December 22, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



881 



work. As an initial contribution, I would 

 be glad to deposit now, under certain condi- 

 tions, some 10,000 herbarium specimens, in- 

 cluding cotypes of a large number of new 

 species, and several hundred thousands of 

 specimens of insects, including a large num- 

 ber of types as well as cotypes. Even this 

 contribution alone it would be a pity for 

 America to lose. 



I can not, in the limits of a single letter, of 

 this nature, present this matter in all of its 

 more important phases. I believe that it 

 merits your most active interest, and I hope 

 that you will give it the most careful con- 

 sideration, and then champion it, in so far as 

 it may be possible or feasible for you. Espe- 

 cially, I wish that you would bring it to the 

 attention of any others who would be likely 

 to be interested in the matter, and also, where 

 possible, bring it to the attention of museums, 

 societies, or public institutions, which would 

 be likely to consider taking an active interest 

 in the promotion of this work. I believe that 

 American biology greatly needs the assistance, 

 the light, and the modifying influence that 

 would result from active interest in one of the 

 greatest and most important of the faurae and 

 floras of the Orient. C. F. Baker 



Los Banos, Philippines 



THE PRESENTATION OF THE JOHN 

 FRITZ MEDAL TO ELIHU THOMSON 1 



It is a pleasure to take part in this tribute 

 of respect to Professor Thomson not merely 

 because of my association with him in the 

 management of the affairs of the Massachu- 

 setts Institute of Technology, and the high 

 personal regard that association with such a 

 man entails, but because I realize that he is an 

 educational force of great potency and that it 

 is in the very highest interests of education 

 that his merits should be widely appreciated 

 and at least occasionally acclaimed. In view 

 of what those who have preceded me have said, 

 it must be unnecessary, especially to such an 

 audience as this, to review in detail his re- 

 markable career. All who know anything of 



i Massachusetts Institute of Technology, De- 

 cember 8, 1916. 



the subject know that in the field of electrical 

 engineering his work has been most brilliant 

 and that his contributions to the development 

 of the great science on which so much of our 

 modern conveniences depend will easily bear 

 comparison with those of any man now living. 

 To the public at large this will seem an exag- 

 geration, but the public has little sense of 

 values where such achievements as Professor 

 Thomson's are concerned, and in this case it is 

 handicapped in arriving at the truth through 

 Mr. Thomson's deliberate unwillingness, I 

 might perhaps say his utter incapacity, to ad- 

 vertise himself in the slightest degree. 



Much nonsense has been spoken and written 

 about the merits of national expositions, and 

 amongst the statements that might fairly foe- 

 placed in this class is one to the effect that it. 

 was the Paris Exposition of 1878 that made 

 Thomson an inventor. It has been forces' 

 within Professor Thomson far more than 

 forces outside that have contributed to his 

 great success. He was twenty-five years of age 

 at the time of the Paris Exposition and had al- 

 ready received a sound scientific training and 

 earned distinction in his chosen field. Doubt- 

 less his visit to the Exposition stimulated his 

 imagination and gave an incentive to his work, 

 but it can hardly have made him an inventor. 

 Be that as it may, it was not long thereafter 

 that he became a marked man, through his 

 notable contributions to science and its indus- 

 trial applications. His earliest inventions 

 comprised a comprehensive system for electric 

 arc lighting and I have been told that in those 

 pioneer days his arc-light dynamo was de- 

 scribed by a German as " an American machine 

 that violates every known law of the electrical 

 art." This indicates how far Thomson was in 

 advance of his day and on what insecure 

 foundation the electrical art of the time was 

 resting, for the same learned German had to 

 admit that the machine was the most effective 

 and successful dynamo on the market. This 

 was only the beginning of a long series of 

 triumphs that have led, it is said, to over five 

 hundred patents, a large number of them em- 

 bodying underlying principles so wide in their 

 application that they might almost be classed 



