July 23, 1909] 



/SCIENCE 



U:\ 



Dr. W. H. Sheldon, preceptor of philosophy 

 at Princeton University, has been elected pro- 

 fessor of philosophy at Dartmouth College. 



Dr. Hakdee Chambuss, of the research 

 staff of the General Chemical Company, New 

 York, has accepted the professorship of chem- 

 istry in the Oklahoma Agricultural and Me- 

 chanical College at Stillwater, Okla. 



Mr. Benjamin F. LuT^t.vN, assistant in bot- 

 any at the University of Wisconsin, has been 

 appointed assistant botanist in the Agricul- 

 tural College of the University of Vermont. 



Dr. J. Eliot Coit, of the University of 

 Arizona, has accejited the assistant professor- 

 ship of pomology in the University of Cali- 

 fornia. 



In the department of zoology at Northwest- 

 ern University, Dr. E. H. Harper has been 

 promoted to an assistant professorship and 

 Charles S. Mead, Ph.D. (Columbia), has been 

 appointed instructor in zoology. 



Professor John Cox has retired after nine- 

 teen years as Macdonald professor of physics 

 in McGill University and first director of the 

 Macdonald Physics Building. Professor H. 

 T. Barnes has been appointed director and 

 Professor H. A. Wilson, F.R.S., has been ap- 

 pointed Macdonald professor of physics. Dr. 

 H. L. Brown has been appointed assistant 

 professor of physics, Mr. F. H. Day and Mr. 

 W. R. Gillis, lecturers in physics, Mr. A. L. 

 Dickieson, Mr. N. E. Wheeler and Mr. A. G. 

 Hatcher, demonstrators in physics. 



In the Queen's University of Belfast ap- 

 pointments have been made as follows : pro- 

 fessor of botany, Mr. D. T. Gwynne-Vaughan ; 

 lecturer in organic chemistry, Dr. A. W. Stew- 

 art ; lecturer in physics, Dr. Robert Jack ; lec- 

 turer in bio-chemistry. Dr. J. A. Milroy; lec- 

 turer in geology and geography. Dr. A. R. 

 Dwerryhouse; lecturer on hygiene, Dr. W. 

 James Wilson. 



Dr. G. S. West has been appointed to the 

 chair of botany and vegetable physiology in 

 the University of Birmingham, rendered va- 

 cant by the retirement of Professor Hill- 

 house. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



remarks on recent contributions to 

 cosmogony 



To the Editor of Science : In your issue of 

 May 28 is a letter by T. J. J. See, ostensibly 

 demanding " fair play and toleration " in the 

 consideration of current contributions to sci- 

 ence, but clearly written for the purpose of 

 exploiting some of his own recent writings. 

 In this letter, notwithstanding the implica- 

 tions of its caption, he takes occasion to char- 

 acterize the work of Professor Chamberlin and 

 myself as " inconsistent and purely destruc- 

 tive," and says : 



If Professor Blackwelder will study my last 

 paper carefully, and the work now in press, when 

 it appears, he will find that most of the recent 

 speculations on cosmogony are not worth the 

 paper they are written on; and yet some of them 

 have been published by the Astrophysical Journal 

 and the Carnegie Institution. 



He also modestly states: 



It is only fair to say that no constructive re- 

 sults of consistent character had been reached on 

 tnis subject till my own investigation was com- 

 pleted last year. ... As I have worked on this 

 subject uninterruptedly for twenty-five years, I 

 am prepared to speak with some degree of au- 

 thority. 



Because of these extravagant pretensions 

 and the fact that a majority of the readers of 

 Science, being unfamiliar with the details of 

 recent developments in this subject, will not 

 credit any one with having the monumental 

 nerve to put forward such claims without 

 there being some basis for them, I beg the 

 privilege of taking enough space to state 

 briefly the facts relating to this matter. 



The well-known nebular hypothesis was put 

 forward briefly by Laplace, in 1796, at the end 

 of a work on popular astronomy. Its sim- 

 plicity and attractiveness, as well as the great 

 name of its author, soon gained for it wide 

 acceptance among scientific men. It satisfied 

 those racial instincts for an explanation of the 

 origin of things which gave rise to the cos- 

 mogonies of the ancients; and in stirring the- 

 emotions, the majestic sweep of events which 



