NINETEENTH REPORT Plate VIII. Beech-Maple Hemlock Forest on fixed dunes. .....24 OF Plate IX. Interior view of Border-Zone formation. ..................24 THE MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Plate X. Exterior of relic forest patch on Pt. Betsie Dune Complex. ........................................................................24 Plate XI. Interior of Climax Forest, showing hemlock seedlings PREPARED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE on decaying log. .............................................................24 COUNCIL BY G. H. COONS CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF EDITORS FIGURES. Figure 3. Diagram of geological conditions with reference to oil BY AUTHORITY wells sunk in the region studied. ....................................13 LANSING, MICHIGAN Figure 9. Geography of N. W. corner of Benzie County, WYNKOOP HALLENBECK CRAWFORD CO., STATE PRINTERS Michigan.........................................................................19 1917 Figure 10. Geology of Crystal Lake Bar Region....................20 Figure 11. Ecology of Crystal Lake Bar Region.....................22 TABLE OF CONTENTS. LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. ................................................... 1 OFFICERS FOR 1917-1918. ................................................. 1 TO HON. ALBERT E. SLEEPER, Governor of the State of PAST PRESIDENTS .............................................................. 1 Michigan: PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS................................................ 2 SIR—I have the honor to submit herewith the XIX Annual The Making Of Scientific Theories, William H. Hobbs... 2 Report of the Michigan Academy of Science for publication, in accordance with Section 14 of Act No. 44 GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY....................................... 8 of the Public Acts of the Legislature of 1899. Proposal of an Agricultural Survey on a Geographic Respectfully, Basis, C. O. Sauer......................................................... 8 I. D. SCOTT, On the Prospect of Oil Being Found under the Ontario- Ann Arbor, Michigan, June, 1917. Secretary. Ohio-Michigan Section of Lake Erie, Thomas Nattress.12 Some New Thermo-Optical Observations on Gypsum and Glauberite, E. H. Kraus and Albert B. Peck ......... 15 OFFICERS FOR 1917-1918. Glacial Lakes and their Correlative Ice-Borders in the E OY ARVEY Superior Basin (abstract), Frank Leversett.................. 18 President, L R H. H , Kalamazoo. Secretary-Treasurer, I. D. SCOTT, Ann Arbor. BOTANY ......................................................................... 19 Librarian, CRYSTAL THOMPSON, Ann Arbor. Ecology of Northern Michigan Dunes: Crystal Lake Chairman, Board of Editors, G. H. COONS, East Lansing. Bar Region, W. G. Waterman...................................... 19 VICE-PRESIDENTS. Agriculture, J. F. MORGAN, East Lansing. ILLUSTRATIONS Geography and Geology, C. W. COOK, Ann Arbor. Zoology, G. R. LARUE, Ann Arbor. Plate II. Change in temperature of uniaxiality in gypsum for various wavelengths. ......................................................17 Sanitary and Medical Science, L. H. COOLEDGE, East Lansing. Plate III. Change in the apparent optical angle in oil of Botany, C. K. DODGE, Port Huron. glauberite for various wave-lengths and temperatures...17 Economics, F. T. CARLTON, Albion. Plate IV. Change in temperature of uniaxiality in glauberite for PAST PRESIDENTS. various wavelengths. ......................................................17 Plate VI. Fig. 1. Fossil Beach, north of Pt. Betsie DR. W. J. BEAL, Amherst, Mass. lighthouse. ......................................................................24 DR. W. H. SHERZER, Ypsilanti. BRYANT WALKER, ESQ., Detroit. Fig. 2. Shore bluffs with "crater" dunes perched on glacial Professor V. M. SPAULDING, Tucson, Ariz. plateau............................................................................24 DR. HENRY B. BAKER, Holland, Mich. Plate VII. Pt. Betsie Dune Complex, showing typical blow-out Professor JACOB REIGHARD, Ann Arbor. on right; relic forest patches in background, and Professor CHAS. E. BARR, Albion. lighthouse and coast guard station.................................24 DR. V. C. VAUGHAN, Ann Arbor. Selections from the 19th Annual Report of the Michigan Academy of Science – Page 1 of 25 Professor F. C. NEWCOMBE, Ann Arbor. of scientific doctrines has been due to the failure of both DR. A. C. LANE, Tufts College, Mass. the scientists and their critics to distinguish clearly Professor W. B. BARROWS, East Lansing. between legitimate theory within those fields where DR. J. B. POLLOCK, Ann Arbor. views may be rigidly tested, and audacious conjectures Professor M. S. W. JEFFERSON, Ypsilanti. which have been offered under the verisimilitude of facts DR. CHAS. E. MARSHALL, East Lansing. to explain problems whose complete solution belongs to Professor FRANK LEVERETT, Ann Arbor. the remote future, if they may not be regarded as DR. F. G. NOVY, Ann Arbor. insoluble by any methods which have yet been Professor WM. E. PRAEGER, Kalamazoo. discovered. Professor E. A. Bessey, East Lansing. The process of eruption within a volcanic vent as ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OE regards its physical and chemical aspects offers a problem which, though by no means simple, may yet be THE MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF subjected to observation and experimentation and SCIENCE. doubtless belongs to the realm of soluble scientific problems. The materials present at the earth's center Delivered March 28, 1917, at the Auditorium, and their peculiar state of aggregation, are by contrast Natural Science Building. very largely a subject of conjecture, and attempts to class these problems together lead to inexcusable THE MAKING OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES*. confusion. BY WILLIAM H. HOBBS. A theory has been defined as an explanation founded upon inferences drawn from principles which are The ancient Hebrews conceived the earth to be a disk established by evidence. By contrast the hypothesis is a hemmed in on all sides by mountains and surmounted supposition as yet untested. The working hypothesis of by the crystal dome or firmament of the "heavens." This the scientist occupies an intermediate position and aims covered disk floated upon "the waters under the earth" to explain, at least in part and better than any other, a and from the "windows of heaven" waters were poured set of related phenomena which are already known, and out upon the "thirsty earth" from another reservoir which it is considered to be in a probationary stage until was above the firmament. To the denizen of the humid confirmed through rigid tests the nature of which is temperate regions it is perhaps a little difficult to see how suggested by the hypothesis itself. When so examined it this theory could have come into existence. The rains may be found wanting; but, if well founded, with which he is so familiar are showers, and they experimentation is likely to result in its improvement by suggest not so much windows in the sky as they do a pruning of error quite as much as through enlargement ceiling with innumerable perforations or some other of the body of truth which it contains. glorified sprinkling device. To the Children of Israel the phenomenon of showers was unknown, for the rains to The inheritance of knowledge by the ancients was, which they had become accustomed both during their compared to ours, small indeed; and with their limited wanderings in the desert of Sinai and in Palestine were resources in materials and in methods of investigation, of the local downpour or cloudburst type, the even more than we, they saw "through a glass darkly.” It characteristic precipitation of the arid lands. So also was therefore but natural that the theories which they their country was one in which earthquakes have been evolved should have been largely the product of frequent, and they were not unaccustomed to seeing the introspective reasoning. In consequence it was in the earth open and water shoot upward from the fissures in field of mathematics that they achieved their greatest much the same manner that it spurts into the hold of a triumphs, and as an inheritance a mathematical ship from the opening of a seam. This oft-observed language was common to other fields of science even phenomenon is with little doubt responsible for the late in the seventeenth century. Viewing the marvels of conception of the "waters under the earth" referred to in the universe with their limited outfit of exact knowledge, the twentieth chapter of Exodus. We see, therefore, that the ancient philosophers invoked the supernatural and this crude theory of the world which was held by the the mysterious to explain whatever was baffling and early Hebrews and which appears to us so fantastic, otherwise incomprehensible. Without books the was, after all, based upon facts, but like many theories dissemination of knowledge was limited to the narrowest which have followed it, upon too small a body of fact to channels and was accomplished by the disciples of each supply a firm foundation. leader of thought, who was thus under the temptation of finding an answer to all questions and founding an It has often been said that the theories so tenaciously individual school of philosophy. held by one generation are abandoned by the next. To a large extent this has been true of the past, and the With the invasions of the barbarian Huns and the explanation is in part that scientists are not less fallible Germanic tribes in the fifth century of the Christian era, than others, but are subject to like limitations in there ensued the eclipse of civilization which we