62 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VII. No. 1203 



velocity of light and the electronic charge. 



Poincare's demonstration of the neces- 

 sitj^ for discontinuities in atomic processes 

 if the total black radiation is to remain 

 finite has not yet been successfully ques- 

 tioned. If it stands, we must not only give 

 up the hope of bringing the phenomena of 

 physics under the sway of generalized dy- 

 namics — ^we must renounce even the 

 humbler ambition of describing them, in all 

 their details, by means of differential equa- 

 tions. It will certainly be a triumph of 

 the atomistic method — though unexpected 

 and somewhat embarrassing to its most 

 ardent supporters — if our very mathemat- 

 ics must become atomic. 



The present state of theoretical physics 

 is obviously one of transition, with all the 

 discomfort that such a state involves. "We 

 are waiting for a synthesis of elements 

 which are apparently discordant and mu- 

 tually contradictory. The experience of 

 the past forbids us to doubt that the neces- 

 sary reconciliation will come in time ; and 

 we can foresee that it will be comparable 

 with the greatest generalizations in the 

 history of science. It may be that we must 

 await the appearance of another Newton; 

 or it may be that the result will be achieved 

 in a more democratic manner by the co- 

 operation of many lesser men. 



H. A. BUMSTEAD 



Yale Univeesitt 



CYRILLE GRAND'EURY 



The writer has waited some months in the 

 hope that some one whose acquaintance was 

 not limited to an occasional interchange of 

 letters might publish a note of appreciation of 

 the life and work of this savant — the last of 

 the illustrious trio of paleobotanist, Renault, 

 Zeiller, Grand'Eury^ — ^who made the French 

 Carboniferous and Permian floras classic and 

 a standard for the whole world. 



Frangois Cyrille Grand'Eury was born at 

 Houdreville (Meiirthe) on March 9, 1839. He 



was a mining engineer by profession and early 

 in his career he became interested in the fos- 

 sil plants of the Carboniferous, publishing a 

 paper on the St. Etienne flora as early as 1869. 

 His large work on the Loire flora, a folio 

 monograph of 624 pages and 27 plates, was 

 published as a memoir of the French Academy 

 in 1877 and is one of the most comprehensive 

 works of its kind ever printed. The only 

 other large systematic work from his pen was 

 that on the geology and paleontology of the 

 coalfield of the Gard published in 1890. 



Grand'Eury was always much interested in 

 the stratigraphic applications of his subject, 

 in the conditions of growth of the coal plants, 

 and the origin of coal — subjects upon which 

 he repeatedly published. He may be said to 

 have established the chronologic succession of 

 floras for the coal seams of the Stephanian, 

 named from the typical development of this 

 stage at St. fitienne. Probably no other stu- 

 dent of Carboniferous floras had so thorough 

 a field experience or saw one tenth the 

 amount of material in place in the rocks as 

 did Grand'Eury. Consequently his observa- 

 tions on the habit, sizes and positions of 

 growth of the various Cordaites, Lepidophytes 

 and Calamites are especially trustworthy. 

 His name is inseparably associated with the 

 elucidation of the habit and morphology of 

 Cordaites and his restorations of these and 

 other coal plants are to be found in every 

 text-book. 



He published a memoir upon the formation 

 of coal in the Annales des Mines in 1882, a 

 subject to which he returned in his paper be- 

 fore the International Geological Congress in 

 1901, and in his last large work commenced 

 in 1912. He was not a voluminous vsrriter 

 and with the exception of his work on the Car- 

 boniferous plants of the Spanish peninsula, 

 embodied in lists of species, all of his work 

 was centered on the French floras. ISTor did 

 he, so far as I know, publish anything in the 

 flelds of Mesozoic and Cenozoic paleobotany, 

 unless his paper of 1902 on the formation of 

 stipite, brown coal and lignite can be so con- 

 sidered. 



He did, however, contribute a very large 



