OCTOEEB 9, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



471 



eially lamentable, because in its absence 

 they lose the valuable assistance of 

 amateur workers, who mig'ht be an effective 

 substitute for the students of an academic 

 study. In no subject are there more 

 volunteers, who take an active part in 

 observing, than in meteorology; but how 

 few of them carry their work beyond the 

 stage of recording observations and ta- 

 king means. The reason is not lightly to 

 be assigned to their want of capacity to 

 carry on an investigation, but far more, I 

 believe, to the want of knowledge of the 

 objects of investigation and of the means 

 of pursuing them. 



Among the agencies which in the past 

 have fostered the knowledge of these sub- 

 jects, and stimulated its pursuit, there 

 stand out prominently the annual meetings 

 of this association. It was the British As- 

 sociation which in 1842 re-founded the 

 Kew Observatory for the study of the 

 physics of the atmosphere, the earth, and 

 the sun. It was the British Association 

 which promoted the establishment of 

 magnetic observatories in many parts of 

 the earth, and in the early sixties secured 

 the most brilliant achievements in the in- 

 vestigation of the atmosphere by means of 

 balloons. I know of no other opportunity 

 of anything like the same potentialities for 

 the writers of papers to meet with the 

 readers, and to confer together about the 

 progress of the sciences in which they are 

 interested. But its potentialities are not 

 realized. Those of us who are most 

 anxious for the spread of the application 

 of mathematics and physics to the phe- 

 nomena of astronomy, meteorology and 

 geophysics have thought that this oppor- 

 tunity could not properly be utilized by 

 crowding together all the papers that deal 

 with such subjects into one day, or pos- 

 sibly two days, so that they can be polished 

 off with the rapidity of an oriental execu- 

 tion. In fact, the opportunity to be 



polished off is precisely not the oppor- 

 tunity that is wanted. There are some 

 of us who think that a British Association 

 week is not too long for the consideration 

 of the subjects of which a year's abstracts 

 occupy a volume of six hundred pages, and 

 that, if we could extend the opportunity 

 for the consideration of these questions 

 from one or two days to a week, and let 

 those members who are interested form a 

 separate committee to develop and extend 

 these subjects, the British Association, the 

 country and science would all gain there- 

 by. I venture from this place, in the name 

 of the advancement of science, to make an 

 appeal for the favorable consideration of 

 this suggestion. It is not based upon the 

 depreciation, but upon the highest appre- 

 ciation of the service which mathematics 

 and physics have rendered, and can still 

 render, to the observational sciences, and 

 upon the well-tried principle that close 

 family ties are strengthened, and not weak- 

 ened, by making allowance for natural de- 

 velopment. 



The plea seems to me so natural, and the 

 alternatives so detrimental to the advance- 

 ment of science in this country, that I 

 can not believe the association will turn 

 to it a deaf ear. "W. N. Shaw 



GRAPHIC ART IN SCIENCE^ 

 As a beginning I wish to thank this 

 society for the privilege granted me to ad- 

 dress it. That a strong personal pleasure 

 is felt at this opportunity, I shall not at- 

 tempt to deny; but I have a greater satis- 

 faction than this, and that is that I am 

 allowed to present a subject which has been 

 too seldom publicly discussed in the pres- 

 ence of investigators and students, viz. : 

 the part played by graphic art in science. 



This subject is one of growing impor- 

 tance, and I trust I shall live to see the day 



^ Read before the Harvey Club, University of 

 California, November 7, 1907. 



