My experiments with volcanoesJaggar, Thomas Augustus
Science
My experiments with volcanoes
Jaggar, Thomas Augustus
Geologists -- Biography; Volcanoes
Professor Shaler wrote in 1893, “In the next century there will be a
state of science in which the unknown will be conceived as peopled with
powers whose existence is justly and necessarily inferred from the
knowledge which has been obtained from their manifestations. In other
words, it seems to me that the naturalist is most likely to approach
the position of the philosophical theologian by paths which at first
seemed to lie far apart from his domain.” Just this has happened in the
world of galaxies and electrons, producing Einstein and Planck, Jeans
and Eddington, Hubble and Hoyle. And I suspect that sea bottoms and
volcanoes are “peopled with powers” yet to be inferred.
Through Josiah Cooke and his wonders of projection apparatus; through
Cook’s nephew Oliver Huntington and his mineral crystals; through John
Eliot Wolff, whose assistant in optical microscopy I became; through
Robert Jackson with his museum collection technique and the hexagon
plates on fossil sea urchins; through all these I was introduced to the
laboratory collections and instruments. I found a fascinating world.
The theater, too, furthered my education. Like many Harvard students,
I “suped” for several great actors and actresses, among them Julia
Marlowe and Sarah Bernhardt. And in one play I even had a speaking
part: “My lord, Posthumus is without.” I also practiced legerdemain
as amateur assistant to Kellar and Hermann, who called me out of the
audience and pulled rabbits out of my coat and eggs out of my mouth.
Thus I learned of the psychology of audiences, how to experiment in
public, and how easily deluded is the average mind. Just so nature
may delude, if the scientist doesn’t keep his wits about him. But
I also learned the value of vivid demonstration before students. A
great exponent of this method of teaching is Professor Hubert Alyea of
Princeton. His chemical experimentation is marvellous. His chemistry
textbook is modern physical chemistry at its best. He demonstrates that
the art of the magician has come down to the twentieth century and that
even mathematical science may pass over to the layman. I suspect that
geophysics does not need to be buried under differential equations as
it is today. Certainly experimental volcanology made exciting at the
lecture table could work wonders in getting the globe explored.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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