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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1003 



arts from the crafts, the industries and the 

 professions is unthinkable. The dreamer 

 needs the doer, the artist needs the artisan, 

 the poet needs the planner, the scholar 

 needs the statesman. The man with the 

 telescopic eye, who sees so clearly the 

 things of to-morrow, but trips over the 

 threshold of to-day, needs the social myopic 

 whose condition results from too close and 

 too prolonged contact with the minute work 

 of the world. One warns the other of 

 things to come whilst he in turn is pro- 

 tected against the dim dangers of the day. 

 The so-called practical men need theory, 

 and the theorists need practise. The 

 workers need uplift and the apostles of 

 culture need contact with the earth. The 

 people's university must meet all the needs 

 of all the people. We must therefore pro- 

 ceed with care to the erection of those 

 workshops where we may design and 

 fashion the tools needed in the building of 

 a nation and from which we can survey 

 and lay out paths of enlightenment, tunnel 

 the mountains of ignorance and bridge the 

 chasms of incompetence. Here we will 

 generate currents of progress and patriot- 

 ism while we prepare plans and begin the 

 construction of a finer and better social 

 fabric than the world has known. Having 

 done our best to found provincial univer- 

 sities without provincialism, let us pray 

 that posterity may say of us that we 

 builded even better than we knew. 



It's the olden lure, the golden lure, it's the lure 

 of the timeless things. 



F. F. Wesbrook 



, The Univeesity of British Columbia 

 November 19, 1913 



.; TSE INDIAN LADDER BESEBVATION 



Geologists in many parts of the world will 

 be interested in the announcement recently 

 made of the gift to the state of New York as 

 a public park of the " Indian Ladder " and its 



adjoining portions of the Helderberg moun- 

 tains escarpment in Albany county, New York. 

 Next, perhaps, to the Schoharie Valley, the 

 Helderbergs and the Indian Ladder have the 

 most intimate and ancient association with 

 the history of geology in this state and are 

 really a classic ground in American geological 

 science. Interesting not alone for its geology, 

 as the original section of the " Helderberg for- 

 mation " and its various subdivisions, with 

 their profusion of organic remains, the Indian 

 Ladder is equally commanding as a scenic 

 feature. There is perhaps nothing just like 

 it in origin and effectiveness. From the sum- 

 mit of the long sheer limestone cliff the eye 

 commands the panorama of the conjoined 

 Hudson and Mohawk Valleys picturesquely 

 spread out over a vast area bounded at the 

 north by the foothills of the Adirondacks and 

 at the northeast by the Taconic mountains and 

 the Berkshires. And over this splendid picture 

 generations of geologists have gazed, for the 

 Helderbergs have been the Mecca of eeologists 

 for well nigh a century. 



The generous gift to the people of New York 

 State comes from Mrs. Emma Treadwell 

 Thacher, widow of the late Hon. John Boyd 

 Thacher, a distinguished statesman, historian 

 and litterateur. Its more than 350 acres ex- 

 tends along the escarpment so far as to include 

 all its most striking portions and the new 

 reservation is essentially a geologic and scenic 

 park. It was the intention of Mr. Thacher 

 that it should have this ultimate disposition. 

 Mr. Thacher, who had a summer home in the 

 Helderbergs, was much in Europe engaged in 

 his historical researches. On one of his re- 

 turns he told me that he had heard so much of 

 the Helderbergs, their rocks and their fossils, 

 among circles of savants with whom he was 

 thrown that he determined to do his part to 

 preserve this famous cliff from any danger of 

 invasion, because of its natural beauty and 

 extraordinary scientific interest. Impressed by 

 the worth of preserving such natural monu- 

 ments, Mr. Thacher's high-minded purpose has 

 now been made effective. 



John M. Clarke 



New York State Museum 



