SCIENCE 



Friday, Febeuaet 3, 1911 



CONTENTS 

 A Universal Law: Pkofessob Wildee D. 

 Banceoft 159 



'1 lie Seventeenth International Congress of 

 Americanists: De. George Geawt Mac- 

 CuBDr 179 



The New Plan for Admission to Harvard 

 University 182 



The New York Zoological Society 183 



Scientifio xV otes and News 184 



University and Educational News 185 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 

 Nwmerical Nomenclature: De. W. J. Hol- 

 land 186 



Scientific Books: — 



Benedict and Carpenter on Metabolism in 

 Man: Ue. Gbaham Lusk. Keid's Theory 

 of Algeoraic Numbers: Peofessob L. E. 

 Dickson 187 



Special Articles: — 



The Relation of Colloidal Silica to Certain 

 Impermeable Soils: De. Kabl F. Kellee- 

 man 189 



The Botanical Society of America: Ds. 

 Geoege T. Moobe 190 



The American Society for Pha/rmacology and 

 Experimental Therapeutics: De. Rejd 

 Hunt 195 



Societies and Academies: — 



The Biological Society of Washington: D. 

 E. Lantz. The Helminthological Society 

 of Washington: Matjeice C. Hall 196 



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

 review should be se2t to the Editor of Scibhck, 6arrison-on- 

 Hudson. N. Y. 



"^ A UNIVERSAL LAW^ 

 Now that we appreciate fully that 

 physics, geology, engineering, physiology, 

 medicine, botany, zoology and biology are 

 sub-divisions of the broader science of 

 chemistry, we see that the chemist of the 

 future must know a great deal more than 

 any of us now do if he is to keep in touch 

 with the whole subject. Many people 

 believe that this is impossible and that the 

 scientific man of the future will be a nar- 

 row specialist, knowing only a small part 

 of a single division of one science. I do 

 not believe this. As we look back over the 

 history of any science, we see always two 

 opposing tendencies — one that complicates 

 and one that simplifies. The discovery of 

 new facts makes a subject more complex 

 . and more difficult to grasp. The discovery 

 of new relations simplifies matters because 

 it enables us to correlate facts and thus to 

 get a better grasp of the subject.^ 



In the chemistry of to-day we have three 

 great, simplifying generalizations which 

 are familiar to all of you: the atomic the- 

 ory, the periodic law and the phase rule. 

 These have long since proved their value as 

 a means of correlating facts and as work- 

 ing hypotheses enabling us to predict new 

 facts. The value of these is not great, 

 however, when we get beyond what is 

 called chemistry in the narrower sense of 

 the word. 



As one universal law we have the great, 

 simplifying generalization known as the 



' Address of the retiring president of the Amer- 

 ican Chemical Society at Minneapolis, December 

 28, 1910. 



'Cf. Bancroft, Proc. Elisha Mitchell Soc, 20, 

 39, 1904. 



