September 17, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



391 



"Note on the Theory of Ionization by Col- 

 lision, " by W. P. Roop. 



' ' Heat Losses from Incandescent Filaments in 

 Air, " by L. W. Hartman. 



"Magnetic Field Produced by Rotating Solid 

 Conductors in a Magnetic Field." (Read by ab- 

 stract.) By S. R. Williams. 



Many physicists accepted the invitation to at- 

 tend a joint meeting of Section A, the American 

 Mathematical Society and the American Astronom- 

 ical Society Tuesday forenoon to hear addresses on 

 ' ' The Human Significance of Mathematics, ' ' by 

 C. J. Keyser, Columbia University, and ' ' The 

 Work of a Modern Observatory," by G. E. Hale, 

 Mt. Wilson Observatory, Pasadena. Professor 

 Hale's addi-ess was illustrated by interesting ex- 

 periments on vortex motion. 



Several instructive demonstrations were ar- 

 ranged by Professor E. P. Lewis, some of them at the 

 request of Dr. Hale, where they could conveniently 

 be examined between sessions. Among them were: 

 Professor Stebbins's photoelectric cell for stellar 

 photometry; the Zeeman effect with echelon gra- 

 ting, Fabry and Perot etalon and Lummer and 

 Gehrecke plate; mercury fringes with Fabry and 

 Perot interferometer; the amplitude of sound vi- 

 brations made visible by the forced vibrations of 

 lycopodium particles. 



Tuesday noon visiting physicists, astronomers 

 and mathematicians and accompanying ladies were 

 the guests of Professors E. P. Lewis, Haskell and 

 Leuschner, at the luncheon at the Faculty Club, 

 University of California. 



Wednesday evening, immediately after the re- 

 turn from Stanford University, the physicists 

 dined together at Jules Cafg, San Francisco. At- 

 tendance about thirty. 



During the week many found opportunity to visit 

 the exhibit of the National Bureau of Standards 

 at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 

 and some to make an excursion to the Lick Observ- 

 atory at Mt. Hamilton, where the activities of the 

 institution were explained by the astronomers in 

 charge. 



At the final session, a hearty vote of thanks was 

 extended to the Pacific Coast Committee for the 

 excellent arrangements made for the meetings, to 

 the authorities of the University of California and 

 of Stanford University for the accommodations 

 provided and especially to the physics stafE of the 

 two institutions for the many courtesies extended 

 by them. 



A. D. Cole, 

 Secretary 



ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMEBICAN 

 GENETIC ASSOCIATION 



The American G«netie Association held its 

 twelfth yearly meeting at Berkeley, Calif., August 

 2-6, in connection with the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science. More than throe 

 hundred persons attended the various conferences 

 of the association. 



The opening general meeting was held on Tues- 

 day morning, August 3. President David Fair- 

 child, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 sent an opening address, in which he reminded the 

 ■association that it had been organized to bring the 

 message of genetics to the layman; to help the re- 

 search worker to be more practical, and the prac- 

 tical breeder to be more scientific. He continued: 



' ' The American Genetic Association is not pri- 

 marily to promote research; it is to bring the biol- 

 ogist and the breeder together and help each to 

 learn from the other. In my opinion, the greatest 

 service we can do to genetics is to make its results 

 available to the layman, and I hope to see the 

 American Genetic Association more fully perform- 

 ing this service, year by year. I do not think we 

 have fulfilled this obligation at all times as we 

 should have done. It has been a constant tempta- 

 tion to coin new words, to invent methods of ex- 

 pressing our ideas in algebraical symbols, to pre- 

 sent our researches in statistical form which made 

 them a closed book to the practical breeder. All 

 these methods are of use for the publication of 

 original research, but in my opinion they must be 

 supplemented by a simple account in plain Eng- 

 lish, for the benefit of those who are following 

 our science, seeking its teaching for their own 

 profit. They are calling on us to give them the 

 light of science, and it is wicked to obscure this 

 light by pedantry. I have no patience with those 

 men of science who think their work loses dignity 

 if it is put in simple English and made under- 

 standable to the layman. That was not the man- 

 ner of Darwin, or of the other leaders of scientific 

 thought in his generation; and if modern biology 

 has less of a hold on the masses to-day than it had 

 thirty years ago, if the teachings of biologists are 

 less eagerly heard, I think we have ourselves 

 largely to blame, and the custom which has insid- 

 iously grown on us, of describing our work in an 

 esoteric terminology. 



' ' I earnestly hope that the American Genetic 

 Association can break away from this current, and 

 stand forth as an exponent of real popularization 

 of science. I believe the branch of science which 



