Maech 20, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



475 



PRESENTATION OF A BUST TO PROFESSOR 

 GHAMBERLIN. 



Professor J. C. Beaknee, of Stanford Uni- 

 versity, proposed at the meeting of the Amer- 

 ican Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, in 1901, to present a bust of Professor 

 T. C. Chamberlin to the University of Chi- 

 cago in recognition of his eminent services 

 to the science of geology. A number of other 

 geologists joined Professor Branner, and the 

 bust wsLS presented with appropriate cere- 

 monies on February 7. The principal ad- 

 dress was made by Professor Van Hise, who 

 gave an account of Professor Chamberlin's 

 investigations, in the course of which he said : 



" Professor Chamberlin has the speculative 

 power of the Greeks in seeing lines along 

 which a solution may lie; but, unlike the 

 Greeks, is not content when a possible solu- 

 tion has been suggested. After the modern 

 scientific man has devised various possible 

 solutions he has before him the far more dif- 

 ficult task of determining the true solution. 

 The profound difference between the ancient 

 speculative philosopher about science, and the 

 modern scientific man, is that the one requires 

 only a brilliant constructive intellect and 

 reasoning power; while the other requires 

 with this a capacity for patient, laborious, con- 

 secutive, constructive work running through 

 years, exhaustive collection of material, ob- 

 servational work in the field, experimental 

 work in the laboratory, verification and re- 

 verification, sifting, testing, judging, and thus 

 finding out, not what may he the truth, but 

 what is the truth. It seems to me that Pro- 

 fessor Chamberlin's eminent success as a sci- 

 entist lies in this two-fold power. With 

 speculative ability only, a man is untrust- 

 worthy and erratic. With the power of steady 

 drudgery only, he is mediocre. Combine the 

 two, and he is a scientist of the first rank." 



Addresses were also made by President 

 Harper, Professor Salisbury and Dr. Bain, 

 and Professor Chamberlin responded as fol- 

 lows: 



" It is quite impossible for me to express 

 in any fitting way the feelings that arise in 

 response to this very unusual honor. I was 

 surprised when the request — put in the jocular 



form of command — to sit to Mr. Taft, came 

 to me. I have not ceased to be surprised ever 

 since, and I am more surprised to-day at the 

 terms that have been used in this presenta- 

 tion. If there have been two things that have 

 been supreme objects of aspiration to me on 

 the professional side, they are the desire to 

 develop and present some truths that shall 

 live as long as man shall have need of truths ; 

 and the other, that I may touch by some small 

 measure of inspiration young minds with 

 longer lives and with better preparation for 

 the work of the future than are granted to 

 me. My students and my colleagues know 

 that as a result of my studies I make no lim- 

 ited estimate or forecast of the future of the 

 earth and of its possibilities, of the future of 

 man and his great development. I see no 

 early and final winter; I see no portending 

 calamity to this earth. I see a possibility, a 

 probability, almost a certainty, of millions of 

 years of human endurance on the earth; and, 

 in view of that fact, when I recognize that 

 every truth lives and works every day and 

 every hour, by night and by day, I feel that, 

 even though a small truth be brought forth 

 and sent upon its mission, in the long ages 

 in which it has to work it can not but do 

 great things. And when I think of the influ- 

 ences which young men and young women, 

 coming to the active spheres of life with 

 greater advantages than those of us of the 

 past have had, will exert in the fulness of 

 time; when I realize that they will be able 

 to transmit to others, and these to others, and 

 to others still, the measure of thought that 

 comes to them — though I realize that all this 

 must lose its personal relationship to its au- 

 thor and must be submerged in the common 

 flood of influences that will commingle with 

 it as time goes on — yet, it is a pleasant and 

 inspiring thought that these, too, shall work 

 and that the truth sown shall be fruitful as 

 long as man walks upon the earth. It is 

 especially grateful to me to hear to-day from 

 my colleagues in science, from those whose 

 judgment I must respect, such expressions re- 

 garding the scientific investigations which I 

 have been permitted to make. It is also espe- 

 cially gratifying to hear the expressions of 



