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‘Bird Homes,’ by A. Radclyffe Dugmore, seems well adapted for its stated purpose of stimulating the love of birds, helping the ordinary unscientific person to get some closer glimpses of them, and aiding in the study of their wonderfully adapted nests and beautiful eggs. Furthermore, it will probably create a strong desire in the reader to become a photographer of birds and their nests. To further these aims we have a first part containing half-a-dozen chapters devoted among other things to birds’ nests and eggs, photographing nests and young birds and the approximate dates when birds begin to nest, this being adapted to the vicinity of New York.
Following this is the bulk of the volume, containing brief descriptions of the birds, their nests, nesting places and eggs, and here the author has confessedly borrowed from Bendire, Davie and other well-known authorities, although one might wish that Mr. Dugmore had introduced more of his own observations, since those given incidentally in the first part are very interesting; where he indulges in theory he is less successful. In place of the usual method of studying the nest from the bird, we have that of studying the bird from the nest, and for this purpose the nests are grouped in classes, a chapter being devoted to each class; thus we have nests open, on the ground in open fields, marshes and generally open country; open nests in trees; nests in bridges, buildings, walls, etc. By this plan any one finding a nest can, with a little care and observation, identify the bird that made it. The illustrations, largely of nests and eggs, are a noteworthy feature of the book, although the three-color process which succeeded so admirably in Dr. Holland’s Butterfly Book, is here as equally distinct a failure, the least bad of the colored plates being that showing the nest of the yellow-breasted chat, the worst that of the nest of the Baltimore oriole. Those in black and white, however, merit the highest praise, and this includes the smaller cuts introduced as decorative features in the first portion of the book. It would seem difficult in a half-tone to improve on the plate of young crested flycatchers for clearness of detail, while among others that deserve special mention for artistic effect is the wood thrush on nest, and the nests of the chestnut-sided, yellow, blue-winged and worm-eating warblers. The general ‘get-up’ of the book is excellent, and the printing of the plates separately permits the use of a deadfaced paper for the text, which is pleasant to the eye.
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.
We are able to publish in the present issue of the Monthly the address given by Mr. G. K. Gilbert as retiring president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The problem that he discusses is one of the most pressing for scientific workers, while at the same time it is of interest to everyone, and the address is at once an important contribution to the subject and an exposition that all can understand. The mathematical physicists find that as an abode fitted for life the earth can not be allowed a history indefinitely long—not longer perhaps than 20,000,000 years—while the geologists with equally strong arguments claim a much greater antiquity. The biologists are also concerned, owing to the time taken up by the processes of evolution, and their facts and interests range them with the geologists rather than with the physicists. The man not versed in science would also prefer to assign a long history to the earth, for while he may be ready to let the ‘dead past bury its dead,’ he looks forward even to the distant future, and the shorter the past history of the earth the less the time it will continue to be habitable. We have thus a question in the solution of which all the sciences are concerned, and one possessing a dramatic interest that appeals to everyone. The unity of science is well illustrated by such a problem. It was the subject of the address of the retiring president of the Association, a geologist; it might be taken as the subject for the address of the newly elected president, a biologist and student of the processes of evolution; and it is one to which the president of the meeting, a mathematical physicist, has given special attention.
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Dr. Robert Simpson Woodward, who presided over the New York meeting of the Association, is professor of mechanics and mathematical physics and dean of the Faculty of Pure Science in Columbia University. He was born at Rochester, Oakland County, Michigan, July 21, 1849, and spent his early life on a farm with the exception of about two years of experience in mercantile and manufacturing pursuits. He was prepared for college at the Rochester Academy, entered the University of Michigan in 1868, and was graduated in 1872 with the degree of C. E. Twenty years later the same institution conferred upon him the degree of Ph. D. While yet an undergraduate he entered the U. S. Lake Survey, and immediately after graduation he was appointed assistant engineer in that service. He was employed in the astronomical and geodetic work of the Lake Survey until its completion in 1882. He then accepted the position of assistant astronomer to the U. S. Transit of Venus Commission and accompanied the expedition of Prof. Asaph Hall, U. S. N., to San Antonio, Tex., to observe the transit of December, 1882. He remained with the Transit of Venus Commission until 1884, when he resigned in order to take the position of astronomer in the U. S. Geological Survey. After four years of service in this bureau he resigned to accept the position of assistant in the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. This he held until 1893, when he retired from the public service and accepted the call of Columbia University to the chair of mechanics. In 1895, and again in 1900, he was elected to the deanship of the graduate faculty of pure science in that institution. Professor Woodward has published many papers on subjects in astronomy, geodesy, mathematics and mechanics. He edited, and contributed several chapters to the final report of the U. S. Lake Survey, a volume of about one thousand quarto pages devoted chiefly to a discussion of the geodetic work of the Survey done during the forty years of its existence. He is the author of several of the Bulletins of the U. S. Geological Survey, and of a memoir on the Iced Bar and Long Tape Base Apparatus of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. These forms of apparatus, devised and perfected by him, involve many novel features and secure a much higher precision at a much smaller cost than apparatus previously used. He prepared for the Smithsonian Institution a volume entitled ‘Geographical Tables,’ being a manual for astronomers, geographers, engineers and cartographers, published in 1894. Several of his most important mathematical papers relate to geophysics, especially those bearing on the secular cooling and cubical contraction of the earth, on the form and position of the sea surface, and on the profoundly difficult problem presented by the recently discovered phenomenon of the variation of terrestrial latitudes. Although most of his publications are necessarily of a highly technical character, his semi-popular addresses and reviews have been widely read and appreciated. Professor Woodward was an associate editor of the ‘Annals of Mathematics’ from 1889 to 1899 and has been an associate editor of ‘Science’ since 1894. He has taken an active part in the work of the scientific societies with which he is connected, and in addition to the official positions he holds in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he has been honored by election to the presidency of the American Mathematical Society and to the presidency of the New York Academy of Sciences. Professor Woodward represents the highest type of the man of science. Eminent for his original contributions to science, a teacher of great intellectual and moral influence, an administrator with unfailing tact and unerring judgment, he confers an honor on the Association which has elected him to its highest office.
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