(See front cover)
Some 5,000 Canadian and U. S. scientists closed their classes and laboratories last week, and hastened to Manhattan for the regular Christmas convocation of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Some 2,000 had papers to read on their 15 specialties.* Reading those papers, the mosaic of 1928 developments in pure and applied science, would place the workers on little eminences among their colleagues. Better, it would put them near the Olympians of their profession who attended sessions with them, men like:
Geologist Bailey Willis, 71, of Stanford, who was to talk through his swaggering mustache and beard on "Continental Genesis." He knows seismology, has predicted bad earthquakes in Southern California. But his reputation rests more securely on his explanation of the stratigraphy, structural geology and physiography of North America, Europe and Asia as the record of continental developments.
Physicist Arthur Holly Compton, 36, of Chicago, who has the dapper alertness of a business executive. He won the 1927 Nobel Prize for Physics (jointly with Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, 59, of Cambridge University). Professor Compton's reward was for measuring electro-magnetic waves.
Zoologist William Morton Wheeler, 63, of Harvard, who studied cockroaches, fleas, ants and other insects with more ardor, patience and intelligence than a woman studies another woman's clothes.
Astronomer Herbert Hall Turner, 67, of Oxford. Professor Turner, swart & burly, resembles a typical, prosperous British factory manager. He has never been in business. His fame is for his formulae for measuring star distance by means of photographs.
Astronomer Harlow Shapley, 43, of Harvard. This autumn he created his popular fame by repeatedly giving talks on stellar organizations. As the complement to the Association's initial lecture (Professor Bailey's "Continental Genesis") President Henry Fairfield Osborn of the Association appointed Professor Shapley to give the final lecture. Professor Shapley entitled his paper "Galaxies of Galaxies—a new study of the super-organization of the Milky Way."
Photographer Charles Edward Kenneth Mees, 46, of Eastman Kodak Co., prime example of an industrial laboratory director.
Editor-Psychologist James McKeen Cattell, 68, the 1924 president of the Association. His dour look belies his loving-kindness towards scientists. He it is who records their work, as editor of Science weekly, Scientific Monthly, School and Society, American Naturalist, American Men of Science.
Editor-Chemist Edwin Emery Slosson, 63, a man discreetly sought after because his Science Service at Washington rewrites scientific reports in popular language and despatches them to the country's newspapers.
Chemist Arthur Amos Noyes, 62, of California Tech, retiring president of the Association. His direction of the Gates Chemical Laboratory at Pasadena is a prototype for the successful management of an educational institution.