SCIENCE 



Friday, September 1, 1911 



CONTENTS 

 The Chemical Philosophy of the Sigh-school 

 Text-ioolcs : Professor W. Lash Miller . 257 



The General Essentials in Teaching Qualita- 

 tive Analysis: Professor Hermon C. 

 Cooper 263 



Surveys in Alaska 265 



The British Census 266 



Charles Otis Whitman 267 



Scientific Notes and News 268 



University and Educational New! 271 



Coal near Finedale, Ariz.: Albert B. Eea- 

 GAN. A Second Becord for Standing 's 

 Turtle in Concord, Mass.: E. Heber 

 Howe, Jr 271 



Scientific Boohs: — 



Kofoid's Biological Stations of Europe: 

 J. S. K. Botch and Palmer's Charts of the 

 Atmosphere : James Means. Magie's Prin- 

 ciples of Physics, Eurst and Lattey's Text- 

 looTc of Physics: Professor A. D. Cole . . 272 



Botanical Notes: — 



More Elementary Botany; A New Manual 

 of Botany; MooTcy Mountain Botany ; Botan- 

 ical Notes: Professor Charles E. Besset 277 



.Special Articles: — 



On the Stereotropism of Embryonic Cells: 

 Professor Boss G. Harbison. On the 

 Increase in Oxidation in the Egg at the 

 Beginning of Development: Drs. P. H. 

 Mitchell and J. F. McClendon. Theories 

 of Electrical Discharge: Professor Fran- 

 cis E. NiPHER 279 



The American Chemical Society 283 



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

 reyiew should be sent to the Editor of Science, Garrison-on- 

 JHudflon, >r. Y. 



TEE CEEMICAL PEILOSOPEY OF TEE 

 EIGE-SCEOOL TEXT-BOOKS ' 



At the present time the conception of 

 continuity or unity or uniformity plays 

 a great part in all departments of science ; 

 not only that continuity in time postu- 

 lated by geologists and paleontologists, 

 but the idea that all the divisions and 

 classes established by science are but con- 

 venient though perhaps indispensable 

 tools of the human mind, while nature, 

 the object of our study, is one and indi- 

 visible. ■ 



To take examples from biology: mod- 

 ern systematists agree that the concep- 

 tions genus, species, variety, race, shade 

 into one another, so that what in one 

 group are regarded as generic distinc- 

 tions, in another are hardly allowed to 

 differentiate species; the very word biol- 

 ogy recognizes the non-existence of a 

 boundary between animal and vegetable; 

 and a group of workers of the present 

 day are busy removing even the distinc- 

 tion between inanimate and animate. 



This view of nature, though now so 

 widely accepted, is by no means contem- 

 poraneous with the birth of modern sci- 

 ence; it came in only when the study of 

 the most striking — because extreme — ob- 

 jects or relations had been followed by 

 that of the less strongly characterized 

 connecting links; and its acceptance has 

 been hindered, in many cases, by the 

 prevalence of certain extra-experimental 

 or extra-observational "explanations" 

 made up to account for the earliest stud- 

 ied, exceptional, phenomena. 



' Address of the vice-chairman of the Division 

 of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry, American 

 Chemical Society, Indianapolis meeting, 1911. 



