SCIENCE 



Feidat, October 6, 1911 



CONTENTS 

 The SritisJi Association for the Advancement 

 of Science: — 

 Magnolia Natures; or, The Greater Prob- 

 lems of Biology: Propessoe D'Akcy 

 Wbntwokth Thompson 417 



Prospective Population of the United States: 

 Dr. W J McGee 428 



The Silliman Lectures 435 



Scientific Notes and News 435 



University and Educational News 439 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



A Carboniferous Flora in the Silurian: 

 David White. Professor Punnett's Error: 

 Professor F. C. Newcombe. Phenomena 

 of Forked Lightning: Propessoe Francis 

 E. Niphek 440 



Scientific Books: — 

 MacCurdy on Chiriquian Antiquities: Pro- 

 pessoe Peanz Boas. Blsden's Chemical 

 Geology : Peopessor J. P. Iddings 442 



The Belation between the Coloration and the 

 Bathymetrical Distribution of the Cyclo- 

 gasteridcB : Dr. Charles V. Burke 447 



Special Articles: — 



Isostasy, Oceanic Precipitation and the 

 Formation of Mountain Systems : Dr. P. G. 

 Nutting. Musical Echoes: Dr. F. E. 

 Watson 453 



Societies and Academies: — 



The American Mathematical Society: Peo- 

 PEssoE F. N. Cole 455 



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

 review sbould be sent to the Editor of Science, Garriaon-on- 

 Hudson, N, Y, 



TBE BBITISR ASSOCIATION FOB THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



MAGNALIA NATUB^; OB, THE GBEATEB 



PBOBLEMS OF BIOLOGY^ 



The science of zoology, all the more the 

 incorporate science of biology, is no simple 

 affair, and from its earliest beginnings it 

 has been a great and complex and many- 

 sided thing. We can scarce get a broader 

 view of it than from Aristotle, for no man 

 has ever looked upon our science with a 

 more far-seeing and comprehending eye. 

 Aristotle was all things that we mean by 

 "naturalist" or "biologist." He was a 

 student of the ways and doings of beast 

 and bird and creeping thing; he was mor- 

 phologist and embryologist ; he had the 

 keenest insight into physiological problems, 

 though lacking that knowledge of the phys- 

 ical sciences without which physiology can 

 go but a little way : he was the first and is 

 the greatest of psychologists; and in the 

 light of his genius biology merged in a 

 great philosophy. 



I do not for a moment suppose that the 

 vast multitude of facts which Aristotle 

 records were all, or even mostly, the fruit 

 of his own immediate and independent ob- 

 servation. Before him were the Hippo- 

 cratic and other schools of physicians and 

 anatomists. Before him there were name- 

 less and forgotten Fabres, Roesels, Reau- 

 murs and Hubers, who observed the habits, 

 the diet and the habitations of the sand- 

 wasp or the mason-bee ; who traced out the 

 little lives, and discerned the vocal organs, 

 of grasshopper and cicada; and who, to- 

 gether with generations of bee-keeping 



' Address of the president to the Zoological Sec- 

 tion. Portsmouth, 1911. 



