12 
MENDENHALL. 
difficult to maintain. Here, as elsewhere, it is a good name 
only that is worth counterfeiting. It is quite worth the while 
of one devoted to the interests of pure science alone to oc¬ 
casionally inquire whether an impure article is not being 
placed upon the market. However indifferent he may be to 
the welfare of the general public, his own selfish instincts 
should incline him to such a course. He cannot clear his 
own skirts by declaring that the public deserves to be hum¬ 
bugged if it permits itself to be, for in this, as in everything 
else, the counterfeit when successful is not readily detected* 
and it is often made to appear more attractive than the gen¬ 
uine article. 
In respect to this matter physical science presents two 
aspects. In a large degree it is a science of certain conclu¬ 
sions, and any false deduction is readily exposed by means 
of the many severe tests to which it may be subjected. On 
the other hand, in some of its branches it has not yet been 
found possible to isolate the elements which form a rather 
complex whole, and it therefore remains an observational 
rather than an experimental science. In the latter aspect it 
becomes comparatively easy prey for charlatans and well- 
meaning but ignorant non-professionals. 
In no department of physical science is this better illus¬ 
trated than in meteorology, the oldest and most abused of 
all sciences. From its early days, when weather forecasts 
were expressed in simple rhyme, to the present, when they 
are issued in a prose which in its scope and richness of vo¬ 
cabulary sometimes excites our highest admiration, meteor¬ 
ology has been a favorite victim of pretenders, conscious and 
unconscious. For years the people, after having first be¬ 
lieved in, have patiently borne with the predictors of disaster 
in the form of abnormal meteorological disturbances. They 
have suffered great mental distress and they have lost enor¬ 
mous sums of money on account of floods, tidal waves, and 
earthquakes which never came, rains that never fell, and 
winds that never blew. They were becoming accustomed 
to this sort of thing and were beginning to understand the 
