Septemder 4, loo;S.] 



SCIENCE. 



303 



for it. Any scheme that is workable may do 

 well enoufrh for the mere purposes of an inter- 

 national congress. But he would have us or, 

 at any rate, the literary audience to which he 

 addresses his exjiosition, believe that he has 

 at last solved one of the great philosophical 

 riddles. " The real interest," he says, " lies 

 in the logic of the arrangement. The logical 

 problem how to bring order into the wilder- 

 ness of scientific efforts has fascinated i)hi- 

 losophers from Aristotle and Bacon to Comte 

 and Spencer. The way in which a time 

 groups its efforts toward truth becomes, there- 

 fore, also a most significant exjiression of the 

 deeper energies of its civilization, and not 

 the least claim which our coming congress 

 will make is that the program of its work 

 stands out as a realization of principles which 

 characterize the deepest strivings and the 

 inmost energies of our own time as over 

 against the popular classifications of the nine- 

 teenth century." Thus does the new scheme 

 triumph over all difficulties ! 



If this were true, or even in part true, the 

 scheme would be very important to men of 

 science. Unfortunately, however, a glance at 

 the divisions and subdivisions of the scheme 

 seems to reveal only another of the numerous 

 systems of d priori philosophy carried to the 

 extremes which border on absurdity. 



It is needless to discuss in detail a scheme 

 at once so pretentious and so vulnerable. 

 One should see a copy of the ' Program,' or 

 read the ex^iosition of it in the Atlantic 

 Monthly. I wull only add, Mr. Editor, that 

 while we may not go out of our way to oppose 

 philosophers and literary folks who indulge 

 in such extravagances, it is our duty to repu- 

 diate them when they appear in the public 

 press in the guise of science ; for they tend 

 only to make science and scientific men 

 ridiculous. 



R. S. W00DW.\RD. 

 AXT.\RCTIC.\. 



To THE Editor of Scfexce : If Dr. 'Mill will 

 look anew through ' Antarctica,' he will be un- 

 able to find one line criticizing him. I spoke 

 of him necessarily in my letter (Science, July 

 If*), because he hajipened to review the mono- 



graph. I can assure him I am most pleased 

 with his review and his letter (Science, 

 August 7) for they help in forcing the facts 

 about antarctic exploration to the notice of 

 scientists. Gradually the truth will be recog- 

 nized. 



That some English geographers persist in 

 igiioring American antarctic explorers is once 

 more demonstrated in the July Geographical 

 Journal. In the sketch map of the National 

 Antarctic Expedition, on which the ink is 

 hardly dry, the name of Wilkes Land is 

 omitted as usual. Clarie Land appears once 

 more, regardless of the fact that there is no 

 Clarie Land. D'Urville called some ice cliffs 

 Cote Clarie but he did not see the land be- 

 hind them, which was discovered, however, a 

 few days later by Wilkes, and which he named 

 Cape Carr. The name of Graham Land is 

 applied again to the land massif which was 

 known as Palmer's Land for about ten years 

 before Biscoe's voyage. I suggested that the 

 name West Antarctica be given to that region, 

 partly in the hope of reconciling international 

 prejudices. 



The final suggestion of Dr. Mill deserves 

 unqualified approval. Would it not be possible 

 to send an American expedition, either private 

 or governmental, to reexplore the coast of 

 Wilkes Land? A steamship like the Bear, 

 commanded by naval officers, should be able, 

 in the course of one southern summer, to 

 bring back fresh data about the land discov- 

 ered by Americans in East Antarctica. 



Edwin Swift Balch. 



York Harbor, 

 August 10, 100.3. 



SHORTER ARTICLES. 



KUNZITE, A NEW GEM. 



During an extended investigation on cer- 

 tain optical properties of the Tiffany-Morgan 

 Gem and Bement Mineral Collections in the 

 American Museum of Natural History it has 

 been my privilege to examine the new lilac- 

 colored transparent spodumene described by 

 Dr. Geo. F. Kunz in Science, August 28. 



Mineral spodumene is usually obtained in 

 large opaque whitish crystals, but from time 

 to time small specimens, often richly colored 



