technical training; 
but perhaps a reference may be made in the 
report to the importance of a study of 
geology and biology, as well as physical 
science. Think of the clergyman being 
able to meet his scientific enemies in the 
gate! 

Thanks mainly to the efforts of a British 
Association Committee, really good teach- 
ing of experimental science is now being in- 
troduced into all public schools, in spite of 
most persistent opposition wearing an ap- 
pearance of friendliness. In consequence, 
too, of the appointment of a British Asso- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Voz. XVI. No. 411. 


ciation Committee last year, at what might 
be called the psychological moment, a great 
reform has already begun in the teaching 
of mathematies.* Even in the regulations 
for the Oxford Locals for 1903 Euclid is 
repudiated. It seems probable that at the 
end of another five years no average boy 
of fifteen years of age will have been com- 
pelled to attempt any abstract reasoning 
about things of which he knows nothing; 
he will be versed in experimental mathe- 
matics, which he may or may not call men- 
suration; he will use logarithms, and mere 
multiplication and division will be a joy 
to him; he will have a working power with 
algebra and sines and cosines; he will be 
able to tackle at once any curious new 
problem which can be solved by squared 
paper; and he will have no fear of the 
symbols of the infinitesimal calculus. 
When I insist that a boy ought to be able to 
compute, this is the sort of computation 
that I mean. Five years hence it will be 
called ‘elementary mathematics.” Four 
years ago it was an unorthodox subject 
ealled ‘practical mathematics,’ but it is 
establishing itself in every polytechnic and 
technical college and evening or day sci- 
ence school in the country. Several times 
I have been informed that on starting an 
evening class, when plans have been made 
for a possible attendance of ten or twenty 
students, the actual attendance has been 
200 to 300. Pupils may come for one or 
two nights to a class on academic mathe- 
matics, but then stay away forever; a class 
in practical mathematics maintains its 
large numbers to the end of the winter.t 

* Discussion last year and report of committee, 
published by Macmillan. 

+ To many men it will seem absurd that a real 
working knowledge of what is usually called 
higher mathematics, accompanied by mental train- 
ing, can be given to the average boy. In the same 
way it seemed absurd 500 years ago that power to 
read and write and cipher could be given to every- 


body. These general beliefs of ours are very 
wonderful. 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902.] 


Hitherto the average boy has been 
taught mathematics and mechanies as if he 
were going to be a Newton or a Laplace; 
he learnt nothing and became stupid. I 
am sorry to say that the teaching of 
mechanics and mechanical engineering 
through experiment is comparatively un- 
known. Cambridge writers and _ other 
writers of books on experimental mechan- 
ies are unfortunately ignorant of engineer- 
ing. University courses on engineering— 
with one splendid exception, under Pro- 
fessor Ewing at Cambridge—assume that 
undergraduates are taught their mechanics 
as a logical development of one or two 
axioms; whereas in many technical schools 
under the science and art department 
apprentices go through a wonderfully good 
laboratory course in mechanical engineer- 
ing. We really want to give only a few 
fundamental ideas about momentum and 
the transformations of energy and the 
properties of materials, and to give them 
from so many points of view that they be- 
come part of a student’s mental machinery, 
so that he uses them continually. Instead 
of giving a hundred labor-saving rules 
which must be forgotten, we ought to give 
the one or two ideas which a man’s com- 
mon-sense will enable him to apply to any 
pioblem whatsoever and which cannot be 
forgotten. A boy of good mathematical 
attamments may build on this experi- 
mental knowledge afterwards a superstruc- 
ture more elaborate than Rankine or Kel- 
vin or Maxwell ever dreamt of as being 
possible. Every boy will build some super- 
structure of his own. 

I must not dwell any longer on the three 
essential parts of a good general education 
which lead to the three powers which all 
boys of fifteen ought to possess: power to 
use books and to enjoy reading; power to 
use mathematics and to enjoy its use; 
power to study nature sympathetically. 
English board-school boys who go to even- 


SCIENCE. 


UTA 


ing classes in many technical schools after 
they become apprentices are really obtain- 
ing this kind of education. The Scotch 
Education Board is trying to give it to all 
boys in primary and secondary schools. 
It will, I fear, be some time before the 
sons of well-to-do parents in England have 
a chance of obtaining it. 

When a boy or man of any age or any 
kind of experience enters an engineering 
college and wishes to learn the scientific 
principles underlying a trade or profes- 
sion, how ought we to teach him? Here 
is the reasonable general principle which 
Professors Ayrton and Armstrong and I 
have acted upon, and which has so far led 
us to much success. Whether he comes 
from a bad or a good school, whether he 
is an old or young boy or man, approach 
his intelligence through the knowledge 
and experience he already possesses. This 
principle involves that we shall compel the 
teacher to take the pupil’s point of view* 
rather than the pupil the teacher’s; give 
the student a choice of many directions in 
which he may study; let lectures be rather 
to instruct the student how to teach him- 
self than to teach him; show the student 
how to learn through experiment, and how 
to use books, and, except for suggestion 
and help when asked for, leave him greatly 
to himself. If a teacher understands the 
principle he will have no difficulty in carry- 
ing it out with any class of students. I 
myself prefer to have students of very dif- 
ferent qualifications and experience in one 
class, because of the education that each 
gives to the others. Usually, however, ex- 

* Usually it is assumed that there is only one 
line of study. In mathematics it is assumed 
that a boy has the knowledge and power and 
past experience and leisure of an Alexandrian 
philosopher. In mechanics we assume the boy 
to be fond of abstract reasoning, that he is a good 
geometrician who can do the most complex things 


in geometrical conics, but cannot possibly take 
in the simplest idea of the calculus. 


T72 SCIENCE. 


cept. in evening classes, one has a set of 
boys coming from much the same kind of 
school, and, although perhaps differing con- 
siderably as to the places they might take 
in an ordinary examination, really all of 
much the same average intelligence. Per- 
haps I had better describe how the prin- 
ciple is carried out in one case—the sons 
of well-to-do parents such as now leave 
English schools at about fifteen years of 
age. 

It was for such boys that the courses of 
instruction at the Finsbury Technical Col- 
lege (the city and guilds of London Insti- 
tute) were arranged twenty-two years ago. 
It was attempted to supply that kind of 
training which ought already to have been 
given at school, together with so much 
technical training as might enable a boy 
at the end of a two years’ course to enter 
any kind of factory where applied science 
was important, with an observing eye, an 
understanding brain, and a fairly skillful 
hand. The system, in so far as it applies 
to various kinds of mechanical engineer- 
ing, will be found described in one of a 
small collection of essays called ‘England’s 
Neglect of Science,’ pp. 57-67.* I am sure 


* The ideas in this address have been put for- 
ward many times by Professor Ayrton and myself. 
See the following, among other publications: 
“England’s Neglect of Science’ (Fisher Unwin) ; 
“Practical Mechanics,’ 1881 (Cassell) ; ‘ Applied 
Mechanies,’ 1897 (Cassell) ; ‘The Steam Engine, 
ete., 1898 (Maemillan) ; ‘The Calculus for Engi- 
neers,’ 1897 (Arnold); ‘Recent Syllabuses and 
Examination Papers of the Science and Art De- 
partment in Subjects I., VIL, Vp, and XXII.’; 
“Summary of Lectures on Practical Mathematics’ 
(Board of Education) ; ‘The Work of the City 
and Guilds Central Technical College’ (Jowrnal of 
the Society of Arts, July 9, 1897); inaugural lec- 
ture at Finsbury, 1879; address at the Coventry 
Technical Institute, February, 1898; ‘ Education 
of an Electrical Engineer’ (Journal of the Society 
of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians, Sep- 
tember, 1882); presidential address, Institution 
of Electrical Engineers, January, 1892; ‘ The Best 
Education for an Engineer’ (Nature), October 
12, 1899; address at a drawing-room meeting, 
March, 1887. 


[N. 8S. Vou. XVI. No. 411. 


that any engineer who reads that deserip- 
tion will feel satisfied that it was the very 
best course imaginable for the average boy 
of the present time. A boy was taught 
how he must teach himself after, he entered 
works. If after two or three years in the 
works he cared to go for a year or so to 
one of the greater colleges, or did not so 
care, it was assumed that he had had such 
a training as would enable him to choose 
the course which was really the best for, 
him. 

Old Finsbury students are to be found 
everywhere in important posts. The ex- 
periment has proved so successful that 
every London polytechnic, every municipal 
technical school in the country, has adopted 
the system, and in the present state of our 
schools I feel sure that all important col- 
leges ought to adopt the Finsbury system. 
It hardly seems appropriate to apply the 
word ‘system’ to what was so plastic and 
unerystallized and had nothing to do with 
any kind of ritual. 

The professors were given a free hand 
at Finsbury, and there were no outside 
examiners. I need not dwell upon the 
courses in chemistry and physics; some 
critics might call the subjects rational 
chemistry and applied physics; they were 
as different from all other courses of study 
in these subjects as the courses on rational 
mathematics and mechanies differed from 
all courses elsewhere. The course on me- 
chanics was really one on mechanical engi- 
neering. There were workshops in wood 
and iron, not to teach trades, but rather 
to teach boys the properties of materials. 
There were a steam engine and a gas en- 
gine, and shafting and gearing of many 
kinds, and dynamos which advanced stu- 
dents in turn were allowed to look after 
under competent men. There was no ma- 
chine which might not be experimented 
with occasionally. Elementary and ad- 
vanced courses of lectures were given; there 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902.] 


was an elaborate system of tutorial classes, 
where numerical and squared paper exer- 
cise work was done; there were classes in 
experimental plane and solid geometry, 
including much graphical calculation; boys 
were taught to make drawing-office draw- 
ings in peneil only, and tracings and blue 
prints, such as would be respected in the 
workshop, and not the ordinary drawing- 
class drawings, which cannot be respected 
anywhere; but the most important part of 
the training was in the laboratory, in which 
every student worked, making quantitative 
experiments. An offer of a 100-ton test- 
ing machine for that laboratory was made 
but refused; the advanced students usually 
had one opportunity given them of testing 
with a large machine, but not in their own 
laboratory. I consider that there is very 
little educational value in such a machine; 
the student thinks of the great machine,* 
* These great testing-machines, so common in 
the larger colleges, seem to have destroyed all 
idea of scientific experiment. There is so much 
that the engineer wants to know, and yet labora- 
tory people are persistently and lazily repeating 
old work suggested and begun by engineers of 
sixty years ago. For example, men like Fair- 
bairn and Robert Napier would long ago have 
found out the behavior of materials under com- 
bined stresses. We do not even know the condi- 
tion of strength of iron or steel in a twisted shaft 
which is also a beam. The theory of strength 
of a gun or thick tube under hydraulic pressure 
is no clearer now than it was fifty years ago. The 
engineer asks for actual information derived from 
actual trial, and we offer him the ‘ cauld kail het 
again’ stuff falsely called ‘ theoretical,’ which is 
found in all the text-books (my own among 
others). These great colleges of university rank 
ought to recognize that it is their duty to increase 
knowledge through the work of their advanced 
students. The duty is not neglected in the 
electrical departments of some of the colleges. 
Perhaps the most instructive reference is to the 
work done at the Central Technical College of the 
City and Guilds Institute at South Kensington, as 
described by Professor Ayrton in some of the 
papers already referred to. I cannot imagine a 
better development of the Finsbury idea in the 
work of the highest kind of engineering college. 


SCIENCE. 773 


and not of the tiny specimen. Junior 
students loaded wires and beams, or twisted 
things with very visible weights, and saw 
exactly what was happening, or they 
studied vibrating bodies. Many hours 
were devoted to experiments on a battered, 
rusty old serew-jack, or some other lifting 
machine, its efficiency under many kinds 
of load being determined, and students 
studied their observations, using squared 
paper, as intently as if nobody had ever 
made such experiments before. There was 
one piece of apparatus, an old fly-wheel 
bought at a rag-and-bone shop, to which 
kinetie energy was given by a falling 
weight, which, I remember, occupied the 
attention of four white-headed directors of 
electric companies in 1882 (evening stu- 
dents) for many weeks. <A casual first 
measurement led on to corrections for frie- 
tion and stiffness of a cord, and much else 
of a most interesting kind. At the end of 
six weeks these gentlemen had gained a 
most thorough computational acquaintance 
with every important principle of mechan- 
ies, a knowledge never to be forgotten. 
They had also had a revelation such as 
comes to the true experimenter—but that 
is too deep a subject. 

Perhaps teachers in the greater colleges 
will smile in a superior way when they 
hear of this kind of experimental mechan- 
ics being called engineering laboratory 
work. True, it was elementary mechanics; 
but is not every principle which every en- 
eineer constantly needs called a mere ele- 
mentary principle of mechanics by superior 
persons? I find that these elementary 
principles are very much unknown to men 
who have passed through elaborate mathe- 
matical studies of mechanics. Students 
found out in that laboratory the worth of 
formule; they gained courage in making 
ealeulations from formule, for they had 
found out the extent of their own ignorance 
and knowledge. 


Ti4 


I have never approved of elaborate steam 
engines got up for students’ laboratory 
exercise-work. A professor who had de- 
voted much thought for a year to the con- 
struction of such a four-cylinder engine 
showed a friend how any one or any two 
or any three or all four cylinders, with or 
without jacketing, could be used in all 
sorts of ways. The friend ventured to 
say: “This engine will be used just once 
and never after.” The professor was 
angry, but his friend proved to be right. 
The professor made experiments with it 
once himself with a few good students. 
Unfortunately it was not a sufficiently elab- 
orate investigation for publication. After- 
wards he never had time personally to 
superintend such work; his assistants were 
busy at other things; his students could 
not be trusted with the engine by them- 
selves, and to this day it stands in the 
laboratory a beautiful but useless piece of 
apparatus. At Finsbury there was an 
excellent one-cylinder engine with vapor- 
izing condenser. It drove the workshops 
and electric generators. On a field-day it 
drove an electric generator only, and per- 
haps thirty students made measurements. 
Each of them had already acted as stoker 
and engine-driver, as oiler and tester of 
the machinery, lighting fires, taking indi- 
eator diagrams, weighing coals, opening 
and closing cocks from seven in the morn- 
ing to ten at night, so that everything was 
well known to him. They maintained three 
different steady loads for trials of three 
hours each. They divided into groups, 
one from each group ceasing to take a par- 
ticular kind of observation every ten min- 
utes and removing to another job. All 
watches were made to agree, and each stu- 
dent noted the time of each observation. 
These observations were: Taking indicator 
diagrams, checking the speed indicator, 
taking temperature of feed-water, quantity 
of feed by meter (the meter had been eare- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 411. 


fully checked by gauge-notch, and every 
other instrument used by us had been tested 
weeks before), taking the actual horse- 
power passing through a dynamometer 
coupling on the shaft, taking boiler and 
valve-chest pressures and vacuum pressures 
on the roof and in the engine-room, weigh- 
ing coals (the ealorifie value had already 
been tested), taking the horse-power given 
out by the dynamo, counting the electric 
lamps in use, and so on. Each student 
was well prepared beforehand. During 
the next week he reduced his own observa- 
tions, and some of the results were gath- 
ered on one great table. One lesson that 
this taught could never be forgotten—how 
the energy of one pound of coal was dis- 
posed of. So much up the chimney or by 
radiation from boiler or steam-jacket and 
pipes; In condensation in the eylinder; to 
the condenser; in engine friction; in shaft 
friction, ete. I cannot imagine a more 
important lesson to a young engineer than 
this one taught through a common working 
engine. The students had the same sort 
of experience with a gas engine. I need 
hardly say how important it was that the 
professor himself should take charge of 
the whole work leading up to, during, and 
after such a field-day. 

The difficulty about all laboratory exer- 
cise work worth the name is that of finding 
demonstrators and assistants who are wise 
and energetic. Through foolishness and 
laziness the most beautiful system becomes 
an unmeaning routine, and the more 
smoothly it works the less edueational it 
is. In England just now the eurse of all 
education is the small amount of money 
available for the wages of teachers—just 
enough to attract mediocre men. I have 
been told, and I can easily imagine, that 
such men have one talent over-developed, 
the talent for making their job softer and 
softer, until at length they just sit at a 
table, maintaining discipline merely by 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902.] 


their presence, answering the questions of 
such students as are earnest enough to 
come and worry them. In such eases it is 
absolutely necessary to periodically upset 
their clockwork arrangements. After such 
an artificial earthquake one might be re- 
minded of what occurred at the pool of 
Bethesda, whose waters had their healing 
property restored when the angel came 
down and troubled them. But for a per- 
manently good arrangement there ought to 
be very much higher wages all around in 
the teaching profession. 

No kind of engineering has developed 
so rapidly as the electrical. Why, it was 
at the meeting here in Belfast twenty- 
eight years ago (I remember, for I was 
a secretary of Section A that year, and 
took the machine to pieces afterwards in 
Lord Kelvin’s laboratory) that there was 
exhibited for the first time in these islands 
a small Gramme machine. This handmaid 
of all kinds of engineering is now so im- 
portant that every young engineer may be 
called uneducated who has not had a train- 
ing in that kind of mechanical engineering 
which is called electrical engineering. Pro- 
fessor Ayrton’s laboratory at Finsbury is 
the model copied by every other electrical 
engineering laboratory in the world. He 
and I had the same notions; we had both 
been students of Lord Kelvin; we had 
worked together in Japan since 1875; but 
whereas I was trying to make my system 
of teaching mechanical engineering re- 
place an existing system, or want of sys- 
tem, there was no existing system for his 
to replace. Thus it will be found that in 
every electrical engineering laboratory the 
elementary principles are made part of a 
pupil’s mental machinery by many quanti- 
tative experiments, and nobody suggests 
that it is mere elementary physics which is 
being taught—a suggestion often enough 
made about the work in my mechanical 
laboratory. When students know these 


SCIENCE. 775 


elementary principles well, they can apply 
their, mathematics to the subject. As they 
advance in knowledge they are allowed to 
find out by their own experiments how 
their simple theories must be made more 
complex in real machines. Their study 
may be very complete, but, however much 
mathematics and graphical calculation may 
come in, their designs of electrical machin- 
ery are really based upon the knowledge 
acquired by them in the electrical and 
mechanical laboratories. 

The electrical engineer has an enormous 
advantage over other engineers; everything 
lends itself to exact calculation, and a 
completed machine or any of its parts may 
be submitted to the most searching elec- 
trical and magnetic tests, since these tests, 
unlike those applied by other engineers, do 
not destroy the body tested. But for this 
very reason, as a finished product, the elec- 
trical engineer cannot have that training 
in the exercise of his judgment in actual 
practical work after he leaves a college 
that some other engineers must have. In 
tunneling, earthwork, and building, in 
making railways and canals, the engineer 
is supremely dependent on the natural con- 
ditions provided for him, and these condi- 
tions are never twice the same. There are 
no simple laws known to us about the way 
in which sea and river currents will act 
upon sand and gravel, and engineers who 
have had to do with such problems are 
continually appealing to nature, continually 
making observations and bringing to bear 
upon their work all the knowledge and 
habits of thought that all their past ex- 
perience has given them. I do not know 
that there is any job which a good teacher 
would have greater pleasure in underta- 
king than the arrangement of a laboratory 
in which students might study for them- 
selves such problems as come before rail- 
way, canal, river, harbor and coast-protec- 
tion engineers; there is no such laboratory 


776 


in existence at the present time, and in any 
ease it could only be of use in the way of 
mere suggestion to an engineer who had 
already a good knowledge of his profession. 

It was a curious illustration of mental 
inertia that the usual engineering visitor, 
even if he was a professor of engineering, 
always seemed to suppose that the work 
done at Finsbury was the same as that 
done in all the great engineering colleges. 
As a matter of facet no subject was taught 
there in the same manner as it was taught 
elsewhere.* 

Most of the students were preparing for 
electrical or mechanical engineering, and 
therefore we thought it important that 
nearly every professor or demonstrator or 
teacher should be an engineer. I know of 
nothing worse than that an engineering 
student should be taught mathematics or 
physies or chemistry by men who are 
ignorant of engineering, and yet nothing 
is more common in colleges of applied sci- 
ence.t The usual courses are only suit- 
able for men who are preparing to be mere 
mathematicians, or mere physicists, or mere 
chemists. Each subject is taken up in a 
stereotyped way, and it is thought quite 
natural that in one year a student shall 
have only a most elementary knowledge of 
what is to the teacher such a great subject. 
The young engineer never reaches the ad- 
vanced parts which might be of use to him; 
he is not sufficiently grounded in general 
principles; his whole course is only a pre- 
liminary course to a more advanced one 


* It is really ludicrous to see how all preachers 
on technical education are supposed by non-think- 
ing people to hold the same doctrine. The people 
asking for reform in education differ from one 

‘another more than Erasmus and Luther and John 
of Leyden and Knipperdoling. 

y+ At the most important colleges the usual pro- 
fessor or tutor is often ignorant of all subjects ex- 
cept his own, and he generally seems rather proud 
of this; but surely in such a case a man cannot 
be said to know even his own subject. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 411. 


which there is no intention of allowing him 
to pursue, and, not being quite a fool, he 
soon sees how useless the thing is to him. 
The professor of chemistry ought to know 
that until a young engineer can calculate 
exactly by means of a principle, that prin- 
ciple is really, unknown to him. For ex- 
ample, take the equation supposed to be 
known so well, 


Aalst Oy =—=/lal{0)s 


It is never understood by the ordinary ele- 
mentary chemical student who writes it 
down so readily. Every one of the six 
cunning ways in which that equation con- 
veys information ought to be as familiar 
to the young engineer as they are, or ought 
to be, to the most specialized chemist. 
Without this he cannot compute in connec- 
tion with combustion in gas and oil engines 
and in furnaces. But I have no time to 
dwell on the importance of this kind of 
exact knowledge in the education of an 
engineer, 

Mathematies and physies and chemistry 
are usually taught in water-tight compart- 
ments, as if they had no connection with 
one another. In an engineering college 
this is particularly bad. Every subject 
ought to be taught through illustrations 
from the professional work in which a 
student is to be engaged. An engineer has 
been wasting his time if he is able to 
answer the questions of an ordinary ex- 
amination paper in chemistry or pure 
mathematies. The usual mathematical 
teacher thinks most of those very parts of 
mathematics which to an ordinary man 
who wants to wse mathematics are quite 
valueless, and those parts which would be 
altogether useful and easy enough to un- 
derstand he never reaches; and as I have 
said, so it is also in chemistry. Luckily, 
the physics professor has usually some small 
knowledge of engineering; at all events 
he respects it. When the pure mathe- 


NovEMBER 14, 1902.] 


matician is compelled to leave the logical 
sequence which he loves to teach mechanies, 
he is apt scornfully to do what gives him 
least trouble; namely, to give as ‘mechan- 
ics’ that disguised pure mathematics which 
forms ninety per cent. of the pretence 
of theory to be found in so many French 
and German books on machinery. As pure 
mathematical exercise work it is even 
meaner than the stupid exercises in school 
algebras; as pretended engineering it does 
much harm because a student does not find 
out its futility until after he has gone 
through it, and his enthusiasm for mathe- 
matics applied to engineering problems is 
permanently hurt. But how is a poor 
mathematical professcr who dislikes engi- 
neering, feeling like Pegasus harnessed to 
a common wagon—how is he to distinguish 
good from evil? He fails to see how 
worthless are some of the books on ‘theoret- 
ical mechanics’ written by mathematical 
coaches to enable students to pass examina- 
tions. An engineer teaching mathematics 
would avoid all futilities; he would base 
his reasoning on that experimental knowl- 
edge already possessed by a student; he 
would know that the finished engineer can- 
not hope to remember anything except a 
few general principles, but that he ought 
to be able to apply these, clumsily or not, 
to the solution of any problem whatsoever. 
Of course he would encourage some of his 
pupils to take up Thomson and Tait or 
Rayleigh’s ‘Sound,’ or some other classical 
treatise as an advanced study.* 


*One sometimes finds a good mathematician 
brought up on academic lines taking to engineer- 
ing problems. But he is usually stale and unwill- 
ing to go thoroughly into these practical matters, 
and what he publishes is particularly harmful, 
because it has such an honest appearance. When 
we do get, once in forty years, a mathematician 
(Osborne Reynolds or Dr. Hopkinson) who has 
common-sense notions about engineering things, 
or a fairly good engineer (Rankine or James 
Thomson) who has a common-sense command 


SCIENCE. CU 


Not only do I think that every teacher in 
an engineering college ought to have some 
with but it 
seems to me equally important to allow a 
professor of engineering, who ought, above 
all things, to be a practical engineer, to 
keep in touch with his profession. A man 
who is not competing with other engineers 
in practical work very quickly becomes 
antiquated in his knowledge: the design- 
ing work in his drawing-office is altogether 
out of date; he lectures about old difficulties. 
which are troubles no longer; his pupils 
have no enthusiasm in their work because 
it is merely academic and lifeless; even 
when he is a man distinguished for impor- 
tant work in the past his students have that 
kind of disrespect for his teaching which 
makes it useless to them. If there is fear 
that too much well-paid professional work 
will prevent efficiency in teaching, there is 
no great difficulty in applying a remedy. 

One most important fact to be borne in 
mind is that efficient teachers cannot be 
obtained at such poor salaries as are now 
given. An efficient laborer is worthy of 
his hire; an inefficient laborer is not worthy 
of any hire, however small. Again, there 
is a necessity for three times as many 
teachers as are usually provided in Ene- 
land. The average man is in future to be 
really educated. This means very much 
more personal attention, and from thought- 
ful teachers. Is England prepared to face 
the problem of technical education in the 
only way which can lead to success, pre- 
pared to pay a proper price for the real 


acquaintance engineering, 


of mathematics, we have men who receive the 
greatest admiration from the engineering profes- 
sion, and yet it seems to me that quite half of all 
the students leaving our technical colleges ought 
to be able to exercise these combined powers if 
mathematics were sensibly taught in school and 
college. We certainly have had enough of good 
mathematicians meddling with engineering theory 
and of engineers with no mathematics wasting 
their time in trying to add to our knowledge. 


778 


article? If not, she must be prepared to 
see the average man remaining uneducated. 

Advoeaey of teaching of the kind that 
was given at Finsbury is often met by the 
opposition not only of pure mathematicians 
and academic teachers, but I am sorry to 
say also of engineers. The average engi- 
neer not merely looks askance at, he is 
really opposed to, the college training of 
engineers, and I think, on the whole, that 
he has much justification for his views. 
University degrees in engineering science 
are often conferred upon students who fol- 
low an academic course, in which they 
learn little except how to pass examina- 
tions. The graduate of to-day, even, does 
not often possess the three powers to which 
I have referred. He is not fond of read- 
ing, and therefore he has no imagination, 
and the idea of an engineer without imagin- 
ation is as absurd as Teufelsdréch’s notion 
of a cast-iron king. He cannot really com- 
pute, in spite of all his mathematics, and 
he is absurdly innocent of the methods of 
the true student of nature. This kind of 
labeled scientific engineer, is being manu- 
factured now in bulk because there is a 
money value attached to a degree. He is 
not an engineer in any sense of the word, 
and does not care for engineering, but he 
sometimes gets employment in technical 
colleges. He is said to teach when he is 
really only impressing upon deluded pupils 
the importance of formule, and that what- 
ever is printed in books must be true. The 
real young engineer, caught in this eddy, 
will no doubt find his way out of it, for the 
healthy experience of the workshop will 
bring back his common-sense. or the 
average pupil of such graduates there is no 
help. If he enters works, he knows but 
little more than if he had gone direct from 
school. He is still without the three quali- 
fications which are absolutely necessary for 
a young engineer. He is fairly certain to 
be a nuisance in the works and to try an- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 411.- 


other profession at the end of his pupilage. 
But if it is his father’s business he can 
make a show of knowing something about 
it, and he is usually called an engineer. 
Standardization in an industry usually 
means easier and cheaper and better manu- 
facture, and a certain amount of it must 
be good even in engineering, but when we 
see a great deal of it we know that in that 
industry the true engineer is disliked. I 
consider that in the scholastic industry 
there has been far too much standardiza- 
tion. Gymnasien and polytechnic systems 
are standardized in Germany,and there is a 
tendeney to import them into England; 
but in my opinion we are very far indeed 
from knowing any system which deserves 
to be standardized, and the worst we can 
copy is what we find now in Germany and 
Switzerland. What we must strive for is 
the discovery of a British system suiting 
the British boy and man. The English 
boy may be ealled stupid so often that he 
actually believes himself to be stupid; but 
of one thing we may be sure, he will find 
in some way or other an escape from the 
stupefying kind of school work to which 
the German boy submits. And if it were 
possible to make the average English boy 
of nineteen pass such a silly school-leaving 
examination as the German boy,* and to 
pass through a polytechnic, I am quite sure 
that there would be little employment 
among common-sense English engineers for 
such a manufactured article. But is it pos- 
sible that British boys could be manufac- 


* The following is, I understand, a stock ques- 
tion at certain gymnasien: ‘Write out all the 
trigonometrical formule you know.’ I asked my 
young informant, ‘ Well, how many did you write?’ 
‘Sixty-two’ was the answer. This young man 
informed me that a boy could not pass this ex- 
amination unless he knew ‘all algebra and all 
trigonometry and all science.’ Strassburg geese 
used to be fed in France; now they are fed in 
Germany. German education seems to be like 
smothering a fire with too much fuel, or wet slack 
which has the appearance of fuel. 


NOVEMBER [4, 1902.] 


tured into such obedient academic ma- 
chines, without initiative or invention or 
individuality, by teachers who are none of 
them engineers? No, we must have a 
British system of education. We cannot go 
on much longer as we have done in the past 
without engineering education, and, further- 
more, it must be such as to commend itself 
to employers. Of my Finsbury students 
I think I may say that not one failed to 
get into works on a two or three years’ en- 
gagement, receiving some very small wage 
from the beginning, and without paying a 
premium. To obtain such employment 
was obviously one test of fitness to be an 
engineer, because experienced men thought 
it impossible. One test of the system was 
the greater ease with which new men ob- 
tained employment in shops which had 
already taken some of our students. It is 
certainly very difficult to convince an em- 
ployer that a college man will not be a 
nuisance in the shops. In Germany and 
France, and to a less extent in America, 
there is among employers a belief in the 
value of technical education. In England 
there is still complete unbelief. I have 
known the subscribers of money to a large 
technical college in England (the members 
of its governing board) to laugh, all of 
them, at the idea that the college could be 
of any possible benefit to the industries of 
the town. They subscribed because just 
then there was a eraze for technical educa- 
tion due to a recent panic. They were 
ignorant masters of works (sons of the 
men who had created the works), ignorant 
administrators of the college affairs, and 
ignorant critics of their mismanaged col- 
lege. I feel sure that if the true meaning 
of technical education were understood, it 
would commend itself to Englishmen. 
Technical education is an education in the 
seientifie and artistic principles which 
govern the ordinary operations in any in- 
dustry. It is neither a science, nor an 


SCIENCE. 


7179 


art, nor the teaching of a handicraft. It 
is that without which a master is an un- 
skilled master; a foreman an unskilled 
foreman; a workman an unskilled work- 
man; and a clerk or farmer an unskilled 
clerk or farmer. The ery for technical 
education is simply a protest against the 
existence of unskilled labor of all kinds.* 

To have any good general system the 
employers must cooperate. Much of the 
training is workshop practice, and it can- 
not be too often said that this is not to be 
given in any college. The workshop in a 
college serves a quite different purpose. 
Now how may the practice best be given? 
I must say that I like the Finsbury plan 


*T have pointed out how natural it is that 
business men should feel somewhat antagonistic 
to college training. Poorly paid, unpractical 
teachers, with no ideas of their own, have in the 
past taught in the very stupidest way. They 
have called themselves ‘ scientific’ and ‘ theoret- 
ical’ till these words stink in the nostrils of an 
engineer. When I was an apprentice, and no 
doubt it is much the same now, if an apprentice 
was a poor workman with his hands he often took 
to some kind of study which he called the science 
of his trade. And in this way a pawkiness for 
science got to be the sign of a bad workman. But 
if workmen were so taught at school that they 
all really knew a little physical science, it would 
no longer be laughed at. When a civil or elec- 
trical engineer is unsuccessful because he has no 
business habits, he takes to calculation and the 
reading of so-called scientific books, because it is 
very easy to get up a reputation for science. 
The man is a bad engineer in spite of his science, 
but people get to think that he is an unpractical 
man because of his scientific knowledge. I do be- 
lieve that the unbelief in technical education so 
very general has this kind of illogical foundation. 
Four hundred years ago if a layman could read 
or write he was probably a useless person who, 
because he could not do well otherwise, took to 
learning. What a man learnt was clumsily 
learnt; usually he learnt little with great labor 
and made no use of it; therefore reading and 
writing seemed useless. Now that everybody is 
compelled to read and write, it is not a usual 
thing to say that it hurts a man to have these 
powers. 


780 


very much indeed, but there are others. 
When I attended this college in winter I 
was allowed to work in the Lagan Foundry 
in summer. In Japan the advanced stu- 
dents did the same thing; they had their 
winter courses at the college, and the sum- 
mer was spent in the large government 
workshops; the system worked very well 
indeed.* In Germany recently the great 
unions of manufacturers made facilities for 
giving a year of real factory work to the 
polytechnic students, but it seems to me 
that these men are much too old for en- 
trance to works, and, besides, a year is too 
short a time if the finished product is to 
eall itself a real engineer. Possibly the 
British solution may be quite different 
from any of these. A boy may enter works 
at fourteen on leaving a primary school 
or not later than sixteen on leaving a 
secondary school. In either case he must 
have the three powers to which I have 
already referred so often. It will be 
recognized as the duty of the owners of 
works to provide, either in one large works 
or near several works, in a well-equipped 
school following the Finsbury principle, all 
that training in the principles underlying 
the trade or profession which is necessary 
for the engineer. 

No right-thinking engineer has been 
scared by the newspaper writers who tell 
us of our loss of supremacy in manufac- 
ture, but I think that every engineer sees 
the necessity for reform in many of our 
ways, and especially in this of education. 
People talk of the good done to our work- 
men’s ideas by the strike of two years ago; 
it is to be hoped that the employers’ ideas 
were also expanded by their having been 
forced to travel and to see that their shops 
were quite out of date.t In fact, we have 


*Tt was the idea of Principal Henry Dyer. 

+ Not only is there an enormous improvement 
in the use of limit-gauges and checking and tools, 
and the careful calculation of rates of doing work 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 411. 


all got to see that there is far too much 
unskilled labor among workmen and fore- 
men and managers, and especially in own- 
ers. There may be some kinds of manu- 
facture so standardized that everything 
goes like a wound-up clock, and no thought 
is needed anywhere; but certainly it is not 
in any branch of engineering. Many en- 
gineering things may be standardized, but 
not the engineer himself. Millions of 
money may build up trusts, but they will 
be wasted if the unskilled labor of mere 
clerks is expected to take the place of the 
thoughtful skilled labor of owners and 
managers. I go further, and say that no 
perfection in labor-saving tools will enable 
you to do without the skilled, educated, 
thoughtful, honest, faithful workman with 
brains. I laugh at the idea that any coun- 
try has better workmen than ours, and I 
consider edueation of our workmen* to 
be the corner-stone of prosperity in all 
engineering manufacture. It is from him 
in countless ways that all hints leading 
to great inventions come. New countries 
like America and Germany have their 
chance just now; they are starting, without 


by various tools and general shop arrangement, 
but attention is being paid to the comfort of 
workmen. There are basins and towels, and hot 
and cold water for them to wash in. In the old 
days it would have been called faddy philan- 
thropy. Now, owners of works who scorn all 
softness of heart provide perfect water-closets for 
their men; their workshops are kept at a uniform 
temperature; the evil effect of a bad draught in 
producing colds, or a bad light in hurting the 
eyes, is carefully considered. In some of these 
works it is actually possible for a workman or a 
member of his family to get a luxurious hot bath 
for a penny. Will this really pay? Some clever 
hard-headed men of my acquaintance say they 
already see that it does pay very well indeed. 

*The old apprenticeship system of training 
men has broken down and this is the cause of 
most of our industrial troubles. An apprentice- 
ship system suited to modern conditions is de- 
scribed fully on pages 68-88 of ‘ England’s Neglect 
of Science.’ 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902. ] 


having to ‘scrap’ any old machinery or old 
ideas, with the latest machinery and the 
latest ideas. For them also the time will 
come when their machines will be getting 
out-of-date and the cost of ‘scrapping’ will 
loom large in their eyes. In the mean- 
time they have taught us lessons, and this 
greatest of all lessons—that unless we look 
ahead with much judgment, unless we take 
reasonable precautions, unless we pay some 
regard to the fact that the cleverest people 
in several nations are hungry for our trade 
and jealous of our supremacy, we may 
for a time lose a little of that supremacy. 
In the last twenty-three years I have writ- 
ten a good deal about the harm done to 
England by the general dislike that there 
is among all classes for any kind of educa- 
tion. I do not say that this dislike is 
greater than it used to be in England; I 
complain that it is about as great. But 
I have never spoken of the decadence of 
England. It is only that we have been 
too confident that those manufactures and 
that commerce and that skill in engineer- 
ing, for which Napoleon sneered at us, 
would remain with us forever. Many 
writers have long been pointing out the 
consequences. of neglecting education; 
prophesying those very losses of trade, 
that very failure of engineers to keep their 
houses in order, which now alarms all news- 
paper writers. Panies are ridiculous, but 
there is nothing ridiculous in showing that 
we can take a hint. We have had a very 
strong hint given us that we cannot forever 
20 on with absolutely no education in the 
scientific principles which underlie all en- 
gineering. There is another important 
thing to remember. Should foreigners get 
the notion that we are decaying, we shall 
no longer have our industries kept up by 
an influx of clever Uitlanders, and we are 
much too much in the habit of forgetting 
what we owe to foreigners, Fleming and 
German, Hollander, Huguenot and He- 


SCIENCE. 


_to a new phenomenon. 


781 


brew, for the development of our natural 
resources. Think of how much we some- 
times owe to one foreigner like the late 
Sir William Siemens. 

But I am going too far; there is after 
all not so very much of the foolishness of 
Ishbosheth among us, and I cannot help 
but feel hopeful as I think lovingly of 
what British engineers have done in the 
past. We who meet here have lived 
through the pioneering time of mechanical 
and electrical and various other kinds of 
engineering. Our days and nights have 
been delightful because we have had the 
feeling that we also were helping in the 
creation of a quite new thing never before 
known. It may be that our successors will 
have a better time, will see a more rapid 
development of some other applications of 
science. Who knows? In every labora- 
tory of the world men are discovering more 
and more of nature’s secrets. The labora- 
tory. experiment of to-day gives rise to the 
engineering achievement of to-morrow. 
But I do say that, however great may be 
the growth of engineering, there can never 
be a time in the future history of the 
world, as there has never before been a 
time, when men will have more satisfaction 
in the growth of their profession than en- 
gineers have had during the reign of Queen 
Victoria. 

And now I want to call your attention 
Over and over. 
again has attention been called to the fact 
that the engineer has created what is called 
‘modern civilization,’ has given luxuries of 
all kinds to the poorest people, has pro- 
vided engines to do all the slave labor of 
the world, has given leisure and freedom 
from drudgery, and chances of refinement 
and high thought and high emotion to 
thousands instead of units. But it is do- 
ing things more striking still. Probably 
the most important of all things is that the 
yoke of superstitions of all kinds on the 


782 


souls of men should be lifted. The study 
of natural science is alone able to do this, 
but edueation through natural science for 
the great mass of the people, even for the 
select few called the distinguished men of 
the country, has been quite impossible till 
recently. I say that it is to engineers that 
the world owes the possibility of this new 
study becoming general. In our country 
nearly all discoveries come from below. 
The leaders of science, the inventors, re- 
ceive from a thousand obscure sources the 
germs of their great discoveries and in- 
ventions. When every unit of the popula- 
tion is familar with scientific ideas our 
leaders will not only be more numerous, 
but they will be individually greater. And 
it is we, and not the schoolmasters, who 
are familiarizing the people with a better 
knowledge of nature. When men ean 
hardly take a step without seeing steam 
engines and electro-motors and telegraphs 
and telephones and steamships, with drain- 
age and water works, with railways and 
electric tramways and motor-cars; when 
every shop-window is filled with the prod- 
ucts of engineering enterprise, it is get- 
ting rather difficult for people to have any 
belief in evil spirits and witchcraft. 

All the heart-breaking preaching of en- 
thusiasts in education would produce very 
little effect upon an old society like that 
of England if it were not for the engineer. 
He has produced peace. He is turning 
the brown desert lands of the earth into 
ereen pastures. He is producing that in- 
tense competition among nations which 
compels edueation. If England has always 
been the last to begin reform, she has al- 
ways been the most thorough and steadfast 
of the nations on any reform when once 
she has started on it. Education, peda- 
eogy, is a progressive science; and who am 
I that I should say that the system of edu- 
cation advocated by me is that which will 
be found best for England? In school 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 411. 


education of the average boy or man Eng- 
land has as yet had practically no experi- 
ence, for she has given no real thought to 
it. Yet when she does, I feel that although 
the Finsbury scheme for engineers may 
need great improvement, it contains the 
germ of that system which must be adopted 
by a race which has always learned through 
trial and error, which has heen led less by 
abstract principles or. abstract methods of 
reasoning than any race known in history. 
JOHN PERRY. 


IN MEMORY OF JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 
To THE Eprror or SCIENCE: 
Dear Sir: 

It has for many years been the custom at the 
Smithsonian Institution to hold a meeting of the 
friends and associates of a member of the staff 
who shal] have passed away, not by the way of 
portraying his life and services, but rather as an 
immediate mark of respect. These proceedings 
have usually been private, but I have thought 
that the minutes of the meeting held on the day 
of the funeral of Major Powell, so long and so 
widely known in official and scientific circles and 
an editor of your journal, should be made a matter 
of publie record, and I am transmitting them to 
you in the hope that you may find a place for 
them in Scrmence. They are words of grief and 
affection and were not intended as a 
of the life and work of Major Powell, which I 
am expecting his friends and associates here in 


memorial 


Washington and elsewhere to portray later on. 
Quite before Major Powell’s work as an admin- 
istrator and a scientific man, before his very great 
achievements as an explorer, before the influence 
he had in molding the work and, indeed, the lives, 
of many scores of young men who came under his 
influence, there was the man himself, one to be 
loved and admired, no matter what his walk in 
life had been. 
won such an affection from me, and it is a com-. 
forting thought, which I cherish, that this affec- 


During years of association he had 


tion was returned. 
Very respectfully yours, 
S. P. LaneLey, 
Secretary. 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902. ] 


MINUTES OF A MEETING HELD AT THE U. S. 
NATIONAL MUSEUM PRECEDING THB 
FUNERAL OF MAJOR J. W. POWELL, 
DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF 
AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, 

SEPT. 26, 1902, 

THE meeting was called to order by Mr. 
Richard Rathbun, Assistant Secretary of 
the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. W J 
MeGee acted as Secretary. 

Mr. Rathbun made the following intro- 
ductory remarks: 

“*Tadies and Gentlemen: You know the 
sad oeeasion which has brought us together. 

“The Smithsonian Institution, the en- 
tire scientific body of Washington, and in- 
deed universal science have lost a devoted 
official, an affectionate friend, an original, 
ingenious and forceful contributor to hu- 
man knowledge in the death of Major 
Powell. This is not the time to recount 
his labors or successes or to estimate the 
work which he pursued with such unflag- 
ging zeal amidst sufferings which would 
have daunted many a less heroic spirit. 

“We are met together to give expression 
in a few words to our sense of loss and the 
grief which we feel at the passing away 
of him whom all his friends, and they were 
legion, affectionately called the ‘Major.’ 

“*T shall ask a few of you, who no doubt 
wish to pay a tribute of respect to him, 
to say a few words, but before doing so, 
there is a word which I feel I must say on 
behalf of Mr. Langley, the Secretary of 
the Institution, whose affection for the 
Major was known to you all, and who has 
lost in him as near a friend as he had 
either in his official or in his private rela- 
tions. The affectionate consideration and 
regard which these two men had for each 
other was something beautiful to know. I 
am sure that if Mr. Langley were here 
to-day he would say so much and even 
more, and it will be a matter of great regret 
to him that he cannot pay this tribute to his 


SCIENCE. 


783 


old friend. He appears to have arrived 
from Europe in Boston yesterday morning 
and to have immediately left, before re- 
ceiving word of the Major’s death. 

““T presume that the meetine will wish 
to adopt a minute expressive of its sense 
of loss, together with a word of condolence 
to the striken family, and I shall ask that 
the following gentlemen act as a committee 
to prepare these words: Doctor Walcott, 
Doctor McGee, Professor Mason, Doctor 
Dall and Mr. Hodge.’’ 


Mr. W. H. Dall then addressed the meet- 
ing as follows: 

“Our friend has left us. While the 
time is not yet appropriate to estimate 
his scientific labors and to detail the work 
he has done for his country, the first feel- 
ing undoubtedly that has come to all of 
us, with the news brought from his death- 
bed, has been that of personal bereavement. 
I may say from my own experience, which 
I am sure is uniformly that of every one 
who was associated with the Major, that 
few men in official life or out of it have 
succeeded, without effort apparently, in in- 
citing in the hearts of those who observe, 
esteem and honor them, so much of real 
personal affection. 

‘*T look back for over twenty years on 
my acquaintance and intimacy with Major 
Powell, and from the very first I knew 
him as one who would look around among 
those brought from all sourees to his official 
work, not merely with the supervising eye 
of a master, the critical mind of a scientist, 
or the indifference of a disciplinarian, but 
rather as a friend—one might almost say, 
as a father—to the young fellows serving 
him and with him. 

“‘With the feeling of grief so keen, it 
is hard to say much, or to express that feel- 
ing adequately. Perhaps there are some 
of you who heard, fourteen years ago, his 
address on the death of Professor Baird, 


784 


and in that address there are a few words 
which seem to me as applicable to Major 
Powell as they were to Professor Baird, 
and I will read them. He said, speaking 
of Professor Baird: 

“Jn his work with his assistants he scrupu- 
lously provided that every one should receive the 
meed of honor due for successful research and he 
treated all with generosity. Many an investiga- 
tion begun by himself was turned over to assist- 
ants when he found that valuable conclusions 
could be reached; and these assistants, who were 
his warm friends, his younger brothers, reaped 
the reward; and he had more joy over every 
young man’s success than over the triumphs and 
honors heaped upon himself from every quarter 
of the globe. He was the sympathetic counselor 
of many men; into his ears were poured the sor- 
rows and joys of others, and he mourned with 
the mourning and rejoiced with the rejoicing. 
To those in need his hand was ready and his 
purse was open, and many were the poor who 
called him “ blessed.”” Though a man of great 
force of character, a man of great learning, a man 
upon whom had been showered the honors of the 
scientific world, in character he was as simple as 
a child, ” 


Doctor Gilman then spoke as follows: 

‘“‘When I arrived from Europe last even- 
ing, after a long absence, the first thing 
which reached me was a mourning letter. 
T opened it and read the sad announcement 
that has called us here to-day. There are 
others far more competent than I am to 
give utterance to the sentiments of affec- 
tion and respect which have brought us 
together, in this home of science, before we 
bear the body to the tomb. I came here 
not to speak, but to bear silent testimony 
to the work of our departed friend. 

‘Grief has many languages for its ex- 
pression. There is the language of silence, 
the dumb utterance of sorrow. There is 
the language of flowers and foliage, the 
forget-me-nots and immortelles, the ivy of 
friendship and the palm leaves of victory, 
upon which we are looking. Grief has 
the language of tears, and there are those 
who are weeping now and who will con- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 411. 


tinue to weep in the lonely hours that are 
to come. But why should we, his scien- 
tifie friends, mourn for one whose labors 
are over, whose troubles are ended, whose 
reputation is established, who has forsaken 
the mortal frame in which he toiled and 
suffered for so many years, and has gone 
to his rest and his reward? There is also 
the language of clear discrimination, of 
justice and of eulogy, the review of all that 
such a man has accomplished—the language 
to which, no doubt, we shall listen at an- 
other time. 

‘“At the moment let us employ the lan- 
guage of friendship, whether our voices 
speak, or only our hearts. Let us think 
of this departed leader as our friend and 
recall his characteristics. He began as a 
gallant and fearless soldier, who lost a limb 
in the service of his country; he became a 
courageous and successful explorer, accom- 
plished one of the most marvelous feats 
in the record of geographical science; he 
came again to the front as the promoter 
of many branches of science, complex and 
difficult, and the conciliator of divergent 
views in respect to legislation. Every- 
where and always he was the friend of 
those who were working for the advance- 
ment of knowledge, a friend on whom we 
relied, whose voice was always buoyant 
and cheerful, whose bearing was always 
hopeful and optimistic, whose strength 
was always in the confidence of the things 
he had accomplished and of the things he 
knew would come to pass, whose judgment 
was always persuasive. 

‘*As T stand here. I think of him presid- 
ing over a meeting of the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science in 
Boston, where, attracted by his many en- 
dearing qualities and particularly by his 
genial manner, many men became his 
friends. I remember the address com- 
memorating Professor Baird from which 
an appropriate selection has just been read. 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902. ] 


I remember his lectures to a body of scien- 
tifie students and the sparkling enthusiasm 
with which he inspired all who listened to 
him. I have sat at his bedside in the 
hospital and have seen how patiently he 
bore the infirmities from which he sought 
relief. Having devoted his hfe to the 
study of earth and man, he was fond of the 
most abstract views, and on his sick-bed 
he was then endeavoring to work out, or 
at least to work upon, the philosophy of 
those complex problems of existence which 
are so fascinating and so difficult. 

“‘T remember him as the faithful friend 
and as such I join with you in mourning 
his loss. I honor him also as the loyal 
citizen, the indefatigable toiler, the ac- 
knowledged leader, ‘the happy warrior.’ ”’ 


Doctor Charles D. Walcott then spoke as 
follows: 

‘‘We have listened to the words of some 
who learned to admire and love the Major 
as a result of association in various rela- 
tions in life. I will add a few remarks on 
behalf of those who were associated with 
him for many years in the work of the 
Geological Survey before he resigned the 
directorship thereof and turned his atten- 
tion solely to the Bureau of Ethnology; 
and first a word of personal recollection. 

“*T first met Major Powell in the winter 
of 1879, in Washington. I had been work- 
ing in the country with which he was so 
familiar, the Grand Canyon of the Colo- 
rado, in Arizona. I was a young man. 
Putting his arm around me, he said: ‘My 
boy, you have done well; I hope you will 
stay with us.’ From that time to the end 
the same friendly relations were main- 
tained. 

‘‘Major Powell was a natural leader of 
men. I saw evidence of this often during 
his career. On one such occasion we were 
in the forests of the Kaibab of Arizona. 
Gathered around the camp fire were the 


SCIENCE. 785 


camp men, the rough riders of the plains, 
and Indians, and to them the Major talked 
of Indian myths and of his wonderful ex- 
His influ- 
ence over, all his hearers was so profound 
that, in the days that followed, a word from 
him was sufficient to cause the men to go 
anywhere or to do anything, no matter 
what the personal danger might be. 
““When the Major said good-by as Di- 
rector of the Survey, it was a meeting in 
which tears were shed, so much was he 
loved by many of those who had been asso- 
ciated with him. In the summer of 1892, 
when it became necessary to make changes 
in the Survey, the Major said to me: ‘Here 
is a list of persons, some of whom must be 
dropped. I don’t want to do it. I can 
not do it alone; I must have suggestions 
from the men about me, and I wish you 
would take it up with them.’ Later he 
came to a case where there was a wife and 
children, and he said: ‘That man must 
remain.’ Often after that, in discussing 
the welfare of members of the Survey, he 
would ask, not so often what they were 
doing and what were the results, but, 
‘How are they getting on and what are 
their prospects?’ When he left the Sur- 
vey I asked him: ‘Major, what can we do 
that would be of interest or pleasure to 
you in the conduct of the work of the 
Survey?’ He thought a moment and 
said: ‘There is but one thing that I have 
to request. There is one man who fought 
with me in the exploration of the great 
eanyon. Look after Jack. I do not care 
especially about anything else; the work 
will go on all right.’ That showed his 
feeling for the man who had saved his 
life. Thus did I often see the thoughtful 
and affectionate side of the man’s nature. 
“Another characteristic, one more fre- 
quently seen in public, was that which he 
exhibited in his army career. He was a 
fighter when once aroused. At Shiloh, on 


ploration of the great canyon. 


786 


the line of battle, he lost his arm. He 
was obliged to retire, but in a few weeks 
he returned to the front at Vicksburg. 
Once in the fray, he was there to the end. 
When he came to Washington to organize 
scientific work he had the benefit of the 
advice and experience of Professor Baird; 
but the organization of scientific work on 
a broad national basis remained to be ac- 
complished. Through his energy and 
power of organization he led in the consoli- 
dation of the King, Hayden and Powell 
surveys, and thus helped to win a great 
fight for scientifie research. During his 
explorations in the West, from 1869 to 
1879, he became imbued with the idea that 
the arid region must be saved through the 
husbanding of its waters. He thought out 
a great scheme of irrigation. In 1883, in 
developing it, he got into a conflict, which 
eulminated in 1892. Through that con- 
flict he showed the same spirit that domi- 
nated him when a soldier. He felt that 
he was right, and although defeated for 
the time, he lived to see his views accepted 
by Congress, in June, 1902. It has been 
said that if he felt his position was right 
he would follow it up even though by so 
doing the whole organization should be 
wiped out. 

‘‘Year by year since 1894 I have told the 
Major of what was going on in the Geolog- 
ical Survey, of the welfare of individuals, 
and of the welfare of the organization in 
which he had such great interest. In all 
our talks, from 1879 to our last meeting, 
in May, I never heard him say a word of 
what he had done or what he himself 
thought of his work. 

‘““We mourn Major Powell as a man, as 
a soldier, and as one of the great leaders in 
the development of science and scientific 
organization in America.’’ 


Commissioner W. T.: Harris then ad- 
dressed the meeting as follows: 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 411. 


‘“When I came to Washington more than 
twelve years ago Major Powell was one of 
the first to extend me a friendly greeting. 
We had not met before. Since that time 
I have been brought into closer and closer 
connection with him as the years have gone 
by. Iam glad of this opportunity to testify, 
as others have done before me, to his good- 
ness. He was one of the most interesting 
of men; one of the most beautiful char- 
acters that I have ever known. It was. 
easy for me, coming as a stranger to Wash- 
ington, to discover traces of his work and 
influence in many departments of the gov- 
ernment and in many places in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, and I could not help 
often asking myself, what is the source of 
Major Powell’s power and influence? I 
knew of his brilliant and brave geological 
explorations; knew of his high-minded de- 
sire to find the scientific truth in regard to: 
nature and man. He looked around the 
world and tried to explain higher civiliza- 
tions by the same principles that he found 
at work in simple forms among the savages: 
in our western border lands. He had an 
unbiased love of truth combined with such 
personal amiability that he succeeded be- 
yond most men in attaching to him his. 
associate workers and assistants, as it were 
with links of steel; he was true to them and - 
they were true to him. He was so broad- 
minded as to extend his interests beyond 
his provinees of geology and ethnology and 
philology to writings of men in other de- 
partments of science and history and 
poetry, and even of philosophy. Whatever: 
was human interested John W. Powell. 
He took the problems of his contemporaries 
seriously and tried to make out for himself 
in his own way of thinking what there was 
or is of value in these other departments. 
During his long life he was gradually ma- 
turing his views not only of his special 
department, but his views of the world. 
One of the first things I came upon in my 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902. ] 


acquaintance with him was his altruistic 
view of the world. He had made for him- 
self a very noble and interesting concept 
of the relation of nature to man, adopting 
the spiritual theory of man as Lord of 
Nature and as having a higher destiny than 
nature. 

““What has interested me most, however, 
in Major Powell has been the unique work 
which he has done to perfect the govern- 
ment policy in regard to science and to the 
national undertaking of improvements 
which, while they are of interest to the en- 
tire nation, yet are too great for individual 
or even for state accomplishment. Long 
ago we had made the beginnings in this 
nation, feeble beginnings as they were, of 
great undertakings in regard to the surveys 
of our territory and our coast lines; we 
had, under the leadership of great and 
noble men in our former history—we had 
begun to employ the scientific expert. But 
for the most part it was not the scientific 
expert, but the mere laborer or the mere 
adventurer, who came to the front and per- 
formed the details of the work. The ex- 
pert could not use such assistance as 
naturally came to him by the regular 
political methods of appointment in vogue. 
From what I have been able to see, it was 
Major Powell who worked little less than a 
revolution in this matter of educating our 
national legislature through its committees 
into the habit of seeking for and obtaining 
the scientific expert in all places where he 
is needed. It was he who influenced by 
his word of persuasion the government to 
expend very large sums for the production, 
in worthy style, of publications giving the 
result of scientific research and exploration. 

““We are comparatively a new nation and 
our experiment is entirely a new one. We 
are trying to produce a nation of local self- 
government; we seek a government that 
while on the one hand it is elected by the 
masses of the people, yet, on the other 


SCIENCE. 


787 


hand, has invented for itself formulas of 
action which sift out selfishness and incom- 
petence and secure the wise and fittest per- 
sons to do the work of a great government. 
Government work, instead of being a matter 
of reproach, shall become a matter of pride 
to even the best people in the country. 
Major Powell thought it a great object to 
aid this progress of the national govern- 
ment into a proper sense of the importance 
of true science. They should learn not to 
squander large salaries on mere attachés 
of the political machine; the government 
should learn to know the difference be- 
tween the true scientific man and one who 
masquerades in the name of science. The 
government should have specialists who are 
learned in matters of geology and engineer- 
ing and ethnology and botany and zoology 
and chemistry—specialists in everything 
that applies to science and that will be 
found necessary in some department of the 
great government service which extends 
around the world and into all climates. 

““We all know what a difficult matter it 
is to aid our government to make progress 
in these lines. All the weight of conserva- 
tism and all the weight of the time-servers 
and demagogues will be thrown in the other 
seale, but the future historian will single 
out the hundreds and thousands of names 
of congressmen and of public officers who 
have done something worthy of mention in 
this great work, and it is my conviction 
from such observation as I have been able 
to make that Major John W. Powell’s 
name will be found to shine in the front 
rank when the list is made up. 

“The inventors of local self-government 
have received from the beginning great 
praise, but those who make local self-gov- 
ernment possible by inventing sieves with 
which to sift out incompetence and pre- 
tenders to science and who invent means of 
selecting the best talent in the nation to 
do the nation’s work and who ereate 


788 


salaries and positions of permanent dignity 
shielded from the harm of the necessary 
fluetuations which occur in our national 
politics really accomplish something for 
which the nation will be far prouder in 
future times than it is or can be now. I 
have found in Washington these years past 
a remarkable set of men, men that are to 
be met with at the Cosmos Club on one of 
the Mondays of the month; a set of men 
whose names one finds in the scientific 
archives of the world, whether he looks into 
those archives in New York or ‘Boston or 
London or Paris or Berlin. These are 
men who have made by original discovery 
additions to their specialty in science and 
I have often said that one may find in the 
Cosmos Club on such an oceasion the finest 
set of scientific men that can be met with 
anywhere at a club meeting. I should be 
glad to learn where there is to be found a 
more noteworthy company of scientific 
men. <A goodly number of the scientific 
men in our government employ are cer- 
tainly here through the influence of Major 
Powell, and I believe that I am right in 
thinking that other departments which 
have a splendid array of talent in the way 
of specialists and experts have found it 
easy to obtain them because of the victory 
first gained in the geological survey under 
Major Powell. 

‘“These matters are known in whole and 
detail by those present on this solemn oc- 
easion, but to an entire stranger to Major 
Powell and his work I should attempt to 
convey some idea of the greatness of the 
subject of our eulogiums to-day by saying 
that he was one of the few who when our 
nation was groping its way through dark- 
ness assisted it in organizing and develop- 
ing its scientific work and finding the 
proper men to place in charge of its great 
interests, and that each department that 
has worked in this line has assisted and 
strengthened the management of other de- 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 411. 


partments to secure the light of science. 
We who have known Major Powell and 
his lovely and noble character have shared 
in the blessings that his life has brought.’’ 


Mr. Mareus Baker then addressed the 
meeting as follows: 

‘“Many things are worthy to be said of 
our dear friend who. is gone, but public 
speaking at this parting hour is ill adapted 
for such expression. It is better to be silent 
than to speak. 

‘It was my good fortune to be associated 
with the Major (as everybody loved to eall 
the dear old man) for a dozen years or 
more, and during a part of that time very 
intimately. The influence which he ex- 
erted in the advancement of science, upon 
legislation, in his work in anthropology, in 
his work indeed in many lines, all these 
sink down on an oceasion like this before 
the personal affection felt for the man him- 
self. I count it as one of the peculiar 
pleasures of my life to have been so long 
and so intimately associated with the man, 
whose fame must increase with the increas- 
ing years.”? 


Mr. W J MeGee spoke as follows: 

‘““Tt seems fitting, by reason of my asso- 
ciation with Major Powell in his later 
years, that I should offer the final expres- 
sion at this meeting. It is not an easy 
task; the sense of personal bereavement and 
of public calamity is too strong upon me. 

““The old man was a soldier, a born sol- 
dier. Not only when rumors of war arose, 
but during the whole of his life he was ac- 
tuated by the spirit of the soldier. His 
life was a battle; more completely than that 
of any other man I have known was his 
career one of ceaseless strife. 

‘*Powell was a great man. Twenty-four 
years ago last month I first saw him. My 
first impression was of the strength of his 
grasp. Things large to others were small 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902.] 


to him; and things great to him were past 
the reach of most others. Three or four 
years later when I came to Washington the 
impression was strengthened, especially in 
listening to an address which he delivered 
in this building. In the course of it my 
mind framed a characterization of the man: 
- Other scientific men were making bricks; 
he too was making bricks; but, unlike the 
rest, he was putting his own and those of 
others together in great structures. Then, 
as before and after, he was associated with 
the ablest scientific men of the country, the 
foremost knowledge-makers of the century ; 
but, as it seemed to me then and as it has 
always seemed since, their units were to 
him but fractions. 

**Powell was a unique character in his 
generation. I am one of those who re- 
garded him as an intellectual giant among 
his fellows, a Saul among his brethren. 
Early in his career he touched natural his- 
tory, and it was enriched. He touched 
geography in a vigorous exploration the 
like of which has never been in our coun- 
try, and again in the world’s most com- 
prehensive plan for the survey of a great 


country ; and geography was enriched. He © 


dwelt longer on geology, and the science 
was reconstructed. He dwelt longest of 
all on the great science of Man, and that 
science was constructed; for the ethnology 
and anthropology of to-day, not alone in 
Washington, not alone in America, but 
throughout the world, is in large measure 
the product of the great brain of the 
friend whom we mourn. 

“While Major Powell was an intellec- 
tual giant, he was more. As I conceive 
it, he was a moral giant. His strongest 
character was integrity; next to this was 
charity. These qualities have been re- 
marked by Director Walcott and have been 
brought out in the utterances of others. 
His sympathy went out to all mankind; 
especially to the struggling youth in the 


SCIENCE. 789 


scientific world was he a constant friend. 
He was ever actuated by the noblest mo- 
tives; with charity toward all and malice 
toward none he lived out his days. 

‘“Major Powell was a maker of science 
through the creation of opportunities for 
others as well as through his own efforts. 
There is not a scientific man within the 
sound of my voice, or indeed in all this 
broad country of ours, who is not in some 
measure the beneficiary of his efforts for 
the development of science. I do not un- 
derestimate that which .other scientific 
leaders have accomplished; no one appre- 
ciates more highly than I the work of a 
score of men whose names I should be 
glad to mention as a tribute to their lead- 
ership in science; yet the feeling has long 
been strong in my mind that it was J. W. 
Powell who made governmental science re- 
spectable. He possessed in unique degree 
the power of presenting the good of science 
to statesmen, the faculty of appealing to 
average citizens; he was able to impress on 
all the importance of knowledge, the utility 
of knowledge, the goodness of knowledge. 
It was in this that his great grasp was best 
displayed; he intuitively seized on the best 
of things, and his very simplicity reached 
out to every heart. It was his efforts more 
than those of any other that helped our 
people to make America what it is to-day, 
a nation of science. 

“Tt is not my purpose to do more than 
utter a few words as a tribute to the great 
man who is gone. In some respects I en- 
joyed an apparently intimate association 
with him, yet I must say, even if it sur- 
prise my friends who are also friends of 
Major Powell, that in many ways the asso- 
ciation was not intimate. There are a 
score of men present at this moment, and 
many scores elsewhere in the country, with 
whom Powell discussed matters scientific 
and philosophic much more fully than 
with myself; very seldom indeed was there 


790 


discussion between us of scientific topics 
or even of administrative topics. Some- 
how I learned early in the association how 
his mind ran, and came to know fairly 
well not only the lines of his action, but 
the course of his thought. So between us 
discussion was needless. This very fact 
indicates the closeness of the sympathy 
existing between us; and I mention it as 
an apology for any appearance of fulsome 
eulogy that may have fallen from my lips. 

“‘The feeling that overwhelms me is one 
of loss. The greatest of scientific men is 
gone; our warmest friend of scientific 
progress has passed away; our brightest 
exemplar of human knowledge is no more. 

“This is but little of what I am moved 
to say; yet I am glad to offer even this 
small tribute to a great man.’’ 


Doctor, Walcott, Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Resolutions, then offered the 
following, which was adopted by a rising 
vote: 

‘““The friends and associates of Major 
John Wesley Powell here place upon record 
an expression of their grief at the loss of 
a loyal friend, a devoted public servant, a 
daring explorer, and an original contrib- 
utor, to the sum of human knowledge, and 
they extend to the family of Major Powell 
their sincere condolence in their great be- 
reavement.’’ 

The meeting then adjourned. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

The Chemistry of the Terpenes. By Dr. F. 
Heuster, Privatdocent of Chemistry in the 
University at Bonn. Authorized transla- 
tion by Dr. Francis J. Ponp, Assistant Pro- 
fessor in the Pennsylvania State College. 
Carefully revised, enlarged and corrected. 
One volume. P. Blakiston’s Son & Co., 
Philadelphia. 1902. $4.00. Pp. 457. 
Webster’s International Dictionary states 

that a terpene is ‘ Any one of a series of iso- 

meric hydrocarbons of pleasant aromatic odor, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 411. 


occurring especially in coniferous plants and 
represented by oil of turpentine, but includ- 
ing also certain hydrocarbons found in some 
essential oils.’ 

This so-called definition may serve, in part 
at least, the purpose of the publisher, for it 
may satisfy the curiosity of one who inci- 
dentally has stumbled across the word and 
eares little for positive information. It cer- 
tainly does not define the word chemically, as 
it pretends to do. 

Some years ago one of the writer’s students 
presented himself with a set of examination 
questions of an eastern college of pharmacy. 
One of the questions read: ‘What is a ter- 
pene?’ and the student, who had attended a 
course on ‘hydrocymenes and derivatives,’ 
apparently was curious to know how the 
writer would briefly define a terpene for the 
purpose of an examination paper. “A _ ter- 
pene is a dihydro‘terpene,’” was the prompt 
reply. For a moment the student was puz- 
zled. Shortly, however, he recalled sufficient 
of A. v. Baeyer’s application of Geneva Con- 
gress nomenclature to the terpenes: He there- 
fore smiled and walked away, seemingly satis- 
fied. 

The fact is that the word terpene has been 
used to designate different groups of com- 
pounds. The compiler of Webster’s Diction- 
ary seems to know of natural terpenes only. 
Semmler, on the other hand, thought it neces- 
sary to reduce the number of natural terpenes 
proper and assigned to certain hydrocarbons 
(C,,H,,) found in volatile oils the name ali- 
phatie terpenes. Not satisfied with this, he 
coined the name pseudoterpenes for certain 
other isomeric hydrocarbons of this group. 

Kénig, who tried to give a strict chemical 
meaning to the word alkaloid, defined this 
term as standing for certain derivatives of 
pyridine, thereby excluding such well-known 
alkaloids as caffeine and many others. A. v. 
Baeyer, in an adaptation of Geneva Congress 
nomenclature to terpenes and camphors, de- 
fined a terpene as a tetrahydrocymene. The 
terpenes of old, in accordance with the same 
principles of nomenclature, became terpadi- 
enes. However, there are many ‘ terpenes,’ 
z. e., hydrocarbons (C,,H,,), which cannot be 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902.] 


referred to cymene, even if much chemical 
sophistry be applied. 

While from the point of view of rational 
chemical classification the word terpene has 
been much abused, like so many other chem- 
ical terms that have admirably served their 
purpose in times past, from a practical point 
of view this term is universally, though rather 
vaguely, understood. The same holds true of 
the equally abused word camphor, which is so 
frequently coupled with the word terpene. 

The terpenes and camphors are of equal 
interest to the theoretical chemist ‘and to the 
chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturer 
who deals with volatile oils and perfumes. 
From the very beginning of organic chem- 
istry as a science, the volatile oils and their 
constituents have played an important réle 
in the study of optical.activity, of isomerism 
and of chemical constitution. On account of 
their subtle nature, the study of their consti- 
tution has attracted the attention of almost 
all organic chemists of international repute 
at one time or another. Whereas such sub- 
stances as benzaldehyde from bitter almond 
oil and methyl salicylate from wintergreen oil 
gave satisfactory results when investigated, 
the former by Liebig and Woehler, the latter 
by Cahours—the benzaldehyde supplying even 
the foundation for a theory of radicles, the 
first structural theory of organic chemistry of 
lasting value—the terpenes and their deriva- 
tives, the so-called camphors, proved a stum- 
bling block to many investigators for a long 
time after. 

The inevitable result was that the almost 
innumerable unsatisfactory data which accu- 
mulated in chemical and pharmaceutical lit- 
erature produced a condition well nigh cha- 
otic. Out of this wilderness of facts, both 
reliable and questionable, Wallach led the way 
during the middle of the eighties. Flueck- 
iger, one of the old-school -investigators of the 
volatile oils, though advanced in years, clearly 
recognized the significance of Wallach’s work, 
and called him the messiah of the terpenes. 
To him, therefore, this work is rightly dedi- 
cated by both author and translator. 

Although Heusler has not been active ex- 
perimentally in this field, he was, for several 


SCIENCE. 


79) 


years, Wallach’s assistant in the new organic 
laboratory at Gottingen. Here most of Wal- 
lach’s work was done by his private assistants 
and advanced students, who at Bonn, previous 
to 1889, had become known as the Terpen- 
kiinstler. Pond was one of the students who 
from far and near came to Gdéttingen to 
study with the master of the ‘ terpene artists.’ 
Both are, therefore, fully competent to handle 
so difficult a subject. 

Heusler’s monograph in German came as a 
relief to the large number of investigators 
in both Europe and America who were inter- 
ested in the volatile oils and the derivatives 
of their constituents. It at once became the 
indispensable reference work on the subject. 
Since then the investigations have continued 
with seemingly increased activity. Suffice it 
here to state that not less than several hun- 
dred independent contributions have appeared 
annually. If it be further remembered that 
the constitution of possibly not a single ter- 
pene is settled beyond reasonable doubt, the 
importance of the systematic arrangement 
of the facts accumulated since 1896 must be- 
come apparent to everyone. Dr. Pond has not 
only translated Heusler’s monograph, but he 
successfully accomplished the far more diffi- 
cult task of bringing it up to date. 

To the American, at least, the arrangement 
of the chapters, subheadings and references 
of the translation will appeal much more 
strongly than that of the original German 
edition. The type also is larger and more 
satisfactory. And, last but not least, the book 
before us is provided with a good working 
index, a feature that is altogether wanting 
in the original. Press work and paper are of 
the usual excellence of the publisher. 

Epwarp KREMERS. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY. 

A REGULAR meeting of the American Mathe- 
matical Society was held at Columbia Univer- 
sity on Saturday, October 25. About forty- 
five persons, including thirty-five members of 
the Society, were in attendance. Vice-Presi- 
dent Maxime Boécher presided during the 


TY92, 


and Ex-President R. S. 
Woodward during the afternoon session. 
The Council announced the election of the 
following persons to membership in the So- 
ciety: Professor Sir R. S. Ball, Cambridge 
University, England; Dr. Otto Dunkel, Wes- 
leyan University, Middletown, Conn.; Mr. W. 
H. Osborne, Purdue University, Lafayette, 
Ind.; Professor H. S. Rietz, Butler College, 
Indianapolis, Ind.; Professor J. H. Scott, 
Yankton College, Yankton, 8. D.; Professor 
B. F. Yanney, Mount Union College, Alliance, 
Ohio; Mr. W. H. Young, M.A., Cambridge 
University, England; Professor I. N. Van der 
Vries, Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas. 
Seven applications for admission to the So- 
ciety were received. The Council presented 
a list of nominations for officers of the So- 


morning session, 


ciety in anticipation of the annual election 
which occurs at the December meeting. <A 
committee was appointed to arrange for the 
next summer meeting, which will be accom- 
panied by a colloquium or series of lectures 
on special fields of mathematics. 

The following papers were read at this meet- 
ing: 


(1) Dr. E. R. Hepricx: ‘On the foundations of 
mechanies (preliminary communication) .’ 

(2) Dr. E. V. Huntrineton: ‘ Definition of a 
commutative group by independent postulates.’ 

(3) Proressor Prerer Frevp: ‘On the infinite 
branches of plane curves which have no point 
singularities.’ 

(4) Dr. Epwarp Kasner: ‘The apolarity of 
double binary: forms.’ 

(5) Proressor Maxime Bocuer: ‘ An applica- 
tion of the Riemann-Darboux generalization of 
Green’s theorem.’ 

(6) Proressor MAXIME BOcHER: 
Laplace’s equation.’ 

(7) Dr. Virerw Snyper: ‘On the 
serolls having three double conics.’ 

(8) Miss I. M. Scnorrenrets: ‘Note on the 
types of groups of order p” every element of 
which, except identity, is of order p (preliminary 
communication) .” 

(9) Dr. L. P. Ersenuarr: ‘ Surfaces referred 
to their lines of length zero.’ 

(10) Proressor L. E. Dickson: ‘ Three sets 
of generational relations defining the abstract 
simple group of order 504. 


“Note on 


quintic 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No 411. 


(11) Proressor L. E. Dickson: ‘ Generational 


relations defining the abstract simple group of 
order 660. 


(12) Dr. G. H. Line: ‘The approximate repre- 
sentation of a function by means of functions de- 
fined by quadratic equations.’ 

(13) Dr. C. N. Haskins: ‘On the invariant 
of differential forms of degree higher than two.’ 

After the meeting several of the members 
dined and spent the evening together. 

The next meeting of the Society, on Decem- 
ber 29-30, will be the annual meeting for the 
election of officers and delivery of the presi- 
dential address. F. N. Core, 

Secretary. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 

In the discussion of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion in recent numbers of Screncg, sight has 
apparently been lost, in a number of cases, of 
the fact that the participant in the discus- 
sion is not endowing a novel institution and 
laying down its general plans. That.part of 
the work has been admirably performed by 
Mr. Carnegie, and a repeated return to first 
principles by recalling the text of Carnegie’s 
plans is not out of place. 

One of the objects of the institution is 
clearly set out to be ‘to discover the excep- 
tional man and enable him to make the work 
for which he seems specially designed his life 
work.’ Of course we each and every one 
recognize ourselves at once as having been 
especially referred to in this statement, and 
clearly this and that other fellow could not 
possibly have been meant. Among those who 
certainly could not have been meant are the 
ones who ‘shall of course look out for’ their 
‘share of the spoils. Newly hatched schemes 
and plans thought of to help use the income 
do not commend themselves. 

The thought so well expressed by Carnegie 
in the portion of one of his sentences quoted 
above and so lucidly put by Sternberg: “ In 
my opinion a considerable portion of the in- 
come should be used in assisting individuals 
who have demonstrated their fitness for re- 
search work to some special field of investiga- 
tion, who have a definite object in view and 
well-considered plans for attacking the prob- 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902. | 


lem or problems which have engaged their at- 
tention”? and reiterated in different words by 
Gage, Jordan, Holland, Cockerell, Ganong, 
Titchener, Clayton, Coulter and others is un- 
doubtedly the one that has impressed the ma- 
jority of scientific men as the important 
element in the Carnegie plan. Stain manu- 
facturers, mechanics, publishers, bibliograph- 
ers, ete., are but servants of the investigator 
and deserve but secondary consideration. The 
extent to which buildings are to be erected 
has been decided by Carnegie himself. 

What are we, the exceptional men, able to 
do without the Carnegie Institution, and what 
will his endowment enable us to do that we 
eannot do without it or can do only with 
great difficulty? What, in other words, are 
our greatest needs? 

If we are connected with a university we 
ean by hook or crook manage to get some 
time for research—if we cannot, we are per- 
haps not worth considering by the Carnegie 
Institution. All of us can get room without 
any great difficulty—in fact, the universities 
are running to marble palaces with such 
luxuriant enthusiasm that in many cases 
there is little left to maintain their perma- 
nent inhabitants. There is as vulgar pride 
in elaborate university buildings as there is 
disereet silence as to the salaries of the pro- 
fessors filling them. We in the universities 
ean also get apparatus and books, though as 
we approach these less conspicuous parts of 
the equipment there is greater hesitancy in 
adequately supplying the needs. When it 
comes to supplying the means of keeping ani- 
mals for experimental work or to make expe- 
ditions. for securing needed material for a 
definite research, we either meet with increas- 
ing difficulty in the university or we must 
look entirely to outside help. Such outside 
help can be secured in a limited way from a 
few research institutions, as the Elizabeth 
Thomson Science Fund, the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, the 
American Botanical Society, ete. Beyond 
this, existing institutions do not help us. We 
are not able to begin a life-long research de- 
manding much time or money or both with 
the assurance that, as long as our results are 


SCIENCE. 


793 


commensurate with the outlay, our work will 
not have to be abandoned at a critical time. 
Here, it seems to me, the Carnegie Institution 
can step in to good advantage. It can do this: 
(1) By buying part of the time of an ‘ excep- 
tional man’ from his institution by paying 
part of his salary if time is the prime requi- 
site of his work; (2) by providing the means 
of carrying on an expensive research (travel- 
ing expenses, assistants, providing and main- 
taining aquaria, etc.), in many cases doubtless 
on condition that his university grant him the 
time needed for his research; (3) by appoint- 
ing him a Carnegie professor without routine 
duties or stipulated place of residence. It 
ought to make no difference whether a paleon- 
tological Carnegie professor has his residence 
on the plains of Wyoming or Patagonia, an 
American or at times some European mu- 
seum. If no mistake is made in selecting the 
right man there need be no fear as to the re- 
sults to be obtained. The exceptional man 
with his problems may be selected in the way 
already adopted by the institution, 7. e., by 
committees of specialists. 

The salary of the Carnegie professorships 
need not be larger than the average university 
salaries and they may still be looked upon as 
the highest and most desirable positions to be 
obtained by American men of science. 

With such a plan the entire income of the 
Carnegie Institution can be profitably em- 
ployed without interfering with existing insti- 
tutions and without devising cumbersome ad- 
ministrative machinery or buildings. When 
we consider the needs and possibilities along 
this line, so far from being overwhelmed by 
the magnitude of the endowment, we may 
even be permitted to regret that the institu- 
tion was not started with at least twice its 
present income. CO. H. Eigenmann. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF 
SCIENCE. SECTION D, ANTHROPOLOGY. 

Tue fifty-second meeting of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science 
will be held at Washington, D. C., during 
Convocation Week, December 29, 1902—Jan- 
uary 3, 1903. This meeting is the first of the 
general Society to be held at this time. Dr. 


794. 


George A. Dorsey, of the Field Columbian Mu- 
seum, will preside over Section H, Anthropol- 
ogy. 

You are cordially invited to be present at 
this meeting, and to contribute papers on 
topics connected with your field of research. 
It is to be hoped that at this first meeting of 
the Association under the new rules Section 
H may make an effort to set even a higher 
standard of excellence and secure a greater 
wealth of material of interest from its mem- 
bers than at any of its previous winter meet- 
ings. Field work has been carried on with 
almost unprecedented vigor during the last 
year, and it is hoped that the results may be 
freely offered to the Section. 

It is desirable that a preliminary program 
be distributed in advance of the meeting, and 
in order to render this possible, titles of papers 
should be sent to the secretary as early as 
possible. Abstracts of papers, or the papers 
themselves, may be sent later at the author’s 
convenience, whose attention is called to the 
fact that no title will appear in the final pro- 
gram until the paper, either in full or in ab- 
stract, has been passed upon by the sectional 
committee. Rotanp B. Drxon, 


Secretary Section H. 
Harvarp UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MAss. 
November 1, 1902. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
EXCEPTIONS TO MENDEL’S LAW. 


In a former paper on ‘ Quantitative Studies 
on the Transmission of Parental Characters 
to Hybrid Offspring,* I presented data in 
support of the provisionally stated law that, 
‘in the second generation of hybrids of sim- 
ilar breeding (with close fertilization) the 
same types tend to occur, and in definite pro- 
portions; two of these types are like the 
parents, the others include all possible inter- 
mediate forms.’+ At the time that paper was 
prepared the writer was not aware that others 
had published anything on the same subject. 
We now know that Mendel, De Vries, Cor- 
rens and Bateson have shown that the same 

* Bul. 115, Off. Ex. Sta., U. S. Dept. Agric., pp. 


88-98. 
+L. c., p. 93. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 414. 


law applies to the third and later generations. 
With this extension, and with a slight altera- 


- tion of the second clause to be noticed below, 


the above statement accords with Mendel’s 
original statement of the law he discovered. 
It happened that in all my hybrids certain 
characters obeyed a law different from Men- 
del’s, hence the form in which the second 
clause of the law is stated above. The data 
in my original paper were arranged to illus- 
trate the law as stated. That certain charac- 
ters did obey Mendel’s law may be easily 
shown by rearranging the data with reference 
to that law. In five out of fourteen crosses 
between varieties of wheat, one parent -was 
bearded, the other smooth. In all these cases 
beards were recessive. Mendel’s law would, 
therefore, call for 25 per cent. of bearded 
plants in the second generation of the hybrid. 
The actual results obtained were as follows: 


Per cent. 
Male. Female. Plat No. Bearded Plants. 
Valley. Little Club. C16 14.0 
sf si fe cis 27.2 
a is C21 35.9 
Average, 25.7 
Little Club. Emporium. F 26 23.2 
Gs ve F 30 30.0 
s S F 31 22.7 
w ae g F 32 28.0 
ce ce “ce ce 1 19.2 
“ee “ec “ E 2 94.0 
Average, 24.6 
Lehigh. Red Chaff. F13 21.5 
$s os Fl5 30.3 
5 y a F17 26.0 
Average, 25.9 
iis Gi, Nee. 7G ~~ 20 
ee “ ee ai 7 94.1 
3 is se 119 17.6 
ce it ce Ay 3 26.2 
it oe i7 Jd 4 95.3 
ce ce ce J 8 26.4 
= se a J 9 23.4 
i iy Sf J 10 24.9 
oe ce ie J 12 41.6 
ey Y tg J13 19.6 
“s a SS J 14 24.3 
Average, 25.2 


This last cross is the reciprocal of the first. 


NOVEMBER 14, 1902.] 


Per cent, 
Male. Female. Plat No. Bearded Plants. 

Turkey. Little Club. D 2 40.6 
“e ce t7 D 8 26.1 

ee ce a3 D 9 27.1 

aE fs a D10 PAR 

EE f sf Dill 28.7 

“F is s D15 36.6 

< ee ee D16 29.1 
Average, 30.8 


The agreement between results and theory is 
here close enough to confirm the theory in this 
case. 

There were likewise five crosses in which one 
of the parents had velvet chaff. This proved 
to be a dominant character (except in one 
individual plant), and the second generation 
should therefore show 75 per cent. of plants 
having velvet chaff. The results follow: 


Plat Per cent. 
Male. Female. No. Bearded Plants. 
Jones’ Winter Fife. Little Club. B 5 75.2 
it3 “ee “ec “ce “ee B 6 79.9 
its it “cc “ “ce B uf 68.7 
“ce ee “ce “ce “ce B 8 69.4 
“ee ce ce “ce it7 B ll 78.2 
“e i3 ii3 iis ce B 12 72.9 
“ce is ee “ce “ce C 1 72.6 
its 13 “ee “ee “ C 4 70.4 
“ee c . ee iis ce C 5 75.5 
ce “ce its “ce ee C 2) 74.0 
cc its a3 (T7 “ce J 16 77.3 
“ce a3 iis “ce ee J 17 68.0 
ce i3 ce (T3 ce K 1 73.2 
“ iis “ec “e “ce K 2 75.1 
“ee ce ita e ce K 3 71.6 
ii3 “ee “ee ce (t7 K 4 nee 
[13 ce ce “ce iis K 5 72.1 
a3 iia iis “ec “ce K 6 72.6 
ee ee t7 (is is K 8 76.1 
“ ce “ iis iis K ll 76.4 
“ee ce ce ce (13 K 13 73.0 
“e “ec cc ce “ce 1D; 1 73.9 
Average, 73.4 
Jones’ Winter Fife. Red Chaff. E 21 77.5 
“ee “e “ee “e ce E 292, 74.4 
ce ee “ce “ “ee EB 294 57.4 
ce ce ce “ ce E 95 67.1 
ce ii3 “ “c ce a 2, 75.6 
ii3 ce “ce iia ce F 3 alert 
its ii3 e ce “ce F ll 77.0 
Average, 71.5 
Farquahar. Red Chaff. F 23 74.3 
Farquahar. Little Club. I 6 80.0 
«f sf ff a 63.8 
ce ce “ce I 8 72.4 
oe sf Gs 112 76.8 
cs sf wv 116 87.4 
“ “ce iis IT ily 85.7 


Average, 77.7 


SCIENCE. 


795 


A single first generation plant (115) of 
this last cross had glabrous chaff. It is in- 
teresting to note that velvet chaff was not 
recessive in the ordinary sense, for in this 
case one fourth of its progeny should have 
had velvet chaff. But neither this plant nor 
any of its progeny had this character. This 
is an instance in which a parent character 
wholly disappeared in the hybrid, and did not 
reappear. The significance of this is not 
clear unless the velvet-chaffed parent was 
itself a hybrid having latent characters in it. 
There is some evidence that this was the case. 
The next cross is the reciprocal of the last. 
In it there were 27 plats in the second genera- 
tion, each the progeny of a single first genera- 
Nine of these plats were ex- 
In five of 
them bearded plants appeared, though neither 
parent was bearded. On the whole, the re- 
sults are such as might be expected if some 
of the original Farquahar parents had been 
hybrids not fixed in character. Most of the 
varieties used in my work had been carefully 
selected to type for three years, but in a few 
instances this was not the case, though I have 
no records now to show details on this point. 
The per cent. of plants’ having velvet chaff 
in each of the remaining eighteen plats of 
this cross was as follows: 


tion plant. 
tremely irregular in character. 


Per cent. 3 

Male. Female. Plat No. Bearded Plants. 
Little Club. Farquahar. G 4 80.3 
se ss ee G5 92.6 
ff a G 13 79.2 
ce Y e G14 93.3 
oe ff ce G 16 82.2 
“ rf FS G18 74.6 
“f <f “ H 2 69.6 
ff & re H 6 69.9 
sf < % lel 4 71.0 
cS ff es H 8 72.6 
sf sf fe H 9 80.4 
a a ae H10 70.9 
< cS fe Hill 73.1 
G . rf H 12 75.1 
co «e 6 H14 78.5 
sf Go os H15 75.5 
G . a H 16 lot 
Gi se a H17 Utell 
Average, 77.2 


796 


As far as beards and velvet chaff are con- 
cerned, it is seen that these hybrids obeyed 
Mendel’s law in a very satisfactory manner. 

In all the fourteen crosses one parent had 
the short head characteristic of the club group 
of wheats, while the other had the common 
long form of head. In general the first gen- 
eration of hybrids were intermediate between 
the parents in this respect. In the second 
generation the progeny of each plant of the 
previous generation presented every gradation 
between the parents, presenting a continuous 
series, which, in most eases, extended beyond 
both parents. Correns mentions such a series 
in some of his hybrids, and offers the explana- 
tion that in some individuals the character of 
the male parent is dominant, in others, the 
corresponding character of the female parent, 
while in the remaining individuals there are 
all degrees of variation as regards the domi- 
nance of this pair of characters. JI shall not 
take issue with him, but will offer a different 
hypothesis to explain the facts. According 
to Mendel’s theory, when a pair of characters 
separate, they do so completely. For in- 
stance, if a hybrid has in it both the bearded 
and the beardless character, on the formation 
of pollen and ovules, the one character passes 
entire into some of the pollen grains and 
ovules, the other passes entire into the others. 
This would indicate that the character of 
beard-producing is due to something which 
retains its individuality during the process 
of germ cell formation; and so for all charac- 
ters that obey Mendel’s law. Is it not pos- 
sible, however, that the protoplasmic basis of 
some characters, instead of passing entire into 
the germ cells, itself splits up in all possible 
proportions, so that we may find pollen grains 
and ovules possessing all degrees of the tend- 
ency to develop a certain character. This 
hypothesis would explain the behavior of my 
hybrids with reference both to length of heads 
and color of chaff.* 

Recurring now to the form in which I first 
stated the law governing the transmission of 
parent characters in hybrid offspring, I would 


* Since the above was written I find that Pro- 
fessor Bateson has proposed the same hypothesis. 
See Rep. Evol. Com., Royal Society. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 411. 


modify the second clause of the law to read 
as follows: With reference to some of the 
parent characters, the second generation of 
a hybrid presents all possible combinations of 
the characters of the two parents; with refer- 


.ence to other characters, the hybrids (second 


generation) show every possible gradation be- 
tween the characters of the two parents. 

The first clause here applies to character 
pairs that separate in the manner called for 
by Mendel’s. theory; the second clause applies 
to characters which separate in all possible 
proportions. JI am at present unable to pre- 
sent data for the third and later generations 
of my hybrids, since the work I inaugurated 
at Pullman, Washington, is now in other 
hands, but I hope to be able to do so in the 
near future. W. J. SprmuMan. 

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 

‘Tur Chemical Composition of Insecticides 
and Fungicides’ is the title of Bulletin No. 
68 of the Bureau of Chemistry, U. S. Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, just issued by the gov- 
ernment. Its author is J. K. Haywood, chief 
of the Insecticide and Agricultural Water 
Laboratory. The investigation of the subject 
of the report was undertaken with the coopera- 
tion of the Division of Entomology. Through 
the state experiment stations and_ special 
agents, samples were procured from different 
sections of the country of the various insécti- 
cides and fungicides on the market, and the 
report embodies the analyses of some one hun- 
dred and fifty. Of these nearly one third 
were Paris green, and a dozen more were Lon- 
don purple. Most of these samples were ex- 
cellent in quality, few only showing an excess 
of soluble arsenious oxid and still fewer re- 
vealing any suspicion of adulteration. Of the 
insecticides sold under fancy names and con- 
taining arsenic not as much can be said. 
Some of them are excellent, but many reveal 
a large proportion of inert matter. If the 
price were correspondingly low this would not 
be an objection, but where a mixture of gyp- 
sum with less than two per cent. of Paris 
green is sold at five cents per pound it is an 
imposition on the purchaser. The soaps, hel- 


NovemBER 14, 1902.] 


lebores and pyrethrums were generally found 
of good quality. The roach powders, some of 
which are also sold for killing fleas, ants and 
other insects, were found to consist generally 
of borax or pyrethrum, or both. The price at 
which these are sold should yield a satisfac- 
tory profit to the manufacturer, one specimen 
of borax containing nearly seven per cent. of 
impurity, selling at one dollar per pound. 
Roach pastes contain one per cent. more or 
less of phosphorus, mixed with flour, meal, 
sugar, molasses or lard. Several bug poisons 
consist of gasoline or of turpentine. ‘ Rough 
on Rats’ is a mixture of arsenious oxid with 
barium carbonate. Altogether the report 
makes very interesting reading and is valu- 
able for reference. A point of particular in- 
terest to chemists is the description of the 
methods of analysis used in each case. 

From his investigations of the metallic car- 
bids Moissan has recently. drawn several geo- 
logical conclusions and developed a new theory 
regarding the origin of petroleum. Accord- 
ing to his views, in the early periods of the 
earth’s history almost the entire quantity of 
earbon combined with metals. Later, 
water reacting with these carbids formed 
hydrocarbons, and from these carbon dioxid 
was formed by oxidation. The origin of nat- 
ural gas is the action of water upon aluminum 
earbid, by which methane is evolved. From 
other metallic carbids liquid carbon com- 
pounds have been formed, although a different 
origin is possible for some petroleums. Cer- 
tain voleanic phenomena may be caused by 
the action of water upon easily decomposable 
carbids, while in other cases a similar action 
might give rise to earthquakes. After all, 
Moissan’s theory seems to be an extreme devel- 
opment of that put forth a number of years 
ago by Mendeleef, and which has been fur- 
nished very strong support by the experimental 
work of Moissan. : 

Moissan has continued his researches upon 
liquid silicon hydrid, and finds from its vapor 
density that its formula is Si,H, It ignites 
on contact with the air, and when dried by 
sulfuric acid it explodes still more violently 
on coming to the air. When the electric spark 
is passed through the vapor under reduced 


was 


SCIENCE. 797 


pressure it is completely decomposed and 
amorphous silicon obtained in long filaments. 
This amorphous silicon, probably thus for the 
first time obtained in a pure condition, pos- 
Potas- 
sium permanganate is slowly reduced in the 
cold, copper sulfate and gold chlorid are re- 
duced to the metal on boiling, and mercuric 
chlorid is reduced to calomel. 

The deterioration of platinum crucibles, 
even when carefully used, is well known and 
has been generally attributed to the action of 
the carbon of the flame, though other explana- 
tions have not been wanting. The matter has 
been taken up recently by W. Rosenhain, and 
his results have lately appeared in the Pro- 
ceedings of the Royal Society. He attributes 
the cause of the brittleness of platinum which 
has been used for a long time to a recrystalli- 
zation of the metal, which has taken place 
at a temperature far below the fusing-point. 
Similar changes are known to take place in 
the case of lead, tin, zine and cadmium. 
When platinum is heated to a high tempera- 
ture, even in the presence of a large excess of 
oxygen, it gradually becomes quite brittle, so 
that when at a low red heat it is easily shat- 
tered by a blow. An examination of the frag- 
ments reveals a erystalline structure through- 
out the metal. Under such cireumstances the 
surface assumes a crystalline appearance, and 


sesses remarkable reducing properties. 


this crystalline structure is not merely super- 
ficial, but penetrates the metal. Indeed the 
external appearance is probably due to an etch- 
ing action of the gases of the flame. 


J. L. H. 


THE COMET B, 1902, AND THE MASS OF 
MERCURY. 

Me. F. FE. Seacrave ealls attention to the 
close approach of Comet b, 1902, to Mercury 
on 1902, November 292174. The heliocentric 
coordinates of Mercury at that time are 
A=2295°6’, B—=+0°14'0”, log. r=9.65328 and 
of the comet, according to the elements given 
in the Dick Bulletin No. 25, 72252184 
f=—1°50'40”, log. r= 9.63581. The loga- 
rithm of the least distance will, therefore, be 
0.0177, corresponding to a distance of 1,644,000 
miles. 


798 


This result may be checked by the geocen- 
At November 294.5, the geo- 
centric coordinates of Mercury are R.A. = 
15 50™ 588, Dee. = — 20°1’.6, log. d= 0.1500. 
The coordinates of the comet, according to 
the ephemeris mentioned above, are R.A. = 
15) 53M 938, Dec. ——20°44’.3, log. 9 =0.1451. 
According to Nijland’s ephemeris (A. N. 
160.14), the coordinates of the comet are 
R.A. 155 54m 54s, Dec. ——20°37'.7, log. 
5 =0.1448. The comet will probably be vis- 
ible for some time after passing perihelion, as 
is shown by the following extension of the 
ephemeris by Mr. Seagrave. 


trie positions. 


EPHEMERIS. 

Date, Riva Dee. log. r log. A Br. 

1902-3. d hms QO oF 

Dec. 7.5 15 27 25 —2412.9 9.7335 0.1296 10.12 
“11.5 151519 —26 0.2 9.7868 0.1145 8.49 
oe liysy aly 6183 27 52.1 9.8368 0.0958 7.35 
“19.5 14 50 34. —29 50.6 9.8827 0.0739 6.58 
*¢ 23.5 14 3653 —31 58.2 9.9244 0.0494 6.08 
re 27.5 142113 —34 15.3 9.9622 0.0225 5.78 
(93125 14 237 + =— 86) 4129" 959968 9:9939) 5-63 

Jan. 4.5 13 39 54 —89 15.3 0.0284 9.9642 5.58 
ES 8.5 131130 —41 48.0 0.0575 9.9347 5.59 
12.5 12 3554 —44 4.7 0.0844 9.9072 5.60 
fe 16.5 115218 —45 39.6 0.1093 9.8842 5.55 
sc 20.5 11 156 —45 59.7 0.13825 9.8688 5.36 
«24.5 10 859 —44 42.3 0.1543 9.8634 4.97 


The effect of the disturbance by Mercury 
can, therefore, be determined with such accu- 
racy that it is hoped that it will give a good 
value of the mass of that planet. In any 
case, careful measures of the position of the 
comet after November 29 are greatly to be 


desired. Epwarp ©. PICKERING. 
Harvard COLLEGE OBSERVATORY. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 


Mr. WitttaAm Seuuers has been nominated 
for the presidency of the American Society of 
Mechanical Engineers. 

Proressor Marston Tayitor Bogert, of Co- 
lumbia University, has recently been elected 
a vice-president of the Society of Chemical 
Industry (of England). 

Dr. J. Water Frewxes, of the Bureau of 
American Ethnology, has left Washington for 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 411. 


Porto Rico to continue his ethnological and 
archeological studies of the West Indian 
aborigines. His plan of work embraces an 
examination of caves, village sites, shell heaps 
and other places of occupation of the prehis- 
toric inhabitants, and a collection of such 
ethnological data as may shed light on the 
manners and customs of the Porto Rican 
Indians. Dr. Fewkes will remain in the West 
Indies during the winter, and in the course 
of his work expects to visit Santa Domingo 
and the Lesser Antilles as far south as the 
coast of Venezuela. 

Dr. A. E. Kennenty has returned to Har- 
vard University from an expedition to super- 
vise the laying of a cable in Mexican waters. 

Ernst A. Bessey, explorer for the United 
States Department of Agriculture, has re- 
turned from his journey into Turkestan, and 
has entered the University of Halle for further 
botanical study. The easternmost point reached 
by him was Andijan, in the province of 
Ferghana. 

Ar the annual meeting of the American 
Antiquarian Society, held at Worcester, Mass., 
on October 21, 1902, Dr. Albert S. Gatschet, 
of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and Dr. 
Alexander F. Chamberlain, of Clark Univer- 
sity, were elected members. 

Tue Hon. C. A. Parsons, F.R.S., known for 
his work on the steam turbine, has been elected 
an honorary fellow of St. John’s College, Cam- 
bridge. 

Norruwestern Universtry will confer the 
degree of LL.D. on Professor Adolf Lorenz, 
the Viennese surgeon, at present 
country. 


in this 


Tur committee on science and arts of the 
Franklin Institute has recommended the 
award of the John Scott legacy medals and 
premiums to William A. Doble, of San Fran- 
cisco, for his improvements in tangential 
water wheels; to Norton P. Otis, Rudolph C. 
Smith, John D. Ihlder and August Sundt for 
their improvements in electric elevators for 
private residences; to James Reagan, of Phil- 
adelphia, for his improvements in grate bars, 
and to H. Ward Leonard, of Bronxville, N. Y., 


for his system of motor control. 


NoveMBER 14, 1902. ] 


Dr. Swate Vincent, lecturer on histology 
at the University College, Cardiff, and for- 
merly assistant professor of physiology at Uni- 
versity College, London, who has already made 
numerous contributions to the literature of 
the ductless glands, has been appointed to the 
research scholarship for the study of the 
thymus and other ductless glands recently 
established in England by Mr. J. Francis 
Mason. Mr. Mason has also made a dona- 
tion of £200 to the laboratory of the Edin- 
burgh Royal College of Physicians to enable 
the medical superintendent, Dr. Noel Paton, 
to carry out a combined research on ductless 
glands. 

Mr. L. Doncaster, of King’s College, Cam- 
bridge, has been granted the university table 
at the Naples Zoological Station. 

Proressor Rispert, of Marburg, has been 
appointed director of the Pathological Insti- 
tute at Gdttingen in succession to Professor 
Orth, who has succeeded the late Professor 
Virehow as professor of pathology in Berlin. 

Proressor PERCIVAL, vice-principal of the 
Surrey and Kent South-Eastern Agricultural 
College at Wye, has been appointed director 
of the agricultural department at the Uni- 
versity College, Reading. 

Prorressor E. E. Barnarp, of the Yerkes 
Observatory of the University of Chicago, 
gave two lectures in New York city last week, 
his subject being ‘ Nebule and the Nebular 
Theory.’ 

Tur New York Academy of Medicine held 
its fifty-fifth anniversary meeting on Novem- 
ber 6. Dr. Andrew H. Smith made an ad- 
dress entitled ‘Past, Present and Future of 
the Academy,’ and Major W. C. Gorgas and 
Surgeon Ross described the measures that 
have suppressed yellow fever in Havana. 


Tue Harben lectures of the Royal Institute 
of Public Health were given in King’s Col- 
lege, London, by Major Ronald Ross, C.B., 
F.R.S., lecturer on tropical diseases, Univer- 
sity College, Liverpool, on November 10, 11 
and 12. The subject was ‘ Intermittent 
Fever.’ 

We learn from Nature that the British 
home secretary has appointed a committee to 


SCIENCE. 799 


inquire into the use of electricity in mines 
and the dangers attending it, and to report 
what measures should be adopted in the in- 
terests of safety by the establishment of spe- 
cial rules or otherwise. The committee con- 
sists of Mr. H. H. S. Cunynghame, C.B. 
(chairman), Mr. Charles Fenwick, M.P., Mr. 
Archibald Hood, past president of the Mining 
Association of Great Britain, Mr. James 
Swinburne, president of the Institution of 
Electrical Engineers, and Mr. W. N. Atkin- 
son and Mr. A. H. Stokes, H.M. inspectors 
of mines. The secretary of the committee is 
Captain A. Desborough, H.M. inspector of 
explosives. ‘ 

A portrair of the late Professor Peter 
Guthrie Tait was unveiled in the combina- 
tion room of Peterhouse College on October 
29. Lord Kelvin made the speech of presen- 
tation and a speech was also made by Sir 
George Stokes. 

Tue University of London has addressed a 
letter of sympathy to the University of Berlin 
on the occasion of the death of Professor 
Virchow. 

Mr. Grorcr HursmMann, who at one time 
filled the chair of pomology and forestry in 
the University of Missouri, and was known 
for his contributions to pomology and viti- 
culture, has died in California at the age of 
seventy-five years. 

Dr. Rosert OC. Kepziz, for forty years pro- 
fessor of chemistry at the Michigan Agricul- 
tural College, died on November 7, at the age 
of seventy-nine years. 


Dr. Freperick A. Packarp, of Philadelphia, 
past president of the Pathological and Pedi- 
atrie societies, died on November 1, at the 
age of forty years. 

Tue Rev. Dr. Wiltshire, from 1872 to 1896 
connected with King’s College, London, as 
lecturer and professor of geology and miner- 
alogy, died on October 25.. He published in 
1859 a treatise on ‘The Red Chalk of Eng- 
land, which was followed by ‘The Ancient 
Flint Implements of Yorkshire’ (1862), ‘ The 
Chief Groups of the Cephalopoda’ (1869), 
‘The Red Chalk of Hunstanton’ (1869), and 
later by ‘The History of Coal’ (1878). 


800 


Tue Association of German Men of Science 
and Physicians will hold its meeting next 
year at Kassel. 


A tocan section of the American Institute 
of Electrical Engineers has been established 
at Pittsburgh, and held its first meeting on 
November 6. 


Mrs. Puorse Hearst’s gifts for archeology 
and anthropology at the University of Cali- 
fornia amounted to $111,000 during the last 
academic year. Exeavations have been made 
in Egypt by Drs. Reisner, Gunfel and Hunt 
and in Peru by Dr. Uhle, while Dr. Alfred 
Emerson has made extensive collections of 
Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities. Dr. 
Kroeber and Mr. Goddard have been engaged 
in work among the Indians in California. 


THE library which Mr. Andrew 
Carnegie has given to the city of Washington 
will be dedicated on December 16. It is hoped 


publie 


that Mr. Carnegie will be present. 


Tue cornerstone of the New York Public 
Library was laid by Mayor Low on November 
10. The marble facade of the building, on 
Fifth Avenue and 42d St., is already partly 
erected; when completed it will cost over 
$3,000,000. 


The Electrical World and Engineer states 
that the German Society of Engineers has 
undertaken the publication of a polyglot tech- 
nical dictionary, and solicits the cooperation 
of engineers throughout the world to render 
the work of the highest possible value. Dr. 
Alfred Miller, 150 Nassau Street, New York, 
is authorized by the Society to arrange in this 
country for collaboration in the work, and 
application may be made to him for further 
Mr. Miller will 
supply collaborators with note-books especially 


information on the subject. 


arranged for their use. 


Tur New York Civil Service Commission 
announces examinations on November 29, to 
fill the position of bacteriologist in the state 
hospitals at a salary of $100 a month; and of 
physician with a salary beginning at $900 a 
year and increasing to $1,000. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 411. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


Tue subscriptions for the completion of the 
buildings of the University of Durham Col- 
lege of Science in memory of Lord Armstrong 
amount to £31,000, and an anonymous donor 
has promised £10,000 additional if the total 
should reach £50,000 by the end of the year. 


Proressors of Cornell University who reach 
the age of seventy years will hereafter be re- 
tired with a pension. Their salary will be 
continued for one year, and they will there- 
after receive $1,500 a year for four years 
which time will doubtless be extended. They 
will act as special lecturers with such duties 
as may be assigned to them. Professor I. P. 
Roberts, of the College of Agriculture, is 
the only man of science who will be affected 
by this provision. 

Dr. Josrrpu Swain, formerly professor of 
mathematics at Indiana and Stanford Uni- 
versities, and since 1893 president of Indiana 
University, will be installed as president of 
Swarthmore College, on November 15. 

Tue Boston Hvening Transcript states, we 
do not know how correctly informed, that Pro- 
fessor Jacques Loeb, of the University of 
Chicago, will go to the University of Cali- 
fornia to accept its newly established chair 
in physiology. 

Prorrssor E. A. Furrres has resigned the 
directorship of the College of Civil Engineer- 
ing, Cornell University, but remains connected 
with the University as professor of astronomy. 


Dr. Wittim H. Waker has been appointed 
associate professor of industrial chemistry at 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
For the past few years he has been a member 
of the firm of Little and Walker, consulting 
chemists, and in this connection he has had 
a valuable technical experience. 


Av Cambridge University Mr. J. S. Gardiner: 
has been appointed demonstrator in animal 
morphology in succession to Mr. J. Graham 
Kerr. 

Mr. R. W. H. T. Hupson, B.A., St. John’s: 
College, Cambridge, has been appointed lec- 
turer in mathematics at University College, 
Liverpool. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: 8. NEwWcoMB, Mathematics; R. S. WoopDWARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Geology ; W. M. DAvis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BrssEy, N. L. Brirron, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITcH, Physiology; J. S. BiLLinas, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. WELCH, 

Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Fripay, NovemBer 21, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


The Smithsonian Institution and its Affiliated 
[BORGUOES Raia ane apoticss Nia eta NiO entree oeyoree ae 801 
The Huxley Lecture on Recent Studies of 
Immunity, with Special Reference to their 
Bearing on Pathology, I.: PRorEssor WI1L- 
IME els \WA Kors tools ae clog G elon ie aie noo ees 804 
The Length of the College Year and College 
Course: PRESIDENT J. G. SCHURMAN...... 
Scientific Books :— 
Baldwin’s Development and Evolution: PrRo- 
IRESSOR Els) Wie) CONN) y)ec tse cicinelols elle ess 819 
Scientific Journals and Articles ........... 821 
Societies and Academies :— 
The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science: Dr. L. O. Howarp. The 
American Physical Society: Ernest MeEr- 
ritT. The Biological Society of Washing- 
ton: F. A. Lucas. The Torrey Botanical 
Club: Proressor Epwarp 8. Burerss. Co- 
-limbia University Geological Journal Club: 
H. W. Suimer. The Las Vegas Science 
CUDD ES) ABS 1D ANS Ohesoen abe erara eee cua ch Oe areca 821 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
The Bureaw of American Hthnology: PRo- 
FESSOR FRANZ Boas. <A Correction of Pro- 
fessor Osborn’s Note entitled ‘New Ver- 


816 


tebrates of the Mid-Cretaceous’: J. B. 

JBUNIRGH SLOOP rears Phe tauearorciaater canta nieces ent cece ene 828 
Shorter Articles: 

A Case of Mimicry Outmimicked? Concern- 

ing Kallima Butterflies in Museums: Pro- 

FESSOR BasHrorp Dean. ‘ Root-pressure’ 

in Begonia (Fletcher's Seedling): Pro- 

FEessor JAMES B. DanpENO. The Grand 

Gulf Formation: Proressor EuGEnre A. 

Smith, TRUMAN H. ALDRICH?............. € 
The John Fritz Medal: Proressor R. H. 

BINT SITLONG Heyy tabs si strcciace elicits oe ev cte es ar ienees 837 
Another Hodgkins Gold Medal Awarded.... 838 
The National Academy of Sciences.......... 83 
Scientific Notes and News................-. 838 
University and Educational News.......... 840 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AND ITS 
AFFILIATED BUREAUS. 


A werrerR from Professor Franz Boas 
eoncerning the Bureau of American Eth- 
nology, published in this issue of ScreNnce, 
ealls attention anew to the unsatisfactory 
status of the bureaus of the Government 
under the supervision of the Smithsonian 
The 


which the National Museum has long sus- 


Institution. anomalous relations 
tained to the Smithsonian Institution were 
considered at length in Science, N. S., 
Vol. V., No. 106, January 8, 1897. The 
conclusions reached in that number of the 
journal are summed up in the following 
paragraph: 

““There is no logical connection between 
the Smithsonian Institution and the Na- 
tional Museum. The museum is a most 
important institution; it is now well es- 
tablished ; its maintenance is demanded by 
the people, and it will thrive under a com- 
petent director, responsible only to Con- 
eress or to the head of some department 
under, which it could properly be placed. 
The usefulness of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution will be increased by the diminution 
of burdensome administrative duties which 
were never contemplated in its original 


802 


scheme, and for the existence of which 
there can be no reasonable excuse. Its 
legitimate work is too important to be 
interfered with by demands which can be 
met in ordinary channels, and if such wide 
departures from its early policy continue 
to be forced upon it by ill-considered legis- 
lation, there is reason to fear that its 
splendid career during its first half cen- 
tury will not be repeated in the second.’’ 

Subsequent events have not only justi- 
fied these conclusions, but they now appear 
to be emphasized to an unexpected degree 
by the action of the Secretary of the Smith- 
with 


sonian Institution regard to the 


Bureau of American Ethnology. This or- 
ganization, like the National Museum, origi- 
nated in the Smithsonian Institution, and, 
as in the case of the museum, has long been 
maintained by annual appropriations from 
the Government. It has performed an in- 
valuable service to science in preserving 
the natural history of the rapidly van- 
ishing native races of this continent and 
has given promise of development 
into one of the most important branches 
Naturally, like the 
National Museum, the Bureau of Ethnol- 
ogy 


field of its own and has grown quite be- 


of public service. 


has come to occupy a_ definite 
yond the need of the fostering care of the 
Smithsonian Institution. During Major 
Powell’s directorship of the bureau it at- 
tained a quasi-independent status in spite 
of the obviously bad plan of a double- 
headed administration, by which the di- 
rector of the bureau was responsible to the 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 


and the Secretary to the Government. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


But now it would appear that the Secre- 
tary of the Smithsonian Institution has de- 
cided to relegate the Bureau of Ethnology 
to the subordinate position of a branch of 
the museum. If this be the case, and it 
seems impossible to interpret the recent 
action of the secretary in any other way, 
we can not help regarding the step thus 
taken as a step backward. For the bureau 
has not only done work which has com- 
mended itself to the Congress of the United 
States, but it has done work which has | 
commended itself in a high degree to the 
consensus of opinion of expert ethnologists 
and anthropologists at home and abroad. 
Since the reasons for the Secretary’s pro- 
cedure in this case are not evident, a 
prompt investigation by Congress and by 
the regents of the Smithsonian Institution 
would seem to be called for. 

There is another aspect of this matter 
which demands criticism. Quite apart 
from the particular personalities involved, 
it would appear that the Secretary has 
registered a blow with scientific precision 
directly at the merit system by appointing 
as ‘Chief’ of the bureau another man in- 
stead of the Ethnologist in Charge, whose 
position, abilities and record for effective 
work in the bureau led most anthropol- 
ogists and ethnologists of the country to 
expect him to sueceed Major Powell in the 
directorship. Such blows have been struck 
commonly enough, as every one knows, in 
the past, by political secretaries of the vari- 
ous departments of the Government, but 
they have rarely come from distinguished 
men of science. Those who would like to 


keep prominent positions in the govern- 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902.] 


ment scientific bureaus open for raids from 
politicians and opportunists will make 
effective use, doubtless, of this latest 
precedent in their favor. 

But what, it will be asked, is the remedy 
for such blunders in the administration of 
government scientific work? Have we 
nothing better to suggest than destructive 
eriticism? The remedy in the present in- 
stance is plain. ~The Bureau of American 
Ethnology should be put on an indepen- 
dent footing; that is, it should be directly 
responsible to Congress for the conduct 
of its work; and the National Museum 
should speedily go the same way. During 
the first half century of its existence the 
Smithsonian Institution rendered the high- 
est service to American science and to the 
publie weal by assisting in the development 
of—perhaps one might justly say by origi- 
nating and developing—the Weather Bu- 
reau, the Geological Survey and the Fish 
Commission; and its influence was hardly 
less potent in promoting the scientific work 
of the Naval Observatory and the Coast and 
Geodetic Survey. As soon, however, as 
the merits of these organizations were rec- 
ognized by the Government, it was the 
policy of the Smithsonian Institution to 
turn to other fields of work; and the verdict 
is unanimous that this policy was the wisest 
one to pursue by ‘an establishment for the 
merease and diffusion of knowledge among 
men.’ 

The case under consideration raises also 
the question whether there is any way to 
improvement in the mode of selecting 


heads of the bureaus doing scientific work 


SCIENCE. 


803 


for the 


hitherto, as a rule, far less pains have been 


government. It appears that 
taken in choosing such heads than our sci- 
entific societies take in choosing a president 
or a secretary to represent them profes- 
sionally and before the public. Indeed it 
has frequently happened in the past that 
men of no scientific standing, or of small 
professional reputation, have been placed 
in charge of important scientific work. 
But scientific men are largely responsible 
for this, for their silence has often given 
assent to corrupt practices and to unworthy 
It is 
a duty of scientific men and of scientific 


appointments in the public service. 


societies to look into these matters, and to 
see to it that science is not degraded by the 
pretenders who always stand ready to make 
a personal use of the prestige won by the 
industry and the persistence of the emi- 
nent. It is especially the duty of scientific 
societies to make their influence felt in all 
such matters. They may not always be 
able to give the best advice, but they are 
much more likely to give good advice than 
The 


standard for appointment to prominent 


place seekers and appointing officers. 


positions in government scientific work 
should be higher than that in any other 
To obtain 


this end our societies can do much if they 


branch of the public service. 
so will. No man of science can now afford 
to ignore the advice they are able to give 
on important questions of public moment; 
and the time ought to arrive presently 
when their counsel on all such questions 
will be weleomed and appreciated by so- 


ciety at large. 


804 


THE HUXLEY LECTURE ON RECENT 
STUDIES OF IMMUNITY, WITH SPECIAL 
REPERENCE TO THEIR BEARING 
ON PATHOLOGY. 

GrENTLEMEN,— You will readily believe 
that with my deep appreciation of the high 
honor conferred by the invitation to de- 
liver the fourth Huxley lecture there was 
joined a sense of great embarrassment in 
being called upon to follow in this office 
three such leaders of world-wide fame as 
Sir Michael Foster, Professor Virchow and 
Lord Lister. But the letter of the Commit- 
tee of the Charing Cross Hospital Medical 
School stated that the choice of a successor 
to these great names was ‘a tribute of our 
admiration for the great army of scientific 
workers on the other side of the Atlantic.’ 
While I cannot assume to occupy any other 
place in this army than that of a soldier in 
the ranks, I felt that if my acceptance of 
this invitation could be regarded as in any 
sense an expression of appreciation by 
American workers in science of the com- 
mendation and good-will of our British 
colleagues, of our large indebtednesss to 
them, of our sense of the common interests, 
the comradeship and the kinship of the 
English-speaking peoples on both sides of 
the ocean, I should not decline, even if sum- 
moned to oceupy a position of danger. 

There was another consideration which 
I may be permitted here to mention. 
Through Huxley there is, if not a bond, at 
least a link, between the Charing Cross 
Hospital Medical School and the Johns 
Hopkins University. This lectureship was 
founded to commemorate the fact that 
Huxley received his entire medical eduea- 
tion at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical 
School. While throughout America the 
name of Huxley is held in high honor as 
that of a great discoverer and interpreter 


* Delivered at the opening of the winter session 
of Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, on 
October 1, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 412. 


in science, and while the influence which he ~ 
has exerted upon popular as well as sci- 
entific opinion through those messages 
peculiarly fitted to the needs of English 
thought is not less there than among his 
own countrymen, we at the Johns Hopkins 
University have special reasons to acknowl- 
edge our gratitude to him. He crossed 
the ocean to deliver the principal address 
at the opening of this University in 1876, 
and he then gave utterance to ideas con- 
cerning university, and especially medical, 
education which were at the time and have 
remained an inspiration and a guide to us. 
Then, too, the Johns Hopkins University 
owes to Huxley and to Michael Foster the 
accession to its faculty of my lamented 
colleague, Newell Martin, who by the intro- 
duction and development of the biological 
methods and conceptions of his teachers 
eave such new directions and so great an 
impulse to biological study in America that 
his own work and that of his pupils started 
for us a new era in this department. 

The first Huxley lecturer has made it 
unnecessary for his successors to dwell 
upon Huxley’s studentship at the Charing 
Cross Hospital, upon the important in- 
fluence which this had upon his career, or 
upon his great services to medical science, 
although his chief title to fame hes outside 
of the domain of medicine. I should like, 
however, to quote a passage, although it 
must be familiar to you, from Mr. Leonard 
Huxley’s charming ‘Life and Letters’ of 
his father, which has appeared since the 
date of Sir Michael Foster’s lecture, for 
it shows that ‘it was at Charing Cross 
Hospital where Huxley first felt the in- 
fluence of daily intercourse with a really 
able teacher.’ He says: 


No doubt it was very largely my own fault, 
but the only instruction from which I obtained 
the proper effect of education was that which I 
received from Mr. Wharton Jones, who was the 
lecturer on physiology at the Charing Cross School 
of Medicine. The extent and precision of his 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902.] 


knowledge impressed me greatly, and the severe 
exactness of his method of lecturing was quite to 
my taste. I do not know that I have ever felt so 
much respect for anybody as a teacher before or 
since. 

Wharton Jones, who will doubtless be 
longest remembered as the discoverer of the 
amceboid movements of the white blood 
corpuscles, was an experimental physiol- 
ogist and pathologist of much originality, 
and it seems to me that there has not been, 
even in his own country, so full a recogni- 
tion of his work as its importance merits. 

Before passing to the special theme of 
this lecture it is fitting that I should pause, 
if only for a moment, ‘to call to mind with 
affection and reverence that recently de- 
parted great man who honored and de- 
lighted you four years ago, and who has 
conferred such high distinction upon the 
office of Huxley lecturer. When one con- 
siders the full import of the discovery and 
establishment by Virchow of the principles 
of cellular pathology, that this constitutes 
the secure foundation upon which nearly 
two generations have built and future gen- 
erations will continue to build the edifice 
of scientific medicine, I do not know what 
greater name there is in the whole history 
of medicine than that of Rudolf Virchow. 
How noble his character!. With what 
amazing industry, versatility and keenness 
of intellect did he fruitfully cultivate the 
new fields which he had opened to re- 
search as well as other departments of 
science! With what devotion and bene- 
ficial results did he give his time and 
abundant knowledge to the service of the 
public and of our profession! We mourn 
the loss of a hero of medicine and of sci- 
ence, a benefactor of his race, and we re- 
joice in the rich fruitage of a long and 
well-spent life. 

The first place in experimental medicine 
to-day is occupied by the problems of im- 
munity, and, in accordance with the trust 


SCIENCE. 


805 


of the Huxley leetureship, which provides 
that the lecture shall relate to ‘recent ad- 
vances in science, and their bearing upon 
medicine and surgery,’ I have chosen for 
my theme ‘Recent Studies of Immunity, 
with Special Reference to their Bearing on 
Pathology.’ As it would be hopeless to 
attempt a complete review of this broad 
subject within the space of a single lecture, 
I shall dwell more particularly upon cer- 
tain of its aspects, not always of necessity 
the most important ones, which I conceive 
to be less familiar to most physicians, or 
which have engaged my attention, although 
much which I shall say is of course known 
to those who have followed the results of 
recent work in these.new lines of investi- 
gation. 

Under ‘studies of immunity’ I have in- 
cluded, as a matter of convenience, though 
not with strict accuracy, investigations 
which, although the direct outgrowth of 
those primarily directed toward a solution 
of the problems of immunity, have ex- 
tended far beyond these bounds, and have 
revealed specific properties of cells and 
fluids in health and in disease of the broad- 
est biological interest. We find illustrated 
here the familiar fact, nowhere more im- 
portant to recognize than in medicine, that 
the sciences are interdependent, that dis- 
covery in one field sheds light in most 
diverse and often unexpected directions, 
and opens new paths to research. We shall 
see also exemplified the fructifying in- 
fluence upon the advancement of knowledge 
of the discovery and application of new 
methods of investigation. 

In endeavoring to follow in its intimate 
workings the contest of the lving body 
with its invaders, the attention of investi- 
gators has naturally been drawn both to 
the action of the cells and to the properties 
of the fluids of the body in this struggle, 
to the latter sometimes without sufficient 


806 


consideration of the dependence of the 
humors in their composition upon the cells. 
Each of these lines of study, whether fol- 
lowed separately or conjointly, has led to 
the discovery of important facts relating 
to the mechanism of immunity. 

We owe to Metchnikoff and his pupils 
the most important observations. concern- 
ing the direct participation of leucocytes 
and other cells in the processes of infection 
and the production of immunity. What- 
ever attitude one may take toward Metch- 
nikoff’s well-known phagocytic theory of 
immunity, one must recognize the wealth 
of new facts which he has brought to light, 
and must admire the skill and fertility of 
resource with which for two decades he has 
defended this theory against severe as- 
saults, and he has done so, in my judgment, 
with a large measure of success. With 
wonderful ingenuity in his recent book on 
immunity he rescues the phagocytes and 
applies to a deeper insight into their activi- 
ties results of his opponents’ work. 

The other line of research, in some re- 
spects more important, was opened by 
Nuttall in 1888, working in Fliigge’s 
laboratory, by his systematic study of the 
antibacterial properties of the body fiuids, 
particularly of the blood serum. It is true 
that there were previous indications of the 
power of fresh blood to kill bacteria; in- 
deed, if one wishes to trace this matter his- 
torically to its roots he must go back to 
John Hunter, who was quite familiar with 
the antiputrefactive power of fresh blood, 
although of course he knew nothing of bac- 
teria. Hunter showed that putrefying 
fluid could be added in small quantity to 
fresh blood without setting up putrefac- 
tion; and in elaborating his favorite doc- 
trine of the ‘living principle of the blood’ 
he intérested himself greatly in certain 
phenomena which, interpreted in the light 
of our present knowledge, are clear antici- 
pations of some recent findings. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


After Nuttall our knowledge of the bac- 
tericidal power of the blood serum was ex- 
tended by Buchner and others; but the 
next advance of fundamental importance 
in this direction was Pfeiffer’s discovery 
in 1894 of the quick extracellular disinte- 
gration and solution of cholera spirilla in 
the peritoneal cavity of immunized euinea- 
pigs or in that of normal guinea-pigs 
treated with immune serum, and of the 
presence in the immune serum of a specific 
substance concerned in the bacteriolytie 
process although by itself without bac- 
tericidal power. 

In the meantime Behring had made his 
ereat discovery of antitoxiec immunity and 
of the protective and curative value of 
antitoxic serum, and Ehrlich had done 
much to elucidate the nature of this form 
of immunity. It soon became apparent, 
however, that immunity from the great 
majority of bacterial infections does not 
depend in the main upon the antitoxie prin- 
ciple. The attention of bacteriologists, 
therefore, was drawn more and more to the 
so-called ‘Pfeiffer phenomenon,’ which was 
found to be of great general significance; 
and starting from this, and especially from 
the investigation of the analogous and 
much more readily studied solution of red 
corpuscles by foreign serum, there has fol- 
lowed in rapid succession up to the pres- 
ent time a series of new and most interest- 
ing discoveries and conceptions with which 
are connected many names, but most prom- 
inently those of Metchnikoff and Bordet, 
and of Ehrlich and Morgenroth. 

Through these various studies of im- 
munity we have become acquainted with 
an important physiological capacity of the 
healthy organism, the extent, and in most 
instances the existence, of which was un- 
suspected until quite recent years. This 
capacity is the power to produce substances 
specifically antagonistic to all sorts of for- 
eign cells and cellular products and de- 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


rivatives. The substances capable of in- 
ducing this immunizing reaction appear to 
be mainly of an assimilable, albuminous 
nature, or at least intimately associated 
with such material, although it has been 
proved that certain non-albuminous deriva- 
tives of proteids have the same power.* 
The mode of antagonism of the specific 
bodies formed in response to the reception 
within the living organism of substances 
capable of inducing the necessary reaction 
varies with the nature of these latter sub- 
stances, and consists in such diverse mani- 
festations as neutralization of poisons and 
of ferments, injury or destruction of cells, 
associated with characteristic morpholog- 
ical changes, cessation of motility of cells 
or their appendages, agglutination of cells, 
precipitation, and coagulation. In accord- 
ance with these different effects, the cor- 
responding antagonistic bodies, or anti- 
bodies, as they are called, are classified as 
antitoxins, antienzymes, cytotoxins, agglu- 
tinins, precipitins and coagulins, and even 
against these bodies, with the exception of 
the antitoxins, antagonists have in turn 
been produced. All of these bodies are in 
varying, but usually high, degree specific 
with reference both to the nature and to 
the source of the material upon which they 
exert their characteristic effects. 

The cytotoxins or eytolysins include not 
only the bacteriolysins and hemolysins, but 
also a great number of other cellular toxins 
present in the sera of animals which have 
received injections of cells from a different 
species. To every cellular group of an 

* Specifie precipitins have been produced by in- 
jection of crystalline and other so-called pure pro- 
teids. Obermayer and Pick produced immune 
bodies by the use of non-albuminous products of 
tryptic digestion of certain albumins. Jacoby 
has shown that the specific body concerned in 
ricin immunization is non-albuminous. A. Klein 
obtained entirely negative results with injections 


of starch, glycogen, glucose, gum arabic and gela- 
tine. 


SCIENCE. 


807 


animal species there appears to correspond 
a specific cytotoxin. To designate these 
various eytotoxins such self-explanatory 
names as leucotoxin, spermotoxin, nephro- 
toxin, neurotoxin, thyreotoxin, syncytio- 
toxin are used. Their specificity extends 
not only to the nature of the cells, but also 
to the species of animal furnishing the 
cells used for their production. 

One of the most important results of re- 
cent work is the separation of these specific 
antibodies into two groups,in one of which, 
represented by the antitoxins, the antagon- 
ists are single bodies; while in the other, 
represented by the cytolysins, the antagon- 
istic effect requires the cooperation of two 
bodies. Of these two bodies the one which 
actually destroys the foreign cells, or in- 
duces other specific effect, is normally pres- 
ent in the cells or fluids of the organism, 
but it seems incapable of action without 
the intermediation of a body which is dis- 
tinguished from it by greater resistance 
to heat, and which is produced by the 
immunizing reaction, although it may also 
be normally present in smaller amount.* 
The two elements composing a cytolysin 
exist quite independently of each other, so 
that one may be present without the other, 
or be artificially removed without affect- 
ing the other. Of the multitude of names 
proposed for these cytolytic components 
those most commonly used for the body 
which is the specific product of immuniza- 
tion, although it may also exist normally, 


* Metchnikoff believes that the complement or 
eytase, which in his opinion exists under normal 
conditions solely within cells, not free in the 
plasma, acts in natural immunity without the 
cooperation of an intermediary body or fixative, 
the latter being concerned only in acquired or 
artificial immunity. The evidence seems, how- 
ever, to favor the view that in this regard the 
conditions are similar in both forms of immunity, 
the main difference being the presence of a much 
larger :mount of the specific immune body in the 
latter. 


808 


are intermediary body, immune body, am- 
boceptor, sensitizer, fixative, preparative, 
desmon, and for the other body comple- 
ment, alexin, cytase. It is this latter body 
which contains the atomic group described 
as toxophorie or zymophorie. 

Concerning the source, mode of action 
and constitution of the specific antagonistic 
bodies we are very imperfectly informed. 
That they are of cellular origin seems cer- 
tain, and Ehrlich with great ingenuity, on 
the basis of a brilliant series of experi- 
ments, has advanced a hypothesis regard- 
ing them which, in my opinion, better than 
any other hitherto suggested, accords with 
the known facts, and in promoting discoy- 
ery has already done the greatest service 
of which a working hypothesis is capable. 
Ehrlich has so recently and so fully in the 
‘Croonian lecture presented before English 
readers his hypothesis of the side chains or 
receptors and the basis for it, that I need 
only recall to your minds his conception 
that the toxins, cells and other substances 
which lead within the living body to the 
production of antitoxins, cytolysins and 
other antagonists have this capacity only 
through the possession of specific affinities, 
called haptophore groups, for correspond- 
ing haptophore groups belonging to side 
chains or receptors of certain cellular con- 
stituents of the body, and that in conse- 
quence of this appropriation of receptors, 
others of like nature are reproduced in 
excess of the needs of the cell, and these 
being shed into the lymph and blood, there 
constitute the antitoxins, intermediary 
bodies, agglutinins and other specific an- 
tagonists. The antitoxie receptor has only 
a single combining affinity, which is for the 
‘toxin, whereas the cast-off receptors consti- 
tuting the intermediary bodies of cytoly- 
‘sins have at least two affinities (hence 
ealled amboceptors by Ehrlich), one of a 
more highly specialized nature being for 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 412. 


the invading bacteria or other foreign cells, 
and the other for the complement.* The 
antibody enters quantitatively into definite 
chemical union with its affinitive substance. 
The essence of Ehrlich’s theory concerning 
antitoxin is thus tersely expressed by Behr- 
ing: ‘The same substance which, when in- 
corporated in the cells of the living body, 
is the prerequisite and condition for an 
intoxication becomes the means of cure 
when it exists in the circulating blood.’ 
So of the twofold bactericidal and eyto- 
lytic agents we may say that the living 
body possesses substances which may pro- 
tect it by destruction of invaders or may 
injure it by destruction of its own cells, 
according to the mates with which these 
substances are joined. 

An inquiry which naturally arises in this 
connection is: What is the physiological 
mechanism called into action in the pro- 
cesses resulting in the production of anti- 
toxins, cytolysins and similar bodies? We 
have no reason to suppose that the animal 
body is endowed with properties specially 
designed to meet pathological emergencies. 
Its sole weapons of defense, often lament- 
ably imperfect for morbid states, are 


* According to Ehrlich’s latest conception, re- 
sulting from investigations to demonstrate the 
multiplicity of complements, an.amboceptor has 
a single cytophilic affinity, and a number of com- 
plementophilic affinities differing in their avidity 
for various complements. He regards the agglu- 
tinins, precipitins and coagulins as uniceptors of 
more complex structure than the antitoxins, but 
Bail has recently brought evidence to show that 
agglutinins, like cytolysins, are composed of two 
elements. For the purposes of this lecture, it is 
not deemed necessary to enter into these or many 
other details of this complicated subject. For 
comprehensive and admirable critical reviews of 
recent theories of immunity and Hhrlich’s hy- 
pothesis of the receptors, I would refer to Dr. 
Ritchie’s papers in the Journal of Hygiene, 
Vol. IL., No. 2, and succeeding numbers; and to 
Dr. Aschoff’s paper in Zeitschrift f. allgem. Physt- 
ologie, Bd. III., Heft 3. 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


adapted primarily to physiological uses.* 
To the foregoing inquiry Ehrlich answers 
that the mechanism concerned is one 
physiologically employed for the assimila- 
tion by the cells of food. The receptors 
are in the cells, not for the purpose of link- 
ing poisons to the cells but to seize certain 
food stuffs, particularly the proteids, and 
the toxins and bacterial and other foreign 
cellular substances, if capable of inducing 
the immunizing reaction, chance to have 
the requisite combining affinities for the 
food receptors. It is interesting that 
Metechnikoff also, though from a different 
point of view, refers the mechanism of im- 
munity to the physiological function of 
assimilation of food by the cells. 
Inasmuch as, according to Ehrlich’s 
hypothesis, the specifie antagonistic sub- 
stances resulting from the injection of 
toxins and of foreign cells or derivatives 
of cells exist preformed in cells of the nor- 
mal body, there would appear to be no 
reason why any one of them might not 
occasionally be present normally free in 
the blood or other fluids. In fact, many 
of them—such as diphtheria and tetanus 
antitoxins, various antienzymes, bacteri- 
eidal, hemolytic and other cellular toxins, 
agglutinins and a number of other bodies 
of this class, as well as their antibodies— 
have been found repeatedly, though of 
course in the case of many inconstantly 
and with marked differences between indi- 
viduals and species, in the blood of healthy 
human beings or animals when their 
presence could not reasonably be attrib- 
uted to a previous specific immunization. 
Of these normal antibodies the only one 
which is increased in amount by the pro- 
cess of immunization is that specifically 
related to the material used to bring about 
the reaction. As already stated, it is the 
*W. H. Welch, ‘ Adaptation in Pathological 


Processes, Trans. Congress American Physicians 
and Surgeons, 1897, Vol. IV. 


SCIENCE. 


809 


intermediary body,* not the complement, 
which is generated in immunization against 
bacteria and other cells. 

The foregoing statements, though of 
necessity condensed and incomplete, about 
the general characters of the specifie anti- 
bodies will, I trust, help to a better under- 
standing of what is to follow concerning 
the bearing of some of these discoveries on 
medical science and practice. I realize 
the difficulties which you must already 
have experienced, if unfamiliar with these 
new lines of research, in following a brief 
presentation of a subject in which not only 
are the facts so complex, and the ideas so 
novel, but the terminology so strange and 
burdened with such a multitude of con- 
fusing synonyms. While deploring the 
multiplication of unnecessary new terms, 
I should like to quote in this connection a 
wise remark of Huxley :+ 

“Tf we find that the ascertainment of the 
order of nature is facilitated by using one 
terminology, or one set of symbols, rather 
than another, it is our clear duty to use 
the former; and no harm ean aecrue so 
long as we bear in mind that we are deal- 
ing merely with terms and symbols.’’ 

The most remarkable and characteristic 
attribute of these antibodies is the speci- 
ficity of their relation to the substances 
which have led to their formation. Of 
some of them, such as diphtheria or tetanus 
antitoxin, this specificity is nearly absolute; 
of other, such as the precipitins, it is only 
relative. This property is the basis of new 
and most valuable methods for the identi- 
fication of species and the determination of 
genetic relations—species not only of living 


*I use in this lecture the name ‘ intermediary 
body’ in preference to the more technical term 
‘amboceptor, although Ehrlich applies the Ger- 
man equivalent—Zwischenkérper—only to normal 
as distinguished from immune amboceptors. 

{+ Huxley, ‘On the Physical Basis of Life,’ ‘ Col- 
lected Essays,’ Vol. I., p. 164, New York, 1893. 


810 


things, but also of chemical substances and 
of disease. 

The resemblances and the differences 
thus revealed are doubtless fundamentally 
of a physico-chemical nature, but in many 
instances they transcend the powers of the 
microscope or of ordinary chemical tests 
to detect. 

The results already attaimed by the 
method of serum diagnosis*—using this 
expression in its widest sense—are not only 
of interest and importance to the biologist, 
physiologist and chemist, but of great prac- 
tical value to the bacteriologist and the 
physician. As this is not an aspect of my 
subject, broad and important as it is, upon 
the details of which I propose to dwell, it 
must suffice to present, by way of illustra- 
tion, examples of the diagnostic application 
of different kinds of specific serums. 

The only certain means of detecting tox- 
ins of the class of diphtheria or tetanus 
toxin, snake venom and certain vegetable 
poisons of the same category is their neu- 
tralization by the corresponding antitoxiec 
serums. Occasion may arise where such 
detection is of practical and even medico- 
legal importance, as has been exemplified 
in India, where the criminal use of cobra 
venom is not unknown. 

* The general procedure followed in the produc- 
tion of specific serums is the injection into a suit- 
able animal at intervals of time repeated doses of 
toxins, bacteria, foreign cells, or other material 
against which the antibody is desired. For ex- 
ample, if a specific precipitating or a hemolytic 
serum for human blood is wanted, an animal, say 
a rabbit, is injected subcutaneously or intraperi- 
toneally at intervals of three or more days with 
five or six doses of human serum or human red 
blood corpuscles. At the end of this time the 
rabbit’s serum has acquired the property of pre- 
cipitating human serum in strong dilutions, or 
of dissolving human red blood corpuscles, if these 
were used for the injection. Within limits the 
less closely related the two species of animals 
the more powerful is the antagonistic effect of 
the specific serum. This is true especially in the 
case of cytotoxic serums. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 412. 


The application of serum diagnosis which 
is most familiar to physicians is the agglu- 
tinative test for typhoid fever. The prin- 
ciples of the agglutinative reaction were 
worked out in the laboratory of Professor 
Gruber in Vienna by himself and Durham, 
and were there first appled to the diagnosis 
of typhoid fever by Griinbaum, who was 
anticipated in his publication by Widal, 
who has made a thorough clinical study of 
the subject. The method is of great value, 
not only in the diagnosis of disease, but 
also in the identification of bacterial species 
and the recognition of relationships be- 
tween species. Durham, to whom we owe 
important contributions to this subject, has 
given an ingenious hypothetical explana- 
tion of mutual agglutinative reactions, the 
main features of which are paralleled in 
Ehrlich and Morgenroth’s doctrine, based 
upon experiments, relating to the multi 
plicity of cell receptors and of amboceptors 
concerned in hxemolysis.* 

We have found the ageglutinative reaction 
an indispensable aid in the study of the 
series of cases of paratyphoid fever which 
have come under observation in Dr. Osler’s 
wards at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 
and which otherwise it would have been 
searcely possible to have separated from 
typhoid fever.+ The occurrence of para- 
typhoid fever as a distinet disease affords 
an explanation of a certain proportion 
of the failures of the serum from supposed 
typhoid fever patients to clump typhoid 
baeilli. Not less valuable is the serum test 
in the diagnosis of Bacillus dysenterie 
Shiga and of the diseases caused by it. 
This microorganism has been shown by 
Flexner and his pupils, Vedder and Duval, 

*Durham, Journal of Experimental Medicine, 
January 15, 1901, Vol. V., p. 353. Ehrlich and 
Morgenroth, Berl. klin. Woch., May 27, 1901, p. 
570. 

7 See papers on paratyphoid fever, by Johnston, 


Hewlett and Longeope in American Journal of 
Medical Sciences, August, 1902. 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


to be the cause of our acute dysenteries, 
and recently in Baltimore Duval and Bas- 
set, working with the aid of the Rockefel- 
ler, Institute for Medical Research at the 
Thomas Wilson Sanitarium for Children, 
have discovered that this same bacillus 
is in all probability the specific agent of 
infection in the summer diarrhcas of in- 
fants. 

Bacteriolytic serums have been used by 
Pfeiffer in the differentiation of cholera 
and allied spirilla, but few other bacteria 
present equally well the Pfeiffer reaction, 
which is not nearly so useful or handy a 
means of identification as the Gruber- 
Durham reaction. 

Of other cytolytic serums the hemolysins 
have been by far the most carefully studied. 
One of the most interesting results of this 
study has been the determination by pre- 
cise quantitative methods of resemblances 
and of differences between red blood cor- 
puseles which in no other way could be 
distinguished. These resemblances and 
differences relate to the red corpuscles not 
only of different species of animals, but 
also to those of individuals of the same 
species. Although we constantly assume 
the existence of cellular differences between 
individuals and between species, these are 
for the most part of so subtile a nature as 
to elude our methods of observation. The 
exact demonstration of such differences by 
the use of cytolytic serums is therefore of 
especial interest. My assistant, Dr. H. T. 
Marshall, in an unpublished research, con- 
ducted under the direction of Professor 
Ehrlich and Dr. Morgenroth, upon the re- 
ceptors of the red blood corpuscles of man 
and of two species of monkey, found that 
while man and the monkeys each have re- 
ceptors not shared by the other, they also 
have a large number of receptors in com- 
mon. 

This result is in harmony with Nuttall’s 
interesting observations on a much more 


SCIENCE. 


81] 


extended scale regarding phylogenetic 
relationships between animal species, as 
shown by the reaction of their blood with 
the specifie precipitins discovered by Tchis- 
towitch and Bordet, and introduced into 
practical medicine by Wassermann. This 
biological test to determine the source of 
blood, when used with proper precautions, 
far surpasses in accuracy all other methods 
for this end. While it would lead too far 
from my purpose to follow this subject 
farther, I cannot in this connection for- 
bear at least mentioning one of the earliest 
and most suggestive papers on this class 
of antibodies—that ‘On Immunity against 
Proteids,’ by Walter Myers, who gave up 
his life in the cause of science and of hu- 
manity, and whose early death is so great 
a loss to English medical science. 

I shall ask your attention now to some 
considerations concerning the bearing of 
recent studies of immunity on the nature 
and action of toxins. This subject is, of 
course, of the greatest pathological as well 
as bacteriological importance, and I believe 
a closer cooperation than now exists be- 
tween bacteriologists and pathologists in 
its study would further the surer and more 
rapid advancement of our knowledge about 
it. One misses only too often in purely 
bacteriological papers on this subject exact 
knowledge and descriptions of pathological 
conditions, and, on the other hand, pathol- 
ogists often fail to utilize pertinent facts 
and ideas which are familiar to bacteriol- 
ogists. . 

The discovery by Roux and Yersin of 
the diphtheria toxin, the studies by Behr- 
ing and Kitasato of tetanus toxin leading 
up to Behring’s epochal discovery of anti- 
toxin, and the later investigations of Ehr- 
lich on the constitution of diphtheria toxin 
and the origin and mode of action of anti- 
toxin are the great events in the most bril- 
liant and securely founded chapter of mod- 
ern studies of immunity. Through these 


812 


researches we became acquainted with a 
class of poisons secreted by certain bacteria, 
and present in solution in culture fluids. 
The evidence is conclusive that these sol- 
uble toxins enter, as assimilable substances, 
into direct combination with constituents 
of the body cells for which they have an 
affinity, and only thereby are enabled to 
bring about immunity or to exert toxi¢ 
effects. As shown by the modifications of 
toxins called toxoids, the toxic property 
may be destroyed without loss of the com- 
bining power, and without removal of the 
immunizing power. According to Ehr- 
lich’s helpful conception, based on a large 
amount of experimental evidence, and now 
very generally accepted, the combining 
power of the toxin molecule resides in a 
eroup of atoms, designated as the hapto- 
phore group, with affinity for the corre- 
sponding haptophore groups of the side 
chains or receptors of cellular constituents, 
and the toxic power pertains to another 
and less stable atom complex in the mol- 
ecule. 

By means of these facts, and legitimate 
deductions from them, we are enabled to 
explain in a satisfactory way susceptibility 
to poisoning by these soluble toxins, their 
selective action upon the cells of the body, 
and their quick disappearance after injec- 
tion into the circulating blood. In one 
infectious disease and in one only, to wit 
tetanus, are we able to explain the clinical 
and pathological phenomena in minute de- 
tail on the basis of our knowledge of the 
causative microorganism and its poisonous 
products. The nearest approach to this 
instance is diphtheria, but here we have 
not yet been able to follow the trail of the 
toxins within the body so perfectly, and, 
as Flexner and I have shown, in addition 
to the soluble toxins there is an intracel- 
lular poison concerned in the production of 
the false membrane. Interesting investi- 
gations, which have greatly helped to elu- 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


cidate the nature of these toxins, have 
been made on various similar vegetable and 
animal poisons, such as ricin and abrin 
from the former source and the venom 
of snakes, spiders and other poisonous 
animals. 

The high hopes which were raised by the 
discovery of the soluble bacterial toxins 
that at last the way was opened for us to 
penetrate into the mysteries of the mode 
of action of pathogenic bacteria were soon 
doomed to disappointment, for similar 
powerful toxins, though diligently sought, 
could not be detected in the cultures of 
most other bacteria, and these among the 
most important ones, such as the tubercle 
bacillus, the typhoid bacillus, the cholera 
spirillum, the pneumococcus, the pyogenic 
micrococci. This disappointment was all 
the more acute because there was and is 
every ground for confidence that whenever 
we have in our possession a powerful toxin 
of this class, a strong protective antitoxic 
serum can readily be obtained. 

Notwithstanding these negative results, 
the belief was not abandoned that bacteria 
harm the body mainly by poisoning, for it 
rests upon strong clinical and pathological 
evidence, as well as upon the study of the 
distribution of bacteria in the infected 
body. The search for poisons was turned 
from the fluid part of cultures to the bac- 
teria themselves, and thus Pfeiffer suc- 
ceeded in demonstrating as an integral 
constituent of the bodies of cholera spirilla 
toxic substances, which are liberated only 
when the bacteria degenerate or die. In- 
tracellular poisons, which indeed pre- 
viously, though of a different nature, had 
been extracted from bacteria by Buchner 
and by Koch, were subsequently found 
within typhoid bacilli and a number of 
other pathogenic bacteria. 

It is of more than purely bacteriological 
interest to recognize the distinction be- 
tween the small group of pathogenic bac- 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902.] 


teria, represented by the bacilli of tetanus, 
of diphtheria, and of botulism, character- 
ized by the secretion of powerful soluble 
toxins, and the much larger group, contain- 
ing most of the other pathogenic bacteria, 
which do not secrete similar strong toxins, 
for it is only the former which give rise to 
the production of antitoxic serum of 
marked protective and curative power. 

The form of immunity resulting from 
injections or natural infections with the 
second class of bacteria belongs mainly to 
the bacteriolytic type, in which the com- 
plete antibody is not a single substance, 
like antitoxin, but is composed of two 
distinet elements, intermediary body and 
complement, of which only the former is 
produced or increased in the process of im- 
munization. The bacteriolytic serums are 
also under suitable, but not readily con- 
trolled conditions, protective and curative, 
but owing, it would seem, mainly to the 
duplex nature of the antibody their suc- 
cessful therapeutic application meets dif- 
ficulties which have not yet been over- 
come. The great practical problem of 
bacteriology to-day is to make available 
to medical practice the bacteriolytic ser- 
ums such as antityphoid, antipneumococ- 
cus, antistreptococeus, antiplague, anti- 
dysentery serums. Such work as that of 
Marmorek, of Wassermann, of Neisser and 
Wechsberg, of Ainley Walker, upon the 
production, the properties, the conditions 
underlying the action of these serums is, 
therefore, highly important. 

Our knowledge of the constitution and 
action of the intracellular bacterial poisons 
is most incomplete and at present cannot 
be applied in any very definite and satis- 
factory way to the explanation of the mor- 
bid phenomena of infectious diseases. Such 
investigations as those undertaken by Mac- 
fadyen and Rowland at the Jenner Insti- 
tute of Preventive Medicine upon the ex- 
pressed juices of bacterial cells promise to 


SCIENCE. 


813 


shed light upon this subject and in gen- 
eral upon the vital processes of bacteria. 
Of great value also are the recent re- 
searches of Vaughan upon intracellular 
bacterial poisons: 

I find it difficult to reconcile myself to 
the doctrine that bacteria, such as the 
typhoid bacillus, the pneumococeus, and 
others of the class now under consideration, 
do their chief injury to the body, not while 
they are lively and vigorous, but after they 
become corpses and in consequence set free 
their protoplasmic poisons. Still this 
latter conception is the basis of a coherent 
hypothesis of infection, elaborated most 
fully recently by Radziewsky,* which rests 
upon a considerable amount of accurate 
observation and interesting experimental 
work. There can be no doubt that in the 
course of many infections there goes on an 
enormous destruction of the bacteria con- 
cerned so that the numbers of those indi- 
cated at any given time by microscopical 
examination and by cultures may repre- 
sent only an insignificant fraction of the 
total progeny of the first invaders. I have 
been much interested in this phenomenon, 
since I became familiar with it over twelve 
years agot in pneumococecus infections 
through the employment of a method which 
revealed in the exudates degenerating and 
dead pneumococci and their empty capsules 
in numbers often far exceeding the intact 
organisms; indeed, in some cases so many 
that they formed a large part of the ex- 
udate. 

‘While all due weight should be given to 
such facts as these, the objections to the 


acceptance of the hypothesis just mentioned 

* Radziewsky, Zeitschrift fiir Hygiene, 1900, 
XXXIV., p. 185, and 1901, XXXVIL, p. 1. 

+ Welch, Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hos- 
pital, July, 1890, and December, 1892. Michaelis, 
Berl. klin. Woch., 1902, No. 20, has recently re- 
ported the same findings. 


814 


as affording a complete explanation of the 
toxic phenomena of this class of infections 
are so obvious that naturally efforts have 
been made to learn whether bacteria which 
produce no strong soluble toxins in our 
ordinary culture media may not do so on 
other media of special composition or in a 
demonstrable way within the living body. 
Work in these two directions has not been 
altogether barren, as shown by results of 
experiments made by Hueppe, Cartwright 
Wood, Marmorek, and others along the 
former lines, and by Metchnikoff, Roux 
and Salimbeni along the latter, but it can- 
not be said that these experiments have 
led to any generally accepted solution of 
the main difficulties. Some are therefore 
inchned to lay the chief emphasis upon dis- 
ordered cellular metabolism, but this is 
only a restatement of the question. Every- 
body recognizes abnormal metabolism as an 
essential condition in infections. The 
very point needing explanation is how the 
bacteria derange metabolism. 

I wish here to advance a hypothesis which 
seems competent to explain the source, the 
mode of production and the nature of 
certain bacterial toxins. It would appear 
to be a natural inference from the receptor 
theory of Ehrlich and the recent work on 
cytotoxins. The following considerations 
will, I hope, make clear the essential points. 

As I have already stated, we know that 
the injection of foreign cells, such as 
pathogenic bacteria, red blood corpuscles, 
spermatozoa, epithelium, into the tissues of 
a living animal leads to the formation of 
poisons, called eytotoxins, acting specific- 
ally upon these cells; that the substances 
which stimulate the cells of the host to 
produce one constituent of this class of 
toxins consist of certain atom complexes 
derived from the injected cells; that cer- 
tain cells of the host thus stimulated gen- 
erate and discharge one component of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


toxin, called the intermediary body, which, 
although by itself not poisonous, becomes 
the medium of intoxication through union, 
on the one hand, with a preexistent toxo- 
phore substance, called the complement, 
and, on the other hand, with the foreign 
cell which started the reaction. 

Such is the response on the part of the 
host to the entrance of the foreign cells; 
but how about a possible response of a like 
nature on the part of the invading cells to- 
ward the host resulting in the production 
of special eytotoxins, of analogous consti- 
tution, injurious to the host? This latter 
response, being of a vital nature, can take 
place only when the invading cells are liv- 
ing, as in the case of bacteria and other 
parasites. 

I see no reason why suitable substances 
derived from the host may not stimulate 
parasitic organisms, through a_ physio- 
logical mechanism similar to that operative 
in the development of cytolytic immunity, 
to the production of intermediary bodies 
which, if provided with the requisite affi- 
nities, have the power to link complements 
to cellular constituents of the host, and 
thereby to poison the latter. Expressed in 
terms of Ehrlich’s side-chain theory, cer- 
tain substances of the host of cellular 
origin, assimilable by the parasites through 
the possession of haptophore groups with 
the proper affinities, become anchored to 
receptors of the parasitic cell, which, if 
not too much damaged, is thereby stimu- 
lated to the over-production of like recep- 
tors; these excessive receptors of the 
parasite, if cast off into the fluids or the 
cells of the host, there constitute inter- 
mediary bodies or amboceptors with special 
affinities for those cellular constituents or 
derivatives of the host which led to their 
production, and for others which possess 
in whole or in part identical receptors. 
Provided the host is supplied also with the 
appropriate complements, there result cyto- 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


toxins with special affinities for certain 
definite cells or substances of cellular origin 
in the host. The contribution of the para- 
sitie cells to these cytotoxins is the ambo- 
ceptors. Hither the parasite or the host 
may provide the complements.* 

It may perhaps aid in grasping the ideas 
here presented to imagine the bacterium, 
in the capacity of the host, as a structure 
so large that one could inject into it animal 
cells. Provided the proper receptor ap- 
paratus is present, the resulting reaction 
on the part of the bacterium, as described, 
would be a process of immunization against 
the animal cells through the formation of 
specific cellulicidal substances. In reality 
it is only certain atomic complexes of cells 
which are concerned in this immunizing 
reaction, and in comparison with these 
even the smallest bacterium is a gigantic 
object. 

Looked at from the point of view of the 
bacterium as well as from that of the ani- 
mal host, according to the hypothesis ad- 
vanced the struggle between the bacteria 
and the body cells in infections may be 
conceived as an immunizing contest in 
which each participant is stimulated by its 
‘opponent to the production of cytotoxins 
hostile to the other, and thereby endeavors 
to make itself immune against its antag- 
onists. These mutually antagonistic cyto- 
toxins are capable of injuring the parasitic 
cells on the one hand or the body cells on 
the other, only when escaping combination 
outside of them they are anchored to the 
receptors of the cells to which their, respec- 
tive affinities are adjusted. This combina- 
tion with the cells, if it does not result in 
too great injury to them, is the condition 
for further production of the cytotoxic 

* We may thus speak of somatogenic eytotoxins 
resulting from the action of bacterial stimuli on 
cells of the host, and of bacteriogenic cytotoxins 


from somatogenic stimuli, also of somatogenic 
and bacteriogenic complements. 


SCIENCE. 


815 


intermediary bodies through over-produc- 
tion and discharge of receptors.* The im- 


*It will be observed that these discharged re- 
ceptors may be regarded as the equivalents of 
anti-immune bodies. E. W. Ainley Walker, in 
an interesting and suggestive paper on ‘ Immuni- 
zation against Immune Serum’ (Jowrnal of Path- 
ology and Bacteriology, March, 1902), shows ex- 
perimentally that bacteria growing in immune 
serums produce anti-immune bodies, and thereby 
become more virulent. He concludes that ‘the 
basis of bacterial virulence and of chemiotactic 
influence is identical, and constitutes that atom 
group which causes the production of the immune 
body.’ My hypothesis includes the conceptions 
supported by Walker, and also much more. <Ac- 
cording to the hypothesis, certain bacterial anti- 
bodies are capable not only of neutralizing im- 
mune bodies of the host, but with the aid of 
complements also of poisoning the cells of the 
host. It is not difficult to imagine various condi- 
tions in which the anti-bodies of bacterial origin 
may escape neutralization before entering into 
union with the host’s cells. The substances which 
stimulate bacteria to produce these antibodies 
need not necessarily be toxic to them; in fact, 
toxicity, such as that of strong bactericides of 
eellular origin, would hinder their production. 
The essential things are that the stimulating sub- 
stances have the requisite combining groups for 
bacterial receptors, and that the cast-off receptors 
be complemented within the body of the host. Hach 
of the various bacteriogenic cytotoxins probably 
contains a multitude of partial amboceptors, with 
varying cytophilic and complementcphilic affini- 
ties, in accordance with the views cf Ehrlich and 
Morgenroth. It is self-evident that through a 
mechanism similar to that described parasites 
within the infected body may be stimulated by 
atom groups derived from the host to the produc- 
tion also of antibodies other than cytotoxins, such 
as various agglutinins, precipitins, antienzymes, 
and perhaps of uniceptors of the nature of secreted 
soluble toxins, or of enzymes, all adjusted against 
the host. Questions relating to the source and 
nature of the complements, particularly of intra- 
cellular complements, and also to anticomple- 
ments, are manifestly of importance in relation 
to the hypothesis, but it would complicate the 
subject too much to discuss these and other mat- 
ters here, where my purpose is merely to outline 
the essential features of this new theory of infec- 
tion with reference to the particular points under 
consideration. 


$16 


portant factors determining the issue of 
the contest are the qualities, the relative 
proportions and the distribution of the 
bacterial and the host’s cytotoxins. 

The hypothesis thus outlined can be 
tested experimentally, but I regret that it 
has shaped itself in my mind so recently 
that I have not yet been able to make the 
desired experiments, which are, however, 
now started in my laboratory. Since my 
arrival here I am informed that these ex- 
periments have already furnished facts in 
its support, which will be published later. 

Inasmuch as at least one component, and 
it may be both components, of the assumed 
bacterial eytotoxins preexist in the bac- 
terial cells, it should be possible to demon- 
strate some of them in artificial cultures 
of bacteria, where they would be found 
especially as integral parts of the cells, 
unless extracted from the bodies of degen- 
erating or dead bacteria. This corre- 
sponds with what is known concerning the 
situation of the poisons of the cholera spir- 
illum, the typhoid bacillus and other bac- 
teria characterized by the lack of strong 
soluble toxins. But the quantitative and 
other relations between these cultural eyto- 
toxins and those produced in the manner 
described by the same bacteria during pro- 
cesses of infection are comparable to those 
between the normal antibodies and the im- 
mune antibodies. These relations would 
explain the familiar fact that cultures of 
bacteria of the class under consideration 
constitute in general only a partial and 
meager index of the toxic capacities of the 
same bacteria in the infected body. That 
eytolysins may, however, be present nor- 
mally in large amount is illustrated by the 
hemolysins of eel’s serum and of snake 
venom. 

In this theory, degenerated and dead 
bacteria, while recognized as a source of 
poisoning in infections, are not assigned an 
exclusive role in this regard. Living bac- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


teria in the infected body, where they are 
under nutritive conditions not paralleled 
in artificial cultures, actively produce and 
seerete receptors which may become the 
means of intoxication of the body cells. 
From what has been said, we can compre- 
hend how these diverse free receptors may 
enter into the formation of cytotoxins of 
the most varied and specific characters, 
such as erythrotoxins, leukotoxins, neuro- 
toxins, nephrotoxins, spermotoxins, hepato- 
toxins, ete. Very probably in many in- 
stances these toxins are represented by so 
few receptors in bacterial cells in ordi- 
nary cultures that it would be hopeless to 
search for them there, although we may 
have convincing experimental and patho- 
logical evidence that within the animal 
body the same bacteria produce them 
abundantly under the stimulus of appro- 
priate substances derived from cells of the 
host. 
WiniramM H. WELCH. 
Jouns Horxins UNIVERSITY. 


(To be concluded.) 


THE LENGTH OF THE COLLEGE YEAR AND 
COURSE.* 

A NuMBER of matters of general aca- 
demic interest have occupied the attention 
of the university faculty, and to some 
extent that of the other faculties, during 
the year. The established policy of grant- 
ing no honorary degrees was unanimously 
reaffirmed. The administration of the 
disciplinary authority of the university 
was devolved upon a committee consisting 
of the dean and four professors to be 
elected by the university faculty. The 
better conduct of examinations was much 
discussed; but owing to the difficulty ex- 
perienced in discovering the sentiment of 
the students towards the so-called honor 

* From the tenth annual report of President 


Schurman to the board of trustees of Cornell 
University. 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


system, no decision was reached, and the 
question is still unsettled. There is a 
strong sentiment both in the faculty and in 
the student body in favor of the honor 
system. No one wants to see watchers in 
examinations. But, under the honor sys- 
tem, no student wants to report cases of 
cribbing. Thus the cheater’s honor in dis- 
honor rooted stands. A system capable 
of administration must be devised, yet, if 
it is to be successful, it must be in harmony 
with the sentiments of the students. 

At the suggestion of the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, 
the Christmas vacation was extended so 
as to include the week in which the Ist of 
January falls, for the purpose of enabling 
members of the faculty to attend the meet- 
ings of the scientific and learned societies 
held at that time. This action is un- 
doubtedly in the best interests of science 
and scholarship and highly advantageous 
to professors. 

The lengthening of the Christmas recess 
suggests some observations on the amount 
of vacation now enjoyed by American uni- 
versities and colleges. It is less, to be sure, 
than that which obtains in Great Britain. 
And from the point of view of professors, 
most of whom devote the summer vacation 
to investigation and writing, it is too short 
rather than too long. Furthermore, as it 
is by means of such self-regenerating 
studies that the professor maintains his 
efficiency as a teacher, a vacation so used is 
of inestimable advantage to the university. 
It is probably safe to say that the over- 
whelming majority of Cornell professors 
and instructors devote two thirds of their 
summer vacation to strenuous productive 
work, while others teach in the summer ses- 
sion or undertake special duties of a pro- 
fessional or technical character. 

Nevertheless, the final cause of American 
colleges and universities is the student. 


SCIENCE. 


817 


His best interests must be the supreme 
consideration in determining the leneth of 
vacations. The Christmas recess being 
now fixed for the accommodation of scien- 
tists and scholars, and the spring recess 
being not much more than a week, it is 
worth inquiry whether, in the interest of 
students, the summer vacation should not 
be shortened. The Cornell summer vaea- 
tion is about the average, possibly a little 
shorter. For the members of the instruct- 
ing staff, as already observed, it is cer- 
tainly not too long. Nor is it too long for 
students in law, medicine, engineering, 
agriculture, ete., who devote the summer 
months to work in offices, factories, or on 
farms, which supplements their theoretical 
studies and familiarizes them with the 
practical side of their callings. But for 
students in the academic department who 
have nothing in particular to do during 
the summer, the vacation is far too long. 
Why should young men from eighteen to 
twenty-two years of age be idle for three 
months simply because they are students 
for the other nine? Of course many stu- 
dents in the academie department do 
work—perhaps to earn money to procure 
an education—during the holidays, and at 
Cornell that class is probably larger than 
at any other great university in the east. 
But others are idle, as are also some of the 
students from the professional and tech- 
nical departments; and for these the uni- 
versity should offer work. Yet, as has been 
shown, it is not to the interest of the uni- 
versity to demand too much teaching from 
its professors, else the spirit of research is 
quenched and the teacher becomes fos- 
silized. 

But these conflicting demands may be 
met by a summer session of the academic 
department (including allied technical 
subjects) with a faculty especially ap- 
pointed for the purpose made up of Cor- 


nell professors, if they desire the appoint- 
ment, and professors of other universities 
selected for eminence in their respective 
branches of learning or science. The Cor- 
nell summer session, which continues six 
weeks, attracted this year more than twice 
as many regular students of the university 
(218 as against 101) as last year. And 
students in the academic department who 
regularly attend the summer session may, 
if they have entered on advanced standing 
or done extra work in course, satisfy the 
requirements for the A.B. degree in three 
years instead of four. This is a shortening 
of time without lowering the standards or 
even changing the character of the studies. 
In all discussions regarding the length of 
the A.B. course and the nature of the 
studies it should embrace, the summer ses- 
sion has been overlooked. Yet it may 
contain the key to that problem as well 
as to the problem of the adjustment of 
term time and holidays. 

The relation of the A.B. course to the 
technical and professional courses has 
again been under consideration. 

The faculty of arts and sciences some 
time ago made the work for the A.B. de- 
gree entirely elective. The tabulation by 
Dean Crane of the studies elected for four 
years by the class graduating in 1901, shows 
no wide divergence from the results 
formerly obtaining under the operation of 
the combined prescribed and elective sys- 
tem. Like the A.B.’s of preceding years, 
the graduates of 1901 selected courses pre- 
dominantly humanistic. Of all choices of 
studies made by the class, 80 per cent. were 
in languages, philosophy, history and polit- 
ical science, and art. As compared with 
the prescribed classical course of a genera- 
tion ago there is, however, a noticeable 
change. While 10 per cent. of the elec- 
tions were in ancient languages, 37 per 
cent. were in modern languages, and 22 
per cent. in history and political. science. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


That is to say, while under the elective sys- 
tem the studies of candidates for the A.B. 
degree continue to be for the most part 
humanistic, the newer humanities—Eng- 
lish, French, German, history, economies, 
etc.—have taken the larger portion of the 
place which a generation ago was occupied 
by the older humanities— Latin and Greek. 

The privilege of students taking the 
A.B. course at Cornell to elect their own 
studies is not likely to be modified. Of 
course there are restrictions upon fresh- 
men inherent in the nature of the studies 
themselves. And there is the further lim- 
itation, which critics continually ignore, 
that the subjects embraced by the academic 
department do not extend beyond the hu- 
manities and the pure sciences, so that a 
student entering upon the A.B. course is 
not permitted to elect work in engineering, 
agriculture or other technical or profes- 
sional departments. 

But, while the university refuses to re- 
duce the A.B. course from four years to 
three, it does permit juniors and seniors 
who intend taking subsequently a profes- 
sional course to anticipate one year of such 
work as a part of the A.B. course. The 
question has been raised whether, in such 
eases, the A.B. degree is given on the 
eround that the candidate has studied four 
years or that he has taken certain studies 
(arts and sciences) though for three years’ 
only. And the suggestion has been made 
that the subjects which juniors and seniors 
are permitted to take in the professional 
schools should be restricted to those which 
might be regarded as constituents of a 
liberal culture. But a university which 
allows its students to elect freely among 
languages, literature, philosophy, history, 
political science, mathematics and the 
physical and biological sciences for the 
A.B. degree will meet great difficulty in 
applying the eriterion suggested. Perhaps 
the best solution of the theoretical dilemma 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902.] 


which has been raised is to recognize 
frankly that the privilege of doing a year 
of professional work as a part of the A.B. 
course, which juniors and seniors now en- 
joy, is a favor extended to candidates who 
study at a university six or seven years, 
and that there is no reason for shortening 
the course of candidates whose studies 
cease on the receipt of the A.B. degree. 
Another question, which has not indeed 
been formally discussed, but which has 
occasionally been mooted, is the advisability 
of requiring the A.B. degree (or its equiva- 
lent) for admission to the professional and 
technical courses. It seems safe to say 
that Cornell University is not likely soon 
to adopt that policy. If a youth desires 
to be a lawyer, engineer, physician or 
architect, there is no good reason why he 
should be compelled to study other subjects 
for four years as a condition of entering 
upon his professional course. And there 
is less reason to-day, when the A.B. course 
has everywhere been made largely, and in 
some institutions wholly, elective, than 
might have been imagined a generation 
ago when the prescribed classical course 
was deemed the one and _ indispensable 
means of liberal culture and mental train- 
ing, which also fitted and qualified the 
candidate to undertake professional study. 
“At Cornell University, at any rate, the es- 
tablished policy is to admit students to 
any course who are able to pass the exam- 
inations qualifying them to pursue that 
course. And such preliminary tests, it is 
generally conceded by the members of the 
professions concerned, do not exceed the 
requirements for graduation at the best 
high schools. The age of high school grad- 
uates is also suitable. And, finally, Cor- 
nell University could not, without sur- 
rendering the democratic spirit in which 
it was conceived and by which it has always 
been inspired, establish conditions of ad- 
mission to its courses of study which would 


SCIENCE. 


819 


close its doors to the masses of the people 


and leave them open only to those who had 


time and money enough to study for a 
period of six or seven years after gradu- 
ating at high schools. Nevertheless, the 
members of the professional faculties are 
fully aware of the advantages of superior 
education and culture to its possessor, and, 
other things being equal, they know it con- 
duces to professional success. Accord- 
ingly, students whose age, means and cir- 
cumstanees justify such a plan are advised 
to study both for the A.B. and the profes- 
sional degree. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 
Development and Evolution. By Professor 

JaMES Mark Batpwin. New York, The 

Macmillan Co. Pp. 395. $2.60. 

Although biologists all agree as to the gen- 
eral truth of the theory of descent, disagree- 
ment is still rife as to the method of descent 
of the species. Those who have been inter- 
ested in these problems in recent years have 
been divided into two camps, agreeing as to 
the general facts but differing in their views as 
to the forces by which the evolution of animals 
has been brought about. One school has held 
a modified view of the Lamarckian theory, 
assuming that the directive force in evolution 
has been the environment which produces di- 
rect modifications in the individual, to be sub- 
sequently inherited. The second school has 
adopted an ultra-Darwinian position, denying 
that the modifications produced by the en- 
vironment can be inherited, and insisting that 
acquired characters can play no part in eyolu- 
tion. According to this school, evolution has 
been due to the natural selection of congenital 
variations. Both of these schools have labored 
under serious disadvantages. The neo-La- 
marckian school is quite unable to obtain any 
clear evidence that acquired characters are 
transmitted by heredity, and thus their funda- 
mental datum is without demonstration. On 
the other hand, the neo-Darwinian school has 
labored under disadvantages of a different 
nature. No one questions the cogeney of con- 
genital variations or the importance of natural 


820 


selection as influencing evolution, but the dif- 
ficulties connected with this special theory of 
a more general character have been so serious 
as to have convinced many modern naturalists 
that natural selection of congenital characters 
is insufficient to account for the facts of 
nature. 

A few years ago there was suggested to 
biologists a new conception of the method of 
evolution, a method which was believed by its 
advocates to remove many or most of the dif- 
ficulties of the two schools hitherto recog- 
nized, and to give an explanation of the pro- 
cess of evolution more intelligible and not 
open to the lines of criticism which were 
raised against the two other views. This new 
suggestion was independently conceived by 
three different naturalists, Professor Baldwin, 
of Princeton, Professor Osborn, of Columbia, 
and Lloyd Morgan, of England. The names 
that have been applied to the new theory are 
several. The one most commonly used has 
been Organic selection, a term which really 
expresses very little. Professor Baldwin him- 
self has preferred Othoplasy, which term he 
now adopts in the volume which has recently 
appeared. 

This new conception of evolution in a way 
offers a compromise between the views of the 
natural selectionist and the Lamarckian 
school, inasmuch as it does not involve the 
necessity of assuming the inheritance of ac- 
quired characters, but at the same time it 
assumes that acquired characters, or the en- 
vironment in general, is the chief directive 
force in controlling the line of evolution. It, 
therefore, puts into the possession of evolu- 
tionists- the uniform directive force of an 
environment, thus avoiding many of the diffi- 
culties of the natural selection theory, but 
does not involve the conception of the belief 
in the inheritance of acquired characters for 
which it seems to be impossible to obtain any 
proof or any good evidence. 

The theory of organic selection or othoplasy 
can not be explained in a few words and na 
concise definition can be given of it. This 
theory points out the fact that acquired char- 
acters, though they may not be inherited, do 
produce profound modification in individuals. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


The development of acquired characters, there- 
fore, adapts the individual to the new condi- 
tions of life and to any change in environ- 
ment. Such adaptations enable the individual 
to meet changes in environment and to be- 
come adapted to new conditions of life. They, 
therefore, prevent the extermination of the 
individuals which might occur with modifi- 
cations in environment. Even though such 
modifications be not transmitted by heredity, 
the second generation in the same environ- 
ment would independently develop similar 
acquired characters and would itself become 
adapted to the environment. Thus the de- 
velopment of acquired characters would pro- 
tect generation after generation from exter- 
mination, even though they were not trans- 
mitted by the force of heredity. Such a 
protection of the individual would shield 
from extermination members of the race that 
develop the acquired characters, and thus keep 
alive that portion of the race in which certain 
acquired characters develop. This shielding 
process would continue until, according to the 
suggestion of this theory, congenital variations 
might arise, amid the numerous indefinite 
variations of this character, which were in a 
line with the acquired characters. The ac- 
quired characters under these circumstances 
would have nothing to do with producing the 
congenital variations, but would simply pre- 
serve the life of the individuals until the 
proper congenital variations appear. The 
chief significance of this theory, then, is that 
it greatly prolongs the time over which the 
race might wait for the appearance of proper 
congenital variations. 

The volume just published by Professor 
Baldwin contains a somewhat miscellaneous 
collection of chapters upon different phases of 
evolution. Certain phases of psychological 
evolution are found at the beginning, and at 
the close of the volume certain other sugges- 
tions of a more psychological character. The 
larger part of the work, and the part which 
to biologists in general will be the most sug- 
gestive, concerns the development of this 
theory of organic selection or othoplasy, as 
Baldwin prefers to call it. The subject has 
been developed with extreme care and the gen- 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


eral theory has been applied in numerous di- 
rections. The reading of this volume will 
give a very much more comprehensive concep- 
tion of the significance of this new theory 
and the applications of various lines of evo- 
lution, than can be obtained from the reading 
of isolated papers on the subject which have 
hitherto appeared. Indeed, Professor Bald- 


win’s discussion of this theory and its appli-- 


cation in various lines is a real contribu- 
tion to the general subject of evolution. No 
one who is interested in the modern doctrine 
of evolution and the method of the develop- 
ment of animals and plants can afford to miss 
reading this new work of Professor Baldwin’s, 
for it throws a light upon many phases of the 
descent theory which are left in the dark by 
both the Darwinian and the Lamarckian 
schools. Although Professor Baldwin is not 
the sole originator of this conception, and has 
given due credit to the two who independently 
conceived it with him, he certainly has de- 
veloped it more carefully than any other, and 
this new work of Baldwin’s must be regarded 
as one of the positive contributions to the 
discussions of the evolution doctrine. 

The other parts of the work, though inter- 
esting and suggestive, are, at least to the 
general biologist, less significant and instruct- 
ive than this careful elaboration of the theory 
of othoplasy, but may be especially recom- 
mended to those interested in the psycholog- 
ical phases of evolution. 

H. W. Conn. 


WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 


SOIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

The Museums Journal of Great Britain 
contains a brief account of ‘The Manchester 
Whitworth Institute,’ a paper on ‘The De- 
seriptive Arrangement of Museum Collec- 
tions, by Frank C. Baker, dealing with that 
of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, and 
‘Notes upon the Haslemere Educational Mu- 
seum,’ by E. W. Swanton. This last is ex- 
tremely interesting, describing a successful 
attempt to make a museum instructive at the 
minimum cost; the building covers 6,400 
square feet and cost but £1,305. There are 
reprints of H. I. Smith’s ‘Methods of Col- 


SCIENCE. 


821 


lecting Anthropological Material’ and of H. 
F. Osborn’s paper on ‘The Oollecting and 
Preparing of Fossil Vertebrates.’ Also there 
are the customary interesting notes. 


The American Museum Journal has an 
account of ‘Entomological Work in the Black 
Mountains of North Carolina’ by Wm. Beuten- 
miller and an illustrated article on ‘ Collect- 
ing Flamingoes and their Nests in the Ba- 
hama Islands’ by Frank M. Chapman, which 
gives a very clear idea of the breeding grounds 
of a flamingo colony. The lecture announce- 
ments are made. The Guide Leaflet Supple- 
ment is devoted to ‘The Sequoia, a Historical 
Review of Biological Science’ by George H. 
Sherwood. It is primarily a brief account 
of the specimen of Sequoia acquired by the 
museum and secondarily a review of the prog- 
ress of science during the life of the tree, 
which was 1341 years. 


The Plant World for September commem- 
orates its fifth anniversary, by issuing a num- 
ber comprising many more pages and plates 
than usual. It contains ‘ Extracts from the 
Note Book of a Naturalist on the Island of 
Guam,’ by W. E. Safford; ‘A Deciduous 
Tropical Tree,’ by O. F. Cook; ‘Our Vanishing 
Wild Flowers,” by L. H. Pammel; ‘The 
Etymology of Columbine,’ by E. J. Hill; and 
the second paper on ‘The Origin of Plant 
Names,’ by Grace S. Niles. 
customary notes, reviews and briefer articles. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 


AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT 
OF SCIENCE. 


Tue fifty-second annual meeting of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, and the first of the ‘ Convocation 
Week’ meetings, will be held in Washington, 
D. C., December 27, 1902, to January 3, 1903. 

A meeting of the executive committee of 
the council (consisting of the general secre- 
tary, secretary of the council, the permanent 
secretary, and the secretaries of all the sec- 
tions), will be held in the council room of 
the Cosmos Club at noon on Saturday, De- 
cember 27. 


There are the 


822 


The opening session of the Association will 
be held at 10 o’clock a.t., on Monday, January 
3, in Lafayette Theater. Most of the sections 
and of the aftiliated societies will meet in the 
buildings of the Columbian University. 

Railroad Rates—A rate of one fare and 
one third has been secured for all persons 
attending the meeting, and tickets may be 
purchased from December 15 to January 3, 
and will be accepted until January 15. 

For all matters relating to the local ar- 
rangements, transportation, and hotel and 
boarding-house accommodations, address the 
local secretary, Dr. Mareus Benjamin, Colum- 
bian University, 1420 H Street, Washington, 
D. C., or consult the preliminary announce- 
ment which will shortly be mailed to all mem- 
bers. The hotel headquarters of the Associa- 
tion will be the Arlington Hotel ($4 per day, 
American plan). Other hotels, including the 
Ebbitt House ($2 per day, American plan), 
will be chosen as headquarters for several of 
the aftihated societies. 

For information relating to the presenta- 
tion of papers, members should address the 
secretaries of the respective sections. Titles 
and abstracts of papers should be sent to the 
permanent secretary. 

Nominations to membership and letters re- 
lating to the general business of the Associa- 
tion should be sent to the permanent secre- 
tary at the address given below. 

Members paying their dues before December 
20 will receive their tickets by mail at once, 
and will thus save time in registering on 
their arrival at Washington, provided they 
bring their tickets with them. Do not forget 
to bring your ticket if you have already paid 
your annual dues for 1903. 

The register for the Washington meeting 
will be open at 10 o’clock a.m., on Friday, 
December 26, at the general office of the 
local and permanent secretaries, in the library 
on the first floor of the main building of 
Columbian University, corner of Fifteenth 
and H streets, northwest. 

L. O. Howarp, 
Permanent Secretary. 
Cosmos Crus, WASHINGTON, D. C. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


The rough program is as follows: 
MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1902. 


Meeting of the council at 9 a.m. in the 
assembly hall of the Cosmos Club. 

First general session of the Association at 
10 a.m. at the Lafayette Theater. The meet- 
ing will be called to order by the retiring 
president, Professor Asaph Hall, U.S.N., who 
will introduce the president elect, Doctor Ira 
Remsen. Addresses of welcome. Reply by 
President Remsen. Announcements by the 
general, permanent and local secretaries. 
Agreement on the hours of meeting. Ad- 
journment of the general session, to be fol- 
lowed by the organization of the sections in 
their respective halls. Ss 

Addresses of the vice-presidents in the 
afternoon as follows: 


At 2:30 P.M. 


Vice-President Hough before the 
Mathematics and Astronomy. 
Vice-President Weber before the Section of 


Section of 


Chemistry. 

Vice-President Derby before the Section of 
Geology. 

Vice-President Culin before the Section of An- 
thropology.. 


Vice-President Welch before the Section of 
Physiology and Experimental Medicine. 


At 4:00 p.m. 


Vice-President Franklin before the Section of 
Physics. 

Vice-President Flather before the Section of 
Mechanical Science and Engineering. 

Vice-President Nutting before the Section of 
Zoology. 

Vice-President Campbell before the Section of 
Botany. 

Vice-President Wright before the Section of 
Social and Economie Science. 

At this hour also will be delivered the address 
of the President of the Astronomical and Astro- 
physical Society of America, Professor Simon 
Newcomb. 


The annual address of the retiring presi- 
dent, Professor Asaph Hall, U.S.N., will be 
given at 8 P.M. 

SUCCEEDING DAYS. 


The council will meet daily at 9 a.m., in 
the lecture room on the west side of the first 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


floor of the main building of Columbian Uni- 
versity. At 10 a.m. a short general session 
will be held daily in the main lecture room on 
the first floor of the main building of Colum- 
bian University. The sections will meet daily 
immediately after the adjournment of the gen- 
eral session and from that time until 1 o’clock, 
and then after an intermission of one hour 
for luncheon, from 2 to 5. 

On Tuesday evening the address of the 
president of the American Chemical Society, 
Professor Ira Remsen, will be given at 7:30 
p.M. On Tuesday evening the public lecture 
of the American Society of Naturalists will 
be given at 8 p.m. 

On Tuesday evening the smokers of the 
American Society of Naturalists and its affili- 
ated societies will be held, and on Tuesday 
evening the Botanical Society of Washington 
will receive visiting botanists. 

On Wednesday evening the annual dinner 
of the American Society of Naturalists will 
be held, and the dinner will be followed by 
the annual address of the president, Professor 
J. McK. Cattell. It is expected that the an- 
nual dinners of the American Chemical So- 
ciety and the American Society of Geologists 
will be held on this evening. 

On Thursday evening a public lecture, com- 
plimentary to the citizens of Washington, 
will be given under the auspices of the A. A. 
A. §. and the National Geographic Society. 
The subject will be ‘ Voleanoes of the West 
Indiés,’ and the lecturers will probably be 
Professor I. C. Russell and Professor Angelo 
Heilprin. 

Following this lecture there will be the 
regular meeting of general committee of the 
A. A. A. S., including the council and one 
member from each section, to elect officers 
and decide upon the time and place of the 
next meeting. 


The permanent secretary has been notified 
that the following societies will meet in affilia- 
tion with the Association at the Washington 
meeting: 

The American Anthropological Association. 
—This association will hold its first regular 
meeting in Washington during Convocation 


SCIENCE. 


823 


Week in aftiliation with Section H of the 
A. A. A. 8S. President, W J McGee; secre- 
tary, George A. Dorsey, Field Columbian 
Museum, Chicago, Il. 

American Chemical Society—This society 
will meet in Washington on December 29 and 
30. The headquarters will be the Arlington 
Hotel. The retiring address of the president, 
Dr. Remsen, will be given on Tuesday evening 
at 7:30. President, Ira Remsen; secretary, 
Dr. A. C. Hale, 352A Hancock street, Brook- 
lyn, N. Y. 

American Folk-lore Society.—This society 
will meet in affiliation with Section H of the 
A. A. A. S. President, George A. Dorsey; 
vice-presidents, J. Walter Fewkes, James 
Mooney; secretary, W. W. Newell, Cambridge, 
Mass. 

American Microscopical Society—This so- 
ciety will probably hold a business meeting on 
December 29. President, E..A. Birge, Madi- 
son, Wis.; secretary, H. B. Ward, University 
of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebr. 

American Morphological Society.—This so- 
ciety will meet in Washington December 30 
and 31. President, H. C. Bumpus; vice- 
president, G. H. Parker; secretary and treas- 
urer, M. M. Metealf, Woman’s College, Balti- 
more, Md. 

American Philosophical Association.—This 
association will meet in Washington during 
Convocation Week, December 30 and 31 and 
January 1. Secretary, H. N. Gardiner, 
Northampton, Mass. 

American Physical Society.—This society 
will meet in Washington during Convocation 
Week, in affiliation with Section B of the 
A. A. A. S. President, Albert A. Michelson; 
secretary, Ernest Merritt, Cornell University, 
Ithaca, N. Y. 

American Physiological Society.—This so- 
ciety will meet in Washington, December 30 
and 31. President, R. H. Chittenden; secre- 
tary, F. S. Lee, Columbia University, New 
York, N.. Y. 

American Psychological Association.—This 
association will meet in Washington Decem- 
ber 30 and 31 and January 1. On Wednes- 
day morning the association will hold a joint 
session with the American Philosophical Asso- 


824 


ciation. President, E. A. Sanford; secretary 
and treasurer, Livingston Farrand, Columbia 
University, New York, N. Y. 

' American Society of Naturalists —This so- 
ciety will meet in Washington December 30 
and 31. Members will register in the general 
registration room of the A. A. A. S. The 
public discussion will be held on the afternoon 
of December 81, and the public lecture will 
be held on Tuesday evening, December 30. 
President, J. McK. Cattell; vice-presidents, 
CO. D. Walcott, L. O. Howard, D. P. Penhal- 
low; secretary, R. G. Harrison, Johns Hopkins 
University, Baltimore, Md. 

Association of American Anatomists.—This 
association will meet in Washington Decem- 
ber 30 and 31. President, G. S. Huntington; 
vice-president, D. S. Lamb; secretary and 
treasurer, G. Carl Huber, University of Mich- 
igan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 

Association of Economic Entomologists.— 
This association will meet in Washington De- 
cember 26 and 27, the opening session will 
be held at 10 o’clock a.m. December 26. Presi- 
dent, E. P. Felt; secretary, A. L. Quaintance, 
College Park, Md. 

Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of 
America.—This society will meet in Wash- 
ington during Convocation Week, in aftilia- 
tion with Section A of the A. A. A. 8S. The 
address of the president, Professor Simon 
Newcomb, will be given at 4 p.m. on December 
29. President, Simon Newcomb; secretary, 
George C. Comstock, University of Wiscon- 
sin, Madison, Wis. 

Botanical Society of America.—This society 
will meet in Washington. December 31 and 
January 1. President, B. T. Galloway; sec- 
retary, D. T. MacDougal, New York City. 

Botanists of the Central and Western 
States—This society will meet in Washing- 
ton on December 30. Committee in charge 
of the meeting, John M. Coulter, University 
of Chicago; D. M. Mottier, University of 
Indiana, Bloomington, Ind.; Conway Mac- 
Millan, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 
Minn. 

Geological Society of America.—This so- 
ciety will meet in Washington December 29, 
30 and 31. Hotel headquarters will be 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


Ebbitt House. President, N. H. Winchell; 
vice-presidents, 8. F. Emmons, J. C. Branner; 
secretary, H. L. Fairchild, University of 
Rochester, Rochester, N. Y. 

The National Geographic Society—This 
society will hold a meeting during Convoea- 
tion Week, and is arranging to present a 
public lecture on the voleanoes of Martinique 
and St. Vincent on Thursday evening, Jan- 
uary 2; also for one or more joint sessions 
with Section E of the A. A. A. S. for the 
presentation of scientific papers. President, 
A. Graham Bell; vice-president, W J McGee; 
secretary, A. J. Henry, U.S. Weather Bureau, 
Washington, D. C. 

Naturalists of the Central States.—This 
association will meet in Washington December 
80 and 31. Chairman, 8S. A. Forbes; secre- 
tary, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago, 
Chicago, Ill. 

Society of American Bacteriologists—This 
society will meet in Washington January 1 
to 3.. President, H. W. Conn; vice-president, 
James Carroll; secretary, E. O. Jordan, Uni- 
versity of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.; council, W. 
H. Welch, Theobald Smith, H. L. Russell, 
Chester, Pa. 

Society for Plant Morphology and Physi- 
ology.—This society will meet in Washington 
during Convocation Week. President, VY. 
M. Spalding; vice-president, B. D. Halsted; 
secretary and treasurer, W. F. Ganong, Smith 
College, Northampton, Mass. 

Society for the Promotion of Agricultural 
Science.—This society will meet in Washing- 
ton during Convocation Week. President, 
W. H. Jordan; secretary, F. M. Webster, Ur- 
bana, Ill. 

Zoologists of the Central and Western 
States—This association will meet in Wash- 
ington during Convocation Week. President, 
C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago. 


All members of aftiliated societies, who are 
not members of the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science, are never- 
theless requested to register at the registra- 
tion desk of the Association, in the library 
on the first floor of the main building of 
Columbian University. The object of this 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902.] 


request is to endeavor to secure an approxi- 
mate estimate of the number of scientific men 
in attendance at the Convocation Week meet- 
ings in Washington. 

Officers of the local committee for the 
Washington meeting are: 

President, Charles D. Walcott. 

Vice-President, G. I. Gilbert. 

Secretary, Marcus Benjamin. 

Executive Committee, Marcus Benjamin, David 
T. Day, G. K. Gilbert, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, L. O. 
Howard, George M. Kober, W J McGee, C. E. 
Munroe, Chas. D. Walcott. 


THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY. 


THE autumn meeting of the American 
Physical Society was held at Columbia Uni- 
versity on Saturday, October 25. 

As has so often been the ease in the past, 
the program was considerably more extended 
than was to be expected from the printed list 
ef papers distributed before the meeting. 
Owing to some cause which it seems hard to 
explain, the titles of papers are frequently— 
I might almost say, uwsuwally—sent in too late 
for publication in the preliminary program. 
This fact cannot fail to have its effect, both 
on the discussion of the papers presented and 
on the attendance at the meeting. It is 
especially unfortunate for members residing 
at a distance, for whom attendance at the 
meeting means a considerable sacrifice of time. 

The first paper presented was by A. W. 
Ewell on ‘ Accidental Rotatory Polarization.’ 
Mr. Ewell had found in earlier work that cer- 
tain jellies when subjected to twist are 
brought into a condition which enables them 
to rotate the plane of polarization of light 
traveling parallel with the axis of twist. The 
present paper described experiments along the 
same line. The direction of optical rotation 
was found to be opposite to the direction of 
twist. The amount of rotation is very largely 
influenced by stretching or compressing the 
piece of jelly in question in the direction of 
the axis of twist. Mr. Ewell finds also that 
the rigidity of jelly, like that of rubber, is 
greatly increased by elongation. Upon this 
fact he bases an explanation of the observed 
optical rotation. Since the strain is greater 


SCIENCE. 825 


at points more distant from the axis, the 
rigidity varies according to the distance from 
the axis. A corresponding change in the 
optical rigidity would account for the results. 

A paper by Carl Barus gave the results of 
some preliminary experiments on the ‘ Varia- 
tion of Atmospheric Nucleation’ and its de- 
pendence upon weather conditions. The 
method employed consisted in producing con- 
densation by sudden expansion and in observ- 
ing the size of the corona formed in the re- 
sulting mist. Previous investigations of 
Professor Barus have made it possible to com- 
pute the diameter of the individual droplets 
from the diameter of the corona. A measure- 
ment of the weight of all the mist formed in 
a given space thus makes it possible to com- 
pute the number of droplets and therefore 
the number of nuclei. Observations by 
means of this method were made several times 
a day for a period of some weeks. The effect 
of rain in clearing the atmosphere from nuclei 
was clearly shown. Professor Barus also 
pointed out other connections between the 
amount of nucleation and the weather condi- 
tions, but he regarded more extended observa- 
tions as needed before definite conclusions 
could be reached. - 

A paper by George B. Pegram described 
some very interesting results obtained by the 
‘Electrolysis of Radioactive Substances.’ In 
the case of thorium salts it was found that 
the anode acquired a relatively intense radio- 
activity, which, however, lasted for only a few 
hours. The kathode, in the electrolysis of 
thorium salts, showed scarcely any acquired 
activity. In the case of salts containing 
radium, however, both anode and kathode 
became very active after the current had 
passed for a few minutes. As a result of 
electrolysis the dissolved salts seemed rapidly 
to lose their power of imparting this radio- 
activity to the electrodes; after long-con- 
tinued electrolysis with one pair of electrodes 
the effect produced upon new electrodes was 
very slight. 

A note by Ernest Blaker described a substi- 
tute for a smoke film which has several ad- 
vantages. A layer of a white powder could 
be readily formed upon glass by rubbing it 


826 SCIENCE. 


with moistened ‘Bon Ami. The resulting 
layer is easily and quickly prepared, without 
danger of breaking the glass, does not 
soil the hands, and gives as satisfactory a 
surface for recording tracings as does smoked 
glass. In fact the tracings are often sharper 
and better adapted for measurement than 
those made on a smoke film. The glass sur- 
face may be quickly and completely cleaned 
again by a slight rubbing with a dry cloth. 

A paper by William Fox described a simple 
geometrical construction for tracing the path 
of a ray of light through a prism, for use in 
explaining the behavior of a prism to an ele- 
mentary class. 

It was decided to hold the annual meeting 
of the society at Washington, in connection 
with Section B of the American Association, 
during Convocation Week. The arrangements 
for the joint meeting were left in the hands 
of the officers of Section B and of the Society, 
and will be announced later. 

Ernest Merritt, 
Secretary. 


BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

THe 359th meeting was held on Saturday 
evening, November 1. 

Frederick WV. Coville spoke of the ‘Dye 
Plants of the North Carolina Mountaineers,’ 
illustrating his remarks with a series of her- 
barium specimens of the plants used, accom- 
panied by examples of the colors obtained 
from them. He stated that the large use 
formerly made of these native dyes was partly 
due to the isolation of the mountaineers, 
partly to their poverty, and said that while 
there, as elsewhere, aniline dyes had come into 
use, an effort was being made to persuade the 
mountaineers to return to the once popular 
vegetable dyes. In regard to the extensive 
gathering of medicinal plants in the southern 
mountains the speaker said that he was told 
by Professor Mohr that this originated dur- 
ing the Civil War, when the South was ob- 
liged to rely for medicinal supplies largely 
on those that could be procured from native 
plants. 

E. W. Nelson discussed the ‘ Evolution of 
Subspecies as Illustrated by Mexican Quails 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


and Squirrels.’ The series of quail exhibited 
showed a practically unbroken continuity of 
range of the genus Colinus from Florida 
around the gulf states to the Rio Grande, 
and thence south through eastern Mexico to 
Tabasco and across the Isthmus of Tehuan- 
tepee to and down the Pacific coast to the 
border of Guatemala. The series showed, 
in addition, that a considerable number of 
forms which have previously been considered 
strongly marked species are really but sub- 
species of the well-known bob-white (Colinus 
virginianus) of the United States. 

A series of squirrels representing Sciurus 
aureogaster and its subspecies S. a. frumentor 
and S. a. hypopyrrhus was shown to illustrate 
the manner in which two complete reversals 
of color pattern occur in the intergrading 
series covering the geographic range of this 
species which inhabits the tropical gulf coast 
region of eastern Mexico. 

H. J. Webber exhibited specimens of fruit 
resulting from crossing the edible orange with 
the hardy but valueless trifoliate orange. The 
result indicated the possibility of ultimately 
obtaining a variety of orange whose fruit 
should be of value, while the tree would grow 
much farther north than any existing variety. 

F. A. Lucas. 


TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 


At the meeting of the Club on October 14 
the scientific program consisted of informal 
reports of summer work and observations. 

The Secretary spoke of his collections of 
Asters, also of Huphrasia and other alpine 
plants in the White Mountains. Discussion 
regarding Wettstein’s monograph of Hu- 
phrasia followed. An interesting Euphrasid 
was collected by Dr. M. A. Howe in New- 
foundland, a year ago. 

Dr. MacDougal remarked upon the dissim- 
ilarity of the alpine conditions of the Rockies 
from those of the White Mountains. Tracts 
which in July in the rains of the White 
Mountains are covered merely with green 
would have been blazing with flowers if in 
the Rockies. 

Dr. Underwood spoke of the recognition 
among farmers about Redding, Ct., of two 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


types of the sweet-flag, Acorns Calamus L., 
that with a white root being in favor, that 
with a red root being smaller and somewhat 
bitter, and with young leaves different in 
color. Dr. Underwood also mentioned his 
finding young plants of the date-palm coming 
up in railway rubble at South Norwalk, Ct., 
similarly observed on garbage-heaps about 
New York by Mr. Eugene Smith. He also 
spoke of the successful cultivation on a lawn 
at Danbury, Ct., of the native orchid, Cypri- 
podium regine, where in four years a cluster 
of three or four plants has increased to forty. 

Professor Lloyd reported observations near 
Northfield, Mass., on the protonema of 
Schizostega, the ‘light-moss,’ observing some 
differences from European characters. Test- 
ing a recent theory ascribing the spore-dis- 
charge of certain mosses to the impact of 
rain, Professor Lloyd secured interesting re- 
sults with the capsules of Diphyscium; by 
tapping on them so as to indicate the fall of 
rain, the spores may be made to shoot out in 
amass. On Cape Cod he observed moss cap- 
sules attached by a fungus. Beds of Poly- 
trichum commune were also found killed by 
a fungus. Observations made by Professor 
Lloyd on the mode of distribution of Lyco- 
podium lucidulum indicated ‘a_ propelling 
power (in discharging gemmz) of only about 
three feet on a level, not of six feet as re- 
quired by a recent theory of distribution. 
Professor Lloyd also reported interesting ob- 
servations on the fern Onoclea sensibilis. 
The name of ‘sensitive fern’ early used for 
this plant, has often provoked curious in- 
quiry. The fern proves to show a certain 
regularity of movement; in case of cut plants 
when drying, their leaflets when touched will 
move toward each other with some rapidity. 
This is a wilting phenomenon, and the mo- 
tion is a distinct bending from the midrib. 

Dr. Tracy A. Hazen reported observations 
about St. Johnsbury, Vt., on the black maple, 
Acer nigrum. He maintained its specific 
distinctness from the sugar maple. Dr. Brit- 
ton commented on its distinctness as seen in 
other parts of western New England and of 
western New York. Its leaves are darker 
beneath and are said to expand about two 


SCIENCE. 


827 


Its fruit is much 
larger and there seems a difference in the 
angle of divergence of the keys. 

Mrs. Britton reported upon observations on 
an interesting Vittaria brought by Dr. Evans 
from Porto Rico, and upon a form of Stachys 
found by her on Hempstead Plains on Long 
Island. In a white cedar swamp there she 
observed the newly recognized fern Dryopteris 
simulata growing in great masses and abun- 
dantly distinct. Mrs. Britton also spoke of 
certain instances among the Musci of new 
habit assumed with new habitat, as in a Lep- 
todon, usually on trees, latterly found in tufts 
on dry rocks; and in ease of Porotrichum 
Alleghaniense as observed at Greon Lake, 
Jamesville, New York, an aquatie form sur- 
viving the desiccation of the rock surfaces 
and now assuming the habit of a Climacium. 

Dr. Britton, whose summer was largely 
given to administrative work, secured some 
time for prosecution of his studies on the 
Cyperacee and the Crassulacee at Kew. 
Nearly half of the known species of North 
American Crassulacee are now growing in 
Washington or at the New York Botanical 
Garden, a necessary preliminary to proper 
deseriptive work with these plants. The 
fleshy foliage and calyx require description 
from the life, not, as often hitherto, from 
herbarium specimens. Many of the numer- 
ous Mexican Crassulacee are very local, and 
known -only from one or two localities. 

Discussion followed upon the effects of the 
prolonged wet weather of the present season, 
Dr. Hazen remarking upon sedges in Vermont 
which are usually stiff, but this year were 
very long and decumbent. 

Epwarp S. Burcsss, 
Secretary. 


weeks later in spring. 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GEOLOGICAL JOURNAL CLUB. 

October 10.—The following original papers 
were presented: 

Mz. D. W. Johnson, ‘ Basaltiform Coal from 
New Mexico.’ Illustrated by specimens and 
diagrams. 

Mr. H. W. Shimer, 
Cavities in Basic Dikes in Vermont.’ 
trated with specimens. 


‘ Amygdaloidal-like 
Tilus- 


828 


Professor J. F. Kemp exhibited and de- 
scribed a new model of Vesuvius. 

October 17.—Professor J. F. Kemp re- 
viewed an unpublished paper by Dr. W. P. 
Jenney on the reducing abilities of different 
chemical compounds. 

Dr. Austin Rogers read a paper on the 
orientation of the crystals in fossilized echino- 
derms; and also reviewed papers on this sub- 
ject by Cesaro and by Hessel. 

October 24.—The following papers were re- 
viewed: M. Michel-Levy, ‘L’Eruption de la 
Montagne Pelée et les Voleans des Petites 
Antilles’; M. J. Thierry, ‘La Catastrophe de 
la Martinique, and M. F. de Montessus, ‘ Les 
Manifestations voleanique et sismiques dans 
le groupe des Antilles,’ by Dr. A. A. Julien. 
O. T. Hill, ‘A Study of Pelée,’ by Mr. G. I. 
Finlay. 

October 31.—The following papers were re- 
viewed: A. C. Lawson, ‘The Eparchean In- 
terval,’ a criticism on the use of the term 
Algonkian (Bull. Univ. of -Cal.), by Mr. C. 
W. Dixon. J.S. Flett, ‘A Preliminary Ex- 
amination of the Ash that fell on Barbados, 
after the Eruption of St. Vincent, with chem- 
ical analysis,’ by Wm. Pollard and J. W. W. 
Spencer, ‘The Geological and Physical De- 
velopment of Dominica [Quar. Jour. of 
Geolog. Soc. (Lond.)], by Mr. W. Campbell. 

H. W. Sumer, 
Secretary. 


THE LAS VEGAS SCIENCE CLUB. 


At a meeting held October 22 several mem- 
bers of the club described the work they had 
done during the summer. Mr. E. L. Hewett 
had led a party of five westward across the 
Jemez Mountains, and had explored the desert 
in the region of the Chaco Mesa and beyond. 
The characteristic features of the country 
traversed were described, and numerous photo- 
graphs taken by Mr. K. M. Chapman, a mem- 
ber of the party, were exhibited. These photo- 
graphs included excellent portraits of the two 
surviving members of the tribe of Pecos In- 
dians who inhabited the old Pecos pueblo 
some seventy years ago. One of these has 
since died, and the other is very old, so this 
tribe will very shortly be extinct. Mrs. Cock- 
erell described her trip to the Truchas Peaks, 


SCIENCE. 


LN. 8S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


in the Santa Fé Range, about 13,300 feet above 
sea level. She exhibited a number of alpine 
plants found above timber line on these peaks, 
several being new to the flora of New Mexico. 
There was also shown a very beautiful and 
apparently undescribed Delphinium, found in 
the forests on the peaks. Mr. T. D. A. Cock- 
erell described his visit to Roswell, in the 
Pecos Valley, and exhibited some of the in- 
sects and mollusea obtained. Practically noth- 
ing was known before of the insect fauna of 
this region. Among the mollusea, the dis- 
covery of a species of Unio at Roswell was 
especially interesting, no species of Unionide 
having been found before in New Mexico. 
Some account was given of the deep lakes and 
gypsum bluffs near Roswell, and photographs 
of these taken by Professor J. D. Tinsley were 
exhibited. T. D. A. C. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY. 


To THE Eprtor oF Science: After the death 
of Major J. W. Powell, director of the Bureau 
of American Ethnology, the Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution, of which the bureau 
forms a part, has abolished the title of director, 
and appointed the head curator of the Anthro- 
pological Division of the U. S. National Mu- 
seum ‘chief’ of the bureau. Through this 
action the independence of the two institu- 
tions involved has been brought to an end. 

No severer blow could be dealt to the anthro- 
pological interests of the country than the 
subordination of the bureau to museum in- 
terests, and no means could be devised to 
hinder the development of the U. S. National 
Museum more effectively, than its subordina- 
tion under the bureau. The methods and 
aims of the two institutions are fundamentally 
distinct. The Bureau of American Ethnology 
is charged with the investigation of the life 
and customs of the North American Indians. 
In its work it deals with their languages, insti- 
tutions, religions, customs. So far as the cul- 
ture of native tribes is expressed by tangible 
objects, it may be illustrated in museums, 
but the whole domain of human culture can- 
not be represented by museum specimens. For 
this reason no museum can undertake to de- 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902.] 


velop systematically the whole field of anthro- 
pology. A museum may, in special cases, 
undertake a full investigation of a special 
region which it may desire to represent ex- 
haustively in its collections, but the primary 
objects of the museum forbid the systematic 
investigation of such subjects as mythology, 
primitive law, languages, ete. The history 
of anthropology in our country shows clearly 
the predominant influence of museum inter- 
ests. The publications of the Peabody Mu- 
seum, of the Field Columbian Museum, of the 
U. S. National Museum, of the American 
Museum of Natural History, of the Free Mu- 
seum of Arts and Sciences in Philadelphia, 
except in so far as they deal with explana- 
tions of specially full collections, refer to the 
tangible side of human culture. Other re- 
searches find their places in museum publica- 
tions only accidentally. 

The rapid development of American anthro- 
pology is largely due to the fact that the 
Bureau of American Ethnology has been un- 
hampered in its plans by museum interest. 
Therefore, it has been able to produce the 
linguistic map of North America, its valu- 
able bibliographies, grammars, collections of 
texts and of myths. Therefore, much progress 
has been made in the study of the immaterial 
side of the culture of American tribes. The 
systematic preservation of languages, of 
myths, of religious beliefs, has been the prime 
work of the bureau, and of the bureau alone, 
and it has contributed more than any other 
agency towards a harmonious development 
of all sides of anthropological research. 

The interests of anthropology make it im- 
perative that the independence of the bureau 
from museum interests be jealously guarded, 
and that it be given the long-desired oppor- 
tunity to expand its work over fields that 
are of national importance, and that no mu- 
seum can touch. The physical and mental 
characteristics of Indian  half-bloods, of 
negroes and mulattoes, and the effects of 
adaptation and amalgamation of the many 
European nationalities that settle in our 
country, are the proper field of work for the 
Bureau of American Ethnology. Owing to 
restrictions imposed by law, this work has 


SCIENCE. 


829 


never been undertaken, although it is of the 
greatest practical importance, and requires 
the kind of training that is found among the 
experts of the bureau. The bureau requires 
the strengthening of its resources and of its 
independence, not the weakening that will re- 
sult from the combination of its administra- 
tion with that of a division of the National 
Museum. 

The effects of this combination may be not 
less disastrous to the National Museum. It 
is only a few years since the Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution found it necessary 
to establish the position of a head curator of 
the Division of Anthropology in the U. S. 
National Museum. At that time the work 
of the National Museum had come, in a way, 
to a standstill, The utter inadequacy of the 
building, the insufficient number of employees 
on the scientific staff, the constant demands 
upon their time for preparing special exhibits 
for the expositions of Chicago, Omaha, At- 
lanta, Buffalo, etc., made it impossible for the 
museum to make adequate use of its magnifi- 
cent collections, and to contribute its share 
to the advancement of science and education. 
We hoped that the reorganization of the divi- 
sions of the museum might indicate the inten- 
tion of the secretary to devote his energies to 
the development of the museum. In this we 
The makeshifts of 
the last few years have not given us a mu- 
seum worthy of a great nation. Is, then, the 
work» for the head curator ended? Is not the 
full energy of an experienced museum man 


have been disappointed. 


in that position needed just as much as or 
even more now than it was a few years ago? 
I cannot believe that the anthropological col- 
lections of the National Museum have so 
much contracted during the last few years that 
the need for an administrative head should be 
no longer felt. 

The work of the director of the Bureau of 
Ethnology, and that of the head curator of 
the Anthropological Division of the Museum 
is so extended, that each requires the full 
time and energy of one man. The concentra- 
tion of their administration can lead only to 
one of two results: either inadequate super- 


830 


vision of both, or nominal control only over 
the one or the other. 

I doubt if the secretary is prepared to carry 
to its logical -end the policy which he has 
adopted for anthropological work. If it is 
advantageous for anthropology to make the 
head curator of that division of the Museum 
director of the Anthropological Survey—for 
that is the function of the Bureau of Ameri- 
ean Ethnology—it will be no less advanta- 
geous to make the head curator of Geology di- 
rector of the Geological Survey, and the head 
curator of Biology director of the Biological 
Survey. ~What would these great surveys be 
if they were simply appendages of the mu- 
seum, while in reality it is the function of 
the museum to preserve the collections made 
by these agencies, to administer them for 
educational purposes, and to make them avail- 
able for detailed study. The museum needs 
a policy of its own, and deals with problems 
distinct from those of the surveys. The cor- 
rectness of this view is borne out by the fact 
that the recent development of the surveys 
has taken place independently of the Smith- 
sonian Institution. The Geological Survey 
has grown to its present importance as a 
branch of the Department of the Interior, 
the Biological Survey as a branch of the 
Department of Agriculture. Their precedents 
suggest that if the Anthropological Survey 
were allowed to make itself useful to the 
practical needs of the government, and to 
develop in close contact with the needs of the 
times, rather than continue in a purely aca- 
demic atmosphere, its usefulness might be 
greatly increased without taking away from 
the scientific value of its researches. The 
experience of the other surveys demonstrates 
conclusively that we need increased independ- 
ence for the bureau, not restriction of its 
independence. 

It is quite evident that the work of the 
National Museum must be carried on in co- 
operation with all the great surveys. It would 
seem to be one of the important duties of a 
director of the museum to establish and main- 
tain Nevertheless, the 
work of the museum must always remain a 


such cooperation. 


SCIENCE. 


- tions. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 412. 


unit, and distinct from the surveys that are 
important contributors to its growth. 
Another aspect of the action of Secretary 
Langley appears to me not less objectionable 
than the considerations mentioned heretofore. 
Major Powell was. the director of the bureau 
from the time of its establishment until his 
death. Since 1893 Dr. W J McGee 
has been ethnologist-in-charge under Major 
Powell. For nearly ten years he has been 
acting for Major Powell, and training to 
become his successor. According to all prin- 
ciples of good government, he should have 
been advanced to the position of 
The appointment of another man, 
ter how good he may be, to the 
brings about discontinuity in the work of 
the bureau, which I consider dangerous, 
not alone to the best interests of anthro- 
pology, but to those of science in general. 
If the incumbent of the position that leads 
naturally to succession in the bureau had 
been inefficient, it might be expected that 
the secretary would have called attention to 
his inefficieney, and that he would have re- 
moved him long ago. By continuing up to 
the present time the organization of the 
bureau decided upon in 1893 the secretary 
has indicated that he agrees with the views 
of anthropologists who respect Dr. McGee 
for the ability, straightforwardness and 
success with which he has conducted the 
bureau under peculiarly difficult conditions. 
Therefore, the failure to appoint Dr. McGee 
to the succession in the directorship is most 
unfortunate. It introduces again a feel- 
ing of general instability in the scientific 
service of the government which we hoped 
had been entirely overcome by this time. 
Personal inclination of the appointing officer 
has once more outweighed the principles of 
continuity and stability, which are indis- 
pensable for the welfare of scientific institu- 


director. 
no mat- 
position, 


I can only view with apprehension a 
condition of affairs that places the stability, 
yes the existence, of a great scientific bureau 
of the government entirely in the hands of 
a single man, who has the power to carry into 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


execution his personal views, uninfluenced by 
the opinions of the scientific world. 
Franz Boas. 
CotuMBIA UNIVERSITY, 
November 8, 1902. 


A CORRECTION OF PROFESSOR OSBORN’S NOTE EN- 
TITLED ‘NEW VERTEBRATES OF THE MID- 
CRETACEOUS.’”* 


On page 675 of this article in speaking of 
Ornithomimus Professor Osborn says: ‘ Mr. 
Hatcher states that he found Marsh’s type of 
this genus, consisting of a foot and portion 
of a limb, on Cow Island, Missouri River, at 
a level which he estimates from 1,500 to 
1,600 feet below the summit of the Judith 
River beds, and 500 to 600 feet below the level 
of Marsh’s type of Ceratops montanus. I 
certainly did not mean to convey the impres- 
sion that I had found the type of the genus, 
but rather of the two species, O. tenuis and 
O. grandis. The type of the genus is O. velox 
and it was found in Colorado. The types of 
the other two species are from Montana and 
were found as Professor Osborn has stated, 
except that they were not found on Cow Island 
but near the foot of the bluffs on the north 
bank of the Missouri River, opposite Cow 
Island and just below the mouth of Cow 
Creek. Since this same error occurs also in 
Professor Osborn’s ‘ Distinctive Characters of 
the Mid-Cretaceous Fauna’ (No. 1, Part 2, 
Vol. 3, Contr. to Can. Pal.), I have thought 
it best to make the above correction. 

Again, on page 673 of Professor Osborn’s 
- note in Science he says: ‘* * * the true 
Judith River beds certainly overlie the Ft. 
Pierre and are of more recent age.’ I do 
not know upon what authority Professor Os- 
born makes this unqualified statement as to 
the deposits underlying the Judith River 
beds. It certainly does not agree with my 
own observations made during several weeks 
passed in collecting vertebrate fossils from 
these beds, nor with the published statements 
of Meek, Hayden and others, as will appear 
from the following: “ They (the Judith River 
beds) appear, as near as could be ascertained, 
to occupy a local basin in a series of marine 

*Scmnce, N. S., Vol. XVI., October 24, 1902, 
pp. 673-676. 


SCIENCE. 


831 


deposits, consisting of beds of sandstone and 
impure lignite, which we have regarded pro- 
visionally as of the age of No. 1 of our gen- 
eral section. Lower down the Missouri, near 
the mouth of Little Rocky Mountain Creek, 
this last-mentioned series of rocks upon which 
the fresh-water deposits repose at the mouth 
of the Judith is clearly seen to pass beneath 
No. 4 (the Pierre shales) of the general sec- 
tion.” * During my work in this region in 
1888 and again in 1892 I nowhere saw the 
Pierre underlying the true Judith River beds, 
although at that time I believed it belonged 
beneath these beds, not then being familiar 
with the work of Dawson, Tyrrell and other 
Canadian geologists. I remember, however, to 
have noticed some 300 or 400 feet of shales 
very similar to the Pierre overlying the Ju- 
dith River beds along the old Ft. Benton and 
Cow Island trail between the Bear Paw Moun- 
tains and Cow Creek, and I have little doubt 
but that these are the representatives of the 
Pierre shales in this region. 

The fact that Cretaceous Nos. 2 and 8 are 
entirely wanting in this region leads to the 
inference that they are represented by the 
lower members of the Judith River beds, and 
that the lower members of these beds are in 
reality older than the oldest of the Belly 
River series, a little farther north. Owing to 
the searcity and fragmentary nature of verte- 
brate fossils in the Judith River beds they 
have not received the attention from verte- 
brate paleontologists that they deserve and 
from several points of view no more fruitful 
field awaits the collector than these deposits. 
They need to be thoroughly explored for verte- 
brate and invertebrate fossils, and their some- 
what complicated stratigraphy must be care- 
fully worked out in detail before we shall be 
able to fix with any degree of certainty either 
their upper or their lower limits. Beds of 
fresh-water, brackish and marine origin are 
here known to be interstratified with the upper 
and lower limits of deposits usually referred 
to the Judith River beds, and I should not be 
at all surprised that within the region lying 
along the eastern base of the Rocky Moun- 


* Meek and Hayden, Proc. Phil. Acad. Sci., May, 
1857, pp. 124-125. 


832 


tains and between the Saskatchewan River on 
the north and the Platte River on the south 
fresh-water representatives of the entire Up- 
per Cretaceous series will yet be found. Both 
the terrestrial vertebrates and the fresh-water 
mollusea of the Belly River, Judith River and 


Laramie beds indicate that they and their 


ancestors found somewhere in this immediate 
region a congenial habitat where it was pos- 
sible for them to continue their development 
without interruption. The Pierre shales in 
the Belly River region are remarkably thin as 
compared with the thickness to which they 
attain in the south, where the Belly River 
beds are wanting, thus indicating that in the 
former region the lower Pierre shales are re- 
placed by the fresh-water deposits known as 
the Belly River beds. 

Several years ago (Am. WNat., February, 
1896, p. 116) the present writer affirmed that 
the Judith River beds were certainly older 
than the Ceratops beds of Converse County, 
Wyoming, and that the dinosaurs from the 
Judith River country belonged to smaller and 
less specialized forms than those from the 
latter locality. It is gratifying to note that 
Professor Osborn has arrived at the same con- 
clusion. In the article in the American Na- 
turalist just cited I considered the Judith 
River beds as the equivalent of the 400 feet 
of barren sandstones lying between the base 
of the Ceratops beds and the marine Fox 
Hills sandstones in Converse County, Wyo- 
ming. JI am at present of the opinion that 
they pertain to a still lower horizon. 

J. B. Hatouer. 

CARNEGIE MUSEUM, 

October 27, 1902. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 


A CASE OF MIMICRY OUTMIMICKED? CONCERN- 
ING KALLIMA BUTTERFLIES IN MUSEUMS. 


In a recent collection illustrating mimicry I 
noticed that the Kallima butterflies had been 
placed on twigs whose dried leaves were start- 
lingly like the butterflies in their position of 
rest. There was no doubt that the butterflies 
were in exactly the right position for orthodox 
mimicry; the antennz were carefully tucked 
out of sight, and the folded wings were in 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


the plane of the adjacent leaves; and certain 
leaves of the spray had, it seemed, opportunely 
fallen off so as to allow the insects to seize the 
vacated places with unerring accuracy, each 
crouching at such an angle that the tail pro- 
cesses of the hind wings fitted near the scar 
on the stem where the leaf had been attached. 
The leaves, moreover, which had been chosen 
to imitate the tropical butterflies happened 
to belong to a North American tree, and it 
is even possible that they had been skilfully 
touched up to mimic, one, the usual type of 
Kallima, with distinct rib-like markings, an- 
other, the form which seems fungus-spotted. 

As a work of art this preparation was cer- 
tainly a success, and it taught interested vis- 
itors a forceful lesson in animal economy. 
But I have to confess that it gave me the 
feeling that both insects and preparateur had 
overdone their work. And that the prepara- 
tion had an additional air of false pretenses 
about it for which the naturalist afield more 
than the preparateur and the hap- 
less butterflies, is to blame. For he is the one 
who allows the finishing details in such cases 
of mimicry to be assumed without critical 
foundation. In the present case, indeed, one 
may justly query whether Kallima mimics its 
surroundings as perfectly as the preparateur 
will have us believe. Wallace himself, who 
knew the creatures at first hand, does not 
figure them as accurately adjusted to their 
surroundings as are these mounted specimens. 
And even his account seems to need amplifi- 
cation, e. g., as to the species of leaf mimicked 
and the more exact habits of the butterflies.* 
And beyond this I do not recall detailed field 
observation. Perhaps I should say that my 
faith in the possibilities of Kallima became 
somewhat weakened during a visit to the 


even 


* Thus he states in his ‘ Malay Archipelago’ (p. 
142) that ‘the habit of the species is always 
(italics mine) to rest on a twig and among dead 
or dry leaves,’ but later admits (Natural Sec- 
tion, p. 44) that only ‘on one or two occasions 
the insect was detected reposing * * * .’ He 
does not show furthermore what the leaf is that 
is so exactly mimicked, merely referring to gen- 
eral resemblance to ‘the leaves of many tropical 
leaves and shrubs.’ 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902.] 


Philippine Islands. In southern Negros, 
about a mile south of the little fishing village 
of Manjuyod, along the sides of the road to 
Bais, I noticed many of these butterflies; but 
to my surprise they were frequenting bushes 
whose leaves they in no way resembled. The 
leaves were bright green, magnolia-lke, much 
larger than the butterflies, perfectly elliptical, 
glossy, turning bright orange yellow when 
dead, and falling to the ground. There were 
no brown leaves, pointed leaves, conspicu- 
ously veined or fungus-covered leaves in 
the neighborhood, say within a hundred rods. 
In this instance I could not help concluding 
that the dark-colored butterflies were conspicu- 
ous instead of inconspicuous, as they alighted 
on the leaves and not on the stems of the 
bright green bushes. And I observed the 
behavior of the butterflies with considerable 
interest at several favorable stations; their 
movements and flight reminded me of our 
Vanessas, more nearly perhaps of (Grapta; 
they could be approached almost within 
reaching distance and could not be mis- 
taken generically. I intended, however, to 
return that way and examine the shrub and 
collect the insects and if possible their eggs 
and larve, but by an unfortunate accident I 
was obliged to cut short my stay and thus 
miss my chance. From the behavior of the 
butterflies, my impression is that they were 
breeding then and there, and on one leaf of 
the shrub I noticed a patch of eggs which 
might well have belonged to Kallima. At 
that time my faith was strong and I was 
inclined to believe that the butterflies were 
migrating or had even for the moment be- 
come careless as to their surroundings, and 
TI felt that had I looked further afield I might 
have found the leaves which were so admir- 
ably mimicked. 

For the rest the question is whether it is 
just for the naturalist, the preparateur and 
Kallima to compound such museum prepara- 
tions as we have above described, on present 
evidence. I for one would be glad to learn 
of additional observations, for, like many 
others, I am not able to repress a suspicion 
that in some cases (who knows in how many, 
eyen perhaps in the case of these classic but- 


SCIENCE. 


833 


terflies?) our idea of the mimicry may be pre- 
conceived, rather than truthful. The fact that 
a butterfly looks strikingly like a given dead 
leaf is no adequate proof that it was evolved 
in mimicry—it must be proven a mimic in all 
details. Otherwise it should be kept in limbo 
with those creatures which to our eyes and to 
our eyes only suggest natural objects—such 
creatures as moths with skulls pictured on 
their backs and Taira-headed crabs.* 
Basurorp Dean. 


‘ROOT-PRESSURE’ IN BEGONIA (FLETCHER’S 
SEEDLING). 

On July 15, a vigorous Begonia was selected 
from the greenhouse plants at the Harvard 
botanic gardens with a view to illustrate, to 
the students in botany at the summer school, 
some of the phenomena in connection with 
the so-called ‘ root-pressure.’ 

The stem of the plant was cut off about 
three inches above the surface of the soil in 
the flower-pot, and a firm rubber tube was 
fixed to the stump and connected with a glass 
tube held in a vertical position. A small 
amount of water—about one cubic centi- 
meter—was poured in upon the cut end of 
the stem. The glass tube first attached was 
about two and a half feet long and the diam- 
eter of the bore was three millimeters. In 
twenty-four hours after arranging the experi- 
ment the sap had ascended to a height of two 
feet one inch, and in twenty-four hours later 
the tube was overflowing. Another tube was 
then added, the connection being made with 
a short piece of rubber tubing. 


*In the twelfth century the famous sea fight 
off Dannoura saw the destruction of the dominant 
Taira family of Japan; it is recorded that up- 
ward of twenty thousand of this clan and their 
adherents lost their lives; and their bodies were 
washed up on the neighboring beaches in wind 
rows. Each Buddhistic soul, however, was said 
to have passed into the crab, Dorippe, which to 
this day retains its imprint. The carapace bears 
in bas-relief a striking likeness to the face of an 
Oriental, and the fishermen, in ‘proof’ of the 
accuracy of the legend, point out further details 
in resemblance—the eyes and mouth are open, 
and the face is swollen, after the fashion of the 
drowned! 


The sap rose steadily, and when the tube 
added was filled, another was attached in the 
same way, until the upper tube reached the 
ceiling of the room. In making attachments 
a break occurred at the first joint aboye the 
stem, resulting in a loss of sap down to that 
point. The break was repaired and the ex- 
periment continued. Another accident hap- 
pened at the same joint when the sap was 
over six feet high, resulting in a further 
and more considerable loss of sap. On 
August 14 the sap stood nine feet ten 
inches high in the tube. The total amount 
of sap that passed through the plant into 
the tube was 165 c.., taking into consid- 
eration the loss by accident, and estimating 
the whole tube as of uniform bore, making 
no allowance for the greater volume where 
the sap was in contact with the rubber 
tube. The flower-pot stood in a plate in which 
a little water was poured every other day. The 
soil in the pot was watered from time to time, 
so as to keep it moist, and in a condition 
under which the plant would most likely 
thrive best. It will be noticed that the plant 
was under these abnormal conditions thirty 
days, and that, so far as could be learned from 
the appearance on August 14, and from the 
fact that the sap in the tube kept rising, the 
plant seemed to be alive. The force that 
caused the ascent of sap in the tube, and that 
which kept the column at the height men- 
tioned, is certainly due to some property of 
the living Begonia. <A plant under similar 
conditions, but first killed by heating, will 
produce no ascent of liquid, and since it can 
not be produced by soil and the tubing, we 
must look for the causes in the living plant. 
This ascent is probably due to what we call 
‘root-pressure, and, as root-pressure is ac- 
counted for by an osmotic pressure resulting 
from the sap in the cells of the roots and 
root hairs, the conclusion is that the sap in 
the tube was forced nine feet ten inches high 
and kept there by an osmotic pressure of the 
cell sap. But it can scarcely be wholly due 
to osmotic pressure, because the sap in the 
glass tube proved to be a solution too dilute, 
and this in the tube must be more concen- 
trated osmotically than that in the roots, in 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 412. 


order that sap may be transferred from cell 
up through the plant. When we say too 
dilute we are estimating concentration and 
pressure from van’t Hoff’s law relating to 
substances in solution. 

This ascent of sap in the Begonia—a plant 
about fourteen inches high—is an illustration, 
to some extent, of the tension to which the 
cells of plants are subjected in the normal 
condition of life. If there be a pressure in 
the plant equal to a column of water nine 
and three fourths feet high, and the plant 
be only fourteen inches high, the cell tension 
in the top leaves would be a pressure of eight 
feet at least. 

Reasoning from this condition of affairs 
in this plant, it may be that—if the turgor 
in the leaves of tall trees is as great as that 
in the Begonia—the forces have to be sufi- 
cient to sustain a column of water eight feet 
higher than the top leaves of the plant. 
Moreover, in view of experiments of Morse 
and Frazer,* plant sap may exert an osmotic 
pressure far in excess of that which it would 
have, according to van’t Hoff’s law: ‘The 
osmotic pressure of a sugar solution has the 
same value as the pressure that the sugar 
would exercise if it were contained as a gas 
in the same volume as is occupied by the 
solution.? Morse and Frazer have shown that 
a normal solution of cane sugar exerts a pres- 
sure of 31.5 atmospheres at least. They esti- 
mate that the pressure could not be less than 
33 atmospheres, their cell having been shat- 
tered at a pressure of 31.5. 

Now, according to van’t Hoft’s law, a nor- 
mal solution of cane sugar should exert a 
pressure of not more than 23 atmospheres, 
unless sugar dissociates; but, -as far as is 
known, sugar does not dissociate in aqueous 
solutions. The results of Morse and Frazer 
present to the botanist some very striking 
suggestions, and it may throw some light 
upon the ascent of the Begonia sap in the 
glass tube in our experiment. 

That there is some force beyond that indi- 
eated in van’t Hoff’s law seems evident, from 
Morse and Frazer’s experiment. Osmotic 
pressure, according to this law, does not ac- 


*Am. Chem. Jour.,.28: 1. July, 1902. 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. | 


count for 33 atmospheres pressure in a nor- 
mal solution of cane sugar, nor does it, in our 
opinion, account for the ascent of sap in the 
tube attached to the Begonia. 

Van’t Hofi’s law is based upon Pfeffer’s 
researches, and Pfeffer states: ‘The same 
pressure (22.4 atmospheres) must be exerted 
by a solution of 342 grams of cane sugar in 
one liter of water;? and further: ‘ Hence it 
follows that osmotic values may be calcu- 
lated directly with perfect safety and ac- 
euracy. It is certain that, if Morse and 
Frazer’s results are reliable, Pfeffer’s osmotic 
conclusions and van’t Hoff’s theory collapse, 
and the true osmotic pressures are not yet 
known. 

The experiment with the Begonia plant, in 
the light of the results of Morse and Frazer, 
leads one to suppose that the actual osmotic 
pressure—or that force producing pressure— 
is far in excess of that indicated in van’t 
Hoff’s law. JAMES B. DANDENO. 


AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MICH. 
October 30, 1902. 


THE GRAND GULF FORMATION. 


Tue classification of the formations of the 
gulf coastal plain more recent than the Vicks- 
burg Limestone, has long presented difficulties 
to the geologist. 

One of the most important of these forma- 
tions, as regards at least extent of surface 
outcrop, is the Grand Gulf, classed as Eocene 
by Dr. Hilgard and by Mr. Kennedy of the 
Texas Survey; as Oligocene by Mr. Gilbert 
Harris and Miss Maury; as Miocene by the 
Alabama Geological Survey (‘Coastal Plain 
Report’). Dr. Wm. H. Hall, who has pub- 
lished much concerning the formation, has at 
different times referred it to the Eocene, the 
Oligocene and the Miocene. 

These classifications, in the absence of char- 
acteristic fossils, have been based largely, if 
not solely, on the stratigraphical position of 
the beds, heretofore supposed to be unconform- 
ably overlying, and chronologically next suc- 
ceeding the Vicksburg Limestone, and many 
sections have been published showing these 
beds and the Vicksburg Limestone in imme- 
diate contact. 

Our observations made during the past sum- 


SCIENCE. 


835 


mer, of the surface distribution of the Grand 
Gulf beds in Washington, Mobile, Baldwin, 
Escambia and Covington Counties; an inter- 
pretation, in the light of these observations, 
of some sections recorded in the ‘ Coastal Plain 
Report’; and our identifications of some shells 
brought up from borings recently made at the 
Bascom Well near Mobile, and at Alabama 
Port in the southeastern part of Mobile 
County will, it is believed, help to clear up 
some of the obscurities which have hereto- 
fore beclouded the classification of the coastal 
plain formations of the Gulf States. 

1. From Healing Springs in Washington 
County southward to within three miles of the 
coast near Bayou La Batre in Mobile County, 
the surface formations are Lafayette sands 
and pebbles, resting directly on Grand Gulf 
mottled clays, overlying cross-bedded sands of 
the same formation. Along bay, river and 
gulf margins the more recent Port Hudson 
strata occur. 

2. In Baldwin County, from its northern 
border down to the Gulf coast, a distance of 
seventy miles or more, the surface is in like 
manner formed by the Grand Gulf beds with 
overlying mantle of Lafayette. ; 

Southward of the line of the L. & N. rail- 
road, this county is a high plateau, 200 feet 
above tide near the line of the railroad, de- 
clining to 75 feet or more on Perdido Bay; 
with surface, away from the immediate vi- 
einity of the streams and bays, almost per- 
fectly flat, but for the slight sinks or depres- 
sions of the hundreds of ponds and savannas 
which characterize the Grand Gulf in the 
lower parts of the two coast counties of Ala- 
bama, and contiguous parts of Florida. The 
original plain in Baldwin has been far less 
modified by erosion than that of Mobile. 

The high land in places extends to the 
water’s edge, terminating in high bluffs along 
Mobile Bay from Daphne down below Mon- 
trose, and along Perdido Bay from above 
Suarez’s landing down to Soldier Creek. 

These bluffs, 75 feet and upwards sheer 
height, show in most characteristic exposures 
the thin capping of Lafayette resting on the 
clays and eross-beds sands of the Grand Gulf. 

8. While in most cases the Grand Gulf along 


836 


the northern border of its outcrop overlies the 
Vicksburg Limestone, in Covington County 
we see it lapping up over both upper and lower 
Claiborne. 

4. At Chattahoochee landing on the Georgia 
side of the river there is a well-known ex- 
posure of Tertiary (Chattahoochee) fossilifer- 
ous beds, overlain by the cross-bedded sands 
and purplish clays of the Grand Gulf, which 


in turn are capped by the sands, ete., of the 


Lafayette. 

5. In Escambia County, at Coal Bluff and 
at the mouth of Silas Creek on Escambia 
River, and at Lovelace’s old mill near Roberts, 
the Grand Gulf beds are seen overlying strata 
holding casts of Cardiwm Chipolanwm and 
other fossils, which led Dr. Dall to correlate 
them with the lower Miocene (more recently 
Oligocene). In our ‘Coastal Plain Report, 
we considered the fossiliferous beds to be a 
part of the Grand Gulf strata, and the lower 
Miocene age of the latter was thus thought 
to be definitely fixed. Our recent observa- 
tions, however, of the unconformity existing 
between the Grand Gulf and the fossiliferous 
Tertiary beds in these localities, and of the 
occurrence of the former as surface beds, 
southward to the very shores of the Gulf, com- 
pel us to change our views and to assign to the 
Grand Gulf a place in the stratigraphical 
column not only far above the Tertiaries ex- 
posed on the Chattahoochee and Escambia 
rivers, but also above any unquestioned 
Tertiary existing in Alabama. 

6. The evidence of the comparatively recent 
age of the Grand Gulf formation thus fur- 
nished by its surface distribution, is con- 
firmed and extended by the materials brought 
up from three deep wells bored in Mobile 
County, viz., one at the brewery in the city, 
one about three miles southwest of the city, 
(the Bascom Well) and one at Alabama Port 
on Mon Louis Island near the southeastern 
end of the county. 

The boring at Alabama Port had last sum- 
mer gone down to a depth of 900 feet, and 
from near the bottom shells were brought up 
which have been identified, viz., Rangia John- 
soni, Dall; Mactra lateralis, Say; Hydrobia 
Mobiliana, Dall, and about ten other species, 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 412. 


mostly new and brackish water forms. Above 
the shell horizon the boring penetrated mainly 
sands and clays and sandstones, the latter re- 
ported as being altogether 400 feet thick and 
in places exceedingly hard. These beds can 
not well be anything else than Grand Gulf, 
and the shells come from below them and 
represent the Pascagoula horizon of Johnson, 
regarded by Dr. Dall as of Chesapeake Mio- 
cene age. The boring at the brewery in Mo- 
bile brought up the same shells from a depth 
of 735 feet, and the boring at Biloxi, Miss., 
reached the same Pascagoula formation at 
the depth of 700 feet. 

The boring at the Bascom Well near Mobile 
pierced the same formation and furnished the 
same fossils, but this boring went deeper, and 
between the depths of 1,500 and 1,556 feet 
brought up shells which are identical with 
forms occurring at Oak Grove in Florida, now 
considered as Oligocene by Dr. Dall. 

List of Shells from Bascom Well, Mobile, 
Ala. (from 1,500 to 1,556 feet depth). 

Mitra cf. Hanleyi, Dohrn. 

Litiopa sp. fragments (probably young). 

Nassa sp. fragments (probably young). 

Tornatina incisula, Dall. 

Terebra indenta, Con. 

Neverita duplicata, Say. 

Bittium priscum, Dall. 

Oliva sp. young. 

Turritella terebriformis, Dall (Alum Bluff 
horizon). 

Micromeris sp. very young. 

Deda acuta (?) Con. young. 

Leda sp.? 

Nucula sinaria, Dall. 

Phacoides piluliformis, Dall. 

Hemicardium apatelicum, Dall. 

Corbula Whitfieldi? Dall. (young). 

Orbitolites duplex, Carp. 

Orbiculina adunca, F. & M. 

Lucina Pennsylvanica, Linn. 

Tucina dentata, Lam. 

Venus Burnsti, Dall. 

To sum up the evidence thus adduced: The 
Grand Gulf is not Eocene, it is not Oligocene, 
it is not Miocene, since it overlies in turn each 
of these formations. By its position it must, 
therefore, be either Pliocene or more recent, 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


and we are inclined to the belief that it is 
Post-Tertiary because, among other things, it 
carries fresh-water fossils. We are also in- 
clined to the belief that the Pascagoula forma- 
tion will eventually turn out to be Pliocene. 
If we are correct in our belief that the Grand 
Gulf is of Post-Tertiary age, the Lafayette 
formation must be advanced higher in the 
seale than the position now generally assigned 
to it. Evucenr A. Suirn, 
Truman H. Anpricn. 
THE JOHN PRITZ MEDAL. 

A ‘Joun Fritz Mrpat,’ established by per- 
sonal and professional friends in celebration 
of the eightieth birthday, August 21, 1902, of 
the ‘ Nestor of the American Iron and Steel 
Industry,’ and in honor of that venerable 
pioneer, was formally announced at a banquet 
tendered Mr. Fritz by its founders, on October 
31, at the Waldorf-Astoria. The medal is to 
be annually awarded to perpetuate the memory 
of his achievements and for notable scientific 
or industrial discoveries, inventions or other 
great work performed by its recipients. 

The new honor is to be conferred on men 
nominated, not less than one year in advance 
of the date of award, by a board consisting of 
sixteen men, chosen in equal numbers from 
each of the four national engineering societies 
by their governing bodies. The medal is of 
gold, its design by Mr. Brenner, the obverse 
presenting a good portrait of Mr. Fritz, the 
reverse bearing the symbolic device, a mes- 
senger, her right hand sustaining a shield on 
which is to appear the name of the recipient of 
the medal, the left hand carrying laurels and 
a palm branch. In the distance appears the 
torch of learning and a scroll on which is in- 
scribed a statement of the purpose of the 
medal. The endowment of this foundation is 
made by contributions from several hundred 
members of the engineering profession and 
amounts to about $6,000. Its recipient will 
also be given a certificate stating the origin and 
purpose of the medal and the specifie achieve- 
ment for which the individual award is made. 
The plan adopted is similar to that on which 
the award of the famous Bessemer Medal 
of the Iron and Steel Institution of Great 


SCIENCE. 


837 


Britain is made by its founders and which 
medal has been several times awarded to dis- 
tinguished Americans, Mr. Fritz among others. 
In the present case, the specific provision is 
made that ‘there shall be no restriction on 
account of nationality or sex.’ 

John Fritz, in whose honor this new and im- 
portant scientific distinction is established, was 
born at Londonderry, Pennsylvania, August 
21, 1822, the son of a reputable farmer. At 
the age of sixteen he entered a country ma- 
chine shop at Parkersburg, later a similar 
establishment at Norristown, to learn the 
business. He next took up the construction 
of rolling mills and, meantime, made himself 
familiar with every detail of the iron and 
steel business from that of reducing the ores 
in the blast furnace to the puddling of iron 
and the final work of the rolling mill. He 
became, in due time, an authority and acknowl- 
edged expert in his art and erected some of 
the most important establishments of the 
time, including the Cambria Iron Works, and, 
finally the now enormous plant of the Bethle- 
hem Tron and Steel Works, of which latter he 
was manager and with which he remained for 
a generation. He introduced some of the 
most important of modern methods and ap- 
paratus and was one of the earliest and most 
successful. among the pioneers in the use of 
the Bessemer process in the United States. 

Since his retirement from the superintend- 
ency of the mammoth establishment which 
grew up under his hand, Mr. Fritz has been 
engaged in many enterprises as consulting 
expert and in some public works. He is a 
member of the principal associations, pro- 
fessional and scientific, in his field, both at 
home and abroad. He still enjoys good health 
and is strong and active and as much inter- 
ested in life and good works as ever. 

The foundation of this medal is hoped to 
prove a valuable incentive and aid to applied 
science, evidencing appreciation of good work 
and great deeds on the part of able men, as 
well as constituting a permanent and worthy 
monument to the man whose own admirable 
life and great work is thus given an enduring 
and fitting memorial. 

R. H. Tuurston. 


838 


ANOTHER HODGKINS GOLD MEDAL 
AWARDED. 

In March last, Secretary Langley, of the 
Smithsonian Institution, appointed a com- 
mittee to consider whether any discovery had 
been made since the award of the first Hodg- 
kins Gold Medal in 1899, under the general 
terms of the gift, ‘the increase and diffusion 
of more exact knowledge in regard to the 
nature and properties of atmospheric air in 
connection with the welfare of man,’ which 
would render it proper that such a medal 
should be again awarded. This committee 
consisted of the following distinguished men 
of science: Mr. Richard Rathbun, assistant 
secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 
Chairman; Doctor A. Graham Bell, for elec- 
tricity; Doctor Ira Remsen, for chemistry; 
Doctor Charles D. Walcott, for geology; Pro- 
fessor E. C. Pickering, for astronomy; Doctor 
Theodore N. Gill, for biology; Professor 
Cleveland Abbe, for meteorology; Mr. William 
H. Holmes, for anthropology, and Mr. 8S. W. 
Stratton, for physics. 

Owing to the absence of Mr. Rathbun, 
Doctor Remsen served as chairman at a meet- 
ing of the committee held at the Smithsonian 
Institution in Washington, April 15, 1902. 
At this meeting the following resolution was 
unanimously adopted: 

That the committee recommend to the Secre- 
tary of the Smithsonian Institution that it is 
desirable that one of the Hodgkins gold medals 
be struck, and that it be awarded to J. J. Thom- 
son, of Cambridge, England, for his investigations 
on the conductivity of gases, especially on the 
gases that compose the atmospheric air. 

The finding of the committee being ap- 
proved by the secretary, steps were at once 
taken to have the second Hodgkins gold medal 
struck under the personal supervision of its 
designer, Monsieur J. C. Chaplain, of Paris. 
The medal has recently been received by the 
Institution and has been despatched to Pro- 
fessor Thomson through the Department of 
State. 


THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
Tur Academy held its autumn meeting at 
the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, on 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 412. 


November 11 and 12. The scientific program 
was as follows: : 


“A Possible Explanation of the Difficult Solu- 
bility of Certain Compounds Containing Fluorine 
and Hydroxyl,’ S. L. PENFIELD. 

“The Spectra of Stars of Secchi’s Fourt. Type,’ 
Grorce E. HALe. 

‘Biographical Memoir of Henry A. Rowland,’ 
T. C. MENDENHALL. 

‘The Embryology of Salpa Cordiformis, W. K. 
BROOKS. 

‘The Occurrence of Reef Corals near Beaufort, 
N. C., CASWELL GRAVE (introduced by W. K. 
Brooks). 

‘The Trematode Parasites of the Oyster,’ D. 
H. TeNNENT (introduced by W. K. Brooxks). 

‘The Preparation of Cells for the Measurement 
of Osmotic Pressure,’ H. N. Morse (introduced 
by Ira REMSEN). 

‘A Substance with Remarkable Optical Prop- 
erties, and Screens Transparent only to Ultra- 
Violet Light,’ R. W. Woop (introduced by Ira 
REMSEN ). 

“On Displacement Currents,’ J. B. WHITEHEAD 
(introduced by IrA REMSEN). 

“On the Spectrum of Hydrogen, L. A. Par- 
sons (introduced by Ira REMSEN). 

“A New System of Positions for Standard 
Stars, with Notes relative to its bearing upon 
Sidereal Astronomy,’ Lewis Boss. 

‘Complete Skeleton and Restoration of the 
Cretaceous Fish Portheus Molossus Cope,’ H. F. 
OSBORN. 

‘A New Small Dinosaur from the Jurassic or 
Como Beds of Wyoming, apparently a _ Bird- 
eatcher, H. F. OsBorn. 

‘New or little-known Elephants and Mastodons 
of North America,’ H. F. OsBorn. 

“On Elevated Oceanic Islands in the Pacific, 
A. AGASSIZ. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 


WE regret to announce the death of Pro- 
fessor Ogden Nicholas Rood which occurred 
from pleuropneumonia at his home in New 
York City on November 12. He was born in 
Danbury, Conn., in 1831, graduated from 
Princeton College in 1852, spent four years in 
study in Germany, from 1858 to 1863 was pro- 
fessor of chemistry and physics at Troy Uni- 
versity and has for the past thirty-nine years 
been professor of physics in Columbia Uni- 
versity. Professor Rood had been vice-presi- 
dent of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science and was a member of 
the National Academy of Sciences. He was 
eminent for his researches in experimental 


NOVEMBER 21, 1902. ] 


physics. We hope to publish subsequently 
an account of his life and work. 

Proressor J. J. THomson, the eminent 
physicist of Cambridge University, has been 
invited to be the first lecturer at Yale Uni- 
versity on the Silliman foundation. This lec- 
tureship, endowed by the late Benjamin Silli- 
man with $85,000, is somewhat similar to the 
Gifford lectures of the Scottish universities, 
providing for a course of lectures ‘ the general 
tendency of which may be such as will illus- 
trate the presence and wisdom of God as 
manifested in the natural and moral world.’ 
The lectures, however, must not be ‘on topics 
appropriate to polemical or dogmatic theology.’ 

Dr. W J McGesr, ethnologist in charge, 
Bureau of American Ethnology, has been ap- 
pointed by the President, through the Secre- 
tary of State, to represent the United States 
on the American International Archeological 
Commission, whose creation was recommended 
by the second International Conference of 
American States held in Mexico last winter. 


Proressor J. WILLARD Gipss, of Yale Uni- 
versity, has been elected a corresponding mem- 
ber of the Munich Academy of Science. 


Tur Academy of Natural Science of Phila- 
delphia has, on the recommendation of its 
special committee, consisting of Theo, D. 
Rand, Amos P. Brown, R. A. F. Penrose, Jr., 
and Henry Fairfield Osborn, conferred the gold 
medal of the Hayden Memorial Geological 
Award for 1902 on Sir Archibald Geikie, 
LL.D., D.Se., late director general of the 
Geological Survey of Great Britain and Ivre- 
land. 

Mr. J. S. Dimer, of the U. S. Geological 
Survey, who spent the field season in geolog- 
ical work in northern California, has returned 
to Washington. ; 


Proressor F. S. Earner, assistant curator 
at the New York Botanical Garden, is in 
Jamaica in company with the Hon. Wm. 
Faweett, director of the public gardens and 
plantations, for the purpose of making an 
investigation of the diseases of logwood, ba- 
nana, cocoanut, ginger, pineapple and other 
economic plants of the island. Dr. M. A. 
Howe, assistant curator, is making an exten- 


SCIENCE. 


839 


sive survey of the algal flora of the Florida 
Keys. 

Tuer Peary Arctic Club gave a dinner in 
honor of Commander Peary on November 13, 
the president of the club, Mr. Morris K. 
Jesup, presiding. 

Ar the banquet in honor of Drs. William 
W. Keen and Horatio C. Wood, at Philadel- 
phia on November 6, Dr. William H. Welch, of 
Baltimore, proposed the toast ‘ Medicine,’ to 
which Dr. Wood responded. Dr. William B. 
Coley, of New York City, gave the toast 
‘Surgery,’ to which Dr. Keen made response. 
Dr. J. Chalmers Da Costa spoke to the toast 
‘The Pupil in Surgery,’ and presented Dr. 
Keen with a loving cup. Dr. Hobart A. Hare 
replied to the toast ‘The Pupil in Medicine,’ 
and presented a loving cup to Dr. Wood. 

Dr. Max Wotur, of the Observatory on 
Konigstuhl, Heidelberg, has lengthened in- 
definitely the government appointment of Mr. 
R. S. Dugan, as his assistant. Mr. Dugan 
graduated at Amherst College in 1899, and 
after being Professor Todd’s assistant, was in 
the Beirut Observatory for three years. He 
discovered a new planet (KA) at Heidelberg 
on October 25. 

Mr. Grorce Grant MacCurpy, lecturer in 
anthropology at Yale University, has been 
appointed curator of the anthropological col- 
lections in the University Museum. 

PreEsIDENT PrircHETT, of the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, lectured at Buffalo 
before the Association of College Alumni on 
November 17, his subject being ‘The Place of 
Industrial Training in the Education of a 
Modern Nation.’ 

Tue eightieth birthday of Professor Fried- 
rich yon Esmarch, the eminent German sur- 
geon, will be celebrated next year by the erec- 
tion of a monument in his native town of 
Tonning. 

Dr. A. R. C. Sonwyn, formerly director ot 
the Geological Survey of Canada, died at Van- 
couver on October 19, aged seventy-eight years. 

Mr. Witiiam Gunn, F.G.S., district geol- 
ogist in the Geological Survey of Great Britian 
and Ireland, died on October 23, aged sixty- 
five years. 


840 


Tur death is also announced at the age of 
sixty-two years of Professor Eugen Hahn, 
director of .the surgical department of the 
Berlin Municipal Hospital. 


Sm Anprew Nose has given £150 and Dr. 
Ludwig Mond £200 to the Royal Institution 
for the fund for the promotion of experimental 
research at low temperatures. 


A Reuter’s telegram from Kingstown states 
that the Scotia, which is taking out the Scot- 
tish Antarctic Expedition, under the com- 
mand of Lieutenant Bruce, arrived there on 
November 3, after a favorable passage. The 
ship is satisfactory in every way. The yachts 
Gleniffer and Triton were still in company 
with the Scotza. 


Tue Engineers’ Club of Philadelphia will 
celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary by a 
banquet on December 6. 


We learn from the National Geographic 
Magazine that on October 17 a number of 
scientific men and of those interested in geo- 
graphic science met in Baltimore at the home 
of Dr. D. OC. Gilman and organized the ‘ Geo- 
graphical. Society of Baltimore.” The aim 
of the society is the promotion and diffusion 
of geographical knowledge, more particularly 
of that which is of commercial importance 
to Baltimore. Vice-president W J McGee, 
LL.D., represented the National Geographic 
Society and extended its congratulations and 
well wishes to the new organization. Dr. 
Gilman, who is also one of the board of man- 
agers of the National Geographic Society, 
was chosen first president and the following 
officers and trustees were elected: First vice- 
president, Mr. Bernard N. Baker; second vice- 
president, Rev. Dr. John F. Goucher; third 
vice-president, Gen. Lawrason Riggs. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


Tue University of Pennsylvania has re- 
ceived $100,000 from Dr. E. W. and Clarence 
H. Clark for a chair in Assyriology, to which 
Dr. Hilprecht has been appointed. 


Dr. and Mrs. C. A. Herter, of New York 
City, have given $25,000 to Johns Hopkins 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 412. 


University for the foundation of a memorial 
lectureship in the medical department ‘ de- 
signed to promote a more intimate knowledge 
of the researches of foreign investigators in the 
realm of medical science.’ This end is to be 
secured by inviting each year some eminent 
worker in physiology or pathology to deliver 
one or more lectures at the university on some 
subject with which he is especially identified. 
The lecturer will receive an honorarium, the 
annual income of the endowment fund. The 
committee to select the lecturer will consist 
of Drs. William H. Welch, William Osler 
and John J. Abel, and it is intended to con- 
tinue this committee so as to represent pathol- 
ogy, physiological chemistry and clinical medi- 
There is no bar to extending the pro- 
posed lectureship to leaders in medical re- 
search in America if deemed advisable. Dr. 
Herter was a graduate student at the univer- 
sity in 1887-88, pursuing a special course in 
Dr. Welch’s laboratory. 


Tue University of Tennessee will inaug- 
urate at the beginning of January a depart- 
ment of education modeled on the Teachers 
College, Columbia University. The newly 
appointed professors include in the science 
and art of teaching, Professor P. P. Claxton, 
head professor of the department, formerly 
professor of pedagogy in the North Carolina 
Normal and Industrial Institute at Greens- 
boro, now chief of the bureau of the Southern 
Education Board, and superintendent of the 
Summer School of the South; in philosophy 
and history of education, Professor Wycliffe 
Rose, formerly professor in the Peabody Nor- 
mal School, University of Nashville; in edu- 
cational psychology and ethics, Professor B. 
B. Breese, a graduate of Harvard University 
and doctor of philosophy of Columbia Uni- 
versity. 


cine. 


Dr. H. Kopatp, first observer in the astro- 
nomical observatory at Kiel, has been ap- 
pointed to an associate professorship in the 
university. 


Mr. W. H. R. Rivers, university lecturer 
in physiological and experimental psychology 
at Cambridge University, has been elected a 
fellow of St. John’s College. 


Sec lE NCE 


#& WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANZEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE : 8. NEwcoms, Mathematics; R. S. WooDWARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WAtcorTtT, Geology; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScupDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BrssEy, N. L. BRirron, Botany ; C. 8. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


DITCH, Physiology ; 


J. S. Brnnines, Hygiene ; WILLIAM H. WELcH, 


Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


F'rmay, NovEMBER 28, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


The Role of Chemistry in University Educa- 
tion: PRoressor H. W. WILEY............ 841 
The Huxley Lecture on Recent Studies of Im- 
munity, with Special Reference to their 
Bearing on Pathology, I1.: PRoressor WIL- 
TA VACMI ET ewe VVET: CH spate fejiesiatoyst anes cielersps)ictssclelielcrs 
Scientific Books: 
International Catalogue of Scientific Litera- 
ture, Botany: PRoFEssoR CHARLES HE. 
Bessey. Oatalogue of the Crosby Brown 
Collection of Musical Instruments of All 
Nations, Europe: CHARLES K. WEAD. An- 
nual Report of the Chief of the Bureau of 
Steam Engineering of the Navy Depart- 
ment: PRoressor R. H. THURSTON........ 861 
Scientific Journals and Articles............ 865 
Societies and Academies :— 
The Philosophical Society of Washington: 
CHarLes K. Wrap. The New York Acad- 
emy of Sciences, Astronomy, Physics and 
Chemistry: Dr. A. MITCHELL. The 
Torrey Botanical Club: PRorrssor EDWARD 
S. Burcess. Columbia University Geolog- 
ical Journal Club: H. W. Suimer. The 
Toronto Astronomical Society: J. R. Cot- 
TING) soooceudoanepoeao bbe cobanOUB EOE mOM 
Discussion and Correspondence :-— 
A Question in Terminology: PRorressor L. 
M. Unperwoop. A Point in Nomenclature: 
Preswent Davin Starr Jordan. New 
York Archeology: Dr. W. M. BEAUCHAMP. 
Prickles of the Prickly Ash: PROFESSOR J. 
B. DanvENO. The Next Eruption of Pelée: 
IDI, WN, ZAG dIAGCUNIDS ditne ogiseaocenpaoeoeBDDC 
Shorter Articles :— 
The Ethnological Significance of Esoteric 
Doctrines: PROFESSOR FRANZ BOAS........ 872 
The Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific 
PODAS scococessdagpovodedd poboDoooDOdOD 
Scientific Notes and News.................. 
University and Educational News........... 


850 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE ROLE OF CHEMISTRY IN UNIVERSITY 
EDUCATION.* 

THE installation of a new chemical labo- 
ratory as an adjunct to university educa- 
tion, while not unusual in our country, is 
always attended with interesting features. 
From a description of the plans of this 
building, published in Science, in Decem- 
ber, 1900, I learn that an attempt has been 
made to combine all the modern features 
of value which recent laboratories have 
developed. It is true that the material of 
which this edifice is composed is mostly the 
product of Kansas. In fact, the stone, in 
part, was taken from the very site on which 
the laboratory stands. The plans, however, 
which were adopted and the details which 
were carried out are the results of an ex- 
tensive inquiry and personal inspection on 
the part of the director of the laboratory 
and the architect. I could not but notice, 
in looking over these detailed plans, how 
many of the best features of modern labo- 
ratories with which I have been acquainted 
have been incorporated into the plans of 
this building. We have here a complete 
structure designed for a specific purpose, 
built under the personal direction of those 
most skilled and competent, both in archi- 
tecture and technical knowledge, and now 

* Address delivered at the dedication of the new 


chemical laboratory of the University of Kansas, 
at Lawrence, October 16, 1902. 


842 


it has reached a finished state ready to be 
dedicated for the great purpose for which 
it was designed and constructed. 

It seems to me that no feature of our 
modern university education is so strik- 
ingly set forth in the last few years as that 
one which seeks to adapt physical and ma- 
terial means to educational purposes. We 
are no longer satisfied with a mere en- 
closure of four walls which keep out the 
rain and water and which offer no other 
material advantages for study and _ re- 
search. I am not forgetful of the fact that 
some of the greatest accomplishments of the 
human intellect, in the way of search after 
truth and knowledge, have been secured 
under the most adverse . circumstances. 
Berzelius, one of the greatest of chemists, 
pursued his simple researches in a labora- 
tory established in a kitchen and with 
appliances which a third-grade high school 
would now reject as totally unfit for any 
useful purpose. We should not forget, 
however, that in the impartation of instruc- 
tion, and in the conduct of research, we 
have passed the stage of first settlement 
and the opening of practically unknown 
ways. The ground which is to be covered 
is well mapped out. We know its physi- 
ography and geography and we are warned 
by conspicuous placards, which we see 
everywhere, that this particular field is 
preempted and already under culture. The 
courtesy which we owe each other leads 
us to respect the claims which those who 
have gone before us have made, and to seek 
for other fields of usefulness not yet 
marked out. 

Thus the simple appliances and the vast 
open fields of a hundred years ago are 
now wanting, and we need the greatest re- 
finement of every possible kind in order 
to make becoming progress. We _ hail, 
therefore, with delight every new founda- 
tion embodying new modern improvements 
devoted to the cause of science, and es- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No.'413. 


pecially that particular science, which to- 
day we are permitted to speak of in detail, 
chemistry. It is, perhaps, no more fortu- 
nate than any of the others with which it 
is associated in inereasing the sum of hu- 
man knowledge. There are, however, some 
peculiar circumstances connected with the 
foundation of an institution for chemical 
instruction and research which differen- 
tiate that science from its sisters and which 
eall for some special comment. 

As a factor in the education of our 
youth, chemistry may be regarded from 
many distinet points of view. In the first 
place, the data which chemistry has estab- 
lished are elements of a liberal education. 
In modern times the whole tendency in 
chemical work is towards specialization. 
Unless a man knows some one thing more 
intimately than anybody else in the world, 
he has little prospect of becoming profes- 
sionally useful and renowned. It is no 
longer a case of knowing one whole sci- 
ence better than any one else, because 
almost every science has grown beyond the 
understanding of any single individual, but 
it is a question of knowing some particular 
thing, some minute branch of the science, 
in a way in which no other one compre- 
hends it. 

Specialization in science, however, should 
never be allowed to interfere with the ele- 
mentary education of the one who is to be 
devoted to special work. More and more 
as I study this problem, it seems to me that 
a man who in his future life is to become 
eminent as a specialist should, of all others, 
lay broad and deep the foundation of his 
training. Whatever function a man may 
perform in life, he should have a general 
knowledge of the languages, mathematics, 
literature and the sciences, and among 
them chemistry. I would not lke to say 
especially of chemistry, because the mem- 
bers of each profession may be justly ac- 
cused of magnifying their own science so 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902.] 


that its relative dimensions are very much 
distorted. But cutting myself loose as 
much as possible from the ties of my pro- 
fession, it does seem to me that the funda- 
mental data of chemistry are especially 
useful as elements in the foundations of a 
liberal training. In other words, the lib- 
erally educated man ought to know some- 
thing of the composition of the earth on 
which he lives, of the minerals and precious 
stones which it yields, of the water which 
covers its surface, permeates its atmos- 
phere and gathers in clouds above his 
head; of the plants which grow upon the 
soil and the elements which compose them; 
of the food which comes upon his table 
and the principles of nutrition; of the num- 
ber of elementary substances known and 
some of their general properties; of the 
principles of physical chemistry which 
unite chemistry with physics; of some of 
the technical operations in which the sci- 
ence of chemistry is a controlling factor, 
such as the manufacture of starch and 
sugar, of steel and iron, of leather and 
fertilizers, of dye-stuffs and textile fabrics, 
.and many other similar processes. Why, 
may I ask, should we expect a liberally 
educated man to be acquainted with all 
the heathen mythologies and to be on 
speaking terms with all the mythical gods 
and goddesses who inhabit Olympus or 
Walhalla, and to be absolutely ignorant of 
the composition of the air he breathes and 
the water he drinks? 

No one can accuse me of belittling the 
claims of classical and historical education 
in molding character and developing intel- 
lect. All of my life I have been a strong 
advocate of the old system of classical in- 
struction. I have seen with regret the bat- 
tlements of classical learning broken down 
under the heavy fire of scientific assailants, 
and through the embrasures thus made I 
have seen the heights taken by storm and 
in many instances destroyed. But while 


SCIENCE. 


843 


I fully realize the immense value of all 
such studies in general edueation, I cannot 
be brought to the belief that a liberally 
educated man should be practically igno- 
rant of the physical and biological sciences. 

It is not necessary in order to have this 
general knowledge that he should be a 
specialist in any sense of the word. Our 
scientific and popular magazines teem with 
articles written by specialists which bring 
within easy access of the intelligent reader 
all the data of which I have spoken. He 
can know the principles of astronomy with- 
out being a Neweomb; he ean know the 
fundamental data of chemistry without 
being a Gibbs; he ean comprehend the con- 
ditions of existence and the evolution of 
organic life without being a Darwin; he 
can grasp the practical points of botany 
without being a Gray. It seems to me, 
therefore, that one of the great functions 
of chemistry in university education is to 
teach to the liberally educated youth the 
principal data of chemical science, even if 
it does not attempt to make him a profes- 
sional chemist. 

I think it may, therefore, be taken for 
granted that what is known as a liberal 
education should consist in part of a knowl- 
edge of the data of chemistry to which 
allusion has been made. 

It perhaps might be pertinent to this 
subject to discuss the period of higher edu- 
cation which should be devoted to the study 
of chemistry, and to determine the position 


‘in the course of physical studies which 


chemistry should have. Such a discussion, 
however, would lead to endless differences 
of opinion and would probably result only 
in adding one additional opinion to the 
many already in vogue. That there is 
a natural sequence in the study of phys- 
ical sciences will probably be admitted, 
but that that sequence is always in- 
variable is a matter of some doubt. The 
final. purpose in view will doubtless have 


844 


much influence upon the legitimate se- 
quence of studies. If chemistry, there- 
fore, be studied only as a contribution to 
a liberal education, it seems to me to make 
little difference in what part of the higher 
curriculum it comes. If, on the other 
hand, the student is to become a specialist 
in any other science, especially physical 
science, the position of chemistry in the 
course of study becomes more important. 
And if, finally, a student is to become a 
specialist in chemistry the position of this 
science in his course of study becomes most 
important. 

We find in a study of chemical phe- 
nomena that there are certain natural 
forces which are highly efficient in effect- 
ing chemical changes. These are light, 
heat and electricity, all of which by mod- 
- ern theories are regarded as special forms 
of vibration in the elementary particles of 
matter or ether. Since an artisan should 
be acquainted with the character of the 
tools he uses, and since light, heat and elec- 
tricity become important tools in chemical 
processes, it would seem natural that at 
least that part of physics relating to these 
forces should precede purely chemical 
studies. There are, however, very few 
purely chemical problems that require the 
higher mathematics, and thus it happens 
that the student of chemistry who has a 
working acquaintance with arithmetic, 
algebra and a superficial knowledge in 
geometry and trigonometry, is able to per- 
form most of the mathematical operations 
which the study of chemistry requires. 

Further than this, chemistry may be re- 
garded as a college study only and not in 
the light of the university proper. Our 
American universities, almost without ex- 
ception, are built around the college as the 
central school, meaning by the college that 
part of the course of instruction which is 
destined to give the foundation of a lberal 


training without specialization. Wherever 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


specialization enters into a college, the col- 
lege to that extent becomes a university of 
higher learning; in other words, a kind of 
a graduate school before graduation. 

I have often thought that it might be well 
to confine the college to the old-fashioned 
type, especially since it is only an integral 
part of the university, and to reserve spe- 
cialization until after the degree of A.B. 
has been secured. 

Thus, for the purpose of this address, it 
is not necessary to dwell upon the partic- 
ular year or, part of the curriculum when 
chemical studies should enter. I have, 
however, very grave doubts of the wisdom 
of teaching extensive courses of practical 
chemistry in the high schools. It is not 
expected that any one should obtain a 
professional knowledge of chemistry in a 
high school, and yet working laboratories 
have been established in most of our high 
schools entirely similar to those used for 
training professionals. It may be an erro- 
neous opinion, but I have always held to 
the view that in childhood and youth we 
find the proper periods of life for learning 
languages. Now a knowledge of one’s own 
language, especially if one be an English- 
speaking person, is quite impossible with- 
out a study of the sources whence it has 
sprung. Therefore, an English scholar 
must first of all have a working knowledge 
of the classical languages, so-called, that 
is Latin and Greek, and also a practical 
knowledge of German, at least, which is 
one of the languages evolved from the 
Anglo-Saxon, or rather the Saxon part of 
the Anglo-Saxon. While it is convenient 
to know other ancient languages and all 
modern languages, it must be confessed 
that the period of childhood and youth is 
not long enough to become practically 
acquainted with more than three or four 
languages, besides the vernacular. Hence, 
while not neglecting nature lessons and the 
teaching of the explanation of the ordinary 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 
phenomena with which we are surrounded, 
it seems to me wiser to devote the period 
of infaney and childhood and early youth 
largely to learning English, Greek, Latin 
and German. The youth who, at sixteen, 
finds himself ready for college with a prac- 
tical knowledge of the four languages I 
have mentioned, has laid one of the corner- 
stones of a liberal education. There is no 
other period at which languages can be so 
easily acquired as that period in which 
nature teaches languages herself, and a 
year of Latin at nine or ten is worth two 
years at twenty or thirty. 

I would like, therefore, to see the science 
training of our high schools confined to 
the explanation ef common phenomena, 
and not include any expensive, time-con- 
suming and exclusive laboratory practices. 
This may all seem heresy, coming from a 
scientific man, but I believe it is good gos- 
pel, nevertheless. I have often been mor- 
tified at the English composition of college 
and even university graduates. Men who 
have attained eminence in particular 
branches of study often seem incapable of 
expressing their thoughts in any proper 
way. Their English is inexact, clumsy 
and inconsequent. Clear expression seems 
to me to be the legitimate outcome of clear 
thinking, and the neglect of those early 
studies which enable one to express himself 
clearly and forcibly is a fault which can 
only be remedied by long years of morti- 
fication and hard labor. 

Chemistry, in the second place, plays an 
important réle as a help in the study 
of other sciences. Since it enters as an 
element into so many other sciences, 
except that part of physics already men- 
tioned, it seems to me that for scientific 
purposes, or, in other words, for instruction 
in scientific specialties, chemistry should 
be practically the first science studied. I 
would point out only a few instances in 
which chemistry becomes an important 


SCIENCE. 


845 


adjunct in other branches of scientific in- 
vestigation. In geology it teaches the com- 
position of rocks, and this often throws 
important light upon their origin. The 
presence of quantities of phosphoric acid 
in a rock shows that it must have been 
derived, or probably was derived, from 
organic life. If iodin and bromin be 
found in mineral deposits, it is an indica- 
tion that they were of marine organic 
origin. The geologist, of course, must 
know whether his rocks are composed of 
silicates, carbonates or sand, for these three 
classes of chemical compounds make up 
the great bulk of the rock deposits of the 
earth’s crust. To be sure, it does not re- 
quire a great deal of chemistry to deter- 
mine this, but it does require chemical 
knowledge, and thus a knowledge of chem- 
istry must be one of the elements in the 
edueation of a geologist. 

In the case of mineralogy, the impor- 
tance of chemistry as a preliminary study 
is more pronounced. Morphology is, of 
course, an important aid to the mineralo- 
gist in determining species, but the final 
test is always composition. The mineralo- 
gist, therefore, must be not only a chemist, 
but a chemist of skill and experience, or 
else he is ignorant of an important part 
of his profession. 

In metallurgy we find chemistry again 
playing a most important role. While the 
working of metals, from an artistic point 
of view, is entirely independent of a knowl- 
edge of their composition, the production 
of metals from their ores is a chemical 
process pure and simple. The metallur- 
gist is first of all a producer of metals, 
but when he works them into given forms 
he becomes an artist. Chemistry, in the 
guise of metallurgy, was the foundation 
of the first of the arts, for it is evident 
that if man had never emerged from the 
Stone Age he never could have progressed 


846 


in knowledge and civilization to the present 
point. It was the discovery of the science 
of metallurgy which enabled the human 
race to span that great chasm between the 
age of stone and the age of steel. 

In a science apparently utterly re- 
moved from chemistry, viz., astronomy, 
chemistry plays no unimportant part, for 
it is through the aid of physical chemistry 
only that the composition of the sun and 
the stars has been revealed to man. 

In the biological sciences chemistry plays 
no less an important réle. It is the funda- 
mental basis of animal and vegetable physi- 
ology. The processes of growth in the ani- 
mal and vegetable are purely chemical. It 
is true that modern chemistry has not 
reached the skill of nature, and we are un- 
able to reproduce in the laboratory all the 
changes which matter undergoes in the ani- 
mal and vegetable organism, but those we 
are not able to reproduce are none the less 
purely chemical and show the high order 
of talent which nature has provided in her 
chemical processes, talent which it is well 
we should emulate, although we may never 
be able to imitate. 

“‘The weapons in the armory of the 
modern physiologist are multitudinous in 
number and complex in construction, and 
enable him in the experimental investiga- 
tion of his subject to accurately measure 
and record the workings of the different 
parts of the machinery he has to study. 
But preeminent among these instruments 
stand the test-tube and the chemical opera- 
tion typified by that simple piece of glass. 

“Tf even a superficial survey of modern 
physiological literature is taken, one is at 
onee struck with the great preponderance 
of papers and books which have a chemical 
bearing. In this the physiological jour- 
nals of to-day contrast very markedly with 
those of thirty, twenty or even ten years 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 418. 


ago. The sister science of chemical pathol- 
ogy is making similar rapid strides.’’* 

I shall not speak in this address of the 
purely chemical industries, because they 
have so often been described. There the 
role of chemistry is paramount. It is no 
longer an aid, but a master. 

Thus in this rapid review is seen the im- 
portance of chemistry in other sciences, 
and, therefore, its place in the university 
curriculum must always be a capital one. 
This necessity has been recognized from 
the very first in the higher education in 
this country. In the old-fashioned eol- 
leges in which our fathers received a 
training which made them, perhaps, more 
eminent than their sons have become, be- 
fore the days of the renaissance of science, 
if we may regard it as ever having been 
vigorous in the past, chemistry was always 
the first of the sciences provided for. ~ 
When the laboratory gradually became 
evolved as a means of instruction, it was 
always the chemical laboratory which was 
first established in all our higher institu- 
tions, and when the day of specialization 
permitted more than one professor to teach 
the sciences, it was usually the professor of 
chemistry who was first segregated from 
the scientific chaos. And for this reason 
to-day in every institution of higher learn- 
ing, whatever the specialty may be which 
the student of science studies, chemistry 
becomes an integral and fundamental part 
of his course of instruction. While in 
schools of chemistry it may not be neces- 
sary for the student to study mining, civil 
and electrical engineering, in schools of 
mining, civil and electrical engineering 
the student is always required to study 
chemistry. 

Chemistry is also the fundamental sci- 

* Extract from presidential address delivered 
by W. D. Halliburton to the Physiological Section 


at the Belfast meeting of the British Association 
for the Advancement of Science. 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


ence in the training of the pharmacist and 
the physician. Take out of the pharma- 
copeia and the materia medica the contri- 
butions which chemistry has made, and 
you have little left but empiricism. 

The remedial principles of plants are 
separated, purified and studied by chem- 
ical means. Synthetic chemistry has 
added to materia medica hundreds of valu- 
able remedies. Standards of purity for 
drugs are fixed by chemical processes. 

Thus we see the importance of chemistry 
in the role of training, not only as a means 
of a liberal education, but also as an ad- 
junct to other scientific professions. 

Let us now consider for a short time 
chemistry in the réle of the higher uni- 
versity instruction or in the graduate 
schools. We now emerge from the region 
where chemistry is studied for education 
and for help, to a region where it is studied 
as a profession. There is no other science 
to my mind, and I think I will be able 
to prove it to you statistically and other- 
wise, which holds the place in the higher 
universities and graduate schools which 
chemistry occupies. Fortunately, I have 
been spared the labor of collation in this 
matter, by an interesting article which ap- 
peared in Scrence for September 5, 1902, 
entitled ‘Doctorates Conferred by Ameri- 
can Universities.’ The doctorate referred 
to is doctor of philosophy, and in most 
instances it was conferred in the graduate 
school of the university mentioned; if not 
it was conferred only as the result of a 
special training in the university itself. 
Twenty-seven universities, representing the 
principal institutions in the United States 
of the university class, enter into the sta- 
tistical data referred to. The period of 
observation extended over five years, from 
1898 to 1902 inclusive. During this period, 
1,158 degrees of doctor of philosophy were 
conferred by the universities mentioned. 
Of this number 568 were conferred for 


SCIENCE. 


847 


purely scientific studies, as distinguished 
from those other studies in universities 
which, I think, are known as the human- 
ities. It was always a mystery to me why 
such studies as chemistry, physics, geol- 
ogy and botany, which lie so near all the 
necessities of life, should be excluded from 
that class which has received such a high- 
sounding name. I think there is more 
humanity in a science which produces 
edible roots than in one which studies 
those of Greek and Latin origin, and more 
philanthropy in the arts which produce 
fuel and clothing than in those which 
bring forth syntax and prosody. But we 
will not stop to quarrel with appellations, 
and if the sciences are not humanities in 
name they are certainly so in fact. 

Thus, of the total number of degrees of 
doctor of philosophy conferred in five 
years, 49.5 per cent. were given in the 
sciences; in round numbers, half of the 
whole number. 

An interesting table is also given of the 
percentage of the degrees conferred in the 
various sciences. We find that of the 568 
degrees of doctor of philosophy conferred 
in the sciences, 137 were granted for the 
study of pure chemistry, 18 for physio- 
logical chemistry and physiology, and 3 
for mineralogical chemistry and mineral- 
ogy. The total number of chemical de- 
grees, therefore, was 158, which is 27.8 per 
cent. of the total number of degrees given 
in the sciences. Compare this number of 
158 with the degrees given in the other 
leading sciences, viz., 68 in physics, 65 in 
zoology, 63 in psychology, 61 in mathe- 
matics, 53 in botany and 32 in geology. 
No other science had as many as 20 de- 
grees, and three had only one each. 

Thus we see the enormous preponderance 
of chemistry in the higher scientific educa- 
tion. It has more than double the number 
of degrees of any other science. It must 
be remembered also that chemistry ig a 


848 


most expensive and most difficult science 
to teach. While other sciences require ex- 
tensive collections of material, these collec- 
tions remain available for all subsequent 
classes. On the other hand, chemistry re- 
quires the most extensive and expensive of 
all scientific laboratories, and the materials 
and fixtures of these laboratories are sub- 
ject.to the severest strain and the greatest 
wear and tear. For this reason, in many 
universities, not only are the students re- 
quired to pay the ordinary fees, but also 
special laboratory fees to cover the wear 
and tear of the materials which they use. 
But in spite of this increased expense, we 
see in this country, and doubtless it is true 
in other countries, that chemistry leads all 
the sciences in the number of students of 
higher learning and secures the lion’s share 
of the degrees of doctor of philosophy. In 
this respect chemistry must be regarded, 
in the light of statisties which are indubi- 
table, as the most important of all the sci- 
ences in the role of the university instruc- 
tion. 

It may be thought by some that the hard 
and eold facts of a science like chemistry 
have a tendency to repress the imagination 
and arrest the development of those facul- 
ties of the mind which create poetry, ro- 
mance and oratory.. There may be some 
foundation in fact to such a suggestion. 
The legitimate functions of the imagina- 
tion are doubtless to supply the data which 
knowledge and experience do not give. 
From this point of view it is evident. that, 
as knowledge advances, the field reserved 
to imagination grows smaller. There is 
little room in the domain of science for the 
rhythm of poetry or the creatures of fancy. 
Yet it must be admitted that many of the 
exact sciences do afford opulent opportuni- 
ties for the exercise of a trained imagina- 
tion. Indeed, so apparent is this fact that 
John Tyndall, one of our great scientists, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 413. 
has written a treatise on the scientific use 
of the imagination. 

It is as difficult to grow eloquent over 
atomic weights and percentage composi- 
tion as over statistics and finance. Ora- 
tory deals with the possible and perhaps 
probable, the ornament rather than the 
reality. Thus it comes that the great 
poets, the great orators, the great painters, 
and, to some extent, the great writers, are 
found in the early history of a people or a 
language. Advancing knowledge clips the 
wings of poesy and pricks the rotund 
phrases of the orator. 

Nevertheless, even in so prosaic a sci- 
ence as chemistry the imagination has 
played no unimportant part. It was the 
genius of a Dalton that first imagined the 
atomic theory. Newlands and Mendeleeft 
pointed out the existence of undiscovered 
elements, and with an imagination as sci- 
entific as it was brilliant assigned those 
missing elements their proper places, and, 
in a measure, described their properties. 
A Rayleigh and a Ramsey saw in the realm 
of nature the probability of a series of 
elements of negative properties, and argon, 
krypton, neon and xenon have been iso- 
lated. The creation of the infinitely at- 
tenuated ether with its vibrant properties 
is purely a result of imagination. Though 
it may be erroneous in conception, it cer- 
tainly has been helpful in classifying the 
phenomena of leght, heat and electricity. 
So, too, the structural formula of mole- 
cules, assigning to atoms and groups of 
atoms a definite position in the molecu- 
lar edifice, has been highly helpful in ex- 
plaining chemical relations and physical 
properties. 

These are only some of the instances 
which show that, even as a training for the 
faney and imagination, chemistry holds no 
insignificant position. 

From the point of utility the réle of 
chemistry in education has no mean place. 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


Unless an educated man can perform some 
service for humanity better than he could 
have done without training, then to this 
extent education is useless. It has been 
said education often spoils a boy. Quite 
true. Food often kills. Water carries 
germs of disease and death and destroys 
thousands. Yet food and water are neces- 
sities. Because education often proves 
powerful for evil is no reason for opposing 
it. What erimes have been committed in 
the name of liberty! What sins in the 
name of religion! It is too late in the 
progress of the world to declare against the 
higher education for this reason, either in 
its purpose or in its results. 

George Sand fifty years ago discussed 
this supposed tendency of science to harden 
the heart and blunt the sensibilities. Fol- 
lowing is a colloquy between Jean Valreg 
and the author: 

Jean Valreg.—‘‘It [society] seeks in 
science applied to industry the ‘kingdom 
of the earth’ and it is en train to acquire 
it. Do you believe then that all these 
ereat efforts to know, of invention and 
activity by which the present age shows 
its riches and manifests its power will 
render it happier and stronger? As for 
myself I doubt it. I do not find the true 
civilization in the improvement of ma- 
chines and in the discovery of processes. 
The day when I learn that every cottage 
has become a palace, I shall pity the human 
race if that palace covers only hearts of 
stone.”’ 

George Sand.—‘‘You are both right and 
wrong. If you take the palace filled with 
vices and excesses as the aim of human 
labor, I am of your-opinion, but if you 
regard the common welfare as the neces- 
sary way to reach intellectual health, and 
the development of the great moral virtues, 
you would not curse this fever of material 
progress which tends to deliver man from 


SCIENCE. 


849 


the ancient servitude of ignorance and 
misery.’ ’* 

Among the useful sciences none com- 
pares with chemistry in nearness to human 
needs and in ability to supply them. We 
have already seen what an important ad- 
junct it is in the study of other sciences. 
Equally potent is it in its relations to 
the useful arts. Many standards may be 
used in measuring the progress of a nation 
and its relative position in respect of other 
countries. Some would gauge its progress 
hy its churches; some by its schools; some 
by the liberties of the people; and some 
by the reverence paid its women. I have 
often said, to descend to more material 
things, that-the most reliable. rule with 
which to measure the progress of a people 
is the quantity of sugar and soap it con- 
sumes. Sugar and soap are only illustra- 
tions of what the chemical arts have done’ 
for man. 

There is scarcely an art into which chem- 
istry does not enter. Iron and steel are 
chemical products; so are paper, pens and 
inks. Textile fabrics and their dyes owe 
almost everything to chemical science. In 
nearly all the manufacturing arts chemistry 
is the chief factor. In the agricultural 
arts it is the dominant science. In Kansas 
chemistry has developed the deposits of 
coal, of oil and gas, of gypsum and building 
stones, of materials for the manufacture 
of cement. Here in this university has 
been made a careful study of your mineral 
waters which cannot fail to bring ma- 
terial profit to your people. The wonder- 
ful fertility of your fields has heretofore 
shown little need of chemical study, but 
you should not lose sight of the fact that 
the continued prosperity and advancement 
of agriculture must depend largely on 
chemical investigations. The conservation 
and increase of plant food, looking to an 
increasing yield of crops, must condition 


* Ta Daniella,’ Vol. I., pp. 13-14. 


890 


any lasting agricultural prosperity. The 
demands on agriculture increase with each 
passing year, and science will show the 
way to make surely productive those areas 
which are now of little value because of 
deficient rainfall. Water is the chemical 
reagent which is most potent in crop pro- 
duction. The chemist and the physicist, 
with the help of the engineer, will show 
the way to its most economical utilization. 
Chemistry will supply the mineral foods 
which the plant needs. In the early his- 
‘tory of a new country we uniformly notice 
the rapid decrease in the fertility of the 
virgin soil. This is due to a system of 
farming little better than robbery. Its 
basic principle is to take from the soil 
everything possible and give nothing in re- 
turn. Necessity finally puts an end to 
such practices and education provides the 
‘means for the inauguration of scientific 
agriculture. Then the exhausted fertility 
of the soil begins to return. The fields 
become more productive and each step in 
advance is retained and becomes the base 
for further progress. We may confidently 
predict that the future years will see 
abundant food for the increasing millions 
of population. Life will have less of labor 
and more of leisure for study and recrea- 
tion. In all the arts which will help in 
the amelioration of the conditions of exist- 
ence, chemistry will enter as an important 
part. 

The state builds well, therefore, in an 
endowment of the kind we celebrate to- 
day. As in astronomy we study the in- 
finitely great, so in chemistry we investi- 
gate the infinitely small. We seek the 
very nature and origin of matter and thus 
come near to those first combinations of 
simple cells which condition the vital 
spark. 

In the early history of the race we find 
men dedicating fountains, groves and tem- 
ples to the worship of mythical deities. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


To-day we set apart churches, schools, li- 
braries and laboratories for the public 
good. 

More than a liberal training, more than 
professional ability and technical skill, are 
those attributes of the man, which make 
him a source of help to the family, the 
community, the municipality and the state. 
Providence in the family, morality in the 
community, public spirit in the munici- 
pality and patriotism in the state are the 
real purposes of all training. To these 
ends the educated man must be a bread- 
winner, of upright conduct, ready to give 
his services to the city and his life to the 
republic. He must know how to produce 
wealth. He must be acquainted with the 
needs of the community. He must under- 
stand the service he is to render to the 
municipality and have that enlightened 
patriotism which, while not separating him 
from a political party, acts first of all for 
the good of the whole people. The future 
years will find the leaders of the people 
among the graduates of the universities, 
because if the universities are not remiss 
in their duties, their graduates will be bet- 
ter fitted for leadership. There is no talis- 
man inadiploma. Only ability will count. 
We recognize the important contributions 
which all branches of learning will make 
to this equipment of the successful man of 
the coming years. In dedicating this 
building to chemical science it has seemed 
only meet to point out some of the ways 
in which our science may aid in the work. 

H. W. Wiey. 


U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 


THE HUXLEY LECTURE ON RECENT 
STUDIES OF IMMUNITY WITH SPECIAL 
REFERENCE TO THEIR BEARING 
ON PATHOLOGY. 


II. 


Tur methods hitherto employed for the 
study of bacterial poisons have not gener- 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. | 


ally been calculated to reveal the presence 
of toxins with the characters indicated, 
even if such existed in the cultures. Re- 
cently, however, a beginning has been made 
in this direction, and we have already be- 
come acquainted with certain toxins of an 
interesting nature, to which I desire to 
direct your attention. 

Intrinsically and in their general bear- 
ing upon the subject before us, the recent 
investigations of Flexner and Noguchi upon 
the constitution of the toxins in snake 
venom are of special importance. It 
was in snake venom that Weir Mitchell 
and Reichert first demonstrated the ex- 
istence of that class of poisons often 
called, although with doubtful propriety, 
toxie albumins. Investigations of snake 
toxins are of peculiar interest for many 
reasons, not the least of which is their 
resemblance to bacterial toxins. The 
demonstration by Sewall of the possi- 
bility of active immunization from venom, 
and the further studies by Calmette and 
by Fraser of this phenomenon, and espe- 
cially of the protective and curative prop- 
erties of antivenin are well known. 

Until recently it has been generally held 
that the venom toxins resemble in molec- 
ular structure the diphtheria and the te- 
tanus toxins in being single bodies with a 
combining or haptophore group and a toxo- 
phore group of atoms. The researches of 
Flexner and Noguchi, now in progress, of 
which only the first part has been pub- 
lished,* necessitate a quite different con- 
ception of the nature and manner of action 
of venom toxins from that previously en- 
tertained. I have followed with great in- 
terest the work of Professor Flexner on 
toxins, begun several years ago in my labo- 
ratory when he was my assistant and asso- 
ciate, and since continued along new lines 


* Flexner and Noguchi, ‘Snake Venom in Rela- 
tion to Hemolysis, Bacteriolysis and Toxicity,’ 
Journal of Experimental Medicine, March 17, 
1902, Vol. VI., p. 277. 


SCIENCE. 


851 


in his laboratory at the University of Penn- 
sylvania, and I wish to acknowledge his 
generosity in permitting me to use in this 
lecture certain unpublished results of his 
and Noguchi’s investigations. 

These investigations have shown that the 
toxic action of venom upon red blood cor- 
puscles, leucocytes, nerve cells and other 
cells is like that of the duplex cytotoxins 
already described—that is, it depends upon 
the combination of intermediary bodies con- 
tained in the venom, on the one hand with 
the animal cells for which these bodies 
respectively have affinities, and on the 
other hand with corresponding comple- 
ments contained, not in the venom, but in 
the cells or fluids of the animal acted on. 
For example, it is well known that the 
addition of venoms to fresh blood brings 
about the quick destruction and solution of 
the red corpuscles. If, however, certain 
venoms be added to red corpuscles which 
have been thoroughly washed with isotonic 
salt solution so as to remove all the comple- 
ment, the corpuscles are agglutinated but 
not dissolved, although it can be shown 
that substances from the venom (inter- 
mediary bodies) have entered into com- 
bination with the corpuscles. If now a 
little fresh serum which contains the com- 
plement, and by itself may be an excellent 
preservative of normal corpuscles, be added 
to these venomized corpuscles, they are 
promptly dissolved. 

Preston Kyes, working in Professor 
Ehrlich’s laboratory, in an investigation 
just published* on the mode of action of 
cobra venom, confirms the conclusion of 
Flexner and Noguchi concerning the am- 
boceptor nature of cobra venom, and adds 

* Preston Kyes, ‘ Ueber die Wirkungsweise des 
Cobragiftes,’ Berl. klin. Woch., 1902, Nos. 38 and 
39. Iam greatly indebted to my fri.nd Professor 
Ehrlich and to my former pupil Dr. Kyes for 
putting me in possession of the main results of 


these interesting experiments before the date of 
their publication. 


852 


much that is new and important to our 
knowledge of this subject. He finds that 
the washed blood corpuscles of certain ani- 
mals are directly dissolved by cobra venom, 
while those of other animal species require 
the subsequent addition of complements 
or adjuvants to bring them-under the in- 
fluence of the venom. But even in the 
former case a complementary body is es- 
sential to the reaction, this, however, being 
not a serum complement, but an endocom- 
plement contained within the red cor- 
puscles. Of great significance is the 
demonstration by Kyes of still a third sub- 
stance, namely lecithin, which is capable 
through combination with the venom inter- 
mediary body of completing the hemolytic 
potency of venom.* The discovery for 
the first time of a definite, crystallizable 
substance with the power of uniting, like 
a complement, with an intermediary body, 
and thus completing the formation of a 

cytotoxin, is evidently of fundamental im- 
2 portance. The suggestion by Ehrlich and 
Kyes that possibly the cholin group is the 
toxophore group of lecithin is particularly 
interesting in the hight of F. W. Mott’s 
valuable studies of chemical processes con- 
cerned in degenerations of the nervous 
system. 

The researches of Flexner and Noguchi 
and of Kyes, therefore, have taught us that 
in poisoning by venom the bodies of human 
beings and of animals contain in the form 
of complements, or alexins} as they are also 
called, the substances which are most di- 


*The objections made by Calmette (Compt. 
Rend. Acad. des Se., 1902, T. CXXXIV., No. 24) 
to Flexner and Noguchi’s interpretation of their 
experiments as to the amboceptor nature of venom 
have been completely overthrown by the experi- 
ments of Preston Kyes. 

+ There is some objection to the use o the term 
“alexin’ as a synonym for ‘complement’ as the 
former was applied originally by Buchner to sub- 
stances which we now know to be combinations 
of complements with intermediary bodies. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


rectly concerned in the act of poisoning. 
The venom serves merely to bring into the 
necessary relation with constituents of the 
body cells poisons we already harbor or 
may generate, but which are harmless with- 
out the intervention of intermediary bodies. 
These’ poisons within us are powerful 
weapons, which when seized by hostile 
hands may be turned with deadly effect 
against our own cells, but which are also 
our main defence against parasitic in- 
vaders. We see here as everywhere that 
nature is neither kind nor cruel, but sim- 
ply obedient to law. 

Flexner and Noguchi have demonstrated 
experimentally that, like the hemolytic, so 
also the leukotoxic, the neurotoxic, and 
other cytotoxic properties of venom de- 
pend upon combinations of venom inter- 
mediary bodies with complements contained 
in the cells poisoned by venom or in the 
fluids bathing these eells. Particularly 
striking are their experiments showing in 
vitro and under the microscope the eyto- 


lytic action of cobra venom upon certain 


large mollusean nerve cells in the fresh 
state. The complement essential to this 
reaction is contained within the nerve cells. 
In previous experiments of Flexner and 
Noguchi there had been indications that a 
special class of intracellular complements 
are concerned in some of the toxie effects 
of venom upon eells. The positive de- 
monstration by Preston Kyes of a special 
class of intercellular complements or en- 
docomplements is unquestionably of great 
pathological interest, and seems destined to 
play an important part in the explanation 
of many morbid conditions in connection 
both with endogenie and with exogenie in- 
toxications, probably also in such _phe- 
nomena as self-digestion or autolysis. 
Snake venom is a rich mine of diverse 
toxins, and, on account of its pathological 
importance, I must mention one of the 
cytotoxins discovered there by Flexner and 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902.] 


Noguchi, as it may be that a similar toxin 
is produced by certain bacteria, and under 
still other conditions. As is well known, 
one of the most striking lesions resulting 
from poisoning by certain venoms is the 
oceurrence of abundant hemorrhages in 
various tissues of the body. This effect 
has been generally attributed to the direct 
action of venom on the red corpuscles and 
on the coagulability of the blood, but the 
experiments of Flexner and Noguchi indi- 
eate that these haemorrhages are due to the 
presence in venom of a cytotoxin which has 
the power ot dissolving endothelial cells— 
in other words, an endotheliolysin. Dr. 
Flexner suggests the name ‘hemorrhagin’ 
for this special toxin which causes extra- 
vasations of blood through its direct solvent 
action upon eapillary endothelium, an 
effect which is readily demonstrated under 
the microscope. It is hardly necessary for 
me to stop to emphasize the clinical and 
pathological importance of the discovery 
of an endotheliotoxin, a kind of poison 
which may prove to be of special signifi- 
cance in the interesting group of hemor- 
rhagie infections, and perhaps also in pur- 
pura and kindred affections. 

The foregoing newly-discovered facts, 
which I have sketched only in bare outline, 
illustrate in a striking way the fruitfulness 
of methods and conceptions which we owe 
to recent studies of immunity. The results 
of these investigations, however, are signifi- 
cant beyond the mere facts disclosed, impor- 
tant as these are. They have for the first 
time revealed in normal toxic secretions, 
readily introduced under conditions of 
nature into the tissues of man and animals, 
cellular poisons akin to the complex hemo- 
lysins, neurotoxins, and other cytotoxins of 
immune and some normal serums, which 
have aroused so much interest and experi- 
mental study during the past four years. 
The most noticeable difference between the 
venom ecytotoxins and those hitherto ob- 


SCIENCE. 


853 


served in immune serum is the far greater 
resistance to heat of the intermediary 
bodies of the former; but we are already 
acquainted with considerable variations in 
the sensitiveness to heat both of different 
intermediary bodies and of complements. 
That snake venom should contain only one 
half of the complete poison, the other and 
the really destructive half being widely 
distributed in the blood and cells of man 
and of animals, is an instance of a curious 
kind of adaptation, of interest from evolu- 
tionary, as well as from other points of 
view. ; 

In consideration of the often emphasized 
analogies between venom toxins and bac- 
terial toxins, these facts render it highly 
desirable to make a systematic search of 
bacterial cultures by proper methods and 
under suitable conditions for complex eyto- 
toxins. At present substances of this na- 
ture are not known to exist in our cultures. 
There have been discovered, however, 
within the past three or four years certain 
bacterial toxins which have a curious. re- 
semblance in some of their properties to 
the complex antibodies of blood, although, 
so far as they have been carefully studied, 
they appear to have the simpler constitu- 
tion of the soluble toxins, like those of 
diphtheria and of tetanus. I refer to the 
bacterial heemolysins, leucolysins, hemag- 
elutinins, precipitins and coagulins. There 
is no reason to suppose that this lst ex- 
hausts the number of those actually pres- 
ent, for it is evident that it includes chiefly 
bodies readily demonstrable in test-tube ex- 
periments. It would be surprising if eyto- 
toxins which act specifically upon red and 
white corpuscles were the only ones of this 
class produced by bacteria; in fact, we 
have every reason from pathological ob- 
servations to believe the contrary. 

It has become evident that more refined 
methods than mere observation of the 
coarse effects of injecting into animals 


854 


the filtrates or the killed bacteria of 
our cultures are required for the detec- 
tion of the subtler and more specific cel- 
lular poisons. Instances are rapidly in- 
creasing in which by improved methods 
cultures of bacterial species once believed 
to be practically devoid of toxicity are 
found after all not to be so poor in toxins, 
even of the soluble variety. - One of the 
earliest and most instructive illustrations 
of this is the discovery by Van De Velde 
of a leucocyte-destroying poison, named 
leucocidin, in exudates caused by infection 
with Staphylococcus aureus, and also in 
filtrates of staphylococcus cultures, which 
had been previously regarded as almost en- 
tirely free of toxic power. 

More widely distributed in cultures of 
different species of bacteria are the hemo- 
lysins, of which the first example, discov- 
ered in 1898 by Ehrlich in cultures of the 
tetanus bacillus, was carefully studied by 
Madsen the following year, and which have 
since been investigated by Kraus with 
Clairmont and with Ludwig, Bulloch and 
Hunter, Neisser and Wechsberg, Todd, 
Besredka and others. The list of bacterial 
species known to produce in cultures sub- 
stances of this nature capable of dissolving 
red blood corpuscles is already a long one, 
and includes the bacilli of tetanus, of green 
pus, of typhoid fever, of acute dysentery, 
of diphtheria, of plague, the pyogenic 
staphylococci and streptococci, the pneumo- 
coecus, and many other bacteria. Nuttall 
and I noted in our first descriptions of Ba- 
cillus aerogenes capsulatus over ten years 
ago its capacity of laking blood, so that I 
was not surprised to find recently that a 
hemolysin ean be demonstrated in cultures 
of this organism. The blood-destroying 
' property appears to stand in no definite 
relation to virulence, nor is it limited to 
pathogenic bacteria. It pertains also to 
many putrefactive bacteria. The strongest 
bacterial hemolysin hitherto observed was 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


found by Todd in cultures of Bacillus 
megatheriwm, which is a widely distributed 
saprophyte. 

As already stated, none of these bodies 
has been shown to belong to the class of 
complex hemolysins in blood, which have 
been far more exhaustively investigated 
than any other of the specific antibodies. 
Doubtless there is at present among bac- 
teriologists too great a tendency to attribute 
to the less carefully studied antibodies char- 
acters which have been worked out in detail 
only for the hemolysins of immune serum. 
It would lead too far to attempt here a 
discussion of the special characters of the 
various bacterial hemolysins, which present 
in different specimens curious and at pres- 
ent unexplained divergences as regards re- 
sistance to heat and several other prop- 
erties. It must suffice to indicate briefly 
what is known of the pathological impor- 
tance of this interesting group of bacterial 
toxins. 

In view of the abundant clinical and 
pathological evidence of extensive destruc- 
tion of red corpuscles in the course of 
many infectious diseases, it is certainly 
significant to find that many bacteria are 
endowed with a specific haemolytic power. 
The question is how far we are justified in 
applying to the actual conditions of infec- 
tion the existing experimental data upon 
this subject. Assuredly here, as every- 
where, results of test-tube experiments, 
helpful in suggestion as they may be, 
should not be utilized without further evi- 
dence to explain morbid phenomena within 
the infected human or animal body. While 
much more work upon this subject is needed 
before our information will be exact or 
complete, the observations and experiments 
of Besredka,* Kraus and Ludwig,+ and 


* Besredka, Annales de l Institut Pasteur, 1901, 
XV., p. 880. 

{ Kraus and Ludwig, Wien. klin. Woch., 1902, 
p- 382. 


NovEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


others have already demonstrated that bac- 
teria may exert their blood-destroying 
power within the living body. This 
hemolytic capacity of microorganisms af- 
fords an explanation, although certainly 
not the only one, of the secondary anzemias 
which are such a marked feature of many 
infectious diseases, as streptococcic and 
other septicemias, pneumonia, typhoid 
fever, scarlatina, and others. The hemo- 
globinuria which is a recognized although 
rare complication of various infectious dis- 
eases may be referable to intoxication with 
unusually powerful bacterial hemolysins, 
or to an exceptional lack of resistance of 
red corpuscles. 

Hemoglobin, however, is not necessarily 
present in solution in the blood plasma, 
for the destruction of the damaged red 
corpuscles may take place within the large 
phagocytes of the spleen and the hemo- 
lymph glands, as is well known to occur on 
an extensive scale in typhoid fever and 
some other infections. A familiar ex- 
ample of the action of bacterial hemolysins 
is the post-mortem reddening of the inner, 
lining of the heart and blood vessels, an 
effect which may be due to putrefactive 
bacteria or may appear very soon after 
death, especially from septicemia caused 
by Streptococcus pyogenes, which, as has 
been shown, may lake the blood during life. 

The fact that certain common saprophy- 
tic bacteria may produce energetic hxemo- 
lysins, as pointed out by Kraus and Clair- 
mont and by Todd, has a possible bearing 
upon the etiology of certain obscure 
anemias not of infectious origin, particu- 
larly upon the interesting observations and 
the theory of William Hunter concerning 
their causation by absorption of toxins 
from the alimentary tract. Todd found 
cultures of Bacillus megatherium so 
strongly hemolytic that the intravenous 
injection of 1 ec. of the filtrate into 
guinea-pigs was followed by hamoglobin- 


SCIENCE. 


855 


uria, 10 ¢.c. being fatal. Human red cor- 
puscles are sensitive to this hemolysin. 

Normal human and other blood serums 

contain in varying amounts antihemo- 
lysins, which protect the red corpuscles 
from the action of some of the bacterial 
hemolytie agents. Specific antihzemo- 
lysins are readily produced by immunizing 
injections of bacterial hemolysins, and are 
generated also in the course of infections. 
Lang suggests that the augmentation. of 
the osmotic resistance of the erythrocytes 
which has been noted in some infectious 
diseases, as well as in icterus and some other 
morbid conditions, may be a reactive phe- 
nomenon caused by the presence of hemo- 
lytic toxins. 
_ Intimately associated with the hemo- 
lysins in cultures are the bacterial hemag- 
glutinins,* substances which have the power 
to elump red blood corpuscles. Among 
unicellular organisms both the capacity to 
produce agglutinins and the aptitude for 
agglutination seem to be very widely dis- 
tributed. The bacterial hemagglutinins, 
in analogy with the bacterial hemolysins, 
are apparently of simpler constitution than 
the serum agglutinins, being destroyed at 
58° C., whereas the latter are not injured 
by temperatures under 70° C. In order 
to demonstrate in cultures the hemagglu- 
tinins it is generally necessary to eliminate 
in some way the action of the associated 
hemolysins, which can be done by using 
small quantities of thé culture fluid or by 
keeping the mixture of fluid and red cor- 
pusceles at zero temperature. 

I know of no observation directly de- 
monstrative of the action of bacterial 
hemagglutinins within the living body in 
infections, but this subject is of such recent 
knowledge that it has been as yet scarcely 
investigated. Certainly there are morbid 
conditions which seem highly indicative of 


* Kraus and Ludwig, Wien. klin. Woch., 1902, 
p. 120. 


856 


the operation of substances agglutinative 
of red corpuscles. Probably every one 
with large experience in the examination 
ef fresh blood in disease has noticed that 
sometimes red corpuscles, examined im- 
mediately after withdrawal of the blood, 
have a peculiar tendeney to form clumps 
which cannot readily be broken up. This 
phenomenon, which is certainly suggestive 
of the action of an agglutinating agent, I 
have observed especially in some cases of 
septic infections and of cirrhosis of the 
liver. 

Furthermore, I would emphasize the sup- 
port given by the recognition of haemag- 
glutinins to views advocated many years 
ago by Hueter and by Klebs concerning the 
occurrence of thrombi composed of coa; 
lesced red blood corpuscles. Such thrombi 
I believe to be not uncommon in typhoid 
fever and. other infections, especially in 
small blood vessels. I have elsewhere called 
attention to the evidence in favor of the 
interpretation of many of the hyaline 
thrombi as derived from agglutinated red 
corpuscles. : 

It can scarcely be doubted that sub- 
stances agelutinative of white blood cor- 
puscles are also produced by certain bac- 
teria, and that these are concerned in the 
clumping of pus cells and of leucocytes 
within the living body, but it would not be 
profitable to discuss this matter without 
more exact information than we . now 
possess. 

In this connection I may say that not 
only the discovery of the bacterial hamag- 
glutinins, but also that of the haemolysins 
and the leucolysins, is likely to shed new 
light upon certain aspects of the difficult 
subject of thrombosis. The red corpuscles 
undergo various morphological changes un- 
der the influence of different bacterial 
hemolysins acting with varying intensity. 
Distortions of shape, throwing out of pro- 
jections, and detachment of colorless par- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


ticles resembling platelets, can sometimes 
be seen. ‘These observations are of special 
interest .with reference to the doctrine, 
already strongly supported, that platelet 
thrombi originate from disintegrated red 
corpuscles. Levaditi, and Neisser and 
Wechsberg, have deseribed, as the result 
of intravenous injections of Staphylococcus 
aureus, areas of coagulative necrosis in the 
rabbit’s kidney, which they attribute to 
thrombi composed of disintegrated leu- 
eocytes caused by the staphylococcus leu- 
cocidin, to which I have already referred. 

I-have dwelt at some length, although of 
necessity Mcompletely, upon the bacterial 
hemolysins, leucocidins and. hemagelutin- 
ins, because we are better informed about 
these agents than concerning other mem- 
bers of this recently recognized class of 
bacterial toxins. I have already expressed 
the opinion that similar poisons acting spe- 
cifically upon other cells of the body are 
produced by bacteria; indeed neurotoxins 
and nephrotoxins of this type have been 
reported. The difficulties in the way of 
direct proof of the existence of these other 
bacterial cytotoxins are greater than in the 
ease of those acting upon the red and the 
white blood corpuscles, but doubtless they 
can be overcome. Of course we have evi- 
dence of the action of bacterial poisons 
upon various body cells, but this is not 
enough. At present we can apply only in 
a vague and unsatisfactory way to the ex- 
planation of pathological processes most of 
the knowledge of this kind which we pos- 
What is urgently needed is a separa- 
tion of these poisons and a determination 
of their source, constitution, mode of action 
and degree of specificity along such lines 
as have been followed so fruitfully in the 
investigation of the soluble diphtheria and 
tetanus toxins, those other toxins of bae- 
teria and of venom already considered, 
and the cytotoxins of normal and of im- 
mune serum. The path leading apparently 


Sess. 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


in the right direction has already been 
opened, and, if I mistake not, its further 
pursuit 1s most promising of valuable re- 
sults in the near future. 

Consider by way of illustration how 
helpless we now are in our efforts to ex- 
plain the characteristic lesions of typhoid 
fever on the basis of our knowledge of the 
properties of the typhoid bacillus. That 
these lesions are referable to the action of 
toxins cannot, I think, be seriously ques- 
tioned. Especially from the investigations 
of Mallory, we know that the most charac- 
teristic histological changes of this disease 
consist in the proliferation of the reticular 
or so-called endothelial cells of the lym- 
phatie tissue of the intestine and the 
mesenteric glands and of similar cells in 
the splenic pulp, and in the assumption by 
these proliferated cells of remarkable pha- 
eoeytic activities towards the lymphocytes 
in the former situations and towards the 
red corpuscles in the spleen. Mallory be- 
lieves that these changes are best inter- 
preted by supposing that the typhoid toxin 
directly stimulates to proliferation the 
endothelial cells, which then devour their 
offspring, the lymphocytes, and the red 
corpuscles. 

I have suggested as another explanation 
that the typhoid bacillus produces a lym- 
phoeytotoxin and a hemolysin, and that 
the proliferation of the fixed cells is partly 
compensatory and partly for the increased 
production of macrophages. We already 
know that this bacillus generates a hemo- 
lytic agent, and we also know that one of 
the effects of injection of hemolysins is 
to increase greatly the number of macro- 
phages containing red corpuscles in the 
spleen. 

Through the kindness of Professor Flex- 
ner I have had the opportunity of study- 
ing the extraordinary changes produced 
in all the lymphatic glands and in the bone 
marrow of rabbits by injections of lympho- 


SCIENCE. 


857 


toxic or myelotoxic serum obtained by 
treating a goose with lymphatic or marrow 
tissue of the rabbit. One of the most 
striking effects of this poison for lympho- 
eytes and other leucocytes is the very ex- 
tensive proliferation of the reticulum cells 
in the lymphatic nodes and of the marrow 
cells. In the light of these observations 
it is clear that a positive demonstration 
of the production of a lymphotoxin by the 
typhoid bacillus would materially advance 
our understanding of the morbid anatomy 
of typhoid fever. Another lesion of this 
disease, only second in importance to those 
mentioned, is the occurrence of plugging 
of the small vessels. Dr. Fisher, in my 
laboratory, has recently shown that such 
thromboses are produced by the experi- 
mental inoculation of rabbits with the 
typhoid bacillus. I have already pointed 
out that many of these plugs are agglutina- 
tive thrombi. 

Of course infectious diseases other than 
typhoid fever could also be cited, did time 
permit, as equally forcible illustrations of 
the aid which pathology may reasonably 
expect from more precise knowledge of the 
bacterial cellular poisons. It is probable 
that such knowledge will lead to improve- 
ments in the quality for therapeutical pur- 
poses of the so-called bacteriolytic serums, 
some of which, as now prepared, are not 
so wholly devoid of antitoxiec properties as 
is often represented. We may also antici- 
pate from investigations of the character 
indicated much light upon one of the most 
puzzling of bacteriological problems—the 
localization of bacteria in disease. Toxic 
lesions and the plugging of small blood 
vessels are certainly often of decisive in- 
fluence in determining this localization, as 
has been demonstrated especially for the 
staphylococcus pyzemias by Musceatello and 
Ottaviano.* 


*Muscatello and Ottaviano, Virchow’s Archiv, 
1901, CLXVI., p. 212. : 


858 


The toxins to which I have chiefly di- 
rected your, attention in this lecture are 
those produced by bacteria. But, as al- 
ready pointed out, we now know that the 
animal body has the power to produce spe- 
cific poisons directed not only against in- 
vading bacterial cells, but also against all 
sorts of foreign cells. Following the dis- 
covery by Belfanti and Carbone in 1898 
of this capacity in relation to injections 
of blood a wholly new domain of biology 
has been opened to experimental research. 
Attention has been withdrawn for the 
moment to a considerable extent from the 
bacterial toxins and concentrated upon the 
animal ecytotoxins. Here new facts and 
conceptions of absorbing interest have been 
disclosed in an abundance and with a 
rapidity which are simply bewildering. 

It was my original design to include in 
this lecture a consideration in some detail 
of these animal cytotoxins, but so much 
time has been occupied with other aspects 
of the subject that I am compelled to 
abandon this intention. This is perhaps 
less to be regretted, inasmuch as I under- 
stand the main purpose of these lectures to 
be the presentation of applications to medi- 
cine and surgery of scientific discovery, 
and it is precisely this side of the recent 
work on animal ecytotoxins which seems to 
me in the main not yet ripe for profitable 
discussion on this occasion. It is true that 
facts of much scientific and practical in- 
terest have been discovered by the investi- 
gations, initiated by Shattock and by Griin- 
baum, followed by Landsteiner, Ascoli, 
Hisenberg, Kraus and Ludwig and others 
concerning the isoagglutinative and isolytic 
properties of human serums in health and 
in disease. 

But the really great practical questions 
in this domain relate to the production 
of autocytotoxins in the human and the 
animal body. What is the nature of that 
very efficient regulatory mechanism under- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


lying the horror autotoxicus (Ehrlich) 
which prevents either the action or the 
formation of autocytotoxins in consequence 
of absorption of our own degenerated and 
dead eells? Can this protective mechan- 
ism be overthrown by pathological states 
and self-generated cellular poisons become 
operative in the causation of anemias, 
hemoglobinurias, chronic interstitial in- 
flammations, uremia, eclampsia, epilepsy 
and other diseases? To these and similar 
important questions the existing experi- 
mental data seem to me too insufficient and 
inconclusive to furnish any decisive answer 
at present. I share, however, the hope and 
belief of many that here is a field for ex- 
ploration which, although surrounded with 
many difficulties, gives promise of discov- 
eries of a far-reaching and important na- 
ture. I anticipate that some future Hux- 
ley lecturer will find in this realm a 
fascinating theme. 

In this connection may be mentioned 
the great pathological interest pertaining 
to the recent investigations of Jacoby, Con- 
radi and others on the phenomena of self- 
digestion or autolysis of inflammatory exu- 
dates and necrotic material within the 
living body. One can readily convince 
himself of the energetic action of autolytic 
ferments by the simple experiment of 
placing a piece of fresh pneumonic lung 
in the stage of gray hepatization under 
chloroform and noting the rapid solution 
of the exudate, in contrast with the absence 
of this process in earlier stages of the dis- 
ease. Conradi finds that bactericidal sub- 
stances, to which he attaches much impor- 
tance, are produced in tissues and cellular 
exudates undergoing autolysis. 

Although my theme relates especially to 
the bearing of studies of immunity on 
pathology, it is hardly necessary to say 
that these studies were primarily under- 
taken to elucidate the great problems of 
predisposition and resistance to disease, 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


and that in this field they have borne their 
richest fruits. It is especially gratifying 
to note the close convergence of the two 
doctrines of immunity, the cellular and the 
humoral, brought about by these recent 
discoveries. On the one hand the phago- 
eytie school, represented so brilliantly by 
Metchnikoff and his coworkers in the Pas- 
teur Institute, recognize and apply to the 
fullest extent in the explanation of ac- 
quired immunity the cytolytic principles 
based upon the cooperative action of inter- 
mediary bodies and complements. On the 
other hand the humoral school, led by our 
German confréres, which has been so fruit- 
ful in results of the greatest scientific and 
practical value, recognize the cells, and es- 
pecially the leucocytes and other cells of 
the blood-forming organs, as the immediate 
source of the protective substances. There 
are many differences in details, especially 
in terminology and in interpretation, which 
make the divergence seem greater than it 
really is. The essential difference between 
the two schools concerns the place where 
the two forces, intermediary body and com- 
plement, unite. All are agreed that the 
intermediary body exists free in the blood 
plasma, but Metchnikoff strenuously in- 
sists, especially on the basis of Gengou’s 
experiments, that the complement or cytase 
is within the leucocytes, from which it is 
not secreted but can be liberated only 
through damage to these cells. This ques- 
tion certainly needs further investigation 
before it can be regarded as settled. 

The deeper insight which we have re- 
cently gained into the nature of the forces 
concerned in immunity makes especially 
desirable the systematic study of the blood 
and other fluids of human beings in health 
and in disease with reference to their con- 
tent of specific antibodies, particularly of 
the bactericidal substances. It can scarcely 
be doubted that knowledge of this kind will 
be in various ways of practical value to the 


SCIENCE. 


‘infection upon the 


859 


physician and surgeon. The simplest pro- 
cedure, and the one hitherto generally 
adopted, is the estimation of the bacteri- 
cidal power of the blood serum in toto. 
For this purpose Professor Wright* has 
devised an ingenious method which in his 
hands has furnished extremely interesting 
information concerning variations in the 
bactericidal power of the blood as regards 
the typhoid bacillus in health, under the 
influence of fatigue, in the course of ty- 
phoid fever and after antityphoid inocula- 
tions. The older methods, however, while 
not without value, do not inform us of the 
total content of the blood in immunizing 
substances, and have led to very discordant 
results, particularly as to the influence of 
bactericidal power. 
Thus Conradit finds, in opposition to most 
previous experimenters as well as to the 
later results of Wilde, that infection with 
the anthrax bacillus does not at any stage 
influence materially the bactericidal prop- 
erties of the blood. 

A useful and readily applicable method 
for the determination separately of the in- 
termediary bodies and of the complements 
of human serum is urgently needed. When 
one takes into consideration the plurality ° 
of complements and of intermediary bodies, 
the fallacies of interpretation which may 
arise from failure to take account of anti- 
complements, of anti-immune bodies, of 
complementoids, of amboceptoids, of devi- 
ation (Ablenkung) of complements, and 
other principles in this complicated subject, 
it is clear that the problem is not an easy 
one. 

Notwithstanding these difficulties, work 
has already begun along these new lines, 
and has led to interesting results. We 


* A, E. Wright, Lancet, 1898, I., p. 95; 1900, 
IL, p. 1556; 1901, I., pp. 609 and 1532, and 1901, 
II., p. 715. 

~ Conradi, Zeitschrift fiir Hygiene, 
XXXIV., p. 185; 1901, XXXVIII., p. 411. 


1900, 


860 


know that the content of the blood in 
specific antibodies, and especially in com- 
plements, varies in significant ways under 
diverse conditions, as in infaney and in 
adult life, in health, in different states of 
nutrition, under the influence of fatigue, 
of inanition, of pain, of interference with 
respiration, of alcohol, and in disease. The 
infant comes into the world with protective 
antibodies in the blood smaller in amount 
and less energetic than those possessed by 
the healthy adult. It is an important func- 
tion of the mother to transfer to the suck- 
ling through her milk immunizing bodies, 
and the infant’s stomach has the capacity, 
which is afterwards lost, of absorbing these 
substances in an active state. The relative 
richness of the suckling’s blood in protec- 
tive antibodies, as contrasted with the arti- 
ficially-fed infant, explains the greater 
freedom of the former from infectious dis- 
eases. 

The important question of the influence 
of preexistent disease in predisposing to in- 
feetion has been brought nearer to a solu- 
tion by recent studies of immunity. 
Schiitze and Scheller* have demonstrated 
that, while the normal rabbit promptly re- 
generates the complements used up in con- 
sequence of the injection of hemolytic 
serum, a rabbit infected with the hog 
cholera bacillus has lost this capacity. My 
former pupil, Dr. Longcope, has kindly 
placed at my disposal the unpublished re- 
sults of an investigation which he is mak- 
ing under Professor Flexner’s direction at 
the Pennsylvania Hospital of the inter- 
mediary bodies and the complements in 
human blood in different diseases. Colon 
and typhoid bacilli are used as the tests, 
as, unless one accepts Bordet’s doctrine of 
the unity of complements, it is more im- 
portant for the study of problems of in- 
fection to determine bacteriolytie rather 


* Schtitze and Scheller, Zeitschrift fiir Hygiene, 
1901, XXXVI., pp. 270 and 459. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


than hemolytic antibodies. One of the 
earliest results of the systematie bacterio- 
logical examinations which we make at all 
necropsies at the Johns Hopkins Hospital 
was the recognition of the great frequency 
of terminal infections, formerly often un- 
detected by the clinician, in chronic dis- 
eases, particularly of the heart, the blood 
vessels, and the kidneys. Dr. Longeope 
finds, although not regularly, still in many 
eases of these diseases a marked reduction 
in the quantity of complements, which 
may amount to a total loss of the colon 
complements. The analysis of the cases 
brings out unmistakably a definite relation 
between this loss of complement and the 
predisposition to infection. 

The study of a series of acute infections, 
chiefly of a surgical nature, shows that in 
the course of the infection complements 
are being constantly used up and regen- 
erated, and that at any given time there 


“may be an excess or a reduction of the bac- 


teriolytic power of the blood. Thus far it 
has been found impossible in these acute 
infections to attach any prognostic signi- 
ficance to the amount of complement or of 
bacteriolytic power, nor could any definite 
relation be determined between the leu- 
ecocyte count and the content of comple- 
ments. 

Although we have traversed, gentlemen, 
in this lecture a path which I fear has 
seemed to you a long and winding one, 
I am conscious that I have been able to 
point out the features of the prospect only 
imperfectly and incompletely. The ex- 
tent and the richness in details have been 
embarrassing. I trust, however, that I 
have been able to indicate in some measure 
the great interest and importance to biol- 
ology, to physiology, to pathology, to every 
department of medical science and art of 
investigations which have led to a deeper 
insight into certain manifestations of cell- 
ular life. What has been conquered by 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902.] 


these investigations is simply a bit of new 
territory pertaining to the intimate life of 
the cells, and we find here, as whenever we 
are able to penetrate deeper into this life, 
that there comes a flood of new light into 
every department of biology., The re- 
searches on immunity, which to some of 
short vision once seemed to threaten the 
foundations of cellular pathology, have 
served only to strengthen them. These 
researches, which have already led to the 
saving of thousands of human lives, and 
will lead to the saving of untold thousands 
more, have been carried on by the experi- 
mental method, and can be conducted in 
no other way. This method is as essential 
for the advancement of medical science as 
for that of any of the natural or physical 
sciences. To restrict unnecessarily and 
unjustifiably its use is nothing short of a 
erime against humanity. It is an evidence 
of the robust vitality of English physiology 
and medicine that in spite of unwarrant- 
able obstacles thrown in their path their 
contributions to science in recent years 
have been so numerous and so important. 
The influence of English thought and ac- 
tion is great with us in America. See to 
it, my colleagues and men of science in the 
British Isles, that you retain for yourselves 
and hand down to your successors, at least 
without further impairment, the means of 
promoting medical knowledge and thus of 
benefiting mankind. 


WiuuiAM H. WeELcH. 
JOHNS HopKins UNIVERSITY. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

International Catalogue of Scientific Litera- 

ture; first annual issue—M, Botany. Pub- 

lished for the International Council by the 

Royal Society of London. London, Har- 

rison & Sons, 45 St. Martin’s Lane. Vol. 

T., Part I. May, 1902. 

For some years the Royal Society has had 
under consideration the preparation of a com- 
plete index of current scientific literature, 


SCIENCE. 


861 


which now has materialized to the extent of a 
thick pamphlet of 378 pages, designated as 
‘part I., of volume I.’ The part before us 
is devoted to botany, and from it we may 
make an estimate of the probable value of 
the complete work. The preface discusses 
the magnitude of the undertaking, and the 
inadequacy of a mere authors’ catalogue, 
scientific workers needing subject indexes as 
well. This task being far greater than the 
Royal Society alone could undertake, interna- 
tional cooperation was sought, resulting in a 
conference of delegates in London, July, 1896. 
At this conference ‘it was unanimously re- 
solved that it was desirable to compile and 
publish, by means of an international organ- 
ization, a complete catalogue of scientific 
literature, arranged according both to subject 
matter and to authors’ names, in which regard 
should be had, in the first instance, to the re- 
quirements of scientific investigators, so that 
these might find out, with a minimum of 
trouble, what had been published on any par- 
ticular subject of inquiry.’ 

Subsequent conferences were held in 1898 
and 1900, the result being the appointment 
of an international council, the establishment: 
of a central bureau in London, and the under- 
taking of the Royal Society to act as the pub- 
lishers of the catalogue on behalf of the 
council. Provision is made for an interna- 
tional convention, which is to have supreme 
control over the catalogue, and which is to 
meet in 1905, and again in 1910, and every 
tenth year afterwards. It is to ‘ reconsider, 
and if necessary, to revise the regulations for 
carrying out the work of the catalogue.’ 

Seventeen branches of science are to be 
included in the whole catalogue, and these 
are arranged under the letters of the alphabet 
as follows: A, mathematics; B, mechanics; 
C, physics; D, chemistry; E, astronomy; F, 
meteorology; G, mineralogy; H, geology; J, 
geography; K, paleontology; L, general biol- 
ogy; M, botany; N, zoology; O, human anat- 
omy; P, physical anthropology; Q, physiology; 
R, bacteriology. In this scheme physiology 
is made to include experimental psychology, 
pharmacology and experimental pathology. 
“Each complete annual issue of the catalogue 


862 


will thus consist of seventeen volumes.” It 
is further stated that the price is to be £18 
for the set, with varying prices for individual 
volumes, from ten to thirty-five shillings. 
An examination of the present volume shows 
that the scheme of classification differs ma- 
terially from that followed commonly in this 
country. Numbers of four figures, from 0000 
to 9999, are assigned to subdivisions of the 
subject as follows: 0000 to 0999, general 
(ineluding philosophy, history, biography, 
periodicals, ete., general treatises, addresses, 
pedagogy, institutions, nomenclature); 1000 
to 1999, external morphology and organogeny 
(including teratology) ; 2000 to 2999, anatomy, 
development and cytology; 3000 to 3999, physi- 
ology; 4000 to 4899, pathology; 4400 to 4999, 
evolution; 5000 to 7999, taxonomy; 8000 to 
8999, geographic distribution; 9000 to 9999, 
plankton. Keology (spelled ‘ oecology’) ap- 
pears as an item under physiology, coordinate 
with growth, irritability, symbiosis, para- 
sitism, ete. Paleobotanical papers are to be 
distributed under their appropriate heads and 
marked with a dagger (+). The pages de- 
voted to the scheme of classification are 
printed in English, French, German and 
Italian. Following these is a topographical 
classification, for use in geography, geology, 


botany, zoology, ete., and which is apparently ~ 


as satisfactory as any which might be adopted, 
although open to some criticism in details. 

The authors’ catalogue covers eighty-four 
pages, and includes 1,922 entries. This is 
followed by the subject catalogue, in which 
the arrangement outlined above is followed. 
This part of the book requires 240 pages, and 
apparently includes many titles not entered 
in the first list. As these are all papers pub- 
lished in the year 1901, and as we are prom- 
ised a second part of the botany volume ‘in 
the course of a few months,’ it will be seen 
that the need of such a work as this is im- 
perative. 

In some quarters there appears to be a dis- 
position to find fault with this catalogue on 
account of alleged sins of omission and com- 
mission, and also in regard to its plan of 
classification and some of its details. While 
there may be truth in these criticisms, it 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


should be borne in mind that, in part, they 
come from those who are not experts in bibli- 
ography, and who are, therefore, not fully con- 
versant with the difficulties of a complete 
classification. It will be well for us to re- 
member that it is much easier to find faults 
in any proposed system than to suggest one 
which will not contain as many objectionable 
features. No doubt this catalogue will be of 
great value to scientific workers. Let us be 
thankful for it; let us buy it; let us use it; 
and let us trust that year by year it may 
grow better. Even if not quite what many 
of us desire, it is a very good piece of work 
—better, no doubt, than we ourselves could 
have made it. 


CuHartes E. BEssey. 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. 


Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of 
Musical Instruments of All Nations. I. 


Europe. New York, The Metropolitan Mu- 
seum of Art. 1902. ‘8vo. Pp. xxxv-+ 
302; pl. 53. 


Some months ago (Science, June 18, 1902) 
attention was directed to the first part of a 
catalogue of the 2,800 musical instruments 
in the New York Museum. The catalogue of 
the European instruments, apparently about a 
thousand in number, has just been published 
and proves to be a remarkably fine piece of 
work. In the preparation of it Mrs. Brown 
has had the assistance of Mr. A. J. Hipkins 
and Rev. F. W. Galpin, both of England, 
whose previously published works show that 
no more competent authorities in England 
or America could have been ealled in. The 
former was associated in several investiga- 
tions with the late A. J. Ellis, the translator 
of Helmholtz, and has written much on the 
history of the piano, ete.; and both have co- 
operated in the historical exhibitions that 
have taken place in England. For this cata- 
logue Mr. Hipkins wrote a special introduc- 
tion to the keyboard instruments, while Mr. 
Galpin identified many of the instruments, 
made the classification, wrote the prefaces to 
its several parts and added many notes. 

The classification impresses the reader as 
simple and practical: it begins with ‘ Class 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


One, Stringed Instruments,’ I. without a key- 
board; II. with a keyboard; and under each 
(A) plucked, (B) struck, (C) bowed strings; 
III. with automatic mechanism. ‘Class Two, 
Wind Instruments, without and with a key- 
board and with automatic mechanism, each 
divided into whistles and reeds. . The instru- 
ments of these classes fill four fifths of the 
book. The come ‘ Vibrating Membranes,’ 
‘Sonorous Substances’ and ‘ Musical Acces- 
sories. A long list of portraits of musicians 
follows, and the volume is closed by two full 
indexes, one by classes, the other alphabetical. 

A striking feature of the catalogue is its 
copious illustration. Over fifty half-tone 
plates furnish a wealth of illustration unpar- 
alleled in musical literature except in a very 
few sumptuous books covering narrow fields. 
Of these plates twenty-four show each one 
family of instruments, from the smallest to 
the largest, as guitars, viols, recorders, clari- 
nets, saxophones, saxhorns, ete.; generally 
these plates of families include also a meas- 
uring rod divided into inches and centi- 
meters, by which the actual sizes of the in- 
struments may be scaled off. The reduced 
copy of a chart in the Germanic Museum at 
Nuremberg shows, in a remarkably interest- 
ing way, the forms of the string and percus- 
sive instruments in use in successive centuries 
from the eleventh to the seventeenth; while 
the plate of the striking ‘Egyptian Type 
Case’ shows that the ancestors of most of 
our modern instruments were known on the 
banks of the Nile long before the date of the 
Pythagorean legend. 

To secure examples of all these complete 
families, some of which are exceedingly rare, 
many reproductions have been obtained from 
European museums, as acknowledgments ac- 
companying more than forty items make evi- 
dent. And since the special aim of the col- 
lection is educational, many details of instru- 
ments are shown by dissections or models. 

The descriptions of the several instruments 
vary in length from a couple of lines for 
some items up to three pages for the Cristo- 
fori piano, averaging, for the principal kinds 
of instruments, about a quarter of a page. 
The data are arranged in a systematic way, 


SCIENCE. 


863 


the parts of the instrument being taken up 
in a uniform order, and then follow the de- 
tails of place, date and size, with occasional 
notes. 

To keep the voluminous matter within the 
bounds of a ‘handbook,’ obviously pretty 
rigorous limitations must be observed; so 
only the most important historical and acous- 
tical facts are added to the description, and 
these are put in very condensed form. For 
chatty historical matter one must still go to 
Engel, and for technical details to Mahillon. 
The region and period covered by this book, 
unlike those of the former catalogue, which 
dealt with Oriental instruments, make un- 
necessary any discussion of questions of the 
seale; for the diatonic or chromatic scale was 
here the universally accepted norm, and the 
few instances of enharmonic scales and sim- 
ilar deviations are of small importance. 

These statements show more clearly than 
any mere words of praise could do what an 
admirable piece of work this book is: the full- 
ness of the collection, the clearness of the 
classification, the care and system in descrip- 
tion, the discriminating notes, the sense of 
expert knowledge, the freedom from trivial 
confusing details, the references to allied in- 
struments from other countries, the cross- 
referencing and full indexing, the liberal illus- 
tration and the good typography, all conspire 
to make it almost as useful away from the 
museum as in the presence of the instruments. 
It should prove a valuable supplement to any 
dictionary of music, to any discussion of in- 
struments from either the physical or the 
musical side, to such books as Lavignac’s 
‘Music and Musicians,’ and to any of the his- 
tories of music in use by clubs and students. 

A book capable of such wide usefulness 
ought not to remain a local guide-book; the 
fact that it is not copyrighted may be an 
additional indication of liberality on the part 
of the donor and editor, but also suggests the 
doubt whether proper means are being taken, 
as by advertising or listing in the Publishers’ 
Weekly or otherwise, to let librarians and 
students know of its existence. 


Cuarues K. WeapD. 
WasuinetTon, D. C. 


864 


Annual Report of the Chief of the Bureaw of 
Steam Engineering of the Navy Depart- 


ment, 1902. Washington, D. C., Gov’t 
Print 2 19025) lea voluss .evouuuebp rel OZ 
many plates, illustrations and tables of | 
data. 


Rear-Admiral Melville, over whose signa- 
ture this report appears, as for a number of 
years past, presents to the Secretary of the 
Navy a statement of the progress of his de- 
partment of the navy during the preceding 
official year which, as usual, gives an ad- 
mirable exposition of the extent to which 
scientific method and scientific processes and 
the apparatus of applied science find place in 
that now complicated and implicated machine, 
the modern war-vessel. 

The inspection and test of materials for the 
machinery of the navy have come to be so 
large and important a division of this work 
that two laboratories, one at Bethlehem, the 
other at Pittsburg, are occupied constantly in 
the chemical and physical analysis and tests 
required by the bureau. The young officers of 
the navy are given systematic training in this 
work. Sixty millions of pounds of steel were 
inspected and tested last year for use in con- 
struction. 

A large laboratory for engineering is called 
for, a plan already endorsed favorably by the 
Department and by the naval committees of 
Congress. Such an organization has been 
established by the German Admiralty at Char- 
lottenburg, and it has been found an impor- 
tant auxiliary, both as an aid in work in 
progress and as affording facilities for impor- 
tant researches in the applied sciences auxil- 
iary to the work of the naval establishment. 
Experience shows that only systematic and 
scientifically expert work in investigation can 
be relied upon to insure the government 
against serious errors and large wastes and 
in maintenance of the navy in a maximum 
state of efficiency. ‘The time has come when 
the Naval Academy should be primarily an 
engineering school,’ and particularly as post- 
graduate work is coming to be more and more 
important. The Director of the Laboratory 
is expected to be one of the members of the 
old Naval Engineer Corps, several of whom 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 413. 


have had large experience, both as practi- 
tioners and as members of faculties in tech- 
nological institutions and in universities sus- 
taining professional engineering schools. —In- 
vestigations are already imperative regarding 
utilization of liquid fuels, the availability of 
the steam-turbine, the form and size of pro- 
pellers, the special adaptations of electric 
energy and of electric machinery to naval 
purposes, the use of the storage battery, the 
corrosion of boiler- and condenser-tubes, the 
best forms of water-tube boilers, the use of 
systems of transmission of energy by use of 
compressed air, the balancing of marine en- 
gines, the adaptation of the gas-engine to 
marine work, and a multitude of minor mat- 
ters. 

A post-graduate course of instruction at 
the Naval Academy is urged as an advance 
of steadily and rapidly increasing importance, 
mainly in scientific and professional engineer- 
ing departments. The naval ‘War College’ 
and the army schools of artillery and of 
other branches of the service are examples of 
already organized courses of this nature. The 
extension of the system is as important for 
the navy as has proved to be its long-estab- 
lished operation in civil professional schools 
for the industries of the nation. 

A considerable amount of experimental in- 
vestigation has been carried on by the Bureau 
during the past official year, and, in the study 
of the problem of adaptation of the water- 
tube boiler to naval purposes and of that of 
employing oil as fuel, especially interesting 
and fruitful work has been done. The water- 
tube boiler is evidently needed as a construc- 
tion peculiarly well fitted for war-vessels, be- 
cause of its comparatively small volume and 
weight for a given power, its safety under the 
high steam-pressures now coming into use 
and its fitness for use under emergency condi- 
tions of naval conflicts. Several forms are 
now employed and others are being tested as 
to safety, durability and reliability, with a 
view to the enlargement of the limitations 
now hampering choice. The use of fuel-oils 
is found to be entirely practicable and eco- 
nomical for general purpose, but there still 
vemains a question whether the structural dif- 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


ficulties in the application of the system to 
the war-vessel may not be fatal to employ- 
ment there. 

Incidentally, a fact in sociology and eco- 
nomics comes into view. It was found im- 
practicable to carry on work of research with 
men employed under the conditions obtaining 
in civil life and enlisted men were necessarily 
put on the work. Only men who would obey 
orders, work when required by the exigencies 
of the service and faithfully attend to duty, 
as in army and navy, could be relied upon. 
The trade-union rules were found to be fatal 
to efficiency, and the inference seems to have 
been plain that, in the industrial army as 
in the public service, effectiveness is not pro- 
moted where the rank and file take command. 

The workings of the ‘personnel bill’ are 
commented upon with the conclusion that 
Mr. Rooseyvelt’s bill is correct in plan and in 
principle, but that it has not been executed 
with either zeal or faithfulness, and that the 
efficiency of a navy dependent upon technical 
knowledge and practical experience, conjoined 
with high scientific attainments, is being seri- 
ously jeopardized by this disloyalty to law and 
to the service. Junior officers, it is stated, 
are not given either the scientific training or 
the professional training as mechanical en- 
gineers which are’ essential to the eflicient 
operation of the ‘engineer’s war-engine,’ as 
the writer has called the modern armored ves- 
sel, with its interior crowded with steam- 
engines and other machinery and electrical 
apparatus. Without extensive practical ex- 
perience and a sound scientific education 
high efficiency cannot be hoped for, and the 
safety of the nation is too serious a matter 
to be subject to such risks as are sure to fol- 
low lack of zeal or of training in the manage- 
ment of so tremendous an engine of war as 
the armor-clad or cruiser. An ‘emphatic gen- 
eral order’ and rigid enforcement is demanded 
as essential, and immediately. 

National ascendency on the seas and perma- 
nent safety against foreign aggression can 
only be insured by a sufficient and an efficient 
personnel as well as an amply powerful fleet. 
The navy of the United States, like that of 
Great Britain, needs men more than ships, 


SCIENCE. 


865 


to-day, and every proper means should be re- 
sorted to to make the service attractive and 
to secure competent officers, particularly in 
its departments of applied science. 

Admiral Melville retires presently and this 
is his last official report. It is wise, frank 
and emphatic in its discussions of the require- 
ments of a ‘new navy’ in the twentieth cen- 
tury. The influence of this testimony should 
be powerful and effective. The Chief of 
Bureau goes out of office leaving behind him 
a magnificent record of accomplishment, not 
only in the building up of the navy, but in 
achievements which, in variety as in impor- 
tance, have probably never been rivaled. _ 

R. H. Tuurston. 
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 
The Journal of Physical Chemistry, Oc- 

tober.— Solubility, Electrolytic Conductivity 
and Chemical Action in Liquid Hydrocyanie 
Acid” by Louis Kahlenberg and Herman 
Schlundt. This is a continuation of the re- 
searches of the authors on solutions with other 
solvents than water. Lists of substances 
soluble and insoluble in liquid hydrocyanie 
acid are given. In the case of some solutes 
the electrical conductivity is greater than in 
water, while in other cases, notably with the 
acids, it is less. ‘The Expansion of a Gas into 
a Vacuum and the Kinetic Theory of Gases,’ 
by Peter Fireman. An abstract of this paper 
has already appeared in this journal (Science, 
N. S., XVI., 285). ‘On the Displacement 
of Equilibrium,’ by Paul Saurel. ‘On the 
Critical State of a One-Component System,’ 
by Paul Saurel. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

Art the 557th meeting of the Society, held 
on November 8, Mr. C. G. Abbot, of the 
Astrophysical Observatory, described ‘a de- 
vice to obtain time signals of any desired 
interval from a clock work of uniform mo- 
A chronograph with the attachment 
was exhibited. Signals at equal intervals 
of from one half second up to ninety seconds 
could be obtained. An adjustment was pro- 
vided by means of which the whole series 


tion,’ 


866 


of signals could be hastened or delayed with- 
out alteration of the interval. The interval 
itself could be altered at pleasure while the 
apparatus was in operation. Though the de- 
sign was illustrated primarily as a mechanical 
device which might find many applications, 
it was pointed out that it was immediately 
applicable to Mr. Langley’s method of prevent- 
ing personal equation in transit observations. 

Mr. W. J. Spillman, of the U. S. Department 
of Agriculture, read a paper on ‘The Theory 
of Combinations Applied to Mendel’s Law.’ 
He first stated briefly the law, which expresses 
the probable character of hybrids and their 
progeny, and the theory which Mendel and 
others had proposed to explain the facts in the 
ease, illustrating the theory for monohybrids 
and dihybrids, and giving general formule 
he had deduced for finding the number of 
types that may be expected in the progeny of 
any hybrid, and the relative proportion of 
each type in any generation of any hybrid. 
He then showed what departures from the 
law may be caused by chance distribution of 
parent characters in the progeny. Taking the 
hypothetical case in which each hybrid pro- 
duces ten ovules, he showed that “the chance 
that five shall possess a character of one parent 
and five the corresponding opposite character 
of the other parent is 25 per cent. In other 
words, when there are ten ovules on each 
plant, in 25 per cent. of the cases we may 
expect to find the pair of characters distrib- 
uted amongst the ovules exactly as called for 
by theory. In .1 per cent. of the cases all the 
ovules will possess the character of one parent, 
and all will possess the character of the other 
in a like number of cases. If each plant has 


100 ovules, the pair of parent characters will, 


be equally distributed in only 8 per cent. of 
the cases.” The chance than any particular 
distribution of a pair of characters amongst 
the ovules shall occur was shown to be 


n! 
2°97! (n—r)V 


where n = the number of ovules per plant, and 
+ =the number of ovules on any plant that 
possesses the same parent character. He also 
gave a formula to show the chance that the 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


pollen which shall fertilize these ovules shall 
be such as to give any particular combination 
of the possible types in the progeny. Lantern 
illustrations showed the results obtained by 
crossing varieties of wheat, and graphically 
some of the results of mathematical analysis. 


Mr. Marcus Baker then discussed the 
question ‘Can the Equations 
vty=a 
c+ yb 


be Solved by Quadratics?’ He pointed out 
some relations of this problem to the theory 
of equations, showed that the general method 
of solving equations of the second and third 
degrees consists in reducing their degree or 
in transforming them to some typical form 
which is solvable, and gave the criteria by 
which the few solvable types of equations of 
the fourth degree may be recognized. <Ac- 
cording to these criteria the given equations 
cannot be solved by direct methods. 


At the 556th meeting of the Society, held 
October 25, Professor S. W. Stratton, director 
of the. National Bureau of Standards, spoke 
on ‘ The Present Status of the Metric System 
in the United States and Great Britain,’ de- 
tailing the various attempts to obtain permis- 
sive legislation, and some of the numerous 
associations and societies that had forwarded 
memorials to Congress. 

Professor E. B. Rosa, also of the bureau, 
then by invitation, with the aid of lantern 
views, described the ‘ Plans for the Buildings 
of the National Bureau of Standards.’ One 
building is to contain all the machinery, while 
another is to be as free as possible from jar; 
every modern convenience is to be provided 
in the various rooms, the temperatures of 
which will be regulated by thermostats con- 
trolling the supply of dust-free warm or 
cooled air. 

Cuarues K. Weap, 
Secretary. 


NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, SECTION OF 
ASTRONOMY, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. 

Ar the meeting of October 6, 1902, the pro- 

gram of the evening was made up of informal 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


reports of the members upon work done dur- 
ing the summer in matters of interest to the 
section. 

George F. Kunz exhibited a section of the 
tusk of the elephant Tip that was killed sey- 
eral years ago because he had become so cross. 
The section of the tooth showed a large cavity 
amounting to a couple of cubic inches, near 
the end of the conical cavity at the root of the 
tooth. It was suggested that possibly this 
cavity represented an ulceration of the tooth 
and that the bad humor of the elephant was 
really due to a bad tooth. After discussion by 
Professor Cattell and others, it was apparently 
the opinion of those best qualified to know 
that this cavity was not the result of any such 
ulceration, and that probably the elephant 
would not suffer from toothache in any case. 

William Hallock made an informal report 
upon barometric and boiling-point -observa- 
tions made during the ascent of Mt. Whitney 
during the month of August. He called at- 
tention to the use of the boiling-point ap- 
paratus as checking the barometer, and to the 
necessity of taking into consideration the 
temperature and humidity of the air, as well 
as the simple barometric pressure. He also 
referred to certain interesting lava fields on 
Whitney Creek to the southwest from Mt. 
Whitney. 

G. B. Pegram gave an interesting account 
of the work done at the magnetic observatories 
in this country, and especially at the one at 
Cheltenham, Md., with which he was con- 
nected during the summer vacation. 

Dr. D. S. Martin referred to the interesting 
minerals exhibited at the exposition of the 
South at Charleston, and showed a sample of 
the ash from Mt. Pelée which was brought to 
Charleston on one of the incoming vessels. 
He will report more in detail upon this subject 
in the section of mineralogy later on. 

S. A. MircHett, 
Secretary of Section. 


TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 

At the meeting of the Club on October 29 
the first paper presented was by Miss F. A. 
Mulford, ‘Remarks on Gerardia decemloba, 
Greene,’ with exhibition of specimens. The 


SCIENCE. 


867 


plant was found at Hempstead, Long Island; 
September 5, 1902. This is the second sta- 
tion for the species, it having first been found 
by Professor Greene at Washington, D. C., 
in 1898. Dr. Britton followed with remarks 
upon the peculiar physiography of the Hemp- 
stead plain, its isolation, and the lack of 
trees, which is perhaps due to fires. 

The second paper was by Miss Anna Mur- 
ray Vail, on ‘Some Rare Books Recently 
Added to the Library of the New York Botan- 
ical Garden.’ This will shortly appear in the 
Journal of the Botanical Garden. Among 
some 400 works of the older botany recently 
procured by the Garden and now exhibited to 
the Club, the oldest is a fifteenth century 
Gothic manuscript of Macer Floridus’ ‘De 
virtutibus herbarum.’ The oldest printed 
volume is one of the ‘Ortus Sanitatis,’ from 
the end of the fifteenth century; the next, 
the Venice edition of 1509 of the ‘ Aggregator 
practicus, one of the herbals often known 
simply as ‘ Herbarius.’? Later notable works 
secured include many of those of Mattioli, 
Dodoens and Lobel; the rare first volumes 
issued by Dodoens (his ‘De frugum,’ 1552) 
and by Clusius (1557); also a copy of Clusius? 
greatest work, his ‘Rariorum’ of 1601, of 
special interest because a presentation copy 
from Clusius himself. Rarities include a 
Passaeus of 1614, and the elephant folio of 
the ‘Hortus Eystettensis’ of 1613, in un- 
usually fine preservation. There is a fine 
copy of Rivinus of 1690; and one of Linnzus’ 
rarest. works, his autobiographical pamphlet 
of 1741, ‘Orbis eruditi,’ believed to exist in 
only four copies. 

The third paper was by Dr. Rydberg, ‘A 
Review of a Recent Monograph of Campanula 
rotundifolia and its Allies.’ Discussing this 
paper, Dr. MacDougal called attention to the 
work of Goebel on this plant. He said that 
Goebel had been able to produce rounded 
leaves on Campanula by experiment, and in 
any part other than the inflorescence, but 
that it had not been possible to prevent the 
formation of the rounded basal leaves. 

The final paper was given by Dr. Arthur 
Hollick, on ‘ Buried Swamp Deposits of Mary- 
land.’ 


Along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay 
swamp deposits of the Pleistocene era are 
being uncovered by action. These 
occur under from five to thirty feet of gravels. 
Among the vegetable remains discovered, there 
were described and shown stumps of the bald 
cypress, cones of two species of Pinus 2. 
echinata and P. Strobus), with beech and 
hickory nuts. Many seeds are now being 
determined by experts of the Department of 
Agriculture. When the determination of 
the seeds is completed a good account of the 
ancient flora of that region can be given. 

A comparison of the living with the fossil 
plants of the locality shows that, except for 
the bald cypress, the plants now growing seem 
the same as those there in geologic times. 

In discussing the conditions attendant on 
the formation of the ancient flora and its 
disappearance, Dr. Hollick stated that the 
land had undergone elevation twice and sub- 
sidence twice. The first elevation preceded 
the formation of the flora which was to be 
found mainly in the valleys. The area was 
then depressed and completely submerged, 
and at length was covered by sand brought 
in by the waves. After the first elevation 
and during the first subsidence deposits’ were 
formed either in situ or at the mouths of the 
valleys; these, after the second elevation, are 
now being exposed by erosion. At the present 
time also a third subsidence is taking place, 
during which a second series of vegetable de- 
posits are being laid down. ‘The rate of this 
subsidence has been calculated to be about 
two feet in the century. 

Epwarp S. Burasss, 
Secretary. 


water 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GEOLOGICAL JOURNAL CLUB. 

November 7%.—The following papers were 
reviewed: Frank Springer, ‘ Unitacrinus, its 
Structure and Relations,’ by Dr. Austin F. 
Rogers. M. E. Haug, ‘Review of Theories 
of Glaciation, from Revue generale des Sci- 
ences, by Dr. A. A. Julien. 

H. W. Suimer, 
Secretary. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


TORONTO ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. : 

OcrToBEeR meeting, President k. F. Stupart, 
F.R.S.C., Director of the Observatory, in the 
chair. i 

Mr. A. F. Miller stated that on three nights 
he had succeeded in observing the spectrum 
of comet ‘Perrine’ (b. 1902); he had seen 
three bright bands, and occasionally a fourth 
very faint band.- The bright band in the 
green seemed to correspond to the green band 
of the Bunsen flame. The bands were sharp 
towards the red end of the spectrum, indi- 
eating the light to be emitted by a hydro- 
carbon gas. The nucleus gave a continuous 
spectrum and appeared to consist of several 
small bright masses involved in the coma. 
The paper for the evening was entitled ‘The 
Application of Lord Kelvin’s Theory of the 
Ether to the Stellar Universe.’ The theories 
that had led up to the vortex theory were 
reviewed and an outline of Kelvin’s views 
regarding vortices in a continuous fluid were 
presented with demonstrations. It was pointed 
out that the trend of thought amongst observa- 
tional astronomers just now was to regard the 
universe as limited rather than infinite in 
extent. If the continuous ether be limited 
the envelope would be extremely elastic. A 
runaway star dashing against the interior 
surface would rebound without loss of energy. 
Such a surface would represent a stone wall 
between the cosmos and blank space beyond. 
The vortex theory had found favor with physi- 
cists because it possessed the virtue of sim- 
plicity and offers facilities for explaining cer- 
tain peculiarities of behavior of matter and 
ether not otherwise readily explained as elas- 
ticity, energy of motion, method of conserva- 
tion and dissipation (or degradation) of en- 
ergy and possibly inertia and gravitation as 
well. The fact that the energy of motion is 
always as the square of the velocity was cited 
as evidence that whatever the ultimate nature 
of energy may be it cannot be motion per se; 
if energy be motion and motion only it could 
not require fourfold motion to double the 
motion (velocity) either cf matter or ether. 
The existence of an ether of some sort was 
undeniable, but theories of its ultimate struc- 
ture were advanced provisionally as instru- 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. | 


ments of research to lay hold of the facts and 
arrange them in something like rational order. 
J. R. Coutts, 


Secretary. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
A QUESTION IN TERMINOLOGY. 

In replying to Professor Campbell’s earnest 
request to explain a problem in terminology,* 
I feel as though an apology were necessary 
for taking space in Scirnce to state one of the 
elementary principles of terminology adopted 
by recent writers on the botanical system. Had 
Professor Campbell evidenced as much famil- 
jarity with the development of the botanical 
system as followed in continental Europe and 
America, as with the stereotyped text-book 
classifications of non-systematie botanists, he 
would not have credited me with any new 
proposition in my criticism of his text-book, 
or have spoken of the system I have attempted 
to follow as in any sense ‘his system.’ The 
criticism offered was purely a matter of usage 
or form, and has nothing whatever to do with 
our conceptions of how this or that group shall 
be divided, or whether orders or any other 
categories of classification are all of equal 
' vyalue—another equally elementary problem 
that would seem to require no answer here. 

Modern classification does not commence 
with the universe and divide it into kingdoms 
and subkingdoms on the old plan of monarch- 
ical and special creation. This has passed 
from the horizon like Rafinesque’s attempts to 
reduce the forms of thunder and lightning 

*Scrence, II. 16. 705, 31 O. 1902. Had my 
original criticism (Torreya, 2: 108-111) of Pro- 
fessor Campbell’s irregularities in terminology 
extended to the ferns, I could have mentioned 
various other inconsistencies; e. g., Order Ophio- 
glossacee, Order Filices, Order lLycopodinee, 
Class Equisetales, ete. The ferns are placed, in 
Class FPilicales at one point (p. 246) and as 
Filicinee at another (p. 265), where they are 
grouped into orders. ~We also have the ‘ Order 
Isoetacew’ (p. 266) marshaled with other euspor- 
angiates under the Class Filicales, and again 
appearing as ‘The /soetinee,’ ‘a distinct order,’ 
next to the ‘ Ord. IIT. Selaginellinex’ of the Class 
Lycopodiales. (The italics of course are mine.) 


SCIENCE. 


869 


to genera and species. In accordance with 
prevailing evolutionary conceptions, modern 
classification does commence with the indi- 
vidual and attempts to show its relationship 
to other created things. In this view a 
species 1s a group of related individuals, and a 
genus is a group of related species. As we 
reach the higher category, tribe, we have re- 
served a special termination for the sake of 
convenience and uniformity, deriving the 
tribal name from a characteristic genus of the 
tribe adding the termination rm. In a similar 
way the family is characterized by the termin- 
ation acE@® likewise added to a generic name. 
This time-honored family termination in plant 
classification was long abused and muddled 
by the English school by speaking of families 
as ‘natural orders’ of plants, and this practice 
lingers still among some of the old school in 
America. So far the recent usage of systematic 
botany practically coincides with that long 
in use; in order, however, to coordinate botan- 
ical classification more nearly with that long 
followed in zoology, and to distinguish prop- 
erly the order from the family, Lindley’s 
termination for the ‘alliance’ (cohors of Ben- 
tham and Hooker), -anes, has been adopted to 
distinguish the next higher category above 
the family. A group of related families is, 
therefore, properly an order and is distin- 
guished by the termination -aLes. This modern 
system proposed at Berlin, but not always con- 
sistently followed even there, calls for rigid 
adherence to the use of these terminations 
each for its special category in classifica- 
tion and for that alone. The terminations 
then indicate the rank of the group—a per- 
fectly rational and eminently practical sys- 
tem. This was a minor part of my original 
criticism to which Professor Campbell has 
taken exception. He changed a name which 
had been duly proposed as a class—i. ¢., a 
group of related orders which in this case 
(Anthocerotes) happens to contain a single 
order and a single family—and used the form 
“Class Anthocerotales.’ 

To apply the modern the 
pteridophytes, I should say that, from the 
starting point of the typical ferns (Family 
Polypodiaces), the related families (Cyathe- 


system to 


870 


acer, Schizeacesr, Ceratopteridacese, etc.) 
form with it a related group which we denomi- 
nate Order Filicales. If Professor Camp- 
bell wishes to make a elass to include the or- 
der Filicales and other related orders, no one 
could have the slightest objection, but in ac- 
cordance with the recognized principles of 
modern systematic botany Professor Camp- 
bell is not at liberty to name his classes with 
the termination -ales for that is reserved for 
orders and for orders alone. 

_ The usage of ‘Our Native Ferns’ (sixth 
edition), to which reference is made, is strictly 
in accord with the above in the two cases 
quoted from the systematic portion of the 
work. On page 63 where the term Order 
Equisetacee is used, there is clearly an error, 
resulting from an oversight in correcting the 
electros, which at that point have escaped re- 
vision since their first printing in an earlier 
edition when order was still used as a synonym 
of family. 

The orders of pteridophytes which we would 
recognize at the present time are: (1) Ophio- 
glossales, (2) Marattiales, (3) Filicales, (4) 
Salviniales, (5) Equisetales, (6) Lycopodiales, 
(7) Isoetales. I believe this disposition of 
the last group, which contains a single genus, 
is much more logical than the plan followed 
by Professor Campbell in his ‘ University 
Text-book’ of leaving these humble aquatics 
dangling between two classes with no secure 
resting place whatever. They have certainly 
become differentiated from other pteridophytes 
to this extent, as Professor Campbell him- 
self clearly states. 

L. M. Unprerwoop. 

Conumpra UNIVERSITY, 

November 4, 1902. 


A POINT IN NOMENCLATURE. 


Rererrinc to Professor Cockerell’s note in 
Scrence, November 7, permit me to say: 

Under the name of Monacanthus oblongus, 
Schlegel included two species, one large in 
size (since called modestus), the other small 
and more strikingly formed (since called 
broekii). I have retained Schlegel’s name 
for the smaller species, because his figure rep- 
resents it, his description is chiefly based on 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8S. Vou. XVI. No. 413. 


it and his references to the larger species are 
casual and comparative. The larger species 
Schlegel regarded as ‘Individus adultes’ in 
which the specific characters of caudal fila- 
ments and dorsal serrations had been lost. 
As Schlegel’s ‘type specimen,’ in the modern 
sense, was clearly one of the smaller species, 
I retain his name of oblongus for it, although 
he regarded the larger species (modestus) as 
the adult of the same species. Wherever pos- 
sible, the question of type of genus or species 
should be decided on data in the original work, 
without reference to subsequent literature. 
Davin Starr JorDAN. 


NEW YORK ARCHEOLOGY. 


To tHe Epiror or Science: Dr. Merrill, 
of the New York State Museum, suggests that 
a brief account of archeological collections of 
interest be added to the bulletins now being 
issued, as a convenience for students of our 
local antiquities. This might be inserted in 
one of the bulletins yet to appear, or, if the 
amount of material warrants it, form a sub- 
ject by itself. I know fairly well the more 
important collections, but there are many 
which have escaped my personal attention, 
and some inconspicuous ones contain valuable 
articles. With a view to carrying out this 
plan I would be glad to receive notes of any 
and all collections, public or private, which 
serve to illustrate the aboriginal history of 
New York. Photographs of articles or cases 
will be of great assistance, and correspondents 
may well give brief accounts of any local col- 
lections known to them. 

I can not definitely say what the published 
results will be, for these will depend on the 
importance of the matter sent in. Ample re- 
ports are very desirable and will be placed on 
permanent record, but may necessarily be 
much reduced for publication. The idea is 
to make such a report as will enable students 
easily to find what they want in the way of 
illustration and information. At the same 
time an idea may be gathered of the abund- 
ance and character of local relics. For pre- 
liminary use the number of specimens may 
be given, character, material, locality, with 
fuller accounts of special forms. The intelli- 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


gent collector will scarcely need directions on 
those points. ; 

Of course all this is intended to illustrate 
New York archeology, but this has relations 
to other parts of the land, and some cabinets 
contain fine and valuable specimens from other 
states. These are not to be overlooked, and 
I have several such cabinets in my mind. 
They are interesting in themselves and val- 
uable for comparison. 

This communication will not directly reach 
all those whose aid is desired, but if others 
will call attention to it good results may be 
expected. I am often surprised at finding 
some article of special interest in some 
hitherto unknown collection. Hence the im- 
portance of reaching every student of this 
great subject. May I hope for a speedy and 
general response from those interested. 

W. M. Breaucuamp. 


204 Marre St., Syracuse, N. Y. 
October 22, 1902. 


PRICKLES OF THE PRICKLY ASH. 


Ir might be well to call attention to an 
error occurring in Bailey’s ‘Elementary Text- 
book of Botany,’ 1901, p. 105, figure 157, where 
it states that the ‘ prickles’ of the prickly ash 
are modified stipules. Seeing that the same 
error occurs in Bailey’s ‘Encyclopedia of 
Horticulture,’ it may be supposed that it is 
not a mere typographical error. 

In the case of the prickly ash, Xanthorylum 
americanum, Mill., the prickles are true 
prickles, having no connection with the in- 
ternal structures, as they would have if they 
were stipular in nature. These prickles occur 
frequently at the bases of the leaves, giving 
rise very probably to the false notion as to 
their morphology. However, they do not 
occur at the bases of all the leaves, there 
being not infrequently no signs of them. 
Furthermore, they are occasionally found 
‘elsewhere, on the branch, and also on the 
rachis of the compound leaf. 

In Chapman’s ‘Flora of Southern United 
States,’ 1897, it states, under family charac- 
ters, ‘exstipulate leaves,’ and, under Xan- 
thoxylwm, ‘trees or shrubs, commonly armed 
with stipular prickles.’ 


SCIENCE. 


871 


Gray states, as a character of. the order, 
“stipules none,’ and, under Xanthoxylum, 
“stems and often leaf stalks prickly.’ Gray 
is correct, but Chapman, with many others, 
is in error. The structures referred to are 
not stipular, but are true prickles. Stipules 
are not found in any of the genera of the 
family to which Xanthoxrylum belongs. 

J. B. DanpENo. 


THE NEXT ERUPTION OF PELEE. 


In the Boston Transcript of September 3, 
1902, the writer called attention to the pecu- 
liar sequence of eruptions in Martinique, as 
follows: 


Preceding 
Date. Interval. Violence. 

May 5. Destruction Guerin Factory. 

May 8. 3 days. Destruction St. Pierre. 

May 20. 12 days. Further destruction St. Pierre 
and destructive wave at 
Carbet. 

June 6. 17 days. More incandescent material. 

July 9. 33 days. Larger stones at Morne 
Rouge; more incandescent 
material: detonations heard 
at Barbados. 

Aug. 30. 52 days. Destruction of Morne Rouge: 


great wave; many lives lost. 


It will be seen that the interval is increas- 
ing and each time the culminating explosion 
of steam and hot waters has been somewhat 
more violent, though until recently there have 
been no good records kept. At present 
Lacroix is recording the phenomena from day 
to day. There were minor eruptions other 
than those above recorded, notably on May 
26, three times in June, and after August 21; 
but those tabulated may be described as erup- 
tions of first magnitude. 

Exploration of the craters has shown that 
they contain boiling water during periods of 
calm, and the eruptions begin with the ejec- 
tion of this water; steam follows, charged with 
débris. An eruption of this kind is com- 
parable to a geyser. If such comparison is 
permissible, the sequence may indicate for 
each great eruption a release of strain and an 
increased cavity system, allowing infiltration 
of larger volumes of water, and requiring a 


872 


longer period in consequence before explosive 
conditions are again reached. 

With the kind assistance of Professor L. 8. 
Marks, the writer has attempted to determine 
the next date when Pelée is likely to erupt 
violently. Lacroix’s latest observations, of 
November 4, indicate that the voleano is still 
intensely active, and this suggests that the 
final culmination did not come in August, as 
was the case with Krakatoa. An examination 
of the intervals and their differences shows 
that no simple arithmetical law will serve for 
the progression shown. <A graphical solution 
may be obtained by platting a curve for the 
known intervals and extending this curve to 
cover the next interval. Professor Marks used 
this method; the extension of a smooth curve 
through the dates from May 8 to August 30 
inclusive indicates that the next interval is 
about 112 days, if the same law holds. There 
is no simple analytical solution of the curve. 

This would give December 20 or there- 
abouts as the date of the next great erup- 
tion of Mont Pelée. A French astronomer 
has predicted an eruption December 16,* be- 
eause at that time the moon will be full, and 
when over Martinique will be at that point in 
her orbit nearest to the earth, and hence the 
lunar pull will be at a maximum with refer- 
ence to any possible local instability in the 
earth’s outer rock-film. It has been suggested 
that earlier eruptions were in singular coin- 
cidence with moon phases. 

So far as prediction is possible, therefore, 
on the basis of such insufficient data, two lines 
of reasoning suggest mid-December as a time 
when a great eruption of Mont Pelée is likely 
to occur. T. A. Jaccar, JR. 

Harvarp UNIVERSITY, 

November 18, 1902. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 


THE ETHNOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF ESOTERIC 
DOCTRINES. 


In recent years the study of the esoteric 
teachings found in American tribal society 
has become one of the favorite subjects of 
research of ethnologists. The symbolic sig- 

*T’?Opinion, Fort de 


France, Martinique. 
October 21, 1902. , 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


nificance of complex rites, and the philosophic 
views of nature which they reveal, have come 
to us as a surprise, suggesting a higher devel- 
opment of Indian culture than is ordinarly 
assumed. The study of these doctrines con- 
veys the impression that the reasoning of the 
Indian is profound, his emotions deep, his 
ethical ideals of a high quality. 

It seems worth while to consider briefly the 
conditions under which these esoteric doctrines 
may have developed. Two theories regarding 
their origin suggest themselves: the esoteric 
doctrine may have originated among a select 
social group, and the exoteric doctrine may 
represent that part of it that leaked out and 
became known, or was made known, to the 
rest of the community; but it may also be that 
the esoteric doctrine developed among a select 
social group from the current beliefs of the 
tribe. 

It seems to my mind that the second theory 
is the more plausible one, principally for the 
reason that the contents of the teachings 
among different tribes are often alike, no mat- 
ter how much the systems may differ. Almost 
all the rituals that are the outward expression 
of esoteric doctrines appear to be old, and 
many have probably existed, almost in their 
present form, for considerable periods. Never- 
theless, there is ample evidence of frequent 
borrowing and changes of sacred rites. Hx- 
amples are the Sun Dance, various forms of 
the Ghost Dance, and the Mescal ceremonials. 
Miss Fletcher has called attention to the fact 
that Pawnee rituals have influenced the de-— 
velopment of the rites of many tribes of the 
Plains. I might add similar examples from 
the Pacific coast, such as the transmission of 
Kwakiutl rituals to neighboring tribes. 

There is also abundant proof showing that 
the mythologies of all tribes, notwithstanding 
the sacredness of some of the myths, contain 
many elements that can be proved to be of 
foreign origin. It seems very likely that sim- 
ilar conditions prevailed in the past, because 
the wide distribution of many cultural fea- 
tures can be understood only as the effect of 
a long-continued process of borrowing and 
dissemination. 

Since the esoteric teaching refers to the 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


rituals, and is often largely based on mytho- 
logical conceptions, it seems plausible that it 
should have developed as a more or less con- 
scious attempt at systematizing the hetero- 
geneous mass of beliefs and practices current 
in the tribe. Whenever a certain ceremonial 
came to be placed in charge of a small social 
group, were they chiefs, priests or simply 
men of influence, the conditions must have 
been favorable for the development of an 
esoteric doctrine. The thoughts of the men 
charged with the keeping of sacred rites must 
have dwelt on philosophical or religious ques- 
tions, and it would seem natural that in the 
succession of generations the sacredness of 
the rite grew, and its philosophic significance 
imereased in depth. 

If this view is correct, the esoteric doctrine 
must have been evolved on the foundation of 
the general culture of the tribe, and must be 
considered as a secondary phenomenon the 
character of which depends upon the exoteric 
doctrine. 

The opposite view, that the exoteric doctrine 
is a degenerate form of esoteric teaching, does 
not seem to me equally plausible, because it 
presupposes a highly complex system of ac- 
tions and opinions originating spontaneously 
in a selected group of individuals. It is diffi- 
eult to conceive how, in tribal society, condi- 
tions could have prevailed that would make 
such a development possible. This theory 
would seem to presuppose the occurrence of a 
general decay of culture. There is no reason 
that compels us to assume that such a decay 
has taken place, although it may have oc- 
curred in exceptional cases. If, on the other 
hand, we assume that the esoteric doctrine 
developed from popular beliefs, we do not 
need to assume any cultural conditions ma- 
terially different from those found at the 
present time. It is quite evident that the 
esoteric doctrine, after it was once established, 
influenced, in its turn, popular belief, and 
that, therefore, there is a mutual and probably 
inextricable interrelation between the two doc- 
trines. 

If these considerations are correct, then the 
esoteric doctrine must, to a great extent, be 
considered as the product of individual 


SCIENCE. 


873 


thought. It expresses the reaction of the 
best minds in the community upon the gen- 
eral cultural environment. It is their at- 
tempt to systematize the knowledge that 
underlies the culture of the community. In 
other words, this doctrine must be treated 
like any other system of philosophy, and its 
study has the same aims as-the study of the 
history of philosophy. 

Two characteristics of esoteric doctrine are 
quite striking. The first is that at the bottom 
of each doctrine there seems to be a certain 
line of thought which is applied to the whole 
domain of knowledge, and which gives the 
whole doctrine its essential character. This 
line of thought depends upon the general 
character of the culture of the tribe, but 
nevertheless has a high degree of individu- 
ality in each tribe. The theory of the universe 
seems to be based on its schematic applica- 
tion. The second characteristic is that, not- 
withstanding this systematization of knowl- 
edge, there remain many ideas that are not 
coordinated with the general system, and that 
may be quite out of accord with it. In such 
cases the contradiction between the general 
scheme and special ideas often escapes en- 
tirely the notice of the native philosophers. 
This phenomenon is quite analogous to the 
well-known characteristics of philosophic sys- 
tems which bear the stamp of the thought of 
their time. The philosopher does not analyze 
each and every conclusion, but unconsciously 
adopts much of the current thought of his 
environment ready-made. 

The theories regarding the origin of esoteric 
doctrine may be proved or disproved by a care- 
ful study of its relations to popular beliefs 
and to esoteric doctrines found among neigh- 
boring tribes. It is evident that the material 
needed for the solution of the problem includes 
both the esoteric teaching and the popular 
forms of belief. 

What has been said before shows that, to 
the ethnologist, the problem of the genesis of 
exotery is of no less importance than that of 
esotery. However we may consider the origin 
of the latter, it must be admitted that it is 
the expression of thought of the exceptional 


mind. It is not the expression of thought + 


874 


of the masses. Ethnology, however, does not 
deal with the exceptional man; it deals with 
the masses, and with the characteristic forms 
of their thoughts. The extremes of the 
forms of thought of the most highly developed 
and of the lowest mind in the community are 
of interest only as special varieties, and in 
so far as they influence the further develop- 
ment of the thought of the people. It may, 
therefore, be said that the exoteric doctrine 
is the more general ethnic phenomenon, the 
investigation of which is a necessary founda- 
tion for the study of the problems of esoteric 
teaching. 

It is, therefore, evident that we must not, 
in our study of Indian life, seek for the high- 
est form of thought only, which is held by 
the priest, the chief, the leader. Interesting 
and attractive as this field of research may 
be, it is supplementary only to the study of 
the thoughts, emotional life, and ethical stand- 
ards of the common people, whose interests 
center in other fields of thought and of whom 
the select class forms only a special type. 

It has taken many years for the study of 
the culture of civilized peoples to broaden out 
so as to take in not only the activities of the 
great, but also the homely life of the masses. 
The appreciation of the fact that the actions 
of each individual have their roots in the 
society in which he lives, has developed only 
recently, and has led to the intensive study 
of folk-lore and folk-customs that is charac- 
teristic of our times. It seems peculiar that, 
with increasing knowledge of the more com- 
plex forms of Indian culture, we seem to be 
losing interest in the popular belief; that we 
look for the true inward significance of cus- 
toms among the select few, and become in- 
clined to consider as superficial the study of 
the simpler and cruder ideas and ideals of 
the common folk. If it is true that for a 
full understanding of civilized society the 
knowledge of the popular mind is a necessity, 
it is doubly true in more primitive forms of 
society, where the isolation of social groups 
is very slight, and where each and every in- 
dividual is connected by a thousand ties with 
the majority of the members of the tribe to 
which he belongs. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


Far be it from me to deprecate the im- 
portance of studies of the philosophies de- - 
veloped by the Indian mind. Only let us 
not lose sight of their intimate relation to 
the popular beliefs, of the necessity of study- 
ing the two in connection with each other, 
and of the error that we should commit if we 
should consider the esoteric doctrine, and the 
whole system of thought and of ethical ideals 
which it represents, as the only true form of 
the inner life of the Indian. 

Franz Boas. 


THE ROYAL SOCIETY’S CATALOGUE OF 
SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. 

Tue following memorandum has been is- 
sued by the treasurer of the Royal Society: 

The Royal Society has been engaged con- 
tinuously during the past forty years in cata- 
loguing the various scientific papers which 
have been issued in all parts of the world 
since the beginning of the last century. The 
original scheme of the ‘Catalogue of Scien- 
tific Papers’ provided that the papers should 
be catalogued only under the names of their 
respective authors, arranged alphabetically. 
This ‘Authors’ Catalogue’ has now been 
carried down to the end of 1888, and com- 
prises twelve quarto volumes. 

More recently it has been decided to pre- 
pare also a subject index of the same papers 
—that is to say, a catalogue in which the 
papers are indexed according to the subject- 
matter of which they treat. Considerable 
progress has been made with this subject in- 
dex, though nothing has as yet been published. 

The expense of this work has been very 
large, since, although a great amount of 
gratuitous labor has been readily given by 
fellows of the society, it has been necessary 
to employ a considerable permanent salaried 
staff upon the preparation of the copy for the 
press. At first the printing and publication 
were undertaken by H.M. Stationery Office, 
the treasury having determined that the cata- 
logue should be printed at the public expense. 
In coming to this conclusion the Lords of the 
Treasury stated that they had regard ‘to the 
importance of the work with reference to the 
promotion of scientific knowledge generally, 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


to the high authority of the source from 
whence it came, and to the labor gratuitously 
given by members of the Royal Society for 
its production.’ This arrangement, however, 
came to an end after the publication of the 
first eight volumes. The treasury in 1889 
informed the society that the catalogue could 
no longer be printed and published by the 
Stationery Office. The unsold volumes were, 
however, handed over to the society, and Par- 
liament voted a sum of £1,000 to assist the 
society in continuing the printing and publi- 
cation. The four subsequent volumes have 
been printed and published by the Cambridge 
University Press, which has received subsidies 
from the society for this purpose, and receives 
the sums arising from sales. 

The total sum expended by the society upon 
the catalogue down to the end of June last 
has been £14,790 5s. 5d. Towards this ex- 
penditure a donation of £2,000 was made by 
Dr. Ludwig Mond in 1892. Sums amounting 
to £524 11s. 9d. have been received as the 
proceeds of sales of the volumes handed over 
to the Royal Society by the Stationery Office, 
and, as already stated, £1,000 has been re- 
ceived from the treasury. The council has 
also hitherto devoted the income of the Hand- 
ley fund (which they have power to apply as 
they may deem best for the advancement of 
science) towards defraying the cost of. pro- 
ducing the catalogue. The total sum re- 
ceived from this source has been £2,394 11s. 
10d. A sum of £341 11s., arising from money 
invested until actually required, has also been 
available for the same purpose. These pe- 
cuniary aids amount in all to £6,260 14s. 7d. 
As will be seen, they have not been nearly 
sufficient to meet the whole cost, and the 
society has been compelled to make up the 
balance of £8,529 10s. 10d. out of its own gen- 
eral income. 

As it became obvious that to permanently 
continue to prepare and publish catalogues 
of the ever-increasing stream of scientific 
literature was wholly beyond the means of the 
society, the council took steps to obtain inter- 
national cooperation in this great work. Such 
cooperation has happily been secured, and the 
cataloguing of the scientific literature of the 


SCIENCE. 


875 


present century is now in the hands of an 
international council. The Royal Society has, 
however, incurred large special responsibili- 
ties in connection with the matter, having 
undertaken, inter alia, to act as the publishers 
of the catalogue, and also to advance the 
capital required to start the enterprise. 

The International Catalogue is concerned 
only with the scientific literature appearing 
after the commencement of the present cen- 
tury. The Royal Society’s Catalogue, as 
already stated, is at present carried down to 
the end of the year 1883 only, and the subject 
index for that period is but partially dealt 
with. The foreign delegates, assembled to 
consider the establishment of the Interna- 
tional Council, expressed their sense of the 
great importance of the Royal Society’s Cata- 
logue, and of the obligations which men of 
science in all countries were under to the 
society for having undertaken it. They also 
expressed the hope that the society would 
complete the catalogue up to the close of the 
last century, so as to bring it into line with 
the International Catalogue. Indeed, it may 
be said that the International Council is pro- 
ceeding on the assumption that this will be 
done. 

In order to complete the catalogue, it will 
be necessary to prepare and publish a ecata- 
logue of authors for the seventeen years 1883- 
1900, and to complete and publish the subject 
index for the whole of the past century. The 
council of the Royal Society are satisfied that 
this work must be done, and have not felt 
justified in refusing to undertake it. They 
have accordingly commenced operations, and 
it is hoped that the copy may be produced 
ready for the press in about five years. Owing 
to the enormous increase in the number of 
scientific publications at the close of the last 
century, it is estimated that to complete the 
catalogue, and to subsidize a publisher for 
undertaking the printing and _ publication, 
he retaining the proceeds of the sale, will cost 
at least £12,000. 

The question now arises whether the funds 
of the Royal Society ought to continue to be 
burdened with any part of this expense. The 
activity and responsibilities of the society 


876 


have greatly increased in recent years, and it 
is much straitened by its inability to increase 
its expenditure, either on its own establish- 
ment, or in other directions, owing to the in- 
cessant demands of the catalogue. The coun- 
cil consider that the time has now come for 
them to appeal to those who are in a position 
to aitord substantial financial assistance, to 
enable them to complete this great underta- 
king without devoting any part of their funds, 
so sorely needed for other purposes, to this 
object. They are thankful to be able to an- 
nounce that Dr. Ludwig Mond, F.R.S., has 
been so impressed with the importance of the 
catalogue, with the necessity for producing 
the subject index of the scientific literature 
of the past century so far as possible in the 
same complete form as that adopted by the 
International Council for the literature of 
the present century, and with the justice of 
the view that the Royal Society ought for 
the future to be relieved of the cost of pro- 
ducing the catalogue, that he has most gen- 
erously added to his previous gift of £2,000 
the munificent donation of £6,000, payable in 
four annual instalments of £1,500. 

The president and council have also much 
pleasure in stating that Mr. Andrew Carnegie, 
fully appreciating the value of the society’s 
undertaking and the claims that it has on the 
liberality of those who, though not fellows of 
the society, are interested in the promotion of 
natural knowledge, has contributed the hand- 
some sum of £1,000 towards its accomplish- 
ment. They venture to hope that others may 
be willing to contribute towards a fund to 
provide for the total cost of this national 
work. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

Tue Royal Society has this year awarded 
medals, as follows: The Copley medal to Lord 
Lister in recognition of his physiological and 
pathological researches in regard to their in- 
fluence on the modern practice of surgery. 
The Rumford medal to the Hon. Charles Al- 
gernon Parsons for his suecess in the applica- 
tion of the steam turbine to industrial pur- 
poses and for its recent extension to naviga- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 413. 


tion. A Royal medal to Professor Horace 
Lamb for his investigations in mathematical 
physics. A Royal medal to Professor Edward 
Albert Schifer for his researches into the 
functions and minute structure of the central 
nervous system, especially with regard to the 
motor and sensory functions of the cortex of 
the brain. The Davy medal to Professor 
Svante August Arrhenius for the application 
of the theory of dissociation to the explana- 
tion of chemical change. The Darwin medal 
to Mr. Francis Galton for his numerous con- 
tributions to the exact study of heredity and 
variation contained in ‘ Hereditary Genius,’ 
‘Natural Inheritance, and other writings. 
The Buchanan medal to Dr. Sydney A. 
Monckton Copeman for his experimental in- 
vestigations into the bacteriology and compara- 
tive pathology of vaccination. The Hughes 
medal to Professor Joseph John Thomson for 
his numerous contributions to electric science, 
especially in reference to the phenomena of 
electric discharge in gases. 

Ar the meeting of the National Academy of 
Sciences, held in Baltimore November 11 and 
12, a grant of eight hundred dollars was made 
from the income of the J. Lawrence Smith 
bequest to Dr. O. C. Farrington, of the Field 
Columbian Museum, Chicago, to enable him 
to conduct certain investigations upon the 
meteoric bodies of America. 

Tue daily papers state that Major Ronald 
Ross, of the Liverpool School of Tropical 
Medicine, will receive the award of a Nobel 
prize. 

Nature gives the following list of those who 
have been recommended bythe president and 
council of the Royal Society for election into 
the council for the year 1903 at the anniver- 
sary meeting on December 1. The names of 
new members are printed in italics: Presi- 
dent, Sir William Huggins, K.C.B., O.M.; 
treasurer, Mr. A. B. Kempe; secretaries, Sir 
Michael Foster, K.C.B., and Dr. Joseph Lar- 
mor; foreign secretary, Dr. T. E. Thorpe,’ 
C.B.; other members of the council, Mr. W. 
Bateson, Dr. W. T. Blanford, Professor H. 
L. Callendar, Mr. F. Darwin, Professor H. B. 
Dixon, Professor G. Carey Foster, Right Hon. 
Sir John E. Gorst, Professor J. W. Judd, 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. | 


O.B., Right Hon. Lord Lister, O.M., Professor 
G. D. Liveing, Professor A. EH. H. Love, Pro- 
fessor H. A. Miers, Professor H. A. Schéfer, 
Captain T. H. Tizard, R.N., C.B., Professor 
H. H. Turner, Sir J. Wolfe Barry, K.C.B. 


Mr. Aupert FI. Woops, chief of the Division 
of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology of the 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, has gone to 
Nebraska to visit the experimental stations 
and gather information in regard to the beet- 
sugar industry. 


Dr. A. D. Horxins, of the Division of 
Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 
has returned from an extended trip to Arizona, 
southern California, northern Idaho, the Puget 
Sound country and the Black Hills, where 
he made investigations of the damage done 
timber by insect pests. 

Tue jubilee of the eminent anatomist, Golgi, 
who is now in his eigthy-sixth year, was cele- 
brated at Pavia on October 28. He was pres- 
ented with an edition of his works in three 
volumes. 


Mr. J. C. Hawxsuaw gave the presidential 
address before the British Institution of Civil 
Engineers on November 4. Afterwards med- 
als and premiums were awarded as follows: 
The Howard quinquennial prize to Mr. 
Robert A. Hadfield, for his scientifie work in 
investigating methods of treatment of alloys 
of steel, and on account of the importance in 
industry of some of the new products intro- 
duced by him. A Telford gold medal to Mr. 
William M. Mordey and a George Stephenson 
gold medal to Mr. Bernard M. Jenkin, for 
their joint paper on ‘ Electrical traction on 
railways’; a Watt gold medal to Mr. J. A. F. 
Aspinall, for his paper on ‘ Train resistance’; 
a Telford gold medal to Mr. John M. Gray, 
for his paper on ‘The variable and absolute 
specific heat of water’; a George Stephenson 
gold medal to Mr. Richard Price-Williams, 
for his paper on ‘The maintenance and re- 
newals of waterworks’; a Watt gold medal to 
Dr. William B. Dawson, for his paper on 
‘ Tide-gauges in northern climates and isolated 
situations. The Miller scholarship, tenable 
for three years, and the James Forrest medal 
"were presented to Mr. Herbert F. Lloyd, for 


SCIENCE. 


877 


his paper on ‘The design, manufacture and 
erection of wrought steel conduits for gravi- 
tation and pressure water supply.’ 


Tue list of birthday honors in Great Britain 
includes the names of Mr. W. H. Power, 
F.R.S., principal medical officer to the Local 
Government Board, who has been made a 
companion of the Order of the Bath; Sir J. J. 
Trevor Lawrence, a Knight Commander of 
the Royal Victorian Order; and Mr. H. J. 
Chaney, superintendent of the Standards De- 
partment, Board of Trade, Companion of the 
Imperial Service Order. 


Dr. H. P. Jounson, having undertaken the 
investigation of icterohematuria of sheep, is 
at present in Helena, Montana, and requests 
that all correspondence, exchanges, etc., be sent 
to that address. 


Mr. G. M. Rircury, of the Yerkes Observa- 
tory, gave an illustrated lecture on ‘ Recent 
Celestial Photography,’ under the auspices of 
the Smithsonian Institution, November 22, 
in the lecture hall of the U. S. National Mu- 
seum. 


Masgor Watter ReeEp, an officer of the Sur- 
geon-General’s Department of the Army, and 
well known for his researches on the relation 
of the mosquito to yellow fever, died at Wash- 
ington on November 23, at the age of fifty-one 
years. 

Mr. Frepertck JAMES CARNELL, laboratory 
assistant in physics in the Sheffield Scientific 
School, of Yale University, died on Novyem- 
ber 16 from an accidental shot while hunting. 


Tue death is also announced of Mr. Wil- 
liam Henry Barlow, F.R.S., a well known 
British civil engineer, on November 12, at 
the age of ninety years. 


Tuere will be an examination to fill the 
position of piece-work computer in the 
Nautical Almanae Office on December 9 and 
10, and to fill a similar position in the Naval 
Observatory on January 6 and 7. 


Accorping to La Semaine Médicale Dr. 
Steiner, a Dutch physician, has discovered a 
method of anesthesia among the Javanese 
produced by compression of the carotid artery. 
From a story collected by Dr. J. R. Swanton, 


878 


of the Bureau of Ethnology, ‘when working 
in the interests of the Jesup North Pacitic 
Expedition, it would appear that the phe- 
nomenon involved was known to Indians of 
our northwest coast. 

Fora notification has been received by the 
Lewiston Land Office from Commissioner Her- 
mann of the General Land Office, of the tem- 
porary withdrawal of 2,300,000 acres in Idaho 
and Boisé Counties, lying south of the present 
Bitter Root forest reserve, pending an investi- 
gation as to the advisability of adding the 
territory to the reserve. With this addition, 
the Bitter Root Reserve will comprise 5,300,000 
acres, or an area as large as the State of 
Massachusetts. The land now temporarily 
withdrawn lies along the Salmon River water- 
shed, and ineludes Thunder Mountain, Mar- 
shall Lake, Warrens and other mining dis- 
tricts. 

THR sixth meeting of the Congress of Ameri- 
ean Physicians and Surgeons will be held in 
Washington, on May 12, 18 and 14,1903. The 
subjects chosen for special discussion are ‘ the 
pancreas and pancreatic diseases’ and ‘the 
medical and surgical aspects of diseases of 
the gall-bladder and bile ducts.’ The presi- 
dent, Dr. W. W. Keen, of Philadelphia, has 
chosen as the subject of his address ‘ The 
duties and responsibilities of trustees of medi- 
eal institutions.’ 

On the 14th inst. the chemists of Syracuse 
organized themselves into a society with the 
-following officers: 

President, J. D. Pennock, Solvay Process Co. 

Vice-President, Professor E. N. Pattee; Syracuse 
University. 

Secretary, Professor H. Monmouth Smith, Syra- 
cuse University. 

Treasurer, Dr. J. W. Mathews, Crucible Steel Co. 
of America. 

Councilors, Dr. H. G. Carrell, Solvay Process 
Cd.: Matthew Adgate, General Chemical Co.; Edw. 
L. French, Crucible Steel Co. of Ameriea. 

The society begins with a membership of 
35. Meetings will be held monthly, except 
during the summer. 


Tue New England intercollegiate geolog- 
ical excursion, announced a few weeks ago, 
took place on Saturday, November 1, an ex- 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 413. 


eeptionally beautiful autumnal day, when 
teachers and students to the number of sixty- 
nine from nine colleges and a number of nor- 
mal and secondary schools, met at Holyoke, 
Mass., and were led by Professor B. K. Emer- 
son, of Amherst, to some of the most inter- 
esting localities in the district, in connection 
with the Triassic sandstones and lava flows. 
A superb view of the Connecticut valley was 
obtained in the afternoon from the top of 
Mt. Tom, the summit of which was gained 
by a funicular railroad. It is planned that 
the third excursion of the series, a year hence, 
shall be to the Hanging Hills, near Meriden, 
Conn., under the leadership of Professor 
Gregory, of Yale. 

A SERIES of investigations is about to be be- 
gun by the Division of Hydrography of the 
U. S. Geological Survey, under M. O. Leigh- 
ton, resident hydrographer, into the effects of 
eoal-mine refuse upon the rivers of the coal 
region. It has been commonly observed that 
the streams running close to the anthracite 
mines of eastern Pennsylvania and other min- 
ing loealities are heavily charged with sul- 
phur, and that their waters often have a 
slightly acid reaction; the beds of the streams 
are also often overlain by heavy deposits of 
sulphur precipitated from the water. It is 
the purpose of the investigations to discover 
the effects, deleterious or otherwise, upon the 
rivers which receive the polluted streams. 
One of the immediate results of the pollution 
is the driving away of all varieties of fish, 
which were once abundant in these streams, 
but a more important consideration is the 
influence of the sulphur-charged streams on 
the processes of decomposition of organic mat- 
ter going on in rivers into which they flow. 
The mine refuse, especially such as comes 
from culm-pile washery, is a troublesome 
source of pollution. The separation of the 
coal from the waste is accomplished through 
the use of quantities of water, which are re- 
turned to the streams laden with fine coal- 
dust. For some distance below the outlets of 
these washeries the streams have the appear- 
ance of liquid stove-polish, and the coal-dust, 
extending for many miles downstream, is 
gradually deposited, in places even filling the 


NOVEMBER 28, 1902. ] 


Such water is unfit 
for household or even for manufacturing uses, 
and though the coal refuse is not an organic 
pollution, nor a chemical poison, its presence 
in large quantities is a troublesome factor 
to be considered when water filtration is pro- 
jected. The distances downstream to which 
this material persists under different flow 
conditions will also furnish an interesting 
subject for study. 


channels of the streams. 


Proressor 'T. C. Cuamprruy, of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago, has had charge, during 
the present season, of the investigations car- 
ried on by the U. S. Geological Survey in the 
deposits of Pleistocene age in the United 
States. An important part of these deposits 
consists of the gravel and till widely spread 
over the northern tier of states by the inva- 
sion of the great glacier during a late geo- 
logical epoch. These gravels are of consid- 
erable economic importance on account of 
the clays found in connection with them in 
certain localities. In the middle states they 
are of importance on account of the water 
retained by them, which is available for wells; 
while in the western states they are associated 
with auriferous metals. Professor Chamber- 
lin has been assisted by Professor Salisbury 
and Mr. W. W. Atwood in the Rocky Moun- 
tain region, by Frank Leverett and W. F. 
Taylor in Michigan and by W. C. Alden in 
Wisconsin. 


TuroucH the influence of Director Stewart, 
of the Experiment Station at West Virginia 
University, and with the cooperation of some 
prominent citizens of Morgantown, the U. S. 
Division of Good Roads in the Department 
of Agriculture has been induced to supervise 
the building of three miles of good road in 
Monongalia county. Work upon this piece 
of model road is now going on. It extends 
from the west end of the suspension bridge 
at Morgantown down the river three miles, 
to Randall. <A portion of it is to be built 
of Telford blocks, and the remainder is to 
be a MacAdam road. Citizens furnish the 
material and labor and the U. S. government 
furnishes the machinery and supervises the 
work. 


SCIENCE. 


879 


Tim Department of State has received from 
the Belgian legation, Washington, under date of 
November 3, 1902, notice of the International 
Congress of Hygiene and Demography, to be 
held at Brussels from September 2 to Septem- 
ber 8, 1903. An invitation ig extended to 
the United States to be officially represented, 
and the wish is expressed, in behalf of the 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, that committees 
of propaganda, composed of persons eminent 
in medical science and hygiene, be organized 
in the different states, with whom the central 
committee at Brussels may correspond. The 
questions to be discussed will include bac- 
teriology, microbiology, parasitology applied to 
hygiene; alimentary hygiene, applications of 
chemical and veterinary science, sterilization, 
use of antiseptics; sanitary technology; indus- 
trial and professional hygiene; hygienic trans- 
portation, best means of disinfection; adminis- 
trative hygiene, aim and organization of 
medical inspection, quarantine regulations, and 
supervision of tenement houses; colonial 
hygiene, malaria, beri-beri, etc.; demography. 
Blank applications and copies of regulations 
and programs, sent by the legation, are filed 
for reference in the Bureau of Foreign Com- 
merce. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Tue twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening 
of the State University of Colorado, in Bould- 
er, was appropriately celebrated on Novem- 
ber 13, 14 and 15. The general address was 
given by President Jacob Gould Schurman, of 
Cornell University, who spoke on ‘Problems 
of Modern University Education as Suggested 
by the Charter of the University of Colorado.’ 
The other addresses were given before the 
Dr. Frederic S. Lee, of 
Columbia University, spoke on ‘ The Scientific 
Aspect of Modern Medicine’; Mr. Frederick 
N. Judson, of St. Louis, Mo., spoke on ‘The 
Quarter-Century in American Jurisprudence’; 
and Professor Dugald P. Jackson, of the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin, on ‘The Potency of 


professional schools. 


Engineering Schools and their Imperfections.’ 
The University was established on paper as 
early as 1861 in the early territorial days <f 


880 


Colorado, but it was not until 1874 that the 
Legislature of the Territory made the first 
appropriation for its support. When Colorado 
was admitted to the union in 1876 the consti- 
tution provided that the university should be- 
come an institution of the state. Since that 
time the university has been well supported 
both by a regular portion of the tax levy and 
by special appropriations which have been 
made from time to time. The present year’s 
enrollment is about 550 in the University 
while the State Preparatory school, managed 
also by the Regents, has 375 pupils. Last 
June 71 degrees were conferred. 


THE new building of the Central High 
School of Philadelphia, erected at a cost of 
$1,500,000, was dedicated on November 22. 
President Roosevelt and several members of 
his cabinet were present. The exercises, which 
were continued on the twenty-fourth and 
twenty-fifth, included addresses by Dr. W. T. 
Harris, commissioner of education, Dr. 
Thomas M. Drown, president of Lehigh Uni- 
versity, and R. E. Thompson, president of the 
school. 


Tue Supreme Court has handed down an 
opinion sustaining the decision of Justice 
Truax in directing the New York University 
to reconvey to the Medical College Laboratory 
of the city of New York the premises which 
were deeded over to the university in 1897 in 
accordance with a plan for combining the 
laboratory and the university. 


We learn from The British Medical Journal 
that the Gordon Memorial College, at Khar- 
toum, which Lord Kitchener opened on Novem- 
ber 8, is now ready for the chemical and bac- 
teriological research laboratories presented by 
Mr. Henry 8S. Wellcome during his recent visit 
to the Soudan. The fixtures and appliances 
made in England have already been shipped. 
The equipment for scientific work is said to be 
complete in every detail, and to be equal to 
any similar laboratories in Europe. The 
Sirdar has appointed Andrew Balfour, M.D., 
B.Se., D.P.H., of Edinburgh, director of these 
research laboratories. The Soudan affords ex- 
cellent opportunities for the study of tropical 
diseases, especially malaria, typhoid, and 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vout. XVI. No. 413. 


dysentery, and it is hoped that the results of 
the investigations of Dr. Balfour and his staff 
will be of the greatest importance. Dr. Bal- 
four will also assist the authorities in the 
investigation of the criminal poisoning cases 
which are very frequent in the Soudan. The 
nature of some of the poisons used by the 
natives is at present obscure, and it is pos- 
sible that the work in these laboratories may 
considerably increase our knowledge of toxie 
agents. Apart from the original researches 
and general sanitary work, Dr. Balfour and 
his staff will devote their attention to the study 
of the cereals, textile fibers, and various mat- 
ters affecting the development of the agricul- 
tural and mineral resources of the Soudan. 

Dr. Herman Knapp has resigned the chair 
of ophthalmology at the College of Physicians 
and Surgeons, Columbia University, and has 
been appointed emeritus professor. 

Proressor R. Ogpen Doremus has retired 
from the chair of chemistry in the New York 
City College, with which he has been con- 
nected for fifty-one years. 


W. H. Boueuron, assistant professor of 
civil engineering in Denison University, has 
accepted the position of professor of civil en- 
gineering in the University of West Virginia. 

Dr. C. H. Gorpon, superintendent of the 
city schools of Lincoln, Nebraska, has been 
appointed instructor in geology and geography 
in the University of Nebraska. Dr. Gordon 
retains his position at the head of the city 
schools and will, for the present, give a course 
in petrology and during the spring semester 
a course in geography, the latter designed es- 
pecially for teachers or those having teaching 
in view. In addition to this work he will also, 
during the spring semester, repeat his course 
of lectures on school supervision and manage- 
ment given last year. 

Ir is announced that Dr. Martin H. Fisch- 
ern, associate in physiology at the University 
of Chicago, and Dr. Charles D. Rogers, assist- 
ant in physiology, will go with Professor 
Jacques Loeb to the University of California. 


Erratum: In the review of Professor Baldwin’s 
‘Development and Evolution, page 820 above, for 
othoplasy read orthoplasy. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL CoMMITTEE : 8S. NEwcoms, Mathematics; R. S. WoopwaRp, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THuRSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. Watcort, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; Hmnry F. Osporn, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooxs, C. Hart MERRIAM, Zoology ; 8. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessey, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. BILLINGs, Hygiene; WILLIAM H. WELCH, 

Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Fray, DecempBer 5, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


Ogden N. Rood: Proressor W. Le Conte 
STEVENS 7 
International 


Congress of Americanists at 


New York: PrRoressor ALEXANDER F. 
CHAMBERLAIN sais syejraiteins Ss econ ace es 
Fifth International Congress of Applied 


Chemistry: Dr. H. W. WImLEY............ 
Scientific Books :— 
Recent Papers on Brachiopoda: PROFESSOR 
C. E. Breecurer. Gauss’s Curved Surfaces: 
Proressor A. 8. HatHaway. van’t Hofff’s 
Vortrage iiber physikalische Chemie: PRo- 
FESSOR THEODORE W. RICHARDS.......... 
Societies and Academies :— 
The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science. N. Y. Academy of Sci- 
ences: Section of Geology and Mineralogy: 
Dr. EpmMunp O. Hovey. Section of Astron- 
omy, Physics and Chemistry: Dr. S. A. 
MitcnHert. The Elisha Mitchell Scientific 
Society: PROFESSOR CHARLES BASKERVILLE. 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
The Kinetic Theory and the Expansion of a 
Oompressed Gas into a Vacuum: PROFESSOR 
R.W. Woop. Bitter Rot of Apples: Pro- 
Fessor T. J. Burrmyt. A Peculiar Hail- 
storm: Dr. ALFRED W. G. WiLson. What 
is Nature Study? Proressor W. J. Brat, 
Dr. A. S. Packard, PRoFESSoR JoHN M. 
CouLtrER, Proressor C. P. GILLETTE, PRo- 
Fressor W. M. Davis, Proressor A. E. VER- 
RILL, PRESIDENT DAvip STARR JORDAN, PRo- 
FESSOR THoMAS H. MAcBRIDE............ 
Shorter Articles :— 
Teeth in Baptanodon: CHARLES W. GIL- 
MORE 
Current Notes on Physiography :-— 
Rivers of South Dakota; Argentine- 
Chilean Boundary ; Maps of Faroe Islands: 
Proressor W. M. Davis................. 
The Magnetic Survey of Lowisiana.......... 
The Rhodes Scholarships............0000005 
Scientific Notes and News................. 
University and Hducational News.......... 


881 


884 
899 


901 


904 


908 


913 


OGDEN N. ROOD. 


AFTER an illness of less than a week, 
Professor Rood died at his home in New 
York on Wednesday, November 12. At 
the time of his death he was the senior 
member of the faculties of Columbia Uni- 
versity. 

Ogden Nicholas Rood was born at Dan- 
bury, Connecticut, on February 38, 1831. 
His father was a Congregational minister, 
and his mother, Aleida Gouverneur Ogden, 
belonged to an old and aristocratic family 
of New York. When seventeen years of 
age he was sent to Princeton, where he 
was graduated in 1852. He had already 
exhibited marked aptitude for experi- 
mental science, and this fact decided his 
taking a course of post-graduate study at 
the newly organized Sheffield Scientific 
School in New Haven, where the two Silli- 
mans, father and son, in conjunction with 
James D. Dana, had established a focus 
of American scientific activity. This course 
was crowned with the degree of master of 
arts, there being at that day little or no 
differentiation of scholastic degrees in this 
country. 

In 1854 young Rood went to Europe, 
continuing his scientific studies at the uni- 
versities of Munich and Berlin during four, 
years, but without taking the doctor’s de- 
gree. This was in nowise due to lack of 
fitness for it, but rather to his life-long 


882 


aversion for everything that savored of 
ostentation. Subsequently he refused re- 
peatedly such honorary degrees as were 
offered him, yielding only during the last 
few years to the two institutions, Prince- 
ton and Yale, with which his early associa- 
tions were strongest. In 1858 he returned 
to America with a German bride, and ac- 
cepted an offer of the professorship of 
chemistry and physics in the Troy Univer- 
sity, a denominational institution which 
had recently been organized in the imme- 
diate neighborhood of the better known 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Here 
Professor Rood remained five years. He 
resigned in 1863, and during the following 
year he accepted the chair of physics in 
Columbia College, which had just been 
made vacant by the withdrawal of Pro- 
fessor R. S. MeCulloch. For thirty-eight 
years, including the best years of ma- 
ture manhood, from thirty-three to nearly 
seventy-two, his name has been widely 
known in connection with this institution 
as one of its scientific staff. Of his early 
colleagues, Barnard, Joy, Egleston, New- 
berry, Peck and Chandler, three of whom 
organized the School of Mines, which is 
now the school of applied science in Co- 
lumbia University, all but one have now 
passed away. 

As a physicist Professor Rood gave but 
little attention to abstruse mathematical 
analysis. He was essentially an experi- 
mentalist, and one of great originality and 
skill. His period of greatest activity pre- 
ceded the present day of extreme special- 
ization. Much of his work belonged to the 
domain shared by the physicist, artist and 
psychologist. As a young man in Europe 
he had access to the best that was afforded 
in such art centers as Munich, Dresden and 
Berlin. He had a passionate love for art, 
and the study of the triumphs of Rubens 
and Titian in color was to him as en- 
gagine as the more exact work of Fraun- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


hofer, Maxwell and Helmholtz. At his 
summer home in Stockbridge, Massachu- 
setts, his vacations were devoted largely 
to recreation with brush and pencil, and 
many of his water-color sketches have 
elicited admiration at the annual exhibi- 
tions of the American Water Color Society 
in New York. He had a well-trained ear 
for music, and in physics his fondness for 
acoustics and optics was marked. As a 
lecturer his style was singularly clear, and 
his illustrations were well selected and 
happy. <A popular lecture on ‘Mysteries 
of the Voice and Kar,’ delivered in 1873 
before the Yale Scientific Club, was uni- 
versally regarded as a model of its kind. 
Tyndall had just finished a series of lec- 
tures in America that aroused great public 
interest and created a demand that was 
well met by Morton, Mayer and Rood. 
Soon after beginning his duties in Troy 
Professor Rood published in the American 
Journal of Science an article ‘On Adapt- 
ing the Microscope as a Goniometer and 
for Determining Index of Refraction.’ 
This indicated the choice he had already 
made of experimental optics as a specialty. 
It was soon followed by papers on ‘Cir- 
cular Polarization by Cooled Glasses,’ 
‘Contraction of the Muscles by Vibration,’ 
‘On Probable Means of Rendering Visible 
the Circulation in the Eye,’ and a criticism 
of ‘A New Theory of Light’ which had 
just been propounded by an Englishman, 
John Smith. His lifelong interest in 
physiological optics became well developed 
about this time, and he had an interested 
co-worker in his colleague, Professor Edwin 
Emerson. Among his papers on this sub- 
ject was one ‘On a Method of Producing 
Stereographs by Hand’ (1861); others 
‘Upon Some Experiments Connected with 
Dove’s Theory of Luster’ (1861) ; ‘On the 
Relation between our Perceptions of Dis- 
tance and Color’ (1861); and ‘On some 
Stereoscopic Experiments’ (1862). 


DECEMBER 5, 1902.] 


Along with these laboratory studies in 
Troy Professor Rood conducted a series 
of out-door, investigations which were pub- 
lished in 1860 under the title ‘Experi- 
ments on the Forms of Elongated Pro- 
jectiles.” He was fond of rifle practice, 
and in Troy at that time there was a 
rifle manufactory where probably the best 
weapons of this kind in America were 
made. He devised a special form of 
ballistic pendulum for measuring velocity, 
studied the relation between accuracy of 
flight and the rate of rotation of the pro- 
jectile on its longitudinal axis, and investi- 
gated penetrative power as related to the 
form of the projectile, its initial velocity 
and the position of its center of gravity. 
Comparing his results with those attained 
in England and on the continent of Eu- 
rope, he demonstrated the marked superi- 
ority of American rifled guns. The coun- 
try was on the eve of civil war, and the 
investigation was of much more than theo- 
retic interest. 

While in Troy Professor Rood was active 
as an amateur photographer. In 1861 and 
1862 he published papers ‘On the Practical 
Application of Photography to the Micro- 
scope,’ ‘On the Investigation of Micro- 
scopic Forms by Means of the Images 
which they Furnish of External Objects,’ 
and ‘On the Study of the Electric Spark 
by the Aid of Photography.’ About the 
same time he was the pioneer in the suc- 
cessful construction of fiuid prisms of 
highly dispersive power for the study of 
the spectrum, attaining a degree of accu- 
rate definition far in advance of what had 
previously been accomplished with such 
prisms. 

Professor Rood’s demonstrated ability as 
an experimentalist and the reputation he 
had rapidly made by his researches were 
what determined his call to Columbia Col- 
lege in 1864 and his election to member- 
ship in the National Academy of Sciences 


SCIENCE. 


883 


during the same year. In New York he 
developed a long-continued research on the 
use of the revolving disk as a means of 
measuring very small intervals of time, 
still continuing his studies on the spec- 
trum, and specializing on the quantitative 
analysis of the phenomena of color mix- 
ture and color contrast. But this did not 
prevent temporary excursions into other 
fields. In 1874 he published an ‘Optical 
Method of Studying the Vibrations of 
Solid Bodies,’ and during the same year 
he made quite an elaborate research ‘On 
the Application of the Horizontal Pendu- 
lum to the Measurement of Minute Changes 
in the Dimensions of Solid Bodies.’ The 
exactitude of this measurement is indicated 
by the statement that the probable error 
of a single measurement was reduced to 
about one twenty-millionth of an English 
inch, or roughly one three-hundredth of a 
wave-leneth of violet light. 

The use of the revolving disk was spe- 
cially applied to observations of the dura- 
tion and multiple character of flashes of 
lightning and of disruptive discharges be- 
tween the electrodes of induction coils and 
influence machines. Other investigators 
had estimated the duration to be, in some 
cases, as little as one millionth of a second. 
It was shown by Rood that this was far too 
small. The actual range of variation is 
of course great, but his experiments indi- 
eated that, for a Leyden jar connected with 
an induction coil, an average value was 
about one five-hundredth of a second. 

In 1880 and 1881 Professor Rood de- 
voted much attention to the study of 
vacuum pumps, his aim being not to in- 
erease their commercial efficiency, but to 
ascertain the limit of perfection attainable, 
even though with such expense of time as 
to interfere with ready availability. He 
modified and so improved the Sprengel 
mercury pump as to secure a vacuum much 
more nearly perfect than had been secured 


884 


by any of his predecessors. The commer- 
cial importance of the mercury pump had 
but recently been greatly enhanced by the 
introduction of vacuum bulbs for ineandes- 
cent electric lighting. In one of these a 
vacuum of one millionth is_ sufficient. 
Crookes had attained a vacuum of one 
seventeen-millionth. Rood’s improvements 
added scarcely anything to the cost of the 
pump, but he attained a vacuum estimated 
to be very nearly one four-hundred-mil- 
lionth. 

The results of Professor Rood’s extended 
researches on color were collected by him 
into a volume, entitled ‘Modern Chro- 
matics,’ which was published in 1879. 
This book at once became a standard, and 
has continued to be so to the present time. 
The author’s style is so easy and clear as 
to be readily intelligible to the non-profes- 
sional reader, but without any sacrifice of 
scientific truth. He frankly adopts the 
theory of color-vision propounded by 
Young and extended by Helmholtz, accept- 
ing it as the best working theory, what- 
ever may be the difficulties based on 
purely psychological grounds. During the 
twenty-three years that have elapsed since 
the publication of this book the number of 
theories of color-vision that have been 
brought forward is so great that only pro- 
fessional psychologists can be expected to 
know them. If any one of them should 
ever be established, its adoption will not 
detract from the value of the present vol- 
ume. Since 1890 the author has published 
two noteworthy papers on physiological 
opties, one on ‘A Color System,’ and the 
other on ‘A Photometric Method which is 
Independent of Color.’ In his hands, and 
also those of others, the ‘flicker’ photometer 
invented by him has yielded results quite 
comparable in accuracy with what is at- 
tainable by the use of instruments intended 
exclusively for comparison of lights of the 
same hue. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


One of the last researches published by 
Professor Rood was on ‘Regular or Spece- 
ular Reflection of the Rontgen Rays from 
Polished Metallic Surfaces.’ The experi- 
ments seemed to indicate that a small per- 
centage of these rays may be reflected from 
polished surfaces, and that they consist 
probably of transverse waves like those of 
ordinary light, but of shorter length. 

Professor, Rood was essentially a student, 
devoted to pure science, and not in sym- 
pathy with the commercial spirit which has 
so long tended to deter American students 
from choosing science for a career. This 
fact caused him to appear to many as a 
recluse. But he always had a welcome for 
those who could understand his point of 
view; and the present writer remembers 
with keen pleasure the kindly words and 
generous encouragement accorded by the 
distinguished physicist to a young stranger 
who, more than twenty years ago, formed 
his acquaintance on the basis of two 
articles, just published, on physiological 
opties. The friendship thus started was 
never broken. 


W. Le Conte Stevens. 
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY. 


INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF AMERICAN- 
ISTS AT NEW YORK. 

In accordance with the invitation of the 
American Museum of Natural History, ex- 
tended through its President, Mr. Morris K. 
Jesup, and the Due de Loubat, the Thir- 
teenth Session of the Congrés International 
des Américanistes met in New York during 
the week from Monday to Saturday, October 
20-25. The preparations for the meeting 
were under the auspices of the Committee 
on Organization, which consisted of Morris 
K. Jesup (President), the Duc de Loubat 
(Vice-President), M. H. Saville (General 
Seeretary), Harlan I. Smith (Treasurer) 
and the following members representing 
learned and scientific institutions: Franz 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


Boas (Columbia University), E. G. Bourne 
(Yale University), C. P. Bowditch (Amer- 
ican Antiquarian Society), J. C. Bran- 
ner (Leland Stanford Junior University), 
J. V. Brower (Minnesota Historical So- 
ciety), H. C. Bumpus (American Museum 
of Natural History), S. H. Carney, Jr. 
(New York Historical Society), A. F. 
Chamberlain (Clark University), T. F. 
Crane (Cornell University), Stewart Culin 
(University of Pennsylvania, American 
Philosophical Society, Numismatic and 
Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia), G. 
A. Dorsey (Field Columbian Museum), G. 
T. Emmons (U. 8S. Navy), Livingston Far- 
rand (New York Academy of Sciences), 
J. Walter Fewkes (American Association 
for the Advancement of Science), G. P. 
Garrison (Texas State Historical Asso- 
ciation), D. C. Gilman (Johns Hopkins 
University), C. S. Gleed (Kansas State 
Historical Society), Stansbury Hagar 
(Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences), 
H. W. Haynes (American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts Historical 
Society), F. W. Hodge (Smithsonian In- 
stitution), Levi Holbrook (American Geo- 
eraphical Society), W. J. Holland (Car- 
negie Museum), W. H. Holmes (U. S. 
National Museum), A. L. Kroeber (Univer- 
sity of California), O. T. Mason (Colum- 
bian University), W J McGee (National 
Geographic Society), C. B. Moore (Acad- 
emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia), 
Edward S. Morse (National Academy of 
Sciences), W- W. Newell (American Folk- 
lore Society), A. S. Packard (Brown 
University), G. H. Perkins (University of 
Vermont), J. W. Powell (Bureau of Ameri- 
ean Ethnology), F. W. Putnam (Harvard 
University), W. B. Scott (Princeton Uni- 
versity), Frederick Starr (University of 
Chicago), J. J. Stevenson (New York Uni- 
versity), R. G. Thwaites (State Historical 
Society of Wisconsin), J. W. White (Arch- 
eological Institute of America), James G. 


SCIENCE. 


885 


Wilson (American Ethnologieal Society), 
Thomas Wilson (Anthropological Society 
of Washington), Talcott Williams (Ameri- 
can Tistorical Association). 

This committee had the misfortune to 
lose, before the assembling of the congress, 
two of its most able and respected mem- 
bers, Dr. Thomas Wilson and Major J. W. 
Powell, whose deaths were deeply felt by 
all their colleagues. 

The labor, of preparing for the meetings, 
arranging the program and other exercises 
fell upon the president, vice-president, 
secretary, treasurer and the authorities of 
the American Museum of Natural History 
(where all the regular meetings were held), 
who deserve the gratitude of the delegates 
for their untiring efforts to make the con- 
gress a great success. Before the actual 
commencement of the congress, the Due de 
Loubat gave a dinner on Sunday for the 
delegates then in the city from foreign 
lands. Throughout the week lunch was 
served in the museum at one o’clock, and 
the hour between one and two P.M. was 
always enjoyed by the delegates in personal 
intercourse and private discussion. 

For the most part, the general sessions 
of the congress took place from 10:30 a.m. 
to 1 p.m., and from 2 to 5 p.m. 


DELEGATES. 

The following governments were repre- 
sented by delegates at the congress: Argen- 
tine Republic: M. C. Merou; Arizona: W. 
P. Blake; Costa Rica: Juan F. Ferraz and 
H. Pittier de Fabrega; Germany: Eduard 
Seler; Guatemala: Julio Yela; Honduras: 
N. B. Peraza; Italy: Giovanni Branchi; 
Mexico (Federal): Leopoldo Batres, <AI- 
fredo Chavero, Nicolas Leén; Mexico 
(State): A. Fernandez; Netherlands: J. 
L. van Panhuys; Oaxaca (State): Fran- 
cisco Belmar; Paraguay: A. M. Criado; 
Uruguay: L. A. Herrera; U. S. Navy: G. 
T. Emmons. 


886 


‘The museums, ete., sending delegates 
were; American Museum of Natural His- 
tory (New York) : H. C. Bumpus; Carnegie 
Museum (Pittsburgh): W. J. Holland; 
Field Columbian Museum (Chicago) : 
George A. Dorsey; Museo Nacional (La 
Plata): Juan B. Ambrosetti; Peabody Mu- 
seum (Cambridge) : Miss Alice C. Fletcher ; 
Provincial Archeological Museum (To- 
ronto): David Boyle; Royal Ethnograph- 
ical Museum (Stockholm) : HjalmarStolpe; 
Smithsonian Institution (Washington): F. 
W. Hodge; U.S. National Museum (Wash- 
ington): W. H. Holmes. 

These learned and _ scientific societies 
sent delegates: Academy of Natural Sci- 
ences (Philadelphia): Edward S. Morse; 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences: 
Henry W. Haynes; American Anthropo- 
logical Association: J. D. McGuire; Ameri- 
ean Antiquarian Society (Worcester) : 
Charles P. Bowditch; American Associa- 
tion for, the Advancement of Science: J. 
Walter Fewkes; American Ethnological 
Society: James Grant Wilson; American 
Folk-lore Society: W. W. Newell; Ameri- 
can Geographical Society: Levi Holbrook ; 
American Historical Society: Taleott Wil- 
liams; American Philosophical Society 
(Philadelphia): Stewart Culn; Anthro- 
pological Institute of Great Britain and 
Ireland (London): A. P. Maudslay; An- 
thropological Society of Washington: 
Walter, Hough; Archeological Institute of 
America: J. W. Williams; Brooklyn In- 
stitute of Arts and Sciences: Stansbury 
Hagar; Carnegie Institution: D. C. Gil- 
man; Colorado Cliff Dwellings Associa- 
tion: Mrs. Virginia McClurg; Davenport 
Academy of Natural Sciences: H. St. Clair 
Putnam; Instituto Fisieo-Geografico de 
Costa Rica: H. Pittier de Fabrega; Kansas 
State Historical Society: Charles 8. Gleed; 
Massachusetts Historical Society: H. W. 
Haynes; National Academy of Sciences: 
Edward §. Morse; National Geographic 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


Society: W J MeGee; New York Academy 
of Sciences: Livingston Farrand; New 
York Historical Society: 8. H. Carney, Jr.; 
Numismatic and Antiquarian Society 
(Philadelphia): Stewart Culin; Ohio 
State Archeological and Historical Society : 
W. C. Mills; Société d’Anthropologie de 
Paris: G. G. MeCurdy ; Svenska Sillskapet 
for Antropologi: C. V. Hartman; Texas 
Historical Association: G. P. Garrison. 

The following universities, ete., were 
also represented by delegates: Brown Uni- 
versity: A. S. Packard; Clark University: 
A. F. Chamberlain; Collége de France: 
Léon Lejéal; Cornell University: T. F. 
Crane; Columbia University: F. Boas; Co- 
lumbian University: O. T. Mason; Harvard 
University: F. W. Putnam; Johns Hop- 
kins University: D. C. Gilman; Leland 
Stanford Jr. University: J. C. Branner; 
Princeton University: W. B. Seott; New 
York University: J. J. Stevenson; Univer- 
sity of Berlin: K. von den Steinen; Uni- 
versity of California: Mrs. Z. Nuttall, A. 
L. Kroeber, Max Uhle; University of 
Chicago: Frederick Starr; University of 
Glasgow: J. H. Biles; University of Penn- 
sylvania: Stewart Culin; University of 
Vermont: G. H. Perkins; Yale University: 
E. G. Bourne. From these lists it will be 
seen that the gathering, which included 
many other distinguished men and women 
not delegates, was quite a representative 
one, especially for the United States and 
Mexico. The Americanists of the Proy- 
ince of Quebee were sparsely represented. 
Many of the delegates had their wives and 
families with them, which added to the 
pleasure and interest of the occasion. 

The object of the congress is to bring 
together ‘Americanists,’ 7. e., those men 
and women of science, and others, who de- 
vote themselves to the study of: (1) The 
native races of America—their origin, dis- 
tribution, history, physical characteristics, 
languages, inventions, customs, and _ re- 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


hgions; (2) the history of the early con- 
tact between America and the Old World. 

Communications may be either oral or 
written, and the French, German, Spanish, 
Italian and English languages may be em- 
ployed in papers, discussions, ete. All 
papers presented to the congress will, with 
the approval of the committee, be printed 
in the volume of Proceedings. 

In honor of the occasion Globus, the 
illustrated scientific weekly of Braun- 
schweig, Germany, published a_ special 
double number consisting entirely of ‘Yu- 
katekische Forschungen’ by Teobert Maler. 


PAPERS. 
The following is the list of authors with 
the papers presented to the congress: 


AMBROSETTI, JUAN B.: 
Calchaqui Region.’ 


‘The Archeology of the 


Barres, Leorpotpo: ‘The Excavations in the 
Kscalerillas Street in the City of Mexico; Ex- 
plorations at Monte Alban.’ 

Brrmar, Francisco: ‘Estudio sobre la raza 
Ayook 6 Mixe, y la lengua hablada por ella; 
Indian Tribes of the State of Oaxaca and their 
Languages.’ 

Buawe, W. P.:‘The Racial Unity of the His- 
toric and Prehistoric Aboriginal People of Arizona 
and New Mexico.’ 

Boas, Franz: ‘The Work of the Jesup North 
Pacific Expedition; Conventionalism in American 
Art. 

Bocoras, WALDEMAR: ‘The Folk-lore of N. E. 
Siberia as Compared with that of N. W. America.’ 

Breton, Miss AprLte: ‘The Ancient Obsidian 
Mines of Mexico.’ 

Brower, J. V.: ‘Rediscovery of Quivira and 
Harahey; Dakota Indians as Builders of Harth- 
works; Identification of MKakabikansing Quartz 
Blades.’ 


CASTELLANOS, A.: ‘The Ruins of Monte Alban.’ 

CHAMBERLAIN, ALEXANDER If.: ‘The Algonquian 
Linguistic Stock.’ 

CHAMRERLIN, T. C.: ‘The Lansing Man.’ 

CHAVERO, ALFREDO: ‘Los signos de los dias en 
el calendario de Palemke.’ 

Curtin, Stewart: ‘The Ethnie Significance of 
Games in Reference to New and Old World Cul- 
tures.’ 


SCIENCE. 


887 


DELLENBAUGH, I". S.: ‘The Location of Cibola 
and the Historie Towns of the Rio Grande Valley 
in New Mexico prior to 1630.’ 


Dixon, Rotanp B., and Krorser, A. L.: ‘The 
Languages of California.’ 
Dorsey, Grorce A.: ‘The Lansing Skull; 


Wichita Creation Myth; Pawnee Star Cult.’ 

Douay, Lion: ‘ Contribution 4 étude du mot 
Titicaca; De la non parenté de certaines langues 
de Vancien monde (en particulier du Japonais) 
avee celles du nouveau et spécialement avec le 
groupe Maya.’ 

Du Bots, Miss C. G.: ‘ Harly Art of the Mission 
Indians of Southern California.’ 

FARWELL, ARTHUR: ‘American Indian Music 
(Ethnie and Artistic Significance), with Ilustra- 
tions upon the Pianoforte.’ 

FERNANDEZ, ALONZO: ‘Mankind in America.’ 

Ferraz, Juan F.: ‘Sintésis 6 construccion 
gramatical de la lengua Quiché.’ 

Frwxes, J. Watter: ‘The Hopi Earth Mother.’ 

FLETCHER, Miss Atice C.: ‘A Pawnee Star 
Cult.’ 


Garcia, GENARO: ‘Vida y hechos de Pedro 
Menendez de Avilés, Adelantado do la Florida. 
Relacion escrita en el siglo XVI. por el maestro 
Bartolomé Barrientos. La publica por Ia vez 
Genaro Garcia, en homenaje al XIII. Congreso de 
Americanistas. México, 1902.’ 

GRASSERIE (DE LA), RAoun: ‘Contributions a 
Pétude de la langue Tehuelche ou Tsoneka de la 
Patagonie.’ 

GRINNELL, GEORGE B.: 
tion of the Cheyennes.’ 


“The Social Organiza- 


Hacar, STANBURY: ‘Cuzco, the Celestial City.’ 

Harrman, C. V.: ‘Archeological Researches in 
Costa Rica; The Aztecs of Salvador.’ 

Hewitt, J. F.: ‘The History of the Sun God 
in India, Persia and Mexico, his Annual Death and 
Resurrection, and his Impenetrable Armor.’ 

Hoper, F. W.: ‘ The Influence of Four Centuries 
on the Pueblo Indians.’ 

Horianp, W. J.: ‘The Petroglyphs at Smith’s 
Ferry, Pa.’ 

Houmes, W. H.: ‘The Lansing Man; The Rela- 
tion of the Glacial Period to the Peopling of 
America.’ 

Hrpricka, A.: ‘Physical Anthropology of the 
Indians of the Southwestern United States and 
Northern Mexico (Hyde Expedition) ; Somato- 
logical Notes on the Bones of the Lansing Man.’ 

Krorpber, A. L.: ‘The Indians of Northwestern 
California’ (see also Dixon, R. B.). 

Lrecoce, Marra: ‘ Notes relatives au Phénician- 
isme des langues Américaines.’ 


888 


LeHMANN, WALTER: ‘Tamoanchan and other 
Designations of the West, and their Relations to 
the Earth in Mexican Etymology.’ 

Lestat, Lion: ‘La collection céramique de M. 
de Sartiges et les vases péruviens 4 forme d’arya- 
balle du Musée National du Trocadéro.’ 

Lr6én, Nicotas: ‘ Datos referentes a una especie 
nueva de esecritura geroglifica en México.’ 

Lovupat, M. te Duc bE: ‘ Mexican Manuscripts.’ 

LumuHoutrz, Cart: ‘Conventionalism in Designs 
of the Huichols of Mexico.’ 


MarrHews, WASHINGTON: ‘ Probable Myths of 
Parturition.’ 

McCiure, Mrs. VIRGINIA: 
Pueblos.’ 

McGer, W J: ‘Current Work of the Bureau of 
American Ethnology; Some Fundamental Factors 
in Social Organization.’ 

McGuire, J. D.: ‘ Anthropology in Early Amer- 
ican Writings.’ 

Montes, Eminio M.: 
Espanol.’ 

Moorr, CLARENCE B.: ‘Archeological Research 
in the Southern United States.’ 

Morse, Epwarp §8.: ‘No Evidences of Chinese 
Contact in Central America.’ 


Noutratt, Mrs. Zetta: ‘A Penitential Rite of 
the Ancient Mexicans; A Suggestion to Maya 
Scholars; The Ancient Mexican Name of a Con- 
stellation According to two Different Authors.’ 


Ossorn, Henry F.: ‘On Possible Evidence of 
Early Pleistocene Man in America.’ 

Panuuys, J. L. van: ‘A Communication from 
the Curacao Society for the History, Language 
and Ethnology of the Dutch West Indies, about 
the Grave of Columbus; On the Origin and Mean- 
ing of the Name Catskill; Are there Pygmies in 
French Guiana? On the Ornamentation in use by 
Savage Tribes in Dutch Guiana, and its Meaning; 
Carib Words in the Dutch Language, and in use 
in Dutch Guiana; A Claim for the Dutch having 
Discovered the Coast of Guiana; Ways of Paying 
in the New Netherlands, Dutch Guiana, and the 
former Dutch Colonies of British Guiana; A Brief 
General Survey of the Early Contact of the Dutch 
with the New World.’ 

Peet, 8. D.: ‘The various Symbols common in 
the East which are found in America.’ 

PENAFIEL, ANTONIO: ‘El templo mayor de 
Mexico antiguo y los monumentos encontrados en 
las excavaciones de 1897 y 1902.’ 

PEPPER, GEORGE H.: ‘ Notes on the Art of the 
Pueblo Bonito, New Mexico; The Throwing-Stick.’ 

PITTIER DE Fasreca, H: ‘The Language of the 
Terrabi Indians of Costa Rica.’ 


“The People of the 


‘Reforma del alfabeto 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 414. 


Putnam, F. W.: ‘On the Archeology of the 
Delaware Valley’ (exhibition of specimens). 

Rink, MApAME Signe: ‘A Comparative Study 
of Two Indian and Eskimo Legends.’ 

Rosa (DE LA), GONZALEZ: ‘How I Discovered 
that the so-called Toscanelli Correspondence was 
a Forgery, and that Science had Nothing to do 
with the Discovery of America; Notes on the 
peculiar Language of the Chimu of the Peruvian 
Coast, and on some Traces of the use of Hiero- 
glyphie Writing by this Civilized People.’ 

SAVILLE, M. H.: 
Mitla.’ 

SELER, Epuarp: ‘The Pictorial and Hiero- 
glyphie Writing of Mexico and Central America; 
Antiquities of the Pacific Slope of Guatemala; 
Ancient Mexican Religious Poetry.’ 

Suretey, Joun B.: ‘ Notes on the Second Letter 
of Toscanelli’ 

SmirH, CHARLES H.: 
of America.’ 

SmirH, Harvan I.: ‘Shell-heaps of the Lower 
Fraser River, British Columbia.’ 

Srarr, Freperick: ‘The Physical Features of 
South Mexican Indians.’ ; 

Stomper, Hgsatmar: ‘Swedish Ethnological 
Work in South America and in Greenland.’ 

Swanton, JoHN R.: ‘Social Organization of 
the Haidas.’ 

THompson, Epwarp H.: ‘Mural Paintings of 
Yucatan; Phonographic Reproductions of Maya 
Songs and Conversation.’ 

TozzerR, ALFRED M.: ‘A Navajo Sand Picture 
of the Rain Gods and the Attendant Ceremony.’ 

Unite, Max: ‘Archeological Researches in 
Peru; On the Linguistic Features of Ancient Peru.’ 

VienAup, Henry: ‘On the Toscanelli Letters.’ 

WaRDLE, H. NEWELL: ‘Certain Clay Figures of 
Teotihuacan.’ 

Wituiston, 8. W.: ‘On the Lansing Man; On 
the Occurrence of an Arrowhead with Bones of 
an Extinct Bison,’ 

WISSLER, CLARK: ‘Symbolism of the Dakotas.’ 


‘The Cruciform Structures at 


‘The Early Civilization 


As may be seen from the above list, the 
subjects of the papers and discussions were 
of the most varied and diverse character. 
While the rules of the congress limited the 
actual time of each paper to twenty min- 
utes, few of those who participated ex- 
ceeded their allotment. In extent, the 
communications ranged from mere notes 
(like some of those of Mr. van Panhuys) to 


DECEMBER 5, 1902.] 


résumés of monographs and books, embody- 
ing the results of original research, such 
as Batres’s ‘Explorations of Monte Alban,’ 
Belmar’s ‘Estudio sobre la raza Ayook 6 
Mixe,’ Chavero’s ‘Los signos de los dias,’ 
Ferraz’s ‘Sintésis de la lengua Quiché,’ 
Garcia’s ‘Vida y hechos de Pedro Menendez 
de Avilés,’ Hartman’s ‘Archeological Re- 
searches,’ ete., all of which, after a fashion 
obtaining in Europe and in the Spanish 
American countries, were presented in 
printed form, as a compliment to the mem- 
bers of the congress, something one or two 
of the newspaper reporters seem not at all 
to have understood. A considerable num- 
ber of the papers on the program were, in 
the absence of their authors, read by title 
or in brief abstract: Brower, Castellanos, 
Douay, Fernandez, Ferraz, de la Grasserie, 
Hewitt, Hrdlicka, Lecoeq, Lehmann, Lum- 
holtz, Matthews, Moore, Montes, Peet, 
Pefiafiel, Pittier de Fabrega, Rink, Shipley, 
Vienaud. The close of the session on 
Saturday evening left some very important 
papers, such as those of Professor, Max 
Uhle on Peruvian archeology, unread. This 
is a matter of regret, as interesting facts 
were to be presented, and important dis- 
cussions would doubtless have arisen. The 
quality and scientific value of the papers 
presented to the congress were in advance 
of those of some of the previous meetings, 
a much larger proportion of solid contri- 
butions to human knowledge being in evi- 
dence, and a smaller number of wildly 
theoretical and pseudo-scientifie essays. 
The appearance of titles relating to the 
‘Phenicianism’ of Amerindian tongues and 
Mr. J. F. Hewitt’s mythological theories, 
however, leaves room for improvement. 
Mr. Juan de Ferraz’s paper on the Quiché 
language was sue generis. In it the author 
maintains, with ingenious manipulation of 
phonetics, that ‘Quiché is an artificial 
tongue, scientifically constructed, by a 


SCIENCE. 


889 


marvelous method, on roots taken prin- 
cipally from the Huaxtee, Aztec and Maya 
languages; and in short we might proclaim 
it an American Volapiik.’ The authors of 
this ‘American Volapitik’ were the ‘learned 
men’ of the race, and Mr. Ferraz thinks 
he has in this wonderful language discov- 
ered the master-key to Mayan hieroglyph- 
ies, ete. His book on the subject, of which 
this paper is a résumé,. will be published 
shortly. This was decidedly the most im- 
aginative contribution presented to the 
congress. 


MONDAY, OCTOBER 20. 


At 10 a.m. there was a meeting, in the 
library of the museum, of the General Com- 
mittee of Organization; and at noon the 
first general session for the election of 
permanent officers of the congress took 
place. These were designated as follows: 


President, Morris K. Jesup (President Ameri- 
can Museum of Natural History). 

Honorary President, the Duc de Loubat (Corre- 
spondent of the Institut de France). 

Vice-Presidents, Juan B. Ambrosetti (Argentine 
Republic) ; Alfredo Chavero (Mexico); Léon 
Lejéal (France); Karl von den Steinen (Ger- 
many); Hjalmar Stolpe (Sweden); F. W. Put- 
nam (United States). 

General Secretary, M. H. Saville 
Museum of Natural History). 

Treasurer, Harlan I. Smith (American Museum 
of Natural History). 


(American 


These officers, together with the delegates 
from the various governments, institutions 
of learning, scientific and historical so- 
cieties, etc., specified above, formed the 
bureau and council of the congress. 

The morning session was presided over 
by Mr. Jesup, who briefly weleomed the 
delegates, and expressed his opinion that 
to foster science was a noble ambition in 
which American business men, who had 
made a success of life, might well emulate 
one another. The delegates showed by 
their applause that they appreciated the 
modest remarks of the president of the 


890 


museum, who has done so much for anthro- 
pology in particular. 

At the afternoon session, the chair was 
taken by the Due de Loubat, who spoke 
briefly upon ‘Mexican Manuscripts,’ tak- 
ing exception to the common opinion that 
the monks who followed close in the wake 
of the first Spanish invaders were respons- 
ible for the destruction of so many precious 
manuscripts. For the few that have been 
preserved, we are indebted largely to the 
monks and to the Catholic institutions 
where they found shelter. The Duke also 
argued for an American edition of Saha- 
gun’s work, the ‘pre-Columbian Bible.’ He 
then resigned the chair to Professor F. W. 
Putnam, who, after paying graceful trib- 
utes to the late Thomas Wilson and Major 
J. W. Powell, members of the council of 
the congress, who have recently passed 
away, gave an account of the American 
Museum of Natural History and the work 
accomplished under its auspices during the 
past ten years. That the museum was 
able to carry on these extensive and fruitful 
investigations has been due to the broad- 
minded generosity of Henry Villard, Mrs. 
Villard, Mr. and Mrs. C. P. Huntington, 
Mr. and Mrs. Jesup, the Due de Loubat, 
Dr. F. E. Hyde and his sons Frederick 
and Talbot Hyde. The Due de Loubat 
and Dr. Hyde had also provided the funds 
for the investigations in the Trenton 
Gravel. The American Museum was de- 
signed to oceupy five times the space it does 
at present. Professor Putnam also re- 
ported on the excellent work of the Pea- 
body Museum (Cambridge), which has done 
so much to advance our knowledge of the 
hieroglyphies and other monuments of 
Central America. 

Brief reports of a similar nature were 
made by Dr. W J McGee for the Bureau 
of American Ethnology (Washington), 
Dr. W. J. Holland for the Carnegie Mu- 
seum (Pittsburgh), Professor Stewart 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


Culin for the Museum of Science and Art 
(Philadelphia), Professor Edward S. 
Morse for the Museum at Salem, Pro- 
fessor Frederick Starr for the Davenport 
Academy of Natural Sciences, and Dr. 
George A. Dorsey for the Field Columbian 
Museum (Chicago). 

Dr. MeGee made special reference to the 
work .of Dr. Gatschet (who edited the 
Trumbull dictionary to Eliot’s Bible, now 
in press), Mr. Hewitt (Iroquoian lexicog- 
raphy and primitive philosophy), Miss 
Alice Fletcher (Pawnee ceremonials), Mr. 
James Mooney (ethnology of the Kiowa 
and other Plains Indians, particularly their 
‘heraldry’), Dr. J. Walter Fewkes (among 
the Pueblos, and more recently, in Porto 
Rico), and of Dr. Franz Boas, now con- 
sulting philological expert for the bureau. 
Several reports and a number of bulletins, 
rich in new scientific materials, are now in 
press. Dr. McGee spoke in eloquent terms 
of the loss the bureau and anthropology in 
America had sustained in the death of 
Major Powell. 

Dr. Holland detailed some of the local 
archeological activities of the Carnegie 
Museum in the Monongahela and Alle- 
gheny valleys, in connection with a pro- 
posed map of this section of western Penn- 
sylvania. Professor Culin, in the course 
of his remarks, expressed the opinion that 
the evidence now at hand compelled belief 
in long-econtinued and ancient intereom- 
munication between America and Asia. 
with the probabilities in favor of influence 
from America to Asia and the Pacific 
islands. Professor Morse announced that 
the museum in Salem, originally founded 
by sea-captains, now contained the largest 
Japanese collection in the world. Dr. 
Dorsey, after sketching the origin of the 
Field Columbian Museum through the 
stimulus of the Anthropological Depart- 
ment of the World’s Fair (under Professor 
Putnam) and the generosity of Mr. Mar- 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


shall, and indicating the work accomplished 
. among the Pueblos and the western In- 
dians, stated that, at the present time, 
anthropology occupied about half the mu- 
seum. Professor Starr recounted the share 
of the Davenport Academy in the archeo- 
logical investigations of the West and in- 
dicated some of the results accomplished. 

The first formal paper read, that of Dr. 
Holland, on ‘The Petroglyphs of Smiths 
Ferry’ (rock-carvings of no extraordinary 
character), elicited a discussion on the 
meaning of such ‘writings,’ in which Mr. 
Metz, Dr. Max Uhle, Dr. Franz Boas, J. L. 
van Panhuys, R. Kronau, Dr. Ambrosetti 
and Professor Putnam took part. For Dr. 
Holland these pictographs were the product 
of the lazy pastime of fishers and hunters. 
Mr. van Panhuys saw more than this in 
those of Guiana; Dr. Uhle and Dr. Boas 
stated that pictographs varied in age a 
great deal; Mr. Kronau compared them to 
‘visiting cards’ and the scribbling and 
drawing on walls, ete., among ourselves to- 
day; Dr. Ambrosetti noted resemblances 
between the pictographs of the Argentine 
and those of the Pueblo country of the 
United States; Professor Putnam men- 
tioned the interesting fact that the Guada- 
lupe petroglyph described at the first Con- 
gress of Americanists had recently been 
placed in the American Museum of Natural 
History. 

The next paper read was by Dr. Alex- 
ander F’. Chamberlain on ‘The Algonquian 
Linguistic Stock.? The author pointed out 
the wide extension of this Amerindian 
family and its influence upon other stocks. 
Also the part played by Algonquians 
(Pocahontas, Powhatan, King Philip, 
Pontiac, Tecumseh, Black Hawk) in the 
eontact with the whites, and the contribu- 
tions of the Algonquian dialects to the 
spoken and written English of America 
—over 130 words (including chipmunk, 
hickory, hominy, mugwump, powwow, rac- 


SCIENCE. 


894 


coon, skunk, squash, Tammany, terrapin, 
toboggan, totem, woodchuck, ete.) belong 
here. The dialectal divergence of Black- 
foot, Arapaho, Cheyenne and Micmac, and 
the widespread Naniboju myth offer tempt- 
ing fields for research. Dr. Chamberlain 
hoped to see the day when the Algonquian 
tongues would be studied as thoroughly 
as Greek and Latin have been. This 
paper was discussed by Dr. Boas, who 
pointed out that some twenty other linguis- 
tie stocks were also in dire need of being 
studied, and by Dr. McGee, who emphasized 
the importance of the questions involved 
in the rapid changes the aborigines were 
undergoing, not only in speech, but in cus- 
toms and institutions. From 5:30 to 6 
p.M. the delegates attended a reception 
tendered them in the museum by Professor 
H. C. Bumpus and Mrs. Bumpus. In the 
evening they were invited to the meeting 
of the Geological Section of the New York 
Academy of Sciences. 


TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21. 

The entire morning was devoted to the 
demonstrations of the collections of the 
various sections of the museum by the offi- 
cials in charge, and was pleasantly and 
profitably spent. Many interesting private 
discussions arose and interchanges of 
opinion were made. The Lansing speci- 
mens came in for a full share of inspection, 
as did also those from the Trenton Gravel, 
which Professor Putnam ably interpreted 
to his colleagues. 

The afternoon session began with Dr. 
Ambrosetti in the chair, who, after briefly 
sketching the anthropological work done 
recently in the Argentine Republic, read an 
interesting and valuable paper (in French) 
on ‘The Archeology of the Calchaqui Re- 
gion.’ The stone monuments and other 
relics, mummies, graves and mounds, fun- 
eral urns, disks and plates of bronze and 
other materials, weapons, ornaments, pot- 


892 


tery (ornamentation and symbolism), ete., 
were discussed. Dr. Ambrosetti called at- 
tention to the similarity of the Calchaqui 
environment of the Argentine and that of 
the Pueblo Indians of Arizona and New 
Mexico; also likenesses in art, art pro- 
ducts, symbolism, ete., between the anthro- 
pological phenomena of these two regions. 
This is an important question, well deserv- 
ing thorough study. In the discussion on 
this paper, Dr. Uhle said that these resem- 
blances were probably mere coincidences 
and no proof of ethnic kinship. A private 
view of Dr. Ambrosetti’s large collection 
of photographs, ete., showed that the ‘coin- 
cidences’ were very numerous indeed, and 
some of them remarkable both in general 
nature and in particular detail. 

The next paper was that of Mr. J. D. 
McGuire, on ‘Anthropology in Early 
American Writings,’ in which the author 
noted that much valuable material was to 
be found in the old accounts of the early 
settlers, priests, local historians, chron- 
iclers, ete., of the first periods of European 
colonization and settlement, and outlined 
the nature of the data concerning the 
Amerinds to be found in such documents. 
Mr. McGuire’s use of the new word 
Amerind, a term which Dr. Chamberlain 
had employed in his paper the day before 
(the word was coined under the auspices of 
the anthropologists of Washington) with- 
out exciting remark, precipitated a lively 
discussion. Dr. Boas denounced the word 
as a ‘monster’; Professor Morse said it ‘dis- 
eusted’ him; Professor Putnam hoped the 
word would never survive, for one reason, 
outside of its origin and form—viz., that it 
implied (what had not yet been proved) 
the absolute racial unity of the American 
aborigines; Dr. Holland fought the word 
with a good deal of the odiwm philologicum ; 
and Professor Starr, who had a special 
abomination for it, surprised even his ‘anti- 
Amerindian’ colleagues by declaring that 


SCIENCE. 


*[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 414. 


such words ought to be formed from Greek 
and Latin roots. The use of the word was 
defended by Mr. McGuire, Mr. Dellenbaugh 
and Dr. Chamberlain, who pointed out that 
the word sociology was denounced at its 
birth in just the same way, but has well 
survived. Anthropology, it was said, was 
ereater than the schoolmen, and Amerind 
would live if it deserved to; that was the 
only question at issue. Abuse would only 
help the word along, if nothing better could 
be devised. 

Dr. Stolpe then gave a brief account of 
Mr. C. V. Hartman’s archeological re- 
searches in Central America, emphasizing 
the results accomplished, after which the 
congress voted its appreciation. 

Professor Putnam résuméd Mr. Clarence 
B. Moore’s ‘ Archeological Research in the 
Southern United States.’ In the discus- 
sion Dr. McGee characterized this as a very 
fine piece of amateur work. The ninth 
section of Mr. Moore’s publications has ap- 
peared in the Journal of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 

Mr. F. S. Dellenbaugh read his paper 
on ‘The Location of Cibola, ete.,’ which was 
discussed by Mr. F. W. Hodge, who said 
that exact conclusions as to distances trav- 
eled over could not be drawn from some of 
the statements of the early Spanish ex- 
plorers, who varied in their estimates. The 
topographical argument, too, was against 
Mr. Dellenbaugh. 

The next paper (in French) was by M. 
Gonzalez de la Rosa, on ‘The Toscanelli 
Correspondence a Forgery,’ in which the 
author detailed his discovery of the facts 
claimed. The papers on the Toscanelli 
question by Shipley and Vignaud were read 
by title. Professor, Bourne, who was ex- 
pected to lead the discussion on these 
papers, was unavoidably absent. 

Tuesday evening was free for social in- 
terecourse and such amusements as the dele- 
gates cared to indulge in. 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. | 


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22. 

By the morning session of Wednesday, 
the attendance at the meetings had become 
so large that they were held in the lecture 
hall on the first floor of the museum, where 
facilities for lantern-illustration, ete., were 
provided. 
Léon Lejéal presiding, who, after giving 
some idea of the work done in France, read 
(in French) his paper on ‘The Sartiges 
Ceramic Collection in the Trocadero Mu- 
seum.’ 

Dr. Franz Boas gave an account of ‘The 
Work of the Jesup North Pacific Expedi- 
tion,’ and laid before the congress the num- 
erous and extensive memoirs already pub- 
lished by the museum and containing the 
results of some of the investigations. The 
scope of these fruitful explorations cov- 
ered both littorals of the Pacific from the 
Columbia to the Amur, including also a con- 
siderable portion of the interior of north- 
western America and northeastern Asia. 
The work of Bogoras, Laufer, Dixon and 
Jochelson in Siberia, of Swanton, Smith, 
Farrand, ete., among the Indians of British 
Columbia and Alaska, and of Kroeber, 
Dixon, ete., among those of California, was 
briefly referred to. A vast amount of 
osteological, ethnological, linguistic and 
folk-lore material has been collected, which 
will undoubtedly throw much light upon 
the prehistoric and early historic relations 
of the native races of both sides of the 
Pacific. Indeed, much seems to be already 
proved. 

The next paper was by Miss Du Bois, 
on ‘Early Art of the Mission Indians of 
Southern California,’ in which an appeal 
was made for the rescue of what remains 
of the ‘aboriginal’ about these people, who 
once loomed so large in the primitive his- 
tory of California. 

The paper of Mr. Bogoras, on the ‘Folk- 
lore of Northeastern Siberia,’ was one of 
the most valuable and most interesting of 


SCIENCE. 


The meeting began with M.. 


893 


the session. The author, who read in Eng- 
lish, pointed out the many similarities and 
identities of general outline and minor de- 
tail between the legends and myths of 
northeastern Siberia and northwestern 
America, which indicated beyond a doubt 
long-continued inter-communication and 
exchange of ideas between the two conti- 
nents, and probably also race-relations of 
the chief peoples within these areas. Mr. 
Bogoras’s paper will appear in full in an 
early number of the American Anthropol- 
ogist. In the discussion Dr. Chamberlain 
and Dr. McGee took part. The former 
expressed the opinion that contributions of 
such solid value as those resulting from the 
Jesup Expedition should be honored by 
vote of the congress. On motion of Dr. 
McGee (who was empowered to word the 
vote as befitted the occasion) the congress 
resolved that the work of the Jesup North 
Pacific Expedition was fully appreciated 
by the members, who desired to congratu- 
late Mr. Jesup upon the important results 
achieved through his generous aid to an- 
thropological science. 

In his brief paper on ‘Some Funda- 
mental Factors in Social Organization’ Dr. 
McGee illustrated, from his knowledge of 
the Seri, one of the most primitive groups 
of Amerinds (the speaker used the word 
without exciting the protests of his col- 
leagues) in existence, the development of 
law, the tool and implement sense, ete. 
The presence (in its sheath at his side) of 
a knife obtained from the whites, of which 
the Seri had so little acquired the ‘sense’ 
as to go on tearing meat for food with his 
hands, was cited to show how slow in 
growth and how hard to acquire are some 
of the things we now perform automat- 
ically. The Seri represent a certain stage 
of culture in which the race may have been 
millenniums ago. 

Miss Alice C. Fletcher read a paper. giy- 
ing the details of a ‘Star Cult’ of the 


894 


Pawnee Indians, and Dr. Dorsey, in leu 
of reading his paper, on a ‘Wichita Crea- 
tion Myth’ (which is to appear in an early 
number of the Journal of American Folk- 
lore), added to the data obtained by Miss 
Fletcher, from his own observations among 
the same people. Miss Fletcher’s ex- 
cellent paper will shortly be published 
in full in one of the anthropological 
journals. The need for the speedy investi- 
gation of such tribes as the Pawnees was 
emphasized by Dr. Dorsey, who stated that 
one of Miss Fletcher’s chief informants had 
died since she had obtained the data in 
question. 
Kronau, Miss Fletcher expressed the opin- 
ion that the religious ideas of the Pawnees 
had not been deeply influenced by the 
whites, and that their high ideas of the 
controlling forces of the world were not 
derived from missionary teachings. 

The afternoon session was presided over 
by Seftor Chavero, who, after, résuméing 
the work done in Mexico, presented his 
paper (in Spanish) on the ‘Palenque Cal- 
endar,’ in which he discussed the various 
interpretations of the day-signs from Pio 
Perez to Gunekel and other recent writers 
and investigators. The author concludes 
that ‘the day-siens of the Palenque calendar 
are the same as those of the Maya calendar.’ 
Senor Chavero’s paper in printed form 
was laid before the congress. 

A considerable portion of the day was 
taken up by the papers on the long-expected 
‘Lansing Man,’ who proved, after all, not 
to be the enfant terrible he might have 
been. The now famous skull was on ex- 
hibition and was examined with great in- 
terest by many of the delegates. Professor 
T’. C. Chamberlin, of the University of 
Chicago, who was among those announced 
to speak on the subject, could not be pres- 
ent. Professor Putnam, after a few intro- 
duetory remarks, résuméd the paper of 
Professor Williston, which detailed the 


In reply to an inquiry from Mr. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No 414. 


geological and other conditions under . 
which the bones in question were discov- 
ered, and that of Dr. Hrdlitka, giving an 
account of his recent examination of the 
skull and other, osseous remains. Dr. 
Dorsey also stated his opinion, as a eraniol- 
ogist, of the skull of the Lansing man, 
agreeing with Dr. Hrdliéka in considering 
it of ‘the ordinary type of the Indians of 
the region in which it was found.’ No 
evidence of a ‘plant’ is forthcoming in this 
case, and also no question of a skull of a 
peculiar ancient type; so, if the geologists 
can settle the time of the deposit, we have, 
as Professor Putnam, in closing the dis- 
cussion, said, clear evidence of the presence 
of the American Indian in that region at 
that epoch. 

Professor Putnam spoke on the ‘ Archeol- 
ogy of the Delaware Valley,’ illustrating 
his exposition of the progress made in the 
investigation of the Trenton 
Gravel with charts and specimens. The 
ensuing discussion was participated in by 
Dr. MeGee, Professor Holmes and Dr. Me- 
Curdy. On the whole, the current of opin- 
ion expressed was rather more favorable 
to the contentions of Professor Putnam 
than in years past, and he had every right 
to be well pleased thereby. 

The evening again was free, and many . 
of the members availed themselves of the 
courtesies extended to them by the Univer- 
sity, Author’s, Century and other clubs, 
and those offered by private individuals. 


famous 


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23. 

After the usual demonstration of collec- 
tions in the museum, the members went in 
a body to Columbia University im accept- 
ance of a cordial invitation from President 
Butler, who with Professors Hirth, Perry, 
Farrand, Peck, Cattell and Moore, re- 
ceived them in the Trustees’ room at 11:30. 
After making a tour of the buildings of 
the university, under the expert guidance 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


of the professors and attendants, the party 
met in the dining-hall, where an excellent 
and very enjoyable lunch was served on be- 
half of the university. A brief and grace- 
ful speech of welcome was made by Presi- 
dent Butler, and, on motion of Dr. Hol- 
land, a hearty vote of thanks was tendered 
Columbia University for its hospitality and 
other courtesies. 

It was some time past the usual hour 
of meeting when the congress began the 
afternoon session, with Dr. Karl von den 
Steinen in the chair, who, in his introdue- 
tory remarks, paid a glowing tribute to the 
ereat German anthropologist recently de- 
ceased, declaring that not since Humboldt 
had there been so firm a friend of the in- 
ternationality of science as Rudolf Virchow. 

The first paper of the afternoon was that 
of Mr. Farwell, on ‘The Ethnic and Artistic 
Significance of American Indian Musie.’ 
After a brief statement of his theories, the 
author rendered on the piano an Omaha 
melody, ‘The Old Man’s Love Song’—first 
in its native simplicity, then ‘harmonized,’ 
and then elaborated, after the manner of 
the composer, with as much fidelity to 
legend and Indian surroundings as pos- 
sible. A ‘War Dance’ melody was treated 
in like fashion. This subject was pre- 
viously treated by Mr. Farwell in his ‘In- 
dian Melodies Harmonized,’ published in 
1901. In the discussion Dr. Boas touched 
upon some of the scientific questions in- 
volved, and noted the need for more and 
better understood data before the construc- 
tion of theories. 

Professor Starr’s paper, on ‘The Phys- 
ical Features of South Mexican Indians,’ 
was devoted to an account of the author’s 
investigations of the physical character- 
istics (physiognomic in particular) of 
many different tribes. Life-size represen- 
tations (from photographs) of the heads 
of type specimens of each tribe were hung 
up in the hall and referred to by the author. 


SCIENCE. 


895 


in illustration of his statements. Professor 
Starr also indicated the disposition of the 
very limited number of busts of Mexican 
Indians which he had caused to be made. 
After, the paper Sefior Leén complimented 
the author in Spanish. 

Mr. van Panhuys then made some brief 
remarks on the evidence as to ‘Pygmies in 
French Guiana.’ The proof, as Dr. von 
den Steinen took occasion to remark, was 
far from convincing. 

The next paper, by Mr. George B. Grin- 
nell, treated briefly of ‘The Social Organ- 
ization of the Cheyenne Indians,’ a people 
who 225 years ago lived on the flanks of the 
Rocky Mountains, outliers of the Algon- 
quian stock. The clans are exogamous with 
maternal descent, and comparative equality 
of the sexes. 

Mr. Alfred M. Tozzer’s paper, on ‘A 
Navajo Sand Picture,’ was valuable as 
showing the practical conservatism of these 
delineations and ceremonials, certain fea- 
tures observed by the author being identi- 
eal with those noted by Dr. Washington 
Matthews twenty years previously. 

The paper by Dr. Kroeber, on ‘The In- 
dians of Northwestern California,’ and that 
by Dr. Dixon and Dr. Kroeber, on ‘The 
Languages of California,’ illustrated by 
maps of distribution, were interesting stud- 
ies in comparative philology and culture 
history. The various subgroups of lan- 
guages were indicated and their phonetic, 
structural and lexical peculiarities noted. 
The opinion was expressed that the divers- 
ities of culture followed in general in this 
region the same lines as those of language. 

The last paper (lecture, rather) of the 
day was by Mrs. McClurg, regent of the 
Women’s Cliff Dwellings Association of 
Colorado City, on ‘The People of the 
Pueblos,’ and was of a very general nature. 

In the evening Mr. Jesup gave a dinner 
for the foreign delegates. 


896 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24. 


This was Mexican day at the congress. 
The morning session opened with Dr. 
Stolpe in the chair. 

Dr. Seler, in his paper on ‘The Pictorial 
and Hieroglyphic Writing of Mexico and 
Central America,’ gave a general résumé 
of the present state of our knowledge of the 
subject. He laid stress upon the Maya 
hieroglyphs as of great interest and im- 
portance. 

Senor Batres gave an account of his ‘ Hx- 
plorations at Monte Alban’ (the printed 
report of which was laid before the con- 
egress). The character of the finds seems to 
indicate that Monte Alban, near the city of 
Oaxaca, was a point of Zapotecan-Mayan 
contact. He also reported on ‘The Ex- 
cavations in the Hscalerillas Street in the 
City of Mexico,’ which have resulted in the 
discovery of remains of the old Aztec city 
long buried beneath the débris of the later 
Spanish one. 

The next paper was read by Professor 
Seler, on ‘Ancient Mexican Religious 
Poetry.’ Mrs. Nuttall, in her ‘A Sugges- 
tion to Maya Scholars,’ said that the classi- 
fying suffixes of numerals might be found 
expressed in the hieroglyphic writings. In 
her paper on ‘A Penitential Rite of the 
Ancient Mexicans,’ which was illustrated 
. with the stereopticon, Mrs. Nuttall treated 
of the religious rite of piercing the ears 
and tongue to obtain a sacrifice of blood. 

Dr. Nicolas Leon reported on ‘A New 
Kind of Hieroglyphie Writing in Mexico,’ 
and Miss Adéle Breton exhibited some ex- 
cellent reproductions of Mexican fresco 
paintings. 

Senor Belmar reported on the ‘Indians 
of Oaxaca,’ and laid before the congress 
his ‘Estudio del Idioma Ayook (Mixe),’ a 
volume of some 260 pages, constituting a 
valuable contribution to our knowledge of 
the Mixe language and people. 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


Mr. Thompson’s paper, ‘Phonographic 
Reproduction of Maya Songs and Conver- 
sations,’ consisted of screen-pictures of a 
kinetoscopie representation of the ‘sun 
dance’ of the Mayas, with phonographie ac- 
companiment reproducing the songs and 
music belonging to the ceremony. 

At the afternoon session Dr. Maudslay 
occupied the chair. 

In the evening Dr. Boas gave a smoker 
for the men delegates. 


SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25. 


The morning session began with Mr. van 
Panhuys in the chair. 

In the first paper read by him, Mr. van 
Panhuys expressed the opinion that the 
New York name Catskill was given by the 
Dutch in honor of Kaatz, a statesman and 
writer of the early part of the seventeenth 
century. In a second paper he treated of 
the Dutch claim to have discovered the 
coast of Guiana, and the legend of ‘Stuy- 
vesant’s cemetery’ at Curacao. 

In his paper on ‘The Racial Unity of 
the Historic and Prehistoric Aboriginal 
People of Arizona and New Mexico,’ Mr. 
Blake called attention to the destruction of 
ancient monuments now going on in the 
Pueblo country. The mention of the fact 
that the people of this region, past and 
present, were very fond of ‘green stones’ 
led Professor Putnam to remark that green 
seemed to be a very popular color all over 
the globe. Mr. Thompson observed that the 
sacred tree of the Mayas was literally the 
“green tree.’ 

M. Gonzalez de la Rosa’s paper, on ‘The 
Chimu Language,’ was discussed by Dr. 
Uhle, who stated that this tongue was now 
spoken only by the village, the inhabitants 
of which are engaged in the straw hat in- 
dustry. 

The next paper was by Mr. van Panhuys, 
on ‘Carib Words in Dutch’; some of which, 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. | 


Dr. von den Steinen pointed out, were not 
Carib at all in the proper sense. 

In the afternoon session, over which Mr. 
Jesup presided, Mr. van Panhuys exhibited 
and discussed certain art-objects (carved 
combs, gourds, ete.) which indicated the 
influence of the ‘Bush Negroes’ of the in- 
terior of Dutch Guiana upon the culture 
of the aborigines of the Red race. The 
human and snake figures referred to by the 
author were discussed by Dr. Stolpe, who 
remarked that the first thing the human 
figure loses in ornament is the head. 

Mr. C. V. Hartman illustrated his 
‘Archeological Investigations in Costa 
Rica’ with lantern-slides, and Mr. Pepper, 
in connection with his paper, ‘Notes on the 
Arts of the Pueblo Bonito’ (Hyde Explor- 


ing Expedition), exhibited a number of » 


stereopticon views. Pottery in particular 
was discussed and illustrated, also basketry. 

During the afternoon session the congress 

‘voted to hold its next meeting at Stuttgart, 

in response to an invitation delivered by 
Dr. von den Steinen. The following com- 
mittee to prepare for the congress of 1904 
was selected: Count Linden (Chief Cham- 
berlain to the King of Wiirtemberg and 
head of the Ethnological Museum at Stutt- 
gart), Dr. von den Steinen and Professor 
Seler. 

As a committee to edit the proceedings 
of the New York congress for publica- 
tion, Professor Putnam (chairman), Dr. 
Saville and Dr. Boas were appointed. 
Special efforts are to be made to interest 
the Spanish American countries in the 
Stuttgart Congress. 

After the last paper to be read was over, 
Dr. von den Steinen took the platform, con- 
eratulated President Jesup on the success 
of the congress so largely due to his efforts, 
and called for three cheers for him, which 
were heartily given. Thus ended what 
was perhaps the most successful of all the 
Congresses of Americanists, and in the 


SCIENCE. 


897 


general satisfaction the ‘unpleasantness’ of 
Wednesday and its division of the Mexican 
delegates was soon forgotten, Vice-Presi- 
dent Chavero remaining to receive the cor- 
dial adieus of his colleagues of other lands 
and tongues. e 

At the conclusion of the congress a con- 
siderable number of the delegates visited 
Pittsburgh, Columbus, Fort Ancient, Chi- 
eago and Washington. In the capital city 
of the nation (where they arrived Tuesday, 
October 28) they were entertained by the 
Cosmos Club and a reception committee of 
prominent Washingtonians, presented to 
the President at the White House, and 
made at home in other ways, with dinners, 
luncheons, ete. Among these functions 
was a dinner give for Sehor Chavero by 
the Mexican Ambassador, Sefor de 
Aspiroz, and a dinner at the Arlington for 
the delegates, at which Dr. Chas. D. 
Walcott presided and Dr. W J McGee was 
toastmaster. A few of the delegates will 
remain some time longer in this country, 
but most of them will soon leave for home. 

In a report of a scientific gathering a few 
personal remarks may not be entirely out 
of place. Among the foreign delegates 
who made the strongest and most favor- 
able impression upon their English-speak- 
ing colleagues must be mentioned Dr. Karl 
von den Steinen, colaborer with Bastian at 
the University of Berlin, and his probable 
successor, who, with Eduard Seler (for the 
German Government), the archeologist and 
Mayan epigrapher, ably represented their 
native land, and Dr. Juan B. Ambrosetti, 
of Buenos Aires, who was the envoy of 
the Argentine Republic and the Museo 
Nacional de La Plata. By reason of their 
charming individualities and the excellent 
work which they have accomplished in 
their respective fields of research, these 
two men of science appealed in particular 
to the anthropologists of the United States, 
whose methods and investigations, espe- 


898 


cially as exemplified in the ‘Reports’ of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology and the 
U. S. National Museum, the ‘Memoirs’ of 
the American Museum of Natural History, 
the publications of the Peabody Museum, 
ete., they fully appreciated. Dr. Am- 
brosetti, in the numerous extra-forensic 
discussions with prominent representatives 
of the United States, was enthusiastic in 
his commendation of the ‘American 
method,’ the adoption of which in the 
Argentine means a rich harvest by the 
time the congress meets in the capital city 
of the great South American republie. 
Other distinguished foreigners, whose 
short stay will be remembered with pleas- 
ure by their colleagues of the United States, 
were Dr. Hjalmar Stolpe, of Stockholm, 
the representative of the Royal Ethno- 
graphical Museum, well known as about 
the first serious student of the ethnological 
aspect of decorative art; J. L. van Pan- 
huys, the author of several investigations 
among the Carib Indians of Guiana, who 
in the absence of Dr. J. D. E. Schmeltz, 
the delegate originally appointed by the 
government, was the official representative 
of the Netherlands at the congress; C. V. 
Hartman, the delegate of the Svenska 
Sillskapet for Antropologi och Geografi, 
who laid before the members the sumptu- 
ously printed account of his archeological 
researches in Salvador and Costa Rica; 
David Boyle, of Toronto, the creator of the 
Provincial (Ontario) Archeological Mu- 
seum, of which he was the official represen- 
tative; Léon Lejéal, of the Collége de 
France, who occupies the chair recently 
founded by the Due de Loubat; A. P. 
Maudslay, the authority on Mayan hiero- 
elyphies, who came as the delegate of the 
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain 
and Ireland (London) ; Waldemar Bogoras, 
whose investigations in northeastern Asia 
for the Jesup North Pacific Expedition are 
in process of publication, a typical Russian 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


with a good command of English, ete. H. 
Pittier de Fabrega, one of the delegates 
from Costa Rica, has made special studies 
of the Indian languages of his country, 
while his colleague, Juan F. Ferraz, pub- 
lished in 1892 a dictionary of ‘Nahuatlis- 
mos’ (Aztee words in use in Costa Rican 
Spanish). Mexico was well represented; 
besides Alfredo Chavero, Nicolas Léon 
and Leopoldo Batres, the official delegates 
of the Federal Government (the first as the 
personal envoy of President Diaz), there 
were present from the State of Mexico 
Alonzo Fernandez, and from the State of 
Oaxaca, Francisco Belmar. Senor Chavero 
is a president of the Mexican Chamber, of 
Deputies and the representative in that 
body of the President of the Republic; 
Nicolas Léon is the Director of the An- 
thropological Section of the Museo Nacional 
de México and a student of the lanenage 
of the Tarascans and other 
Francisco Belmar, a lawyer of Oaxaca, has 


Amerinds; 


published many valuable monographs on 
the native tongues of that state. It is much 
to be regretted that Antonio Penafiel, the 
distinguished Mexican and 
ethnologist, could not be present at the 
meeting. Peru, Eeuador, Bolivia, Chih, 
Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia had no 
delegates at the congress, although there 
are Americanists of note in those countries, 
like Rodolfo Lenz of Santiago de Chile, 
Dr. Nina-Rodriguez of Bahia (Brazil), Dr. 
M. A. Muniz of Lima, and others, whose 
presence would have given the New World 
section of the delegates more of a Pan- 
American character. Some of the dele- 
gates from the United States were pre- 
vented by various causes from attending 
the Congress. Duties in Washington and 
the preparations for the reception of the 
members of the congress on their visit to 
that city kept away both Dr. Walter Hough 
and Dr. J. Walter Fewkes. Dr. Carl Lum- 


geographer 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


holtz was absent in Europe, and Dr. A. 
Hrdhiéka engaged in field-work. 

A pleasant and commendable feature of 
the congress was the fact that all the time 
was not taken up by the reading of papers 
and the transaction of routine business, the 
evenings, when not devoted to some social 
courtesy extended to the members by indi- 
viduals or institutions, being left free to 
be spent in that personal intercourse and 
discussion of topics of a common interest 
which so often do even more for science 
than the formal exercises of a great meet- 
ing. Men of science, no less than other 
human beings, are frequently at their best 
during the after-dinner hour. 

ALEXANDER EF. CHAMBERLAIN. 

CLARK UNIVERSITY, 


FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF 
APPLIED CHEMISTRY. 

THe Fifth International Congress of 
Applied Chemistry will begin its sessions 
in Berlin on May 31, 1903. 

The permanent Committee on Organiza- 
tion holding over from the meeting of the 
Fourth Congress in Paris, has designated 
Professor Clemens Winkler as President 
of Honor and Professor Otto N. Witt as 
President of the German Committee. 

At the request of this committee and in 
accordance with the resolution passed -by 
the Council of the American Chemical So- 
ciety, the President of the Society has ap- 
pointed the following American Committee 
on Organization: 

H. W. Wiley, Chairman, Chief of Bureau of 
Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

Seetion [I.—Analytical Chemistry, Apparatus 
and Instruments: Dr. W. F. Hillebrand, Chemist, 
U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, D. C.; Otto 
P. Amend, Dealer in Chemical Apparatus and 
Instruments, 205 Third Avenue, New York, N. Y.; 
Charles Baskerville, Ph.D., F.C.S.,. Smith Pro- 
fessor of General Chemistry and Director of the 
Laboratory, University of North Carolina, Chapel 


SCIENCE. 


899 


Hill, N. C.; E. E. Ewell, Assistant Chief of Bureaw 
of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, Wash- 
ington, D. C.; William A. Noyes, Professor of 
Chemistry, Rose Polytechnic Institute, Terre 
Haute, Ind. 

Section II.—Chemical Industries of Inorganic 
Products: Dr. Edward Hart, Professor ot Chem- 
istry, Lafayette College, Easton, Pa.; J. D. Pen- 
nock, Chief Chemist, Solvay and 
Semet-Solvay Co., Syracuse, N. Y.; Geo. C. Stone, 
Chief Engineer, New Jersey Zine Co., 11 Broad- 
way, New York, N. Y. 

Section III,—Metallurgy, Mining and Explos- 
ives: Charles E. Munroe, Ph.D., Professor of 
Chemistry, The Columbian University, Washing- 
ton, D. C.; A. E. Knorr, Chief Chemist, Balti- 
more Copper and Smelting and Rolling Co., Can- 
ton, Baltimore, Md.; Francis C. Phillips, Professor 
of Chemistry, Western University, Allegheny, Pa.; 
W. B. Rising, Professor of Chemistry, University 
of California, Berkeley, Cal. 

Section IV.—Chemical 
Products, (a) Organic including 
coal-tar products, (b) Dye Stuffs and their uses = 
William MeMurtrie, Consulting Chemist, Royali 
Baking Powder Co., New York, N. Y.; J. Merritt 
Matthews, Ph.D., Professor in Charge of Chemical. 
Dyeing Dept., Philadelphia Textile School, Phila- 
delphia, Pa.; Clifford Richardson, Director of the 
New York Testing Laboratory, Long Island City, 
N. Y.; Samuel P. Sadtler, Ph.D., LL.D., Consulting 
Chemist and Honorary Professor of Chemistry, 
Franklin Inst. of Philadelphia, 10th and Chest~ 
nut Sts., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Section V.—Sugar Industry: Dr. F. G. Wieeh- 
mann, Consulting Chemist, American Sugar Re 
fining Co., Box 79, Station W, Brooklyn, N. Y.; 


Process Co. 


Industries of Organic 
Preparations 


Arno Behr, Ph.D., Chemist, Pasadena, Cal.; 
David L. Davoll, Jr., Chief Chemist, Peninsular 
Sugar Refining Co., Caro, Mich.; W. D. Horne, 


Ph.D., Consulting Chemist, The National Sugar 
Refining Co. of New Jersey, Yonkers, N. Y.; G. 
L. Spencer, Chief of Sugar Laboratory, Bureau of 
Chemistry, Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, 
D.C. 

Section VI.—¥ermentation and Starch Manu- 
facture: Max Henius, Ph.D., Director, American 
Brewing Academy and the Scientific Station for 
Brewing of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.; Charles E. 
Pellew, E.M., Adjunct Professor of Chemistry, 
Columbia University, New York, N. Y.; Alfred 
Springer, Ph.D., Chemist, 312 E. 2d St., Cincin- 
nati, O. 

Section VII.—Agricultural Chemistry: B. W. 
Kilgore, Director, North Carolina Agricultural 


900 


Experiment Station and State Chemist, Raleigh, 
N. C.; Henry Adam Weber, Ph.D., Professor of 
Agricultural Chemistry, Ohio State University, 
Columbus, O.; Chas. D. Woods, Professor of 
Agriculture, University of Maine, and Director of 
Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, Orono, 
Maine; B. B. Ross, Professor of Chemistry, 
Alabama Polytechnic Institute and State Chemist 
of Alabama, Auburn, Ala. 

Section VIII.—Hygiene, Chemical and Phar- 
maceutical Chemistry; Foods: M. E. Jaffa, 
Assistant Professor of Chemistry, University of 
California, Berkeley, Cal.; W. O. Atwater, Pro- 
fessor of Chemistry, Wesleyan University, Mid- 
dletown, Conn., Chief of Nutrition Investigation, 
Office of Experiment Stations, U. S. Department of 
Agriculture; E. A. de Schweinitz, Chief Biochemic 
Division, Department of Agriculture, Dean and 
Professor of Chemistry, Columbian University 
Medical School, Washington, D. C.; Walter S8. 
Haines, Professor of Chemistry, Pharmacy and 
Toxicology, Rush Medical College, Chicago, Ill.; Ed- 
ward Kremers, Professor of Pharmaceutical Chem- 
istry, Director of School of Pharmacy, University 
of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; John Marshall, Pro- 
fessor of Chemistry and Toxicology, University 
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.; John Uri 
Lloyd, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Chemistry, Eclec- 
tie Medical Institution, Cincinnati, O.; W. P. 
Mason, Professor of Chemistry, Rensselaer Poly- 
technic Institute, Troy, N. Y. 

Section IX.—Photochemistry: Dr. L. H. Fried- 
burg, Late Professor of Chemistry and Toxicology 
at the Flower Hospital Medical College, New 
York; Address, 529 West 147th St., New York, 
N. Y.; Dr. Peter T. Austen, F.C.S., Chemical Ex- 
pert, 80 Broad St., New York, N. Y.; Leo Baeke- 
land, D.Se., Researeh Chemist, ‘Snug Rock,’ N. 
Broadway (Harmony Park), Yonkers, N. Y. , 

Section X.—Electrochemistry and Physical 
Chemistry: Charles A. Doremus, M.D., Ph.D., As- 
sistant Professor of Chemistry, College of the City 
of New York, N. Y.; W. D. Bancroft, Assistant 
Professor of Physical Chemistry, Cornell Univer- 
sity, Ithaca, N. Y.; Edgar F. Smith, Professor 
of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Phila- 
delphia, Pa.; C. F. Chandler, Professor of Chem- 
istry, Columbia University, New York, N. Y.; 
A. A. Noyes, Professor of Theoretical and Organic 
Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
Boston, Mass. 

* Section XI—Legal and Agricultural Problems 
in Connection with the Chemical Industries: Dr. 
J. W. Mallet, Professor of Chemistry, University 
of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; Charles B. Dud- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 414. 


ley, Chief Chemist, Pennsylvania R. R. Co., Al- 
toona, Pa.; Albert B. Prescott, Director of Chem- 
ical Laboratory, University of Michigan, Ann 
Arbor, Mich.; S. P. Sharples, Analytical and Con- 
sulting Chemist, 13 Broad Street, Boston, Mass.; 
A. H. Todd, Manufacturing Chemist and Distiller 
of Essential Oils, Kalamazoo, Mich. 

A few other gentlemen have been ap- 
pointed on the committee, but their accept- 
ances have not yet been received. It is 
hoped that American chemists will become 
members of this Fifth Congress in large 
numbers, even if they are not able to be 
present in person, and that as many as 
possible will attend. Both those who can 
attend and those who are not able to go 
are urged to send papers. 

The work of the Congress has been or- 
ganized in the sections given above. The 
members of the committee in each section 
should endeavor particularly to promote 
the interest of that branch of the science 
which specially belongs to that section. 

The fee for membership is 20 Marks or 
$4.76. To avoid the trouble of sending 
separate postal orders for this sum the 
chairman of the committee, Dr. Wiley, 
will undertake to transmit to Berlin the 
membership fees of American chemists 
who wish to avail themselves of this oppor- 
tunity. Those desiring, therefore, to be- 
come members may send their personal 
check for $4.76 and nine cents to cover 
postage, postal orders, ete., in all $4.85, 
to Dr. H. W. Wiley, Chief of the Bureau 
of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, 
Washington, D. C., who will give them a 
receipt for the same while waiting for an 
official receipt from the treasurer at Berlin. 

If reductions in steamship rates can be 
obtained a notice to the effect will be pub- 
lished in Sctmnce and in the Journal of 
the American Chemical Society. Members 
attending the Congress should leave the 
United States not later than the 15th of 
May by slow steamer, nor the 20th of May 
by fast steamer. 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


The official announcements and other 
circular matter connected with the Con- 
gress will be distributed through the Amer- 
ican committee as soon as the documents 
are received from Berlin. Any members 
of the society to whom these circulars may 
not be sent can secure them by writing to 
the chairman of the American committee. 

Chemists not members of the American 
_ Chemical Society are also cordially invited 
to participate in the Congress both as mem- 
bers and as authors of papers, and the same 
courtesies will be extended to them, if so 
desired, as are offered above. 

H. W. Winey, 
Member of Permanent Committee on 
Organization and Chairman of 
American Committee. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 


RECENT PAPERS ON THE EMBRYOLOGY, STRUCTURE 
AND HABITS OF LIVING BRACHIOPODA. 


1. Observations on Living Brachiopoda. By 
Epwarp 8. Morsr. Memoirs Boston Soe. 
Nat. Hist., Vol. 5, No. 8, 1902. 4to. Pp. 
313-886; pls. 39-61. 

2. The Embryology of a Brachiopod, Terebrat- 
ulina septentrionalis Couthouy. By Eb- 
win G. Conxuin. Proc. Amer. Phil. Soe., 
Vol. 41, No. 168, 1902. 8vo. Pp. 41-76; 
pls. 1-10. 

3. On the Development of Lingula anatina. 
By Naonmwt Yatsu. Jour. College of Sci- 
ence, Imp. Univ. Toky6, Japan, Vol. 17. 
Art. 4, 1902. 8vo. Pp. 1-112; pls. 1-8. 

4. Notes on the Histology of Lingula anatina 
Brugiére. By Naoniwi Yarsu. Ibid., Vol. 
17, Art. 5, 1902. 8vo. Pp. 1-29; pls. 1, 2. 

5. On the Habits of the Japanese Lingula. By 
Naonmws Yatsu. Annotationes Zoologicz 
Japonensis, Vol. 4, Pt. 2, 1902. 8vo. Pp. 
61-67. 

The publication of studies on living Brach- 
jopoda seems to have become almost epidemie 
during the present year. Sporadic papers 
have appeared during the past ten years, but 
no marked infection has occurred until now. 


SCIENCE. 


901 


The results are most satisfactory, for the con- 
tributions here noticed are of a high degree of 
excellence and constitute a decided advance 
in our knowledge of the habits, anatomy and 
embryology of this interesting class, whose 
culmination was attained far back in the 
Paleozoic era. 

Professor Morse possesses the unique dis- 
tinction of having first studied the early 
stages and embryology of a brachiopod. His 
observations on the embryology of Terebrat- 
ulina and the systematic position of the 
Brachiopoda were published thirty years ago. 
The importance of the subject led him to 
visit Japan, where the adjacent seas offer the 
greatest inducement to the student of the re- 
cent species of this class. The allurements 
of Japanese art have prevented the publica- 
tion of the studies then made until the present 
time. It is quite remarkable that so few of 
his observations have been anticipated dur- 
ing the intervening years, though the publica- 
tions of Joubin and Blochmann have indeed 
covered many of the details relating to 
Lingula and Discinisea. 

Morse’s observations refer principally to the 
genera Lingula, Glottidia, Discinisca, Hemi- 
thyris, Dallina, Terebratalia and Terebrat- 
ulina. The points of especial interest com- 
prise the discussion of the otocysts, pharyngeal 
glands, the accessory hearts of Hancock, the 
strand-like spermaries, the pallial circulation, 
the life attitudes of different forms, and par- 
ticularly the varied and graceful movements 
of the brachia. The strand-like spermaries — 
and the pharyngeal glands are characters 
heretofore undescribed, and further details 
are given regarding the external glands first 
described by the author. The presence of 
otoeysts in Lingula and Glottidea are defi- 
nitely shown although Blochmann has doubted 
their existence in these genera. The organs 
described by Hancock as the ‘heart’ and the 
“accessory hearts’? have been frequently in- 
vestigated by various observers, but no final 
conclusion has been reached. The author 
shows that they cannot well belong to the 
circulatory system, but must be regarded as 
in some way connected with the genitalia, 
though their precise functions have not been 


902 


determined. The plates accompanying this 
memoir were drawn by the author in his usual 
clear and artistic manner. They represent 
just what is intended to be shown, and are 
evidently depictions of natural objects. 

Conklin’s embryology of Terebratulina sep- 
tentrionalis (2) presents an excellent illustra- 
tion of the results obtained by modern 
methods. Owing to the opacity of the em- 
bryos and to the absence of serial sections, 
good microtomes and other accessories, Morse 
during 1871-73 was able to show mainly the 
external modifications in the developing em- 
bryo. His observations, however, were very 
thorough and complete. 

Conklin describes in detail the egg and its 
cleavage, gastrulation and the formation of the 
body layers and cavities, the orientation of the 
embryo, and the development and organiza- 
tion. of the larva. 

The constrictions of the cephalula, hitherto 
supposed to mark distinct segments, are shown 
to be produced by the anterior and posterior 
mantle furrows, but at no time do they form 
true septa dividing the coelom. The author, 
after reviewing the real and supposed resem- 
blances between the larval and embryo brach- 
iopods and other organisms, concludes that 
the relationship between Phoronis, the 
Bryozoa, and the Brachiopoda, is sufficiently 
close to warrant their being placed in the same 
phylum, though not in the same class. 

All our knowledge regarding the embryol- 
ogy of the Brachiopoda has hitherto practically 
been confined to the group known as Artic- 
ulata. The work of Yatsu (3) is, therefore, 
of great interest and value, since it relates to 
Lingula, the living and almost unchanged 
representative of the most ancient types. The 
developmental characters of Lingula are in 
many respects quite different from those of 
any brachiopod previously studied. The 
three-lobed cephalula stage of the neoembryo, 
so characteristic of Cistella, Lacazella and 
Terebratulina, is not developed in Lingula, 
which does not attain more than a two-lobed 
condition. Also, the posterior lobe is not the 
caudal as in those genera, but constitutes the 
thoracic division.  Cvistella, Lacazella, ete., 
undergo a metamorphosis in passing from the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


neoembryonic to the typembryonic condition, 
consisting of the reflexing of the mantle lobes 
forward over the anterior division. This 
change is absent in Lingula, and the mantle 
lobes simply grow anteriorly. This difference 
has an especial significance in the develop- 
ment of the shell, for in Cistella, ete., the shell 
is developed from what was originally the 
inner side of the mantle lobes, while in 
Lingula it is secreted by the outside. The 
author further considers that the pedicle is 
embryologically and morphologically distinct 
from the pedicle of the articulate brachiopods. 

The embryonic and early post-embryonic 
stages are fully described, together with full 
details and illustrations of the various organs 
and structures. As a whole, no single species 
of brachiopod has heretofore received so com- 
plete and extended treatment along these lines 
of research. 

The two other papers by this author (4, 5) 
relate to the histology and habits of Lingula. 
New facts are given, showing the extraordinary 
power of resistance to unfavorable conditions, 
which has doubtless been a potent factor in 
preserving the genus since Cambrian times. 

It is noteworthy that in all the standard 
literature on the Brachiopoda no notice has 
been taken of the earliest American publica- 
tion relating to the anatomy of these animals. 
It is contained in a ‘ Text-book of Vegetable 
and Animal Physiology,’ by Henry Goadby, 
published in New York in 1858. One chap- 
ter is devoted to the nutrition in the Brach- 
iopoda and another to a description of their 
nervous and circulatory systems. Inasmuch 
as Goadby’s observations were based upon 
original dissections and studies, their claims 
for a place in the literature of brachiopod re- 
search are perfectly valid. Go RB ercauns 


General Investigations of Curved Surfaces. 
By Kart Frieprich Gauss. Translated 
with Notes and a Bibliography by James 
Capatt Moreneap, A.M., M.S., and Apam 
Minter Hinreperrer, A.M. The Princeton 
University Library. 1902. Quarto. Pp. 
viii + 127. 

By the liberality of the Princeton Library 

Publishing Association and the alumni of 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


Princeton University this book is sold at less 
than the cost of publication. English-speak- 
ing mathematicians will be certainly grateful 
for the public spirit shown by Princeton Uni- 
versity and its alumni. While it is true that 
most mathematicians can read memoirs in 
foreign languages, yet its difficulty often 
deters them from doing so when they are not 
directly interested in the subject. There is 
an ease in one’s own idiomatic forms of ex- 
pression which makes the reading much pleas- 
anter, and if to such translations are added 
notes of interest and bibliographies of value, 
then their usefulness is unquestionable. One 
likes to add such works to one’s own library 
where they can be an incentive to a broader 
knowledge. Similar translations to the one 
in hand, such as of the work of Lie which leads 
up to and includes his theory of transforma- 
tion groups, would be equally valuable and 
acceptable. 

The translators present us first with Gauss’s 
paper of 1827, and his own abstract of the 
same. Here, in 47 pages, is the original de- 
velopment of the theory of surfaces, relating 
principally to questions of curvature, treated 
mainly by Gauss’s own method of curvilinear 
coordinates, which formed the source of many 
remarkable thorems, such as that the measure 
of curvature of a surface remains unchanged 
by bending it without stretching or breaking. 
The notes to this paper occupy 28 pages, and 
give historical information, explanations and 
omitted figures and proofs of many theorems. 

Next follows the paper of 1825, which was 
not published until after the death of Gauss. 
It is his less finished and incomplete first 
paper on the subject. Curvilinear coordi- 
nates are not used; there is an introduction 
which treats of curvature in a plane; and, 
altogether, it shows the manner in which 
many of the ideas of the more complete paper 
were evolved. There are 29 pages in this 
paper, followed by 4 pages of notes. Then 
comes a bibliography of 11 pages, containing 
343 titles, which is limited to works which 
use Gauss’s methods in the subjects of curvi- 
linear coordinates, geodesic and 
lines, curvature, deformation, orthogonal sys- 
tems, and the general theory of surfaces, but 


isometric 


SCIENCE. 


903 


not including minimal surfaces, congruences, 
ete. A few corrections of misprints and an 
additional note appear on the last page. 

It seems unnecessary to give this review a 
learned appearance for the readers of ScteNcr, 
by entering into a discussion of details of 
theorems and formulas. The work of Gauss 
is of primary importance in the theory of 
surfaces, and these papers are classical in the 
subject. What I wish is to note the useful- 
ness and importance of this translation of the 
work of an original master to all who desire 
to study the subject, and to express what I 
conceive to be the general obligations of 
American mathematicians to the translators 
for their careful labors and to Princeton 
University and its alumni for their thought- 
fulness and generosity in its publication. 

Artuur S. Harwaway. 


Acht Vortrage tiber Physikalische Chemie, 
gehalten auf Hinladung der Universitit 
Chicago. By Prorrssor J. H. van’r Horr. 
Braunschweig, F. Vieweg and Sohn. 1902. 
Nothing written by the great master of 

modern physical chemistry can fail to be of 

interest and value. The excellently lucid 
treatment of the subject to be seen in these 
lectures will undoubtedly assist in dispelling 
that remnant of distrust concerning the new 
chemistry which still sometimes lurks in con- 
servative minds. To those conversant with the 
author’s other works, these lectures will bring 
nothing new except the details of their presen- 
tation, which covers a wide field with the help 
of a few typical examples. The lectures treat 
in succession the relation of physical chem- 
istry to pure chemistry (especially inorganic), 
to technical chemistry, to physiological 
chemistry and to geology. They call atten- 
tion in a striking manner to the far-reaching 
influence of the new ideas. Among other ex- 
amples the phase relations of iron and steel, 
and of carnallite, are discussed in detail in 
their appropriate places, and the fundamental 
importance of osmotic phenomena and of 
enzymes is especially emphasized in the two 
chapters upon physiological chemistry. To 

Americans these lectures are especially inter- 

esting because of their having formed one of 


904 


the chief reasons for Dr. van’t Hoff’s weleome 
visit to the United States in 1901. 
TueoporE W. RicHarps. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 


ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE- 
MENT OF SCIENCE. 


THE AMERICAN 


Tue fifty-second annual meeting of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, and the first of the Convocation 
Week meetings, will be held in Washington, 
D. C., December 27, 1902, to January 3, 1903. 
The retiring president is Professor Asaph 
Hall, U.S.N., and the president elect, Presi- 
dent Ira Remsen, Johns Hopkins University. 
The permanent secretary is Dr. L. O. Howard, 
Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C., and the 
loeal secretary, Dr. Marcus Benjamin, -Co- 
lumbian University, Washington, D. C. 
President Roosevelt is honorary president of 
the loeal committee. The preliminary pro- 
gram with information in regard to hotel 
headquarters, railway rates, ete., will be found 
in the issue of Scrence for November 21. 
The following scientific societies will meet at 
Washington in affiliation with the Association: 


The American Anthropological Association will 
hold its first regular meeting during Convocation 
Week in affiliation with Section H of the A. A. 
A. S. President, W J McGee; secretary, George 
A. Dorsey, Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, Il. 

The American Chemical Society will meet on 
December 29 and 30. President, Ira Remsen; 
secretary, A. C. Hale, 352A Hancock street, 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

The American Folk-lore Society will meet in 
affiliation with Section H of the A. A. A. S. 
President, George A. Dorsey; vice-presidents, Jy 
Walter Fewkes, James Mooney; secretary, W. W. 
Newell, Cambridge, Mass. 

The American Microscopical Society will prob- 
ably hold a business meeting on December 29. 
President, E. A. Birge, Madison, Wis.; secretary, 
H. B. Ward, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 
Nebr. 

American Morphological Society will meet on 
December 30 and 31. President, H. C. Bumpus; 
vice-president, G. H. Parker; secretary and treas- 
urer, M. M. Metcalf, Woman’s College, Baltimore, 
Md. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 414. 


The American Philosophical Association will 
meet on December 30 and 31 and January 1. 
Secretary, H. N. Gardiner, Northampton, Mass. 

The American Physical Society will meet in 
affiliation with Section B of the A. A. A. S. 
President, Albert A. Michelson; secretary, Ernest 
Merritt, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 

The American Physiological Society will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, R. H. Chit- 
tenden; secretary, F. S. Lee, Columbia University, 
New York, N. Y. 

American Psychological Association will meet 
on December 30 and 31 and January 1.  Presi- 
dent, E. A. Sanford; secretary and treasurer, 
Livingston Farrand, Columbia University, New 
orkeNeys 

American Society of Naturalists will meet on 
December 30 and 31. President, J. McK. Cattell; 
vice-presidents, C. D. Walcott, L. O. Howard, 
D. P. Penhallow; secretary, R. G. Harrison, Johns 
Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 

Association of American Anatomists will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, G. S. Hunting- 
ton; vice-president, D. S. Lamb; secretary and 
treasurer, G. Carl Huber, University of Michigan, 
Ann Arbor, Mich. 

Association of Economic Entomologists will 
meet on December 26 and 27. President, E. P. 
Felt; secretary, A. L. .Quaintance, College Park, 
Md. . 

Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of 
America will meet during Convocation Week, in 
affiliation with Section A of the A. A. A. &. 
President, Simon Newcomb; secretary, George C. 
Comstock, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 

Botanical Society of America will meet on 
December 31 and January 1. President, B. T. 
Galloway; secretary, D. T. MacDougal, New York 
City. 

Botanists of the Central and Western States 
will meet on December 30. Committee in charge 
of the meeting, John M. Coulter, University of 
Chicago; D. M. Mottier, University of Indiana, 
Bloomington, Ind.; Conway MacMillan, Univer- 
sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 

Geological Society of America will meet on 
December 29, 30 and 31. President, N. H. Win- 
chell; vice-presidents, S. F. Emmons, J. C. Bran- 
ner; secretary, H. L. Fairchild, University of 
Rochester, Rochester, N. Y. 

The National Geographic Society will hold a 
meeting during Convocation Week. President, 
A. Graham Bell; vice-president, W J MeGee; 
secretary, A. J. Henry, U. 8S. Weather Bureau, 
Washington, D. C. 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


Naturalists of the Central States will meet on 
December 30 and 31. Chairman, 8. A. Forbes; 
secretary, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago, 
Chicago, Ill. 

Society of American Bacteriologists will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, H. W. Conn; 
vice-president, James Carroll; secretary, E. O. 
Jordan, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.; 
council, W. ‘A. Welch, Theobald Smith, H. L. 
Russell, Chester, Pa. : 

Society for Plant Morphology and Physiology 
will meet during Convocation Week. President, 
V. M. Spalding; vice-president, B. D. Halsted; 
secretary and treasurer, W. F. Ganong, Smith 
College, Northampton, Mass. 

Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Sci- 
ence will meet during Convocation Week. Presi- 
dent, W. H. Jordan; secretary, F. M. Webster, 
Urbana, Ill. 

Zoologists of the Central and Western States 
will meet during Convocation Week. President, 
C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago. 


SECTION OF GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 
YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 


Ar the meeting of the Section at the Ameri- 
can Museum of Natural History on October 
20, the following program was presented: 

Wallace Goold Levison exhibited to the Sec- 
tion four specimens of gneiss obtained from 
the bed-rock in certain deep excavations at the 
southern end of Manhattan Island. One of 
these was collected July 20, 1902, from a 
depth of fifty feet below the surface at the 
corner of Broad and Exchange Streets; the 
second was collected in the excavations at 
40 Exchange Place, forty-five feet below the 
surface, on July 25; two others were collected 
at 43-49 Exchange Place, forty-five feet below 
the surface, on July 25. Mr. Levison also 
showed specimens of serpentine from boulders 
found on June 19 in the excavations for the 
Stock Exchange building on Broad Street, be- 
tween forty and sixty feet below the surface. 

In the absence of the author, the paper by 
Professor William H. Hobbs was read in some- 
what condensed form by the Secretary of the 
Section. The paper was accompanied by a 
wealth of detailed observations too extensive 
for reproduction, but a summary of his con- 
clusions is as follows: 

In his introduction the author called atten- 


NEW 


SCIENCE. 


905 


tion to the unusual opportunities now offered 
for studying the geology of Manhattan Island 
through the numerous great engineering proj- 
ects now being carried forward. The water- 
ways surrounding Manhattan Island are deep 
cations, with a depth of nearly 200 feet in 
the East River and 800 feet or more in the 
North River, now partly filled with drift de- 
posits and depending on the velocity of the 
tidal currents. 

In 1865 Stevens advanced the theory that 
the river channels were along lines of faults 
(‘longitudinal and transverse fractures’). 
Newberry regarded the East River as the 
lowest reach of the Housatonic River before 
it discharged its waters into the Hudson, 
which was then the outlet of the Laurentian 
series of lakes, and he considered the Harlem 
River with Spuyten Duyvil Creek a smaller 
tributary of the Hudson. 

Dana believed that the relatively easy solu- 
tion of certain beds of limestone determined 
the position of the river channels. This view 
of Dana’s has been supported by Kemp and 
Merrill, while Gratacap rejects the theory ad- 
vanced by Stevens. 

Professor Hobbs finds that no correspondence 
can be established between the directions of 
the belts of limestone or dolomite and of the 
New York water front, except within the 
stretch from Kingsbridge to Macombs Dam 
Bridge. Along this line too the observed 
facts point to the occurrence of a narrow strip 
of limestone dropped down between nearly 
vertical faults. The sections of the Harlem 
River which are furnished by the bridges 
across it show clearly that it is not a simple 
erosion valley resulting from cutting by the 
stream. The bed of the stream is marked by 
sudden change of level, and the Harlem seems 
to have chosen its course quite independently 
of the position of ridges of the harder gneiss. 
Under the East River limestone has been 
found at but two localities—under the chan- 
nel east of Blackwells Island and in one of 
the drill holes underneath the Manhattan pier 
of East River Bridge No. 3. The limestone 
east of Blackwells Island is enclosed between 
parallel fault walls, and appears to have been 
dropped down along them. The numerous 


906 + 


occurrences, however, of gneiss and gneiss only 
along, in and under the East River leaves little 
doubt that the main portion of the bed is 
composed of this rock. 

Regarding the bed-rock beneath the North 
River, comparatively little is known, but the 
origin of its channel is sufficiently accounted 
for by its position along the contact of the 
Newark system with the crystallines. This 
contact seems surely to be a fault-border on 
account of its markedly rectilinear extension, 
the great scarp of basalt, the much inferior 
position of the newer terranes, and the evi- 
dence derived from the boring along the route 
of the proposed tunnels of the Pennsylvania, 
New York and Long Island railroad company. 

The author holds that the directions of the 
channels of Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Harlem 
and East Rivers have been determined largely 
by lines of jointing and displacement. Man- 
hattan Island borders directly upon the New- 
ark area, in which the existence of a network 
of faults has been established by the work of 
several observers, and the network probably 
extends beyond the limits of the area. The 
striking rectilinear outlines of the island, es- 
pecially of the northern half of it, and its 
topographic development are favorable to the 
view that it represents an orographic block 
left standing between down-thrown strips of 
the crust. The rectilinear gorge of the upper 
Harlem between Washington Heights and 
Fordham Heights is continued, so far as its 
western wall is concerned, some two and a 
half miles south of the river. It is parallel to 
the direction of the scarp of the Palisades, 
and of the Hudson. Besides the cross frac- 
tures indicated by the different parts of the 
Harlem River, which were pointed out‘ by 
Stevens, several other cross fractures on and 
about Manhattan Island were pointed out by 
the same author. Dana also considered that 
the Manhattanville cross valley was formed by 
a cross fracture. A considerable number of 
faults has been definitely established. Their 
directions correspond in general to the ele- 
ments in the course of the river channels. 
The exceptions to this rule are the fissures in 
the East River east and west of Blackwells 
Island. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


The author went on to cite a number of 
faults which have been disclosed by numerous 
borings and tunnels, and, in closing, called 
attention to the fact that the buried rock-sur- 
face in the lower part of the city (south of 
Twenty-third Street), as well as that below the 
area of the Harlem flats (north of One Hun- 
dred and Tenth Street and east of Eighth 
Avenue), is characterized by the most abrupt 
changes of level. In his opinion the area of 
these portions of the island represents oro- 
graphic blocks depressed by faults, reefs of 
gneiss and limestone rising along the Harlem 
area, while reefs of gneiss alone characterize 
the southern district. 

Professor Hobbs’ paper was discussed briefly 
by Professors Kemp, Dodge and Stevenson, 
and it was evident that the author’s theory 
would not be accepted without considerable 
further investigation. 

At the outset of his paper on Bingham 
Cafion, Professor Kemp stated that the article 
was not a formal one for publication, and that 
he did not wish to forestall in any degree the 
fortheoming Bingham folio by Mr. Boutwell, 
of the United States Geological Survey. He 
then described the geological formations in the 
vicinity of large mines. These formations 
embraced the great section of quartzite with 
smaller exposure of limestone, and with in- 
truded masses of eruptive rocks which range 
from pronounced porphyries to granites. At 
least three kinds of eruptives can be distin- 
guished. The author described in outline the 
faults and geological relations of the ores, and 
stated that the ores especially favored the 
contact of the eruptive rocks with the quartz- 
ites. The evidences of contact metamorphism 
between the porphyries and the limestones 
were commented upon. The ores in the great 
porphyry dike on the claims of Colonel Wall 
were described, and were stated to be sec- 
ondary in their origin—that is, they were 
probably introduced in solution into a mass 
of crushed eruptive rock. The data for the 
paper were gathered in connection with the 
field instruction given to a class of students 
the past summer. The paper was illustrated 
by means of lantern slides, maps and speci- 
mens. 


DECEMBER 5, 1902.] 


In accordance with the provisions of the 
new constitution of the Academy, the officers 
of the Section for the year 1903 were elected 
at this meeting. They were: Vice-President 
and Chairman, Professor James F. Kemp, of 
Columbia University; Secretary, Dr. Edmund 
O. Hovey, of the American Museum of Natural 
History. Epmunp O. Hovey, 

Secretary. 


THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
OF ASTRONOMY, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. 


SECTION 


Ar the meeting of the Section on November 
3, Mr. G. B. Pegram read a paper discussing 
some experiments of his on the electrolysis of 
solutions of radioactive salts, in course of 
which he found that when a solution of a 
thorium salt is electrolyzed, using platinum 
electrodes, a temporary radioactivity is im- 
parted to the anode rather than to the kathode, 
which is remarkable in view of the fact that in 
the air near dry thorium compounds a nega- 
tively charged body, corresponding to the 
kathode, becomes radioactive, while a positively 
charged body, corresponding to the anode, is 
not made active. The activity of the anode 
used in the electrolysis of a thorium nitrate 
solution can become much more intense, for 
a given extent of surface, than that shown 
by a thick layer of thorium oxide. 

The solution under electrolysis rapidly loses 
its power of imparting radioactivity, so that 
after four hours of electrolysis with a current 
of half an ampére,a solution of 20 g.of thorium 
nitrate in 100 ¢.c. water had lost 95 per cent. 
of its power of imparting activity to the anode. 
This radioactivity of the ‘anode increases for 
a while after being taken out of the solution, 
then its intensity falls off at the rate of half 
its value in eleven hours, which has been shown 
by Professor E. Rutherford to be the rate of 
decay in the ease of surfaces made active by 
exposure to the emanation from a dry thorium 
compound. The radiation is not homogene- 
ous, as is shown by a study of its absorption 
by successive layers of metal foil. 

The activity of the anode seems to increase 
directly with the concentration of the solu- 
tion for short periods of electrolysis, but its 


SCIENCE. 


907 


relation to the current strength and the dura- 
tion of the electrolysis appears to be less 
simple. 

Solutions containing radium impart ac- 
tivity to both anode and kathode, but this ac- 
tivity decays very rapidly, falling off half its 
value in about 35 minutes. 

S. A. MircHett, 
Secretary of Section. 


THE ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 


Tue society held its 143d meeting Tuesday 
evening, November 11, in Person Hall, Uni- 
versity of North Carolina. . 

Dr. J. E. Mills presented a paper on a 
‘Suggested Modification of the Law of Du- 
long and Petit,’ in which he stated that if y 
denote the ratio of the specific heat of a gas 
at constant pressure to the specific heat at 
constant volume, it was shown that y could 
be defined in terms of the translational energy 
of a molecule and the internal energy of the 
molecule. Hence y» has a meaning for liquid 
and solid bodies capable of a physical inter- 
pretation. Upon this basis there was deduced 
an equation governing the specific heat of a 
body and applicable to the solid, liquid or gas. 
The deduced equation holds so far as measure- 
ments have been made. If the theory be true 
it will explain certain discrepancies and ex- 
tend the law of Dulong and Petit. 

Dr. W. C. Coker spoke of a ‘New Species 
of Mosquito.’ In abstract he stated that, 
while studying the mosquitoes of South Caro- 
lina in the summer of 1901, larvee of peculiar 
appearance were found in a small pool near 
a well, and brought into the house. After 
about three days imagoes of both sexes 
emerged which proved to be of a new species. 
They were taken alive to Washington and 
there studied by Mr. D. W. Coquillett, who 
describes them as a species of Psorophora. 
He gives them the name P. howardii in honor 
of the well-known entomologist, Dr. L. O. 
Howard. 

Eggs of this species obtained by Dr. Howard 
from the individuals taken to Washington 
proved to be practically identical with those 
of P. ciliata procured by Dr. Coker in South 


908 


Carolina for the first time. To get the eggs 
of P. ciliata the following method was used: 
A horse was driven into a low place inhabited 
by these insects and from him specimens loaded 
with blood were transferred to a jar. They 
were then put into a tin bucket with a little 
water in the bottom and covered with netting. 
They were fed daily with blood from the hand, 
and after about five days their eggs were 
found in the water. The eggs lie separately, 
like those of Anopheles. Contrary to expecta- 
tion and report, Anopheles was found breed- 
ing abundantly in a barrel. 

Dr. J. E. Duerden gave an account of his 
work on ‘ Boring Algwe as Agents in the Dis- 
integration of Corals.’ The corolla of about 
thirty species of West Indian corals, decalci- 
fied in the course of a morphological study 
of the polyps, all yielded a fluffy mass made 
up of filamentous alg. The alex were pres- 
ent in greatest number and variety in the 
older dead parts of corals, especially in so- 
called ‘rotten coral,’ but were also found 
throughout the part of the skeleton directly 
clothed with the polypal tissues, the only ex- 
ception being at the tips of rapidly growing 
_ branches. The filaments occurring most fre- 
quently belong to two species of green alg 
and a red alga; where present in quantity the 
former give a green color to the freshly 
macerated corallum, and the latter a pink 
tinge. Similar boring alge were also ob- 
tained from many Pacific corals. 

The alge attack the calcareous skeleton of 
corals in the early stages of development, and 
their ramifications keep pace with its growth. 
Penetration of the hard coral is evidently 
affected by chemico-physical means, and their 
presence in such abundance results in a serious 
corrosive action, both superficially and intern- 
ally; when assisted by other boring organisms, 
such as sponges and molluses, it must lead to 
the rapid disintegration of dead coral blocks. 
Attention was drawn to the bearing of such 
disintegration upon the various theories asso- 
ciated with the formation of coral reefs. 

Cuas. BASKERVILLE, 
Secretary. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

THE KINETIC THEORY AND THE EXPANSION OF A 
COMPRESSED GAS INTO A VACUUM. 

Mr. Fireman, in his reply to my note re- 
garding his communication to the American 
Association, states that I misread his abstract, 
and that it was on-this account that I failed 
to understand its contents. 

My difficulty was not in understanding the 
contents, but in understanding how they ex- 
plained the facts, or why this picturesque 
conception of a sorting out of the fast and 
slow molecules without the aid of Maxwell 
demons, was in any way deemed necessary to 
the explanation of the heating and cooling 
of the gas. 

Neither Natanson’s elaborate quantitative 
treatment nor what Mr. Fireman calls his 
simple qualitative explanation appears to be 
necessary to account for the heating and cool- 
ing in the two receivers, in spite of Mr. Fire- 
‘man’s assertion that the explanation com- 
monly given is unsatisfactory. 

Mr. Fireman appears to have overlooked the 
fact that, when a compressed gas passes from 
a receiver into an exhausted chamber, there 
is, in addition to the molecular motion, a 
motion of the gas as a whole, 7. e., a mass of 
the gas is given a motion of translation, which 
is superimposed on the molecular motion. 

To originate this motion requires an ex- 
penditure of energy, and a consequent lower- 
ing of temperature results. The matter is 
fully treated in the works of Clausius, Max- 
well, Kelvin and Meyer, where it is shown 
that when a mass of gas is set in motion by 
its own expansion, the mean molecular ve- 
locity becomes less and the temperature is 
lowered; since the mean velocity is less, the 
component of molecular perpendicular to the 
direction of flow is less, and consequently the 
pressure in this direction is less than in the 
ease of the gas at rest. This accounts for 
the cooling in the compression chamber. 

The heating of the gas in the second re- 
ceiver is to be referred to the same causes as 
the heating of the gas under the piston in 
the case of compression. 

Mr. Fireman has difficulty in understand- 
ing how a higher average molecular velocity, 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


and consequent higher temperature, can be 
given to the gas which has passed into the 
second receiver by the portions which subse- 
quently enter it. This is due to the fact that 
he ignores the motion of translation which 
the entering gas possesses. A mass of gas in 
motion as a whole, will act on another mass 
of gas in the same way as a moving piston, 
namely, increase the velocity of the molecules 
which collide with it. 

Detailed criticism of Mr. Fireman’s paper 
will have to be suspended until its publication. 
The statements in the abstract are very vague, 
and the author certainly does not show how 
the molecules with slow velocities force their 
way back against the rushing stream, and con- 
gregate in the first receiver. 

We sometimes find the statement in text- 
books that a gas expanding under such condi- 
tions that no work is done experiences no 
cooling, for example, when expanding into an 
infinite vacuum. It appears questionable, 
however, whether a gas can expand without 
doing work. Leaving out of consideration 
the internal work, 7. e., the overcoming of the 
forces of cohesion, we still have the gas in 
the receiver doing work in giving a motion 
of translation to the mass of gas thrown out 
into the vacuum. R. W. Woop. 

JoHNS Hopkins UNIVERSITY. 


BITTER ROT OF APPLES. 


In the article upon this subject in Sctrnce 
for October 24, 1902, page 669, there is no 
reference to similar investigations with like 
results previously published. There is, how- 
ever, an intimation that earlier knowledge 
was insufficient to justify publication. 

There is sent herewith a ‘circular’ and a 
‘bulletin’ issued by the Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station of the University of Illinois, 
which were put into the mails on respectively 
the fourteenth and twenty-ninth days of July 
of this year. Of the first there were sent out 
1,200, and of the second 20,000 copies. They 
have each been referred to or copied entire 
in at least one hundred different periodicals 
throughout the country. Copies were mailed 
direct on the days indicated to the author 
whose name is signed first to the article now in 


SCIENCE. 


909 


question, and he may easily have first learned 
by this means of Mr. Simpson’s discovery. 
At all events the publication of July 14 was 
in the possession of the general public before 
these special studies were begun in Illinois 
by the authors of this later paper. 

Field studies made on July 11, 12 and 13 
in orchards near Parkersburg, Olney, Clay 
City, Salem and Tonti, Illinois, by Professor 
J. C. Blair and myself, left no room for doubt 
that the early infection of the fruit was 
mainly from the limb cankers. These cankers 
were found, after we learned how to look for 
them, as sources of such infection in hundreds 
of instances with not five per cent. of fail- 
ures. Then two hours with the compound 
microscope on the evening of July 12, at our 
laboratory at Salem,demonstrated beyond ecavil 
the protrusion of the spores of this specific 
Gleosporium from the cankers. Such spores 
positively so produced were at this time in- 
oculated into fresh apples, and the resultant 
spots, which showed on the 14th, were clearly 
identified as those of bitter rot on the 15th— 
three days after the inoculations—while check 
punctures remained sterile. These tests were 
often repeated during following days, with the 
same results. 

This disease of the apple has annually 
caused serious losses, amounting to over 
$1,500,000 in the same region of Illinois two 
years ago. Here was evidently a new and 
presumably an efficient method of combating 
the scourge if prompt action should be taken. 
Surely delay in making the facts known 
would have been reprehensible. As a matter 
of pure science the subject was sufficiently 
ripe for publication on the 29th of July as 
the bulletin fairly shows. T. J. Burrttt. 

UntIversITy or ILLINots. 


A PECULIAR HAILSTORM. 

Durine the past summer, while on a recon- 
naissance survey in southern Keewatin, for 
the Geological Survey of Canada, the writer’s 
party encountered an unusual number of elec- 
tric storms, particularly during the months 
of June and July. Quite frequently these 
storms were accompanied by heavy rain and 
hail. The heaviest of these commenced about 


910 


7:10 on the evening of July 12 and lasted 
about twenty minutes. As the size of the 
hailstones was very much larger than is usual 
in this part of Canada, and as the storm was 
accompanied by an unusual phenomenon, 
noted below, it seems worthy of record. 
The storm approached us from the south- 
east, while we were near the divide between 
streams flowing southwest to the English 
River and Lake Winnipeg, and those flowing 
easterly towards the Cat River, a large stream, 
or rather a chain of lakes tributary to the 
Albany River. The hailstones varied from 
about the size of buckshot or small marbles 
to spheres and other forms over one inch in 
diameter. One large stone, in shape a com- 
pressed ovoid, measured 1.25 & 1.75 < 2.25 
inches. Others over 1.50 inches in diameter 
were plentiful. The smaller hailstones were 
almost invariably of clear ice with a small 
white nucleus of snow. The larger ones 
were usually white with a transparent nu- 
cleus. Many of the pellets, both small and 
large, were almost perfect spheres, but not 
infrequently the large ones took the form of 
disks, thin and transparent in the middle, 
with thicker edges of snow, reminding one 
of the shape of the red blood corpuscles or the 
fly-wheel of a sewing machine. One large 
pellet of this kind measured 1.75 inches in 
diameter and. the circular rim was one inch 
thick, the middle portion of the disk being 
transparent. The disks were more often ellip- 
soidal than circular. The surface was gen- 
erally warty or mammillated, as if produced 
by the coalescence of a number of independent 


hailstones, whereas that of the spheres and. 


ovoids was usually smooth. 

The most interesting feature accompanying 
the storm was the behavior of the moss carpet 
flooring the spruce forest everywhere. In this 
portion of the district this surface cover con- 
sists almost wholly of a dense mat of the moss 
Hypnum triquetrum, through which are woven 
a tangled mass of roots, living and dead. The 
thickness of the cover varies from a few 
inches to over a foot. During the storm there 
was no wind noticeable in or near the camp. 
The moss carpet in front of and underneath 
our tent was seen and felt to be heaved in 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 414: 


waves, the crest lines, just in front of the tent 
door, sometimes raising the moss as much as 
a foot above the normal position. These un- 
dulations traveled in the same direction as 
the storm was moving, 2. e., towards the north- 
west. No two crests were seen to be in exist- 
ence at the same time, but the field of view 
was limited to an area of about thirty feet 
across in the direction the waves were mov- 
ing. The movement began, or at least was 
first noticed, near the end of the hailstorm, 
and continued for some time after the rain 
and hail had ceased to fall, lasting for a 
period between five and ten minutes. The 
writer has frequently been in the moss-car- 
peted spruce forests of central Canada during 
thunder storms, but has not happened hereto- 
fore to have met a similar phenomenon. The 
cause of the movement seems to le in the 
fact that the moss cover retained the water 
which first fell upon it, soaking it up like a 
sponge and hence became nearly air-proof. 
The air underneath, in the interspaces be- 
tween the boulders and fallen timber upon 
which the moss lies, would sympathetically 
respond to slight variations in the barometric 
pressure and cause the moss to rise and fall 
as the pressure decreased or increased. Soon 
after the movement ceased many of the spaces 
that before contained only air were filled with 
water, and walking on the moss was not un- 
like walking on a wet sponge. 


Aurrep W. G. Wison. 
McGirtt University, MontTREAL. 


WHAT IS NATURE sTuDyY ? 


As was stated in Science for June 20, of 
this year, there seem to be, among educators, 
many conflicting definitions in the attempt te 
answer the above question. Bearing on this 
subject the following letters have been re- 
ceived from eminent scientific men of this 
country. They appear in the order in which 
they were received. W. J. Brat. 

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MIcH. 


The present movement toward developing 
and spreading an interest in nature studies 
is one of prime importance. Our American 
children are, after all the efforts thus far 
made, woefully lacking in interest in natural 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


history—far behind German, and even Eng- 
lish children, I fancy. 

I consider ‘nature study’ as a study of 
plant and animal life at first hand, rather 
than from books; seeing, examining and study- 
ing a plant or animal, how it grows; if an 
animal, how it moves, runs, walks, flies, swims, 
how it gets its livelihood; and then the child 
can learn to observe its relation to the life 
about it and to the world around. Let him 
observe, for example, ants, the difference be- 
tween the males, females and workers, how the 
workers live and care for the colony. He 
may see a train of ants; let him follow the 
train off to the nest. Then there are the 
nests and working habits of wasps and bees. 

A student of ‘nature study’—a boy or 
girl—should raise caterpillars to the chrysalis 
and moth or butterfly state. Collecting, feed- 


ing them, watching them through their trans- . 


formations, is a first class lesson for a child 
in nature study. So a boy or girl can get a 
first lesson in physical geography and geol- 
ogy by studying a sand heap or clay bank 
after a rain—or the work done by a stream or 
brook. 

Nature study is the first step towards 
natural science, and is all-important in lead- 
ing one to observe, experiment and reason 
from the facts he sees. It is of prime im- 
portance in teaching a child what a fact is in 
these days of Christian Science and other 
fads. A. S. Packarp. 


Brown UNIVERSITY. 


I do not believe I can give in a few sen- 
tences my views as to what constitutes nature 
study. JI think the thing is in a chaotic state 
at present, and I do not feel competent to de- 
fine it. JI have fairly definite ideas as to what 
material in botany should be included, but 
botany is only one of the phases of the subject 
as handled. _I think the name nature study 
is too indefinite to be retained. 

Joun M. Courter. 

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 


I have your letter asking for my definition 
of ‘nature study.’ I hope you will succeed 
in getting this much-abused term properly 


defined. 


SCIENCE. 


Oiat 


I would have nature study mean the study 
of living things to determine their habits, in- 
stinects, adaptations and relations to environ- 
ments. To be nature study in the highest 
sense of the term, the work must be carried on 
under natural, as opposed to artificial, condi- 
tions. 

If a broader interpretation were given, 
where can we stop short of geology, mineral- 
ogy, chemistry, physics, and in fact nearly 
everything else outside of mathematics. 


C. P. Ginterrr. 
Fort Coitins, Coro. 


Much that has been taught under the name 
of nature study is not properly a study of 
nature, but a memoriter drill or an empirical 
abstract of what some one else has learned by 
a study of nature. The subject has too often 
been presented under the guidance of teachers 
who themselves have made no real study of 
nature—who have no clear understanding of 
the scientific method of study by which alone 
matters of natural fact can be approached, 
and who have not sufficient competence to 
carry on the study of nature by themselves. 
But nature study is sometimes what it ought 
to be: a truly scientific and well-conducted 
study of nature, of a grade, whether elemen- 
tary or advanced, appropriate to the age of the 
pupils; as logical as geometry and as dis- 
ciplinary as Latin, but entirely unlike either 
one of these standard subjects. 

Direct observational appeal to natural phe- 
nomena should always be the essential founda- 
tion of a real knowledge of nature, and much 
skill should be exercised by the teacher in 
selecting from nature’s inexhaustible store 
such phenomena for study as shall really be 
within reach of the pupils’ own observation 
and understanding. The text-books should 
serve chiefly to broaden the knowledge gained 
through observation by presenting additional 
examples of similar phenomena from various 
parts of the world. At the same time, and 
always in a measure appropriate to the grade 
of the class, the various other processes of 
scientific method should be brought into play: 
generalization, invention of explanations, test 
of explanations by deduction, appeal to experi- 


912 


ment, the need of a critical and unprejudiced 
judgment in reaching conclusions, revision of 
work and suspension of judgment in doubt- 
ful cases. Elementary examples of all these 
processes may be presented, though those just 
named are more appropriate than the others 
for young classes. 

In the illustration of nature study with ex- 
cerpts from poems, I have comparatively little 
interest, especially when, as is so often the 
case, the excerpts are not chosen by the 
teacher, and still less when the teacher’s tem- 
perament is not poetic. Spontaneous quota- 
tions from any field of really good literature 
in prose or poetry, brought in because of real 
literary feeling on the teacher’s part, are in 
just measure admirable aids to study of all 
kinds; but if poems on nature be made an 
essential part of nature study, it is likely to 
become emotional rather than scientific and 
disciplinary. : 

Desire and capacity to carry the study of 
nature further should be the chief end of 
nature study, and it is for this reason that 
I-would emphasize in all grades the disciplin- 
ary rather than the sentimental view of the 
subject. The scientific method should be 
constantly inculeated, but more by example 
than by precept. 

This should. lead to a clear understanding 
of the order of nature, based not on authority 
but on the cultivation and use of a keen, un- 
prejudiced, sympathetic reason: emotional 
sentiment, a subject responsive in so far as 
it is excited by natural phenomena, is better 
cultivated in the appreciative study of art 
and literature than in nature study. 

W. M. Davis. 


CAMBRIDGE, Mass. 


Properly it is simply synonymous with the 
good old term ‘natural history.’ 

As I take it, all zoologists, botanists, biol- 
ogists, ete., are pursuing ‘nature study,’ each 
in his own way. I have no sympathy with the 
desire of some superficial persons to limit 
such a term to kindergarten work in zoology 
and botany, which is about the idea held in 
some schools. 

That kind of work is right and proper and 
useful in its place, but why it should monopo- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vot. XVI. No. 414. 


lize the term ‘nature study’ is known only 
to the minds of those who can go no farther 
than the a b e of science. 

EK. A. VERRILL. 


New Haven, Conn. 


I should say that, on the positive side, any 
direct contact with natural objects, continued 
by critical or comparative studies, either ele- 
mentary or advanced, should come under the 
head of nature study. Negatively, I should 
exclude all fairy stories about animals and 
plants, all fantastie-stories of creatures more 
or less imaginary, and should restrict the 
term so as to include only such work as 
would bring the student face to face with 
realities. The essential virtue of nature study 
lies in its reality, as distinguished from the 
conventional, artificial or second-hand kinds 
of learning. 


Davin Starr Jorpan. 
Sranrorp UNIVERSITY, CALir. 


I should say that by nature study a good 
teacher means such study of the natural 
world as leads to sympathy with it. The key- 
note, in my opinion, for all nature study is 
sympathy. Such study in the schools is not 
botany; it is not zoology; although, of course, 
not contravening either. But by nature study 
we mean such a presentation, to young people, 
of the outside world that our children learn to 
love all nature’s forms and cease to abuse 
them. The study of natural science leads, to 
be-sure, to these results, but its methods are 
long and have a different primary object. 

Tuomas H. Macsripe. 

UNIVERSITY OF Iowa. 


Besides the letters. above, a brief quotation 
is here given from an excellent book recently 
published by Clifton F. Hodge, Ph.D., of 
Clark University : 

Nature study is learning those things in 
nature that are best worth knowing, to the 
end of doing those things that make life most 
worth the living. 

My point is that nature study, or element- 
ary science, for the public school ought to be 
all for sure human good. 

Here is a paragraph from a recent letter 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


from Mrs. J. M. Arms, who is in charge of 
nature study in the schools of Boston, Mass.: 

Nature study is simply the study of na- 
ture, not the study of books. It is a course 
of nature lessons especially adapted for ele- 
mentary schools. Minerals, rocks, plants and 
animals are the necessary materials for such 
lessons. The method of study may be ex- 
pressed in three words, observation, compari- 
son, inference. The child must be made to 
see the object he looks at, and to this end he 
tries to draw it and to describe it in writing. 
Comparative work is mental training, which, 
combined with the observational training 
already spoken of, gives a certain degree of 
mental power. This power gained in the 
early years increases with continued effort. 
Fortunately, this work is recognized as one of 
the potent agencies in producing efficient men 
and women equipped for a life work that shall 
make for the betterment and enlightenment of 
humanity. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 


DISCOVERY OF TEETH IN BAPTANODON, AN ICH- 
THYOSAURIAN FROM THE JURASSIC OF 
WYOMING. 


Among the vertebrate fossils collected by 
Mr. O. A. Peterson during the season of 1900 
on Sheep Creek, Albany County, Wyo., there 
was obtained from the lower beds of the Ju- 
rassic a very complete skull of an Ichthyo- 
saurian reptile (Baptanodon discus?) together 
with a few vertebre and ribs. 

Through the courtesy of Mr. J. B. Hatcher, 
curator of the Department of Vertebrate 
Paleontology of the Carnegie Museum, this 
material has been placed at the disposal of 
the writer for study and description. 

Heretofore the American Jurassic Ichthyo- 
saurians were supposed to’ be edentulous, but 
while preparing this specimen (No. 603) for 
study the remarkable discovery was made that 
the jaws bore teeth, two of which were found 
between the jaws near the end of the snout. 
One tooth was apparently in position in the 
upper jaw, while the other lay imbedded in 
the matrix between the jaws and entirely de- 
tached from them. The teeth are small, 
conical, and covered with longitudinal strie. 


SCIENCE. 913 


In general form and surface markings they 
resemble very closely the teeth of the Liassic 
Ichthyosaurs of England and Europe. The 
teeth were undoubtedly loosely fixed in the 
jaws and have been lost in all previously dis- 
covered specimens. In the present skull a 
few of them have fortunately been retained, 
and we have here the first evidence of their 
presence in Baptanodon, which may be re- 
garded as the American representative of the 
Ichthyosaurian reptiles. 

When the skull is entirely freed from the 
matrix and the jaws separated from one an- 
other, more teeth will doubtless be exposed. 

From the above evidence it would appear 
that the generic terms Baptanodon (Saurano- 
don) of Marsh* are misnomers. 

The reduction in size and number of the 
teeth in the Jurassic Ichthyosaurians is par- 
alleled in some of the recent Cetacea. Most 
if not all of the early: (Hoeene and Miocene) 
cetaceans were well provided with functional 
teeth, while in many modern forms these 
either have been entirely lost or have become 
rudimentary, in some instances appearing 
only in the embryonic or young stage of the 
individual. Just so the early Ichthyosaurs 
were provided with an abundance of teeth, 
but in later forms the number and size of the 
teeth were reduced, until in Baptanodon a 
form was developed which, whilé still possess- 
ing teeth, was practically edentulous. 

Ichthyosaurus longirostris as described by 
Owen,t was in this respect intermediate be- 
tween [chthyosaurus longifrons from the Lias 
of England and Europe, and Baptanodon dis- 
cus of the American Jurassic. 

The presence of teeth, though undoubtedly 
reduced in number and in size in American 
Ichthyosaurians, may perhaps be considered 
as invalidating the genus Baptanodon, for on 
that character alone Marsh distinguished that 
genus from the European genus Ichthyo- 
saurus. It would seem better, however, to 
retain the generic name Baptanodon until 


*¢ A New Order of Extinct Reptiles, Saurano- 
donta,’ Amer. Journ. of Science and Arts, Vol. 
XVI., January, 1879, p. 85. 

+ ‘Fossil Reptilia of the Liassie Formation,’ 
part third, p. 124. 


914 


it has been conclusively shown to be gener- 
ically identical with Ophthalmosaurus or Ich- 
thyosaurus. On the other hand, some may 
contend that the present specimen is dis- 
tinguishable generically from Baptanodon, 
although the writer at present does not believe 
this. 

Should further studies or future discoveries 
demonstrate the present specimen to pertain 
to a distinct genus and species, it might then 
be very appropriately called Microdontosaurus 
petersonu, and should those forms previously 
described by Marsh still prove to be edentu- 
lous this character would alone be sufficient 
to distinguish it generically from Baptano- 
To definitely distinguish it, however, 
from Ophthalmosaurus is at present not pos- 
sible, and the American and European forms 
may yet prove to be generically identical. 

This discovery is of. further importance 
from a geological standpoint. The existence 
of forms so similar in beds which in America 
have been referred by Marsh and others to 
the lower Jurassic and in England and Europe 
to the Liassic is of the greatest value for pur- 
poses of correlation, and if it does not dem- 
onstrate the equivalent age of these two de- 
posits it at least furnishes additional evidence 
in favor of the Jurassic age of the conform- 
ably and immediately overlying Atlantosaurus 
beds of Marsh, as was consistently maintained 
by that author. 

The points it is desired to emphasize in 
this preliminary paper are: 

1. The presence of Ichthyosaurians with 
teeth in the American Jurassic. 


don. 


2. The great similarity and perhaps generic 
identity of Baptanodon and Ophthalmosaurus. 

3. The further evidence it affords in favor 
of the Jurassic age of the Atlantosaurus beds 
of Marsh, which has been seriously questioned 
by some authorities.. 

This material will be more fully described 
and illustrated in a paper now in preparation 
by the present author. 


Cuartes W. GILMoRE. 


CARNEGIE MUSEUM, 
November 12, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


{N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 414. 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 

RIVERS OF SOUTH DAKOTA. 
' Tuer ‘Hydrographic History of South Da- 
kota, by J. E. Todd (Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., 
XIIL., 1902, pp. 27-40, maps) summarizes the 
work of some ten years in serviceable form. 
The general eastward slope from the Rocky 
mountains and Black hills (whether result- 
ing from the tilting of formerly level lacus- 
trine strata, or from the slant of fluviatile 
deposition) determined the delivery of six 
east-flowing streams to a preglacial geosyn- 
clinal south-flowing trunk river whose course 
is roughly represented by James river in 
eastern Dakota and by the existing Missouri 
further south. The broad James valley was 
invaded by a great ice lobe, 1,000 to 2,000 feet 
thick, in the latest (Wisconsin) epoch of the 
glacial period; the east-flowing streams were 
thereby obstructed, with the result of produ- 
cing temporary lakes whose combined south- 
ward outlets across the preglacial interfluves 
determined the Missouri river in Dakota. 
Evidence of the changes thus involved is 
found in the abundant moraines on the pres- 
ent divide between Missouri and James, in 
the masked extension under these moraines 
of the preglacial east-sloping valleys and 
their interfluves, in the shore lines of various 
temporary lakes, and in the apparently 
younger form of the Missouri valley where 
it cuts through the interfluves, although but 
tew details are given on the latter point. The 
associated changes in several other rivers are 
traced. 


ARGENTINE-CHILEAN BOUNDARY. 


A REMARKABLE report by the Argentine 
commissioners on the Argentine-Chilean 
boundary has been presented to the British 
arbitration tribunal. It consists of five 
quarto volumes, printed for the Argentine 
government by Clowes (London, 1900), with 
numerous photographic plates and maps, from 
which a great amount of geographic and 
physiographic information may be obtained. 
The dispute that the arbitration tribunal is 
to settle turns, as is not infrequently the case 
in such disputes, upon an insufliciency of 
physiographic detail in the description of 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. | 


the international boundary in the treaty by 
which it was defined. ‘The frontier line 
shall * * along the most elevated 
erests of said Cordilleras that may divide the 
waters, and shall pass between the slopes which 
descend one side and the other.” The Argen- 
tines, therefore, claim that the line should 
follow the crest of the Andes, crossing where 
necessary the courses of those rivers which 
flow through the range; while the Chileans 
elaim that it should follow the water parting, 
even when that would lead the line far out 
upon the open pampas many miles east of the 
mountains. The fact that mountain ranges 
are sometimes cut through by the deep gorges 
of through-going, transverse rivers was well 
known as a general physiographic occurrence 
at the time when the boundary treaty was 
drawn up (1881), though the numerous specific 
instances of this kind in the mountain range 
in question had then been hardly recognized. 
In spite of this want of local information, it 
does not seem unreasonable to blame the 
diplomats who drew up the boundary treaty 
for being so careless with respect to complica- 
tions of known possibility. They might have 
learned a profitable lesson from the practice 
of patent lawyers, who make so thorough a 
defense of a new invention. The only dis- 
turbing complications mentioned in the treaty 
were those arising in valleys formed by ‘bi- 
furcation of the Cordillera’ where ‘ the water- 
shed may not be apparent.’ 

The maps, plates and text of the ‘ Report’ 
give many details concerning the crest line of 
the Andes, the deep gorges by which the moun- 
tains are cut through, and the topography, 
frequently morainic, of the pampas around the 
headwaters of the rivers. 
These features have been described in abstract 
in certain of the European geographical 
journals, where at least one writer explains the 
transverse gorges by the capture of eastern 
drainage areas by the normal retrogressive 
erosion of streams on the western mountain 
slope. It is difficult to accept this explana- 
tion, because it is not shown that the western 
streams have enjoyed any advantage, such as 
should have led them to acquire so much 
drainage from their eastern competitors at so 


run * 


through-flowing 


SCIENCE. 


915 


early a stage of mountain dissection as that 
now reached by the Andes. Hatcher has sug- 
gested, on the basis of his own observations, 
that the peculiar river courses result from 
relatively recent deformation of the region. 
The aid that glacial erosion may have given 
does not seem to have been considered, al- 
though the possible sawing down of divides 
by overflowing glaciers has elewhere been 
shown to be an important process in heavily 
glaciated regions. 


MAPS OF FAROE ISLANDS. 


Tue Danish General Staff has published 
fifty-three sheets of an elaborate topograph- 
ical map of what we tautologically call the 
Faroe Islands. The map is printed in four 
colors on a scale of 1:20,000, with contours 
every ten (sometimes every five) meters. Only 
the skeleton of what was originally a lava 
plateau now remains. The larger islands are 
divided into separate uplands by broadly open, 
trough-shaped, through-going valleys that de- 
scend with gentle slope in both directions 
from a low valley-floor divide. The sounds 
by which the islands are separated seem to be 
only submerged valleys of the same kind. 
Great cirques, from half a mile to a mile 
across, open from the main valleys. The 
strong slopes of the valleys and cirques are 
notably smooth, unravined by the numerous 
streams that descend from the uplands; and 
hence it may be concluded that much of the 
dissection of the lava plateau has been ac- 
complished by ice action. If so, it is here, 
as elsewhere, unsafe to infer postglacial sub- 
mergence simply because some of the valleys 
are drowned; for if glaciers can erode at all 
they can certainly erode to a significant depth 
beneath sea level. The sea-cut cliffs are very 
bold on the western coast; those of Strémé 
are 500 or 600 meters high at a distance of 
only 200 or 300 meters inland from the shore 
line. W. M. Davis. 


THE MAGNETIC SURVEY OF LOUISIANA. 
ARRANGEMENTS have just been completed be- 
tween Superintendent Tittmann and the State 
Geologist, Professor G. D. Harris, for making 
a detailed magnetic survey of Louisiana under 


916 


the joint auspices of the State Geological 
Survey and the Coast and Geodetic Survey. 
Professor Harris is arranging to have the 
field work begin soon after the Christmas 
holidays. It will be the endeavor to complete 
the greater part of the work by June 1, 1903. 
Mr. Edwin Smith will represent the Coast 
and Geodetic Survey on this important work. 
Louisiana is the third state within recent 
years to avail itself of the unrivaled facili- 
ties and instrumental equipment of the Coast 
and Geodetic Survey for rapid and successful 
magnetic work. 

Dr. L. A. Bauer, during his recent inspec- 
tion tour of two months covering the region 
from the north shore of Lake Superior to the 
southern part of Texas, besides visiting the 
various magnetic parties working in that re- 
gion, determined the dip at a number of sta- 
tions with two totally different instruments, 
the one a French dip circle and the other a 
Lloyd-Creak dip circle primarily intended for 
observations at sea. With the latter dip 
circle he likewise determined the total mag- 
netic intensity, and multiplying the value 
thus obtained by the cosine of the dip the 
horizontal intensity was obtained. Next the 
horizontal intensity was observed directly with 
a French magnetometer. With the same in- 
struments comparisons were made with the 
instruments of each party visited. Thus an 
interesting series of observations has re- 
sulted serving to test the constancy of dip 
circle standardizations for the entire range 
of dip embraced in the United States, and 
giving the means of determining the relative 
accuracy of field intensity determinations by 
two totally different methods and with two 
greatly differing instruments. 

The Coast and Geodetie Survey is prepar- 
ing to make magnetic observations (declina- 
tion, dip and intensity) on board the Blake, 
an entirely wooden vessel, which is to sail for 
Porto Rico soon after January 1. The neces- 
sary instruments have been secured and are 
now being installed in the ship. The dip 
circle—a greatly improved form of the Fox 
dip circle, known as the Lloyd-Creak dip 
circle, with which the dip and total intensity 
observations will be made, is similar to the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


instruments supplied to the English Antarctic 
ship, the Discovery, and to the German Ant- 
arctic ship, the Gauss. 
THE RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS.* 

ARRANGEMENTS are being made for the 
Rhodes scholars to take up their residence in 
Oxford at the earliest possible date. Mr. G. 
R. Parkin, LL.D., Principal of Upper Canada 
College, Toronto, the organizing agent for the 
trustees of the Rhodes scholarships, is on a 
visit to Oxford on behalf of the various coun- 
tries interested, and, after consultation with the 
university and college authorities, will frame 
for the approval of the trustees a scheme for 
the election of the scholars. As the bequest 
of Mr. Rhodes suggests that the scholars shall 
come into residence at the various colleges and 
shall pursue a three year’s course, it is all im- 
portant that a clear understanding of the 
attitude of the university and of the individual 
colleges towards the scholars thus to be elected 
should be ascertained as a necessary prelimi- 
nary to Mr. Parkin’s work abroad. This is the, 
object of his visit to Oxford. Acting on the 
advice of the vice-chancellor and a committee 
of the Hebdomadal Council, Mr. Parkin ad- 
dressed a series of questions to various heads 
of colleges in order that the matter might be 
formally brought under the consideration of 
the respective societies. The questions were 
as under: 

1. Is your college willing to receive each year’s 
number of the Rhodes scholars, and, if so, how 


many? . 
2. What are the conditions of entrance upon 


which your college would insist? Would they 
necessarily include any examination of your own? 

3. Would you be able to give any Rhodes 
scholars accepted by you rooms in the college 
buildings from the time of their entrance and 
for how long? F 

4. At what date in each year would you require 
notification of the election of scholars in order 
that rooms may be assigned them and arrange- 
ments made for their entrance. 

5. Would you wish scholars accepted by you 
to come under ordinary undergraduate conditions 
as to age and attainments, or would you prefer 
men prepared to take advanced or post-graduate 
work? 


* From the London Times. 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. ] 


6. Have you any suggestions to make from 
your college point of view likely to be helpful to 
the trustees in their endeavor to make the be- 
quest of Mr. Rhodes most effective? 


The answers to the questions will be sub- 
mitted to the trustees for their consideration. 
The first year the bequest comes into opera- 
tion there will be elected probably between 
70 and 75 scholars, the same number for the 
second year, and for the third year about 30, 
the numbers continuing thereafter from year 
to year in about the same proportion. The 
bulk of the replies to the questions have yet 
to be received, as the queries have not at pres- 
ent been formally submitted to the college 
meetings, but the reception which Mr. Parkin 
has met with at the hands of the heads of col- 
leges has been most gratifying. 

In the course of a statement made yesterday 
Mr. Parkin said: “ What has impressed me 
greatly since I have been in Oxford is the ex- 
ceedingly hearty and interested way in which 
all the colleges have discussed the best plan of 
working the Rhodes scholars into the univer- 
sity system. A universal feeling prevails that 
the conception of Rhodes was a splendid one, 
has in it more possibilities in the future, and 
is likely to make a profound impression on 
the English-speaking world. It is also very 
generally felt, I think, that any failure to 
make a complete success of this great thought 
of Mr. Rhodes would be a check to all giving 
on a grand seale for a long time to come. The 
heads of colleges and fellows I have found 
everywhere ready to cooperate with the Rhodes 
trustees in making this bequest most effective. 

’ We are only gradually getting answers to the 
questions which have been propounded to the 
various colleges, but all the replies that have 
come in are highly favorable. According to 
their size, each of the colleges seems prepared 
to take from two to five of the Rhodes scholars 
every year. This would give to the smaller 
colleges six in all for the three years’ scholar- 
ship, and to the larger colleges about fifteen, 
when the plan is in full operation. As the 
holders of these scholarships will be very care- 
fully selected from each of the colonies and 
from each state of the American Union, I have 
every reason to think that a high average of 


SCIENCE. 


SE 


man will be obtained—almost certainly a 
serious, earnest man, but interested in college 
athletics and all the best sides of college life, 
in accordance with the ideas that Mr. Rhodes 
had about the selection of such candidates. 
The interest taken in the matter in all parts 
of the world is illustrated by the flood of corre- 
spondence which has been poured in upon 
me as representing the trustees, upon the vice- 
chancellor and everybody who could be sup- 
posed to have any connection with the scheme.” 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

Present Roosevetr has consented to act 
as honorary president of the local committee 
for the Washington meeting of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Tuer trustees of the Carnegie Institution 
held their first annual meeting in Washington 
on November 25. The positive action taken 
consisted in the appropriation of $200,000 for 
grants for research, $40,000 for publication, 
$50,000 for administrative expenses, and $100,- 
000 to be placed in a reserve fund. All spe- 
cific requests for aid were referred back to the 
executive committee for action. The Year 
Book, now in course of preparation, will con- 
tain the reports of the various committees and 
other material that will be of general interest. 

Emperor WILuIAm in the farewell audience 
of Ambassador White presented him with the 
Gold Medal of the empire for science and art, 
which is given once a year to a person, either 
a German or a foreigner, who, in the opinion 
of the government, is best entitled to it. 

Lorp Reay, chairman of the London school 
board since 1897, and president of the Royal 
Asiatic Society and of University College, 
London, has been elected first president of the 
British Academy. 

Mr. Francis Gauron has been elected an 
honorary fellow of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge. 

Dr. M. Treups, director of the Royal Bo- 
tanie Gardens at Buitenzorg, Java, is at 
present in the United States. 

Dr. Juan Gurréras and Dr. Carlos Finley 
will represent Cuba at the sanitary congress 
to be held in Washington in December. 


918 


Proressor WitutAM Lippey has returned to 
Princeton from a year’s trip devoted to ex- 
ploration in Egypt and Palestine. 


Dr. Freppric E. CLements, of the botanical 
department of the University of Nebraska, 
has been granted a month’s leave of absence 
in order that he may study at the New York 
Botanical Garden. He will return to Ne- 
braska after the Washington meetings. 


P. J. O’Gara, assistant in botany in the 
University of Nebraska, has been appointed 
student aid in pathology, in the Division of 
Plant Physiology and Pathology in the De- 
partment of Agriculture. 

Dr. F. A. Winprr has recently been ap- 
pointed state geologist of North Dakota and 
professor of geology in the State University. 
Dr. Wilder comes to North Dakota with a 
varied experience in geological work and with 
an excellent record in connection with other 
surveys, notably that of Iowa. There is a 
growing demand for geological work, especially 
in our northwestern states, and North Dakota 
is fortunate in securing a man so well qualified 
for the work of the State Geological Survey. 
The work of the survey is an adjunct to the 
department of geology in the State University, 
located at Grand Forks. 


Captain Ropert E. Peary gave an address 
before the National Geographic Society at 
Washington on November 29. 


THe American Institute of Electrical En- 
gineers has appointed a committee consisting 
of Ralph D. Mershon, chairman, and Messrs. 
F. O. Blackwell, C. C. Chesney, P. M. Lincoln 
and R. 8. Masson, for the purpose of collect- 
ing data respecting present practice in electric 
transmission at high voltage and of presenting 
a report which will indicate the successful 
methods which are now in operation in such 
form as to be of immediate value to electrical 
engineers. 

As we have already stated, a committee 
with Professor Waldeyer as chairman is col- 
lecting funds for erecting a monument to 
Rudolf Virchow in Berlin. American sub- 
scriptions may be sent to Drs. Frank Billings, 
president of the American Medical Associa- 
tion, 100 State St., Chicago, Ill.; Thomas D. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 414. 


Coleman, 505 Green St., Augusta, Ga.; A. 
Jacobi, 19 East Forty-seventh St., New York 
City; W. W. Keen, president of the Congress 
of American Physicians and Surgeons, 1729 
Chestnut St., Philadelphia, Pa.; or Wm. H. 
Welch, 935 St. Paul St., Baltimore, Md. 


JosEPH Miniter Witson, a well-known civil 
engineer of Philadelphia, died on November 
24 at the age of sixty-four years. He had 
been engineer of the Pennsylvania railroad, 
and had earried out numerous works of im- 
portance. He was a member of the prin- 
cipal engineering societies and a fellow of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science. 


Sir Wins CHANDLER Roserts-AUSTEN, 
professor of metallurgy in the Royal School 
of Mines, London, since 1880, and honorary 
general secretary of the British Association 
for the Advancement of Science, died on No- 
vember 23, at the age of fifty-nine years. 


Tue Morning, which has been fitted out as 
a relief ship to the Discovery, arrived at 
Lyttelton, N. Z., on November 16. 


Last winter the legislature of New York 
State appointed a commission consisting of 
C. P. Steinmetz, H. W. Buck and State En- 
gineer Edward A. Bond, to investigate and 
report upon the advisability of the state es- 
tablishing an electrical laboratory. We learn 
from the Electrical World that the commis- 
sion has held several meetings, and on Novem- 
ber 18, it held a meeting at Niagara Falls, the 
three commissioners being in attendance. It 
is intimated that the commission will report 
in favor of establishing the institution re- 
ferred to, which will also serve as a standard- 
ization bureau. Among other things it is re- 
ported that the commission has learned that 
the amount of capital in New York State 
directly interested in the development and use 
of electricity is $1,680,590,290, made up of 
$217,974,695 representing the capitalization of 
the companies engaged in the manufacture 
of electrical apparatus, and $1,462,615,595, the 
capitalization of the companies involving the 
use of electricity. 

Ar a meeting of the Michigan Section of 
the American Chemical Society, held in the 


DECEMBER 5, 1902. | 


chemical laboratory of the University of Mich- 
igan, November 7, the following papers were 
read: ‘A Rapid and Accurate Method for the 
Determination of Sulphur in Coal,’ by Mr. 
C. Sundstrom; ‘ Non-uniformity in Portland 
Cements’; ‘Causes and Remedies,’ by Mr. O. 
Button, of the Hecla Portland Cement Com- 
pany. 

Tue 228th meeting of the New York Elec- 
trical Society was held in the lecture room of 
the American Institute on November 25, when 
Mr. A. Frederick Collins lectured on ‘ Opera- 
tive Systems of Wireless Telegraphy.’ 

Ture American Electrochemical Society will 
hold the annual meeting of the society in New 
York on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of 
the week following Easter Sunday. A com- 
mittee was appointed to arrange with the 
American Institute of Electrical Engineers for 
a contemporary meeting to be held in Septem- 
ber at Sault Ste. Marie. 


An International Exposition of Hygiene will 
be held at Buenos Ayres in connection with 
the second Latin-American Medical Congress, 
which will hold its sessions in April, 1904. 
An invitation is extended to public and private 
institutions interested in the subject to partic- 
ipate in the exposition. Reduced rates for the 
transportation of exhibits have already been 
obtained from several steamship companies. 


A summary of the progress of the Geological 
Survey of the United Kingdom and Museum 
of Practical Geology for 1901 has been is- 
sued by the Board of Agriculture. According 
to the abstract in the London Times it gives 
a full account of the field work of the Geo- 
logical Survey throughout the year and of the 
chemical, petrological and _ paleontological 
work in connection therewith. In the west 
of England the process of subdividing the 
great killas-formation of De la Becha has 
been continued, and a new division—the Hayle 
sandstone—has been recognized. A consider- 
able mass of granite, later in date than the 
main mass, has been found in the Land’s End 
district, thus proving that the granitic area 
is not so simple in structure as is represented 
in the earlier maps. Special attention has 
been paid to the metamorphism produced by 


SCIENCE. 


919 


the granite, not only on account of its scientific 
interest, but also because the more important 
mineral veins occur in the metamorphic zone. 
In the “Devonian and Carboniferous areas of 
the west of England additional evidence has 
been obtained of an important unconformity 
between the middle culm or wearde beds and 
the Devonian. In the South Wales area the 
detailed examination of the coalfield has pro- 
ceeded as far west as Swansea, and some new 
inliers of Silurian rocks have been detected in 
Gower. The resurvey of the Midland coal- 
fields has been continued. In the northern 
district of Scotland work has been carried on 
in Ross-shire and Inverness-shire, extending 
eastwards from Loch Hourn and Loch Ailsh. 
Much additional information has been ob- 
tained as to the crystalline schists and the 
associated igneous rocks. Cretaceous rocks 
have for the first time been noticed in Soay 
Sound and Sealpay in the Skye district, and 
an interesting series of composite dykes of 
Tertiary age has been found in the Lorne 
plateau. The detailed mapping of the drifts 
in Ireland was begun in the Dublin area. 
Two points are cited as being worthy of 
special mention. The esker-like ridge south 
of the Liffey has been found at one point to 
rest on a water-worn floor of carboniferous 
limestone. At the same locality the gravels 
of the ridge can be seen to pass laterally into 
gravelly clay, full of scratched stones, resting 
on a striated rock surface. These facts 
strongly support the widely accepted view that 
ridges of this type are the casts of sub-glacial 
water-channels. Analyses of South Wales 
coals have been begun, and some notes on 
weathering of magnesian limestones are pub- 


lished. 


Tur U. S. Department of Agriculture has 
received through the Department of State 
notice that a general exposition of hygienic 
milk supply will be held at Hamburg from 
May 2 to May 10, 1903. The exposition will 
embrace eight sections as follows: 

Section A.—For milk ~-production: (1) Exhibit 
of limited number of milch cows of known race; 
(2) stable fittings and implements; (3) regimen 
and hygienic food; (4) technics of milk, tests, 
and execution of; (5) management of milk in 


920 


stable and pastures; (6) personnel of milking and 
stable (clothing, health, and supervision of, the 
same). 

Section B.—Veterinary control of the condition 
of milch cows and of milk: (1) Legislation; (2) 
management of contagious outbreaks (with" de- 
monstration) ; (3) diseases of milch cows; (4) 
special disease; (5) unwholesome food plants and 
drinking water; (6) secretion through the milk 
of medicinal stuffs; (7) sanitary management; 
(8) disinfection of stalls (means and apparatus). 

Section C.—Conveyance of milk, land, and 
waterways, railways; conveyance and distribution 
in cities; (2) cleansing, spinning, cooling, Pas- 
teurizing, sterilizing, and concentrating (condens- 
ing) milk; (3) arrangements for measuring and 
weighing; (4) cleansing apparatus for flasks; (5) 
machinery for bottling, pouring, and sealing. 

Section D.—Exhibit of management and sale of 
milk. (wholesale and retail trade), with complete 
furnishings. 

Section E.—Milk legislation and administration: 
(1) Laws, ordinances, decrees, and judgments; (2) 
police supervision of milk traffic (removal, pre- 
vious examination, preserving, conveyance) ; (3) 
chemical and _ bacteriological inspection; (a) 
model laboratory, working; (b) instruments and 
tools for laboratory. 

Section F.—Scientific: (1) Means of instruction 
with scientific demonstration; (2) scientific in- 
struments and tools for milk laboratories; (3) 
literature, statistics, and graphic exhibitions. 

Section G.—Milk preparations: (1) Condensed 
and prepared for long keeping for use in the army 
and navy; (2) milk for infants; (3) for thera- 
peutic purposes; (4) other foods and preparations 
produced from milk. 

Section H.—Machinery and apparatus for the 
treatment of milk in the household. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

Mr. James Stinuman, of New York City, 
has given $100,000 to Harvard University for 
the endowment of a professorship in compara- 
tive anatomy. 


Atv a recent meeting of the Board of Trus- 
tees of the Iowa State College of Agriculture 
and Mechanic Arts, the one fifth mill building 
tax granted by the general assembly will be 
devoted to the following purposes: the erection 
of a central building for administrative and 
general purposes at a cost of $225,000; an 


SCIENCE. : 


[N. S. Vou. XVI. No. 414. 


agricultural building at a cost of $200,000; 
of a fire proof addition to Agricultural Hall 
60x100 feet; a pavilion for agronomy and 
animal husbandry, 60 feet in diameter, to cost 
$50,000; and a suitable heating plant, to cost 
$65,000. The central building is to be com- 
menced next spring. This will contain the 
departments of botany, domestic science, his- 
tory, English, mathematics, political economy 
and administrative offices; the $225,000 does 
not include furnishing, heating or lighting. 
The addition to Agricultural Hall will be 
completed by August, 1903. 


Tue National Conference of Jewish Char- 
ities has established two scholarships at Co- 
lumbia University and the University of 
Chicago to train men and women in sociolog- 
ical work for the administration of Hebrew 
charities in New York and Chicago. The 
scholarships are of the annual value of about 
$750. 

Tue new laboratory of physics given to the 
University of Jena by Dr. Carl Zeiss has been 
dedicated. The former physical laboratory 
will be used for technical chemistry with Pro- 
fessor Vongerichten as director. 

Dr. J. H. Hystor, professor of logic and 
ethics at Columbia University, has resigned, 
owing to ill health. 

Dr. Grorce C. CaLpweELn, since 1868 pro- 
fessor of chemistry at Cornell University, has 
retired, in accordance with the recent regula- 
tions of the trustees permitting professors to 
retire with a pension. 


J. E. Wawiace Watiiy, Px.D., who has 
been assistant at Yale and Clark Universities. 
has been appointed assistant in philosophy at 
the University of Michigan. 


Dr. L. Ascuorr, of Gottingen, has been 
called to the chair of pathological anatomy at 
Marburg, vacant by the removal of Dr. Hugo 
Ribbert to Gottingen. 


Dr. H. Kopap, astronomer in the observa- 
tory at Kiel, has been made professor in the 
university. 


Erratum: In the article by Mr. Hatcher, page 
831, in the second column, fifth line from bottom, 
for with read within. 


‘ 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: 8S. NEwcomB, Mathematics; R. S. WoopWARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WAtcorTtT, Geology ; W. M. DAvis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBorn, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScupDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BrssEY, N. L. BRitTon, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


DITCH, Physiology ; 


J. S. Bintines, Hygiene; WiLLIAM H. WELCH, 


Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Fripay, DecemBer 12, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
Address of the President of the Botanical Sec- 
tion of the British Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science: PRroressor J. ReEy- 


NOLD SIM GREE Niet eter eickeletclsic cleisicie eis cielekole ei 921 
The American Ornithologists’ Union: JOHN 
18, SAGWadcacoccdpapoadanoopaunousesoouD 938 


A Graduate School of Engineering Research. 940 
Scientific Books :— 

Dr. Meyer on some European Museums: 

IY, As Ibaooncoclotlogorogouoouepomodod wep 941 
Scientific Journals and Articles............ 943 
Societies and Academies :— 

The American Association for the Advance- 

ment of Science. The Biological Society 

of Washington: F. A. Lucas. The Botan- 

ical Society of Washington: Dr. HERBERT 

Vo WIREHSTE, conan oconodopspaaosancoGasDo 944 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 

The Grand Gulf Formation: PROFESSOR 

Wm. H. Datt. The Squids from Onondaga 

Lake, N. Y.: Dr. JonN M. CLARKE...... 
Shorter Articles :— 

Preliminary Results on the Changes of 

Atmospheric Nucleation: PROFESSOR CARL 

Barus. The Laramie Cretaceous of Wy- 

oming: PRoFESSoR S. W. WILLISTON..... 
Botanical Notes :— 

Air Humidity; Polyporus Officinalis in 

America; Botany in the Washington Meet- 

ing; Two Books on Forestry; Three Por- 

estry Journals: PRoressoR CHARLES E. 

ISDE? savcclsesocepocnBOssoUoGUsH T0000 953 
the Virchow Memorial...........-2--5-.-- 955 
Lecture Courses of the National Geographic 

SOGIQR) 5.0'6'0'o73 oo ORD EO ORIG AS00665" 
A General Meeting of the American Phi- 

losophical Society.........+---+---++-+-- 957 
Screntifie Notes and News................ 958 
University and Educational News.......... 960 


946 


948 


956 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor 1. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hndson, N: Y. 


oo. 


ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE BO- 
TANICAL SHOTION OF THE BRITISH 
ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD- 
VANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.* 

Tue visits of the British Association to 
a particular city recur with a certain 
irregular frequency and bring with them 
a temptation to the president of a section 
to dwell in his opening address on the prog- 
ress made in the science associated with 
that section during the interval between 
such consecutive visits. This course pos- 
sesses a certain fascination of its own, for 
it enables us to realize how far the patient 
investigations of years have ultimately led 
to definite advances in knowledge and to 
appreciate the difficulties that have in- 
volved disappointments, and that still have 
to be surmounted. We like to look back 
upon the struggles, to record the triumphs, 
to deplore the failures, and to brace our- 
selves for new efforts. The opportunity 
afforded hereby for criticism of methods, | 
for reconsideration of what have been held 
to be fundamental principles, for the lay- 
ing down of new lines of work based upon 
longer experience, shows us how desirable 
such a periodical retrospect may be. 
Standing as we do almost at the thresh- 

old of a new century, it seems particu- 
larly advisable that we shall occupy our 
thoughts with some such considerations to- 


* Belfast meeting, 1902. 


922 


day. I do not wish, however, so much to 
dwell upon the past and to lead my hearers 
to rest in any way satisfied with the achieve- 
ments of the last century, phenomenal as 
they have been, as to direct attention to the 
future and to place before you some of 
those problems which at the opening of the 
twentieth century we find awaiting investi- 
gation, if not solution. 

I can only attempt to deal with a small 
portion of the botanical field. These are 
the days of specialization, and when any- 
one is said to be a botanist, the question 
which arises at once is, Which particular 
section of botany is he associated with? 
The same principle of subdivision which 
cut up the old subject of natural history 
into zoology, botany, and geology has now 
gone further as knowledge has increased, 
and three or perhaps four departments of 
botany must be recognized, each demanding 
as much study as the whole subject seemed 
to only fifty years ago. I shall therefore 
confine my remarks to-day to the field of 
vegetable physiology. 

I should like at the outset to recommend 
this section of botanical work to those of 
the younger school of botanists who are 
contemplating original research. To my 
mind the possibilities of the living organism 
as such present a fascination which jis not 
afforded by the dry bones of morphology 
or histology ; valuable as researches into the 
latter are, they seem to me to derive their 
importance very largely from the past, 
from the possibility of indicating or ascer- 
taining the line of descent of living forms 
and the relation of the latter to their re- 
mote ancestors. The interest thus excited 
seems to me to be rather of an academic 
character when compared with the ac- 
tual problems of present-day life, its strug- 
cles, triumphs, and defeats in the conflict 
for existence waged to-day by every living 
organism. The importance of the study 
of physiology as bearing upon the prob- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 415. 


lems of the morphologists has, I need hardly 
say, been fully recognized by the workers 
in that field. I may quote here a sentence 
or two from the address of one of my dis- 
tinguished predecessors, who said at Liver- 
pool, ‘‘There is a close relation between 
these two branches of biology, at any rate 
to those who maintain the Darwinian posi- 
tion, for from that point of view we see 
that all the characters which the morphol- 
ogist has to compare are, or have been, 
adaptive. Hence it is impossible for the 
morphologist to ignore the functions of 
those organs of which he is studying the 
homologies. To those who accept the origin 
of species by variation and natural selec- 
tion there are no such things as morpho- 
logical characters pure and simple. There 
are not two distinct categories of charac- 
ters—a morphological and a physiological 
category—for all characters alike are 
physiological.’’ 

But apart from the considerations of 
the claims of vegetable physiology based 
upon its own intrinsic scientific value and 
the interest which its problems possess for 
the worker himself, and upon the place 
accorded to it as its relationship to mor- 
phology, it must, I think, be recognized as 
being of fundamental economic importance, 
especially in these times of agricultural de- 
pression. For many years now it has been 
recognized that agriculture is based upon 
science; that it involves indeed properly the 
application of scientific principles to the 
cultivation of the soil. But when we look 
back upon what has passed for agricultural 
science since the alliance between the two 
has been admitted, we cannot but recognize 
how lamentably deficient in breadth it has 
been. The chemical composition of the soil 
and subsoil has been investigated with some 
thoroughness in many districts of the coun- 
try. The effect of its various constituents 
on the weight and quality of the crops eulti- 
vated in it has been exhaustively inquired 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


into, and a considerable amount of infor- 
mation as to what minerals are advantage- 
ously applied to the soil in which particular 
plants are to be sown has been acquired. 
A kind of empirical knowledge is thus in 
our possession, in some respects a very de- 
tailed one, quantitative as well as qualita- 
tive records being available to the inquirer. 
But elaborate as have been the researches 
in these directions, and costly and trouble- 
some as the investigations have been, they 
have been hardly, if at all, more than em- 
pirical. Till quite recently the physiolog- 
ical idiosynerasies of the plants round 
which all these inquiries centered were 
almost entirely ignored. No serious at- 
tempt was made to ascertain the way in 
which a plant benefited by or suffered from 
the presence of a particular constituent of 
the soil. What influence, for instance, has 
potassium or any of its compounds upon 
the general metabolism of the plant? Does 
it affect all its normal nutritive processes, 
or does it specially associate itself with 
some particular one? If so which one, and 
how does the plant respond to its presence 
or absence by modifying its behavior? So 
with phosphorus again; hardly any investi- 
gation can be made into the nutritive proc- 
esses of a plant without this element be- 
coming more or less prominent. In some 
eases the empirical results already referred 
to show an enormous influence on the crop 
exerted by soluble phosphates in the soil 
or the manure applied to it. But what 
can yet be said as to the rdle played by 
phosphorus or by phosphates in the meta- 
bolic processes in the plant? Further, how 
do different plants show different peculiar- 
ities in their reaction to these various con- 
stituents of the soil? © For the advance of 
agriculture the study of the plant itself 
must now be added to the study of the soil. 
The fact that it is a living organism pos- 
sessing a certain variable and delicate 
constitution, responding in particular ways 


SCIENCE. 


923 


to differences of environment, capable of 
adapting itself to a certain extent to its 
conditions of life, dealing in particular 
ways with different nutritive substances, 
must not only be recognized, but must be 
the basis for the researches of the future, 
which will thus supplement and enlarge 
the conclusions derived from those of the 
past, in some respects correcting them, in 
others establishing them on a firmer basis. 

In pressing upon the younger school of 
botanists the importance of this line of 
research, I do not wish to minimize the 
difficulties that accompany it. Difficulties 
of method assume considerable magnitude, 
for we have here no question of section cut- - 
ting and microscopic examination. Vege- 
table physiology is allied very closely to 
other sciences, and research into its mys- 
teries involves more than a preliminary ac- 
quaintance with them. Especially must 
one point out the importance, indeed the 
necessity, of acquaintance with a certain 
range of organic chemistry and with chem- 
ical methods of work. In certain direc- 
tions, too, physies are as much involved as 
chemistry in others. The bearing of these 
sciences in particular directions will be re- 
ferred to later. 

I fear another obstacle stands at the 
threshold of research which looks suffi- 
ciently formidable. The so-called funda- 
mental facts of vegetable physiology have 
been laid down with sufficient dogmatism 
in text-books by many writers whose names 
carry with them such weight that it ap- 
pears almost heresy to question their state- 
ments. We have been content to accept 
many things on the authority of the great 
workers of the past, with the result that 
the advance of knowledge has been hin- 
dered by such acceptance of what were 
deemed facts, but were really inaccuracies. 
We may refer, for instance, to the state- 
ment made by Boussingault, and accepted 
by most botanists ever since his time, that 


924 


the absorption of carbon dioxide from the 
air takes place by means of solution in the 
cuticle of the epidermal cells of plants and 
thence passes by diffusion to the seats of 
photosynthesis. Only comparatively re- 
cently has this been shown to be erroneous. 
If, however, it is onee recognized that au- 
thority is fallible this apparent obstacle 
becomes the opposite. The more evident 
questions have not yet been solved, leaving 
only the more difficult ones for the present- 
day worker. 

Recognizing the importance of work in 
this field, and realizing that with the ad- 
vent of a new century new departures must 
be taken, I have thought I might venture 
to direct the thoughts of my hearers, many 
of whom I may eall my colleagues, to the 
present position of certain problems which 
have long been the subjects of speculation 
and which offer the prospect, if not of com- 
plete solution, at any rate of considerable 
advance if investigated by modern methods. 

I turn first to a few questions connected 
with the nutritive problems of plants in 
general. 

There are several theories abroad as to 
the progress of events during photosynthe- 
sis, none of which can be regarded as en- 
tirely satisfactory. For many reasons it 
seems desirable that-this question shall be 
thoroughly investigated in the light of the 
present condition of both chemical and 
physical science. I may perhaps venture 
to recall to you the principal hypotheses of 
carbohydrate formation which have been 
advanced, so that its present position may 
be properly appreciated. 

The view that has met with the widest 
acceptance is that of Baeyer. On his 
hypothesis the carbon dioxide absorbed is 
decomposed under normal conditions to 
yield carbon monoxide and oxygen; a corre- 
sponding and coincident decomposition of 
water leads to the production of free 
hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen from 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


both sources is exhaled, while the carbon 
monoxide and hydrogen combine to form 
formaldehyde. The formaldehyde gives 
rise by a process of polymerization to some 
form of sugar. 

A modification of this hypothesis has 
been advanced, which suggests that the pre- 
liminary decomposition of the carbon 
dioxide and the water may not take place, 
but that by a rather less violent reaction 
between them the formaldehyde may be 
formed and the oxygen liberated. 

Erlenmeyer has suggested a somewhat 
different course of reaction, yielding sub- 
stantially the same results. He thinks it 
possible that the first interaction of carbon 


‘dioxide and water leads to the formation 


of formic acid and hydrogen peroxide, and 
that these subsequently interact with each 
other, yielding formaldehyde and water 
and giving off oxygen. 

Many years after the views of Baeyer 
appeared, a hypothesis of a different nature 
was proposed by Crato. He suggests that 
the carbon dioxide after absorption becomes 
ortho-carbonie acid, and that this remains 
in solution in the cell sap. This acid has 
the structure of a closed benzene ring in 
which six molecules are linked together. 
This becomes decomposed, liberating six 
molecules of water and six molecules of 
oxygen, and forming a hexavalent phenol 
which subsequently undergoes a molecular 
rearrangement and becomes glucose. 

Yet another suggestion was made by 
Bach in 1893. He points out that when 
sulphurous acid is exposed to light it be- 
comes transformed to sulphuric acid, sul- 
phur and water being split off, and he 
argues that a process analogous with this 
may take place in a leaf. \ The carbon 
dioxide uniting with water would form 
carbonic acid, and this might then split up 
in the same way as the sulphurous acid. 
The carbon and the water thus split off 
are on this hypothesis not set free sepa- 


DECEMBER 12, 1902.] 


rately, but in combination as formaldehyde. 
The higher carbon acid, to which Bach 
ascribes the formula H,CO,, splits up into 
carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide, and 
the latter is decomposed into water and 
free oxygen. 

Lieben has still more recently put for- 
ward the view that formic acid and not 
formaldehyde is formed by the first decom- 
positions. He has found that leaves of 
grasses and various trees yield formic acid 
among other products when mixed with 
their own weight of water containing a 
trace of sulphuric acid, and distilled with 
steam. Moreover, when carbon dioxide 
is acted upon by nascent hydrogen the only 
product is formic acid. 

These speculations afford many points 
which might be well made the starting 
places of research. The views of Baeyer 
have met with most acceptance, though but 
hittle success has attended the few efforts 
that have been made to establish them by 
experiment. 

They involve several definite stages of 
action, of which the most important seem 
the production of carbon monoxide and 
hydrogen, the formation of formaldehyde, 
and the construction of a sugar. The last 
two questions arise also in connection with 
the hypothesis of Bach. 

If we examine the work that has been 
published bearing on the probability of the 
formation of carbon monoxide in the plant, 
we find little that is satisfactory. The 
statements that have been made are op- 
posed to the idea that carbon monoxide is 
of value in nutrition; it is said that when 
supphed to a plant instead of carbon 
dioxide it does not lead to the formation of 
carbohydrates. It is further advanced 
that this gas is of a very deleterious nature, 
and if formed would result in the speedy 
death of the protoplasm of the cell in 
which it originates. This idea is, of course, 
specious; but it does not appear to be well 


SCIENCE. 


925 


founded. The deadly character of carbon 
monoxide when inhaled by a human being 
depends upon a peculiar interference which 
it causes with the oxygen-carrying power 
of the red blood corpuscles. The pigment 
hemoglobin to which these little bodies owe 
their usefulness forms a loose chemical, 
combination with oxygen, the compound 
being formed in the blood vessels of the 
lungs and being decomposed with the liber- 
ation of the oxygen in those of the tissues 
of the body. It is evident, therefore, that 
the value of the corpuscles as oxygen-car- 
riers depends upon their hemoglobin. 
When this pigment is exposed to carbon 
monoxide it combines with it in the same 
way as it does with oxygen, forming, how- 
ever, amore stable compound. The affinity 
for this gas which the pigment manifests 
is very considerable. Hence the poisonous 
nature of carbon monoxide. It is easily 
seen that the latter is a poison because it 
throws out of gear and temporarily para- 
lyzes a most essential part of the mechan- 
ism of respiration, effectually preventing 
oxygen from reaching the tissues of the 
body. There is no evidence here that it 
exerts even a deleterious influence upon the 
living substance itself. The only poisonous 
effect it would be able to exert on the plant 
would necessarily be of the latter character, 
for there is no oxygen-carrying mechanism 
that could be interfered with. We cannot 
lay any stress, therefore, on the objection 
to Baeyer’s view, based upon the action of 
carbon monoxide upon the human organism. 
Another possibility may, however, be 
mentioned. As we shall see later, there are 
certain resemblances between hemoglobin 
and chlorophyll, the vegetable pigment con- 
cerned in photosynthesis. May not carbon 
monoxide enter into some relationship with 
the latter, and thereby indirectly hinder its 
activity? Of that, however, there is no 
reliable evidence, the facts known to us 
rather pointing in the opposite direction. 


926 


The idea of the poisonous nature of this 
gas may easily be subjected to experimen- 
tal examination. It would appear easy to 
expose a plant to an artificial atmosphere 
made up to different partial pressures of 
carbon monoxide, to expose it in such at- 
mosphere to various conditions of warmth 
and illumination and to note the effect pro- 
duced. It would seem possible to examine 
a great variety of plants in that way, to 
try both aerial and aquatie forms, and in- 
deed to test the matter exhaustively. It 
must be borne in mind. however, that the 
solubility of carbon mc ioxide in water is 
extremely small, and that there may be a 
great difficulty in getting it brought within 
the scope of the influence of the living sub- 
stance on that account. It must neces- 
sarily be in solution in the cell sap before 
it can affect the activity of the chloroplast. 
Even the relations of solubility are not, 
however, outside the range of experiment, 
and it may be that the slightly acid cell 
sap has not the same peculiarities as water 
as a solvent for the gas. 

It is important again to take into ac- 
count in such work the factor of sunlight, 
on which the power of photosynthesis de- 
pends. Should carbon monoxide prove 
capable of serving as a basis for the forma- 
tion of carbohydrates, the question would 
arise, Is the activity of the chlorophyll in 
sunlight confined to the preliminary forma- 
tion of carbon monoxide from the dioxide, 
or is the energy derived from the light 
brought to bear upon the subsequent con- 
structive processes? We have little or no 
accurate information as to the way in which 
the energy is utilized after absorption by 
the chlorophyll. 

This opens up a very important but very 
difficult line of work, which brings home 
to us the intimate dependence of vegetable 
physiology upon physics. The absorption 
of energy from without, in the form of the 
radiant energy of the solar rays, is certainly 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


a fact, and to a certain extent we can pic- 
ture to ourselves the way in which it is 
secured. The spectrum of chlorophyll 
shows us a number of absorption bands 
whose position corresponds with the posi- 
tion in the spectrum of the places where 
oxygen is liberated in photosynthesis. But 
the transformation and applications of 
energy in the body of the vegetable organ- 
ism need much closer examination. The 
intimate relationship between the dit‘erent 
manifestations or forms of energy and the 
ways in which they can be transformed 
into one another, have been very minutely 
scrutinized in recent times. What then 
should hinder us from learning something 
much more definite than we at present know 
about these transformations in the rdle of 
vegetable life? The electrical phenomena 
connected with the movements of the leaves 
of the Venus’s fly-trap (Dioncwa muscipula) 
have been examined with considerable com- 
pleteness by Burdon Sanderson, and we 
have learned that the vegetable and animal 
organisms show considerable similarities in 
this respect. Recently again Bose has 
made important contributions to the subject 
of the electrical responses to stimulation 
that can be observed under particular con- 
ditions. A promising beginning has thus 
been made, but only a beginning. The 
electrical condition of the normal plant un- 
der different conditions of rest and activity 
has still to be investigated. If we return 
to the subject of photosynthesis and the 
work done by the chloroplast, may we not 
hope to discover something about the trans- 
formation and utilization of the radiant 
energy associated somehow with this struc- 
ture? Considering the relations between 
the manifestations of energy which we ap- 
preciate respectively as light and electricity, 
it does not seem wildly improbable to im- 
agine that the energy absorbed as the 
former may lead to a possible electrolysis 
of carbonic acid under the influence of the 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


chloroplast, with the formation of carbon 
monoxide and oxygen. Pfeffer has sug- 
gested that perhaps the decomposition of 
the gas is not due to the light rays at all, 
and that they may exercise only a stimula- 
ting influence upon the chloroplast, the 
energy concerned being derived from heat 
rays directly absorbed, or heat vibrations 
derived from the more rapidly vibrating 
light rays. In this case is the decomposi- 
tion brought about directly by the heat 
vibrations, or have we a transmutation into 
some other form of energy? The whole 
subject seems at all events a promising sub- 
ject for inquiry. 

Another problem connected with the ac- 
tion of chlorophyll is associated with the 
absorption of radiant energy by the differ- 
ent regions of the spectrum. Bands of 
considerable intensity are noticeable in the 
blue and violet, though the deepest absorp- 
tion takes place in the red. Yet Engel- 
mann’s classic bacterium method shows us 
that very little evolution of oxygen takes 
place in the position of these bands in the 
blue and violet. The fact that absorption 
of radiant energy and photosynthetic ac- 
tivity show no quantitative relationship is 
of course not new, but the reason remains 
still to be discovered. Van Tieghem has 
suggested an explanation which recalls to 
us the hypothesis advanced by Pfeffer, just 
alluded to. This explanation is that there 
are two factors concerned in the action of 
chlorophyll, the elective absorption of light, 
shown by the occurrence of the absorption 
bands in the spectrum, and the calorific 
energy of the absorbed radiations. The 
failure of the rays of the blue and violet 
to effect photosynthesis, in spite of their 
absorption, would on this view be attribu- 

table to their possessing but little calorific 
energy. The latter is associated much more 
strongly with the deep band in the red, 
which is the seat of the maximum evolution 
of oxygen when the spectrum is thrown 


SCIENCE. 


927 


upon a collection of active chloroplasts. 
The heating rays alone are ineffectual, as 
shown by the fact that there is no libera- 
tion of oxygen in the region of the infra- 
red, due no doubt to the fact that chloro- 
phyll does not absorb these rays. 

Timiriazeff, in his classical researches on 
the liberation of oxygen by the leaves of 
the bamboo when exposed in tubes of small 
caliber to a large spectrum, found that the 
amount of carbon dioxide decomposed by 
leaves is proportional to the distribution 
of effective calorific energy in the spectrum. 

Van Tieghem’s hypothesis that this is a 
matter of calorific energy may prove to be 
erroneous, and yet his views may rest on 
some sound basis. It may be a matter in 
which electrical rather than calorific energy 
may be concerned. 

Returning now to the chemical steps de- 
manded by Baeyers’s hypothesis, there are 
certain considerations which may be urged 
in favor of the view that carbon monoxide 
really occurs in photosynthesis. It has 
been ascertained by Norman Collie that 
when a mixture of gases containing a large 
proportion of carbon dioxide is exposed at 
low pressures in a vacuum tube to the ac- 
tion of an electric discharge from an in- 
duction coil there is a very large formation 
of the monoxide, together with oxygen, in 
some cases as much as seventy per cent. of 
the gas undergoing decomposition. 

Appealing to the experience of various 
observers, there seems on the whole to be 
a balance of evidence in favor of the power 
of plants to live and prosper in an atmos- 
phere containing a very considereable per- 
centage of carbon monoxide. 

The question of the possibility of the lat- 
ter replacing the dioxide, as the theory 
appears to require, 1s complicated very 
seriously by the differences of solubility 
between them. Carbon dioxide dissolves 
very readily in water and in cell sap; car- 
bon monoxide is almost insoluble in either. 


928 


As the amount of a gas taken up by a 
solvent depends not only on its solubility, 
but upon its partial pressure, it is very 
evident that we cannot compare the two 
eases by admitting the same quantity of 
both to plants under simultaneous compar- 
ison. It is only necessary to supply the 
dioxide in the proportion of four parts in 
10,000; but the almost insoluble nature of 
the monoxide makes it inevitable that from 
two to five per cent. shall be experimented 
with. The same question of solubility 
makes it almost out of the question to ex- 
periment with an aquatic plant. 

It would be of considerable interest from 
this point of view also to inquire whether 
if carbon monoxide is liberated at the out- 
set of the photosynthetic processes its com- 
bination with other groupings can take 
place apart from the action of chlorophyll. 
If so the fungi should be capable of carbo- 
hydrate construction if supplied under 
proper conditions with the monoxide and 
with hydrogen. The proper conditions, 
however, might be extremely difficult to 
establish. 

The next stage in the constructive pro- 
cess affords still ample room for investiga- 
tion. The presence of formaldehyde is not 
the hypothesis of Baeyer alone, but is de- 
manded according to Bach’s views, though 
the stages of its hypothetical construction 
are not the same. We have therefore to 
ask whether formaldehyde can be detected 
in plants, and if so whether the conditions 
under which it may exist admit of its being 
considered an up-grade product in photo- 
synthesis. Objections to the theory of its 
formation may be advanced, based upon its 
undoubtedly poisonous nature. Of all the 
antiseptics now available to the bacteriol- 
ogists 1t 1s perhaps the most potent, even 
traces being fatal to the form of vegetable 
protoplasm which is found in bacteria. We 
may argue that it must be equally dele- 
terious in the cell containing chlorophyll 


SCIENCE. 


{N.S8. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


and to the chloroplast itself, as we have no 
reason to suppose that any difference in 
vitality exists between the protoplasm of 
different plants. At first sight this appears 
an almost insuperable difficulty in the way 
of the theory. Formaldehyde has, however, 
the properties of aldehydes in general, one 
of which is the power of condensation or 
polymerization. It passes with extreme 
readiness into a much more inert form, 
para-formaldehyde, a. body in which three 
molecules of the formaldehyde are grouped 
together. It is therefore possible that it 
may be prevented from exercising its 
deleterious properties by a transformation 
at once into this comparatively harmless 
modification. This will slowly decompose 
under proper conditions, giving off the free 
aldehyde. 

Pollacei has stated that it is possible to 
extract formaldehyde from leaves. In his 
experiments he took such as had been ex- 
posed to light for a very considerable period 
and then macerated them in water. After 
a sufficient extraction he distilled the 
leaves, together with the water in which 
they had been steeped. The first portions 
of the distillate yielded reactions indiea- 
tive of the presence of formaldehyde. His 
experiments do not enable us to say that 
free formaldehyde was there, for the more 
stable para-form would be likely to decom- 
pose during the distillation, so that the re- 
actions would be explained without de- 
manding the presence of the free aldehyde 
in the leaves. 

But little success has attended hitherto: 
the attempt to show that formaldehyde, in 
the presence of chlorophyll, or preferably, 
we may say, of chloroplasts, can give rise 
to carbohydrates. We have nothing more 
satisfactory than Bokorny’s experiments, 
in which, after failing to set up photosyn- 
thesis in a filament of Spirogyra fed with 
formaldehyde, he succeeded when he sup- 
plied the alga with its compound with 


DECEMBER 12, 1902.] 


sodium-hydrogen-sulphite. Experiments on 
a more comprehensive scale, conducted on 
a variety of plants of different habits, are 
needed before we can regard the process as 
satisfactorily established. 

We have further to pursue the problem 
by an inquiry as to the nature of the sugar 
first formed. Certain considerations lead 
to the view that it is probable that a sugar 
of the aldose type must be accompanied in 
the plant by a ketose. The hypothesis as 
stated by Baeyer, and so far accepted till 
quite recently, took no account of the latter. 
The aldose grape sugar was the one always 
suggested, and from this all others met 
with have been held to be constructed. The 
first appearance of a ketose, levulose, or 
fruit sugar, has been associated with the 
hydrolytic decomposition of cane sugar, it- 
self constructed presumably from the grape 
sugar. I fear sufficient attention has not 
been paid to probability or to the normal 
course of chemical action in framing our 
hypotheses, for it is rather difficult to see 
how some of the transformations somewhat 
dogmatically affirmed can possibly take 
place. I may refer in passing to the state- 
ment that in the digestion of fat or oil 
during germination part of it is converted 
into starch or sugar. 

But to return to the construction of 
sugar. The condensation of formaldehyde, 
which can be brought about by the action 
of basie lead carbonate, leads to the forma- 
tion of several sugars, each yielding its 
characteristic osazone. How far the con- 
densation in the plant follows this is still 
uncertain. It is quite possible that stages 
intervene between formaldehyde and sugar 
of any kind. It has been suggested that 
formaldehyde in the presence of water may 
under the conditions obtaining in the leaf 
give rise to glycolaldehyde, a body which 
forms sugar very readily indeed. The 
formation of sugar directly from formalde- 


SCIENCE. 929 


hyde is a much longer process and is at- 
tended with greater difficulty. 

I may call your attention here to the views 
of Brown and Morris traversing the theory 
of the primary carbohydrate being grape 
sugar. In their classical paper on the chem- 
istry and physiology of foliage leaves they 
have adduced strong evidence, based upon 
analyses of the sugar-content of leaves of 
Tropewolum majus, that in this plant at any 
rate the first sugar to be formed is cane 
sugar. Whether or no this is the case in 
plants generally cannot at present be said, 
though it appears from many considerations 
probable. 

The part played by chlorophyll in photo- 
synthesis has already been touched upon. 
Remarkably little is known about chloro- 
phyll itself. It has so far been found im- 
possible to extract it from the chloroplast 
without causing its decomposition, and 
hence our ideas of its constitution, such as 
they are, are based upon the examination 
of something differing in some not well- 
ascertained particulars from the pigment 
itself. A remarkable relationship is known 
to exist between the latter and iron, for 
unless this metal is supplied to a plant its 
chloroplasts do not become green. But 
the condition of the iron in the plant is un- 
certain; it seems probable that it does not 
enter into the molecule of the pigment at 
all. A remarkable series of resemblances 
between derivatives of chlorophyll and 
derivatives of hematin, the coloring mat- 
ter of hemoglobin, has been brought to 
light by the researches of Schunck and 
Marchlewski, which is very suggestive. The 
same leaning towards iron is found in the 
two pigments, but in the case of hematin 
our knowledge is further advanced than in 
that of chlorophyll. The iron is known to 
be part of its molecule. It ean by appro- 
priate treatment be removed, and a body 
known as hematoporphyrin is then formed, 
which presents a most striking similarity 


930 


to a derivative of chlorophyll which has 
been named phylloporphyrin. The two 
pigments are almost identical in their per- 
centage composition, the hematoporphyrin 
containing a little more oxygen than the 
other. Both seem to be derivatives of 
pyrrol. The most striking similarity be- 
tween them is their absorption spectra, 
their ethereal solutions both showing nine 
bands of identical width and depth, those 
of hematoporphyrin being a little more 
towards the red end of the spectrum. 
Their solutions in alcohol and ether show 
the same color and the same fluorescence. 
Though they differ in certain other re- 
spects, notably the facility with which they 
form erystals, it is impossible to deny that 
a close relationship seems probable. If 
this is established we may by analogy per- 
haps learn something about the part played 
by iron in the action of the chloroplast, 
which so far has proved as obscure as the 
relation of the metal to the pigment. It 
is very suggestive to recall the resemblances 
between the two pigments, the one playing 
so prominent a part in animal, the other 
in vegetable life. Both are associated with 
a stroma of proteid, or possibly protoplas- 
mic, nature, in which a solution of the pig- 
ment is retained, apparently after the fash- 
ion of a sponge. Both are concerned in 
metabolic processes in which gaseous inter- 
changes play a prominent part. Both are 
in some way dependent on the presence of 
iron for their individuality, even if iron 
is not actually present in the molecule of 
both. The iron being removed, the deriva- 
tives which are found are almost identical. 
Further researches may throw a light on 
this curious relationship, perhaps showing 
that chlorophyll may enter into a combina- 
tion with carbon dioxide as hematin does 
with oxygen. Such a combination might 
well be the precursor of the decomposition 
of the carbon dioxide which has been 
already spoken of. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


We meet with another pigment in many 
plants, the physiological significance of 
which has in recent years begun to attract 
some attention. This is the red coloring 
matter, anthocyan, apparently related to 
the tannins, which is developed especially 
in the young leaves of shade-loving plants 
when they become exposed to illumination 
exceeding the intensity which they nor- 
mally encounter. The formation of this 
pigment is greatest in tropical plants, where 
it is found usually in the epidermis of the 
young leaves, though in some cases it ex- 
tends to the mesophyll as well. The pig- 
ment seems in some way to be supplemen- 
tary to chlorophyll, for its absorption 
spectrum shows that it allows all the rays 
useful in photosynthesis to pass through 
it. It is unlikely that it takes any share 
in photosynthesis. Several theories have 
been advanced to explain its presence; it 
may be simply to protect the delicate cells 
from the destructive action of too intense 
light, or to avert the evil of overheating 
from the solar rays. It has been suggested 
that certain rays hinder the translocation 
of starch, and that the pigment shields the 
cells from the incidence of such rays. 
Again the view has been advanced that the 
red color is important in accelerating the 
development of diastase from its antecedent 
zymogen, which has been found to take 
place under the influence of the rays of a 
certain region of the spectrum. While all 
these views have been advanced, however, 
there is little positive information bearing 
upon either the formation or the function 
of the pigment. 

Very little progress has been made with 
the problem of the construction of proteid 
matter in the plant, which still confronts 
us. “The question of its relation to the 
mechanism of photosynthesis has received 
some attention without leading to any satis- 
factory conclusion. Winogradski’s success 
in cultivating the nitrate bacteria upon 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


purely inorganic matter reveals an unex- 
pected constructive power in some forms of 
vegetable protoplasm. The question of the 
energy made use of in proteid construction 
is In an equally unsatisfactory condition. 
Laurent, Marchal and Carpiaux have 
stated that the rays of the violet and ultra- 
violet region of the spectrum are absorbed 
and devoted principally to the construction 
of nitrogen compounds from the nitrates, 
or the compounds of ammonia, which are 
absorbed by the plant, while the interven- 
tion of the chlorophyll apparatus is un- 
necessary for this purpose. The experi- 
ments which they give in considerable de- 
tail upon this absorption carry much weight 
and appear conclusive. Unfortunately 
other observers have failed to confirm them, 
so that at present the matter must be left 
open. 

Among the problems connected with the 
nutrition of the plant, the part played by 
alcohol has recently come into prominence. 
Alcohol was originally associated only with 
the lower fungi, and especially with the 
yeast plant. Biological problems of grave 
importance arose in connection with the 
Saccharomyces, apart from what seemed at 
first the larger question, viz., the nature 
of fermentation. A prolonged study of 
the latter phenomenon led Pasteur to the 
view that alcoholic fermentation is only the 
expression of the partial asphyxiation of 
the yeast, and its efforts to obtain oxygen 
by the decomposition of the sugar. It is 
hardly necessary here to remind you of the 
controversies that centered about the ques- 
tion of fermentation and the theories held 
and abandoned as to its cause. The 
biological phenomena have, however, a 
claim now upon our attention in the light 
of some very remarkable researches that 
are calling for our attention and criticism 
to-day. Pasteur’s explanation of the be- 
havior of the yeast was, as we have seen, 
such as to connect it with the respiration 


SCIENCE. 


931 


of the plant. When oxygen was withheld 
from active yeast sixty to eighty parts of 
sugar disappeared for one part of yeast 
formed. When oxygen was present not 
more than ten parts of sugar were decom- 
posed for the same amount of yeast produc- 
tion. Undoubtedly the stimulus of as- 
phyxiation materially stimulated the yeast 
metabolism. 

But certain observations did not agree 
with Pasteur’s explanation. An energetic 
fermentation takes place in the presence of 
oxygen, the plant multiplies extremely 
quickly, and its metabolism appears very 
active. Schiitzenberger argued against 
Pasteur’s explanation with some force, em- 
phasizing these points of disagreement be- 
tween his hypothesis and the facts, and 
claimed that the matter rather concerned 
nutrition than respiration. He based his 
view on experiments carried out to ascer- 
tain how respiration was affected under 
changed conditions. 

The results he obtained were briefly the 
following : 

1. Ina watery liquid without sugar, but 
containing oxygen in solution, the quantity 
of oxygen absorbed in unit time by a 
gram of yeast is constant, whatever pro- 
portion of oxygen is present. 

2. In a saccharine liquid containing al- 
buminous matter as well as sugar, and with 
oxygen in solution, the same result is ob- 
tained, except that the quantity absorbed 
in unit time is greater. 

3. In two digestions carried on side by 
side for some time, one being supplied con- 
tinuously with oxygen and the other de- 
prived of it, the former produced most 
alcohol. 

If the decomposition of the sugar had 
been the result of the respiratory activity 
of the yeast cells at the expense of the ecom- 
bined oxygen of the sugar, it would seem 
that fermentation should either not have 
taken place at all in the presence of free 


932 


oxygen, or that it should have been much 
less than in the other case, whereas the 
reverse is what is found. Hence Schiitzen- 
berger advocated the view that the sugar 
is alimentary and not respiratory. 

Certain facts more recently discovered 
support strongly the view that the nutri- 
tion of the yeast is the chief object of the 
process normally, though we cannot deny 
that when partial asphyxiation sets in fer- 
mentation is resorted to by the plant in its 
difficulty, that it may obtain the energy 
normally supplied by the respiratory pro- 
cesses. The mode of decomposition of the 
sugar, however, the formation of alcohol 
and carbon dioxide, raises a question as to 
the exact form in which the nutritive ma- 
terial is supplied to the protoplasm. 

Of these more recent discoveries the work 
of Devaux on the trunks of trees may be 
mentioned first, as it seems to point to a 
similar problem to the one connected with 
yeast. Devaux examined the composition 
of the air in the interior of woody stems 
erowing under normal conditions, and 
found that the proportion of oxygen it con- 
tains often sinks as low as ten per cent., 
while in a few eases, in the most internal 
part of the tree, he found this gas to be 
entirely absent. The disappearance of 
oxygen becomes easier with every increase 
of temperature. This partial asphyxiation 
is attended by the formation of alcohol in 
the struggling tissue, the spirit being de- 
tected by cutting up the branches of the 
trees and distilling them with a large ex- 
cess of water. Devaux’s experiments were 
made upon a considerable variety of trees, 
among which may be noted Castanea vul- 
garis, Pyrus domestica, Alius glutinosa, 
Ulmus campestris, Sambucus mgra and 
Ficus Carica. 

Similar results have been obtained by 
Mazé in some researches on seeds. When 
a number of these are submerged in water, 
microorganisms being properly guarded 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 415. 


against, they do not readily germinate, but 
their weight nevertheless somewhat rapidly 
diminishes. In some of Mazé’s experi- 
ments with peas he ascertained that this 
diminution was attended by a considerable 
formation of alcohol. Three parcels of 
forty peas were examined, weighing re- 
spectively 10, 17 and 27 grams, and the 
experiments lasted 6, 12 and 27 days. He 
found the proportion of alcohol to the 
original weight of the peas was 2.34, 4.63 
and 6.56 per cent. As the peas were sub- 
merged, and so kept out of contact with air, 
it seems possible to suppose we have here 
again an effect of asphyxiation. Other 
experiments, however, make this view un- 
satisfactory. He germinated twenty peas 
at 22° C. for seven days under normal con- 
ditions, till their axes were about 14 inches 
long. He then covered them with water, 
in some cases leaving the terminal bud 
exposed to air. The development of the 
submerged plants stopped at once, and at 
the end of five days the liquid contained 
130 milligrams of alcohol. The seed- 
lings whose terminal buds were exposed to 
the air continued to grow without showing 
any disturbance. Mazé concludes that the 
alcohol produced was utilized by them in 
their growth, and suggests that it is a nor- 
mal and necessary product of the digestion 
of carbohydrate material in seeds in course 
of development. 

He goes on to show that alcohol can be 
demonstrated to be present in plantlets that 
have germinated for forty-eight hours at 
23° C. under normal conditions. 

Another worker of great eminence who 
has found similar conditions to exist in 
normal vegetation is Berthelot. He put 
blades of wheat and leaves of the hazel in 
flasks, displaced the air by hydrogen, and 
distilled. In the case of the wheat he 
heated the flask to 94° C., in that of hazel 
he conducted the distillation by passing 
steam through the flask. In both he found 


DECEMBER 12, 1902.] 


the distillate contained alcohol. The 
quantity was not large, but still measur- 
able; from 10 kilos. of leaves he obtained 
10 grams of alcohol. 

Mazé claims to have found aleohol under 
normal conditions in the stems and leaves 
of the vine. 

Mazé finds further that the weight of a 
seedling of maize approximates at any 
moment during the early stages of germina- 
tion to half that lost by the reserve store in 
the endosperm. 

From his experiments, and those of the 
other authors alluded to, he concludes that 
alcohol is formed in the living cells of seeds 
at the expense of grape sugar by virtue of 
a normal diastasic process, which makes 
them approach yeast cells more closely 
than has been suggested by any of the ex- 
periments hitherto published. We may in- 
quire further how far the evidence points 
to the probability that the molecule of sugar 
is split up in that way into aleohol and 
carbon dioxide, and that the alcohol is the 
nutritive part of the sugar molecule. Cer- 
tainly Mazé’s experiments on the sub- 
merged seeds with the plumule exposed 
above the water are not inconsistent with 
that view. Duclaux has spoken more de- 
finitely still on this point, and has said 
that the alcohol formed becomes a true re- 
serve material to be used for nutriment. 

We have, however, further evidence that 
to some plants, at all events, alcohol is a 
food. Laborde has published some re- 
searches conducted upon a fungus, Huro- 
tiopsis Gayont, which point unmistakably to 
this conclusion. He cultivated it in a solu- 
tion containing only the mineral constitu- 
ents of Rawlin’s fluid and a certain per- 
centage of alcohol, usually from four to 
five per cent. The plant grew well, 
forming little circular patches of myce- 
lium, which enlarged radially as the growth 
progressed. The mycelium became very 
dense in the center of the patches, and the 


SCIENCE. 933 


fungus evidently thrived well. As it grew 
the alcohol slowly disappeared, the rate 
being about equal to that of sugar in a 
similar culture in which this substance re- 
placed the aleohol. The mycelium in some 
experiments was cultivated quite from the 
spores. Eurotiopsis is a fungus which has 
the power of setting up alcoholic fementa- 
tion in saccharine solutions. When culti- 
vated in these alcohol is accordingly pro- 
duced, and subsequently used, but the 
growth of the mold is not so easy under 
these conditions as when the alcohol is sup- 
plied to it at the outset. 

Duclaux has shown that in the ease of 
another fungus, the well-known Aspergillus 
miger, though alcohol kills it while it is in 
course of germination from the spore, it 
ean utilize for nutrition 6.8 per cent. when 
it becomes adult, continuing to grow, and 
putting out aerial hyphe. LEurotiopsis is 
more pronounced in its liking for alcohol, 
for it thrives in a mixture containing ten 
per cent.; even if submerged entirely it 
continues to grow and flourish in an eight 
per cent. solution. 

The peculiarity relates only to ethyl 
aleohol; methyl alcohol will serve as a nu- 
tritive medium for only a little time, suffi- 
cient only for the commencing develop- 
ment of the spores into a mycelium and 
disappearing very slowly from the culture 
fluid. The higher alcohols, propyl, butyl 
and amyl, not only give no nourishment, 
but are poisonous to spores. A very small 
trace of any of them ean be used by the 
adult mold. 

Laborde claims to have established as 
the result of his investigations that Euro- 
tiopsis normally makes alcohol from the 
sugar to nourish itself with it, just as 
yeast makes invert sugar from cane sugar 
because it is the nutritive material it likes 
best. The enzyme zymase is present in the 
fungus and plays the part of an alimentary 
enzyme. Its consumption lasts twice as 


934 


long as that of a corresponding weight of 
glucose; it can serve twice as long for the 
nutrition of the same weight of plant. 
These remarkable results lead us to the 
consideration of the mode in which the 
carbohydrates, and particularly the sugars, 
are assimilated by the plant. We have held 
the view that the sugar molecule is capable 
of entering with little if any alteration 
into that of protoplasm. We have found 
no direct evidence bearing upon its fate. 
It is possible to detect sugar in the axis of 
a plant till quite near its growing point. 
Then the reaction ceases to be obtainable, 
and we know that assimilation is taking 
place. But we have still to investigate 
the steps, no very easy problem to under- 
take. May it possibly be that it is the 
aleohol moiety of the sugar which the pro- 
toplasm takes up, part of the carbon dioxide 
evolved by the growing organ being an ex- 
pression, not of respiration, but of a fer- 
mentation preliminary to assimilation ? 
But I feel I have dealt at sufficient length 
with this question. I pass, therefore to con- 
sider briefly another nutrition problem of 
a rather different kind. The germination 
of seeds is a question that might be thought 
to have been fairly settled by the investi- 
gations of the latter half of the last cen- 
tury. We have come to the conception of 
the seed as fundamentally a young embryo 
lying quiescent within its testa, and pro- 
vided with a store of nourishment deposited 
either within its own substance, or lying 
round it in the tissues vaguely named en- 
dosperm or perisperm. The nourishment 
has been held to be practically ready for its 
use, needing only a certain amount of 
enzyme action to be applied to it to convert 
the food store from the reserve to the nu- 
tritive condition. We have recognized here 
starch, proteids and glucosides, and have 
ascertained that the embryo ean furnish the 
appropriate enzymes for their digestion. 
Each reserve store has apparently been 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 415. 


quite independent of the rest, and the em- 
bryo has had control of the whole. 

Certain considerations, however, lead us 
to the view that for albuminous seeds at 
any rate this mode of looking at the matter 
is no longer satisfactory. We may first 
ask how far the embryo is the controlling 
factor in the digestion. Putting the matter 
in another form, is the influence of the 
parent plant lost when a stable store of food 
has been provided for the offspring, and 
does it leave its utilization entirely to the 
latter? Is the gametophyte prothallus 
merely to become a dead or inactive struc- 
ture as soon as it has developed its young 
sporophyte, or may its influence extend for 
the longer period of germination? There 
are many reasons for thinking this is the 
ease. Indeed the view has been put for- 
ward by some observers at intervals for 
some years. Gris claimed to have shown it 
in 1864; but it was opposed by Sachs, who 
said that the enzymes which cause decom- 
positions in the reserve materials are always 
formed in the young plant or embryo and 
are exereted by the latter into the endo- 
sperm. Some careful experiments on the 
point were conducted by Van Tieghem and 
were published by him in 1877. His work 
was carried out on the seeds of the castor- 
oil plant. He deprived the seeds of their, 
embryos and exposed them for some weeks 
on damp moss to a temperature of 25-30° 
C. After several days of this exposure 
he found the isolated endosperms were 
erowing considerably, and at the end of a 
month they had doubled their dimensions. 
In the interior of the cells he found the 
aleurone grains to be gradually dissolv- 
ing, and the oily matter to be diminishing, 
though slowly. The dissolution extended 
throughout the mass of the endosperm, 
and was not especially prominent in the 
side that had been nearest to the cotyledons. 
He noted, too, that though starch did not 
normally appear in the germinating endo- 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


sperm, under the condition of non-removal 
of the products of the decomposition, it 
did appear in the cells in the form of 
small grains, though not till after several 
days had elapsed. Van Tieghem also ob- 
served that the progress of the decomposi- 
tions could be arrested and the endosperms 
made to reassume a quiescent condition, 
and that then the aleurone grains again be- 
eame formed, though in less quantity than 
before. 

In some experiments on Ricinus which I 
carried out in 1889 I found much the same 
sequence of events as Van Tieghem had 
described. The endosperm unquestionably 
became the seat of a renewed metabolism, 
in the course of which many interactions 
between the various reserve materials be- 
eame noticeable. It was remarkable that 
the activity of this metabolism was much 
more pronounced when the embryo or parts 
of it were left in contact with the endo- 
sperms. 

An observation of a similar character 
has been made by Haberlandt and by 
Brown and Morris in the case of the seeds 
of grasses. The conversion of the reserve 
cellulose of barley grains has been shown 
by these observers to be the result of the 
action of an enzyme cytase, which is 
seereted largely by the so-called aleurone 
layer, which is found surrounding the en- 
dosperm, immediately underneath the testa. 

Recently my own work has been bearing 
on this question, particularly as regards 
the behavior of the seeds of Ricinus during 
germination. The reserves of this seed are 
mainly composed of oil and aleurone grains, 
hardly a trace of carbohydrates being pres- 
ent. At the onset of germination there is 
a remarkable appearance of both cane sugar 
and glucose, which increase as the oil di- 
minishes. The old view advanced to ex- 
plain this fact has been the transformation 
of the oil directly into the sugars or one 
of them, a theory which it was difficult to 


SCIENCE. 


935 


reconcile with the chemical possibilities of 
oil. I have found that side by side with 
the appearance of the sugar we have also 
the formation of a considerable quantity of 
lecithin, a fatty body containing nitrogen 
and phosphorus. The seed contains a 
comparatively large amount of phosphorus 
in the form of the well-known globoids of 
the aleurone grain, a double phosphate of 
calcium and magnesium. The occurrence 
of this body points to a considerable inter- 
action of various substances existing in the 
seeds, the phosphorus apparently coming 
from the globoids and the nitrogen from 
the proteids. Instead therefore of the fat 
being transformed into sugar it seems cer- 
tain that a very considerable metabolism is 
set up, in which the various constituents 
of the endosperm interact very freely to- 
gether. I am informed by Mr. Biffin, who 
has investigated the histological changes 
accompanying the germination, that the 
protoplasm of the endosperm cells appears 
to inerease in amount very greatly during 
the early stages. The observations suggest 
a very vigorous resumption of metabolic 
activity by the cells of the endosperm, in 
the course of which the various reserves are 
brought into relation with the living sub- 
stance of the cells and a number of new 
products are formed to minister to the nu- 
trition of the growing embryo. The for- 
mation of the sugars may more probably be 
referred to the renewed activity of the pro- 
toplasm of the parent gametophyte than to 
a direct transformation of the fat under the 
influence of the embryo. Further re- 
searches upon a large variety of seeds ap- 
pear necessary to give us a true idea of 
the chemical processes of germination. 
What now appears probable in the ease of 
fatty seeds may prove to be true also in the 
ease of those which have other varieties 
of reserve material. 

I have already alluded to the problems 
concerning the electrical phenomena pre- 


936 


sented by the plant at rest and during ac- 
tivity. Very little work has so far been 
done in this direction, and our knowledge 
of the subject is materially less than that 
concerning similar phenomena in muscle 
and nerve. Still a beginning has been 
made, and we have observations on record 
due to Waller and to Bose which are of the 
greatest interest, not only because they 
show a great correspondence in behavior 
between animal and vegetable structures, 
but on account of their possible importance 
in determining the character of many of 
the metabolic processes and the forces at 
work in the tissues. 

Some very striking results were only a 
few months ago published by Bose on the 
electric response in ordinary plants to me- 
chanical stimulation. He arranged a piece 
of vegetable substance, such as the petiole 
of the horse-chestnut, or the root of a car- 
rot or a radish, so that it was connected 
with a galvanometer by two non-polarizable 
electrodes. The uninjured tissue gave little 
or no evidence of the existence of electrical 
currents; but if a small area of its surface 
was killed by a burn or the application of 
a few drops of strong potash, a current 
was observed to flow in the stalk from 
the injured to the uninjured area, just 
as is the case in animal tissue. The 
potential difference in a typical experi- 
ment amounted to .12 volt. The tissue 
was then stimulated, either by tapping or 
by a torsion through a certain angle, 
and at once a negative variation or cur- 
rent of action was indicated, the potential 
difference being decreased by .026 volt. 
Very soon after the cessation of the stim- 
ulus the tissue recovered and the current 
of rest flowed as before. Bose’s investiga- 
tions extended considerably beyond this 
point, and established a very close sim- 
ilarity in behavior between the vegetable 
substance and the nerves of animals. 
Summation effects were observed, and 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


fatigue effects demonstrated, while it was 
definitely shown that the responses were 
physiological. They ceased entirely as soon 
as the piece of tissue was killed by heating. 

This remarkable demonstration of simi- 
lar electrical properties to those possessed 
by nerve strengthens very greatly the view 
of the conduction of stimuli in the plant 
by means of the protoplasmic threads which 
have been demonstrated by Gardiner and 
others to exist throughout the plant, uni- 
ting cell to cell into one coherent whole. 

Much remains to be done in this field; 
indeed, not more than a beginning has been 
made. The electrical accompaniments to 
response to stimuli have been investigated 
by Burdon Sanderson in the ease of Dionea, 
but many other instanees are still awaiting 
examination. The peculiar phenomena of 
electrotonus and their relation to stimulus 
have so far only been observed in animals. 

These observations strengthen consider- 
ably the view of the identical nature of 
animal and vegetable protoplasm which 
has in recent years come into prominence, 
and which is receiving more and more sup- 
port in all directions. 

These electrical currents, following me- 
chanical action, which no doubt is accom- 
panied by chemical change, make us ask 
whether electrical phenomena do not in all 
probability accompany the slow chemical 
actions which we call metabolism. The 
view that electrical energy is concerned in 
the processes of photosynthesis, suggested 
in an earlier part of this address, is cer- 
tainly not weakened by a consideration of 
these phenomena. t 

The probability of the transmission of 
stimuli through vegetable tissue along the 
protoplasmic threads, extending from cell 
to cell, has been supported during the last 
year or two by some remarkable observa- 
tions claimed to have been made by Némec 
on certain roots and other organs. He 
says he has succeeded in demonstrating a 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


continuous fibrillar structure in the proto- 
plasm of the cells, fibrils passing along it in 
a longitudinal direction and apparently 
connecting the protoplasm of a longitudinal 
series of cells into a conducting chain. 
These conducting strands extend between 
the sensitive region—e. g., the tip of the 
root—and the region which is growing, 
and which is caused by the stimulus to 
curve. Némec says that these conducting 
strands can be made evident by the use of 
appropriate staining reagents. They vary 
in number and position, but appear to be 
confined to sensitive and motile organs. 

It is clear that the matter cannot rest 
where it is. The statements made by 
Némee call for investigation by both his- 
tological. and physiological methods. It 
is possible that appropriate reagents may 
lead to the recognition of structure in what 
has been hitherto regarded as undifferen- 
tiated protoplasm. 

Before concluding this address I may call 
attention to the vast field opening up in 
connection with the pathology of plants. 
The work done by our predecessors has been 
more largely work on the morphological 
peculiarities of various fungi than upon 
the physiological changes which constitute 
pathology, properly so called. It is only 
recently that attention has been given to 
the broad questions of disease in plants. 
Even now, however, certain advances have 
been made, and the direction of research 
is taking shape. In the science of pathol- 
ogy little in recent years has been so fasci- 
nating as the question of immunity against 
the attacks of certain diseases, either hered- 
itary or acquired. It has been bound up 
with the very large question of toxins and 
their attenuation, their opposites, the anti- 
toxins and matters of a similar nature. 

Great results have been obtained in hu- 
man pathology, with which it is not for 
me to deal. I mention them here because 
we are face to face with the possibility of 


SCIENCE. 


937 


treating some of the diseases of plants in a 
similar way, and perhaps on the threshold 
of very far-reaching discoveries. 

I may call attention to the researches of 
Ray and of Beauverie upon the general 
question of plant infection, and especially 
upon a disease set up by a fungus known as 
Botrytis cinerea which attacks grapes, be- 
gonias, and other plants. The fungus ex- 
ists in three forms, one of which is a harm- 
less saprophyte, another a destructive 
parasite, and a third intermediate between 
the two. The first is a very common 
fungus, developing on decaying plants and 
bearing ordinary gonidia or spores. The 
second is completely filamentous and bears 
no reproductive organs. It is produced 
when the air is heavily charged with mois- 
ture and the temperature high, conditions 
of common occurrence in forcing houses. 
The third is’ an attenuated form inter- 
mediate between the other two. It bears 
gonidia like those of the first, and in ad- 
dition others which germinate without fall- 
ing off the parent plant and elongate into 
threads. Many plants can bear the in- 
vasion of this plant without suffering 
greatly, though it cannot be called harm- 
less. It occurs chiefly when a high tem- 
perature is associated with a considerable 
amount of moisture in the air. 

It is not difficult to cultivate this atten- 
uated form of the Botrytis in sterilized 
soil. Beauverie describes one experiment 
made with it which is very striking. Damp 
earth was sterilized in a Petri dish of 
large surface, sown with spores of the 
Botrytis, and kept at a temperature of 
about 16° C. After three days the surface 
of the dish was covered with a loose myce- 
lium, which bore numerous gonidiophores. 
The fungus was allowed to grow for some 
time under these conditions, and the in- 
fected earth was then transferred to fresh 
pots in which were placed cuttings of be- 
gonias. The plants grew well and were 


938 


not sensibly affected by the presence of 
the fungus in the substratum or in its sur- 
face. Placed subsequently in conditions 
which were eminently suitable to the de- 
velopment of the parasitic form, they re- 
sisted its action perfectly, though control 
plants which had not been cultivated in 
the ground infected by the attenuated form 
were killed very quickly. From their ex- 
periments the authors claim to have shown 
that the form of Botrytis cinerea inter- 
mediate between the gonidial and the sterile 
form can make plants immune to the at- 
tacks of the latter. 

Researches of a somewhat kindred nature 
dealing with the infection of particular 
plants by specific fungi have been communi- 
eated recently to this section by Professor 
Marshall Ward in his paper read last year 
on the bromes and their brown rust. They 
brought to light many very important facts 
connected with the question of adaptive 
parasitism and immunity. Few questions 
in vegetable physiology can compare in 
economic importance with these when we 
think of their possible development in re- 
lation to agriculture. 

I have now somewhat hurriedly surveyed 
certain parts of the field of vegetable 
physiology. It has been impossible in an 
address like this to do more than indicate 
what seem to me some of the more impor- 
tant problems awaiting investigation. May 
we hope that all such work will be vigor- 
ously conducted, but that the conclusions 
reached will be scrutinized with the greatest 
care and subjected to repeated examina- 
tion? Great hindrances to the advance 
of the science resulted from dogmatic as- 
sertions made by eminent men in the past, 
their personal influence having led to their 
conclusions, not altogether accurate, being 
nevertheless almost universally accepted. 
Many years subsequently these conclusions 
have needed reexamination, the result be- 
ing the destruction of a whole fabric that 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 415. 


had been reared upon this unworthy foun- 
dation. I may close, as I began, by an ap- 
peal to the younger school of botanists to 
take some of this work in hand, and by 
assiduous and critical experiment and ob- 
servation to contribute to the solution of 
the problems pressing upon us in this field. 


J. REYNOLDS GREEN. 
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY. 


AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION. 

Tue Twentieth Congress of the Ameri- 
ean Ornithologists’ Union convened in 
Washington, D. C., Monday evening, No- 
vember 17. The business meeting of the. 
fellows was held at Dr. Merriam’s resi- 
dence, and the public sessions, commencing 
Tuesday, November 18, and lasting three 
days, were held at the U. S. National Mu- 
seum. 

Dr. C. Hart Merriam, of Washington, 
D. C., was reelected president; Charles B. 
Cory, of Boston, and C. F. Batchelder, 
of Cambridge, Mass., vice-presidents; John 
H. Sage, of Portland, Conn., secretary; 
William Dutcher, of New York City, 
treasurer; Frank M. Chapman, Ruthven 
Deane, E. W. Nelson, Witmer Stone, Drs. 
A. K. Fisher, Jonathan Dwight, Jr., and. 
Thos. 8. Roberts, members of the Council. 

The ex-presidents of the Union, Dr. J. 
A. Allen and Messrs. William Brewster,. 
D. G. Elliot and Robert Ridgway, are ez-. 
officio members of the council. 

Harry C. Oberholser, of Washington, 
D. C., was elected a fellow; Ernst Hartert, 
of England, and John A. Harvie-Brown,. 
of Scotland, honorary fellows; A. J. Camp- 
bell, of Melbourne, W. P. Pycraft, of Lon- 
don, Dr. H. von Ihering, of Brazil, and 
Alfred J. North, of Sydney, N. S. W., cor- 
responding fellows. Thirteen associates 
were elected to the class known as mem- 
bers, and eighty-four new associates were 
elected. 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


Mr. Witmer Stone, in his paper entitled 
‘A Glance at the Historical Side of the 
Cheek-List of North American Birds,’ re- 
ferred to the help accorded by the earlier 
ornithologists in making a cheek-list pos- 
sible, and gave in detail the number, of 
species described by each. Dr. Allen 
traced the history of the present A. O. U. 
check-list from its inception and spoke of 
its future. 

Much discussion ensued and many in- 
quiries were made regarding the protec- 
tion of birds. The report of the commit- 
tee having this matter in charge showed 
that satisfactory results had been obtained 
during the past year, and that interest in 
the preservation of wild bird life was not 
lacking at the present time. Dr. Bishop 
spoke of the slaughter by marketmen and 
milliners’ agents of the species found along 
the coast of North Carolina, and Mr. 
Dutcher remarked on the proposed legisla- 
tive bills for the preservation of such birds. 
Dr. Palmer told of the immense number, 
of ducks annually taken to the northern 
markets from the North Carolina coast. 
He thought the upland as well as the shore 
birds needed protection. Professor T. 
Gilbert Pearson referred to the destruction 
of bob-white in his state (North Carolina), 
and of, the illegal methods used in trans- 
porting them north. 

Mr. Chapman compared the bird-life of 
Gardiners Island, N. Y., and Cobbs 
Island, Va., accompanying his remarks 
with lantern slides. As a result of rigid 
protection birds are abundant on the 
former island, while at the latter island, 
for want of suitable protection, they are 
nearly exterminated. 

Mr. George Spencer Morris gave many 
facts relating to the life of Edward Harris, 
the friend of Audubon, and read extracts 
from his unpublished journals. It was 
an important contribution to the historical 
side of ornithology. 


SCIENCE. 


939 


The Union sustained a severe loss in the 
death of Major Jas. C. Merrill, U. S. A., 
a prominent fellow of the Union, who died 
in October, and of Chester Barlow, a mem- 
ber, who died the present month. Mr. 
Barlow was also the leading spirit in the 
Cooper Ornithological Club of California. 

The day following adjournment the 
members of the Union were invited by the 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 
to visit the National Zoological Park, and 
many availed themselves of the privilege. 
Secretary Langley received the visitors, 
who were subsequently taken through the 
Park by Dr. Frank Baker, the Superin- 
tendent. 

The question of holding a special meet- 
ing of the Union in California the coming 
year was referred to a committee, with 
power. 

Following is a list of the papers read 
at the sessions: 


Gro. SpeNcER Morris: ‘ Notes on the Life of 
Edward Harris, with Extracts from his Journals.’ 

Hupert LyMAan Criark: ‘The Development 
of the Pterylosis.’ 

Jonn N. Crarxk: ‘The Domestic Affairs of Bob- 
white.’ 

T. GILBERT PEARSON: 
Eastern North Carolina.’ 

R. M. Srrone: ‘ Change of Color without Molt.’ 

R. M. Srrone: ‘ Iridescence and White Feathers.’ 

WaLTER B. Barrows: ‘Some Problems of Local 
Bird Population.’ 

T. S. Rogperts: ‘ Notes on Picoides Americanus 
and Picoides arcticus in Minnesota.’ Illustrated 
with lantern slides. 

FRANK M. CuapMan: ‘ Comparison of the Bird 
Life of Gardiners Island and Cobbs Island.’ 
Illustrated with lantern slides. 

W. L. Batty and Wm. Durcuer: ‘ A Contribu- 
tion to the Life History of the Herring Gull,’ 
Illustrated with lantern slides. 

J. A. Auten: ‘The A. O. U. Check-List—its 
History and its Future.’ 

WITMER STONE: ‘A Glance at the Historical 
side of the Check-List of North American Birds.’ 

E. W. Nevson: ‘ Evolution of Species and Sub- 
species as illustrated by certain Mexican Quails 
and Squirrels.’ 


‘Summer Bird Life of 


040 


H. W. Oxps: ‘ Form in Bird Music.’ 

F. A. Lucas: ‘ Ancient Birds and their Asso- 
ciates.’ Illustrated with lantern slides. 

Pauut Bartscu: ‘ Observations on the Herons 
of the District of Columbia.’ Illustrated with 
Jantern slides. 

Frank M. CHAPMAN 
Furertes: ‘Bird Life in the Bahamas.’ 
trated with lantern slides. 

Wa. Dutcuer: ‘Report of the Chairman of 
the Committee on the Protection of North 
American Birds.’ 

T. S. PALMER: 
1902. 

JONATHAN Dwicut, Jr.: ‘Some Variations in 
the Piping Plover. (Afgialitis meloda.) 

Wma. H. Fisurer: ‘ Nesting of the Red-bellied 
Woodpecker in Harford County, Maryland.’ 

B. 8. Bowptsu: ‘Some Food Habits of West 
Indian Birds.’ 

WiTMER Stone: ‘The Significance of Trino- 
mials in Nomenclature.’ 

Eton Howarp Eaton: ‘An Epidemic of Roup 
in the Canandaigua Crow Roost.’ 


and Lours AGASSIZ 
Tllus- 


‘Federal Game Protection in 


The next annual meeting will be held 
at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Phil- 
adelphia, commencing November 16, 1903. 

JoHN H. Saaz, 
Secretary. 


A GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING 
RESEARCH.* 

In the charter granted to the incorpora- 
tors of the Institute of Technology forty- 
one years ago, they and their successors 
were made a body corporate for the pur- 
pose of instituting a society of arts, a mu- 
seum of arts, and a school of industrial 
science. In addition the purpose and aim 
of the corporation was then declared to 
be to aid ‘generally by suitable means the 
advancement, development and practical 
application of science in connection with 
arts, agriculture, manufacture and com- 
- merce.’ 

This intention to advance and to develop 
the practical applications of science has 


* Extract from an announcement about to be 
issued by the Massachusetts Institute of 
‘Technology. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 415. 


been steadily kept in view, and the corpo- 
ration and faculty of the Institute have 
striven constantly, in the four decades of 
its history, to advance the quality of in- 
struction and to enlarge the facilities for 
laboratory practice. The curriculum of 
studies offered to undergraduate students 
of the Institute has gradually changed 
with the growing demands of the indus- 
trial life of the country. New engineer- 
ing courses have differentiated themselves 
fiom those originally established. At its 
foundation the Institute offered but three 
distinet courses for engineers—civil, me- 
chanical and mining engineering. To-day 
it offers, in addition to these, courses in 
electrical engineering, chemical engineer- 
ing, sanitary engineering and naval archi- 
tecture; and in several of these branches 
applications of science are employed which 
forty years ago were unknown. Thus 
biology brings to the aid of the sanitary 
engineer to-day a technical knowledge ab- 
solutely essential in his profession which 
was impossible forty years ago. 

The demands of modern civilization call 
for engineers who ean do more than keep 
abreast of the theory and practice of their 
profession. They must be able to solve 
new problems and to advance the state of 
the art in which their work lies. In ap- 
plied science no less than in pure science 
there is need for research and for the de- 
velopment of the research spirit. Prob- 
lems of immense practical importance are 
pressing for immediate solution. Such 
questions as the cheapening of electric 
power, the problem of long-distance trans- 
mission, the purification of streams and 
the sanitary engineering of great. cities, 
the numerous applications of chemical 
engineering to the arts, furnish numerous 
problems of investigation whose solution 
affords at once the keenest intellectual ex- 
ercise and the most practical and useful 
results. The larger industrial and manu- 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


facturing establishments are themselves 
conducting independent laboratories of re- 
search, and there is an increasing demand 
for men who have not only the training 
of the technical school, but the attitude 
of mind to attack new problems; men who 
have not simply a basis of theoretical and 
practical knowledge to begin research, but 
who have the spirit of research as well. 

This demand for research in engineering 
and for men capable of undertaking such 
work has long been recognized, and the 
Institute has for some years looked toward 
the inauguration of a department of en- 
gineering research. The installation this 
year of the Lowell Electrical Engineering 
laboratories, with the additional facilities 
which are thus offered, makes the present 
an opportune time to undertake this work. 
A graduate school of research will there- 
fore be established as a distinct depart- 
ment of the Institute immediately after 
the opening of the next academic year— 
namely, on October 7, 1903—under condi- 
tions which are given in the announcement 
that will be issued. 

An examination of these conditions will 
make it clear that the intention of the 
authorities of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology is to provide in the Graduate 
School of Engineering Research facilities 
for a small number of advanced students 
who show capacity for research. 

The administration of the School is 
vested by the corporation and faculty in 
a council of members of the faculty, in- 
cluding the president as chairman. 

The staff will consist of professors and 
instructors of the Institute and other per- 
sons actually engaged in engineering en- 
terprises. 

Opportunities for advanced study and 
research will be provided in the following 
branches of engineering: 

Civil Engineering. 

Sanitary Engineering. 


SCIENCE. 


941 


Mechanical Engineering. 

Electrical Engineering. 

Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. 
Mining Engineering and Metallurgy. 

Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry. 


In these subjects the degree of Doctor. of 
Engineering (Eng. Dr.) will be awarded. 
As heretofore, the Institute will offer 
courses of advanced study and research 
in pure science—e. g., mathematics, me- 
chanics, physics, chemistry, biology and 
geology—leading to the degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy (Ph.D.). These advanced 
courses will be open also to students of 
engineering research. 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

DR. MEYER ON SOME EUROPEAN MUSEUMS. 

Pernpine the publication of the final part 
of his memoir on the museums of the eastern 
United States, Dr. A. B. Meyer has given 
us the results of his observations on some of 
the museums and other educational institu- 
tions of Great Britain and eastern Europe. 
These were visited in order to make compari- 
sons between them and similar institutions 
in America, and to gather all possible infor- 
mation regarding museum buildings and in- 
stallation. The present paper deals espe- 
cially with the three great problems of light, 
heat and ventilation which confront the archi- 
tect of every large museum, although the 
reader will find information on all points of 
interest. The complaint is made that many 
desired illustrations were not to be had, and 
it has been suggested that the present demand 
for the illustrated postal card has much to 
do with the lack of good-sized photographs of 
many important buildings. 

In regard to lighting Dr. Meyer is em- 
phatically of the opinion that the proper 
method is by side windows and preferably 
by windows on both sides of exhibition halls, 
in order to check the reflection from the glass 
of cases standing in shadow. The most cus- 
tomary method of lighting is by overhead 
skylights, in order to gain wall space, but 
while this is well enough for a single floor, 
when one or two galleries are introduced it 


942 


naturally results in poor illumination beneath 
portions of these, and the only way to do 
away with such dark corners is by side win- 
dows. The defects of overhead light are 
shown in the Edinburgh Museum of Science 
and Art, and in the Museum of the Royal 
College of Surgeons, London, although the 
same system is retained in a recent addition 
in order to preserve uniformity of architec- 
ture. 

The problems of ventilation and heating 
are considered in various places and the palm 
awarded to the Glasgow Museum and the Free 
Public Museum of Liverpool, which, Dr. Meyer 
emphatically declares, ‘excel all other mu- 
seums in the world in respect to the method of 
heating and ventilating.’ Curiously enough, 
while these two institutions were under con- 
struction practically at the same time, neither 
was aware that the same system of ventilation 
had been adopted by the other. In these two 
museums the air is drawn in through a large 
air shaft, six by nine feet, filtered, warmed 
and forced into the buildings by large blow- 
ers. The windows are permanently closed 
-and the pressure of air within kept at a higher 
point than that of the outside air, so that 
dust is not sucked in through doors or other 
unavoidable openings. In some other mu- 
seums the windows are kept closed and the 
air more or less cleansed as it is drawn into 
the buildings, but none of the devices adopted 
is so efficient as that employed at Glasgow and 
Liverpool, known as ‘ Keys improved Plenum 
method.’ 

Dr. Meyer frequently calls attention to the 
fact that too often the exterior of a museum 
is designed without reference to the interior, 
when the proper method to be followed is 
quite the reverse of this, and that the arrange- 
ment of the exhibition halls and offices should 
be decided first and the exterior adapted to 
them. In regard to these same exteriors the 
illustrations show a great diversity of style 
and various attempts to combine architec- 
tural effect with room and light. One of the 
least successful of these architecturally seems 
to be the new museum at Brussels, although 
this may perhaps be compensated for by the 
abundance of light in the exhibition halls, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVL No. 415. 


while the most successful, judging by the 
illustrations, is the Liverpool Free Museum. 
This, however, is probably because there is 
no view of the new Galleries of Comparative 
Anatomy and Anthropology at Paris, whose 
architectural features and harmonious methods 
of installation elicit the warmest praise, with 
the exception of the fern leaf decoration of 
the balcony rails. These are said to be over- 
ornamented to such an extent as to be ob- 
trusive, a feature that will perhaps be toned 
down by age. 

The pure Gothic style so often adopted re- 
sults in gloomy interiors, but the author calls 
attention to the fact that the modified gothic, 
such as is used in the University of Chicago, 
may be successfully employed. In connec- 
tion with the subject of architecture some- 
thing might well have been said of museum 
cases, for architects are responsible for many 
failures in this direction, and few of them 
are competent to plan even a moderately good 
case. 

Dr. Meyer is evidently of the opinion that 
most museums are too freely open to visitors, 
objects on exhibition being ruined by long 
exposure to light, although the Paris mus- 
seums of natural history go the other extreme 
and are open for so short a time that it is 
difficult to properly examine the collections. 
Here he touches upon a difficult problem in 
administration and one which is particularly 
so in the United States, where the tendency 
is to extend, rather than curtail the hours 
of exhibition. In many ways it seems best 
to submit to the inevitable, and, after taking 
every possible precaution to so admit the 
light that it may be diffused, admit the publie 
as freely as possible. The rarer objects might 
be withheld from exhibition or displayed only 
on certain days or hours, while the more com- 
mon objects could be replaced. Few, if any, 
museums now place their types of birds or 
mammals on exhibition, and the question of 
showing large mammals and rare birds is be- 
coming serious in view of the destruction 
now going on. 

Another point incidentally touched on in 
this paper is what may be termed the over- 
exhibition of specimens, the display of so 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. | 


large a number that the visitor is simply be- 
wildered and but little interested or in- 
structed. And this point is well made, for 
there is not the slightest doubt that a limited 
number of specimens, well installed and prop- 
erly labeled, is in every way better than the 
large series so often shown. The arrangement 
of natural history collections on a geograph- 
ical basis is also dwelt on in various places, 
and this has always seemed to the present 
writer the best method by far. The predic- 
tion is here ventured that the successful mu- 
seum of the future will, so far as the exhibi- 
tion of biological material is concerned, con- 
sist of a central synoptic or index collection, 
supplemented by series displaying the geo- 
graphical and geological distribution of plants 
and animals, and various features in their 
life histories. This by no means precludes 
the display of systematic series wherever this 
may be thought desirable, but this feature of 
museums is commonly made far too much of. 
The exhibition series of a museum is for the 
public, and the average visitor does not go to 
the museum for study, and the advanced stu- 
dent does not, as a rule, seek for information 
in the material on exhibition, although there 
are notable exceptions to this rule in anthro- 
pological collections. 

In the department of anthropology, by the 
way, Dr. Meyer does not favor a geographical 
arrangement, but advocates bringing together 
all objects of a kind in order that their devel- 
opment and variation may be seen. Where 
space and material admit, however, he con- 
siders that there should also be geographical 
series to illustrate the customs of different 
races. In respect to installation, the Pitt- 
Rivers Museum at Oxford is awarded the first 
place among English ethnological museums 
and the scheme of its arrangement is given 
in full. 

A detail of installation, shown in many of 
the illustrations, is the large number of skele- 
tons on exhibition with no protection what- 
ever from dust or visitors, and one can but 
think that either the attendants are more 
vigilant abroad than here or the visitors more 
conscientious. Specimens so recklessly dis- 
played in this country would run great chance 


SCIENCE. 


945- 


of being ruined by dust, or of being broken 
by relic-seeking visitors; no specimen that 
can possibly be put in a case should be ex- 
posed. 

Some of the shortcomings of museums are,. 
however, unavoidable, while others, as Dr. 
Meyer is careful to say in his introductory 
remarks are ‘to a greater extent the fault of 
the establishment than of the persons im 
charge, for one individual has little control 
of the many circumstances on which the his- 
torical development of museums and other 
institutions depends.’ It is to be hoped that 
Dr. Meyer may soon be able to embody his. 
views regarding museums in the construction 
of a new museum in Dresden, but we trust 
he will not wait until that time to give us # 
summary of these views, and possibly he may 
present them in his next paper. 


F. A. 1. 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 


In The American Naturalist for November: 
Bashford Dean presents the ‘Biometric Evyi- 
dence in the Problem of the Paired Limbs. 
of the Vertebrates,’ concluding that it is in 
favor of the fold theory and against the- 
hypothesis that the limbs are modified gill 
arches. C. R. Eastman gives a ‘ Notice of 
Interesting Forms of Carboniferous Fish Re- 
mains,’ and Letitia M. Snow considers ‘ The: 
Microcosm of the Drift Line,’ being a discus- 
sion of the life relations of the insects found 
along the shores of Lake Michigan. Joseph 
A. Cushman gives ‘Studies of Localized’ 
Stages of Growth in Some Common New: 
England Plants’ and H. S. Pratt under ‘ Syn- 
opses of North American Invertebrates,’ con- 
tinues the treatment of the Trematodes, the: 
first part of which appeared in the Naturalist 
for August, 1900. The number contains the 
‘Quarterly Record of Gifts, Appointments 
and Deaths.’ 

The Popular Science Monthly for Decem- 
ber opens with an article by David Starr Jor- 
dan on ‘The Higher Education of Women,” 
which concludes with the statement that co- 
education is never a question where it has 
been tried. W. P. Pyeraft tells of ‘The 
Significance of the Condition of Young Birds: 


944 


at Birth,’ considering that the facts justify 
the belief that early birds were arboreal and 
nidifugous. OC. K. Edmunds discusses ‘ The 
Motive Power of Heat.’ There is a reprint 
of Francis Bacon’s ‘Solomon’s House, and 
J. G. Lipman writes of ‘ Nitrogen-fixing Bac- 
_teria,’ indispensable factors in the production 
of the world’s food. 8. C. Cronwright 
Schreiner describes ‘Some Arachnids at 
Hanover, Cape Colony, giving many inter- 
esting details of their habits; and in ‘ Zoology 
in America’ T. D. A. Cockerell gives a brief 
résumé, based on titles in the Zoological 
Record of the scientific work being done here. 
He concludes that if we are not doing what 
we might and ought, we are not so seriously 
behind. In the fourth of his articles on 
‘Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty,’ 
Frederick A. Woods considers the rulers of 
Spain and, lastly George B. Hollister has an 
article on ‘The Size of Alaska.’ 


Messrs. Borntrancer, Berlin, announce the 
publication, beginning with January 1, of a 
bi-weekly Biochemische Centralblatt under the 
charge of leading German students of bio- 
chemistry. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 


THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE- 
MENT OF SCIENCE. 


Tue fifty-second annual meeting of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, and the first of the Convocation 
Week meetings, will be held in Washington, 
D. C., December 27, 1902, to January 3, 1903. 
The retiring president is Professor Asaph 
Hall, U.S.N., and the president elect, Presi- 
dent Ira Remsen, Johns Hopkins University. 
The permanent secretary is Dr. L. O. Howard, 
Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C., and the 
local secretary, Dr. Marcus Benjamin, Co- 
lumbian University, Washington, D. C. 
President Roosevelt is honorary president of 
the local committee. The preliminary pro- 
gram with information in regard to hotel 
headquarters, railway rates, ete., will be found 
in the issue of Science for November 21. 
The following scientific societies will meet at 
Washington in affiliation with the Association : 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


The American Anthropologicai Association will 
hold its first regular meeting during Convocation 
Week in affiliation with Section H of the A. A. 
A. 8S. President, W J McGee; secretary, George 
A. Dorsey, Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, Il. 

The American Chemical Society will meet on 
December 29 and 30. President, Ira Remsen; 
secretary, A. C. Hale, 352A Hancock street, 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

The American Folk-lore Society will meet in 
affiliation with Section H of the A. A. A. S. 
President, George A. Dorsey; vice-presidents, J. 
Walter Fewkes, James Mooney; secretary, W. W. 
Newell, Cambridge, Mass. 

The American Microscopical Society will prob- 
ably hold a business meeting on December 29. 
President, E. A. Birge, Madison, Wis.; secretary, 
H. B. Ward, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 
Nebr. 

The American Morphological Society will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, H. C. Bumpus; 
vice-president, G. H. Parker; secretary and treas- 
urer, M. M. Metcalf, Woman’s College, Baltimore, 
Md. 

The American Philosophical Association will 
meet on December 30 and 31 and January 1. 
Secretary, H. N. Gardiner, Northampton, Mass. 

The American Physical Society will meet in 
affiliation with Section B of the A. A. A. 8. 
President, Albert A. Michelson; secretary, Ernest 
Merritt, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 

The American Physiological Society will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, R. H. Chit- 
tenden; secretary, F. S. Lee, Columbia University, 
New York, N. Y. 

The American Psychological Association will 
meet on December 30 and 31 and January 1. 
President, E. A. Sanford; secretary and treasurer, 
Livingston Farrand, Columbia University, New 
York, N. Y. 

The American Society of Naturalists will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, J. McK. 
Cattell; vice-presidents, C. D. Walcott, L. O. 
Howard, D. P. Penhallow; secretary, R. G. Har- 
rison, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 

The Association of American Anatomists will 
meet on December 30 and 31. President, G. S. 
Huntington; vice-president, D. S. Lamb; secre- 
tary and treasurer, G. Carl Huber, University of 
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 

The Association of Economic Hntomologists will 
meet on December 26 and 27. President, E. P. 
Felt; secretary, A. L. Quaintance, College Park, 
Md. 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. | 


The Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of 
America will meet during Convocation Week, in 
affiliation with Section A of the A. A. A. §. 
President, Simon Newcomb; secretary, George C. 
Comstock, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 
' The Botanical Society of America will meet on 
December 31 and January 1. President, B. T. 
Galloway; secretary, D. T. MacDougal, New York 
City. 

The Botanists of the Central and Western States 
will meet on December 30. Committee in charge 
of the meeting, John M. Coulter, University of 
Chicago; D. M. Mottier, University of Indiana, 
Bloomington, Ind.; Conway MacMillan, Univer- 
sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 

The Geological Society of America will meet on 
December 29, 30 and 31. President, N. H. Win- 
chell; vice-presidents, S. F. Emmons, J. C. Bran- 
ner; secretary, H. L. Fairchild, University of 
Rochester, Rochester, N. Y. 

The National Geographic Society will hold a 
meeting during Convocation Week. President, 
A. Graham Bell; vice-president, W J MeGee; 
secretary, A. J. Henry, U. S. Weather Bureau, 
Washington, D. C. 

The Naturalists of the Central States will meet 
on December 30 and 31. Chairman, 8. A. Forbes; 
secretary, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago, 
Chicago, Ill. 

The Society of American Bacteriologists will 
meet on December 30 and 31. President, H. W. 
Conn; vice-president, James Carroll; secretary, E. 
O. Jordan, University of Chicago, Chicago, IIl.; 
council, W. H. Welch, Theobald Smith, H. L. 
Russell, Chester, Pa. 

The Society for Plant Morphology and Physiol- 
ogy will meet during Convocation Week. Presi- 
dent, V. M. Spalding; vice-president, B. D. 
Halsted; secretary and treasurer, W. F. Ganong, 
Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 

The Society for the Promotion of Agricultural 
Science will meet during Convocation Week. 
President, W. H. Jordan; secretary, F. M. Web- 
ster, Urbana, III. 

The Zoologists of the Central and Western 
States will meet during Convocation Week. 
President, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago. 


BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

THE 360th meeting was held Saturday even- 
ing, November 15. 

M. B. Lyon exhibited some photographs of 

bats, one of a specimen of Lasiurus borealis 

with four young attached and one of Dasyp- 


SCIENCE. 


945 


teris intermedius showing two mamme on 
one side. ‘These examples, and others that 
had been dissected, showed conclusively that 
the commonly accepted statement that bats 
usually bore but one young was incorrect. 

Charles Louis Pollard spoke on ‘Some As- 
pects of the Flora of Cuba,’ illustrating his 
remarks with lantern slides showing the char- 
acteristics of the flora near the coast and at 
different localities in the interior. 

Under the title ‘Stages of Vital Motion’ 
Mr. O. F. Cook presented a discussion of 
evolutionary factors, in which it was held 
that evolution, or the progressive change in 
groups of organisms, is not primarily due to 
segregation, but to the normal accumulation 
of variations by cross-fertilization. Condi- 
tions most favorable to evolutionary progress 
are found in large and widely distributed 
natural species, narrow in-breeding and wide 
cross-breeding tending alike to a decline of 
reproductive fertility and to the production 
of abnormally abrupt variations, indicating 
a so-called catalytic or declining stage of evo- 
lution. Between the catalytic stage and the 
normally progressive or prostholytie stage 
there is, on the side of in-breeding, the hemi- 
lytic or retarded stage marked by relative 
uniformity, and, on the side of cross-breed- 
ing, a dialytic or divergent stage in which 
the characters of the parents are not perma- 
nently combined in the offspring but, as shown 
by Mendel, tend to separate again on the lines 
of the evolutionary motion of the parental 
types. The paper will appear in full later. 

F. A. Lucas. 


BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 

Tue ninth regular meeting of the Botanical 
Society of Washington was held at the Port- 
ner Hotel, October 25, 1902. The principal 
paper of the evening was by Mr. O. F. Cook, 
on ‘Evolution in Coffee; Mutations Described 
and a Cause Suggested.’ 

Coffee, the speaker stated, is the most im- 
portant crop grown from seed for the seeds. It 
has been in cultivation about a thousand years, 
but the selection of varieties has not been 
practiced; nevertheless, sports or mutations 
are rather frequent, at least in the coffee 


946 


plantations of Guatemala. Where several 
such varieties from other parts of the world 
have also been tested, the new sorts offer 
great diversity in other respects, but agree 
in being less fertile than the parent stock in 
actual amount or weight of seeds. It seems 
reasonable to associate this relative or com- 
plete sterility with the fact that coffee has 
been unintentionally inbred, new regions hav- 
ing usually been stocked from single trees, 
and it is further noted that reproductive de- 
bility is a general characteristic of other in- 
bred domestic plants and of the so-called 
“sports” or ‘mutations’ which appear among 
them. In other words, it is suggested that 
both the sterility and the mutations may be 
-due to the same cause, the absence of normal 
cross-fertilization. This interpretation ac- 
cords with what has been called a kinetic 
theory of evolution under which evolution is 
viewed as a physiological as well as a mor- 
phological process. 


Tue tenth regular, and second annual, meet- 
ing of the Botanical Society of Washington 
was held at the Portner Hotel, November 8, 
1902, with President A. F. Woods in the 
chair. No regular program had been pre- 
pared, the evening being given over to the 
‘election of officers and the consideration of 
general business. The following officers were 
elected for the ensuing year: President, A. 
F. Woods; Vice-president, Frederick V. Co- 
ville; Recording Secretary, Charles L. Pol- 
lard; Corresponding Secretary, Herbert J. 
Webber; Treasurer, Walter H. Evans. 

Hersert J. WEBBER, 
Corresponding Secretary. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE GRAND GULF FORMATION. 


To THe Eprror or Scrence: I am naturally 
much interested in the communication of 
Messrs. Smith and Aldrich in your issue of 
November 21, and, as in the main it confirms 
my earlier determinations, yet does not cor- 
rectly state either my position or that of Dr. 
Hilgard in more recent publications, I ven- 
ture to supplement it by some words of ex- 
planation. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


The original complex included under the 
name of Grand Gulf by Hilgard in 1860 was 
heterogeneous, but, in the absence of paleon- 
tological data, it could not be in its several 
parts correlated with other beds of known 
age. This of course led to various, some- 
times conflicting, estimates of its place in the 
column. Professor Hilgard’s last character- 
ization of it (Am. Journ. Sci., 3d ser., XXIL, 
p. 59) is as follows: ‘Clearly the Grand Gulf 
rocks alone represent, on the northern borders 
of the Gulf, the entire time and space inter- 
vening between the Vicksburg epoch of the 
Eocene and the stratified (Quaternary) drift.’ 
We now eall the Vicksburgian ‘ Oligocene,’ 
so it is hardly fair to represent Dr. Hilgard as 
referring the Grand Gulf at present to the 
Eocene. Neither have I ‘referred it’ at dif- 
ferent times ‘to the Eocene, the Oligocene 
and the Miocene.’ By means of paleontolog- 
ical data which have come in from time to 
time during the seventeen years I have been 
at work on our southeastern Tertiary, and 
to which no one has been more active in con- 
tributing than Professor Smith and Mr. Al- 
drich, I have been enabled to fix the age of 
different portions of the original heterogene- 
ous series, as uppermost Oligocene (transi- 
tional) and Chesapeake Miocene, which is 
fully confirmed by the facts now cited by 
your correspondents. But there are still con- 
siderable portions which have yielded no fos- 
sils, and the age of which ean only be inferred 
from their position in relation to other beds 
of known age. In 1898 (‘ Fifteenth Annual 
Report U. 8. Geol. Survey,’ part IT., p. 340 
and table) I was obliged to decide on some 
portion of the original Grand Gulf which 
should continue to bear the name, after de- 
duction of beds of which the age had been 
determined, and fixed upon the Oligocene 
clays containing lignite and fossil palm leaves, 
the only fossils cited by Hilgard in his original 
description; and in my table of Tertiary hori- 
zons referred to them as ‘Typical Grand 
Gulf” The beds which Messrs. Smith and 
Aldrich call ‘Grand Gulf’ in their eommuni- 
cation to Science are not the same, but are 
the non-fossiliferous upper portion at the other 
end of Hilgard’s Grand Gulf section. TI have 


DECEMBER 12, 1902.] 


hittle doubt that their assumption as to the 
late, possibly Pliocene, age of these beds is 
correct, though it ean only be proved by fur- 
ther and paleontological evidence, but this 
decision is merely an equivalent of the ideas 
above cited from Hilgard, and therefore not 
new. 

That the Pascagoula horizon is Miocene 
rather than Pliocene is probable from the 
character of its scanty fauna, which is not 
ot the sub-tropical type of the Pliocene of 
our southern coast, but indicates a cooler 
temperature, such as prevailed during the 
Miocene of that region. 

The very great difficulties which the south: 
ern coastal plain offers to geological study are 
sufficient excuse for the slow progress which 
has been made, but it cannot be too often 
emphasized that no determination of the age 
of its beds not based on their fauna, or the 
fauna of beds both above and below those in 
question, can be regarded as more than tenta- 
tive; and such determinations in the past have 
almost invariably proved erroneous. 


Wo. H. Dat. 


THE SQUIDS FROM ONONDAGA LAKE, N. Y. 

A rew days since the newspapers told a 
story of how a citizen of Syracuse, while 
drawing a net in Onondaga Lake, got a 
strange looking fish, which upon being 
brought to Professor John D. Wilson, a well- 
known teacher of science in the city, was 
pronounced a squid. Professor Wilson has 
followed up this discovery, lest perchance 
some one connected with the affair were not 
too wise to be mistaken or too honest to de- 
ceive, and he assures me that he and his sei- 
entific friends are satisfied of the genuineness 
of this find. Professor Wilson learned from 
Mr. Terry, the discoverer, that he caught the 
creature in a net while fishing for minnows 
in shallow water. A second specimen was 
afterward found at the same place by a Mr. 
Lang who keeps a restaurant on the iron pier 
at the southeast corner of the lake. Both, 
as I understand, were caught alive. The.first 
specimen was cooked (!) and then put in 
aleohol, the second is now in possession of the 
writer. The whole story makes a ‘devilish 


SCIENCE. 


947 


fishy’ first impression. Should there be no 
reason to doubt the verity of the discovery, 
its bearings are most suggestive. The place 
where the squids were found, Professor Wil- 
son says, is just where the first salt springs 
were discovered and the first salt made in the 
Syracuse region by the early settlers long be- 
fore salt wells were bored. Onondaga Lake 
is a shallow body resting on the Salina shales 
and unquestionably receiving at all times a 
considerable amount of saline seepage from 
the rocks below; for all we know to the con- 
trary its bottom layers may be decidedly 
saline. These squids are not to be at once 
cast out as a ‘fake’ simply because they are 
marine animals alleged to have been caught 
in a fresh-water lake. Too many similar 
occurrences are known at the present to 
justify such procedure. There was a time 
in post-glacial history when there was com- 
munication from this body of water to the 
sea by the way of the St. Lawrence valley. 
It is within the limits of possibility that at 
such a time marine animals entered the pres- 
ent basin of Onondaga Lake as they did that 
of Lake Champlain. and that the saline con- 
dition of the lake waters has permitted their 
existence till the present. If such a presump- 
tion can be verified it will be by additional 
discoveries of these creatures supplemented 
by expert zoological determination of the 
specific characters and possible variations of 
these specimens, so that this discovery may 
prove to have a very important paleontologic 
bearing. Professor Wilson calls attention 
further to the fact that there are several 
hotels about the edge of the lake from which 
oyster and clam shells are thrown into the 
lake waters, but it hardly seems that this fact 
opens a possibility for the introduction by 
this means of the eggs of one of our Atlantic 
squids into conditions which would permit 
of their hatching. There are a number of 
considerations to be earefully weighed before 
the genuineness of this discovery can be ac- 
cepted; if it is the work of some wag, he has 
shown acuteness in selecting Onondaga Lake 
rather than any other of the lakes of New 
York state. 
depend upon the determinations of the zool- 


As very much, perhaps all, will | 


948 


ogist, the specimen in my hands will be 
turned over for examination to an expert. 
JoHN M. Cuarke. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 
PRELIMINARY RESULTS ON THE CHANGES OF AT- 
MOSPHERIC NUCLEATION.* 


1. Last May, Mr. Harvey N. Davis, at my 
request, put up an apparatus in this labora- 
tory for counting the number of nuclei in the 
atmosphere by measuring the coronas pro- 
ducible with such air under appropriate con- 
ditions. The apparatus gave promise at once, 
but Mr. Davis was unexpectedly called away 
before the observations became fruitful and 
the project was temporarily abandoned. Be- 
lieving that an instantaneous method of at 
Teast estimating the degree of atmospheric 
nucleation is a desideratum,+ and must throw 
- light eventually on the origin and character 
of the nuclei in the atmosphere, I have recently 
undertaken the work myself, and the results 
obtained in October, after the indications of 
the apparatus had become warrantable, are 
given below. 

I may add that Mr. Davis, and later Mr. R. 
Pierce, Jr., had been at work for some time on 
the measurement of the daily variation of the 
solar constant (a project recently set on foot 
by the U. S. Weather Bureau) and that I 
hoped from a coordination of the two classes 
of data to reach conclusions of interest. 

2. Apparatus——The original apparatus was 
of an improvised kind, consisting of a large, 
horizontally placed aspirator flask or receiver 
(about 10 liters in capacity, 30 em. long and 
20 cm. in diameter) in which the coronas 
were produced, an exhaustion reservoir and 
appurtenances. Atmospheric air entered by a 
quarter-inch lead pipe, and after passing 
through a coil of pipe in a water-bath, kept 
at room temperature as shown by a thermom- 
eter, entered the receiver and was there satu- 
rated with water. Some of the nuclei may be 
absorbed in this necessarily long and thin in- 

*Read to the American Physical 
October 18, 1902. 

j The pioneering work of Aitken is well known. 


His apparatus, however, would be inconvenient for 
the purposes here in view. 


Society, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 415. 


flux pipe, though the tests made did not bear 
this out. At all events the absorption is pro- 
portional to the nucleation and will not af- 
fect the ratios of successive nucleations in the 
lapse of time which are here chiefly in ques- 
tion. In later experiments the receiver was 
replaced by a cylinder 50 cm. long and 15 
em. in diameter, the walls of which, in the 
absence of plate glass apparatus, produced 
less distortion. To measure the apertures of 
the coronas produced in the receiver, a hori- 
zontal goniometer was placed about one meter 
in front of it and the small circular source 
of light about two meters behind, all being 
at the same level. 

3. Method.—It is necessary to take in the 
air at some feet from the laboratory; when- 
ever the house is colder than the atmosphere, 
there is a draft outward and one is apt to 
eatch the ventilation. The influx pipe must 
be scrupulously without leaks for the same 
reason. 

Since coronas actually run as far as the 
green centered types, considerable variation 
is detected and a skilled eye may often dis- 
pense with the goniometer. For this reason 
distortion of the coronas due to the walls of 
the flask is of little consequence at the outset. 

In the tables the date and hour, the aperture 
of the corona, the character of the weather 
and the temperature of the influx air were 
taken. From these, the number of nuclei, n, 
per cubic centimeter was computed. The 
measurements showed (if s is the chord of the 
aperture on the given goniometer), 

= .002/s (1) 
in centimeters, where d is the diameter of the 
fog particle. At mean atmospheric tem- 
perature (21° ©.) one may put m=179/10° 
grams, as the moisture precipitated per cubic 
centimeter of air, for the pressure difference 
Op—17 centimeters of mercury; used 
throughout. From this the number of nuclei 
per cubic centimeter becomes by equation (1) 

n= 189 X s*, (2) 

4. Errors—The occurrence of s* in (2) 
makes it unreasonable to expect very sharp 
data for n, since s is not obtainable from 
sharp lines. Differentiating equation (2) 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. | 


logarithmically, an error of 1/20 in s (which 
need not be made) will be equivalent to an 
error of 34 per cent. in n. Hence the un- 
certainty is about 300 particles in 1,000. The 
variation of mn is, however, somewhere be- 
tween 0 and 5,000, and hence the large relative 
error is for the present at least without signi- 


fieance. The error of 300 particles is smaller, 
yaoreoyer, than the usual values of the 
minimum. Using the new long ‘ receiver,’ 


3 $0) oa ae 


~10-0° RR 


gen +:650m 4. g5emu 


s was measurable with an error less than 1/50, 
reducing the error of n to about 100 par- 
tieles in 1,000. With properly constructed 
glass apparatus the conditions will be more 
favorable and thus fully adequate. 

Finally, it should be noted for future con- 
sideration that for coronas of a high order 
(% e., with colored centers), the proportion- 
ality of n and s° is not at once assured. 

5. Preliminary Data—During the earlier 
observations made from October 2 to 14, the 
water-bath was not at hand. Though uncer- 
tain to this extent they are, nevertheless, very 
striking in their general bearing. I have, 
therefore, given them graphically in the chart 


SCIENCE. 


949 


(upper figure), where the number of nuclei 
is laid off vertically and the day of the month 
horizontally. The weather is specified as in 
the maps of the U. S. Weather Bureau, open 
circles denoting clear weather, usually with 
sun, black circles cloudy weather, and partially 
filled circles the intermediate case in which 
the heavens are not quite covered. R denotes 
rain. The change of temperature in degrees 
centigrade, during the last twelve hours, the 


+28 00" 


change of the barometer in centimeters and 
the prevailing winds are given above the 
chart, for each day. Finally, h denotes hazy, 
n refers to observation much after sundown, 
ete. For convenience the observations are 
connected by straight lines, but where these 
supply the night hours they are naturally 
much in error. 

The nucleation begins low on the second of 
October with the rain, but thereafter in- 
creases nearly fourfold with the bright 
weather of the succeeding days. Note the pre- 
vailing winds from the north. On the fifth 
and sixth, clouds and rain usher in a second 


minimum of nucleation. On the fair days 


950 


succeeding the nucleation is not as high as 
before until the tenth, when a sudden enor- 
mous increase occurs. The winds are here 
again from the north and there is marked 
fall of temperature. The high maximum is 
sueceeded by an equally low minimum brought 
in by the rainy weather of the eleventh and 
twelfth. The nucleation then rises in the 
succeeding fair days, falls to a fourth mini- 
mum during the rain of the fourteenth, and 
then increases. 

No doubt some fluctuation is due to varia- 
tion of temperature for which no correction 
was made,* but the rain and fair weather 
effects, as a whole, are unmistakable. They 
here correspond to periods of minimum and 
maximum nucleation respectively. Moreover, 
the maxima are associated with winds blow- 
ing from the north in a general way, and at 
times with sudden fall of temperature, while 
the maxima of the fourth and tenth correspond 
to anticyclonal conditions. 

6. Data Corrected for Temperature-—The 
subsequent observations were improved by 
aid of the water-bath, already mentioned, 
kept at room temperature, so that the tem- 
perature of the saturated air from which con- 
densation takes place is fully known. The 
corrections are made as will be shown else- 


where. The final results are, at 
10°C. m= 42 X 10-8 gram. 
20° 76 
30° 128 


From these a table may be interpolated 
showing the value of m for each degree of 
temperature between 10° and 30°, and, there- 
fore, the number of nuclei per cubic centi- 

Imeter is 
i n= 24 X ms’ X 107 


for the observed value of temperature and 
aperture, s. 

In this way the following observations were 
corrected for temperature and the results are 
constructed in the graph (middle figure), 

*As the air entered by a long pipe passing 
through the room, the temperature variations were 
probably within 5°C. The error so introduced is 
not a serious quantity, as was found by direct 
experiments subsequently made. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


beginning with October 14. Symbols refer- 
ring to the weather and to other meteoro- 
logical conditions are introduced as before 
above the graph. 

7. Remarks on the New Data.—With the 
correction for temperature the curve has taken 
a smoother form, showing the method to be 
warranted; but the real cause of the differ- 
ences of the two graphs is nevertheless due 
to actual differences of nucleation. What is 
particularly noteworthy is the occurrence of 
sharp minima on October 16, 17, 21 and 28, 
cotemporaneous with the passage of dense 
cloud masses over the sky. On the 16th, 21st 
and 23d the curve rises as soon as the sky 
clears; on the 17th this is not the case, but 
the curve runs into the overcast conditions 
of October 18. Another important feature 
is the remarkably pronounced minimum of 
nucleation on October 19, during clear 
weather, showing that the presence of sun- 
shine cannot be the sole reason for an abun- 
dance of nuclei. The slight haze in the sky 
may not be ineffective. Similarly there is 
high nucleation on October 24 and 27, simul- 
taneously with the overcast sky. A number 
of night observations made after October 18 
show no exceptional behavior. 

On October 27 the apparatus was again 
modified as stated, by substituting a long 
cylinder for the aspirator flask. Tests showed 
the new results to be uniformly higher * than 
the old, cet. par., for which reason they are 
separately given in the lower graph. 

The data begin with high nucleation under 
an overeast sky and fall off to the rain storm 
of October 28. From this they rise again to 
values recalling the data of the early part of 
the month. The high nucleations are very 
fluctuating, conditions which would be even 
more apparent if night observations had been 
made. The cause is obviously convection and 
the diagram necessarily presents marked sim- 
ilarity to a wind curve.t The ascent on the 
29th and the high values thereafter again 


*This is due to the uneven thicknesses of the 
glass walls, a cireumstance which need not here 
be considered. * 

+ Cf. Langley, ‘ The Internal Work of the Wind,’ 
‘Smithsonian Contrib., 1893. 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


correspond to winds coming in general from 
the north. The notched minima on the after- 
noons of October 31 and November 1 and 2 
are curious novelties, but for them there is no 
other explanation than the possible haze effect 
as observed on the 2d. 


INFERENCES. 


8. Variation.—Mere inspection of the chart 
shows the extreme variability of atmospheric 
nucleation. Only a small part of this can be 
a local effect, since the changes correspond to 
the weather, though observation in cities 
where there is so much chance for pollution 
of the air is doubtless less satisfactory than 
work in the country would be. It is probable 
that even the small variations of the chart 
after October 15 are real. If the nuclei were 
colored the atmosphere would look like mottled 
soap, with the clear regions usually, but by 
no means always, accompanying rain or lying 
under clouds. 

9. Rain Effect—The observation next in 
importance is the occurrence of pronounced 
minima during rain, as for instance on Oc- 
tober 2, 5, 12, 14, 19, 23, 28. There seems 
to be no exception to this rule. It implies a 
faster removal of nuclei by precipitation in a 
saturated atmosphere (the result of any fall 
of temperature) than the supply of nuclei to 
the same region, by either diffusion or sub- 
sidence or other more occult causes. But 
whether the deficiency is eventually made up 
from the lower air strata in contact with the 
lands and the seas, or from the higher air 
strata of the atmosphere where solar activity 
especially prevails, is left open. 

Rain minima never fall quite down to the 
zero of nucleation, and are themselves quite 
variable in value. 

One may note that the tendency of rain to 
change the normal air potential from positive 
to negative values is accompanied by a rela- 
tive absence of nuclei. In other words min- 
imum nucleation exists here cotemporane- 
ously with maximum negative ionization. 

10. Cloud Effect—The third important fea- 
ture, and one which became particularly evi- 
dent after the temperature correction was 
applied (October 15), is the cloud minimum 


SCIENCE. 


951 


as seen on October 15, 17, 21, 23. Usually a 
higher nucleation is again established after 
the cloud train has passed over the sky, the 
phenomenon beginning and ending with 
periods of clear weather. At other times,. 
however, the minimum remains, as on Oc- 
tober 17. 

The only explanation of this result, as will 
presently appear, is at hand; the air has moved 
bodily with the cloud, the whole constituting. 
a region of deficient nucleation. The nuclei 
may have been precipitated by rain elsewhere, 
and the cloud may even have vanished from 
the region. To this extent, then, a region is. 
identified by its nucleation. 

11. Solar Effect Absent.—Since the nuclei 
cannot enter a region by diffusion as quickly 
as seen on October 21, for instance, one is: 
tempted to believe that solar radiation is. 
the cause by which the nucleation of a defi- 
cient region is reestablished. There is, how- 
ever, no evidence for this in the observations, 
and much against it. Thus, on October 19,. 
a remarkably low minimum is maintained 
almost all day in full sunlight; there were- 
but few hazy clouds in the sky. This mini- 
mum was apparently only a part of the cloud. 
region with which the day closed, but sunlight 
was powerless to replenish it. Similar refer- 
ence may be made to the notched minima of 
November 1, 2 and 3. By contrast the high 
nucleation which occurs on October 25 and 
27 in spite of an overcast sky may be cited. 
In the latter case, as on the 10th, the maxi- 
mum is a precursor, as it were, of the storm. 
which follows. Finally, though no observa-— 
tions were made after midnight, there are a 
number between sundown and ten o’clock. 
These show neither marked increments nor: 
decrements, but have usually a normal char- 
acter. 

Hence there is no evidence, so far as these 
observations go, that ultra-violet light or 
other solar radiation has any potency in pro- 
ducing nucleation, and I have, therefore, ex- 
plained the cloud effects, ete., as purely con- 
vective. : 

12. Origin of Atmospheric Nuclet.—Specu- 
lation as to the origin and character of these- 
nuclei is premature. Conclusions must be 


O52 


drawn with caution, since but few marked 
maxima have as yet been interpreted. True, 
the rain minima may in a general way be asso- 
ciated with atmospheric ‘lows,’ while the 
maxima on the 10th (and others in less 
marked degree) coincide with ‘highs.’ In so 
far as the cyclone and anticyclone may be 
regarded as upcast and downeast shafts, the 
supply of nuclei would seem to come from 
above. But as the rain minima admit of an 
independent explanation, and the remaining 
evidence is naturally vague, any such infer- 
ence is precarious. Whether, therefore, the 
nucleation is the triturate of the land and 
the seas (particularly the latter), with con- 
tributions from bacteria, or whether the ultra- 
violet light or other radiation at the boundary 
of the atmosphere is the efficient source, must 
be left for future determination. The data 
already go far to-show that from long series 
of observations of the above character much 
may be learned. Recalling that the coronas 
were obtained in ordinary glass bottles and 
are, therefore, distorted, the present project 
of studying nucleation seems secure, particu- 
larly as plate-glass apparatus will not be diffi- 
cult to construct. It is, therefore, my pur- 
pose to install a small permanent plant at 
Brown University, and I shall take occasion 
to report progress if any novelty of sufficient 
interest makes its appearance. 
Cart Barus. 


THE LARAMIE CRETACEOUS OF WYOMING. 

In the paper by Mr. Lambe and Professor 
Osborn on the mid-Cretaceous fauna of the 
Belly River deposits of Canada _ recently 
noticed in Science,* Professor Osborn has 
concluded, from the evidence presented by 
the vertebrate fossils, that a portion, at least, 
of those deposits in Montana which: have pre- 


viously been referred to the Laramie are- 


really mid-Cretaceous in age, and perhaps 
contemporary with the Belly River series. 
Mr. Hatcher more recently + has called atten- 
tion to the fact that a similar opinion had 
already been expressed by him concerning 
the Judith River deposits, and he is now in- 

* Sctence, October 24, 1902, p. 673. 

+ ScrmNcE, November 21, 1902, p. 831. 


* 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


clined to locate them much earlier than the 
close of the Fox Hills time. 

The Laramie deposits of Converse County, 
Wyoming, have usually been placed at the 
end of the Fox Hills, but I am somewhat 
skeptical of this. I believe that future re- 
search will show that, not only the Judith 
River beds, but also those of Wyoming will 
be found to be contemporary, in part at 
least, with the Fox Hills deposits, and that 
they are not separated by so great an interval 
from these other deposits which have hitherto 
been supposed to be contemporaneous. 

This conclusion I base largely upon the 
fauna of the Wyoming beds, which present, 
in some respects at least, a startling resem- 
blance to that of both the Judith River and 
the Belly River series. é 

Hitherto, almost our only published knowl- 
edge of the Wyoming Laramie fauna is that 
derived from Professor Marsh’s writings. 
Aside from the Dinosaurs, he has described 
from these beds various lizard, snake and bird 
remains, but has said nothing of a number 
of other interesting forms of which he must 
have known. I can only attribute this neg- 
lect to a belief on his part that these other 
forms were identical with those described 
from the other deposits which he believed to 
be of equivalent age. 

Among the collections made by the Uni- 
versity of Kansas in Converse County in 
1895, and those obtained by Professors Baur 
and Case in the same regions, there is not 
a little of interest in this connection. Not 
only a number of genera, but also a number 
of species previously described from Montana 
and now recognized by Lambe in the Belly 
River deposits, occur here in the supposed 
much later deposits of Wyoming. It would 
seem almost incredible that so many of these 
should have persisted unchanged through the 
long interval represented by so many thou- 
sand feet of Fox Hills deposits, to say 
nothing of those of the Fort Pierre. I doubt 
if a parallel can be found elsewhere in verte- 
brate paleontology. It is true that many of 
these forms from both the Judith River and 
the Laramie are known only from fragmen- 
tary remains, and that future researches may 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


show specific differences in some of them, but 
the resemblance in any event is marvelous. 

The Converse County collections of which 
I have spoken include more or less numerous 
representatives of Chamops, Iguanavus, Coni- 
ophis and Cimolopteryx, originally described 
by Marsh from these regions, together with 
others that are yet new, and the following 
which have been recorded from other deposits 
only: 

Myledaphus bipartitus Cope.—This species, 
originally described from the Montana beds, 
is common in the Wyoming deposits. The 
teeth are variable in size, and seem to agree 
well with that figured by Lambe from the 
Belly River deposits by Lambe. It is of in- 
terest to add that the genus is closely allied 
to, possibly identical with, Rhombodus Dames, 
from the uppermost Cretaceous of Europe. 
Jaekel shows clearly that Rhombodus belongs 
among the Trygonide. 

Accipenser albertensis Lambe.—The keeled 
and ornamented shield figured by Lambe from 
the Belly River appears to be identical with 
others in the Baur collection from Wyoming. 
I suspect that they belong with a fish different 
from Accipenser. 

Lepidosteus occidentalis Leidy—Numerous 
scutes, associated with opisthoccelous verte- 
bre, from Converse County can not be dis- 
tinguished from this species, originally de- 
scribed from the Judith River and recognized 
by Lambe from the Belly River. 

Crocodilus humilis Leidy.—This species 
was described from the Judith River beds, 
and is identified by Lambe from the Belly 
River. Numerous teeth, scutes and vertebrae 
from the Converse County beds can not be 
distinguished. 

Scapherpeton tectum Cope—The 
known species of this genus are typically 
from the Judith River beds. Lambe has 
identified the above species from the Belly 
River. 


four 


Numerous vertebre and fragments of 


the mandible are in the Wyoming collections, - 


among which I recognize this species. 
Champsosaurus.—This genus is well repre- 

sented in the Laramie collections. 
Aublysodon (Deinodon, preoc.)—Teeth of 

carnivorous dinosaurs are not at all rare in 


SCIENCE. 


953 


the Converse beds, some of which agree well 
with the figure of A. explanatus Cope given 
by Lambe. 

Paleoscincus—Teeth of three or four 
species from the Wyoming deposits are re- 
ferred to this genus (evidently a composite 
one) among which there is one that seems 
identical with P. asper, described by Lambe 
from the Belly River. 

Baéna is well represented in the collections, 
doubtless including B. Hatcheri among 
them, which is also known from the Belly 
River. 

S. W. WI.uiston. 

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, 

November 24, 1902. 


BOTANICAL NOTES. 
AIR HUMIDITY. 


Srupies made on the humidity of the air 
in an office in Lincoln, Nebr., by G. A. Love- 
land, and reported to the Nebraska Academy 
of Sciences, January, 1902, show that the air 
is much drier in the winter than is commonly 
supposed. Thus in an office in Nebraska 
Hall on the campus of the University of 
Nebraska the following results were obtained 
for the winter of 1899-1900. 


Mean Exterior Mean Relative 


Temperature. Humidity. 
DMecembereeerace ree 22.6° 18.6 per cent. 
VEMIEIA, sogcioosuoc0s 26.8° CANAD) 83 
Mebruanyaraoeee ese 19:2° UB}8}) Fo. G8 


The office in which these observations were 
made is on the main floor of a large brick 
building which is heated by steam, using 
ordinary pipe radiators. On the same floor 
a few feet away are the rooms of the Botan- 
ical Department, one of which is used for 
physiological experiments. It will be seen 
very readily that experiments upon ordinary 
plants must be made in such a dry air with 
considerable difficulty, and these results may 
help some students to understand why their 
work has been unsatisfactory. The air in 
such rooms is drier than in the driest climates 
in the world, and the effect on plants under 
observation can not be otherwise than most 
trying. Plants for study are taken from the 


954 


plant-houses, where the relative humidity is 
quite high, and are suddenly brought into an 
atmosphere as dry as that of the Sahara. 
What wonder that the plants do not behave 
properly! 


POLYPORUS OFFICINALIS IN AMERICA. 


SEVERAL years ago a correspondent in the 
Northwest sent me a fine specimen of a poly- 
pore which he found on the trunk of a tall 
tree in northern Idaho or western Montana. 
It was so inaccessible that he shot it from its 
resting place, bringing it down but little in- 
jured beyond the destruction of the attach- 
ment at the base of the fungus. As received 
it measured thirty centimeters in length and 
about thirteen centimeters in diameter, and 
was almost cylindrical in shape. This eylin- 
drical mass evidently depended from a curved 
stipe at its upper end, but this had been de- 
stroyed as indicated above. The exterior was 
quite white, and was covered with a mealy 
coating derived apparently from the disinte- 
gration of the tissues of the fungus. 

A year or two later another specimen was 
brought to me from the vicinity of the Yel- 
Jowstone National Park (southward, I think), 
which agreed with the first one in all particu- 
lars excepting that it was much smaller, being 
not more than half the length and width of 
the first one. Both specimens are very cer- 
tainly the Polyporus officinalis of the German 
Pharmacopeia, and like that species ours is 
very heavily loaded with a pungent resinous 
matter, to which doubtless its alleged medi- 
‘cinal properties are due. These specimens 
were reported as occurring on ‘larch’ trees, 
by which I suppose the correspondents meant 
some Abies or Picea. There can be no ques- 
tion as to the coniferous nature of the host 
trees, but I can not identify them further. 
As this species has not been reported as oc- 
eurring in America, it is desirable that col- 
lectors should be on the lookout for it when 
botanizing in the Northwest. 


BOTANY IN THE WASHINGTON MEETINGS. 
Boranists should plan if possitle to attend 
the meetings of the American Association for 
' the Advancement of Science, and the affili- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 415. 


ated societies in Washington during the holi- 
days. This is the first time that these meet- 
ings are to be held in the winter, and no 
doubt the future policy of the association 
(and of the affiliated societies, also) will de- 
pend largely upon the success of the present 
meeting. According to the program as al- 
ready announced, there will be meetings of 
interest to botanists as follows: The Section 
of Botany of the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, American Micro- 
seopical Society, Botanical Society of America, 
Botanists of the Central and Western States, 
Society of American Bacteriologists, Society 
of Plant Morphologists, and Society for the 
Promotion of Agricultural Science. Doubt- 
less, also, there will be meetings of the Botan- 
ical Club of the Association, as has been the 
practice for many years. When we add to 
all these the many botanical divisions and 
sections of the United States Department of 
Agriculture, with their laboratories, libraries, 
herbaria and plant-houses, and the great Na- 
tional Herbarium, the attraction should prove 
strong enough to bring out a large number 
of botanists. 


TWO BOOKS ON FORESTRY. 


SeveRAL months ago Professor Gifford 
brought out a book with the title ‘ Practical 
Forestry, intended for beginning students 
of forestry in school and out, as well as for 
the general reader who wishes to get some 
knowledge of the subject. To this end the 
author has made his book as practical as pos- 
sible, ‘so that the owner of a large tract of 
woodland, and the farmer with his wood-lot, 
or the owner of a country place, or those in- 
terested in the various industries connected 
with forests and forest products, may glean 
hints of value.’ A pretty careful examina- 
tion of the book shows that Professor Gifford 
has succeeded in making such a book as he 
describes, and without question it will do 
much good in the country at large. It con- 
sists of four parts, as follows: Part I., which 
is introductory, dealing with the generalities 
of the subject; Part II., ‘The Formation and 
Tending of Forests’; Part III., ‘The Indus- 
trial Importance of Forests’; Part IV., ‘ Sup- 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. | 


plementary,’ including a description of the 
principal federal and state reservations, and 
a descriptive list of fifty of the principal 
forest trees of North America. The text is 
clearly written, and the publishers (Apple- 
tons) have done their duty in the way of 
type, paper and illustrations. 

The second book, by Professor Roth, is en- 
titled ‘First Book of Forestry. In it the 
author has attempted ‘to present in simple, 
non-technical language some of the general 
principles underlying the science, and to 
state the methods whch are employed and the 
objects to be attained in the practice of for- 
estry.’ As indicated, the treatment is very 
simple, and a perusal of its pages shows that 
the book might easily be used in the public 
schools. The present writer would suggest 
this book as one to be used for supplementary 
reading in connection with work in reading 
and nature study. A citation of a few of the 
topics will show the simple style of the book, 
as follows: ‘What Light and Shade do for 
the Woods’; ‘What Different Soils do for 
the Woods’; ‘What Moisture does for the 
Woods’; ‘ Care and Protection of the Forest’; 
“Use of the Forest’; ‘Forest Plantations on 
the Prairies.’ The publishers (Ginn) have 
made a pretty book of the text and illustra- 
tions so well supplied by the author. 


THREE FORESTRY JOURNALS. 

Wir the increased interest in forestry in 
this country have come several journals de- 
voted to this subject. The oldest of these is 
Forestry and Irrigation (published in Wash- 
ington, D. C.), which began in 1895 under 
the name of The Forester, and after seven 
years enlarged its scope and changed its name. 
In addition to forestry it now devotes a good 
deal of attention to irrigation, which in many 
portions of the country is so intimately asso- 
ciated with the growth of trees. This journal 
is the official organ of the American Forestry 
Association, and because of the support given 
it by the staff of the United States Bureau 
of Forestry it is, to a certain extent, the 
organ of this government bureau. Beginning 
in a modest way, it has improved year by year 
until it has become a journal which is of in- 


SCIENCE. 


955 


terest to scientific botanists, as well as the 
practical men to whom it is supposed to par- 
ticularly appeal. This journal illustrates 
very well the fact that science and its prac- 
tical applications are coming to be more and 
more closely associated. The botanist can no 
longer overlook many of the papers which are 
published in a journal of this kind. Among 
recent papers may be mentioned the following: 
“The Mesquite, a Desert Study’; ‘The Beetle 
Pest in the Black Hills Forest Reserve’; 
“Recent Progress in Dendro-chemistry’; 
‘The Jack Pine Plains of Michigan’; ‘The 
Climate of the White Pine Belt’; ‘Notes on 
a Northwestern Fir’; ‘The Red Cedar in 
Nebraska’; ‘Pinus attenuata as a Water Con- 
server’; ‘Forestry and Plant Ecology’; ete. 

In September of the present year a second 
journal of forestry appeared in Chicago, 
under the name of Arboriculture. It is quite 
distinctly a popular journal, and, since it is 
illustrated with good ‘half-tones,’ it is likely 
to appeal to a large constituency and do 
much toward creating and stimulating an in- 
terest in forestry. 

A third journal devoted to forestry has 
come to us from Cornell University within 
the last few weeks, under the name of the 
Forestry Quarterly. It is published under 
the direction of the faculty of the College 
of Forestry, and is considerably more tech- 
nical in nature than either of the preceding. 
In addition to a number of valuable general 
papers there is one feature which will com- 
mend itself to most botanical readers, viz: 
the full account of the current forestry litera- 
ture, much of which is of immediate interest. 
This journal must find a place in every botan- 
ical library. 

Cuarues E. Bessey. 


THE VIRCHOW MEMORIAL. 

A MEETING was held in London on November 
21 to forward the movement to take part in 
the erection of a statue to Rudolf Virchow in 
Berlin. Lord Lister presided and addresses 
were made by a number of leading men of 
science. An influential committee was formed 
with Lord Lister as chairman, Lord Avebury 
as treasurer and Sir Felix Semon as secretary. 


956 


This committee has issued the following ap- 
peal: 


A movement has been inaugurated in Germany 
to erect a statue at Berlin to the late Professor 
Rudolf Virchow. 

Representatives of science and art, irrespective 
of political parties, have joined the committee 
constituted for this purpose, and it is hoped that 
the appeal recently issued by the committee will 
meet with a very general response. 

At the same time it is felt that this movement 
ought to be more than an exclusively German 
one. Professor Virchow’s labors in medicine, 
public health, anthropology, ethnology, and 
archeology have benefited the world at large, 
and amongst his pupils have been men of every 
nationality. It is believed that in this country 
in particular, of which he was ever a staunch 
friend, and amongst the men of science of which 
he numbered many devoted admirers, a general 
desire will be felt to participate in the movement 
intended to do homage to him at the seat of his 
labors. 

With this object a British committee has been 
formed, the chairmanship of which has been under- 
taken by Lord Lister, with Lord Avebury as hon. 
treasurer, and Sir Felix Semons as hon. secretary. 

The committee now invite subscriptions from 
all those who wish to pay a last tribute to the 
memory of one of the greatest men of our time. 
Whilst it has been decided not to limit the mazi- 
mum amount of contributions, in order not to 
check the generosity of those who may desire to 
show in a substantial form their appreciation of 
Professor Virchow’s services to humanity, the 
committee are particularly anxious that it should 
be understood that even the smallest contributions 
will be cordially welcomed, as the main object 
of the British collection is to testify to the wide- 
spread amount of esteem and veneration which 
the deceased scientist enjoyed in this country. 

Cheques and postal orders made payable to 
‘Virchow Memorial,’ and crossed ‘ Messrs. 
Robarts, Lubbock and Co.,’ may be sent to ‘ the 
Hon. Treasurer of the Virchow Memorial, care 
of Messrs. Robarts, Lubbock and Co., 15, Lombard 
street, London, E. C.,’ who will send an acknowl- 
edgment to the individual contributors. 

When the list has been closed, the hon. treasurer 
will forward the amount to the treasurer of the 
Berlin committee, together with a list of the con- 
tributors, but the amount of the individual con- 
tributions will not be stated. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 415. 


We enclose a list of the committee, and have 
the honor to remain, Sir, 
Yours faithfully, 


LISTER, 
AVEBURY, 
FrLix Semon. 
London, November 21. 
LECTURE COURSES OF THE NATIONAL 


GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. 


Durine the season of 1902-1903 the Na- 
tional Geographic Society presents in Wash- 
ington, D. C., three courses of meetings— 
popular lectures, technical meetings and lenten 
lectures. These courses have been planned 
with great care to include those problems of 
a geographic character which are of special 
interest to the general public at the present 
time. Arrangements have been made for ad- 
dresses in the popular course on the geo- 
graphic distribution and mining ot hard and 
soft coal, Mr. Peary’s work in the Arctics 
during the last four years, the tragedy of 
Saint Pierre, Colombia and the Isthmian 
Canal, the commercial expansion of Argen- 
tina and the Macedonian question. The ar- 
rangements for the later part of the season 
are so far provisional as to permit the intro- 
duction of specially timely topics. 

The interest shown last year in the tech- 
nical meetings, which were planned for scien- 
tific men actively engaged in geographic work 
and for persons specially interested in such 
work, has led the board to continue such 
meetings. 

The subject of the afternoon, or lenten, 
course will be announced in a later program. 

The popular course will be delivered in the 
National Rifles Armory, G street between 
Ninth and Tenth streets northwest, on Fri- 
day evenings, at 8 o’clock, commencing No- 
vember 14 and alternating with the technical 
meetings, which will be held in the Assembly 
Hall of Cosmos Club until the new home of 
the Society on Sixteenth and M streets is 
completed. The following dates haye been 
definitely assigned: 

November 14—‘The Coal Resources of the 
United States’ (illustrated), Dr. David T. Day, 
Chief Division of Mineral Resources, U. 8. Geolog- 


DECEMBER 12, 1902. ] 


ical Survey. Dr. Day will discuss the geograph- 
ical distribution of soft and hard coal in the 
United States, the methods of mining, and the 
manner in which the output is distributed 
throughout the country. 

November 29— Explorations in the Arctics, 
1898-1902’ (illustrated), Commander Robert E. 
Peary, U.S.N. Mr. Peary will describe his Arctic 
work of the last four years, during which he 
gained the most northerly known land and the 
highest point yet reached on the western hemis- 
phere. 

December 12—‘ Argentina, Present and Future’ 
(illustrated), E. L. Corthell, C.E. Mr. Corthell 
for the past two years has been consulting engi- 
neer of the Ministry of Public Works in Argen- 
tina, and has thus had an exceptional opportunity 
to study the recent remarkable development and 
the tremendous possibilities of this vast South 
American republic. 

January 9— The Turk and His Rebellious Sub- 
jects’ (illustrated), Mr. William E. Curtis. The 
restless and heterogeneous people of Macedonia 
and of the Sultan’s European provinces will be the 
subject of an interesting address by Mr. Curtis. 

January 23—‘The Tragedy of Saint Pierre’ 
(illustrated), Mr. George Kennan. 


Provisional arrangements have also been 
made for lectures on Colombia and the Isth- 
mian Canal; ‘America before the Advent of 
Man’; ‘The Geographic Distribution of In- 
sanity in the United States’; ‘ Russia of To- 
day’ (by Paul du Chaillu), and a lecture by 
Mr. John Muir. 

Regular meetings of the society for the 
presentation of technical papers and discus- 
sion will be held on Friday evenings, at 8 
o'clock, commencing November 7, and alter- 
nating with the popular lectures. As the new 
home of the society will not be completed be- 
fore January 15, 1903, these meetings will 
be held for the present in the Assembly Hall 
of the Cosmos Club. The course has been 
planned to form a series on the geographic 
work of the great scientific bureaus of the 
government. Mr. Richard U. Goode, chair- 
man of the committee on technical meetings, 
announces the following program: 

November 7—‘ Some of the Administrative and 
Industrial Problems of Porto Rico,’ Hon. Wm. F. 
Willoughby, Treasurer of Porto Rico. 


SCIENCE. 


957 


November 21—‘ The Work of the U. S. Coast 
and Geodetic Survey,’ Hon. O. H. Tittmann, 
Superintendent U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. 

December 5—‘ The Work of the U. 8. Weather 
Bureau,’ Dr. Willis L. Moore, Chief U. S. Weather 
Bureau. 

December 19— The U. S. Signal Corps,’ Gen. 
A. W. Greely, Chief Signal Officer, U.S.A. 


At later meetings the geographic work of 
the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Depart- 
ment, of the Experiment Stations of the Agri- 
cultural Department, of the Census Office, of 
the Naval Observatory, of the Geological Sur- 
vey and of the Library of Congress will be 
discussed. 

The lenten course of five lectures will be 
delivered in Columbia Theater, F street, near 
Twelfth, at 4:20 o’clock, on Wednesday after- 
noons of February 11, 18, 25 and March 4, 11. 
The subject of this course and the speakers 
assigned for the special topics will be an- 
nounced in a later program. 

The headquarters of the society will con- 
tinue to be Rooms 107-108 Corcoran Build- 
ing, Washington, D. C., until the new home 
of the society, on the southwest corner of 
Sixteenth and M streets, is completed. 


A GENERAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 


A com™iITTeEs of this society, with Professor 
George F. Barker as chairman and Dr. I. 
Minnis Hays as secretary, has sent out the 
following letter: 


The very gratifying success of the general meet- 
ing of The American Philosophical Society, held 
last April, has established most satisfactorily the 
claim that the interests of useful knowledge in 
the United States may be greatly promoted by 
holding an annual general meeting of the society. 
Such a meeting, not only from the information 
derived from the papers presented, but also from 
their discussion, has proved attractive to its mem- 
bers from all parts of the country and has mark- 
edly broadened the field of usefulness of this, the 
oldest scientific society in America. 

At the concluding. session of the general meet- 
ing held last April it was unanimously resolved 
that a second general meeting be held in April, 
1903. In accordance with this resolution the 
said general meeting of the society will take place 


958 


on Thursday and Friday, April 2 and 3, 1903, 
and the undersigned have been appointed a com- 
mittee to make the necessary arrangements. 

Members desiring to present papers, either for 
themselves or others, are requested to send to the 
secretaries at as early a date as practicable and 
not later than March 1, 1903, the titles of these 
papers, accompanied by a brief abstract, so that 
they may be duly announced on the program 
which will be issued immediately thereafter, and 
which will give in detail the arrangements for 
the meeting. 

Papers in any department of science come 
within the scope of the society which, as its 
name indicates, embraces the whole field of use- 
ful knowledge. 

The publication committee, under the rules of 
the society, will arrange for the immediate publi- 
cation of the papers presented. 

The society by means of its publications, 
which present a series covering 140 years and 
include Transactions in quarto and Proceedings 
in octavo, with its large exchange list embracing, 
practically, the scientific societies of the world, 
and with its exceptional facilities for immediate 
issue, offers unexceled avenues for prompt publi- 
cation and wide circulation of the papers read 
before it. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 


Ir is reported that the Nobel prizes for this 
year will be awarded as follows: In chemis- 
try, to Professor Emil Fischer, of Berlin; in 
physics, to Professor S. A. Arrhenius, of 
Stockholm; in medicine, to Professor Niels 
FE. Finsen, of Copenhagen, and to Major Ron- 
ald Ross, of Liverpool. The value of these 
prizes, it will be remembered, is about $40,- 
000 each. 

Proressor H. V. Hmprecut has _ been 
awarded the Lucy Wharton Drexel medal of 
the University of Pennsylvania for his arche- 
ological researches. 


We learn from Nature that Dr. P. L. 
Sclater, F.R.S., has resigned the secretary- 
ship of the Zoological Society of London, and 
only holds office until his successor is ap- 
pointed. The council has passed the follow- 
ing resolution on this subject and ordered it 
to be entered on their minutes: 

The president, vice-presidents and council of the 
Zoological Society of London desire to record 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 415. 


their sincere regret at the retirement of their 
secretary, Dr. Philip Lutley Sclater, after a ser- 
vice of nearly forty-three years. They wish to 
tender him their hearty thanks for his most valu- 
able services to the Society during this long 
period, not only in the management of the Zoolog- 
ical Gardens, but also in the conduct of the publi- 
cations of the Society and the general direction 
of its affairs. These affairs have prospered to a 
remarkable degree during his long term of office. 
The income of the Society has doubled, the So- 
ciety’s library has been entirely created, the mem- 
bership has increased from 1500 to 3200. Dr. 
Sclater’s own work as a zoologist is held in uni- 
versal repute, and it is no exaggeration to say 
that the very high position occupied at the present 
day by the Zoological Society in the world of 
science is largely due to the exertions and the 
personal character of its retiring secretary. 

Dr. Gary N. Cauxiys, of the department 
of zoology of Columbia University, has been 


appointed consulting biologist to the New 
York State Pathological Hospital. 

Dr. G. T. W. Parrick, professor of phi- 
losophy and psychology, in the University of 
Iowa, is spending the year in Germany. 

Dr. Sven Henry, the Swedish explorer, is 
expected to lecture in the United States early 
next year. 

Dr. Rosert Kocu has presented to the 
Mount Vernon Hospital for Consumption, 
London, a portrait of himself. 

Tue French International Geodetic Asso- 
tion has elected General Bassot as vice-presi- 


_ dent in succession to General Ferrero. 


Tue ashes of Christopher Columbus, re- 
moved from the cathedral of Havana, were 
placed in a mausoleum in Saville cathedral on - 
November 17. 


We regret to record the death of Professor 
Henry Mitchell, the eminent engineer. He 
was born in Nantucket in 1830, being the son 
of William Mitchell, the astronomer. His 
sister, Maria Mitchell, was also well known as 
an astronomer. Mr. Mitchell was at one time 
professor in the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology and took part in important engi- 
neering works in the harbors of Boston, Phil- 
adelphia and other cities. He took part in 
the surveys of the Mississippi river and of 


DECEMBER 12, 1902.] 


the Panama canal route. His publications 
were chiefly connected with tides, river cur- 
rents and other hydrological subjects. He 
was a member of the National Academy of 
Sciences and fellow of the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science. 

Mr. C. E. Hovuanton has been appointed 
associate professor of mechanical engineering 
in New York University. : 

Sir JoHNn Strokes, an eminent British engi- 
neer, died on November 17 at the age of 
seventy-seven years. He carried out important 
engineering works in connection with the Suez 
Canal, the opening of the mouth of the 
Danube and in other directions. 

Mr. H. C. Hint, mspector-general of forests 
to the government of India, died on November 
7T at the age of fifty years. 


THE death is also announced of Dr. T. R. 
Segelcke, professor of dairy farming in the 
Agricultural College at Copenhagen. 


THe Harvard Corporation has voted to ex- 
tend its Christmas holidays to January 5, 
thus leaving the week free for the convocation 
of scientific societies. Harvard University is, 
we believe, the only important institution 
that had not taken action favorable to Con- 
vocation Week. 


M. Gtacosint discovered a faint comet at 
Nice on December 2, and the comet was ob- 
served at the Naval Observatory on Decem- 
ber 3. 


Tue Civil Service Commission announces 
an examination on January 3 for the position 
of assistant-chief, Dairy Division, Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, at a salary of $1,800. 
It announces on January 6 examinations for 
the positions of scientific assistant in the 
Fish Commission and custodian in the Ma- 
rine Biological Station at Beaufort, at sal- 
aries of $720, and for the position of assistant 
chemist in the supervising architect’s office, 
Treasury Department, at a salary of $1,200. 


Tue Section of Geology and Geography of 
the American Association has arranged to 
devote a session of the meeting to the dis- 
cussion of the recent eruptions of Mont 
Pelée and La Soufriére by the geologists, 


SCIENCE. 


959 


Messrs. Russell, Hill, Heilprin, Jaggar, Cur- 
tis and Hovey, who visited the islands of 
Martinique and St. Vincent last summer, but 
the details of the session have not been elab- 
orated in time for the preliminary program. 
The following papers, however, can be an- 
nouneed: 

R. T. Hiri: ‘The geologic and physiographic 
history of the Lesser Antilles.’ With illustrations. 

iE. O. Hovey: ‘The ejecta of the 1902 erup- 
tions of La Soufriére, St. Vincent’; ‘ Some erosion 
phenomena on Mt. Pelée and La Soufriére, with 
illustrations; ‘The inner cone of the Mt. Pelée 
erater and its relation to the destruction of 
Morne Rouge.’ 

T. A. Jaccar, JR.: ‘The geological and recent 
history of the Caribbean volcanoes’; ‘The pro- 
tection of human life from voleanoes.’ 

IsrRArL C. Russert: ‘ Martinique and St. Vin- 
cent.’ (An illustrated lecture before the National 
Geographie Society, in connection with the 
meeting of the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science. ) 

J. W. Spencer: ‘ The geological history of the 
Caribbean Islands.’ With charts and illustra- 
tions. 

THE ninth annual meeting of the American 
Mathematical Society will be held at Co- 
lumbia University on Monday and Tuesday, 
December 29 and 30. The council will meet 
on Monday morning, and the annual election 
of officers and other members of the council 
will close on Tuesday morning. At the open- 
ing of the afternoon session on Monday the 
retiring President, Professor Eliakim Has- 
tings Moore, will deliver his presidential ad- 
dress, the subject of which will be: ‘The 
Foundations of Mathematics.’ 


Tue Lowell Institute lectures for the cur- 
rent year include the following: 

Professor N. S. Shaler, ten lectures on the 
general topic, ‘Dynamical Geology.’ 

Professor H. P. Bowditch, eight lectures on 
“Some Problems of Modern Physiology.’ 

Dr. T. A. Jaggar, six lectures on ‘The Carib- 
bean Volcanic Eruptions and their Bearing on 
Vuleanology.’ 

THE city of Ann Arbor has offered to the 
University of Michigan the perpetual lease of 
a piece of land of seven acres within one square 
of the present campus on condition that the 


960 


University improve the same, converting it 
into a botanical garden to parts of which the 
public shall have admission. The regents 
have signified their willingness to accept the 
offer, and will doubtless begin work on the 
land next spring. The ground is well adapted 
to garden purposes, three acres being high 
and level, and this area then running down a 
steep hillside some fifty feet to low land con- 
taining a natural pool. 


At the invitation of Columbia University, 
the fourth annual conference of the Associa- 
tion of American Universities is to be held in 
New York on December 29, 30 and 31. 


Tue first sanitary conference of the 


American republics convened at Washington - 


last week. _The Governments of Mexico, Cuba, 
Chili, Costa Rica, Salvador, Honduras and the 
United States were represented. Dr. Walter 
Wyman, surgeon general of the marine hos- 
pital service, presided at the opening session 
and addresses of welcome were made by Secre- 
tary of the Treasury Shaw and Assistant 
Secretary of State Hill. 


Tue Ludwick Institute Courses of free lec- 
tures on the natural sciences and their appli- 
cations, given under the auspices of the Acad- 
emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, on 
Mondays and Thursdays are for the present 
year as follows: Hygiene and physiology, by 
Seneca Egbert, A.M., M.D., beginning on No- 
vember 13; Entomology, by Henry Skinner, 
M.D., beginning on November 17; Some phases 
of bird life, by Witmer Stone, M.A., beginning 
on January 5; The faunas of the new Ameri- 
can dependencies, Porto Rico and Cuba, 
Hawaii and the Philippines, by Henry A. 
Pilsbry, Se.D., beginning on’ February 5; 
Animals of the deep sea: a_ historical 
sketch of their discovery, by Philip P. Calvert, 
Ph.D., beginning on February 9; Geological 
history; descriptions of some critical epochs 
in the history of the earth, by Amos P. Brown, 
Ph.D., beginning on February 12; Vertebrate 
paleontology: types of extinct fishes and ba- 
trachians and their living kin, by J. Perey 
Moore, beginning on March 16; Characteristic 
features of the chief plant groups, by Steward- 
son Brown, beginning March 19. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 415. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


Grorce Foster Prasopy has offered to the 
University of Georgia a $50,000 building, pro- 
vided the Legislature will appropriate to the 
University for maintenance the sum of $10,000 
a year for two years and make improvements 
costing $1,200. 


Tue University of California is about to 
erect a physiological laboratory at a cost of 
$25,000. It will be under the charge of Dr. 
Jacques Loeb, recently called to the Uni- 
versity from Chicago. 


Tur Yale Club of Chicago has voted to 
establish in the academic and scientific de- 
partments of the university four annual 
scholarships of $600 each, to be given to stu- 
dents who are residents of Illinois. Benefi- 
ciaries will give notes for the amounts of the 
scholarships to be repaid at intervals after 
graduation. 


Tue education bill has been passed by the 
British House of Commons. Less attention 
has been paid to this bill in the United States 
than it deserves. It to a certain extent na- 
tionalizes the chureh and other religious 
schools, supporting them from a government 
grant and from local rates, but leaving them 
in part under ecclesiastical authority and 
permitting them to continue their religious 
teaching. 


Tue regents of the University of the State 
of New York have elected the Rev. William 
Croswell Doane chancellor in the room of the 
late Anson J. Upson. Mr. Whitelaw Reed 
was elected vice-chancellor. 


Dr. A. S. Currrenpen has been appointed 
assistant in pathology in the College of Physi- 
cians and Surgeons, Columbia University. 


Masor Ronatp Ross has been elected to the 
newly established chair of tropical medicine 
at University College, London. 


M. Marry has succeeded the late M. Lacaze- 
Duthiers as president of the section of natural 
sciences of the Ecole pratique des hautes 
etudes, Paris. 


Dr. O. JurL has been appointed professor 
of botany in the University of Upsala. 


SCIENCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: S. NEwcomB, Mathematics; R. S. WoopwARD, Mechanics; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy ; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THursTon, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WALcorT, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OSBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScuppER, Entomology ; C. E. 
BessEy, N. L. Britron, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 

DITCH, Physiology; J. S. BinLinas, Hygiene; WiLLIAM H. WELCH, 

Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Fripay, DecemBerr 19, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 


Policy of the Smithsonian Institution...... 961 
The Academy of Sciences: PRoressor J. Mc- 
KEEN CATTELL 
The Annual Address of the President of the 
Royal Society 
The Carnegie Institution...............54. 978 
Scientific Books :-— 
Spiller on the Mind of Man: PrRoressor 
JOSEPH JASTROW. Archiv fiir Protisten- 


(humases Co No CGooedcoonsoesouascoeusoeno 980 
Scientific Journals and Articles............ 982 
Societies and Academies :— 

The American Association for the Advance- 

ment of Science. The Geological Society 

of Washington: ALFRED H. Brooks. The 

Biological Society of Washington: F. A. 

Lucas. The Research Club of the Uni- 

versity of Michigan: FREDERICK C. NEw- 

COMBS sooonsnooocsbenongodbanHonooUO0KD 983 


Discussion and Correspondence :— 
The Carnegie Institution: Proressor S. E. 
Mezes, CHARLES H. STERNBERG, ROSWELL 
H. JoHNSoN, Proressor W. A. Noyes. The 
Onondaga Lake Squids: Dr. JouHn M. 
CLARKE. The Fossil Tree Bridge in the 
Arizona Petrified Forest : PROFESSOR HENRY 
IN, OSEORocolosooosngaadconddudoosp00cD00 987 
Shorter Articles :— 
Mendel’s Principles of Heredity and the 
Maturation of the Germ-cells:; PROFESSOR 
EDMUND B. WILSON..........2--+----005 991 
The Enlargement of the Naples Station: Pro- 
FESSOR T. H. MoRGAN..............--.-4. 993 
Notes on Inorganic Chemistry :-— 
The Telluric Distribution of the Elements ; 
The Nature of Alloys; The Training of 
Technical Chemists in England: J. L. H.. 994 
Current Notes on Physiography :— 
Northeast Labrador; Physical Geography 
of New York; New Map of Switzerland: 


Prormssor W. M. DAVIS................ 995 
Scientific Notes and News................. 996 
University and Educational News.......... 1000 


POLICY OF THE SMITHSONIAN 
INSTITUTION. 

In our issue of November 21, we com- 
mented on certain recent proceedings of 
the Smithsonian Institution having an 
important bearing on the question of its 
policy. We now return to the subject, in 
order to review the question at issue from 
a more comprehensive standpoint. 

The Smithsonian Institution should be 
regarded as a sacred trust confided to our 
government by a foreigner for a specific 
purpose. We are bound to administer this 
trust in accordance with the expressed will 
of the donor, who defined it as ‘an institu- 
tion for the increase and diffusion of 
knowledge among men.’ A _ point of 
fundamental importance which should not 
be overlooked is that the bequest was not 
made to second the efforts of our govern- 
ment to increase and diffuse knowledge, but 
to found an institution which should itself 
do so. Questions to be considered are: 
What are the funds available for these pur- 
poses and how are they used to increase 
and diffuse knowledge? We summarize 


from the last annual report the following 


962 


statement of the principal and income of 
the fund: 


Principal. Income. 

Smithsonian fund proper.... $650,000 $39,000 
Miscellaneous additions..... 62,000 3,720 
od okinsi olttimeriereyeretst rts: 200,000 12,000 
Hodgkins special fund...... 42,500 1,680 
Totaly cecc neue $954,500 $56,400 


Of the Hodgkins gift the income of $100,- 
000 is to be especially devoted to increasing 
and diffusing knowledge of the atmosphere 


and related subjects connected therewith. - 


Leaving this out of consideration, there is 
still an annual income of $50,400 available 
for the general purposes of the establish- 
_ ment. 

Passing to the question of the expendi- 
ture of this amount, the first item to de- 
mand our attention is that of international 
exchanges. The number of packages 
handled by this bureau during the past 
What does this bureau 
If we in- 


year was 121,060. 
cost the institution annually? 
terpret aright the statements in the report, 
the answer will be, nothing at all. A clear 
profit seems to be made from it through the 
fact that the government appropriation for 
the bureau, together with the payments 
received from freight, more than balance 
the cost of the service. The account seems 
to admit of being stated in the following 
form, using only round numbers: The in- 
stitution expends $5,758.24 in addition to 
the government appropriation of $24,000. 
But the repayments for freight, ete., were 
$10,240.80, profit of 
$4,482.56. 
question, instead of being a draft upon the 


leaving a clear 


It follows that the bureau in 


income of the Smithsonian fund, is an im- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 416. 


Adding 
this profit to the regular income, we have 
a total of more than $58,000 available for 
other purposes. 


portant source of profit to it. 


How is this expended ? On this point we 
have few details, only general statements, 
which tell us very little. Rearranging the 
statements in our own way, they may be 
summarized as follows: Somewhat more 
than $29,000, or fully one half of the whole 
amount, is reported to have been paid for 
What were the ser- 


vices rendered in return, and what is the 


salaries and services. 
outcome of the expenditure? These are 
questions to which no definite answer is 
made. Only two officers are given in the 
annual report, and one of these draws a 
salary from the government appropriation 
for the National Museum. The names of 
individuals are, of course, of no impor- 
tance, but the offices which they fill and the 
services which they render are matters of 
public interest and should be made known 
with the same fullness that they are in the 
case of a government bureau. We can only 
guess that the amounts constitute the 
salaries of the Secretary and his immediate 
assistants, and of persons employed in 
various miscellaneous functions in connec- 
tion with the National Museum and other 
government establishments under the con: 
trol of the institution. 

Under another general head will come 
about $12,665 for what we may call gen- 
eral administrative expenses, classified in 
the report as building, furniture, inciden- 
tals, books, periodicals, ete. 

The third class includes publications and 


researches. Here again'the information is 


DECEMBER 19, 1902.] 


only of the vaguest kind. The amount 
spent for researches was $4,686, of which 
$2,151 was for salaries and personal ser- 
vices, but no specific statement is made of 
the amount expended on any particular 
research, nor, in fact, are any researches 
reported except those made at the expense 
of the Hodgkins fund. As the available 
income for this purpose is considerably 
ereater than the whole amount reported 
as spent in researches, we are left to infer 
that no researches are made at the expense 
of the Smithsonian fund proper. Nearly 
$2,000 was spent for reports, what reports 
is not stated. There is an additional item 
of $4,473.51 expended from the Hodgkins 
fund, but with what object is not stated. 
It is not necessary to enumerate the other 
items as given, because they fail to give 
us any information of interest. Our own 
reclassification of the reported income and 
expenditures is as follows: 


INCOME, 


Interest on funds in U. S. Treasury.. $54,720.00 


Interest on West Shore bonds........ 1,680.00 
Profits on international exchanges... 4,482.56 
Cash from sales of publications...... 188.59 

Total net income...........:.... $61,071.15 

EXPENDITURES. 

Salaries and services................ $29,566.06 
Other expenses of administration..... 12,665.56 
Publications, reports, researches, etc. . 6,621.83 
Expended from Hodgkins’ fund....... 4,473.51 
Sunplusiitonatheryear- ssc ee 7,744.19 

UO co oid Songer ON Coe sia co a $61,071.15 


The surplus of $7,744.19 is the same that 
follows from the report as the increase in 


SCIENCE. 


963 


cash on hand. The main points in which 
we have rearranged the statements are the 
deduction of the expenditure for exchanges 
from the amount received for freight and 
the classification by themselves of all pay- 
ments for salaries and services. 

In the large amount, nearly four fifths 
of the whole expenditure, for salaries and 
administrative expenses, and the smallness 
of the fraction devoted to the increase or 
diffusion of knowledge in any definable 
way we are brought face to face with 
two policies on which views have been 
divided the foundation of the 
institution. One of these was distinctly 


since 


the policy of Professor Henry, enforced 
by him on every opportunity—the de- 
votion of the institution to the original 
desired by Smithson, of 
creasing and diffusing knowledge. 


in- 
The 
other policy was the more popular one of 


purpose 


making the institution an auxiliary to 
government efforts in the same direction, 
by charging it with the care of the govern- 
ment collections and improving science and 
art generally at the national capital. How 
strong the present tendency in the latter 
direction may be seen in the preceding 
analysis. Apart from this it does not 
look well to see one half the entire Smith- 
sonian income paid to unknown persons 
for unknown services. 

The expenditure of so large a sum as 
the present income of the Smithsonian 
Institution in inereasing and diffusing 
knowledge is a noble work, and its efficient 
prosecution demands the entire time and 
No 
more worthy expenditure of that time and 


energy of the head of the institution. 


964 


energy can be found—none which would 
place the institution and its head higher 
in the estimation of the world of learning 
—than its exclusive devotion to this ob- 
ject. Without any disrespect to the func- 
tions of the general administrator of the 
National Museum, the Zoological Park and 
other government establishments under the 
direction of the Smithsonian Institution, 
we cannot but feel that the functions we 
have described as appropriate are of a 
higher order, especially when performed 
by men of the eminent standing in the sci- 
entific world which has been held by the 
three secretaries of the institution. 

It also seems to us much to be regretted 
if, as we interpret the statement of the re- 
port, the larger part of the income from 
the Smithsonian fund is employed in filling 
deficiencies in the government appropria- 
tions for the care and exhibition of its col- 
lections. The Smithsonian building is not 
necessary for the proper purposes of the 
institution. It is, indeed, almost entirely 
occupied by collections which are the prop- 
erty of the United States. If, as we sup- 
some $40,000 of the 
expended in operations connected with 
and going on in this building and in the 
National Museum, then the divergence of 
the policy from that defined by the first 
secretary of the 


pose, income is 


institution is marked 
indeed. 

We do not overlook the claim that all the 
objects of expenditure may be in the line 
But, if we ad- 


mit this claim, we must also grant that the 


of diffusing knowledge. 


most powerful agency employed by our 
government for this purpose is the Gov- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 416. 


It is difficult 
to see why the Smithsonian income might 


ernment Printing Office. 


not be as legitimately expended in the sup- 
port of this office as in the housing, care 
and exhibition of the government col- 
lections. 

If our view, based on these considera- 
tions, is correct, two radical changes 
should be made in the policy in question. 
The separation advocated by Professor 
Henry between the Smithsonian Institution 
and bureaus of the government placed 
under its control, should be carried out. 
Whatever reasons may have existed in 
former times for this combination have 
We have a 


Department of Agriculture to which most 


now ceased to be operative. 


of the work in question appropriately be- 
longs, against the administration of which 
The 
government should make all the appropria- 


not a shadow of suspicion is felt. 


tions necessary for the care, preservation 
and exhibition of its collections, without 
putting any part of this expense on the 
The time of the 
head of the institution should not be taken 


bequest of a foreigner. 


up with administrative details, but should 
be devoted to the application of its large 
income to the worthy purpose of increasing 
and diffusing knowledge. We are sure 
that, by taking this step, the standing of 
the institution and of its head in the eyes 
of the scientific public would be greatly 
enhanced. 

The other measure is complete publicity 
of the operations and expenditures of the 
institution. Instead of the general state- 
ments of expenditure now in the reports, 


we should have a specific statement of the 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


purpose of each expenditure, and of the 
results reached by it. 

These suggestions involve no reflection 
upon the eminent citizens who form the 
We 
are sure that none will grasp the situation 


board of regents of the institution. 


more readily than they when once it is 
brought to their attention. We feel that 
they are abundantly able to judge of the 
good policy of expending almost the entire 
income of the fund entrusted to them in 
eking out the appropriations made by con- 
gress for the National Museum and other 
local objects. If the claim is made that 
the Smithsonian Institution is in touch 
with the science of the world by its sys- 
tem of international exchanges, and with 
the people of the country through its an- 
nual reports, they are abundantly able to 
see that the prosecution of the first is a 
source of gain to the institution, and that 
its annual reports, being printed by Con- 
gress, cost the institution far less than the 
profit upon exchanges, so that the entire 
income is still available for other objects. 
We believe that the more carefully the 
able members of the board of regents con- 
sider this subject, in the light of past ex- 
periences and present conditions, the more 
fully they will appreciate the force of the 
considerations we have suggested. 


_ THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.* 
TWENTY-THREE centuries ago, when the 
first and fairest flowers of civilization were 
in blossom, Plato and his friends met to- 
gether in an Athenian garden to talk of the 
things that appeared to them to be beauti- 
ful, good and true. The garden was called 


* Address of the president of the New York 
Academy of Sciences, read on December 15, 1902. 


SCIENCE. 


965 


‘ The Academy,’and the word has ever since 
maintained the high traditions of its origin, 
uniting the ideas of friendly social inter- 
course and the search for truth. The phi- 
losophy of Plato was passed on to his dis- 
ciples, so that we read of fourth and fifth 
academies; it was transplanted to Rome, 
where Cicero named his country house 
‘The Academy,’ and to Alexandria, where 


mystical neo-platonism long resisted the 


dogmatic rationalism of the church. 

As part of the Italian renaissance, when 
civilization was once more young, vigorous 
and beautiful, as in the Greek period, the 
word ‘academy’ was revived and used to 
name a society of scholars. Cosimo dei 
Medici, the Elder, established at Florence 
in the fifteenth century a Platonic Acad- 
emy, and academies of letters by the 
hundred flourished in Italy during the six- 
teenth century. In 1560 there was estab- 
lished at Naples by the versatile Giambat- 
tista della Porta the first academy of sci- 
ences—Academia Secretorum Natwre—to 
which only those were admitted who had 
contributed to the advancement of science 
or medicine. The academy at Naples was 
suppressed on the accusation that it prac- 
tised the black arts; but soon afterwards 
there was established at Rome, with Galileo 
as one of its members, the Accademia dei 
Inncet, which was later revived and is now 
one of the great national academies. 

The mere word ‘academy’ is of course 
unimportant; societies of scholars are not 
always called academies, nor are all acad- 
emies societies of scholars. The beginnings 
of associations for the advancement of 
knowledge are to be found in savage tribes, 
developing with the state of civilization, 
usually in the form of guilds of priests, 
until we reach the Greek period, whence 
we date our philosophy and our science. 
The culture of Greece was carried to 
Alexandria, where Ptolemy Soter, supposed 
to be the son of Alexander the Great, estab- 


966 


lished the beginning of the povszov, based 
on the four corner-stones of science and 
culture, the university, the academy, the 
library and the museum; and this institu- 
tion maintained its prestige for centuries. 
We have here an association of scholars that 
surpasses anything to be found in Greece 
or Rome, and one indeed that approaches 
an ideal more nearly than any existing 
institution. Supported by the govern- 
ment, we find men of science living to- 
gether and working together, a system of 
lectures, a library of 600,000 titles and the 
like. To these conditions we may attrib- 
ute the work of Aristarchus, EKratosthenes, 
Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Archimedes, Euclid, 
Herophilus and others, who in many ways 
established the principles of science. Sim- 
ilar if less important centers of learning 
arose in Bagdad, Damascus and elsewhere; 
and there was a series of Arabian astron- 
omers, physicians and mathematicians, 
who never permitted the torch of learning 
to become extinct, until it was merged in 
the dawning light of modern science. 

The records of Roman history are chiefly 
of wars and polities; but its institutions still 
dominate the world. The names of Pliny, 
Galen and Lucretius prove that science was 
eultivated. It is said that there were 
twenty-eight public libraries in Rome in 
the fourth century; and the schools of the 
Roman Empire never became extinct. 
Rome was the center whence first empire 
and then the church spread eivilization 
throughout Europe. The removal of the 
seat of empire to Byzantium, the ever re- 
curring invasions of the barbarians from 
the north, and the tenets of the christian 
chureh are supposed to have extinguished 
learning and culture; and the period from 
the decline of the Roman empire to the 
revival of learning in Italy is called the 
dark ages. But perhaps these centuries 
are only dark in so far as they are ob- 
secured from our sight. It may seem absurd 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


for an amateur in history to make an asser- 
tion contrary to the common views; but 
the scientific man, saturated with the doc- 
trine of evolution, is loth to accept a spon- 
taneous generation of culture at the period 
of the late Italian renaissance. Students 
of medieval history are indeed beginning 
to date back this period of awakening to the 
thirteenth or even to the eleventh century ; 
but there appears to be much evidence for 
a gradual extension of civilization and ecul- 
ture throughout Europe from the sixth to 
the eleventh centuries. 

It is a long way from the love passages 
of the Phadrus to those of the Vita Nuova, 
from the fawn of Praxiteles to the madonna 
of Giotto, from the Phrygian mysteries to 
the order of St. Francis. The christian 
church is said to have been inimical to cul- 
ture and science, but to it we owe the es- 
tablishment of monasteries, schools and 
libraries throughout Europe. It is natural 
that the civilizations of Athens and of 
Rome should have become merged in the 
surrounding peoples. We might as well 
wonder why Shakespeare did not give rise 
to a line of poets, as to wonder why the 
Athens of Pericles was not permanent. 
When Rome came in contact with the 
peoples of the north, an average resulted 
which was in the end an extension of 
civilization. The barbarians who overran 
Italy and sacked Rome were themselves 
converted to christianity, and the tradi- 
tions of culture were carried beyond the 
Rhine and the English Channel. 

Boetius, whose birth coincided with the 
fall of the western empire, wrote on sci- 
ence as well as on philosophy. From his 
death, in 525, education and learning were 
in the hands of the church. Gregory the 
Great, pope from 590 to 604, encouraged 
primary education; and monasteries, being 
at once schools, libraries and academies of 
learned men, were established everywhere 
under the early popes. Bede, born about 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


673, wrote on astronomy and medicine. At 
his school at Jarrow in Northumbria there 
were 600 monks in attendance besides 
strangers from a distance. Aleuin, born 
about the year that Bede died, went from 
the directorship of the school at York to 
establish the palace school for Charles the 
Great, making the court of the emperor 
more nearly an academy of sciences and 
letters than has happened elsewhere in 
history. Alfred the Great in the following 
century also cultivated letters at his court, 
and himself wrote on scientific as well as 
on literary subjects. He established schools 
throughout his dominion, including an 
academy at Oxford. 

The traditions attributing the University 
of Paris to Charles and Oxford Univer- 
sity to Alfred are discredited; but the 
schools they supported and established cer- 
tainly did not become extinct, but devel- 
oped into the medieval universities. The 
curriculum of the monastic and cathedral 
schools may appear narrow and trivial— 
the well-known seven arts, the elementary 
trivium—grammar, rhetoric and dialectic, 
and the more advanced quadrivium— 
music, arithmetic, geometry and astron- 
omy; but if we compare it with the curric- 
ulum of the American or English college 
of a few years ago we should east no stones. 
Indeed, when we try to picture the state of 
affairs, the invasions of the Northmen and 
Saracens, the wars and pillages, we can 
but admire the spirit that maintained 
schools and libraries in the monasteries, 
the academies of sciences and arts of the 
time. The Roman Church, the Holy Ro- 
man Empire, civic life and independence 
and finally the universities were the off- 
spring of the so-called dark ages. 

The medical school of Salerno, whose be- 
ginnings are traced to the ninth century, 
seems to have descended directly from the 
Greco-Roman period. It was secular in 
character, extending its privileges to Jews 


SCIENCE. 


967 


and women. It is of interest to scientific 
men that the first university should have 
been a school of medicine, but it must be 
admitted that it did not contribute consid- 
erably to the advancement of science—at 
Alexandria the living human body was dis- 
sected, at Salerno Latin hexameters were 
written on the urine—nor has its imper- 
fectly known organization the interest for 
us that attaches to the universities of 
Bologna and Paris. 

The medieval university is certainly one 
of the most notable institutions known to 
history. It appears almost ineredible that 
10,000 students from all parts of Europe 
should have frequented Bologna, when 
traveling was as expensive, difficult and 
dangerous as was the case in the thirteenth 
century. The guilds or trades unions of 
the students and teachers represent a kind 
of organization that is of peculiar interest 
to those of us who are concerned with the 
conduct of modern scientific societies. The 
present period is marked by combinations 
of labor and of capital, such as have not 
previously existed, but the guilds of the 
middle ages had a more complete organiza- 
tion, and the universities of scholars have 
no modern counterpart. It seems to me 
that we men of science suffer both in posi- 
tion and in character from the dependence 
to which we submit, and that we could with 
advantage learn from the studiwm generale 
of the middle ages. 

The centers at Bologna and Paris devel- 
oped almost simultaneously. Bologna was 
primarily a law school and Paris a theo- 
logical school. The former was more 
strictly professional, and its students were 
mostly men of maturity, already holding 
positions in the church or state. The uni- 
versities of students, representing different 
nationalities, obtained control and imposed 
their authority on the masters and on the 
city. The school at Paris was less pro- 
fessional in the sense that theology and 


968 


philosophy were the liberal studies of the 
age. There was at Paris from the time of 
Abelard a vast number of teachers gathered 
together from all quarters; and the forma- 
tion of a university of masters was followed 
in the thirteenth century by the complex 
organization of nations and faculties. 
Migrations from Bologna established 
universities throughout Italy, while the in- 
fluence of Paris led to the universities of 
Oxford and Cambridge, of Prague and of 
the various French cities. Science in the 
modern sense of the word did not play an 
important part in the medieval university ; 
but Roger Bacon, born in 1214, was inti- 
mately associated with Oxford and Paris, 
and doubtless found encouragement as well 
as persecution at these universities. The 
promise of Bacon was not fulfilled for more 
than two centuries; but there was a slow 
growth of science at the universities. Co- 
pernicus found masters at Cracow, Bologna 
and Padua and was himself professor at 
Rome. Kepler and Galileo filled chairs at 
universities; they bring us to the period of 
the organization of academies of sciences. 
Francis Bacon in his New Atlantis, pub- 
lished in 1627, pictures Solomon’s House 
as an ideal academy of sciences. I have 
already referred to the establishment of 
actual academies of sciences in Italy dur- 
ing the sixteenth century. They were orig- 
inally clubs of scientific men or men inter- 
ested in science who met together to dis- 
cuss and perform experiments. Like the 
early universities the academies were at 
first independent of the state; but they 
subsequently received charters and appro- 
priations of money. In the sixteenth and 
the first part of the seventeenth century 
academies of sciences were founded through- 
out Europe. The period was marked by 
extraordinary scientific progress which was 
greatly stimulated by the interchange of 
ideas made possible by the academies. The 
state of science was such that each member 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


could understand and take interest in the 
work of all the others. Intellectual curios- 
ity was widespread, catholic and naive. 

The Royal Society of London and the 
Academy of Sciences of Paris arose at 
about the same time and under similar cir- 
cumstances. At Paris a club counting 
among its members, Descartes, Gassendi 
and Pascal met at a private house for some 
thirty years, until an academy of sciences 
was finally organized by Colbert on the 
model of the Académie Francaise estab- 
lished earlier under the auspices of 
Richelieu. The seven original members 
included Huyghens, who was called to 
Paris. They received pensions from the 
king and grants for instruments. The 
academy was reconstituted in 1699 with 
fifteen active members, three each in geom- 
etry, astronomy, mechanics, anatomy and 
chemistry. The academy of sciences be- 
came part of the Institute of France in 
1795; at which time it was divided into 
ten sections in each of which were six mem- 
bers and six associates in the provinees, the 
sections being: (1) mathematics, (2) me- 
chanics, (3) astronomy, (4) experimental 
physies, (5) chemistry, (6) natural history 
and mineralogy, (7) botany, (8) anatomy, 
(9) medicine and surgery, and (10) agri- 
culture. An eleventh section—geography 
and navigation—was added in 1803 with 
three members. As constituted since 1833, 
the Institute of France contains five acad- 
emies: (1) Francaise, (2) Inscriptions et 
belles-lettres, (3) Sciences, (4) Beaux-arts 
and (5) Sciences morales et politiques.. 
The academy of sciences contains eight 
members and the other academies forty. 
Each receives a pension. As we all know, 
the intellectual life of France has been 
centered largely at Paris and in the acad- 
emies. 

The Royal Society of London resulted 
from a club that held meetings as early as 
1645; it was finally organized in 1660 and 


DECEMBER 19, 1902.] 


chartered in 1662. The membership was 
larger and less exclusive than in the case 
of the Paris Academy, and there has not 
been a division into sections. Under the 
existing statutes fifteen fellows are elected 
annually, and the membership numbers 
about 450. The fellows do not receive 
pensions as in the continental academies, 
but pay dues. The society, however, ad- 
ministers a government fund for research 
(£4,000 annually), and has in many ways 
cooperated with the government. There 
has been this year established a British 
Academy for the Promotion of Historical, 
Philosophical and Philological Studies. 

The Accademia del Cimento, begun in 
Florence in 1657, and the Collegium 
Curiosum begun in Altorff, Franconia, in 
1672, are types of the scientific clubs of the 
time. Somewhat later academies were 
established in various centers—the Berlin 
Academy in accordance with the plan of 
Leibnitz in 1700 and the St. Petersburg 
Academy by Peter the Great in 1724. ‘The 
members receive salaries from the govern- 
ment; at St. Petersburg these are liberal, 
so that at one time eminent foreigners, 
such as Nicholas and Daniel Bernoulli, 
were attracted to St. Petersburg by mem- 
bership. Similar academies were estab- 
lished in the capitals and other cities of 
the continent—at Stockholm, Copenhagen, 
Munich, Madrid and elsewhere. These 
imperial and royal academies were patron- 
ized by kings and princes and were part 
of the court life of the time. 

The American Philosophical Society, 
modeled by Franklin on the Royal Society, 
had its beginnings at Philadelphia in 1743; 
and the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences, modeled by Adams on the Paris 
Academy, was established at Boston in 
1780. Both institutions were originally of 
national scope and still maintain this char- 
acter to a certain extent. Academies more 


SCIENCE. 


969 


local in character were subsequently estab- 
lished in different cities, the Connecticut 
Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded at 
New Haven in 1799, being the oldest of 
these. Our own academy of sciences was 
organized in 1817 as the Lyceum of Natural 
History in the City of New York. The 
National Academy of Sciences was incor- 
porated by congress in 1863. It was born 
into a world that has changed, and we may 
hope progressed, since the golden age of 
academies. The differentiation of the sci- 
ences, the dispersal of our men of science 
over a wide area and the general trend of 
democratic institutions are not favorable 
to the academy of the type that flourished 
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

The nineteenth century witnessed an ex- 
traordinary development of scientific ac- 
tivity throughout the world. ach science 
has had its great leaders who have estab- 
lished new fundamental principles and 
new lines of investigation, while the 
workers in the ranks are now a great army. 
I have had occasion during the past year 
to compile a biographical catalogue of the 
living men of science of the United States. 
On my preliminary list there are eight 
thousand who have published scientific 
papers, with a few exceptions, admitted be- 
cause they are engaged in teaching or other 
scientific work of some importance. I 
estimate that the scientific men of the 
world number about 50,000, not. counting 
those physicians, engineers and others who 
do not directly contribute to the advance- 
ment of science, nor those who are engaged 
in historical, philological and other studies, 
not commonly included in the natural and 
exact sciences. 

Under these circumstances scientific or- 
ganization has been compelled to adjust 
itself to new conditions. The two great 
developments have been the establishment 
of large national associations holding mi- 


970 


eratory meetings and of special societies for 
the several sciences. The German Con- 
gress of Scientific Men and Physicians was 
established in 1828 and the British Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science in 
1831. There are similar associations in 
other European countries, in Australasia 
and in South America. Our own asso- 
ciation was established in 1848, being a 
continuation of the Association of Ameri- 
ean Geologists and Naturalists, founded in 
1840. 

The Linnean Society for zoology and 
botany was founded in London in 1788 
and received a royal charter in 1802. The 
Geological Society of London was estab- 
lished in 1807, and the Royal Astronomical 
Society in 1820. These societies were off- 
shoots from the Royal Society, and were a 
necessary result of the differentiation of 
science and the increase in the number of 
men of science. At the time, however, 
they were supposed to weaken the Royal 
Society, its president Sir Joseph Banks, 
saying, ‘All these new-fangled associations 
will finally dismantle the Royal Society, 
and not leave the old lady a rag to cover 
her.’ 

The seattering of scientific men in this 
country delayed the establishment of spe- 
cial societies. The American Association 
was divided into two sections in 1875 and 
into nine sections in 1882. The American 
Chemical Society was established in 1876, 
and we now have national societies for the 
principal sciences—mathematies, physics, 
chemistry, astronomy, geology, botany, 
morphology, ornithology, anatomy, physiol- 
ogy, bacteriology, pathology, psychology 
and anthropology. 

New York city and members of our acad- 
emy have done their share in establishing 
and supporting these societies. The 
Torrey Botanical Club, begun in 1870, was 
the first of the special societies. The 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vor. XVI. No. 416. 


Chemical Society was established in this 
city and has its headquarters here. The 
American Mathematical Society began as 
the New York Mathematical Society and 
still has its main center in New York, as 
has also the American Physical Society. 
The secretaries of the American Physio- 
logical Society and of the American Psy- 
chological Association are officers of our 
academy, and the secretary of the Ameri- 
can Geological Society was formerly one of 
our most active members. The societies 
for civil, mining, mechanical and electrical 
engineering have their headquarters in 
New York city. 

Apart from scientific societies this city 
has, during the past fifteen years, witnessed 
an unusual, perhaps unparalleled, devel- 
opment of its scientific and educational in- 
stitutions. Columbia University has be- 
come one of the dozen great universities of 
the world. Its new grounds and buildings, 
costing $8,000,000, are but a symbol of its 
educational position. New York University, 
with its beautiful new site and buildings, 
has grown in equal proportion. The City 
College is erecting new buildings, and 
high schools have been established. Our 
libraries have been consolidated, the build- 
ing for the great public library is in course 
of erection and numerous branch libraries 
have been founded. The American Mu- 
seum of Natural History has more than 
quadrupled the value of its buildings and 
collections, and the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art has equally increased its galleries 
and endowment. The Botanical Garden, 
the Zoological Park and the Aquarium 
have arisen as by miracle. Hospitals, 
asylums and all kinds of public institutions 
have increased even more rapidly than the 
wealth of the city. In spite of Tammany 
Hall, in spite of reform administrations, 
our public, educational and scientific insti- 
tutions have developed in a way that has 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


perhaps never been equaled hitherto or 
elsewhere. 

In this marvelous development there are 
two failures that we must all regret—one 


Aywaveum Cibvayy 


1} 


the stationary condition of our Academy of 
Sciences, the other the dispersal of our in- 
stitutions over such an area as to detract 
greatly from their usefulness. All the way 
from the Battery to the Bronx—some 
twenty miles as the trolley car goes—sepa- 
rated by almost impassable streets and 
overshadowed by tenements and apartment 
houses, our institutions may be found, or 
at least looked for. Fifteen years ago the 
city had a great opportunity, but no 
leader being at hand it was lost. The situ- 
ation of some of our scientific institutions 
is shown on the one chart; what might have 
been is shown on the other. 

The city could have bought the blocks 
from the American Museum to the North 
River for about $10,000,000. These re- 
maining one half park, half the part of 
Central Park between the American and 
the Metropolitan Museums might have 
been used as a site for public buildings 
without decreasing the amount of open 
space, while at the same time greatly in- 
creasing its value for all the purposes of a 
park. The plan shows what might have 
been done on the west side. The wasteful 
duplication of libraries and the rest would 
have been avoided, and there would have 
been a strengthening through cooperation 


SCIENCE. 


971 


for which it is not easy to find words. 
The site of the park and buildings would 
of course have been above the thorough- 
fares, and all the buildings would have 


LJ ' 
NY. Uneveys¢ ty 


been within five minutes ride on an under- 
ground railway. : 
The eross arm of Central Park should 


University 


City College 


Academy 
Museum 
Central Park 
Se ; Wafer 
etc. 
Ayt 
eS) qodlery 


S 

o = 
we oo 
+e ae 
53 ; 
ge 
Si 


SHO) MJIPSUT 


East River 


have extended to the East River, and there 
should have been a park along the river, 


972 


‘facing- Blackwell’s Island and correspond- 
ing to Riverside Park. Hospitals and 
eleemosynary institutions could have been 
built on this arm of the park and facing 
it, while the various institutions for the 
defective classes would have been on the 
islands in the East River. The cross arm 
of Central Park would always have been 
near the center of population of the city, 
and if it had been made a center for its in- 
tellectual and higher social life a gain 
would have resulted which it would scarcely 
be possible to overestimate. Fifteen years 
ago this could have been done as far as the 
west side is concerned with little or no 
expense to the city; now it would cost 
$30,000,000. I should gladly expend one 
third the yearly income of the city for the 
purpose; as I am helpless and harmless I 
suppose there is no danger that I shall be 
put in the institution on Ward’s Island. 
The atrophied condition of the New 
York Academy of Sciences is as lament- 
able as the dispersal of our scientific 
institutions, but fortunately it is not so 
irremediable. The university, the library, 
the museum and the academy are, as I have 
already said, the four corner-stones of sci- 
ence and culture. They should be parts 
of one over-institution, and should, in my 
opinion, be one of the chief cares and 
adornments of the state, being no less es- 
sential than the police or army and the 
courts. As the institutions of the city can 
not now be brought together, we must do 
the best we can to give the Academy the 
position it should have. It is immaterial 
whether the institution be called the New 
York Academy of Sciences or the Scientific 
Alliance of New York. We must have an 
institution that will coordinate the scientific 
work accomplished in the city. We must 
have a building for our meetings and 
other work, and should have as part of it 
or adjacent to it a club house. The build- 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 416. 


ing should be situated near the Museum 
of Natural History, this being without 
doubt the most central position. Let us 
get money from millionaires if we can, but 
it seems to me that for the honor of the 
city the building should be built by the 
city. I see no reason why it should not 
be part of the American Museum. The 
large lecture halls could be used in com- 
mon, and we should need only two or 
three rooms of moderate size, one seating 
about a hundred people, for ordinary so- 
ciety meetings, and others for a committee 
room and a room for the archives and sec- 
retariats of the different societies. The 
libraries and any collections there may be 
could with advantage be merged in those 
of the museum. Such rooms, if part of a 
wing of the museum, would cost the city 
perhaps $100,000. Then we should collect 
one or two hundred thousand dollars for a 
club-house to be placed across the street. 

A few words remain to be said in re- 
gard to the functions of an academy of 
sciences under the conditions that obtain 
at the beginning of the twentieth century. 
Libraries, laboratories and museums are no 
longer our charge. We are primarily guilds 
of scientific men. The organization of 
science in America toward which I believe 
we are moving is this: We shall have a 
national society for each of the sciences; 
these societies will be affiliated and will 
form the American Association for the Ad- 
vanecement of Science, which will hold 
migratory meetings. Winter meetings will 
be held in large centers where all the so- 
cieties will come together, and summer 
meetings will be held at points of educa- 
tional and other interest when the societies 
will scatter somewhat. The council of the 
American Association composed of dele- 
gates from all the societies will be our chief 
deliberative and legislative body. Our 
national societies will consist of local sec- 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


tions, and these sections will unite to form 
an academy of sciences. The men who 
are In one neighborhood and engaged in 
the same kind of work are the natural unit. 
They should unite on the one hand with 
those in other neighborhoods to form a 
national society; they should join on the 
other hand with the men of science of the 
same neighborhood to form an academy of 
sciences. This plan of organization may 
appear to be almost too logical for a world 
that is somewhat careless of logic, but it 
js in part already realized. It will in my 
opinion result as a necessary condition 
from the state of affairs. Our academy has 
already contributed to it, and it seems to 
me that we should continue to do con- 
sciously what we have hitherto done rather 
blindly. 

We have two main external functions— 
our meetings and our publications. For 
both of these the men of science interested 
in the same subjects are the natural group. 
We need not increase the number of our 
sections; but should allow subsections for 
each of the sciences, letting those who are 
immediately concerned meet as they find 
it most advantageous. These groups should 
maintain their own autonomy, and we 
should not require the members to join 
the academy, least of all so long as our 
present dues are maintained. The acad- 
emy should provide convenient places for 
meeting, arrange for joint meetings of sev- 
eral groups, provide general lectures of 
interest to more than one group, support a 
club-house, give receptions and exhibitions 
and the like. 

In regard to publications I am somewhat 
heterodox. Proceedings and transactions 
were an important function of the academy 
of the eighteenth century, but there is no 
longer any excuse for printing researches 
on utterly diverse subjects in one volume, 
because the authors happen to be mem- 


SCIENCE. 


* them. 


9713 


bers of the same academy. We might as 
well make up volumes according to the 
eranial index of the contributors. The 
national society for each science should 
directly or indirectly have charge of the 
publications in that science. We need in 
every science: (1) A series of monographs, 
each of which should be published as a 
unit, (2) a ‘Centralblatt’ containing ab- 
stracts of the literature with a complete 
bibhography, and (3) a journal for 
shorter articles, general discussions, erit- 
ical reviews, ete. The abstracts and bibli- 
ography should be an international under- 
taking, each country contributing its share. 
What is now printed in the annals, trans- 
actions and proceedings of our. academies, 
should be contributed to the series or 
journals. In the series of psychological 
monographs, which I am glad to say exists, 
should for example be printed any mono- 
graphs that are prepared by our members, 
and if the academy has funds for publica- 
tion, it should share the expense. These 
monographs can be parts of our proceed- 
ings and can be given to those members 
who are interested. Their existence will 
be known to every specialist throughout 
the world. They will be puchased by in- 
dividuals and libraries, and will ultimately 
become self-supporting. It is to be hoped 
that the academies of the country will 
unite in a plan of this character, and that 
our academy will initiate the movement. 
When we review the whole subject of the 
history and present status of the academy 
of sciences we must, I think, come to the 
conclusion that the function of the modern 
academy is now modest. Libraries, museums, 
research laboratories, government depart- 
ments and universities have developed in 
a way that leaves no excuse for the acad- 
emy of sciences to attempt competition with 
The university in its modern form 
seems to me most suitable for the central 


974 


institution, and when our universities are 
controlled and supported by the state and 
when there is only one university in a re- 
gion, it seems to me that the university 
should administer the libraries, museums, 
research laboratories and the lke, and that 
the academy of sciences will be essentially 
a part of the university. The national and 
local societies for each branch of science 
are the natural groups for meetings and 
discussions and for publication. Member- 
ship in an academy as an honor, the presi- 
deney as a distinction, foreign members, 
medals, prizes and the like, seem to me to 
belong to the childhood of science. So long 
as we are still in this state let us rejoice in 
our innocence, but what is charming in the 
child is intolerable in the man. 

Has the academy of sciences then played 
its part in the world? Must it, like the 
mastodon and elephant, give way to organ- 
isms better suited to a changed environ- 
ment? I have already indicated that I be- 
eve the academy to have important if 
modest functions, and have stated what I 
think them to be. They are essentially 
those of a guild. We need a center in each 
community for organization and social in- 
tercourse. As capitalists unite in corpora- 
tions and laborers in trades unions, so men 
of science should unite in their academies. 
We should not profess unselfish philan- 
thropy, but we may reasonably claim that 
whatever is accomplished to improve the 
condition of men of science, to increase 
their influence or to forward their work, 
is of benefit to the community and for the 
welfare of society. 

J. McKeen Catre.y. 


CoLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 


ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF 
THE ROYAL SOCIETY.* 
PRESIDENT HuGGINS said that since the 


last anniversary the Society had lost by 


* From the. London Times. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 416. 


death nine Fellows and two foreign mem- 
bers. The deceased Fellows were Sir 
Joseph Gilbert, died December 23, 1901, 
aged 84; the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, 
died February 12, aged 75; Maxwell Simp- 
son, died February 25, aged 86; Sir Richard 
Temple, died March 15, aged 76; George 
F. Wilson, died March 28, aged 80; Sir 
Frederick A. Abel, died September 6, aged 
75; Dr. John Hall Gladstone, died October 
6, aged 75; William Henry Barlow, died 
November 12, aged 90; Sir William C. 
Roberts-Austen, K.C.B., died November 
22, aged 59. The foreign members were 
Alfred Cornu, died April 12, aged 61; Ru- 
dolf Virchow, died September 5, aged 80. 
Not the Royal Society only, but mankind, 
he said, had sustained grievous loss by the 
deaths of two of the foreign members. 
Rudolf Virchow left a record of intellec- - 
tual achievement unsurpassed in its high 
distinction and value, its exceptional and 
sustained vigor during a life unusually 
prolonged, and its remarkable variety. In 
his own country Virchow would be remem- 
bered not only as the distinguished pioneer 
in pathological science, but also as an influ- 
ential politician and a great social and 
municipal reformer. He had been many 
times in England. He was present at the 
Medical Congress held in London in 1881. 
In the Croonian lecture, delivered before 
this Society in 1893, he reviewed, in his 
own masterly way, the progress of patho- 
logical physiology. Five years later he 
gave the Huxley lecture at the Charing- 
eross Medical School, when he took for his 
subject ‘Recent Advances in Physiology’; 
Lord Lister and Sir James Paget being 
present to do him honor. At the celebra- 
tion of his 80th birthday at Berlin, in 1901, 
the Royal. Society was represented by Lord 
Lister. Virchow was born in 1821. He 
was elected a foreign member of the Royal 
Society in 1884; eight years later the Royal 
Society conferred upon him their highest 


DECEMBER 19, 1902.] 


honor, awarding him the Copley medal. 
France lost in Alfred Cornu one of the 
most distinguished of her men of science. 
Possessed of rare perspicacity of intellect 
and of resourcefulness in experiment, by 
his numerous researches, especially in the 
domain of optics, he had won no mean 
place as an original contributor to science. 
On his part, Mme. Cornu wrote in a private 
letter that he especially appreciated and 
reciprocated the friendship and sympathy 
of his English colleagues. Cornu was born 
in 1841; he was elected a foreign member 
of this Society in 1884; he received the 
honorary degree of Doctor of Science from 
the University of Cambridge in 1899; and 
died, in the spring of this year, mourned 
and deeply regretted by the whole scien- 
tific world. It was with deep regret that 
he recorded the loss which the Society had 
sustained by the decease of Sir Frederick 
Abel, who held for many years a conspicu- 
ous position in the world of science, and 
in public life, in connection with technical 
education and the Imperial Institute. His 
services were recognized by a baronetey, 
by K.C.B., and by the G.C.V.O. In 1887 
he was awarded a Royal medal by. the 
Council. They had also to record with 
sorrow the death of Sir Henry Gilbert, the 


fellow-worker with the late Sir John Ben- 


net Lawes in the famous agricultural ex- 
periments carried on for a long series of 
years by them at Rothamsted. Dr. Glad- 
stone’s work was remarkable for its varied 
nature, and he was among the first to labor 
in the borderland between chemistry and 
physies. He was awarded the Davy medal 


in 1897. He was the first president of the - 


Physical Society, and later president of the 
Chemical Society, and he served on two 
Royal Commissions. 

After referring to the King’s illness and 
the special sympathy felt by the Society on 
account of his Majesty’s close relationship 
with them as a former Fellow and now 


SCIENCE. 


975 


their patron, their deep joy on his re- 
covery, and their satisfaction on the coro- 
nation of the King and Queen, the presi- 
dent said that the Prince of Wales, who 
was elected a Fellow eight years ago, was 
pleased to attend the ordinary meeting of 
the Society on February 6 for the purpose 
of being formally admitted into the So- 
ciety, introduced by Lord Salisbury, then 
Prime Minister. On that occasion the 
Prince said: ‘‘I am indeed proud that my 
name should be added to those on your il- 
lustrious roll, which has been inscribed by 
nearly every sovereign since the reign of 
Charles II. and by all of the most distin- 
guished men. of science since those days. 
I can assure you of my hearty sympathy 
with that scientific study and research 
which now, more than ever, has become so 
important and essential in our national 
life.’? They bade a hearty welcome to the 
new society which had recently received a 
royal charter for the organization and pro- 
motion of those branches of learning which, 
in foreign academies, were usually included 
in the philosophico-historical section. This 
new body, under its adopted title of ‘The 
British Academy for the Promotion of His- 
torical, Philosophical and  Philological 
Studies,’ would, they sincerely trusted, 
take a worthy place by the side of the older 
and very distinguished institutions, the 
Royal Society and the Royal Academy, in 
representing the intellectual activities of 
the kingdom, though, in accordance with 
the sentiments and habits of the national 
character, each society retained its com- 
plete independence, and was in no way sub- 
servient to the state. The present council 
having reaffirmed the view taken by the 
council of last year, that it would not be 
desirable to attempt to include the studies 
undertaken by the newly-formed body as 
an integral part of the work of the Royal 
Society, they might rejoice that they would 
now be cared for by an independent so- 


976 


ciety. Though the words of the charter 
granted by Charles II. were wide enough 
legally to include historical and _philo- 
sophical studies, yet, as a matter of fact, 
with some few exceptions in early days, 
the work of the Royal Society had been 
confined for two centuries and a half to 
the studies with which it was now occu- 
pied. It would be their pleasant duty, as 
the Acting Academy of the International 
Association of Academies, to recommend 
the new society for admission into the 
‘Association of Academies’ as the body 
representing philosophico-historical science 
in the United Kingdom. 

After referring to the National Antarctic 
Expedition, and the arrival of the Morn- 
ing in New Zealand, which place she was 
leaving this month in search of the Dis- 
covery, the president referred to the estab- 
lishment of a National Physical Labora- 
tory, the opening of which had taken place 
since the last anniversary. He then de- 
seribed the work of the Physikalisch-tech- 
nische Reichsanstalt, of Berlin, which was 
largely due to the scientific foresight of 
von Helmholtz. The original cost of the 
institute was over £200,000, and its yearly 
maintenance was not less than £17,000. 
During the five years that it had been at 
work its influence upon the science and the 
manufacturing interests of Germany had 
been most remarkable. It was, therefore, 
with feelings of high satisfaction that he 
had to record the opening in March last 
of a similar national institution in this 
eountry. The sum voted by the govern- 
ment for the physical laboratory, an insti- 
tution second to none in its national im- 
portance, was the very modest one of £13,- 
000 for the buildings and equipment, and 
an annual grant of £4,000 for five years in 
aid of the expenses of conducting the work 
of the institution. It was, therefore, ‘to 
the liberality of the public,’ as the Prince 
of Wales at the opening pointed out, ‘that 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Vout. XVI No. 416. 


we must look not only for money, but also 
for presents of machinery and other appli- 
ances.’ 

The supreme necessity in this country 
of a more systematic application of scien- 
tific methods, both in theory and in prac- 
tice, to our manufactures and industries, 
which was so wisely insisted upon by the 
Prince of Wales on the occasion of his ad- 
mission to the Fellowship of the Society, 
and again in his address at the opening of 
the National Laboratory, had since been 
confirmed and enforced in a remarkable 
way by the individual testimonies of thir- 
teen Fellows of this Society in the evidence 
which they recently gave from their own 
knowledge and experience, either as teach- 
ers of science or as leaders and technical 
advisers in manufactories or commercial 
undertakings, before a committee of the 
London Technical Board. The evidence 
seemed clear that the present mapprecia- 
tive attitude of our public men, and of the 
influential classes of society generally, 
towards scientific knowledge and methods 
of thought must be attributed to the too 
close adherence of our older universities, 
and through them of our public schools, 
and all other schools in the country down- 
wards, to the traditional methods of teach- 
ing of medieval times. With the experi- 
ence of Germany and the United States 
before us, the direction in which we should 
look for a remedy for this state of things 
would seem to be for both the teacher and 
the student to be less shackled by the 
hampering fetters of examinational re- 
strictions, and so for the professor to have 
greater freedom as to what he should 
teach, and the student greater freedom as 
to what line of study and research he might 
select as being best suited to his tastes and 
powers. In the United States the candi- 
date for the highest degree, Ph.D., must 
spend at least two years, after obtaining 
his bachelor degree, in carrying out an 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. | 


investigation in the field of his main object 
of study, and then submit the dissertation 
which embodied the results of his research. 
One way of bringing about reform in this 
direction would be to make individual re- 
search an indispensable condition of pro- 
eeeding to degrees higher than the B.A. 
The first steps in the direction of true re- 
form must be taken by the universities in 
the relaxation to some extent of the estab- 
lished methods and subjects of their exam- 
inations, which had been carried down 
with but little change from the Middle 
Ages. It was some satisfaction to know 
that a new section of the British Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science had 
been formed for the consideration and dis- 
cussion in detail of the reforms which were 
needed in the educational methods of the 
country. In the meanwhile much might 
be done provisionally by their Fellows, in 
their individual capacity, by stimulating 
and directing wisely the increased atten- 
tion which was now being given to science 
in all departments of life, and especially 
in fostering and extending the many tech- 
nical colleges and institutions which were 
being established in all parts of the coun- 
try. The fellows would view with no little 
satisfaction the fact that the King had 
been pleased to recognize the importance 
of science being represented on the highest 
judicial body in the kingdom by the ap- 
pointment of two of their fellows as privy 
councillors. 

The Copley medal was awarded to Lord 
Lister in recognition of the value of his 
physiological and pathological researches 
in regard to their influence on the modern 
practice of surgery. When in 1880 a Royal 
medal was awarded to him, it was acknowl- 
edged that his researches had ‘not only re- 
formed the whole art of surgery, but given 
a new impulse to medical science generally.’ 
‘The experience of another twenty years had 


SCIENCE. 


977 


written out. that judgment in still larger 
letters. Lister’s researches had made the 
world a wholly different world from what 
it was before. The Rumford medal was 
given to the Hon. Charles Algernon Parsons 
for his success in the application of the 
steam turbine to industrial purposes, and 
for its recent extension to navigation. The 
work of Mr. Parsons was of a kind which 
specially came under the terms and con- 
ditions of the Rumford medal, as consisting 
‘of new inventions and contrivances by 
which the generation and preservation and 
management of heat and of light may be 
facilitated’ and as ‘shall tend most to the 
good of mankind.’ By his invention and 
perfection of the steam turbine he had not 
only provided a prime mover of exceptional 
efficiency, working at a high speed without 
vibration, but had taken a step forward, 
which made an epoch in the history of the 
application of steam to industry, and which 
was probably the greatest since the time 
of Watt. A Royal medal was awarded to 
Professor Horace Lamb for his investiga- 
tions in mathematical physics. Professor 
Lamb had been conspicuous during the last 
twenty years by the extent and value of 
his contributions to mathematical physics. 
His writings had been distinguished by 
clearness, precision, and perfection of form. 
The other Royal medal was conferred upon 
Professor Edward Albert Schafer for his 
researches into the functions and minute 
structure of the central nervous system, 
especially with regard to the motor and 
sensory functions of the cortex of the brain. 
The Davy medal was awarded to Professor 
Svante August Arrhenius for his applica- 
tion of the theory of dissociation to the ex- 
planation of chemical change. It was not 
easy to over-estimate the importance of the 
service rendered to chemistry by Professor 
Svante Arrhenius through the publication 
of his memoir, presented to the Swedish 


978 


Academy of Sciences on June 6, 1883, en- 
titled ‘Recherches sur la Conductibilité 
Galvanique des Electrolytes.’ The Darwin 
“medal was conferred upon Mr. Francis 
Galton, F.R.S., for his numerous contribu- 
tions to the exact study of heredity and 
variation contained in ‘Hereditary Genius,’ 
“Natural Inheritance,’ and other writings. 
The work of Mr. Galton had long occupied 
a unique position in evolutionary studies. 
His treatise on ‘Hereditary Genius’ (1869) 
was not only what it claimed to be, the 
first attempt to investigate the special sub- 
ject of the inheritance of human faculty in 
a statistical manner and to arrive at numer- 
ical results, but in it exact methods were, 
for the first time, applied to the general 
problem of heredity on a comprehensive 
scale. It might safely be declared that no 
one living had contributed more definitely 
to the progress of evolutionary study, 
whether by actual discovery or by the fruit- 
ful direction of thought, than Mr. Galton. 
The Buchanan medal, awarded every five 
years for distinguished services to hygienic 
science or practice, was given to Dr. Sydney 
A. Monckton Copeman for his experimental 
investigations into the bacteriology and 
comparative pathology of vaccination. The 
Hughes medal was awarded to Professor 
Joseph John Thomson in recognition of his 
contributions to the advancement of elec- 
trical science, especially in connection with 
the phenomena of discharge 
through rarefied gases. By virtue of Pro- 
fessor Thomson’s own investigations, and 
of many others inspired and stimulated by 
him, this new field of knowledge had been 
widely extended, and it could hardly be 
doubted that the progress of this new de- 
partment of knowledge would gradually 
enable us to see one whole stage deeper into 
the sources of physical phenomena. 


electric 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 


RULES OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 


RELATIVE TO GRANTS FOR RESEARCH. 


Adopted Noy. 26, 1902.* 


(1) Applications for grants may be made 
at any time and should be addressed to the 
CarNnecig InstTITUTION, WASHINGTON, D. OC. 

(2) The Executive Committee will care- 
fully consider each application and decide 
upon it, but will not assign reasons for de- 
clining in cases where grants are deemed in- 
expedient. 

(3) When a grant is made the applicant 
will be promptly notified to that effect. 


(4) When a grant is declined the applicant 
will be promptly notified to that effect. 


(5) An account of all expenditures, accom- 
panied by detailed vouchers, must be rendered 
by the recipient from time to time as pay- 
ments are made, and a complete statement at 
the conclusion of the investigation. 


(6) All apparatus, books, and materials 
purchased with and all collections made by 
means of grants from the Carnegie Institution 
are the property of the Institution, are sub- 
ject to its disposition, and are to be accounted 
for. 

(7) A grant made for a specified purpose 
can be used for that purpose only. If the 
recipient desires to change in any manner the 
subject of his investigation, he should make 
an application, in the usual form, for a new 
grant. 


(8) Any part of an appropriation not needed 
for completing the investigation for which 
the grant was made shall be returned to the 
Institution. 

(9) Payments of grants will, in general, 
be made quarterly, but in special cases may be 
made more frequently. 


* These rules appear on back of Application printed 
On opposite page. 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. | SCIENCE. Gag) 
(CASON 1a, VINES TE TE QUIN 


APPLICATION FOR GRANT IN AID OF RESEARCH 


CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 
Washington, D. C. 
I hereby apply to the Carnegie Institution for a grant of $ 
for the purpose of conducting an investigation as follows : 
[Object of investigation concisely stated ; details, when necessary, in accompanying letter] 


[How proposed grant is to be expended] 


How payments are desired—/. e., whether in a single sum or in instalments, and at what dates 
P ) 


As to the above request, I agree that 

(1) Iwill enter upon the proposed research forthwith and prosecute it diligently. 

(2) I will place in the hands of the Secretary of the Institution on or before 
November 1, 190........, and at such other times as may be called for, a 
report of progress made and results achieved, with an itemized statement 
of expenditures. 

(3) I will not publish the results without first offering the manuscript to the 
Carnegie Institution for pwhlication. 

(4) When the results are published, I will make due acknowledgment of the 
aid given by the Carnegie Institution, and, if the results are not pub- 
lished by the Institution, I will furnish it, at my own cost, with four 
copies of the publication. 

(5) In case a grant is made, I will strictly conform to the rules printed on the 
back of this application. 


Respectfully submitted, 


[Naive] ee secre reces hod os Sean pil ARURIBL ce ey LE ieee cee ae 


[Address] tests cence a. tee 


EDO CHMEERR SEA SL 2 2 kee Se ae UID 6 [OVER 


* We reproduce, without comment, the form of contract that must be signed by men of science who apply 
for grants from the Carnegie Institution. 


98U 


SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

The Mind of Man: A Text-book of Psy- 
chology. By Gustav Sprinter. London, 
Swan Sonnenschein & Co.; New York, The 
Maemillan Co. 1902. Large 8vo. Pp. 552. 
Text-books in psychology that may be rec- 

ommended to the devotees of other sciences, 

- and that offer excellent starting points for 

the discussion of the living problems about 

which psychological progress centers, are the 
exception rather than the rule. When com- 
bined with this there is a decided originality 
of presentation and a freshness of outlook 
and a happy facility of illustration, the reeom- 
mendation may be made more emphatic. All 
of this is true of the work of Mr. Gustav 

Spiller. Apart from one or two articles in the 

philosophical periodicals, the author’s name 

is new to the psychological public; but the 
present volume will certainly make it a fa- 
miliar one in psychological discussion. 

With so many merits—and these not the 
usual ones—the volume has certain serious 
defects. The adoption of a strange and un- 
familiar, though intelligible, terminology ef- 
fects a slight gain in precision by the sacrifice 
of the greater good of the greater number, and 
really seems unnecessary to the purpose. The 
treatment of the opinions held by others is 
cavalierish, to say the least. It seems almost 
the foregone conclusion of the author that the 
current or the popular opinion on any topic 
is the wrong one; whatever is, is wrong. Only 
occasionally is the extreme form of this tend- 
ency manifest; usually it is tempered by a 
fair statement of the opinion current in the 
literature. And it should be added at once 
that the utilization of the literature of the 
field and the convenient arrangement of the 
bibliography add to the serviceableness of the 
whole. None the less the author’s bias in 
favor of the unusual and the neglected leads 
him more than once to underestimate the 
force of opposing views and to dwell too ex- 
clusively upon the evidence that appeals to his 
own bent. 

The opening blast prepares one for innova- 
tion. “I maintain not only that the element- 
ary principles of psychology have still to be 
established; but I believe that, from the sci- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 416. 


entific point of view, no serious attempt has 
yet been made in that direction.” Unchal- 
lenged tradition, imitative remodeling of cur- 
rent views, a defective sense of reality, have 
kept alive the opinions that influence psy- 
chology. The watchword of the moment is 
‘Back to observation.’ And the observation 
that is most fertile is that of trained introspec- 
tion. The introspective method is the psy- 
chological method and must ever remain so. 
Those who have questioned either its validity 
or its efliciency have been unaware of its 
possibilities in trained minds. It requires 
a skilful mechanic to use a complicated tool; 
and the psychologist has been the poor me- 
chanie laying the fault of his own defective 
insight upon the imperfection of his tool. 
“There is scarcely a passion so wild, or a 
dream so subtle, that a trained psychologist 
cannot collectively turn round and with free- 
dom inspect the related processes.” Experi- 
mental introspection is the key that will un- 
lock the real problems of psychology. 

The paramount doctrine of psychology is 
that mental processes are determined by needs; 
that the aspect of mental processes that should 
stand out boldest in the perspective, and 
should dominate every detail as well, is the 
functional one. Association, habit, memory, 
imagination, attention, all travel along the 
psychological highways in response to certain 
organic needs. The study of these needs is the 
study of psychology. “ Psychology treats of 
the nature and the satisfaction of those dis- 
tinetive needs which are connected with the 
central nervous system, and this it treats of 
in systematic conjunction with the system of 
sights, sounds, smells, ete., which are devel- 
oping concurrently; 7%. e., psychology treats 
of the needs which arise out of the relations 
of the various systems in the organism, and 
out of the relation of that organism to its 
environment.” 

Apart from this method of approach—which 
in many ways represents a view of the topic 
that others in writing and teaching are em- 
phasizing, though with different motive—it is 
likely that the book will carry more weight 
and more interest by reason of the skill with 
which the several chapters support their 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


themes. It is the fertility and pertinence of 
illustration, the masterly marshaling of facts, 
the discernment that detects the crucial points 
of difference and is not deceived by the 
current or surface view of things—these will 
be the traits that will measure the value of the 
work to the progress of psychology. Accord- 
ingly, the volume may be set down as one of 
those that has a literary style and a capacity 
to make the reader think. He will not always 
think as the writer does; but he will never 
listlessly muse as his eyes scan the pages, nor 
idly accept as dogma what is offered to his un- 
derstanding. 

The scope of the volume may be said to in- 
clude those phases of discussion that deal 
with thought as a whole; with the succession 
of waves of consciousness and the composition 
of these waves. Habit, memory, imagination, 
dreams, originality, language, reasoning, at- 
tention, willing, emotional and esthetic prod- 
ucts, are all subjects of chapters with head- 
ings the appropriateness of which the reader 
will recognize only as he proceeds. There 
is no detailed study of the senses nor of the 
nervous system; for it is maintained that sci- 
ence has progressed only so far that general 
illustrations of these alone find a place in the 
psychology now possible. The results of the 
experimental or laboratory psychology are re- 
garded as too incomplete and too artificial to 
modify more than incidentally the more vital 
considerations that flow from experimental 
introspection. Genetic sources are considered; 
though the topic is the mind of man, and 
thus deals but little with the minds of ani- 
mals. 

The opinion is frequently heard that, in 
spite of the enormously increased attention 
that is now given to psychological matters, 
and in spite of the conviction, only occasion- 
ally challenged, that psychological principles 
have great potency to guide the practical 
path of culture and education, yet so little 
that is tangible enough to be summarized and 
entered to the credit side of the progressive 
inventory of science can be written upon the 
pages allotted to psychology. Apart from the 
pertinent query as to how far such difficulty 
is itself significant, it may well be concluded 


SCIENCE. 


981 


that psychology might profit by a shaking up 
rather than by efforts to harmonize essentially 
opposed tendencies; that the time has come, 
not for repairing old clothes, but for making 
new ones. Those who feel that there is some 
force in such considerations, as well as many 
others whose interest in matters psychological 
is less comprehensive or less professional, will 
find much food for reflection—and food pleas- 
antly prepared and vigorous withal—in the 
pages of Mr. Spiller’s notable work. 
JOSEPH JASTROW. 


Archiv fiir Protistenkunde. Edited by Dr. 
Fritz ScHaupiInn in Rovigno, Istria. Jena, 
published by Gustay Fischer. Price, M. 24 
per Band. : 
In the future, as in the past, it is not im- 

probable that works dealing with the unicel- 
lular plants will continue to be published in 
botanical journals, and papers dealing with 
the bacteria will appear sometimes in one and 
sometimes in another, or that monographs on 
the Protozoa will still be brought out in strictly 
zoological periodicals. This will involve 
the continuation of an old_ bibliographical 
difficulty for those investigators whose prob- 
lems carry them into the more general aspects 
of the unicellular organisms. These diffi- 
culties may, however, be considerably lessened 
if students of the several groups mentioned 
would send their contributions to the Archiv 
fiir Protistenkunde. This is a journal de- 
voted exclusively to the publication of papers 
upon the unicellular organisms, and under the 
direction of one of the most capable students 
of these forms. It is sincerely to be hoped 
that the object of the new journal will be ful- 
filled, and that students of the unicellular 
plants and animals in America will interest 
themselves in the project and contribute to its 
support. 

Two numbers of the Archiv have already 
appeared, and the contents of the first give an 
adequate view of the scope of the periodical. 
In this there are six contributions which vary 
in Jength from two or three pages, as in 
Prowazek’s note on Trichomonas hominis, to 
nearly eighty pages in Lohmann’s excellent 
monograph on the Coccolithophorids or coc- 


982 


colith-forming Protozoa. The subject-matter 
is also varied, this first number for example 
containing the following contributions: 

1. ‘Die Protozoen und die Zelltheorie.’ An 
essay by Professor Richard Hertwig replete 
with excellent points and suggestive ideas. 

2. ‘Bemerkungen tiber Cyanophyeceen und 
Bacteriaceen.’ A special morphological paper 
by Professor Otto Biitschli on the nature of 
the so-called Centralkérper in certain species 
of Nostocacez and Bacteria. 

3. ‘ Beitrige zur Kenntnis der Colliden.’ A 


systematic paper by Professor Karl Brandt ~ 


on one of the orders of the Peripylarian 
Radiolaria. 

4. ‘Die Coccolithophoride.’ A morpholog- 
ical, and systematic paper by Dr. K. Lohmann 
on these little-known phytoflagellates. 

5. ‘Notiz tiber die Trichomonas hominis.’ 
A note by Dr. S. Prowazek on a human 
parasite. 

6. ‘Das System der Protozoen.’ <A proposed 
classification of the Protozoa by Dr. F. 
Doftein. 

The Archiv is to appear at irregular inter- 
vals and without set limits as to size. Con- 
tributions in English, German and French 
will be printed in these languages without 
German summaries. 

We heartily wish for the success which the 
new undertaking deserves. 


GUNA: 


SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 


The Journal of Physical Chemistry, No- 
vember. ‘Alloys of Lead, Tin and Bismuth,’ 
by E. S. Shepherd. <A quite complete study 
of these alloys, from which the conclusions 
are drawn that from them the tin erystallizes 
pure, but often in an unstable denser form; 
and that lead and bismuth form two series 
of solid solutions, in each case with contrac- 
tion. When the fused alloys are cooled fairly 
rapidly the saturation concentrations are not 
reached. A bibliography accompanies the 
_ paper. ‘Influence of the Solvent in Electro- 
lytic Conduction; by Harrison Eastman Pat- 
ten. A paper from the University of Wis- 
consin presenting the following conclusions 
among others: The lowering of the specific 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


electrical conductivity of non-aqueous solu- 
tions by addition of a pure solvent has been 
found to be approximately proportional to the 
number of gram-molecules of solvent added. 
Here is offered a new method for molecular 
weight determinations. Electrical conduc- 
tivity seems to be the resultant of: (1) The 
tendency of some molecules to transfer the 
charge produced by an impressed electro- 
motive force, and (2) the resistance offered 
to this transfer of charge by other molecules. 
Conduction of electricity by solutions depends 
upon the fact that a compound is formed by 
the solvent and solute when solution takes 
place. 


Tue Botanical Gazette for November con- 
tains the following papers: D. S. Johnson 
contributes additional morphological informa- 
tion in reference to the Piperacezx, describing 
the ovule, seed and fruit of Piper; the devel- 
opment and germination of the seed of Heck- 
eria;-and the germination of the seeds of 
Peperomia and Heckeria. The development 
of the ovary, ovule and embryo-sae in Piper 
and Heckeria differs widely in several respects 
from that found in the related genus Peper- 
omia. Piper and Heckeria differ strongly 
from one another in the formation of endo- 
sperm, which in the former begins with free 
nuclear division, and in the latter with cell 
formation. In germination the swelling of 
the endosperm and embryo bursts the seed 
coats and the endosperm protrudes through 
the rent as a sac which continues to surround 
the embryo until foot, root and cotyledons 
are differentiated. The author concludes that 
the aleurone containing endosperm of these 
forms acts as a digesting and absorbing ap- 
paratus for transferring the starch stored in 
He ealls atten- 
tion to several other genera in which a small 
amount of endosperm separates periplasm and 
embryo and seems to serve this function. 
Henry Kraemer discusses the structure of the 
starch grain, the results of his observations 
being that the starch grain consists of col- 
loidal and erystalloidal substances, these be- 
ing arranged for the most part in distinct and 
The reason that this struc- 


the perisperm to the embryo. 


separate lamelle. 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


ture is not apparent under natural conditions 
is because the refractive properties of the 
erystalloidal substances so nearly resemble 
those of the associated colloidal substances. 
Aven Nelson publishes his fourth ‘ Contribu- 
tions from the Rocky Mountain Herbarium,’ 
dealing with Chenopodiacex, Crategus, and a 
number of miscellaneous species. A number 
of new species are described and a new genus 
allied to Argemone is proposed. Alexander 
W. Evans describes a new liverwort (Diplo- 
phylleia apiculata) from the eastern United 
States. : 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 


THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE- 
MENT OF SCIENCE. 


Tur fifty-second annual meeting of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, and the first of the Convocation 
Week meetings, will be held in Washington, 
D. C., December 27, 1902, to January 38, 1903. 
The retiring president is Professor Asaph 
Hall, U.S.N., and the president elect, Presi- 
dent Ira Remsen, Johns Hopkins University. 
The permanent secretary is Dr. L. O. Howard, 
Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C., and the 
local secretary, Dr. Marcus Benjamin, Co- 
lumbian University, Washington, D. C. 
President Roosevelt is honorary president of 
the local committee. The preliminary pro- 
gram with information in regard to hotel 
headquarters, railway rates, ete., will be found 
in the issue of Scrence for November 21. 
The following scientific societies will meet at 
Washington in affiliation with the Association: 


The American Anthropological Association will 
hold its first regular meeting during Convocation 
Week in affiliation with Section H of the A. A. 
A. S. President, W J McGee; secretary, George 
A. Dorsey, Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, III. 

The American Chemical Society will meet on 
December 29 and 30. President, Ira Remsen; 
secretary, A. C. Hale, 352A Hancock street, 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

The American .Folk-lore Society will meet in 
affiliation with Section H of the A. A. A. S. 
President, George A. Dorsey; vice-presidents, J. 
Walter Fewkes, James Mooney; secretary, W. W. 
Newell, Cambridge, Mass. 


SCIENCE. 


985 


The American Microscopical Society will prob- 
ably hold a business meeting on December 29. 
President, E. A. Birge, Madison, Wis.; secretary, 
H. B. Ward, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 
Nebr. 

The American Morphological Society will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, H. C. Bumpus; 
vice-president, G. H. Parker; secretary and treas- 
urer, M. M. Metcalf, Woman’s College, Baltimore, 
Ma. ; 

The American Philosophical Association will 
meet on December 30 and 381 and January 1. 
Secretary, H. N. Gardiner, Northampton, Mass. 

The American Physical Society will meet in 
affiliation with Section B of the A. A. A. S. 
President, Albert A. Michelson; secretary, Ernest 
Merritt, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 

The American Physiological Society will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, R. H. Chit- 
tenden; secretary, F. S. Lee, Columbia University, 
New York, N. Y. 

The American Psychological Association will 
meet on December 30 and 31 and January 1. 
President, E. A. Sanford; secretary and treasurer, 
Livingston Farrand, Columbia University, New 
York, N. Y. 

The, American Society of Naturalists will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, J. McK. 
Cattell; vice-presidents, C. D. Walcott, L. 0. 
Howard, D. P. Penhallow; secretary, R. G. Har- 
rison, Johns Hopkiris University, Baltimore, Md. 

The Association of American Anatomists will 
meet on December 30 and 31. President, G. S. 
Huntington; vice-president, D. S. Lamb; secre- 
tary and treasurer, G. Carl Huber, University of 
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 

The Association of Economic Entomologists will 
meet’ on December 26 and 27. President, E. P. 
Felt; secretary, A. L. Quaintance, College Park, 
Md. 

The Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of 
America will meet during Convocation Week, in 
affiliation with Section A of the A. A. A. S. 
President, Simon Newcomb; secretary, George C. 
Comstock, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 

The Botanical Society of America will meet on 
December 31 and January 1. President, B. T. 
Galloway; secretary, D. T. MacDougal, New York 
City. 

The Botanists of the Central and Western States 
will meet on December 30. Committee in charge 
of the meeting, John M. Coulter, University of 
Chicago; D. M. Mottier, University of Indiana, 
Bloomington, Ind.; Conway MacMillan, Univer- 
sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 


984 


The Geological Society of America will meet on 
December 29, 30 and 31. President, N. H. Win- 
chell; vice-presidents, S. F. Emmons, J. C. Bran- 
ner; secretary, H. L. Fairchild, University of 
Rochester, Rochester, N. Y. 

The National Geographic Society will hold a 
meeting during Convocation Week. President, 
A. Graham Bell; vice-president, W J MeGee; 
secretary, A. J. Henry, U. S. Weather Bureau, 
Washington, D. C. 

The Naturalists of the Central States will meet 
on December 30 and 31. Chairman, S. A. Forbes; 
secretary, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago, 
Chicago, Ill. 

The Society of American Bacteriologists will 
meet on December 30 and 31. President, H. W. 
Conn; vice-president, James Carroll; secretary, E. 
0. Jordan, University of Chicago, Chicago, IIl.; 
council, W. H. Welch, Theobald Smith, H. L. 
Russell, Chester, Pa. 

The Society for Plant Morphology and Physiol- 
ogy will meet during Convocation Week. Presi- 
dent, V. M. Spalding; vice-president, B. D. 
Halsted; secretary and treasurer, W. F. Ganong, 
Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 

The Society for the Promotion of Agricultural 
Science will meet during Convocation Week. 
President, W. H. Jordan; secretary, F. M. Web- 
ster, Urbana, Ill. 

The Zoologists of the Central and Western 
- States will meet during Convocation Week. 
President, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago. 


THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 


At the 132d meeting of the society, held 
in Washington, November 12, the following 
papers were presented: 

‘A Deposit of ‘Titanic Iron Ore from Wy- 
oming,’ by W. Lindgren. 

Recent and very valuable studies of deposits 
of titanic iron ores have been contributed by 
Kemp and Vogt. <A perusal of these works 
led to the publication of the following note 
on Iron Mountain, Wyoming, which locality 
I visited in 1896. 

Most of the deposits of titanic iron ore form 
irregular masses or fairly sharply outlined 
streaks in gabbro, or still more commonly in 
anorthosite (labradorfels). Distinet_ dikes, 
undoubtedly indicating separate igneous in- 
jection of molten magma of titanic iron ore, 
have, however, also been described by Kemp 
from the Calamity Brook district in the Adi- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


, 


rondacks, and by Vogt from near Ekersund, 
Norway, and the locality in Wyoming is 
chiefly interesting as belonging to this type. 

Iron Mountain is situated in the south- 
eastern part of Wyoming, about forty miles 
north of Cheyenne, and in the foothills of 
the Laramie Hills. It is eight miles west of 
the railroad station of Iron Mountain. The 
rocks prevailing here are chiefly Paleozoia 
limestones and sandstones, in rolling folds, 
and these continue for six or seven miles up 
Chugwater Creek. The dips here become 
steeper and the underlying pre-Cambrian 
rocks appear. As far as my observations 
went they consist exclusively of a labradorite 
rock of coarse grain which forms rough gray 
outcrops. The rock ean scarcely be called « 
gabbro, for the pyroxene grains are very 
sparingly distributed. It contains very little 
magnetite or ilmenite. Going up one mile 
farther, the chief deposit is encountered; it 
crosses the canyon of the Chugwater as a solid 
dike 100 to 200 feet wide, and can be seen 
extending up several hundred feet in elevation 
on both sides of the creek. The mass is said 
to be traceable for half a mile north and 
south of Chugwater Creek. The amount of 
iron ore in sight is most remarkable. The 
contacts are not exposed to best possible ad- 
vantage, but have the appearance of being 
sharp and well defined. The black titanic 
iron ore seems entirely pure and free from 
accompanying minerals; at least a search 
along the base of the outcrop revealed no 
other constituents of the mass. 

About 400 feet below the main deposit there 
is exposed in the southern wall of the canyor 
a smaller dike only about ten feet wide. The 
contacts are well exposed and show a medium 
grained gray labradorite rock abutting sharply 
against the dike of titanic iron ore. The 
dike does not continue on the north side of 
the canyon, the bottom of which is filled with 
considerable débris. The greater part of the 
width of the dike is composed of massive 
titano-magnetite; but adjoining the western 
contact the iron ore for a width of one or 
two feet contains large, imperfect crystals of 
olivine imbedded in a cementing mass of the 
black mineral. This association of olivine 


DECEMBER 19, 1902.] 


and titano magnetite is somewhat unusual; 
Professor Vogt, in fact, declares that it is 
not known to occur (Z. f. Prakt. Geol., 1900, 
p. 292) in the differentiated ores. The black 
mineral immediately adjoining the olivines 
contained, upon qualitative test, a large 
amount of titanium. 

This locality has been described by Mr. 
Arnold Hague in Vol. II. of the ‘ Reports of 
the Survey of the 40th Parallel,” pp. 12-16, 
but the county rock as described by him is a 
reddish granite, an analysis of which is given. 
Evidently the points where Mr. Hague saw the 
deposit were not the same as the locality here 
described, for the dike, as noted, extends over 
a considerable distance. The only granitic 
rock observed at the place described was a 
small, dike-like mass of fine-grained biotite- 
granite on the north side of the canyon, nearly 
opposite the smaller dike of iron ore. 

A review of the available facts relating to 
this interesting locality, which merits further 
investigation, is to be found in J. F. Kemp’s 
‘Brief Review of the Titaniferous Magne- 
tites’ in School of Mines Quarterly, Vol. 
XX., No. 4, 1899. 

The analysis of the titano-magnetite by J. 
P. Carson (F. V. Hayden, U. 8S. Geol. Surv. 
Terr., 1870, p. 14) gives the following result: 


ISHO)s. ore: hareeb: ce Laan ee 76 
sO seen ri cleans wee 23.49 
UNILO}s As Been eae IRN eeee 3.98 
(GPO So bis Sealeerenne Re aes 2.45 
TOOK” 6 § Salo absceeeate Nene 45.03 
He OMe cmt Snes aoe 17.98 
Min OS tian sane 1.38 
No OME Reis. ee: 0,3, Se 1.56 
CAO pee nig ee oes 1.16 
TEA Oa a6 Rete ESE CER RE Tr. 
Sees iors eek ancscistacns 1.44 
YANO) 5: G3 otk Bae ele SOA tee AT 
99.78 
LIND) 6's 976 acl Ota eae eee ee 45.49 % 


Noteworthy is the large percentage of sul- 
phur, indicating the presence of sulphides, 
none of which was, however, observed in the 
specimens. Further, the notable percentage 
of zine, a metal very unusual in the titano- 
magnetites. There is also an unusually large 
amount of OCr,O, present. 


SCIENCE. 


985 


Mr. Alfred H. Brooks presented a paper 
entitled ‘A Reconnaissance in the Mt. Me- 
Kinley Region, Alaska,’ which was the pre- 
liminary announcement of the results of an 
exploration made during the past season. 

Alaska is divisible into the same four geo- 
graphic provinces as those of western Canada 
and the United States, which are the Pacific 
Mountain System, the Central Plateau Re- 
gion, the Rocky Mountain System, and the 
Arctic Plain Region. The area investigated 
lay in the first of these two provinces. 

The Pacific Mountain System is made up 
of a number of distinct ranges, of which the 
rugged Alaskan lies farthest inland and is the 
highest, embracing Mt. McKinley, the highest 
peak on the continent. It extends in a north- 
easterly and easterly direction from the vicin- 
ity of Lake Clarke to the Tanana River, sep- 
arating the Cook Inlet drainage on the south 
from the Kuskokwim and Yukon waters on 
the north. The crest line of the range lies 
near its western and northern side, where the 
mountains fall off abruptly to a gravel-covered 
plateau which slopes down to the Kuskokwim 
lowland. The southern slope of the range 
also rises rather abruptly from the Sushitna 
Valley lowland. 

A journey of some eight hundred miles was 
made on foot, while a pack train of twenty 
horses was employed to transport the provi- 
sions and equipment of a party of seven men. 
The expedition left Tyonok, Cook Inlet, on 
June 1, and, taking a northerly course, reached 
the mouth of the Keechatna a month later; 
then turning westward, crossed the Alaskan 
Range by an unmapped pass to Kuskokwim 
waters. Thence the route northeastward, 
along the western base of the great Alaskam 
Range, was traversed to the Cantwell River. 
An exploration of the headwaters of the left 
fork of the Cantwell was made and then the 
party turned northward across the Tanana and’ 
reached the Yukon at Rampart on Septem- 
ber 15. 

The continuous instrumental survey of the: 
whole route forms a connecting link between: 
a number of reconnaissance surveys which 
had been made in previous years by the Geo- 
logical Survey. Much interesting and val- 


986 


uable data were obtained in regard to the 
northern and western front of the Alaskan 
Range, which had. not previously been ex- 
plored. The position and altitude (the latter 
with a probable error of not over 100 feet) 
was determined by Mr. D. L. Reaburn, topog- 
rapher of the expedition. It is of interest 
to note that Mt. McKinley is definitely de- 
termined to be over 20,000 feet and Mt. For- 
aker 17,000 feet. 

The notes and specimens having not yet 
been studied, but few statements can be made 
in regard to the bed-rock geology, which is 
complex and embraces terranes from the Si- 
lurian to the Carboniferous. 

The oldest terranes were found in the 
northern part of the area, and consist of a 
metamorphosed conglomerate,: often having a 
gneissic phase. The lowest member of this 
series is not distinguishable from a true 
Archean gneiss and it possibly belongs to a 
erystalline basal complex. Overlying the con- 
glomerate, a slate and phyllite series was 
found, succeeded by limestones and_ slates 
and arenaceous beds carrying Ordovician fos- 
Devonian limestones were found widely 
distributed. The Paleozoic rocks are in- 
tensely folded and faulted. At least one, and 
probably two, unconformities occur within the 
Paleozoic, one near the base of the Devonian 
and a second probably in the Silurian. 

In the southern part of the area there is 
a vast thickness of shales, slates, grits and 
sandstones, in which Jurassic fossils were 
found. These were, in the section studied, 
well exposed across the range. This series 
thins out to the northward, and near the 
Tanana is entirely wanting. It is overlaid 
unconformably by sandstones, conglomerates 
and shales, which carry coals. The plant re- 
mains from these beds, studied by Dr. F. H. 
Knowlton, show it to be of Arctie Miocene 
or Eocene age. These Tertiary beds have a 
limited development in the southern part of 
the belt, but thicken to the northward. On 
the Cantwell a section of 3,000 feet was mea- 
sured. The only other consolidated beds 
found in the region were some lignitic bear- 
ing friable sandstones, which were found in 
the southern part of the belt. These aggre- 


sils. 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


gate probably not over 200 feet and are prob- 
ably of late Tertiary age. 

Among the plentiful intrusive rocks there 
are two important lines of granite, one east 
of the mountains along the axis of the Sush- 
itna Valley, and a second along the axis of 
the Alaskan Range, where the highest peaks, 
such as Mt. McKinley and Mt. Foraker, are 
probably chiefly made up of granite. Various 
other granular rocks occur as dikes and stocks. 

Extrusive rocks are found along both flanks 
of the range, but do not seem to compose the 
range itself. They are mainly of post-Eocene 
age. The active voleanoes of the Aleutian 
Islands and the Alaskan Peninsula do not ex- 
tend into the region under discussion, though 
some of their ejecta are found mingled with 
the recent alluvial deposits. 

Evidence of glaciation is abundant in the 
region south of the Tanana Valley. Glacial 
till and erratics were found along the western 
shore of Cook Inlet, and are closely associated 
with stratified sands and gravels. The foot- 
hills of the main range, 2,000 feet high, forty 
miles inland, were found glaciated, and, going 
westward into the mountains, the upper limit 
of glaciation was found at an altitude of about 
4,000 feet. On the north side the base of the 
mountains is glaciated and the valleys up to 
4,000 or 5,000 feet wide. On both sides of 
the range there are heavy gravel deposits, 
which mantle the base of the mountains. 
These are interpreted as overwash deposited 
during the retreat of the ice. Remnants of 
this greater ice sheet are to be found in the 
glaciers which now occupy many of the higher 
valleys, on both slopes of the Alaskan Range. 

Aurrep H. Brooks, 
Secretary. 


BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 


THE: 861st meeting was held on Saturday, 
November 29. 

William Palmer discussed the ‘ Variation 
of the Downy Woodpecker in Eastern Mary- 
land and Virginia.’ The speaker showed the 
extent of variation of the white markings of 
the wing coverts of the two subspecies found 
in the above region, as well as that of inter- 
grading individuals. Dryobates pubescens 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


and Dryobates pubescens medianus were 
stated to intergrade along the western side of 
tide water in the region named, and the 
range of medianus was extended from South 
Carolina to this section. 

Vernon Bailey spoke of ‘Sleepy Grass and 
its Effects on Horses,’ stating that this grass 
grew luxuriantly in some sections of the Cali- 
fornia Sierras. Horses eating this grass were 
rendered very drowsy for several days, and 
it was reported that in some instances they 
were temporarily too sleepy for use. The 
effects gradually wore off, and it was said that 
horses or cattle having eaten this grass would 
not do so a second time. 

F. V. Coville described ‘The Use of Sage- 
brush among the Klamath Indians of Oregon’ 
and illustrated by experiment the manner in 
which it was employed to make fire by fric- 
tion. The reason that sagebush was partic- 
ularly adapted for this purpose was due to 
the fact that the rings of growth were not of 
uniform texture, some being soft, others hard. 
Owing to this the end of a piece of this wood 
did not wear smooth, but remained rough, 
causing continued friction, and eventually pro- 
ducing enough heat to light the very dry bark 
employed in place of tinder. 

O. F. Cook presented a paper on ‘ The Func- 
tion of Latex in the Central American Rubber 
Tree,’ presenting incidentally much informa- 
tion as to the habits of the tree and the pro- 
duction of rubber. It was stated that, while 
the tree throve in moist climates, this was not 
favorable to the yield of rubber, which was 
-greatest after a dry season, and lack of ac- 
quaintance with this fact led to the attempt 
to cultivate rubber trees in unsuitable local- 
ities. From observation of this and plants 
with similar sap it was inferred that an im- 
portant function of the latex was to check 
evaporation. F, A. Lucas. 


THE RESEARCH CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
MICHIGAN. 

Tue Club met on the evening of November 
19 and listened to papers by Professors John 
A. Fairlie and S. L. Bigelow. 

Dr. Fairlie discussed the Ohio situation in 
the relation of legislative enactments for 


SCIENCE. 


987 


municipal government; and Dr. Bigelow spoke 
on ‘ The Passage of a Direct Current through 
an Electrolyte when the Electromotive Force 
Applied is Small.’ The speaker stated that 
every attempt to determine Le Blane’s de- 
composition points shows that small currents 
pass before such a point is reached. Attempts 
to account for these currents by means of 
polarization phenomena, including the idea 
of electric ‘double layers,’ by Nernst’s 
osmotic theory, and by Helmholtz’s ‘ convec- 
tion currents,’ were shown to be unsatisfactory. 
A new theory was suggested: that a gas 
(hydrogen or oxygen) on dissolving becomes 
differentiated to a certain extent into mole- 
cules with plus charges and molecules with 
minus charges which then act as carriers of 
electrical energy. Facts already known and 
new experimental evidence were adduced in 
favor of this view. It was further proposed to 
apply Thompson’s corpuscular theory to solu- 
tions, a justification for this being found in 
the close analogies known to exist between 
substances in dilute solution and in the gase- 
ous condition, and Thompson’s theory was con- 
sidered preferable to. the theory of electrons 
as stated by Nernst. It was pointed out that 
this theory would account for the currents pass- 
ing at low voltage, and possibly for conduction 
in solutions whose boiling and freezing points 
fail to indicate corresponding dissociation. It 
was expressly stated that this new idea does 
not conflict with the dissociation theory, but 
rather serves to support it, offering a plaus- 
ible explanation of some apparent exceptions. 

The article will appear in the December 
number of the Journal of Physical Chemistry. 

Freperick C. Newcomss, 
Secretary. 


DISCUSSION AND OORRESPONDENCE. 
THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 


To tue Epiror or Science: Munificent as 
is the endowment of the Carnegie Institu- 
tion, it is safe to assume that most of the 
good things proposed for science in the official 
plans will be enjoyed only by future genera- 
tions; important results can be attained on 
the probable income, but not results in many 
directions. It may be, too, that some of the 


988 


proposals le near to the founder’s heart, 
enough of them to exhaust most of the avail- 
able resources. One thus feels some hesi- 
tancy in making suggestions, for fear the 
trustees are committed in piety to all they 
ean ‘broadly and liberally’ carry forward. 

But there is one possible group of enter- 
prises of no little importance, that has re- 
ceived little direct mention. There are, 
namely, a number of scientific undertakings, 
some highly interesting in theory, some vitally 
useful in practice, and many both the one and 
the other, that can hardly be entered into by 
university teachers, and can be entered into 
by other scientists only under great disad- 
vantages. ‘At least this is true under present 
conditions, and will continue to be true until 
some broadly founded and liberally managed 
institution shows, by successful example, how 
such things should be done. 

I refer to broad, complex, and, in many 
instances, very practical problems, whose solu- 
tion depends in each case on the aceumula- 
tion and skilled synthesis and re-synthesis of 
data falling within the fields of a number of 
different sciences. It is true that all sciences 
are compelled in these days to poach on their 
neighbors’ preserves. But in some cases the 
facts must be sought, not mainly in one do- 
main, and only exceptionally in others, but 
about equally in a number of different scien- 
tific domains, and they ean be properly gath- 
ered from each domain and digested only by 
men of special aptitude and training. For 
an investigation of this type there is need of 
a foree of workers, each skilled in a par- 
ticular science, and all organized and _ co- 
operating for a common end, a condition that 
does not exist in universities, and exists only 
rarely and to a limited extent in other scien- 
tific foundations. Such organized bodies of 
men are needed to deal with the problems of 
temperance, of crime, of marriage and di- 
vorce, of pauperism, ete., and also to deal 
with the broader problems of ethics, within 
whose scope all these problems and many 
more are included. They are also needed by 
anthropology, in the broadest sense of the 
word, by sociology—which will probably never 
be a science till the need is supplied—and, 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 416 


finally, by metaphysics, to which the same re- 
mark applies. 

The greatest defect of science is probably 
lack of organization, and until the defect is 
remedied, large investigations cannot be suc- 
cessfully undertaken. Its realm is no doubt 
minutely subdivided, like, say, the land of 
France, so that each worker enthusiastically 
farms his own little patch. But specialization 
is only one factor in organizatiop, not the 
whole of it. Mutual aid, cooperation among 
workers is the other indispensable factor, and 
of that little is to be found among scientific 
men. The amount of highly trained brain 
substance that is used up in activities that 
merely call for the intelligence of a clerk, or 
even of a machine, is simply appalling. 
Little more than a dozen investigators at 
our universities have a clerk or stenographer, 
and I know of none who has at his dis- 
posal specialists in other scientific depart- 
ments. Each attends to all his needs, from 
blacking his boots and writing with his hand, 
to gathering all his facts, with the aid of a 
few advanced students in the most favored 
eases, and thinking out his conclusions. Pro- 
fessor Miinsterberg is right in asking larger 
salaries for scientific workers, though their 
portion in this respect is not intolerable. 
But their acute financial need is not private, 
but official; they need money to put into their 
work and make it truly efficient; to pay for 
labor-saving devices, to buy equipment, to 
hire clerks, to employ well-trained specialists 
as assistants. Science is organized as indus- 
try was during the later Middle Ages, when 
each smith hammered at his own forge, and 
every other worker labored alone, or with a 
few apprentices, at his workshop. It should 
be organized, at least for attack on the larger 
problems, as industry is to-day, where one 
organization, by the aid of many devices and 
of all necessary experts, begins with the raw 
material and ends with the finished product. 
Naturally, scientifie organization will have its 
own problems, and it can not hope for a 
long time to be by any means as complete 
as industrial organizations, but a beginning 
should be made as soon, and under as favor- 


able conditions, as possible. It is about as 


\ 


DECEMBER 19, 1902.] 


reasonable to ask our scientists to-day to solve 
large problems, as it would be to furnish Mr. 
Schwab a coal and an iron mine, and ask him 
and a few miners to turn out a steel rail or 
a Baldwin locomotive. 

If the Carnegie Institution would thor- 
oughly organize bodies of workers in a few 
fields too large and complex for our present 
resources and methods, and furnish them 
with adequate supplies of all kinds, it would 
avoid duplication, and would, I venture to 
believe, set an inspiring example to our pres- 
ent scientific institutions, and attain reliable 
and relatively complete results of high value. 
And assuredly an institution founded by one 
of the foremost organizers of industry could 
do no better for science than to aid in its 


organization. S. E. Mezes. 
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. 


To tue Eprror or Science: With the ac- 
cumulation of valuable papers from men of 
science in regard to the disbursement of the 
fund of the Carnegie Institution so as best 
to advance human knowledge, it has occurred 
to me that, as these papers have all been writ- 
ten by teachers or authors, it might not be 
out of place for a collector of facts (who 
has helped increase our knowledge of the ex- 
tinct life of the earth during thirty-five years 
spent in the fossil fields of the West) to make 
a few remarks on this interesting topic, even 
though the years of early manhood were 
spent in the field and not the university. 
From long experience I can testify to the 
difficult life-work of a collector in America, 
when he gives all that he has to the advance- 
ment of pure science, and can well appreciate 
the remark of Professor E. D. Cope when he 
said to me several years ago: ‘ After us there 
will be more demand for our wares.’ Though 
I have fared better than some collectors, and 
have usually received credit for my discov- 
eries, yet it has grieved me that I had to 
send a large number of my most valuable 
collections of Permian and Cretaceous verte- 
brates to Munich, for lack of proper support 
and encouragement at home. And though 
the words of commendation from such a noted 
authority as Dr. von Zittel are very pleasant 


SCIENCE. 


989 


to receive, when he writes me my collections 
from Kansas and Texas are the best in 
Europe, and that they will be an everlasting 
memorial to my name, I am an American, and 
it has hurt me to see treasures that are of 
greater value than anything man’s fingers or 
brains have created leave our shores forever. 
Now, as thirty-five years have been devoted to 
the advancement of historical geology with 
little hopes of ever receiving financial consid- 
erations for my life-work, and, judging the 
future by the past, many more of my fossils 
will cross the Atlantic, as did a fine skeleton 
of a Kansas mosasaur I sent the British Mu- 
seum last month, I want to ask that the Car- 
negie Institution take measures, if it lies in 
their power, to stop this fearful drain on our 
natural resources and retain in American 
institutions the wonderfully preserved records 
of the Almighty in the rocks of America. 
I have little doubt but that specimens have 
left our country that can never be. duplicated. 
I remember that the only fine specimen T 
ever found of a Cretaceous shark, about 
twenty-five feet long, now rests in Munich. 
Owing to the cartilaginous nature of the 
bones it is rare indeed to find the whole col- 
umn preserved. 

Not only should all the valuable fossils re- 
main in our country, but the fossil hunter of 
the future should have better material re- 
turns for his labor than has been my lot. 
Professor Edward Orton once wrote me that 
the work of collecting was a pleasant avoca- 
tion, but as yet would not do as a vocation. 
I have often thought he was right when I 
have had to struggle for means to keep at 
work so I could continue through life to add 
to the store of historical facts. This state of 
affairs should cease in the United States, and 
the Carnegie Institution could do no better 
with the fund left in their charge in ad- 
vancing science than first to retain in Ameri- 
can institutions the extinct fossils that make 
up the ancient life histories of the earth. 
And second to properly reimburse men who 
will give their lives, if necessary, to accumu- 
late facts in paleontology, and prepare them 
for scientific study. I hold it as self-evident 
that there can be no advancement of the sci- 


990 


ence without the collections; that if they are 
made men will come to study and describe 
them. Thousands of pages of paleontological 
literature are worthless because paleontologists 
have attempted to restore animals they never 
saw from a few broken bones of the skeletons 
—a thing that is absolutely impossible. So 
also is it burdened with species after species 
described from fragments, when perfect speci- 
mens are found, many of them resolved into 
one. Such work is worse than labor lost. 
Nature makes no mistakes and a perfect speci- 
men is of more value than many books describ- 
ing poor or imperfect material. 
Crarues H. STERNBERG. 
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, 
November 6, 1902. 


Tuat the Carnegie Institution should, 
above all, accomplish work not being done 
elsewhere is the one proposition in this sym- 
posium which has not met with disagreement. 
The establishment of a vivarium for experi- 
mental evolution meets this requirement. It 
is no longer necessary to urge the value of 
such an institution. I shall only try to 
show why work in experimental evolution 
has been retarded and how a well-equipped 
and well-supported vivarium will make pos- 
sible great development in this direction. 

There is not lacking ability, interest or 
desire to do this kind or work. It is the lack 
of facilities which prevents effort. The re- 
sources of the agricultural experiment sta- 
tions are not available, because they are re- 
stricted to economic problems. Experiments 
in evolution are beyond the means of the un- 
assisted worker for the following reasons: 

1. Expense-—A barn, a greenhouse and a 
large and adequately protected garden are 
required. Moreover, the collection of ma- 
terial would sometimes require the expense 
of traveling. 

2. Time.—Every-day year-around attention 
is impossible for most college teachers, who 
are generally absent from time to time for 
lectures, meetings -and vacations, and who 
cannot afford to employ a reliable and skilled 
assistant to carry on the routine work in their 
absence. 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


3. Permanence——Such experiments often 
need to be continued through many years, 
some even indefinitely. This is very difficult 
in a university where such work would most 
likely be attempted, because it would be by 
the energy of but one man who might at any 
time be called to another position. 

One must further consider that effort in 
such a vivarium must be vastly more pro- 
ductive than equal effort from individual in- 
vestigators, for the following reasons: 

1. Division of Labor.—Since much of the 
labor involved is of a routine nature which 
can be carried on by a skilled gardener or at- 
tendant, the results will be of greater value 
because experiments involving numbers can 
be carried out on a large scale and more prob- 
lems can be undertaken. 

2. Superiority of Equipment—The equip- 
ment would be of the best, thus insuring more 
and better results. Accidents resulting from 
improvised or inadequate apparatus or ar- 
rangements have spoiled many experiments; 
witness the work upon breeding insect larve. 

Let us hope that the Carnegie Institution 
will seize the opportunity of aiding in putting 
evolution at last on an inductive basis. 

Roswett H. JouHNnson. 


One respect in which German chemists have 
an important advantage over most Americans 
is that many of them work with the aid of 
private assistants. These assistants are usu- 
ally thoroughly trained men who have already 
taken the doctor’s degree. They have no 
duties as instructors or otherwise in connec- 
tion with teaching. 

In a few cases American chemists having 
independent means have employed men to aid 
them in their researches, but, with very rare 
exceptions, colleges or universities have not 
used their funds for such a purpose. If pri- 
vate assistants were furnished, who should 
work exclusively in carrying out experimental 
researches under the direction of some of those 
chemists who have already done good, inde- 
pendent work, large results would, undoubt- 
edly, be obtained. It is difficult to see how 
in any other way so much could be accom- 
plished toward furthering chemical research. 

W. A. Noyes. 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


THE ONONDAGA LAKE SQUIDS. 


Since sending my note concerning the 
alleged discoveries of squids in Onondaga Lake 
I have learned through Principal Wilson of 
the Putnam School at Syracuse that a third 
specimen is said to have been secured at a 
time, I should infer, before the other two were 
taken. This story, however, has not been 
traced to its starting point. Much more in- 
teresting, as apparently corroborative testi- 
mony of the existence of these creatures in 
Onondaga Lake, is the circumstantial rela- 
tion given to me by Professor J. M. Scott, 
teacher of sloyd in the Syracuse Public 
Schools, a son of Principal W. H. Scott of 
the Porter School. On reading the accounts 
and seeing the cuts of the squids alleged to 
have been taken by Mr. Terry, as printed in 
the Syracuse Herald, he was reminded of a 
find of his own, in regard to which he writes 
me as follows: 

“Some twelve or thirteen years ago a 
number of boys, of whom I was one, were 
fishing just to the left of the outlet and had 
a small scoop net for catching crabs and 
minnows. Another lad and myself went 
ashore, and in fooling around in the mud near 
the shore looking for crabs I saw something 
queer and got it in the net. We took it to 
an old man who claimed to be a sailor and he 
told us it was a squid. Not knowing it was 
of any value whatever, we amused ourselves 
with it awhile and left it in the water after 
having killed it. I have since thought it was 
a queer find.” Joun M. CrarKe. 


THE FOSSIL TREE BRIDGE IN THE ARIZONA PETRI- 
FIED FOREST. 


To Tue Eprror or Science: I have recently 
learned from a friend who has visited the 
petrified forest in Arizona that the famous 
natural bridge is in danger of being washed 
away. It consists of a log spanning a gully 
about twenty feet in width and from ten to 
twelve feet in depth. Each end of the log 
ig embedded in sandstone formed of the 
original deposit. Spring rains in recent 
years have widened the gully, and threaten 
to demolish the natural abutments. I write 


SCIENCE. 


991 


to call the attention of the readers of Scmnor 
to the matter, hoping that some one may be 
in a position to influence the authorities in 
that section of Arizona to take some steps to 
preserve this remarkable tree. 
Henry F. Ossorn. 
AmeERICAN Musrum or Natura History. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 


MENDEL’S PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY AND THE 
MATURATION OF THE GERM-CELLS. 


In view of the great interest that has been 
aroused of late by the revival and extension 
of Mendel’s principles of inheritance it is 
remarkable that, as far as I am aware, no one 
has yet pointed out the clue to these principles, 
if it be not an explanation of them, that is 
given by the normal cytological phenomena of 
maturation; though Guyer and Juel have sug- 
gested a possible correlation between the 
variability or sterility of hybrids and ab- 
normalities in the maturation-divisions, while 
Montgomery has recognized the essential fact 
in the normal cytological phenomena, though 
without bringing it into relation with the 
phenomena of heredity. Since two investi- 
gators, both students in this University, have 
been led in different ways to recognize this 
elue or explanation, I have, at their sugges- 
tion and with their approval, prepared this 
brief note in order to place their independent 
conclusions in proper relation to each other 
and call attention to the general interest of 
the subject. 

Bateson, in his recent admirable little book 
on Mendel’s principles, is led to express the 
surmise that the symmetrical result in the 
offspring of cross-bred forms ‘ must correspond 
with some symmetrical figure of distribution 
of gametes in the cell-divisions by which they 
are produced’ (p. 30). It is needless to re- 
mind eytologists that the study of the matura- 
tion-mitoses, especially in the case of arthro- 
pods, has revealed a mechanism by which such 
a symmetrical distribution may be effected; for 
the germ-cells in the great majority of cases 
arise in groups of fours, formed by two 
divisions, of which one is in many cases de- 
scribed as differing in character from the ordi- 


992 


nary somatic mitoses in that it separates 
whole chromosomes by a transverse division 
(‘reducing division’ of Weismann). Wholly 
independently of Mendel’s conclusions a con- 
siderable number of cytologists (vom Rath, 
Riickert, Hicker) early reached the conclu- 
sion that the chromatin-masses from which 
arise the ‘ Vierergruppen’ 
somes, or their equivalents) represent double 
or ‘bivalent’ chromosomes, each of which was 
conceived to arise by the union (synapsis), 
end to end, of two single chromosomes. An 
actual conjugation of chromosomes in synapsis 
was inferred by Riickert in some cases (e. g., 
in Pristiuwrus), and more recently described in 
a far more detailed way in Peripatus and cer- 
tain insects by Montgomery (1901), who 
reached the remarkable conclusion that ‘in 
the synapsis stage is effected a union of pater- 
nal with maternal chromosomes, so that each 
bivalent chromosome would consist of one uni- 
valent paternal chromosome and one univalent 
maternal chromosome.’ The ensuing trans- 
verse or reducing division, therefore, leads to 
the separation of paternal and maternal ele- 
ments and their ultimate isolation in separate 
germ-cells. This conclusion rested upon evi- 
dence too incomplete to warrant its acceptance 
without much more extended investigation— 
it was, indeed, more in the nature of a sur- 
mise than a well-grounded conclusion. Dur- 
ing the past year Mr. W. S. Sutton, working 
in my laboratory, has obtained more definite 
evidence in favor of this result, which led 
him several months ago to the conclusion that 
it probably gives the explanation of the Men- 
delian principle. In the great ‘lubber grass- 
hopper’ Brachystola the chromosomes of the 
spermatogonia were found to be grouped in 
eleven pairs of different sizes, which reap- 
peared in essentially the same relation through 
at least eight successive generations of these 
ells. In synapsis the graded pairs are con- 
verted into similarly graded bivalent chromo- 
somes that appear to arise by a conjugation, 
or union at one end, of the two members of 
each of the earlier pairs. Cogent reason is 
given by Sutton for the conclusion that the 
chromosome-pairs consist each of a paternal 


anda maternal member. It is known that in 


SCIENCE. 


(tetrad-chromo- — 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 416 

fertilization chromosomes are contributed in 
equal numbers by the two gametes (‘ Van 
Beneden’s Law’). Boveri’s recent remark- 
able experiments on sea-urchins have proved 
that a definite combination of chromosomes is 
necessary to complete development, and 
strongly suggests, if they do not prove, that 
the individual chromosomes stand in definite 
relation to transmissible characters taken 
singly or in groups. Every nucleus, how- 
ever, contains two such combinations; for the 
facts of parthenogenesis and merogony prove 
that either the paternal or the maternal group 
alone may suffice for complete development. 
It is a natural conclusion from these facts that 
the constant morphological differences of the 
chromosomes observed in the grasshopper are 
correlated with constant physiological dif- 
ferences. If such be the case it appears highly 
probable, though the argument can not here: 
be presented in all its weight, that those of 
corresponding size, associated in pairs, are the 
paternal and maternal homologues (sit venia 
verbo)! Sutton has pointed out that if this 
be indeed the case, the union of these homo- 
logues in synapsis, and their subsequent sepa- 
ration, which this preliminary union involves, 
in the reducing (second maturation) division, 
leads to the members of each pair being iso- 
lated in separate germ-cells; and this gives a 
physical basis for the association of dominant 
and recessive characters in the cross-bred, and 
their subsequent isolation in separate germ- 
cells, exactly such as the Mendelian principle 
requires. 

A similar conclusion was subsequently, but 
independently, reached by Mr. W. A. Cannon, 
of the Department of Botany, though by a 
different and less direct path of approach. A 
study of hybrid cotton-plants, which are fer- 
tile, showed the maturation-divisions to be en- 
tirely normal,in contradistinction to the sterile 
hybrids of Syringa, where Juel has shown that 
the maturation-divisions are abnormal in 
character. It thus appeared that a sifting 
apart of paternal and maternal elements, such 
as Mendel’s law demonstrates to occur, can- 
not be explained on the hypothesis of irregu- 
larities in the maturation-divisions (as had 
been suggested by Guyer’s earlier work 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


on pigeon-hybrids). Cannon therefore 
concluded, on this a priori ground, that 
such a separation of paternal and maternal 
elements must occur in the normal matura- 
tion-divisions, not only in the cross-bred, but 
also in the normal forms, and that in the 
character of these divisions must be sought 
the basis of the law. It is interesting that 
such a conclusion should have been reached 
by a botanist, on account of the fact that most 
recent botanical workers in this field have 
reached the result that transverse or reducing 
divisions do not occur in the maturation of 
the germ-cells in higher plants. It has, how- 
ever, become clear that only the most exhaus- 
tive study of the most favorable material, 
particularly in the earliest stages of the ma- 
turation-divisions, can positively decide this 
question, and the importance of the most ac- 
curate and detailed further study of the 
phenomena is now manifest. The results I 
have indicated are already in part in press 
and will in due time be fully discussed by 
their authors. Should the study of the ma- 
turation-divisions indeed reveal the basis of 
the Mendelian principle we shall have an- 
other and most striking example of the inti- 
mate connection between the study of cytology 
and the experimental study of evolution. 
Epmunp B. Witson. 
ZOOLOGICAL LABORATORY OF 
CoLtuMBIA UNIVERSITY, 
December 11, 1902. 


THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE NAPLES 
STATION. 

THE increased number of investigators who 
make each year the pilgrimage to Naples, as 
well as the development there of new depart- 
ments of investigation, have made it impera- 
tive to enlarge the present buildings of the 
station. The plans for the new construction 
are finished, the money generously contrib- 
uted, and the building is about to begin. The 
city of Naples, proud of her renowned Sta- 
tion, has given the ground for the new part. 
The new building will be placed near the end 
of the larger of the two present ones. The 
exterior of the new part is exactly like the 
larger, which is also the older, of the present 


SCIENCE. 


993: 


buildings. The capacity of the working part 
of the Station will be doubled by this addition. 

The new building will be devoted, in the 
main, to physiology and to physiological chem- 
istry, for each of which there is to be a large: 
laboratory, well equipped with the most mod- 
ern appliances. In addition to these there 
will be a number of smaller rooms for special 
physiological work. A new feature will be 
rooms in which the water in the aquaria can 
be kept throughout the year at any desired 
temperature. 

In the new building there will also be a 
large number of small rooms for zoological 
work—the old ‘tables’ in the big room op- 
posite the present library will be given up, and 
the room itself added to the library. Thus 
the new plan, when carried out, will not only 
give more room, but also better accommoda- 
tions. 

With the awakening of zoological research 
in this country during the last twenty years 
there has been a steady increase in the num- 
ber of those who go to Naples. The first 
American table, that of Williams College, was 
occupied during 783 and ’84. Previous to- 
that time eight Americans had occupied 
European tables. In ’85 and ’86 the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania maintained a table; 
and then, after an interval of five years (86: 
to *91) during which America was not repre- 
sented, a table was supported by Major Dayis, 
from ’91 to 796. 

The Smithsonian Institution has main- 
tained a table from ’93 to ’02, which has been 
occupied by twenty-six investigators. Har- 
vard University had a table for two years. 
(9702), and Columbia University _ has,. 
through the generosity of a friend, paid, for 
five years (9602), for half of ‘The Univer- 
sity Table.” Finally, the ‘ Association for 
Maintaining the American Women’s Table” 
has supported a table for four years (’98-’02). 

At present America maintains only three 
tables, ‘The Smithsonian,’ ‘The University,’ 
and ‘The Women’s Table.’ These are en- 
tirely inadequate to allow all those who apply 
for tables to obtain them. For instance, 
there are five desirable candidates for ‘The: 
University Table’ alone for the present year. 


994 


The total number of Americans who have 
occupied tables at the Naples Station, in- 
cluding the appointments to the end of the 
year, is eighty-one. If we omit the twelve 
names of those who occupied tables between 
°S1 and 791, we find that sixty-nine American 
investigators have worked in Naples during 
the last eleven years. The international char- 
acter of the work done in Naples is one of 
the greatest advantages to be derived from a 
sojourn at the Station. Here are to be seen 
the newest methods, and to be heard the 
latest points of view of some of the most ad- 
vanced men from Germany, Italy, Russia, 
Austro-Hungary, Belgium, England, ete. This 
alone is an advantage, which we Americans, 
isolated as we are by distance from the older 
centers of investigation, can scarcely afford 
to forego. Let us hope, therefore, that 
America will not be niggardly in maintaining 
at least three tables as she does at present, and 
that in the near future their number may be 
added to, since even now they are inadequate 
to fill the demand. 

Our national representation at the Naples 
Station can not be better shown than by an 
examination of the names of those American 
zoologists, botanists and physiologists who 
have worked in Naples. T. H. Morgan. 


NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 

THE TELLURIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS. 

A paper on the above subject was read by 
William Ackroyd at the Belfast meeting of 
the British Association, in demonstration -of 
the thesis that the telluric distribution of the 
elements is inversely in proportion to their 
atomic weights. The question of the relative 
quantity of the elements in that portion of 
the earth which is known to us is quite fully 
dealt with by Professor Frank W. Clarke in 
Bulletin 148 of the U. S. Geological Survey. 
Here the abundance of the elements is de- 
termined from large groups of analyses of 
rocks and other telluric products, but only 
twenty-one elements are considered. Ackroyd 
has adopted the commercial idea of price as 
a measure of plenty or rarity, a procedure 
which would seem to be of rather doubtful 
expediency. In some cases the price of the 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


element itself is used; in other cases, espe- 
cially where there is difficulty in obtaining 
the elementary form, some compound is con- 
sidered. The latter is the case, for example, 
in the calcium group where the carbonates are 
used, and in the arsenic group where the 
basis is the oxid. Measured in this way, it 
appears generally that in each group the 
abundance of each element as measured by 
its commercial price is inversely proportional 
to its atomic weight. There are, however, a 
number of exceptions, where the element of 
highest atomic weight is more abundant than 
its immediate predecessor, as with barium, 
which appears to be more abundant than 
strontium; the same is true of mercury, lead, 
thallium, osmium, platinum, iridium and 
thorium. The halogens obey the general 
proposition, but their abundance is measured 
by their relative quantity in sea water. The 
conclusion is drawn that in the formation of 
the atoms from primordial matter less and 
less atoms of highest atomic mass were 
evolved, and that the universe became per- 
vaded by the greatest quantity of those atoms 
which have the lowest masses. It is, in gen- 
eral, true that the most abundant elements 
are those of relatively low atomic weight, but 
Ackroyd’s line of reasoning presents too many 
exceptions to bear out his conclusions. 


THE NATURE OF ALLOYS. 


Tue final report of the Committee of the 
British Association on this subject was pre- 
sented at the Belfast meeting. The com- 
mittee consisted of Messrs. Neville, Heycock 
and Griffiths, and the report covers a com- 
plete study of the copper-tin alloys. At least 
three solid solutions are formed during the 
solidification of these alloys. If the alloys 
have been cooled with sufficient slowness, the 
following conditions exist at ordinary tem- 
perature: 

0 to 9 per cent. tin—A uniform solid solu- 
tion of copper containing tin, or, more prob- 
ably, containing a compound in solution. 

9 per cent. to 25.5 per cent. tin—A com- 
plex of large crystals of the above solid solu- 
tion in a minute eutectic of the same solid 
solution and Cu,Sn. 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. | 


25.5 per cent. to 32 per cent. tin—The 
same complex, but containing the Cu,Sn in 
the larger crystals, and the above solid solu- 
~tion only in the minute eutectic. At 32 per 
cent. the alloy is pure Cu,Sn. 

32 per cent. to 38.5 per cent. tin.—A com- 
plex of Cu,Sn and Cu,Sn, or of two solid 
solutions of these substances. At 38.5 per 
cent. the alloy is pure Cu,Sn. 

38.5 per cent. to 93 per cent. tin.—Large 
crystalline plates of Cu,Sn coated with a body 
that is almost pure CuSn, the whole being 
immersed in a eutectic of this body and tin. 

93 per cent. to 99 per cent tin.—Large ecrys- 
tals of CuSn in a eutectic of this body and 
tin. 

99 per cent. to 100 per cent. tin.—Large 
erystals of tin in the same eutectic. 

The whole research presents one of the com- 
pletest and most valuable studies of alloys 
which has yet appeared, and throws much 
light upon the nature of alloys in general. 


THE TRAINING OF TECHNICAL CHEMISTS IN 
ENGLAND. 


ANOTHER interesting report presented to 
the same meeting was that of a committee, 
headed by Professor W. H. Perkin, on sta- 
tisties concerning the training of chemists 
employed in English chemical industries. 
Information was received from 502 managers 
and chemists employed in English chemical 
industries, and while of course not every 
chemist so engaged is included it is believed 
that the list is tolerably complete. Of this 
number 107, or 21 per cent., are graduates 
of a university, while 395 have not taken a 
degree; 111 are fellows or associates of the 
Institute of Chemistry. It is perhaps worth 
while to present the following more detailed 
information from the report: 

Number of graduates of a British university. 59 

Number of graduates of both a British and a 
foreign university 

Number of graduates of a foreign university... *32 


Number of non-graduates trained in a British 
university or university college........ 7137 


*13 of whom studied also in a British univer- 
sity or technical college. 

7 20 of whom studied also in a foreign uni- 
versity or technical college. 


SCIENCE. 


995 


Number of non-graduates trained in a British 
technical college 

Number of non-graduates trained in a foreign 
university or technical college.......... 8 

Number of non-graduates trained in evening 
classes, analysts’ laboratories, or other- 
wise 


These statistics present a certain amount 
of encouragement in that over 80 per cent. 
of those reported have had at least some 
training in university or technical college, 
but the proportion of graduates is deplorably 
low. It is also probable that most of those 
who have escaped enumeration have had little 
or no university training. On the other hand, 
the work of the technical colleges is clearly 
apparent, and this is a hopeful sign for the 
future. The number who have received 
training in a foreign institution is surpris- 
ingly low, only 76 in all. It is probable 
that the proportion in this country would run 
higher, and this in spite of the greater diffi- 
culties connected with an American’s study- 


ing abroad. Vo lly Jal, 


CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 
NORTHEAST LABRADOR. 


Daty’s report on ‘The Geology of the 
Northeast Coast of Labrador’ (Bull. Mus. 
Comp. Zool., Harvard College, XXXVIIL., 
1902, pp. 205-270, 10 pl., 3 maps) gives the 
results of a Brown-Harvard expedition in a 
forty-ton schooner, sailing from St. John’s, 
Newfoundland, June 25, and returning there 
October 3, 1900. The Torngat mountains, 
rising to altitudes of 5,000 or 6,000 feet, the 
highest summits on the Atlantic coast from 
Hudson strait to Cape Horn, present many 
sharp ridges and peaks, unmapped and un- 
named; their upper slopes are cloaked with 
coarse rocky detritus; their lower slopes show 
numerous signs of strong glaciation. The 
fiords by which the bold coast is so greatly 
indented are associated with all the features 
characteristic of strong glacial erosion; over- 
deepened floors and over-steepened walls, with 
hanging lateral valleys and cirques in adjoin- 
ing uplands. A cascading stream descended 
750 feet from one of the hanging valleys into 


996 


a fiord 500 feet deep, thus making a discord- 
ance of 1,250 feet between trunk and branch 
ice-channels. Although the coast exhibits a 
very large proportion of bare rock, moraines 
of well-preserved form are found here and 
there. The limit of post-glacial sea-action 
is about 575 feet above present sea-level at 
St. John’s and declines northwestward some- 
what irregularly to 250 feet at the furthest 
point reached. Within the wave-washed slope 
boulders are rare; sea-cut and sea-built shore 
lines are common. 

A narrative of the expedition is given by 
Delabarre (Bull. Geogr. Soc. Phila., IIL, 
1902, 65-212). 

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEW YORK. 

THE series of articles contributed by Tarr 
to the Bulletin of the American Geographical 
Society is now published in book form—‘ The 
Physical Geography of New York State’— 
with a chapter on Climate by Turner (Mac- 
millan, 1902, 397 pp., many figures and 
maps). It makes by far the most compendi- 
ous treatise yet devoted to the physiography 
of the Empire State, and must prove of great 
service to students there and elsewhere from 
its interesting style, its abundance of illus- 
tration (some of the half-tone cuts are, how- 
ever, blurred to the point of being useless 
defacements of the pages), and its plentiful 
reference to sources. Yet the book is dis- 
appointing, in so far as it shows that regional 
physiography is still an undeveloped subject, 
uncertain of its limits, relatively unsystema- 
tized and undisciplinary in its methods, and 
not clearly guided in its presentation by a 
thoroughly developed scheme of systematic 
geography. To Tarr, nevertheless, belongs 
the merit of actually accomplishing an im- 
portant piece of work according to his best 
plan available for it, while other physi- 
ographers seem to hesitate to begin such 
tasks because they do not see clearly through 
them to the end. 


NEW MAP OF SWITZERLAND. 


Tue Federal Topographical Bureau at 
Bern has recently published a four-sheet wall 
map of Switzerland on a seale of 1:200,000, in 
which the illusion of actual relief is most 


SCIENCE. 


! 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


effectively produced. The original map was 
colored by Kiinemerly, artist-lithographer of 
Bern. It subdues the lowlands in a cool 
gray tint, and brings out the mountains as 
if lighted from the northwest by a mid- 
summer sunset; the illuminated slopes being 
white or rose, the shaded slopes blue or 
purple. The area includes reaches from the 
southern Vosges and Schwarzwald to the 
northern border of the plains of Lombardy, 
and takes in the whole of the Jura on the 
west and part of the Tyrolese Alps on the 
east. Boundaries and the larger towns and 
cities are in red, water in blue, roads and 
names in black. Contours are drawn for 
every one hundred meters. The map is an 
exceptionally fine piece of work and should 
come into general use in the study of the 
Swiss Alps. W. M. Davis. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

THE committee of the House on Buildings 
and Grounds has reported favorably the bill, 
which has passed the Senate, carrying $2,500,- 
000 for the construction of a new building for 
the Department of Agriculture, but reduced 
the limit of cost to $1,500,000. 

Dr. W. A. SETcHELL, professor of botany 
at the University of California, has been given 
leave of absence for the next academic year. 

Mrs. M. C. Stevenson has returned to 
Washington from ethnological investigations 
at Zufii. 

At New York University Professor Carl 
C. Thomas, head of the department of marine 
engineering, has resigned to devote his time 
exclusively to professional work on the Pacific 
Coast. 

Dr. Rost Braprorp has resigned the post, 
which he has held since 1896, of professor- 
superintendent of the Brown Animal Sanitary 
Institution, London. 

Messrs. Siemens and Halske, Berlin, have 
acquired the European patents of the system 
of long distance telegraphy, discovered by 
Professor Michel Pupin, of Columbia Uni- 
versity. 

Dr. ANDREW Batrour, of Edinburgh, is go- 
ing out as director of the chemical and phys- 


DECEMBER 19, 1902.] 


iological laboratories at the Gordon Memorial 
College, Khartoum. These laboratories are 
equipped with the most modern appliances, 
and are the gift of Mr. H. S. Welcome, who 
recently visited the Soudan. 

Mr. JonarHan Hurtcuinson, F.R.S., is 
about to start for a tour in Ceylon and India, 
hoping to confirm his hypothesis that the con- 
sumption of badly-cured fish is the cause of 
leprosy. 

Tue death is announced of Mrs. Alice Free- 
man Palmer, formerly president of Wellesley 
College. After her marriage to Professor 
Palmer, of Harvard University, she continued 
to take an active interest in educational 
matters. 

Mr. Lupwie Kumuiren, who was naturalist 
of the Howgate Polar expedition in 1877, and 
was afterward connected with the Smithson- 
ian Institution and the Fish Commission, 
has died at his home in Milton, Wisconsin. 

Tue directors of the Ben Nevis observa- 
tories have obtained funds to keep the ob- 
servatories open until October, 1904. 


Tue New York Hvening Post states that 
an important meeting of the New York State 
Electrical Laboratory Commission was held in 
New York on Monday, December 8. There 
were present State Engineer Bond; Harold 
W. Buck, of Niagara Falls; C. P. Steinmetz, 
of New York city, and State Architect Hines. 
Plans already submitted to the commission 
were approved, and Messrs. Buck and Stein- 
metz reported on the amount of space needed 
for the electrical apparatus. The cost of the 
proposed buildings and equipment will be be- 
tween $250,000 and $300,000. The buildings 
alone will cost in the neighborhood of $100,- 
000. The commission decided to make a pre- 
liminary draft of its report to be presented 
to the legislature at the next session of that 
body. 

Tue Carnegie Institution has made a grant 
of $500 to Professor Bancroft, of Cornell Uni- 
versity, for a systematic study of the bronzes. 
The work will be similar to that recently pub- 
lished on the alloys of bismuth, lead and tin, 
and will consist primarily in the analytical 
determination of the solid phases. 


SCIENCE. 


997 


Tur medical papers report that the Car- 
negie Institution has made an annual grant 
of $10,000 to revive the Index Medicus, for- 
merly published under the direction of Dr. 
John §. Billings. The New York Evening 
Post states that the institution has made a 
grant of $1,000 to the astronomical depart- 
ment of Vassar College to enable Dr. Caro- 
line E. Furness to make measurements and 
reductions of photographs of the stars in the 
region of the North Pole. 


A pitt has been passed by the House of 
Representatives for the incorporation of a 
“general educational board’ the incorporators 
named in the act being the following well- 
known educators: Daniel C. Gilman, George 
Foster Peabody, Morris K. Jesup, Robert C. 
Ogden, William H. Baldwin, Jr., Jabez L. 
M. Curry, Frederick T. Gates, Walter Page 
and Albert Shaw. This is a movement for 
advancing education in the south, in which 
Mr. John D. Rockefeller and others have 
taken an interest. The scope of the board is, 
however, very broad, being described as fol- 
lows: “To build, improve, enlarge, or equip 
buildings for elementary or primary, indus- 
trial, technical, normal or training schools 
for teachers, or schools of any grade, or for 
higher institutions of learning, or, in connec- 
tion therewith, libraries, workshops, gardens, 
kitchens, or other educational accessories; to 
establish, maintain, or endow such schools; 
to employ or aid others to employ teachers 
and lecturers; to aid, cooperate with or endow 
associations or other corporations engaged in 
educational work within the United States; 
to collect educational statistics and informa- 
tion and to publish and distribute documents 
and reports containing the same.” 


It is stated in the London Times that the 
royal commission on arsenical poisoning has 
recently held a series of meetings in connec- 
tion with a report received from their As- 
sistant Commissioner, Mr. HW. Hammond 
Smith, on the liability of articles of food and 
drink other than beer to contain arsenic, and 
have taken evidence from certain manufac- 
turers on this part of their reference. Sev- 
eral chemical and other inquiries which the 


998 


commission have instituted are also in prog- 
ress. It is understood that the commission 
will complete taking evidence early in the 
next parliamentary’ session, and will then 
prepare their final report. 


On December 6, at the Randal Morgan 
Physical Laboratory of the University of 
Pennsylvania, a physical club was organized 
under the name of the Kelvin Physical Club 
for the encouragement of research and scien- 
tific reviews in the department. Professor 
Arthur W. Goodspeed was elected president, 
‘Dr. Horace C. Richards, vice-president and 
Dr. Joseph H. Hart, secretary. 


Tur American Society of Mechanical En- 
gineers held its forty-sixth meeting in New 
York City, December 2 to 5. 


Ar a meeting of the Royal Society of Edin- 
burgh on December 1, Lord Kelvin presiding, 
Professor J. Cossar Ewart read a paper on a 
new horse from the Western Islands. Ac- 
cording to the report in the London Times 
he said that until quite recently it was quite 
commonly assumed that all living horses be- 
longed to one and the same species. It had 
also been generally assumed that various 
breeds of European horses had been descended 
from domestic varieties originally from the 
East. Since numerous etchings had been dis- 
covered on the walls of caves the -belief was 
no longer so universal that the horse had 
not been domesticated in Europe before the 
arrival of Neolithic man. After pointing 
out the difference between horses and zebras 
and donkeys in that zebras and donkeys had 
no callosities, Professor Ewart proceeded to 
describe the Przevalsky horse, and next the 
new variety which had recently been discov- 
ered. This was a pony, not the dwarf horse 
that took the place in the West which the 
Arab took in the East with similar character- 
istics to the Arab, but having this essential 
difference, that there were no callosities in 
the hind legs, and instead of having long hairs 
right up to the root of the tail, it resembled 
the wild horse of Central Asia, the Przevalsky 
horse, in having short hairs in the upper part 
of the tail just as in mules. As the most 
typical specimen had been found in an out of 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


the way part of Iceland there was no chance of 
its ever having been crossed with a Przevalsky 
horse; it was exactly of the same color as the 
wild horse of Central Asia. Not having eal- 
losities, it agreed with the asses and zebras, 
and, like the asses and zebras, it was highly 
specialized in the size, form of the head, ears, 
and under lip, and the position of the eyes. 
The Celtic pony decidedly differed from the 
Przevalsky horse. The limbs were slender 
with small joints and narrow hoofs. ‘The 
Celtic pony occurred in Iceland, the Faroé 
Islands, ‘and Barra, and other smaller islands 
of the Outer Hebrides. It at one time seemed 
to have been common in the island of Tiree, 
in which ponies were now extinct. Doubt- 
less it occurred in Ireland, a very typical ex- 
ample having recently been found in Conne- 
mara. There was evidence also that it oc- 
curred in the New Forest. On the other 
hand, there was no evidence that ponies of 
this kind were found anywhere in the East. 
Java, Mongolia, Korea and Kathiawar had 
all been examined, but all the ponies there 
had had the characteristics of the Arab horse. 
They had all callosities, well haired-up tails, 
and long pointed ears. It was conceivable 
that the Celtic pony in its present form never 
existed in the East, but that it was the modi- 
fied descendant of a small horse which left 
the ancestral home in Central Asia and 
reached Europe long before the arrival of 
Neolithic man. There were drawings in 
caves which suggested the existence of a 
small horse that might very well correspond 
to the Celtic pony, and further, bones had 
been found of two kinds of horses, one a 
horse with small head, slender limbs, and small 
teeth, which, again, suggested the Celtic pony. 


At the Society of Arts, London, on No- 
vember 26, Dr. Gustave Goegg, professor of 
technology at the High School of Commerce, 
Geneva, read a paper on the Simplon Tunnel. 
According to the report in the London Times, 
he observed that the pass over the Simplon 
had been for centuries one of the routes from 
the valley of the Rhone to Lombardy, and 
after various schemes had been brought for- 
ward, the Jura-Simplon Company, who had 


DECEMBER 19, 1902. ] 


obtained a concession for making the line, 
agreed with a syndicate for its construction. 
There were to be two tunnels side by side. 
It was agreed that the work should begin at 
latest on November 13, 1898, and the first 
tunnel was to be completed, and the piercing 
of the second tunnel finished, in five years 
and a half—by May 15, 1904. The length of 
the tunnel was 19,770 meters. At the begin- 
ning hand-drilling gave a progress of 1.94 
meters a day, but since hydraulic drills were 
set to work the progress made had been at 
the rate of seven, eight, and ten meters daily. 
Up to the end of last month 13,608 meters 
had been pierced. Owing to difficulites, the 
syndicate had requested that the date for the 
termination of the work might ke extended 
for fourteen months—to July 1, 1905. There 
existed a desire for the construction of a 
French railway which might utilize the Simp- 
lon Tunnel, and repair the injury which the 
St. Gothard Tunnel had inflicted on French 
commerce. M. Bénassy-Philippe, president 
of the French Chamber of Commerce at 
Geneva, had taken the lead in the promotion 
of such a line, about 75 kilometers long, con- 
necting Lons-le-Saulnier-Sainte Claude and 
Geneva, and crossing the Jura in the district 
known as La Faucille, thus saving three hours 
in the journey between Paris and Geneva and 
two hours on the St. Gothard line. The pro- 
posal for constructing such a railway met 
with great sympathy in Italy, as it was felt 
that such a line was just what was wanted 
to ensure the passage of much of the traffic 
to the east through the new tunnel. English 
commerce would flow through whichever tun- 
nel was served by the shortest route, and this 
would eventually be by the La Faucille line 
and the Simplon Tunnel. 


In view of the great works for irrigation 
now being planned by the Geological Sur- 
vey, the review of irrigation works for India 
recently published by the British government 
is of interest. According to the London 
Times the ‘productive works ’—that is, those 
constructed out of loan funds in the expecta- 
tion that they would prove directly remunera- 
tive—yielded a net revenue of about £1,633,- 


SCIENCE. 


999 


000, the largest on record, equivalent to a per- 
centage of 7.36 on a total capital outlay of 
£22,172,000. This percentage has only once 
been exceeded—viz., in 1897-98, when it was 
7.50. The most profitable results were ob- 
tained in the Punjab and Madras, where the. 
percentages were 11.24 and 9.05 respectively. 
Out of 85 works classed as productive, 13 (in- 
cluding all the canals in Bengal, the Deccan 
and Gujarat) are never expected to cover the 
interest on the capital outlay. The 22 actually 
productive works yielded 10.11 per cent. One 
canal, the Cauvery delta in Madras, returned 
34.81 per cent. If the total surplus profits 
realized up to the end of 1900-1901 be added 
together, the open canals have produced’ 274 
per cent., after paying all charges for interest 
and working expenses. No new productive 
works were opened in 1900-1901, but £612,000 
was spent on seven new works in Upper 
Burma, the Punjab, and Sind. With regard 
to works constructed out of the famine grant 
as ‘famine protective works’ not expected to 
be remunerative, it is noteworthy that they 
yielded a return of 2.35 per cent. on capital. 
But this is largely due to the great and in- 
creasing success of the Swat River Canal, 
which alone yielded 10.41 per cent. Five 
more protective works are under construction. 
There is a large number of ‘minor works,’ 
which irrigated 2,625,456 acres in 1900-1901, 
and returned 7% per cent. on capital. Those 
in Sind proved the most lucrative, yielding 
26.18 per cent. Another class of ‘minor 
works,’ for which no capital accounts are kept 
because they were mostly constructed under 
native rule, irrigated 2,581,829 acres. More- 
over, Madras Presidency has 28,000 tanks and 
6,000 irrigation channels, irrigating 3,173,250 
acres. The total area irrigated by all descrip- 
tions of works in 1900-1901 was 19,646,000 
the largest on record. The total 
capital outlay on works for which capital 
accounts are kept has been about £28,320,000, 
yielding in 1900-1901 about 62% per cent., after 
The value of the 
crops raised on the irrigated area during the 
year was estimated at £27,667,000, or approxi- 
mately the amount of the capital outlay. On 


acres, 


payment of interest, ete. 


1000 


the whole irrigation has been profitable not 
only to the cultivator, but also to the general 
taxpayer, for up to the end of 1900-1901 the 
total gain to the State amounted to £11,250,- 
000. The gain would have been much greater 
but for the expenditure in earlier days on some 
of the works expected to be remunerative. 


Tuer Paris Academy of Medicine dedicated 
on November 25 the new building provided 
for it by the government. The president of 
the republic was present and speeches were 
made by Dr. Riche, president of the academy; 
M. Chaumié, minister of education, and Dr. 
Jacoud. 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 


We noted recently that the University of 
California will begin at once the construction 
of a special laboratory of physiology for Dr. 
Jacques Loeb. It is now announced that the 
$425,000 lately given to the University will 
be used for the construction of a Hall of 
Physiology to be completely equipped with 
research laboratories, salt water aquaria, etc. 
Professor Loeb will begin his work at the 
University of California in January. 


By the will of Benjamin Barge of Mauch 
Chunk, a bequest of $80,000 is made to Yale 
University, $75,000 of which is to establish a 
chair in the romance languages and literature. 
Lafayette College receives $2,500. 


Mr. Morris K. Jesup, president of the 
American Museum of Natural History, has 
given $10,000 to Princeton University to be 
added to the fund that he has established for 
the benefit of the library. 


Mr. Witu1am S. Hussarp, of Indianapolis, 
has promised to give the last $5,000 needed to 
purchase the United States Arsenal grounds 
in that city as a site for the National Tech- 
nical Institute. 


Tue library building, given to Trinity Col- 
lege, Durham, N. C., by Mr. James B. Duke, 
will be opened in January. The dormitory 
given by Mr. B. N. Duke, is already occupied. 
It will be remembered that last spring Mr. 
B. N. Duke established four new chairs at 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 416. 


Trinity College, including a chair in applied 
mathematics, to which Mr. L. C. Nicholson 
has now been called. 


Tur new buildings of Wooster University 
erected at a cost of over $400,000, were dedi- 
cated on December 11. It will be remembered 
that the buildings of the university were 
almost completely destroyed by fire about a 
year ago. The chief contributors to the new 
university buildings are Andrew Carnegie, 
$100,000; Louis H. Severance, Cleveland, 
$75,000, and H. C. Frick, Pittsburgh, $35,000. 


In his last report, President Wheeler, of the 
University of California, stated that among 
the most urgent needs of the university were 
buildings for botany, physics- and physiology. 

Mr. G. W. Pater, M.P., has given $1,000 
towards the physiological laboratory of the 
University of London. 


Tue delegates in attendance at the con- 
ference of the Association of American Uni- 
versities to be held at Columbia University 
during convocation week will be entertained 
at a dinner on the evening of December 30. 
Alumni of the fourteen universities repre- 
sented in the association are invited to sub- 
seribe to the dinner, the cost of which will 
be $5.00. Application for tickets may be 
made to the chairman of the committee, Pro- 
fessor D. B. Woodward, Columbia University. 


AT a recent meeting of the corporation of 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
Mr. Elihu Thomson, of Lynn, was elected 
non-resident professor of applied electricity 
and Mr. Percival Lowell, director of the 
Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Ariz., non- 
resident professor of astronomy. 


Ar McGill University, Dr. A. H. Gordon 
has been appointed demonstrator and Dr. H. 
W. Thomas fellow in pathology. 


Proressor Kyicut has resigned from the 
chair of moral philosophy at the University 
of St. Andrews, after having discharged the 
duties of the office for twenty-seven years. 


Dr. W. A. Tinpen, professor of chemistry 
in the University of London, has been elected 
dean of the faculty of science in the Univer- 
sity of London. 


Sc ro INCE 


A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, PUBLISHING THE 
OFFICIAL NOTICES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR GHE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 


EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: 8S. NEwcoms, Mathematics; R. S. WoopWARD, Mechanics ; E. C. PICKERING, 
Astronomy; T. C. MENDENHALL, Physics ; R. H. THURSTON, Engineering ; IRA REMSEN, Chemistry ; 
CHARLES D. WAtcort, Geology ; W. M. Davis, Physiography ; HENRY F. OsBORN, Paleon- 
tology ; W. K. Brooks, C. HART MERRIAM, Zoology ; S. H. ScUDDER, Entomology ; C. E. 
Bessny, N. L. Britton, Botany ; C. S. Minot, Embryology, Histology ; H. P. Bow- 


DITCH, Physiology ; 


J. S. Brnuinas, Hygiene ; WiLLIAM H. WELCH, 


Pathology ; J. MCKEEN CATTELL, Psychology. 


Frmay, DrecemMBer 26, 1902. 


CONTENTS: 
The Scientific Aspect of Modern Medicine: 
PROFESSOR FREDERIC 8. LEE.............. 1001 
Histories and Bibliographies of Physics: 
Proressor ©. R. MANN..........-..202.. 1016 
University Registration Statistics: RUDOLPH 
INGMOIRO, die gusadabodoooodooosouBbaGu DOO 1021 
New Departures in the Bibliographical Work 
of the Concilium Bibliographicum........ 1023 


Societies and Academies :-— 
The American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science. The Geological Society 
of Washington: AurreD H. Brooks. North 
Eastern Section of the American Chemical 
Society: ArtHur M. Comry. The New Eng- 
land Association of Chemistry Teachers. 
Columbia University Geological Journal 
Club: H. W. Suimer. Boston Society of 
Natural History: Guover M. ALLEN...... 1027 


Discussion and Correspondence :-— 
The Stratigraphic Position of the Judith 
River Beds: T. W. Stanton. The Prickles 
of Xanthoxylum: ALFRED REHDER. Natural 
History in England: Proressor E. B. 
TITCHENER. Tree Trunks found with 
Mastodon Remains: REGINALD GorpDon. The 
Carnegie Institution: A. LL. HERRERA...... 1031 


Shorter Articles :— 


The First Use of Mammals and Mammat- 
ians: Dr. Toro. Gitt. The Starting Point 
for Generic Nomenclature in Botany: C. L. 
SHEAR. Mosquito Development and Hiber- 
nation: J. W. Dupres, H. A. Morean.1034 


The Convocation of Scientific Societies...... 103: 
Scientific Notes and News..............-- 1038 
University and Educational News.......... 1040 


MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended 
for review should be sent to the responsible editor, Pro- 
fessor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. 


THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT OF 
MEDICINE.* 

Tue origin and development of medical 
science are contemporaneous with the 
origin and development of mankind. So 
long as man has been, so long has been 
disease; and whenever man has suffered, 
man has tried to heal. The foundations 
of medicine lie deep in that soil of common 
knowledge from which arose all the sci- 
ences, and throughout its history it has 
freely absorbed the discoveries of them all. 
From the first it has been, and it must ever 
remain, their common meeting-place. In 
proportion as its spirit and its methods 
have been scientific it has progressed 
toward ultimate perfection. Yet, notwith- 
standing the importance of science to medi- 
eine, from first to last medicine has been 
permeated by the pernicious influence of 
empiricism. A wise man once said that all 
true science begins with empiricism, and 
medical science is a striking example of 
this fact. But it made an early effort to 
free itself. The most brilliant epoch of 
Grecian history is marked no more im- 
mortally by the wisdom of Socrates, the 
histories of Herodotus, the tragedies of 
AHschylus, and the art of Phidias, than 
by the medicine of Hippocrates and his 
followers, for this represents the first re- 


*An address delivered before the School of 
Medicine at the quarto-centennial celebration of 
the University of Colorado, November 14, 1902. 


MODERN 


1002 


corded endeavor—and a mighty endeavor 
it was—to break away from the empiricism 
of the earlier ages. But the science of the 
time was meager, and, however laudable 
the aim, the Hippoeratie writings are full 
of empirical notions. From that time on, 
down through the ages, we find science 
and empiricism, like the good and bad 
principles in all natures and all religions, 
ever, contending. And the struggle still 
continues. As Richard Hooker wrote more 
than three hundred years ago, so to-day do 
‘Empiries learn physic by killing of the 
sick.’ The empiricism of to-day is not 
solely the method of osteopaths, christian 
scientists, and vendors of patent nostrums ; 
it is found in the schools and the practice 
of legitimate medicine. At times it has 
surprising successes; but the struggle is 
an unequal one, and science is sure to be 
victorious. At no period of the world’s 
history has the scientific idea in medicine 
been so aggressive and advanced so rapidly 
as during the past fifty years, and at no 
time has it seemed nearer its ultimate vic- 
tory than at this beginning of the twen- 
tieth century. This advance is so striking 
and so full of general interest that I have 
ventured to choose it as my subject to-day, 
under the title of ‘The Scientific Aspect 
of Modern Medicine.’ 

The Idea of a Vital Force.—One of the 
most essential prerequisites of this advance 
was the complete and final liberation of 
medical science, and of all those sciences 
now comprehended under the general title 
of biology, from a burden which in one 
form or another had hampered progress 
from the earliest times. I mean the con- 
ception that living bodies possess within 
themselves an active force or principle, dif- 
fering in nature from anything possessed 
by non-living bodies, and which represents 
the vitality of living things. The begin: 
nings of this idea are found in the various 
forms of animism of savage races, accord- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. 8. Von. XVI. No. 417. 


ing to which a spirit or ghost inhabits the 
body and is responsible for its actions. In 
diseased states, this good spirit is dis- 
possessed by an evil one. In one form or 
another this belief is met with among all 
civilized peoples. It is found in the days 
of Salem witcheraft, and even as late as 
1788, in Bristol, England, when seven 
devils were exorcised from an epileptic. 
In physiology, from the times of the early 
Greek medicine until after the Renais- 
sance, the animistic idea is represented by 
the doctrine of the pnewma, or the ‘spirits.’ 
In Hippoeratie times the spirits entered 
the body through the lungs, were carried 
by the blood to all parts, and enabled the 
vital actions to take place. At about 300 
B.C., the Alexandrians found it convenient 
to make use of two forms of this mysterious 
agent, the ‘vital spirits’ residing in the 
heart, and the ‘animal spirits’ in the brain. 
To these, in the second century of the 
Christian era, Galen added a third, the 
‘natural spirits,’ located in the liver. 

All physicians of the present day are 
familiar with the remarkable story of 
Galen and his long reign in medicine. 
Born in the time of the emperor Hadrian, 
he lived an active life of medical research 
and practice. He was the imperial physi- 
cian of Rome, and while the wise Marcus 
Aurelius was writing his ‘Meditations,’ 
Galen was producing his numerous med- 
ical books. These covered the whole field 
of the medicine of his time, much of which 
was the direct result of his own investiga- 
tions. His activity was unparalleled, his 
knowledge immense, his logic and literary 
skill pronounced, and his system of medi- 
cine all-embracing. In these respects he 
was far above his contemporaries, and 
with the decline of the Roman civilization, 
the consequent disappearance of origin- 
ality of thought, and the long unbroken 
sleep of research, what wonder is it that 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


his brilliance should shine’ unrivaled 
through the dark ages? 

For more than a thousand years follow- 
ing the death of Galen, his authority in 
all things medical was supreme, and the 
doctrine of the pnewma was unchallenged. 
Only when there came the intellectual 
awakening of the Renaissance did men 
ask themselves whether Galen’s books or 
the human body more nearly represented 
the truth. But it was even long after this 
that the pnewma was deposed, and when 
it fell it was only to give place to the 
archeus of that archecharlatan, Para- 
celsus, and to the anima sensitiva of the 
mystic philosopher, Van Helmont, and the 
melancholy pietist, Stahl. Through the 
latter part of the eighteenth and the early 
part of the nineteenth century the vital 
principle was still in control of the physi- 
ologists, but, as they learned more of the 
conservation and the transformation of 
energy in inanimate things, and more of 
the working of living bodies, the gulf be- 
tween the inanimate and the animate 
gradually narrowed, and the supremacy 
of the laws of chemistry and physics in all 
things living became clearly recognized. 
It is true that at times in these latter days, 
sporadic upshoots of a neo-vitalism raise 
their tiny heads, but these are to be as- 
eribed to the innate aversion of the human 
mind to confess its ignorance of what it 
really does not know, and they do not re- 
ceive serious attention from the more hope- 
ful seekers after truth. 

The elimination from scientific concep- 
tions of the idea of vital force made pos- 
sible a rational development of the science 
of physiology, and in this way led directly 
to the growth of a scientific medicine. In 
one of his luminous essays Huxley has 
written: ‘‘A scorner of physic once said 
that nature and disease may be compared 
to two men fighting, the doctor to a blind 
man with a club, who strikes into the 


SCIENCE. 


1005 


melée, sometimes hitting the disease and 
sometimes hittmg nature.’’ * * * The in- 
terloper “‘had better not meddle at all, 
until his eyes are opened—until he can see 
the exact position of his antagonists, and 
make sure of the effect of his blows. But 
that which it behooves the physician to see, 
not, indeed, with his bodily eye, but with 
clear intellectual vision, is a process, and 
the chain of causation involved in that 
process. Disease * * * is a perturbation 
of the normal activities of a living body, 
and it is, and must remain, unintelligible, 
so long as we are ignorant of the nature 
of these normal activities. In other words, 
there could be no real science of pathology 
until the science of physiology had reached 
a degree of perfection unattained, and 
indeed unattainable, until quite recent 
times.”’ 

No period has been so rich in physiolog- 
ical discoveries as the last fifty years of 
the nineteenth century. Research has de- 
veloped along two main lines, the physical 
and the chemical, and to-day physiology 
is rightly regarded as the foundation stone 
of the science of diseases, and thus as the 
basis of scientific treatment. 

The Cell Doctrine.—At the time when 
vital force was having its death struggle, 
the cell doctrine was being born. In- 
separably linked with the idea of the cell 
is the idea of protoplasm—protoplasm the 
living substanee, the cell the morphological 
unit. The heretofore mysterious living 
body is a complex mass of minute living 
particles, and the life of the individual is 
the composite life of those particles. 

Within the past few weeks the world has 
bowed in mourning over the bier of an aged 
man who, more than forty years age, in 
the strength of his vigorous manhood, gave 
to medical science in a well-rounded form 
the best of the cell doctrine of his time. 
Rudolf Virchow need have performed no 
other service than this to have secured 


1004 


worthy rank among the great men of medi- 
cine of the nineteenth century, for few 
books exercised a greater influence over 
medicine during that period than his ‘Cel- 
lular Pathology.’ From ancient times 
physicians had been divided into many 
camps regarding the cause of disease. One 
idea had been prominent for more than 
twenty centuries: The humoralists had 
maintained that pathological phenomena 
were due to the improper behavior or 
admixture of the liquids of the body, which 
were, in the original form of this theory, 
the four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow 
bile and black bile. According to the 
solidists, on the other hand, the offending 
agents were not the liquids but the solids, 
and especially the nervous tissues. Both 
humoralists and solidists were excessively 
speculative, and the growing scientific spirit 
of the nineteenth century was becoming 
impatient of hypotheses that could not be 
experimentally proved. The times were 
ripe for new ideas. Virchow, soon after 
taking the professor’s chair at Berlin which 
he held from 1856 until his death, gave to 
an audience largely composed of medical 
practitioners, the lectures which, more than 
all else, have made him famous among his 
professional brethren. His main thesis 
was the cellular nature of all the structures 
and processes, whether normal or patholog- 
ical, of all organized beings, and his dictum, 
‘omnis cellula e cellula’—a cell arises only 
from an already existing cell is the key- 
note of his theories. With his microscope 
he demonstrated the cells in all the tissues 
of the body, whether normal or patholog- 
ical, and he proved the origin of the morbid 
cells in the normal ones. As to processes, 
he maintained rightly that all parts of the 
body are irritable, that every vital action 
is the result of a stimulus acting upon an 
irritable part, and he claimed a complete 
analogy between physiological and patho- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 417. 


logical processes. Every morbid struc- 
ture and every morbid process has its nor- 
mal prototype. } 

Virchow’s ideas aroused enthusiasm the 
world over, and were eagerly studied and 
largely accepted by progressive men of 
medicine. Time and research have cor- 
rected errors of detail, but no one now 
denies the cellular nature and physiological 
basis of pathological phenomena. These 
facts are fundamental to the understand- 
ing and treatment of disease, which is now 
universally regarded as the behavior of 
the body cells under the influence of an in- 
jurious environment. 

Virchow’s ideas regarding pathological 
formations are a fitting complement to the 
laws of the conservation and transforma- 
tion of energy. In the living world, as in 
the non-living, the law of continuity holds 
good. There are no cataclysms, there is 
no new creation. Structure and energy, 
whether normal or abnormal, proceed from 
preexisting structure and energy. Only 
such a conception can make possible a sci- 
entific medicine, and, since its promulga- 
tion, medical advance has been rapid. 

The Rise of Bacteriology.—During the 
past half-century, and largely during the 
past twenty-five years, that is, during the 
lifetime of this university, there has grown 
up a totally new science, comprising a vast 
literature and a vast subject matter, 
though dealing with the most minute of 
living things. This is the science of bac- 
teriology. The achievements in this field 
have surpassed all others in their striking 
and revolutionary character, and bear both 
on the conception of the nature of a very 
large number of diseases, hitherto puzzling 
human understanding, and on their pre- 
vention and cure, hitherto baffling human 
skill. All other human deaths are few in 
number in comparison with those that have 
been caused by the infectious diseases. 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


Oceurring the world over, constantly with 
us, invading all homes, and keeping the 
death rate in cities perpetually high, at 
times they have swept, with the fury of 
a fiery voleanic blast, over large regions 
of the earth’s surface, sparing few, and 
leaving in their train empty households 
and cities of death. Recent statistics have 
claimed that one of these diseases, tuber- 
eulosis, alone kills one seventh of all the 
population of the world. 

To what are these pestilential visita- 
tions due? Many have said, “To the anger 
of offended gods’; others, ‘To the displeas- 
ure of a divine Providence’; the early 
physicians, ‘To a wrong admixture of the 
humors’; the later pathologists, ‘To mys- 
terious fermentations.’ But none of these 
answers has touched the vital point. This 
was reserved for a simple, modest and 
earnest student of science, of humble origin, 
the son of a French tanner, a man un- 
hampered by medical tradition, seeking 
only the truth, and possessed of no genius 
except the genius of perseverance. To 
Louis Pasteur, more than to all others, 
should be given the honor of having solved 
the problem of the causation of these dread 
diseases. He laid the foundations of the 
new science, broad and deep, with surpris- 
inely few errors of judgement. 

It is instructive to look at the leading 
features of Pasteur’s life-work. From the 
beginning of his career, Pasteur was the 
defender of pure science, yet his work 


demonstrates well the ultimate practical 


value of what seems at first purely scien- 
tific. At the age of thirty-one he became 
a professor and dean of the Faculty of 
Sciences at Lille, and in his opening address 
he said to his students: ‘You are not to 
share the opinions of those narrow minds 
who-disdain everything in science that has 
not an immediate application.’ And then 
he quoted that charming story of Benjamin 


SCIENCE. 


1005 


Franklin, who when witnessing a demon- 
stration of a scientifie discovery, was asked : 
‘But what is the use of it?’ Franklin re- 
plied: “What is the use of a new-born 
child ?’ 

Pasteur’s various scientifie labors form 
a strikingly connected series, each being 
logically bound to those that preceded it. 
Beginning with a study of the forms and 
significance of the crystals of certain salts, 
in which he made use of fermentation 
processes, he passed directly to the study 
of fermentation itself. He early appre- 
ciated the fact that this phenomenon, due 
as it is to the presence in fermentable 
liquids of microscopic living bodies, bears. 
significantly on fundamental physiological 
processes; and his labors directly estab- 
lished the germ theory of fermentation. 
Fermentation led to his famous investiga- 
tion of the problem of spontaneous genera- 
tion, which for ages had vexed the scientific 
and popular mind. Organie liquids ex- 
posed to air soon become putrid and filled 
with microscopic beings, the origin of 
which was a mystery. Many believed them 
to originate spontaneously; others thought 
that the air contained a mysterious creative 
influence. ‘If in the air,’ thought Pasteur, 
‘let us find it’; and by the simple device 
of stopping the mouths of flasks of steril- 
ized liquids by a bit of cotton-wool, he was 
able to filter out the influence and keep his 
liquids pure and free from life. At the 
end of a year’s active work he announced 
a most important fact: ‘Gases, fluids, 
electricity, magnetism, ozone, things known 
or things occult, there is nothing in the air 
that is conditional to life except the germs 
that it carries.’ 
by clever men, and he was forced to de- 
fend himself. It was here that his power 
of perseverance first formidably asserted 
itself. The struggle lasted for years, and 
Pasteur repelled each attack, point by 


His position was assailed 


1006 


point, with facts acquired by ingenious 
experimentation, with the ultimate result 
of giving to the doctrine of spontaneous 
generation its death blow. 

Fermentation and spontaneous genera- 
tion prepared Pasteur for his next’ victory. 
The French wine trade was threatened 
with disaster. Wines prepared by the 
accepted methods often became sour, bit- 
ter or ropy. It was said that they- suffered 
from diseases, and the situation was crit- 
ical. It was Pasteur’s achievement not 
only to prove that the diseases were fer- 
mentations, caused not spontaneously but 
by microscopic germs, but also to-suggest 
the simple but effective remedy of heating 
the bottles and thus destroying the offend- 
ing organisms. 

It seemed a long step from the diseases 
of wines to the diseases of silkworms, yet 
when a serious epidemic, killing the worms 
by thousands, threatened irreparable injury 
to the silk industry, it was only natural 
that Pasteur, with his growing reputation 
for solving mysteries by the diligent appli- 
cation of scientific method, should be called 
upon to aid. He responded with his cus- 
tomary enthusiasm, and for five years dili- 
gently sought the cause of the trouble and 
the eure. Though stricken by paralysis 
in the midst of his work, in consequence 
of which for a time his life hung in the 
balance, in three months he was again in 
his laboratory. Here, as in his previous 
labors, he achieved final success. He 
proved that the silkworms were infested 
with distinct diseases, due to easily recog- 
nizable germs. Furthermore, he devised 
efficient methods of eliminating the dis- 
eases, and thus he relieved from its pre- 
carious condition the silk industry of 
France and of the world. 

By the year 1870 Pasteur’s success had 
already. assured him, at less than fifty 
years of age, a commanding place in the 
scientific world. His demonstrations of 


SCIENCE. 


LN.S. VoL. XVI. No. 417. 


the all-important parts played by micro- 
scopic organisms in the phenomena which 
he had studied, had stimulated widespread 
investigation. He had already dreamed 
of the germinal nature of human diseases; 
and now medicine, which had long sus- 
pected them to be associated with fermen- 
tation processes, began to appreciate the 
significance of the new discoveries. In 
1873 he was elected to fill a vacancy in the 
French Academy of Medicine, and from 
that time on he gave more exclusive atten- 
tion to pathological phenomena. He in- 
vestigated septicemia, puerperal fever, 
chicken cholera, splenic fever, swine fever, 
and lastly rabies. To speak at length of 
what he accomplished in this field would 
require much time. I would, however, 
mention one salient incident. 

One day chance revealed to him a unique 
phenomenon, the further study of which 
led to one of his most. significant discov- 
eries. In the inoculation of some fowls 
with chicken cholera, not having a fresh 
culture of the germs, he used one that had 
been prepared a few weeks before. To 
his surprise, the fowls, instead of suecumb- 
ing to the resultant disease, recovered, and 
later proved resistant to fresh and virulent 
germs. This was the origin of the preg- 
nant idea of the attenwation, or weaken- 
ing, of virus, which, nearly a hundred 
years before, Jenner unknowingly had 
demonstrated in his vaccinations against 
smallpox, and which had been employed 
by physicians in all the intervening time. 
By various methods of attenuation Pasteur 
succeeded in producing vaccines from the 
virus of several diseases, and he perfected 
the process of vaccinating animals and 
thus protecting them from attacks of the 
disease in question. 

The story of Pasteur’s brilliant imvesti- 
gations of hydrophobia is too recent and 
too well known to relate here. They form 
a fitting ending to a life rich in scientific 


DECEMBER 26, 1902.] 


achievement, stimulating to research, and 
momentous in the history of scientifie med- 
icine. 

In the summer of 1886 it was my good 
fortune to spend a few hours in the pres- 
ence of this man in the rooms of the then 
newly organized Pasteur Institute in Paris. 
It was in the early days of the practical 
application of the results of his long-con- 
tinued, devoted experimentation regarding 
the cause and treatment of hydrophobia. 
In a large room there was gathered to- 
gether a motley company of perhaps two 
hundred persons, most of whom had been 
bitten by rabid animals. Men, women and 
children, from the aged to babes in the 
arms of their mothers, richly dressed and 
poorly dressed, gentle folk and rude folk, 
the burgher and the peasant; “from the 
boulevards and the slums of Paris, from 
the north, south, east and west of France, 
from across the Channel in England, from 
the forests and steppes of Russia where 
rabid wolves menace, from more distant 
lands and even from across the seas—all 
had rushed impetuously from the scene of 
their wounding to this one laboratory to 
obtain relief before it was too late. All 
was done systematically and in order. The 
patients had previously been examined and 
classified, and each class passed for treat- 
ment into a small room at the side: first, 
the newcomers, whose treatment was just 
beginning; then, in regular order, those 
who were in successive stages of the cure; 
and, lastly, the healed, who were about to 
be happily discharged. The inoculations 
were performed by assistants. But Pas- 
teur himself was carefully overseeing all 
things, now assuring himself that the solu- 
tions and the procedure were correct, now 
advising this patient, now encouraging 
that one, ever watchful and alert and sym- 
pathetic, with that earnest face of his 
keenly alive to the anxieties and sufferings 
of his patients, and especially pained by 


SCIENCE. 


1007 


the tears of the little children, which he 
tried to check by filling their hands from 
a generous jar of bonbons. It was an 
inspiring and instructive scene, and I do 
not doubt that to Pasteur, with his impres- 
sionable nature, it was an abundant reward 
for, years of hard labor, spent partly in 
his laboratory with test-tubes and micro- 
scopes, and partly in the halls of learned 
societies, combating the doubts of unbe- 
levers and scoffers, and compelling the 
medical world to give up its unscientific 
traditions and accept what he knew to be 
the truth. 

Modern Surgery.—The earliest practical 
application to human disease of the results 
of Pasteur’s labors. was made in the field 
of surgery. The horrors of the early sur- 
gery had been largely eliminated by the 
discovery of the anesthetic effects of 
chloroform and ether, and the possibility 
of their safe employment with human be- 
But the successful outcome of an 
operation was still uncertain. No one 
could foretell when the dreaded septic 
blood-poisoning might supervene and carry 
off the patient in spite of the most watch- 
ful care. Many hospitals were only death 
traps, the surgical patient who was taken 
to them being doomed to almost certain 
death. The suffering of the wounded in 
our, Civil War was extreme, and during 
the Franco-Prussian War, the French mili- 
tary hospitals were festering sources of 
corruption, their wounded dying by thou- 
sands. ‘To Pasteur, who realized only too 
well that the cause of death lay in the 
germs that were allowed to enter the 
wounds from the outside, this unnecessary 
suffermg and death of so many brave 
French youths was a source of intense 
erief. Yet, notwithstanding his protesta- 
tions and the urging of his views upon 
those who were immediately responsible, 
little good was then accomplished, for the 


ings. 


1008 


French surgeons were slow to adopt new 
ideas. 

In England Lister was more successful. 
Fired by Pasteur’s discoveries regarding 
fermentation and putrefaction, he con- 
ceived the idea of using earbolie acid in 
the vicinity of the wound while an opera- 
tion was being performed, for the purpose 
of destroying whatever germs might be 
floating in the air or adherent to the sur- 
faces. This was employed successfully, 
and at once the mortality of surgical opera- 
tions was greatly diminished. This was 
the beginning of the aseptic surgery of the 
present day, and, in the hght of what it 
has accomplished, Lister’s achievement 
shines with brilliance. Carbolie acid was 
soon discontinued, owing to more efficient 
aseptic agents and methods of absolute 
cleanliness, but the essence of the modern 
surgical method is the same as at. first, 
namely, to prevent the living germs from 
entering the wound. Septicemia and 
pyemia are no longer to be dreaded, the 
successful outcome of surgical procedure 
is practically assured, and operations that 
were undreamed of twenty-five years ago 
are now daily occurrences in the hospitals 
of the world. The most remarkable are 
those that come under the general head 
of laparotomy, which requires the opening 
of the abdominal cavity, and those per- 
formed on the brain. It may be said that 
the greatest development of scientific or 
aseptic surgery has occurred in America. 
Here the typical American traits of in- 
genuity, independence and courage have 
borne good fruit. 

Disease Germs.—Pasteur’s work was 
epoch-making. Apart from its revolution- 
izing the methods of practical surgery, it 
has completely changed our conception of 
the nature and the mode of treatment of 
the whole group of germ or zymotie dis- 
eases, and has gone far toward solving a 
host of long-existing and puzzling prob- 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. VoL. XVI. No. 417. 


lems of general pathology. The actual 
discovery of the germs of human diseases 
and the proofs of their specific morbific 
properties did not fall within Pasteur’s 
province. Such achievement has been the 
lot of others, most brilliant among whom 
is undoubtedly Robert Koch. The bacillus 
of anthrax, or splenic fever, was seen in 
1838 by a French veterinarian named 
Delafond, but its part as the causative 
agent of the disease was first shown by 
Koch in 1876, this being the first conclusive 
demonstration of the production of a spe- 
cific human disease by a specific bacterium. 
Think how recent was this event, so signi- 
ficant for the development of a scientific 
medicine and for the welfare of the human 
race! Koch’s demonstration was made 
but twenty-six years ago, eleven years after 
the close of our Civil War. But it was 
only after repeated subsequent experiments 
and the piling of proof on proof by Koeh, 
Pasteur and others, that the new idea 
was generally accepted. Since then dis- 
covery has followed discovery, and the 
world watches eagerly for each new an- 
nouncement. Koch aequired new laurels 
in 1882 by demonstrating the germ of 
tuberculosis, and in 1884 that of the terri- 
fying Asiatic cholera. In 1884, also, 
Klebs and Loffler found the bacillus of 
diphtheria, and several investigators that 
of tetanus. The year 1892 revealed the 
bacillus of influenza, and 1894 that of 
bubonic plague. Besides these instances, 
the part played by specific germs in many 
other diseases has already become recog- 
nized. Smallpox,” measles, hydrophobia 
and yellow fever still defy the investiga- 
tors, but no one doubts their germinal 
nature. 

But scientific medicine is not content 
with describing species of bacteria and 
proving their connection with specific dis- 
eases. It must show what these organisms 
do within the body, how they cause disease, 


DEOEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


and by what procedure their evil activities 
may be nullified. Persistent and devoted 
research has already thrown much light 
on these problems, yet so much is still ob- 
scure that 1t is difficult to generalize from 
our present knowledge. The germs find 
lodgment in appropriate places, and pro- 
ceed to grow and multiply, feeding upon 
the nutrient substance of their host. In 
certain diseases, if not in all, their activi- 
ties result in the production of specific 
poisonous substances called toxins, which, 
being eliminated from the bacterial cells, 
pass into the cells of the host and there 
exert their poisonous effects. These ef- 
fects vary in detail with the species of 
bacterium; and thus the individual, suf- 
fering from the behavior of his unwonted 
euests, exhibits the specific symptoms of 
the disease. 

Preventive Medicine.—In looking over 
the history of the search for a means of 
cure, one is struck by the great value of 
the ounce of prevention. Keeping the 
germs out is in every way preferable to 
dealing with them after they have once 
entered the body. This fact scientific 
medicine is impressing more and more 
deeply on the minds of public authorities 
and the people, and their response in the 


form of provisions for improved public’ 


and private sanitation is one of the strik- 
ing features of the social progress of the 
present time. All the more enlightened 
nations, states and cities of the world 
possess organized departments of health, 
which, with varying degrees of thorough- 
ness, deal with the problems presented by 
the infectious diseases, in the light of the 
latest discoveries. Water and milk and 
other foods are tested for the presence of 
disease germs; cases of disease are quar- 
antined; and innumerable provisions, un- 
thought of fifty years ago, are now prac- 
tised daily for the maintenance of the 
health of the people. 


SCIENCE. 


1009 


In the city of New York the Department 
of Health now undertakes, free of charge, 
examinations for the diagnosis of malaria, 
diphtheria, tuberculosis, typhoid fever and 
rabies. It treats all cases of rabies by the 
Pasteur method free of charge, and it sup- 
plies, at slight cost, diphtheria antitoxin 
and vaccine virus, besides mallein to aid 
in the diagnosis of glanders in horses, and 
tuberculin for similar use with suspected 
tuberculosis in cattle. Moreover, from 
time to time it issues circulars, intended 
for the education of physicians regarding 
the causation of infectious diseases and the 
newest methods of treatment; and through 
its officers and other physicians and by 
means of printed matter it endeavors to 
educate the people in matters of private 
sanitation. It requires official notification 
by public institutions and physicians of 
all cases, not only of the epidemic diseases, 
but even of tuberculosis. The benefits de- 
rived from these various prophylactic 
measures are seen in great decrease in 
mortality from the diseases in question. 
Much good is expected from the work of 
the newly organized Committee on the 
Prevention of Tuberculosis of the Charity 
Organization Society of New York, which, 
backed by financial resources, is about to 
undertake an active campaign to lower the 
death rate from this particular disease, 
and to lessen the suffering and distress at- 
tributable to it. 

Fifty years ago the term preventive 
medicine was unknown. To-day it repre- 
sents a great body of well-attested and 
accepted principles. It has cleaned our 
streets, it has helped to build our model 
tenements, it has purified our food and 
our drinking water, it has entered our 
homes and kept away disease, it has pro- 
longed our lives, and it has made the world 
a sweeter place in which to live. 

Serum Therapy.—But if the ounce of 
prevention has not been applied or has 


1010 


failed, and the bacteria have foreed an 
entrance into the body, what can scientific 
medicine do to cure? Two things are 
possible—the destruction of the destructive 
germs, and the neutralization of their poi- 
sonous toxins. The commonly recognized 
drugs here prove inefficient, for the simple 
reason that the amount of the drug suffi- 
cient to kill the bacteria is so great as to 
endanger the life of the patient. The most 
promising line of treatment has been sug- 
gested by the results of a study of the 
mutual relations of the bacteria and their 
hosts. Here again there are many gaps 
in our knowledge. It is not surprising 
that the cells of the body resent the intru- 
sion of the barbaric horde of microorgan- 
isms, with their poisonous offscourings. 
The cells are roused to unwonted activity, 
and pour forth into the blood specifie sub- 
stances, which, in many cases at least, 
seem to be of two distinct kinds, the cy- 
tolysins and the antitoxins. Of these, the 
eytolysins are destructive to the invading 
bacteria, while the antitoxins are capable 
of neutralizing, though in a manner not 
wholly clear, the toxic products of bacterial 
growth. Cytolysins oppose the bacteria, 
while antitoxins oppose the bacterial toxins, 
and the outcome of the disease depends on 
the relative efficiencies of the contending 
forces. If the invaders prove too power- 
ful for the body eells, the individual suc- 
cumbs; if the defenders prevail, he re- 
covers. 

With the picture of this natural conflict 
before the mind, medical science asked: 
‘Is it not possible to aid the invaded body 
by providing it with weapons of the same 
kind as its own, but in larger quantity?’ 
This question medical science has answered 
emphatically and affirmatively in the case 
of two serious diseases, diphtheria and te- 
tanus, or lockjaw. By making a pure cul- 
ture of their germs, and injecting their. 
toxins into the bodies of animals, it can 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 417. 


obtain a blood serum heavily charged with 
antitoxin. This when injected into the 
diseased human body supplements the anti- 
toxin there found, and by so much the 
patient is aided in his struggle. With 
both these diseases the success of the serum 
treatment has been pronounced. A recent 
study of 200,000 cases in which the anti- 
toxin of diphtheria was used shows the 
fatality from that disease to be reduced 
from 55 to 16 per cent. The problems 
presented by other infectious diseases seem 
to be more difficult. What seems to be 
required in most cases is a serum contain- 
ing in quantity rather the cytolytic than 
the antitoxie substance, and as yet an effi- 
cient serum of this nature has not been 
found. Any day may yield such an one. 
But the matter of the relation of cytolysins 
and antitoxins, and their respective effi- 
clencies in specific diseases, needs much 
elucidation. Serum therapy is in its in- 
fancy, but its methods appear so rational 
that it seems destined to develop into a 
most efficient branch of scientific medicine. 

Second only in importance to the eure 
is the prevention of a future attack of the 
disease, or, in other words, the conferring 
of immunity on the individual. The dis- 
ease itself, when running its natural course 
within an individual, confers a natural 
immunity against a subsequent attack, and 
with many diseases this may prove to be a 
life-long protection. Typhoid fever and 
smallpox, for example, rarely attack the 
individual a second time. In its present 
state the serum treatment also accom- 
plshes immunity in some, though slight, 
degree, but greater and more lasting effi- 
ciency is desired. Probably no problem in 
bacteriology is being attacked more vigor- 
ously and more widely at the present time 
than this. A suggestive hypothesis by 
Ehrlich as to the chemical relations of the 
invading cells and the cells of the body 
has stimulated investigations in many 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


laboratories, and both the nature of im- 
munity and the best method of accomplish- 
ing it, which have puzzled medicine so 
long, bid fair to become known in the near 
future. With this achieved, preventive 
medicine will have gained one of its great- 
est triumphs. 

A word should here be said regarding 
two of the infectious diseases whose pecul- 
iar method of transmission, long a mys- 
tery, has now become known. I refer to 
malaria and yellow fever. The able work 
of Laveran, Manson, Ross, Grassi, Koch 
and others on the former, and that of Reed 
and other courageous Americans on the 
latter, have demonstrated conclusively 
that these diseases are transmitted from 
man to.man through the aid of the 
mosquito, which, receiving the germ from 
an infected individual, cultivates it within 
its own body and later delivers it in a 
properly prepared form to another unfor- 
tunate human being. Moreover, it is en- 
tirely probable that this is the sole method 
of the transmission of these diseases. The 
ounce of prevention here consists in: first, 
eliminating. from the community, so far 
as possible, the breeding places of the 
mosquito; secondly, totally preventing, by 
simple screens, the access of the insect to 
each ease of the disease. By the employ- 
ment of these simple methods in Havana, 
during the year ending with the end of 
last September, not a single ease of yellow 
fever originated within the city, an event 
unparalleled in recent times. The active 
work now being carried on by the Liver- 
pool School of Tropical Medicine on the 
west coast of Africa bids fair to -reduce 
materially the extent of malarial fever, so 
lone the scourge of that region. 

It is impossible to predict the full out- 


come, in the future, of the diligent research | 


of the past few decades in the field of the 
infectious diseases. Certain it is, that in 


SCIENCE. 


1011 


civilized countries there appear no more 
the terrible epidemics of the past, such as 
the Black Death, which, in the fourteenth 
century, ravaged much of the continent of 
Europe, and in England swept away more 
than half a population of three or four 
millions. The struggle of the deadly 
germs for existence is becoming daily a 
more desperate one. Just as paleontology 
has revealed numerous instances of the an- 
nihilation of onee flourishing species of 
organisms high in the scale of life, it is 
perhaps not visionary to look forward to 
the ultimate extinction of these more lowly 
forms, and, with them, to the abolishment 
forever from the face of the earth of the 
diseases which they cause. 

The study of the microorganisms in the 
past and present bears upon a much wider 
range of subjects than the immediately 
practical one of the prevention and eure 
of individual diseases, however important 
that may be. It is constantly aiding, in 
Ways surprising and unforeseen, in the so- 
lution of even long-standing and remote 
problems. I need only mention here that 
of the recognition of human blood as dis- 
tinguished from that of lower animals. 
Moreover, this study has helped in the 
elucidation of many of the fundamental 
problems cf protoplasmic activity, and has 
given men of medicine a broader culture 
and a higher outlook over the accomplish- 
ments and possibilities of the human or- 
ganism. This cannot fail to react upon 
other fields than that of the infectious dis- 
eases, to make treatment in general a more 
rational matter than it has ever been, and 
to uplift the whole science of medicine. 

Before finally leaving this subject, I 
would speak of the many instances of per- 
sonal heroism exhibited by the men who 
have labored in this field. The records 
teem with stories of those who, recognizing 
more fully and intelligently than others 


° 


1012 


the dangers that surrounded them, and the 
deadly risks they were incurring, have, 
nevertheless, led by their great courage 
and scientific devotion, gone steadily for- 
ward, sometimes to death itself. There is 
danger in the laboratory and the hospital, 
and greater danger in the midst of epi- 
demics. ‘What does it matter?’ replied 
Pasteur when his friends spoke of these 
perils, ‘Life in the midst of danger is the 
life, the real life, the life of sacrifice, of ex- 
ample, of fruitfulness,’ and he continued 
his labors. The death from cholera of a 
devoted and much-loved pupil of his at 
Alexandria, whither he had voluntarily 
gone to investigate the dread scourge of 
1883, was a great grief to the master, but 
only intensified his devotion to his work. 
Since then many others have met an end 
as heroic, martyrs to the cause of medical 
progress. Among these I need only men- 
tion our own Lazear, who gave up his life 
in the yellow-fever laboratories in Cuba. 
Notwithstanding such tragedies, the labora- 
tories and hospitals are always full of 
workers, and each new epidemie finds those 
who are eager to go to the scene to aid. 
The good to be performed and the honors 
to be won overcome the fears, and the ranks 
of laborers in this most deadly province 
of scientific medicine are never wanting 
im men. 

Internal Secretion.—Leaving the subject 
of the infectious diseases, let me turn now 
to a mode of treatment based on recent ex- 
perimental work, and applied successfully 
to certain unusual and grave maladies, 
which are evidently accompanied by dis- 
ordered nutrition, but the cause and proper 
treatment of which until very recently 
were obscure. 

About a dozen years ago the phrase 
“internal secretion’ began to be employed 
in physiological laboratories for the first 
time, and for a newly recognized function 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 417. 


of glandular organs. It was well known 
that glands receive from the blood raw 
material, and manufacture from it specific 
secretions, which are discharged either out-. 
side the body for excretion, as is the case 
with the perspiration, or to the surface of 
mucous membranes for use in bodily fune- 
tion, as instanced by the gastric juice. It 
was discovered, however, that certain 
glands, such as the thyroid, the suprarenal, 
the pancreas and others, manufacture and 
return to the blood specifie substances, dif- 
fering with the different glands, but of 
important use to the body, and the absence 
of which leads to prefound consequences. 
These substances were called internal secre- 
tions. Thus, removal or suspension of the 
function of the thyroid gland, and hence 
the loss of its internal secretion, reduces 
the body to a serious pathological state, 
long recognized by the name myxedema. 
Of similar causation is the peculiar condi- 
tion, called cretinism, which is character- 
ized by a physical and mental stunting of 
the growing individual. The rare Addi- 
son’s disease is associated with disturbance 
of the function of the suprarenal glands; 
and other instances might be mentioned. 
It seemed a simple step from the discovery 
of the cause to the discovery of a eure. If 
absence of a substance is the cause of a 
disease, supplying that substance ought 
to effect a cure, and such was found to be 
the ease. Administering to the afflicted 
individual the fresh thyroid gland of ani- 
mals or a properly prepared extract of 
such gland, was found to alleviate or cure 
myxedema; and other instances of the effi- 
ciency of glandular products were recorded. 
So striking were the facts that active in- 
vestigation of the matter was undertaken, 
with the result of showing that the chem- 
ical interrelationships of the various tis- 
sues of the body were profound, and a 
knowledge of them of exceeding value to 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


the physician. _ As a possible instance of 
this may be mentioned the idea, recently 
suggested by Professor Herter, of New 
York, that the suprarenal gland, by means 
of its internal secretion may control the 
manufacture of sugar by the cells of the 
pancreas, an idea which, if proved true, 
may bear significantly on the causation and 
treatment of diabetes. There is need of 
much research in this field of the internal 
secretions, but already glandular extracts 
have proved a valuable addition to the 
remedies of the scientific physician. 

Brain Surgery.—I have already spoken 
of the entire change in the methods of 
general surgery during a period of twenty- 
five years, owing to the rise of bacteriology. 
But I ought to mention specifically the re- 
markable advance made during the same 
time in the surgical treatment of diseases 
of the central nervous system, the brain 
and the spinal cord, for it is here that the 


scientific method has achieved one of its. 


most complete triumphs. 

Although it was pointed out by the 
French surgeon, Broea, as early as 1861, 
that the loss of the power of speech is 
associated with disease of a certain portion 
of the left hemisphere of the brain, it was 
still the general belief that the acting brain 
acts asa whole. This idea prevailed until 
1870, when the German physiologists, 
Fritsch and Hitzig, demonstrated that 
stimulation of different areas of the cer- 
ebral surface evoke in the body different 
movements. This was the beginning of 
the experimental investigation of cerebral 
localization, a line of research which has 
proved rich in results. The brain is not 
one organ acting as a whole, but an asso- 
ciation of many organs, each with its spe- 
cific duty to perform, but intricately asso- 
ciated with all the others. In the years 
that have passed since the discovery of 
Fritsch and Hitzig it has been the task of 
neurologists to discover the functions of 


SCIENCE. 


1013 


the different parts of the central nervous 
system, to unravel their intricate intercon- 
nections, and to associate the disturbance 
of their, functions with external symptoms 
in the individual. Asa result of this labor 
the neurologist, after a careful study of his 
patient, now says to the surgeon, ‘Cut 
there, and you will find the disturbing 
agent’—and the brilliant success of the 
brain surgery of the present day justifies 
its scientific basis. E , 
The New Physical Chemistry.—In the 
early part of this address I spoke of the 
freedom with which medicine made use of 
discoveries in other sciences than its own. 
A very recent striking illustration of this 
is that of the application of the principles 
of the new physical chemistry to the phe- 
nomena of the living body. From the 
standpoint of physical chemistry the body 
may be regarded as a mass of minute par- 
ticles of semi-liquid living substance, the 
protoplasmic cells, each surrounded by a 
thin permeable membrane, the cell-wall, 
and bathed externally by the circulating 
liquids, the blood and lymph. Both the 
protoplasm and the external liquid con- 
tain substances in solution, and whatever 
passes between them, be it food, or waste, 
or drug, must pass in the form of a solu- 
tion through the intervening cell-wall. The 
laws of solutions and the laws of the pas- 
sage of solutions through membranes must 
hence find their applications in the body. 
It has been the general belief that when a 
substance becomes dissolved its molecules 
remain intact, and are merely separated 
from one another by the water or other 
solvent. Quite recently physical chem- 
istry has shown that this view is not alto- 
gether correct, but that a varying amount 
of disintegration takes place, a dissocia- 
tion of the molecules into their constituent 
atoms or groups of atoms. Moreover, these 
dissociated particles, ions, as they have been 
called, are charged with electricity; some, 


1014 


the kations, charged positively ; others, the 
anions, negatively. lectrolytie dissocia- 
tion is much more pronounced in solutions 
of inorganic than of organic substances. 
In proportion to its extent, specific proper- 
ties are conferred on these solutions. What 
these properties are is not altogether clear, 
but it is entirely probable that the specific 
properties of many drugs are dependent, 
in part at least, on the amount of their 
dissociation when in solution. Further- 
more, the amount of a given substance 
which is able to pass through a membrane 
is measured by the so-called osmotic pres- 
sure of the substance, and this, which 
varies with the concentration of the solu- 
tion, seems to depend on the movements 
of the molecules and the ions within the 
liquid solvent. Since the physician, in the 
giving of a drug, wishes to induce certain 
cells of the body of his patient to absorb 
certain quantities of the drug, it is obvious 
that a knowledge of the principles by which 
substances pass through membranes will 
aid him. 

The laws of solutions and the laws of 
osmosis still remain largely obscure, and 
because of this the literature of the subject 
contains much that is of little value—de- 
ductions from insufficient data, conclusions 
of one day which are overthrown by the 
researches of the next, fantastic imagin- 
ings which only throw discredit on the 
really worthy, and hopes buoyed up by the 
light of an ignis fatuus. But enough of 
truth has been already revealed to stimu- 
late active research for the sake of physio- 
logical progress, and to show that the sub- 
ject bears profoundly on the problems 
which the physician meets daily. It is 
partly along this line that the revitalized 
science of pharmacology, the study of the 
physiological action of drugs, which for 
several years has been actively pressing to 
the front, promises to make still more rapid 
progress in the near future. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 417. 


Medical Schools.—The growth of scien- 
tific medicine, some of the branches of 
which I have thus tried to present to you, 
has reacted powerfully on our medical 
schools. The prominent features of this 
reaction are: the increase in the require- 
ments for admission, the greater amount 
of laboratory and clinical instruction, the 
extension of the course in length, and the 
inclusion of the medical schools within 
universities. 

Within a few years the requirements for 
admission to medical study have been raised 
from an elementary education, by many 
schools to that of a high-school course or 
college preparation, by a few to a partial 
college training, and by two to a full col- 
lege course with a resulting bachelor’s 
degree. As the wisdom of the latter is 
still not generally conceded, it is doubtful 
whether in the near future it will become 
widespread. Ideal as it seems, the one 
argument against it, that thereby the 
young man is forced to delay entrance to 
his life-work until a late age, has never 
been satisfactorily answered. President 
Butler’s recent pronouncement in favor of 
a division of the college work into a two- 
year and a four-year course has much in 
its favor. This would allow a certain 
amount of those studies which are pursued 
for the purpose of general education and 
culture, and a grounding in the especially 
necessary chemistry, physies and biology. 

The increase in the amount of laboratory 
and clinical instruction is merely in har- 
mony with the truth that seeing is be- 
lieving. ‘Study nature, not books,’ says 
Agassiz, and he might have added for the 
guidance of the teacher, ‘Weary not your 
pupils with words, let them see things.’ 

In length the medical course has rapidly 
increased from two to three, and from three 
to four, years. With the increase in the 
number of hospitals throughout the land, 
and the opportunities offered therein to 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


recent graduates to serve as internes under 
competent visiting physicians, one or two 
years more may be added to the student’s 
equipment, making a training of five or 
six years before the young doctor actually 
begins independent practice. 

The inclusion of the medical schools 
within universities is one of the most im- 
portant .advances of medical education 
made in many years. Of the 156 schools 
existing in this country, 74, or nearly one 
half, are departments of colleges or uni- 
versities. In this respect, however, 
America is still far behind Germany, for 
in the latter country no medical school 
exists except as a part of the larger insti- 
tution. The advantages of such a connec- 
tion are too obvious to dwell upon. Apart 
from the material benefits that are likely 
to acerue to the school, and the prestige 
granted it in the educational world, there 
is the atmosphere of a higher culture, a 
more scientific spirit, and less utilitarian- 
ism, which is breathed by instructors and 
students alike, and which cannot fail to 
make the graduates broader men. In the 
larger of these university schools a portion 
of the teaching body consists of men who 
do not engage in medical practice, but, 
hike the instructors in the non-professional 
schools of the university, give their whole 
time to their specialties, in teaching and 
research. Usually these are the holders 
of the chairs of the non-clinical, basal sci- 
ences, anatomy, physiology, pathology, 
bacteriology, physiological chemistry and 
pharmacology. The outcome of this must 
be to broaden and deepen the scientific 
basis of medicine. The clinical branches 
are still taught by men who are at the same 
time private practitioners. In a recent 
thoughtful essay on ‘Medicine and the 
Universities,’ a professor in one of our 
leading medical schools urges the further 
severance of medical teaching and private 


SCIENCE. 


1015 


medical practice. He would have internal 
medicine, surgery, obstetrics, and, indeed, 
all the principal clinical departments of 
instruction, placed like the fundamental 
sciences ‘on a true university basis,’ by 
which he means that the holders of these 
chairs should devote all their time and 
energy to teaching and research. This 
would require the paying of large salaries 
and the building of extensive university 
hospitals, wherein the professors could 
carry on their investigations. In my 
opinion the benefits that would thus ac- 
erue to scientific medicine far outweigh 
the arguments that may be brought against 
so radical a change, and, notwithstanding 
its highly idealistic character, in view of the 
present unparalleled generosity of private 
wealth in endowing scientific research, the 
present rapid and sure progress of medi- 
cine, and the intimate connection of medi- 
eal advance with the interests of all classes, 
I look forward confidently to the future 
establishment of our medical schools on a 
basis more nearly parallel with that of 
the non-professional schools of the uni- - 
versity. 

What now as to the future of medical 
science? With the impetus which it has 
received from the mighty strides of the 
past twenty-five years, its future progress 
and future great achievements are assured. 
But it behooves us, in whose hands lies the 
training of the physician, to see that he 
enter on his work with a full realization 
of his responsibilities. The futwre of sci- 
entific medicine lies with the university. 
‘Though the university may dispense with 
professional schools,’’ said President Wil- 
son in his inaugural address at Princeton 
a few weeks ago, ‘‘professional schools 
may not dispense with the university. 
Professional schools have nowhere their 
right atmosphere and association, except 
where they are parts of a university and 


1016 


share its spirit and method. They must 
love learning as well as professional suc- 
cess, in order to have their perfect use- 
fulness.’’? The perfect usefulness of the 
professional school consists, not merely in 
teaching our embryo physician how to de- 
stroy bacteria, to remove tumors, or to 
calm the fire of fevers. . These things he 
must understand, and these he must do 
daily for the suffering individual. But 
beyond these are larger tasks. The phy- 
sician’s should be a life of service and of 
leadership combined. He serves well when 
he relieves suffering; still better when he 
teaches men how to live; but he serves best 
of all when he pushes out into the unknown 
and makes medical science the richer for 
what he contributes to it. .The knowledge 
of wise men, the deeds of diligent men 
and the valor of heroes are the gift of 
those who have preceded him. Let us see 
to it that he pass on this heritage, aug- 
mented, to those who follow. 


Freperic 8. LEe. 
CoLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 


AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF 

PHYSICS. 

Tne study of the science of physics, like 
that of any other of the expressions of 
activity of the human mind, may be ap- 
proached from two different points of view. 
First, the attention may be confined to the 
study of phenomena and of the inductions 
based upon them. These inductions are seen 
to lead to what are called laws of physics. 
From the method of their establishment 
it is evident that these laws are but 
résumés of physical experience—they are 
classifications of phenomena according to 
some principle of analogy. The study of 
physics is usually approached in this way 
—a way which is open to the very serious 
objection that the student is very apt to 
think that the principles or laws with which 
he becomes familiar are laws in the judicial 


HISTORIES 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. VoL. XVI. No. 417. 


sense and not mere résumés of experience 
in the formation of which the mind which 
makes the résumé also plays a part. This 
must be evident to any one who considers 
the nature of classification and induction. 
There is always behind the induction, in 
the mind of the man who makes it, some 
idea or principle upon which the classifica- 
tion is based. 

Tn the second place the science of physics 
may be studied as if it were a vital organ- 
ism. We say without hesitation that this 
science grows and develops—expressions in 
which it is tacitly agreed that we are deal- 
ing with a living organism, for what grows 
and develops must surely have life in some 
form. We may then fairly put the ques- 
tion, ‘In what does the life of science con- 
sist?’ The answer to this question seems 
to me to be ‘In the ideas and conceptions 
upon which the inductions and elassifica- 
tions of the science are based.’ Examples 
may help to make this clear. Ptolemy ex- 
plained the solar system upon one set of 
ideas, Copernicus on another. Sir Isaae 
Newton deduced the laws of optics with 
the help of certain conceptions of rapidly 
moving particles of matter. Young and 
Fresnel classified those same observed 
phenomena upon the basis of ideas of 
waves in an elastic medium. Faraday and 
Maxwell resumed the same experimental 
facts by conceiving them to be manifesta- 
tions of electric and magnetic forces. The 
development in these sciences is thus seen 
to consist in the changes in the conceptions 
and ideas which le at the basis of the 
classifications and inductions which lead to 
scientific laws. Hence if we would study 
science as if it were a living organism we 
must investigate the ideas which are back 
of it and which form its real life. 

When studied in this latter way it will 
be found that the science of physics is not 
an isolated subject in the thought of man- . 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. } 


kind. For example, the discovery of 
America, the propounding of the Coper- 
nican system of astronomy, the invention 
of printing, the reformation, and the first 
glimmerings of observational methods of 
induction in the inductive sciences in the 
works of Paracelsus, Bruno and others of 
their contemporaries all appeared in the 
world about the same time, and may be 
considered to be but different manifesta- 
tions of somé one impulse which was act- 
ing at that time upon the composite mind 
of humanity. The point may be made 
clearer by considering the state of the 
European mind before these events. One 
of the most characteristic factors in the 
development of the mind of mankind dur- 
ing the middle ages was the gradual growth 
of the spirit of rationalism. As this spirit 
gained in influence the power of the church 
declined. This was due to the fact that 
many of the dogmas of the church, like 
that of exclusive salvation and infant 
damnation, became repulsive to reasoning 
men. In order to retain -its hold upon 
mankind and prevent that worst of sins, 
heresy, the church had recourse to pious 
frauds. Miracles were invented, sanctified 
relics became numerous, and the church 
tried diligently to support its creed by im- 
posture and falsehood. Thus a spirit of 
lying became prevalent and was even made 
systematic and raised to the dignity of a 
regular doctrine. This habit of continual 
falsehood became so powerful that the sense 
of truth and the love of it—both essentials 
of the scientific spirit—became almost ex- 
tinet in the human mind. It is not, there- 
fore, strange that science could not thrive 
in such an atmosphere, and that when this 
love of truth was revived, the reformation 
and the other events mentioned above fol- 
lowed as a necessity. This example is 
mentioned to illustrate what seems to be a 
general fact, namely, that the fundamental 


SCIENCE. 


1O17 


concepts of science at a given epoch are 
of the same nature as the general concepts 
which are characteristic of that age. 

Now how is physies to be studied in this 
way? Evidently by a study of its history, 
provided, of course, that the history be of 
the right sort. In the light of what has 
been said above, it appears that a history 
of physies is of the right sort if it brings 
out clearly the life of physics, 7. e., if it 
shows what the fundamental concepts of 
the science at any epoch are, if it shows 
how those concepts change from time to 
time and how they grow, and if it brings 
out clearly the relations which exist at any 
epoch between the particular ideas of 
physics and the general ideas which are at 
the basis of the civilization of that epoch, 
and points out how those particular ideas 
have developed in a certain way because the 
more general ones have done so. 

Having established this ideal of a his- 
tory of physics, we may well ask whether 
any cf the existing histories of the subject 
fulfill the requirements. 
works been written by an artist rather than 
by an artisan? For it has been written :* 
“The artist in history may be distinguished 
from the artisan in history; for here, as 
in all provinees, there are artists and 
artisans; men who labor mechanically in 
a department without eye for the whole, 
nor feeling that there is a whole; and men 
who inform and ennoble the humblest de- 
partment with an idea of the whole, and 
who know that only in the whole is the 
partial to be truly discerned. The pro- 
ceedings and duties of these two, in regard 
to history, must be altogether different. 
Not, indeed, that each has not a real worth, 
in his several degree. The simple husband- 
man can till his field, and, by knowledge 
he has gained of its soil, sow it with fit 
grain, though the deep rocks and central 


Have any such 


* Carlyle, ‘ Essay on History,’ 1830. 


1015 


fires are unknown to him; his little crop 
hangs under and over the firmament of 
stars, and sails through whole untracked 
celestial spaces, between Aries and Libra, 
nevertheless it ripens for him in due sea- 
son, and he gathers it safe into his barn. 
As a husbandman he is blameless in dis- 
regarding those higher wonders; but as a 
thinker, and faithful inquirer into Nature, 
he is wrong. So likewise is it with the 
historian, who examines some special as- 
pect of history; and from this or that com- 
bination of circumstances, political, moral, 
economical, and the issues it has led to, 
infers that such and such properties belong 
to human society, and that the like cireum- 
stances will produce the like issue; which 
inference, if other trials confirm it, must 
be held true and practically valuable. He 
is wrong only, and an artisan, when he 
fancies that these properties, discovered or 
discoverable, exhaust the matter; and sees 
not, at every step, that it is inexhaustable.”’ 

Having thus established the ideal by 
which we shall judge the histories of 
physies, let us see how closely the published 
works on the subject satisfy that ideal. 
We are compelled to admit at the start 
that there is one characteristic in the ideal 
history which no one has as yet attempted 
to embody in his work. This is the recog- 
nition of the relations between the con- 
cepts of physics and those of other subjects, 
2. €., the writers of physical history have 
shown themselves to be artisans rather 
than artists; they have failed to perceive 
that there is a whole and that only in the 
whole is the partial to be truly discerned. 
It is thus evident that this discernment of 
the whole is beyond the present attainments 
of the scientific historian. Its realization 
is reserved for some future historian and 
offers to him a most enticing and remuner- 
ative field. 

If then we pass over this requisite of an 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 417. 


ideal history as being at the present time 
a Utopian ideal, what do we find? We 
shall find that there already exist several 
very satisfactory books upon the history 
of our subject. Thus some of the chapters 
in Whewell’s ‘ History of the Inductive 
Sciences,’ and especially some in his ‘ His- 
tory of Scientific Ideas,’ as the later edi- 
tions of his ‘Philosophy of the Inductive 
Sciences’ are called, will be found to be 
very satisfactory. The best part of the 
work is, in my opinion, that which deals 
with the ancients and the middle ages. In 
fact, in this portion of the book he seems 
sometimes to move toward the realization 
of the first point in our ideal history—the 
point which we have dismissed as at pres- 
ent Utopian. In the later parts of the 
work he falls back into the much easier 
task of describing discoveries in their 
chronological order and explaining them 
in popular ways. 

Another excellent work is that of Mach, 
‘Die Mechanik und ihre Entwickelung,’ 
1895, of which there is an English trans- 
lation. This*author carefully analyzes the 
conceptions upon which the mechanies are 
based, and shows how those conceptions 
have varied from time to time. Especially 
satisfactory is his chapter on the analytical 
mechanics in which he shows how far New- 
ton developed the subject, using as his 
fundamental conception the attraction be- 
tween two points. His method was purely 
geometrical and synthetic. He then points 
out how Euler and Maclaurin introduced 
the idea of resolving each such force into 
forces along three coordinate axes; and 
further, how finally Lagrange, by his in- 
troduction of the ideas of the caleulus of 
variations, completed the structure. The 
succession of ideas here outlined is admir- 
ably treated by our author. 

The historical works of Todhunter are of 


great value. His method is simple, direct, 


- 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


and appeals strongly to a scientifie mind. 
Thus in his ‘History of the Mathematical 
Theories of Attraction and the Figure of 
the Earth,’ 1873, he takes up every memoir 
which had been published upon that sub- 
ject, analyzes it carefully, and gives his 
opinion as to its merit and the importance 
of its bearing upon the subject in hand. 
The same is true of his ‘History of Elas- 
ticity.’ It seems to me that a student 
eould not possibly get a better grasp of 
these two subjects than by a careful study 
of these two works. Todhunter’s style is 
rigidly scientific, being clear, exact and ex- 
tremely terse. 

Of the older histories of our subject those 
of Priestley deserve mention. This many- 
sided man composed, besides his theological 
works and his scientifie works, two histories 
of physics: one, ‘History of Electricity,’ 
1769; the other, a ‘History of Vision, 
Light, and Colours,’ 1792. In the preface 
to the latter he says it is his intention to 
write the histories of the other branches 
of the subject if the reception of the one on 
vision, light and colors shows that his 
efforts are appreciated. As the other 
works never appeared, it would seem that 
the time was not yet ripe for a history of 
optics. This volume contains as an ap- 
pendix a list of the works which were con- 
sulted in its preparation—a rather interest- 
ing little bibliography of the subject. 

There are also the treatises of Fischer, 
“Geschichte der Physik,’ eight volumes, 
1801, and of Libes, ‘Histoire philosophique 
des progrés de la physique,’ four volumes, 
1810. Both of these are rather biograph- 
ical dictionaries than histories. Saverien’s 
‘Histoire des progrés de l’esprit humain 
dans les sciences exactes,’ 1766, should 
also come under this head. On the other 
hand, Powell’s ‘History of Natural Phi- 
losophy,’ 1834, is a very creditable little 


work. In fact it deserves a far greater 


SCIENCE. 


1019 


recognition than it has received. It has 
characteristics somewhat similar to the 
works of Whewell. There are also chap- 
ters in Montucla’s ‘Histoire des mathé- 
matiques,’ four volumes, 1801-3, which 
deal with physical subjects such as me- 
chanics and optics. However, inasmuch 
as its contents are largely mathematical, 
its discussion does not properly belong 
here. It is, as the German bookseller of 
whom I bought a copy remarked, ‘ein sehr 
quellenreiches Werk.’ 

Of the more recent histories of physics 
Marie’s, ‘Histoire des sciences mathé- 
matiques et physiques,’ 1883-8, is an 
ambitious work in twelve volumes. It 
consists of a series of short biographies 
with a list of the writings of each 
man and a criticism of both. It is 
interesting reading, for it is often well 
told and there are frequent anecdotes 
thrown in without extra charge. Caverni, 
‘Storia del methodo sperimentale in Italia,’ 
five volumes, 1891, describes mainly dis- 
coveries and instruments. There are fur- 
ther the German works of Rosenberger, 
1882; Heller, 1882; Dannemann, 1896; 
Hoppe, 1883; Poggendorff, 1879; Gerland, 
1892, and Duhring, 1887. All of these, 
though marked with the careful, thorough, 
and plodding scholarship of the nation 
which produced them, are not, in my 
opinion, true histories in the light of the 
ideal which has been adopted above. The 
same is true of the most recent work on 
the subject, namely, Cajori’s ‘History of 
Physics,’ 1899. In this book the entire 
treatment of the wonderful mental growth 
and the marked changes in intellectual 
life which marked the end of the middle 
ages—changes to whose operation the sci- 
ence of physics owes it origin—is contained 
in one short paragraph. The book is well 
written and its contents are presented in 
an interesting way, but it cannot be re- 


1020 


garded as more than a reminder that the 
history of our sciences deserves attention. 

There are numerous other works which 
contain chapters upon portions of our sub- 
ject. Thus Libri, ‘Histoire des sciences 
mathématiques en Italie,’ four volumes, 
1865, is very valuable. Also Pouchet’s 
“Histoire des sciences naturelles au moyen 
age,’ 1855, and Cuvier’s ‘Histoire des sci- 
ences naturelles,’ three volumes, 1831-8, 
contain some treatment of physics along 
with that of the other sciences. 

From the above discussion it should be 
clear that an ideal history of physics, or 
one which approaches somewhere near to 
that ideal, is a much-desired and needed 
thing. That such a work would receive a 
warm welcome is evident when we note 
that the works of Whewell passed through 
three editions in ten years and have been 
reprinted several times since and are still 
carried by the Appletons among their 
regular books. It has also been translated 
into German. The work of Mach is now 
in its fourth German edition and has been 
translated into English. These are the 
best, in my opinion too, of the histories of 
science. 

A satisfactory history should then be 
written, all the more since Whewell’s work 
ended in 1847. The first step in the prep- 
aration of such a history seems to me to 
be the compiling of a bibliography. Now 
while astronomy has its Lalande, its 
Houzeau and Laneaster, its Weidler, and 
others, physics can boast of nothing better 
than Poggendorft’s ‘Biographisch-litter- 
arisches Handworterbuch zur Geschichte 
der exacten Wissenschaften.’ This is an 
extremely valuable work as a reference, 
but it is not at all complete as a bibliog- 
raphy. The author expressly states that 
he has included in the work no one con- 
cerning whom he could find no biograph- 
ical record. This being so, he has, as he 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 417. 


himself acknowledges, omitted many 
books which should be in a bibliography. 
There are partial bibliographies, lke the 
‘Bibliographie Neérlandaise’ of Bierens de 
Haan, 1883. This is a fairly complete 
list of the works in mathematics and 
physies published in Dutch during the six- 
teenth, seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies. There are quite a number of 
smaller bibliographies of the works written 
by Italians in various towns. In fact, the 
Italian towns seem, now that their glory 
is in the past, to show a desire to exhibit 


-their departed prowess by each town print- 


ing a list of the great works which have 
originated there or whose writers were born 
there. There are several attempts to 
cover certain portions of the subject which 
have been made by the Smithsonian In- 
stitution such as Tuckermann’s ‘Bibliog- 
raphy of the Spectroscope,’ 1888. From 
the result it would appear either that the 
library in which Mr. Tuckermann worked 
was inadequate or that he did not spend 
time enough upon the subject. Kayser’s 
‘Handbuch der Spektroscopie,’ 1900, is 
more complete than this. 

Thus a_ satisfactory bibliography of 
physics is also a much-to-be-desired thing. 
It does not, however, seem strange that one 
has not yet been compiled, for most of 
those who know enough physies to do the 
work well find that their energy is all 
needed to keep up with the rapid progress 
and expansion of their subject. But it 
seems now as if the time were come when 
such work must be done. Men are begin- 
ning to question more than ever the basis 
of scientific work, to look behind the prin- 
ciples and laws which lie on the surface, 
and to inquire into the real nature of the 
ideas upon which their science has been 
founded. A satisfactory answer ean only 
be obtained through a careful study of the 
history of those ideas—through a knowl- 


DECEMBER 26, 1902.] 


edge of the development which has taken 
place in bringing the concepts of science 
into their present form. 

C. R. Mann. 


UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 


UNIVERSITY REGISTRATION STATISTICS. 


THE table on page 1022 furnishes an 
eloquent criterion of the continuous rapid 
development of higher education in the 
United States. The opening of each new 
academie year shows a marked advance 
over the last, and the number of young 
men and women eager to obtain a univer- 
sity training is keeping steady pace with 
the rapid growth of our country’s popula- 
tion. It is certainly an encouraging sign 
to witness this growing endeavor to lead 
the intellectual or the scientific life, which 
will inevitably tend to raise the standard 
of American civilization and general eul- 
ture. 

The statistics given herewith are, with 
few exceptions, approximately as of No- 
vember 1, 1902, and relate to the registra- 
tion at eighteen of the leading universities 
throughout the country. It will be noticed 
that Syracuse University has been added 
this year for the first time, and the 
reason for this is self-explanatory. The 
figures have been obtained from the proper 
officials of the various institutions con- 
cerned, and are as accurate as statistics of 
this nature can be made. A number of 
changes may occur during the year, but 
they will not be of such a serious nature as 
to affect the general result. The question 
of proper enrolment figures is assuming 
greater importance each year, and it goes 
without saying that there is a tendency to 
attain as much uniformity as possible in 
the methods employed at the various uni- 
versities. At the annual meeting of the 
Association of American Universities, to be 
held under the auspices of Columbia Uni- 


SCIENCE. 


102f 


versity in New York city on December 29,. 
30 and 31, 1902, a representative of Co- 
lumbia will present a. paper on the subjeet 
of ‘Uniformity of University Statisties” 
which should bring out some interesting 
facts relating to this matter. The question 
of double registration, for example, pre- 
sents more than one perplexing problem, 
and a number of universities are endeavor- 
ing to eliminate enrolment in two faculties 
from their figures altogether by simply 
taking into consideration the primary 
registration. One great obstacle in the 
path of this desire is the number of summer 
session students who return for work in 
the fall, of which there were this year 291 
at Cornell, 139 at Harvard, 210 at Colum- 
bia, and so forth. These students were 
not registered in two faculties, and yet they 
eaused duplication. In the ease of several 
universities this was lost sight of altogether 
in last year’s compilation, and the apparent 
falling off in the total enrolment of Har- 
vard, Michigan, and Cornell is due to this: 
circumstance. On the whole, there has 
been a noticeable increase shown in the 
summer session enrolment throughout the 
country, and this particular feature of 
university work seems to be meeting with 
popular favor. 

Last year the relative rank of the seven- 
teen leading universities on the basis of 
total enrolment was as follows: Harvard, 
Columbia, Michigan, Chicago, California, 
Minnesota, Cornell, Wisconsin, Yale, Penn- 
sylvania, Northwestern, Indiana, Nebraska, 
Missouri, Princeton, Leland Stanford, 
Johns Hopkins. 

If we count in the students attending 
courses for teachers, who are held to the 
full requirements of regular courses in 
Teachers College; it will be seen that Co- 
lumbia has passed the 5,000 mark and has: 
almost reached Harvard. Chicago has had 
a considerable inerease over last year, has: 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 417. 


SCIENCE. 


1022 


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| 
| 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


passed Michigan and now ranks third, or if 
Columbia’s extension students be deducted, 
second, with Columbia third. Michigan oec- 
cupies fourth place, and then come Cali- 
fornia, Minnesota, Cornell and Wisconsin 
in the same relative positions as last year. 
_Northwestern’s increase of over 400 has 
placed her ahead of both Yale and Penn- 
sylvania, which occupy tenth and eleventh 
places, respectively. Nebraska has passed 
Indiana, likewise showing an increase of 
almost 400. Syracuse also has a larger en- 
rolment than Indiana. After Indiana and 


Missouri comes Leland Stanford, which has 


passed Princeton. 

As far as the different departments are 
concerned, it will be seen that Harvard 
still shows by far the largest collegiate en- 
rolment. On the whole there has been a 
small increase in the total number of eol- 
lege students attending the universities 
under consideration. The scientific schools 
show a large general inerease all along the 
line, with the single exception of Missouri. 
There are fewer law students than there 
were in 1901, in spite of the fact that 
Chicago has added a law faculty since last 
year. The total number of medical stu- 
dents also shows a decrease, which is ac- 
counted for largely by the facts that the 
admission requirements at Columbia have 
been strengthened, and that the last class 
admitted at Harvard without the degree 
requirements. graduated in the spring. 
Michigan has still the largest enrolment in 
its law faculty, and Columbia still heads 
the list in the faculty of medicine and in 
the graduate schools. The grand total of 
graduate students shows a slight increase 
over that of last year. There have been 
no important changes in the relative rank- 
ing of the teaching force in the largest 
institutions, Harvard still leading, with 
Columbia second. Rupour Tompo, JR.. 

ConumBrA UNIVERSITY. Registrar. 


SCIENCE. 


1028 


NEW DEPARTURES IN THE BIBLIOGRAPH- 
ICAL WORK OF THE CONCILIUM 
BIBLIOGRAPHICUM. 

SINCE an article published in the Amer- 
ican Naturalist in 1898 no adequate ac- 
count of the work of the Concilium Biblio- 
graphicum has appeared in the scientific 
press. Scrence has regularly reprinted 
extracts from the ‘Annual Statements’ of 
the Concilium, but these notices have 
necessarily been somewhat disconnected 
and have not emphasized certain features 
of the work insufficiently appreciated in 
America. 

The bibliographical references gathered 
by the Concilium may, for practical pur- 
poses, be divided into two great categories, 
the manuscript cards and the printed ecards. 
The references contained in the former are 
far more numerous than those recorded in 
the latter, and in general the bibliography 
in manuscript form is a very essential part 
of our task. Although open to subscrip- 
tion, this bibliography is quite unknown 
in America, not even a sample card ever 
having been asked for. In regard to the 
printed bibliography the state of affairs is 
somewhat better, but our work is, never- 
theless, insufficiently understood, as a con- 
sultation of our subscription list must 
show. 

The printed card catalogue is supplied 
according to two entirely different arrange- 
ments, each of which has its utility—the 
alphabetical authors’ catalogue and the 
methodical arrangement, embracing as 
chief subdivisions: paleontology, general 
biology, microscopy, zoology, anatomy and 
physiology. To have an ideally complete 
bibliography, an institution should have 
these two arrangements complete. 

Such subseriptions have been received 
from European institutions; none ever 
reached us from America. The nearest 
approach to this condition is to be found 
in the University of Minnesota, where two 


1024 


subseriptions complete each other, so that 
everything is present save the authors’ 
catalogue in anatomy and physiology. The 
same may be said of Harvard University, 
if we take the Cambridge and Boston 
departments together. Disregarding the 
authors’ catalogue, a complete: methodical 
arrangement is to be found in Cornell 
University, in Columbia University, in the 
City Library in Springfield, Mass., in the 
State Library in Albany and (excepting 


physiology) in the John Crerar Library, 


Chieago. Leaving out of account anatomy 
and physiology, the complete methodical 
set of ecards is to be found, furthermore, 
in the University of Michigan, the Univer- 
sity of Kansas, the University of Nebraska, 
the University of Wisconsin, Carleton Col- 
lege and Princeton University. As the 
above statement there are great 
scientific centers, including, for example, 
all points west of Lincoln, Nebr., and south 
of Princeton, N. J.. where our work is not 
accessible in such form that we should be 
willing for it to be taken as a test. This 
point we desire to emphasize, for we have 
reason to belheve that, in every ease where 
our bibhography has proved inefficient, it 
has been solely due to a complete miscon- 
ception of the possibilities really offered. 
Only such persons as have access to the 
above-mentioned sets of cards will be able 
to verify the following account.* 


shows, 


I. THE PRINTED CARD CATALOGUE. 
In reviewing the progress of the work 
since 1898, the most salient feature is the 


* At present all the topical cards issued prior 
to 1898 are out of print. Two sets tolerably com- 
plete from the middle of 189S on are still on hand. 
When these have been disposed of, nothing will 
remain of the issues prior to 1899, which itself 
Finally, a single copy 
of the authors’ catalogue can still be had com- 
plete from 1896. Save for this one set, the au- 
thors’ catalogue is already entirely out of print 
up to January, 1902. 


is nearing exhaustion. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Von. XVI. No. 417. 
far greater completeness of the record. 
Perfection has not of course yet been at- 
tained in this respect; but, since a com- 
plete register is kept of every fascicule 
excerpted, we know precisely where every 
gap occurs and it will eventually be filled. 
in any event, our bibliography for zoology 
is probably to-day more complete than any 
other in existence. The number of entries 
in the methodical set of cards already ex- 
ceeds 92,690, and the individual ecards pub- 
lished 11,000,000. 

The arrangement of the complete 
methodical set is such that there is 
searcely any limit to its possibilities in 
matter supplying bibliographical informa- 
tion. That one can at once ascertain the 
works having as their object a given genus, 
or a given group of animals, is of course 
evident. With equal facility, the bibliog- 
raphy of such questions as yiviparity, 
regeneration, flight, spermatogenesis, gas- 
trulation, mechanics of development, struc- 
ture of the vascular system, songs and 
eries, hibernation, centrosome, recent and 
fossil fauna of Kansas, studies on Miocene 
mammals, ete. 

Such groupings existed already in 1898; 
but since that time a change has taken 
place in the entries, which constitutes a 
veritable revolution in bibliographical 
methods and affords a precision which 
even those intimately connected with the 
work at first thought unattainable. 

Let us compare the procedure at present 
followed in the Coneilium with the ad- 
mirable bibhography in the Zoologischer 
Anzeiger, which certainly represents the 
greatest perfection heretofore attained. 

I have taken the pains to look up the 
entries in the Anzeiger recorded under 
fauna of Rhode Island from 1896 to 1901, 
and find a single reference to a paper by 
Eaton on the ‘Prehistoric Fauna of Bloek 
Island*: Hollick’s ‘Notes on Block Island’ 
and G. W. Field’s ‘Plankton Studies’ hay- 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


ing been apparently overlooked. Had the 
Coneilium followed the usual methods of 
bibhography, there would have been only 
the advantage of greater completeness and 
the ease of reference resulting from the 
use of the card system. The lone search 
would have been replaced by a_ single 
glance; that is all. But it is evident that 
a bibliography of the fauna of Rhode 
Island must contain references to such 
works as Carpenter’s studies on the ‘Shell- 
bearing Mollusea of Rhode Island.’ Hith- 
erto=such references had, however, always 
been simply classed under Mollusca. In 
1897, however, the Concilium attempted 
the innovation of entering such papers 
also under the appropriate faunistic head- 
ing, and so laid the basis for its so-called 
‘complete series,’ which to-day forms the 
principal raison d’étre of the bibliography. 

Towards the end of 1897 a further step 
was taken in classifying according to the 
text and not according to the title. Thus 
Ehrmann’s ‘Notes on Hastern North Amer- 
ican Cychrus’ was classified under Rhode 
Island, because the text showed that his 
collections came from that state. 

Then in 1899 a very important step 
was taken, which had at first seemed quite 
impossible. This was the introduction of 
multiple exhaustive entries. Tull then 
papers of so general a character that they 
embraced species from all the various con- 
tinents were omitted from the special 
faunistie bibliography. From 1899 on, 
however, it has been attempted to take 
account of every feature of the publication 
to be recorded. Thus a paper on tropical 
Coleoptera, if it contained references - to 
African, South American and Malayan 
forms would be classified under Coleop- 
tera, under Africa, under South America 
and under Malayan Archipelago. If, in 
addition, there were a section devoted to 
mimicry and another to myrmecophily, 
two further editions of the card reference 


SCIENCE. 


1025 


would be issued classed under these head- 
ings. Thus, for example, in Kerremans’ 
third study on Buprestidx, 96 new species 
were described, of which one solitary spe- 
cies of Brachys came from Florida.  Sub- 
seribers will find the entry in the appro- 
priate place under fauna of Florida. 

This new procedure brought the bibliog- 
raphy to a state of perfection that certainly 
never was attempted before; but there 
still remained one difficulty, which, in spite 
of many experiments, we were unable to 
overcome until the present year. 

The subseriber who desires to receive all 
references to the fauna of Rhode Island 
can not depend upon finding all he requires 
in our division Fauna of Rhode Island, 
even though our treatment of the section 
has been so exhaustive. There are papers 
on the Fauna of New England in general 
that contain notes on Rhode  Island.* 
There may be important observations on 
Rhode Island in papers that we have been 
forced to classify under fauna of the 
United States or even of North Ameriea 
in general. 

In order to obviate this difficulty our 
bibliographers now, in reading a paper, 
jot down each item as they come to it; thus, 
if they find species from Ontario, from all 
of the New England States, from New 
Mexico and from California, they will have 
recorded every single state; if the paper 
have notes on the structure of the eyes, 
the heart, and the kidneys, this will have 
been recorded; finally, if the paper be 
on Mollusea of the families Unionide, 
Helicide and Cyclostomide, evidence of 
this will be found in the notes taken. 
Three editions only of the card will be 
issued under anatomy, North American 
fauna and Mollusea; but the edition ap- 
pearing in the division anatomy will have 


*Thus King’s ‘ Further Notes on New England 
Formicide’ deals with Vermont, Massachusetts 
and Rhode Island forms. 


1026 


subsidiary symbols stating that only the 
eyes, the heart and the kidney are treated, 
that classed under Fauna of North America 
will enumerate all the states concerned, 
while finally the card intended for entry 
under Mollusea will state that Lamelli- 
branchs, Prosobranchs and Pulmonates are 
included. 

Such a card would have the following 


appearance: 
Doe, John. 4 (7) 
1902. New Land and Fresh-water Mol- 


luses, with Notes on Anatomy. Proce. 
Townville Nat. Hist. Soe., Vol. 4, p. 3-24, 
3 figs. [6 nn. spp. in Roeina n. g. 2, 
Helix 4] 

4.1,.32,.38 (71.3, 74.1-.6, 78.9, 79.4) 

Such notices are given in terms of the 
decimal classification. Thus the main card 
would appear under 4 Mollusca, and at the 
end of the text the sorters would find in 
imconspicuous type the instructions 4.1 
(Lamellibranchs), 4.32 (Prosobranchs) 
and 4.38 (Pulmonates), or, as it is ab- 
breviated, 4.1,.32,.38. These check num- 
bers are of course useful to any subscriber 
who has taken the pains to study our sys- 
tem of classification, but the main pur- 
pose is to guide the sorters in dividing up 
the ecards classified under general headings. 
Each subscriber then to the fauna of 
Rhode Island would receive notices of 
papers treating Rhode Island quite inci- 
dentally. 

Since 1899 record has been kept of every 
new species, ete., even though thirty or 
more lines of print may have been neces- 
sary to give the citation. Repeatedly an 
entire day has been devoted to excerpting 
a single monograph. In regard to this, 
however, we can be more explicit in the 
second part of this communication. 

Before terminating this first article at- 
tention should be frankly drawn to the 
defective state of our anatomical and phys- 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 417. 


iological bibliographies. Financial dif- 
ficulties have here alone stood in the way; 
each year we have hoped to be able to make 
these two sections worthy of the underta- 
king; but as often have we been obliged to 
postpone such action. Practical reasons 
make it wiser to apply the most approved 
methods to the excerpting of the zoological 
articles rather than to ever do this work 
in a less perfect manner. Delay in pub- 
lishing the anatomical and physiological 
parts can eventually be made good. Hasty, 
incomplete work in reading and classify- 
ing a zoological memoir leaves no out- 
wardly visible trace, lasting 
blemish. 

The Concilium has a right to expect 
from America subsidies, similar to those 
offered to it in Europe. It never can be 
self-supporting without raising its prices, 
so as to place it at the service of the 
privileged few instead of being open to 
all. Nevertheless, the present state of its 
subseription lst ean only be explained by 
an extraordinary ignorance of the facilities 
offered. Is it possible that there is not a 
person in Rhode Island, not a lbrary, not 
a laboratory, willing to purchase (for ten 
cents) the bibliography of the fauna of 
this state during seven years? I should 
have supposed there would be fifty in 
Providence alone. We have _ separate 
special bibliographies for each state in the 
Union. Not one of them has yet found 
a subseriber! For completeness we must: 
continue them, no matter how great the 
loss. And so it is with every other de- 
partment. Personally I can searcely con- 
ceive that there is a serious worker in 
zoology who would not find it to his ad- 
vantage to enter into relations with the 
Concilium. The institution has solved the 
bibliographical problems that stood before 
it in a most satisfactory fashion. All that. 
remains is for workers, the world over, 


but is a 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


and especially in America, where the en- 
terprise had its origin, to obtain full profit 
from its work. If there be any difficulties 
in the way we should be glad to know 
of them. It would be of the greatest 
service to us for us to be informed of any 
bibliographical need which we ean not fill. 
The system is so elastic that past experience 
warrants us in saying that no legitimate 
demand that ean be made on a bibliography 
need remain unfilled. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE- 
MENT OF SCIENCE. 


Tue fifty-second annual meeting of the 
American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, and the first of the Convocation 
Week meetings, will be held in Washington, 
D. C., December 27, 1902, to January 3, 1903. 
The retiring president is Professor Asaph 
Hall, U.S.N., and the president elect, Presi- 
dent Ira Remsen, Johns Hopkins University. 
The permanent secretary is Dr. L. O. Howard, 
Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C., and the 
local secretary, Dr. Marcus Benjamin, Co- 
lumbian University, Washington, D. C. 
President Roosevelt is honorary president of 
the local committee. The preliminary pro- 
gram with information in regard to hotel 
headquarters, railway rates, ete., will be found 
in the issue of Scrence for November 21. 
The following scientific societies will meet at 
Washington in affiliation with the Association: 

The American Anthropological Association will 
hold its first regular meeting during Convocation 
Week in affiliation with Section H of the A.. A. 
A. S. President, W J McGee; secretary George 
A. Dorsey, Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, Ill. 

The American Chemical Society will meet on 
December 29 and 30. President, Ira Remsen; 
secretary, A. ©. Hale, 352A Hancock street, 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

The American Folk-lore Society will meet in 
affiliation with Section H of the A. A. A. 8. 
President, George A. Dorsey; vice-presidents, J. 
Walter Fewkes, James Mooney; secretary, W. W. 
Newell, Cambridge, Mass. 

The American Microscopical Society will hold 


SCIENCE. 


1027 


a meeting on January 1. President, E. A. Birge,. 
Madison, Wis.; secretary, H. B. Ward, University 
of Nebraska, Lincoln Nebr. 

The American Morphological Society will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, H. C. Bumpus; 
vice-president, G. H. Parker; secretary and treas- 
urer, M. M. Metealf, Woman’s College, Baltimore, 
Md. 

The American Philosophical Association will 
meet on December 30 and 31 and January 1. 
Secretary, H. N. Gardiner, Northampton, Mass.. 

The American Physical Society will meet im 
affiliation with Section B of the A. A. A. S. 
President, Albert A. Michelson; secretary, Ernest 
Merritt, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 

The American Physiological Society will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, R. H. Chit- 
tenden; secretary, F. S. Lee, Columbia University, 
New York, N. Y. 

The American Psychological Association wilt 
meet on December 30 and 31 and January 1. 
President, E. A. Sanford; secretary and treasurer,. 
Livingston Farrand, Columbia University, New 
York, N. Y. 

The American Society of Naturalists will meet 
on December 30 and 31. President, J. McK. 
Cattell; vice-presidents, C. D. Waleott, lu. O. 
Howard, D. P. Penhallow; secretary, R. G. Har- 
rison, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 

The Association of American Anatomists will 
meet on December 30 and 31. President, G. 8. 
Huntington; vice-president, D. S. Lamb; secre- 
tary and treasurer, G. Carl Huber, University of 
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 

The Association of Economic Entomologists will 
meet on December 26 and 27. President, E. P.. 
Felt; secretary, A. L. Quaintance, College Park, 
Md. 

The Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of 
America will meet during Convocation Week, in 
affiliation with Section A of the A. A. A. S. 
President, Simon Newcomb; secretary, George C.. 
Comstock, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 

The Botanical Society of America will meet on 
December 31 and January 1. President, B. T. 


* Galloway; secretary, D. T. MacDougal, New York 


City. 

The Botanists of the Central and Western States: 
will meet on December 30. Committee in charge 
of the meeting, John M. Coulter, University of 
Chicago; D. M. Mottier, University of Indiana, 
Bloomington, Ind.; Conway MacMillan, Univer- 
sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 

The Geological Society of America will meet ow 
December 29, 30 and 31. President, N. H. Win- 


1028 


ehell; vice-presidents, S. F. Emmons, J. C. Bran- 
ner; secretary, H. L. Fairchild, University of 
Rochester, Rochester, N. Y. 


The National Geographic Society will hold a 


meeting during Convocation Week. President, 
A. Graham Bell; vice-president, W J McGee; 
secretary, A. J. Henry, U. 8. Weather Bureau, 
Washington, D. C. 

The Naturalists of the Central States will meet 
-on December 30 and 31. Chairman, 8. A. Forbes; 
secretary, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago, 
Chicago, Ill. 

The Society of American Bacteriologists will 
meet on December 30 and 31. President, H. W. 
Conn; vice-president, James Carroll; secretary, E. 
OQ. Jordan, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.; 
council, W. H. Welch, Theobald Smith, H. L. 
Russell, Chester, Pa. 

The Society for Plant Morphology and Physiol- 
ogy will meet during Convocation Week.  Presi- 
dent, V. M. Spalding; vice-president, B. D. 
Halsted; secretary and treasurer, W. F. Ganong, 
Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 

The Society for the Promotion of Agricultural 
Science will meet during Convocation Week. 
President, W. H. Jordan; secretary, F. M. Web- 
ster, Urbana, Ill. ; 

The Zoologists of the Central and Western 
States will meet during Convocation Week. 
President, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago. 


GEOLOGIOAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 


At the 133d meeting held November 26, 
1902, the following papers were presented: 

“Some Facts and Theories Bearing on the 
Accumulation of Petroleum,’ by C. W. Hayes. 
Mr. Hayes pointed out the great diversity in 
eonditions under which petroleum has _ac- 
cumulated in different regions and that con- 
clusions drawn from a study of the Appa- 
lachian field are not applicable to the Texas- 
Louisiana field. The physiography, stratig- 
raphy and structure of the Gulf coastal plain 
were briefly outlined and the peculiar qua- 
quaversal structure of the Spindletop oil pool 
was described. Spindletop is regarded as the 
type of a geologic structure occurring at 
mumerous points in southwestern Louisiana 
and southeastern Texas. Among the locali- 
ties at which the same or a similar structure 
thas been detected are the five ‘salt islands’ 
of Louisiana, Hackberry Island, Damon 
Mound, Big Hill and High Island. All of 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Vou. XVI. No. 417. 


these and others at which sufficient drilling 
has been done to afford information concern- 
ing their structure are found to be quaqua- 
versals. Further, all are composed of essen- 
tially the same material, viz: (1) Surface 
clays and sands, (2) limestone (with clay 
and sand) in part dolomitic and cavernous 
and containing native sulphur and petroleum, 
(3) gypsum, (4) rock salt. The thickness of 
the salt has in no case been determined, al- 
though one drilling penetrated it to a depth 
of 2,100 feet. 

The theory for the explanation of these 
phenomena was first proposed by Robt. T. 
Hill. It is that along lines of structural 
weakness, extending across the Gulf coastal 
plain in a northeast-southwest direction par- 
allel to the well-known Balcones Fault of 
central Texas, that saline waters ascended 
from great depths bringing up the petroleum 
which is widely disseminated through the 
coastal plain formations and also depositing 
the salt and gypsum. In some cases these 
springs were sealed over by later sedimentary 
deposits retaining the oil and in others the 
oil escaped. Some of the difficulties in the 
way of the theory were pointed out and the 
conclusion stated that, while suggestive and 
worthy of careful consideration, the theory 
can not be accepted in its present form. 

‘Mountain Growths of the Great Plains,’ 
by Mr. Bailey Willis. Mr. Willis called at- 
tention to three local mountain growths lying 
within the otherwise little-disturbed area of 
the Great Plains between the Mississippi and 
the Rocky Mountains, viz., the St. Francis 
Mountains, Missouri, the Wichita Mountains, 
Oklahoma, and the Black Hills, South Da- 
kota. Each of these groups of hills repre- 
sents an eroded uplift less than 100 miles in 
maximum diameter, of an approximately oval 
form. The central massif in each case con- 
sists, at least in great part, of pre-Cambrian 
igneous rocks. The uplift of the St. Francis 
Mountains occurred during late Cambrian 
time; that of the Wichitas during the late 
Carboniferous; and that of the Black Hills 
in the early Tertiary. Undisturbed Cambro- 
Silurian strata still surround the bases of. the 
St. Francis Mountains, and the Wichitas are 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. | 


similarly being uncovered of the Red Beds, 
which are there probably Permian. These 
two groups thus represent very ancient hills, 
preserved to us through burial, and exhib- 
iting, as they are now uncovered, topographic 
features of Cambrian and Carboniferous 
dates, respectively. Although Silurian and 
earlier strata surrounding the Wichitas are 
folded and overthrust, and although there are 
some evidences of compression in the strata 
dipping away from the Black Hills, the eleva- 
tion in these cases, as in that of the St. 
Francis Mountains, is apparently due rather 
to vertical than to horizontal stress. Hach 
of the domes appears to stand for the local 
effect of a vertical movement, such as that 
which in the Appalachian province has raised 


the Cretaceous peneplain to the height of the - 


Appalachian Mountains; and the internal 
structures may be discriminated as effects of 
earlier deformation. The comparison of the 
three uplifts brings out the fact that similar 
effects of vertical movement have been pro- 
duced at intervals from Cambrian to Tertiary; 
and the nature of the growths bears interest- 
ingly on the problem of the cause of such 
local upward swelling. 

‘Stratigraphic Relations of the Red Beds 
to the Carboniferous and Permian in North- 
ern Texas, by Geo. I. Adams. This paper 
reported the results of a reconnaissance made 
for the purpose of reviewing the mapping 
done by Mr. Cummins of the Texas Survey. 
It was found that the limestones of the 
Albany division, although they thin out 
northward, extend across the line drawn as 
the contact between the Carboniferous and 
the Permian, and are represented in the Clear 
Fork and Wichita divisions. The approxi- 
mate limit of the red color is a line diagonal 
to the strike of the formations and is found 
to correspond in a general way with the line 
drawn by Mr. Cummins as separating the 
Carboniferous and Permian. The vertebrate 
fossils from the Clear Fork and Wichita 
divisions which have been referred to Per- 
mian, are now known to belong to the Albany 
which was classed as Carboniferous by the 
Texas Survey. 

‘Voleanie Dust from Guatemala,’ by J. S. 


SCIENCE. 


1029 


Diller. Mr. J. S. Diller presented specimens 
of voleanic sand and dust received through 


‘the U. S. Weather Bureau and the Chamber 


of Commerce, San Diego, Cal., from the re- 
cent eruption of Santa Maria in Guatemala. 
The dust is remarkable for its light color and 
feldspathic character. Ferromagnesian sili- 
cates are subordinate and the glass particles 
are very clear, as in dusts from volcanoes 
erupting trachytes or rhyolites. 

One sample collected October 25 on the 
deck of the steamer Luxor while in the harbor 
of San Benito, Mexico, sixty miles from the 
voleano, is uniformly fine sand with particles 
nearly a millimeter in diameter. The par- 
ticles are chiefly feldspar, of which only a 
small part show distinct lamellar twinning. 
The mineral grains are generally coated with 
clear vesicular glass. 

The other sample collected on the deck of 
the same vessel October 26, 200 miles from 
the voleano, is much finer, like flour, and 
composed predominantly of glass particles 
ranging about .15 mm. in diameter. A chem- 
ical examination of the coarser material will 
s00n be made. Aurrep H. Brooks, 

Secretary. 


AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, NORTHEASTERN 
SECTION. 


Tuer regular meeting of the Northeastern 
Section of the American Chemical Society 
was held Saturday, November 29, at Room 22 
Walker Building, Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology. 

Mr. Francis Fitz Gerald, of the Interna- 
tional Graphite Company of Niagara Falls, 
addressed the society on ‘The Acheson Fur- 
nace and its Products,’ describing the pro- 
cesses and apparatus used by the company 
in the manufacture of carborundum and 
graphite. 

The following officers for the ensuing year 
were elected: 

President, Augustus H. Gill. 

Vice-President, Henry Howard. 

Secretary, Arthur M. Comey. 

Treasurer, B. F. Davenport. 

Executive Committee, R. P. Williams, G. P. 
Baxter, B. §. Merigold, H. C. Lythgoe, Henry 
Fay. 


1030 


Members of the Council, H. P. Talbot, L. P. 
Kinniecutt, C. L. Parsons. 
Artuur M. Comey, 
Secretary. 
THE NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF 
TEACHERS. 


Tue Association held its fifteenth regular 
—sixth annual—meeting Saturday, November 
15, at the Dorchester High School, Boston. 
The Association holds three regular meetings 
per year, its membership being drawn from 
all sections of the United States, but mostly 
from New England. Visits were made in 
the forenoon to the New England Gas and 
Coke Plant and the United States Steel 
Works at Everett. The principal paper of 
the afternoon was by Professor Arthur A. 
Noyes, of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, on ‘The Interpretation of the Usual 
Scheme of Qualitative Analysis Through the 
Mass Action Law and the Ionic Theory,’ ac- 
companied by experiments. The following 
officers were elected for the ensuing year: 

President, L. G. Smith, Roxbury. 

Vice-President, A. S. Perkins, Dorchester. 

Secretary, George A. Cowen, West Roxbury. 

Treasurer, EK. F. Holden, Charlestown. 

Executive Committee, George W. Earle, Somer- 
ville; Miss Laura P. Patten, Medford; Oliver P. 
Watts, Waltham. j 


CHEMISTRY 


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GEOLOGICAL JOURNAL CLUB. 
December 5.—The following papers were 
reviewed: T. Nelson Dale, ‘ Bulletin 195 U. 
S. G. 8.) by Ma. Fred H. Moffit. Ma. Moffit 
has been Professor Dale’s assistant for the 
past five years and gave much additional in- 
formation concerning Vermont geology with 
some interesting problems of which this Bul- 
letin deals. Rudolf Dekeskamp, on the ‘Dis- 
tribution of Barium in Rocks and Mineral 
Springs as Bearing Especially upon the 
Theory of Lateral Secretion’ (Zettschrift fiir 
Praktische Geologie, April, 1902), by Pro- 
fessor J. F. Kemp. H. W. SHrer. 


BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 


Tue first meeting of the season was held 
on November 5, 1902. Dr. T. A. Jaggar, Jr., 
spoke on the ‘Possibility of Voleano-Proof 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 417. 


Construction. During the past summer the 
speaker had investigated the destructive work 
of Mt. Pelée in the Antilles and described 
the eruptions there as of a common type in 
which there are tremendous explosions of 
steam, hot dust, and stones, but with no good 
evidence of lava flows. The loss of life is 
chiefly by the intense heat, by falling of solid 
bodies, such as stones, by blasts of wind, and 
by suffocation from causes not clearly defined, 
but perhaps in some eases by gases. The few 
survivors of the explosions on Martinique and 
St. Vincent were in each ease sheltered in 
very tightly constructed rooms which admitted 
but little outside air, and were protected in 
some measure by large walls of masonry on 
the side towards the voleano. A number of 


-lantern slides were shown illustrating the ef- 


feets of the explosions. 

The second paper was by Dr. W. E. Castle, 
on ‘ Mendel’s Principles of Heredity” Men- 
del’s work -on hybridization was performed 
about fifty years ago, but until recently his 
discoveries have gone almost unnoticed. 
Among the more important of Mendel’s dis- 
coveries are: (1) The law of dominance, when, 
for example, the offspring of two parents dif- 
fering in respect of one character, all resemble 
one parent, and possess, therefore, the domi- 
nant character, that of the other parent being 
latent or recessive. (2) In place of simple 
dominance, there may be manifest in the im- 
mediate hybrid offspring an intensification of 
character, or a condition intermediate between 
the two parents, or the offspring may have a 
peculiar character of their own. (3) A segre- 
gation of characters united in the hybrid 
takes place in their offspring, so that a certain 
per cent. of these offspring possess the domi- 
nant character alone, a certain per cent. the 
recessive character alone, while a certain per 
cent. are again hybrid in nature. 

At the meeting of November 19, 1902, Mr. 
William Lyman Underwood spoke on ‘ Bird 
Photography” A large number of lantern 
slides of New England birds was shown, most 
of which were obtained after much pains- 
taking work in northern Maine. Mr. Under- 
wood’s observations showed that, in the case 
of the chickadee and the yellow-bellied sap- 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


sucker, the male parent alone attends to the 
cleaning of the nest while it is in use by the 
fledglings. The methods used in securing the 
photographs, as well as the manipulation of 
the cameras, were explained by the speaker. 
Guover M. ALLEN, 
Secretary. 


DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE STRATIGRAPHIC POSITION OF THE JUDITH 
RIVER BEDS. A CORRECTION OF MR. 
HATCHER’S CORRECTION. 

In Scrmencr of November 21 Mr. J. B. 
Hatcher publishes a note in which he disputes 
some statements made by Professor Osborn 
in an article on ‘ New Vertebrates of the Mid- 
Cretaceous.’ One of these relates to the posi- 
tion of the Judith River Beds, and Mr. Hatcher 
expresses the opinion that these beds which 
have usually been considered part of the 
Laramie are really much older than that for- 
mation. He says that ‘The fact that Cre- 
taceous Nos. 2 and 3 [Benton and Niobrara] 
are entirely wanting in this region leads to 
the inference that they are represented by the 
lower members of the Judith River beds, and 
that the lower members of these keds are in 
reality older than the oldest of the Belly River 
series, a little farther north.’ This inference 
is wholly incorrect, but as it claims to be based 
on the field observations of so able and care- 
ful a worker as Mr. Hatcher it is likely to be 
accepted by many and to confuse all future 
discussions of the subject if it is not promptly 
corrected. 

Tt has long been known that the equivalents 
of the Fort Pierre and Fox Hills beds under- 
lie the Judith River beds in their typical ex- 
posures near the mouth of Judith River. Mr. 
Hatcher quotes Meek and Hayden’s erroneous 
statement of 1857, but if he had examined 
their later references to the geology of the 
region he would have found the error cor- 
rected and that the sandstone first called 
“No. 1’ was later referred to the Fox Hills 
Os SING, Be 

The section has been studied by E. D. Cope, 
C. A. White and doubtless many others. In 


* See Meek’s statement in U. S. Geol. Surv. 
Terr. quarto Vol. IX., 1876, pp. xxxvi, xlviii, xlix. 


SCIENCE. 


1031 


1894 it was the writer’s privilege, in company 
with Mr. W. H. Weed, to examine the section 
along the Missouri River from Fort Benton 
to the mouth of the Judith. Between these 
two points the distance along the meandering 
course of the river is somewhat over 100 miles 
and the rocks are well exposed almost con- 
tinuously from the Benton shales up to the 
Judith River beds. By the latter term I 
mean the brackish- and fresh-water beds to 
which it was first applied, well exposed on 
both sides of the Missouri River near the 
mouth of Judith River, Montana. At many 
places in this neighborhood these beds were 
seen to lie directly on shales and sandstones 
containing an abundant marine invertebrate 
fauna which elsewhere is known to be charac- 
teristic of the Fox Hills beds. The relation 
of these fossiliferous marine beds to the over- 
lying Judith River beds may be seen near the 
mouth of Dog Creek about three miles east 


‘of Judith P. O.; on Dog Creek three to four 


miles above its mouth; on the north side of 
the Missouri opposite Judith; and on the 
north side of the Missouri three miles north- 
west of Judith. Among the species collected 
are Cardium speciosum M. & H., Mactra alta 
M. & H., Avicula nebrascana M. & H1., Cymella 
undata M. & H., Spheriola cordata M. & H., 
Callista nebrascensis M. & H., and Tancredia 
americana M. & H. These are sufficient to 
establish the horizon as Fox Hills without 
question and the overlying Judith River beds. 
cannot possibly be very much older than the 
Laramie. In my opinion they are Laramie. 

The marine beds containing the faunas of 
the Fox Hills and Fort Pierre are exposed 
along the Missouri River for some miles above 
the mouth of the Judith. Between these and 
the typical Benton shales there is a series 
of coal-bearing sandstones and shales whose 
stratigraphic position is precisely the same as 
that to which the Belly River series has been 
assigned. In the Fort Benton folio Mr. Weed 
has called this the Eagle formation. It is 
separated from the Judith River beds by sev- 
eral hundred feet of marine beds and the litho- 
logic resemblance is not very close, though it 
might be possible to confuse them in areas 
where the section is not well exposed. 


It is just possible that in the Canadian areas 
that have been referred to the Belly River 
beds two or more distinct horizons have been 
confused under one name. In fact the late 
Dr. George M. Dawson admits this possibility 
in one of his early descriptions* of the Belly 
River beds, stating that in certain areas the 
beds assigned to the Belly River might be 
supposed to overlie the Pierre shales rather 
than underlie them. His descriptions and 
the invertebrate fossils that he reports arouse 
the suspicion that at some localities the forma- 
tion includes the Fox Hills and the Judith 
River beds. 

Whether the subsequent work of the Can- 
adian geologists has removed all grounds for 
doubt as to the stratigraphy in all the Belly 
River areas and whether these doubts could 
reasonably involve any of the localities at 
which vertebrate remains were obtained I 
have not been able to learn from the published 
reports. These queries are worthy of the at- 
tention of those familiar with the field. 

The point which I wish to emphasize is the 
truth of Professor Osborn’s statement that 
‘the true Judith River beds certainly overlie 
the Fort Pierre and are of more recent age.’ 

T. W. STANTON. 

WASHINGTON, D. C., 

November 25, 1902. 


THE PRICKLES OF XANTHOXYLUM. 

In No. 413 of Scrence, p. 871, there ap- 
peared a note calling attention to an error 
which occurs in some books. regarding the 
nature of the prickles of Xanthoxylum. As 
in that note also the ‘ Cyclopedia of American 
Horticulture’ is cited as making the errone- 
ous statement that the paired prickles at the 
base of the petioles are stipular spines, I 
should like to point out that this statement 
is made only in the illustration, while in the 
text these bodies are always called prickles, 
though no particular mention is made of the 
occasional occurrence of paired prickles at 
the base of the petioles, and none of the ab- 
sence of stipules in the genus, since this is 
a character common to the whole family of 


* Geol. Sury. Canada, ‘Rept. of Progress for 
1882-83-84,’ pp. 118-126 C. 


SCIENCE. 


LN. S. Vou. XVI. No. 417. 


Rutaceae. The discrepancy of text and illus- 
tration is explained by the fact that the illus- 
tration was inserted without my knowledge 
after I had sent in my manuscript and that 
I had no opportunity to read proofs of my 
articles in the fourth volume of that work, 
since I was abroad in Europe during the time 
it was printed. If I had considered the 
prickles in Xanthoxylum metamorphosed 
stipules, I certainly should have spoken of 
them as spines and not as prickles. There 
occurs a similar arrangement of prickles in 
some species of roses, chiefly in species of the 
sections Cinnamomez and Caroline, but in 
this case no doubt can arise of their nature, 
since the true stipules are conspicuously pres- 
ent, usually adnate to the petioles. In both 
genera these prickly bodies are simply out- 
growths of the epidermis and, therefore, mor- 
phologically to be considered prickles, though 
they might, in regard to their ecological sig- 
nificance, possibly be considered equivalent to 
stipular spines. ALFRED REHDER. 

ARNOLD ARBORETUM. 

NATURAL HISTORY IN ENGLAND. 

In a letter to the editor of Science, De- 
cember 5, 1902, Professor Packard writes as 
follows: 

“Our American children are woe- 
fully lacking in interest in natural history 
* * * far behind German, and even English 
children, I fancy.” 

The ‘even’ in this sentence staggered me 
so completely that I am moved to write in 
protest—or at least in inquiry. I received 
my school education—the regular English 
classical course—in Sussex and Worcester- 
shire, and spent various holidays in Devon- 
shire. I thus had groups of boy friends and 
acquaintances in three English counties. So 
far as I remember, it was a matter of course 
that we should be interested in some branch 
of natural history. At any rate, I can now 
recall but two exceptions to this rule from the 
whole list of my schooltime friends. And I 
well remember that our natural history in- 
terests proved a bond of friendship with far- 
mers’ boys and gamekeepers’ sons, with whom 
we should otherwise, as public-school boys, 
have been at daggers drawn. 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


I know practically nothing at first-hand of 
German school-boys. But I am sure that the 
natural history interest was more general in 
my time at Oxford than it was among the 
German students I met at Leipzig. On Ger- 
man walking tours I have often been aston- 
ished at the ignorance of natural objects 
shown by my German companions; while my 
experience in England has always been that 
some one in the party knew the birds, some 
one the insects, some one the plants, some 
one the fossils—and that the rest were thirsty 
for information. 

So I have been accustomed to regard an in- 
terest in natural history as the birthright of 
the English child. If this is mere insular 
prejudice, I must give it up; if it has the 
basis in fact that I think it has, I hope that 
Professor Packard will retract his ‘ even, 
We owe a great deal to Germany; but— 
natural history! 

On the general subject of nature study I 
may, perhaps, be allowed to say that—so far 
as I have followed the rather voluminous 
literature—it seems to have three dangers. 
The first is that, in striving for sympathy 
with nature, we run into sentimentality. The 
second is that, in avoiding fairy tales, we run 
into something ten times worse—if indeed 
fairy tales are bad at all; I mean, a pseudo- 
psychology of the lower animals. And the 
third is that, in trying to be exceedingly 
simple, we become exceedingly inaccurate. 


E. B. TrrcHener. 
CoRNELL UNIVERSITY. 


TREE TRUNKS FOUND WITH MASTODON REMAINS. 


WHILE excavating the bones of a mastodon 
near Newburgh, N. Y., as mentioned in Sct- 
ENCE, October 10, 1902, there were found large 
numbers of tree trunks both in the muck and 
in the marl lying beneath it. In many in- 
stances the mastodon bones were found resting 
on these trees. While most of the trees were 
so rotten that it was possible to obtain only 
small fragments, several were recovered in 
lengths of two feet and over; and one in par- 
ticular possesses curious interest, and some 
idea of its probable species would be welcomed 
by the writer. The tree was lying three feet 


SCIENCE. 


1033 


below the surface, in muck, and was very soft 
and spongy; and not only on the surface, but 
clear through, was of a dark brown color, 
almost that of the muck, and perhaps colored 
by the muck. Its scientific interest rests upon 
the fact that in section it is polygonal, while 
the flat faces of the trunk that make up the 
polygon vary in number from fourteen to 
sixteen, some of the faces merging into one 
another at various points along the trunk. 
This piece of the tree is about three feet 
long, and when first dug out, about two 
months ago, was nearly nine inches thick at 
one end and six at the other; but it has 
shrunk on drying out, until now it measures 
five and three inches, respectively. No other 
pieces of this tree were found, although the 
adjoining layers of muck were carefully dug 
over and examined, in hopes of obtaining 
more of it. 2 

With one exception, all the other tree 
trunks found were smaller than this one, few 
measuring more than five inches at the butt. 
Some were easily recognized as spruce and 
red cedar, and were in a fair state of preserva- 
tion, except that when dry the large amount 
of shrinkage caused them to crumble unless 
carefully handled. Several trees showed while 
still wet the marks of the teeth of animals, 
and it has been surmised that this was the 
work of beavers. When dried, however, the 
tooth marks are much less distinct, and their 
study is thus rendered more difficult. 

REGINALD GORDON. 


THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION. 


Tue Carnegie Institution shall devote itself 
essentially to the following subjects: 

1st. To moralize scientific men. 

2d. To protect settled in 
countries where proper means be wanting. 

3d. To depurate science. How to facilitate 


investigators 


that. 
4th. To advance science by a selection of 
studies. : 


1st. To moralize scientific men. 
Secure priority of several important re- 


searches. Depurate the habits of both insti- 
tutions and societies. Protect real scientists 
against upstarts, meddlers, courtiers and 


1034 


speculators. - Independ science from politics 
Condemn rivalry between sci- 
Consti- 
tute a court of arbitrament where consults 
be answered, contentions for priority settled, 
and complaints of subservients nullified by 
their superiors attended to. 

2d. To protect investigators settled in cown- 


and religion. 
entists living in hostile countries. 


tries where proper means be wanting. 
Afford them money, laboratories, books and 
instruments. Establish illustrated publica- 
tions and print the works of any solicitor, 
whatever his nationality may be, provided that 
his writings be important. Scientists are 
generally obliged to waste their money in order 
to satisfy editors. Erect libraries and found 
agencies where scientific books and instru- 
ments be sold at the very lowest prices. 
Science must not remain within the grip of 
speculators (trading editors and book-sellers). 
The Carnegie Institution must not benefit 
the United States only. Its views must be 
more absolute; it must protect also those who 
sacrifice themselves for truth in poor or igno- 
rant countries. Genius is not the exclusive 
property of the inhabitants of a nation. Es- 
tablish znternational competitions, rewards, 
explorations, laboratories, museums, observa- 


tories. 

3d. To depurate science. How to facilitate 
that. 

Make science more popular. ‘Translate 


many books. Attack the abuse of the nomen- 
elature of natural history (excess of newly 
discovered species, subspecies, varieties, upper 
families; unnecessary innovations, an exag- 
gerate dedication to nomenclature with a view 
to satisfy vanity). Study such nomencla- 
tures as to enable everybody to understand 
technicisms.* Attack the abuse of useless 
neologisms and their duplication. Unify as 
much as possible the languages, measures, 
unities and conventional signs. Publish bib- 
liographies and distribute them freely and 
gratuitously through the world. 

4th. To advance science by a selection of 
studies. 

* A. L. Herrera, 


étres organisés et des minéraux,’ 
“Antonio Alzate,’ 1900-1902. 


‘Nouvelle nomenclature des 
Mém. Soe. 


SCIENCE. 


(N.S. Von. XVI. No. 417. 


Point out the more general and important 
topies. Set degrees to the value of investiga- 
tions, repealing that propensity to an isolated 
and invariable consideration of details (newly 
discovered subspecies, histological cuts, new 
stars, lower specialties). j 

In short, the Carnegie Institution shall not 
devote itself to discover, but to facilitate the 
means of discovering to genuine scientists, 
whatever their nationality may be, constitu- 


ting itself supporter of the often abused 
rights of the disinterested investigator or 


wanting inventor. 
A.. L. Herrera, 
Chief of the Commission of Parasitology, 
Professor of Biology at the Normal 
School. 
BeETTEMITAS 8, México, D. F. 


SHORTER ARTICLES. 

THE FIRST USE OF MAMMALS AND MAMMALIANS. 

In the Popular Science Monthly for Sep- 
tember, 1902, I have stated that ‘the first 
writer to use the English word mammals to 
any extent was Doctor John Mason Good,’ 
but could not refer to any of his works earlier 
than ‘The Book of Nature’ (1826). His 
‘Pantologia’ was not accessible at the time, 
but since has been put on the shelves of the 
library of the U. S. National Museum and 
on reference to Volume VIII. (1813), I find 
he formally introduced the English name then, 
under Mammalia, in the following words: 
“Tn English we have no direct synonym for 
this term; quadruped or four-footed, which 
has usually been employed for this purpose, 
is truly absurd, since one of the orders have 
[ste/] no feet whatever, and another offers 
one or two genera, that cannot with propriety 
be said to have more than two feet. We 
have hence thought ourselves justified in ver- 
nacularizing the Latin term, and translating 
mammalia, mammals, or breasted-animals.”’ 

In Volume XII., in the articles Quadru- 
ped and Zoology, Good also used the word 
‘Mammals’ apropos of the classification of 
Linneus and in other places* and, also, in 

*The volumes of the ‘Pantologia’ are not 
paged, the alphabetical arrangement having been 
thought to supersede pagination. 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


the article on ‘Quadruped,’ the adjective 
‘mammalian.’ 

I have already indicated that mammalians 
had been used in translation of mammiféres. 
The Rev. William Kirby, in 1835, in the once 
famous Bridgenater treatise ‘On the Power, 
Wisdom and Goodness of God as manifested in 
the Creation of Animals and in their History, 
Habits and Instincts,’ declined to use the form 
mammals, but invariably used, as the English 
equivalent of Mammalia, ‘ MAMMALIANS.’ 
Chapter XXIV. is entitled ‘Functions and 
“Instincts. Mammalians’; in this, it is ex- 
plained, ‘the whole body, constituting the 
Class, though sometimes varying in the man- 
ner, are all distinguished by giving suck to 
their young, on which account they were de- 
nominated by the Swedish naturalist, Mam- 
malians’ (II., p. 476). In a footnote to this 
statement Kirby adds, ‘Cuvier calls them 
Mammifers, but there seems no reason for 
altering the original term.’ 

We may cordially endorse the sentiment of 
Kirby and, doing so, refuse to follow him in 
action and to adopt his modification of ‘ the 
original term,’ and revert to the genuine 
original—mammals or, in the singular, mam- 
mal. 

No instance of the use of the singular— 
mammalian—has been found in Kirby’s work 
or in any of his suecessors’, nor does the sin- 
gular form mammal occur in the ‘ Pantologia.’ 


Tuero. Ginn. 
Cosmos CLUB, WASHINGTON. 


THE STARTING POINT FOR GENERIC 
TURE IN BOTANY. 


NOMENCLA- 


As the subject of generic nomenclature has 
been considerably discussed of late, perhaps 
it may not be inappropriate to call particular 
attention to this phase of it. 

The uniformity and permanence of any 
system of nomenclature must depend largely 
upon the selection of a proper starting point. 
The result of the application of any system of 
fixing genera must vary as the initial date 
varies. Hence it is of the utmost importance 
whether we start with Tournefort, Linneus’ 
‘Genera Plantarum,’ ‘Species Plantarum,’ 
‘Systema Nature’ ed. 1, or ed. 10, as one 


‘sense can be said to have originated. 


SCIENCE. 1055 


zoological friend has suggested. The start- 
ing point must, of course, be fixed more or 
less arbitrarily, but we believe there are sey- 
eral rational considerations which should in- 
fluence the selection. Judging from past ex- 
perience, no date is likely to meet with uni- 
versal approval at present; but if the date be 
chosen with proper regard for principles of 
justice, rationality, and practicability it will 
stand a reasonable chance of being generally 
accepted in the future and of leading to that 
uniformity and stability which are the great 
desiderata at present. Some one has sug- 
gested that to be in accord with these prin- 
ciples we must simply begin at the beginning. 
To this opinion we heartily subscribe. It is 
necessary, however, to define just what we 
mean by ‘beginning’ and to inquire whether 
there is anywhere in the course of the devel- 
opment of the conception of genera a point 
at which genera in anything like a modern 
We 
cannot agree with those who would attribute 
this ‘beginning’ to the ancient Greeks or 
Romans, or even to the medizval and later 
herbalists, though they contributed much to° 
the development of the subject and in many 
instances had rather well-defined ideas of 
genera. There is, however, no one of them 
that has defined and illustrated the genera 
of the vegetable kingdom in general in such 
a manner as to deserve the title of ‘founder 
of genera,’ or as to furnish a practical basis 
for generic nomenclature. This honor, we 
believe, is reserved for Tournefort, who in 
1700, in his great work ‘Institutiones Rei 
Herbarize,’ described and illustrated in a most 
admirable manner nearly 700 genera, includ- 
ing members of all the groups of the vege- 
table kingdom. Here we have, I believe, the 
earliest practical starting point for generic 
nomenclature. Many of the systematists of 
the past have tacitly recognized this fact by 
crediting Tournefort and his prelinnzan suc- 
cessors, Vailliant, Micheli, and Dillenius with 
genera established by them. This practice 
has, however, followed no particular or con- 
sistent method. 

Let us consider for a moment the claims 
to recognition of the different initial dates 


1036 


proposed as compared with Tournefort. Two, 
—1737 and 1753—are perhaps sufficient to 
notice; they are practically the only ones that 
have been used as the basis of serious or sys- 
tematie efforts to revise our nomenclature. 
The date of the appearance of the first edition 
of ‘Species Plantarum,’ 17538, is very natu- 
rally and properly taken as the starting point 
for specific nomenclature, as this was the first 
attempt to apply binomials in a systematic 
manner to a large number of species; but why 
it should be taken as the date for genera is 
not so evident. Linnzeus’s genera were not 
first described here, but in previous editions 
of his ‘Genera Plantarum.’ Hence Kunze’s 
proposition to start with 1787, the date of the 
frst edition of that work, is much more just 
and logical. But here practical difficulties 
arise in securing types, as no particular species 
is mentioned in connection with the generic 
diagnoses; whereas Tournefort’s genera are 
not only described, but accompanied by lists 
of described species and excellent illustra- 
tions of at least one species of nearly every 
genus. Why thrust upon Linneus the honor 
ot founding genera when his most ardent ad- 
mirers, so far as we are aware, have never 
claimed it for him ? 

From the standpoint of the mycologist 
either 1737 or 1753 is a most absurd date. 
Linneus recognized but 11 genera of fungi. 
These were simply taken from his predeces- 
sors and renamed or rearranged. Tourne- 
fort described but 7 genera, and from this 
standpoint alone would have little more claim 
upon the mycologist than Linneus. If, how- 
ever, we have a single starting point for all 
plant genera, as seems desirable, Tournefort 
would be far preferable to Linneus; as it 
would admit Micheli, one of the greatest 
myecologists of the eighteenth century, who 
in 1729, in his great work ‘ Nova Plantarum 
Genera,’ described 31 genera of fungi, most 
of which were illustrated with excellent fig- 
ures. Linneus himself in his ‘ Bibliotheca 
Botanica’ pays the following tribute to this 
acute observer: Botanicorum vere Lynceus 
est in examinandis et depingendis minutissi- 
mis floribus Muscorum et Fungorum. 

To discard or ignore the work of Micheli, 


SCIENCE. 


[Noss Vulo SVL Noel 
whose only crime was polynomialism, would 
be a great injustice which we do not believe 
our posterity would ever uphold. It would 
be far better to have a separate initial date 
for fungi than to accept either 1737 or 1753 
as a general starting point. 

The fact that Tournefort was a polyno- 
mialist might suggest itself to some as a pos- 
sible difficulty. Searcely any imconvenience 
need arise from this, however, as whatever 
species might be selected as the type of the 
genus, it would bear the oldest specific name 
it received subsequent to 1753. I faney the 
greatest objection of some, however, to 1700 
as a starting point, would be the supposed 
amount of change necessitated. This objec- 
tion should have very little weight, if future 
stability and permanency can be secured. No~ 
temporary makeshift should be accepted 
which may involve a minimum of immediate 
change, but necessitate another revision a few 
years hence. We should have something 
which gives reasonable hope of meeting the 
needs of the present generation at least. 

C. L. SHEar. 

Wasuineton, D. C. 


MOSQUITO DEVELOPMENT AND HIBERNATION. 

Dr. Harrison G. Dyar’s observations upon 
‘The Eges of Mosquitoes of the Genus Culex, 
as given in Science, Vol. XVI., No. 408, are 
in line with those made by us during the 
past season. We doubt, however, the wisdom 
of the divisions into unbanded legged forms 
depositing eges in boat-shaped masses, and 
banded forms depositing singly. We have 
failed yet to get boat-shaped masses of eggs 
from any species other than pipiens and con- 
sobrinus. 

The matter of the floating of the eggs of 
mosquitoes is largely one of circumstance, as 
those of most species, barring, of course, 
those of the genus Anopheles, sink with slight 
agitation, unless they become attached to 
drifting débris, common upon most pools in 
which mosquitoes breed. The facility with 
which the majority of eggs sink usually war- 
rants delay in hatching, and renders hiberna- 
tion more than probable in the ease of many 


species. 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. ] 


Agitation seems, in some way, associated 
with hatching. Eggs of many species, after 
remaining upon the surface of water, or 
upon the bottom of breeding vessels for days, 
hatch if removed to a phial and shaken, but 
if left undisturbed, will remain unhatched 
for months (in the case of Conchyliates musi- 
cus, shaking eggs is a favorite way of forcing 
a hatch). Eges under similar conditions will 
hatch if placed in a one per cent. or two per 
cent. solution of formalin. To determine, 
under natural conditions, the influence of agi- 
tation upon hatching, careful observations 
were made during the past summer where the 
water in mosquito pools evaporated and the 
ponds remained dry for months. As soon as 
sufficient rain fell, and the disturbances of 
trickling water were present, larve of Con- 
chyliates musicus, Psorophora ciliata, Psor- 
ophora howardii, and a few species of Culem, 
could be found in the pools a few hours after 
the rain. This led to the conclusion of a 
very great irregularity in hatching, and to 
the belief that the species of Psorophora are 
single-brooded in Louisiana. The eggs of one 
season hatch irregularly the next. The major- 
ity, however, hatch in June, July and August 
when rainfall is sufficient. Hatchings may 
occur as late as November, but at this 
time larve are scarce. Conchyliates musicus 
is equally irregular in hatching, though more 
than one brood a year prevails. We have un- 
hatched eges of C. musicus at the time 
of this writing that were deposited in July. 
That they are fertile has been proved by 
taking some of the same brood at different 
intervals and forcing a hatch by agitation. 
Eggs of Psorophora ciliata and P. howardii 
deposited in July and August have failed to 
hatch under such treatment, but the single- 
brood theory may account for the resistance 
of the eggs of this genus. 

Dr. John B. Smith’s conclusions upon the 
egg-laying habits of Culex sollicitans, that of 
depositing upon marsh grass, certainly must 
be considered as exceptional, as also his ob- 
servation of dark (black) eggs in the bodies 
of dissected specimens. In not a single in- 
stance, sollicitans included, have we observed 
a form to deposit dark eggs, nor have we found 


SCIENCE. 


1037 


any to oviposit upon anything but water. Eggs 
floating about become attached to floating 
débris just as they do to the sides of vessels 
in which the water has been allowed to evap- 
orate. Injured specimens will make desperate 
efforts to reach vessels of water to oviposit, 
but failing to do so, refuse to lay. We have 
not found a single species to deposit eggs 
without water, save a few specimens subjected 
to the abnormal conditions of mounting for 
the cabinet, or for study. 

From our studies we draw the following 
conclusions: 

1. That boat-shaped masses of eggs are 
not general. 

2. That eggs of most species sink when 
slightly agitated. Even the eggs of Culex 
pipiens will sink (and hatch) when separated 
and shaken. 

3. That the hatching of the eggs of many 
species is not at all regular. Pools upon 
which eggs are laid may dry up and remain so 
for months, and the fertility of the eggs is in 
no way impaired. With Psorophora, the eggs 
of one season hatch the next; while with 
Conchyliates musicus, and with many species 
of Culex, eggs laid in the fall remain un- 
hatched all winter. Thus many of our spe- 
cies hibernate in the egg condition. (Eggs of 
Stegomyia fasciata, left high and dry by evap- 
oration, have remained unhatched sixty-one 
days, and when moistened and agitated, soon 
hatched.) 

- 4, That the period of larval life may be 
greatly prolonged by insufficient food and low 
temperature, and that pupal and adult stages 


are very much longer late in the season than in 


midsummer. It is possible for a few adults 
to hibernate, even of the same species as the 
hibernating eggs. 

5. That it is exceptional for mosquitoes, 
including Culex sollicitans, to deposit eggs 
upon substances other than water. 

6. That it is exceptional for black eggs to be 
deposited, or for mosquitoes to use their hind 
legs during egg deposition. 

7. That the common breeding places of mos- 


_quitoes are transient pools (due as much to 


the enemies in permanent pools and waterways 
as anything else), in consequence of which 


1038 


many species develop rapidly. Psorophora 
and Conchyliates may reach maturity in five 
or six days after hatching. 

The above is based upon observation made 
upon as many as nineteen species. 

: J. W. Dupree, 

H. A. Moraan. 
Louisiana STATE UNIVERSITY, 
Baton RovuGeE. 


THE CONVOCATION OF SCIENTIFIC 
SOCIETIES. 

Irv seems searcely necessary to call atten- 
tion once more to the meetings of the Ameri- 
can Association for the Advancement of Sci- 
ence, the American Society of Naturalists 
and the special societies which are about to 
open their sessions at Washington. We have 
published the announcement of the local com- 
mittee, and there will be found above some 
details in regard to the meetings of the so- 
cieties. We have so often laid stress on the 
supreme importance of our societies as a 
factor in the advancement and diffusion of 
science that it is scarcely possible to say 
more than has already been said. All our 
readers know that the national scientific 
societies have hitherto met in two groups— 
the American Association and its affliated 
societies in the summer and the American 
Society of Naturalists, with most of the so- 
cieties devoted to the biological sciences, in 
the winter. These two great groups of sci- 
entifie societies will this year meet together 
during convocation week at the chief scien- 
Under these 


circumstances the meetings will be the largest 


tific center of the country. 


and most important ever held-on this con- 


tinent. 


SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

Dr. George W. Hin, of Nyack, N. Y., and 
Professor A. A. Michelson, of the University 
of Chicago, have been elected foreign mem- 
bers of the Royal Society. The other foreign 


SCIENCE. 


[N. S. Von. XVI. No. 417. 


members elected at the recent annual meet- 
ing are: Professor W. C. Brégger, Professor 
Gaston Darboux, Professor Ewald Hering, 
Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen, Graf H. 
za Solms-Laubach and Professor Julius 
Thomsen. 


M. Destanpres, of the astrophysical ob- 
servatory at Meudon, has been elected a mem- 
ber of the Paris Academy of Sciences in suc- 
cession to the late M. Faye. 


Sik Micuarnt Fosrer has offered his resig- 
nation as member of parliament for the Uni- 
versity of London. 


Sm Outver Lopce has been appointed the 
next Romanes lecturer at Oxford University. 


Tue German Emperor has conferred the 
Royal Order of the Crown of Prussia, third 
class, upon Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch, founder 
and director of the Blue Hill Observatory, 
in recognition of his participation in the in- 
ternational work of exploring the atmosphere. 

Tue subject for the annual discussion be- 
fore the American Society of Naturalists, 
which will be held on the afternoon of Jan- 
uary 1, is ‘How can Endowments be used 
most Effectively for Scientific Research? The 
speakers are Professors T. C. Chamberlin, W. 
H. Welch, W. M. Wheeler, Franz Boas, J. C. 
Coulter and Hugo Miinsterberge. The public 
lecture will be given on Tuesday evening by 
Dr. C. Hart Merriam, his subject being ‘ Pro- 
tective and Directive Coloration of Animals, 
especially in Birds and Mammals.’ 


Dr. ArtHuR W. GoopsprEp, professor of 
physics at the University of Pennsylvania, 
has been elected president of the Rontgen 
Ray Society. 


Dr. A. H. Sire has been elected president 
of the New York Academy of Medicine and 
and Dr. M. Allen Starr, vice-president. 


Dr. Pearce Bamey has been elected presi- 
dent of the New York Neurological Society. 


Mr. H. C. Russetz, F.R.S., is at present 
president of the Royal Society of New South 
Wales, having succeeded Professor A. Liver- 
sidge, F.R.S. 


DECEMBER 26, 1902. | 


Ir is reported in foreign papers that Dr. A. 
Loir, of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, has pro- 
ceeded to Bulawayo to establish a branch of 
the Institute there for the treatment of rabies 
by the anti-rabic inoculation method. Dr. 
Loir is a nephew of the late M. Pasteur, and 
has been engaged in the establishment of 
branches at Sydney, N. 8S. W., and Tunis. 


As we have already stated, Lord Reay has 
been elected the first president of the newly 
established British Academy. Mr. I. Gol- 
lanez has been elected secretary, and the fol- 
lowing have been elected members of the 
eouncil: Sir W. R. Anson, the Right Hon. 
James Bryce, Professor I. Bywater, Professor 
T. W. Rhys Davids, the Rev. Professor 8. R. 
Driver, the Rey. Principal Fairbairn, Sir C. 
P. Lbert, K.C.S.1., Sir R. C. Jebb, the Rev. 
Professor J. E. B. Mayer, Dr. J. A. H. Murray, 
Professor H. F. Pelham, the Rey. Professor 
W. W. Skeat, Sir E. Maunde Thompson, 
Dr. A. W. Ward, Professor James Ward. 


Mr. Howarp J. Rogers, chief of the de- 
partment of education at the St. Louis Ex- 
position, has been appointed director of the 
congresses to be held in conjunction with it. 
An advisory board has been appointed as fol- 
lows: Chairman, Nicholas Murray Butler, 
president of Columbia University, New York 
city; William R. Harper, president of the 
University of Chicago; R. H. Jesse, president 
of the University of Missouri; Henry S. 
Pritchett, president of the Massachusetts In- 
stitute of Technology, and Herbert B. Put- 
nam, librarian of Congress. 


Tue Carnegie Institution has granted 
$1,600 to Professor E. W. Scripture, of Yale 
University, for prosecution of researches on 
the voice. 


Accorpiné to the daily papers, the Carnegie 
Institution has appropriated $5,000 to Pro- 
fessor W. O. Atwater, for his work with the 
respiration calorimeter, and has made grants, 
the amount of which is not reported, to the 
Peabody Museum of Yale University, and to 
send Dr. H. 8. Conrad, fellow in botany at 
the University of Pennsylvania, to Europe 
to study varieties of the water-lily. 


SCIENCE. 


1039 


In honor of the eightieth birthday of Mrs. 
Louis Agassiz, president of Radcliffe College, 
the sum of $116,000 has been collected which 
will be used for the construction of a stu- 
dents’ house at Radcliffe College. 


Proressor Joun O. Reep, professor of 
physics in the University of Michigan, has 
been injured by an accident due to an ex- 
plosion in his laboratory. It is feared that 
his eyesight may be lost. 


Mr. Cuartes Louis Pouuarp, of the U. S. 
National Museum, secretary of the Wild 
Flower Preservation Society of America, de- 
livered an illustrated lecture on ‘ Vanishing 
Wild Flowers,’ at the Academy of Sciences of 
Philadelphia, on December 8, and at Hopkins 
Hall, Baltimore, on December 19. It is the 
intention of the society to give information 
as to its aims and methods of work by means 
of these lectures in various cities in addition 
to its distribution of literature. The re- 
sponses from these two cities have been very 
gratifying, and indicate that with a wider 
understanding of the subject public sentiment 
will be sufficiently aroused to accomplish 
some practical good in plant protection. The 
annual meeting of the society will be held in 
the lecture hall of the National Museum, 
at Washington, on December 27. On this 
occasion Professor Francis E. Lloyd, of 
Teachers College, Columbia University, will 
lecture on ‘The Colors of Flowers.’ 


Dr. H. W. Witey, president of the Indiana 
Academy of Science will deliver his presi- 
dential address before the academy at In- 
dianapolis, on Friday, December 26. His 
topic will be ‘What Science has Done for 
Indiana.’ 


Tur Ohio State University Chapter of the 
Society of the Sigma Xi gave its public meet- 
ing of the year on December the eleventh. Pro- 
fessor J. A. Bownocker, who has recently com- 
pleted an exhaustive study of the great 
natural gas fields of Ohio, gave the address 
of the evening under the title ‘ Natural Gas 
in Ohio, its Past and Present.’ 


Prornssor E. B. Pounton, F.R.S., will de- 
liver the juvenile lectures at the Society of 


1040 


Arts this year, his subject being ‘Means of 
Defence in the Struggle for Life among 


Animals.’ 


A meEmorIAL tablet to the late Hamilton Y. 
Castner, the chemist, was unveiled on Decem- 
ber 16 at Columbia University, of which he 
was an alumnus. 


~ Miss Lourse Brispin Dunn, tutor in botany 
in Barnard College, Columbia University, died 
suddenly of heart disease early in the morn- 
ing of December 18. She was a graduate of 
Barnard and since her graduation has been 
a member of the teaching staff. 


WE regret also to record the deaths of Pro- 
fessor Ladislava Celakovského, professor of 
botany in the Bohemian University at Prague, 
at sixty-nine years of age; of Dr. George 
Thoms, professor of agricultural chemistry at 
the Polytechnic School at Riga, at the age 
of sixty years; of Dr. Ernst Meynert, asso- 
ciate professor of anatomy at the University 
of Halle, at the age of thirty-nine years; and 
of Dr. M. Wilde, docent in hygiene at the 
University at Munich, at the age of thirty- 
two years. 


Tue Archeological Institute of America 
will meet at Princeton on December 31 and 
January 1 and 2. 


A CIVIL service examination will be held on 
January 27 for the position of chemical clerk 
in the food laboratory of the Bureau of Chem- 
istry, Department of Agriculture. The salary 
is $600, and the position is open to either men 
or women. 


UNIVERSITY NEWS. 

Av the convocation exercises of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago it was announced that 
Mr. John D. Rockefeller had given $1,000,000 
to be added to the endowment, and that other 
sums amounting to $526,000 had been given 
to the university. 


AND EDUCATIONAL 


Tue Medical Department of Tulane Uni- 
versity has been made the residuary legatee 
of the late A. C. Hutchinson, and it is ex- 
pected that it will receive from the estate 
about $1,000,000. 


SCIENCE. 


[N.S. Vou. XVI. No. 417. 


Mrs. Mary M. Apams, widow of the late 
Charles Kendall Adams, the president of the 
University of Wisconsin, has left the Univer- 
sity a large part of her estate. This will be 
added to the fellowship fund, created by the 
will of President Adams. The bequest in- 
cludes the library of President Adams. 


Tue University of Rochester has received 
a gift of $10,000 from Mrs. Esther Baker 
Steele. 


Senn Haun, of the Rush Medical College, 
was dedicated on December 17, the principal 
address being made by Sir William Hingston, 
professor of surgery in Laval University, 
Montreal. The building has been erected at 
a cost of $130,000 towards which Dr. Senn 
gave $30,000. 

Tue corner stone of the gymnasium of 
Stanford University, which the daily papers 
state will cost $500,000, was laid on December 
ae 


Tue erection of the Scott Hall of Natural 
Science of Wesleyan University will be begun 
in the spring. The building is 120x50 ft., 
with an extension 49 x28 ft. 


We are requested to call attention again 
to the dinner to be given to the Association 
of American Universities in New York City 
on December 30, tickets for which can be ob- 
tained by the alumni of the universities rep- 
resented in the association on application to 
Professor B. D. Woodward, Columbia Univer- 
sity, New York City. President Butler, of 
Columbia, will preside, and speeches will be 
made by President Eliot, of Harvard; Presi- 
dent Hadley, of Yale; Mr. James W. Alex- 
ander and the Honorable Wayne MacVeagh. 


An appeal has been made by New York 
University to the Court of Appeals from the 
decision of the Appellate Division which 
awarded to the Medical College Laboratory 
of the City of New York the premises which 
were deeded over to the university in 1897 
by the Medical College Laboratory of the City 
of New York under a plan to combine the uni- 
versity and the laboratory. 


Dr. OBERHUMMER, professor of geography at 
Munich, has been called to Vienna. 


Aon 
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