January 28, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



85 



scribed him as tte most influential American 

 in England. 



As chairman of the National Research Coun- 

 cil, as member of the National Eesearch Fel- 

 lowship Board> and as participant in other im- 

 portant groups with which he was associated 

 at the time of his death, Bumstead showed the 

 same broad outlook, the same big human in- 

 terest, the same tact, the same sane intelligence 

 and sound judgment which had characterized 

 his work in England. 



He spent practically the whole of the holi- 

 day week at my home in attendance upon the 

 meetings of the Physical Society and of vari- 

 ous committees of which he was a member. 

 He was apparently in the best of health and 

 spirits. Indeed, he spent Friday morning, De- 

 cember 31, going over with me the research 

 work of the Eyerson Laboratory, and as we 

 chatted together before he left about future 

 plans he remarked that since his last operation 

 some four years ago he had been feeling in ex- 

 cellent condition. He left me at about 11 :30, 

 intending to take the afternoon train for Wash- 

 ington. The next morning Dr. Vernon Kel- 

 logg, who occupied the berth opposite him, at- 

 tempted to awaken him and found that he had 

 gone. 



He leaves a big gap in the ranks of Ameri- 

 can physicists. Born just fifty-one years ago in 

 Pekin, Illinois, and educated in the public 

 schools of Decatur, from which he went first 

 to Johns Hopkins and then to Tale, he had 

 done honor to the state which gave to this 

 country Lincoln and Grant. He had been 

 president of the American Physical Society, 

 director of the Sloane Physical Laboratory 

 since 1906, a very influential member of the 

 Tale faculty, a member of the National Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences. He had a 

 brilliant analytical mind, profound scholar- 

 ship, exceptional critical capacity, excellent 

 judgment, an extraordinary winsome personal- 

 ity, the finest culture, and a great heart. His 

 personal scientific contributions were impor- 

 tant, though they had been much interferred 

 with by his none too rugged health. His effect 

 upon American physics, however, was not lim- 



ited to his own scientific papers, but he exerted 

 a powerful influence upon his pupils and upon 

 his fellow physicists. 



It is not merely American science, however, 

 which can ill afford to lose him twenty years 

 before his time. American life in all its as- 

 pects is sadly in need of men of Bumstead's 

 type. The cause of sanity, of culture, of 

 Anglo-Saxon solidarity, of scholarship, of sci- 

 ence, of world civilization, all suffer irrepar- 

 ably through his death. E. A. Millikan 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



POLAR RESEARCH 



The Christian Science Monitor reports that 

 the Ambassador of the United States in 

 London, Mr. John W. Davis, visited the meet- 

 ing of the Eoyal Geographical Society held at 

 the close of the year to discharge a pleasant 

 duty with which he had been intrusted by tht 

 American Geographical Society of New Tork. 

 When the centenary of the birth of David 

 Livingston was celebrated in 1913, the His- 

 panic Society of America founded a gold 

 medal for exploration and placed it at the dis- 

 posal of the American Geographical Society. 

 It is one of the highest awards in the geo- 

 graphical world, and its latest recipient is Dr. 

 W. S. Bruce, who has devoted his life to the 

 extension of knowledge of the Arctic and Ant- 

 arctic regions. This medal was presented by 

 Mr. Davis. In the unavoidable absence of Dr. 

 Bruce the medal was received on his behalf by 

 Dr. E. N. Eudmose Brown, who has served 

 under Dr. Bruce in both the north and the 

 south polar regions. The ceremony empha- 

 sized the close interest which the American 

 and English peoples have taken in popular 

 research. Mr. Davis, in making the presenta- 

 tion, expressed his satisfaction that the Amer- 

 ican Geographical Society had not imposed 

 any narrow confines on their choice of a 

 recipient; and Dr. Eudmose Brown, in return- 

 ing thanks, said that Dr. Brtice's gratification 

 at receiving the medal would be increased by 

 the thought that it had been adjudged to him 

 by the countrymen of such explorers as Wilkes 

 and Greely. 



