SCIENC 



Fkidat, Mat 18, 1917 



CONTENTS 

 The Provisio7i made iy Mathematics for the 

 Needs of Science: Professor R. D. Car- 

 MICHAEL 465 



Scientific Events: — 



The Gauthiot Memorial; Awards iy the 

 FranTdin Institute; The American Ceramic 

 Society and Military Preparedness ; Wash- 

 ington Offices of the National Besearch Coun- 

 cil 474 



Scientific Notes and News 476 



University and Educational News 479 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 



Where do Pitcher-leafed Ash Trees grow? 

 Professor George H. Shull. Keep Tour 

 Eye on the Ball: Professor Gordon 8. 

 PuLCHER. The Tenth-exponent : Prank W. 

 Ball. Chemical Publications: Professor 

 Alexander Smith 479 



Quotations : — 

 Scientific and Classical Education 481 



Scientific Books: — 

 Stiles's Human Physiology : Professor F. 

 H. Pike 482 



Goodale's Experiments on Gonadectomy of 

 Fowls: Professor T. H. Morgan 483 



Articles : — 

 The Behavior of Certain Gels Useful in the 

 Interpretation of the Action of Plants: 

 Drs. D. T. MacDougal and H. A. Spoehb. 484 



Societies and Academies : — 



The American Mathematical Society: Pro- 

 fessor F. N. Cole 488 



MSB. intended for publication and boots, etc., intended for 

 review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- 

 On-Hudson. N. Y- 



THE PROVISION MADE BY MATHE- 

 MATICS FOR THE NEEDS 

 OF SCIENCEi 



Mathematics beyond the merest ele- 

 ments has been regarded by some as an 

 excrescent malady of the human spirit, 

 generated like the pearl in an abnormal and 

 morbid way and representing a non-living 

 embedment in the active tissue of the or- 

 ganism of society; by others it has been 

 supposed to exhibit the highest intellectual 

 reach of mankind, being in itself the most 

 powerful tool yet devised for the interpre- 

 tation of natural phenomena, while at the 

 same time it affords a satisfying expres- 

 sion of the furthermost esthetic attainment. 

 On the one hand, it is considered a piece of 

 jugglery in which it is the joy of the pro- 

 ficient to produce more and more compli- 

 cated entanglements to astonish the be- 

 holder and overwhelm him with the sense 

 of mystery; on the other hand, it is seen to 

 be the systematic unfolding of remarkable 

 and important properties of a highly fasci- 

 nating creation or construction of the hu- 

 man spirit by means of which it has at 

 once its most intellectual delight and the 

 best means of understanding its environ- 

 ment. Some workers seem to resent the 

 interference of mathematics with their com- 

 fort in the conclusions of descriptive sci- 

 ence and its demands that observation shall 

 be reduced to measurable elements and the 

 laws of nature be expressed in mathemat- 

 ical formulas; other thinkers believe that 

 natural science is real science only in so 

 far as it is mathematical, that it is only 

 through mathematics that true science can 



1 An address delivered before the Illinois Chap- 

 ter of Sigma Xi on January 17, 1917. 



