SCIENCE 



Pridat, December 21, 1917 



CONTENTS 

 The Story of Cosmological Theory: De. Wil- 

 liam Hakvet McNairn 599 



Worlc of the Department of Agriculture 607 



Scientific Events: — 

 Amazon Exhibits at the University of Penn- 

 sylvania Museum; The Chemical Industries 

 of the United States; The American Metric 

 Association 610 



Scientific Notes and News 612 



University and Educational News 615 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 



A Texas Meteor: Dr. J. A. Udden. On the 

 Colloid Chemistry of Fehling's Test: 

 Louis Rosenberg 616 



Scientific BooTcs: — 

 Gager on the Fundamentals of Botany: 

 Professor E. C. Jeffrey 617 



Special Articles: — 



Why Chloroform is a more Powerful and 

 Dangerous Anesthetic than Ether: Dr. W. 

 E. Bltrge 618 



The American Association of Variable Star 

 Observers 620 



The Boston Meeting of the American Chem- 

 ical Society 621 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 re\-iew sbonla be sent to The Editor of Science, Ganison-on- 

 Hudaon. N. ST. 



THE STORY OF COSMOLOGICAL 



THEORY 1 



I 



It may be that primitive man felt none 

 of the 



Blank misgivings of a creature 

 Moving about in worlds not realized. 

 For him, perhaps it was enough to taste 

 the joy of living, to watch the rising and 

 the setting of the sun, to gaze upon the' 

 mountain, the river and the restless sea, 

 and never to ask himself the question 

 "what is this world in which I live, and 

 how did it come into being?" But this 

 problem eventually presented itself, for 

 there has been implanted within the human 

 breast that which distinguishes its possessor 

 from the beasts which perish, the passion 

 for knowledge, the deep longing for 

 Authentic tidings of invisible things. 

 Of ebb and flow and ever-during power: 

 And central peace subsisting at the heart 

 Of endless agitation. 



And so there arose those questions about 

 himself, about the visible universe in which 

 he dwelt, and that invisible world about 

 which he dreamed, from which have sprung 

 all that we now call science and philosophy. 

 How slow and laborious have been the 

 steps by which knowledge has been at- 

 tained, and how childish and even grotesque 

 the answers to these first questionings. 

 But to have any theory at all for the first 

 causes of things is very much better than 

 to have none, and these crude products of 

 primitive man, and the refined deductions 

 of the modern scientist are the same at 



1 Opening lecture of the year, delivered at the 

 Autumn Convocation, McMaster University, To- 

 ronto. 



