SCIENCE 



Friday, July 7, 1916 



CONTENTS 

 Research: President Eat Lyman Wilbur. 1 



Contributions of the United States Coast and 

 Geodetic Survey to Geodesy: Professor 

 William H. Burger 4 



Pittsburgh's Frist Chemical Society: John 

 O 'Connor, Jr 11 



The San Diego Meeting of the Pacific Divis- 

 ion of the American Association 14 



Scientific Notes and News 15 



University and Educational News 18 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 

 Some Fundamental Difficxdties of Mechanics : 

 Professor Willard J. Fisher. The Teach- 

 ing of Elementary Dynamics : Dr. Wm. Cain. 

 Gravitation and Electrical Action: Pro- 

 fessor Francis E. Nipher. The Produc- 

 tion of Radium: Charles H. Viol 18 



Scientific Books: — 

 Recent Boolcs in Mathematics: Professor 

 Casius J. Keyser. Yerkes on the Mental 

 Life of Monkeys and Apes: Professor Ed- 

 ward L. Thorndike 25 



Retrogression in American Longevity at Ad- 

 vanced Ages : C. H. Forsyth E0 



Special Articles: — 



A Method of Plotting the Inflections of the 

 Voice: Professor Cornelius Beach Brad- 

 ley 34 



Sooieties and Academies: — 



The Biological Society of Washington: Dr. 

 M. W. Lyon, Jr. Anthropological Society 

 of Washington : Frances Densmore .... 35 



MSS. intended for publication and 

 review should be sent to Professor J. 

 on-Hudson. N. Y. 



, etc., intended for 

 Cattell, Garrison- 



RESEARCHi 



The university is the natural home for 

 research. The development of research 

 institutes, except of those that have been 

 built up around a great genius, and during 

 the period of the active life of such a man, 

 is apt, in the long run, to be more of a 

 menace than help to the work of investiga- 

 tion. In a way the establishment of these 

 institutes is a measure of university ineffi- 

 ciency. They mean that the universities 

 have failed to rise to their full possibilities 

 as centers of meutal activity. 



Research institutes lack the current of 

 successive generations of students from 

 which to pick out the right minds and to 

 draw new blood. They do not feel the in- 

 ternal heave and struggle, the pressure that 

 comes from association with the great tur- 

 bulent mental forces that accompany youth. 

 There is too much pressure for evident re- 

 sults, too much discipline of research minds 

 to achieve a big effect. Just at the period 

 when those who have the proper training 

 and ability and the love for investigation 

 that must go with success in discovering 

 new things, many of the workers in research 

 institutes and departments are compelled to 

 work on the problems of some one else. 

 This is valuable and satisfactory up to a 

 certain point, but beyond that it means 

 sterilization of the best that is in the men; 

 it means putting aside their own projects, 

 perhaps permanently. It is a serious thing 

 for any one full of expanding ideas to be 

 made a "scientific bootblack." 



The university, if manned as it should 



1 Address before the Society of Sigma Xi at 

 Stanford University, May 8, 1916. 



