DISCOVERY 



227 



clearlv — one, whnt an extraordinarily broad field the 

 activities of the Association now cover; and the other, 

 how wide is the application of science to the problems 

 of present-day life. Xo less than eight of these 

 thirteen addresses refer to man and problems of his 

 everv-dav life ; and, of the other five, three alone 

 mav be properly accounted academic. This trend 

 towards the application of science to life is a remark- 

 able one. It was not ever thus. Long ago science and 

 her exponents did not worry about this application, 

 and the legend about the professor at one of our 

 ancient universities who, after a laborious life devoted 

 to very intricate research, thanked God he had never 

 done anvthing that was or would be of use to any- 

 bodv, although a legend only, puts this fact in an 

 easily remembered form. But to-day the temper 

 is different. "' I do not believe in science for the sake 

 of science," said Professor Karl Pearson recently, 

 "but only in its application to man. Thought and 

 learning are of little value unless they are translated 

 into action." .As we have already indicated in these 

 notes, we do not agree with this point of view, and 

 we think that the moderate man will prefer a position 

 somewhere between the two extremes. 



We wonder what the men who composed the British 

 -Association seventy years ago, when it paid a former 

 visit to Hull, would think of the views of those com- 

 posing it to-day. They would be astonished by manv 

 of these, and aghast at some ; astonished chiefly at 

 views which have come from the widening of science, 

 aghast chiefly at those resulting from the application 

 of science to man. Thus they would be astonished at 

 Principal Irvine's address on research problems in the 

 sugar groups, or at Sir Richard Gregory's paper on 

 educational and social science, still more at Mr. 

 Peake's address on the study of man. But what 

 would they think of the presidential address to the 

 Geography section, " Human Geography : First 

 Principles and some .Applications"; or of that to the 

 .Agriculture section, " The proper position of the 

 Landowner in relation to the .Agricultural Industry" ; 

 or of that to the Economics section, " Equal pay to 

 men and women for equal work"? What is human 

 geography, they would like to know? .And 

 what is this nonsense about men sharing rights with 

 masters, or about men and women being paid equally? 

 Professor Hudson Beare's address to the Engineering 

 section on " Railway problems in .Australia," could 

 not have been delivered in 1852 unless perhaps the 

 professor was some kind of Jules A'erne person. For 

 .Australia had no railway problems then ; she had no 

 railways. We have travelled a great deal along many 

 roads since 18^2. 



Impressions of Green- 

 land's Plant Life 



By A. C. Seward, Sc.D., F.R.S., Pres. G.S. 



Master of Downimj College and Professor of Botany in the Unieersitt/ of 

 Cambridge 



Last summer it was my privilege to spend three 

 months in West Greenland (lat. 69° N. — 71° N.) col- 

 lecting fossil and living plants and rocks. .Mr. 

 R. E. Holttum, of St. John's College, Cambridge, 

 accompanied me as Research Assistant ; in the course 

 of two motor-boat journeys of about 600 miles we 

 visited several localities on Disko Island and the 

 Xugssuak peninsula to the north of Disko Island, also 

 Upernivik Island, Hare Island, and other places. 

 Three weeks were spent at the Danish .Arctic Station 

 at Godhavn, Disko Island, where we received invalu- 

 able assistance from Mr. Morten Porsild, the Director 

 of the Station, one of whose sons was our companion 

 on the motor-boat. 



A visit to Greenland in the summer affords a very 

 incomplete idea of a country which is usually asso- 

 ciated in one's mind with its winter aspect when, 

 except in the more southern districts, the kayak is 

 replaced by the sledge and all communication with 

 the outer world is suspended. The Greenlander's 

 kayak, a long, narrow, canoe-like boat, was aptly 

 described by the late .Sir Clements Markham as "the 

 most perfect application of art and ingenuity to the 

 pursuit of necessaries of life within the Arctic Circle." 

 The isolation of Greenland has compensations. .A 

 Danish friend who passes the winter there told me 

 that he watches the last ship leave in September with 

 a sense of relief; it means at least six months of peace 

 and quiet. -A few brief descriptions of typical scenes 

 mav serve to dispel the popular fallacy that even in 

 the summer this .Arctic land offers few attractions as 

 a place of residence. John Davis in the latter part of 

 the sixteenth century described Greenland as a land 

 of desolation, and added : " The irksome noise of the 

 ice and the loathsome view of the shore bred strange 

 conceits among us." Shelley's lines : 

 " From the most gloomy glens 

 Of Greenland's sunless clime," 

 though applicable to certain localities in the winter, do 

 scant justice to Greenland in summer. 



The abundance of flowers makes an unexpected 

 impression upon a visitor imbued with the idea of a 

 countrv practically buried under a mass of ice of 

 unknown depth, and of a long winter when the sea is 

 frozen and even the coastal regions are covered with 

 snow. One effect of Arctic conditions is to limit the 

 production of foliage shoots and often to induce 

 an abnormal development of subterranean stems and 

 roots and a prolific crop of flowers. The amount of 

 energy expended in the production of roots becomes 



