338 
greatly improved facilities for the work of 
the college and station. At the Texas Agri- 
cultural College there is a new agricultural 
and horticultural building costing over $30, - 
000, and at the Kansas Agricultural College 
an agricultural building of the same value. 
At the Oklahoma Agricultural College there 
are new chemistry and library and science 
buildings, and at the Virginia Agricultural 
College and the University of Tennessee 
new and commodious barns have been 
erected, each costing about $5,000. At the 
latter institution a dairy building has also 
been constructed. At the Agricultural Col- 
lege of the University of Minnesota a horti- 
cultural-botanical building costing $35,000 
has been erected. 
It is believed that the successful work of 
the experiment stations has been a large 
factor in arousing the attention of the public 
to the benefits of instruction as well as re- 
search in agriculture, and to the;importance 
of equipping the agricultural colleges more 
amply and giving them increased funds for 
the extension of their work in both direc- 
tions. It is well that this fact should be 
brought to the attention of legislators when 
appropriations for these institutions are 
being made. Funds are needed for the ex- 
tension of investigations as well as for better 
equipment, and oftentimes a comparatively 
small sum added to the current revenue-of 
the station will enable it materially to 
strengthen its work. This is so because 
the broad organization of our stations re- 
quires that a relatively large portion of the 
national funds must be expended for salaries 
and wages. This leaves so little for the 
general expenses of investigations that they 
can not as a rule be made very extensive. 
If it is desirable that particular investiga- 
tions should be conducted on a somewhat 
extensive scale or in different localities, the 
State can often secure this desirable result 
by providing funds for these specific pur- 
poses. As regards the investigations which 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Von. XIII. No. 322. 
need to be carried on in different localities, 
it is, in our judgment, a much wiser policy 
to give the stations funds for such special 
investigations than to establish permanent 
substations, which have universally proved 
to be relatively expensive and unsatis- 
factory. 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EXACT NAT- 
URAL SCIENCES IN THE NINE- 
TEENTH CENTURY.* 
Tue lecture delivered by Van’t Hoff, 
under the above title, although scarcely an 
hour in length, contains so much important 
material that a brief account of its contents 
cannot fail to be of interest to the readers 
of Science. The lecture deals only with the 
sciences of inanimate nature, and, there- 
fore, does not touch any branch of the bio- 
logical sciences. 
Although the question of utility has had 
much to do with the development of many 
branches of science, yet the highest aim 
has not been reached in this way. The 
sciences have, then, been divided into theo- 
retical and applied. And we must make 
the further division into the general and the 
concrete or special sciences. 
The general sciences are dealt with first. 
These are divided into two classes. First, 
the three fundamental mathematical sciences, 
which center around the three fundamental 
conceptions of quantity, space and time. 
The science of quantity is analysis, includ- 
ing arithmetic, algebra and the higher anal- 
ysis. The science of dimensions is geom- 
etry; while in mechanics, the science of 
force and movement, time enters as a fac- 
tor. Second, the two experimental natural 
sclences—physies and chemistry. 
Almost an unlimited amount has been 
accomplished in the nineteenth century in 
the field of the mathematical sciences. It 
is only necessary to mention such names 
* Lecture delivered by Van’t Hoff at the seventy- 
second meeting of the Society of German Men of 
Science and Physicians, in Aix-la-Chapelle. 
