610 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1225 



who had pyrheliometers, but eouldn 't afford the ex- 

 pense of money, time, and experience necessary to 

 really observe solar radiation satisfactorily by 

 spectrum-energy work, might get approximate re- 

 sults of at least moderate value. It is to be dis- 

 tinctly understood that these empirical methods of 

 solar constant work by pyrheliometry, though based 

 on our work, are likely to yield results several per 

 cent, from the truth, ovidng to differences in the 

 atmospheric transparency due to various causes, 

 and especially to the variable influence of water 

 vapor. Pyrheliometrie methods are mere econom- 

 ical make-shifts when unaccompanied by spectro- 

 bolometry. 



8. You are, I am certain, misled in your attack 

 on our use of Bouguer's formula of extrapolation 

 when applied as we applied it to homogeneous rays. 

 See for instance our paper ' ' New Evidences on the 

 Intensity of Solar Radiation Outside the Atmos- 

 phere." Logically conceived the mathematical 

 treatment consists in diminishing the path of 

 the sunrays in every layer of the atmosphere 

 proportionally until none remains. The fact 

 that this can not conveniently be carried through 

 experimentally beyond the point corresponding to 

 the atmospheric thickness found in a vertical solar 

 beam does not prove that a continuation such as 

 can be logically conceived up to the point where 

 each thickness becomes zero is mathematically un- 

 sound. Imagine, for instance, a tube to be erected 

 from the observer to the outside of the atmosphere, 

 and by side tubes appropriately dimensioned let 

 the atmosphere within the tube be exhausted until 

 none remains. This fits the logical process applied 

 with Bouguer's formula. No mathematician but 

 you can see in it anything objectionable, so far as I 

 know. 



9. In order to verify, as far as could be done, the 

 sound theoretical and experimental conclusion that 

 if the standard pyrheliometer could be read on the 

 moon at mean solar distance it would read there on 

 the average 1.93 calories per square centimeter per 

 minute, we sent up a registering pyrheliometer by 

 balloon to 22,000 meters in 1914 and found there 

 1.84 calories, which is a very reasonable check. 



10. You have exterpolated your thermodynamical 

 discussion of meteorological measurements into the 

 realms of the thin air above 22,000 meters, and 

 into the realms of the sun, which is out of the range 

 of laboratory conditions altogether. Your resiilts 

 widely disagree from those I have just quoted. 

 It seems to me not to matter who makes the 

 curves, whether yourself or another; by the time 

 they get outside the well-observed range of at- 



mospheric data, say 20,000 meters, even though 

 they are sound at the bottom (and this I am not 

 quite sure of), they rank rather as interesting 

 speculations than as having quantitative value. 

 By authority of the Secretary : 



Yours truly, 



C. G. Abbot, 

 Director, AstropJiysical Observatory 

 Professor Frank H. Bigelow, 



Solar and Magnetic Observatory, 

 Pilar, Argentina. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR WILDER 



Being mueh interested in a short article by 

 Professor Wilder, appearing in Science of 

 April 19, on the subject of " Desmognathus 

 fuscus (sic)," it occurred to me that a few 

 remarks mig-ht not be inappropriate. The ob- 

 ject of the nomenelatorial code in zoology, as 

 I assume Professor Wilder recognizes as fully 

 as any other zoologist, is primarily to afford a 

 means of naming the various species of ani- 

 mals. In vieve of this I think it will be ad- 

 mitted that philological conditions should play 

 a secondary role to consistency and perman- 

 ence. Most zoologists are in favor of ridding 

 nomenclature of the idiosyncrasies continually 

 occurring in language, in order to bring about 

 absolute uniformity so far as may be possible. 

 This tendency can be traced easily. In former 

 times it was the custom, for instance, to begin 

 all specific words founded upon proper names 

 with the capital letter; then, the desirability 

 of uniformity becoming increasingly evident, 

 only specific designations foimded upon the 

 names of persons were so written ; at the pres- 

 ent time, in all parts of the world excepting 

 continental Europe, the custom prevails of 

 beginning all specific names, including the 

 personal, with a small letter. It is now Omus 

 edwardsi, for example, and not Omus Ed- 

 wardsii, as originally published, the adoption 

 of the single i in all cases to form the genitive 

 ending, being another recently adopted rule 

 formulated in the sole interest of uniformity. 

 All this should horrify the philologist quite as 

 much as the disregarding of irr^ular Greek 

 genders. 



Now in regard to genders, it is considered 

 desirable by many systematists — and their 



