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SCIENCE 



FE. 



Frtoay, February 7, 1919 



CONTENTS 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 



Variable Stars: Professor Henry Norris 

 RtrssELL 127 



Charles Rochester Eastman: Pbofessob Bash- 

 ford Dean 139 



Scientific Events : — 

 The Forest Service in War Times; Deaths 

 from Influenza and Pneumonia; Salt Re- 

 quirements of Representative Agricultural 

 Plants; Meeting of the American Institute 

 of Mining Engineers 141 



Scientific Notes and News 144 



University and Educational News 146 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



On Monkeys trained to pick Coco Nuts: 

 Db. E. W. Gudoer. Hay Fever and a Nor 

 tional Flower: Dr. Horace Gunthorp 146 



Scientific Books: — 



Tolman on the Theory of Relativity of 

 Motion: Dr. H. B. Phillips 148 



Special Articles: — 



On explaining Mendelian Phenomena: Loye 

 Holmes Miller. Silexite, a New Rock 

 Name: Dr. William J. Miller 148 



The Western Society of Naturalists 149 



The Tennessee Academy of Science: Db. Ros- 

 COE NUNN 1.50 



M8S- intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 review should be Bent to The Editor of Science, Garrison-on- 

 HudMD, N. Y. 



VARIABLE STARSi 



The speaker before such a gathering as this, 

 in this eventful year, faces a dilemma in his 

 choice of a subject. The topic which is fore- 

 most in all our minds is, beyond a doubt, the 

 share which our comrades in science have had 

 in carrying to a triumphant close the great 

 work of the wat — and an account of this 

 would in some respects be the most suitable 

 subject for a vice-president's address. But 

 most of this work can not be described yet. if 

 at all, for reasons of military secrecy; and it 

 is still too early, in any event, to collect and 

 correlate the records of the work of men who 

 are still in the service, especially when almost 

 the whole of the narrator's time has been 

 spent in attempting, in a very humble way, to 

 aid in the universal effort. 



I have therefore chosen the opposite horn 

 of the dilemma, and propose to speak to you 

 to-day upon a topic of pure science — removed 

 perhaps as far as anything could be from the 

 theater of war, trusting to whatever intrinsic 

 interest the subject may possess to atone for 

 the lack of timely interest, and the defects 

 incident to hurried preparation. 



Variable Stars have been the objects of hu- 

 man wonder since the appearance of the Nova 

 of Hipparchus led to the preparation of the 

 first catalogue of the positions and magni- 

 tudes of the stars. The period of scientific 

 observation of these changes may be dated 

 from Tycho Brahe's observations of the Nova 

 of 1572 and Fabritius' discovery of the pe- 

 riodic variation of Mira Ceti in 1596. 



For two and a half centuries after this 

 date the number of known variables remained 

 so small that they could almost have been 



1 Address of the vice-president and retiring 

 chairman of Section A — Astronomy — of the Ameri- 

 can Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 Baltimore, December 27, 1918. 



