September 12, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



355 



It is an obvious fact, and I ouglit to apolo- 

 gize for remarking it, were it not that so 

 much of our popular science is understood 

 by the haste to imply an opposite conclu- 

 sion. If a chemical analysis of the con- 

 stituents of sea-water could take away from 

 the glory of a mighty wave breaking in the 

 sunlight, it would still be true that it was 

 the mind of the chemist which delighted in 

 finding the analysis. Whatever be its his- 

 torj', whatever its physical correlations, it 

 is an undeniable fact that the mind of man 

 has been evolved; I believe that is the sci- 

 entific word. You may speak of a contin- 

 uous upholding of our material framework 

 from without : you may ascribe fixed quali- 

 ties to something you call matter: or you 

 may refuse to be drawn into any statement. 

 But anyway, the fact remains that the 

 precious things of life are those we call the 

 treasures of the mind. Dogmas and phi- 

 losophies, it would seem, rise and fall. But 

 gradually accumulating throughout the 

 ages, from the earliest dawn of history, 

 there is a body of doctrine, a reasoned 

 insight into the relations of exact ideas, 

 painfully won and often tested. And this 

 remains the main heritage of man ; his little 

 beacon of light amidst the solitudes and 

 darknesses of infinite space ; or, if you pre- 

 fer, like the shout of children at play to- 

 gether in the cultivated A'allej's, which con- 

 tinues from generation to generation. 



Yes, and continues for ever ! A universe 

 which has the potentiality of becoming thus 

 conscious of itself is not without something 

 of which that which we call memoiy is but 

 an image. Somewhere, somehow, in ways 

 we dream not of, when you and I have 

 merged again into the illimitable whole, 

 when all that is material has ceased, the 

 faculty in which we now have some share 

 shall surely endure; the conceptions we 

 uow dimly struggle to grasp, the joy we 

 have in the effort, these are but part of a 



greater whole. Some maj^ fear, and some 

 may hope, that they and theirs shall not 

 endure for ever. But he must have studied 

 nature in vain who does not see that our 

 spiritual activities are inherent in the 

 mighty process of which we are part; who 

 can doubt of their persistence. 



And, on the intellectual side, of all that 

 is best ascertained, and surest, and most 

 definite, of these; of all that is oldest and 

 most universal; of all that is most funda- 

 mental and far-reaching, of these activities, 

 pure mathematics is the symbol and the 

 sum. 



H. F. Baker 



TVOBK GOING ON AT KILAUEA VOLCANO 



Foe the past three months the " fires of 

 Pele " have been comparatively low, the condi- 

 tions in the active pit of Halemaumau being 

 that of unusual quiescence. The level of the 

 bottom has also remained lower than at any 

 other time since last fall, when it had a depth 

 of about 700 feet. The last plane-table 

 measurement obtained gave a depth of 550 feet 

 and the subsequent change has been small. 



Since its late maximum height of about 350 

 feet below the rim, in January of this year, 

 the liquid lava lake has in its general move- 

 ment been dropping, though a rise in June and 

 July, 1912, presented an activity greater than 

 any other recorded during the past thirty 

 years. There was a molten lake 650 feet long 

 by 450 feet wide. As many as six hundred 

 fountains of liquid magma played simultane- 

 ously and threw the molten spray to heights of 

 twenty to thirty feet, accompanied by a sound 

 like the roar of heavy ocean surf. In Decem- 

 ber, after intermittent declines, the level of the 

 lake again rose, though to a lesser altitude 

 and accompanied with decreased activity; this 

 condition continuing until the middle of Feb- 

 ruary of this year. Since then the resultant 

 eifects have been a lowering of the surface of 

 tlie lava column until, on ]\Iay 1, it disappeared 

 from all view either by day or through incan- 

 descence at night. 



