February 22, 1906] 



NA TURE 



403 



Appalachian Mountain region are being destroyed, and to 

 the fact that, as a result of such destruction, the streams 

 tributary to the Mississippi, as well as those flowing into 

 the South Atlantic, are becoming continuously more 

 irregular in their flow, and hence of less value for navi- 

 gation and power purposes. (3) That the association re- 

 spectfully petitions the Congress of the United States to 

 make such provision as may be necessary for the protec- 

 tion of these mountain forests. 



The following grants were made at this meeting of the 

 association : — 40?. to Messrs. Parsons, Kinnicutt, and 

 Venable to assist in the publication of Prof. Parsons's 

 " bibliography of Beryllium," and 10I. to " The Concilium 

 Bibliographicum Zoologicum." 



The committee on electrochemistry reported as follows : — 

 A study has been made of the behaviour of platinum and 

 iridium in chlorine water and in dilute hydrochloric acid. 

 Smooth platinum foil brought about no evolution of gas 

 even after standing 168 hours in chlorine water. In pre- 

 ciselv similar circumstances an iridium foil caused an 

 evolution of 44-4 [? c.c] of gas, 55 per cent, of which was 

 oxvgen. The oxygen results from the reaction 



CL+H : = 2HCl + 0, 

 while the chlorine came from the solution, the original 

 vapour pressure having been about half an atmosphere. 

 This series of experiments showed that iridium was a 

 more powerful catalytic agent than platinum. A number 

 of electrolytic experiments were made with hydrochloric 

 acid of different concentrations. In all cases more oxygen 

 was evolved from the iridium anode than from the platinum 

 anode. The question as to the final equilibrium is still in 

 doubt. 



The Popular Conception of the Scientific Man at the 

 Present Day. 1 



The traditional scientific man has disappeared almost as 

 completely as the traditional Yankee of the stage. The 

 change came gradually, but the proof that it had come 

 was brought before us suddenly. In iqo2 there was called 

 in New York a meeting of those who were designated 

 by the picturesque expression captains of industry. To 

 that meeting representatives of science were invited, not 

 .1- lions to be stared at, but to sit with the leaders of the 

 industrial and commercial world as representatives of 

 science, and not only of applied science, but of pure science. 

 As the captains of industry were supposed to be men of 

 force in organising and to have a keen insight into men 

 and things, we had a right to feel that science was 

 honoured, perhaps not more than ever before, but for a 

 reason for which it had not been honoured before in the 

 United States. The fart that since that date the reputation 

 of some of the captains of industry has suffered an eclipse 

 does not alter the fact that to be considered a captain of 

 industry was, in the eyes of the public, enviable. The 

 conception of a scientific man as a captain of industry 

 means simply the acknowledgment that science has a prac- 

 tical relation to the world, and that fortunately the public 

 Have advanced far enough to see, although perhaps some- 

 what dimly, that pure science sooner or later develops into 

 applied science. The leaders of science are to be placed 

 in the class of organisers, managers of a sort of scientific 

 trust. This is science up to date, and the public are 

 right when they regard science as an organisation. But 

 they are only partly right. There is a good deal more 

 than that in science, and, although good managers and 

 directors are necessary, it is true that the power of organ- 

 ising and the power of investigating are two different 

 things, and often exist in inverse ratio to each other, and 

 it is the latter which is at the basis of science. An 

 organiser is of no use until there is something to organise, 

 and the materials on which the organiser in science must 

 work are not made by machinery, but by the brains of 

 individual workers, and it is important that they should be 

 placd under the most favourable conditions for work. If 

 hitherto there has been perhaps too little organisation, 

 there is a danger that in the future there may be too 

 much. In a mill many men are doing the same kind of 

 work, but in science one man should not duplicate the work 

 nf another. The object of organisation in the one case is 



1 From the address of Prof. W. G. Farlow, president of the Association. 



to secure uniformity of product, in the other to encourage 

 diversity of work. 



The ways in which the public may aid scientific men 

 are directly by endowments for paying salaries and in- 

 directly by providing properly equipped laboratories and 

 other necessary equipment, and especially for paying for 

 the services of assistants. Both forms of help are neces- 

 sary, for a man capable of managing and getting the 

 greatest amount of good work out of a well equipped 

 establishment deserves more than a meagre salary. On 

 the other hand, those with what appears to be a respect- 

 able salary may have to spend a good part of it to make 

 good the deficiencies in their equipment. In deciding 

 whether a man is well paid or not, it is necessary to ask 

 not only what salary he receives, but what are the means 

 of work provided for him. It is not my intention here 

 to direct attention to the special ways in which scientific 

 establishments would be benefited by gifts from the public 

 nor to discuss the question what is a proper salary for a 

 scientific man. The latter depends upon too many com- 

 plicated conditions, and cannot be separated from the more 

 general question of what those in equally important posi- 

 tions in other walks of life are paid. The question of 

 proper equipment, including the question of assistants, 

 has already been brought before the public on a good manv 

 occasions and in a good many ways, and a good deal has 

 been given in recent years, although by no means enough. 



If, as it appears, the public have reached a better con- 

 ception of the position of the scientific man and of his 

 pecuniary needs, it may be added that he has the right to 

 hope that he can appeal to the public not only for 

 pecuniary, but for moral support, for, in many cases, the 

 public are the final arbiters where differences arise, and 

 unfavourable conditions often disappear quickly as soon 

 as it is felt that one side or the other is backed by public 

 opinion. It may, therefore, be well to state somewhat 

 explicitly some of the conditions which are unfavourable to 

 the progress of science in the United States or which tend 

 to retard it. Here it is not so much a question of money 

 as of a just appreciation of the true position of scientific 

 men in their relation to those for whom their work is 

 undertaken. That work, using a rough classification, may 

 be considered as that done in technical and commercial 

 concerns, that done for the Government, and that done in 

 universities, including under that general term all colleges, 

 scientific schools, and similar institutions which have a 

 permanent endowment of some kind. 



The Relation of Mechanics to Physics.^ 

 We find the physicists of the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century still very strongly attached to the idea that 

 all natural phenomena not only may, but must, be ex- 

 plained on the basis of Newton's laws" by central forces 

 acting instantaneously at a distance. Newton's mechanics 

 had done such admirable service in astronomy that it had 

 come to be regarded as the only possible means of de- 

 scribing and discussing the actions of nature. The gradual 

 abandonment of this position and the change to the modern 

 view, according to which all actions in nature are trans- 

 mitted through a continuous medium and require time for 

 their transmission, was accomplished only after a long 

 struggle that occupied the greater part of the nineteenth 

 century. 



It is well known how the ideas of Faraday, of Maxwell, 

 of Hertz, gradually gained ascendency over the older views 

 and led to the abandonment of the idea of central forces 

 acting instantaneously at a distance, in almost all branches 

 of physics except in the theory of gravitation. It is also 

 known that Maxwell, by a brilliant analysis, succeeded in 

 establishing the connection between his electromagnetic 

 theory and the analytical mechanics of Lagrange. Thus, at 

 the end of the nineteenth century we find a general 

 attitude toward physical phenomena essentially different 

 from that prevailing at the end of the eighteenth century. 



With the rise of the electron theory in the course of the 

 last twenty-five years a new element has been introduced 



1 From the address of Prof. Alexander Ziwet, president of Section A, 

 Mathematics and Astronomy. 



2 See, however, Laplace, "Mecanique Celeste," livre i., chap. vi. 

 ("CEuvres," vol. i., 1878, pp. 74-79), a passage to which E. and F. 

 Cosserat have recently directed attention. 



NO. 1895, VOL. 73] 



