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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 983 



clergyman or mereliant travels and looks 

 upon mountains, plain and ocean, they 

 mean something to him, and his intelligence 

 grasps them in a way not only to add to his 

 enjoyment, but to make him a broader- 

 minded and better member of human 

 society. 



The effects are the same with other 

 branches of natural science. Even from 

 elementary work with plants and animals, 

 some grasp can be gained of their kinds and 

 local associations. Some standard of com- 

 parison with other regions is afforded such 

 that by an observant eye intelligent paral- 

 lels can be drawn. No one who has even a 

 superficial knowledge of the plants and 

 trees in our northern states can travel in the 

 north of Europe without being constantly 

 reminded of his home surroundings. The 

 little twin flower, Linncea, growing on the 

 sands and glacial boulders of our northern 

 and Canadian mountains, has removed the 

 homesickness from the heart of many a 

 Scandinavian settler and has made him feel 

 as if the world was very narrow, after all. 

 And thus arise the questions of animal and 

 plant dispersion. Why is it that they are 

 so nearly the same on opposite sides of the 

 ocean or that one little vine, with the most 

 delicate and fragrant flowers imaginable, 

 can girdle the earth in its northern lati- 

 tudes? 



Again, if with collections and with field 

 experience we can bring home to an intelli- 

 gent student that one species of plant or 

 animal shades off through close relatives 

 and similar varieties into others and so on 

 to others more remote, so that, although we 

 recognize the entire unlikeness of the widely 

 separated members, we hardly know where 

 to mark a break in the series, a new and 

 startling view of nature is gained. Or, if 

 we find difficulty in bridging some of the 

 gaps among the surviving species on the 

 earth to-day and appeal to the evidences of 



the fossil past so as to show converging 

 lines of ancestry, the organic world takes 

 on new aspects and an orderly, reasonable 

 and understandable character, not possessed 

 before. 



The strongest, most striking, and most 

 readily received impression of all is the one 

 given by the heavens. The sun and moon, 

 the planets and the more distant fised stars, 

 set as we know them to be in orbits capable 

 of exact mathematical expression; open to 

 our view in all parts of the world ; equally 

 visible from land or sea ; and best of all in 

 the clear atmosphere of the desert ; make the 

 profoundest impression and the strongest 

 appeal of all the branches of natural 

 science. The enormous distances, the order 

 and precision, the series from glowing 

 nebulae to dead, cold bodies, the vast stores 

 of energy radiating into space, stimulate an 

 inquiring mind as does no other branch of 

 natural science. We are face to face with 

 the origin and development not alone of 

 one world, but of many worlds, indeed of 

 the universe itself. 



But there is one additional appeal from 

 the natural sciences which in a fairly new 

 and rapidly developing country like our 

 own is particularly strong to the minds of 

 young men. It was not altogether by 

 chance that the natural sciences received 

 recognition in the medical school of Colum- 

 bia College in 1767 nor that they were first 

 placed solidly on their feet with the estab- 

 lishment of the School of Mines in 1864. 

 The appeal is based on their useful applica- 

 cations and the assistance which they can 

 give to the practise of medicine and surgery 

 and to all branches of engineering and 

 manufacturing. There was formerly a dis- 

 position to think lightly, sometimes even 

 scornfully, in university circles of the appli- 

 cations of our natural sciences and to con- 

 clude that if a professor or student once 

 became influenced by them he lost his ideals 



