562 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 721 



and a system of appointments is necessarily 

 defective in so far as it does not insure the 

 finding of the very best available man for the 

 vacant position. 



While a system of appointments calling for 

 a national survey by specialists whenever an 

 important position is to be filled vcould doubt- 

 less sei-ve as a great incentive to the younger 

 men, yet the main advantage vpould result 

 from the fact that men of the greatest energy 

 and ability would be placed in positions where 

 they could work to the best advantage, instead 

 of wasting the greater part of their energies 

 ■while others are wasting raost of their oppor- 

 tunities. It is a question calling for national 

 action, since our system of inbreeding is so 

 well intrenched and works to the advantage 

 of so many persons of mediocre ability, that 

 it is scarcely to be expected that the authori- 

 ties would be willing to face the storm result- 

 ing from a decided change in a single institu- 

 tion. 



The natural body to establish a bureau of 

 information, if Professor Wenley's suggestion 

 were to be adopted, would appear to be a 

 national organization of men representing the 

 department of inquiry. If the American 

 Mathematical Society and the American 

 Chemical Society, for instance, would ap- 

 point committees representing the various 

 parts of the country, and entrust such com- 

 mittees with the nomination of the best pos- 

 sible men for the positions brought to their 

 attention, they would doubtless render a most 

 important service. As such a committee 

 would feel the great responsibility of having 

 their actions reviewed by a national society of 

 experts, it would doubtless look into the 

 matter much more carefully than individuals 

 do, who are casually asked to express their 

 opinions in regard to the best available men. 

 It seems also likely that appointing bodies 

 would generally be very eager to secure such 

 expert advice and thus remove a part of the 

 responsibility from their own shoulders. 



Whether such a bureau of information 

 would be as satisfactory as the Italian system, 

 properly modified to meet our situation, it 

 seems difficult to predict. At any rate, the 

 present haphazard method seems so bad that 



it does not appear likely that any one result- 

 ing from a full discussion of the matter could 

 fail to be far superior. It need scarcely be 

 added that a wise system of appointments 

 would be apt to check the tendency towards 

 ezarism on the part of our big institutions — 

 a tendency which has alarmed many of our 

 best men and threatens to serve as a barrier 

 in securing the very best talent for university 

 positions. 



G. A. Miller 

 Univeesitt of Illinois 



on the origin and age op the sedimentary 



ROOKS 



To THE Editor of Science: In replying to 

 Dr. BarreU's criticisms* I wish, first of all, to 

 make it clear that I have no fault to find with 

 the " detailed studies of the geological 

 record " ; the matter in dispute has to do with 

 the theories which the geologists have founded 

 on their interpretations of the observations. 



Dr. Barrell states that I claim to have 

 demonstrated that the earth was " protected 

 by a cloud envelope until the Tertiary " ; 

 herein he disregards my published — qualified — 

 statement that (in view of my results) Man- 

 son's hypothesis must now be modified; and 

 the nature of this modification is clearly in- 

 dicated by my references to " warmer " and 

 " colder " months of the year as still existing 

 at the very beginning of a glacial epoch; in 

 other words, while I accept the theory that 

 the former higher temperature of the ocean 

 was necessary to supply the material for the 

 (now disappearing) ice sheets, I find that 

 climate then, as now, must still have been 

 local, and there seem to be no good reasons 

 why climate should not have been sensibly 

 local in those earlier times for which we have 

 records showing that living organisms then 

 existed; only in the still earlier history of the 

 earth was the cloud mantle so thick that the 

 sun's influence was rendered practically in- 

 sensible at the earth's surface. 



But, considering the comparatively small 

 size of the earth, this condition of things could 

 exist through the hundreds of millions of 



'SCIENOE, pp. 371-3. 



X 



