314 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 871 



Why, the thing has never been tried! In the 

 name of suffering humanity, let us try it, in 

 the manner suggested by Professor Kent. I 

 have not the slightest doubt that the superi- 

 ority of out-doors for the health is due to the 

 fact that it is impossible in-doors to secure 

 the circulation of the air that will continually 

 remove the noxious products and replace the 

 air with absolutely good air. Again look at 

 the smoker. It is with difficulty that you can 

 get him to smoke in the open air. It takes 

 away his filthy chemical, and he will often 

 admit to you that at night, and out-of-doors, 

 he can not tell whether he is smoking or not. 

 Thus he gives his whole case away, and helps 

 me in my argument. 



There is one other thing that we must not 

 overlook, and that is the sun. I dare say that 

 in spite of all we might do to the air, if we did 

 not pass it out into the sun we should not 

 accomplish much. What does the sun do to 

 the air? Photochemistry will have to answer 

 this, and it soon will. And finally remember 

 that the conditions of radiation of heat from 

 our bodies are totally different when we are 

 surrounded by walls and when not. The ques- 

 tion of out-doors is, accordingly, not a simple 

 one, but is composed of simple parts. Let us 

 attack it in detail. Perhaps it will be an- 

 swered before the other equally important one. 

 Shall loe luash? And this reminds me of a 

 passage in Dr. Gulick's letter which I can not 

 let pass. In a well ventilated school-room 

 (in London) there was " no smell of human 

 beings — this was only noticeable when one 

 stood among the hoys " (italics mine). As an 

 ex-boy I resent this.' 



Finally let me suggest an answer to Mr. 

 Mott-Smith's last question : " Why is a little 

 sneaking draiight in the house a source of 

 colds and grippe, while a high wind out-of- 

 doors a pleasure and a benefit ? " I suspect 

 that the answer will be Mr. Dooley's consoling 

 one to Hennessey, " It ain't so ! " 



Arthur Gordon Webster 



Worcester, Mass., 

 August 4^ 1911 



^ It has occurred to me that perhaps it was a 

 boys' school. 



ELECTRONS 



To THE Editor of Science : Will you permit 

 an old fogy to trespass on your space long 

 enough to ask a simple question? I confess 

 that in spite of bibliographies, card cata- 

 logues, scientific management and all the 

 helps to the weary, I have lately found it 

 impossible to keep up, and find myself con- 

 fronted with the horrid thought of having to 

 become a specialist. I have not even been 

 able to read all that the chemists have written 

 about physics. Now whether we agree with 

 what has recently been said by a notorious 

 chemist (perhaps I mean noted, but the 

 weather is so hot) that " we appreciate fully 

 ' that physics, geology, engineering, physiology, 

 medicine, botany, zoology and biology (why 

 not astronomy?) are subdivisions of the 

 broader science of chemistry, we see that the 

 chemist of the future must know a great deal 

 more than any of us do now " — whether we 

 agree with this poet or not (and I cordially 

 agree with his final statement) we know that 

 in future the physicist has got to sit at the 

 feet of the chemist (I hope he will sit on 

 them). But in Professor McCoy's very in- 

 teresting article on metals I find the fol- 

 lowing statement, which causes me some 

 difficulty : " The charge of the electron 

 is negative in sign. In fact we have de- 

 cisive experimental evidence of only this one 

 kind of free electricity, positive electrifica- 

 tion of a body being from this standpoint 

 merely a deficiency of electrons. J. J. Thom- 

 son has shown how from the conception of an 

 atom made up of electrons rotating in a 

 sphere of positive electrification, there fol- 

 lows," etc. Now I submit that logically the 

 above statement would be helped by a substi- 

 tution in the last sentence of the definition 

 from the next to the last, so as to read : " an 

 atom made up of electrons rotating in a 

 sphere of merely a deficiency of electrons," 

 etc. What I want to know is, what is this 

 spherical deficiency made of? Is it a hole in 

 a space all full of electrons? If so, what 

 about the lonely electrons rotating in this hole 

 in the whole body of electrons? But perhaps 



