YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published 1922.
THE THEODORE L. GLASGOW MEMORIAL
PUBLICATION FUND
The present volume is the fifth work published by the Yale University Press on the Theodore L. Glasgow Memorial Publication Fund. This foundation was established September 17, 1918, by an anonymous gift to Yale University in memory of Flight Sub-Lieutenant Theodore L. Glasgow, R.N. He was born in Montreal, Canada, and was educated at the University of Toronto Schools and at the Royal Military College, Kingston. In August, 1916, he entered the Royal Naval Air Service and in July, 1917, went to France with the Tenth Squadron attached to the Twenty-second Wing of the Royal Flying Corps. A month later, August 19, 1917, he was killed in action on the Ypres front.
TO
THOMAS CHROWDER CHAMBERLIN
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
WHOSE CLEAR AND MASTERLY DISCUSSION OF THE GREAT PROBLEMS OF TERRESTRIAL EVOLUTION HAS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRING FACTORS IN THE WRITING OF THIS BOOK
There is a toy, which I have heard, and I would not have it given over, but waited upon a little. They say it is observed in the Low Countries (I know not in what part), that every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of years and weathers comes about again; as great frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters, summers with little heat, and the like, and they call it the prime; it is a thing I do the rather mention, because, computing backwards, I have found some concurrence.
FRANCIS BACON
PREFACE
Unity is perhaps the keynote of modern science. This means unity in time, for the present is but the outgrowth of the past, and the future of the present. It means unity of process, for there seems to be no sharp dividing line between organic and inorganic, physical and mental, mental and spiritual. And the unity of modern science means also a growing tendency toward coöperation, so that by working together scientists discover much that would else have remained hid.