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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



again, while Newton modified the views 

 of Descartes by substituting assump- 

 tions in regard to mutual attractions 

 and repulsions for assumptions as to 

 the shape of the atoms. In the second 

 half of the nineteenth century, the 

 application of thermodynamics to chem- 

 istry has led to the discovery of new 

 laws, and these discoveries have been 

 made without assuming anything in 

 regard to atoms. The natural tend- 

 ency is therefore to reject the atomic 

 theory as a superfluous hypothesis. 

 The only distinction that we can draw 

 between chemical compounds, like sugar 

 or salt, and solutions, such as a mix- 

 ture of sugar and water, is that the 

 composition of the solutions can vary 

 continuously while the composition of 

 the compounds can not. The natural 

 inference is that solutions are to be 

 looked upon as compounds or new sub- 

 stances with varying composition. The 

 scientific world has thus come back to 

 the view of Aristotle. The matter 

 stands now as it stood centuries ago. 

 One school still holds the views of Epi- 

 curus, another stands ready to break a 

 cudgel for Aristotle. Even now we do 

 not know what happens when we put 



sugar in our coffee though we know 

 why we do so except where it is 

 merely a matter of habit. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS. 

 We regret to record the death of Pro- 

 fessor Henry Mitchell, the eminent en- 

 gineer, and of Major Walter Reed, well 

 known for his researches on the rela- 

 tion of the mosquito to yellow fever. 



Dr. W J McGee, ethnologist in 

 charge, Bureau of American Ethnology, 

 has been appointed to represent the 

 United States on the American Inter- 

 national Archeological Commission. 

 Professor J. Willard Gibbs, of Yale 

 University, has been elected a corre- 

 sponding member of the Munich Acad- 

 emy of Science. 



It is reported that the Nobel prizes 

 for this year will be awarded as fol- 

 lows : In chemistry, to Professor Emil 

 Fischer, of Berlin; in physics, to Pro- 

 fessor S. A. Arrhenius, of Stockholm; 

 in medicine, to Professor Niels E. 

 Finsen, of Copenhagen, and to Major 

 Ronald Ross, of Liverpool. The value 

 of these prizes, it will be remembered, 

 is about $40,000 each. 



