Titelbild. Aschbeladene Weissfichten am Vorhafen von Kodiak, Alaska. Die Asche, welche hier in einer Tiefe von 10 Zoll den Boden bedeckt, wurde durch den Ausbruch des 160 km nach Nordwesten entfernten Vulkans Katmai am 6. Juni 1912 emporgeschleudert. Nach Südosten wurde die Asche und der Staub in einer Entfernung von 1445 km beobachtet - ein Beweis für die Möglichkeit des Samentransports durch den Wind über grössere Strecken (Siehe S. 122 unten). Die fünf verschiedenen ,,Sphären", welche zusammen die Erde ausmachen Atmosphäre, Hydrosphäre, Lithosphäre, Biosphäre, Pyrosphäre sind hier alle vertreten, letztere allerdings nur durch die nunmehr zur Lithosphäre übergetretene Asche (Siehe S. 162 oben). Die durch den vorherrschenden Seewind bedingte ,,Windform“ der Bäume lässt sich leicht erkennen (Siehe S. 121 oben). By AMERICAN SCHOLARS GENERAL EDITOR: JULIUS GOEBEL, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS A SCIENTIFIC EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES AND HERBERT ZO KIP, PH.D. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1916 nom Gift Mrs. H. R. Wagener. 4-23-26 INTRODUCTION UNDER date of Sept. 18, 1823, we find in Eckermann's Gespräche mit Goethe the following highly significant utter ance: Es soll nicht genügen, daß man Schritte tue, die einst zum Ziele führen, sondern jeder Schritt soll Ziel sein und als Schritt gelten. It is in the spirit of these words that this volume has been prepared, and those into whose hands it may fall will use it, I hope, with the same idea in mind. The primary Ziel or object which a Scientific German Reader has in view is, of course, facility in reading scientific German literature. This is so evident that I pass it by without further comment and come at once to the secondary but no less important results which one may reasonably hope to gain from such a course of reading. The time is long past in education as well as in industry when one could afford to ignore the by-product. An experience of ten years or more in the class room has convinced me that through a course in scientific German a student not only can secure a certain degree of proficiency in a foreign language, but may acquire at the same time a correct habit and method of reading scientific literature in general. The literature that we have in mind when we use the term belles-lettres does not require the reader, as a rule, to go beyond the covers of the volume in hand. Scientific literature calls for greater, or at least for a different kind of ac tivity upon the part of the reader, coupled with a more critical state of mind, and involves constant reference to other sources of information in the form of atlases, charts, encyclopedias and the like, and may well lead to investigation at first hand. In reading a work of imaginative literature we do well to give ourselves up to the author unreservedly. In reading the literature of science we ask that the author give himself up to us and we reserve our judgment at every step. In preparing the notes to the text I have therefore not hesitated to refer the reader to such works as one may fairly hope to find in the average college library. In general I have left to the instructor the duty of furnishing such grammatical explanations as may be required by the individual members of the class, and have sought to contribute such references and information as might not otherwise be easily available. A still more important service can be rendered through a book of this kind, at least in individual cases, by furnishing glimpses into unexplored fields and calling the attention of the reader to lines of investigation which may result in new discoveries. In spite of almost daily proof to the contrary the inexperienced student is apt to entertain the erroneous belief that scientific knowledge is something fixed and final and that for him at least it would be presumptuous to attempt to change or add to it. In the words of one of our most eminent men of science: "A defect - perhaps the most serious defect of our education arises from our failure to make our students appreciate vividly the fundamental fact that science is based on personal knowledge. The best of our students start forth with a high reverence for the library, the place of records, but quite unaware that a still higher reverence is due to those who by being the first |