THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



307 



THE TROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



SCIENCE ON THE PACIFIC COAST 



I'RCUKKss in science has always been 

 couti oiled by circumstance. Had Har- 

 vey possessed the microscope that a 

 few years after his demonstration of 

 the circulation of the blood Malpighi 

 was applying with distinguished suc- 

 cess to the investigation of anatomical 

 problems, he would not have failed to 

 see the capillary network that escaped 

 his unaided eye. And it is a question 

 whether Darwin would have opened the 

 famous notebooks that led after twenty 

 years to the ' ' Origin of Species ' ' had 

 he not been struck by the distribution 

 of animals in South America and the 

 Galapagos Archipelago.. The embryol- 

 ogy of Amphioxus gives obvious sup- 

 port to theories of the formation of the 

 germ layers and of the mesoderm by 

 coelomic pouches that no student of 

 earthworms alone, however diligent, 

 could have constructed. And there .s 

 little doubt that Mendel's choice of the 

 garden pea for his investigations on 

 hybridization was a most potent factor 

 in leading him so definitely and speed- 

 ily to the annunciation of the well- 

 known propositions which have changed 

 the entire course of researches in he- 

 redity during the last fifteen years. To 

 the student of physics, the facts of na- 

 ture assume a quantitative aspect that 

 students of biology are only here and 

 there beginning to recognize. Simi- 

 larly, the sociologist and the psychol- 

 ogist are now dependent upon biological 

 facts which have lost for the biologist 

 much of their original interest through 

 the development of problems that de- 

 mand investigation of still more funda- 

 mental mechanisms. In the domain of 

 a single science one finds the same con- 

 nection between experience and ideas. 

 To the investigator of the more gener- 

 alized types of organisms tliat respond 

 roadil}- to a wide range of environ- 

 ..lental conditions, the laws formulated 



by investigators of more complex and 

 less ])lastic organisms seem strangely 

 inailetiuato; while to the investigator 

 wlu) has discovered them they po.=se=s a 

 clarity of outline that affords a welcome 

 substitute for more vaguely expressed, 

 even though more fundamental, conclu- 

 sions. His eyes filled with the images 

 of secondary adaptations in nature, a 

 lehaviorist may formulate his explana- 

 tions in terms of selection and survival. 

 Whereupon he meets with spirited op- 

 position from the physiologist whose 

 pa.'sion it is to reduce vital phenomena 

 to the mechanical terms that have al- 

 ready succeeded in freeing physics and 

 chemistry from the clutch of anthropo- 

 morphism. 



To understand the Pacific states it is 

 necessary to keep in mind this essential 

 fact, that ideas are dominated by ex- 

 perience. Geologically, geographically, 

 fannistically, socially, economically, 

 the Pacific states form a natural em- 

 piie distinctly set off from the rest of 

 the country. Mountains and deserts 

 have determined for them a certain iso- 

 lation that has governed their settle- 

 ment, the character of their population, 

 whether plant or animal, the develop- 

 ment of their institutions, their scien- 

 tific progress. The region is not only 

 new, but possesses many characteristics 

 that do not ordinarily belong to the ex- 

 perience of citizens of other states. 



Some of these recognition marks it 

 is the purpose of this number to con- 

 sider. The much-vaunted climate of 

 California runs the gamut from typical 

 desert conditions to Alpine, from re- 

 gions of almost hopeless aridity to re- 

 gions where humidity becomes an ex- 

 treme in the other direction. Such 

 diversity is strikingly correlated with 

 floral peculiarities, asi one of the papers 

 in this number will show. Under the 

 atmospheric conditions of central and 

 southern California are found the two 



