Apbil 9, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



569 



go beyond Ms class-room and extend his 

 good work in the territory round about and 

 far away. 



Loomis's work on the aurora borealis is 

 still quoted. The contributions to meteor- 

 ology by Espy, Redfield, Coffin, Maury and 

 Loomis are even known to those of us who 

 do not profess to be meteorologists. These 

 few illustrations must suffice for our pres- 

 ent purpose. 



If the college professor now lacks the 

 necessary time and incentive during the 

 scholastic year, let him follow the example 

 of Locke, Bache or Nipher who spent their 

 vacations in the open in order to learn 

 something of the physical laws governing 

 natural phenomena. Let him behold his 

 colleagues abroad like Riicker and Thorpe 

 — one a physicist, the other a chemist — 

 who jointly made a magnetic survey of the 

 British Isles during their vacations with 

 the aid of grants which probably just cov- 

 ered expenses and with doubtless no re- 

 muneration. The eminent Japanese phys- 

 icist, Tanakadate, is another instance in 

 point. 



"Why is it that, in spite of the truly 

 wonderful spirit of research that has liter- 

 ally seized us in this country, there are so 

 few of us entitled to be enrolled among 

 those who are making definite contributions 

 to terrestrial and cosmieal physics? 



"We note with pleasure that the Ameri- 

 can physicist is very prominently repre- 

 sented, indeed, in astronomy and astro- 

 physics. May we not hope that he will 

 soon realize that this planet on which we 

 dwell, and which must form the basis of all 

 our astronomical speculations, is also 

 worthy of the highest and most unselfish 

 devotion? That, indeed, to reap the full 

 and most lasting benefit of our celestial 

 researches we must keep equal pace with 

 our terrestrial ones? Let him recall that 

 nearly every one of the great physicists 



has at one time or another extended his 

 mental vision beyond the problems im- 

 mediately before him and considered what 

 the application of his laboratory discover- 

 ies might be towards solving some of the 

 riddles of the universe, or how he might 

 benefit mankind. Faraday, Maxwell, Kel- 

 vin, von Helmholtz, Hertz, Mascart, Lang- 

 ley and Rowland are but a few of the in- 

 spiring names. 



Happily, there are already some indica- 

 tions of a reawakening, and we note with 

 pleasure the example recently set by our 

 retiring president, who turned his sabbat- 

 ical year to fruitful use in the study of 

 some perplexing atmospheric phenomena. 

 "We note movements at some of our large 

 universities to expand their graduate 

 courses in the direction of the applied 

 science here had in mind. At the present 

 meeting we find 12 papers before Sections 

 A and B, which might properly be classi- 

 fied under terrestrial and cosmieal phys- 

 ics. 



Von Helmholtz, as many of you know 

 from actual experience, was a notoriously 

 poor lecturer. He seemed utterly inca- 

 pable of imparting his vast knowledge in 

 any systematic manner, and doubtless the 

 chief value which his listeners got was the 

 inspiration imparted by class-room associa- 

 tion with this gifted man. Von Bezold, 

 who delivered the Berlin memorial address 

 on von Helmholtz, told me the latter gave 

 as the reason of his inability to impart his 

 acquired knowledge methodically, the fact 

 that he himself had not gained it in that 

 way. He would take up his mathematics, 

 for example, only when he required it — 

 not by going systematically and consist^- 

 ently through a volume of higher analysis 

 without some impelling or suggesting mo- 

 tive. And so it was with the other sciences 

 with which he had to familiarize himself to 

 push to successful completion an intricate 

 and complex piece of research. Yet how 



