556 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 302. 



into the field of view, narrowly called 

 physical chemistrj^, but more properly 

 designated as general chemistry, because 

 its principles do not lie apart, but are 

 the substratum of all chemical phenom- 

 ena, and -it is by the reaction of this 

 on the special provinces that their true 

 progress will be maintained. Who shall 

 share the honor of contributing to this 

 progress ? Who shall remain behind pon- 

 dering over antiquated problems ? Let me 

 recall to your minds the tenacity with which 

 Priestley held to the doctrine of phlogiston, 

 the persistence with which Berzelius fought 

 the theory of substitution, the satire of 

 Liebig on the discovery of the yeast plant, 

 and the sneers with which Kolbe greeted 

 the first announcement of the laws of 

 stereochemistry. There are not wanting 

 to-day those who take a similar position 

 towards the newer principles and theories 

 of general chemistry. Some of us are com- 

 paratively young, and in sympathy with 

 the spirit of the time, but if the genius of 

 Berzelius and Kolbe did not prevent their 

 finally calling on the stream of progress to 

 stop, how much more likely are we, as we 

 grow older, to be found in a similar posi- 

 tion if we once begin to yield to the spirit 

 of indifference to that which does not most 

 intimately concern us. As the truly scien- 

 tific man is not he who limits his interest 

 to a single province, but rather he who at- 

 tempts to gain a rational comprehension of 

 nature as a whole, so he only is truly a 

 chemist in the highest sense of the word 

 who is in sympathy with all branches of 

 chemical investigation and with all prog- 

 ress, and who does not merely admit, with 

 benevolent ignorance, but actually feels and 

 sees that physical, inorganic, organic and 

 physiological chemistry are not separate, 

 but continuous with each other and with 

 all nature. It is not enough that we oc- 

 cupy ourselves assiduously with researches 

 in our chosen but often narrow field, if by 



much peering through the microscope of 

 science we become myopic towards nature 

 in general. We must, to use Kolbe's ex- 

 pression, frequently mount our Pegasus and 

 soar to the heights of the scientific Par- 

 nassus. It is not the men who spend their 

 lives in studying single groups of com- 

 pounds or single phenomena, with interest 

 in nought else, but those like van't Hofi', 

 Ostwald, Fischer, and Hantzsch, who keep 

 their minds open to light from all sources 

 not the conservatives, but the radicals, who 

 are lifting organic chemistry above the old 

 fashioned and still fashionable structurism, 

 and bringing about what I have called its 

 revival. 



H. N. Stokes. 



THE WAIKURU, SERI AND YU3IA LAN- 

 GUAGES. 



The area of the tribes of the Yuman 

 family was visited and crossed in the earli- 

 est epoch of American exploration. These 

 Indians became known through their large 

 numbers and the fine exterior of their 

 bodies, but chiefly through their spirit of 

 opposition to the white man's progress. 

 Scientific exploration of their country, set- 

 tlements and languages began about 1850 

 on the Colorado and Gila Rivers. The 

 area inhabited by them soon appeared to be 

 largely in excess of what it had been sup- 

 posed to be ; for from San Luis Eey, on 

 the Pacific Ocean, their territorial boundary 

 extended south of the Shoshonean family 

 to the Tonto Basin, included the Maricopas 

 on the Gila River down to the Cocopa 

 country, and thence again ran to the ocean. 



Jesuit missionaries began working in the 

 peninsula of California about 1697, but 

 never met with cordial receptivity among 

 the natives. At the southern extremity 

 dwelt the Pericti Indians ; they lived, says 

 Venegas, from Cape San Lucas northward, 

 beyond the harbor of La Paz ; for Padre 

 Miguel del Barco, who wrote in 1783, says 



