December 3, 19 14] 



NATURE 



Z^7 



as to the comparative expenditure of the United 

 States on education and research respectively. 



The number of higher, or degree-giving, establish- 

 ments in the United States is now upwards of six 

 hundred; the aggregate annual income of these is 

 upwards of one hundred millions of dollars ; and the 

 number of officials connected with them is upwards 

 of thirty thousand. On the other hand, the number 

 of independent research organisations in the United 

 States is less than half a dozen ; their aggregate 

 annual income is less than two million dollars; and 

 the number of officials primarily connected with them 

 is Jess than five hundred. 



Somethings very like this holds also in Britain, 

 and indeed throug"hout the world. Men cannot 

 be made to understand, even with the astonishing- 

 results which investig-ation has placed before us, 

 the supreme importance of such effort. They still 

 conceive that it is more important to teach boys 

 how to do things than actually to g^et the things 

 done. 



The war now raging will at least demonstrate 

 one thing to humanity — that in war, at least, the 

 scientific attitude, the careful investigation of 

 details, the preliminary preparation, and the well 

 thought-out procedure bring success, where the 

 absence of these leads only to disaster. So also 

 in everything. After all, the necessity for research 

 is the most evident of all propositions. But the 

 question (which I hope will receive still more 

 careful attention when the war is over) is, \\^hat 

 can the State do to make the machinery of in- 

 vestigation the most efficient possible? The mere 

 citing of popular misconceptions is not enough ; 

 we need to have specific programmes. The 

 October number of Science Progress contains one 

 such programme, which I hope will receive the 

 attention of men of science. Whether all the 

 items are accepted or not remains to be seen ; 

 but until the discussion is earnestly under- 

 taken, we can scarcely hope that the State will 

 give more help than it has done hitherto. Dr. 

 Woodward puts his finger upon a weak point in 

 men of science as a body. "We are," he says, 

 " as a class of too recent monastic descent to fit 

 comfortably in our present social environment." 

 That is just it. We are not strong enough in 

 making our demands heard ; and, in my opinion, 

 this is not a virtue, but a neglect of duty. 



RON.\LD Ross. 



ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE ROYAL 

 SOCIETY. 



THE anniversary meeting of the Royal Society 

 was held on Monday, Noveml:>er 30, when an 

 address was delivered by the president. Sir 

 ^^'illiam Crookes, and the report of the council 

 was presented. After referring to the financial 

 strain under which the society and the National 

 Physical Laboratory have been placed by the war, 

 the president passed to the consideration of the 

 constitution of the atom and the work of the 

 medallists. Subjoined are the portions of the 

 address referring to these matters : — 



NO. 2353, VOL. 94I 



The subject of the constitution of the atom has 

 come into extreme prominence — great advances have 

 been made — while much light has been thrown on the 

 ultimate structure of matter. Years ago, during the 

 persistent and systematic fractionation of yttrium, I 

 explained that I had succeeded in separating the atoms 

 of the so-called element into groups ; these groups 

 undoubtedly exhibited different phosphorescent spectra 

 and presumably had different atomic weights — 

 although from the chemical point of view all the 

 groups behaved similarly. I concluded that, of the 

 lines and bands of the compound spectrum of an 

 element, some are furnished by certain atoms and 

 some by others. I pointed out that this was not 

 likely to be an isolated case; that probably in all 

 so-called elements the whole spectrum does not come 

 from all the atoms — that different spectral rays come 

 from different atoms, which may be interpreted to 

 mean that there are definite differences in the internal 

 motions of the several groups of which the atoms of 

 a chemical element consist. I ventured to suggest a 

 possible explanation of these facts, based on the 

 assumption that acting on the original protyle were 

 two forces — one of the character of Time, accompanied 

 by a lowering of temperature, while the other, swing- 

 ing to and fro like a pendulum, and having periodic 

 cycles of ebb and flow, rest and activity, would be 

 intimately connected with the force of electricity. I 

 arrived at a presentation of the elements on a lemnis- 

 cate path which seemed to me to throw some light on 

 the question of their genesis. My researches seemed 

 to show that the persistence of the ultimate character, 

 the eternal self-existence, the fortuitous origin of the 

 chemical elements, could no longer be regarded merely 

 as probable. 



Apparently bodies exist which possess close upon the 

 same atomic weights and combine in definite propor- 

 tions with other substances and yet exhibit certain 

 minute differences. For these substances, which are 

 capable of being isolated and identified, I suggested 

 the name '" meta-elements." Thus there appears to 

 me to be a gradation of molecules of different ranks 

 between the atom and the compound — and these 

 aggregations of atoms in certain circumstances might 

 well pass for simple elementary bodies. 



In recent years the old idea of the ultimate atom as 

 a solid particle, spherical or otherwise, has slowly, 

 almost imperceptibly, given way to the more rational 

 conception of a minute planetary or " Saturnian " 

 system of dazzling complexity' ; the conception is many- 

 minded, aided here and there by facts that failed to 

 fall in with the old lines of thought. Among the 

 most prominent men through which the new concep- 

 tion has come to light, we have Kelvin, Stoney, 

 Thomson, and, more recently, headed by Sir Ernest 

 Rutherford, a host of vigorous workers in the new 

 science of radio-activity, who have built up a concep)- 

 tion of atomic physics often "hard to be understood," 

 but that probably is a move in the right direction. 

 Sir Ernest Rutherford supposes the atom to be com- 

 posed of a nuclear positive charge, exceedingly small 

 compared with the sphere of action of the atom, and 

 consisting of a number of unit charges. Surrounding 

 this nucleus is an external shell in which a number of 

 separate negative electrons are distributed. Prof. 

 Soddy — whose name is closely associated with that of 

 Sir Ernest Rutherford — is one of the earliest workers 

 in radio-activity, and has developed a theor\- of the 

 chemistry of the radio-elements based upon the periodic 

 law and a modified form of lemniscate spiral where 

 the existence of /»5eudo-elements having slightly 

 different atomic weight but identical chemical pro- 

 perties are set out. These "isotopic" elements 

 occupy the same place in the periodic table. He has 



