Januaky 23, 19U3.] 



SCIENCE. 



129 



This would suggest our having recourse 

 to the corpuscles of which the investiga- 

 tion is now beginning and may be the main 

 subject of physical research during the 

 next generation. But here, if we accept 

 the theoretical result of Professor J. J. 

 Thomson, we meet with the diiificulty that 

 these entities can not travel with a greater 

 speed than that of light. Under these cir- 

 cumstances nothing seems left for us in 

 the present state of our knowledge but to 

 turn over to our successors the problem of 

 explaining the phenomena. 



The main point I desire to bring out in 

 this review is the tendency which it shows 

 towards unification in physical research. 

 Heretofore differentiation— the subdivision 

 of workers into a continually increasing 

 number of groups of specialists— has been 

 the rule. Now we see a coming together 

 of what, at first sight, seem the most 

 widely separated spheres of activity. 

 What two branches could be more widely 

 separated than that of stellar statistics, 

 embracing the whole universe within its 

 scope, and the study of these newly-dis- 

 covered emanations, the product of our 

 laboratories, which seem to show the exist- 

 ence of corpuscles smaller than the atoms 

 of matter? And yet, the phenomena 

 which we have reviewed, especially the 

 relation of terrestrial magnetism to the 

 solar activity, and the formation of nebu- 

 lous masses around the new stars, can be 

 aceoiinted for only by emanations or forms 

 of force, having probably some similarity 

 with the corpuscles, electrons and rays 

 which we are now producing in our labora- 

 tories. The nineteenth century, in pass- 

 ing away, points with pride to what it has 

 done. It has become a word to symbolize 

 what is most important in human progress. 

 Yet, perhaps its greatest glory may prove 

 to be that the last thing it did was to lay 

 a foundation for the physical science of 

 the twentieth century. What shall be 



discovered in the new fields is, at present, 

 as far without our ken as were the modern 

 developments of electricity without the ken 

 of the investigators of one hundred years 

 ago. We can not guarantee any special 

 discovery. What lies before us is an il- 

 limitable field, the existence of which was 

 scarcely suspected ten years ago, the ex- 

 ploration of which may well absorb the 

 activities of our physical laboratories, and 

 of the great mass of our astronomical ob- 

 servers and investigators for as many gen- 

 erations as were required to bring elec- 

 trical science to its present state. We of 

 the older generation can not hope to see 

 more than the beginning of this develop- 

 ment, and can only tender our best wishes 

 and most hearty congratulations to the 

 younger school whose function it will be 

 to explore the limitless field now before it. 

 S. Newcomb. 



PLANS OF THE NEW BUILDINGS FOB THE 

 NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS." 



The work for which the National Bureau 

 of Standards was established includes re- 

 search and testing in the domain of phys- 

 ics, extending into the field of chemistry 

 on the one hand and of engineering on the 

 other. The union of research and testing 

 in one institution is of supreme impor- 

 tance, the investigations being, of course, 

 primarily designed to carry the work of 

 standardization and testing to the high- 

 est possible efficiency. The Physikaliseh- 

 Technische Reichsanstalt is an illustrious 

 example before all the world of how much 

 can be accomplished where research and 

 testing are combined in one institution; 

 and that the union should be intimate is 

 further shown by the fact that more or 

 less research is carried on in the second, 

 or technical, division of the Reichsanstalt, 

 instead of being confined to the first 



* A paper read before the Philosophical Society 

 of Washington, October 25, 1902. 



