barrassment of riches well worthy of the best efforts of our best men. I therefore pass over most of these subjects and come to geology, with the problems of which I am more familiar. And if I speak of them more at length, it is because of that familiarity, and not because I regard them as of more importance than those of other branches of science. But even in speaking of geology, whose local problems are remarkably numerous and important, I am obliged to confine myself to a single topic. We have in geology an excellent illustration of the importance and of the splendid results to be expected in attacking some of the problems under our hands. The fossil vertebrates found in the asphaltum deposits near Los Angeles have been promptly and thoroughly looked after by our colleague Dr. Merriam, of the University of California, with results that have not been surpassed by any work of the kind done in any other quarter of the globe. How fortunate for us and for science that Dr. J. C. Merriam did not think a local problem unworthy of his attention.

Earthquakes. But I regret to say that we also have here a geological problem of another kind. I hesitate even to mention it, perhaps because an old Spanish proverb says that “in the house of a hangman one should never mention rope." And in California one has to take his courage in both hands when he says "earthquake."

Here is a problem, or rather a great group of problems, that nature has left on our very doorsteps. What are we doing with it, and what do we propose to do?

The earthquake of 1906 jolted us into a state of temporary wakefulness, but we seem calmly to have gone asleep again. The only thing to our credit in connection with it is the excellent report of Dr. A. C. Lawson, which stands out, and stands alone, as a contribution to seismology in this

country. Very largely through the impetus given to the study of seismology by the earthquake of 1906, the Seismological Society of America was formed here in California in the hope that we might get the cordial support of scientific men and of public-spirited people generally in the study of earthquakes.

Through the patient exertions and personal sacrifices of a handful of men and through the generous contribution of our colleague Mr. Robert W. Sayles, of Harvard University, we have been able to publish six volumes of the society's quarterly bulletin and to get started on a road that seems to lead somewhere.

I am merely stating a fact in connection with this subject when I say that instead of taking hold of the problems of the earthquakes, most of us seem disposed to run from them; or what is still worse, we deny their very existence, while the cooperation and help we hoped to receive from the public has not been forthcoming. Certain branches of business are especially liable to damage from earthquakes, and it seems quite reasonable that such industries should cooperate with us by gathering and sending in data regarding earthquakes as they occur. Our railway lines, with their many bridges, cuts and fills, are liable to be seriously damaged and their service interrupted, to say nothing of the possible danger to human life through trains running into dislocations; our telegraph and telephone lines are liable to be broken and their service interrupted; our electric power companies are liable to have their dams injured, their pipe lines and wires broken, and their service seriously interfered with; our water companies are liable to have their dams injured or destroyed, their water mains broken and their service impaired; while our insurance companies are perplexed by rate problems in a region

where, in order to protect themselves, they are compelled to make their customers pay for risks about which we are all equally ignorant. As a matter of fact not a single railway or tramway company, not a single telegraph or telephone company, not a single insurance company, not a single electric power company, and only one water company-the Spring Valley Water Company of San Francisco-has ever manifested the slightest interest in our work or lifted a finger to help us gather the data necessary for a rational study of the earthquake problems of this coast. What could we not do if we had the cordial cooperation of all such organizations on this coast? It seems almost incredible that the business interests of this state and of this coast should willingly and weakly, year after year, allow a permanent threat to hang over their industries, their transportation lines, their public utilities, and their very existence, without making an intelligent effort So study the subject or to help those who are willing and anxious to study it, and to find means of meeting it. Yet such are the sad facts.

What is the explanation of this remarkable state of affairs? So far as I am able to judge, it comes from the false attitude into which the people of this coast have unwittingly drifted. At the time of the earliest settlement of the Pacific coast by whites, pious people grouped the earthquakes along with a choice lot of other disasters and calamities commonly known as "acts of God." And naturally enough pious people regarded the acts of God as things to which we should take off our hats, but which should not be questioned or irreverently pried into.

In time they came to be simply accepted as drawbacks to the general attractiveness of California, and as such it seemed best to regard them as evils to be endured but not

to be talked about. Here was a great and beautiful land that lacked capital, a good class of immigrants, and the development of its natural resources; and nothing must be said or done to frighten away either the capital or the immigrants. If the news of an earthquake occasionally made its way out of the state it was immediately given a back seat by being confronted with the enormous damage done by destructive tornadoes and annual floods in the Mississippi Valley. Our real-estate agents rarely or never heard of earthquakes; it seemed better that they should not; such things interfered with business. About the same time the newspapers fell into the habit of forgetting to mention them, and there seemed to grow up spontaneously a sort of conspiracy of silence in regard to the subject. And so it came about that when the earthquake of 1906 broke the water mains of the Spring Valley Water Company and at the same moment set fire to the city of San Francisco, we were entangled in the snares of our own weaving. And now see how we tried to hide our heads in the sand. The geologists hereabout were very anxious to gather the data made available by that particular earthquake, but as the necessary field work required considerable funds efforts were made to interest some of our business men in the subject. But our business men rose up almost to a man and assured us in the most emphatic language that there had been no earthquake, and we were told to "forget it"; to "cut it out,' and above all, to publish no report on it.

It is not necessary to tell this audience that such an attitude is false and absolutely untenable. The battles of science can not be successfully fought with the weapons of ignorance and bigotry.

I am confident that this state of affairs can not long endure. Very likely indeed we have not done our own duty in pointing

out what seems to be a rational method in handling the whole matter. But a rational method demands first of all that we face about and get on the right road.

Science knows but one way to deal with its problems, and that is to face them in the open; that is the doctrine to be preached, and to be practised, and it is the only one. The more I study earthquakes the more I am convinced that their dangers have been greatly exaggerated by our ignorance and through our efforts to cover them up; and the more am I convinced that a systematic study of the subject on this coast will yet enable us to outline with reasonable precision the areas in which they are liable to be severe, and in this way we may yet do away with their greatest dangers. Such work should eventually enable us to locate dams, bridges and buildings with reference to earthquake risks, and it should enable the insurance companies to deal justly with their customers, and, at the same time, to protect their own legitimate interests.

But such work can not be done in a month or a year, nor yet in ten years. Neither can we depend on the stimulation of violent earthquakes to keep people alive to its importance. Indeed, very little is to be expected of people who require violent stimulants to keep them going. Machinery of that kind generally stops when the stimulants give out. Those who enter this field should be people of some steadfastness of purpose, and who have little or no ambition to pose or dance in the limelights.

It will require years of careful collaboration, of patient gathering of data, of careful study, the mapping of the areas in which the shocks are felt, and the study of the geology in order to know just what is going on, and what is likely to happen.

To those who may think favorably of helping us in our efforts to study earthquakes I should speak this word of warn

ing: Don't expect too much of us, and don't expect it too soon. Science must go its own gait, in its own way, and it often finds itself in a blind alley. It is trying; we wish it were otherwise; but it can not be helped. We can not trust the methods, dogmas or conclusions of authority in science.

Science bows down to truth and to truth alone; we have no apologies to make for its methods, its processes or its conclusions. The more we know about the complications and apparent contradictions of absolute truth, the more we distrust the cocksure and the authoritative settlement of scientific problems. To many minds authority points out the only satisfactory way and not only insists upon it, but cites volume, chapter and page to prove it, while science hesitates, vacillates, theorizes, and, brazenly or weakly, confesses its ignorance. There is no doubt about which one of those guides the crowd will follow, but neither is there any doubt about where a crowd, so led, must finally come out. Eça de Queroz quotes a learned writer as stating that “Adam, the father of men, was created October 28th at two o'clock in the afternoon." Here speaks authority, and we must confess that it offers us a clean-cut starting point for the human race that does away at a single stroke with the doubts and hesitations of modern science.

Compare this with the confession of a modern, conscientious physician who is called to attend a sick child. He asks a great many questions, he takes temperatures, and he does everything he can to discover the nature of the illness, and finally when asked point blank what ails the child, he replies: "Mrs. Blank, I'll be doggoned if I know what the matter is with the baby."

People who depend on hocus-pocus, and are on the lookout for the psychology of the

duction of the primitive art motif into modern designing.

Dr. Spinden will begin forwarding specimens to New York as soon after his arrival in the field as possible. He will start in Guatemala and extend his investigations to western Honduras, Salvador and Nicaragua. In these localities are small groups of Indians most interesting for their civilization and culture, although comparatively little known. Dr. Spinden will not only obtain examples of designs but will also learn the details of the art of weaving and study the dyestuffs used by the native artisans. The costumes worn by the Indians of Central American countries are not only picturesque, but have many details of construction which might be successfully adapted. The fundamental ideas on which these garments are based are said to be unique.

Dr. Spinden will also get all possible information concerning the native food products with a view to calling attention to their economic value, which is often very great. Specimens of these alimentary substances will be collected for display in the Preparedness Exhibit which the American Museum now has under way. Dr. Spinden will be accompanied by S. G. Morley, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, who is likewise interested in the archeological features of the expedition. The work is undertaken with the official sanction of all the Central American governments. Most of the traveling will be on mule back through mountainous and sparsely settled regions and over native trails. Dr. Spinden left New York on April 16 and expects to return in about three months.

RESEARCH WORK OF THE LEANDER
McCORMICK OBSERVATORY

THE visiting committee of the Leander McCormick Observatory of the University of Virginia met in Washington on April 17. The director reported that the scientific work accomplished during the year was as follows:

1. The determination of the parallax of fifty stars, results thus having been obtained on one hundred and twenty-five stars since the parallax work was started two and a half years ago. A preliminary value of the parallax of

Barnard's star of large proper motion was found to be 0".47.

2. More than 10,000 observations of meteors were made by amateurs during the year 1916, and were sent in to the McCormick Observatory for discussion and publication. This probably makes the largest number of meteor observations ever collected in any one year, except perhaps during the years of a meteor shower.

3. A plan of cooperation has been entered into with Harvard College Observatory whereby the 26-inch refractor is to be used for the visual observation of variable stars while they are at minima. More than one hundred and fifty stars are on the program, these stars being mainly long period variables.

4. Photographs have been made with an ob jective grating and with yellow light in order to find the photovisual magnitudes of the Harvard Standard regions.

5. Micrometric measures by C. P. Olivier of two hundred double stars have been published in the Astronomical Journal.

Grateful acknowledgment was expressed for financial assistance from the Leander McCormick estate, from the special Adams fellowship from Columbia University for parallax work, from the J. Lawrence Smith fund of the National Academy of Sciences for research on meteors, and for the gift of a wireless apparatus and a computing machine from Mr. John Neilson, of New York.

THE ENGINEERING COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

THE following engineering committee has been appointed: George F. Swain and Edgar C. Marburg (representing American Society of Civil Engineers), Pope Yeatman and Albert Sauveur (representing American Institute of Mining Engineers), C. D. Young and William F. Durand (representing American Society of Mechanical Engineers), Frank B. Jewett and Clayton H. Sharp (representing American Institute of Electrical Engineers), Lewis B. Stillwell (representing American Institute of Consulting Engineers), John A. Brashear, George K. Burgess, J. J. Carty, Howard E. Coffin, John R. Freeman, Hollis Godfrey,