Decembek 3, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



799 



Isle City, in Cape May County. Owing to de- 

 composition the bones were not obtained then, 

 and on later visit to the locality the specimen 

 could not be found. 



In addition to the above species I have se- 

 cured since 1908 the following cetaceans at or 

 near Sea Isle City; these are now in the 

 collections of the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 of Philadelphia: Glohicephala hrachyptera 

 Cope, Kogia hreviceps DeB., Mesoplodon den- 

 sirostris DeB., and Tursiops truncaius Mont. 

 "Wm. J. Tox 



The Academy of Natural Sciences 

 OP Philadelphia 



Note. — Since the above was written one of 

 the fish-pound crews at Sea Isle City brought 

 in on September 25, 1915, seven live specimens 

 of Delphinus delphis. 



THE FUR seal REPORT 



To THE Editor of Science: At pages 41, M 

 and 57 of the fur seal report of Messrs. Os- 

 good, Preble and Parker for 1914, Senate Doc- 

 ument No. 980, recently published, occur im- 

 portant statistical tables giving enumerations 

 of the different classes of seals for 1912, 1913 

 and 1914, conclusions and inferences from 

 which affect vitally the report as a whole. 

 The source of the figures for 1912 and 1913, 

 which could only have been obtained from the 

 field notes and unpublished reports of the 

 writer now in the hands of the commissioner 

 of fisheries at "Washington, is not indicated 

 and in the paragraph of general acknowledg- 

 ment at page 17 credit to former workers is 

 limited to " printed reports." 



George Archibald Clark 



Stanford "University, Calif., 

 November 19, 1915 



ROGER bacon AND GUNPOWDER 



In his paper " Roger Bacon and Gun- 

 powder " contributed to the " Eoger Bacon 

 Commemoration Essays" (edited by A. G. 

 Little, Oxford, 1914), Colonel Hime tries to 

 prove Eoger Bacon the inventor of gunpowder 

 by the method employed to prove Francis 

 Bacon the author of Shakespere's plays — a 

 cipher. Since other contributors to the same 

 volume refer favorably to this effort (Mr. 

 A. G. Little, p. 395, calls it an " ingenious 



explanation" and Mr. Patterson Muir, p. 301, 

 says that " Colonel Hime establishes a large 

 probability" in its favor), it may be well to 

 note some points against it quite apart from 

 the merits of the cipher itself. 



In the first place, the cipher is based upon 

 chapters of the " Epistola de secretis operibus 

 nature et de nullitate magise " not found in 

 the early manuscript of that work and con- 

 sidered doubtful by Charles in his work on 

 Roger Bacon. Indeed, the opening phrases of 

 two chapters, " Transactis annis Arabum sex- 

 centis et duobus," and " Annis Arabum 630 

 transactis " suggest their source. 



Secondly. Roger Bacon openly alludes to 

 gunpowder in 1267 in his " Opus Tertium " as 

 already in common use in children's toy ex- 

 plosives. Therefore Colonel Hime has to date 

 the " De secretis " at 1248, and to hold that 

 Bacon was at that time " driven to employ 

 cryptic methods by fear of the Inquisition" 

 (p. 334), but that by 1267 



eircumstances had totally changed in the lapse of 

 years; the eompcsition of gunpowder . . . had 

 been divulged, and the first use made of the 

 deadly mixture was for the amusement of chil- 

 dren (p. 321). 



But is there any good reason for dating the 

 "De secretis" in 1248? Much of it sounds 

 like a brief popular compilation from Bacon's 

 three works of 1267-8 concocted by some one 

 else later; compare, for instance, the first 

 paragraph of the sixth chapter of the " De 

 secretis " with Duhem, " Un fragment inedit 

 de rOpus Tertium," pp. 153-4 and Little, 

 "Part of the Opus Tertium," 50-51. The 

 dedication of the " De secretis " to William, 

 Bishop of Paris, who died in 1249, occurs first 

 in the late edition of 1618 and has not been 

 found by Little in any manuscript. 



Then the inquisition bug-a-boo is negligible. 

 Has any one ever shown that the inquisition 

 punished a practical invention? It was not 

 for having invented the telescope that Galileo 

 was persecuted. Moreover, Galileo's was an 

 exceptional case, and it can not be shown that 

 in the thirteenth century the church persecuted 

 men of science. Rather, popes and prelates 

 were their patrons. 



