April 7, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



547 



not explain; they simply enable us to take 

 points of view fertile for discovery of new 

 properties. Thus atomism is to be preferred 

 to energetics, the latter, though nearer to fact 

 and less liable to dangerous hypotheses, does 

 not stimulate the mind to discovery. Better 

 danger than the precision of sterility ! (p. 

 229). 



Biology (Book V., * The Place of Biology 

 among the Sciences ') the author would regard 

 as underlying zoology, botany, physiology, etc., 

 even as theoretical mechanics underlies phys- 

 ics. As theoretical mechanics defines the mo- 

 tion of bodies, biology defines life, leaving 

 to the detailed sciences the description of dif- 

 ferent forms of life. Life itself is defined as 

 a localized process, like the flame, not a spe- 

 cific substance or energy, but a locus of points 

 where certain reactions are accomplished. The 

 characteristic property of life is assimilation 

 (p. 288). Thought and other psychoses are 

 described as a special sensorial canton ' le can- 

 ton intime.' 



The general position of the author, that 

 sense-impressions are all we know, and that 

 the sources of heat, light, sound, etc., are not 

 in themselves describable in visual terms, is 

 an extreme one and is open to all the objec- 

 tions which are being urged, rightly or wrong- 

 ly, against ' humanism.' But further, it is 

 quite dogmatic to say that quantity does not 

 apply beyond the visual field, or that mathe- 

 matics is the language of vision; what is 

 needed is a more exhaustive account of the 

 conceptions involved. It is also to be re- 

 gretted that M. Le Dantec, as a biologist, has 

 not made use of the discoveries of Mendel, 

 De Vries and others, which inevitably suggest 

 that the fundamental law of science is not 

 mere determinism, as he says (p. 213), but 

 chance (in the mathematical sense) as well. 

 Nevertheless, the attempt of M. Le Dantec to 

 give clear and concise definition of the prin- 

 cipal scientific conceptions should be wel- 

 comed by scientists and philosophers alike, 

 and should lead to further work in the same 

 direction. 



W. H. Sheldon. 



Columbia University. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



THE NEW YORK SECTION OF THE AMERICAN 

 CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 



The section held its fifth regular meeting 

 of the season at the Chemists' Club, Friday 

 evening, February 10. 



The president of the American Chemical 

 Society, Dr. Francis P. Venable, presented to 

 Professor Charles Lathrop Parsons, of the 

 New Hampshire College, Durham, N. H., the 

 Nichols medal, which was awarded to him for 

 his paper entitled ' A Revision of the Atomic 

 Weight of Beryllium,' read before the section 

 in May, 1904. Mr. W. H. Nichols, the donor 

 of the medal, was also present and made a 

 few appropriate remarks. 



The regular program of the evening was 

 then taken up and the following papers pre- 

 sented : 



The Accumulation and Utilization of Atmos- 

 pheric Nitrogen in the Soil: E. B. VooR- 

 hees and J. G. Lipman. 



The experiments planned included, first, a 

 study of the question of the sources of nitro- 

 gen to leguminous plants on soils to which 

 no nitrogen had been applied, and to which 

 nitrogen in various forms and amounts had 

 been applied; second, the availability of cow 

 pea nitrogen, as compared with the different 

 forms of nitrogen for the growth of non- 

 legumes; and third, the possibility of the ac- 

 cumulation of nitrogen in cultivated but un- 

 cropped soils. 



The soils used were light in character, poor 

 in nitrogen and supplied with an abundance 

 of the mineral elements. 



Briefly, the results show that the cow pea 

 crop accumulated large quantities of nitrogen, 

 and that the greatest accumulation was where 

 no nitrogenous materials had been applied. 

 Or, in other words, that the addition of the 

 nitrogen decreased rather than increased the 

 content of soil nitrogen, indicating that the 

 leguminous crop will accumulate proportion- 

 ately larger quantities of nitrogen upon soils 

 relatively free from this element. 



Millet was then grown two seasons, both 

 upon the soils upon which the cow pea had 

 grown, and upon which no crops had been 



