MODERN METHODS 171 



lishment of a geophysical laboratory to be devoted to advanced work in 

 experimental geology. There v^as a doubt at first in the minds of some 

 members of the Board as to whether this field was sufficiently large to 

 warrant the very large expenditure which would be required to build, 

 equip, and maintain such an institution. A group of geologists were 

 accordingly asked to consider the question and to submit a list of geo- 

 logical problems which in their opinion were susceptible of solution by 

 the experimental method. This was done, and the list which was drawn 

 up may be found in the ^^Year Book of the Carnegie Institution'^ for 

 1903. The mere enumeration of these problems showed the field to be 

 so extensive that the Board at once decided to establish the laboratory, 

 which with its brilliant staff and magnificent equipment has now come 

 to be the foremost center of geological experimental research in the world. 

 The importance of the experimental method came to be generally rec- 

 ognized in the world of science through the writings of Francis Bacon, 

 who set forth its transcendent value as a path for attaining ^^the knowl- 

 edge of causes and secret motions of things." His plan for the investiga- 

 tion of nature, outlined in his "New Atlantis," which went through ten 

 editions betw^een 1627 and 1670, suggested the establishment of a "Col- 

 lege for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learn- 

 ing," w^hat we would now call a university of research, endowed by the 

 State, which eventually took fornj in the Eoyal Society of London, 

 founded in 1662, receiving grants from the State for the prosecution of 

 scientific research and acting in an advisory capacity to the government 

 in questions requiring scientific knowledge. It is thus the oldest scien- 

 tific society in the world, and it is interesting here to note that Benjamin 

 Franklin was elected a Fellow of this Society in 1756. The inscription 

 on his portrait which hangs in the Society's rooms at Burlington House 

 runs : 



"Betijamin Franklin, LL. D., F. R. S. (1706-1790)— American, Philosopher, 

 and Statesman. In 1757 came to England as agent for Penns.^lvania. Elected 

 F. R. S. 1756 and contributed papers on electrical subjects to the Philosophical 

 Transactions. Copley Medallist, 1753." 



The Grov^th of experimental Science 



It is very interesting to follow the growth of experimental science as 

 seen in the long series of papers which have appeared in the successive 

 volumes of the Philosophical Transactions of the Koyal Society from the 

 early days to the present time. Of these, however, comparatively few 

 deal with strictly geological problems ; but in the abstract of a paper by 



