470 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol,. XXVIII. No. 719 



the practical application of science. This 

 is the more necessary for these subjects 

 becaiise there is no organized system of 

 academic teaching, with its attendant sys- 

 tem of text-books. In a subject which has 

 many university teachers it might reason- 

 ably be supposed that any important con- 

 tribution would find its way into the text- 

 books, which are constantly revised for the 

 use of students; and yet, in his presi- 

 dential address to the Royal Society in the 

 November of last year, Lord Eayleigh felt 

 constrained to point out that, for the ad- 

 vance of science, although the main re- 

 quirement is original work of a high 

 standard, that alone is not sufficient. 

 "The advances made must be secured, and 

 this can hardly be unless they are appre- 

 ciated by the scientific public." He adds 

 that "the history of science shows that im- 

 portant original work is liable to be over- 

 looked and is, perhaps, the more liable the 

 higher the degree of originality. The 

 names of T. Young, Mayer, Carnot, 

 Waterston and B. Stewart will suggest 

 themselves to the physicist, and in other 

 branches, doubtless, similar lists might be 

 made of workers whose labors remained 

 neglected for a shorter or longer time." 



If this is true of physics how deplorably 

 true it is of meteorology. If I allow a 

 liberal discount of over 50 per cent, from 

 the numbers that I have given, and esti- 

 mate the number of effective contributions 

 to meteorology as recognized by the "In- 

 ternational Catalogue" at a thousand, 

 which agrees pretty well with that given 

 by the Fortschritte der Physik, and if I 

 were to ask round this room the number of 

 these papers read by any one here present, 

 I am afraid the result would be dis- 

 heartening. Many of us have views as to 

 the way in which the study of meteorology 

 ought to be pursued, but the views are not 

 always based on an exhaustive examina- 

 tion of the writings of meteorologists. 



Few of us could give, I think, any reason- 

 able idea of the way in which it is being 

 pursued by the various institutions de- 

 voted to its application, and of the progress 

 which is being secured therein. Meteor- 

 ological papers are written by the hundred, 

 and, whether they are important or unim- 

 portant, they often disregard what has 

 been already written in the same or some 

 other language, and are themselves in turn 

 disregarded. I do not think I should be 

 doing any injustice if I applied similar 

 remarks to some of the other subjects in- 

 cluded in the table which I have quoted. 

 How many readers are there in this coun- 

 try for an author in terrestrial magnetism, 

 atmospheric electricity, limnology or phys- 

 ical oceanography ? But, if the papers are 

 not read and assimilated, the advancement 

 of science is not achieved, however original 

 the researches may be. 



By way of remedy for the neglect of 

 important papers in physics Lord Ray- 

 leigh suggests that teachers of authority, 

 who, from advancing years or from some 

 other reason, find themselves unable to do 

 much more work in the direction of ma- 

 king original contributions, should make a 

 point of helping to spread the knowledge 

 of the work done by others. But what of 

 those subjects in which there are no recog- 

 nized teachers? and in this country this 

 is practically the case with the subjects 

 which I have mentioned. It is true that 

 many of them are made the occasion of 

 international assemblies, at which dele- 

 gates or representatives meet. But such 

 international assemblies are of necessity 

 devoted, for the most part, to the elabora- 

 tion of the details of international organ- 

 ization, and not to the discussion of sci- 

 entific achievements. The numbers at- 

 tending are, equally of necessity, very re- 

 stricted. 



The want of opportunity for the discus- 

 sion of progress in these sciences is spe- 



