The sun., 1919-03-02

VINO oOntftbute 70 tno volume W0uo c0dn
d 6nslity in any field Of knowledge; but
to-day we at least know how the hills and
vsllsys have been formed; how tho dry
land rose above the sea; No know that
neither Noah's flood nor thu great mas
Of living fire which was very recently
thought TO b the centre Of the earth had
anything to do with the making and
shaping Of this our world. We know a. tie
result Of a century Of research that tho
elements, SO called, are not fixed and
stable, but infinite in their metamorphoses
and constantly undergoing changes
through the still not well understood man.
Hesitation of atomic energy that we term
radioactivity. Here and there appar-
emily fixed landmarks have been set up.
In physics, for example, the law of the
conservation Of energy is perhaps the
most important fundamental truth dis
closed in the whole century. The possible
bearing on the future of the human race
of the discovery and confirmation Of
Mendsls law Of Incredibly sets the mind
a-whirl merely to glimpse the possibilities
that lie before race from whose physical
and mental organism there have been elm
mated by a process Of selective breeding
all those inhibitions which, Prof Bateson
tells us, constitute the only biological Diff
ference between the mentality OF a rat
and that Of Shakespeare.
III.
1t Is not its devotion to pare science
alone that makes the story Of the Ameri-
can Journal Of Science fascinating. Far
from feeling that academic scorn for the
merely utilitarian which some scientists
of lesser degree affect when applications
to mundane affairs of the contributions Of
science to knowledge are mentioned, Prof.
Sillimau from the beginning and his sue
cessors in the editorial chair no less ap-
preciatively gave place in the pages Of
the Journal to those outward and visible
evidences by which alone science impresses
itself upon the popular mind Appro-
priately enough, the idea of establishing
q journal Of science grew out of a con-
versation between Prof. Silliman and Col.
George Gibbs on the deck of the steam
boat Fulton in Long Island Sound in
November, 1877. When it is remembered
that it was but eight years since the first
steamboat had been operated successfully
and that at that time it was as marvellous
q manifestation of applied science as the
airplane Is to-day. it is almost as if there
should be established next year n journal
OF interstellar geography growing out Of
a conversation between two astronomers
flying from the earth to the moon! The
steam engine and its applications. and
particularly the steamboat, were live and
vital journalistic topics in the early days
OF the Jour,iG! Of Science; the radio tele-
phone IS no more Interesting as news TO-
day. The establishment o. a steamboat
route between Sol 5oim and St. Peters
burg. the voyage OF the first transatlantic
steamboat, the building of the first iron
boat, were among the items of scientific
news which It was the privilege of The
Journal Of Science to lay before its read
ers- Eli Whitncy's cotton gin was 40 less
news than the discussion OF the use Of
chloroform as an anaSthe!ic. Things ike
these and the first publication in Amer
lea of Darwin's theory Of the origin of
species were among tho contributions
which made the american Journal of Sci.
encc in those early days II record Of the
utmogt value and constant stimulus 20
fresh research IN an ever widening field
of knowledge. Its editors have been wise
men who have realized that the pure
science Of to-day is the applied science
of tomorrow and that science ju7tifes
itself in its application to human life. The
public would have laughed at James Clark
Maxwells painstaking effort TO establish
the existence Of ether waves of electricity.
but it lands Marconi, who applied Max
wells science; few days ago no one
but a scientist would have seen ANYTHING
of human value in the experiments Of
Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay