Expeditions to the Poles and the TropicsSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Mar., 1922), pp. 299-301Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/6383 .

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T'HE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 299

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ABOARD THIE CAR\EGIE, JAXNIkIQxRA 16, l922 T?o the left <ae Captaiii J. P. Ault, of The Cane gie, and M\r. Colin, Capt ainl Fr ili lH IItIssel tiand M te. eti, iiieinibers of the Norive(viaii Leoation . To the right are Captaini Roald AXmind -

se'i .and l)r. Louis A\. Batier.

a Hid tie verv blue lighit of somie sttars adit be. illade to record itself oIn the

sp)ci'lI plates in spite of the suIa. That is at possibility, iii view of the pro ()ress of photography.

Siace the I elocitz of liglit is a leading factor in the Einstein theor.Y, it is now the subject of experimenit ib astronomers and plhysicists. The

(ILaestioin whlether blue or yellow liglit has the greater velocityl has been an- swered. Probably v-a-ving wave- lengthis of lighit hiave thei same ye- loeitv. The chances aire five to one that the differeniee in the timiie of passage of blue lighit and yello liglit thri oughi empty space is less thian I1one seCon(l in three hundired years. This is the conielusioni that hlais been an- nounced by Dr. Harlow Shlapley of the Ilarvard Observatorv after a study of lighit fromii the reimiote glob- ular star cluster, called -Messier 5,

wlhose liglht tlkes 40,00() years to realchi us.

Ilnterlest in Einisteini lhas niot waned sinee lhe eamiie inito genera I notice in 1919 oi since hiis visit to this country in April of last y ear. The latest Einstein0 book is not ain explanation of hiis th eorv, but a book about Einstein liiiself " Einstein, the Sea relier, a translation fromii Alex- ainer- _Moszkowski, a friend and ad- mirer.

EXPEDITION-S TO THE POLES AN-D THE TROPICS

ALTHOUGHI the twN-o poles lhave been eonquere(1, the fr igid zones still attraet the typical explorer whlio goes to unkiiowi parts of the globe to make a(l(litiOnls to scientific knowl- edge.

Last September, Sir Ernest Shacekleton and a little party on

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300 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Photographed, January 1 bs Dr. Lois A. Bauer.

CAPTA 'PN~ ROALD A--MUNDSE,\r On board The Carneqie winterig in the Poto'ac River Though the day wais cold Captain Amuiidseii niade a flixing trip friom New

York ueneiiuimbered by an oveieoat.

board the Quest started southl to spend several years on a v-oyage around the coast line of the Ant- arctic continent. He planned to bring back scientific data on the magnetism, biology, oceanography, geology and meteorology of that region. Now news comes that Shackleton is dead, even before he began the real work of the trip that he planned as his " swan song. " But his expedition will continue.

In Baffin Land at a place called Nauwatta, Dr. D. B. MacAMillan andl his expedition are wintering. They are busy miaking observations of magnetic, atmospheric-electric and auroral effects. They are in the landiX of mysterious polar lights, w hose shooting rays dance in rhythm with the quivering magnetic needle. With the cooperation of the Departmenit of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Car-

negic Institutioni of Washingtoa, Dr. Louis A. Baner, director, special pho- tographic instrumelats were carried into the polar regioas for the first time. These should give data which will determine wvhetlher the aurora borealis comes close to the earth or whether it penetrates no deeper than sixty miles into the earth 's atmos- phere as Norwegian tests seem to indicate. Unexplored lakes in the interior of Baffin Land will probably be accurately placed on the map by Dr. MacMillan.

About June 1, Captain Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who discovered the South Pole, wvill set out from Seattle to make another attempt at drifting across the Arctic Sea frozen in the ice. Aboard the Maud will be instruments for deter- mining the magnetism and the mag- netic-electric effects at the different

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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 301

parts of the Arctic that the ship will visit. Soundings of the sea and meteorological observations will also be made. There will be little leisure f or Dr. H. U. Sverdrup, who wvill have charge of the scientific work of the expedition. It is rumored that Captain Amundscn, in addition to his interest in the scientific work, has a natural desire to be the first man to visit both ends of the earth.

While the coldest regions are being discovered and charted, there are also scientific mcn who will contend with the heat anid life of the tropics. This spring the Carnegie Institution is again sending parties headed by Dr. Sylvanus G. AMorley anid Dr. C. E. Guthe into the anicient country of the Maya to learn the details of their ancient civilization. The Field Mau- seum of Natural History at Chicago has announced that there will be six expeditions that wvill leave for the tropics before the summer is well tinder way, to be in the field from twvo to five years. Twvo geological parties will visit the area from Brazil to Patagonia. The Isthmus of Panaiaa and the state of Colombia will be visited by an archeological expedition and aniother party wvill go to the Malav Peninsula to study the ethlnology of that region. Peru will be searebhed by two expeditions, one zoological and the other botanical.

THE CONCILIUM BIBLIO- GRAPHICUM

So fast aand broad has been the progress of scieniee during the last few decades that the all-around scien- tific miian no longer exists. All that ani earnest worker in science can hope to do is to keep fairlv well informed in the small corner of the field of science that he has selected. But to keep complete track of the re- searches in a single subdivision of sci- enee is perhaps ani even larger task than following a number of matters in a general way.

Contributions to science are being

made in practically all the countries of the wvorld, reported in their own journals and in their own languages. The average student has access to only the limited library of his own college or institution. Few are so situated that they can see the bulk of the periodical literature even in their own field or have easy access to mnany new books.

Speaking in commercial ternms, trade associations of science are needed. So are proper sales organi- izations and publicity departments, but that is another story. The point has been reached when the distribu- tion of scientific knowledge among researeh factories is, because of the possibilities for the elimination of waste, an important enterprise for the progress of science itself. Produc- tion of scieaiee requires its proper distribution.

The re-establishment on a firm basis of the Coneilium Bibliograph- icum at Zurich, Switzerland, which has just been accomplished, is an im- portant step in improving the chan- nels for the distribution of science. The International Catalogue of Sdi- eitific Literature is now officially dead from the prevalent financial dis- order. The Royal Society could not take up its work completed only as far as the fateful year of 1914.

A stream of cards, 3X5, the library standard, has begun to flow out of the Concilium Bibliographicum. The contents of periodicals in the fields of zoology, physiology, evolution and anatomiiy are listed on these eards wvith title and author. The subject matter is indicated by a number in the elaborate system of classification that has been devised. Students, libraries and others can get just as miiany or as few of these cards as they wish. They can subscribe to all, or to those referring to one kind of butterfly. There are now subscribers in twenty-three countries, and one third of the total is in America.

The card systenm has advantages

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