SCIENCE 



FEiDAy, July 23, 1920 



CONTENTS 

 The Structure of the Universe: Professor 

 "William Duncan MacMillan 67 



The Pan-Pacific Scientific Congress and the 

 Bishop Museum of Bawaii: Professor 

 Charles Schuchert 74 



Scientific Events: — 



Cotton Research in Lancashire; The British 

 Science Guild; The Division of Chemistry 

 and Chemical Technology of the National 

 Research Council; The Permanent Funds of 

 the American Ornithologists ' Union 76 



Scientific Notes and News 78 



University and Educational News 81 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 

 The Bescued Fur-seal Industry: Dr. Wil- 

 liam T. Hoenaday. Side-to-side versus End- 

 to-end Conjugation of Chromosomes in rela- 

 tion to Crossing over : Dr. Wabo Nakahara. 

 Destruction of Zoospores of Plant Disease 

 Organisms by Natural Enemies: E. B. 

 Harvey 81 



The Journal of Morphology : Professor W. 

 C. Allee 84 



Special Articles: — 



A Simplified Non-ahsorhing Mounting for 

 Porous Porcelain Atmometers: Professor 

 Burton E. Livingston and Frank Thone. 85 



The Iowa Academy of Science: Dr. James 

 H. Lees 87 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 review should be sent to The Editor of Science, Garrison-on- 

 Hudson, N. Y. 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSEi 



The phrase, "the structure of the uni- 

 verse," is apt to bring to mind only the great 

 and majestic forms which are revealed to us 

 by the telescope, the stars, nebulse and gal- 

 axies. In the present discussion however I 

 wish to include in one view the entire range 

 of physical things from the infinitesimal to 

 the infinite; for to the mathematician there 

 is no such thing as absolute size — a thing 

 is either large or small only by comparison. 



Up to the present time we have succeeded 

 in extending our vision equally, so to speak, 

 in both directions. We iind ourselves almost 

 midway in a series of physical units. On the 

 one side we have the electrons, atoms and 

 molecules, and on the other we have the 

 ordinary masses, stars and galaxies. The 

 galaxies are more or less definite aggregations 

 of stars. The stars are amazingly great organ- 

 izations of hot gases. The gases in turn are 

 resolved into their constituent molecules; the 

 molecules yield up their atoms, and finally 

 we find that the atoms are built up of two 

 kinds of electrons. Each physical unit is 

 analyzed into units of the next lower order, 

 and synthesized into those of the next higher 

 order. Each unit is an organization endowed 

 with the proper amount of energy to carry on 

 its existence and to insure its identity. 



Our direct vision is bounded on the one side 

 by the electrons and on the other side by the 

 galaxies. But the common properties of 

 energy and organization lead us naturally to 

 imagine that the electrons in their turn are 

 organizations of still smaller units, let us call 

 them sub-electrons; and the sub-electrons are 

 organizations of still smaller imits, and so on, 

 ad infinitum. Turning to the other end of 

 the series we can fancy that there are organ- 



1 Head before the Chicago chapter of the Sigma 

 Xi, March 11, 1920. 



