New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-11-26
OUR ACADEMY or SCIENCE.

The meeting at Cambridge OK the National
Academy of Sciences was remarkable for the
promptness and business-like way with which
1t dispatched the werk before 1t. The papers
read, coming as they do from men eminent in
scientific specalties. could not fail to be care
fully considered and erudite productions. Yet
Judging from those of which our correspond
ent furnishes abstracts, they do not relate
much that is strikingly novel. Perhaps the
most extrnoi binary additions 10 scientific
knowledge are in the determination of the
presence of sulphur, eeIium and strontium in
the sun, and the discoveries made by dredg-
ing expeditions on the coast of New England,
which have added $50 new species Of AMI
mails to her marine fauna. The mar
ration of Prof Hilgard of tho steps
taken at Paris by an international commission
In which be represented this country, to pro-
vide standards for determining weights and
measures throughout the world, is the more in
teresting from the circumstance that the pres
emit needs OF scientific inquiry include an accu-
racy in these matters, which, to persons who
have not investigated them, seems fabulous.
Whitworth, tho English artillery inventor, states
that his trained wOIkmen perceive mistake
in linear measure Of the hundredth part Of al
inch; but one Of the papers at this Cambridge
meeting tells of the method by which the du-
ration of lightning flashes lasting but a 81.
hundredth of o second were measured, and in
discussing another paper Prof Peirce remarked
that if there were variation OF the seven
hundredth part of second in the length Of a
day, it could be easily detected by astronomical
means. The balance and the measuring rod
have taken tho place of the alchemist's crucible
and the OWNERS wand.
Prof. Agassiz took Il prominent part in this
meeting presenting large proportion of the
papers, telling over again tho South Ameri-
can glacier story, which formed SO interesting
o feature in the Hasslet letters, and
making prolonged and special bonn
bardment of tho development theory in
addition to two minor attacks upon it.
Since Prof. Agassiz not only throws down
the gauntlet to the Darwinians, and there
were none present at the Cambridge meeting
who chose to enter the lists with this cham
pion, bnt asks that all will note his posture.
it may DO well to see with what weapons he
advances 20 the combat. He declares that his
opponents are presenting views as scientific
principles which are non even based on real
observation that they have not shown eyolu-
ton or the power of evolution in the present
day, and hence are not entitled to assume it
In the past. He onters his protest against
their theory, and calls it "a miro Of mere
Assertion He asks by what power was
development started among ancestral organ.
isms in directions not determined by their
primitive nature. These arguments are staple
with tho Professor. We have sometimes
doubted, In noting the vehemenoe With which
no puts them forward, whether he had read a
large proportion of the works whose doctrines
he opposes. -,4t.r
We are far from being advocates OF the de-
velopment hypothesis; but justice to those who
are compels us TO say that they do not rest in
a "mre Of mere assertion Their works are
full of most interesting facts and observations
The theory they PROFOUND does not undertake
to say whence matter, organized OF otherwise,
derives its powers, or properties-that il q
question which science does not expect TO
answer Their theory at best is not necessarily
The explanation of observed facts though no
other be at present offered. Nevertheless it ia
noteworthy that Prof Agassiz even I'm defend-