686 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 406. 



other have not found a place in our social 

 machinery' gteat things might follow. We 

 all know such men. What might not come 

 from some of them if their lives were made 

 a little easier? 



Perhaps the foregoing sentences may 

 serve a useful purpose in emphasizing Pro- 

 fessor Cattell's proposals. If the two gen- 

 eral principles he lays down are frankly 

 adopted and adhered to, most of the rest 

 of the business will be a matter of detail. 

 Edward S. Holden. 



U. S. Military Academy, 

 West Point, Sept. 15, 1902. 



Editor op Science: I have read your 

 suggestions on the Carnegie Institution 

 with much interest, but my thought does 

 not run in the same line with your own. 

 All that you say is true about the lack of 

 siipport to the development of abstract sci- 

 ence, but in one way or another the man who 

 possesses the capacity to develop science 

 along the lines of the highest investigation 

 finds the way to do it. True, it may be 

 like many inventors, he cannot stop if he 

 tries to. In the end he works out the 

 results. 



However or by whom begun in very 

 many branches of applied science" and in- 

 vention, the work gets done, either in spite 

 of or by means of patent laws, which I am 

 inclined to think rather retard than pro- 

 mote invention. The practical application 

 of scientific methods to arts that pay large 

 profits works out in some way; often the 

 inventor gets little or nothing, the pro- 

 moters get all, but the community" has the 

 benefit of the invention. 



According to my observation, there is a 

 middle term in which there is an enor- 

 mous gap which neither inventor, pro- 

 moter nor the masters of higher, branches 

 of science have attempted to fill. A great 

 amount of mental energy has been given 

 to the development of the steam-engine, 



and yet the steam-engine is the most 

 wasteful machine now in existence; until 

 lately we have been far behind in the gas- 

 engine. Invention has been given to cook- 

 ing apparatus, yet the waste of food and 

 fuel is the biggest waste of the whole 

 country. Invention has been applied to pro- 

 viding all the apparatus for extinguishing 

 fire, and yet the fire waste of this country 

 is a disgrace to the nation. 



I attribute this fire waste in large meas- 

 ure to ignorance, stupidity and criminal 

 negligence on the part of the owners, build- 

 ers and architects of existing buildings. I 

 have chosen that line in extending the ap- 

 plication of science to the Prevention of 

 Loss by Fire, as will duly appear in the 

 documents which I send you under separate 

 cover. But there is another line hardly 

 yet touched, to which, in my judgment, the 

 attention of the trustees of the Carnegie 

 fund might well be called. 



Invention has been applied to the fullest 

 extent to the development of agricultural 

 implements and to the working of the soil; 

 but is not the art of using the soil itself 

 as a mere instrument of production rather 

 than as a mine subject to exhaustion, yet 

 in its infancy ? We have but lately learned, 

 almost by accident, the power of certain 

 plants to draw nitrogen from the atmos- 

 phere. We know as yet but little about 

 hybridizing food plants, although we know 

 a great deal about the development of fancy 

 flowers by that method. We know in this 

 country but little about the cross-breeding 

 of sheep. The waste of skimmed milk is 

 something enormous, and the excellent food 

 property of cooked skim cheese common in 

 Italy is almost unknown to us. 



The beginnings have been made in a 

 quiet way; the agricultural experiment 

 stations of the country have grown up 

 almost unbeknown to the mass of the 

 people. They occupy an anomalous con- 

 dition, partly supported by the National 



