SCIENCE 



Friday, January 30, 1920 



CONTENTS 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 



The Message of the Biologist: Pbopessor 

 William Patten 93 



On Nipher's " Grcmitational" Experiment 

 and the Anomalies of the Moon's Motion: 

 De. F. W. Vert 102 



FranTc Perkins Whitman 105 



Horatio C. Wood 106 



Scientific Events: — 



Water Power and Dartmoor; Medical Edu- 

 cation; SdentifiG Lectures; The Illinois 

 Academy of Sciences; Gift to the National 

 Academy of Sciences and the National Me- 

 secsrch Council 107 



Scientific Notes and News 1 10 



University and Educational News 112 



IHscussion and Correspondence: — 



Official Field Crop Inspection: Frank A. 

 Spkagg. Science and Politics: Professor 



T. D. A. COCKERELL 113 



Quotations : — 



The Dues of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science and the Salaries 

 of Scientific Men 115 



Scientific BooTcs: — 



Ostwald on the System of the Sciences: 

 Pkofessok William A. Notes 116 



Special Articles: — 



Drought and the Poot-system of Eucalyptus: 

 James McMdrpht and George J. Peikce. 118 



The Mathematical Association of America . . ] 20 



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

 review ehould be sent to The Editor of Science, Garriaon-on- 

 Hudaon, N. Y. 



THE MESSAGE OF THE BIOLOGIST^ 



It is eminently fitting that we biologists, 

 like virile swarm spores, should periodically 

 come together in a holiday spirit of mutual 

 exchange, and after giving and receiving our 

 messages, go back to our life work, reinvigor- 

 ated and reoriented, to prepare for another 

 brief period of social conjugation. 



The messages we send to one another will 

 have little carrying power, and little influence 

 on the receiver, if they are not specific in con- 

 tent, limited in scope, and securely wrapped 

 up in the precise technical terms of our own 

 familiar code. 



On the other hand, the biologist would be 

 wholly lacking in social instincts if he 

 failed to recognize that he also has a more 

 comprehensive message for the layman, who 

 is largely dependent on the biologist for his 

 working knowledge of the great domain of 

 nature-life, and by whom the biologist is pro- 

 vided with the necessary means of existence. 



This larger message must have a different 

 vehicle. It must first be summarized, digested 

 and metabolized into the vernacular, before it 

 can circulate through the body of social life, 

 reach its terminals, and there accomplish its 

 strengthening and rectifying purpose. 



We may well ask ourselves whether we have 

 such a message to give, and if so, what it is, 

 and who, or what, is our authority. And by 

 "we," I now mean all of us, not merely the 

 biologist, but the astronomer, geologist, chem- 

 ist, physicist and psychologist, for we are 

 what we are to-day because of the underlying 

 community of our methods and purposes, and 

 because, in our concept of evolution, we ac- 

 knowledge the same mental sovereignty. 



This concept, of which we are the trustees, 



1 Address of the vice-president and chairman of 

 Section P, Zoology, American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, St. Lonis, January 31, 

 1919. 



