Junes, 1900. J 



SCIENCE. 



911 



tions, giving rise, each, to its own characteristic 

 group of phenomena, the subject matter of its 

 own peculiar department of science. For con- 

 venience we give them names. Now the group 

 of phenomena characteristic of living things is 

 a more peculiar group than any other lower 

 group, and therefore the determining form of 

 energy hetler deserves a distinctive name than any 

 other and lower form. 



But some one will say : ' ' vital force is a met- 

 aphysical conception and as such has no place 

 in science." If so, then must we banish also 

 all ideas of force, or power, or cause as meta- 

 physical. The fact is, science cannot get on 

 without metaphysical conceptions. We strive 

 in vain to realize a science such as Comte imag- 

 ined — a mere succession of phenomena follow- 

 ing one another like the trooping shadows of a 

 phantasmagoria without causative nexus between. 

 Comte repudiated the idea of atoms and of a 

 hypothetical ether as metaphysical ideas, and 

 yet, who can estimate the service done to science 

 by these ideas ? 



These views I have maintained for the last 

 30 years. In spite of the odium scientiflcum I 

 have continued to use the term vital force, not 

 indeed in its old sense but in a true rational 

 sense. But the reaction toward a more rational 

 view is now fairly on. It may again go a little 

 wrong. I cannot sympathize entirely with all 

 the recent views on this subject. Some of them 

 seem to smack a little of the old supra-natural- 

 ism, but it will come right in the end. Mean- 

 while, I would commend to the attention of all 

 who, like Professor Kingsley, are afflicted with 

 a dread of vital force, an article in the Monist 

 for July, 1899, entitled ' Biology and Metaphys- 

 ics,' by that acute thinker and lucid writer. 

 Professor C. Lloyd Morgan, as being altogether 

 just. Professor Morgan is admitted to be an 

 exact and painstaking biologist ; but he is also 

 what is far better and rarer, a profound and 

 philosophic thinker. 



Perhaps I have already said too much. All 

 I can ask is that those interested, unbiased by 

 the fault-finding criticism, will examine for 

 themselves in a fair and sympathetic spirit. I 

 do not fear the result. 



Joseph Le Conte. 



Berkeley, Cal., May 24, 1900. 



GLACIAL EROSION IN THE WHITE MOUNTAIN 

 NOTCHES. 



To THE Editor of Science : In Appalachia 

 for March, Professor W. M. Davis discusses the 

 glacial erosion of certain over-deepened valleys 

 in the Alps and the relation that is borne to 

 them by the hanging valleys of their tribu- 

 taries. He suggests that "the head of the 

 Saco valley in the White mountains below Craw- 

 ford notch deserves examination to see how far 

 its smooth sides and U-shaped cross-section may 

 be explained as the results of glacial scouring 

 by an ice stream that hurried through the deep 

 opening in the White mountain mass." The 

 present note may throw some light on this ques- 

 tion. 



It is in the first place remarkable that, al- 

 though there are valleys of east and west trend 

 in northern New Hampshire, all the deeper 

 notches and passes practicable for roads through 

 the main mountain group extend from north to 

 south, as would be natural if the notches had 

 been deepened by ice streams moving in the 

 general direction of the glacial stria in New 

 England. Moreover, Carter notch as seen from 

 a distance, the Crawford notch as seen from Mt. 

 Willard, andFranconia notch, all present essen- 

 tially U-shaped cross-sections, their troughs be- 

 ing bordered by continuous cliffs rather than by 

 projecting spurs, thus suggesting erosion in a 

 roughly horizontal direction along the sides of 

 a glacial channel, rather than down-hill erosion 

 by streams on the side slopes. In the second 

 place, if one climbs Carter dome from the 

 notch, the path is so steep for the first eighth 

 of a mile that one must cling to the trees to as- 

 cend it ; but then there suddenly comes a gentler 

 slope. As a boy I climbed the western wall 

 of the White mountain or Crawford notch 

 by way of the bed of Brook Kedron, south 

 of the Willey House, and found it so steep 

 as to be almost impracticable ; but here again 

 a point was reached from which the stream 

 was seen coming leisurely over the plateau 

 south of Mt. Willey before its plunge down to the 

 Saco on the floor of the main valley. Standing 

 on Mt. Willard, one looks east across the notch 

 trough to where the Silver and Crystal cascades 

 slip and leap down over the shining ledges, 

 now and then disappearing in narrow clefts that 



