SCIENCE 



Friday, October 7, 1910 



CONTENTS 

 Surface Tension in Relation to Cellular Pro- 

 cesses : Pkofessob A. B. Macat.t.tjm 449 



Meteorology at the Sheffield Meeting of the 

 British Association: Dr. Frank H. Bige- 

 Low 458 



The Tenth Annual New England Intercol- 

 legiate Geological Excursion: Professor 

 Herdmau F. Glelakd 460 



The Illuminating Engineering Society 461 



Scientific Notes and Neios 462 



University and Educational News 464 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



A Comparison of Methods for estimating 

 Fame: C. A. Browne 464 



Scientific Books: — 



Thayer's Concealing-colors in the Animal 

 Kingdom: Louis Agassiz Fuertes. Pro- 

 icazek's Einfilhrung in die Physiologic der 

 Einzelligen: Professor S. O. Mast 466 



Scientific Journals and Articles 469 



Special Articles: — 



Further Data on the Homing Sense of 

 Noddy and Sooty Terns: Professor John 

 B. Watson. A New Aumless Barley: H. 

 B. Derr 470 



The San Francisco Meeting of the American 

 Chemical Society: Professor Charles 

 L. Parsons 474 



Societies and Academies: — 



The American Mathematical Society: Pro- 

 fessor F. N. Cole 488 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc, intended for 

 i«Ticw should be sent to the Editor oi Science, Garrison-oo- 

 Hudson. N. Y, 



SURFACE TENSION IN RELATION. TO 

 CELLULAR PROCESSES^ 



The record of investigation of the phe- 

 nomena of the life of animal and vegetable 

 cells for the last eighty years constitutes a 

 body of knowledge which is of imposing 

 magnitude and of surpassing interest to 

 all who are concerned in the studies that 

 bear on the organic world. The results 

 won during that period will always con- 

 stitute, as they do now, a worthy memorial 

 of the intense enthusiasm of the scientific 

 spirit which has been a distinguishing fea- 

 ture of the last six decades of the nine- 

 teenth century. We are to-day, in conse- 

 ciuence of that activity, at a point of view 

 the attainment of which could not have 

 been predicted half a century ago. 



This body of knowledge, this lore which 

 we call cytology, is Still with all this 

 achievement in one respect an undevel- 

 oped science. It is chiefly — nay, almost 

 wholly — concerned with the structural or 

 morphological side of the cell, while of 

 the functional phenomena our knowledge 

 is only of the most general kind, and the 

 reason is not far to seek. What little we 

 know of the physiological side of the cell 

 — as, for example, of cellular secretion, ab- 

 sorption and nutrition — has onlj^ to a very 

 limited extent been the outcome of obser- 

 vations directed to that end. It is in very 

 great part the result of all the inferences 

 and generalizations dra\\Ti from the data 

 of morphological research. This knowl- 

 edge is not the less valuable or the less cer- 

 tain because it has been so won, but simply 



' Address to the Physiological Section of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, Sheffield, 1910. 



