light smut attack. The seed was harvester thrashed and showed considerable injury to the seed coats permitting maximum bluestone injury. The tests were replicated from 2 to 9 times and the average tabulated. The results compiled from repeated tests demonstrate the effectiveness of copper sulphate dust when mixed with equal parts of calcium carbonate dust in the control of bunt attack due to seed-borne spores. No damage to seed germination occurred. Copper carbonate dust was equally effective. These dusts, especially the copper sulphate adhered tightly and completely covered all parts of the seed wheat. The process of shaking the wheat in dusting removed a large portion of the bunt spores. Two ounces of the dusts per bushel are considered ample. Copper sulphate and lime are available everywhere at low cost. Further experimentation in representative areas in the wheat belt of the United States is desirable before the dust methods are put into practise among farmers. W. W. MACKIE, FRED N. BRIGGS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND U.S.D.A. COOPERATING, BERKELEY, CALIF. THE AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY THE twenty-fourth meeting of the society was held on September 1 to 4, 1920, at Smith College, Northampton and Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts. The members lived at the Gillett House, one of the residence halls at Northampton. This was the first occasion on which the society had met regularly at a woman's college, and it was a double pleasure to visit two such institutions, and especially to find in what flourishing condition are their observatories and astronomical departments. There were five sessions for papers at Smith, and two at Mt. Holyoke, where the society went on the second day. A special feature of the meeting was the conversazione at which various exhibits were shown, in cluding the latest work of the 100-inch telescope at Mt. Wilson. Sir F. W. Dyson, Astronomer Royal, Greenwich, was elected as an honorary member of the society. The officers for the ensuing year are: Klotz. Secretary-Joel Stebbins. Councilors-S. I. Bailey, W. J. Hussey, H. N. Russell, V. M. Slipher, Caroline E. Furness and John A. Miller. The representatives of the society on the National Research Council will hereafter be elected in the same manner as the officers of the society. The present members on the Division of Physical Sciences are: W. W. Campbell, H. N. Russell and Joel Stebbins; and these three together with the president of the society, Frank Schlesinger, and W. S. Eichelberger form the executive committee of the American Section of the International Astronomical Union. The committee will organize the American preparation for the triennial meeting of the union in 1922. About seventy members of the society were in attendance at the meeting, and fifteen new members were elected. The list of papers, abstracts of which are printed in Popular Astronomy, was as follows: The spectra of some variable stars: W. S. ADAMS and A. H. JOY. Note on the spectrum of T Pyridis: W. S. ADAMS and A. H. Joy. Personality in the estimation of tenths: SEBASTIAN ALBRECHT. Observations of variable stars at the McCormick Parallax determinations of bright stars: HAROLD On telegraphing the position of a celestial object: Notes on the classification of long period variables: LEON CAMPBELL. Notes on changes in the spectrum of n Carina: ANNIE J. CANNON. A probable factor in the widening and increase in wave-lengths of the spectrum lines near the limb of the sun: RALPH E. DELURY. The constancy of the solar wave-lengths and the possibility of determining the solar distance therefrom: RALPH E. DELURY and H. R. KINGS TON. Notes on the solar rotation: RALPH E. DELURY and JOHN L. O'Connor. Map of Mars in 1920 and method of producing it from drawings: A. E. DOUGLASS. A photometric study of Y Camelopardalis: R. S. DUGAN. The photometric fields of three Yerkes telescopes: ALICE H. FARNSWORTH. Circulation of calcium flocculia about sun-spots: Note on Nova Cygni No. 3: EDWIN B. FROST. The Mount Wilson photographic map of the sunspot spectrum: GEORGE E. HALE and FERDINAND ELLERMAN. The orbit of the spectroscopic binary H. R. 6385: W. E. HARPER. The light-curve of Eros in 1914: A correction to the results previously published: MARGARET HAR WOOD. A curious effect of superposition of two photographic plates: F. HENROTEAU. A graphical construction for obtaining the period The spectroscopic binary v Eridani: F. HENROTEAU and J. P. HENDERSON. New lines in the spectrum of oxygen: C. C. KIESS. Velocity-curves for spectroscopic binaries: EDWARD S. KING. Photometry of eclipsed moon: EDWARD S. KING. The eclipsing binaries μ Scorpii and V Puppis: ANTONIA C. MAURY. Parallax results obtained at the Yerkes Observatory: OLIVER J. LEE and GEORGE VAN BIES BROECK. Photographic zenith tube at the U. S. Naval Ob servatory, 1915.9-1920.0: F. B. LITTELL. The systematic errors of stellar parallaxes determined by photography at the Leander McCormick Observatory: S. A. MITCHELL. Absorption of the photographic rays by the atmospheric water content: GEORGE HENRY PETERS. The spectroscopic orbits and absolute dimensions of the eclipsing variables TX Herculis and Y Cygni: J. S. PLASKETT. When an eclipse prevented a war: WILLIAM F. RIGGE. Direct micrometrical observations of the sun. Exact formulas: E. D. ROE, Jr. The mensurational properties of the photographic plate: FRANK E. Ross. A solution of R minus D observations: ARTHUR J. ROY. The radial velocities of ten Oe5 stars: W. CARL RUFUS. On the probable diameters of the stars: HENRY NORRIS RUSSELL. Radiation pressure and celestial motions: HENRY NORRIS RUSSELL. The astronomical aspects of aether theory versus relativity: L. SILBERSTEIN. Progress in photo-electric photometry, with a new light-curve of Algol: JOEL STEBBINS. The investigation of plate errors in photographic photography: HARLAN TRUE STETSON. Arlington time signals: R. MELDRUM STEWART. Temperature compensation of chronometers: R. MELDRUM STEWART, Canadian transcontinental longitudes: R. MELDRUM STEWART. Notes on the variables 9.1914 and RT Vulpecula: S. D. TOWNLEY. A new method of observing the position of the centre of the sun: R. W. WILLSON. The orbits of Carina, Doradus, and Sagittarii: The stationary calcium lines in early type stars: SCIENCE FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1920 THE DAILY INFLUENCES OF ASTRONOMY1 IN the great struggle through which the principal nations have passed, men and women at home labored intensively to maintain their ideals; countless millions of men fought valiently and many millions died for the ideals of their nations. Quick results, short cuts to the end in view, the achieving of victory regardless of costs, were the order of the day. Suddenly the problems of war gave way to the problems of peace. The intensive methods of war carried over to an unfortunate degree into the days of peace. Human energy, mobilized in behalf of the nation, applied unselfishly for the good of every person in the nation, for the well-being of all the nations, was diverted in regrettable measure to promoting selfish interests. The moral exaltation of the war period was replaced in too many cases by the selfishness of individuals and organizations; by profiteering-a new word, coined to describe widespread conditions. The struggle in Russia, as the extreme case, is direct action for the sudden attainment of certain results, without due consideration for the rights of others. In all countries there are those who, seeing conditions not to their liking, in commerce, in education, in religion, in many phases of daily life, would cut and slash their way through the good, in order to uproot what, in their sight, is bad. This spirit exists in America, and throughout the world, in various degrees. Disturbances in the body politic may ensue for years or a generation by virtue of these attempted short cuts to results, but radical transformations in the social structure of the great modern nations, to endure, must find 1 Address on the occasion of the dedication of the Warner and Swasey Observatory, Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, on October 12, 1920. the people ready for them. The influences which prepare the way for desirable and enduring reforms are not those applied suddenly, but such as operate day and night, continuously, through long periods of time. The revolutions in Russia, in Mexico, in many parts of Latin America attract our attention, but the really serious misfortunes of those lands lie much deeper, in their bad social, educational, economic conditions, which are operating unfavorably upon their civilizations every day of the year. We may well inquire what it is that bears a nation onward and upward to greater things. It is unquestionably the spirit of idealism radiating from its various activities. It is the idealism in commercial life: that part of every man's affairs which is conducted with full respect for the rights of others; that part of every man's business which would not, through its publication, injure his good name. It is the idealism of the transportation system, which interchanges commodities to mutual advantage, and acquaints one section of the world with the good things of other sections. It is idealism in banking, in farming, in the honest day's labor at an honest wage. It is idealism in the intellectual life: reverence for the truth, a desire to know the truth, and to live in harmony with the truth in one's surroundings. A pessimist would to-day, as always, receive short shrift, yet I venture to say the world was perhaps never more urgently in need of the biblical advice, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." This expression of great wisdom has never been surpassed as a statement of the principles which govern men of science in their search for the truth. The chief value of scientific method and accurate knowledge lies not in their worship by the intellectual few, not in their applications to industry, but in their influence upon the daily life of the people. The remarkable advance in civilization within the leading nations in recent centuries has been due to the daily and hourly influence of the scientific spirit, more than to any other element. Those nations which possess it are forging ahead by leaps and bounds, and those which do not are dropping out of the race. The unscientific nations are threatened with absorption by their more scientific neighbors, not so much because they do not invent or perfect the most powerful cannon, the sturdiest dread-naught, the speediest airplane, or the subtlest submarine, but because the scientific nations are forging ahead of them in the arts of peace, in the modes of thought, in the affairs of daily life. The unscientific nations are without serious influence in the world, not because they are unwarlike-the Turks and essentially all Mohammedans are warlike enough to suit everybody-but because they are lacking in the vision and the efficiency which accompany the scientific spirit.2 History affords no more remarkable phenomenon than the retrograde movement in civilization which began with the decline of the Roman power and continued through more than a thousand years. There had once existed a wonderful Greek civilization, but for twelve or fifteen centuries it was so nearly suppressed as to be without serious influence upon the life of the European peoples. Greek literature, one of the world's priceless possessions, not surpassed by the best modern literatures, was as complete two thousand years ago as it is to-day. Yet in the Middle Ages, if we except a few scattered churchmen, it was lost to the European world. A Greek science never existed. Now and then, it is true, a Greek philosopher taught that the earth is round, or that the earth revolves around the sun, or speculated upon the constitution of matter; but excepting the geometry of Euclid and Archimedes, we may say that nothing was proved, and that no serious efforts were made to obtain proofs. There could be no scientific spirit in the Greek nation and Greek civilization so long as the Greek religion lived, and the Greek people and government consulted and were guided by the oracles. If there had been a Greek science equal in merit 2 This and the following paragraph have been taken, with but few changes, from one of my earlier addresses.-W. W. C. to modern science, think you that stupidity and superstition could have secured a stranglehold upon Greek civilization and have maintained a thousand years of ignorance and mental degradation? Intellectual life could not prosper in Europe so long as dogma in Italy, only three hundred years ago, in the days of Bruno and Galileo, was able to say, "Animals which move have limbs and muscles; the earth has no limbs or muscles, therefore it does not move;' or as long as dogma in Massachusetts, only 250 years ago, was able to hang by the neck until dead the woman whom it charged with "giving a look toward the great meeting house of Salem, and immediately a demon entered the house and tore down a part of the wainscoting." The morals and the intellect of the world had reached a deplorable state at the epoch of the Borgias. It was the re-birth of science, chiefly of astronomy, as exemplified by the work of Columbus and Copernicus, and secondly the growth of medical science, which gave to the people of Europe the power to dispel gradually the unthinkable conditions of the Middle Ages. It has been said that we may judge of the degree of civilization of a nation by the provision which the people of the nation have made for the study of astronomy. A review of present-day nations is convincing that the statement represents the approximate truth. It is essentially true even of sections of our own country. In our first years as a nation a few small telescopes were in private hands, here and there; they were used merely for occasional looking at the stars; there were no observatories in the United States-no telescopes suitably mounted and housed for the serious study of the stars. The founding of the third American observatory, at Hudson, Ohio, about 1839, only a year or two after the completion of the second observatory, at Williams College, Massachusetts, was an admirable index to the intellectual outlook of the Western Reserve. The laying of the corner stone of the Cincinnati Observatory in 3 The northeastern part of Ohio constitutes the "Western Reserve." 1843, a wonderfully ambitious institution for its day, was an event considered by Ex-President John Quincy Adams to be worthy of a hard trip, in the seventy-seventh year of his life, by rail from Massachusetts to Buffalo, by lake steamer to Cleveland, by four days of miserable canal boat to Columbus and thence on to Cincinnati, to deliver the formal address -then called an oration. Adams's task was, to quote his words, "To turn this enthusiasm for astronomy at Cincinnati into a permanent and persevering national pursuit, which may extend the bounds of human knowledge, and make the country instrumental in elevating the character and improving the condition of man upon earth." Our former slave states have to-day only one active observatory, at the University of Virginia, presented by McCormick of Chicago. Barnard and other astronomical enthusiasts, born and grown to manhood in the south, have found their opportunities in the great northern observatories. What is true of astronomy in the south is true, in general, of the other sciences. This unfortunate result is the natural product of the false, unscientific system of labor which, prevailing through many generations, taught that it is undignified for the white man to eat bread by the sweat of his own brow. Financial recovery, following 1865, has accordingly been slow. The future will correct this, for the men of the south are our blood brothers. We should be, and are, sympathetic. Shall we try to estimate what astronomy, the oldest of the sciences, sometimes called an ideal and unpractical science, has done for mankind? Here are some of the applications of astronomy to daily life. 1. Observations of the stars with the transit instrument, such as exists in this observatory, are supplying the nations with accurate time. Two astronomers, with modern instrumental equipment, situated on the same north and south line, may observe the stars so accurately, in comparison with the beats of their common clock, that they will agree |