SCIENCE 



Friday, October 31, 1913 



CONTENTS 



The Appeal of the Natural Sciences: Peo- 

 FESSOB J. F. Kemp 603 



Our Eadium Mesources: Dk. Charles L. Par- 

 sons 612 



The Decennial of the Desert Laboratory 620 



The William R. Welch Fund of the Johns 

 Sopkins Medical School 621 



Scientifio Notes and News 622 



University and Educational News 624 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



On the Occurrence of a Froiaile New Min- 

 eral : Kakl L. Kiteil 624 



Scientific BooTcs: — 

 Dresslar's School Hygiene: Professor 

 Lewis M. Terman. Woodward's The Geol- 

 ogy of Soils: Dr. George P. Merrill .... 625 



Notes on Meteorology and Climatology : — 

 European Meteorology; Southern Hemi- 

 sphere Seasonal Correlations; Changes of 

 Climate in the Southwest; Coronium; Ex- 

 ploration of the Interior of Greenland; 

 Earthquakes and Sainfall; Notes: Charles 

 F. Brooks 627 



Special Articles: — 



Beliability and Distribution of Grades: 

 Professor Daniel Starch 630 



The American Chemical Society: Dr. Charles 

 L. Parsons 636 



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

 review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- 

 on-Hudson, N. Y. 



THE APPEAL OF THE NATURAL SCIENCE St 

 Again the revolving year brings us all 

 together at the opening of the autumn term. 

 And yet not all — no university gathering is 

 ever the same in two successive years. Since 

 last September a thousand and yet again a 

 half a thousand earnest young men and wo- 

 men have left us and have gone to all 

 quarters of the earth to take their places in 

 the world's work. To us who remain their 

 faces have become a cherished memory; 

 their future efforts are a subject of confi- 

 dent trust. Twelve months before there 

 were a thousand and less than half a thou- 

 sand ; and as our minds run backward over 

 the earlier years we recall the time when 

 the departing graduates were numbered 

 by hundreds, still earlier by tens; at the 

 very outset, in the small beginnings of colo- 

 nial days by units. At this the opening of 

 the one hundred and sixtieth year of the 

 institution's life, we hark back to the past 

 more naturally than we would were the 

 year drawing to its close. At Commence- 

 ment, eyes are turned toward the future; 

 but as we gather ourselves together for re- 

 newed effort eyes may be most fittingly for 

 the moment turned toward the past. 



It seems a far cry from the Columbia of 

 to-day to the Kings College of 1754, hovered 

 under the wings of Trinity Church in the 

 little colonial town. Much has happened 

 meanwhile and vast changes in conditions, 

 in population and in magnitudes of all 

 sorts have come to pass. But the succession 

 is unbroken. We recognize ourselves to be 

 the end members in a long and honorable 

 line. We may for the moment put our- 

 1 Address delivered at the opening exercises of 

 Columbia University, September 24, 1913. 



