currents. The lowest temperature recorded here was reached nearest the Newfoundland coast, but the effect of ice can be seen well marked by the sharp peak of temperature, which I have shaded. Just here we passed most of the ice close to and were obliged to proceed slowly in heavy fog at times. This colder and swifter Arctic current carried with it the greater proportion of the ice, but it is well known that this colder current exists whether accompanied by ice or not.

The great drop in temperature just before coming abeam of our largest berg was not due to the iceberg itself, but to the influence of the cold current. The effect of the ice is to hold the temperature abnormally high. The dotted line on the diagram represents how the temperature would probably have gone had no ice been present. It would depend which way we approached this berg whether a drop in temperature would result. The temperature rises rapidly, whichever way we approach it. I have many other traces illustrating the same thing, and for this reason I was forced to abandon the idea that an iceberg sensibly cools the water in which it is floating. I was also unable to find by calculation that an iceberg could appreciably influence the sea water on account of its slow rate of melting.

It is very illusive to depend on laboratory tank experiments to illustrate sea water circulation. The conditions at sea are so very different. I was very much surprised not to find during my experiments last summer more conclusive evidence of seawater dilution due to the melting icebergs. A large number of conductivity tests were made of sea water, and these are described in my Canadian Government report. The following may be of interest; the readings were made at 26° C.:

The numbers may, perhaps, indicate a slight effect, but nothing like what I expected. My conductivity tests of the sea water brought back from Hudsons Strait in 1910 gave a value of 0.0480 at 25° C. Correcting for temperature this observation serves to connect the sea water entering the Strait of Belle Isle with that in Hudsons Strait. Eastward from Belle Isle Strait the conductivity rises rapidly for 180 miles, after which it becomes uniform up to 450 miles. The greatest Arctic current sweeps down close to the Labrador shore, and in through the Strait of Belle Isle where the resultant flow is westward. The following measurements of the conductivity through the ice track by the Belle Isle route were obtained last October on the Empress of Britain. The values were all measured at a uniform temperature of 25° C.

It is evident that the great Arctic current is of a lower order of salinity, and that its course may be traced along our eastern coast.

In the early spring when the water is cold the Newfoundland fishermen will find the cod in the vicinity of the icebergs, and will always obtain their catch there. Perhaps this is an indication of the warming influence of the bergs, for the cod will not live in very cold water.

Next summer I shall continue my observations more particularly with reference to the influence of land on the temperature of the sea. I hope before long to be able to publish here some typical microthermograms howing this effect.

MCGILL UNIVERSITY, January 27, 1913. (From Prof. H. T. Barnes, F. R. S.)

H. T. BARNES.

HENRI POINCARE: HIS SCIENTIFIC WORK; HIS

PHILOSPHY.1

By CHARLES NORDMANN.

With the sudden death of Henri Poincaré a great sadness came to all lovers of idealism and of science. Among all classes it was felt that a great light had been extinguished in the firmament of thought. But that feeling was nowhere so poignant or so lasting as among those who, in their silent arsenals, slowly forge their weapons for the struggle against the unknown, in the workshop of the physicist, beneath the dome of the astronomer, or in the bare room which the philosopher so richly furnishes with his meditations.

Henri Poincaré was not only the uncontested master of natural philosopy, the intellectual beacon whose penetrating rays could pierce all the regions of science. It was not for such qualities alone that we admire him, for he had also those characteristics which made us love him. That is why for a century he, more than any other philosopher, has had "that personal influence which he alone can exercise whose heart has not ceded to his brain." 2

And now, when death takes from us this master whose task is done, it is the man alone for whom we mourn. In the work which he left was the best part of himself. When a man passes from us while yet young, yet full of creative activity, of mental vigor, of moral force, the weight of whose authority was constantly renewed, then our regrets are beyond bounds. In our sadness we are angry at fate, for what we lose is the unknown, the hopes without limit, the discoveries of to-morrow which those of yesterday promised.

Other nations regret the loss of Henri Poincaré no less than we. He was received with unbounded admiration in Germany where, on the invitation from their universities, he several times lectured so brilliantly on his work. Such intellectual crusades were among his greatest joys, for he felt that he was not only carrying conviction but friendship as well. Philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, all spoke of him as the greatest authority of our time ("Die erste

1 Translated by permission from Revue des Deux Mondes, Paris, Sept. 15, 1912, pp. 331-368.

2 All the phrases included within quotation marks were expressed by Henri Poincaré himself unless otherwise stated.

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Autorität von dieser Zeit"). And just recently one of the most eminent of American astronomers, Prof. Moulton, a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, wrote of him that "although France had the honor of giving birth to this admirable man yet he may be regarded as a genius of the whole world. On his tomb should be engraved those words which the English have put on that of Newton, 'Mortals, congratulate yourselves that so great a man has lived for the honor of the human race.""

When, contrary to all precedent, he won such honor among men of judgment the world over before the lapse of a century or two, we may be sure that the work of Poincaré was truly great and remarkable. But before glancing at that work as with the look of some beetle at a majestic oak, let us dwell for a few moments upon the thoughtful and captivating personality of this loved master.

I. THE MAN AND THE SCHOLAR.

With his ruddy face, his beard turning a little gray, and not always geometrically arranged, his shoulders bent as if under the ever present weight of his thoughts, the first impression of Henri Poincaré was one of singular spirituality and imperious gentleness. But two traits were particularly characteristic in him: His voice, deep and musical and remarkably animated when speaking of problems which greatly moved him, and his eyes, rather small, often agitated by rapid movements, under irregular eyebrows. In his eyes could be read the profound interior life which unceasingly animated his powerful brain. His glance was absent and kind, full of thought and penetration, his glasses scarcely veiling its depth and acuteness. His short sightedness, poorly corrected by his glasses, added to his absent look and made one say of him, "He is in the moon." Indeed, he was often very far away.

Legend began to form about him long before his death and attributed to him numerous traits, many of which for half a century have been attributed to Ampère, some erroneous, some indeed true.

It has been said that he was absent-minded; absorbed in thought would be more exact. Great thinkers, as well as all who are intense, are slaves of the interior tyrant which usurps their souls. When thought assumes control of a man it holds him under its claws as the vulture of Prometheus. The profound visions which possessed the soul of Poincaré left him no rest. Often he lost sight of the near at hand objects and the petty things of daily life, for his vision was closely focused on the infinite. It was when he was troubled with the immediate and ordinary things of life, and his judgment was then as sound as in regard to weightier matters, that he was ever really distracted, if we use the word in its true etymological

sense.

In the discourse in which he was honored at the Académie française, M. Frédéric Masson wittily narrated several anecdotes of this absent-mindedness. Especially amusing was the carrying off one day unconsciously by Poincaré of a willow cage from the front of the shop of a basket maker. The incident was true, but upon inquiry we find that Poincaré was only 4 years old when it happened. How many men of genius, indeed, how many men of no genius, are there at whom no one has ever been astonished that at that age they did not show the prudence of Nestor in their conduct on some stroll? Nor is this at all for the purpose of weakening our skepticism at that "little science of conjecture" which we call history. Poincaré was himself amused at all such anecdotes. "They say," he conceded with a pleasant smile, "that creates a legend." Moreover, he has very well explained that "if we meet so many geometricians and naturalists who in the ordinary doings of everyday life show a conduct at times astonishing, it is because, made inattentive by their meditations to the ordinary things which surround them, they do not see what is about them; it is not because their eyes are not good that they do not see; it is because they are not seeing with them. That in no way hinders them from being capable of using keen discernment toward those objects which are of interest to them."

The psychological characteristics of Poincaré were made the object of an interesting and very full study by Dr. Toulouse,' of which certain conclusions should be noted. This study was made especially as an experimental test of the celebrated statement of Moreau of Tours that "genius is a nervous disease." We know how Lombroso took up and amplified that idea and that he thought that he could conclude from his researches that genius is inseparably connected with nervous troubles, especially with epilepsy. Yet, despite all those researches and from whatever side they conducted their attack, Dr. Toulouse and his collaborators were unable to find in Poincaré the least trace of neuropathy. All their measures, all their tests, showed them a man perfectly normal psycho-physiologically, possessing in every way the most harmonious and perfect equilibrium. Thus he demonstrated at its proper value one of the most brilliant, one of the most sensational errors of Prof. Lombroso.

Because, physiologically Poincaré was, despite his genius, in no way different from the average of ordinary men, I would not fail, were I a spiritualist, to use this as an argument in favor of a soul apart from the body.

The instability of attention in Poincaré was one of the characteristics which most struck Dr. Toulouse. Indeed, Poincaré had a habit

1 A medico-psychological inquiry into intellectual superiority, vol. 2 (Enquête médico-psycologique sur la supériorité intellectuelle).