Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Volume 23

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Page 22 - That gravity should be innate, inherent and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of any thing else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.
Page 10 - And yet one physicist, by using a distance of less than six miles, and another, without going outside of his laboratory, have discovered what astronomers had searched heaven and earth to find out. By these capital experiments the science of optics has achieved its own independence. Let us see what they have done, at the same time, for astronomy. The sequences in the eclipses of Jupiter's moons are modified by the velocity of light. The aberration of starlight is a measure of the ratio between the...
Page 87 - I have now recapitulated the facts and considerations which have thoroughly convinced me that species have been modified, during a long course of descent. This has been effected chiefly through the natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner, that is in relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions,...
Page xvi - Science," for the purpose of receiving, purchasing, holding and conveying real and personal property, which it now is, or hereafter may be, possessed of, with all the powers and privileges, and subject to the restrictions, duties and liabilities set forth in the general laws which now or hereafter may be in force and applicable to such corporations. SECTION 2. Said corporation may have and hold by purchase, grant, gift or otherwise, real estate not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars in value,...
Page 91 - Comparison of the mean daily range of the magnetic declination and the number of auroras observed each year, with the extent of the black spots on the surface of the sun.
Page 31 - ... the first, the material fabric which we have constructed still demands outward support. Thomson calculates that, within the historical period, the sun has emitted hundreds of times as much mechanical energy as is contained in the united motions of all the planets. This energy, he says, is dissipated more and more widely through endless space, and never has been, probably never can be, restored to the sun, without acts as much beyond the scope of human intelligence as a creation or annihilation...
Page xvii - The objects of the Association are, by periodical and migratory meetings, to promote intercourse between those who are cultivating science in different parts of America, to give a stronger and more general impulse and more systematic direction to scientific research, and to procure for the labors of scientific men increased facilities and a wider usefulness.
Page 154 - Michigan, in accordance with the vote accepting the very cordial invitations extended by the Governor of the State, the Mayor of the City, and the Detroit Scientific Association.
Page 29 - ... perfectly decided mechanical qualities, and, among others, that of being able to transmit mechanical energy, in enormous quantities : " and he cherishes the hope that his mathematical theorems on abstract hydrokinetics are of some interest in physics as illustrating the great question of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries : Is action at a distance a reality, or is gravitation to be explained, as we now believe magnetic and electric forces must be, by action of intervening matter ? In 1869...
Page 52 - They have been entered hastily at a few points adjacent to trails, and a few of the more accessible have been ascended, such as Mts. Dana, Lyell, Whitney, and Tyndall, while the grand wilderness of mountains, from whose fastnesses the chief tributaries of the San Joaquin and King's Rivers take their rise, has been mapped from a distance without any attempt at detail. Their echoes are never stirred by the hunter's rifle whether Indian or white man, for, excepting the wild sheep, there is no game to...

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