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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ton's remarkable contributions to sci- 

 ence, nor would it be possible to do so. 

 At first sight his work seems to be 

 disconnected; but it represents a nor- 

 mal evolution and nas one fundamental 

 basis, namely, the application of quan- 

 titative methods to phenomena there- 

 tofore outside their control. Begin- 

 ning with geographical explorations 

 and by the inevitable nature of the 

 man improvements in the conditions 

 under which such explorations are car- 

 ried forward, he next took up the un- 

 stable phenomena of meteorology, de- 

 vising the graphic method of the 

 wearther chart and inventing new in- 

 struments. But he soon passed to the 

 still more complicated phenomena of 

 biology, anthropology and psychology. 

 Here his genius touched many subjects. 

 Mental imagery, composite photo- 

 graphs and fingerprints are familiar 

 to all. His great contribution is the 

 study of human heredity by exact 

 methods and its application to the im- 

 provement of the race. Galton's word 

 •' eugenics " may be soiled by ignoble 

 use; but his work is one of the most 

 original creations of pure science and 

 at the same time one of its most im- 

 portant applications — so great indeed 

 that Galton's body may some day be 

 taken from the quiet churchyard where 

 it lies to be placed beside Darwin and 

 Kelvin in Westminster Abbey. 



Galton united certain characteristics 

 which the disciples of George Fox seem 

 to have bred into their blood with the 

 traits which those who knew Charles 

 Darwin found in him. A few days be- 

 fore his death the present writer had | 

 the privilege of presenting his name 

 for honorary membership in an acad- 

 emy of sciences to succeed William 

 James. These two men are the great- 

 est whom he has known. James pos- 

 sessed the more complicated person- 

 ality; but they had certain common 

 traits — a combination of perfect aris- 

 tocracy with complete democracy, di- 

 rectness, kindliness, generosity and 

 nobilitv bevond all measure. It has 



been said that eugenics is futile be- 

 cause it can not define its end. But 

 the answer is simple — we want men 

 like William James and Francis 

 Galton. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 

 We record with regret the deaths of 

 Professor Leonard Parker Kinnicutt, 

 director of the department of chemis- 

 try in the Worcester Polytechnic Insti- 

 tute; of Dr. Edward Gameliel Jane- 

 way, professor of medicine and dean of 

 the University and Bellevue Hospital 

 Medical College, and of Dr. Willibald 

 A. Nagel, professor of physiology at 

 Rostock. 



Sir Joseph Larmoe, Lucasian pro- 

 fessor of mathematics at Cambridge 

 University and secretary of the Royal 

 Society, has accepted an invitation to 

 become the unionist candidate for the 

 vacancy in the parliametary represen- 

 tation of Cambridge University. — Dr. 

 W. K. Rontgen, professor of physics at 

 Munich, and Dr. Evvald Hering, pro- 

 fessor of physiology at Leipzig, have 

 been appointed knights of the Prussian 

 order pour le merite. Dr. Gustav 

 Retzius, formerly professor of anatomy 

 at Stockholm, has been appointed a 

 foreign knight of this order. — Dr. 

 Samuel G. Dixon, professor of hygiene 

 in the University of Pennsylvania, and 

 Dr. George Wharton Pepper, professor 

 of law, have been elected trustees of 

 the university. 



It was announced on January 20 

 that Mr. Andrew Carnegie had added 

 $10,000,000 to the endowment fund of 

 the Carnegie Institution of Washing- 

 ton. The institution was established 

 in 1902 with a gift of $10,000,000, and 

 Mr. Carnegie recently added $2,000,000. 

 These gifts consist of preferred bonds 

 of the Steel Corporation bearing five 

 per cent, interest and their market 

 value is considerably above their par 

 value. Mr. Carnegie's gifts to public 

 purposes now amount to about $200,- 

 000,000. 



