October 20, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



559 



it from others, I desire to add a few words 

 about the man as I have found him through 

 the acquaintance of many years. 



There never was a more loyal, a more de- 

 voted, a more sensitive spirit. His attitude of 

 mind was puritanic in its simplicity and in 

 its practises, and, left to himself, he could 

 never suspect another of indirectness or 

 duplicity — a quality of which he contained not 

 a grain. "When confronted by the broader 

 bearings of his science and the natural se- 

 quences of its greater propositions, he held 

 himself somewhat carefully aloof; it seemed 

 as though the youthful bendings of the twig 

 inclined him away from paths he would not 

 follow. Yet this simplicity of heart, which 

 would not let him go far a-field, also made him 

 extraordinarily conscientious in his scientific 

 work. It would not be fair to him to say that 

 he had a genius for details, but it would be 

 eminently right to assert that he sought inti- 

 mately and faithfully for the exact construc- 

 tion of every observation he made so far as 

 that had to do with the theme in hand. This 

 mental method led him to precision of manner, 

 gave him a certain formality which was seldom 

 dismissed under the most informal circum- 

 stances. Dr. Prosser's physical address was 

 very pleasing, but his natural reticence, his 

 precision of thought and his fear of an in- 

 exact or loose statement made him a hesitant 

 speaker, though a speaker who was always 

 punctiliously guarding a jewel of highest 

 worth — the truth. Added to this trait, which 

 we may well count a virtue, was his absolute 

 fealty to, first, his science, then to his friends. 

 For those whom he knew to be his friends no 

 sacrifice was too great, no defense too vigor- 

 ous; from them no defection was thinkable. 

 The word of personal criticism seldom passed 

 his lips. If he had suffered an injustice, or 

 an inadequate commentary, it was dismissed 

 with a ripple of a deprecating smile, as though 

 in pity of himself. His determinations of 

 fact he was prepared to defend and to claim 

 his title in them, and his high-strung tempera- 

 ment made him revolt when he saw the 

 credit for his determinations complacently or 

 in ignorance absorbed by another. To this he 



would not become inured, as almost every in- 

 vestigator in science must; it was to him a 

 rape of his golden fleece. 



Out of the quarry stones of his home land he 

 had laboriously built the house of his desires; 

 few know with what struggles against un- 

 toward circumstance, with what patient tug- 

 ging at an unspoken load with which a churl- 

 ish fate had saddled him. He did build the 

 house of his spirit's desire and has left behind 

 many who have seen far enough within its 

 doors to honor his accomplishment, lament his 

 sorrows and his unhappy end, and to cherish 

 his memory. 



Professor Prosser was buried in the Eural 

 Cemetery at Albany where the members of the 

 New York Geological Survey and representa- 

 tives of Union University faculty and corpora- 

 tion gathered to pay their last respects to the 

 poor suffocated body which had enshrined so 

 pure a spirit. 



John M. Clarke 



THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 



The first meeting of the National Eesearch 

 Council was held in New York City on Sep- 

 tember 20, 1916. Dr. M. I. Pupin, as tempo- 

 rary chairman, called the meeting to order at 

 3.10 p.m., and directed a roll-call of the mem- 

 bers of the council. There were present the 

 following members: Messrs. Carty, Dunn, 

 Goss, Hale, Herschel, Holmes, Keen, Man- 

 ning, Marvin, Millikan, Noyes, Pickering, 

 Pupin, Rand, Skinner, Squier, Stratton, 

 Swasey and Vaughan. 



The temporary chairman then called for 

 nominations for permanent chairman. Dr. 

 George E. Hale was nominated and unani- 

 mously elected. Dr. Hale then took the chair 

 and presided for the remainder of the meet- 

 ing. Dr. Charles D. Walcott was elected first 

 vice-chairman, and Mr. Gano Dunn second 

 vice-chairman. 



Dr. Hale, as chairman of the organizing 

 committee of the council, first announced an 

 agreement between the National Academy of 

 Sciences and the Engineering Foundation by 

 which the foundation has placed its funds at 

 the disposal of the council for a period of one 



