606 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 879 



tional Association. These two reports indi- 

 cate the increasing differences between the 

 eastern and western college. Some of the 

 differences are, of course, evident. Practically 

 all students of western colleges are prepared in 

 public schools and are admitted on certificate, 

 whereas the New England " examining " col- 

 leges depend very largely upon special fitting 

 schools. But the more radical and far-reach- 

 ing distinction between colleges of the east 

 and the west arises from the fact that the more 

 conservative of eastern colleges still prescribe 

 a large proportion of the subjects and methods 

 of the preparatory school. The western col- 

 lege, on the other hand, has in large measure 

 accepted the dictates of the high school and 

 has practically surrendered the right of inter- 

 vention in the courses of preparatory study. 



This position of the western university is 

 well shown and ably defended in the reports 

 just referred to. They urge that the require- 

 ments for admission should he entirely di- 

 vorced from subjects and that the college 

 should confine itself to stating the number of 

 units required. In other words, the college 

 should content itself with stating the process 

 and time requisite for preparation rather than 

 the content. 



In view of the prevalence and strength of 

 this " insurgent " movement in the western 

 institutions there can be little question that 

 these plans and methods will be urged upon 

 the eastern colleges. To the conservative, the 

 measures adopted and advocated seem absurdly 

 radical and subversive of sound education, but 

 he recalls that the high school curricula, except 

 in very restricted areas of influence, go their 

 own way with little or no consideration of 

 college requirements, and that in the long run 

 the high-school man has usually dictated the 

 requirements for college. A preparation for 

 college, however, which did not include foreign 

 language or mathematics (except arithmetic) 

 and with more than half of the school course 

 represented by commercial and vocational 

 studies would seem to him to be a misnomer. 

 There can be little doubt that such extremes 

 bear the seeds of reaction; but this does not 

 relieve the eastern college from the responsi- 



bility of making its entrance requirements 

 such as not to bar it from intimate connection 

 with the public-school system of both the east 

 and the west. — ^Professor Eobert N. Corwin in 

 the Yale Alumni News. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 An Investigation of the Rotation Period of 



the Sun hy Spectroscopic Methods. By 



Walter S. Adams, assisted by Jennie B. 



Lasby. Carnegie Institution, Washington. 



1911. 



This publication gives a complete account 

 of the investigations undertaken at the Solar 

 Observatory of the Carnegie Institution, 

 Mount Wilson, Cal., upon the Rotation of the 

 Sun in the years 1906-07 and 1908, embody- 

 ing results previously published in the Astro- 

 physical Journal and in the " Contributions 

 from the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory." 

 These, however, contained only brief sum- 

 maries of the principal portions of the work 

 which is treated in detail in an admirably 

 comprehensive and yet concise and logical 

 manner in the publication under review. The 

 arrangement of the material in this work and 

 the plan of treatment of the numerous obser- 

 vations recorded is one that might with ad- 

 vantage be copied in reports of scientific in- 

 vestigations which are too frequently lacking 

 in the logical treatment necessary for the 

 proper exposition of the results obtained. 



After a succinct and yet complete account 

 of the work previously done on the spectro- 

 scopic determination of the solar rotation, the 

 instrumental equipment used in the two 

 series of determinations is described. The first 

 series in 1906-07 was made by means of the 

 " Snow " ecelostat telescope and an 18 foot 

 focus, Littrow form, grating spectrograph. 

 The second series, which, as the author claims 

 and the observations show, is superior in ac- 

 curacy to the first, was made in 1908 with 

 the 60-foot Tower telescope and a 30-foot 

 focus grating spectrograph also of the Lit- 

 trow form. The linear dispersion for the first 

 series at A 4250, the center of the region em- 

 ployed, was 1 mm. = 0.71 A., and for the sec- 

 ond 1 mm. = 0.56 A., comparatively high dis- 



