September 13, 1894] 



NA TURE 



485 



IJrooklyn, Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, the President, thus ex- 

 pounded ihe aims of the Association. 



"The inlluence of our Association is in the highest and best 

 sense of the word educational. Its discussions are aimed to 

 present the correct methods of scientific investigation and to be 

 guided by the true spirit of scientific inquiry. 



"The goal which we endeavour to attain is scientific truth, the 

 one test of which is that it will bear untrammelled and un- 

 limited investigation. Such truth must be not only verified, but 

 always verifiable. It must welcome every test, it must recoil 

 from no criticism, higher or lower, from no analysis and no 

 scepticism. It challenges them all. It asks for no aid from 

 faith ; it appeals to no authority ; it relies on the dictum of no 

 master. 



" The evidence, and the only evidence, to which it appeals or 

 which it admits is that which it is in the power of every one to 

 judge, that which is furnished directly by the senses. It deals 

 with the actual world about us, its objective realities and present 

 activities, and does not relegate the inquirer to dusty precedents 

 or the mouldy ma.Ylms of commentators. The only conditions 

 that it enjoins are that the imperfections of the senses shall be 

 corrected as far as possible, and that their observations shall be 

 interpreted by the laws of logical induction. 



" Scientific truth has likewise this trait of its own : it is abso- 

 lutely open to the world ; it is as free as air, as visible as light. 

 There is no such thing about it as an inner .secret, a mysterious 

 gnosi.=, shared by the favoured lew, the selec: iuuminati, con- 

 cealed from the vulgar horde or masked to them under ambiguous 

 terms. Wherever yon find mystery, concealment, occultism, 

 you may be sure that the spirit of science does not dwell, and 

 what is more, that it would be an unwelcome intruder. Such 

 pretensions belong to pseudo-science, to science falsely so called, 

 shutting itself out of the light because it is afraid of the light. 



"Again, that spirit of science which we cultivate and represent 

 is at once modest in its own claims and liberal to the claims of 

 others. The first lesson which every sound sluilent learns is to 

 follow his facts and not to lead them. New facts teach him nesv 

 conclusions. His opinions of to-day must be modified by the 

 learning of the morrow. He is at all times ready and willing to 

 abandon a position when further investigation shows that it is 

 probably incorrectly taken. He is in this the reverse of the 

 opinionated man, the hobby rider and the dogmatist. The 

 despair of a scientific assemblage is the member with a pet 

 theory, with a fixed idea, which he is bound to obtrude and 

 defend in the face of facts. Vet even towards him we are called 

 upon to exercise our toleration and our charity, for the history 

 of learning has repeatedly shown that from just such wayward 

 enthusiasts solid knowledge has derived some of its richest 

 contributions. 



"All this prying into the objective, external aspect of things, 

 this minute, painstaking study of phenomena, this reiterated 

 revision and rejection of results, are with the sini;le aim of dis- 

 covering those absolute laws of motion and life and mind which 

 are ubiquitous and eternal, which bear unimpeachable witness 

 to the unity and the simplicity of the plan of the universe, and 

 which reveal with sun-clear distinctness that unchangeable order 

 which presides over all natural processes. 



"This is ihe mission of science— noble, inspiring, consolatory, 

 lifting the mind above the gross contacts of life, presenting aims 

 which are at once practical, humanitarian, and spiritually 

 elevating." 



Mallumatic! and Astronomy. 



The address ofthe vice-president of Section A {all the sectional 

 presidents are termed vice-presidents) was summarised in our 

 last number. In this section Prof. George E. Hale gave an 

 interesting paper on " Some Attempts to Photograph the Solar 

 Corona without an Eclipse." 



C. W. Hough presented a method of control of the equatorial 

 driving clock, based on a description published in the Trans- 

 actions of the Albany Institute in 1S71. 



W. R. Warner, on " Requisites for Governing the Motion of 

 Equatorial Telescopes," told of the differing resistance pro- 

 duced by weather, oil, or the lack of it, &c., which a driving 

 clock must overcome in order to run accurately. 



Prof. Doolitile exhibited a large diagram showing the results 

 of the recent latitude determinations at the Sayre Observatory, 

 of South Helhleliem, Pa. The Chandler theory and these 

 observations ditler so much that one can hardly be called an 

 approximation of the other. Prof. Doolittle findsadimunition in 

 the mean value of ihe latitude which is entirely unaccounted for. 



NO. I29S, VOL. 50] 



Physics. 



The subject of the presidential address to this section was 

 "Obscure Heat as an Agent in producing Expansion in Metals 

 under Air Contact." The address contained the results of a 

 study of the forces under which the expansion and contraction 

 of metals take place, under the conditions in which they are 

 used in every-day experience. Among the papers communi- 

 cated to the section was one by Miss Mary Xoyes, on the in- 

 fluence of heat and electricity upon Young's modulus for a piano 

 wire. It appears that the effect of heat is to make the modulus 

 less. Magnetism has no eftect. The passage of a current of 

 electricity through the wire causes the modulus to diminish 

 more than can be accounted for by the heating eftect. 



W. Hallock, of Columbia College, who has photographed 

 sensitive flames, exhibited specimens. 



Dr. Bedell presented a paper by Prof. Nichols and Miss 

 Crehore, of Cornell University, giving studies of the lime-light. 

 They have examined the light from the lime cylinder of the 

 Drummond light, by means of a spectro-photometer. 



In a paper upon aluminium violins, Mr. Springer discu.^sed 

 their merits. He said that soundboards made of aluminium 

 differed from those made from other metals, and were analogous 

 to those of wood. They did not produce secondary tones 

 which were not in harmony with the prime tones. There 

 were many difticultities to be overcome in the manufacture of 

 violins from aluminium. The material could not be soldered 

 satisfactorily, and had to be rivetted. As uneven thicknesses 

 could not be secured for the belly and back, it was necessary to 

 rib and arch the metal. In conclusion, he said: "My ex- 

 periments incline me to believe that the real cause of the 

 superiority of old wooden instruments over new ones is not so 

 much in the elasticity of the wood or in the composition of the 

 varnish, but in the peculiar warping of the wood to a higher 

 arch, a buckling caused by the position of the F holes and 

 sound-post. I have never seen a good old instrument which 

 was not thus warped. Moreover, I believe if a new wooden 

 instrument were immediately so constructed, while good at 

 first, would deteriorate because further arching would produce 

 rigidity and consequent veiling of tone. Time has no such 

 effect on aluminium violins, as they remain practically un- 

 altered ; one which has been used daily for the last two years 

 shows no signs of crystallisation. A perfect instrument would 

 consequently retain all of its good qualities, and could easily be 

 duplicated." 



Two papers of considerable interest were read, one by 

 A. McAdie, on some peculiar lightning flashes, and the other 

 on a phonographic method of recording the change in 

 alternating electric current, by C. J. Rollesson. 



Mr. McAdie said that in the month of June, 1S94, there were 

 one hundred persons killed by lightning in the United States. 

 It is, therefore, important to get accurate knowledge about 

 lightning discharges, especially in reference to the length and 

 form of the path of lightning, so as to discover its energy. 

 Mr. McAdie has three cameras pointed at the top of the 

 Washington Monument, in the city of Washington ; one at the 

 Capitol, a second at 1 ort Myer, and the third at the Weather 

 Bureau. He wishes to obtain three simultaneous photographs 

 of a lightning discharge, but though he has watched since May, 

 he has not been successful. 



Mr. Rollesson said that two operations were necessary to 

 produce the alternating current curve by the aid of the phono- 

 graph : first, a record of the curve must be produced on the wax 

 cylinder of the phonograph ; second, the record produced in the 

 second operation must be magnified by means of a suitable 

 multiplying arrangement. The method described was especially 

 adapted for the study of harmonics in the alternating current. 



Chtmislry. 



The subject of Prof. T. H. Norton's address was " The Battle 

 with Fire, or the Contributions of Chemistry to the Problem of 

 Preventing Conflagration." We hope to be able to print this 

 address in full in a future issue. 



Among the papers read before the section was one upon 

 observations regarding certain European water supplies, by 

 William P. Mason. It was shown that the difference in the 

 death-rate of various towns and cities in Europe, caused by 

 improvement in the water supplies, varied from 2 to 13 per 

 cent. " Fallacies of Post-mortem Tests for Morphine " was ihe 

 title of a paper by David L. Davoll.^Other papers before this 



