TWENTY-SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING. 7 



cerned. This has been generous work — gratuitous work. The reward has 

 come to the members of the Academy in seeing a more populous state, a more 

 prosperous people, a more fruitful laud. 



In all the work that you have done you have been animated by the desire 

 to pry into the secrets of nature, to find out her processes, to understand her 

 laws. It is my purpose to recall to your mind one phase only of this work, 

 and to direct your thoughts towards the part that has been played in this 

 work and in the scientific investigation of the world by the so-called "little 

 things." 



The work of research has reached the advanced position which it now 

 holds because those who have been most active in the great field of research, 

 those who have been closest to the warm heart of nature, have not been satis- 

 fied with superficial observation alone, but have recorded the most minute 

 and seemingly trivial things which they have seen. To do this has re- 

 quired labor, self sacrifice, and patience; patience cultivated to such a stage 

 of perfection that it may almost be classed among the saintly virtues. The 

 chemist and the physicist have pried between the atoms; the naturalist has 

 examined and classified the infinitely minute creatures of earth, air and 

 water, and the physician has followed the pathogenic or disease-producing 

 germs to their original breeding places. 



The great strength of scientific investigation then depends on the atten- 

 tion paid to details, and on the ability displayed towards getting at the very 

 bottom fact — to the very smallest factor of,/he problem. And what are some 

 of these small things that have helped to unravel the tangled web of the 

 great world of nature? 



First, in the realm of matter: Do we know anything of the constitution of 

 matter? Matter can be infinitely divided or else there' is a definite limit to 

 the division. I may take a piece of chalk, for instance, and cut it into small 

 pieces and each one of those pieces into smaller pieces, and so on forever, 

 or if this it not possible, there will come a time in my division when the 

 small particle obtained cannot be farther divided. This latter is the view 

 now held in regard to matter — that there is a point beyond which its sub- 

 division cannot go. Of course this point is infinitely below any possible 

 mechanical division, and far belov/ what the highest power of the micro- 

 scope can reveal. That little particle of matter that is incapable of being 

 cut or divided we call the atom. No one ever saw an atom; no one will ever 

 see an atom, for it is infinite in smallness beyond our ken, just as there is an 

 infinite greatness which we cannot comprehend. 



Starting then with this atom: If we get two or more of them together, 

 an aggregation of atoms, we call this a molecule. For according to the present 

 theories these atoms are social beings; they seldom go wandering off alone. 

 As Sothern so aptly says in regard to birds of -a feather, "Of course they 

 flock together; you don't suppose they would flock all alone, do you?" The 

 atoms then are found in groups. Perhaps they recognize that there is 

 greater safety in traveling in this way; less danger of being "held up." 



But how large are these atoms, anyway? I need not perhaps remind you 

 of the investigations that have been made on the size of the atom and of the 

 molecule of which it is a part. From the work of Sir William Thomson on 

 the electricity of contact of different metals, from a study of the surface 

 tension and tne thickness of the soap-bubble film, and finally from what is 

 known of the molecular motion of gases, a calculation has been made as to 

 the distance apart of the particles of matter and as to their actual size. 



