December 23, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



309 



spiracy. If it be a poor paper, it will probably be suppressed sev- 

 eral times before it gets published ; and no one is to blame for that 

 but its author. But a general conspiracy among men of science to 

 suppress views because they are new, and unacceptable to old 

 fogies, is impossible ; and your correspondent and the Duke of 

 Argyll must certainly know that fact ; and it will remain a fact, in 

 spite of any number of instances of special local repression that 

 can be cited. When such repression happens, the fault lies with 

 the man of new views, who will not or can not speak out boldly ; 

 who will not or can not make his conclusions irresistibly ; who is 

 too shy, or too limited in his personal associations, or too obscure 

 in his language, to compel general attention to what he believes. 



Younger men of science with new ideas seem to think that older 

 men in science have no business of their own to attend to, but must 

 drop all their personal investigations to discuss and investigate, 

 prove or disprove, each new theory as soon as it is promulged. 

 The fact is, every new presentation in any department of science is 

 read with interest and attention by scores, hundreds, and in some 

 rare cases by thousands, of experts working in that particular de- 

 partment. But, if it be an important new theory, it requires, on 

 that account, to be carefully studied ; which, of course, takes time, 

 — months, sometimes years. The delay will always be in propor- 

 tion, first to the importance, and second to the difficulty, of the 

 subject-matter of the theory. The few whom it most interests are 

 separately making up their minds about it, and consulting each 

 other. The wisest and strongest minds take the longest time, re- 

 sisting all pressure to force them to a premature conclusion. But ' 

 there is i personal equation. Men of science differ greatly in their 

 reticence and in their cautiousness. What is denounced by the 

 author of the novelty, and by his friend or friends, as a conspiracy 

 of silence, and a scandal to science, is in fact the involuntary cau- 

 tiousness of men who know much and have been often mistaken ; 

 and it is the glory of science that it keeps its head level, as it keeps 

 its eyes open and its heart warm. Let your correspondent reflect 

 that there are two natural classes of men of science, — the daring 

 and useful, and the cautious and useful. Both classes are equally 

 useful and equally honorable ; and the charge of a conspiracy of 

 silence can no more justly be brought against the one class than 

 the charge of a conspiracy of notoriety against the other. 



Whenever " Mr. Bonney says that the scientific method is to 

 wait, and not to investigate," I shall go to London to ask him what 

 he can mean by such language ; but if I have to wait until he 

 actually says so foolish a word, I shall never again see London. 

 In fact, Mr. Bonney never has said any thing of the sort, in the 

 sense assigned to his words by your correspondent ; meaning by 

 ' scientific method ' the mode of pursuing truth proper for all 

 the pursuers of truth. What he meant in his rebuke of the Duke 

 of Argyll is evident : he meant that any one man of science not en- 

 gaged in a given special line of research can not and dares not 

 make up his own mind as to the validity of one of two opposing 

 theories until those others who have that special line of research in 

 hand have practically reached some consent on the subject. 



Your correspondent's quotation from Professor Bonney (on p. 

 299, footnote) does him another injustice. Mr. Bonney writes, 

 " Very well, but there are some people, not very few in number, 

 who do not share the opinion." Your correspondent exclaims, 

 " Hail to the new science ! The voice of many people is the voice 

 of God." But the people of Mr. Bonney are not the people of Mr. 

 Buel. Professor Bonney has said plainly enough that by ' people ' 

 he means such men as Darwin and Dana, the greatest investigators 

 of these special coral phenomena. If Mr. Murray's ' people ' are 

 numerous, Mr. Darwin's and Mr. Dana's ' people ' are also numer- 

 ous. Most of the ' people ' on both sides are of no value as rea- 

 soners on coral formation ; but a few — a very few on both sides — 

 have some right to an opinion. But Mr. Huxley and Mr. Bonney do 

 not claim to be of these few — on either side. Of course they wait. 



It is a curious fact, and rather pathetic withal, that a man of 

 science seldom or never opens his mouth but he puts his foot in it. 

 At all events, there is always some half-man of science standing by 

 ready to say so, and run for a doctor. But curious and even 

 pathetic as the fact may be, it has its good and its bad conse- 

 quences : it makes thoroughbred experts more cautious, both in 

 framing their own opinions respecting the researches of others. 



and in expressing such opinions publicly ; and it makes experts of 

 the second, third, and fourth order of breeding correspondingly 

 reckless in both thinking and speaking. J. P. Lesley. 



Philadelphia, Dec. 19. 



A Wind-Register for Direction and Velocity. 



For some years it has been considered very important that not 

 only the total amount of wind should be recorded on self-registers, 

 but that some simple means should be brought into use by which 

 the recording sheet should give directly the number of miles or 

 kilometres per hour of wind blowing from the various points of 

 compass. 



The plan usually adopted is to mark off on the velocity record 

 the spaces of time during which the wind was blowing from the 

 various quarters as indicated by the record sheet for the directions, 

 or the direction is stamped on the velocity sheet at regular intervals 

 of time (say, every ten minutes) by the automatic closing of an 

 electric circuit by means of a clock. 



A method of registering the wind's velocity so as to give a mini- 

 mum amount of labor in reading the recording sheet has suggested 

 itself to me, and I have given below a short account of the princi- 

 ples of construction. I do not remember having seen mention of 



such an apparatus before, but it is so simple that it is probably not 

 wholly new ; and a similar form of instrument may even be in actual 

 use, but, if so, I cannot recall any such, and I am somewhat 

 familiar with the instruments of the various meteorological obser- 

 vatories. 



In the accompanying figure, A represents the Robinson anemom-. 

 eter ; P, the supporting frame ; and C and £, the posts to which 

 the conducting wires are attached in the ordinary form of electrical 

 self-registering anemometer, in which C and B have metallic con- 

 nection through P at the completion of each mile or kilometre of 

 wind as shown by the anemometer dial : at other times the connec- 

 tion between C and B is broken. By means of a wire, B is con- 

 nected with one pole of the batterj' E. Wires also pass from C to 

 binding-screws on 5, 6, 7, 8, electro-magnets of the recording appa- 

 ratus. 



The left-hand part of the diagram is shown in horizontal plan.. 

 G is the lower end of a rod passing from the roof to the room be- 

 neath. This rod being in rigid connection with the wind-vane, it 

 will revolve with the latter. Near the lower end of the rod, at Gy 

 an arm is placed at right angles to the rod, and terminates in the 

 small friction-wheel /I. 



