122 



SCIENCE 



[N. 8. Vol. LII. No. 1336 



two different systems of terraces of Pleisto- 

 cene age are found within the city of Los 

 Angeles. Many other examples might be 

 enumerated of evidences of the youth of the 

 geologic and topographic features around Los 

 Angeles, and along this part of the California 

 coast in general. 



Thus there are many reasons to expect 

 frequent evidences of seismic activity in this 

 region, but owing to the local character of 

 most of the lines of structural weakness, ex- 

 tensive disturbances are not probable. The 

 Great Earthquake Eift, or San Andreas Fault 

 zone lies fully forty miles north of Los 

 Angeles with several granite mountain ranges 

 in between as buffers. Therefore the Los 

 Angelenos may console themselves that they 

 are not in the main earthquake belt. 



Ralph Arnold 



New York 



AUGUSTO RIGHI 



Often the death of a great personality in 

 one of the fields of pure science is only felt 

 directly by the small band of fellow workers 

 in that field, while the passing away of one 

 who has contributed but little original knowl- 

 edge and has merely popularized the work of 

 investigators makes a disproi)ortionate im- 

 pression on the general public, but in the 

 death of Augusto Eighi, professor of physics 

 in the University of Bologna, and senator of 

 the Kingdom of Italy, both the professional 

 scientist and the amateur have suffered an 

 irreparable loss. Eighi combined in an in- 

 imitable way the ability to popularize the 

 great central truths of his science with the 

 genius of the bom investigator. His published 

 contributions in physical research cover the 

 period of nearly fifty years and number nearly 

 two hundred and fifty papers. Almost none 

 of these papers are published in collaboration 

 with other physicists, but represent his own 

 individual work. 



The present writer was privileged to spend 

 part of one year as a guest in Eighi's labora- 

 tory in Bologna. It was at the period when 

 the first exjyeriments of Sir J. J. Thomson 

 and his pupils at Cambridge were providing 



the foundation for the beautiful structure of 

 the electron theory which has since been 

 reared. Eighi had been carrying on investiga- 

 tions along lines which made him quick to 

 seize the significance in his own problems of 

 the work of the Cambridge School, and there 

 was unmistakable evidence in his laboratory 

 of great investigative activity — every evidence 

 but for one fact : Eighi never seemed to be 

 working — he always seemed to have leisure to 

 discuss other x)eoples' problems and to attend 

 to the direction of the research of his numer- 

 ous graduate students. Commenting on this 

 one day to Eighi the present writer learned 

 that it was his custom to do all of his own in- 

 vestigative work in the three or four houi's of 

 the day before breakfast when he had his lab- 

 oratory wholly to himself. 



His treatment of his graduate students 

 followed the German method rather than that 

 which seems to characterize our own methods. 

 He rarely published the results obtained in 

 his laboratory jointly with the student but 

 rather gave freely of his time and advice and 

 let the student be the sole sponsor of his own 

 work. A notable example of this is furnished 

 in the well-known relation between Guglielmo 

 Marconi and Augusto Eighi — Eighi, the 

 friend and co-worker of Hertz and the teacher 

 of Marconi, the pioneer in the adaptation of 

 the epoch-making discovery of Hertz to teleg- 

 raphy. Eighi's friends appear to have been 

 jealous lest he should fail to receive proper 

 credit for his part in making wireless com- 

 munication possible; but not so Eighi him- 

 self, who cared little for popular applause and 

 actually enjoyed a fuller measure of it in his 

 own country than ordinarily falls to the lot of 

 the pure scientist. His own attitude towards 

 science is well expressed in his own words in 

 an address before one of the many societies of 

 which he was president. 



I refer to the pure science of physics, that sci- 

 ence which does not occupy itself too much with 

 matters of the practical application of its discover- 

 ies and does not trouble itself about the material 

 advantages which may accrue to him who happens 

 to make these discoveries, but above all else sets 

 itself the task of establishing the great laws which 

 govern the phenomena of the inanimate universe. 



