SCIENCE. 



3o3 



own brains, I would seem to be justified in resenting this 

 peculiar argumentation. 



I might, in view of this unjust criticism, retort that 

 perhaps it is altogether a better way to rely on an occa- 

 sional authority, a good number of whom are towering 

 up high above the sea of opinions as trustworthy bea- 

 cons of light, than to steer along without looking up to 

 them as guides now and then, and perhaps be wrecked 

 on some unknown shore or unsuspected reef. The ten- 

 dency to scoff at authorities because they are authorities, 

 is just as pernicious as that to put faith in them for this 

 same reason only. 



As to my somewhat confused idea of heat, of which 

 Mr. Morris takes the liberty to speak, I confess that I 

 have supposed he understood the difference between 

 radiant and conducted heat,* and he also was aware 

 what was understood by universal consent with the ex- 

 pression "work." I should not have undertaken this dis- 

 cussion on physical subjects had I not been convinced 

 that the terms to be used were agreed upon. However, 

 Mr. Morris seems to be in a fair way to come down to 

 the very last questions about the nature of motion and 

 matter. 



As to " latent heat" if Mr. Morris, Sir Wm. Thomp- 

 son,* and many others persist in calling heat that which 

 is not heat, they are at liberty do so ; yet they are wrong. 



This I have conclusively shown, and Mr. Morris has 

 not even tried to argue on it. Nor has he thought neces- 

 sary to argue in regard to my remarks on his erroneous 

 conception of the action of gravity. He only reiter- 

 ates his assertion that the energy with which a body 

 weighing a million pounds would fall on a body weighing 

 one pound is the same. In order to prove this he says 

 " we must add," and add and add, and then one will de- 

 velop just as much energy as a million! 



It seems futile to argue longer on a proposition that 

 is in direct conflict with Newton's first law. If Mr. Mor- 

 ris has no room for the latter in his Universe, I must 

 respectfully decline to enter it, preferring to stay outside 

 of it in company with Sir Isaac and various others equally 

 sound and reliable. 



If Mr. Morris says motion is motion and cannot possi- 

 bly become anything else, he is certainly right ; but he 

 forgets that there are certain forces for which we have 

 as yet not been able to prove conclusively that they are 

 motions. Of course, Mr. Morris has told us how he con- 

 ceives of this relation between gravity and molecular 

 motion, so called. (And there is cohesion and magnetism 

 yet to account for.) But his explanations are wide away 

 from the mark, which lies in an entirely different direc- 

 tion. 



The combined action of all the radiant energy emanat- 

 ing from an infinite number of celestial bodies is trans- 

 muted in every direction through the Universe, and by 

 oscillations, vibrations, and undulations of the attenuated 

 matter (not ether — there is no ether ! ) which fills the in- 

 terstellar spaces. In striking the surface of the various 

 orbs, great and small, it exerts a uniform pressure, 

 gravity. 



Respectfully, 



Geo. W. Rachel, M. D. 



New York, May 30, 1881. 



THE " Aslronomische Nachrichten." — It is announced 

 that after the termination of the current volume, by 

 authority of the Prussian Government, a new arrange- 

 ment for the management of this journal will take effect. 

 It will be edited by Prof. A. Krueger, the director of the 

 Observatory at Kiel, in co-operation with the president of 

 the *' Astronomische Gesellschaft," of which association 

 it will become a recognized organ. 



* Science, Vol. I. p. 245. L. 24 fr. below. 



*.* Admits that t is not heat, but favors the expression for conven- 

 ience. 



To the Editor of SCIENCE : 



I can scarcely permit such curious statements as made 

 by Prof. A. E. Dolbear, to pass unnoticed. In " Science" 

 No. 43, he says : — " The decaying stump that shines by 

 night, has a temperature not appreciably higher than 

 surrounding objects." Can it be possible that he com- 

 pares the state of matter in ancient wood, with the in- 

 conceivably rare gas whence Neptune was formed ? 

 Several cubic miles of it only weighed a grain, as has 

 been proven by Helmholtz. It was in dissociation, no 

 two atoms touched, therefore we assert with reason that 

 it was absolutely cold and dark. The atoms in the 

 stump had been in intimate association ; indeed their or- 

 ganization was once so complex as to have been endowed 

 with that most mysterious of all entities — LIFE ! 



When decaying, it was surrendering the force whose 

 work organized it, and its faint luminosity was a portion 

 thereof. The light was a result of preceding work, but 

 in interstellar space, where atoms were yards apart, no 

 previous work had been performed, and no force evolved 

 whether heat, light, or any other save gravity and the 

 slowest radial motion possible. 



Edgar L. Larkin. 



New Windsor Obs., 111., June 13, 1881. 



REPLY TO DR. J. J. MASON'S LETTER. 



The writer of the review referred to, states that not- 

 wiihstanding the construction which Dr. J. J. Mason 

 now desires to see placed upon his words, the most care- 

 ful reader would fail to draw any other conclusion from 

 Dr. Mason's article, than that it was written in support 

 of the theory that large cells are motor, and that sensory 

 cells are small. It is true as Dr. Mason states that the 

 sentence just preceding the one quoted in his letter refers 

 specifically to the spinal cord of the turtle. But it is 

 none the less true that the whole paragraph polemizes 

 against a statement of Stieda's that the observations 

 " have great weight against the conclusion that only the 

 large nerve cells are connected with motor fibres," as 

 not representing the ordinary view. In the earlier part 

 of his article, Dr. Mason indeed goes so far as to ques- 

 tion the statements of our best cerebral antomists that 

 certain very large cells are connected with the auditory, 

 i. e. a sensory nerve, and this in obedience to the same 

 theoretical bias which is manifested a few lines further 

 on in this wise. " I would suggest, however, to those 

 who may feel disposed to regard these cells (large cells 

 of auditory nucleus and oblongata) as connected with 

 the sense of hearing, that such a view involves giving to 

 this apparatus in its central portion, a structure almost 

 identical with one universally admitted to be motor, like, 

 for example, that concerned in raising the lower jaw ; 

 whereas in the central structures for vision and olfaction 

 the cells are all very small." (Italics are own.) What 

 other than the size of the cells and their nuclei does Dr. 

 Mason refer to when he speaks of a "structure univer- 

 sally admitted to be motor?" Especially when if is 

 borne in mind that immediately after he claim that all 

 sensory cells are very small. In view of all this Dr. 

 Mason's statement that no such claims as the one im- 

 puted to him by the reviewer had ever been made by 

 him " in any form by hint, inference or otherwise," must 

 have been penned in strange forgetfulness of what he 

 has laid down in his published article. The reviewer 

 can only interpret the remonstrance as an abandonment 

 by Dr. Mason of his previous position. Every statement 

 in the quoted paragraphs is simply erroneous, and to 

 bring Dr. Mason face to face with facts that he has 

 questioned, the reviewer refers to Dr. Mason's statement 

 that the cells connected with vision " are very small," 

 and the reliable findings of Professor Packard, who hap- 

 pened to state that in the locust these cells are very 

 large in relation to the other cells of the nervous system 



R. C.S ' 



