Daily press. [volume] (Newport News, Va.) 1896-current, 1909-12-29
SCIENTISTS DISCUSS
VARIOUS SUBJECTS
University President Contra
Figure in Distinguished
Gathering at Columbia.
(By Associated Press.)

NEW YORK, Dec. 2S.-Heads OF
three of the largest universities oil
the country-President Hadley. OF
yale. Lowell, Of Harvard, and Butler,
OF Columbia. were central figures III
the gathering of economists. political
and social, scientists and historians
at Columbia University today.
DIR. Lowell, the new and young head
of Harvard, delivered striking adj
dress on politics. in which the took
shots at the ethical reformers as
well as at the bosses He regretted
that men in public life are so in
clined to disregard suggestion from
academic sources, even when based
on political study OF results. He con
sidered the question of direct primar
!. les as among the most important or
the day.
DIR. Hadley spoke along more
academic lines: DIR. Butler did not de
liver an address.
Dangers of inaccuracy.
At a Joint session OF the Historical
Economic Association, with the
American Historic Association. whose
president. Albert Hart, of Harvard
University, read a paper treating also
of the dangers OF inaccuracy, in this
case. to another branch or learned In
vestigation.
Professor Harris paper was one GU
Imagination in History
THE pressing danger of the repuS
lie is inaccuracy," said Mr.. Hart.
Even historical scholars are not
without their failings, their prejudices
and their falsehoods. Is there no
nenal code for those who undertake
to write history out of something
other than the reccrd?" asked the
speaker.
What we need is genuinely
scientific school of history, which
shall remorselessly examine sources
and separate the whole from the
chaff
Myths to Order.
President Hart declared that Amer
lean history, on its controversial side
had been enriched by several DIS
tinct attempts to manufacture myths
| to order :,
The first of these migth be called
the worship of the Pilgrim Fathers.
He said it is a inscription 10 pane
of men and women who represented d
splendid cause and were pioneers IN
magnificent historical pageant oil
virtues. which are in fact possessed
only BY their descendants. By similar
myths, he continued, causes the eN-
aItation OF the Southern cavalier, VINO
was a perscnage about as infrequens
! in Virginia as in New YORK
Cause of Aurora Boreaiis.
Neon, a newly discovered gas, Is
the cause CT the aurera borealis, ac-
cording 70 a statement made today oy
DR. w l.. Dudley. head of the depart
ment of che mistry of Vanderbilt Unit
versity, of Nashville, Eenn-' oeiore
the division CT physical and inorganic
chemistry
rr. Dudley showed what he claimed
TO be the only sample of Neon In tnls
country Il requires over 100 tons
of air to get pint Of neon. Or, Quo
lev has discovered that the friction
CT neon against mercury in a Crooke $
tube produces a yellow light and when
held near a wireless coil the hertizian
waves illuminate the gas.
DIR. Dudley's conclusions are that
at the magnetic poles of the eartn.
neon. under high pressure because OF
the cold Is acted upon by magnetic
current. thus producing the aurora
horealis. a phenomenon that has al
ways puzzled scientists.