12 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 288. 



say, in a sermon that I heard him preach in 

 Boston when this Association met there 20 

 years ago, that you can get no idea of eter- 

 nity, by adding century to century or by 

 piling seon upon geon ; but that, if you 

 will remember how little you knew when 

 you sat at your mother's knee to learn the 

 alphabet, and how with every acquisition of 

 knowledge which has marked the interven- 

 ing years you have come to feel, not how 

 much more you know but how much more 

 there is to be known, all can get some idea 

 of how long eternity can be, because all can 

 understand that there never can be time 

 enough to enable any one to learn all that 

 there is to know. There is so much to be 

 known, that even the great advances of the 

 last generation do not make us feel that 

 everything is discovered, but they appeal to 

 new aspirations and awaken renewed 

 , energy in order to make fresh discoveries 

 in a region that teems with so much that 

 is worthy of knowledge. I congratulate 

 you upon your success, and I bid j^ou wel- 

 come to Columbia. 



ADDRESS OF THE PSESIDENT. 



Professor Woodward said : Under the 

 favorable auspices of this institution of 

 learning, with its commodious quarters and 

 its scientific atmosphere so generously 

 placed at our disposal, we meet to-day to 

 begin the forty-ninth session of the Amer- 

 ican Association for the Advancement of 

 Science. 



The life of this Association has been con- 

 temporaneous with an epoch of triumphant 

 scientific progress ; and in this last year of 

 the century one is tempted to look back 

 into the history of the achievements of our 

 predecessors, in order to render them due 

 homage, and in order to learn from their 

 experience the wisdom essential for future 

 guidance. One is prone especially to recall 

 the noble lives and the indefatigable in- 



dustry of the founders and early workers 

 of this Association, who are no longer with 

 us, but whose careers are sources of ad- 

 miration and inspiration to the present gen- 

 eration of scientific men in America. There 

 were Rogers and Henry and Bache, and 

 Agassiz and Peirce and Dana, and Torrey 

 and Hall and Lea, and Barnard and Gould 

 and Gray, and Marsh and Dawson and 

 Newton, and Brinton and Cope ; and many 

 others not less worthy, whose life work was 

 intimately related to the work of this As- 

 sociation. The mere mention of a few of 

 these honored names may suffice, however, 

 on this occasion, to remind us of our in- 

 debtedness to them, and to assure us of the 

 steady progress which has attended the As- 

 sociation in its growth from a single section 

 of a half century ago to the nine different 

 sections and twice as many affiliated socie- 

 ties of to-day. The fertility of the study 

 of our planet in stimulating thought and in 

 leading thought to action is at once appar- 

 ent when we recall that out of the small 

 beginnings of a few naturalists who styled 

 themselves the American Geological So- 

 ciety have sprung the varied activities of 

 this Association and the kindred societies 

 which meet with us this week. Verily we 

 may say, in the noble words inscribed over 

 the entrance to Schermerhorn Hall on our 

 right, " Speak to the earth and it shall 

 teach thee." 



But science knows no nationality, and 

 the forward movement in which our Asso- 

 ciation is engaged is only a part of a world 

 wide advance which is undoubtedly the 

 most noteworthy characteristic of the civil- 

 ization of the present half century. And 

 wherein, we may fittingly ask ourselves, 

 and still more fittingly may the general 

 public ask us, does this advance consist ? 

 "What, in common parlance, are the contri- 

 butions which the science of our day has 

 brought to the betterment of man's estate ? 

 In a summary way, disregarding material 



