December 6, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



779 



Libit a rich aggregate of researcli and sug- 

 gestion covering a large part of tlie scientific 

 specialities whicli have been cultivated among 

 us. It is indeed lamentable that so large a 

 portion of the most important communica- 

 tions made are not included in the proceed- 

 ings, being, through the delays and neglect of 

 their authors, entered as " not received." It 

 is also matter of much regret, if not of com- 

 plaint, that the presidents, with the exception 

 of Professor Bache (who is the most occupied 

 of all), have not furnished their annual ad- 

 dresses for these volumes. To us it seems in- 

 cumbent on the president to make his retiring 

 address an elaborate production, in which the 

 general progress of science during the year 

 shall be reviewed; or in which some large and 

 positive subject of scientific interest and im- 

 portance shall be thoroughly and yet popu- 

 larly treated. For instance, we should have 

 liked to have heard from Professor Agassiz a 

 summary of what has been done, and what is 

 still desired, in the natural history of North 

 America. Or still better would we have rel- 

 ished from this highest source, a discourse on 

 the intellectual element in organic structure. 

 Why, too, should not Professor Pierce unfold 

 a year hence, how America needs a real uni- 

 versity, and what such a university should do 

 if organized. Some positive subject should be 

 chosen, or else the annual address should be a 

 systematic expose of what has been done dur- 

 ing the year, as it usually has been made by 

 the British Association presidents. 



We are happy to record the generous action 

 of Charleston, Cincinnati, Albany and Cleve- 

 land, in assuming the expenses of publishing 

 their respective volumes of proceedings. The 

 citizens or the corporations have in these in- 

 stances taken on themselves the burden of 

 publication ; which generosity is alike an honor 

 to them and to the association. This body has 

 no source of income, except the fees of mem- 

 bers, amounting only to $2 per annum, or $3 

 with the annual volume of Proceedings (just 

 changed to $1 fee and Proceedings at cost). 

 The liberality it has experienced is thus very 

 fortunate, especially when we remember that 

 the possession both of wealth and of philo- 



sophic lore rarely falls to the lot of the same 

 individual. With all its utilitarian biases in 

 these days, science rarely enriches the coffers 

 of its cultivators, so that truly original re- 

 searches are still well-nigh as unremunerated 

 as in the wretched days of patrons. The 

 moneymakers are usually two or three re- 

 moves from the prime investigators whose 

 search is for principles. Wide indeed is the 

 tract between Castalia and Pactolus. 



As the presidents and acting officers of this 

 association are all men in whom the public 

 has a certain right of property, and as they 

 will well bear being delineated, it seems proper 

 here to present, for such as may be strangers 

 to them, a series of outline sketches of these 

 post-of-honor-bearers in this migratory con- 

 gress. 



The first president was W. C. Eedfield, Esq., 

 who officiated at Philadelphia. A noticeable 

 man, too, is Mr. Eedfield. One would scarcely 

 expect to find, under so placid and venerable 

 an exterior, a spirit living in storms and 

 hurricanes. Yet it is true that his keen eye is 

 steadily bent on the wind bags (how invalu- 

 able had he been to Ulysses!), nor can a breeze 

 indulge in any gyrations or irregularities but 

 he is sure to put black marks against it in the 

 books. Long has Mr. Eedfield been a weather 

 sentinel, and meteorology owes him much, 

 both in the field of observation and in the far 

 higher domain of speculation. But for a few 

 live-minded men of this cast, rational meteor- 

 ology would long since have been dead and 

 buried in figures, which dull men can accu- 

 mulate, though to interpret them requires the 

 keen eye of subtle but patient reasoning. If, 

 as is likely, Mr. Eedfield is wedded to his 

 theories, there is no lack of counter-theorists 

 to battle his unproved positions, and in rather 

 a stormy temper too ; a fault which seems quite 

 to beset our weather-seers, as if the shrewish- 

 ness of our climate communicated itself to 

 those who supervise its whimsicalities. Mr. 

 Eedfield is, moreover, a good geologist, having 

 specially studied the fossils and fossil rain- 

 drops of the Connecticut vaUey red sandstone. 



The second president was Professor Joseph 

 Henry, the secretary of the Smithsonian In- 



