102 PRESCOTT — THE RoLE OF CARBON. [April?, 



Discussed by Dr. Brashear, Prof. Morse, Mr. Yarnall and Prof. 

 Hewett. 



" The Effect of the American Revolution Upon the English 

 Colonial System/' by Mr. Sydney George Fisher, of Philadel- 

 phia. Discussed by Mr. Stuart Wood. 



"The Hedonic Postulate," by Prof. Lindley M. Keasbey, 

 of Bryn Mawr, Pa. Discussed by Mr. Stuart Wood, Prof. 

 Doolittle, Mr. Richard Wood and Prof. Keasbey. 



"Results of the American Ethnographical Survey," by 

 Prof. Marion D. Learned, of Philadelphia. Discussed by Mr. 

 Rosengarten, Mr. Richard Wood and Mr. R. P. Field. 



"Regulation of Color-Signals in Marine and Naval Ser- 

 vice," by Dr. Charles A. Oliver, of Philadelphia. 



"The Ripening of Thoughts in Common," by Prof. Otis T. 

 Mason, of Washington. 



THE ROLE OF CARBON. 



BY ALBERT B. PRESCOTT. 



{Read April 7, I904.) 



It may be said of any one of the chemical elements that it acts a 

 part of its own in the formation of matter and the manifestation of 

 energy in the world. A chemical element taken as it is, aside from 

 questions of its genesis and its decay, stands out before exact meas- 

 urement as an innate individual factor in the production of things 

 throughout the universe. Whatever there is now being brought to 

 light between matter and the ether or the electrons, at all events 

 the chemical elements taken in their atomic quantities are the 

 present facts upon which further inquiry must rest its advances. 



The behavior of an element is an experimental constant, however 

 progressive may be the theories by means of which men of science 

 may pursue their studies. The present is for some reasons a time 

 profitable for us to recount certain of the salient characteristics of 

 that chemical element named at the head of this brief paper. 



The registration of carbon compounds in M. M. Richter's Lexi- 

 con, amounting to 80,000 in the year 1900 and since increased, by 



