SCIENCE 



Fbidat, January 15, 1915 



cont:ents 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 



Becent Evidence for the Existence of the 

 Nucleus Atom: Professor A. D. Cole .... 73 



Address of the Retiring Vice-president of 

 the Section of Zoology: Dr. Alfred G. 

 Mater 81 



Aid to Astronomical Research: Professor 

 Edward C. Pickering 82 



Francis Humphreys Storer: Professor. Rob- 

 ert H. ElCHARDS 85 



The Antwerp Zoological Garden 86 



Benja/min Peirce Instructorships in Mathe- 

 matics 86 



Commercial Geography and World Politics . . 87 



The Huxley Lecture 88 



Scientific Notes and News 89 



University and Educational News 94 



Discussion and Correspondence :■ — 



Bateson's Address, Mendelism and Muta- 

 tion: Professor W. E. Castle. Mastodon 

 Tush in Glacial Gravels: Pearl Sheldon. 94 



Scientifio BooTcs: — 



The Translocation of Material in Dying 

 Leaves : Dr. C. Stuart Gager 99 



Special Articles: — 



On the Origin of the Loess of Southwestern 

 Indiana: Eugene Wesley Shaw 104 



Societies and Academies : — 



St. Louis Academy of Science: C. H. Dan- 

 FOKTH 108 



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

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

 on-Hudson, N, Y. 



BECENT EVIDENCE FOB THE EXISTENCE 

 OF THE NUCLEUS ATOM^ 



The great French scientist Poincare, 

 just before his death two years ago, de- 

 scribed an atom before the French Physical 

 Society in these words: 



Eaoli atom is like a kind of solar system 

 where the small negative electrons play the rSle 

 of planets revolving around the great positive cen- 

 tral electron which takes the place of our sun. . . . 

 Besides these captive electrons there are others 

 which are free and subject to the ordinary kinetic 

 laws of gases. The second class are like the com- 

 ets which circulate from one stellar system to 

 another, establishing thus an exchange of energy 

 between distant systems. 



Such an atom is a world in itself and 

 strangely different from the kind we 

 learned about in our text-books twenty 

 years ago. One of the much used chem- 

 istries of that day put it in this way: 



An. atom is the smallest portion of matter that 

 can exist; it is incompressible, indivisible and in 

 itself unchangeable. 



How has this great change of view come 

 about? How has the indivisible unit 

 evolved into the complex microcosm we 

 now imagine? Time would fail us to trace 

 all the steps of the way; we will attempt 

 only to bring out some of the considerations 

 which have in the past three years led many 

 of our foremost thinkers to believe in that 

 particular type of atom which we may call 

 the nucleus atom. This type is similar to 

 that which Poincare pictured except that 

 the central body is much smaller — ^very 



1 Address of the vice-president and chairman of 

 Section B, Physics, of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, at Philadelphia, 

 December 29, 1914. 



